The World Cup, But Not Really

The World Cup, But Not Really

Whether you live for football or still can’t wrap your head around the offside rule, The World Cup, But Not Really is a non-sporty sports podcast like you’ve never heard before. Join culture nerds Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic as they ditch the tactics and analysis to explore the deeply human stories living on the sidelines of football, told while the world watches the biggest sporting event on planet Earth. From con men and jersey collectors to octopus pundits, dive into the chants, the emotions, go backstage at a stadium, and learn how blind football is played. Explore these stories and more in this celebration of everything football touches, and everything it usually leaves out.

Episodes

Kick Off: The World Cup, But Not Really

May 12, 2026 • 1 min
The World Cup, But Not Really is the football podcast for people who love football, and the people who don't. Host's Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic dive into the fascinating world that surrounds the game: the chants and the emotions, the stories off the pitch, jersey culture, a blind women's team taking to the field, and so much more. From the weird and the quirky to the deeply human, each episode explores what football really ...
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Why The World Loves Football

May 14, 2026 • 11 mins
Meet two culture nerds, Rune and Stefan - one who has always loved football, the other who can't kick a ball - and find out why they're making a podcast together about the world's biggest sporting event. They'll be talking to fans and players about what makes the World Cup unlike anything else, the way it suspends normal life, defines eras, and pulls people together under one flag. And Stefan introduces Rune to Paul the Octopus - t...
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Why We Chant

May 28, 2026 • 26 mins
In this episode of The World Cup, But Not Really, Rune makes the case that football chants are among the loudest and most important things humans do together. Stefan finds them unnecessarily aggressive. Rune sits down with Jorge Knijnik, Brazilian-Australian academic and lifelong football devotee, to unpack why chanting isn't just noise. It's belonging, carnival, and controlled war all at once. And Caroline Carnegie, CEO of Melbour...
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Collecting Football Jerseys & Memories

June 4, 2026 • 25 mins
What does a football jersey really mean? From a secret shirt swap in a Mexican tunnel in 1986 to a record-breaking auction sale of 7.14 million pounds, Rune explores how the humble football jersey has evolved from game day gear into cultural artefact, fashion statement, and serious collector's item. Rune meets Bryan Cush, originally from Northern Ireland and now living in Australia - a lifelong football obsessive and collector of v...
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Football, Soccer, Whatever

June 8, 2026 • 25 mins
Rune insists the only sport played with an actual round ball that you actually kick with your foot consistently should be called football. Stefan, who grew up calling it soccer and once won most improved, is not so sure. Joining them in this episode is Dr. Hunter Fujak, senior lecturer in Sport Management and author of Code Wars, to explain why Australia is unlike anywhere else on earth, a country of 26 million people somehow susta...
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The Australian Con Man Who Changed Canadian Soccer

June 11, 2026 • 24 mins
In this episode, Rune digs into the tale of Con Jones. Born Thomas Shortell, a Sydney bookie who fleeced a hundred punters on Melbourne Cup day in 1903, fled the country one step ahead of a mob, and washed up in Vancouver with a bag of stolen cash and zero history in football. Twenty-five years later he died wealthy, respected, and in a Soccer Hall of Fame. Rune talks to former ABC journalist, Trevor Thompson about how an absolute ...
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The Goalkeeper is Always Ready: Socceroo's Paul Izzo

June 17, 2026 • 27 mins
Is goalkeeping the loneliest job on the pitch? You're part of a team, but you're also doing your own thing, separated from everyone else by a strip of grass and some paint. In this episode we find out. We meet Paul Izzo, an Australian professional footballer, and one of three goalkeepers named in Australia's squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, currently playing at the Danish Club Randers FC, where we meet him. Paul explains the stra...
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Makers & Takers: How a Football Shirt Becomes Sacred

June 25, 2026 • 25 mins
How does one of the happiest jerseys in football, The Canarinho, become something some Brazilians can't bring themselves to wear? And how were iconic football jerseys from the '90s made? Those are the two topics Rune deals with in part two of the 'jersey episodes'. Rune tracks down Drake Ramberg, who spent 37 years at Nike and was part of the team in 1990s Europe that designed some of football's most iconic jerseys for clubs and na...
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When football finds a home

July 2, 2026 • 19 mins
Chasing that feeling of football and home, Rune stumbles into the story of the Homeless World Cup, and the people for whom that feeling isn't a memory, but a lived reality. In this episode, Rune meets Kuda, who arrived in Australia in 2008 to play in the Homeless World Cup and never left. A career-ending injury and a childhood without parents back in Zimbabwe could have been the end of his story, instead, a stranger asked him a sim...
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Playing in the dark: Australia's Women's blind football

July 9, 2026 • 19 mins
In this episode of The World Cup, But Not Really, Rune heads to a training camp to meet The Bilbies, Australia's women's blind football team, where five players plays in complete darkness, and he learns how the game is played. We meet the players and learn what it means to finally find their people, a group of vision impaired women who get it, after growing up isolated and without access to sport built for them. The team lays out t...
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Football, Men & Emotions

July 16, 2026 • 26 mins
Football stadiums and football viewing parties might be the last place where men are allowed to cry and be really emotional in public. In this episode, Rune and Stefan try to work out why. Stefan has been noticing grown men being really emotional all over during the Word Cup, and he goes looking for an explanation in the research and by chatting with Ben Vasiliou, CEO of The Man Cave. Through their conversation they chat about the ...
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The Art of Football Commentary

July 23, 2026 • 24 mins
In this final episode of ‘The World Cup, But Not Really’, Rune and Stefan take on football commentary from a handful of different languages, and dig into some of its most unforgettable historic moments. We travel through a few clips, starting at 1954, ending up in modern day football commentary, looking underneath ‘the commentary hood’ and talking about what’s going on during World Cups - and how it of...
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