World Cup | Migration and the New Asia | 7

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Legacy – World Cup | Migration and the New Asia | Episode 7

Date: July 21, 2026
Hosts: Afua Hirsch & Peter Frankopan
Main Theme:
This episode explores how two pivotal World Cups—France 1998 and Japan/South Korea 2002—became mirrors for migration, empire, identity, and the shifting global balance of power. Through personal stories, political context, and unforgettable matches, Afua and Peter interrogate whether the World Cup has lived up to its ideals of unity and inclusivity or simply papered over deep societal and historical fractures.

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Episode Overview

• Focus:
  • The legacy and symbolism of the 1998 and 2002 World Cups
  • The ways football reflects and shapes narratives of empire, migration, identity, and hope
  • The complexities of national unity and postcolonial realities exposed in and through the global game

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

France 1998: The Illusion and Reality of National Unity

• Opening Symbol:

  • Zinedine Zidane, son of Algerian immigrants, becomes the face of French victory (00:32–01:01)

• "Black, Blanc, Beur" ("Black, White, Arab"):

  • The press lauds the multicultural team, presenting it as a symbol of racial reconciliation, unity, and postcolonial transformation.
    • Afua:

      "France manages to completely bypass the problem by refusing to measure race or ethnicity and thereby declaring that it doesn't have any racial inequality at all." (04:55)

• Empire’s Return:

  • French colonial history and migration patterns are unpacked, with Afua critiquing the nation's focus on colorblind ideals that fail to address real inequalities (04:00–06:07).

• Far-Right Backlash:

  • Jean Marie Le Pen criticizes the team's "Frenchness," revealing ongoing national anxieties over race and belonging (06:07).
  • Peter:

    "His argument just seems to collapse under the weight of it." (06:21)

• Zidane as a Symbol & Scapegoat:

  • Zidane’s brilliance and volatility (his sending-off in the tournament) become metaphors for both triumph and the burdens carried by the children of migrants.
    • Peter:

      "You can see...he feels he's let down an idea...that he's shown he's not really to be trusted because he goes and uses physical violence." (08:00)

• Joy vs. Structural Change:

  • Afua’s nuanced take:

    "The joy is real, the unity is real. People really are able to transcend the things that often divide them in life...But...those emotional moments of joy...don't fix, in this case, the Banlieues or heal the wounds of the Algerian war, or as history would show, stop the far right." (12:10)

The 1998 Iran vs. USA Match: Sports as Diplomacy?

• Before kickoff, the Iranian team presents the Americans with white flowers; a gesture resonant in a context of decades of hostility (16:47–17:40).
• Afua reflects on the tragic evolution from gestures of peace to more somber symbolism in current times (16:47–17:40).

African Participation: Rise and Representation

• Nigeria’s Triumph:
  • Nigeria beats Spain; Africa’s increasing significance on the world stage (19:05).
• Ongoing Barriers:
  • Despite more teams and expanded participation, structural inequalities and limited victories for African nations persist.

Zidane and the Unresolved Legacy of Empire (19:40–22:42)

• Zidane’s rise embodies both hope and the unspoken wounds of the French-Algerian colonial legacy.
• Afua:

  "France has not been very good at creating a space to really exorcise and examine...the wounds of its colonial history." (20:00)

• The fleeting nature of hope—optimism of the late '90s quickly fades, especially post-9/11, as anxieties around immigration, Islam, and identity resurface.

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Japan & South Korea 2002: The World Cup Tilts East

• First World Cup in Asia:

  • "The center of gravity was shifting east." (25:26–26:11)

• Joint Hosts with a Difficult History:

  • The uneasy partnership between Japan and Korea echoes unresolved colonial trauma (27:42–28:15).

• South Korea’s Semi-Finals Run:

  • Peter:

    "The scenes in Seoul are completely astonishing. There are millions of people wearing the South Korean red shirt in the streets...turning the whole tournament into a national act of self-definition." (29:52–31:07)

• Soft Power Revolution:

  • Afua highlights the explosion of South Korean cultural influence from K-pop to beauty, connecting it to the nation’s confident self-presentation (31:07).

• Emergence of New Football Centers:

  • South Korea’s athletic ascent contrasts China and India’s relative absence, raising questions about what it takes for populous nations to become football powers (31:52).

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Senegal Beats France: Colonial History on the Pitch

• A Match Heavy with History:
  • Watching in Dakar, Afua describes the ecstasy of Senegal's 1-0 victory as a cathartic reversal of colonial hierarchy (33:15).
  • Afua:

    "All through the seasons, the hamatan, the wind that blows in from the desert in the winter, in the summer, scorching sun of summer, they're out there playing football. And so it's really a part of Senegalese identity." (33:15)

• The Role of Diaspora:
  • Senegal’s victory was shaped by players trained in France, coached by a Frenchman—a paradox revealing ongoing postcolonial entanglements (35:47).
• National Pride vs. Systemic Limitations:
  • Afua notes how even when African players achieve global fame, their home countries often struggle to leverage their talents for national teams.

