In 'We Are the World (Cup),' Roger Bennett explores personal history with the tournament

Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Geoff Bennett: When the World Cup kicks off in June, billions will turn their attention to games spread across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

It’s an experience Roger Bennett likens to a solar eclipse, except the earth is completely engulfed not by darkness, but by soccer. I spoke with him recently about his new book, “We Are the World (Cup): A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event.”

Roger Bennett, welcome back to the “News Hour.”

Roger Bennett, Author, “We Are the World (Cup): A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event”: Thank you for having me, Geoff.

Geoff Bennett: So, Roger, the subtitle of this book makes the case, “A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event.”

Do you have a favorite World Cup game, a favorite memory?

Roger Bennett: I have so many. It’s why I wrote a book about them.

Look, the World Cup, which happens every four years, is the spine of my life, not just my life, but millions of human beings across the planet. It’s magical. And the book, I hope, is a magical telling of the power of the men’s tournament, which I have come to realize is like a solar eclipse that engulfs the entire planet for its duration.

That’s what we’re in store for this summer when it comes to the United States, Canada, and Mexico in just over 100 days’ time.

Geoff Bennett: And you have watched American soccer culture grow in the three decades since you came to the U.S.

How have you seen American fandom change in that time?

Roger Bennett: It’s incredible. I moved here right before the 1994 men’s World Cup, which was meant to turn America overnight into a football-loving nation. America then was like space to Captain kirk, the final frontier, still the biggest World Cup of all time in terms of attendance.

But it was like a circus that came and went. And tournament to tournament, the audience has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, also the Internet that’s allowed Americans to feel as close to the game as if they lived in Manchester, Liverpool, or Madrid. There’s now a massive young audience.

“The Economist” just said, Geoff, that football, soccer, is the third most popular sport in the United States. It’s just taken over from baseball. So this 2026 men’s World Cup will finish off what ’94 was meant to do and make America a true football-loving nation like the rest of the world.

Geoff Bennett: And one through line in your book is that the World Cup isn’t immune from geopolitics. You write that “Football at the end of the day is just a mirror to the societies that surround it. It tells you things.”

When you look back at recent tournaments, what patterns stand out?

Roger Bennett: It’s the joy of the World Cup, the depth. I think Walt Whitman, who would have been a football fan were he alive today, would say the thing that makes it contain multitudes is that, in a World Cup, when two teams take the field, their nation’s histories, their nation’s politics, their nation’s cultures take the field alongside them.

And, honestly, that’s what gives the tournament the unparalleled emotional weight, the power, the storytelling. It’s what makes it the most profound, when two Balkans teams who’ve warred take the field against each other, when Senegal plays France, the former colonizer, when England play Germany, when England play pretty well anybody.

There’s so many depths to the emotions that have been experienced. And ultimately that is what makes the memory so searing and profound for me and for millions across the planet.

Geoff Bennett: And, of course, this year, there are some major off-field storylines. You have the acting director of ICE saying that ICE will be a key part of security at the U.S. matches this summer. We all saw what happened in Mexico recently with the cartel violence there.

Guadalajara, which saw some of the worst unrest, is scheduled to host qualifiers as early as this month, in March. So is there any chance, any realistic chance that that could change the schedule or the locations of where some of these games are played?

Roger Bennett: What I can say is that every single modern World Cup, 2010 South Africa, the drumbeat going in was doomsday, the crime, the carjacking. Every fan who was going, it was feared that they would be — become instant victims just by walking the street.

It was the most deliriously joyful World Cup there’s ever been. 2014 in Brazil, I was there the summer before. There were riots, social and economic unrest all over the country focused on the football stadium. They wanted education. They wanted social services, not football.

But what happens is, once the ball is kicked, the second Lionel Messi takes the field, the rational and the doomsday falls off and the emotional kicks in and it becomes doomsday, say, is nil, cognitive dissonance one. And I believe, I hope, I pray that’s what will happen this summer.

Geoff Bennett: How’s the U.S. team looking?

Roger Bennett: Yes, we love a dream team in the United States. The men’s team has for so long been a dream-on team.

It’s a story of my lifetime watching Americans fall in love with football. Our women are perpetual world champions. Our men — I mean, this is amazing. We put a man on the moon, we invented the crooner, gifted it to the world. We have won one knockout game in World Cup history, which is an unfathomable, painful reality to me.

We don’t know how good we are because we’re hosts. We have not had to qualify. I can say we have got the most talented player-for-player roster we have ever been able to draw on in terms of individual experience and how they perform as a collective. Please God they will make our nation proud.

Geoff Bennett: If 2026 is someone’s first World Cup, as 1978 was yours, what do you hope they feel? What do you hope they take away from their experience?

Roger Bennett: The World Cup is like no other sporting event. The sense of global connectivity when a ball has been kicked in our world of chaos is such a precious currency.

So you will see Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo take the field for the last time at a World Cup. You will see in American streets in Kansas, off the field, as joyous as on it, you will see 50,000 Dutch men and women clad in orange marching down the boulevard, screaming to the links, to the recs, as they bounce to the stadium.

You’re going to feel passion. You’re going to see a world of connectivity. And I hope, like the rest of the planet, you will make some of the most joyful, most meaningful cross-generational memories that you will carry with you forever.

Geoff Bennett: The book is “We Are the World (Cup).”

Roger Bennett, no relation, always great to speak with you.

Roger Bennett: Geoff Bennett, you’re my cousin. You don’t have to be ashamed of it.

(Laughter)