GZ blog Archives - Sibling Rivalry

A New World Guide to Sensible World Cup Expectations

Hal Phillips — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:25:46 +0000

I was rereading and search-engine optimizing some older essays last week, when I came across a column from early October 2017. To be precise, the piece was written two frantic days after the USMNT failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. That remains, you may recall, a dire moment in what I [...]

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USMNT Final Roster Observations & Idle Gossip

Hal Phillips — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:26:45 +0000

It's getting real, folks. The World Cup is but two weeks away. Mauricio Pochettino has issued his final, 26-man U.S. Men’s National Team roster. Here’s what it tells us: Other than Tanner Tessman staying home, no roster surprises — only alignment questions and a couple puzzlers. It seems El Mister is committed to a back [...]

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Women’s Soccer Sheds Entirely New Light on US vs. Mexico

Hal Phillips — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:21:39 +0000

[See here an excerpt from Chapter 10 of “Sibling Rivalry.” It appears in the Summer/June issue of Soccer Journal magazine, available here.] The North American Derby does fascinating things to the footballing attachments of young Latinas. Meet Alexandra, whom Professor Erick Calderon interviewed in May of 2024. The date is relevant. El Tri femenil had [...]

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Two Bitter Rivalries Take Flight, Right Before Our Eyes

Hal Phillips — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:49:51 +0000

In the pages of Sibling Rivalry, I examine not just U.S. vs. Mexico, but also rivalry itself as a sporting phenomenon. Because we humans tend to tribalize so enthusiastically, rivalry is a consistent, almost inevitable outgrowth of these identity politics. Rivalries don’t typically evolve in symmetric fashion, however. It took the U.S. nearly 50 years [...]

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Excerpt: Mexican admiration for Argentinian Futbol Culture runs Deep

Hal Phillips — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:06:01 +0000

Walking through the tailgate scene outside Estadio Akron, I stopped a few times to chat up the locals—hoping to find English speakers to discuss the match and our multigenerational family feud. This search proved largely fruitless. Google Translate can only do so much. But those limited conversations, taken together, did accentuate one thing: Mexican [...]

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He’s Not Wrong: U.S. Tends to Hog Regional Branding

Hal Phillips — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:50:24 +0000

Neil Young first introduced me to appellative “American” chauvinism. Someone (probably a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan) had accused the Canadian guitar god of not being American — as part of the flack Young took for writing and recording the song, “Southern Man”. Neil’s response was quick, pointed and apt: “I’m plenty American: North American.” It’s been [...]

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Bloomsbury issues Sibling Rivalry: The ESSENTIAL Soccer Book for 2026

Hal Phillips — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:21:00 +0000

NEW YORK, N.Y. (5 March 2026) — Bloomsbury has published the latest release from best-selling author Hal Phillips. Sibling Rivalry: How Mexico and the US Built the Most Contentious, Co-Dependent Feud in World Soccer arrives 89 years after their first meeting, 35 years after Bora Milutinovic recast the North American Derby as a battle of [...]

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Excerpt: The Continuing Education of Rafa Marquez

Hal Phillips — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:28:00 +0000

Rafa Marquez is a thoroughly modern figure. In the twenty-first century, no one has wielded more influence on the fortunes and reputations of Mexican soccer. The modern game is a global game, so it follows that Rafa made much of his mark, for himself and his countrymen, abroad. In 1999, he left the security [...]

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Politics of Blood & Soil Should Inform Club Allegiance, not Actual Politics

Hal Phillips — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 14:50:03 +0000

I was chatting with a business associate the other day who happens to be a Liverpool fan. When he politely asked about my own club allegiance, I told him the truth: Tottenham Hotspur. I’m well familiar with how this makes me feel: the odd-but-familiar combination of forlorn hope and idiosyncratic pride (I typically don’t get [...]

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FIFA Introduces New ‘Dynamism’ to World Cup Ticketing Grift

Hal Phillips — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:41:15 +0000

The bleak, hyper-lux reality of World Cup ticket pricing is beginning to sink into the global futbol consciousness, and with FIFA itself. How do we know the latter? Because FIFA president Gianni Infantino sounds in increasingly defensive, claiming that without extortionate 2026 tournament revenues, “There would be no football in 150 countries in the [...]

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