Speaker 1: Not every person or country is born loving football. That
Speaker 1: was the case for the Nezzi len.
Speaker 2: And Panama, like baseball and boxing, has always been what's
Speaker 2: really big.
Speaker 1: The Netzi is from Panama, where soccer has a relatively
Speaker 1: new following.
Speaker 2: And it's really been in the last fifteen to twenty
Speaker 2: years that soccer has grown and has become like one
Speaker 2: of the bigger sports and bigger fandoms.
Speaker 1: And if there's a game that perfectly encapsulates how that
Speaker 1: fan base has grown in numbers and in fervor, it's
Speaker 1: this one from almost ten years ago. In October twenty seventeen, ah.
Speaker 3: YadA, Puerto Rica.
Speaker 1: Panama's national team is up against Costa Rica and their
Speaker 1: one win away from qualifying to the World Cup for
Speaker 1: the first time ever. Fireworks are going off above the
Speaker 1: stadium and Panama City inside the stands are completely red
Speaker 1: with twenty six thousand anxious fans. Danetsy is watching the
Speaker 1: game from the basement of a bar in New York
Speaker 1: City where she lives, and her stomach is in knots
Speaker 1: because in order to make it to the World Cup,
Speaker 1: Panama needs to win this game and the US needs
Speaker 1: to lose another game. That's happening simultaneously.
Speaker 2: All the games are on at the same time, when
Speaker 2: you're kind of like keeping an eye out everywhere. Panama
Speaker 2: loves to leave it to the last dye and grasps.
Speaker 1: Then the dream scenario happens. The US loses and Panama
Speaker 1: scores with two minutes left in the match.
Speaker 2: And everyone just goes crazy. It goes crazy at the bar.
Speaker 2: You see the scenes in the stadium. It's just complete mayhem.
Speaker 1: But it's not over yet. The clock goes into overtime
Speaker 1: and the entire stadium is dying for the ref to
Speaker 1: blow that final whistle, when suddenly an intruder jumps into
Speaker 1: the field. It's a woman on the ground, surrounded by
Speaker 1: two policemen who are trying to help her up.
Speaker 2: This senora who goes onto the field to try to
Speaker 2: like help wind down, she like falls over and like fades.
Speaker 1: She's older, wearing pattern trousers, black flats, and a Panama
Speaker 1: jersey with a full head of gray hair.
Speaker 2: And so normally you see these like young guys are
Speaker 2: the ones that are like crashing the field. It's just
Speaker 2: added to the drama and the ridiculousness of it all.
Speaker 2: But I think the entire stadium. Just wanted to do
Speaker 2: everything possible to make sure that it stood.
Speaker 1: And you can say it worked because one minute later
Speaker 1: the ref ends the game and Panama makes history. They're
Speaker 1: going to the twenty eighteen World Cup in Russia. The
Speaker 1: lady who evaded security and ran onto the field would
Speaker 1: go down in history as a national hero aka Latia
Speaker 1: de las Alex, the national teams Auntie.
Speaker 2: Then they interviewed her afterwards and she was like, no clado,
Speaker 2: It's like I had to do my part.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to now and Panama qualified for the World
Speaker 1: Cup again this year, starting a brand new chapter in
Speaker 1: Danetti's life as a fan. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando
Speaker 1: Chavarri and this is a American Football, a show about
Speaker 1: soccer culture in the US and it's underdog roots. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we followed the Netsi's entry into ultimate soccer
Speaker 1: fandom and her journey to the game's biggest stage. She's
Speaker 1: one of the hundreds of thousands of fans who've had
Speaker 1: to jump through countless and unprecedented hoops in order to
Speaker 1: make it to this year's World Cup, a tournament that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be for everyone, has taken a lot
Speaker 1: more money and luck to attend in person sports lead
Speaker 1: and money lead sticker shock for FIFA World.
Speaker 4: Cup fans planning to attend matches.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty six World Cup is set to be
Speaker 1: by far the most expensive ever.
Speaker 2: I think that was before we fully understood just how
Speaker 2: greedy FIFA was going to be. So absolutely, I was like,
Speaker 2: whatever it takes, I'm going to go, what do I
Speaker 2: have savings for?
