S5, E7: Drama, Geopolitics, and Glory: Inside the World Cup

The World Cup is more than a soccer tournament — it’s a mirror for geopolitics, national identity, and the power of global fandom. In this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene sits down with British journalist Jonathan Wilson, author of The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup, to explore the drama, corruption, and beauty that have defined the tournament across a century.

Transcript

Aislyn Greene: Welcome to Unpacked by Afar, the World Cup edition. I’m your host, Aislyn Greene, here with a confession: the extent of my soccer knowledge really boils down to two things. First, there are the two years I spent as a middle school midfielder, where the highlight of my athletic achievement was winning best smile. Second, there’s everything I’ve gleaned from Ted Lasso. But despite that, even I love the energy, the camaraderie, and yes, the drama of the World Cup.

When I was researching today’s guest, British journalist Jonathan Wilson, who wrote the book The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup, I thought that surely 2026 would be the most bizarre and globally tenuous year for the World Cup. But as I went down the rabbit hole, I realized that drama and geopolitical unrest is honestly just par for the course when it comes to FIFA.

In this episode, Jonathan shares the historical dramas, reveals where he’ll be for this year’s World Cup, and offers trivia that might appeal to even the most sports-averse listener.

Jonathan, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so good to have you here today.

Jonathan Wilson: Oh, thank you very much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Aislyn: Can we start with the very beginning? How did you become so interested and passionate about soccer or football?

Jonathan: Well, I grew up in Sunderland in the northeast of England, and I think if you grow up there, it’s really difficult not to become obsessed by it. I can’t remember when it wasn’t a central plank of life. In the old days, games kicked off at 3 p.m. on a Saturday, so they finished around 4:40 or 4:45. It didn’t matter where I was with my parents. My dad would always arrange it. We would buy a TV or buy a radio at 4:40 so we could be anywhere and still catch the scores. We could be in the Yorkshire Dales, visiting a country house, shopping. We would always be in the car by 4:40. You had to arrange your life around matches.

When you’re driving north towards Sunderland, you go past the offices of the Sunderland Echo, the local newspaper, and they used to have lit up on the outside this cartoon figure: a football done as a face with little legs, little arms, a little hat. On a Saturday evening it would either be smiling or frowning or neutral to tell you what the score was. So people driving home who maybe didn’t have car radios, as soon as they hit the outskirts of Sunderland, they knew the score. It was completely central to life.

And then into that came the World Cup. I turned six during the 1982 World Cup. It’s difficult to work out now just what enraptured me. But one thing was we didn’t really have very much football on TV. Then suddenly you have the World Cup, every day, two or three games every day. It was this incredible feast of incredibly exotic countries. If you’re a five-year-old kid growing up in Sunderland and suddenly you’re watching Cameroon against Peru, well, you don’t really have a sense of what Cameroon or Peru are. But I had this kid’s guide to the World Cup that I’d learned off by heart. I not only knew the score of every World Cup final, but I knew all 24 competing nations: their capital, their currency, their flag, what kit they wore.

I think I recognized the World Cup as this doorway to the world. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it like that back then, but I recognized the exoticism. There’s this whole world out there and they all care about this thing. They all play football. And I think that was incredibly intoxicating.

Aislyn: Yeah, it opened the door to the world for you through a very specific lens. It’s so interesting. There’s a line in your book about how everyone’s favorite World Cup is their first World Cup. Would you say that’s still true for you?

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s the nostalgia of it. I’ve got a theory in football: we prioritize what happens when we’re very young, just before we fully understand things. If you get interested in football when you’re five or six, that’s what you think football should look like. Because you didn’t fully experience it, you give it a greater authority. Oh, well, it must have been great because people are still talking about it.

The aesthetic of the early ‘80s. The kits in those days were a lot of them cotton, so the sweat was really visible. The Brazil shirts, that yellow, playing in the heat of Spain in summer. Falcão scored a famous goal against Italy and runs away celebrating with his arms out, and you can see very clearly the sweat on his shirt. I thought: yes, footballers should look like that. It annoys me that we now have moisture-wicking technology and nobody really looks properly sweaty anymore.

And the noise. Everybody had air horns. That was a big thing in the early ‘80s. The Brazil fans always had drums. All of that just added to this sense of exoticism. Now everything is slightly homogenized and we all know too much. But yes, the first World Cup, I think everybody goes through that same process of: God, this thing is huge.

Aislyn: Which team do you back now?

Jonathan: I’m a Sunderland fan. I couldn’t be anything else. It would be like changing the color of my eyes. This is what I am. It’s so integral to your identity. In England, that is still true, particularly from the big post-industrial northern cities. If Sunderland gets to a cup final, or a playoff final more likely, they bring tens of thousands of fans to London, thirty or forty thousand, and they all take over Trafalgar Square or Covent Garden. The whole point is to say: remember, we’re still here. London has forgotten about us. We’re miles away. We don’t produce money anymore. The coal mines have gone. The shipyards have gone. The glass industry’s gone. There’s nothing there apart from the football. So the football is the way the city is able to project itself to the world.

