From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, the 2018 World Cup is now underway in Russia.

The story of how it came to be there is more relevant than you might think.

It's Friday, June 22.

The fight for the right to host football's World Cup sent at its final stage with candidate countries making their last presentations.

Now, big names have been arriving here in Zurich and the media had their stakeouts in front of hotels where the important people are staying.

It was a cold snowy morning in Zurich, Switzerland, where the headquarters of FIFA, the body that oversees world soccer is based.

The first FIFA representatives arrived in Zurich, the ultimate decision makers for which country hosts the World Cup.

A fleet of sleek black Mercedes-City sedans drove into the bowels of the headquarters of FIFA, where 22 men who control world soccer were marched into a room to make an important decision where the 2018 World Cup would be held.

Ken Benzinger wrote about this story for the Times.

There was a clear favorite. Everyone knew that England, which was desperate to hold the World Cup, was the clear favorite.

England's favorite to host the World Cup in 2018, David Beckham, has been at the forefront of lobbying for the votes of the 22 FIFA committee members.

They had everything in their favor. They had stadiums and infrastructure and airports and hotels.

The world's greatest soccer tradition. This was the country that had invented the sport after all. It was clear England was going to win.

One of the ways I think to sell it to the world is the World Watch's English football, actually the world comes and plays its football in England.

And so bringing the World Cup to England is such a natural step.

So England is the clear favorite. Is there anybody else in contention?

Yeah, there's several other contenders. There's a bid between Portugal and Spain. There's one between Holland and England.

And there's another one, which no one thinks has any chance at all. Russia.

And why does no one think that Russia has a chance?

FIFA itself rated Russia's bid the worst of all the bids for 2018 with the worst infrastructure and the most problems.

Russia didn't have good soccer at the time. So no one took them at that point in time seriously as a soccer nation.

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