Speaker 4: If not to do this like once in a lifetime thing.
Speaker 1: Has it been worth it? I'm going to let our
Speaker 1: producer and the escabalero answer that question.
Speaker 3: Dantzi Len was born in Panama City, but she moved
Speaker 3: to California Central Valley with her family when she was five.
Speaker 4: Panama's home, Panama is like my heart.
Speaker 3: Full disclosure that Netzi works with US at for Tudo,
Speaker 3: where she does fundraising and runs the membership programs. Her
Speaker 3: Panamanian mom met her American dad, who was stationed there
Speaker 3: during the US invasion of Panama in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 5: She says the.
Speaker 3: Greatest gift her parents gave her was sending her to
Speaker 3: Panama to see family every summer.
Speaker 2: I can remember like being on the plane arriving at
Speaker 2: Tukumen and just.
Speaker 4: Like a sigh, like a I just loved it.
Speaker 3: She stayed at her grandma's house and then spent the
Speaker 3: summers hanging out with her cousins.
Speaker 2: So those trips during the summers were what kept me
Speaker 2: connected to my Panamanian heritage, to my family.
Speaker 3: Those summers also put soccer on the Nazi's radar for
Speaker 3: the first time because every four years they overlapped with
Speaker 3: the World Cup, and neither of her parents cared about
Speaker 3: sports much less about soccer, but her cousin, Luigi did.
Speaker 4: My closest cousin, Luigi a Meres Chavez.
Speaker 2: He is two and a half months older than me,
Speaker 2: and we are both only children and a family that
Speaker 2: has like a lot of kids, and so despite being
Speaker 2: far away and like you know, we've always been very close.
Speaker 2: He's like my brother.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, Luigi was and is a huge fan.
Speaker 3: He also played soccer.
Speaker 2: His room growing up was like plastered with Barcelona.
Speaker 4: He for some reason is a Dutch national fan.
Speaker 2: I'm not even sure where that comes from, but he
Speaker 2: also had those posters growing up.
Speaker 3: One summer during the France ninety eight World Cup that
Speaker 3: Natzi remembers Luigi being sent home early from his elementary school,
Speaker 3: Argentina was playing and it happened to be the principal's
Speaker 3: favorite team.
Speaker 2: Like what is That's not a thing that would happen
Speaker 2: in my elementary school in Presno right.
Speaker 3: Over the years, as she got older, that Neetzi stopped
Speaker 3: spending her summers in Panama, but she started to follow
Speaker 3: the World Cups on her own. In the early two thousands,
Speaker 3: Panama never qualified, so she'd root for the Latin American teams.
Speaker 3: In twenty eleven that Natzi moved to New York City.
Speaker 3: There she had more access to international matches and even
Speaker 3: more access to her roots. Every now and then, Panama
Speaker 3: would play in Philadelphia or in New Jersey, and she
Speaker 3: would convince friends to get on a bus and go
Speaker 3: with her to the.
Speaker 2: Games, because it's so rare to even come across Panamanians, right,
Speaker 2: like we're a tiny country, and so like, yes, I
Speaker 2: I love the game and would have fun watching them,
Speaker 2: But it was also just about like interacting with other Panomania.
Speaker 2: It's like just getting a little sense of being home.
Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, two years after that, Natzi moved to
Speaker 3: New York, she met a Colombian friend who invited her
Speaker 3: to watch a game at Legends, a sports bar in
Speaker 3: midtown Manhattan. If you want to catch almost any game
Speaker 3: from anywhere in the world, Legends is the place.
Speaker 2: The basement is covered ceiling walls with jerseys and scarves
Speaker 2: from all over the world.
Speaker 3: There the Nantzi found a community that gathered to watch
Speaker 3: all sorts of different games. We're talking from Colombian league
Speaker 3: matches to international games, where fans brought their banners and
Speaker 3: drums and.
Speaker 4: It's just this really fun atmosphere.