Aislyn: I love that. In the intro to The Power and the Glory, you write that it is a book about the World Cup, about great players and great goals and great matches, but also about soccer as a tool for self-projection and influence peddling, about the role it has played in nation building and the role it increasingly plays as countries negotiate their positions in a globalized world. So why has the World Cup become such a complex mix of patriotism, politics, and passion?

Jonathan: Fundamentally, because everybody cares. The whole world cares about it. Every country in the world watches the World Cup. And because football is so popular, it has more power than other sports.

You can see this right at the start. The first truly international football tournament was the 1924 Olympics. That’s the first time you get European, African, and American nations competing, and Uruguay win it. Nobody knows anything about them. They turn up, they play brilliantly, at a level way beyond what anybody expects. A third of all the revenues of the 1924 Olympics came from football.

The Uruguayan government’s pro-government newspaper El Dia said that this victory was worth thousands of hours of diplomacy and thousands of dollars of investment in advertising. People now knew, first, that Uruguay is an independent nation and not just a northern province of Argentina, and second, they associated it with something very, very positive. That’s why, when the first World Cup came around in 1930, Uruguay said yes, we will host it.

There’s also this happy coincidence that 1930 fell over the hundredth anniversary of the ratification of their constitution. The big stadium they built for the tournament is the Centenario, to mark the centenary, and Uruguay, in the Centenario, just over 100 years after ratifying their constitution, win the first World Cup.

Aislyn: What would you say the host countries for this year’s World Cup are trying to project? What role does nation building play in 2026?

Jonathan: I think 2026 is a really complicated and difficult example, possibly out of line with everything we’ve seen up until now. This is only the second time we’ve had more than one country hosting at once. In 2002, we had Japan and South Korea. This time we’ve got three hosts, 104 games, 80 of them in the U.S. The U.S. are clearly the main hosts.

The nature of the World Cup changes in 2010. Up until 2006, revenues were divided between FIFA and the host nation. So even if you didn’t turn a financial profit, you could justify it: we get all this exposure, people see our cities, see our country. Right up through even Qatar in 2022, part of the point of hosting was to get people to come to your country and then go home and tell everyone it’s brilliant.

Aislyn: That seems like such a smart kind of tourism builder. What has changed since then, and do you think it’s been positive?

Jonathan: From 2010 onwards, FIFA take a much greater share of ticket revenues, broadcast revenues, and sponsorship deals. It is now almost impossible for host nations not to lose an enormous amount of money. South Africa hosted in 2010, Brazil in 2014. FIFA also demands massive tax breaks, which I believe the U.S. has not yet granted. Jacob Zuma’s line on South Africa’s experience was essentially: we made ten times less than we thought, and it cost ten times more than we thought.

Brazil is even worse. The Estadio Mané Garrincha in Brasília, which cost $900 million, the second most expensive stadium in the world when it was built, was being used as a bus depot within two years of the World Cup. A disastrous waste of an enormous amount of money.

Russia’s case is very complicated. When Russia bid in 2009, Putin’s foreign policy was to show he was a moderate, a man with whom the West could do business. By the time 2018 arrived and the first invasion of Ukraine had happened, his foreign policy had changed. But the original aim was to say: look, we are part of the global elite, and we can show this by hosting the World Cup. And Russia at that point was genuinely wealthy. When I visited in 2018, I had this realization that if you were a middle-class Russian, you had never had it so good. They had disposable income in a way they’d never had before. It was revelatory, thinking: this is why they don’t rise up, why they don’t protest about the restrictions and lack of freedoms. Because this is actually better than they’ve ever had before. Clearly things have got much worse since the second invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions.

Aislyn: Do you think that was also true for Qatar when they hosted the 2022 World Cup?

Jonathan: Qatar, even more so. I think all their investment in sport is primarily driven by a desire to get people to know that Qatar is a sovereign nation, much like Uruguay in the 1920s. If people have heard of Qatar, if the world knows who Qatar is, it’s that much harder for potentially hostile regional powers such as Iran or Saudi Arabia to think about moving in on their natural gas. They reportedly spent $221 billion on the World Cup and associated infrastructure, more than every previous World Cup combined. And the human cost, in terms of migrant worker deaths estimated at around 6,500 by Human Rights Watch, was horrendous.

Now, I don’t think the U.S. is particularly interested in projecting an image as a great global player. That box has been ticked for quite a while. But what is being projected at the minute is Donald Trump. We saw it at the Club World Cup, hosted in the U.S. last summer: he was front and center of everything, including the medal ceremony after Chelsea beat Paris Saint-Germain. He can’t realistically have planned this as the outcome, but I think that’s the outcome we’re going to get.

