Peru, the Champion

After 36 years of waiting, Peru qualified again for the FIFA World Cup. The road was full of last-minute draws, epic comebacks and a lot of good luck. For some Peruvians, this classification means a lot more than for others, but all have been touched by it somehow. In this episode, we tell the stories of how Peru’s classification for Russia 2018 marked the lives of two fans.

You can read the Spanish transcript of the episode or an English translation.

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A version of this essay was published by The New Yorker: The Euphoria of Watching Peru Qualify for the World Cup for the First Time In Thirty-Five Years.

You can also read this article by Daniel Alarcón describing his soccer upbringing.