Podcast
The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.
Hosted by Philipp Gollner · EN
The academic treatment for English-speakers who get that soccer is more than gamedays, stars and goals. Who wonder about the histories, subcultures and politics that make the game so different from many American sports cultures; and who care about a critical take on soccer as a global capitalist machine. A European-guided journey, with one expert "visiting professor" each episode.
23episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
World Cup 1994: An American Game, Revisited
1w ago01:01:16Tap to summarizeIf you're old enough — what do you remember about the 1994 World Cup?And if you're not, try to picture it. Soccer in the United States before MLS existed. Matches inside the Pontiac Silverdome, a domed football stadium in Michigan — humid, bizarre, and somehow full. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Record attendances that still haven't been broken. A tournament that, by most outside, European or Latin American accounts, had no business working as well as it did.The standard story is that 1994 planted soccer in America. FIFA arrived, the world showed up, and a nation discovered the game. Tom McCabe thinks that story gets it almost exactly backwards. He is a historian, a filmmaker, and the co-host of the podcast An American Game, and he currently teaches at the University of Notre Dame’s London Center. His documentary Soccertown USA follows Kearny, New Jersey — a small industrial town that produced three players on the same 1994 national team: Tab Ramos, John Harkes, Tony Meola. His argument is simple and unsettling: the game was already there. It had been there for a century. 1994 didn't plant anything — it just showed up late to something that immigrant communities had built long before FIFA came looking for a market.And that matters now, in the summer of 2026, because the World Cup is back, and so this is a look back b7t just as much a prep episode for what’s about to happen here. I’m torn about this World Cup. But if we're going to understand what this tournament means — who it's for, what it reveals, what it might actually leave behind — we need a better story from then to now. And that is what this conversation is about.Music throughout this episode are huts from 1994, some of you will feel nostalgic: Ace of Base. Weezer. Beck. Roxette. All from that year. And Bruce Springsteen, whose Streets of Philadelphia uncovered a very different side of America, in that year as well. HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Soccertown USA (full documentary, Youtube)An American Game (podcast)NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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Eurovision Reactions: a Special Episode with Phil Harrison
2w ago00:56:05Tap to summarizePhil Harrison, a former Visiting Professor on soccer in Albania before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and me are giving our take on the song contest in Vienna this past Saturday. A very helpful visual breakdown of all points - jury and public - is HERE.NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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2/2: The Eurovision Song Contest - Campy, Chaotic and Completely Serious
3w ago00:54:27Tap to summarizeEurovision has many things that soccer does - underdogs, spectacular collapses, bloc loyalties, political scores settled through performance, and a continent watching the same spectacle at the same time. And this year, the Eurovision Song Contest, a live-for-TV music contest with continent-wide public voting, is happening in Vienna, this coming weekend. Why there? Austria won it last year.Here is a primer of, a short debate about, and a quiz about the Song Contest. And an outlook on how this year will go down. Plus many short clips of musical Eurovision highlights that came up in our conversation. All with 4 fans, of the contest and of football:Andy Payne (England - West Ham United, chair of the fan advisory board)Justus Römeth (Germany - Union St. Gilloise, BeUnion fanclub)Julia Gollner (Austria - Sturm Graz, and orchestra harpist in Flensburg, Germany, and my sister;)Songs from the episode: Athena - For Real; Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah; Måneskin - Zitti e Buoni; Abor & Tynna - Baller; Kalush Orchestra - Stefania; Alf Poier - Weil der Mensch Zählt; Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede - Love Love, Peace Peace; Let 3 - Mama ŠČ; Cosmo - Tanzschein; J-Ax - Italia Starter PackNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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1/2: The Eurovision Song Contest - Campy, Chaotic and Completely Serious
