Speaker 1: Andres Cantor has been a sports announcer for almost forty years.
Speaker 1: He's received eight Emmy Awards for his broadcasting and a
Speaker 1: place in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. You know
Speaker 1: his voice that he has watched and announced countless games,
Speaker 1: but there's one moment at the end of the last
Speaker 1: World Cup in Qatar that is seered into his memory.
Speaker 2: Benita Fel football.
Speaker 3: The final was a roller coaster of emotions in itself.
Speaker 3: It took us from Argentina's domination begins the defending world champion,
Speaker 3: to France tying the match real Francia.
Speaker 1: Argentina goes up three to two, then France ties again.
Speaker 1: It's three to three, taking the game all the way
Speaker 1: to panel.
Speaker 3: Kicks by the peak when when the peak age started,
Speaker 3: I was ready to like pass out. What happened in
Speaker 3: guitar with Argentina and Messi winning the World Cup is
Speaker 3: one of my favorite moments.
Speaker 1: If you weren't watching this in real time, maybe you've
Speaker 1: seen the clip on social media. Andres Cantor wearing a
Speaker 1: perfectly pressed baby blue button up shirt, clinging to his
Speaker 1: headset microphone, screaming with joy, his tears barely visible behind
Speaker 1: his round framed glasses as he hugs his fellow announcer.
Speaker 1: I think this video is such a beautiful thing to watch.
Speaker 2: Let me just the moment was my true self.
Speaker 1: Are you a crier? Are you an emotional guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I could say I'm emotional. I'm not hard as a
Speaker 3: rock way it comes to shelling tears. So if I
Speaker 3: have to shadow one, I will.
Speaker 1: What do you think about? Soccer makes men who may
Speaker 1: otherwise still be very like raw kiss each other and
Speaker 1: hug each other and celebrate and like cry.
Speaker 2: I call it the magic of soccer.
Speaker 1: From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernande Chavari and this is American Football,
Speaker 1: a show about soccer culture in the US and it's
Speaker 1: underdog roots. I've gotten to do a lot of wonderful
Speaker 1: interviews for this podcast, and I've enjoyed every single one
Speaker 1: of them. But when the video calls started with Argentinian
Speaker 1: announcer Andres Cantor, I kind of had a moment of like, wait,
Speaker 1: what I know that voice. That's the voice that calls
Speaker 1: the games. His voice means soccer to me. We spoke
Speaker 1: a few weeks before the World Cup started, and right
Speaker 1: away when he introduced himself his chill vive put me
Speaker 1: at ease. I think most of our audience knows who
Speaker 1: you are, but if you don't mind introducing yourself, who
Speaker 1: you are and what you're known For sure.
Speaker 3: I'm known for being a good guy, a good dub oh,
Speaker 3: I love that, and yelling gold.
Speaker 1: During his now almost forty year career sportscasting, he has
Speaker 1: cemented himself as the voice of soccer, first calling games
Speaker 1: for Nibcion as far back as nineteen eighty seven and
Speaker 1: then moving over to Telemundo in two thousand. I mean
Speaker 1: his goal call has literally sold as a ringtone on
Speaker 1: Telemundo's website. His charismatic and energetic game narrations have helped
Speaker 1: popularize the sport in the United States, even for those
Speaker 1: who don't speak Spanish, especially in nineteen ninety four, when
Speaker 1: he was an announcer doing the first World Cup hosted
Speaker 1: in the US. David Letterman even brought him on the
Speaker 1: Late Show at the time. Here now to call a
Speaker 1: goal from a World Cup game played yesterday, Please welcome
Speaker 1: univisions Andrea's Cantor Andrea. Two decades later, in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: he guest starred in one of the most American shows
Speaker 1: of all times.
Speaker 2: And contor. You know that is increct usage. I have
Speaker 2: no control. This job has taken It's all.
Speaker 3: I always say that sometime as I end up my
Speaker 3: broadcast feeling as tired as the players have run fifteen
Speaker 3: miles on a match.
Speaker 1: Listening to Cantor during a game is like watching a
Speaker 1: virtuoso jazz artist freestyle NonStop for ninety minutes or more.
Speaker 1: And much like a musician, Cantor needs to protect his
Speaker 1: instrument when you are calling these games back to back
Speaker 1: to back. How do you sort of reset or recharge
Speaker 1: your voice.
