The Interview: Daniel Alarcón
The Acclaimed Novelist and Journalist on His Beloved Peruvian National Team, Why He Follows the US, RBNY and Arsenal, Why Playing Pickup Soccer in the US is Both International and American, and More
In our efforts to bring you interview guests who are 1) soccer-loving, and 2) recent winners of MacArthur Genius Grants, we are on a roll! Not long after speaking to Hanif Abdurraqib (fan of the Columbus Crew, U.S. national teams and Newcastle), I now bring to you Daniel Alarcón, the New York-based novelist and journalist whose fandoms include Peru, the U.S., the New York Red Bulls and Arsenal. Daniel is one of my favorite writers and journalists anywhere, so it was a real treat to speak to him.
The entirety of the written interview below is reserved for paid subscribers. As always, you can still get the entire free audio version of my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to go for your pods.
Grant Wahl:
Our guest now is Daniel Alarcón. He's a New York-based, Peruvian-born novelist, journalist and radio producer, the co-founder and host of the Radio Ambulante podcast and a writer for the New Yorker, and he also teaches at Columbia Journalism School. He recently won a MacArthur Genius grant, and he hopes to be remembered as a better-than-average attacking midfielder in his prime. Daniel, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on the show.
Daniel Alarcón:
It's good to be here, Grant.
Grant Wahl:
Lots to talk about here. We're recording this on Friday, April 1, coming out Monday, April 4. I have to admit, I was hoping when we scheduled this talk that your Peru would still be alive for the men's World Cup, and they are. How are you feeling about the chances of Peru making its second straight World Cup?
Daniel Alarcón:
I'm kind of giddy at the possibility. I mean, for the first 30-something years of my life, I never... When I was a kid, I didn't even know that Peru could be in the World Cup. It never occurred to me. I grew up hearing these tales of the great Peruvian teams of the seventies, and I compared them with what I was seeing on the pitch from my team, and it felt like those tall tales that your grandparents tell you. It just didn't seem real. And if 2018 was unlikely, I think 2022 is even more unlikely, and it's incredibly exciting.
“Everywhere that I've ever visited, I try to play soccer. I've played soccer in Ghana and in Mali. I've played soccer in Morocco and Peru and Colombia, in the jungles of Peru, in the prisons in Peru. I've played soccer all over the United States. Everywhere I go, I try to, because it's always such a great way to get to know a place. And playing soccer in the United States is wonderful, because you meet so many different kinds of people from all over the world, and you share this love of the game. And you put a couple passes together and put the ball in the net, and you hug a stranger. And those are the kind of beautiful moments that I hold really dear.” — Daniel Alarcón
Grant Wahl:
When you say more unlikely this time around, why?
Daniel Alarcón:
We had Paolo Guerrero. Paolo Guerrero is our talisman. And he carried us, scored really important goals in the qualifying in 2018. And now he's not on the team, [Jefferson] Farfán is not on the team, these really important players who were carrying us. They were above average, above the average. What we have now is a team with no European stars, a team that is hard-working, a team that listens to their coach and believes in their coach, and the coach believes in them. And against all odds, here we are. We're still there.
We won in Colombia. We won important games that people didn't think we should have won. We should have tied against Uruguay, but we were robbed. And all this matters, I’ve got to say, because there's nothing in Peru that unites the country like the national team. It might be the only thing, that and, like, ceviche. You know? And so it's nice to have this one thing that everyone believes in.
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Grant Wahl:
You know, Peru had a big game last Tuesday against Paraguay, won it 2-0. Now they're in the intercontinental playoff in June. I guess that's going to be against either Australia or United Arab Emirates. How do you consume a Peru game, like a big game last Tuesday?
Daniel Alarcón:
Nervously. I was too nervous to go to a bar to see it with Peruvians. But my wife is Colombian, and Colombia was playing simultaneously, and only one of us was going to make it. So I was keeping an eye on that game. At least if Colombia makes it, that would be a consolation for me. But, yeah. I watch very intensely. I put on my jersey. I text with my cousins in Lima, texting with friends, Peruvian friends around the world, texting with Peruvian friends who are braver than I am and go to the bars here in New York that are full of Peruvians. I watch the game very intensely.
