De wereld aan mijn voeten: Een reis door het hart van het mondiale voetbal in 9 WK's

by Simon Kuper

Ooit nam Simon Kuper zich voor meer Wereldkampioenschappen
voetbal te bezoeken dan wie ook ter wereld. De teller staat inmiddels
op negen, nadat hij zijn eerste WK in 1990 in Italië aandeed. En
ondanks zijn Zuid-Afrikaanse ouders, zijn Engelse opvoeding en
zijn huidige woonplaats Parijs is hij op eindtoernooien altijd voor
Oranje. Kuper woonde in zijn jeugd lange tijd in Leiden en dat
verloochent zich niet.
In De wereld aan mijn voeten doet hij anekdotisch en aanstekelijk
verslag van zijn ervaringen, ontmoetingen en wedstrijden die hij
zich om diverse redenen herinnert. Tussen de regels laat hij de lezers
met hem meegenieten van de mooiste sport op aarde. Je ervaart het
WK en begrijpt wat het WK betekent en wie de mensen uit het gastland
zijn. Hoe we hun land leren kennen en wat het zegt over de
globalisering.
Hij geeft blijk van een kritische, journalistieke en betrokken kijk op
de sport waarop hij nog lang niet is uitgekeken. De wereld aan mijn
voeten is Kupers hoogstpersoonlijke liefdesverklaring.

Genres: Sports, Football, Soccer, Nonfiction

446 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 10, 2025

About the author

Simon Kuper is a journalist for the Financial Times in England. He was born in Uganda of 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 has written for The Times, Observer, Guardian and Le Monde, and also writes regularly for the Spectator and Dutch newspapers.

Reviews

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a curiously dispirited tone to much of “World Cup Fever”, Simon Kuper’s personal history of the nine tournaments he has attended since Italia’90. On the one hand, Kuper begins his book by eulogising the tournament, describing the World Cup as “unending story that accompanies us through our lives”, a magical thread that connects us back to our childhoods. Conversely, many of its sections are much less a celebration of the World Cup, that they are a lament for its bloated decay and its exploitation by corporate and authoritarian vultures.

A journalist’s lamentation that reporting on the World Cup is increasingly a monumental pain in the hole is unlikely to elicit much sympathy from most football fans. But Kuper can convey in an entertaining way the monotony and grinding repetition of covering modern tournaments: the gruelling travel and security requirements, the vapid press conferences, the increasing homogenisation of the fan experience, the plummeting standard of football – it all sounds like a chore. And that’s before we even get to the topic of sportswashing …

In attempting to give a sense of the nine tournaments he has been present at, Kuper wisely decides against recounting the minutiae of specific games. Instead, he is more interested in capturing ‘vibes’, but also approaching the tournament from a political angle, and asking “what does the World Cup tell us about our changing world?”.

Kuper’s answers to that question are hardly reassuring. He sees recent World Cups as having “prefigured shifts in global power beyond football”, namely the expanding geopolitical influence of autocratic, fossil fuel-producing nation states. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Kuper’s account of the 2010 decisions to award the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively (what Kuper describes as the “World Cup Vote (that) explains the world”. Although maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised; Kuper’s summation of the early history of the World Cup – not least how the hosting of the tournament was manipulated by Mussolini’s Italy in 1934 and the Argentinian military junta in 1978 – shows how FIFA’s embrace of brutal authoritarian regimes was “baked in from the start”.

I found the most intriguing passages of this book to be those focusing on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (perhaps paradoxically, as 2010 is widely considered to be the dullest, most soporific edition of the tournament). What elevates those chapters is Simon Kuper’s upbringing during apartheid-era South Africa, which allows him to bring a level of insight that you’d get from few other western journalists covering the tournament. By concentrating on the personal stories of the people living in the shadows of the glistening new stadiums, “World Cup Fever” taps into the continuing importance of the tournament in a way that a series of match reports never could.

What Kuper’s book does succeed in showing is what remains magical about the World Cup, whether that be meeting people from other cultures, or “the construction of memories” and child-like wonder that the tournament can occasionally still generate. Of course, these are just the joys at risk of being drained by vampires like Gianni Infantino, through FIFA’s price-gouging ticketing systems and their craven kow-towing to authoritarians ranging from Trump to MBS. Overall, “World Cup Fever” is a bittersweet primer for next summer’s extravaganza of sportswashing and despotic shape-throwing.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

World Cup Fever by Simon Kuper
Rating: 7.75/10

This is not a football book in the usual sense. World Cup Fever uses the tournament as a lens on countries, power, identity, and how meaning gets attached to events that often feel bigger in memory than they ever were on the pitch.

