Speaker 1: Welcome to the way, and I'm John Green, I'm Danielle Alercon,
Speaker 1: and today we're gonna be talking football, specifically, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about Arsenal because Daniel just got back from
Speaker 1: a trip to London to see his beloved Arsenal football club.
Speaker 1: Can we put it in a idiom shit the bed? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: And how are you, John, I'm doing great, Thanks for asking.
Speaker 2: It was terrible. It was absolutely miserable, miserable weekend of football,
Speaker 2: wonderful weekend of seeing friends and of going to that,
Speaker 2: going to the Emirates and all this stuff. And I
Speaker 2: have a lot to say about it, but I just
Speaker 2: want to get out of the way that that it was.
Speaker 2: It was possibly the worst I've ever seen Arsenal play ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty directionless and in fact, I think
Speaker 1: they were kind of lucky to get back to one
Speaker 1: to one and then they ended up losing two to one. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a World Cup podcast, we mostly talk about
Speaker 1: national football, but in this case we need to be
Speaker 1: talking about Arsenal because they are in pursuit of their
Speaker 1: first league title in twenty two years. It would be
Speaker 1: a huge deal if it happened, but Daniel insists that
Speaker 1: he would not be disappointed if it didn't happen. He
Speaker 1: would be just fine.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be just fine because I have a very
Speaker 2: philosophical take on this and I don't expect.
Speaker 1: To win, so I'm Peruvian.
Speaker 2: And I really think I'll be okay. However, I want
Speaker 2: to say a couple of things. Well, I want to say,
Speaker 2: even when you watch a terrible game of football, if
Speaker 2: you're there, it's incredible, Oh my god, it's so good
Speaker 2: because you really see how athletic these guys are. Not
Speaker 2: the Arsenal players because they were barely moving, but the
Speaker 2: Bournemouth players in this case, how technically gifted they are,
Speaker 2: the way they move on the pitch to the extent
Speaker 2: that they are moving at all. And also you really
Speaker 2: sort of see the symbiotic relationship between the fans and
Speaker 2: the team. And and honestly, I I'm not sure where
Speaker 2: the panic came from, if it came from the manager,
Speaker 2: from the players, from the fans, but together this triumvirate
Speaker 2: of anxiety was really able to create a sense of anxiety.
Speaker 2: I heard things said John that you made me blush,
Speaker 2: and that Shakespeare would not have recognized Leo Trossar touches
Speaker 2: the ball and this very nice looking lady behind me says,
Speaker 2: go on, then do something, you fucking taught he He
Speaker 2: hasn't even done anything yet, he hasn't even messed up.
Speaker 2: And it was there was just so much vitriol and anger.
Speaker 2: A woman told me that if she had a gun,
Speaker 2: she would shoot the referee. Uh the he wore laughing, yeah,
Speaker 2: and she said it laughing, and I was like, that
Speaker 2: is really not okay, And I think that she either
Speaker 2: to the level.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think the referee had a bad game.
Speaker 2: He didn't, he didn't know he was. He was definitely
Speaker 2: not the problem. The problem was the Arsenal players weren't moving.
Speaker 2: And I say this because all teams have despicable fans.
Speaker 2: Some teams have great fans, you know, the proportion of
Speaker 2: them changes, and I think you can be a great
Speaker 2: fan and a dispicable fan on the same day. But
Speaker 2: it was It was both a lovely experience and a
Speaker 2: sobering experience, and I really did learn a lot about
Speaker 2: that relationship of anxiety between groups of fans and the team.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, especially when a team is down in the
Speaker 1: relegation zone like what's happening to Tottenham right now or
Speaker 1: what's happening to my club Wimbledon is really interesting because
Speaker 1: the panic starts before kickoff and the tension and the
Speaker 1: pressure is just ratcheted up. And that especially when you're
Speaker 1: when when when like Arsenal, you play these incredibly precise
Speaker 1: passes and the speed of the game, you know, is
Speaker 1: such that the movement is so important and and opening
Speaker 1: up space is so important, and you just start to
Speaker 1: mishit those passes a little bit because of tension, and
Speaker 1: it just becomes impossible. Everything becomes impossible.