And frankly, the financial picture is already fraying. Foxboro is refusing to give FIFA an entertainment license because FIFA won’t commit to underwriting the $7.8 million cost of security. Fan fest plans have been scaled back in Seattle and Boston, and the Bay Area is reconsidering its plans too, despite a daily fan fest being mandated in the bid process. These cities are right to push back, but they should have worked it out before signing on. If you’re not projecting an image of yourself and you’re not making money, what exactly are you doing?

Aislyn: Given the current news cycle, it’s going to be a very complicated year for the World Cup. Do you think only the wealthiest nations will be able to host going forward?

Jonathan: Yes. The expansion from 32 teams to 48 puts an enormous strain on host cities. With 16 teams, you could feasibly move a tournament at short notice. England, Germany, France, Italy could host and get away with it. With 48, you need a very, very wealthy host.

For 2030, we know it will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. And because it’s the hundredth anniversary of the first World Cup, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay will each host one game. Expecting everyone to fly over the Atlantic for one game and then fly back is weird and bad for players, fans, and the environment.

As for 2034, the short version is: Saudi Arabia have been very keen to host for a while and provide much of the funding for Infantino, the president of FIFA. When bidding opened, Australia were considering it but needed planning permission to build new stadiums, which you cannot get in 28 days. Saudi Arabia had their complete bid document ready within 24 hours of the deadline being announced. Almost as if they knew exactly what was happening all along.

Aislyn: Wild. All of that aside, what are you actually excited about for the World Cup in North America in 2026?

Jonathan: I’ve been lobbying for years to cover the Mexican arm of it, mainly because Guadalajara is, to me, the most World Cup city of all. Mexico hosted the World Cup in 1970 and again in 1986. In England, the great game from 1970 was England’s defeat to Brazil in Guadalajara. And in 1986, France beat Brazil in the quarter-final there. Guadalajara is a word synonymous with the World Cup for me.

So I lobbied at The Guardian for four years. Last year in Germany, I spent a lot of time going around places like Stuttgart by myself, a lot of lonely brewery tours, while colleagues went to Munich and Berlin and Hamburg. But the payoff is I get to go to Guadalajara. If England and Mexico both win their groups and then win in the last 32, they would meet in Mexico City in the last 16, which would be quite something. After that I’ll fly into the U.S. and do games through to the final, though I probably won’t know the exact route until a couple of days before it happens.

Aislyn: Can we talk a little more about the expansion? Forty-eight teams instead of 32. Why, and what does it mean for the tournament?

Jonathan: Unfortunately this is another FIFA political story. Gianni Infantino’s support base, much like those of his predecessors Sepp Blatter and João Havelange before him, lies in the world’s smaller and poorer nations. Havelange won the FIFA election in 1974, so we’ve had only three people in charge for fifty years, which you may have questions about.

Havelange’s father was a Belgian arms dealer who missed his Titanic connection and ended up working in São Paulo, where Havelange grew up. He was a very good sportsman in his own right, competing in water polo and swimming for Brazil at the Olympics. He was at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he was very impressed by the punctuality of the transport, which I think we can all agree was definitely the key takeaway from those Games. He was never afraid of associating with right-wing leaderships, but he was very good at presenting himself as the anti-colonial candidate.

He ran against Stanley Rous, a slightly old-fashioned Englishman who tends to be portrayed as a terrible tweedy colonial, which I think is actually deeply unfair. But where Rous really shot himself in the foot was over FIFA’s supposed political neutrality. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, when Black African nations were looking to freeze out apartheid South Africa for refusing to field a mixed-race team, Rous opposed them, arguing it was an internal South African matter. His logic was defensible, but it allowed Havelange to portray him as pro-apartheid, which he categorically was not. Havelange’s base was Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the postcolonial nexus, and it has remained so ever since.

One of the advantages of having your support base in some of the world’s poorer countries is that you find you can bribe people quite easily. Sepp Blatter set up what’s called the Goal Project, which on paper is a great idea: FIFA distributes money to football associations around the world that need to build a new pitch, upgrade their headquarters, fund a refereeing course, and so on. However, unless it’s audited well, it’s obviously very open to abuse. The very first handout went to the Liberian Football Association, whose president was Edwin Snow, the son-in-law of Charles Taylor, the notorious president of Liberia later indicted on war crimes charges. Edwin Snow used the money to go to the U.S. and do an MBA. He then returned to Liberia, quit his position as president of the Football Association, and took up a role as head of the Liberian National Oil Company. Not a penny of that went into Liberian football, but Liberia’s vote for Blatter in FIFA elections was guaranteed.