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to do all the things singers do, which
Speaker 3: is rest the mind, rest the soul, rest my body,
Speaker 3: which you try to get us many hours of sleep.
Speaker 3: The recommendation is before and after.
Speaker 1: Silence, So okay, no talking before or after sports casting,
Speaker 1: which actually can be kind of hard, especially after.
Speaker 3: The game, because obviously somebody will go for an interview.
Speaker 3: We have a production meeting, and then you go out
Speaker 3: and keep on talking, and you go out to dinner
Speaker 3: and the surrogance, Oh, I listen to your goal, but
Speaker 3: you said it was a penalty. It was a penalty,
Speaker 3: and so I jump be rude and say I can't
Speaker 3: speak well.
Speaker 1: He makes all of this look so effortless. It takes
Speaker 1: a ton of preparation and pure talent, especially because.
Speaker 3: I hate scripted material I add live. You know, some
Speaker 3: producers fight me because I do not like using teleprompter.
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
Speaker 2: So you're going to reveal trade secrets? Please?
Speaker 1: I just have so many questions about your process.
Speaker 3: It is easier around the World Cups than it is
Speaker 3: on a regular weekend where you know, let's say I'm
Speaker 3: calling the Premier League for Telemundo. Right before I would
Speaker 3: tell you I will go watch tape. Now, with all
Speaker 3: the resources that we have at our disposed of, it's
Speaker 3: much much easier now, I tell you, I'll go on
Speaker 3: YouTube and find the game of Burnley, the last weekend's game,
Speaker 3: and I study how they play. I study the characteristics
Speaker 3: of the players. If Smith has long hair, if Johnson
Speaker 3: uses like a wristband that I got to identify him
Speaker 3: by not even looking at his shirt number. So there
Speaker 3: are little tricks that I use to try to identify
Speaker 3: the players. Come the World Cup, it's pretty much the
Speaker 3: same process. I will give you one of the games
Speaker 3: that I have Germany against Kurasau. Germany, I could probably
Speaker 3: go like this, close my eyes and I will have
Speaker 3: a sense of who has the ball. Kurrasau I haven't
Speaker 3: seen yet. I'm in the process of compiling all their information.
Speaker 3: They're playing the World Cup for the first time in history.
Speaker 3: Is the smallest country to participate in a World Cup.
Speaker 1: He's a bit old school about how he likes his research.
Speaker 3: I still like to write my notes and have them
Speaker 3: on paper, even though I could have him electronically on
Speaker 3: a tablet. I take my sharpiece. I use different colors
Speaker 3: for the team lineup that I have in front of me.
Speaker 3: I use a yellow highlighter to mark whenever the player
Speaker 3: is given a yellow card. I take my old fashioned chronometer. Really,
Speaker 3: I know, it's kind of my luggy charm.
Speaker 2: I skill have my old chrona with me.
Speaker 1: He drinks a ton of water. But food that's a
Speaker 1: whole other story.
Speaker 3: I usually don't eat my cut off. It is probably
Speaker 3: like four or five hours before a match. I will
Speaker 3: not have even a bite. I'll wait until everything is.
Speaker 2: Done to me.
Speaker 1: And no matter how many decades he's been calling.
Speaker 3: Games, there's always that sense of a potential embarrassment on
Speaker 3: national television. It doesn't really matter whether you're a rookie
Speaker 3: or a forty year pro. Anything can happen on live TV.
Speaker 3: Anything that you say, anything that you miss say, anything
Speaker 3: that you miss pronounce, anything that you miss interpret, any
Speaker 3: players you identified wrongly. When you're surrounded by sixty thousand
Speaker 3: yelling fans, producer talking to me in my ear, the
Speaker 3: emotions of the game and the fast pace of the
Speaker 3: sport itself, you really have to work your mind to
Speaker 3: make sure that everything comes out the way you want
Speaker 3: it to be. So it's taxing on the mind.
Speaker 1: So now we know how real pro does this, but
Speaker 1: how exactly did he get into this in the first place.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I did not want to
Speaker 2: become an announcer.
Speaker 1: That's coming up after the break. It's American football and
Speaker 1: Fernande Charvari. Growing up in Argentina in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: andres Cantor couldn't escape soccer.
