World Cup Fever

A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments

Simon Kuper

The story of how soccer has transformed the world—as seen through nine World Cups—by one of our most talented writers on the sport.

The World Cup is the biggest sporting spectacle on Earth—a chance every four years for the greatest players to win international glory, and a month-long media event that's watched by an audience of billions.

But the tournament has changed beyond recognition since the inaugural event in Montevideo, Uruguay, in July 1930. What was once a semi-professional meeting beset by haphazard play has evolved to become a game of multinational buyouts, dubious ethics, and questionable aims—and the new era of soccer has much to tell us about the globalized world.

Simon Kuper is among the vanishingly small number of writers who have attended every World Cup since 1990. World Cup Fever is his journey to find the heart of soccer, through the nine tournaments he's experienced first-hand—from watching matches in half-empty stands during Italia 1990 (a tournament that at times felt like a village fete) to witnessing the French triumph at home in 1998; South Africa's national dream in 2010; and the troubling legacy of Qatar in 2022.

Told on the pitch, in the stands, in the pubs, and on the streets, this is the story of how soccer has changed the world

Simon Kuper is the author of The New York Times bestseller Soccernomics. He was born in Uganda to South African parents and moved to the Netherlands as a child. He studied history and German at Oxford University and attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar. He is a journalist for the Financial Times and has written for The Observer, The Times (London), and The Guardian, and he also writes regularly for Dutch newspapers. Simon lives in Paris with his family.

Buy it now in print:

Buy it now in ebook:

Endorsements & Reviews

“A series of wise, wry and revealing reflections on football's greatest tournament and what it tells us about the world. Football Against the Enemy was one the three books that effectively invented modern football writing, and Kuper continues to lead the genre.” Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid

“An essential warm-up for making sense of the extraordinary World Cup to come. Kuper is a wry and sharp-eyed guide to the high-camp theatre of Fifa politics and the everyday carnival of fans on city streets; to the collective euphoria and national imagining that takes place at giant outdoor match viewing; and to the way hosts are changed by their encounter with their guests.” New Statesman

“A delightful memoir, travelogue, and journal, World Cup Fever is a wry and sharp-eyed account of the world's now biggest public ritual. A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle, it remains alert to the game's ever closer pact with money and power. It is an essential companion to the tournament, for it allows us to look at the sun and not be blinded.” David Goldblatt, author of The Ball is Round

Praise for Simon Kuper’s Soccernomics:

"Fascinating.” - Vanity Fair

"Soccernomics is the most intelligent book ever written about soccer." San Francisco Chronicle

“Does for soccer what Moneyball did for baseball—put the game under an analytical microscope using statistics, economics, psychology, and intuition to try to transform a dogmatic sport.” The New York Times

“A wonderful book." Pro Soccer Talk (NBC Sports blog)

“A sharply written and provocative examination of the world's game seen through the prism of economics and statistical data. It demolishes almost everything that most soccer fans believe about the game and how professional soccer teams should operate.” The Globe and Mail

"We're reading this very interesting book about football, you know Soccernomics." - Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs

“Entertainingly demolish(es) soccer shibboleths. Well argued and clear-headed." Financial Times, Best Books of the Year

"Using data analysis, history and psychology, [Soccernomics] punctures dozens of clichés about what it takes to win, and who makes money in soccer—and in sports in general.” The Associated Press