Students bring their fandom to class in this year’s World Cup course
Sports fans everywhere know there’s no event quite like the World Cup.
Every four years, soccer fans across the world unite in preparation for the FIFA World Cup. The soccer tournament attracts millions of spectators from countries large and small. And in the Media School, a class of students takes time twice a week to join in on the festivities.
The World Cup 2022 class is taught by Media School Director of Undergraduate Studies and associate professor Galen Clavio. More than 100 students are enrolled in the fall semester course and have been learning about the history and cultural context of the World Cup.
“I’ve always been a fan of the game in general,” Clavio said. “When I was a student here, we won two national championships in men’s soccer so it’s just been a natural sport to enjoy and learn about pretty much since I graduated college.”
The class has been taught multiple times in the past, but this year’s group of students is breaking new ground for the class. Instead of previewing the tournament in the spring, the group has had the opportunity to discuss the games as they happen. This is because the World Cup was hosted in the winter as opposed to the summer months. Often, they’ll even watch parts of the game as they happen live on screen.
The class is devoted to covering a variety of topics surrounding the global sporting event. This includes discussing the geopolitical background of the World Cup, which has become especially relevant for this year’s tournament as it is being held in Qatar. Over the past several years, the country has been under fire for a number of severe human rights abuses.
Small groups within the class gave presentations on each of the 32 teams competing in this year’s World Cup. And as the tournament continues on, the class examines the way statistics factor into the ranking of each team.
Sophomore Austin Platt was a soccer fan even before taking the class, but said he’s been thrilled to learn even more about the World Cup.
“The way the sport has evolved in terms of statistics and the overall growth of the sport is something that not everyone knows about,” Platt said.
Despite that, Clavio, who also serves as the director of the National Sports Journalism Center, said he strives to make the class accessible to any interested student.
“I tried to design it as something where Media School students would find it useful, but anybody on campus that was interested in soccer would be able to take it and get something out of it,” Clavio said.
For Platt, he knows this class is something you can only get the chance to take once, but he said it’s one he definitely recommends to his peers.
“It’s more than just a soccer class,” Platt said. “And it’s good for anyone to take because I know a lot of people in this class didn’t know a lot about soccer, and there’s a lot more things you learn than just what happens during 90 minutes of a soccer match.”
Looking forward, Clavio talked of the possibility of a travel class that would visit various World Cup locations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the 2026 World Cup, but says there’s still plenty of time to plan.