Pablo Iglesias Maurer

Pablo Iglesias Maurer is a soccer reporter for the Guardian whose work focuses on the history, culture and power structures of the game in North America. He combines investigative reporting, long-form storytelling and photography to show how decisions made in boardrooms, dugouts and locker rooms shape the sport’s trajectory. His beat centers on US and domestic soccer around the men’s and women’s national teams and major leagues, with an emphasis on stories that reach beyond match reports.

History and culture of the game in North America

Maurer’s defining through-line is an obsession with the game’s “wild, weird history,” a phrase he uses to describe his focus on US soccer’s past and the way it lingers in the present. His work often returns to the physical spaces and communities that have hosted the sport, treating decaying stadiums and changing neighborhoods as characters in their own right. In a piece marking D.C.

United’s final match at RFK Stadium, he framed the venue’s grimy, gritty state as the closing of a chapter in American soccer, using vivid detail to connect rusting infrastructure to decades of memories and identity.

Beyond single venues, he draws lines between forgotten teams, obscure competitions and the current landscape of US soccer, using archival material and photography to make long-gone moments tangible. His personal portfolio highlights this approach, pairing written work with photo essays to show how the game’s history is etched into abandoned training grounds, disused terraces and repurposed urban spaces.

For communications around heritage, anniversaries or historically rooted initiatives, Maurer gravitates toward stories where the past is active rather than nostalgic.

Scrutiny beyond the pitch: power, money and labor

Maurer’s Guardian role explicitly includes bringing scrutiny “beyond the pitch,” examining how soccer intersects with power, money, labor, culture and politics. He is one of the reporters tasked with leading coverage of US national and domestic teams while also interrogating the structures that govern them, from club front offices to league leadership. His reporting balances access to the professional game with a willingness to examine uncomfortable subjects, including workplace culture, misconduct and the treatment of staff.

A recent Guardian investigation into Philadelphia Union sporting director Ernst Tanner illustrated this side of his work, outlining detailed accusations from former employees about racist, sexist and homophobic behavior during Tanner’s tenure. The reporting described the alleged conduct, documented the experiences of staff and showed how a successful sporting project could coexist with what sources characterized as a toxic environment. The piece contributed to MLS placing Tanner on administrative leave and reopening its own inquiry, underscoring Maurer’s capacity to produce coverage with direct consequences inside the sport.

He carries the same lens into stories about elite managers, using coverage of Mauricio Pochettino’s email communication and the fallout around World Cup selection decisions to explore how leadership styles affect players and staff. He writes about tough choices as institutional acts as much as personal drama, focusing on the systems and communication practices behind them rather than surface-level controversy.

World Cup and US soccer narratives

Maurer is part of the Guardian’s expanded sports desk built around the 2026 World Cup in North America, with a remit to lead US-focused soccer coverage in the run-up to the tournament. His beat includes the US men’s and women’s national teams along with domestic leagues, situating their stories within broader questions about the country’s ambitions in the global game.

He writes about the World Cup as a test of infrastructure, governance and political influence, not only as a sporting spectacle.

In his Guardian coverage of the Trump–FIFA red card controversy, he examined how a presidential intervention into disciplinary matters was “unwelcome and undue,” arguing that it damaged the US’s World Cup more than it helped. The piece treated the incident as part of a larger pattern of politicization and overreach, connecting a single decision to concerns about fairness, tournament integrity and the perception of US soccer abroad.

This kind of work signals a preference for World Cup stories that sit at the intersection of sport, politics and reputation, rather than purely tactical analysis.

Long-form features and photography

Before joining the Guardian, Maurer spent years producing long-form features, investigations and cultural stories on American soccer for The Athletic. His broader portfolio includes work for outlets such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine and Playboy, where he combines reporting with photography to explore the sport’s place in North American culture. He is described as an award-winning writer and photographer, underscoring a dual craft that informs how he constructs and visualizes stories.

Maurer’s own site showcases this blend of disciplines, presenting in-depth written pieces alongside photo-driven projects that document stadium decay, grassroots fields and the textures of matchday life. Across outlets, he tends to favor feature formats, investigations and deep dives over quick recaps, giving him room to layer historical context, voices from inside organizations and visual detail. His coverage is best understood as narrative and structural rather than purely statistical, with a focus on how people and institutions shape the trajectory of soccer in the US.