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Closing Reflections

• The Tension of Spectacle vs. Substance:

  • Does democratization of football and the World Cup format truly level the playing field? Or does the narrative still favor legacy powers? (38:02–40:17)

• Olympics vs. World Cup:

  • Afua praises the Olympics for its diversity but acknowledges the World Cup’s unique narrative power—if only the circle of winners could expand (40:27–41:36).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the French team’s diversity:

  "It could not have been more diverse." – Afua (06:38–07:10)

• On sweeping history under the rug:

  "Europe...love[s] to sweep all of the unresolved baggage of empire, migration, racism, exclusion neatly under a rug, covered by this wonderful black Blanc bur flag." – Afua (07:32)

• On sport and hope:

  "The examples that you set are very powerful ones. Yeah, I guess it's because flowers and diplomacy and handshakes can speak much more than a football match can..." – Peter (18:23)

• On South Korea's transformation:

  "For South Korea, it wasn't just about football. It's about a country...now showing itself to the world on its own terms." – Peter (29:52–31:07)

• On the fleeting nature of unity:

  "That window in the late 90s was one where people were filled with hope, and that feels elusive in today's world." – Peter (24:26)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:32–01:17 – The multicultural French team; Zidane as central figure
• 04:00–06:07 – France’s colonial legacy and its erasure in public discourse
• 07:10–08:00 – The "Black, Blanc, Beur" slogan and its limitations
• 12:10–13:29 – Afua on real joy vs. deep, unhealed wounds in French society
• 16:47–17:40 – The 1998 USA–Iran match: sport as symbolic diplomacy
• 19:40–22:42 – The ambiguous legacy of Zidane and the failure to resolve colonial trauma
• 25:26–26:23 – The eastward shift: Japan/South Korea host 2002
• 29:33–31:07 – South Korea’s semifinal surge and the power of soft power
• 33:15–34:52 – Senegal defeats France: postcolonial emotion and significance
• 38:02–40:17 – Debating whether drama or quality defines a great World Cup

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Tone & Style

• Conversational but deeply analytical
• Balances personal anecdote (Afua’s time in Senegal, Peter’s at the 1998 semi-final) with sharp historical and sociopolitical analysis
• Critical yet hopeful, probing the limits of football’s transformative potential

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode of Legacy is essential listening for anyone interested in how the World Cup acts as a crucible for identity, belonging, and global change. It unpacks stories far beyond the pitch—stories of empire, migration, national memory, and fleeting moments of joy and unity.

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Transcript

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[Afua Haas]

In the summer of 1998, France won the World cup for the first time in its history. A million people flooded the Champs Elysees and the face they projected onto the Arc de Triomphe belonged to the son of Algerian immigrants from the back streets

[Peter Frankenberg]

of Marseille, Zinedine Zidane. And around him, a team that looked nothing like the old postcard of France. A defender born in Guadeloupe, one from New Caledonia, players born in Senegal.

[Afua Haas]

In Ghana, they called it Black Blanc, Burgh, Black, White and Arab. A new France supposedly reconciled with itself at last. And for one glorious night, the whole country and maybe the whole world believed it.

[Peter Frankenberg]

The trouble is, football has a habit of telling truths that politics would much rather keep buried. And the story behind that team runs straight through. Empire, migration and a war in Algeria that France spent 40 years trying to forget.

[Afua Haas]

Then, four years later, the entire tournament picks itself up and moves to a continent it had never once visited. East Asia, Japan and South Korea. And the center of gravity of the football world, maybe of the world, full Stop tilts east.

[Peter Frankenberg]

South Korea storms to the semi finals. China arrives, Brazil win a fifth title. And in the very first match, in one of the great pieces of historical theatre, Senegal beat France, the empire that had once ruled them.

[Afua Haas]

So today, two World Cups four years apart, that really did become less about football and more about who gets to belong, where power is and where it's heading next.

[Peter Frankenberg]

This is the story of how the World cup became a mirror for migration, for empire, and for a world tilting on its axis. Hello and welcome to a new episode of Legacy. I'm Peter Frankenberg.

[Afua Haas]

I'm Afua Haas.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And this is Legacy, the show that explores the lives, events and ideas that have shaped our world and asks whether they have the reputations that they truly deserve.

[Afua Haas]

This is the World cup migration and the new Asia.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Thanks for joining us on Legacy today to support the show. Please do sign up to Legacy.

[Afua Haas]

It means so much to us when you sign up to Legacy. It makes you part of our community. You can help shape what subjects we discuss and also enjoy early access Fewer ads Q&As. And bonus content like our episode on how the humble telephone rewired the way human beings talk to each other. Or the third exclusively members only part of our conversation with Gary Lineker where he gets stuck into racism in the game, the trouble with FIFA and the rise of the women's game.

[Peter Frankenberg]

So sign up on Legacy Supportingcast FM so afraid to understand the World cup of 1998, you have to understand the stage on which it was played. Because France is isn't just a football nation. France is also an idea.

