x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.

Philipp Gollner

The academic treatment for English-speakers who get that soccer is more than gamedays, stars and goals. Who wonder about the histories, subcultures and politics that make the game so different from many American sports cultures; and who care about a critical take on soccer as a global capitalist machine. A European-guided journey, with one expert "visiting professor" each episode.

sports soccer

All Episodes

62:34

Liverpool F.C, a Global People's History: Alan...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2026/02/16

Every time one of the big clubs show up on this humble podcast, the audience is a little larger - and maybe I should do more on the likes of Bayern or Liverpool. But I always shirk back a bit. Too mainstream, I think. And if you like Liverpool, wouldn't you have found another, more professional media outlet already? If that is you, I think you need to buy this book. And, first, hear about it: Alan McDougall has written what the subtitle says is a peoples’ history of Liverpool F.C. I would say...

en-us

60:00

Go West, and Grow up Playing Soccer! How do so many...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2026/02/02

The phrase "go west!" was not coined by the Village People or the Pet Shop Boys, but by Horace Greeley, a famous newspaper editor a long time ago. And seen from Europe, all of the United States is West. So that’s what Luca Puster tells his young European clients who just finish High School and are considering college: Go west young man, and grow up playing football. Or soccer. How do they find American colleges? What makes them come here, what is attractive about this step in their football a...

en-us

98:21

Salzburg's Actual Soccer Club: The Austria Will...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2026/01/19

This story is a journey to one of the original sins of commercialization in modern global football - the 2005 takeover of Austria Salzburg, a former Austrian champion, UEFA cup finalist and Champions League participant by a well known energy drink company that is now active in soccer around the globe, and its subsequent attempt to erase 72 years of footballing history. But more importantly, it’s a journey to soccer’s original grace as well: community, persistence, humility, euphoria, belongin...

en-us

38:38

Holiday Read-Aloud & Christmas-themed Chants: "Kane...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/12/22

Welcome to the 3rd Advent/Christmas/Holiday episode this year. It’s a read of a children book again, and that book involves a time-traveling boy and his dog. They time travel, through goalposts, to the first organized football match under Football Association rules, in 1863, between Barnes and Richmond. The game was played at Barnes commons, in West London, across the river from Fulham’s FCs stadium, the Craven Cottage. And the boy and his dog (Kane is his name, no relation to Harry) mess up ...

en-us

73:54

"Lost a Bet:" Soccer, Gambling, Addiction - and the...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/12/16

Thomas Melchior placed his first soccer bet in 2005. He was addicted to gambling for 13 years, and imprisoned for the crimes he committed in his addiction. Now, he stands in front of stadiums on gamedays around Europe to raise awareness for the problem that is gambling in football – and he’s using some controversial tactics. HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE: Thomas Melchior on Instagram Fox Sports, "From prison to social media star: How one man is taking on sports betting at German socc...

en-us

73:30

Soccer History is American History

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/11/24

In the US, the big soccer boom is always supposedly around the corner. The most recent example: right now, in the lead-up to next year's World Cup. But that waiting until the beautiful game is the "number 1 sport in the U.S." clouds our view of the game’s history in this country. Today, it's that history, in its own right, that we focus on. Brian Bunk focusses on it, especially, in his new book Beyond the Field: How Soccer Built Community in the United States. Brian is a Historian at th...

en-us

43:21

2/2 England's State of Emergency - and Football's:...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/11/10

This is PART 2 of a two-part episode. The 1st part aired two weeks ago, and is the most recent on on the Assistant Professor of Football. Please add a like, a comment, a star rating or spread the word by mouth! I was a little starstruck when David Goldblatt showed up on my screen today. His books have done very well for very good reason. You may have read The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football or The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football. David is a sociologis...

en-us

44:00

1/2 England's State of Emergency - and Football's: ...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/10/27

I was a little starstruck when David Goldblatt showed up on my screen today. His books have done very well for very good reason. You may have read The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football or The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football. David is a sociologist, has a part time academic home in the US as well, at Pitzer college in LA, and this one, Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency, is a book for the moment. The thesis is simple: a lot of the spaces for c...

en-us

69:21

No More BS: It's Boycotts this time, at West Ham

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/10/13

It's a fall of unrest in East London again. Hammers United, the largest organized fan group at West Ham United, has so far refrained from calling on members of the board or the CEO to resign. Until now. They have launched the campaign "No More BS," targetted specifically at CEO Karen Brady, the B, and chairman David Sullivan, the S. Beyond leafleting, black balloons or protest marches before games, Hammers United are for the first time calling for a match boycott, at West Ham’s next home game...

en-us

74:16

Behind the Scenes on a UEFA Conference League...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/09/29

Before the Conference League anthem came on in Celje Slovenia, one warm August night this year, today’s guest had a lot of work behind him already while I was was on my way via train, uber and rental car from Bosnia. He is Rok Gregoric, press and pr wizard of NK Celje, a Slovenian club that was long a middling in the league of an already small country but has made it to the group phase of the conference league last year and again this year. A remarkable feat for a really pretty quiet city bet...

en-us

41:53

Ivica Osim, Open Wounds (2/2): Live from Sarajevo,...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/09/15

