‘Diverted’ charts one man’s journey to gatecrash “The Biggest Party In History”!
In 2022, Off The Ball presenter Eoin Sheahan embarked on a yearlong trip around Central and South America with the ultimate goal of making it to Argentina to witness their World Cup win.. the result? A 10-part podcast series that goes way beyond sport. Follow Eoin on this not-so-smooth journey from the Deep South of the USA to the southern tip of Argentina, as he tries to recover from missing out on the Biggest Party In The History of The Universe (™).
This is Eoin Sheahan’s Diverted.
Each week, Diverted travels to a new country, bringing you to a ritualistic fighting festival in rural Bolivia, to the basketball-crazy highlands of Guatemala and to the equine sport heartlands of Argentina’s gaucho country. You’ll learn about the sport of Jai-Alai and Tejo, hear a lengthy conversation with a survivor of the 1972 Andes plane crash, become fans of FC Palestino and hang out with lucha libre fighters. There are carnivals and psychedelics and broken bones, as Eoin runs from Andean karma but towards any presence of Maradona and Messi!
There’s also a weekly account of how a hitchhiking journey through Patagonia can go spectacularly wrong, but also lead this podcast to the family of a World Cup-winning footballer.
Speaking about his new series, Eoin said: “Still bemused that my mediocre level of Spanish opened so many doors across Latin America, this podcast will tell dozens of stories in the English language for the very first time. After sticking a microphone in the faces of people with crazy stories and in the faces of crazy people, we have a 10-episode story that would never have been told without the many, many setbacks encountered.”
Episode 1 ‘Colombia: Don’t mention the Escobar’ is live now, with a new episode dropping every Tuesday. Listen to episode 1 here. A video series to accompany each episode is available to watch every Thursday on @OffTheBall social channels.
Diverted: available wherever you get your podcasts.
Eoin Sheahan presents Off The Ball, weekdays evenings (19:00 – 22:00) on Newstalk.