The World Cup is here. People who have never expressed the slightest interest in the beautiful game will be perched at the water cooler, preaching the gospel of France’s elite forwards or the brilliance of Portugal’s midfield. It’s that special time once every four years in which the United States becomes a fútbol nation, willing an oft-disappointing National Club to new heights. 

The bandwagoners don’t tell the whole story, though. We wanted to hear from the football obsessed: people who live and breathe the sport year round. So, we tapped people in our orbit whose professions span music, sport, fashion, and design to get their perspectives on why football is the world’s game, and why so many people in the States are finally catching on.

Of course, some of it has to do with the coming World Cup. The event is on North American soil this year, with matches split between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Besides that, the US team boasts some impressive talent, from coach Mauricio Pochettino to Chris Richards, the sterling center-back from Birmingham, Alabama who plays for Crystal Palace in the Premier League. 

Richards, one of the 11 people we interviewed for this story, is relishing the opportunity to play in front of his home crowd. “At a time where the world is messed up, this is a big chance for everybody to see what it means to be together,” he says. “I’m glad that we’re able to do it on home soil.” We also spoke with American football legend Cobi Jones, in addition to fans and personalities attached to the game: everyone from comedian Adam Friedland to NBA player Adem Bona to Tora Northman, digital director of football-chronicling PLAYERS magazine. 

Throughout our conversations with this eclectic group of fanatics, one thing became clear: the sport may not dominate the cultural conversation in the US, but football is universal. Soon, people across the globe will live and die with every pass, shot, save, and goal. When a champion is crowned, many will go back to baseball, basketball, and football (the American kind). But for these 11, and millions of others, the start of the Premier League will just be a month away. 

Sage Elsesser (Navy Blue), rapper, producer, professional skateboarder

Team: Arsenal

How did you get into football?

I had a little schism where it was like, do I try to fulfill the dream of being a professional footballer? Or do I go down the road of skateboarding? I remember playing a match as a child, and I saw some kids skating at the same park. I was so distracted by them. I made a decision that weekend like, “You know what? I’m going to start skating again.” But football is definitely embedded in who I am. It’s the greatest sport ever. It has something special that’s kind of inexplicable. 

Growing up, my dad gave me Arsenal. He was like, “If you’re going to support a team, this is the team to support.” I was born in 1997 so I grew up in the Invincibles era. Thierry Henry was an idol of mine. I loved Nicolas Anelka. I just loved the Black players; that representation was needed in my eyes. I’ve been supporting Arsenal for 22 years. I got to experience the ultimate high, but it has also been tough. 

Do you have a favorite player? 

I have my moments with [Bukayo] Saka as I think most people do, but god, I love him. I love his character and who he is. He’s definitely our star boy. Beyond the fact that he’s an incredible footballer, I just love how he carries himself. I’ve never heard him say a cross word or cuss.

Where do you watch the games?

I’ve got a few friends who are huge Arsenal supporters. I’ll talk with them, but I’m not the guy that goes to the pub and hangs out. I need to be on my couch alone so I can yell at the TV and do what I need to do. It’s a very personal thing. I want to be here in my safe space.

Do you still play?

I find that anytime I play football, I hurt myself. Even when I’m just playing pickup. I’m a professional skateboarder, and I hurt myself more having fun on the weekend, kicking the ball around. I still love it, though. There’s a part of me that transports back to being a child. It’s really childlike. 

There’s always going to be the weekend warrior guy who’s going a little too hard, so you have to be really conscious of the people you’re playing with. I was playing with some of the Mexican dudes on Chrystie Street a couple summers ago, and that was really fun because they’re older guys and a lot of them will play midday. They play hard, but they’re not trying to kill you. 

Cobi Jones, LA Galaxy and USMNT legend

Team: LA Galaxy 

How did you get into football? 

I was the typical American kid who just enjoyed playing the game. There was no soccer on TV when I was growing up. You couldn’t watch Arsenal or Real Madrid. In high school, we all paid five or ten bucks and went into the back of a Mexican restaurant and they’re playing a UEFA match via satellite TV. That’s what soccer was back then. 

I was always one of the better players, but I was never the top player on any team. There were so many talented players in Southern California. And people develop at different times. I was never the superstar at a young age, but I had a passion for the game. I loved the game.

Growing up, I think there was one other soccer player in my whole valley who was Black. The first Black coach I ever saw was in college. Think about how strange that is. I was trying to survive and battle it during those younger years, but as I got older into my 20s and 30s — especially as people came up to me to tell me how I affected them — I appreciated it so much more. It can be taxing, but I think that comes with a job. It comes with being an adult. That was the norm in my family. My mom and dad are from the south, man. Mobile, Alabama is about as south as you can get. 

You played in the iconic first-year LA Galaxy kit, right? 