And so this distribution of revenues to secure votes is how Havelange, Blatter, and Infantino maintain their primacy. One of the things smaller nations have long lobbied for is greater access to the World Cup, and with 48 places instead of 32, there is more space. African slots have gone up from five to nine, potentially ten if DR Congo win the inter-confederation playoff.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable. The drop off from the 32nd best team in the world to the 48th isn’t particularly large. The bigger problem is the dilution of spectacle. A 32-team World Cup has 64 games, of which 55 are genuinely watchable. At 104 games, it simply isn’t possible to watch them all.

Aislyn: Aside from that dilution of spectacle, are there other structural issues you foresee?

Jonathan: With 32 teams, you have eight groups of four, top two go through, and there is genuine jeopardy on every game. With 48 teams across 12 groups, the top two plus the eight best third-place teams advance, which means there’s not very much jeopardy at all. If you win your opening game, you’re almost certainly through. Much of the group stage becomes low-stakes. And one of the great joys of the World Cup is that big teams go out early. That jeopardy is what you want to write about as a journalist, and it’s what you want to watch as a fan. If instead you’re watching mid-ranking sides drift away who you weren’t even sure had qualified in the first place, well, who cares?

Aislyn: Given all of that, which teams do you have an eye on this year?

Jonathan: The teams with a genuine chance of winning: Spain, I think, are significantly the best team in the world right now. England and France have a chance. Argentina are still world champions and still have Messi. And I think Brazil will be better than they’ve been for a while under Carlo Ancelotti, which is a very wise appointment. In a strange tactical, hereditary way, they’ve almost gone back to their roots with him. The great era of Brazilian football, 1958 through to 1970, when they won three World Cups out of four, was very heavily influenced by Hungarian emigres. Béla Guttmann won the league with São Paulo in 1955, and Vicente Feola, the 1958 Brazil coach, had worked with him. Ancelotti’s lineage traces back to that same Hungarian ethos through Nils Liedholm, who played for AC Milan and then coached both Roma and Milan, where he was a massive influence on Ancelotti. It’s as though Brazil is restoring itself to the roots that made it great.

Aislyn: What about an outlier, a country we might overlook?

Jonathan: Norway have been threatening to be really good for a while and somehow just not quite qualifying, and now suddenly they’re in. They’ve got Erling Haaland as a center forward alongside Alexander Sørloth: two players who, if you were a club side, you wouldn’t buy them both because they’re quite similar. But they’re both big, both physical, both quick. You go direct to them and it’s all brawn, not guile. Not sophisticated, but incredibly exciting. They’ve also got creative midfielders like Martin Ødegaard. Norway were very good in the mid-'90s, then as happens with countries of that population size, it’s very difficult to maintain consistency. But they look really good now and I think they’re a really interesting outside bet.

I’m also interested in DR Congo, if they get through the inter-confederation playoff. I’ve been to 13 Africa Cup of Nations and DR Congo are always nearly there but not quite getting over the line. They’ve got a lot of players starting to make names for themselves, not just in France and Belgium but in England too. Noha Sidev in midfield is only 21 and has a remarkable engine while also being very good at carrying the ball. Having seen DRC fall so narrowly so many times, I really hope they get to the World Cup and make their mark.

Aislyn: I’d love to wrap up with a couple of questions about stadiums, because they’re all so symbolic. What are some of the stadiums with the most interesting historical nuggets?

Jonathan: Two come to mind. The Estadio Azteca in Mexico City is the only stadium in the world to have hosted two World Cup finals. People will shout at me and say the Maracanã, but technically the last game in 1950 was a final group game, not a designated final. The Azteca is the only venue to have hosted two actual finals, and it’s also where the famous Maradona quarter-final took place. I’m told there’s a plaque to the goal. I’ve never been there before and I’m very much looking forward to it.

And then there’s MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which I find fascinating not for the stadium itself, but for its location. It’s very close to Kearny, New Jersey, which was the original hotbed of soccer in the U.S. Two Scottish companies came over in the 1870s and brought a lot of Scottish workers with them, and football really took root there in a way it didn’t elsewhere. Three members of the U.S. squad at the 1990 World Cup came from Kearny, which for such a tiny place is remarkable. And Carli Lloyd, who scored a hat trick in the Women’s World Cup final, is from just a few miles away. I like the fact that the World Cup final will be played very close to the symbolic birthplace of U.S. soccer.

Aislyn: I didn’t realize New Jersey held that significance in the soccer world. Are there any stadiums with fun personal memories for you?

Jonathan: At the Al Bayt Stadium during the Qatar World Cup, there was a problem with my ticket in the press box: the seat didn’t actually exist, having been taken up by a camera position. I found myself at the back of the press box needing to get to the other side, with a big air conditioning vent in the way. Rather than walk all the way around, I tried to cross in front of it. As soon as I got there, this enormous blast of air came at me. It was like North by Northwest, Cary Grant clinging on desperately, stewards having to pull me back in. So: if you’re near an air conditioning vent at a World Cup stadium, do be careful. They are dangerous.

