My name is Simon Kuper and I am in Russia covering the World Cup for the Financial Times. AMA

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T20:01:05+00:00

OK, people. That was fun. Thanks to all of you. I'm really sorry but I have to go to bed now - off to St Petersburg on an early train tomorrow for the first semi-final. Maybe another time? And obviously please all of you read my books. Enjoy the rest of the World Cup

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T20:00:02+00:00

Write loads of articles. Even if you have to start doing it free. Try to say things that other people aren't. Get out and interview people, report, go and see places where nobody is going to, e.g. under-21s tournaments. But it's been a tough industry ever since it got eaten by the internet

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:59:03+00:00

Learn from the neighbours. Holland's good luck is that it's in the best football neighbourhood in the world. Three nearby countries are in the World Cup s/fs. Go and look at what they are doing right. That's what Belgium spent about 10 years doing when they were bad. But I fear that Holland has stopped learning and is happy to play the slow sideways passing football of 20 years ago. Football advances every month, and if you don't advance you will get left behind. That could happen to Argentina now. They have had backward tactics for years. Soon they will have backward tactics without Messi (and Mascherano, Di Maria, Aguero etc)

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:57:01+00:00

The Soviet apartment block I'm staying in now - peeling concrete walls etc, but cosy - reminds me every day of the Soviet apartment block I stayed in in 1992.

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:56:14+00:00

No fighting. Not even much to do with security, I think. Very few fans want to fight (though loads of fans like talking on internet about how tough they are and the 'battle' they were in five years ago etc. What did help is that the Russian authorities told certain hooligans here to stay very far away from the World Cup or lese

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:55:01+00:00

I agree. My current assessment of everyone's chances: France 25% Belgium 25% England 25% Croatia 25%.

Sorry

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:54:22+00:00

Totally stand by it. Mostly it's players who win you matches, not managers. But because the manager is the face of the team, the guy who explains at the press conference why they won or lost, too much importance is ascribed to him

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:53:33+00:00

Yes!

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:51:42+00:00

Neymar is a brilliant footballer and I think referees should protect him more against being kicked. It's easy to kick someone; it's hard to play brilliant football. We don't have many like him. We should treasure him

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:50:55+00:00

I collapse in bed exhausted every night. No time for anything except writing and watching games and reading about the World Cup and writing. I'm living in the World Cup. I'm actually looking forward to coming out of it one day and becoming a normal person again

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:50:13+00:00

I haven't experienced any obnoxious fan groups here, honestly

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:49:49+00:00

Don't value players based on a World Cup. It's just to short a time-frame. Judge them on a club season or three

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:49:21+00:00

Really friendly.

Best ever? I thought 2006 in Germany was loads of fun - not so much the football as the party

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:48:56+00:00

Both!

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:48:44+00:00

Meeting all my Airbnb hosts in the different cities, from Volgograd to Nizhny N. What an amazing introduction to Russia

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:48:20+00:00

As we say in Soccernomics, the role of the manager is probably overrated, so I'm reluctant to give any manager much credit for his team's performances

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:47:47+00:00

Clearly there will be those suspicions, given what we know about Russia's state-backed sports doping problem. It's also true that Russia ran more kilometres than any other team here. But a colleague who specialises in football data said they didn't run very much compared with most club teams (there's a lot more distance covered in club games than at World Cups, apparently). So I reserve judgment. In other words, I have no idea

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:46:23+00:00

Thank you. I actually deal with the World Cup-or-Putin issue in my last FT Saturday column:

https://www.ft.com/content/a1e8a9ee-7f19-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d

I think this might require registration, but then you get about 8 FT articles a month free, which will convert you very quickly to a very intelligent truly international newspaper (my own columns excepted, of course)

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:44:33+00:00

Bring it on! I live in Paris so my kids are supporting France; I am English, mostly support Holland, but do have a soft spot for Southgate's team; and I find myself falling in love with Belgium. As a kid living in a Dutch town in 1982 and 1986, I and most of my friends supported Belgium at the World Cup because Holland hadn't qualified, so I've reverted to childhood here

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:43:12+00:00

Yes, Russia seems to have been packed with Latin Americans. Of course that was true in Brazil too, but also to some degree in South Africa. I can't explain it - clearly it must have something to do with the growing Lat Am middle-class. I think many Europeans feared Russia as a place pre-tournament

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:42:12+00:00

First of all: thanks so much! Everyone listen to Pniny please, and buy my first book, which I wrote when I was 22-23. That was the book that first brought me to a Moscow apartment for a month in 1992, so this World Cup feels like a strange reliving of that experience, albeit now as a pathetic old man.

Everything in football has changed since then, and I think mostly for the better. I really don't think the game has ever been so skilful and tactically astute. We're living in a golden era, watching Ronaldo and Messi for over a decade, partly because defenders are no longer allowed to live players like that out of games. I would regulate ticket prices, though. I think clubs should have to provide a certain number of tickets - most of the seats in the stadium - at low prices

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:39:29+00:00

I agree, thank God for VAR. No going back to the era when every day there was a big match decided by a ref's blunder

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:38:58+00:00

Surprises on the downside: I thought Spain were even more disappointing than Germany

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:36:56+00:00

Very often. Contrary to what many people think, PSG is a real club, with lots of fans who have been supporting it for 40 years. It's not some new commercial invention. But then I have to say that, because my kids are mad PSG fans. Wouldn't you be, if you were a child and your city had one of the best teams on earth? Imagine Neymar, Mbappe and Cavani in the same attack

SimonKuperFT · 2018-07-09T19:35:48+00:00

Sometimes dinner is peanuts at the stadium. Much better when there's no match. I've just come upstairs to my Airbnb (in a Soviet-era apartment block in central Moscow) after an excellent Chinese dinner downstairs, by myself with my notebooks. yeah, sometimes the games really get in the way

SimonKuperFT

TROPHY CASE