Speaker 3: At Legends that Netzi also learned about the heartbreak that
Speaker 3: comes with true fandom. In a twenty fourteen world could
Speaker 3: qualify against the US. Panama was up to one until
Speaker 3: the very last minutes. Victory was just within grasp, and
Speaker 3: then an.
Speaker 2: Extra time the US scores like two goals like bam, bam, bam,
Speaker 2: and it all just falls apart in the last couple
Speaker 2: of minutes.
Speaker 3: There forget a draw.
Speaker 5: It's a win for the US and Panama can stunned disbelief.
Speaker 4: What just happened is like big, big high to the slow.
Speaker 3: It was the first time that Nancy was overtaken by
Speaker 3: this grief shared by sports lovers all over the world.
Speaker 3: Not knowing what to do next, that Nancy walked towards
Speaker 3: one of the corners of the bar and she cried
Speaker 3: her eyes out.
Speaker 2: Not so fun memories of crying in the corner of
Speaker 2: legends that night after victory was ripped from her hands
Speaker 2: in the last minutes that night.
Speaker 3: As that Nancy wiped off her tears on her Panama jersey,
Speaker 3: she fully transformed into a true diehard fan.
Speaker 2: My relationship with soccer today is just one of dedicated fantom.
Speaker 1: After the break, despite the tears, that Nezzi's fandom keeps growing.
Speaker 1: Panama eventually qualifies for the World Cup and she gets
Speaker 1: a shot at fulfilling a dream more. When we come back,
Speaker 1: We're back with American football. I'm Fernande Charvari producer, Andres
Speaker 1: Cavalguero is going to take us into the Nezzi's journey
Speaker 1: for the next big thing, making her new World Cup
Speaker 1: dreams come true.
Speaker 3: This experience of falling in love with soccer made Danetzi's
Speaker 3: connection with her cousin Luigi stronger, even though they lived
Speaker 3: more than two thousand miles apart. When Panama finally qualified
Speaker 3: for a World Cup back in that twenty seventeen game,
Speaker 3: the one with the anti rushing the field. Danetzi immediately
Speaker 3: texted Luigi.
Speaker 2: I remember being in contact with him because he was
Speaker 2: just telling me how crazy the whole city was going.
Speaker 2: And the president actually declared the next day a national
Speaker 2: holiday and so schools were closed because everyone was partying
Speaker 2: in the streets.
Speaker 3: Then and there a seed was planted. If Panama is
Speaker 3: finally qualifying for World Cups, maybe they could go to
Speaker 3: one together one day. Panama didn't make it to the
Speaker 3: last World Cup in Guitar, but the twenty twenty six
Speaker 3: year felt different. First because FIFA had announced their expansion
Speaker 3: from thirty two participating teams to forty eight. Second, the
Speaker 3: three strongest teams Panama usually competed against the US, Mexico
Speaker 3: and Canada automatically qualified, which increased the odds for them
Speaker 3: to get back into the World Cup.
Speaker 2: And so there's just a sumptule like, well, of course
Speaker 2: we're going to like if we don't qualify this year,
Speaker 2: like and also an expanded feel like what are we
Speaker 2: doing here?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: And it's sober Panama is going to the World Top
Speaker 5: for the second time in their history.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we're going to do everything possible to actually
Speaker 2: go to a game, right, Like that's the dream. We're
Speaker 2: in our mid to late thirties now and have the
Speaker 2: ability to like actually do this.
Speaker 3: A few months after Panama qualified to the World Cup
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, Luigi created a group chat for those
Speaker 3: who were interested in looking for tickets, like all the Flags.
Speaker 3: They were about a dozen people in this group chat,
Speaker 3: mostly from Luigi's circle, but the core group was Danezzi, Luigi,
Speaker 3: his wife, and his friend from high school.
Speaker 2: What are even the options? I go to games? And
Speaker 2: it's like very easy. Normally you just go on the
Speaker 2: website or go on one of the ticket resellers and
Speaker 2: like you grab your ticket. But it was very clear
Speaker 2: from the beginning that this was just like a whole
Speaker 2: other beast.
Speaker 3: So Luigi took the lead. He was the one on
Speaker 3: top of what dates the first round tickets would be released.
