World Soccer Daily Podcast

This is a podcast that has had some good times and some bad times, but in the end holds a special place in my heart.

In the summer of 2006, my interest in soccer was grabbed for the third time in my life.

The first came in the World Cup of 1998 when I was really introduced to soccer for the first time outside of kicking the ball around with friends and their playing in local youth leagues. That summer I went over to my brother’s friends house a decent bit and they always seemed to have on the games. I would take a peak now and again and even though I would watch 30-minute stretches, I never really got very excited about it.

Then, 4 years later, I was working for a video store and it happened to be a time when we were doing allot of inventories at the store. It worked out for me that that manager of the store was a former high school soccer player who loved the game and would play the matches on the TV while we worked well into the morning. Not only this, but due to the time difference, I was able to go home and watch the next match before going to sleep well into the morning.

The game had grabbed me enough at this point to give me a passing interest. I still didn’t really know anyone’s names or most of the rules, but I did buy the FIFA World Cup game for XBOX and played it for a few months. However, the World Cup was quickly over and I moved on to other things.

Everything changed in 2006. As the World Cup got closer, I saw more and more information about it. I noticed that our cable provider now had Fox Soccer Channel and casually watched a few matches that were shown. I started getting interested and looked for a podcast that would give me some good information on the game, and have fun listening to. There were a handful of podcasts that I got into at that time including The Beautiful Game, a few others, and the only one that I still listen to today from this list, World Soccer Daily.

At this point, the show consisted of Steven Cohen and Nick Geeber. Steven was the crazy guy that talked fast, was very opinionated, and I quickly found out, a Chelsea fan. The other, Nick, was funny, a little more laid back usually, but would rise to Steven often enough, and was a Liverpool fan.

I quickly downloaded their last few months of podcasts and started listening to a few a day as I used them, somewhat, as my introduction to the game. At the same time, I supplemented the podcasts with rules and information that I learned and researched online, mostly on Wikipedia and a few other sites.

So, by the time the group stages were over, I had a good idea as to how the game was played, some of the major players, and some of the strengths and weaknesses of the major teams involved.

I obviously was cheering on the USA, but knew better from my new learning to expect them to go very far, despite what I was being told by the pundits here at home. I also began following England where I quickly was able to pick up on who the player were, what club teams they played for and some of their attributes.

So, I watched all but maybe a game or two of the World Cup while following the commentary on the World Soccer Daily podcast. During this time, though, I wasn’t just getting information on the tournament, but also on the world of club football as well. They were definitely biased towards the English Premier League, but also seemed to give decent time to the Spanish Primera Division and the Italian Serie A along with smaller amounts of time to the German Bundasliga and the French League 1.

As the World Cup began to wind down, I realized that this tournament was not enough this time to quench my thirst for “The Beautiful Game.” Therefore, I found out that only a couple of months later the club leagues would start up and I began doing a bit of research as to what league I would watch and a team that I might want to follow. World Soccer Daily was integral in this process as during this time many new viewers of the sport were calling in with similar questions that I had myself.

I quickly decided on following the English Premier League mostly as I found out that Fox Soccer Channel played a few of their games every week. So, next was to see if there was any team that stood out. I had really enjoyed watching Peter Crouch in the Olympics and watching how different he was than most of the other players. I also liked the little I had seen of Steven Gerrard and that which I read about his history.

I then began doing research on the teams, how they were doing in recent history and their more distant history. After looking into the top-flight clubs, I began to quickly be drawn to one team, Liverpool. It helped that Nick was a fan and Steven hated them, so I was never left without information, praise, and criticism of the team. They also had a few of the players from the England World Cup team and had a history similar to my college football team Alabama with one of the riches histories in the sport, but with more recent difficult times and signs of a resurgence to come.

This podcast helped me then to get more and more information, not only on my new team, but also on the other 19 teams in the league. It also helped me to get an idea of what the Carling Cup, FA Cup, UEFA Cup, and Champion’s League were and how they worked.

I have listed to the show ever since with a drop for a couple of months here and there and through a few host change ups. However, it seems that now the show is stronger and more popular than ever with Nick gone who was the one who tended to change the subject off topic more and was more lewd to current host Kenny who seems at time to be a bit of Steven’s puppet, but more and more has created a personality of his own and is more likely to give what seem to be his own thoughts on many things.

The biggest positive change, though, was when they started bringing in outside people to interview and answer some phone in questions. This, I believe, seemed to start with fan favorite Georgie Bingham, but has now grown to quite a number of players, managers, journalists, commentators, officials, and pretty much people from every aspect of the game.

It is enjoyable enough today that I can listen to a show no matter what time of year and no matter how much or little is going on in the game.

If you are a fan of soccer or as referred to pretty much everywhere else, football, give this one a go. Also, if you are interested and want more information on the game, this is a great companion on your journey.