Grant Wahl:
And I assume your wife is following Colombia as a fan. Did you have to mute your celebrations after Colombia got eliminated at the exact same time?
Daniel Alarcón:
No. I think she had made her peace with it. She had made her peace with it. So, no. I was pretty confident because we were playing at home. And Grant, I know you've been to stadiums all over the world and seen some wonderful expressions of devotion from fans to their team, but the relationship that the Peruvian fans and the Peruvian team has with its fans is really something to marvel at. If you haven't been to a game at the Estadio Nacional in Lima, I really recommend it. It should be on your bucket list because it's just another level of devotion and support, and this symbiotic relationship between the team and its supporters is just something to experience.
I was in the stadium the last time we qualified for the World Cup, which was the first time in 36 years, the first time in what I could remember of my life. And when that first goal went in, when Farfán's goal went in, there were people weeping in the stadium, grown men crying. And not like one, like several around me, in eyesight. And the other thing was that, and I got in trouble for this, because I put in an article I wrote about this game, I said that the Kiwis, the New Zealand players, had never seen something like this. And people were saying, "Well, some of these players from New Zealand play in the Premier League," but I don't think it's the same, and I'll tell you why.
I mean, an hour and a half before the game, the stadium was full and singing. And they didn't stop singing until an hour and a half after the game. And the New Zealand players came out onto the pitch and they were all taking video, and they looked just astonished by this presence. The night before the game, the Peruvian Air Force flew over the New Zealand hotel. And they painted the underside of the wings red. They painted the flag on the wings of the airplane, and they said it was a supersonic welcome to our visitors, but of course it was like when they were taking a nap to prepare for the game. And fans are outside their hotel, singing all night so they couldn't sleep. And this is just, it's another level. You know? And it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. And I hope to go see another important game of the national team there at some point soon.
Grant Wahl:
I would love to. I have been to Peru; I have not been to a game there, unfortunately. My second country is sort of Argentina, so I've certainly seen a lot of games there, and the passion is big in Argentina. Maybe one similarity I wanted to ask you about is the radio culture around soccer, in particular, in a few places in the world. I've noticed it in Spain, it's still very big. And in South American countries, the radio culture seems to be very big still. There's a lot of big interviews with players and coaches taking place on the radio in some of these places. Why do you think that still is?
Daniel Alarcón:
Well, my father's first job was as a soccer announcer on the radio in Arequipa, which is like the Peru second city, so I have given this some thought. I mean, radio in general is very big in Peru. When there's an earthquake or a political scandal or some kind of big news that rocks the country, many Peruvians turn to RPP, which is Radio Programas del Perú, which is the big radio station, national coverage with correspondents everywhere. So it has a hallowed place.
There's a funny story. When I was kid, my uncle lived in a town south of Lima, where they didn't broadcast the big games. And he would drive up to Lima and watch the games on TV at my cousin's house and record, watch the game on mute and narrate it. And then at halftime, he would turn the volume up and pretend he was in the booth with the actual national broadcasters. And he would interview my cousins as if they were breathless fans at the game, and they would have to sort of act like they were out of breath. "What'd you think of the game," and say, "Oh, I'm a fan of this team and I thought, blah, blah." And then he would drive, straight after the game, drive back to his hometown and play that tape of the game on the radio. So this was obviously in the early '80s, before internet, before national cable TV and all that.
But it's just a special way. I mean, I even remember as a kid, my dad saying that TV announcers don't do it well, because they lean too much on the pictures. They don't describe it with the poetry that he remembers. When he was a kid, he tells me that the after-lunch entertainment would be that they would ask him to narrate a goal. And so it would be all the adults digesting their food, and he would stand in front of them and make up a goal for them. It always ended in Peru scoring on Brazil or something unlikely. I don't know. Maybe we're just a culture that can transform words into images easily.