Speaker 3: Since the FIFA group draw hadn't happened yet, buying tickets
Speaker 3: in the first round meant spending serious money for a
Speaker 3: game they might not even care about.
Speaker 2: We wanted to see our team play and so we
Speaker 2: weren't going to take that rest. So it was about
Speaker 2: waiting until the second round. And the second round was
Speaker 2: this lottery system.
Speaker 3: FIFA has been implementing the lottery system for a while now.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to help ensure fans can buy tickets at
Speaker 3: face value before they shoot up, and it seemed perfect
Speaker 3: for that Nancy and her cousin. The max number of
Speaker 3: tickets they could have apply for was four. But one
Speaker 3: important thing to clarify, this wasn't the type of lottery
Speaker 3: where winning meant getting free tickets. Winning meant having a
Speaker 3: chance to purchase the tickets for the specific game you wanted.
Speaker 5: We've got to skip all the way to Group L
Speaker 5: where Panama will go in in position four, and there
Speaker 5: have been the same group as England and Croatia.
Speaker 3: By the end of twenty twenty five, the FIFA group
Speaker 3: stage draw for the World Cup happened. Panama would be
Speaker 3: playing against Ghana and Croatia in Toronto, and then facing
Speaker 3: England and New Jersey. Now that the Netzi and Luigi
Speaker 3: had more details on Panama's three guaranteed matches, they could
Speaker 3: apply for the games they wanted. The group also had
Speaker 3: to figure out how much money they were willing to spend,
Speaker 3: especially in a World Cup shaping up to be the
Speaker 3: most expensive tournament in history.
Speaker 5: If you've heard anything about the World Cup, you have
Speaker 5: probably heard about those ticket prices. Who in their rate
Speaker 5: mind decided that the ticket prices for World Cup games
Speaker 5: are normal. I'm not dropping a band to go to
Speaker 5: one game to give you a sense.
Speaker 3: Tickets are more than twice as expensive as the last
Speaker 3: World Cup in Qatar, and that's taken into account all
Speaker 3: matches or seating categories. Part of the reason for the
Speaker 3: exorbitantly high ticket prices FIFA's use of variable pricing, which
Speaker 3: is also known as dynamic pricing. This is a system
Speaker 3: where ticket prices go up and down based on demand,
Speaker 3: and it's being applied across all sports in the US,
Speaker 3: much to the disappointment of fans and commentators. Dynamic pricing
Speaker 3: is what you see in Super Bowl, It's what you
Speaker 3: see in the NBA, is what you see in MLBA
Speaker 3: and so on.
Speaker 1: You can't even afford to go to the damn game.
Speaker 4: So it is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: If anything should be illegal, dynamic pricing should be legal.
Speaker 3: This World Cup is the first time FIFA is adopting
Speaker 3: this pricing system, and even the Mayor of New York City,
Speaker 3: so Run Mamdani, has come out against it.
Speaker 5: The tickets can be resold on official fecal platform with
Speaker 5: no price coup That means you could buy a ticket
Speaker 5: for sixty bucks and sell it with six thousand dollars,
Speaker 5: And unlike the last three World Cups, there's nothing set
Speaker 5: aside for residents. Well, this all means the biggest sporting
Speaker 5: event in the world is happening in your backyard and
Speaker 5: you'll be priced out of it.
Speaker 3: We're talking the cheapest tickets for basic group stage matches
Speaker 3: that have ranged from around one hundred and forty to
Speaker 3: more than one thousand dollars, not to mention the higher
Speaker 3: seating categories for playoff games. A seed at the final
Speaker 3: could cost well over ten thousand dollars. You want a
Speaker 3: front row seat thirty three thousand dollars. It's been a
Speaker 3: real blow for fans like that, Nancy.
Speaker 2: It's too much like tickets have just never been this expensive.
Speaker 2: There are fans like complaining about how there was not
Speaker 2: fan level prices. How you know, there's all this stuff
Speaker 2: here in New York about like transportation to the games
Speaker 2: and them upping the price, and it's.
