The World Cup is on, and I am one zillion percent into it — and of course it has me thinking about Aristotle.
As I wrote here a while back:
Aristotle argued that everything has a telos — a purpose — and that it achieves its “good” by fulfilling that purpose well. It applies to everything. A pen is better used to write something meaningful than to scrawl nonsense on a bathroom wall. A person with a natural gift for singing flourishes by developing that gift, not by ignoring it or trying to be something else.
You don’t get to your telos by becoming a slightly worse version of someone else. You get there by being a more complete version of yourself.
We recognize that instinctively. We admire it when we see it, even in areas we don’t normally care about.
For a lot of people, that probably describes the World Cup. It comes around once every four years, so for most players that means they get just a handful of chances, even to be in the show.
The World Cup also surfaces many players that even diehard soccer fans know almost nothing about — men from countries and corners of the game that rarely get a global stage.
But we watch them play and something clicks anyway, because we’re watching people doing exactly what they were built to do, on the one occasion that comes along rarely enough to matter completely.
Ergo, Aristotle.
With that in mind, here are a few of the most remarkable stories from this World Cup.
Some involve players born into genuinely brutal circumstances who were eventually recognized for their talent and developed into elite athletes. Others are simply about the roundabout, almost accidental way they ended up on the biggest athletic stage in the world.
Orlando Gill, Paraguay
First among equals: when Gill’s newborn son arrived with serious health complications, the goalkeeper sold most of his equipment and even the jersey he’d worn when he debuted for Paraguay’s Under-19 side to cover hospital bills and buy food. He kept only his goalkeeper gloves.
In the Round of 16 in Boston, wearing those same gloves, he saved two penalties in a shootout to knock out Germany. (Your humble newsletter author was in the stands.)
For Paraguay, a country that hasn’t been to a World Cup in 16 years, it was something like the 1980 Miracle on Ice — and the man who made it happen had been selling his kit on the internet four years ago to keep his family alive.
Alphonso Davies, Canada
Davies was born in a refugee camp in Ghana after his parents fled Liberia’s Second Civil War. The family lived in a hut not much larger than a minivan; at times they had to climb over corpses to find food.
They were resettled in Canada when Alphonso was five; he learned to play soccer first in Alberta in an after-school program for kids who couldn’t afford other leagues, called Free Footie.
At 17, Davies stood before 200 FIFA delegates and delivered a speech backing North America’s bid to host the 2026 World Cup. Eight years later, he walked onto the pitch as Canada’s captain in that same tournament.
Folarin Balogun, USA
In June 2001, Florence Balogun — a Nigerian citizen living in London — was seven months pregnant and visiting New York City. When she tried to fly home, she was denied boarding because of the advanced state of her pregnancy.
Her son Folarin was born in Brooklyn days later, making him an American citizen by birthright. The family returned to England within weeks.
Two decades later, the US men’s national team launched a sustained effort to persuade Balogun to play for the Americans rather than England or Nigeria. He has three goals in the tournament so far, including the game-winner against Bosnia — plus a controversial red card, but that’s a longer story.
Vozinha, Cape Verde
Vozinha turned professional at 25 and has spent the nearly two decades since bouncing between clubs in Moldova, Angola, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Portugal. He is 40 years old.
When Cape Verde — one of the smallest nations ever to qualify for a World Cup — faced Spain in their first-ever World Cup match last month, Vozinha stood in goal and faced 27 shots. He stopped all of them.
Then he walked off in tears — remembering the grandparents who raised him but who died before he got there, and thinking of his mother, who couldn’t get a visa to the United States in time and watched from home.
Roberto “Pico” Lopes, Cape Verde
Dublin-born defender Roberto Lopes discovered his international soccer future through a LinkedIn message in Portuguese that he assumed was spam and ignored for nine months.
When a follow-up arrived in English, he finally translated the original and learned that Cape Verde wanted him to represent the country of his father’s birth.
