Andrés Cantor and his iconic “¡GOOOOL!” call will be part of Netflix’s coverage of next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
The streaming giant has added Cantor to its broadcast team for its Spanish and English broadcasts in the United States and Canada.
“I’ve been doing the most high-profile games for the last 40 years, so I want to keep on doing them,” Cantor said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Streaming is where everyone is consuming
not only sports nowadays, but pretty much everything. This is a new chapter for me. It’s a new challenge, and I know that this will be one of my finest going forward.”
Cantor had been with Telemundo since 2000 after 13 years with Univision. Netflix gained the rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups in December 2024. It also marked the first time that FIFA had unbundled the men’s and women’s World Cup broadcast rights. Fox carried the previous three Women’s World Cups in English while Telemundo had the Spanish-language broadcasts.
“I took a gamble when I moved (in 2000). Univision was the powerhouse of Hispanic television. They had all the rights, and I moved to Telemundo because I wanted the challenge of building something nice in the world of Hispanic TV. And certainly after 27 years with them, I can say that we obviously had a great run and the challenge was met with all the expectations that I have,” Cantor said.
Cantor has called 14 World Cups, which includes four Women’s World Cups. He called the first one in 1991 and the last three. The 63-year-old Cantor, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, considers Carli Lloyd’s goal from midfield in the United States’ 5-2 win over Japan in the 2015 final in Vancouver one of his top three goal calls.
The recent Men’s World Cup produced even more dramatic moments that Cantor called, from Argentina’s dramatic wins over Egypt and England to Spain’s victory in the final.
“I’ve been following the U.S. game for many years, and I got very excited about what I had seen prior to the Belgium match. That was a very high note, and so were the Argentina games,” he said. “My style is to broadcast every game like it were my last and with lots of passion. And obviously when you have passion with some internal feelings, even though I need to be detached emotionally, but I’m not going to lie to anybody that we all wanted the U.S. to do well in the last World Cup.”
The Women’s World Cup will take place June 24-July 25, 2027. The 32-team tournament will begin and end at the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro.
Cantor will also cover the final draw for the tournament on Dec. 11. Netflix said Cantor will call games in English and Spanish, but has not finalized his schedule.
Cantor had doubts about an expanded field before the 2023 tournament in Australia and New Zealand, but those were quickly allayed by the quality of the matches.
“I think the world is catching up to the superpowers. The women’s game is much more competitive than it was, let’s say, 15 years ago, to say the least. And the fact that it’s being played in Brazil, and with the enormous strides that their women’s national team has made and such a soccer-crazy country, I think that it is going to be terrific.”
Netflix will announce more announcers and studio analysts as the tournament approaches.
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See AP’s full soccer coverage here
