You kids are coming of age in a world where everything you could want to hear is a tap away.

“Yeti song!” tap and we sing. “Harry Potter book!” Tap and we hear it. “Not that one, #3!!!” Tap tap, fixed.

This isn’t to start a “back in my day” whine session (it was pretty easy in my day frankly {open, slide, slide, push} but your grannies could bend your ear about it).

Instead this is a note about what it means to be that easy, and what we can do for it.

If you had told 11 year old me “tap and you can hear five soccer stories from all around the world” I would have been stunned. But when the tap to play revolition began in earnest (about 11 years ago) that was one of the first things I found.

The BBC World Service, a radio station for (as the name implies) the whole world, hosted one of the first podcasts I listened to. For the last decade plus almost every week has included the reminder “world service, world football.”

I heard the vintage voice of Alan Green bring to life a visit to Robben Island prison in South Africa. The island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, but found solace in watching the soccer matches that inmates held.

I heard the dulcet tones of Mani Djazmi narrate the experience of going to the World Cup to cheer your favorite side (Iran in his case) even if you can’t see.

I heard interviews with legends, and conversations with modest amateurs. Every report felt important from Samoa’s experience with a gender fluid athlete, to the memories of a globe trotting coach fleeing a dangerous regime. In a world where there’s fierce competition to cover the biggest games and attract the most eyes, World Football was an oasis of opportunity for everyone.

As Mani Djazmi said in the last episode

“We’ve had stories and contributors from at least 160 countries and territories as we’ve tried to shine a light on stories that were beyond the top five European leagues and Champions League. Every week you’ve allowed us into your lives, hopefully as friends…”

World Football “The Final Goodbye” 3.24.23

That friendship is truly one of the main drivers in me writing these recaps and essays for you boys. At times growing up, I felt alone and uncomfortable because while boys my age in my town were fighting over tiny insults or trading pictures of cheerleader teams, I was imagining what it would be like to watch Carlos Valderamma in the green hills of Colombia, or to wear my green Diadora jacket down a snowy Manchester street with knowing nods, or even general indifference (in Montana it reliably led kids to shout “diarrhea” every time I walked by–like I said, I felt uncomfortable).

I hope that, by connecting you two to soccer stories and struggles all around the world, you can see those connections. You can recognize that whether you like soccer, or astronomy, or imagining that you’re an ice princess, you can connect with people far beyond your house, your street, your school.

More than amusement, your connection to the world in all its beauty and difficulty is just a tap away.

World Football’s niche programming, like many shows of the World Service, was cut back recently. I’ll likely go several months between rounds of Mani, and Pat, and Hey-o connecting themselves, and me, to the wider footballing world.

But the connections are still there, even if you don’t grab them every day. Just knowing that we are connected is a comfort.