Welcome to Jacobin Radio. I'm Alan Minsky, and I'm here with my co-host, Melissa Figueroa, and Susie Weissman is out this week, but we are filling in.

And Melissa and I and Fernando Ramiro, we are the co-producers and co-hosts of a quadrenial podcast show called The People's Game.

And on today's Jacobin Radio, we're going to be featuring a few segments from the first week of the People's Game 2026.

Now, the People's Game Project started back in 2010, and we went full force with the daily

podcast covering of the Men's World Cup.

We followed up the following year with coverage of the Women's World Cup.

We did the same in 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019, 2022 and

and 2023, and here we are now in 26. Now, of course, this is a very unique year for our

podcast because this is the first time that the largest spectacle that humanity follows, with the largest

amount of people around the world following it, is not only taking place, but taking place

here for the most part, or the majority of the games in the United States.

Now there are 26 games that are going to be played in the group stage and through the

quarterfinals in Canada and Mexico. But 78 games are right

here in the United States, and so are all the semifinals and the final as well on July 19th.

Now, of course, this has been an incredibly politically fraught World Cup already in its preparation.

But Melissa is going to offer a few insights that related to that in a second by way of introducing

the show, and I will as well.

But first, let me say that later in the hour, very soon, we'll be hearing from our co-host and

co-producer Fernando.

Lucky Fernando, got to travel to Mexico City for game one of the World Cup, which was spectacular.

And we're going to hear him from before he went.

Then we're going to hear an interview with Thomas Hanna from the Democracy Collaborative.

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