Speaker 2: One of the ways I know you're a good friend
Speaker 2: is that you brought up Tottenham to try to make
Speaker 2: me feel better, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really kind of you.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you who wasn't trying to cheer me
Speaker 2: up everyone else, because it was my friend Juan Diego
Speaker 2: and Ernando and we went we went on a long
Speaker 2: walk to Hackney like sort of to like sort of
Speaker 2: to process the game, and we're all wearing our Arsenal
Speaker 2: gear and stuff. And I got so much shit from
Speaker 2: so many people, strangers and cars, like people hanging out
Speaker 2: of the bus y'all was shipped today, mate, you know,
Speaker 2: like all this stuff and it was so hilarious.
Speaker 1: It was so funny.
Speaker 2: I mean, just like when we finally got to this
Speaker 2: Turkish restaurant. We none of my friend Nano lives in
Speaker 2: London and he's been going to this Turkish restaurant for
Speaker 2: like thirty years, and he was like, oh, we got
Speaker 2: to go to this place.
Speaker 1: It's you know, we.
Speaker 2: Walked all the way over there and even though the
Speaker 2: guy we walked in and like everyone was like whoa,
Speaker 2: just like man man don. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: heard the news on Friday that the former mayor of
Speaker 2: New York City, Eric Adams, had obtained Albanian citizenship.
Speaker 1: I did, and congratulations to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to be dramatic, but if there's one thing
Speaker 2: that could have made my weekend worse, it's if Eric
Speaker 2: Adams had also become Peruvian. Like in terms of football,
Speaker 2: like everything went wrong, everything.
Speaker 1: Went wrong, and everything went wrong. Manchester City one going away,
Speaker 1: Arsenal lost at home. Liverpool looked pretty good, which I
Speaker 1: know is neutral for you, but still notice I.
Speaker 2: Guess the only thing went well was that Tottenham lost.
Speaker 2: But it's of little comfort That's how despondent I was
Speaker 2: that I didn't even get much joy out of time
Speaker 2: I'm losing.
Speaker 1: Well, you've gone from a potential quadruple, you know, winning
Speaker 1: four different titles in one season, to a potential none upple.
Speaker 2: Then upple is our specialty. So, like I said, I'll
Speaker 2: be fine. I can handle it. The abuse that I'm
Speaker 2: getting on my five BOROUGHFC group chat is epic, and
Speaker 2: you know what, I just have to take it. I
Speaker 2: just have to take it because they're right. They're totally right.
Speaker 2: We should be we should have won that game.
Speaker 1: I still think Arsenal will win the league. I think
Speaker 1: they have to win against Manchester City absolutely, not for
Speaker 1: the number of points involved necessarily, just for the mental
Speaker 1: part of it. I think they have to have a
Speaker 1: mental reset. And I think playing, you know, sometimes playing
Speaker 1: a really great football club brings out the best in
Speaker 1: you because they want to be on the front foot more,
Speaker 1: they're less counter attacking, da YadA YadA, and I think
Speaker 1: that might happen for Arsenal. I think that they're going
Speaker 1: to beat City and I think that they're going to
Speaker 1: win the league, and I think that you're going to
Speaker 1: have joy at the end of this. I don't want
Speaker 1: you to deny yourself the joy Daniel in trying to
Speaker 1: protect yourself from potential pain. I think that's a mistake
Speaker 1: that many adults and teenagers make that young children don't make.
Speaker 1: And I think that young children have that one right.
Speaker 2: So I should be more childlike approach it with the unfettered,
Speaker 2: unhinged devotion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: There's the phrase that you learn as an adult. It's
Speaker 2: the hope that gets you, you know, it's the hope
Speaker 2: that really hurts. And if you just don't have hope,
Speaker 2: then you can't be hurt. And I've been hurt a lot.
Speaker 2: I've been hurt a lot in my life, in my
Speaker 2: footballing life and my fandom, and I do think that
Speaker 2: there is a measure of protection. But I also think
Speaker 2: it's not just a measure of self protection here, John,
Speaker 2: it's kind of a big picture thing. Like I'm confident
Speaker 2: that in my lifetime I will see Arsenal win something.
Speaker 1: I'm also very.
Speaker 2: Much of the mind the awareness that I, in my
Speaker 2: immense privilege and good fortune, was able to take a
Speaker 2: little junket weekend to London to see the game with friends, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty correcial. Even when you lose, it's still special. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I went to the Barbicane and I saw this
Speaker 2: Bettis Gonzalez, this famous Columbian artist, had a retrospective that
Speaker 2: was incredible, ate good food. I stayed up till like
Speaker 2: four in the morning, drinking wine, my friend there and
Speaker 2: doing his wife Atlanta. I mean, it was like it
Speaker 2: was great, you know. So it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be fine. And the other thing is this
Speaker 2: Arsenal is a team as all of anyone who's a
Speaker 2: fan of anything. You know, I have been given moments
Speaker 2: of immense joy by this team that are you know,
Speaker 2: Obviously winning a trophy is a greater joy which you've
Speaker 2: experienced as a Liverpool fan. I have not in recent years.
