On Episode 11, Daniel and John dissect the latest in the saga of the AFCON Final aftermath between Senegal and Morocco, John does a deep dive into the English National team, and Daniel recounts the story of when he played an epic football game at a Peruvian prison known as Castro Castro. Finally, Daniel and John read a couple emails from the listener mailbag.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the away and I'm then Alercon, I'm John
green Don.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We have a lot to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I think none of us wanted to have to talk
about this, but we should probably we have to, And
of course I'm talking about AFCON Farce. Take two, Morocco,
the Karens of African Football.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Do you want to.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Just sort of like fill our listeners in on what
is happening.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, so Senegal won the Afcon tournament according to the
referee on the field and also according to getting to
have a parade in your home country with the trophy,
which I think is the definition of winning the tournament. Actually,
I think whoever gets to have the parade won the
(00:49):
tournament pretty much. But Morocco filed a protest and said, actually,
since the Senegalese team tried to leave the field to
protest the penalty decision and interrupted the game, we should
actually be the champions of AFCON. And that is apparently
what is now going to happen Forever after Morocco will
(01:10):
be remembered as the champions of AFCON.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, I mean, okay, so they filed a complaint that
the African Football Confederation could have just you know, knocked down.
But there's been allegations of corruption, allegations of of you know,
just mishandling of the situation, which seems self evident.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
If the ref had called.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The game over in that moment, I think that would
have been you know, controversial but acceptable, but you know,
sort of following the rules of the game. Because the
senategolsee players did leave the bitch right, but he didn't
call it then, and so then it's done. It's done.
So I heard on the Guardian they called it the
longest bar review in history, seven days and it's just
(01:58):
kind of appalling. I mean, you know, I was thinking
about actually in terms of club soccer and club football.
So you know, those who follow English Premier League know
that Man City, for example, has one hundred and seventeen
pending charges for.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
For financially regularities.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, financially regulators is cheating basically, you know, financial doping,
you could call it. And and since you know Arsenal
was second place for a couple of those those seasons, theoretically,
whenever the FA gets around to adjudicating and deciding what happened,
Arsenal could win retroactively be declared champions for two of
(02:43):
those years. I don't feel like any Arsenal fan is
going to really celebrate those and so I'm wondering even
like for Morocco, like what is that? Do you really
feel proud of your I mean, I think you should
feel proud of your team to make it the finals.
I think that you should feel proud, pride for your
country and you know and love for your team no
matter what happens. But are you gonna feel pride as
if you won at this point? Is that really something
(03:05):
gonna that's gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I don't think so. Right, Well, I gotta tell you,
as a Liverpool fan, if those titles get revoked by
Manchester City, I will one hundred percent celebrate our new
titles really well. In this sense at least, I'm not gonna.
I'm not gonna insist upon a retroactive parade where we
where we hold up like three English Premier League titles
(03:27):
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Sure from Brazil and bring them back for.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's your turn, buddy. Uh you did you did it? Fella?
Get uh get saudio money back on the bus? Uh No?
But I I would say I would take those titles
and I would I would lord them over our rivals.
So I would say to Manchester United supporters, we have
(03:54):
twenty three titles and you have twenty. I would one
hundred percent do.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That right, right right, and this you know, I respect
that level of pettiness because I also have that. I
just feel like, you know, this is not a case
of financial regularities. This is not a case of cheating.
This is a case of a situation that may have
been we could argue if it was adjudicated incorrectly on
the field, but it was uh. And then in you know,
(04:20):
there was still extra time to play. I mean, you
know Braman Diaz still took that dumb Panenka and then uh,
Senegal still went out and scored a goal in an
extra time and are deserving champions of Africa, absolutely times Africa.
When I went in such a hostile situation, you know,
environment is a real accomplishment and no one can take
(04:41):
that away from them, not even calf.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well, that's what I think is the central thing. I mean,
I think afterwards one of the Senegohese players posted a
picture of himself holding the trophy and was like, what
are you gonna do? I'm with my trophy and my
winner's medal, like I'm not giving them back. No, nor
should they, And so I think ultimately what will probably
happen is that twenty years from now will remember both
(05:07):
Morocco and Senegal as different kinds of champions of that tournament. No,
I disagree. Morocco will always make a case that won
the tournament as a result of this decision. Yeah, and the.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Rest of the world will know. The rest of the
world will know that they didn't. So I think in
twenty years will will It'll be like I remember that
time that Brahman Diaz tried to Penenka and then went
on to lose the the in.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Their own countries. Listening, by the way, this is a
brutal listen for I know he's a fan of the pod,
so maybe should be a little kinder to him.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yes, well, you know I'm waiting for his his email,
you know, in our inbox after this.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Look.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I mean, I think it also demonstrates the power and
prestige of Morocco within the African Federation, right because they're
you know, there were some finalists there probably the strongest
team or the team best place to do really well
in this upcoming tournament. So I think there's every reason
(06:08):
to think that. Oh and they're also co hosting the
World Cup with Spain, you know, in four years, I believe.
So it just seems to me that there's influence happening.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You know, something's happening there. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you
can only feel like the results on the pitch are
the results because there's so much corruption in international football
federations that you know, like if I don't believe that
Donald Trump really won the FIFA Peace Prize either, you know, look,
(06:41):
I mean I think that's that's he had a peace prize.
He didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. That's an it's
still it's an illegitimate peace prize, is my point. It
is not a legitimate peace prize, right right, right right now.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
More than ever, I just hope the benzwel And baseball
team doesn't give him the World Baseball Classic Trophy because
he doesn't deserve that. What a great game that was.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Anyway, Sorry, that's a different sport, different sport. Was a
great game. That was a great game, though, And you know,
I to see the tier in the eye, not to
get Looston Baseball, but just for a moment, we're talking
about international sports in general. To see the tear in
the eye of the Venezuelan relief pitcher as he pitched
the final pitch was so moving, Like you forget, Like
(07:24):
I remember seeing Louis Suarez cry once in the middle
of a game, I think, like Uruguay were losing, uh
and going to be out of the World Cup, and
he started to cry like before the game was over.
And you forget that these are human beings and that
the even even on the pitch, in the in the
heat of the moment, they are feeling profound things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
No, and I know you're totally right. I will say
that Latin Americans we cry a lot, and there was
kind of there's a lot of pride and the overwhelming
feeling of of sort of representing your country really often
manifests as tears. I was very moved by that. I
was very moved by the joy of the Venezuelans and
(08:06):
very proud of them and very happy for them. And
many of my Venezuelan friends, even who don't watch baseball
or follow baseball, we're absolutely floored. And I want to
say this, John, I think football in sport is about
these moments of joy, right, These moments of transcendence. International
(08:27):
football national teams is about these moments when the kind
of difficult, complicated, polarized ways that we all interpret the
countries we belong to kind of fade away and we
all feel something, feel united, feel like we can get
behind a team, and everyone is always sort of like
cheering for a representation of the country that they imagine
(08:49):
that they want to live in, whatever imperfect version of
that they're currently residing in right or even connected to.
And because football and because sport is about those moments
of joy, the Senegalese one because they experienced that moment
of joy, and the Moroccans did not. The Moroccans experienced
another kind of transcendence, moment of heartbreak and desperation and
(09:13):
sadness and positive recrimination and you know, all kinds of
other emotions that they're also valid, and you know we
all learn from them and blah blah blah. But the
Senegalese experienced the joy which is at the very lifeblood
of international sport and of international football. And for that,
twenty years from now, forty years from now, I will
(09:33):
always think of them as the winners of Afghan Well Daniel.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Before we dive deep into the English national team and
all of that. I just want to say that recently
on our high school's Instagram page, there was a photograph
published of you playing football. We can put it on
the screen now for YouTube viewers, but for everyone else,
I'll just describe the photograph. Imagine the most beautiful man
(10:00):
in the world. Okay, all right? I think transcend transcendent
as both a physical specimen and as an intellect leaning
slightly askance, as if perfectly balanced upon the side of
one foot, absolutely attacking a football. And that is this
(10:26):
moment that was captured by an Indian Springs photographer in
nineteen ninety five. Sean, can you come on real quick
and we can talk about this photograph because there's no
way Daniel is going to embrace it as much as
I have. Am I not? Am? I? Am?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I right?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That he looks incredible?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, it is. Uh, it's art and motion. I think
you know that that picture. It's just a great reminder
of how long I mean we've talked about Daniel playing
in high school and how good he was, and you
know how how like it was such a big like
our team was actually like good, right, like we made
(11:05):
it to a really good final say. Yeah, I will say,
just away from the sort of a Donnis like picture
of Daniel playing soccer on the pitch from the my
beef with this montage that the school used was out
of what seemed like thirty to forty pictures in a montage.
(11:26):
I didn't see you, John or myself in any It.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Couldn't seem to dig up a single picture of Sean
or John. Wow, they had the entire class. I mean
it's only fifty two kids, right, So they show forty
pictures and you're like, wow, I was really left out.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, yeah, it's the curator's I you know, I mean,
I can't argue with that. It's Look, this is the
most mortifying segment of our podcast so far. And I'm
just wondering if if and I'm not saying I was,
but if at age seventeen I was with a soccer
ball art in motion, then now it's like, you know,
(12:08):
garage sale to Tritus in motion, because now I'm forty
nine years old and it's really really you know, it's
not pretty. It's not pretty. It's a fair store painting
in motion these days. Yeah, basically, it basically is it
is anyway, I appreciate that, you know, pick me up
that you guys just gave me, And maybe.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
We'll come back here after the break and talk about England. Yeah, great,
all right, we'll go back.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
All right, So we're back on the away end and
John is going to tell us and me about the
Three Lions, the English national team, So let's go.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So, Daniel, I think it's important to remember that England
is about one third of a small island. You know,
we lose track of that sometimes because it's such an
important nation in global history and has muscled its way
into so many conversations and had an empire that stretched
(13:17):
around the world or whatever. But it is also the
home of football. It is where football came to be,
and I think talking about the English national team, we
need to go back to the beginning of this silly
little sport that we love, because, as the English are
always happy to explain, it did get its start in England,
(13:38):
and like, sometimes I wonder why football exists at all,
like why it came to exist, like why there are
eleven players instead of thirty, and why the off sides
rule that baffls shan exists and all that stuff, like
why have there been two hundred and forty seven Merseyside
Darby's instead of eighty six or six hundred and seventeen.
