DIVERTED

OTB Sports

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 (™).

Each week, this podcast will travel to a new country, and we will bring 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. We will become experts in Jai-Alai and Tejo, we will speak extensively with a survivor of the 1972 Andes plane crash, we will become fans of FC Palestino and hang out with lucha libre fighters. There are carnivals and psychedelics and broken bones, as we run from Andean karma but towards any presence of Maradona and Messi.

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.

Follow Eoin…

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Last refreshed: August 15th, 2025 at 3:35 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

Argentina II: Acceptance

In the final episode of this series, we bring you inside the towns of Patagonia that have a distinct Welsh falvour. From tea houses to red dragons to an adoration for the game of rugby, we travel to Trelew and Gaiman. In Buenos Aires, we sit down with Marcela Mora y Araujo to take one last look back on the 2022 World Cup triumph, and what it's done for a country that is economically on its knees. She also reveals her own story of FOMO, except it was missing out on her own nation's World Cup win,...

May 26, 2025•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 10

Florida: Backpackin’ USA

In this episode, we go from South Beach to North Florida to take in a wild range of sporting peculiarities. We begin by visiting a jai-alai fronton in Miami, where players are trying to keep the Basque game alive in the basement of a casino. We swing by Domino Park, where Miami’s elders are hanging out, before checking in on a group of Inter Miami fans who believe that success is close - if they fire Phil Neville. We take the tri-rail up to Delray Beach to visit the Pillow Fight Championship and...

May 19, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 9

Argentina I: The MacAllisters and the Patos

In this episode, the hitchhiking narrative converges with our sports narrative. We tell the story of how getting stuck in a Patagonian shack led to the family of Alexis MacAllister, and how the Liverpool midfielder was basically created in a lab. We then go to the Hurlingham district of Buenos Aires and pay a visit to the Hurling Club, where Dickie MacAllister takes us through the fascinating history of Gaelic games in Argentina. Finally, we visit the small town of Intendente Alvear, where the n...

May 12, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 8

Peru: The Big, Amazonian, John The Baptist Sesh

In this episode, Eoin brings you on an injury-delayed tour of Peru. There is the story of mountain climbing in Arequipa and how the political turmoil of 2022/23 affected the nation, while there is also an analysis of the societal divisions in Peru as represented by football. We traipse up towards the Amazon river, taking in a massive John the Baptist celebration en route to a rickety boat along the river. Cocooned away from the world, the trip concludes with a mad chase to find phone coverage to...

May 05, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 7

Central America: 2 minutes and 58 seconds in heaven

In this episode, Eoin brings you on a sporting tour through three countries in Central America. We begin in Costa Rica, where we watch their World Cup dreams dying a death, before an unlikely resuscitation allows an entire nation to dream, if only for a brief moment. We venture to Belize where a small town is looking to recapture past glories in the nation’s Premier League. And we go to Guatemala, where we take chicken buses up to the mountains to the small towns totally obsessed with basketball...

Apr 28, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 6

Mexico: Motherf***rs, Magic Mushrooms and Mayo hurling

In this episode, we take you to Mexico City where Independence Day is in full swing. We use the information provided by the Irish Hooligan to go and spend the day with some lucha libre fighters in a “dangerous part” of Mexico. For Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), then, we go to San Cristobal de las Casas and we attend a rave in the woods, learn about the Zapatista movement and we meet the people trying to build a gym in order to provide positive environments for the children of the city. Fi...

Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 5

Uruguay: “It’s not a miracle”

In 1972, a plane carrying members of the Old Christians rugby team of Montevideo crashed in the Andes, leaving behind a slew of survivors. After 72 days trapped on the mountain, 16 survivors managed to make it home. In this episode, Eoin visits the home of one of the survivors, Antonio Vizintin, for an extended chat about those 72 days and, indeed, the reaction to the revelations that dead bodies were used for food on the mountain. We also speak with Jorg Thomsen, director of Museo Andes 1972, a...

Apr 14, 2025•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 4

Bolivia: Blood, Sweat, and Tear gas

In this episode, we go on a journey into the Bolivian highlands for a completely unique festival called “Tinku.” It takes place in a tiny town called Macha, which is not exactly a tourist hot spot. The aim of the game is to fight thy neighbour in order to spill blood and satisfy the Andean gods, which are all-powerful to the indigenous Aymara community. We drink with the locals, dance with the locals and some of us fight with the locals. It is a chaotic couple of days, and one of the world’s mos...

Apr 07, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 3

Chile: A Scotsman, a Palestinian and a Yugoslav…

In the second episode of this series, we get invited to spend an afternoon at the plush environs of the Prince of Wales country club in Santiago, Chile. Here, some of the country’s national rugby players are putting kids through their paces and they themselves prepare for a first ever Rugby World Cup. A snoop around a flea market, then, tips me off about a storied football club, Club Deportivo Palestino. We meet the fans and those running the club, which is a representation of Palestinian identi...

Mar 31, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 2

Colombia: Don’t mention the Escobar

In the first episode of this series, Eoin takes you to Colombia, where our first destination is the city of Medellin. Here, there are football ultras trying to make the world a better place, and there is a football club trying to get away from the historic association with Pablo Escobar. There is the national sport of Tejo, where drinking beer is encouraged and making things explode is the aim of the game. In Bogota, we hear about a national obsession with cycling, and how it’s intertwined - and...

Mar 25, 2025•56 min•Season 1Ep. 1

Coming on Tuesday... Eoin Sheahan's Diverted

Coming to your OTB Daily feed this Tuesday (March 25th) at 10am - the first episode of Eoin Sheahan's Diverted. Before the first episode went live, Eoin chatted to OTB's Mick McCarthy about the 10-part series, which you can find each Tuesday in the OTB Daily feed, and in its own podcast feed . You can access that here to subscribe. 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 Part...

Mar 24, 2025•10 min

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