Keen On

“The World Cup is a kind of religious feast. It’s like Easter, or Passover, or Eid, but it’s for all of humanity.” — A Church of England vicar, quoted by Simon KuperNick Hornby measured his (sad) life in Arsenal fixtures. The FT columnist Simon Kuper has measured his in World Cups. His new book, World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments, is the Kuper story told through the nine tournaments he attended as a journalist — from Italy 1990 to Qatar 2022.World Cup Fever is as irresistible as a Maradona slalom or a Pelé feint. In 1990, three Oxford students blag their way into Italy on Mars corporate tickets, pulling out library cards at the Swiss border to prove they’re not Liverpool hooligans. In 1998, France’s World Cup victory changes Kuper’s life — he buys an apartment/office in Paris and never really leaves, even writing World Cup Fever there. In 2006, the newly reunited Germany reinvents itself as the nice guy of World Cups, and the German Football Association’s designated handler of World War Two