We've been playing games with balls for like thousands of years, right, So, like,
(14:01):
why did the current sport we know as football come
to be? Where and when it did? And I think
the answer is, at least in part coal coal, Daniel,
coal like the carbon fuel, the fuel. Yes, the fuel,
the fuel, because that's what fueled the Industrial Revolution. And
(14:22):
it was about a generation after the start of the
Industrial Revolution that we start to see football happening. Now.
The Industrial Revolution happened in England for a bunch of reasons,
but one is that there was coal pretty close to
the ground, which made it relatively easy to mine. And
then there were coal powered steam engines that were used
to get water out of those mines, so you could
mine more coal more effectively, and the steam engines got
(14:44):
more effective and et cetera, until eventually we had lots
of people moving to cities and blueberries in January and
all the stuff that we have now as a result
of the Industrial Revolution. We see a generation later, people
start to stand the rules of football, people start to
play football as at least vaguely as we would recognize
(15:08):
it today. And I really think that farmers were never
going to invent that game. They were never going to
be able to build out the structure and the rule
books and everything else to standardize the game the way
like work hours and so much else was standardized during
the Industrial Revolution. But factory workers could do that standardization.
And so I think that's part of why we see
(15:30):
football emerge where and when we do, not because England
is special, but because of coal.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I think that's really fascinating. And you know, there's lots
that's been written about how the Industrial Revolution transformed like everything,
and even like the invention of time and the mention
of of I mean not time, because youple sort of
knew the morning, the afternoon, the evening the next day,
the minutes, minutes, minutes became a big deal. Yeah, that
(15:59):
that changes every thing, you know, and sort of settling
at ninety minutes for a game, you know, settling all
these things. It's like it is sort of this kind
of imposing order on a kind of play that maybe
in a previous incarnation of human society is like a
rural you know, agrarian society just doesn't make much sense.
(16:21):
Like I feel like Agraarian people play baseball, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, or they played or they played versions of football
that didn't have all the same rules across all the
same places, right, So you don't see the emergence of
like international football. Interestingly, you don't see the emergence of
international football till like forty or fifty years after you
first see standardization of football because like it took a
while to spread. The first international soccer game was actually
(16:44):
played between England and Scotland. Now, I know some people
might argue that is not in fact an international soccer
game because those are not separate sovereign nations. But I
am not one of those people because I am deeply
afraid of the wrath of Scottish people. So I'm going
to I'm going to say that was the first international
game of football. Can I just interrupt?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
There one thing that I think you made me think of,
like how many of the current teams in England and
how many the teams I'm thinking of, like in around
the world really started out as kind of like of
workers that were like especially teams a lot of affiliated
with like with actual factors. I mean, the gunners, the Arsenal.
The team that I support was a was an armory basically, yeah,
(17:27):
and then were workers from that factory. And that's the
case in you know, in teams in as far as
you know, Peru and Uruguay and and you know, all
over the world. Like all these teams are are originally
sort of come out of workplaces.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah. I think about the team that I think has
been playing since the nineteenth century called met Police in England,
which no longer comprises actual police officers, but is still
called met Police. They play like down in the six
or seventh division. But there's all kinds of teams like
that that merged from workplaces or factories or kinds of factories,
(18:06):
right like, and a lot of times these these teams
still identify with their their local industries or with their
you know, Grimsby town and fish for instance.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, totally, Like in Peru and Lima, there's a costad
you know, which is the beer company and you know, yeah,
and so yeah, I mean I don't know, it's it's
like who sponsors them also, but like there is sort
of an identification with these you know, their their sort
of industrial roots.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I remember that Jersey do Deck, the Great Liverpool goalkeeper
got his start playing for his Polish mines team, like
he was a minor in Poland. I mean both a
child and a actual person who worked in mines at
the same time, of course, And he was a minor
in Poland and also the goalkeeper on the local mines
(18:58):
football team and then eventually got discovered by Polish professional
team and then made his way to Liverpool and saved
two penalties against AC Milanda win US the Champions League
back in two thousand and five. So yeah, I think
that's still relatively common. Yeah. So England is the home
of football. They make a big deal out of that.
(19:20):
They've also won the World Cup. They won it once
in nineteen sixty six. That team is still lauded in
English soccer songs and every time one of them dies
it's like a national holiday. It's a huge deal that
nineteen sixty six football team. And look, only eight nations
have ever won the World Cup. Right, So obviously England
is a very successful footballing nation, especially given its size.
(19:45):
It's a relatively small country both geographically and doesn't have
that many people, you know, And yet I think that
you could argue that England has underachieved on the international stage.
They've They've never won a tournament other than the nineteen
sixty six World Cup, they made it to the finals
of a major tournament. They made it to the finals
(20:07):
of the European Tournament in both twenty twenty and twenty
twenty four, but lost both those finals. They finished fourth
I think in twenty fourteen was it, and then bombed
out or twenty eighteen and then bombed out in twenty
twenty two in the quarterfinals. So they have struggled, even
(20:29):
though I think right now they have a golden age.
I mean since that twenty twenty tournament, they've really had
a golden age of players. Like the current England squad
is so good that the starting midfielder, the full back,
the starting fullback for probably the best club team in
(20:50):
the world. As much as it pains me to admit it,
Real Madrid, their starting fullback Trent Alexander Arnold, isn't even
on the team for England. He can't even make the bench.
Now we can debate why that is, but it speaks
to the depth that England have as a national football team.
They have arguably the best striker in the world, at
(21:14):
least this year in Harry Kane. They have a midfield
that includes Declan Rice, who I know is near and
dear to your heart and who is a great player.
They have amazing defensive players. They have a goalie with
exceptionally short arms who nonetheless manages to save the vast
majority of shots that come his way in Jordan Pickford.
(21:34):
So they've got the players. They have the players to
win the World Cup. What I question is whether they
have the ability to win the World Cup. And I
don't mean like on the pitch, I mean off the pitch,
whether they have the psychological ability, whether they have the coaching,
whether they have whether they actually can do it. Like
(21:56):
this Golden Generation, to borrow a phrase from the English,
has one fuck all right, And I mean I look
at their bracket this year, like, at least according to
my bracket, they're probably going to face Germany or Brazil
in the quarterfinals and that's going to be pretty challenging.
I mean, there's that great Gary Lineker quote. I don't
(22:19):
know if you've ever heard this. This is one of
my favorite football quotes of all time. Football is a
simple game. Twenty two men chase a ball around for
ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans always win,
and I fear that will be the case this year
for England. I fear that they may go out in
the round, in the quarterfinal round to Germany or Brazil,
because I think that's a tough Those are tough matchups
(22:44):
for them, and I just I know that every footballing
nation like is under tremendous amounts of pressure. Like I
can't even imagine the amount of pressure that these kids
are under. We're talking about people who are mostly in
their twenties, often in their early twenties, you know, holding
together a nation. It's it's an insane amount of pressure.
(23:05):
But there's something about the English press and something about
the kind of international attention that that English football gets
that I just think is makes that pressure even worse.
You know, the only thing I can compare it to
is probably Brazil. I think the pressure in Brazil is
unbelievably difficult to deal with. But I just I wonder,
with that amount of pressure, whether this group of players
can win a World Cup. I would love to see
(23:26):
it personally, but I just I don't know if they can.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, it's interesting. What I remember is that final where
Jayden Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayosaka miss penalty kicks, yes Italy.
And the you know, the racial abuse they got online,
the right the vitriol that they had to experience as
very young men. Buka Isaka I think was like seventeen
(23:51):
or something, maybe eighteen years old. And so there is
also that dark side of English fan culture that you know,
is with this kind of you know, racist, nativist ideology
that's pretty gross. Uh. But I I gotta say I
as much as I just like England's impact in history
(24:12):
and its empire and you know, and it's kind of
like the kind of smugness, I really like the English
team and they have some some fantastic players. They have
some really likable characters. And it's not just because I'm
an Arsenal fan, but I think I think Bayosaka is.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Like, oh soccer, is one of the most likable people
in all of football.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Such a lovely young man. And and Deklan Rice you
mentioned is a hard, hard worker, uh and incredibly talented
and just has this engine won't stop. And and you know,
Pickford is kind of clownish but also just you know,
remarkable talent.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I you know, we could go back to my hierarchy
of loyalties. I had them pretty low, just be for
you know, because I obviously I want Latin American teams
to win before I want English teams.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
The English team to win.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
But if we're down to England versus any other European team,
I would be cheering for England because I just know
all the players, you know, And I do think that
part of the pressure comes from the fact that their
league is the most watched league in the world, you know,
and is the most powerful and richest league in the world,
and we all follow it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's definitely true. But that's also
part of the reason why English players are so good
right now is because they you know, have well funded academies,
because they have lots of opportunities to you know, have
players playing alongside world class international talent. You don't have
that in MLS or you do, but the world class
(25:36):
international talent is in their forties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It's it's like James, you know, coming on to the
last twenty minutes at age thirty two, trying to you know,
get in fitness shape good for the World Cup. You know,
it's not the same, right, right, It's not the same.
So I think that that's part of why England are
so good right now. I think they have a very
bright future. They have a lot of really good young players.