3w ago00:47:30Tap to summarizeEurovision has many things that soccer does - underdogs, spectacular collapses, bloc loyalties, political scores settled through performance, and a continent watching the same spectacle at the same time. And this year, the Eurovision Song Contest, a live-for-TV music contest with continent-wide public voting, is happening in Vienna, this coming weekend. Why there? Austria won it last year.Here is a primer of, a short debate about, and a quiz about the Song Contest. And an outlook on how this year will go down. Plus many short clips of musical Eurovision highlights that came up in our conversation. All with 4 fans, of the contest and of football:Andy Payne (England - West Ham United, chair of the fan advisory board)Justus Römeth (Germany - Union St. Gilloise, BeUnion fanclub)Julia Gollner (Austria - Sturm Graz, and orchestra harpist in Flensburg, Germany, and my sister;)Songs from the episode: Sandie Shaw - Puppet on a String; Katrina and The Waves - Love Shine a Light; Abba - Waterloo; Erika Vikman - Ich Komme; Guildo Horn - Guildo hat Euch lieb; Dana International - Viva la Diva; Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah; Windows95man - No Rules!HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Babbel’s Intro to the Eurovision 5-minute interval act at the 2016 contest (in Sweden) that explains, in humorous ways, how winning the Eurovision “works.” Spoiler: love love, peace peace.NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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Small Town, Big Story: FC Thun's Long Road to an Unlikely Championship
May 201:09:21Tap to summarizeThun. Population 44,000. Located in the Swiss Bernese Oberland, where the river Aare meets a lake, with the Alps as a backdrop. Switzerland's biggest military town. Not exactly a place you’d expect to find yourself talking about Champions League football next season.And yet. FC Thun — a club that just got promoted from the second division — is on the verge of becoming Swiss champions in their very first year back in the top flight. It is, on its face, one of the great Cinderella stories in European football right now. But as anyone who has spent time with a club’s actual history knows, Cinderella stories are rarely just that.Behind the headlines of this sensational season is a club that has been through it all: an archive that burned to the ground in 1975, a Champions League run in the early 2000s that nobody saw coming, a pair of scandals serious enough to make their own timeline entries, financial collapse, relegation, and a president who took the job because, as he put it, nobody else would.My guest today is Medea Vögeli, historian and FC Thun researcher — the person who has spent years digging through what’s left of the club’s records and building out their documented history to a great interactive version on their website. She’s a Bern-based historian who came to Thun through academic curiosity, and is a fan of the club as well.We talk about what kind of town Thun actually is, how this club has always punched above, below, and sideways, and whether this time around, the success might actually stick.HELPFUL LINKS FOR TODAY's EPISODE:FC Thun - Geschichte (interactive history timeline, German)FC Thun anthem (YouTube)Italian Stallion - Thun City (YouTube)FC Thun in the GuardianFC Thun on the BBCNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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The Beautiful Game and the Fragile Democracy - with Political Scientist Cas Mudde
Apr 1301:09:36Tap to summarizeToday's assistant professor has spent his career studying the forces that threaten liberal democracy — the far right, populism, nationalist movements that have reshaped politics from Hungary to the United States. He's one of the most cited political scientists working on those questions, based at the University of Georgia, originally from the Netherlands, and the kind of scholar who combines rigorous theory with an unusually grounded sense of how politics actually lives in people's lives.But today we're not talking about Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orbán. We're talking about soccer.Cas Mudde has been a lifelong fan — not of modern football, as he'd put it, but of soccer as community. He's visited something like 500 teams across more than 35 countries, and he brings to the sport the same analytical eye he turns on democratic erosion and authoritarian politics. Because for him, the two aren't as separate as they might seem.In a recent chapter called "Soccer as Civil Society," Mudde argues that professional soccer is not just entertainment — it's a political space, one that sits squarely in the terrain between the state, the market, and the community. And like democracy itself, that space is under pressure: from the commodification of the game, from multiclub ownership models that strip fans of accountability, and from the slow transformation of supporters into consumers.He's also clear-eyed about the limits of resistance — skeptical of the romanticization of fan-owned "punk football" clubs, even as he takes them seriously.It's a conversation about soccer, yes — but also about power, community, and what it means to fight for something when the odds are stacked against you.HELPFUL LINKS TO TODAY's EPISODE:Cas Mudde on LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and the University of Georgia websiteCas’ groundhopping InstagramCas Mudde, Soccer as Civil Society - article as PDFTamir Bar-On’s 3 Discourses on Soccer, referenced in Cas’ article and briefly at the end of the episodeNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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FK Bodø/Glimt: the history and community behind the headlines