Aislyn: That is not the hot tip I was expecting from this interview. What about at home watching games, any superstitions?

Jonathan: I’m a very rational person in most walks of life, but really not in football. I hate writing about Sunderland during games. You have to file your match report as the final whistle blows, and you learn to write your intro while the game is still going on. If it’s any other team and we’re winning one-nil with 15 minutes to go, I’m writing the intro. If it’s Sunderland? No, no, no. I don’t want to tempt fate. I don’t want to look arrogant to the fates. So I’m, frankly, a terrible match reporter when it comes to Sunderland.

Aislyn: Note to self: don’t watch certain matches with Jonathan. Thank you so much for the chat today, it was so interesting and edifying. And I’m looking forward to your World Cup reporting.

Jonathan: No worries. Thanks.

Aislyn: Thank you everyone for joining this World Cup episode. But don’t leave just yet because next up, we have a little inspiration for anyone with World Cup travel dreams. In the meantime, I’ve linked to Jonathan’s website and his many books, including The Power and the Glory, in the show notes. Now on to that travel inspiration.

Ad Break from Visit Dallas

The following is an ad break sponsored by Visit Dallas.

Aislyn: Welcome to Unpacking Your Next Trip, brought to you by Visit Dallas. This June, Dallas will host nine FIFA World Cup matches, the most of any host city. So it is an electric time to explore the city. And to unpack it all today, I’m joined by two Dallas locals who are going to share what it’s like on the ground right now, and all the amazing reasons to attend a match and stay a little longer.

First, we have Noelle LeVeaux, the chief marketing officer for the North Texas World Cup Organizing Committee, and then we have Jonathan Thompson, a freelance journalist, and as you’ll hear, an England native who now calls Dallas home. Jonathan and Noelle, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so nice to have you here.

I’d love to start with the vibe. What does it feel like in the city right now, and what do you expect come summer?

Noelle: Well, the city right now is already buzzing, honestly. We celebrated 100 days out just this past Tuesday, and I just feel like we’re on skis going downhill very, very fast to that June 11th date when the tournament kicks off.

But it’s really excitement.

Aislyn: Jonathan, how about you?

Jonathan: Well, I, I completely agree that there’s a real sense of excitement about the city. People are talking about what tickets they have, what tickets they want, and what their plans are. I’ve certainly got a lot of local friends who are planning to take time off throughout the World Cup, um, discussing where we’re gonna watch the games.

But aside from that, as an Englishman, I’m incredibly excited because England’s first game is right here in Dallas.

Aislyn: So that begs the question, where are you gonna watch these matches?

Noelle: So I will say that I do plan to be in the stadium for at least one, even though I know I’ll be working quite a bit during this time.

But the other place is the Fan Festival, which is gonna be in Fair Park. That is really where most people will experience the World Cup, both those that are coming to visit and those that live here. Only about 54 percent of the international travelers will have tickets to the actual matches. So the energy that’s gonna be at the Fan Festival is gonna be like none other.

So I, I definitely plan to see quite a few matches from there.

Jonathan: I’ve actually got tickets to three of the nine Dallas games so far. Um, hoping to go to as many of them as I can, and I’m excited to be in and around the stadium because there’s Texas Live! right there, which is a big outdoor space with bars and live music and food.

But in terms of bars and pubs, I think the key ones in Dallas will be the Harwood Arms, The Londoner, Happiest Hour. They’re all sort of classic sports bars where the expats tend to meet anyway to watch Premier League or Champions League, and I think those places are gonna be packed out.

Noelle: Spoken like a real Englishman because we were actually just with the English consulate, and they said, “Hey, if we can find an Irish pub, that’s where we will be.” But then obviously, of course, a lot of folks coming from some of the Latin countries as well, and so there are a lot of really neat smaller bars and restaurants that are planning on getting engaged as well around Fair Park and in South Dallas.

Aislyn: Yeah, I can already feel the energy. It seems like such a fun time to be there. And of course, there is so much to do in Dallas beyond the World Cup. So why would you recommend that people extend their trips here?

Jonathan: If you’re a, a history lover or a culture lover, there’s tons to see, and we’ve got the DMA, amazing art museum.

Uh, there’s the Sixth Floor Museum, which is dedicated to dealing with the, the JFK assassination and the conspiracy theories around it. I love the Perot as well, which has a new exhibition, which is about to open next week, dedicated to football, the world of soccer, the science of soccer. And that’s just the museums.

Then there’s all kinds of other stuff to do too.