[Afua Haas]

It's actually one of the most powerful national ideas in the world. We all know about the revolution, the rights of man, republican citizenship, laicite secularism, the promise that you don't have to be black, white, Arab, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim. You can be simply French, equal, universal. What a nice idea.

[Peter Frankenberg]

It's a nice idea and it's a beautiful one. But it sits on something that people don't like to mention, which is that France was also built through empire and exploitation. So for more than a century, French power stretches of course across north and West Africa into the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Algeria wasn't even thought of as a colony. Legally, it was France. Three French departments governed from Paris. Then you've got Senegal, Guadeloupe, Martinique, New Caledonia, Reunion, more and more and more, all drawn into this French imperial machine. And by 1998, all of that history had come home because post Second World War France had been remade by migration, above all from Algeria and Morocco and Tunisia, but also from Senegal and Mali and from the Caribbean, but also from places like Portugal and Italy and Armenia and beyond.

[Afua Haas]

And this is where the problems come in, because France has a very specific approach to diversity. Where we in Britain, for example, and especially people like me who work a lot on anti racism, bemoan the failure to progress more in racial equality and representation. France manages to completely bypass the problem by refusing to measure race or ethnicity and thereby declaring that it doesn't have any racial inequality at all. The nation's language is colorblindness. Are a citizen not an ethnicity or a race? Now that does sound like a lovely idea. We'd all like to live in a world where we're not racialized. But the problem is you can't become post racial unless you acknowledge how racialized you are. And in France we see that more clearly than ever, because the children of empire in big cities like Paris, for example, mostly end up in the Borneus, the suburbs that have become, in French, a shorthand for sub social injustice. And inequality, unemployment, heavy policing, racism, exclusion. And the war with Algeria only ended in 1962, leaving what is for many people an open wound in their family stories and their own identities.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And then on top of that, you got the far right under Jean Marie Le Pen, who capitalizes on the whole project of immigration. And Le Pen goes after the football team directly in the 90s. He sneers that some of the players don't sing the Marseillaise and that they aren't really French. So this is the team that's going to go on and win the World Cup. And his argument just seems to collapse under the weight of it. So it's an incredibly important unifying moment, partly because these players, AFWA, they're from everywhere.

[Afua Haas]

What a team it is. In 1998, Zinedine Zidane, born in Marseille to Algerian parents. Lilian Thoram, born in Guadeloupe. Christian Kerembu from New Caledonia, Patrick Vieira, born in Senegal, Marcel Dasailly, born in Ghana. One of our very own Thierry Henry with Caribbean heritage. Yuri Jarkeff, of Armenian and Polish heritage. Bichonte Lizrazou, who is Basque in heritage. It could not have been more diverse.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And the press finds a label and a phrase that defines the summer, as you said, afwa, black blanc beurre. And it's a play on the bleu blanc rouge, the three colors of the flag. And it's a brilliant phrase, but is it afwa, too kind of neat and tidy? Does it make. Does it sort of paper over so many cracks that need. That allow things to get kicked into the undergrowth?

[Afua Haas]

I think so. I think it does what many European nations would love to do, which is sweep all of the unresolved baggage of empire, migration, racism, exclusion neatly under a rug, covered by this wonderful black Blanc bur flag. And for a football team to rally around this flag without it being able to tell the truth about their identities and struggles is a lot to ask of 11 men and a ball.

[Peter Frankenberg]

But let's give them their tournament, though, afwa, because they earn this success, unfortunately, they're going to beat Croatia in the semi finals. I was there for that. But France opens by beating South Africa 3 0. They then beat Saudi Arabia 4 0, and then they beat the Danes too. And so, even though the triumph has an edge, Zidane is sent off in the Saudi match for stamping on an opponent and has to miss the next two games. And I've seen Zidane, in fact, over the course of the weekend of him going back to the dressing room in sort of disbelief of what he's done because he knows that he should have been sent off. And realizing that he's let himself down, he's let down the French, his teammates. But also you can see that as he sort of sits in sadness and devastation in the dressing room all on his own, that he feels he's let down an idea of he thinks that he's played up prejudices, that he thinks that he's shown that he's not really to be trusted because he goes and uses physical violence and that sort of look of absolute horror in his face. Very moving. But you know, Zidane was mercurial. He was brilliant. You didn't take him on. He was a genius.

