@FT writer. Now increasingly at @simonkuper.bsky.social. Latest books: World Cup Fever, and my memoir of modern Paris, Impossible City
Paris
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Very chuffed to get my hands on a copy of my book World Cup Fever - a story of the tournament told through my own nine World Cups. It's out in English and Dutch in early October, but you can already preorder it, e.g. here waterstones.com/book/world-c…
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Ruben van Bommel, the young Dutch winger who gave the beautiful assist on his debut here versus Germany, is the third successive generation of his family to play for Holland, after father Mark van Bommel and grandpa Bert van Marwijk (who coached Oranje at 2010 World Cup)
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Simon Kuper retweeted
🚨SATURDAY POD!🚨
This week @acjimbo, @Zonal_Marking, @oilysailor &
@KuperSimon discuss a player you could clone an entire 11 out of. Plus the manager 🏆🧠
It's Frank Rijkaard 🇳🇱
pod.fo/e/62d57c
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Simon Kuper retweeted
Pre-order your copies of my next book, published in the US on October 13 by @HenryHolt
The US cover of The Best Kind of American features a photo of Beirut during the Israeli siege of 1982.
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Yes, Hamas is most probably guilty of genocide. Tragically, it's perfectly possible for both sides in a conflict to commit genocide
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Just one thing on the law of genocide. There's a widespread false belief (see tweet below) that it has to entail an attempt to kill the *whole* population. It doesn't. Bit below is from me in @FT last year
It could if there were an attempt to kill the entire population. That’s so far from the truth re Gaza that all such talk can be laughed at.
Day 1 Netanyahu narrowed the terms of response to a war on Hamas (not Gaza as a whole population) and that’s the terms they’ve stuck to.
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Simon Kuper retweeted
This intersection of football & geopolitics, initially examined so well in 1994 by @KuperSimon is what got me thinking about the impact on policy, strategy, commercial developments & what it all means for sport. And here we are, 32 years later, in an even more dangerous world...
The fans of this Serbian football club honored the “butcher of Bosnia” with a banner and a minute of silence.
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Simon Kuper retweeted
Nearly every day toward the end of my tenure at The Washington Post, someone would complain to me about Jeff Bezos' changes. His decimation of the local news team. His abandonment of DC sports coverage. The shriveled Bezos opinion page, with the ideological diversity of a doorknob.
Today, The Washington Sun launches. It has made enormous new investments: +110 newsroom staff; DC's legendary food columnist; truly the best DMV reporters; a beloved weather blog; a growing roster of columnists; tons of worldclass reporters across many national beats; and also me.
The Washington Sun will not be perfect. We will write stories that you find annoying, dumb, or misinformed. I will make mistakes (& tell me if I do - jeffstein@washsun.com!). But at a time where investments in reporting are evaporating, I'm so excited The Sun is hiring real journalists doing real reporting.
If you want to help, I would love if you signed up for our (free!) newsletters, which routinely get genuinely rave reviews:
National coverage: washingtonsun.com/account/ne…
Local coverage: washingtonsun.com/metro-news…
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Simon Kuper retweeted
Normally a company that said that its product had a 10% plus chance of exterminating humanity would be shut down immediately. Just saying.
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Simon Kuper retweeted
The PISA 2025 results are out today. Some quick insights.
- The major story is very significant global decline. The last PISA study was in 2022, and saw big declines in reading and maths scores from 2018. Obviously the pandemic played a part.
- But this 2025 round has seen further falls even from the 2022 lows!
Things haven't gone back to normal post-pandemic - they've got worse.
Every generation thinks the generation below is less smart - but this time they might be right!
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Simon Kuper retweeted
A harrowing new video from Bakhmut, filmed in the summer of 2026. The Ukrainian city was captured by the Russians three years ago and has lain in ruins ever since.
In this once-vibrant city of 72,000 inhabitants, there are no longer any shops, schools, kindergartens, cafés, hospitals, or clinics. Nor do any people live there anymore.
Putin’s propagandists call this "liberation."
t.me/MirovichMedia/15331
After four and a half years of war, Europe still does not understand what is happening there.
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Trumps special delegation bursting with excitement to meet the man who has been helping Iran bomb US bases all year.
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New Book Alert. Congratulations on publication day to Mark Dunham and Stephen Twigge for The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets. It calls itself "the definitive visual record" of MI5's clandestine work throughout its history. Some stunning documents. Buy here: shop.nationalarchives.gov.uk…
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Simon Kuper retweeted
my advice is generally to imagine that other people are really people
Milo Yiannopoulos: "I didn't really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The manner in which they arrest you, they put you in manacles, everybody is arrested like an MS 13 gang member.
It was physically degrading. It was frightening. I don't think I've ever been frightened like that before. I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
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