Noelle: I love to say that Dallas is the city that will surprise you. People still have this idea of Dallas that oftentimes is not accurate, and so they’re surprised to see the diversity of the city, from the population to the neighborhoods that we have. I love to look at how Dallas communities are represented in the 48 nations that will play in the World Cup.

We have, um, communities that reflect all of those nations, and I think people are surprised by that. People quickly realize that when you start peeling the onion back when you’re in Dallas, you start to discover Bishop Arts, great shops and restaurants and Southern hospitality culture, to Deep Ellum, which is really our live music center, and lots of great bars and clubs, very eclectic neighborhood.

Uptown, which has some really fantastic new high-end restaurants and experiences there. There’s so much to do. And as much as people will be watching football or soccer, uh, we’re excited for them to experience other pieces of the culture that is here.

Jonathan: Yeah, I think that the best way to think about Dallas is a patchwork of adjacent neighborhoods, and that’s the beauty of it.

As Noelle said, there’s places like Bishop Arts, which is a really great, creative, lively neighborhood with art galleries and bars and cafes, and then there’s Deep Ellum with all the live music. And my personal favorite neighborhood is Lower Greenville, which has all of these bars and restaurants all lined up along a, a strip, and they’re all so much fun.

It’s really walkable.

Aislyn: You mentioned food, so I feel like we need to talk about that specifically. And the Michelin Guide Texas debuted in 2024, and Dallas features prominently. I think there are now two Michelin-starred restaurants there. So what are your favorite spots for everything from a casual meal with friends to a big night out?

Noelle: So Jonathan mentioned Lower Greenville, so I would go to Goodwins would be— one of the number one places that— um, definitely a lot of fun, great food, nice speakeasy in the back, great cocktails. So it’s a great place for meeting girlfriends for a birthday dinner, or I think date night too. Lots of fun. That would be one of my favorites.

Jonathan: They have the biggest, fattest oysters I’ve ever seen.

Noelle: Yes. Jonathan mentioned Lower Greenville. The, the change that has happened on Lower Greenville, it was always kind of a center of great restaurants, some of them that you sort of had to know, and now it has just blossomed, I think, with everything from HG Sply Co. and the bars as well as really great restaurants.

So that’s, that’s one place, I’d say.

Jonathan: Opposite Goodwins, there’s another really, really good one called Sister.

Noelle: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Sister.

Jonathan: Which is Italian and very chic. Great, great food in there. And then further down the street, you’re right, the bars. Truck Yard is my favorite, so it’s like an outdoor beer garden, which looks a bit like a junkyard, but it’s really a bar, and you can sit in old cars and enjoy your cocktails in the sunshine.

They have food trucks there as well. I mean, at, at the top end, you’ve obviously got the Michelin-starred places, and my favorite there is Mamani. I actually was lucky enough to try that out myself last week, and the food is out of this world delicious.

Aislyn: Ooh, can you tell us more?

Jonathan: Okay, so Mamani is a, an upscale French restaurant.

It’s in Uptown. It’s new. It gained its Michelin star within eight weeks of opening, which is an incredible feat. Wow. And it just is extraordinary food. It’s the kind of food that you, once you’ve tasted it, it kind of lingers on the edge of your imagination for weeks afterwards. I loved the veal. I love— they have an incredible asparagus dish that just melts in your mouth.

Um, and they also have this extraordinary dessert, which is like a kind of crusty, crunchy donut with cream inside, and it just kind of explodes in your mouth. It’s just amazing. Amazing restaurant. Really hard to get a reservation there, but the, the trick is to book for the 5:00 PM seating where there’s normally availability.

I love that. Um, and that’s a real treat. I think the Dallas dining scene is spectacular. It’s up there with the best, and Bon Appétit magazine actually named Dallas the restaurant city of the year recently, ahead of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago. And I think a lot of chefs come here because it’s cheaper.

It’s cheaper to, to rent premises than it is in Los Angeles or New York. Uh, it’s cheaper to hire staff. You can have more space, and you can try things out a little bit more. You know, there’s not the intensity that there is in, in those coastal cities. So the, the food scene here is a big, big draw, and when I speak to people from London or from New York or from Los Angeles that are living here or visiting here, they all say the same, that they’re blown away by the food scene.

Aislyn: What are some of the other cuisines that you think travelers, especially people coming from overseas, might be surprised by, and some of your favorite places to eat?

Jonathan: So we know Japan is gonna play a game here. My favorite Japanese restaurant is Namo. Absolutely amazing restaurant in West Village. It’s very small.

You might not find it if you weren’t looking for it, but trust me, you wanna go there because it is spectacular food.

Aislyn: Love it. Noelle, how about you?

Noelle: You know, it’s funny. When I was at Visit Dallas as a chief marketing officer and doing, uh, focus groups around the nation, we always thought they’d say Tex-Mex, and rarely did they say Tex-Mex.