But you know, as much as I am inclined to
(26:04):
dislike Harry Kane because he's a Tottenham player, even though
he now plays in Germany and he's famously a bit
of a mouth breather both literally and figuratively, I know
how much it would mean to him to win a
World Cup. I know how much it would mean to
Jordan Pickford, and like, of course it means it would
(26:26):
mean everything to every one of those players. But to
your point, I know the England players. I feel I've
seen them in interviews. They speak the language that I speak,
and so inevitably I feel connected to them. I want
to say one more thing before we take a break,
that nobody can win until they win, right, there's always
you know, Spain had never won, and then they won,
(26:48):
and now and then you know, France had never won,
and then they won, and then they want another, you know,
and it's like you know, I think now in terms
of my club team, Arsenal, they haven't won in twenty
two years, and when they do it, I feel like
the something breaks and then the mentality changes and then
you can win. And you know, there's so much talent
(27:09):
on the English team. I feel like, one of these
days they're going to win. And when they do, then
of this all this losing and all this coming up
short and all this fuck all that you've mentioned kind
of fades away and you're like, oh, true, remember that
back then when we thought we couldn't win, we actually can.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
You know, right, That's very true. And one of the
things that people say about England to your point about
the penalty shootout with SOCCA and Rashford, is that they
are choke artists somehow, But actually they've won one of
their four penalty shootouts in the World Cups and four
of their eleven penalty shootouts and tournaments overall. Like, that's
(27:50):
just not a big enough sample size to have any data. Really.
You know, if one penalty kick had gone differently in
one of those penalty shootouts, they would have won half
of their penalty shootouts and then nobody would have that narrative.
So I agree with you. I think the narrative that
you can't win is only true until you Win. I remember.
Not to make this about me, but I remember I
was a bowler. I got dumped in college. I mean
(28:11):
I got dumped repeatedly, but I got dumped once in college, devastatingly.
And I took up bowling after that. I went and
bowled every day by myself or with my friend Levin,
and I could never break two hundred until I did
break two hundred, and then it was easy to break
two hundred. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Once you do it, you
can't not do it. Similarly, here in Bodda, I you
know that there's this hill, this mountain called Bothios is
basically like the top of the mountain, and I wanted
to bike to the top because I see like old
guys biking to the top.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And then I just kept at it, and then I
did it, and now I.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Can do it. You know, it just happened. May it
happen for Arsenal? I hope?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So all right, let's take a quick break and I'll
be back with a story and some mail. We're right, okay,
(29:16):
So we're back on the away end. John, I have
a story for you, and this one starts when my
first book was published in two thousand and five, a
story collection called.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
War by Candlelight. Great book, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I was lucky enough to have it translated and publishing
lots of different places, including Peru, where I'm from. And
so for this very brief moment, I was kind of
well known in Lima, and as a consequence, I got
invited to lots of places to do readings and whatnot.
In the course of these readings, I met a guy
named Carlos who had this interesting job. He was kind
of like a liaison between inmates in proven prisons and
(29:51):
the state to try to help them advocate for.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What they needed.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
He built and kind of organized and funded or you know,
fundraised to create lots of workshops where they teach them,
you know, skills and whatnot. Anyway, so for his job,
he traveled all over the country and went to all
the different prisons, and as a result, he knew a
lot of people that I.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Was interested in getting to know.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And the reason is that my book had a lot
to do with politics, and specifically with the armed conflict
in Peru in the nineteen eighties, and he thought, and
I agreed, that it would be a good idea to
meet some of the protagonists of that conflict, many of
whom were in prison, and like maybe just fact check
my stories with them or sort of get their testimonies.
(30:37):
And since I was working on a novel that was
kind of also based on that period, I thought this
was just a fantastic idea. Now I went to one
of the prisons, and I went to another one, and
I just became kind of fascinated by this place and
obsessed with the different correctional institutions of Peru, mostly because
they were just like this world apart from everything, and
(30:59):
one thing you should know, improven prisons like the police,
they basically can control who gets in and gets out,
but they don't really control anything else that goes on
in the prison. And one of the prisons I visited, Lurigancho,
like the police actually couldn't go into the blocks themselves,
like they weren't allowed by the inmates. So this is
kind of like really alternate universe, and I was totally
(31:22):
fascinated by it. I met with lots of former guerrillas,
some of whom had known my uncle Haviert, who disappeared
in nineteen eighty nine, and that was a loss that
was like really formative for me and in some ways
like shaped my kind of adolescent brain and identity and
met me want to be a writer and a journalist.
I met people who had suffered tremendous losses and had
learned to appreciate them for the lessons they'd learn. I
(31:45):
met people who'd done some really awful things and worked
their whole lives to try to understand why. And so
basically every chance I got, I'd go to either to
one of two prisons, either Lurigancho, which is the largest
prison in Peru, which really looked like something out of
Dante when I first started visiting, or another nearby institution,
(32:05):
which by comparison, was almost provincial and relaxed, a place
called Casteo Castro. And in Costal Costro, I met another guy,
a young man named Manchitas. I don't actually know his
real name, a Manchez a kind of stain. And he
earned his nickname because he had this kind of light brown,
wavy hair, but he had a little wisp of gray
at the top, almost like like Leo Troussard, you know,
(32:27):
like just like and he'd had that since he was
a boy, so everyone called him Manchita's. He was from
the jungle. He was about my age, and what I
liked about him was he was so zen about the
prison sentence he was serving, which, if I recall correctly,
he was just serving because he'd driven a truck that
you know, it had cocaine in it and it wasn't
like a big time gangster or anything. He was just
(32:48):
kind of like, well, that was bad. And we talked
a lot about soccer. We talked about local soccer, We
talked about international football, the national team. You know, which
clubs we liked, who played well, who did in tactics.
And it was Anchitas who decided, at this point i'd
become kind of a fixture at Costa Castro, or at
least like a semi regular visitor, that he wanted to
see me play. So he spoke to the boss of
(33:09):
the block, the Taita, and then one day on one
of these visits, he informed me that the following week
there was going to be a game in my honor
and that I should come ready to play. It was
going to be an inter block match, so it was
like his block versus another block, and the Narcos block,
which was Manchita's block would be hosting the terrorists lost
(33:30):
Rucos he called them, which is mostly like members of
Shining Path, and I would be playing with the narcos.
So a couple things here, John, Yes, Costell Costro was
pretty chill compared to Rrigancho, And yes, I'd been visiting
this place by that point for more than a year.
And yes, lats OFO knew me and were pretty nice
to me. But you're wondering was I intimidated to play there?
(33:53):
And the answer is absolutely, I was intimidated to play there.
This is not like trying out for like the Indian
Springs High school soccer tea. Don you know me, I'm
not a big guy. I'm not strong. I have heard
about gyms and I know they exist, but I don't
frequent them. And so the whole thing seemed like a
level up from what I was able to do. But
(34:16):
such as it is, you gotta go, you gotta play.
And the day of the game, I went nervous, and
all the whole block was out to watch. They'd set
up benches along the side, and I remember it was
super hot, like it was one of those like summer
days in them. It's just blazing hot. There's it's all.
There's no trees, there's no shade, there's no nothing. And
the field was a cement prison yard in the Narcos block,
(34:39):
and it was not strictly speaking a rectangle. It was
kind of like one sideline was the wall of the
of the block, and it was interrupted at these regular
intervals by these kind of beams that jutted out into
the field of play, so that when you're running downfield
you had to be really careful, like weaving around them
so you didn't run into them. And then the end
lines right, so like one end of the pitch, if
(34:59):
you were to take the length from corner flag to
corner flag, although there were no corner flags, obviously was
about two thirds of length of the other end. So
it kind of like went down into a cone, right, trapezoidal, trapezoidal, yes, yes,
thank you for that geometry. Now, I know what you're thinking,
and you, like me, probably would assume that most goals
(35:20):
would be scored on the wider end, yeah, because there'd
be space, And in fact that was actually totally wrong.
We started playing and the narrow end of the pitch
was this like frantic like pinball machine of like legs
and knees such that like every time the ball went
down there, one way or another, it seemed to end
up in the back of the net. Again, there's an
asterisk on the word net because the net, the goal itself,
(35:43):
was just like three lines drawn like painted onto the
back of the prison wall.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So, anyway, first half, blazing hot. We the Narcos are
playing really well and we're winning, scoring a bunch of
really sloppy, weird you know goal on the narrow end
of the pitch.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
I don't remember really doing much with the ball except
like trying to get rid of it as soon as
it came to me because I really wanted to not
get tackled and not have someone break my legs. I
remember at halftime I was talking to Machita's and he
introduced my teammates to me, and I don't remember them all,
but I recalled that one of the defenders looked kind
of like a soldier. He was like tall and strong,
he was a defender, he had a buzz cut, and
(36:24):
it turns out that he had been a soldier and
he told me that he'd been a helicopter pilot in
the Proven Army. And then started using his flights over
the jungle to move cocaine. And then now he found
himself at Costa Costello playing a game of soccer with
me as his teammate, and he told me all this
without really smiling. We switched sides at the half and
(36:45):
we started survived.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
The real onslaught.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
They played with a lot of passion, the tarucos. And
this is kind of when I realized that I was
the guest of honor. And so there was this like
war happening around me. This is really violent and really
rough game. And then I had this little force field
of privilege protecting me. So there was like nobody, you know,
people were pulling out of tackles. You know, they were
(37:10):
like giving me an extra you know, like like when
you were playing with a child and you don't want
to like, you know, go intrevate it on them. So
this was like at the same time like very welcome
because I didn't really want to get hurt and also
like a little bit condescending, you know, like like come on,
you know, And so I had this kind of like
real push pull between like self preservation and like you know,
kind of like this the little tiny inklings of macho
(37:34):
nes of like, come on, I can handle this. It's
not clear that I actually could have handled it. But anyway,
the game's winding down and we're winning comfortably, and despite
the terrorist's best efforts, they can't seem to get close
to us. And I noticed this thing. The ref, who
was also an inmate, is about to blow his whistle
because it was full time, right, and Manchita's and the
(37:56):
tight that like like.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Ran over him. We're like no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And at that point I realized that the game was
not going to be over until I scored. Oh, of course,
because it was in your honor, it was in my honor.