Speaker 3: The first gift that every kid got was a soccer ball,
Speaker 3: So that was probably my first memory, digging a ball
Speaker 3: when I was probably four years old, five years old.
Speaker 3: In Argentina, there's social clubs where you go every weekend
Speaker 3: and spend time, and all I was played football.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think about playing professionally?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I tried out in Argentina when I was twelve thirteen.
Speaker 3: I last I think it was no more than ten minutes,
Speaker 3: and they took me off. But there were so many
Speaker 3: kids trying out at the youth level, and I obviously
Speaker 3: had the dream yes of playing professional, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: good enough to make it to the pros.
Speaker 1: And when he wasn't playing soccer, he was listening to
Speaker 1: matches on the radio to one guy, in particular, his
Speaker 1: version of Andres Cantor.
Speaker 3: There was one gentleman, the best broadcaster at the time,
Speaker 3: that had ninety percent share of the audience. Everyone listened
Speaker 3: to him, called Jose Maria Munos. So I guess I
Speaker 3: got his rhythms in my years, you know, for life,
Speaker 3: because we all listened to him and his broadcast and
Speaker 3: his way of calling games.
Speaker 1: What did he sound like?
Speaker 3: He was always very, very energetic during his play by
Speaker 3: play in his broadcast, And.
Speaker 1: While Cantor would listen to Munos on the radio, he
Speaker 1: would sit down and write.
Speaker 3: I sat in front of my dad typewriter and wrote
Speaker 3: the game report just for.
Speaker 2: My own sake for fun. For fun, Yeah, I have.
Speaker 3: I guess acute observation of what I've seen, and I
Speaker 3: started reading the game pretty much better than any any
Speaker 3: kid my age. But I never thought for a minute
Speaker 3: I would end up doing TV and radio, which is.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, crazy, do you think. Yeah, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: I did not want to become an announcer. I liked writing.
Speaker 1: When he first moved to southern California as a teenager,
Speaker 1: he wasn't exactly.
Speaker 3: Thrilled Sacramento, California. It's a very big and vibrant city now,
Speaker 3: but back in the seventies it was very, very different
Speaker 3: than Buenos Aires, and I suffered a lot because I
Speaker 3: was pretty much miserable that first year. I was missing
Speaker 3: absolutely everything that I have in Buenos Aires.
Speaker 1: His parents, who were both doctors, eventually moved the family
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. So the second move is to la
Speaker 1: bigger city, more soccer, maybe.
Speaker 2: A little bit more soccer. Yes.
Speaker 3: I started playing in my high school team in my
Speaker 3: senior year San Marino High School. I was bragg We
Speaker 3: reached the final CIF for the first time in history
Speaker 3: when I was there, so it was a fine year.
Speaker 2: I made some new friends in the.
Speaker 1: Team, and just like when he was a child back
Speaker 1: in Argentina, writing was a constant. He was the editor
Speaker 1: of sports pages for his high school newspaper. He got
Speaker 1: a journalism degree from usc without taking a single broadcast class.
Speaker 1: Mind blown, and one day he went from writing to
Speaker 1: using his voice.
Speaker 3: Since I was covering as a writer many sporting events
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles, many of the biggest fights of boxing's
Speaker 3: history in Las Vegas, etc.
Speaker 2: I coincided with a lot.
Speaker 3: Of American media, and one day in February of nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty seven, I get asked if I could come into
Speaker 3: Univision Studios for an audition because they were looking for
Speaker 3: either a soccer commentator or a soccer play by play announcer.
Speaker 2: I had a lucky.
Speaker 3: Break and probably within a week, I get a call
Speaker 3: from cor Hilary, whom I pretty much owe my career
Speaker 3: two and say you're hired.
Speaker 1: Coming up. I wrap up my conversation with Andres Cantor
Speaker 1: by talking about some of his all time favorite soccer
Speaker 1: moments and his impressions about the twenty twenty six FIFA
Speaker 1: Men's World Cup. We'll be right back. It's American football
Speaker 1: and Fernando Charvari. I couldn't not ask andres Cantor about
Speaker 1: his favorite soccer moments. First one was in the seventies.
Speaker 3: I was again in Argentina and watched Argentina when it
Speaker 3: first woke up in nineteen. In seventy Argentina Canonndo.
Speaker 1: His second favorite would later be called the goal of
Speaker 1: the Century.