And then I started realizing that you kinda have to understand Texas to understand Tex-Mex. So it was a funny, it was a funny, uh, experience because as someone who is a transplant to Texas, when I travel, when I come home, the one thing I want is Tex-Mex. You kinda miss it when you’re other places.

So I’m gonna say they should try Tex-Mex, and I think that before they leave here they’ll be saying the same thing, like, “Before I leave, I have to have more Tex-Mex.” Yes. Um, of course washed down with a margarita.

Jonathan: That is true. And you know, when we, when we’re in England, my wife, after about eight or nine days, starts to crave Tex-Mex.

It’s really odd.

Noelle: Yeah.

Jonathan: Um, but when, when you’ve been brought up on that, I mean, it’s the, kind of the ultimate Southern comfort food, isn’t it? And, um, I think people forget that the Tex bit of the Tex-Mex in the sense that it’s the kind of time-honored Texan ranching ingredients, isn’t it, like beef and cheese and wheat.

Noelle: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan: And then you put that together with the flavors of Northern Mexico and all the spiciness and the gooeyness, and it’s just... Oh, it’s delicious. I’m feeling hungry for Tex-Mex just talking about it. All the sizzling fajitas and the crispy enchiladas. Wow. And actually my favorite place for Tex-Mex is Las Palmas in Uptown.

Noelle: Okay, you took mine. Las Palmas is my absolute favorite.

Jonathan: I love it.

Noelle: They have incredible quesadillas. Their guacamole is out of this world, and they make fantastic margaritas. I mean, you cannot go wrong at Las Palmas at the bar or sitting with friends. I would say for our visitors it’s great because you sit down in a Tex-Mex restaurant, and you’re gonna have chips and salsa or guac right away that you’re not gonna pay for.

And so it’s an experience that when we go other places and they try to charge us for chips and salsa, we are all very confused by that. So definitely part of our Southern hospitality.

Jonathan: And let’s not forget that the frozen margarita was invented here. It sure was. And we know how to do them.

Noelle: Yes. In the ‘70s at El Fenix, so you do have to sometimes go to those, those old-school spots.

Aislyn: Well, before we move on to, or back to the frozen margarita, Noelle, are there other cuisines or places that you like to go outside of the Tex-Mex and the barbecue? You’ve made a great case for experiencing that, but anything else that you feel like represents kind of a more surprising side of, of Dallas cuisine?

Noelle: Well, this is where I think it gets interesting in regard to the neighborhoods of Dallas. You know, if you go a little bit into North Dallas, closer to Richardson, you find some fantastic Chinese food, Vietnamese food. Mm. Um, the populations in the community have really started dictating the food that is there.

So it’s, it’s about exploration, I think, when it comes to the food scene here, and it is tied to the neighborhood in a lot of ways, which you expect in Chicago. I think it’s kind of unexpected here in Dallas, but it is true that that is the way it is, too.

Jonathan: I mean, there’s literally every type of food you can imagine.

I was actually researching this for a story yesterday, seeing if I could find a restaurant for all of the teams that are playing in Dallas.

Aislyn: Oh, that’s fun.

Jonathan: And believe it or not, there are restaurants for every team, including a Jordanian restaurant, which I did not expect to find, and obviously lots of Japanese restaurants.

There’s a Croatian restaurant, and, um, there’s an Austrian restaurant as well, which looks like a lot of fun.

Aislyn: Well, we have to talk margaritas. You both brought them up, and I have heard about the Margarita Mile, which apparently will be transformed for FIFA. So what are some of your favorite spots to grab a margarita, frozen or not?

Noelle: So when I first moved here, I didn’t drink tequila, which I found would be a really big problem if I was gonna stay here. So I adapted. Um, and I adapted, I have to say, on what most Dallas locals will tell you at some stage of their life was their favorite margarita, and it’s the Mambo Taxi from Mi Cocina.

But what’s really fun now is that there’s a Mi Cocina right down in the middle of downtown at Klyde Warren Park, so the deck park that is there. And so frozen is the way to get a Mambo Taxi.

Aislyn: Got it.

Noelle: Okay. And it is swirled with grenadine, salt on the rim. It’s wonderful. You should probably only have two.

But you’ll enjoy them.

Aislyn: What happens after you have two?

Noelle: Um, well—

Jonathan: Someone takes your car keys away.

Noelle: Yeah. Definitely your car keys. And, and usually they might, they might shut you down if you’re going to number three. So, um, it’s always a good time for a Mambo Taxi, but that’s my favorite frozen for sure.

Aislyn: I love that.

Jonathan: I mean, I’ve gotta say that I’m still an Englishman, so I am a beer drinker. Uh, however, when I do, on the rare occasions I do have a margarita, I like to go to HG Sply Co., which is on Lower Greenville. It has a great roof terrace with fantastic views of downtown, and they do a really nice beetroot margarita.