Speaker 1: A pretty penny. A round trip train ticket between Penn
Speaker 1: Station and MetLife will cost one hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Shuttle bus tickets will cost eighty dollar dollars round trip.
Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty dollars to get to met Life
Speaker 2: when that normally costs twelve dollars. Right at every corner
Speaker 2: they're trying to get money, whether it's FIFA or whether
Speaker 2: then it's like the local cities too, just trying to
Speaker 2: make the most of it.
Speaker 3: The cost of the train ride was cut down to
Speaker 3: ninety eight dollars after public backlash, but it's still an
Speaker 3: inflated price. Many thousands of fans had to abandon their
Speaker 3: plans to attend the World Cup because it was just
Speaker 3: too expensive. But the Neetsi and her group had decided
Speaker 3: they'd be willing to pay around three hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: dollars each for a group stage ticket, a lot of
Speaker 3: money for an everyday person, but probably the cheapest they
Speaker 3: would get at the time, and they definitely wanted to
Speaker 3: avoid the crazy resale market, so they applied for the
Speaker 3: ticket lottery and they waited for what felt like an
Speaker 3: excruciatingly long time. The Netsi remembers seeing many other fans
Speaker 3: on social media who were on the same boat waiting
Speaker 3: for a response.
Speaker 2: People were also saying, like, if you haven't gotten the
Speaker 2: email yet, you could go into your profile and look
Speaker 2: inside this one little section of the page, and.
Speaker 4: Therefore you could deduce if you got it or not.
Speaker 3: Danetzi recalls Luigi sending her videos of him trying to
Speaker 3: navigate through FIFA's website to find out if they'd won. Finally,
Speaker 3: more than a month after entering the lottery, the news arrived.
Speaker 3: Luigi and his best friend from high school won the
Speaker 3: tickets for the Panama versus Ghana game in Toronto. Danetzi, Luigi,
Speaker 3: their whole group were going to the World Cup.
Speaker 2: I'm very lucky that we were able to get the
Speaker 2: lottery tickets, just pay face value for them. I would
Speaker 2: say that the process to getting to the World Cup
Speaker 2: has been frustrating and like annoying at every turn. There's
Speaker 2: kind of been this additional thing.
Speaker 3: And the NITZI hasn't even had to deal with ticket
Speaker 3: related issues other fans have been facing, for example, reports
Speaker 3: of people who bought resale tickets being notified days before
Speaker 3: the games that their tickets would be refunded because they
Speaker 3: could no longer be delivered to them. No further explanation followed.
Speaker 4: It feels a lot of this like bait and switch.
Speaker 3: In May, the New York and New Jersey Attorneys General
Speaker 3: announced the opening of an investigation into FIFA for its
Speaker 3: ticket handling and pricing and after reports that fans were
Speaker 3: misled about the location of the seats they had purchased
Speaker 3: a New Jersey's MetLife Stadium.
Speaker 2: It does take away from it, right, we've known FIFA's corrupt,
Speaker 2: we didn't know the extent to which they were really
Speaker 2: going to try to make this North American World Cup
Speaker 2: something very different from recent ones. I mean, for better
Speaker 2: or for worse, Like we were always gonna go thinking
Speaker 2: about the game as well and just you know, maybe
Speaker 2: being able to be a part of history in that way.
Speaker 3: But the NATZI would soon understand just why more than
Speaker 3: a million fans across the world have put up with
Speaker 3: the price gouging and the lottery weights and the overall
Speaker 3: indignity of handing your hard earned money over to FIFA
Speaker 3: standing in a packed stadium for national anthem on full blast.
Speaker 1: That's all coming up after a break. It's American football
Speaker 1: and Fernando Charvali. Before the break, Danizzy had finally secured
Speaker 1: World Cup tickets, so I'm gonna let producer andres Caabagierro
Speaker 1: finish her story.
Speaker 3: Panama is a small country of about four point six
Speaker 3: million people, and they're still so new to World Cup
Speaker 3: level competition. There are very few moments where soccer fans
Speaker 3: like Danetzi get to be on a stage this big.
Speaker 4: I'm just really proud of where I'm from.
