The World Cup Story, Part 3: ‘FIFA, What Have You Become?'

**Ryan Knutson** (0:11)
We've had five solid weeks of World Cup fever.
High highs. And low lows.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:24)
No, no, no, no, no, what are we doing?

**Joshua Robinson** (0:26)
No!

**Ryan Knutson** (0:28)
There was politics.

**Jonathan Clegg** (0:30)
The president called the head of FIFA to discuss the controversial red card.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:33)
FIFA on Sunday shocked the tournament by sidelining the suspension.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:37)
Controversy on the field.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:39)
Surely this is not within VAR's remit to review this. It's the full length of the pitch away.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:46)
Foreign fans discovered American delicacies.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:49)
Ranch.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:51)
I love ranch.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:52)
I tasted it.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:53)
It's delicious. But even all the ranch dressing couldn't drown out that quintessential soccer emotion. Heartbreak.
Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg, Both of your teams got knocked out in the semifinals. France and England. I'm so sorry.

**Jonathan Clegg** (1:12)
Fortunately, 40 years of experiencing this heartbreak over and over and over and over again has sort of inured me to a crushing disappointment.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:22)
I mean, and Josh, I feel like France was one of the favorites.

**Joshua Robinson** (1:26)
Yeah, but it was a distinctly French thing to do, which is produce the most beautiful thing imaginable from most of the tournament and then revert to a completely different French emotion.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:37)
Which is what?

**Joshua Robinson** (1:38)
Which is utter disgust and contempt.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:42)
Now, the tournament is down to just two teams, Spain and Argentina. They face off on Sunday. Ahead of the final, I got back into the studio with Josh and John to talk about the World Cup so far.
What are some words that you would choose to describe this year's World Cup?

**Joshua Robinson** (2:01)
The word I'd use is epic in every sense of the word. Simply because of the size and scale of this whole thing, whether it's the sheer number of teams who are in this, the sheer number of fans who came over.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:13)
What about you, John?

**Jonathan Clegg** (2:15)
Super size. In keeping with the American setting for this World Cup, it's just been enormous, sprawling, different countries, different time zones. But a spectacular run of games has made it a huge success.

**Joshua Robinson** (2:30)
We're going to look back at the 2026 World Cup as a kind of BCAD moment in the history of the tournament. It's never been this big, it's never been this ambitious, and it's never been this unapologetic about itself as a commercial enterprise.

**Jonathan Clegg** (2:45)
It was the World Cup where they realized that there is not enough, there cannot be enough World Cup. There always needs to be more.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:55)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Friday, July 17th.
Coming up on the show, how this year's North American World Cup has changed the game of soccer forever.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:29)
This episode is presented by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.
This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most.
Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:40)
How many games have you guys watched in person?

**Jonathan Clegg** (4:43)
I think I've been to 10

**Ryan Knutson** (4:45)
Wow.

**Jonathan Clegg** (4:45)
10, so.

**Joshua Robinson** (4:46)
I've been to 17 games so far.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:49)
17?

**Joshua Robinson** (4:50)
And I think taken 22 flights. I'm basically a flight attendant now.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:57)
That was before the semifinals when we first spoke. It's now gone up to 12 games for John and 20 for Josh.
All right, well, let's talk about the football itself. This has been the biggest World Cup ever. There's 48 teams instead of 32 How did that work out?

**Joshua Robinson** (5:13)
I think we were initially skeptical about the 48 team format and thought that it would create a lot of mismatches and a lot of teams that just didn't really belong at the World Cup. Pretty quickly, we realized we were wrong about that.