Game of Our Lives

In the 1980s and 90s, Colombian football was some of the best it had ever been. The price: near-total control by the country’s drug lords. This week, Goldblatt talks with fan and novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez about what it was like growing up in Colombia during that time, how following the sport helps him see his country’s changes, and whether there’s any such thing as a pure game.

All Shireen Ahmed wanted to do was play — but college officials kept her off the pitch because she wanted to wear her headscarf, or hijab. This week, the player, advocate, and coach talks about her fight to get back on the field, what football means in the global South, and the day FIFA lifted its ban on hijab.

One of the top teams in Nigeria is Mountain of Fire and Miracles FC, a Pentecostal club in Lagos. It’s a team that provides stability for its players within the fraught world of Nigerian domestic football — and also represents the country on the global stage. “Someone is sick, we all pray and fast,” says church sporting director Godwin Enakhena. “There is a deal that’s coming, we fast and pray about it, and say ‘God help this young man get this deal.’” This week, he and David Goldblatt discuss his team’s remarkable rise from amateur youth club to elite team, the challenges facing Nigerian domestic clubs, and the rules that keep MFM FC on track.

If Werner Herzog made a football movie, what would it look like? Host David Goldblatt talks football (soccer) and cinema (movies) with the celebrated filmmaker (and reasonable center forward). Herzog talks about falling in love with the game when he watched a young Pele play in Munich, the cinematography of the TV football experience, and the football film he dreams of making.

David Goldblatt revels in the cheeky culture of English football chants. Season 1 starts March 15, 2018.