[Afua Haas]

And he was a genius who held his volatility just beneath the surface so that sometimes it would spill over. And remember that, because it will come back to haunt him eight years later. But in spite of Zidane being sent off, this French team is unstoppable.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Peter yeah, I mean, they're fantastic. They beat Paraguay on a golden goal. They beat Italy on penalties, and then the semifinals against Croatia. Croatia go 1 nil up. Fantastic goal. But then Lillian Thuram scores twice. He's never scored for France before. And then he scores twice. They're two fantastic goals. But it's a kind of dream final, you know, if you're the host country to get to the final, it's kind of an amazing national unity. But unfortunately for France, they're playing against Brazil, who are widely thought of as being the best team in the world with Ronaldo. And the venue is really important because St. Denis, it's not the front of the Eiffel Tower or the Champs Elysees. It's in a working class suburban north of Paris where it's filled with industry, manufacturing, migration, inequality. It's in the banlieue. But no one thinks that France will have a chance against the all powerful Brazil looking for a sixth title, as

[Afua Haas]

you said, the defending champions with Ronaldo, who at this point is the best player on earth. And then the strangest thing happens, Peter. Hours before kickoff, Ronaldo suffers some mysterious kind of convulsive fit at the team hotel. Did we ever get to the bottom of what that was? Peter there's always been lots of chat

[Peter Frankenberg]

about it, whether it was something to do with his girlfriend, whether it was something to do with his mental health. It was something to do with an injury that he was carrying. It was an argument within the team. But, you know, whatever it was, it couldn't have been worse. Time. So his, his name is taken off the team sheet that's declared for the final and then it reappears and in the final, he plays like a ghost. He looks like a ghost, he plays like a ghost. So it doesn't make Eddie impression on the game. I don't know quite what happened, but it's one of those strange stories in the World cup where he was out of the frame. And the French play a fantastic match.

[Afua Haas]

The French were merciless. And Zidane, the boy from Marseille, now back in the game, scores twice with his head, both from corners. I remember those goals, Peter, and a goal has to be pretty special for me to remember it because I was not following anywhere near as closely as you. And Emmanuel Petit adds a third, third goal in injury time. So it's not even close. France win 3 nil, making them world champions for the first ever time.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And a million people take to the streets in Paris. Zidane's face lights up the outer Triomphe. President Chirac, like all good politicians, capitalizes on it too. Everywhere there's a language of unity. This is a France of many origins that's far finally at ease with itself. The children of empire who are now the heroes of the Republic. Do you think, Afro, that these kind of moments of manufactured or, you know, of unity, that they could, they need, they can be taken at face value or do we need to. To work through them a bit more cautiously?

[Afua Haas]

Oh, they're very real. And that's, I think, what makes football so compelling and actually irresistible, because the joy is real, the unity is real. People really are able to transcend the things that often divide them in life. Class, race, people, background, immigration, status, faith, and feel this communal pride in what this diverse team, representing all of them in a way, has actually managed to achieve. So. So that joy and sense of triumph is real. I think where the layers come in is that we often project onto those moments too much. We want them to solve the actual structural, historical problems, we want them to heal the wounds, we want them to help create a future that's meaningfully different. And the problem is those emotional moments of joy, they make everyone feel better for a short period of time, but they don't fix, in this case, the Borneus or heal the wounds of the Algerian war, or as history would show, stop the far right. They gave people a beautiful image that allowed everyone to temporarily suspend the challenges and suffering and struggle of the deeper problems for a night, or even a day, or even a week or a month, but not forever. Peter.

[Peter Frankenberg]

I Think that you're right, that they are real but they can flatter to deceive. So when we come back, let's talk a bit about the wider tournament. In particular the game between Iran and the United States that stops the world for 90 minutes. Those echoes important again here in 2026. And also the uncomfortable truth that hides inside Zidane's two headed goals.

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[Peter Frankenberg]

1-800-contacts. So the 1998 World cup wasn't just about France. It was the first World cup with 32 teams. And that expansion genuinely matters. I mean, we mentioned that before the last episode about this current World cup having 48. You know, it does democratise. It opens up a tournament away from just being the closed world of European and South American teams. Suddenly there's room for Africa and for Asia and for the rest of the world. And that's a very positive thing for football. Even. Even if not every team has a chance of winning. It's great to have the family of nations all competing.

[Afua Haas]

I actually can't believe it was only in 1998 that there were 32 teams in the World Cup. That's not that long ago. I mean, to me it doesn't feel very long ago. And it's hard to really take it seriously as a World cup when there were fewer than 32 teams, Peter, don't you think?

[Peter Frankenberg]

Yeah, that's right. But on the other hand, you do have the qualified tournaments, but that's not quite the same as watching Gibraltar and Faroe Islands playing Romania or whatever. It's quite exciting. But it's the fact that you've Got all these teams in one location, or now they're spread in three different countries. But it's the fact that you've got all the tournament all happening over a short period of time. World cup qualifier flies have played out across a couple of years with matches home and away. But, yeah, having. Having everybody in a kind of tournament setting, it does feel and it is different. So when you've got lots of teams there, of course, that makes a. A big difference. And, you know, but at the time of this World cup, you've got teams like Jamaica making their debut that, again, it's a, it's a, It's a joy to see teams that haven't. You haven't seen play before. I mean, and in fact, even though I'm a football fan, there are lots of teams when they come to the World Cup, I haven't had a chance to see because you don't get to watch countries in other parts of the world with their tournaments all the time. But then there's a match that everybody who watched it hasn't forgotten, which was Iran against the United States.