Grant Wahl:
So you grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.
Daniel Alarcón:
Yeah.
Grant Wahl:
What was soccer like for you in those days?
Daniel Alarcón:
Well, I have a vivid memory of my coach, a really lovely man, Coach Barrett, who came to practice one day, because he was just sick of us chasing after the ball all the time, and he gave us a duffel bag full of VHS cassettes of European games. And he'd give us homework like, "You each have to go home and watch one of these games, and just look at how they're spaced out on the field." So it was like a Bayern, Inter Champions League game, or before the Champions League, European Cup games or Premier League games. Which, I've seen Premier League games from the '90s, and they're terrible. They're not particularly graceful. That's not the Jogo Bonito, you know?
Grant Wahl:
Yeah.
Daniel Alarcón:
So my soccer culture was both the typical American suburban, orange slices at half-time and the team talk that involves no strategy, and this snobbish sense of superiority because I came from a country that actually knew about soccer. And when I'd go to Lima, I'd play with my cousins and get destroyed, but I would come back feeling like, "See? I know how to do things that these other kids don't know how to do. I've been to stadiums and seen real passion." None of my friends had ever seen a soccer game played by adults, not even a college team. Where I grew up, there was no soccer to be found. You couldn't see it on TV back then. I think the first time I saw soccer on TV in the United States was the '86 World Cup.
Grant Wahl:
Yeah. It's fascinating to me that the U.S. has gone from this country where it was one of the worst countries in the world in which to watch soccer on television to now one of the best. And it's very easy to watch soccer from any place, it seems like. One person you went to high school with is a former podcast guest, John Green-
Daniel Alarcón:
Yeah.
Grant Wahl:
... who’s also a prominent novelist, also a soccer guy. How close were you with him in those days? And do you talk soccer with him?
Daniel Alarcón:
Well, I'm an Arsenal fan, he's a Liverpool fan. Yeah, we still talk. We were friends in high school, good friends. We were writing nerds and literary nerds together. I played soccer; he played ultimate Frisbee, I believe. But it was a very typical suburban adolescence in a lot of ways, and we were close friends but not sporting friends, not soccer friends. We were writing friends. We were book friends. We would talk about books and writing and our dreams of being novelists, but now we...
I'm very careful not to talk shit about Liverpool, because we haven't beaten them in many, many moons. And I like [Jürgen] Klopp, and I respect what they've done. And I almost feel like the model for what Arsenal needs to do is the Liverpool model of their development, slow development over the last several years into a contender, by signing smartly and developing a team culture. And I sort of think [Mikel] Arteta's doing that. But no, I try not to talk too much shit, because it has never ended well for me.
Grant Wahl:
How'd you choose Arsenal?
Daniel Alarcón:
I mean, that's the thing that's so... It's very random, I think, for a lot of U.S. fans. I chose Arsenal because I'm immediately drawn to teams that wear red and white, because I'm Peruvian. When I started watching, Arsène Wenger reminded me of one of my favorite college professors. I thought Cesc, in his prime as an Arsenal player, was a beautiful player to watch. It felt, to me, cheap to pick a team that was winning. And then to seal the deal, at a Christmas... What do you call those parties where you give a gift and everyone trades gifts?
Grant Wahl:
Secret Santa?
Daniel Alarcón:
Yeah, kind of like a secret Santa, but is it the white elephant thing? Is that a term? Have you ever heard that?
Grant Wahl:
It's been so long since I've done one of these.
Daniel Alarcón:
But, where there's a bunch of gifts that are really bad. I remember at that party, someone drew a face on a mango and wrapped it, and that was the gift. But anyway, a friend of mine, Federico, was given or selected, got a gift that was an Arsenal jersey, a long-sleeve Arsenal jersey, but Federico's like 6'7" or something gigantic, and I'm 5'7". So it didn't fit him, and so he knew that I had this affinity for teams in red and white, so he's like, "Here, just take it." And that was it, then I became an Arsenal fan. It's like, "I have the jersey. I have no choice." In spite of all the suffering that has happened since, I don't regret it.
