Soccer Stories For Those Missing the World Cup
Natalie Portman, the Honduran Maradona and the first HBCU team to win an NCAA Division I soccer championship
More than 60 million people watched the World Cup final in the U.S. alone. It was a huge moment for the sport, and for Spain of course. But what now? Well, Campside is here to fill that football-shaped hole in your heart.
First let’s go back to a classic episode of Sports Explains the World, our anthology of wild and surprising sports stories you’ve never heard.
The Engineer
As a kid, Kieran Morris, a cheeky lad from Liverpool, loved pulling pranks to fool the press. When England played Honduras in a friendly soccer match, he found a young player on the Honduran side, Alexander Lopez, and inflated his stats on Wikipedia to equal those of a young Messi and Ronaldo. Morris then dubbed the player the “Honduran Maradona.”
Sky News, a top outlet, fell for the prank. But so did an MLS soccer team. They signed the “Honduran Maradona” and the story became the jokester’s go-to tale at the pub.
But Kieran always held on to some low-grade guilt for tossing a player into a situation where he would no doubt fail. The Engineer is a comical and cautionary tale about fake news that takes us across continents, as Kieran Morris, now grown, sets about retracing his prank, culminating in a face-to-face meeting with the player whose life he altered: the “Honduran Maradona.”
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Sports Explains the World is a co-production of Meadowlark and Wondery in association with Campside Media.
Let’s turn to Owned, where former NBA player Rex Chapman interviews reporters, athletes and more about the wild world of pro sports owners.
Angel FC, with Natalie Portman and Julie Uhrman
Rex talked to Oscar-winner Natalie Portman about being a co-owner of the NWSL Angel FC!
He finds out why she wanted to help start a soccer (football) team and asks if it’s harder than winning an Oscar.
Rex then speaks to co-owner and (now former) CEO of the club, Julie Uhrman, about the nuts and bolts of running a team.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Owned is a co-production of Smartless Media and Campside Media.
And we’ll leave you with part one of The Bison Project, an extraordinary story of redemption from Sports Explains the World.
Ian Bain and Alvin Henderson were just boys when they first met on the schoolyard soccer fields in Trinidad. They battled on the field with the same common goal, to become professional footballers. Years later, the duo is recruited to come to the United States and play soccer for the Howard University Bison.
Together, they are the young anchors of the first HBCU team to win an NCAA Division I soccer championship, in 1971. It’s a story of triumph, until the rumors start.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Sports Explains the World is a co-production of Meadowlark and Wondery in association with Campside Media.
Email us with questions or comments: questions@campsidemedia.com.
We hope to see you inside the tent again soon. Subscribe now for updates on all of Campside’s hit shows.