Ooh. Which sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it really does.

Aislyn: Interesting. Salted rim for that too?

Jonathan: Oh, yeah, always.

Aislyn: Yeah, I think I could get behind this.

Noelle: You can get behind it. Tajín on the rim sometimes, a spicy margarita. Lots of great places to get a margarita. It’s definitely our signature drink.

Aislyn: So you’re drinking margaritas, which means that you’re out enjoying the nightlife, and there is such a special energy during FIFA.

So for people who want to go out in the evenings and celebrate, where would you send them for maybe live music, for dancing, for another cocktail?

Noelle: So I think there’s a lot of different places, again, for this experience, which I think is what, like we’ve said, is fun about Dallas. Obviously, for live music, there’s gonna be several places in Deep Ellum.

It’s largely our, our main collection. And then also on Lower Greenville, and those kind of connect through to each other. But there’s some little unexpected spots. The one I would say is an unexpected spot for jazz is called Chocolate Secrets. Ooh. And it’s over on Oak Lawn. Great little place. They make all of their own handmade chocolates and truffles, so that’s not a bad thing to go along with jazz, and great wine as well.

So on Thursday nights and Friday nights, they always have jazz music, and it’s, it’s just a great environment to be in. You feel very transported.

Aislyn: Amazing. All right, Jonathan, how about you? Where would you send your friends?

Jonathan: I mean, Lower Greenville is the, the ticket, I would say, um, just because there’s so many options there within easy, easy walking distance, and you can just go from one bar to the other, and most of them will have big screens showing the games as well.

So in terms of hidden gems, there is a little spot called The Balcony Club in Lakewood, which is in an old art deco movie theater, and they have live music in there as well. It’s a really cool small club which is very much a local secret, but it’s opposite one of the best football pubs as well, which is The Black Friar.

That’s a big Barcelona pub, um, which, um, has big doors that open out onto the street. So a lot of the Spain games will probably be screening down there, and then you could go onto The Balcony Club afterwards and enjoy the music. I mean, honestly, this place is, is full of spots to go out. We haven’t even talked about the rooftop pool bar scene because a lot of the hotels have these great rooftop bars with pools. If the games are during the day, you could be in the pool with a margarita watching the game on a big screen, and that, you know, to an Englishman, that sounds like heaven.

Noelle: I like how he said rooftop bars with pools. They’re actually rooftop pools with bars. But—

Jonathan: Right.

Noelle: But it does feel like a rooftop bar that happens to have a pool. That is definitely what it feels like.

Jonathan: Things get mixed up after the second margarita.

Aislyn: All right. Well, I would love to close with your recommendations and your favorite ways to fill your daytime hours, aside from the pools and the margaritas.

Noelle: Well, you can’t miss shopping. Dallas is still a shopping mecca, from the Galleria Dallas to NorthPark, which is the largest outdoor mall. In the beginning, Highland Park Village, and there’s quite a few shops that have opened up in downtown as well. Got a lot of great Western wear, very high-end brands that people will love.

There’s also the Arboretum, which is beautiful. The Dallas Arboretum is a wonderful place to experience nature. It’s also got a great children’s garden there now too as well. Something very different and unexpected, outdoorsy, White Rock Lake. You can walk around the lake. I trained for a marathon. It’s about a 10-mile run around there, and so people are out there crewing and, and boating.

Something else that people oftentimes don’t expect to see in the Dallas terrain, we have quite a few trails. The Katy Trail, which runs through downtown. You’ll see people running, jogging, biking, walking their dogs. There’s a lot more outdoor things to do than people expect.

Jonathan: All of those things are fantastic tips.

I, I really like White Rock Lake in particular, and you can experience lots of different things there. You can go kayaking there, but you can also take these, um, sunset catamaran trips where you get on the catamaran and they serve you champagne and snacks, and you just sail towards the skyline as the sun goes down, and it’s really, really nice.

Another thing is that Dallas is home to America’s largest urban arts district. I think it spans, like, 20 city blocks. There’s all kinds of theaters and performance centers, like the Wyly Theatre, the Winspear Opera House. These are all world-class venues, and there’s always something happening there. So you can normally pick up cheap tickets to really big shows on the morning of the show.

So that’s something that people might wanna consider on days when there is no football.

Aislyn: Yeah, it’s a great tip.

Jonathan: But I mean, honestly, there’s so much to do here. You could easily plan a week or two weeks here for vacation without the World Cup, and then you throw the World Cup into that as well. With this enormous football festival happening here, it’s gonna be just so much fun.

Aislyn: It does sound like so much fun. So thank you Noelle and Jonathan, and thank you listeners for joining Unpacking Your Next Trip. You can find more Dallas inspiration and start planning your next trip at visitdallas.com.