[Afua Haas]

Well, again, this is a familiar story, but at the time, it was a big deal to see these two countries that had had no normal diplomatic relations with each other since the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis of 1979. So they are adversaries, and if not actually at war as they are in this World cup, it's a very, very charged atmosphere. And before kickoff, the Iranian players walk over to the American players and hand them white flowers and then all posed together for a photograph. This World cup, there was a very different and I think, really tragic symbolism, Peter, where the Iranian team posed with little girls backpacks representing the children who were killed in an American airstrike in the early days of the war with Iran. So it's actually a sad story to think that things have deteriorated so much even since that pretty problematic moment in 1998.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Well, this time we've also had, you know, whether Iran would be banned from coming. They weren't allowed to stay in the United States. They've had to leave the stadiums at midnight to fly back to their base in Tijuana. And then. And then they've had a goal so controversially disallowed for offside that saw Iran get knocked out. But, you know, it was a symbol about how sport can override politics. And that gesture of handing out flowers in 98 was not. Didn't change the world. But it's a way that these players can recognize that they're not part of the political administrations. You know, in the same way that the people playing for the United States are not the Trump supporters. They're not representing the president of America. They're representing their country and they're representing themselves. But, you know, it was wildly celebrated in Tehran because of the symbolism of a country that had been basically detached completely from the US since the revolution in 1979, felt that its dignity was. Had been compromised. And sometimes it's not colonialism, of course, and no one is going to shout out in favor of the tolerances or kindnesses of the regime in Iran in 98 any more than they would do now. But I think that the ways in which sports people can carry themselves with dignity is a matter of hope, because the examples that you set are very powerful ones. Yeah, I guess it's because flowers and diplomacy and handshakes can speak much more than a football match can, too. But tell me about the African teams, Alfred, that play in 98.

[Afua Haas]

Well, this was a big tournament for Nigeria. Nigeria beat Spain 3:2 in one of the group games. Morocco were unlucky, and Tunisia and Cameroon were back in the fray. So Africa was a real substantive part of this tournament. And I think this is now the beginning of the modern era where there is no World cup without a serious African presence. And we'll be in that phase until an African team wins the World cup, and then we'll be in the era where Africans are contenders for the trophy. But I think the deeper story of 1908 leads us back to Zidane.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Tell me about that, Afra. About the ambivalence of the fact that he was the son of Algerian immigrants and was the most loved man in the country. But at the same time, that was. Was not quite. How do you mean that? I know you've thought about Zidane. You know France well. You know, how do you see the relationship between France and Algeria, North Africa in particular?

[Afua Haas]

Well, I am critical, I think, of all European nations, how they deal with their history. But I think even by those quite. By this quite high bar, France has not been very good at creating a space to really exorcise and examine in a healthy way the wounds of its colonial history. Very recent as it is in the case of France and Algeria so far into the 20th century. So if we just take a step back, France conquers Algeria in 1830 and becomes a place where very many French, white French people settle. And right up until the War of Independence, which goes on from 1954 and 1962, you have this complex situation where you have many Algerians migrating to France. They tend to be Muslim. They are often in poor housing, working low paid jobs, often multiple jobs, and living on the margins of French life. Something that many French people don't really want to acknowledge is a kind of structural issue around race and Islam and migration. But you also have many white French people who are traumatized by the war in Algeria, who live there, who are involved in fighting against independence. And all of this is still part of the often unspoken context of French life. Zidane comes out of this story. He is offering French people, I think, a way of kind of bypassing some of this trauma and just embracing a narrative of hope the problems are solved. We have this gleaming symbol of integration, assimilation, a man who loves the country, plays for France. And that is, I think, obscuring a lot of the suffering that is ongoing at this point. And of course, when you obscure things, they end up eventually coming into the light one way or another. And in this case, when Zidane scores those two goals in the final, all of that baggage is wrapped up in that moment of triumph.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Peter and yeah, it also does feel like the dawn of something of a more open, multicultural, confident Europe, one that's more willing to have these conversations and to negotiate the complexities of colonialism and to be more honest about it. But it is also sort of a brief window because within a few years, a lot of those arguments head in a different direction about immigration or perceived excessive immigration, about Islam, about secularism, the rise of terrorist attacks, about who really belongs, about that moment of optimism and hope feels like it's kind of an elusive moment in time that everything kind of comes together. You know, it's just a couple of years before, three years before 9, 11, and then invasions of Iraq and the world becomes more complex too.

