How the World Cup Explains the World

Venture capital and oil money have poured into clubs all around the world. The United Arab Emirates owns a dozen clubs in the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia owns a handful. Players come from all around the globe, and get traded, like stocks, for profit. Fans follow the transfer window as closely as the actual games.Being a Manchester United fan these days may have very little to do with being from Greater Manchester. Soccer was already drifting in that direction, but now it’s largely unbound by borders of any kind: neighborhood, county, or even country.The World Cup, though, is a throwback. Once every four years, players rearrange themselves by national loyalty. The Scots sing their national anthem, ad infinitum. The Norwegians pull out their Viking hats and row. Haitians and Iranians emerge from difficult circumstances to make their countries proud.In his classic book How Soccer Explains the World, the Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer explained how the sport was a mirror of the world’s shift from tribalism to interdependence. Now, more than two decades since it was published, Foer explains on Radio Atlantic how this year’s World Cup displays a gentler form of nationalism that we haven’t seen in a while.The following is a transcript of the episode:Hanna Rosin: Here is the arc of my own World Cup experience: Like thousands of Americans, I wrestled with FIFA’s overcomplicated and overpriced ticket schemes. I managed to get a ticket to an early match but ended up feeling scammed anyway. I rolled my eyes when, in December, FIFA president Gianni Infantino presented Donald Trump with the wholly invented FIFA Peace Prize—not even remotely the first time that organization has cozied up to an autocrat type.And then on game day, I showed up at the stadium with my son and it was pure fun and joy. Starting from the commute