And of course, at the moment that I realized this,
I proceeded to miss one sitter after another, you know,
like tap ins that I just somehow put wide of
the painted bar. You know, it was so mortifying because
(38:22):
at this point there's two squads of players looking at me,
the terrorists and the narcos, and they're all like, dude,
come on.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I want to say in my defense that it was
very hot. I was very tired, and I think the
stress and anxiety of playing in that environment which is
not my normal playing environment was very much sort of
like acting.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
On my nerves.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Anyway, When I finally finally scored, the ref looked over
to Manchita's, Manchita's nodded, and then the whistle blew. This
is the part I remember, because I kind of remember
like collapsing on the floor and looking straight up at
the sky and just being like dead. At some point
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Mantitas was
pulling me up and he said this thing to me
(39:03):
that really sort of stuck with me, and he said,
you got to go tell a terrorist they played a
good game. They really hate to lose.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And what a two sentence couplet that is.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, I mean, because if you understand anything about Proven politics,
like they'd lost it all. Yeah, you know, they'd lost
this you know, stupid maniacal homicidal war that had started.
They'd lost whatever shred of public support they might have
had in any sort of reaches of the Proven territory.
(39:40):
They had lost their leaders who were all imprisoned, and
you know, these guys had lost their lives because they
were going to be in prison for the next you know,
fifteen to twenty years. And I went over and tricked
all their hands in the same way that you know,
the same ritual that kids all over the world enact
after each game, where they're like good game, or if
(40:01):
you know it's now kids go g g gg gg. Yeah,
they didn't even say the whole thing. So I did
my version of gg g g gg with the with
the members of the Shining Path who happened to be
good at soccer, and and that was my one of
the most memorable games I've ever played, and probably one
of the worst games I've ever played also, But just
(40:21):
the end, I want to say, because Mantita's was such
a kind young man. He's, like I said, he's about
our age. Now he's out of prison, he's living back
in his hometown. He's a father and a husband, and
last I heard he was doing really great. And so yeah,
that's my that's my story, man.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
What a story. I mean. I am often reminded that
you have lived a thousand lives, but that story really
brings it home for me. Uh, that is an absolute
banger of a tale. My friend. You should uh, you
should start every dinner party with that one before we
(41:00):
serve the turkey. Can tell you about the time.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of years going
to the prisons in Peru, and I learned so much
there and learned from the people there, and I am
super grateful that I had that experience. Another time, I'll
tell you about the time I slept a night in Luiganto.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I'll tell you that's there another day. Oh, that sounds
like a good one too. It's also a really interesting
exploration as a story of how power works. That the
state has the power to imprison people but not the
power to define necessarily how they are in prison. That
the referee has the whistle, but not necessarily the power
to decide when and how the game ends. It's a
(41:39):
really interesting exploration of who really has the power in
different situations.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Well, you know, Ludigunchul. Every Ludigancho is like I said,
it's the other prison, it's the crazier one. And Ryguncho's
BA basically set up is like a map of criminal
life in Lima. So every block belongs to a district
of the city, except the two blocks for international and
national drug trafficking. Because those guys they're either from the jungle,
(42:05):
so they don't have any relationship to Lima. Really or
they're you know, Polish, Israeli, Nigerian, Colombian, Mexican, you know, Spanish, Italian, whatever,
and they don't could care less what's happening in Lima.
They're like, you know, it's irrelevant to them. And those
two are the blocks that have the most money. And
so what they do is that they find players who
are good from other blocks and they bring them to
(42:29):
their blocks, to Block seven and Block nine, so that
they can play for their team. And I literally had
a guy tell me, he's like, no, no, we're like
the real Madrid and Barcelona of this prison. When it
comes to sameon, we're the semi pro team. Yeah, because
we can we have you know, the transfer market after
each tournament is like, oh, who played well on Block eighteen,
come live with us, and they give them like a
(42:50):
cell and a bed and food and then that player.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Plays for them. Wow. It was crazy, Wow, totally crazy
as wild. Right, let's get to some of our mail,
which will feel a little disappointing after that incredible story,
but we want to begin with this email from John,
who writes, Dear John and Daniel, I've only gotten int
a Premier League fandom in the last couple of years,
(43:15):
and I'm wondering how you have handled this situation. I'm
a Chelsea fan and in the first leg of our
Champions League round with PSG, we lost five to two.
Then we came home and lost one nail to Newcastle.
And I am listening currently to the second leg of
the Champions League on my phone and PSG just scored
a second goal in the first fourteen minutes. Should I
smash my phone, tear off the Chelsea jersey my son
(43:36):
got me for Christmas and rip it to shreds, swear loudly,
or all of the above. Best John in an arbor, John,
I recommend that you take the Daniel Aracone approach to
this issue, which is that you somehow enjoy the joy
of soccer without not feeling too much of the pain
of soccer.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I have a chat with some friends. They're parents of
my son's friends in New York, and we're all Arsenal fans.
And there's one, you know, one guy' zen like me,
and one guy is like always about to blows top,
you know, like third minute of the game and he's like,
why are we not scoring yet?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I love them both. They're great guys, Joe and I
bey and they I always worry about Joe's heart, you know. Yeah,
so I think the option there could be an option E.
So yeah, the fifth option, which is like go to therapy.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I have just I decided a few years ago, and
this has worked surprisingly well for me to just be
less invested in losing than I am in winning, to
just enjoy winning more than I don't enjoy losing. Instead
of hating losing, I love winning. And I have found
this to be not just helpful for my football fandom,
but kind of helpful in real life.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I did realize at a certain point, if
Arsenal lost, like on a Saturday morning like my it
would take me to like noon or like two in
the afternoon to recover. And that wasn't really fair to
my kids and my wife, you know, my life in general.
So John in ann Arbor, good luck surviving the rest
(45:22):
of Chelsea's season, and I'm sure you're gonna be okay.
I got another question for you, this one I think
you'll like, Dear John, Daniel and Sean. I'm interested if
you think the Champions League's success of Bodo Glimpt might
have implications for the Norwegian World Cup run.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Huh wow. So Bodo Glimped is this relatively small team
from Norway that unfortunately just got kicked out of the
Champions League. They went into their second game with the
three zero lead and lost five nil, and so on
aggregator was five to three and they got knocked out
of the Champions League. But they still had a great run.
And I think a number of the Norwegian players play
(46:03):
at Boto Glimpt and I've always felt like if you
have that club team chemistry and you can bring it
to the national team, it helps, especially if you have
Erling Holland as your new striker. Yeah. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
The Boto glim story was one that I think that
if you love sport in its purest form, you had
to support them, You had to be happy for them
because the very small club. It's in a very small town.
I think the stadium is like ten thousand people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
They play above the Arctic Circle, with my understanding, and
they were these kind of like incongruously bright yellow jerseys
in a place where you know, it's like winter for
eight months of the year.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
There is no color.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
They play on a plastic pitch and they played some
really great counterteching football. I think they're always going to
do well. I mean, I think it does depend a
little bit on the form of Earling Holland and the
fitness of Martinodoguard.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, who has been in and.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Out of the Arsenal side this season because he keeps
you injuring his shoulder in some like freak accidents, and
early Hollins kind of dropped off a little bit. But
I don't know if that's just because Pep just decided
he wants to play that a striker.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Now or something. But we'll see.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
I'm excited to see what Norway does.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yah me too. I think they're gonna at least make
it to the UH knockouts, and then anything is possible.
We also have an email from Tanell in Estonia. I
apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name, who writes High Grade podcast.
Now that you have educated lots of people about the
off side rule, feel free to explain to us that
it doesn't always apply. Because the offside rule does not
(47:43):
apply in a throw in situation or in the team's
own half. This is very true and very important for Sean.
So Sean, when there is an off side. It's not
off sides if it's in the team's half, if it's
in the defending half, and it's not off sides if
it's on a throw. And in fact, just recently AFC
Wimbledon scored off a throw in off an offside throw
(48:04):
what would have been an off side throw in, and
it was the throw of my life. My guy Marcus
Brown scored one of the guys I helped pay for.
Wonderful you got all that done.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I mean, I'm just you know, I'm further confused. But
but what what Tanell is saying makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So all right, maybe we need to have tell explained
the offside role to you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, I got I got in a bit of a
of a fight, or rather I was I was yelled
at by a parent at west Side Soccer when I
was the kind of ref because I didn't call a
player offside because he started his run in his own half.
And then uh, and so this parent is berating me,
and I'm trying to explain to him that the offside rule,
what the offside rule is, and he could didn't believe me,
and it was it was unpleasant for everybody. There's also
(48:49):
these great moments. I don't know if you've seen this, John,
where like there's this great clip of Luis Suarez like uh,
signaling to the ref for a handball when it's the
goalie the oppos and goalies touching the ball. Or there
was one where Arsenal scored a goal because there was
a throw in to a player who was in what
(49:09):
would be an offside position and they went on to score,
and because the team which was.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Just kind of had a.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Collective defending brain freeze, just stopped the play because they
were off side, and they all raised their hand for
off sides and you're like, dude, this is a throw in.