Yes; it’s one of my favorite kits. It’s iconic to the club and the organization, and it will always come back in some form. I loved my kit at Coventry City, the sky blues. And let’s not forget the US jersey. When the 1994 jersey was first shown to us, we were all like, “What is this? Are you kidding me? You guys got to change it.” You look back 32 years later and people are fighting to get their hands on it.

Tora Northman, digital consultant and creative strategist

Team: Liverpool, Barcelona Femení

How did you get into football?

My dad was a professional athlete. I think he wanted a son so the second I could walk he was like, “Here’s a ball, here’s how you kick it.” What’s beautiful about Sweden is that women’s football is so visible. Every single girl I knew played football for a local team after school from age five or six. It was very, very common for girls to play.

I’ve been following Liverpool my whole life; my dad is a massive fan. Growing up, I followed a couple of Swedish teams, but the Premier League is the one I continuously watch and follow.

What is football culture like in London?

It’s amazing. Even if you don’t care about football, you’ll always be around it. My friends and I meet at the pub and watch tons of football games. There are a lot more women’s games being shown at pubs, which is really nice. 

I play 11-aside games every Saturday in a pretty competitive league. My team is probably the least competitive because we’re the only team without a manager or a coach. We’re still a very good team, but we like to have fun as well. Most other teams have male coaches. All the referees are men. It’s really interesting to see that dynamic play out even at the grassroots level.

It’s grown into this amazing thing; elevens has become our bread and butter. We’re a women’s club with a men’s team, which I love. We also play a lot of mixed games with a men’s team and a lot of friendlies with other clubs across London. It’s so easy to play. I’m not saying that it’s easy to get really good, but it’s very easy to play. You just need a ball, and you don’t even need much space.

Adam Friedland, host of The Adam Friedland Show

Team: Arsenal 

How did you get into football?

I was on a gap year program, and half the program was from Northwest London. Half of them were Spurs fans, and half of them went for Arsenal. The Spurs fans talked as if they were Real Madrid. They’d be like, “Jermain Defoe is better than Thierry Henry,” just with their chest. So I chose Arsenal. Also, Arsenal was one of the best two teams along with Manchester United. United felt like the Celtics. Arsenal felt like the Lakers. I’m a Laker fan. I like crossovers and dunks. They had cooler guys.

What’s it like being a football fan in America? 

An American fan is lame. I have to justify it by being a snob, by understanding tactics and “juego de posición” and the Ajax philosophy that changed the game. It’s kind of like being a gay guy in the 1950s and you meet another confirmed bachelor and you start whispering. Being an Arsenal fan has made me a better person, though. If I was a Real Madrid fan, I’d probably cheat on my taxes and think I was going to live forever. This is a reminder: you’re going to die one day. Any time anything good happens, you’re reminded that death is imminent.

So you watched the Champions League?

Yes, and I’m exhausted right now. I can’t even think about the World Cup. I need to literally have one of those Mylar blankets around me after the Champions League final. When I start talking about it, I sound like an insane person, but right now it is an insane moment. I’ve been in ’Nam, in the Da Nang province. I’m still in Vietnam. I have malaria and trench foot.

This has been embarrassing. It’s been a humiliation ritual to talk about why I care so much about this sport. I should literally do anything else with my life. But I choose to do it. It’s my way to waste the precious gift of human consciousness.

Roger Bennett, founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network 

Team: Everton 

How did you get into football? 

I’m from Liverpool where football is like high school basketball in Indiana — it’s in the air. I remember my first match: April 1, 1977, going with my dad to see Everton play for the first time. The rivalry between Everton and Liverpool is a bit like Auburn and Alabama: The city is divided. Families are divided. In my family there are some reds and some blues. There is no explanation as to why you’re a blue or why you’re a red other than birth. When Everton and Liverpool play, it’s agony to watch because it almost matters too much. 

We’d be different people if we hadn’t chosen Everton. My dad once said, “We’d be awful people if we were Liverpool fans. All we’d know would be winning. We’d take everything for granted. What we have is knowing that life is hard, joy is fleeting.” 

How did Men in Blazers — which started as a podcast analyzing football and became a whole media network — get its start?

In 1995, the team I loved got into the semi-final of the FA Cup, a big game. I had 365 cable channels in Chicago, but none of them were showing the game. I had to call my dad to hold a phone up against the radio in Liverpool and ran up an enormous long-distance phone bill. 

In 2006, ESPN had invested heavily in the World Cup for the first time, but they had baseball commentators as the broadcasting face. When [one of the announcers said], “The world’s most famous football player, Charlie Beckham takes the field,” I just screamed. By 2010, though, ESPN had given Men in Blazers this new thing called the podcast, and we were able to weave together a community of Americans who’d fallen in love with the sport. The second episode, the guest was Liam Neeson. He wanted to talk about football. We realized in that moment that, A, there was an enormous audience, and B, there was an enormous desire. The conversation was rich and meaningful and beautiful and life-affirming, and everything we built has come from that moment.