This is Part 2 of an unusual episode, on the move through countries, memories, wounds, war, peace and the beautiful game. Sturm Graz is and was a workers club when I came to the club in the 90s, one year before Ivica Osim arrived. We knew he was a mathematician, soccer player and coach, and he knew workers clubs, from Željezničar, in Grbavica, back home in Sarajevo, the city then under a yearlong siege in the Bosnian independence wars. But he added something else. To him, the game was discour...

en-us

49:35

Ivica Osim, Open Wounds (1/2): A Roadcast through...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/09/01

Sturm Graz is and was a workers club when I came to the club in the 90s, one year before Ivica Osim arrived. We knew he was a mathematician, soccer player and coach, and he knew workers clubs, from Željezničar, in Grbavica, back home in Sarajevo, the city then under a yearlong siege in the Bosnian independence wars. But he added something else. To him, the game was discourse, it was beauty. He explained soccer to us in a way we’d never seen it. Professorial and sometimes grumpy, but always ex...

en-us

85:47

Berlin, Berlin! Hertha, Union, Babelsberg, TeBe,...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/08/18

Damiano Benzoni, Italian journalist and seasoned groundhopper, has written a wonderful book - an "emotive map of football in Berlin," a rich portrait of a city through the eyes of football. And when that city happens to be the German capital, torn by wars, shaped by the dvide between two Germanies and various migrant influences, the texture of such a book happens to be particularly interesting. The book, for now, is available only in Italien, so consider this an English language exclusive. We...

en-us

80:45

Why Everyone from Söder Watches Women's Sports: The...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/06/23

Daniel and Romina are dear, longtime listeners of the podcast. Back in April, I sat down with them at their kitchen table in Stockholm to work out the story behind the many images that circulated online last season: a stunningly large mob of active supporters in fine voice home and away, tifo and all. This wasn't just one big game in a big stadium for the sake of a record. This was organic, homegrown, ultra-themed. At most European away games, the Bajen supporters outnumbered home fans. What ...

en-us

49:43

Summer Round-Up: Union St. Gill, Arminia Bielefeld,...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/06/09

With Ana Ascencao e Silva, Eva Lotta Bohle, Andy Payne, Alex Kirby, Paul Reidy, Wayne Gamble, Christopher Hylland - on their club's or cause's season, what happened since we talked, and what the outlook is like at the moment. Plus, each guest picked one song - well, except Eva Lotta, who picked two. Union St. Gill, Arminia Bielefeld, West Ham, Rayo Vallecano, Leeds United, Argentina NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or...

en-us

69:59

A 98 Year-Old, Member-Run Soccer Club in America?...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/05/26

Fort Wayne is a city of around 260,00 in the very east of the northern half of Indiana. Like many mid-sized midwestern cities, it has been shaped by the industrialization of the late 19th century, immigration waves from Western, Central and Southeastern Europe until the 1920s and from the rest of the world today, deindustrialization after World War 2, the decline of urban America as well as revitalization more recently. It also has a soccer club, founded by German immigrants...

en-us

69:18

We're Not Playing for Fun! Organized Workers' Soccer,...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/05/12

Gabriel Kuhn is an Austrian writer and researcher who works for the Central Organization of Swedish Workers - and sat for an in-person interview (he has been on before when we talked about his wonderful book Soccer vs the State in 2023.) In this episode, we time travel to "red Vienna" in the 1920s, to talk about how antifascism, organized workers' sports, the professionalization of soccer and sobriety intersected then, and what promise they can hold for the present. Our baseline is the ...

en-us

60:09

Part 2 – The Heart of St. Pauli, or: What Should We...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/04/14

This is the second part of a two-part episode - the first part is here, episode 54, from March 31. We will start at FC St. Pauli, now in the German Bundesliga, at the club’s museum which has very active researchers, and we’ll end at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and the bigger question of what right remembering looks like in professional soccer - and what it can look like. We will take that journey with no less than 3 guests: Celina Albertz, a researcher and also in the curating team of the F...

en-us

57:15

Part 1 – The Heart of St. Pauli, or: What Should We...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/03/31

This is the first part of a two-part episode. We will start at FC St. Pauli, now in the German Bundesliga, at the club’s museum which has very active researchers, and we’ll end at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and the bigger question of what right remembering looks like in professional soccer - and what it can look like. We will take that journey with no less than 3 guests: Celina Albertz, a researcher and also in the curating team of the FC St. Pauli Museum; Sönke Goldbeck, Board chair and d...

en-us

56:58

Back to the Grassroots: The English Non-League Day on...

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture,... ·

2025/03/17

If you are in England on the nice Spring weekend of March 22nd, I hope you didn’t book the trip to see a Premier League game. Because there are none. It’s a dreaded national team break again. But on the other hand, that weekend may also be one of the best to soak in English football culture, because it’s the Annual “Non-League Day," an annual, grassroots-led spotlight on non-professional football in England, a chance for those clubs to "promote the importance of affordable volunteer-led commu...

en-us

75 results

Similar Podcasts

Keeping Karlsson Fantasy Hockey Podcast

Elan Dubrofsky and Brian Kom

Daily Fantasy Sports by Ship It Nation

Ship It Nation

Fantasy Football Today

CBS Sports, Fantasy Football, FFT, NFL,...

Bring The Pain

Heat00veride

ESPN SportsCenter Update

ESPN