What a you're doing? And then we basically walked it in.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's exactly what happened to a Wimbledon.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, Sean, I mentioned this because it's not just you
who doesn't know the rules. Sometimes the players themselves don't
know the rules in the heat of the moment.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
So don't feel bad, makes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Me feel makes me feel a little better.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Well, thanks to everybody for writing us. We love hearing
from you away ndpod at gmail dot com. Thanks as
always to Daniel and Sean, and also to our editor
Kurt for being here with us. We love making this
podcast for you and hope you enjoy it half as
much as we like making it.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Absolutely, we'll see you next week, guys. Thanks mm hmm
Welcome to the away and I'm then Alercon, I'm John
green Don.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We have a lot to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I think none of us wanted to have to talk
about this, but we should probably we have to, And
of course I'm talking about AFCON Farce. Take two, Morocco,
the Karens of African Football.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Do you want to.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Just sort of like fill our listeners in on what
is happening.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, so Senegal won the Afcon tournament according to the
referee on the field and also according to getting to
have a parade in your home country with the trophy,
which I think is the definition of winning the tournament. Actually,
I think whoever gets to have the parade won the
(00:49):
tournament pretty much. But Morocco filed a protest and said, actually,
since the Senegalese team tried to leave the field to
protest the penalty decision and interrupted the game, we should
actually be the champions of AFCON. And that is apparently
what is now going to happen Forever after Morocco will
(01:10):
be remembered as the champions of AFCON.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, I mean, okay, so they filed a complaint that
the African Football Confederation could have just you know, knocked down.
But there's been allegations of corruption, allegations of of you know,
just mishandling of the situation, which seems self evident.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
If the ref had called.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The game over in that moment, I think that would
have been you know, controversial but acceptable, but you know,
sort of following the rules of the game. Because the
senategolsee players did leave the bitch right, but he didn't
call it then, and so then it's done. It's done.
So I heard on the Guardian they called it the
longest bar review in history, seven days and it's just
(01:58):
kind of appalling. I mean, you know, I was thinking
about actually in terms of club soccer and club football.
So you know, those who follow English Premier League know
that Man City, for example, has one hundred and seventeen
pending charges for.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
For financially regularities.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, financially regulators is cheating basically, you know, financial doping,
you could call it. And and since you know Arsenal
was second place for a couple of those those seasons, theoretically,
whenever the FA gets around to adjudicating and deciding what happened,
Arsenal could win retroactively be declared champions for two of
(02:43):
those years. I don't feel like any Arsenal fan is
going to really celebrate those and so I'm wondering even
like for Morocco, like what is that? Do you really
feel proud of your I mean, I think you should
feel proud of your team to make it the finals.
I think that you should feel proud, pride for your
country and you know and love for your team no
matter what happens. But are you gonna feel pride as
if you won at this point? Is that really something
(03:05):
gonna that's gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I don't think so. Right, Well, I gotta tell you,
as a Liverpool fan, if those titles get revoked by
Manchester City, I will one hundred percent celebrate our new
titles really well. In this sense at least, I'm not gonna.
I'm not gonna insist upon a retroactive parade where we
where we hold up like three English Premier League titles
(03:27):
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Sure from Brazil and bring them back for.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's your turn, buddy. Uh you did you did it? Fella?
Get uh get saudio money back on the bus? Uh No?
But I I would say I would take those titles
and I would I would lord them over our rivals.
So I would say to Manchester United supporters, we have
(03:54):
twenty three titles and you have twenty. I would one
hundred percent do.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That right, right right, and this you know, I respect
that level of pettiness because I also have that. I
just feel like, you know, this is not a case
of financial regularities. This is not a case of cheating.
This is a case of a situation that may have
been we could argue if it was adjudicated incorrectly on
the field, but it was uh. And then in you know,
(04:20):
there was still extra time to play. I mean, you
know Braman Diaz still took that dumb Panenka and then uh,
Senegal still went out and scored a goal in an
extra time and are deserving champions of Africa, absolutely times Africa.
When I went in such a hostile situation, you know,
environment is a real accomplishment and no one can take
(04:41):
that away from them, not even calf.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well, that's what I think is the central thing. I mean,
I think afterwards one of the Senegohese players posted a
picture of himself holding the trophy and was like, what
are you gonna do? I'm with my trophy and my
winner's medal, like I'm not giving them back. No, nor
should they, And so I think ultimately what will probably
happen is that twenty years from now will remember both
(05:07):
Morocco and Senegal as different kinds of champions of that tournament. No,
I disagree. Morocco will always make a case that won
the tournament as a result of this decision. Yeah, and the.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Rest of the world will know. The rest of the
world will know that they didn't. So I think in
twenty years will will It'll be like I remember that
time that Brahman Diaz tried to Penenka and then went
on to lose the the in.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Their own countries. Listening, by the way, this is a
brutal listen for I know he's a fan of the pod,
so maybe should be a little kinder to him.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yes, well, you know I'm waiting for his his email,
you know, in our inbox after this.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Look.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I mean, I think it also demonstrates the power and
prestige of Morocco within the African Federation, right because they're
you know, there were some finalists there probably the strongest
team or the team best place to do really well
in this upcoming tournament. So I think there's every reason
(06:08):
to think that. Oh and they're also co hosting the
World Cup with Spain, you know, in four years, I believe.
So it just seems to me that there's influence happening.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You know, something's happening there. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you
can only feel like the results on the pitch are
the results because there's so much corruption in international football
federations that you know, like if I don't believe that
Donald Trump really won the FIFA Peace Prize either, you know, look,
(06:41):
I mean I think that's that's he had a peace prize.
He didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. That's an it's
still it's an illegitimate peace prize, is my point. It
is not a legitimate peace prize, right right, right right now.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
More than ever, I just hope the benzwel And baseball
team doesn't give him the World Baseball Classic Trophy because
he doesn't deserve that. What a great game that was.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Anyway, Sorry, that's a different sport, different sport. Was a
great game. That was a great game, though, And you know,
I to see the tier in the eye, not to
get Looston Baseball, but just for a moment, we're talking
about international sports in general. To see the tear in
the eye of the Venezuelan relief pitcher as he pitched
the final pitch was so moving, Like you forget, Like
(07:24):
I remember seeing Louis Suarez cry once in the middle
of a game, I think, like Uruguay were losing, uh
and going to be out of the World Cup, and
he started to cry like before the game was over.
And you forget that these are human beings and that
the even even on the pitch, in the in the
heat of the moment, they are feeling profound things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
No, and I know you're totally right. I will say
that Latin Americans we cry a lot, and there was
kind of there's a lot of pride and the overwhelming
feeling of of sort of representing your country really often
manifests as tears. I was very moved by that. I
was very moved by the joy of the Venezuelans and
(08:06):
very proud of them and very happy for them. And
many of my Venezuelan friends, even who don't watch baseball
or follow baseball, we're absolutely floored. And I want to
say this, John, I think football in sport is about
these moments of joy, right, These moments of transcendence. International
(08:27):
football national teams is about these moments when the kind
of difficult, complicated, polarized ways that we all interpret the
countries we belong to kind of fade away and we
all feel something, feel united, feel like we can get
behind a team, and everyone is always sort of like
cheering for a representation of the country that they imagine
(08:49):
that they want to live in, whatever imperfect version of
that they're currently residing in right or even connected to.
And because football and because sport is about those moments
of joy, the Senegalese one because they experienced that moment
of joy, and the Moroccans did not. The Moroccans experienced
another kind of transcendence, moment of heartbreak and desperation and
(09:13):
sadness and positive recrimination and you know, all kinds of
other emotions that they're also valid, and you know we
all learn from them and blah blah blah. But the
Senegalese experienced the joy which is at the very lifeblood
of international sport and of international football. And for that,
twenty years from now, forty years from now, I will
(09:33):
always think of them as the winners of Afghan Well Daniel.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Before we dive deep into the English national team and
all of that. I just want to say that recently
on our high school's Instagram page, there was a photograph
published of you playing football. We can put it on
the screen now for YouTube viewers, but for everyone else,
I'll just describe the photograph. Imagine the most beautiful man
(10:00):
in the world. Okay, all right? I think transcend transcendent
as both a physical specimen and as an intellect leaning
slightly askance, as if perfectly balanced upon the side of
one foot, absolutely attacking a football. And that is this
(10:26):
moment that was captured by an Indian Springs photographer in
nineteen ninety five. Sean, can you come on real quick
and we can talk about this photograph because there's no
way Daniel is going to embrace it as much as
I have. Am I not? Am? I? Am?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I right?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That he looks incredible?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, it is. Uh, it's art and motion. I think
you know that that picture. It's just a great reminder
of how long I mean we've talked about Daniel playing
in high school and how good he was, and you
know how how like it was such a big like
our team was actually like good, right, like we made
(11:05):
it to a really good final say. Yeah, I will say,
just away from the sort of a Donnis like picture
of Daniel playing soccer on the pitch from the my
beef with this montage that the school used was out
of what seemed like thirty to forty pictures in a montage.
(11:26):
I didn't see you, John or myself in any It.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Couldn't seem to dig up a single picture of Sean
or John. Wow, they had the entire class. I mean
it's only fifty two kids, right, So they show forty
pictures and you're like, wow, I was really left out.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, yeah, it's the curator's I you know, I mean,
I can't argue with that. It's Look, this is the
most mortifying segment of our podcast so far. And I'm
just wondering if if and I'm not saying I was,
but if at age seventeen I was with a soccer
ball art in motion, then now it's like, you know,
(12:08):
garage sale to Tritus in motion, because now I'm forty
nine years old and it's really really you know, it's
not pretty. It's not pretty. It's a fair store painting
in motion these days. Yeah, basically, it basically is it
is anyway, I appreciate that, you know, pick me up
that you guys just gave me, And maybe.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
We'll come back here after the break and talk about England. Yeah, great,
all right, we'll go back.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
All right, So we're back on the away end and
John is going to tell us and me about the
Three Lions, the English national team, So let's go.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So, Daniel, I think it's important to remember that England
is about one third of a small island. You know,
we lose track of that sometimes because it's such an
important nation in global history and has muscled its way
into so many conversations and had an empire that stretched
(13:17):
around the world or whatever. But it is also the
home of football. It is where football came to be,
and I think talking about the English national team, we
need to go back to the beginning of this silly
little sport that we love, because, as the English are
always happy to explain, it did get its start in England,
(13:38):
and like, sometimes I wonder why football exists at all,
like why it came to exist, like why there are
eleven players instead of thirty, and why the off sides
rule that baffls shan exists and all that stuff, like
why have there been two hundred and forty seven Merseyside
Darby's instead of eighty six or six hundred and seventeen.
