{"id":10026,"date":"2026-07-08T16:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=10026"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T23:45:31","slug":"world-cup-reading-during-the-hydration-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/10026\/world-cup-reading-during-the-hydration-breaks","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Reading During the Hydration Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

[July 8, 2026]–<\/em>Both the U.S. and Mexico have now been eliminated from the 2026 World Cup, but that shouldn’t stop you from delving into the great rivalry between the two. I recently had a grand time talking with my old friend, Hal Phillips, a former member of The A Position, about his new book, Sibling Rivalry: How Mexico and the U.S. Built the Most Contentious, Co-Dependent Feud in World Soccer.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The hour-long video conversation is now up for all eternity–or at least as long as YouTube links prevail–and you can listen to it here<\/a>. It was one of the many Literary Cocktail Hours the Brattleboro Literary Festival<\/a> puts on each year, before the actual Festival in mid-October at various venues in Brattleboro, Vermont. (The 25th Annual is October 16-18 this year.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(Actually, I’m doing another Literary Cocktail Hour this Friday at 5pm, talking with Theodore Roosevelt scholar Michael Cullinane about his new book, Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet, a fascinating look at how a lot of the work of TR’s administration got done around vigorous games of tennis at the White House. The event is free; all one needs to do is register. Click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Hal’s book investigates the intense, complex associations between the U.S. and Mexico, both on and off the pitch: the complicated border dynamics, the countries’ economic and cultural realities, and the evolution of what was once a one-sided rivalry into an intensely equal, ever-escalating athletic confrontation.<\/p>\n

It’s a shame the two teams didn’t get to meet in the current Cup, if it could have happened at all. But in any case, Hal offers plenty of food for thought. We delve into politics a little, because everything is politics, right? It certainly has been leading right up to the U.S. elimination this year. Red card, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[July 8, 2026]–Both the U.S. and Mexico have now been eliminated from the 2026 World Cup, but that shouldn’t stop… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":10027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[670,100586,18],"tags":[202,973621,1016544,1046030,1046031,1046032,1046033,1046034,1046035],"class_list":["post-10026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rummaging-around-in-the-bag","category-the-bookshelf","category-lifestyle","tag-football","tag-hal-phillips","tag-brattleboro-literary-festival","tag-soccer","tag-world-cup","tag-us-mexico","tag-sibling-rivalry","tag-teddy-roosevelt","tag-theodore-roosevelt-and-the-tennis-cabinet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/07\/unnamed-file.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10026"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10034,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026\/revisions\/10034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}