Grant Wahl:
Do you go to soccer games here in New York?
Daniel Alarcón:
I'm a Red Bulls fan, yeah.
Grant Wahl:
Oh, wow. What's your sense of the Red Bulls? And is it difficult in any way, that this team has existed in some form or other since the start of the league in '96, without winning an MLS Cup, and New York City FC just won after a couple years of existence?
Daniel Alarcón:
I mean, I'm Peruvian. I'm used to cheering for the underdog. That does not faze me at all. It'll be all the more sweet when we win. I mean, there was no chance of me, there was no possibility of me being an NYCFC fan. Even if I like individual players, even though they have a Peruvian on the team, they wear that awful light blue jersey that I just don't like. And it just wasn't possible. The Red Bulls, again, a red team. It's just so easy for me.
Grant Wahl:
Do you follow the U.S. men's national team at all? Do you feel any connection?
Daniel Alarcón:
I do. I do, yeah. I do, absolutely. I went to the game in Columbus. Was it Columbus when we... No, Louisville? Where was it, where we beat Mexico?
Grant Wahl:
Cincinnati.
Daniel Alarcón:
It was in Cincinnati. Sorry, sorry. My apologies to the entire Midwest. Yeah, I went to that game with a friend, with a couple friends. And I do, I like this team. I think we have a young team that's really talented and hungry. I think it's an embarrassment that we didn't qualify last time. I think everyone agrees on that. So I don't think that this is redemption so much as just the bare minimum that a team with these resources should be accomplishing.
As you know, I was in Orlando. I almost went to the Panama game. And then I was like, "You know, I could get tickets," but I was like, "We're going to crush Panama." It just seemed to me, as we should, it's like beating up on a very small team, and my heart goes out to the Panamanians. And I was like, "We're going to qualify anyway. I'm not going to spend $1,000 to go to this game."
Grant Wahl:
Was it really that much? I knew it was sold out. And I never have to buy tickets, so I'm not good at suggesting ways to get them.
Daniel Alarcón:
Yeah. No, it was pretty expensive. I mean, once I factored in the Ubers and the getting to the stadium, there's four of us in the family, it would have been a lot of money.
Grant Wahl:
Are your kids into soccer? And where are their rooting interests?
Daniel Alarcón:
My oldest is 16 and he was very into soccer, and the pandemic happened. And as you know, a lot of adolescents had a hard time in the pandemic. And our son had a very hard time and lost a lot of the things that brought him joy. And soccer was one of them. So in the aftermath or whatever you call this phase that we're in now, where it's sort of we are and we aren't in a pandemic, he's starting to recover that. I'm taking him to play on Sundays, when we can. He asked me, he wanted to go back to the stadium to go see Red Bulls games. He was the one pushing for us to spend $1,000 to go to the U.S.-Panama game. So, yeah. He does enjoy it.
My youngest is into Ninja Warrior, and so he tolerates soccer but isn't really super into it. And my wife goes through phases of loving the Colombian national team and phases of, like currently, where she's just not interested.
Grant Wahl:
What do you think about where this is headed with soccer in the United States? Because even today, literally the most popular soccer team in the United States is the Mexican men's national team.
Daniel Alarcón:
Right.
Grant Wahl:
And that probably shouldn't be all that surprising, consider all of the demographic patterns and immigration, all that stuff. Are we going to get to a point someday where the U.S. national teams have a bigger following in their own country? But, I don't know. It seems like it's growing all the time for the men's and women's national teams, and especially with people in the United States who feel part of their identity is tied to rooting for teams from countries of their roots.