We've been playing games with balls for like thousands of years, right, So, like,
(14:01):
why did the current sport we know as football come
to be? Where and when it did? And I think
the answer is, at least in part coal coal, Daniel,
coal like the carbon fuel, the fuel. Yes, the fuel,
the fuel, because that's what fueled the Industrial Revolution. And
(14:22):
it was about a generation after the start of the
Industrial Revolution that we start to see football happening. Now.
The Industrial Revolution happened in England for a bunch of reasons,
but one is that there was coal pretty close to
the ground, which made it relatively easy to mine. And
then there were coal powered steam engines that were used
to get water out of those mines, so you could
mine more coal more effectively, and the steam engines got
(14:44):
more effective and et cetera, until eventually we had lots
of people moving to cities and blueberries in January and
all the stuff that we have now as a result
of the Industrial Revolution. We see a generation later, people
start to stand the rules of football, people start to
play football as at least vaguely as we would recognize
(15:08):
it today. And I really think that farmers were never
going to invent that game. They were never going to
be able to build out the structure and the rule
books and everything else to standardize the game the way
like work hours and so much else was standardized during
the Industrial Revolution. But factory workers could do that standardization.
And so I think that's part of why we see
(15:30):
football emerge where and when we do, not because England
is special, but because of coal.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I think that's really fascinating. And you know, there's lots
that's been written about how the Industrial Revolution transformed like everything,
and even like the invention of time and the mention
of of I mean not time, because youple sort of
knew the morning, the afternoon, the evening the next day,
the minutes, minutes, minutes became a big deal. Yeah, that
(15:59):
that changes every thing, you know, and sort of settling
at ninety minutes for a game, you know, settling all
these things. It's like it is sort of this kind
of imposing order on a kind of play that maybe
in a previous incarnation of human society is like a
rural you know, agrarian society just doesn't make much sense.
(16:21):
Like I feel like Agraarian people play baseball, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, or they played or they played versions of football
that didn't have all the same rules across all the
same places, right, So you don't see the emergence of
like international football. Interestingly, you don't see the emergence of
international football till like forty or fifty years after you
first see standardization of football because like it took a
while to spread. The first international soccer game was actually
(16:44):
played between England and Scotland. Now, I know some people
might argue that is not in fact an international soccer
game because those are not separate sovereign nations. But I
am not one of those people because I am deeply
afraid of the wrath of Scottish people. So I'm going
to I'm going to say that was the first international
game of football. Can I just interrupt?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
There one thing that I think you made me think of,
like how many of the current teams in England and
how many the teams I'm thinking of, like in around
the world really started out as kind of like of
workers that were like especially teams a lot of affiliated
with like with actual factors. I mean, the gunners, the Arsenal.
The team that I support was a was an armory basically, yeah,
(17:27):
and then were workers from that factory. And that's the
case in you know, in teams in as far as
you know, Peru and Uruguay and and you know, all
over the world. Like all these teams are are originally
sort of come out of workplaces.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah. I think about the team that I think has
been playing since the nineteenth century called met Police in England,
which no longer comprises actual police officers, but is still
called met Police. They play like down in the six
or seventh division. But there's all kinds of teams like
that that merged from workplaces or factories or kinds of factories,
(18:06):
right like, and a lot of times these these teams
still identify with their their local industries or with their
you know, Grimsby town and fish for instance.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, totally, Like in Peru and Lima, there's a costad
you know, which is the beer company and you know, yeah,
and so yeah, I mean I don't know, it's it's
like who sponsors them also, but like there is sort
of an identification with these you know, their their sort
of industrial roots.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I remember that Jersey do Deck, the Great Liverpool goalkeeper
got his start playing for his Polish mines team, like
he was a minor in Poland. I mean both a
child and a actual person who worked in mines at
the same time, of course, And he was a minor
in Poland and also the goalkeeper on the local mines
(18:58):
football team and then eventually got discovered by Polish professional
team and then made his way to Liverpool and saved
two penalties against AC Milanda win US the Champions League
back in two thousand and five. So yeah, I think
that's still relatively common. Yeah. So England is the home
of football. They make a big deal out of that.
(19:20):
They've also won the World Cup. They won it once
in nineteen sixty six. That team is still lauded in
English soccer songs and every time one of them dies
it's like a national holiday. It's a huge deal that
nineteen sixty six football team. And look, only eight nations
have ever won the World Cup. Right, So obviously England
is a very successful footballing nation, especially given its size.
(19:45):
It's a relatively small country both geographically and doesn't have
that many people, you know, And yet I think that
you could argue that England has underachieved on the international stage.
They've They've never won a tournament other than the nineteen
sixty six World Cup, they made it to the finals
of a major tournament. They made it to the finals
(20:07):
of the European Tournament in both twenty twenty and twenty
twenty four, but lost both those finals. They finished fourth
I think in twenty fourteen was it, and then bombed
out or twenty eighteen and then bombed out in twenty
twenty two in the quarterfinals. So they have struggled, even
(20:29):
though I think right now they have a golden age.
I mean since that twenty twenty tournament, they've really had
a golden age of players. Like the current England squad
is so good that the starting midfielder, the full back,
the starting fullback for probably the best club team in
(20:50):
the world. As much as it pains me to admit it,
Real Madrid, their starting fullback Trent Alexander Arnold, isn't even
on the team for England. He can't even make the bench.
Now we can debate why that is, but it speaks
to the depth that England have as a national football team.
They have arguably the best striker in the world, at
(21:14):
least this year in Harry Kane. They have a midfield
that includes Declan Rice, who I know is near and
dear to your heart and who is a great player.
They have amazing defensive players. They have a goalie with
exceptionally short arms who nonetheless manages to save the vast
majority of shots that come his way in Jordan Pickford.
(21:34):
So they've got the players. They have the players to
win the World Cup. What I question is whether they
have the ability to win the World Cup. And I
don't mean like on the pitch, I mean off the pitch,
whether they have the psychological ability, whether they have the coaching,
whether they have whether they actually can do it. Like
(21:56):
this Golden Generation, to borrow a phrase from the English,
has one fuck all right, And I mean I look
at their bracket this year, like, at least according to
my bracket, they're probably going to face Germany or Brazil
in the quarterfinals and that's going to be pretty challenging.
I mean, there's that great Gary Lineker quote. I don't
(22:19):
know if you've ever heard this. This is one of
my favorite football quotes of all time. Football is a
simple game. Twenty two men chase a ball around for
ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans always win,
and I fear that will be the case this year
for England. I fear that they may go out in
the round, in the quarterfinal round to Germany or Brazil,
because I think that's a tough Those are tough matchups
(22:44):
for them, and I just I know that every footballing
nation like is under tremendous amounts of pressure. Like I
can't even imagine the amount of pressure that these kids
are under. We're talking about people who are mostly in
their twenties, often in their early twenties, you know, holding
together a nation. It's it's an insane amount of pressure.
(23:05):
But there's something about the English press and something about
the kind of international attention that that English football gets
that I just think is makes that pressure even worse.
You know, the only thing I can compare it to
is probably Brazil. I think the pressure in Brazil is
unbelievably difficult to deal with. But I just I wonder,
with that amount of pressure, whether this group of players
can win a World Cup. I would love to see
(23:26):
it personally, but I just I don't know if they can.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, it's interesting. What I remember is that final where
Jayden Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayosaka miss penalty kicks, yes Italy.
And the you know, the racial abuse they got online,
the right the vitriol that they had to experience as
very young men. Buka Isaka I think was like seventeen
(23:51):
or something, maybe eighteen years old. And so there is
also that dark side of English fan culture that you know,
is with this kind of you know, racist, nativist ideology
that's pretty gross. Uh. But I I gotta say I
as much as I just like England's impact in history
(24:12):
and its empire and you know, and it's kind of
like the kind of smugness, I really like the English
team and they have some some fantastic players. They have
some really likable characters. And it's not just because I'm
an Arsenal fan, but I think I think Bayosaka is.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Like, oh soccer, is one of the most likable people
in all of football.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Such a lovely young man. And and Deklan Rice you
mentioned is a hard, hard worker, uh and incredibly talented
and just has this engine won't stop. And and you know,
Pickford is kind of clownish but also just you know,
remarkable talent.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I you know, we could go back to my hierarchy
of loyalties. I had them pretty low, just be for
you know, because I obviously I want Latin American teams
to win before I want English teams.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
The English team to win.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
But if we're down to England versus any other European team,
I would be cheering for England because I just know
all the players, you know, And I do think that
part of the pressure comes from the fact that their
league is the most watched league in the world, you know,
and is the most powerful and richest league in the world,
and we all follow it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's definitely true. But that's also
part of the reason why English players are so good
right now is because they you know, have well funded academies,
because they have lots of opportunities to you know, have
players playing alongside world class international talent. You don't have
that in MLS or you do, but the world class
(25:36):
international talent is in their forties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It's it's like James, you know, coming on to the
last twenty minutes at age thirty two, trying to you know,
get in fitness shape good for the World Cup. You know,
it's not the same, right, right, It's not the same.
So I think that that's part of why England are
so good right now. I think they have a very
bright future. They have a lot of really good young players.