Mar 3001:05:25Tap to summarizeBodø/Glimt, the team from the town of Bodø north of the polar circle, counting around 45,000 inhabitants, made it to the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League this season. After beating Atletico Madrid, Manchester City and Inter Milan, they got eliminated by Sporting, from Lisbon two weeks ago. All that comes on the heels of some previous runs in the Conference and Europa League. What’s even more remarkable however: this isn’t the Cindarella story with a rich sugardaddy in the background. It’s a longer story that speaks to regional tensions in modern Norway, a close knit community, and some very hard and deliberate work. It really is that. Freddy Toresen is with us again. He is the journalist covering Bodo Glimt up close and locally, with a level of access to the club that’s hard to imagine for journalists who cover teams in bigger leagues - and he has a long history following the club as well.HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Freddy Toresen on Instagram and Facebook City of Bodø on WikipediaBodø/Glimt in the New York Times last monthClub websiteNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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Rush Episode: Bodø/Glimt, fresh off the plane from its Champions League fairytale
Mar 2000:18:16Tap to summarizeThe day after he arrived back from his clubs last Champions League game this year, a loss at Sporting in Lisbon, Freddy Toresen, the local football journalist from Bodø, gives us a long view of the club and its identity. This is just the first part of our conversation, a reaction to this year's Champions League fairytale that included wins over Manchester City, Inter Milan, and Atletico Madrid. Watch for the long rest of our conversation on how this fairytale came about on March 30th, as usual.NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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Europe's "Jew Clubs:" On Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam, Bayern Munich and Austria Vienna with Pavel Brunssen
Mar 201:19:41Tap to summarizeWhat do Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam, Bayern Munich and Austria Vienna have in common? They all, for better, or for worse, have come to be seen as “Jew Clubs” throughout their history. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes the club embraced it, often it didn’t. "Jew Clubs" - not Jewish clubs, not founded as a Jewish sports society or anything like that. But clubs that have become a canvas for the performance of Jewishness, of antisemitism and also of philosemitism. What does that say about these clubs is one question. What does it say about Europe’s broader cultural and political discourse? That's another. What it says about Jews in those clubs is one question - what it says about how Jewishness is constructed is another.Pavel Brunssen has written a fascinating book on it. He is a Research Associate and Alfred Landecker Lecturer at the Research Center on Antigypsyism at Heidelberg University. There are a lot of voices from fans, from media, from online discourse in this book - and it’s an academic book as well. HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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Liverpool F.C, a Global People's History: Alan McDougall on his new book
Feb 1601:02:34Tap to summarizeEvery time one of the big clubs show up on this humble podcast, the audience is a little larger - and maybe I should do more on the likes of Bayern or Liverpool. But I always shirk back a bit. Too mainstream, I think. And if you like Liverpool, wouldn't you have found another, more professional media outlet already? If that is you, I think you need to buy this book. And, first, hear about it: Alan McDougall has written what the subtitle says is a peoples’ history of Liverpool F.C. I would say it’s a global people’s history. Published by Cambridge University Press, the book is very readable and accessible, but with high scholarly standards. Not a straight up club history, always with an eye on culture, society and football more broadly, but never far from the club the author has grown up to love. It's a story of deindustrialization, migration, the tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough, and Bill Shankly and Jürgen Klopp. Alan McDougall is a professor of history at the University of Guelph in Canada, and he has been on before to talk about his fabulous older book The People’s Game about soccer in Eastern Germany. For this one, he has returned to his football home, and done what not many club histories do: a book you’ll enjoy reading, following its connections and learning about its world even if you don’t support Liverpool.HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Alan McDougall, professional pageDreams and Songs to Sing, book websiteHillsborough Law campaignHeysel Stadium catastrophe, TV footage (warning, graphic imagery)NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/
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