What Us Writers Can Learn from the World Cup

For anyone out there who doesn't know me too well, you might be surprised by how much I love sports. I grew up playing pretty much every sport that I could, except for volleyball, which I didn't play until I joined a rec league in college. I played basketball and football, I ran track and played baseball (on two separate teams even), and I played a few years of rec soccer. When it came to sports, I was dialed in.

As a Cincinnatian, I fell in love with all things Cincinnati. I used to be able to name every Reds player. I knew the whole Cincinnati Bengals schedule. I could give you the shooting percentage of the Xavier Musketeers basketball team. But there was one sport that was hard to come across: soccer.

Major League Soccer launched in 1996 with a team in Columbus, but there was never an easy way to watch them two hours away in Cincinnati. Now and again, I would catch a Champions League game after school. But the one thing I did know about soccer was the national team. I remember hearing about the US Women winning the World Cup in 1999 (and watched them win the 2015 and 2019 iterations to go along with their 1991 win). I remember the men battling against Ghana in back-to-back World Cups and watching Tim Howard make a record number of saves and Wondo missing an absolute sitter in a loss to Belgium in 2014.

In college, I had a friend of a friend who was on the women's soccer team, so I started watching them, even going on an overnight bus trip to watch them play Wake Forest in the first round of the national championship (where I unknowingly watched a fellow Cincinnatian and future NWSL goalkeeper play for Wake Forest).

Once I graduated from Morehead State, I ended up moving back home to Cincinnati and was in need of something to do. As I mentioned before, I have always loved Cincinnati sports, and I had a great foundation for watching soccer. In an absolute stroke of luck, the summer after I graduated, Cincinnati announced the launch of a brand-new soccer team, FC Cincinnati. Without getting too in the weeds (which I could probably write an entire book), I dove headfirst into fandom: season ticket holder, member and eventual board member of The Pride supporters group and jumped into the life of a snare drummer during the games.

I've talked all about this as a preface to say that I have fallen in love with the game of soccer.

When I heard the United States, Mexico, and Canada were going to host this year's edition of the World Cup, I was ecstatic. After watching the previous iterations of the world's tournament and the many international tournaments like the Copa America, the Euros, and the Olympics, I knew the potential this event could bring to North America. I love watching these international tournaments where the world comes together to watch one event.

And that is where I can finally relate this winding story to authors, books, and literature. The best part of the World Cup is the host country(ies) having the chance to show off their local culture to the world and having people from all over the globe interacting with each other in host cities. Just as the soccer (is this long enough to wait to not apologize to our English fans for not calling it football even though soccer is an English word and still in use today?) world can showcase the best of humanity, so does literature. The best books (regardless of genre or format) are the books that peer into the heart of humanity. The books that shed light on the best of what we can be as a species, the tragedy of love and loss, and overcoming obstacles.

And that's not to mention the storylines of the games themselves. The best authors in the world (I guess maybe John Green being the exception as an owner of AFC Wimbledon) couldn't write the absolutely amazing story of Cape Verde holding Spain to a draw, coming out of the group, and nearly taking reigning champions Argentina to penalty kicks. Or the beautiful story of tournament debutants like Curacao (and Cape Verde) being among the smallest countries to ever reach the cup. Or the country of Haiti fighting against the odds, like their coach never setting foot inside the country due to its current state of affairs. Or the trials and tribulations of large countries like Germany flailing out spectacularly. Or the intrigue of some of the best players to ever set foot on a football pitch (does that satisfy our British friends?) for what could be the last time.

Every game has its highs and its lows. Every country has a unique story to share with the world. The players themselves have incredible stories of hard work and dedication. There's even the story of a player being recruited through LinkedIn; look it up, it's true!

This week is the semi-finals and finals of the 2026 World Cup. And while I have been glued to the television watching every game I can, I'll always be thinking about the stories that come from games like this.

Wherever we look as writers, if we take a closer look, we can see the stories that pull the world along.