But you know, as much as I am inclined to
(26:04):
dislike Harry Kane because he's a Tottenham player, even though
he now plays in Germany and he's famously a bit
of a mouth breather both literally and figuratively, I know
how much it would mean to him to win a
World Cup. I know how much it would mean to
Jordan Pickford, and like, of course it means it would
(26:26):
mean everything to every one of those players. But to
your point, I know the England players. I feel I've
seen them in interviews. They speak the language that I speak,
and so inevitably I feel connected to them. I want
to say one more thing before we take a break,
that nobody can win until they win, right, there's always
you know, Spain had never won, and then they won,
(26:48):
and now and then you know, France had never won,
and then they won, and then they want another, you know,
and it's like you know, I think now in terms
of my club team, Arsenal, they haven't won in twenty
two years, and when they do it, I feel like
the something breaks and then the mentality changes and then
you can win. And you know, there's so much talent
(27:09):
on the English team. I feel like, one of these
days they're going to win. And when they do, then
of this all this losing and all this coming up
short and all this fuck all that you've mentioned kind
of fades away and you're like, oh, true, remember that
back then when we thought we couldn't win, we actually can.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
You know, right, That's very true. And one of the
things that people say about England to your point about
the penalty shootout with SOCCA and Rashford, is that they
are choke artists somehow, But actually they've won one of
their four penalty shootouts in the World Cups and four
of their eleven penalty shootouts and tournaments overall. Like, that's
(27:50):
just not a big enough sample size to have any data. Really.
You know, if one penalty kick had gone differently in
one of those penalty shootouts, they would have won half
of their penalty shootouts and then nobody would have that narrative.
So I agree with you. I think the narrative that
you can't win is only true until you Win. I remember.
Not to make this about me, but I remember I
was a bowler. I got dumped in college. I mean
(28:11):
I got dumped repeatedly, but I got dumped once in college, devastatingly.
And I took up bowling after that. I went and
bowled every day by myself or with my friend Levin,
and I could never break two hundred until I did
break two hundred, and then it was easy to break
two hundred. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Once you do it, you
can't not do it. Similarly, here in Bodda, I you
know that there's this hill, this mountain called Bothios is
basically like the top of the mountain, and I wanted
to bike to the top because I see like old
guys biking to the top.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And then I just kept at it, and then I
did it, and now I.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Can do it. You know, it just happened. May it
happen for Arsenal? I hope?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So all right, let's take a quick break and I'll
be back with a story and some mail. We're right, okay,
(29:16):
So we're back on the away end. John, I have
a story for you, and this one starts when my
first book was published in two thousand and five, a
story collection called.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
War by Candlelight. Great book, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I was lucky enough to have it translated and publishing
lots of different places, including Peru, where I'm from. And
so for this very brief moment, I was kind of
well known in Lima, and as a consequence, I got
invited to lots of places to do readings and whatnot.
In the course of these readings, I met a guy
named Carlos who had this interesting job. He was kind
of like a liaison between inmates in proven prisons and
(29:51):
the state to try to help them advocate for.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What they needed.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
He built and kind of organized and funded or you know,
fundraised to create lots of workshops where they teach them,
you know, skills and whatnot. Anyway, so for his job,
he traveled all over the country and went to all
the different prisons, and as a result, he knew a
lot of people that I.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Was interested in getting to know.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And the reason is that my book had a lot
to do with politics, and specifically with the armed conflict
in Peru in the nineteen eighties, and he thought, and
I agreed, that it would be a good idea to
meet some of the protagonists of that conflict, many of
whom were in prison, and like maybe just fact check
my stories with them or sort of get their testimonies.
(30:37):
And since I was working on a novel that was
kind of also based on that period, I thought this
was just a fantastic idea. Now I went to one
of the prisons, and I went to another one, and
I just became kind of fascinated by this place and
obsessed with the different correctional institutions of Peru, mostly because
they were just like this world apart from everything, and
(30:59):
one thing you should know, improven prisons like the police,
they basically can control who gets in and gets out,
but they don't really control anything else that goes on
in the prison. And one of the prisons I visited, Lurigancho,
like the police actually couldn't go into the blocks themselves,
like they weren't allowed by the inmates. So this is
kind of like really alternate universe, and I was totally
(31:22):
fascinated by it. I met with lots of former guerrillas,
some of whom had known my uncle Haviert, who disappeared
in nineteen eighty nine, and that was a loss that
was like really formative for me and in some ways
like shaped my kind of adolescent brain and identity and
met me want to be a writer and a journalist.
I met people who had suffered tremendous losses and had
learned to appreciate them for the lessons they'd learn. I
(31:45):
met people who'd done some really awful things and worked
their whole lives to try to understand why. And so
basically every chance I got, I'd go to either to
one of two prisons, either Lurigancho, which is the largest
prison in Peru, which really looked like something out of
Dante when I first started visiting, or another nearby institution,
(32:05):
which by comparison, was almost provincial and relaxed, a place
called Casteo Castro. And in Costal Costro, I met another guy,
a young man named Manchitas. I don't actually know his
real name, a Manchez a kind of stain. And he
earned his nickname because he had this kind of light brown,
wavy hair, but he had a little wisp of gray
at the top, almost like like Leo Troussard, you know,
(32:27):
like just like and he'd had that since he was
a boy, so everyone called him Manchita's. He was from
the jungle. He was about my age, and what I
liked about him was he was so zen about the
prison sentence he was serving, which, if I recall correctly,
he was just serving because he'd driven a truck that
you know, it had cocaine in it and it wasn't
like a big time gangster or anything. He was just
(32:48):
kind of like, well, that was bad. And we talked
a lot about soccer. We talked about local soccer, We
talked about international football, the national team. You know, which
clubs we liked, who played well, who did in tactics.
And it was Anchitas who decided, at this point i'd
become kind of a fixture at Costa Castro, or at
least like a semi regular visitor, that he wanted to
see me play. So he spoke to the boss of
(33:09):
the block, the Taita, and then one day on one
of these visits, he informed me that the following week
there was going to be a game in my honor
and that I should come ready to play. It was
going to be an inter block match, so it was
like his block versus another block, and the Narcos block,
which was Manchita's block would be hosting the terrorists lost
(33:30):
Rucos he called them, which is mostly like members of
Shining Path, and I would be playing with the narcos.
So a couple things here, John, Yes, Costell Costro was
pretty chill compared to Rrigancho, And yes, I'd been visiting
this place by that point for more than a year.
And yes, lats OFO knew me and were pretty nice
to me. But you're wondering was I intimidated to play there?
(33:53):
And the answer is absolutely, I was intimidated to play there.
This is not like trying out for like the Indian
Springs High school soccer tea. Don you know me, I'm
not a big guy. I'm not strong. I have heard
about gyms and I know they exist, but I don't
frequent them. And so the whole thing seemed like a
level up from what I was able to do. But
(34:16):
such as it is, you gotta go, you gotta play.
And the day of the game, I went nervous, and
all the whole block was out to watch. They'd set
up benches along the side, and I remember it was
super hot, like it was one of those like summer
days in them. It's just blazing hot. There's it's all.
There's no trees, there's no shade, there's no nothing. And
the field was a cement prison yard in the Narcos block,
(34:39):
and it was not strictly speaking a rectangle. It was
kind of like one sideline was the wall of the
of the block, and it was interrupted at these regular
intervals by these kind of beams that jutted out into
the field of play, so that when you're running downfield
you had to be really careful, like weaving around them
so you didn't run into them. And then the end
lines right, so like one end of the pitch, if
(34:59):
you were to take the length from corner flag to
corner flag, although there were no corner flags, obviously was
about two thirds of length of the other end. So
it kind of like went down into a cone, right, trapezoidal, trapezoidal, yes, yes,
thank you for that geometry. Now, I know what you're thinking,
and you, like me, probably would assume that most goals
(35:20):
would be scored on the wider end, yeah, because there'd
be space, And in fact that was actually totally wrong.
We started playing and the narrow end of the pitch
was this like frantic like pinball machine of like legs
and knees such that like every time the ball went
down there, one way or another, it seemed to end
up in the back of the net. Again, there's an
asterisk on the word net because the net, the goal itself,
(35:43):
was just like three lines drawn like painted onto the
back of the prison wall.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So, anyway, first half, blazing hot. We the Narcos are
playing really well and we're winning, scoring a bunch of
really sloppy, weird you know goal on the narrow end
of the pitch.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
I don't remember really doing much with the ball except
like trying to get rid of it as soon as
it came to me because I really wanted to not
get tackled and not have someone break my legs. I
remember at halftime I was talking to Machita's and he
introduced my teammates to me, and I don't remember them all,
but I recalled that one of the defenders looked kind
of like a soldier. He was like tall and strong,
he was a defender, he had a buzz cut, and
(36:24):
it turns out that he had been a soldier and
he told me that he'd been a helicopter pilot in
the Proven Army. And then started using his flights over
the jungle to move cocaine. And then now he found
himself at Costa Costello playing a game of soccer with
me as his teammate, and he told me all this
without really smiling. We switched sides at the half and
(36:45):
we started survived.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
The real onslaught.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
They played with a lot of passion, the tarucos. And
this is kind of when I realized that I was
the guest of honor. And so there was this like
war happening around me. This is really violent and really
rough game. And then I had this little force field
of privilege protecting me. So there was like nobody, you know,
people were pulling out of tackles. You know, they were
(37:10):
like giving me an extra you know, like like when
you were playing with a child and you don't want
to like, you know, go intrevate it on them. So
this was like at the same time like very welcome
because I didn't really want to get hurt and also
like a little bit condescending, you know, like like come on,
you know, And so I had this kind of like
real push pull between like self preservation and like you know,
kind of like this the little tiny inklings of macho
(37:34):
nes of like, come on, I can handle this. It's
not clear that I actually could have handled it. But anyway,
the game's winding down and we're winning comfortably, and despite
the terrorist's best efforts, they can't seem to get close
to us. And I noticed this thing. The ref, who
was also an inmate, is about to blow his whistle
because it was full time, right, and Manchita's and the
(37:56):
tight that like like.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Ran over him. We're like no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And at that point I realized that the game was
not going to be over until I scored. Oh, of course,
because it was in your honor, it was in my honor.