I have supported Germany since 1990, the year they won the World Cup. I barely knew football then. A friend told me to support Argentina, so I did, until they lost to Cameroon in the opener. I dropped them immediately. I waited for the first round to finish and chose the team that scored the most goals. West Germany beat Yugoslavia 4–1. Decision made.

That tournament also gave me my footballer for life, Lothar Matthäus. Leadership, authority, presence. I had no idea that a casual choice would end with world champions, the Euro 1992 final loss to Denmark, redemption in 1996, and years later the 7–1 against Brazil, still the most ruthless performance I have ever seen.

What comes through clearly in the book is that World Cups never stand alone. Each tournament carries history, disappointment, pride, and unfinished business from the last. Fans remember them as chapters in their own lives, not just results on a page.

Kuper is unsentimental about control. Hosts overreach. Favourites collapse. Underdogs get their moment. Meaning is usually added afterwards. Running through it all is corruption. Political interference, compromised decisions, and governing bodies repeatedly choosing power and money over the game. Not treated as scandal, but as part of the system the World Cup operates within.

It is not a book for tactical obsessives, and some sections wander, but it is thoughtful, grounded, and honest about why the World Cup matters far beyond the pitch.

The next World Cup across the USA, Canada, and Mexico feels like another chapter waiting to be written. The final in New Jersey adds a personal note for me. It is the hometown of my favourite band, Bon Jovi. Football has a way of intersecting with life like that.

[R.J. Southworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any football fan should enjoy this book, which delves into the wider contexts of World Cups (right up to the last one in 2022) and provides insights into how they operate outside the football itself, in a very entertaining way. As an England fan, it's very interesting to hear about the tournaments from a more neutral perspective (though the author does technically support the Netherlands).

[Luciano · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a World Cup fanatic that followed more or less the same tournaments, it's very interesting to compare my experience to a Dutchman's (much more modest expectations) and to someone that, in theory, holds a dream job (as usual, much less glamurous from the inside).

[Ylva · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disappointment in the sense that I expected an account of games and insights into the game by someone who was a devoted supporter and went to the different World Cups during my lifetime (also a reason for buying the book) out of appreciation for the game. Instead, what you get is a tired journalistic account of the hassle of working through a World Cup, with an odd detachment from the game itself and an almost offensive view on what will remain a dream of many that the author painstakingly describes as an effort. Sometimes you almost get the feeling that the author is trying to make you feel sorry for him. If you are not able to enjoy it, perhaps you shouldn’t write a book about it, and if you are enjoying it, perhaps you shouldn’t make it out to be such a tiresome experience. Also, I’m not sure what the intent is, what this is supposed to be - a diary? A political introspection? A statement on sportswashing and corruption? An attempt at understanding cultures through fan behaviour? Perhaps an editor could have helped steer this in the right direction, but sadly reviews seem to have been too positive previously for this to appear warranted in their eyes.

[Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great stories here, an enjoyable read

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

In World Cup Fever: A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments , Simon Kuper reflects on his experiences attending nine World Cups, using the tournaments as a lens through which to explore not just football, but the political, cultural, and economic forces that surround the world’s biggest sporting event. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the book is relatively light on match analysis, focusing instead on the history of the competition, the evolution and corruption of FIFA, the geopolitics of hosting decisions, and the particular challenges faced by developing countries tasked with staging a global spectacle. Kuper also weaves in observations about nationalism, media narratives, fan culture, and the gap between the romantic image of the World Cup and the messy realities behind the scenes. While I found much of this interesting and often insightful, the book’s structure feels loose, reading more like a collection of essays and diary entries than a single, tightly focused argument. Engaging in parts, but somewhat diffuse overall. 6/10

[Dean HOCK1NG · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was as geopolitical as it was World Cup history but I didn’t mind and I found most of the book enjoyable and it taught me aspects of the countries involved and their role on the World Cup stage.

At times I found the author a bit condescending and quite anti west/white etc but maybe I was thinking too deeply about some of his comments

All in all I think the book was deeply researched, written passionately and well worth reading. Would definitely recommend this book especially to football fans with an interest in wider topics.