[Afua Haas]

That really speaks to me, Peter, because I remember 1997, 1998 and 1999. I mean, new labor won a famous general election victory In Britain in 1997, speaking a language of kind of Cool Britannia, embracing its multiculturalism. 1998, you have Zidane as the hero of the World Cup. And it feels like the past structures of injustice and racism, colonialism, are going to kind of just progress into a better future. And I think that was how I felt coming of age. You know, I turned 18 in, in that era feeling that all of those problems are the past and our generation is going to just have a different experience. This is obvious, this is progress. We just move forward. And unfortunately, I look back on that as a real kind of last gasp of that time of optimism. Because you know where I think that I'd been so conscious of black struggles in the latter half of the 20th century, after 9 11. In 2001, Muslims became probably the most demonized group in Europe. And France, more than anywhere else, is still grappling with Islamophobia, with this fear of the Muslim other, with the rise of the far right, with all. All of these narratives about migration that they're destroying true French culture. And you can cut and paste that onto any country in Europe. So it looks, looking back, as if Sudan is kind of the symbol of that sunset of optimism where everybody wanted to buy into this idea that everything is changing, and it is changing, just not as optimistically as we all would have liked.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Well, look, I think that let's all live in hope as well. You know, I think that this window in the late 90s was one where people were filled with hope, and that feels elusive in today's world. But look, when we come back, let's talk about a shift to a far bigger axis to the east and the first World cup that is ever held in Asia.

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[Afua Haas]

So 2002, the World cup does something it has never done before, even though it's existed for 72 years, at this point, it leaves the Atlantic World. Every previous tournament had been held in Europe or in the Americas, which eventually was going to start undermining the idea. It really was a World cup. So. So this feels like an inevitability. This World cup moves to East Asia,

[Peter Frankenberg]

and not just to one country, but to two. So it's hosted in Japan and South Korea, and that's the first time they've been joint hosts in the tournament's history. And from my point of view, it's the moment when geography of football admits something that the global economy already knew, which was that the center of gravity was shifting east.

[Afua Haas]

Okay, it's hard for us to find things. You know a lot about Peter in this podcast, you know, because you're so lacking in expertise, but I feel like this is A special topic where you can have something to say. So tell us about that eastward shift.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Well, I guess it depends how you want to measure things. But I mean, in the early 1990s, China reforms its whole economic model partly because it wants to avoid going the same way that the Soviet Union does. And that opening up of China in the late 90s takes us to China joining the WTO in 2001. Since that time, China's economy has grown something like 15 times and has become an economic powerhouse. Japan and South Korea in the post Second World War era built themselves up to be manufacturing and financial centers of excellence. And then on top of that, you've got other countries in Asia coming up the outside too. So that shift of the world's largest continent, home to more people in Asia today than all the other continents combined, meant that there was a moment where you couldn't exclude, you couldn't just push people out. And, and you know, the number of football being played in South Korea and Japan had been rising sharply too. So it was a kind of right moment, I think, to be thinking about what a World cup really meant. But you know, amazing, like you said, AFRAV, it's taken 70 years to host a World cup outside the west or Europe, South America, Central America and United States. It's going to take another eight years for it to be hosted in Africa for the first time. But I think all these things, it's better to celebrate that they do happen rather that they never had.

[Afua Haas]

I'm fascinated by these co hosting arrangements because right now we're seeing Mexico and Canada which have had some very choice words to say to the US under the Trump administration, all trying to kind of present this United co host front for the World Cup. Japan and Korea strike me as slightly uncomfortable bedfellows as co hosts because they in a very separate but maybe comparable history have a lot of baggage, kind of, you could describe it as colonial baggage, historic trauma between them. So how does that work?

[Peter Frankenberg]

Well, very deep roots, the traditional way. I mean partly because of the experience, not just a colonization but of war and the so called comfort women, you know, women forced into sexual slavery. The best way to do that is pretend it didn't happen. You know, history as a way of papering over all the cracks can be quite effective too. And in some extent it suits Japan to keep that quiet. And it's keep, you know, South Korea of course wants to acknowledge it, but the relations between the two countries have become normalized and peaceful. But they are not without their complications because of the particularly the first half of the 20th century. So it gets sold as an idea to help reconciliation. But there's definitely major rivalry between the two. Both countries want prestige, they want to be a reflection of modern Asia. But that dark history is bubbling onto the surface too. But I mean, as a World cup goes, it's immaculate. I mean, we've seen that every time the Japanese team play, even here in the United States and Canada, Mexico, after Japan plays, all the fans stay in the stadium and pick up all the rubbish, put it all in bin bags and hand it all in. And nobody else does that. So the organization was immaculate, the stadiums were fantastic. And it was, it was a great atmosphere, the World Cup.

[Afua Haas]

And then there's the actual football as well. South Korea did something quite extraordinary, Peter, under the Dutch coach, Gus Hidink. They played with really memorable energy. And you'll know this better than me, but had South Korea really been much of a presence on the football world stage before 2002?

[Peter Frankenberg]

Not really. We talked about North Korea in 1966 and one of the great sort of surprise victories over Italy and then going 3 nil up against Portugal in 1966. No, South Korea had a decent side, but they get the whole way through to the semifinals. They beat Italy in their knockouts, they beat Spain. I mean, they are the first Asian team ever to reach a World cup semi final. And the scenes in Seoul are completely astonishing. There are millions of people wearing the South Korean red shirt in the streets. They're watching on giant screens and they're turning the whole tournament into a national act of self definition. Because for South Korea, it wasn't just about football. It's about a country that had been shattered by war in the 1950s, been ruled by military dictators for decades, had only democratized quite late in the 1980s. It had hosted the Olympics in 1988 and survived the financial crisis of the late 90s. But it was now showing itself to the world on its own terms. And South Korea, because they've had to think quite hard about their national identities, have been the best, I think, in countries in East Asia, possibly even globally, in projecting its soft power. South Korean food itself, music, it's fashion, it's visual arts, it's manufacturing. You know, South Koreans have thought quite hard about how to present themselves and how to be a fully modern, modern state. So they did a great job.

