World Cup

Elephants participate in a football game to kick off the World Cup fever as part of an anti-gambling campaign at the ancient Thai city of Ayutthaya on June 13th, 2018.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

A dancer looks on during the opening ceremony prior to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Group A match between Russia and Saudi Arabia at Luzhniki Stadium on June 14th, 2018, in Moscow, Russia.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

The latest entry in a special project in which business and labor leaders, social scientists, technology visionaries, activists, and journalists weigh in on the most consequential changes in the workplace.

• By Natasha Iskander

A round-up of news and research on stadium spending gone wrong.

• By Max Ufberg

For many, the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games represent missed opportunities to tackle health problems and inequality.

• By Catherine de Lange

The most famous teams from the Netherlands were glorious failures—at least to outsiders. In a nation that often prized an ideal over tangible results, some might have to come to terms with a new team that's two games away from the country's first World Cup title.

• By Suhrith Parthasarathy

Because almost no country does.

• By Noah Davis

In a country where immigrants haven't always been welcome, politicians champion Die Mannschaft as an integrated model of diversity.

• By Brian Blickenstaff

Sometimes a national team looks nothing like the country it represents.

• By Will Parchman

The number of immigrants in a country doesn't seem to have an effect on how diverse its national team is. If anything, it appears that ethnic and racial minorities get pushed toward soccer.

• By David Keyes

The idea of Italian identity has always been a weak one, and the brief, oncer-every-four-years flirtation with the national team just brings those issues into sharper focus.

• By Vanda Wilcox

The massive, multicultural, multiracial nation initially struggled to find a uniting identity—until everyone started playing and watching the sport brought over by the British.

• By David Goldblatt

This post recognizes it is adding to the noise—but remains hopeful that it also says something valuable about the future of media coverage.

• By Noah Davis

Most domestic American players don't make that much money, but with new collective bargaining negotiations coming up, a good performance from the U.S. National Team could help to change that.

• By Clint Irwin

A rumored death threat from Mussolini, what was ostensibly an on-field boxing match, and an egregious handball doubling as payback for the Falklands War.

• By Kevin Lincoln

As soccer picks up fans and followers in the U.S., entrepreneurs are betting that they’ll be able to make a lot of money off of a sport that’s already enormously popular elsewhere. Will their bets pay off?

• By Kyle Chayka

Unlike many of the great Brazilian players, Sócrates, who didn't become a professional until age 24, remained an outspoken political voice up until his death three years ago.

• By Dave Zirin

It's not easy to make a pop song that appeals to the entire world.

• By Elliott Turner

Bosnia and Herzegovina makes its maiden voyage to the World Cup this summer, and Croatia will be playing in its fourth tournament, but the memories of Yugoslavia—and the what-if questions—have yet to fade away.

• By Jon Arnold

Club soccer has surpassed the international version of the sport in just about every way: better pay, better players, better teams. And yet, come Thursday, the world will still be watching.

• By Luke Dempsey

The author of Football Against the Enemy talks to us about the way the game has changed over the past 20 years, the globalization of America, and his son's angry kindergarten teacher.

• By Ryan O'Hanlon

A fraction of one percent of FIFA's total profit from the tournament.

• By Andrew Guest

Despite the country's lack of success on the international stage, Iran's relationship with soccer has always been an intimately political one.

• By Suhrith Parthasarathy

At games for the U.S. National Team, fans brag about being back-to-back World War champs. They're being less sarcastic than they realize.

• By Aaron Gordon