Roger Bennett of ‘Men in Blazers’ on World Cup 2022 and the 100 greatest soccer players

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• Judy Woodruff:

  We are less than one month away from the start of the 2022 men's World Cup that will transfix soccer fans around the world.

  Amna Nawaz has our look ahead at the tournament.

• Amna Nawaz:

  The World Cup, considered by many to be the biggest sporting event in the world, kicks off November 20 in Qatar.

  There is lots of anticipation and excitement around the games, but the venue has sparked criticism, including over Qatar's outlawing of LGBTQ rights and the deaths of migrant workers the nation depends on to prepare for the Cup.

  Roger Bennett has been watching all of this. He's the host of the soccer podcast "Men in Blazers" and the co-author of the new book "Gods of Soccer: The Pantheon of the 100 Greatest Soccer Players," which takes a look at the careers of top players in sports history.

  And he joins me now.

  Roger Bennett, welcome back to the "NewsHour." Always good to see you.

  There is no way you're going to get people to agree on the top 100 players. Let's just put that out there. Even you admit in the book it's an act of folly. So how do you do it? What are the core criteria in this book?

• Roger Bennett, Soccer Analyst:

  We have a certain degree of chutzpah, I would say.

  But you need to acknowledge up front, to try and create a definitive list of the 100 greatest to ever play the game, it is an act of folly, only undertaken by those who love to grab the third rail in life.

  But we have got our staff together, and the joy of it is, everybody sees the game differently. It's completely subjective. There's a manager, Jurgen Klopp, who says that football is the world's most important least important thing.

  And that's what I think makes watching sports so compelling. So our goal with this book was to drop our 100. It's a ridiculously subjective thing to do, but we're prepared to defend them with the heat of 1,000 suns.

• Amna Nawaz:

  All right. The book goes back in time. It travels around the world.

  I noticed a number, a number of players from perhaps one of the greatest teams of all time, the U.S. women's national team, rightly so,are featured in the book. It's not just about achievements on the field and career stats, though. You talk a lot about the impact more broadly on the game and society around them, like in the case of Briana Scurry, right?

• Roger Bennett:

  Yes, to us, when two teams take the field, their nation's history, their nation's culture, their nation's politics take the field alongside them.

  That's what makes the World Cup such a scintillating experience for the world to witness. And so greatness can be defined in many ways. There's a lot of glory in our book, the Peles, the Maradonas, the Mia Hamms, the Alex Morgans.

  But, for me, football is ultimately a mirror to humanity. And the book is also about empathy, loyalty, connection to the collective, about dreams and, most importantly, tenacity.

  And Briana Scurry is one of the most remarkable footballers I have ever met, hailing from Minnesota, the only African-American on any team she ever played for from the youngest youth levels all the way through to the World Cup-winning U.S. women's national team.

  And when you speak to the young African-American players who now flourish on that world champion team, they all point to her as the pathfinder. It was a very lonely journey for Briana, but now she can look at everything that she seeded with just a sense of wonder.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You have all those marquee players, as you noted, also my personal favorite, I should mention, Zinedine Zidane, Zizou, is in the book. Thank you for that.

  A lot of other players many people may not have ever heard of, though.

  I'm curious, Rog, do you have a favorite player, a favorite story in the book?

• Roger Bennett:

  There's so many.

  Nadia Nadim is one that comes to mind. Her father was a general in the Afghan army. He was hunted down and killed by the Taliban. The family fled to Denmark, a refugee camp. She found football, realized she could excel at this thing, rose to become an elite football player, all while on the side mastering seven languages and also becoming a reconstructive doctor of medical surgery.

  She really is the kind of human being that you look at and it makes a mockery of the old adage you should just stick to sports.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, a couple of the players featured in the book we will be seeing at the upcoming World Cup, as we mentioned, hosted by Qatar this year.

  Rog, this is a tournament usually hosted in the summer months. It's now being played in November and December. Tell us why.

• Roger Bennett:

  It's for reasons that honestly break my heart.

  The World Cup is the spice of my life, for millions of people around the world. Five billion human beings are expected to tune in. It's been compared to an eclipse that hits the whole world for an entire month simultaneously.

  And the organizing body, FIFA, who are meant to honor the good in football and safeguard it, saw fit to award the World Cup to Qatar, a tiny Gulf state smaller than Connecticut. In a podcast that we have just made, "World Corrupt," we interviewed spokesperson for the Department of Justice who was there for the — when the award went down.

  They gave the 2018 World Cup to Putin's Russia, and then the 2020 World Cup to Qatar, who wanted it almost to change the way they're seen, from a state that's petro-fueled with human rights concerns, with LGBTQ concerns.

  And what's ensued since that award in 2010 is that 6,500 human beings, workers working on the roads, the hotels, the infrastructure, the stadia are reported to have died. It really is a World Cup that is soaked in blood.

  And for fans like me who live for the World Cup every four years, that it's the greatest creator of collective memories, we all have to now shape up and find our own moral position.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, Rog, how do you and soccer lovers around the world square that circle?

  As you mentioned, the concerns over human rights abuses and FIFA's own corruption scandals — will you still watch the games? Does it — does it impact that?

• Roger Bennett:

  Amna, it's so difficult, because it forces you to take sports that we adore and geopolitics and untease the two.

  And it's incredibly complicated. And I think every single fan will come to their own position. But it's not just football. It's the future of the sporting world, LIV Golf, Saudi Arabia, the F1 circuit who are stopping off in the Gulf in greater numbers year on year on year. It really is about the future of sports and how we disentangle it will determine their ability to pull this strategy off in the future.

  But, in the football sense, the questions really are, number one, what would lead FIFA to take this decision? Number two, why would Qatar want this World Cup in the first place? They're currently rushing to get their infrastructure ready for 1.5 million tourists to arrive. And, right now, the reports coming out of it make it look like a repeat of the Fire Festival.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, it is prediction time. A ton of questions to ask you.

  How will the U.S. team do this year? What are their chances going forward? And who else are you watching?

• Roger Bennett:

  Well, despite my accent, I ride with Team America. Becoming an American citizen is the greatest joy of my life.

  And I say that because a young American team, a very raw, incredibly dynamic, but totally inexperienced collective, will face in the opening round, November 25, England, one of the powerhouses of Europe. I ride of America. It's a raw cast of characters.

  I keep my fingers crossed. The World Cup is coming back to the United States in 2026. And I believe, whatever happens on the field for the American team, they will be all the better off for it when they play before a home crowd then in a tournament which is really going to put the sport over the top.

  Who will win it all? The two teams who look levels above are Brazil in their golden jerseys, just a technicolor dream, and Argentina, always a force, with Lionel Messi, that tiny, diminutive — it looks like he's just walked out of Supercuts. But he can unfurl just — God, he's like a demigod amongst us.

  This year, it will be, he's announced, his last World Cup, his fifth. He has always wilted at the World Cup, as if the weight of representing the nation, the very shirt feels like chain mail and drags him down. The closest he's got has been to the final once. He often departs in tears.

  I can always hear Prince's this is what it sounds like when doves cry when I see Lionel Messi overcome by emotion, but, this year, 2026, playing the best form of his career. The team around him are transcendent. And what a way to go out.

• Amna Nawaz:

  That is Roger Bennett, host of the "Men in Blazers" podcast, joining us tonight.

  Rog, always good to see you. Thank you.

• Roger Bennett:

  Courage.

• Judy Woodruff:

  The one and only Roger Bennett.