Lopes’s mother, Judy, works as a secretary at a primary school in Crumlin. She’d had to fly home to Dublin after the group stage because she needed to get back to work — until Aer Lingus found out and flew the whole family back to Florida for the Round of 16 against Argentina.
Antonio Rüdiger, Germany
During his family’s escape from the civil war in Sierra Leone, Rüdiger’s uncle hid the children in sacks of rice to prevent them from being taken by armed groups.
His mother eventually settled in Berlin’s Neukölln district and raised him there.
Rüdiger is a starting defender for Real Madrid and was one of the most important players in Germany’s squad — past tense because they lost to Paraguay; I was there for that too. He runs a foundation in Sierra Leone focused on education, sport, and healthcare.
Eduardo Camavinga, France
Camavinga was born in a refugee camp in Angola after his parents fled the war in DR Congo. The family made it to France, where he grew up, broke into professional football as a teenager at Rennes, and is now a Champions League winner with Real Madrid.
He and Rüdiger are teammates at club level and both arrived at this World Cup from refugee backgrounds — two of the most decorated players in the world’s most decorated club, with that in common.
Raphinha, Brazil
Raphinha grew up in Restinga, a favela in Porto Alegre. As a teenager he often went eight or nine hours without eating, with only enough money for bus fare home.
He has said that many of his childhood friends were better footballers than he was — faster, more technically gifted — but they were lost to poverty, crime, and drug trafficking.
Raphinha arrived at this World Cup having just led Barcelona to a domestic treble, arguably the best player on earth right now. He knows exactly what it cost just to get here, and it wasn’t only talent.
Awer Mabil, Australia
Mabil’s parents fled South Sudan for Kenya during the civil war. He was born in Kakuma refugee camp. His first football was a rolled-up sock. He played barefoot on dirt. Eventually the family emigrated to Australia.
He went on to score the penalty that sent Australia to the 2022 World Cup, which he described as “the only way to say thank you to Australia on behalf of my family.”
He has since co-founded Barefoot to Boots, a charity that sends football gear to children still living in Kakuma — so they don’t have to play with a sock.
Other things worth knowing …
CNN: President Trump beamed with excitement as he boarded his new $400 million Air Force One, a luxury jet gifted by the government of Qatar.
People: Trump also memorialized Village People lead singer Victor Willis, who died this week at age 75: “He was a great and happy guy who loved that I used … ‘YMCA,’ at my Rallies. … The crowds were, and are, enormous ...”
CBS: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will be celebrating their nuptials with about 1,000 guests this holiday weekend in New York City after days of speculation about the most anticipated celebrity wedding of the year. The couple plans to start with a rehearsal dinner Thursday evening and a wedding celebration Friday into the early hours of Saturday morning at Madison Square Garden.
Yahoo Finance: Rhode Island’s new tax on second homes is nicknamed for its most famous part-time resident, Taylor Swift, but the levy will also squeeze owners of saltbox houses on the coast far less grand than the singer’s Holiday House mansion. Under the annual property tax measure taking effect this week, the state will collect $5 for every $1,000 that a vacation home’s value is assessed over $1 million.
CNBC: PlayStation will end physical disc production for all new games released on its consoles starting January 2028, the company announced Wednesday. New games will be sold either through the PlayStation Store or through retailers in digital formats only.
NBC News: Ocean surface temperatures hit a record high in June, European scientists warned Wednesday, fueling fears of more dangerous heat waves this summer and deepening concerns over the global climate crisis.
CNN: Alligators injured three people, one fatally, in a string of separate attacks across Florida over the weekend — the highest concentration of attacks in a single 72-hour period since state records began.
Thanks for reading. See you in the comments.
Great clips and stories. Interesting that a " birth rite" beneficiary of US citizenship helped us win a World Cup game
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and the stories behind these wonderful soccer players. ( I am not a soccer fan, but I am a fan of these fabulous player who became who they are through such hardships in their lives. ) The stories touched my heart. I wish all the best for them and you!