[Afua Haas]

Mother of a 15 year old here. I can tell you with some confidence that South Korean culture is winning in the soft power stakes because the anime, the food, the music, the K pop, the Skincare, it's huge. Beauty. I mean, we now have to kind of build into our travel itineraries. K Beauty sourcing, you know, it's, it's quite hardcore for these, these teenagers. So whatever they're doing, it's completely working. But back to 2002, they become the first Asian team to reach a World cup semi final, which they do by beating Italy and Spain in the quarterfinal. But Italy and Spain have some views about how those matches go down. Peter?

[Peter Frankenberg]

Well, it doesn't help that Francesco Totti, the great Torino striker, gets, gets sent off. The complaints they carry or rumble on and on and on. People could be bad losers. But South Korea makes the world, the football world, look east. And in the same way that Cameroon had done that to push Africa onto the football map in 1990, South Korea doing that too. China, they get to the World cup for the first time in 2002. They lose all three of their games, don't score a goal. In fact, they haven't qualified for this tournament either. And it's amazing. China, population 1.4 billion people, so footballing terms, it's nothing. But, you know, it's seeing some of these great powers on the planet not performing at the World cup ever. India, we were just talking about before we started recording about why India never makes it to the World cup finals. You know, I think it's, it's an interesting question about how truly global is it if there are these big gaps, the two most populous countries on earth not there. And given that 48 countries made it this time, it's quite, it's not that hard to get there. But you've got to invest in some of the infrastructure. You've got to think about how do you, how do you build up your domestic game. And for all sorts of reasons, India and China haven't managed to do it in the same way that South Korea have. But I know after we talked about this before too, that you're you. We talked about Senegal and France as the kind of signature lineup rivalry of colonized versus colonizer. Tell me about the Senegal France game.

[Afua Haas]

I will never forget that game. I was watching it in Dakar with my Senegalese friends. It was. And you know, Senegal is a predominantly Muslim country. People don't drink or not publicly anyway. It's not like debauchery, the level of ecstasy that I experienced in Senegal for that match, it was all, all just the raw emotion off the charts. Their country beat France and Senegal is a legitimately football obsessed society. I mean, anywhere where there's like A patch of dirt. You will see kids running around barefoot or with flip flops, kicking a football. You know, it's hot, it's Sahelian, right near the border of the Sahara desert. But all through the seasons, the hamatan, the wind that blows in from the desert in the winter, in the summer, scorching sun of summer, they're out there playing football. And so it's really a part of Senegalese identity. And colonialism from France is still very visceral in France. And, you know, there's a whole kind of unique history of resistance against French colonialism in France through these Sufi clerics, that kind of rally people. So this all gets poured into the national pride, the sense of reversing historic misfortune, tune of triumphing over oppression. And it's just an incredible match. They score a goal through Papa Bouba Diop and beat France 1 nil. And for Senegal, that was essentially winning the World cup, that was everything. I mean, obviously they would have liked to have won the whole tournament, but in a way, it didn't matter that they didn't, because once they beat France, dreams had been realized beyond imagination.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Also because France are defending champions. They're not just the former imperial power. They are the best team in the world. You know, people think they're going to repeat their. Their triumph of 98 and win again. So. So it's. It sends shockwaves through. But I think it's interesting about the idea, Afra, of. Of postcolonial football and how it actually works, where talent and training and labor and identity. You talked about it before how.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

What.

[Peter Frankenberg]

What the incentives are if you come from Senegal or Ghana or wherever it is, that if you have dual heritage, that the advantage of playing for England or France, you'll be better paid, you'll be more celebrated and so on. There are tensions, I guess, in who you play for. But, you know, Senegal, with a small population making it all the way to the quarterfinals this time, you know, it's. It's a. It's a tribe of how small countries over perform at world cups, too, because they've got their play. They feel that they're playing not just for pride or for glory, but they're playing for their place in history, too. There's something about that as well, isn't there?