Speaker 3: I was already working for a Girafico magazine of Argentina
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty six, and so my biggest idol, Diego Maradona,
Speaker 3: lift the trophy and score the most beautiful goal in
Speaker 3: the history of the World Cup against England.
Speaker 1: They're both Argentina moments, Ohio. And then there's also the
Speaker 1: one that we started the episode with when he got
Speaker 1: super emotional watching Argentina win in twenty twenty two but
Speaker 1: taking Argentina out of the equation.
Speaker 3: I remember one of my goals, London Donovan's goal for
Speaker 3: the US against our years in South Africa, twenty ten,
Speaker 3: last minute extra time. The US was being eliminated of
Speaker 3: group face, which was a big embarrassment, and he scored
Speaker 3: on a counter attack and I left it all out.
Speaker 3: Five years later, I was very lucky enough to see
Speaker 3: Carly Lloyd score a hat trick in the FIFA Women's
Speaker 3: World Cup Final in Vancouver, and the third goal was
Speaker 3: from midfield, and I always say that that was probably one,
Speaker 3: regardless of gender, one of the greatest World Cup final
Speaker 3: goals of all times. So the Talvivel Country, Vanuatra Sdo,
Speaker 3: Ronald Taku.
Speaker 2: And King Semi.
Speaker 1: During our hour long conversation, I think I made it
Speaker 1: pretty clear that I love to talk about logistics and process,
Speaker 1: so I was curious about what his day to day
Speaker 1: will look like for this World Cup because for the
Speaker 1: first time ever in the almost one hundred years of
Speaker 1: World Cups, this time there are three host countries, three
Speaker 1: big countries.
Speaker 3: Kata was beautiful because I slept in the same hotel room,
Speaker 3: same bed for forty days. Now I get to go
Speaker 3: to eight different cities in all three countries that are
Speaker 3: hosting the World Cup. So I get call a game,
Speaker 3: hop on a plane repeat. I go from LA to
Speaker 3: Houston to Vancouver to Dallas to Kansas to Miami to Alakata.
Speaker 1: Are you a really good packer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm used to it.
Speaker 3: I usually take whatever it's necessary, and I've learned that
Speaker 3: if I forget something there's always somewhere where I can
Speaker 3: buy whatever I forgot if I need to.
Speaker 1: If you've been keeping up with this podcast series, you
Speaker 1: know that this World Cup is widely regarded in the
Speaker 1: US as a consequential one for many, many reasons. Here's
Speaker 1: what Soccer Start tap Ramos told me in an earlier
Speaker 1: episode in nineteen ninety four. I feel like it was
Speaker 1: sort of the birth of soccer here. Twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: has to be the World Cup that makes soccer permanent,
Speaker 1: and Cantor agrees.
Speaker 3: Back in nineteen ninety four, I knew that soccer had
Speaker 3: to make it in America. So we depend on the
Speaker 3: World Cup being popular among the general margo for people
Speaker 3: that had never seen.
Speaker 2: A soccer imagine their lives, etc.
Speaker 3: But as much as I said the nineteen ninety four
Speaker 3: we need to have a good World Cup in all
Speaker 3: sense of the word for the sport to explode.
Speaker 2: Definitely now in.
Speaker 3: This World Cup will solidify the fandom of people that
Speaker 3: are going to be either new to the sport or
Speaker 3: that I already watched the sport, and will solidify their
Speaker 3: loyalties to Orguin.
Speaker 1: On top of the pressure of this World Cup to
Speaker 1: finally take soccer out of its underdog status in the US.
Speaker 1: It's also happening during a particularly volatile period in geopolitics.
Speaker 1: Whereas the typical attitude of host countries has been one
Speaker 1: of open embrace, the Trump administration stands has been overly hostile,
Speaker 1: throwing four qualified nations on a visa band list and
Speaker 1: others on a soft blocklist. It caused a kind of
Speaker 1: dark miasthma tainting for many a tournament they feel should
Speaker 1: just be a positive global celebration. As historian Jonathan Wilson
Speaker 1: said in our first episode, I think this is a
Speaker 1: World Cup that people approach you in trepidation even with
Speaker 1: this backdrop, andres Cantor is optimistic about the future of
Speaker 1: soccer in the US.
