Hello friends!
It’s your Wednesday Deep Dive, coming a bit early! Apologies and/or you’re welcome. Whichever you prefer!
The rise and fall of @FreddyLA7
The first few weeks of the World Cup have been thrilling, joyous, and inspiring; a communal passion bringing the entire planet together in beautiful harmony.
The games have been great, too.
It’s a physical manifestation of humanity’s best. As a misanthropic journalist, I hate it! Happy people, having fun, enjoying sports. I’ve been stewing, alone, for two weeks, trying to find a way to ruin it.
Kidding, of course. I’m having a blast. I genuinely didn’t mean to blow up the best story of the World Cup. It’s because I was so focused on Netherlands-Morocco last night that I didn’t notice the tweet I shared from everyone’s favorite German tourist—which raised a question about the sincerity of his persona—was also a defense of using the N-word.
I swear! I legit did not realize!
After Germany lost in dramatic, unexpected fashion, friend of FOIAball Jess Smetana quote-tweeted @FreddyLA7’s dismay at his country’s elimination.
“Back to Langley I’m afraid,” she wrote.
I didn’t get the joke at first. I was aware of Freddy, the online sensation who'd been touring the country and celebrating its largesse. But unbeknownst to me, some people were beginning to think it all felt a little too orchestrated, calling him a plant, a CIA op, a Kalshi marketing ploy.
The narrative, with so many famous people instantly becoming fans of his, smelled fishy.
I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to see if he was genuine. I found a post that seemed to confirm that his charming naivety about the U.S. was a tad feigned. So I quoted it. Then it blew up.
Now, you might be wondering: What in the world does this have to do with college football? Well, college football is to blame for all of this.
Freddy’s internet infamy really exploded while attending a pre-tournament friendly at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Freddy was blown away by its size, its pyrotechnics, and a Tiger tradition, where an eagle takes a soaring lap around the stadium. His enthusiastic video of the bird drew 12 million views.
His platform grew from there, the enthusiastic embrace of Americana endearing him to a jaded, worn-out citizenry. Freddy helped us love ourselves again. He was also catnip for the media, who were able to turn his myriad sidequests—visiting Buc-ee’s and Bass Pro Shops—into low-stakes content that probably did great numbers.
As attention rolled in, more people took notice. Suddenly, Freddy was getting the red-carpet treatment. He FaceTimed with astronauts on the ISS. He met Ella Langley at a concert. JJ Watt comped him a penthouse in a Houston hotel. Gordon Ramsey decked out his room in Boston. A casino magnate offered to fly him private to Vegas.
It helped that outlets and influencers ran with a charming misconception. On Twitter, posters racked up views saying he was “experiencing America for the first time.”
In mid-June, TMZ echoed that claim in a video about his journey. Other outlets adopted that same framing.
Freddy doesn’t need to be faulted for letting the online hype machine churn to his own benefit, but his easily astonished tone wasn’t the result of any naivety.
According to some old posts I found, Freddy said he lived in the U.S. for an entire year, staying in Santa Barbara. In one tweet, he talked about going to concerts in America.
“I was at some concerts in the USA and no one there gave a damn about it. It's just the song lyrics. In rap songs, the lyrics are 50% made up of that word. Then you practically aren't even allowed to sing along anymore.”
I shared it, thinking I was debunking a lie of omission. I didn’t actually clock the content of the tweet, accidentally blasting out his casual defense of rapping the N-word.
When I shared the post, it had zero likes. By the time Freddy deleted it, it had two million views. Soon, everyone started digging into his old tweets.
This afternoon, he deleted his entire account. My bad. I still have some questions.
Freddy is a die-hard Cristiano Ronaldo fan, obscuring his face with an image of the soccer star whenever he shares pictures. Odder to me was that he’s an equally big booster of Ronaldo’s Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr. And the country, as well.
Back in October 2025, Freddy went to see Ronaldo in Riyadh, where he shared identical awestruck anecdotes. Posts about Saudi Arabia having restaurants and cute street cats and malls and shopping boulevards. Freddy loved its sunsets and subways and tourist attractions and vibes.
After he left, he defended it against accusations of human rights violations. Perfectly normal stuff for a casual tourist.
Weirder yet was his itinerary in America. If you were the world’s biggest Ronaldo fan, and you had tickets to go see Ronaldo play in his last-ever group stage match, and you had flights booked to go to that game, surely you would do that instead of visiting a random seaside town in Maine?
On Saturday, June 27, Colombia played Portugal in Miami, one of the most anticipated games of the group stage.
In March, Freddy tweeted a screenshot of his travel plans. He said he would be flying from Miami to Kansas City, noting he’d be in the city for three days.
In the thread, Freddy complained about the obscene cost of tickets. But, he said, he would be willing to overpay. Or, if he didn’t get tickets, he would watch the game outside the stadium. That’s how important it was for him.
“I’ve already booked flights to Miami… might just end up watching it outside the stadium,” he wrote. In another post, he said he’d “enjoy Miami for a few days then and watch the game at the fan festival :)”
Freddy seemed to have gotten lucky. On May 24, he shared that he had a ticket.
What was he doing on the day of the match? He was enjoying a Little League baseball game in Vermont. Then driving to the top of Mount Washington, before spending the night in Ogunquit, Maine. A town both you and I have never heard of.
That same day, someone asked about his ticket.
"I sold it a few weeks ago. It was too expensive,” he replied.
It’s true, in the weeks prior, that game had the highest resale prices of any match outside of the final. And, if he’s being honest, he sold his ticket before he got famous. But he already had flights booked! And he got the ticket he wanted more than anything! He was determined to be in Miami for it! So what gives?
Like Freddy’s magical rise, it doesn’t make a ton of sense. Maybe he’s not a paid influencer, or a psy-op, or a plant. He’s something far weirder: the world’s most fair-weather Cristiano Ronaldo superfan.
Update: Right after publishing this, I saw Freddy posted an Instagram explaining his decision to delete his account. He wrote that, "people are digging into my 22k posts to find a handful of in their opinion controversial posts and post them without zero context to make me look like a bad person."
Like I said, I didn’t mean to!
He also said he and his friends are still going to "enjoy our time here,” but that “Twitter had become too toxic.”
Enjoy the online detox, my man. I’d say you earned it, but your experience on that platform has been better than literally any other user of it ever. So don’t be too salty.
We’ll see you on Thursday. Maybe we’ll even talk about football.
Freddie via Instagram
