Former F365er Daniel Storey justifies his 7,200-mile World Cup road trip | OneFootball

When we received a press release telling us that Daniel Storey – formerly of this parish – was embarking on a lunatic World Cup road trip we only had one thought.

But after I had messaged him to ask about his mental health (again), we wanted to know more. Here’s our Q and A with the man himself – now with the Independent i Paper on his World Cup trip…

SW: So, I am told you are undertaking a unique seven-week, 7,200-mile road trip across America to cover the World Cup. You will be travelling entirely by car, with no internal flights, from the Washington coast to Maine while attending matches in nine host stadiums and finishing at the final. Even for you, this sounds ambitious. And that’s a kind way of saying it sounds mental. How? Why? What the actual f***?

DS: I’m more of the thought that I can’t believe I’m getting to do this, but you join a growing list of people to ask that question so maybe you’re right.

The easy answer is: I love a project, projects work to show off our content and the best projects contain an element of “what the f***, really?”. I hope that takes readers on the journey with you, so it’s not simple Piece A, Piece B, Piece C with little other context.

This is quite a big undertaking, of course. But then when life gives you a World Cup across an entire continent, make road trip-ade. What a truly awful sentence that is.

SW: That is an awful sentence. Once upon a time I would have subbed it out. I do think it sounds amazing but it also sounds exhausting. Is there a fear that you spend so much time driving that you forget to enjoy the football? If that’s not the fear, then what is?

DS: It’s definitely going to be heavy on the driving, but the hope is that I get into a nice rhythm for the busy days. It’s four hours of driving per day on average, so you check out of a hotel at 11 after doing some work, arrive at 3 to check in and then do a day’s work with the football, some of it in a bar chatting to people. That’s sounds…great?

It’s also finite. I am absolutely terrible at relaxing – as you well know – but it’s five very busy weeks and then it settles a little on the east coast. Also this is the World Cup and I’m very fortunate. If you can’t get yourself up for these games etc and so on.

SW: I feel your giddiness but generally, there does seem a lack of excitement around this World Cup. Trump, the size of it, the interminable group stage. Are you actually excited or pretending?

DS: I do think that we always say “huh there’s no excitement about this major tournament” quite often when it’s still two weeks away, and then the club football finally stops and everyone suddenly gets up for it. I am very excited for the football.

That said, because of the Trump x Infantino love-in this is clearly a very issues-heavy tournament. And the pieces I write will have to reflect that too. This clearly isn’t me driving 7,200 miles to do 10 match pieces.

SW: So what is your biggest worry about this mammoth trip? You dodged that question earlier and if I know you, you have very major worries. What is keeping you up at night barring the usual irrational fear of Nottingham Forest’s impending relegation? Is it car problems? Being stranded in the mid-West? ICE agents?

DS: How about I give you five and then you let me know if you want the other 50?

1) The car breaking down in the middle of nowhere 2) The car being stolen or broken into 3) Not getting car parking for one or some of my accredited matches, thus having no idea of how to get to the games with a hire car 4) I can take one bad/noisy/dirty hotel when I’m knackered, but two in a row would sting 5) Every mistake I’ve ever made haunting me during those long motel nights on a constantly rotating loop.

SW: No doubt I will hear about the other 50 on WhatsApp in the loneliest hours of the night.

So excite me about the football. What should be making me feel giddy as I look at a rota for the most ridiculous tournament in the history of the sport? Pitch me this World Cup.

DS: And if I ever forget to say thank you for my therapy, kick me.

Here’s the pitch: it’s the biggest World Cup ever with more teams than before, so it takes you back to being a kid when there were players you were discovering for the first time on the biggest stage. It’s the last tournament of the Messi-Ronaldo era, so we see their swansong and wait to learn who the next pillars of the game are. It’s the first major tournament of the post-Southgate era, which is absolutely fascinating. Any one of about eight countries could feasibly win it. Did I say that there is loads of football to watch?

SW: Ah, now I get it; you won’t have to stay up until 3am to watch so it’s exciting rather than a massive headache.

So what are the pillars of your trip? What are the themes we can expect? What will Daniel Storey write that nobody else will write over the next two months?

DS: I have 12-14 feature ideas that we could file under ‘big issue stuff’ but they will be shaped by the conversations I have out there. A rough list includes: the extreme heat, public transport chaos, Fifa’s dynamic pricing, watching Messi for the last time, does America actually know there’s a World Cup going on, Iranian fans at their first match in the US, security and surveillance, has LGBTQ+ pride basically been abandoned and quite a lot more.

I’m not arrogant enough to think that nobody else is going to write these pieces – it’s the biggest tournament in the world and it is the biggest edition of that tournament in history. There are going to be quite a lot of people covering it. But I’d like to think that bringing in elements of the road trip into the features, doing regular travelogue newsletters and charting my descent into madness via Instagram diary videos will allow me to stand out.

I’ve never pretended to be the only person doing what I do; the hope is that people see that I’m genuine, I love the sport wholeheartedly and I’m authentic. And the idea is to take people with me with those values.