Speaker 3: Politics aside. It's a different country altogether. It's definitely not
Speaker 3: the same as it was in nineteen ninety four. The
Speaker 3: biggest difference, I would say is fandom. If you would
Speaker 3: pull one hundred people in nineteen ninety four about do
Speaker 3: you know what the World Cup is? Probably seventy would
Speaker 3: say I have no idea, And if you do the
Speaker 3: same now.
Speaker 2: It's probably the opposite. Thirty would know and seventy would know.
Speaker 3: Way back in nineteen ninety four, nobody could watch more
Speaker 3: than one game per weekend on television, the ones that
Speaker 3: we were calling on Univision, So the fandom is that
Speaker 3: much greater. I'll quote Billy Joel in Piano Man, hopefully
Speaker 3: we will all forget life for a while during the
Speaker 3: thirty nine days of competition and then hoping that the
Speaker 3: world's problems get fixed.
Speaker 1: At the risk of sounding Pollyanna, this is something that
Speaker 1: I talked about in episode one, the escape that the
Speaker 1: World Cup provides for so many of us, and its
Speaker 1: significance here in the US for immigrants and kits of immigrants. Well,
Speaker 1: my last question is a bit of a personal one.
Speaker 1: Soccer to me, I don't know the stads. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you know who plays one during the weekend. But
Speaker 1: when the World Cup happens, I go nuts and I
Speaker 1: go hard and I get really into it. And my
Speaker 1: dad was always the connection to soccer for me since
Speaker 1: I was little, and this is the first World Cup
Speaker 1: that I'm going to experience it with him. This is
Speaker 1: the first one since his passing. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of connection to soccer that is beyond the sport, that
Speaker 1: is about family, that it's about connection. So I'm just
Speaker 1: curious who's the person that sort of does that for you.
Speaker 3: You asked me before if I am emotional, and I
Speaker 3: got emotional here in your story, and I know.
Speaker 2: That you will when you hear me he got.
Speaker 3: A lot of things will go through your mind and
Speaker 3: they're all going to be beautiful memories. I have no
Speaker 3: doubt where that Mexican Jersey proud. Think about your dad
Speaker 3: and think about who you are and what your dad
Speaker 3: allowed you to become. If I may say, you know
Speaker 3: my two beautiful kids, my wife, and you know. When
Speaker 3: Argentina won the World Up in twenty twenty two, obviously
Speaker 3: I got a big hug from my son. Actually he
Speaker 3: was pitch sided and I don't know how he found
Speaker 3: me at the presentation studio and we hugged and cried.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 3: With a video that also went very very viral. I'm
Speaker 3: going to close by saying that I am the luckiest
Speaker 3: person in the world because I worked doing what I
Speaker 3: love the most. I've been given the best seat in
Speaker 3: the house for the last forty years. They paid me
Speaker 3: for it, and I've been very lucky to be surrounded
Speaker 3: by great professionals and a great family that has allowed
Speaker 3: me to do what I do. So every time, and
Speaker 3: believe me, this is true. Every time I walk onto
Speaker 3: a broadcast booth at the stadium, being the first game
Speaker 3: or the final, I'll just go. I'll pinch myself, even
Speaker 3: though it's something that it's part of my regular job,
Speaker 3: but I will still pinch myself and say how lucky I.
Speaker 1: Am, and I am thank you so much for sharing
Speaker 1: that with us. American Football is produced by Futudo Studios
Speaker 1: in collaboration with Iheart'smichael Tura podcast network. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Fernande Charvari. This episode was produced by Levi Sharp. It
Speaker 1: was edited by our senior editor Rebecca Vara and Me.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Roxanna Guire, mixing by Brandon Krugel at
Speaker 1: Multitude Productions. Victoria Strada is our production manager. Legal review
Speaker 1: by Jonathan Fisher at Legal Arts, Andres Cavalero is also
Speaker 1: part of our production team. Our executive producers are Marlon
Speaker 1: Bishop and Maria Garcia at Futuro Studios. Executive producers at
Speaker 1: iHeart are Leo Gomes and Arlene Santana. Futura Media was
Speaker 1: founded by Maria Inojosa. You can listen to more episodes
Speaker 1: of American football on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your shows. And if you like it,
Speaker 1: please give us a rating and a review. It will
Speaker 1: help other people find us. Thanks for listening.