Daniel Alarcón:
Yeah. I don't really worry about that. I’ve got to say, I mean, I was at the stadium in Cincinnati and the passion was there. I go to MLS games and the passion is there. I remember walking around Atlanta and seeing just neighborhoods in Atlanta with Atlanta United signs. The new team in, was it Charlotte, that filled the stadium? I mean, there are... If you are an optimist about soccer in the United States, there are ample signs pointing to growth, passion, and development, not just at the fan level but also in the player level.
I look at the kids that my son plays with, are so much better than I was at that age, because they've seen more soccer. They've been around it more. They understand... They play FIFA. They have a better understanding of tactics, even. I'm an optimist in that regard.
And also, I think about, by far, I mean by far the most active chat that I'm on is my New York pickup soccer chat, which has like 150 people that, I don't know if they work at all, but all they do is share soccer memes, and crack jokes, and talk about the weather on the weekend and where we're going to play. It's an endless, hilarious, and beautiful conversation that's completely international and completely American at the same time.
Everywhere that I've ever visited, I try to play soccer. I've played soccer in Ghana and in Mali. I've played soccer in Morocco and Peru and Colombia, in the jungles of Peru, in the prisons in Peru. I've played soccer all over the United States. Everywhere I go, I try to, because it's always such a great way to get to know a place. And playing soccer in the United States is wonderful, because you meet so many different kinds of people from all over the world, and you share this love of the game. And you put a couple passes together and put the ball in the net, and you hug a stranger. And those are the kind of beautiful moments that I hold really dear.
I've made great friends on the soccer pitch. I've made great friends at the stadium, at the Red Bulls stadium. One of my closest friends is a guy that I exchanged emails with, and then we decided to buy tickets together to the games, and we became super-close friends, just because we watched a couple seasons together sitting next to each other. And that's really important. And the reasons why I want to take my kids to the stadium is because I know that that's what my grandfather did. My grandfather took my father to the stadium every weekend. And my father couldn't, because we were growing up in a place where there wasn't any opportunity to do that.
Grant Wahl:
Just to wrap up here, the World Cup, the men's World Cup, is coming back to the United States, which is co-hosting in 2026. What are your thoughts on that?
Daniel Alarcón:
I mean, it's like I'm a kid again. I mean, it's a dream. I was here, obviously, in '94 when we hosted. I got to see a few games. Actually, it's a very important game for me, because I think that's when I realized I was American. I was at the Colombia-U.S. game. And my sort of deeply held view of myself was that I would always cheer for the Latin American team. And I remember Prop 187 had just been passed in California, which is this really racist law against Latinos. And Governor Pete Wilson, who passed the law and pushed for the law, was inaugurating things at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
And he started to speak. They're like, "Governor Pete Wilson," and the entire stadium, which was mostly Latino, booed him, so you couldn't hear him speak at all. He spoke for like a minute and a half. You never heard a word he said. And I was feeling this very intense sense of pan-Latin solidarity, so I was cheering for Colombia. And then the U.S. scored, and then the U.S. scored again. And at a certain point in the game I realized, and it was very confusing for me, Grant, that I was cheering for the U.S.
Grant Wahl:
Wow.
Daniel Alarcón:
And I was like, "Oh, wow." And the stadium was cheering for the U.S., because the stadium was not Colombian, the stadium was mostly Mexican-Americans that were at best ambivalent about the U.S., but wanted to see a World Cup game. And then the stadium was cheering for the U.S. because they were the underdog. And honestly, I have a complicated relationship with this country, because I pay attention, but there are few instances where you get to cheer for the United States as an underdog. And I think I hold those dear for that reason, because it sort of fits my DNA to cheer for the underdog.
And in particular to host a World Cup is a great honor. And I hope it'll be a good tournament. I hope the U.S. goes very far. And I hope Peru's there, as well.
Grant Wahl:
Daniel Alarcón is the co-founder and host of the Radio Ambulante podcast, a writer for the New Yorker, and he teaches at Columbia Journalism School. Daniel, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Daniel Alarcón:
Thanks, Grant. Appreciate it.