And of course, at the moment that I realized this,
I proceeded to miss one sitter after another, you know,
like tap ins that I just somehow put wide of
the painted bar. You know, it was so mortifying because
(38:22):
at this point there's two squads of players looking at me,
the terrorists and the narcos, and they're all like, dude,
come on.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I want to say in my defense that it was
very hot. I was very tired, and I think the
stress and anxiety of playing in that environment which is
not my normal playing environment was very much sort of
like acting.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
On my nerves.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Anyway, When I finally finally scored, the ref looked over
to Manchita's, Manchita's nodded, and then the whistle blew. This
is the part I remember, because I kind of remember
like collapsing on the floor and looking straight up at
the sky and just being like dead. At some point
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Mantitas was
pulling me up and he said this thing to me
(39:03):
that really sort of stuck with me, and he said,
you got to go tell a terrorist they played a
good game. They really hate to lose.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And what a two sentence couplet that is.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, I mean, because if you understand anything about Proven politics,
like they'd lost it all. Yeah, you know, they'd lost
this you know, stupid maniacal homicidal war that had started.
They'd lost whatever shred of public support they might have
had in any sort of reaches of the Proven territory.
(39:40):
They had lost their leaders who were all imprisoned, and
you know, these guys had lost their lives because they
were going to be in prison for the next you know,
fifteen to twenty years. And I went over and tricked
all their hands in the same way that you know,
the same ritual that kids all over the world enact
after each game, where they're like good game, or if
(40:01):
you know it's now kids go g g gg gg. Yeah,
they didn't even say the whole thing. So I did
my version of gg g g gg with the with
the members of the Shining Path who happened to be
good at soccer, and and that was my one of
the most memorable games I've ever played, and probably one
of the worst games I've ever played also, But just
(40:21):
the end, I want to say, because Mantita's was such
a kind young man. He's, like I said, he's about
our age. Now he's out of prison, he's living back
in his hometown. He's a father and a husband, and
last I heard he was doing really great. And so yeah,
that's my that's my story, man.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
What a story. I mean. I am often reminded that
you have lived a thousand lives, but that story really
brings it home for me. Uh, that is an absolute
banger of a tale. My friend. You should uh, you
should start every dinner party with that one before we
(41:00):
serve the turkey. Can tell you about the time.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of years going
to the prisons in Peru, and I learned so much
there and learned from the people there, and I am
super grateful that I had that experience. Another time, I'll
tell you about the time I slept a night in Luiganto.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I'll tell you that's there another day. Oh, that sounds
like a good one too. It's also a really interesting
exploration as a story of how power works. That the
state has the power to imprison people but not the
power to define necessarily how they are in prison. That
the referee has the whistle, but not necessarily the power
to decide when and how the game ends. It's a
(41:39):
really interesting exploration of who really has the power in
different situations.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Well, you know, Ludigunchul. Every Ludigancho is like I said,
it's the other prison, it's the crazier one. And Ryguncho's
BA basically set up is like a map of criminal
life in Lima. So every block belongs to a district
of the city, except the two blocks for international and
national drug trafficking. Because those guys they're either from the jungle,
(42:05):
so they don't have any relationship to Lima. Really or
they're you know, Polish, Israeli, Nigerian, Colombian, Mexican, you know, Spanish, Italian, whatever,
and they don't could care less what's happening in Lima.
They're like, you know, it's irrelevant to them. And those
two are the blocks that have the most money. And
so what they do is that they find players who
are good from other blocks and they bring them to
(42:29):
their blocks, to Block seven and Block nine, so that
they can play for their team. And I literally had
a guy tell me, he's like, no, no, we're like
the real Madrid and Barcelona of this prison. When it
comes to sameon, we're the semi pro team. Yeah, because
we can we have you know, the transfer market after
each tournament is like, oh, who played well on Block eighteen,
come live with us, and they give them like a
(42:50):
cell and a bed and food and then that player.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Plays for them. Wow. It was crazy, Wow, totally crazy
as wild. Right, let's get to some of our mail,
which will feel a little disappointing after that incredible story,
but we want to begin with this email from John,
who writes, Dear John and Daniel, I've only gotten int
a Premier League fandom in the last couple of years,
(43:15):
and I'm wondering how you have handled this situation. I'm
a Chelsea fan and in the first leg of our
Champions League round with PSG, we lost five to two.
Then we came home and lost one nail to Newcastle.
And I am listening currently to the second leg of
the Champions League on my phone and PSG just scored
a second goal in the first fourteen minutes. Should I
smash my phone, tear off the Chelsea jersey my son
(43:36):
got me for Christmas and rip it to shreds, swear loudly,
or all of the above. Best John in an arbor, John,
I recommend that you take the Daniel Aracone approach to
this issue, which is that you somehow enjoy the joy
of soccer without not feeling too much of the pain
of soccer.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I have a chat with some friends. They're parents of
my son's friends in New York, and we're all Arsenal fans.
And there's one, you know, one guy' zen like me,
and one guy is like always about to blows top,
you know, like third minute of the game and he's like,
why are we not scoring yet?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I love them both. They're great guys, Joe and I
bey and they I always worry about Joe's heart, you know. Yeah,
so I think the option there could be an option E.
So yeah, the fifth option, which is like go to therapy.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I have just I decided a few years ago, and
this has worked surprisingly well for me to just be
less invested in losing than I am in winning, to
just enjoy winning more than I don't enjoy losing. Instead
of hating losing, I love winning. And I have found
this to be not just helpful for my football fandom,
but kind of helpful in real life.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I did realize at a certain point, if
Arsenal lost, like on a Saturday morning like my it
would take me to like noon or like two in
the afternoon to recover. And that wasn't really fair to
my kids and my wife, you know, my life in general.
So John in ann Arbor, good luck surviving the rest
(45:22):
of Chelsea's season, and I'm sure you're gonna be okay.
I got another question for you, this one I think
you'll like, Dear John, Daniel and Sean. I'm interested if
you think the Champions League's success of Bodo Glimpt might
have implications for the Norwegian World Cup run.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Huh wow. So Bodo Glimped is this relatively small team
from Norway that unfortunately just got kicked out of the
Champions League. They went into their second game with the
three zero lead and lost five nil, and so on
aggregator was five to three and they got knocked out
of the Champions League. But they still had a great run.
And I think a number of the Norwegian players play
(46:03):
at Boto Glimpt and I've always felt like if you
have that club team chemistry and you can bring it
to the national team, it helps, especially if you have
Erling Holland as your new striker. Yeah. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
The Boto glim story was one that I think that
if you love sport in its purest form, you had
to support them, You had to be happy for them
because the very small club. It's in a very small town.
I think the stadium is like ten thousand people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
They play above the Arctic Circle, with my understanding, and
they were these kind of like incongruously bright yellow jerseys
in a place where you know, it's like winter for
eight months of the year.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
There is no color.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
They play on a plastic pitch and they played some
really great counterteching football. I think they're always going to
do well. I mean, I think it does depend a
little bit on the form of Earling Holland and the
fitness of Martinodoguard.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, who has been in and.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Out of the Arsenal side this season because he keeps
you injuring his shoulder in some like freak accidents, and
early Hollins kind of dropped off a little bit. But
I don't know if that's just because Pep just decided
he wants to play that a striker.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Now or something. But we'll see.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
I'm excited to see what Norway does.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yah me too. I think they're gonna at least make
it to the UH knockouts, and then anything is possible.
We also have an email from Tanell in Estonia. I
apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name, who writes High Grade podcast.
Now that you have educated lots of people about the
off side rule, feel free to explain to us that
it doesn't always apply. Because the offside rule does not
(47:43):
apply in a throw in situation or in the team's
own half. This is very true and very important for Sean.
So Sean, when there is an off side. It's not
off sides if it's in the team's half, if it's
in the defending half, and it's not off sides if
it's on a throw. And in fact, just recently AFC
Wimbledon scored off a throw in off an offside throw
(48:04):
what would have been an off side throw in, and
it was the throw of my life. My guy Marcus
Brown scored one of the guys I helped pay for.
Wonderful you got all that done.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I mean, I'm just you know, I'm further confused. But
but what what Tanell is saying makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So all right, maybe we need to have tell explained
the offside role to you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, I got I got in a bit of a
of a fight, or rather I was I was yelled
at by a parent at west Side Soccer when I
was the kind of ref because I didn't call a
player offside because he started his run in his own half.
And then uh, and so this parent is berating me,
and I'm trying to explain to him that the offside rule,
what the offside rule is, and he could didn't believe me,
and it was it was unpleasant for everybody. There's also
(48:49):
these great moments. I don't know if you've seen this, John,
where like there's this great clip of Luis Suarez like uh,
signaling to the ref for a handball when it's the
goalie the oppos and goalies touching the ball. Or there
was one where Arsenal scored a goal because there was
a throw in to a player who was in what
(49:09):
would be an offside position and they went on to score,
and because the team which was.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Just kind of had a.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Collective defending brain freeze, just stopped the play because they
were off side, and they all raised their hand for
off sides and you're like, dude, this is a throw in.
What a you're doing? And then we basically walked it in.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's exactly what happened to a Wimbledon.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, Sean, I mentioned this because it's not just you
who doesn't know the rules. Sometimes the players themselves don't
know the rules in the heat of the moment.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
So don't feel bad, makes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Me feel makes me feel a little better.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Well, thanks to everybody for writing us. We love hearing
from you away ndpod at gmail dot com. Thanks as
always to Daniel and Sean, and also to our editor
Kurt for being here with us. We love making this
podcast for you and hope you enjoy it half as
much as we like making it.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Absolutely, we'll see you next week, guys. Thanks mm hmm
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