Speaker 2: I talk about Panama all the time people probably think
Speaker 2: could be.
Speaker 3: And this time is different from all the other Panama
Speaker 3: matches than Netsi's been to in the past, one because
Speaker 3: it's a World Cup, but most importantly because she gets
Speaker 3: to live this dream next to her cousin Luigi. In
Speaker 3: a voice message Luigi sent the Netzi before leaving Panama
Speaker 3: to meet her at the World Cup, he told her
Speaker 3: he was very happy it was happening, especially after all
Speaker 3: that had gone through to find tickets. He said he
Speaker 3: was looking forward to celebrating goals and even crying together.
Speaker 2: I'm just so grateful knowing that I am going to
Speaker 2: have this like once in a lifetime experience with the
Speaker 2: person that I would most want to do this with,
Speaker 2: and just the fact that like everything has aligned to
Speaker 2: make this possible, you know, like all these different things
Speaker 2: like winning the lottery, not having to pay extra like
Speaker 2: it just feels like this was meant to happen. It
Speaker 2: means everything to be able to share this with my cousin.
Speaker 3: Once in Toronto, Dantzi in her group stayed at an
Speaker 3: Airbnb in the outskirts of the city to avoid paying
Speaker 3: one thousand dollars a night closer to downtown. Then the
Speaker 3: day of the game against Ghana arrived, Danetzi donned her
Speaker 3: Panama jersey, her nails painted red, white and blue, the
Speaker 3: color of the Panama flag. She marched with Luigi and
Speaker 3: thousands of other Panamanian fans through the streets of Toronto,
Speaker 3: dancing and chanting things like make way, the Panamanians are coming.
Speaker 3: And she was filled with a hope so familiar to
Speaker 3: soccer lovers across the world.
Speaker 4: I would love to see us win a game.
Speaker 3: In students, at the game, Danetzi and Luigi stood side
Speaker 3: by side in the red jerseys and traditional Panamanian hats
Speaker 3: also known as sombrero pintalo It's a hand painted straw hat.
Speaker 3: Then the moment they had imagined for so long, when
Speaker 3: Panama's national anthem began playing the one they knew would
Speaker 3: make them cry. During that first game against Ghana, Panama
Speaker 3: had very close chances. They were tied for most of
Speaker 3: the match until the very last minute when Ghana scored
Speaker 3: to win. It won to zero.
Speaker 4: I can't believe this is happening. Moments happened to this
Speaker 4: team a final man.
Speaker 3: Panama may not have lived the fairy tale story of
Speaker 3: surprising Ghana, but they put up a good fight and
Speaker 3: the fact that they made it to this massive stage
Speaker 3: says something important about the growth of Panamanian soccer and
Speaker 3: witnessing that made it all worth it for the Netzy.
Speaker 1: Panama's last game was against England, and the Netzy landed
Speaker 1: tickets to it without having to pay resale prices, which
Speaker 1: was a big plus. But Panama also lost that game. Now,
Speaker 1: these results may seem like a downer for the country,
Speaker 1: but losing only two zero to England, a team considered
Speaker 1: amongst the favorites to win this World Cup, isn't so bad.
Speaker 1: Panama played against giants and they could leave with their
Speaker 1: heads held high. American Football is produced by Futuro Studios
Speaker 1: in collaboration with Iheart's Michael Tura podcast network. I'm Your
Speaker 1: Host Fernando Chavarri. This episode was produced by Andres Cavadero
Speaker 1: with additional production from Levi Sharp. Our senior editor is
Speaker 1: rebec Gaevara. Fact checking by Roxanna Guire, nixing by Brendon
Speaker 1: Grugel at Multitude Productions. Legal review by Jonathan Fisher at
Speaker 1: Fisher Legal Arts. Victoria Strada is our production manager. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia at Futua Studios.
Speaker 1: Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomes and Arlene Santana.
Speaker 1: Futura Media was founded by Maria Inojosa. You can listen
Speaker 1: to more episodes on the iHeart app, Apple podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like this show,
Speaker 1: tell your friends, tell your family, give us a rating.
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