What does the World Cup mean to you?

The World Cup is a storehouse of profound memories: joy, pain, glory, despair, every single human emotion. With the Super Bowl, 200 million people are watching. Five billion people are watching the World Cup. We just finished a World Cup in which Mbappe and Messi went on this personal jewel, and it was magnificent to witness. At the end, Messi was victorious. In that second, we watched one man stop being a man and become immortal. That’s the power. 

Chris Richards, center-back, USMNT and Crystal Palace 

Team: Crystal Palace

How did you get into football?

My first memory of falling in love with this game was the 2010 World Cup. I remember the US versus Algeria — the Landon Donovan goal at the very end. That was the moment I realized this was something special for me. Growing up in Birmingham [Alabama], the only way we could play good teams was going out of state. Every weekend we were in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi. We were all over the Southeast. They were long weekends because a lot of us couldn’t afford to fly. We were driving to all these places and getting back late to go to school on a Monday. My parents hate when I say this, but I remember getting these letters home from my club team saying that I had overdue fees. It’s crazy that the game that I was paying for now pays me.

When I was 13, I remember seeing the Premier League. I saw Manchester City win on the final day, and that was my first time being like, okay, this is sick. I was a big Ronaldo fan growing up, but it’s not like I had a favorite team. Once I started understanding what professional soccer was, the Premier League became the goal. I knew I wanted to play for the national team.

What was it like for you to get to that level of play?

My mom is white and my dad is Black, but I think the world perceives me as a Black man. I always felt like an outsider being a Black kid playing soccer. In Germany, I started seeing more people who looked like me. When I got to London, I really saw it. In Europe, everybody plays the sport. There’s a reason it’s called the world’s sport. 

[Playing soccer] felt like a chance for me to express myself, but it also put a lot of pressure on my shoulders growing up because I felt like I had to be a role model for other kids who looked like me. Once I started playing professionally, that pressure increased. Now, I love being somebody people look up to. That’s what I want to achieve with soccer. I want to be the reason a kid picks up a ball: because they see something in me that they feel like they have as well.

Mirko Borsche, graphic designer

How did you get into football?

The first time I encountered football was during 1984 for the World Championship. I think the first jersey I saw was the French one. I was begging my parents day in and day out to buy me one of these jerseys. I finally got one, and now I have four. I don’t think they’re all in my possession — it could be that one of my kids is running around with one of them. But there are four somewhere. I was always interested in football, and I actively played until the end of my 30s. After a certain age, you get injured all the time. 

What is football culture like in Germany? 

When it comes to the second- and third-division in Germany, it’s crazy. I really like that part of German football fandom because people still go to the stadium. You have a third-league game, which is, for example, 1860 Munich, you have 20,000 people in the stadium. This club is losing half the year, and people still come. That’s something special. 

Politics goes right-wing because people don’t talk anymore. They don’t meet in places where different opinions come together. It’s maybe one of the last democratic places where people from all levels of income, all political beliefs, all religious beliefs can have a discussion and have a good time together. We mostly meet people who have the same beliefs that we do. Then, we’re astonished when a right-wing party has more than 25% of the vote in an election. Things like this could be easily solved.

You’ve done re-designs for iconic football clubs like Inter Milan and Venezia FC. How did that happen? Was it always your goal to merge football and design? 

From 2014 or 2015 on, we worked with Nike, but we mainly did basketball and running. Then, one guy [from Nike] was asked if he knew agencies who could do a redesign for Inter Milan. And he thought of us. 

At the same time, another guy in New York was buying Venezia FC, and he asked one of his friends if he knew any agencies [who could work on a redesign]. Fortunately, that friend worked for Supreme. And we did drops for Supreme for years. 

So, both projects came to us around the same time: in 2021 and 2022. I was more than delighted. Working with Inter Milan was a “holy cow” moment.

Adem Bona, center and power forward, Philadelphia 76ers 

Team: Arsenal

How did you get into football?

I was introduced to Arsenal through my two older brothers. They’re crazy fans. During the time of Thierry Henry, that’s the only thing they put on TV. We either watched at home or at viewing centers; in Africa, there are viewing centers where a bunch of guys watch the games. We’d go and sit in front. We’re all tall, and there were always people behind us getting mad at us. We would argue with people all the way in the back. I remember that excitement, being passionate about the team. Today, my brothers and I are still fans. We conference call on game days. 

When I was at UCLA, I was more into the UCLA soccer team. We had an amazing women’s team, and we produced a lot of great players. Our men’s team was also pretty good. One of my friends from the UCLA men’s team now plays for the LA Galaxy. 

Are there a lot of fans in the NBA? 