[Afua Haas]

Oh, absolutely. And I think that Senegalese people are actually very literate in their history, their oral histories. You know, they are the legacy of these ancient Sahelian kingdoms. There's a lot of culture bound up in the ways people relate to football and these kind of contests. And they are underdogs. I mean, they're not a particularly rich country, as you said, they're not a very big country. They don't have a lot of resources. And, you know, it's different from a Nigeria or a Cameroon or a drc, which, you know, all have their own struggles, but have this incredible resource base. Senegal's main economic output is peanuts, like, literally groundnuts and fish, which has been in decline, you know, ever since the EU started overfishing those waters. So this is an underdog in every sense of the word. And it's just a lot of heart and determination. And you see as well, and we were talking about this in the last episode, a lot of Senegalese players have been trained in France. They've been playing in the French league, like Papa Diop, for example, and their coach, Bruno Metsu, is French. So this is what I mean by when African players come back and play for their home country, they're bringing skills and experience that are genuinely valuable. And one of the things that African countries still bemoan is that more of their players won't come back and play for the home nation, that they are playing in the French team or the English team instead of playing at home. And, you know, sometimes it's complex. I mean, these are players who may be born in France or England, grown up there. So it's not that necessarily, they don't have a right to play for England or France, but what it means to Senegal to have these players playing for them is the difference between remaining obscure on the football world stage and scoring a historic victory like this one.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And as it comes to the final, again, it's the. It's the two great powerhouses of world football. Brazil against Germany. It's on a fantastic final. They win, Brazil win 2. N Ronaldo, he redeems himself after the shock of 98 and the underperformance in that final by scoring twice. But those two teams today, Brazil and. And Germany, have won nine World cup tough finals between them. So it feels very much like the same old, same old. I think a bit like Wimbledon.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

You.

[Peter Frankenberg]

You kind of wanting a. A new team to come through that French had done that in 98. So few countries have. Have won the World cup. And Brazil, I mean, I just shoehorned that in for perhaps for a future episode. This is at a time when the BRICS term has been coined of a New World Order in Brazil, Russia, China, India, all coming up as a sort of New World Order, too. It's a little bit early now, but I think that the idea that the world is switching and so moving into a new world where traditional powers look slightly different, the ways in which expectations are changing. I don't know whether with the World cup in the Western hemisphere, the best attended so far, by far the most lucrative and by far the most inclusive in the number of countries that are playing. Whether you think that the democratization of football, we talked about that last time too, how important that is. Do you think that if games are cheap and free and lots of spectators, do you think it's the. Do you think the quality of the football matters actually? Do you think that drudgery and one nil results and nil nil games, do you think the football matters after? Do you think the spectacle and the drama of a couple of big results like Senegal beating France, that's what you define a good World cup on?

[Afua Haas]

I think if you're a hardcore football fan and Peter, I might put you in this category, kind of the quality of football doesn't matter because maybe you know enough to find something really stimulating to see anyway. But if you're like me and you're not that knowledgeable about football, you don't watch a lot of it. It does matter because what's often happened is that I'll decide to watch a game only for it to be either a nil nil draw, which is so boring to watch, or one with like these hair raising penalty shootouts that are so stressful and kind of use up your month supply of cortisol. So it's genuinely a different experience when people are playing at their best, when there are goals, when there are incredible saves, when there's a lot happening and I think, you know, you want goals, this is football, you want to see those goals. And whenever I watch a game where there's a lot of actual goal action, it's a much more exciting experience. And also when it's really one sided, it's a bit sad as well. You want it to feel like a good contest, but where through incredible talent they get goals through despite how evenly matched they are, that's the ideal game.

[Peter Frankenberg]

So I've dragged you through a few of these World cup episodes now and I'm very grateful because it's been great to think about the World cup through a slightly different lens. But would you pick Olympics or World Cup?

[Afua Haas]

Well, obviously Olympics has a number of sports, including football, so it's kind of a win win. But I do really warm to the narrative. World cup has such a great narrative because, you know, at the Olympics you do this medal tot up and who gets the most medals, but really there's no substitute for one nation emerging. Such a clear story. There's one winner, one nation. I think the problem with the World cup is that, as you were saying, it's often a small handful of nations who keep winning over and over again. So. So I think that, like how the Olympics allows you to learn about nations you didn't know about and see what they're really good at. The more that there can feel like a genuine competition in the World cup where everyone has a chance, then the more you can really ride that wave of who emerges as the winner. But I do think there is something about nations all competing at one sport and a sport that essentially has the potential to be such a level playing field because it's just these talented players on a pitch with a ball that we can all kind of understand. You know, even if you're a young child or somebody who knows nothing about football, you can understand the message and the hope in that.

[Peter Frankenberg]

I hope you've been enjoying our World cup series and to think about the roles that legacies and colonialisms and other things play through these World Cups. A question of identity. So thank you as always, for listening to Legacy.

[Afua Haas]

If you love our show and want to support it even more, please sign up to Legacy. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes, episodes, early access, fewer ads, Q&As and much more. Go to Legacy Supportingcast FM.

[Peter Frankenberg]

And for everything else, including our substacks and updates on TikTok and Instagram, just check out the show notes or search Legacy Podcast. I'm Peter Frank Pen.

[Afua Haas]

I'm AFWA Hash. And we'll see you on the next episode of Legacy.

[Peter Frankenberg]

Santana Oneness Tour 2026. From Woodstock to Supernatural and beyond with very special guest, the Doobie Brothers. Get tickets [e-mail].