How does football influence who we are?

We're here in Buenos Aires.

I guess one of the simplest ways to put this is that, uh, in my household, I mentioned I'm going to Buenos Aires.

"Girls, what do you want?" And the first order was, uh, "I want a Messi ten shirt." The other daughter was like, "Maradona ten." And the third said, "Nah, something a bit different.

I don't know, just surprise me, something a bit different, maybe a little bit more hipster." So maybe it's gonna be like a Riquelme or a Pablo Aimar River Plate or something.

That's all I said.

I didn't say I was even gonna be discussing football.

I said I'm just going to Buenos Aires.

It was synonymous with football and with th- these icons and, and these number tens.

What is it, Tony, about this, this game? And is it the same wherever you go?

Yes.

And the reason is I think that this game has been globalized to the point that because of satellite television, I think this really begins in, in the 1990s, that it facilitates a global civil society sharing in real time a set of experiences that are unprecedented, unprecedented in our ability to share them.

So when one point five billion people watch the World Cup together in real time, that was never possible, uh, you know, forty, fifty years ago.

Um, that essentially everybody is gasping at the same moment.

Everybody is cheering.

Everybody is elated.

It creates a, a, a real sense that, you know, time and space have been compacted i- in the era of globalization.

Of course, that's about money that, you know, that associate doesn't exist separately from a world economy that we know.

But y- it really strikes me that, you know, for example, I grew up in South Africa listening to BBC World Service report, you know, audio, uh, live commentary on Liverpool games.

Today, three hundred million people in Africa watch the Premier League every weekend live.

So I think the reason that your daughters have the sense of football as the global stage, the global performance of something exciting, something they care about, something meaningful, is a, a product of that.

I think forty or fifty years ago, they would have been unlikely to be making those requests.

And, and let me then ask you, Hani.

We're here in Buenos Aires.

I guess one of the simplest ways to put this is that, uh, in my household, I mentioned I'm going to Buenos Aires.

"Girls, what do you want?" And the first order was, uh, "I want a Messi ten shirt." The other daughter was like, "Maradona ten." And the third said, "Nah, something a bit different.

I don't know, just surprise me, something a bit different, maybe a little bit more hipster." So maybe it's gonna be like a Riquelme or a Pablo Aimar River Plate or something.

That's all I said.

I didn't say I was even gonna be discussing football.

I said I'm just going to Buenos Aires.

It was synonymous with football and with th- these icons and, and these number tens.

What is it, Tony, about this, this game? And is it the same wherever you go?

Yes.

And the reason is I think that this game has been globalized to the point that because of satellite television, I think this really begins in, in the 1990s, that it facilitates a global civil society sharing in real time a set of experiences that are unprecedented, unprecedented in our ability to share them.

So when one point five billion people watch the World Cup together in real time, that was never possible, uh, you know, forty, fifty years ago.

Um, that essentially everybody is gasping at the same moment.

Everybody is cheering.

Everybody is elated.

It creates a, a, a real sense that, you know, time and space have been compacted i- in the era of globalization.

Of course, that's about money that, you know, that associate doesn't exist separately from a world economy that we know.

But y- it really strikes me that, you know, for example, I grew up in South Africa listening to BBC World Service report, you know, audio, uh, live commentary on Liverpool games.

Today, three hundred million people in Africa watch the Premier League every weekend live.

So I think the reason that your daughters have the sense of football as the global stage, the global performance of something exciting, something they care about, something meaningful, is a, a product of that.

I think forty or fifty years ago, they would have been unlikely to be making those requests.

And, and let me then ask you, Hani.