There are a good amount of soccer fans in the NBA. Some of them played growing up. I keep tabs on Arsenal fans. I know Jeremy Sochan is a huge Arsenal fan; we watched the game together last year in Emirates. [Josh] Richardson from Miami is a huge Arsenal fan. Larry Nance, too. My teammate, Dominick Barlow, is a United fan. I don’t know why he supports them, but does. Joel Embiid is a Real Madrid fan at the same time as being an Arsenal fan. I fight with him. I’m like, “You can’t support both teams,” but he tells me he’s been supporting Arsenal since before I was born, so I guess he gets a pass. 

Felicia Pennant, journalist and SEASON zine founder

Team: Chelsea

How did you get into football?

I fell in love with football when I watched the Euro 2004. It was the summer I turned 13, and I was bored. I was like, “Oh, this is on.” I got really into it because it was the knockout stages, do or die. In the final, everyone said Portugal was going to win. It was in Portugal. They had the legend Figo playing. They had a very young Ronaldo; I think he was 17. But Greece came out of nowhere and won. It was this ultimate underdog story. Everyone was crying at the end and I was like, “Why are they crying?” Then something clicked in my mind: “This is a really strong emotion. I’m into this. Let me start following football.” 

I went to a school where my uniform was tudor, so it was quite distinctive. I was already very aware of how powerful clothing can be, what it can communicate and represent — how the history of something informs the present and the future. Then I went to Saint Martins and studied fashion history and theory. I met so many people there who were also obsessed with football. In England, it kind of slaps you in the face everywhere. Apart from the fact that I’m a woman, people are always surprised that I’m into football as a creative person. 

When did this modern football obsession with fashion kick off, in your opinion?

Beckham was the blueprint for how footballers were starting to commercialize their image and make money and make waves in fashion. I also loved the incredible David James Armani ads in the 90s, where he’s cast as more of a gladiator. You also have the moment in 1998 during that World Cup when David and Victoria went out and he wore a sarong. The British press slaughtered him for that. 

That was a turning point where you had someone who was unprepared to take risks being like, “This is what I’m going to wear.” In the Beckham documentary, when you watch him talk about how he was and how he saw things, it makes total sense. It was completely un-self-conscious. These days, footballers are very much curated and tailored. He just went out like that. It felt more authentic. 

Lukas Korschan, photographer

Team: Eintracht Frankfurt

How did you get into football?

Football is all I did as a kid. I’d go to the football grounds until the lights went on, and then I had to go home. Back then in Frankfurt, every football pitch was crowded. Winner stays on, so you had to win the games. Otherwise you’d sit there for hours waiting for your turn again. 

Another of my vivid childhood memories is going to the games with my grandfather. We walked to the stadium, and there was this one spot where you could see part of the pitch from outside. We would stand behind the fence and watch the game, just that one little corner. 

How did you end up photographing so many football players?

It happened very randomly. I never thought I could marry photography and football. But the aesthetics in football changed dramatically: There’s much more of a merger between those worlds now than there was 10 years ago. At least commercially. All these high-fashion brands have football players in their campaigns, and they sit front row at fashion shows. That wasn’t the case when I was starting out. The players are now much more interested in these scenes and want to be part of them. 

I’ve gotten to photograph my childhood heroes. When I was a kid, I couldn’t make a distinction between Mickey Mouse and a football player. They were all fictional characters that I watched on TV. It’s been funny to have it become my job. One of my favorites I’ve worked with is Zidan. I even named my daughter after him.

Demit Omphroy, artist

Team: Manchester United

How did you get into football?

My dad played growing up and in college. We had such a big football family. I remember him blasting a ball against this cement wall we had in our front yard, and I started chasing the ball and kicking it. I was about four years old. I loved it and wanted to play in an organized league, but at the time four was too young in California. I had to wait until I was five, and I remember crying about being too young to play.

But eventually you started playing. 

I played for a couple of years, and then I started getting scouted by these European academies. So when I was 15, I actually left high school to go to Sporting Lisbon in Portugal to play at their academy. After a year, I had a health thing come up and I had to come back. That prompted me to take a step back and say, “Maybe it makes sense to be here in the US, get an education.” I went to Berkeley, which was in my backyard growing up. It felt like a way to say, “Look, if football doesn’t work out, you have your degree, you have something to fall back on.” Ultimately, I ended up being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Everything happens for a reason.

How does football manifest in your life today?

From a discipline perspective, football taught me about work ethic and consistency. It also has different forms of expression and style. That’s from the player perspective. As a fan, football provides community. It’s always going to be a constant. It’s going to remain a form of connection with my family and my friends, and sometimes even a connection with myself. I’m really happy about that. It wasn’t always like that, especially when I stopped playing. There was a little bit of, “I’m upset with [football] right now.” After a couple of years, I let go of a part of myself with the game. But that allowed this newly formed love to start to grow again.