FOOTBALL IS COMING HOME

The Global Sport Lab at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies just released World Cup: The Syllabus, a free online resource “intended for anyone interested in learning more about the history and politics of the World Cup, curious about some of the current and past controversies, or just wants to understand a little more about why people care so very much about these global events that take place every four years.”

The syllabus features seven thematic sections — FIFA, Migrations, Protest and Resistance, Arts and Culture, Human Rights, Stadiums,Technology — each featuring concise intro essays, curated reading lists, and 4-6 discussion questions to guide reading and exploration.

I am proud to have been part of the project’s editorial team, which worked together flawlessly, almost like Cruyff’s Ajax or Pep Guardiola’s Barça. We hope you enjoy this intellectual journey through the world of global football!

Video recording of my conversation with Prof. Sinfree Makoni and the Q&A on March 6, 2026.

Part of the African Studies Global Virtual Forum: Decoloniality & Southern Epistemologies at Penn State University.

The upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa will make history: the first co-hosted WWC; first in the southern hemisphere; first with 32 teams; and first with guaranteed prize money for all players.

Historians Jean Williams and Brenda Elsey, and anthropologist Hillary Haldane led a wonderful session on the Football Scholars Forum focused on the politics, economics, culture, and history of the most popular event in women’s football.

Click on the link below to listen to the June 13, 2023, discussion.

Dr. Philipp Gollner invited Brenda Elsey (Hofstra University), Pablo M. Sierra (University of Rochester) and me on to The Assistant Professor of Football podcast to talk about what it’s like to “regularly teach, in American university classrooms, about football — its culture, its meaning, its history.”

As the show notes for the episode released on June 1, 2023, put it: “We talked about how that teaching is going, what would it be like to take a class with them, what do they assign, and how did they get into this subject in academia in the first place, and what good books are being written about the beautiful game beyond the well-known popular ones. And then we went on to opine more broadly, about the future of the game globally as well as here in the US, the next World Cup, why awful people run clubs, and what makes the beautiful game such a unique angle to understand the world.” 

Click on the link below to listen to the episode:

https://theassistantprofessoroffootball.buzzsprout.com/2052670/12964341-teaching-soccer-three-actual-professors-of-football-on-their-college-classes-and-soccer-literacy-in-the-u-s

Frank Risorto of The Gentleman Ultra Podcast interviewed me about my futbological life. We began with the story of my Global Soccer history course at Michigan State, its origins and evolution. Then I explained the origin of my lifelong support of Juventus (as a Roman no less!) and moving to the United States as a teenager. There was even some time to highlight my academic work in South Africa, and how oscillating between continents has given me unusual outsider/insider perspectives on life and football. My love of Subbuteo—the table soccer game—snuck into the conversation, too!

Enjoy the conversation and, if inclined, share the link.

The Gentleman Ultra podcast on Italian calcio asked me three World Cup questions: Which was your favorite World Cup moment? Favorite game? Favorite team?

Hint: my stories have something to do with the Azzurri and Roberto Baggio. So let me take you back to Foxboro 1994 and Spain 1982. Listen here.