Speaker 2: Having said that, those special moments are also important, those
Speaker 2: moments when I've jumped up to celebraty goal and hugged
Speaker 2: my uncle Edgut or you know, hugged a stranger in
Speaker 2: a bar, or you know. I mean, so it's all
Speaker 2: a journey. It's all a journey, John, And this year
Speaker 2: that journey maned in a trophy. It mayned in none,
Speaker 2: and either way I will be a fan next year
Speaker 2: and we go on and on and on and on.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what, if they win the Nune
Speaker 1: up all, I will give you a hard time. I promise,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna not gonna lay off you out of friendship.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and treat you like a regular
Speaker 1: person and say that it is truly incredible the forces
Speaker 1: that restrict Arsenal from achievement. And I think you're right
Speaker 1: to say that it's the players, it's the manager, it's
Speaker 1: the fans. And I remember this with Liverpool. I mean
Speaker 1: Liverpool hadn't won an English Premier League title ever and
Speaker 1: hadn't won you know, league in thirty years, and I
Speaker 1: remember as as it got closer, the pressure would build
Speaker 1: and build and build. And the only way Liverpool finally
Speaker 1: got over that hump and won a title was because
Speaker 1: they had like a seventeen point lead going into April
Speaker 1: and there was no way they weren't going to win
Speaker 1: the league, because otherwise the pressure would have inevitably gotten
Speaker 1: to the players. You forget that people are human, You
Speaker 1: forget that, like these elite athletes are just people who
Speaker 1: feel the same thing we feel, who like go to
Speaker 1: bed at night, like right now I'm trying to finish
Speaker 1: the edits for my book. Not to compare myself to
Speaker 1: Hector Bellerin, but like I'm trying to finish the edits
Speaker 1: of my book, and I lay awake at night staring
Speaker 1: at the ceiling. I wake up in the morning, the
Speaker 1: first thing I think about is the book. The last
Speaker 1: thing I think about at night is the book. The
Speaker 1: stress is overwhelming. I know that I have these deadlines
Speaker 1: I have to meet, and I know that, like, once
Speaker 1: I'm done with this edit, I will never be able
Speaker 1: to rework this book, and it'll be in print for
Speaker 1: however many years, and for those years, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to live with these fine decisions as I'm making them
Speaker 1: right now. And that is real pressure. It is nothing
Speaker 1: like the pressure of millions and millions of people, tens
Speaker 1: of millions, maybe one hundred million people around the world,
Speaker 1: from Colombia to Sierra Leone to North London, caring about
Speaker 1: what you do on a football field, when you have
Speaker 1: to be so precise in your movements and you have
Speaker 1: to somehow get all that stuff out of your head,
Speaker 1: like you've got to be d vaka RIGHI. You know
Speaker 1: who didn't know it was the ninety fifth minute when
Speaker 1: he scored the ninety fifth minute winners, right, Like, you
Speaker 1: have to be that kind of person in order to
Speaker 1: handle that kind of pressure totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say that you could tell there was
Speaker 2: the guys were feeling pressure on Saturday because they we'd
Speaker 2: get the ball for throwing and it was often males
Speaker 2: Luis Kelly who would be standing on the touch line
Speaker 2: for like forty five seconds to a minute because he
Speaker 2: couldn't find someone to pass to because everyone was paralyzed
Speaker 2: with and they just won't.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There these are people who know how to play the game,
Speaker 2: they know how to do the movement, so there's some
Speaker 2: kind of anxiety induced disconnect between their mind and their
Speaker 2: body that is causing them to just freeze. And they
Speaker 2: just stood there and the crowd is get getting more
Speaker 2: and more anxious because we you know, we just want
Speaker 2: to get an early goal so we could you know,
Speaker 2: enjoy the afternoon, and it just never came. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: all a journey. We're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: I will say that that Victor Yokerez takes a good penalty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he puts his boot through. He doesn't think too much.
Speaker 2: He's you're not going to see him attempt a panenka.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that we.
Speaker 1: Need to talk about this, not in this episode, but
Speaker 1: before the World Cup begins. We need to talk about
Speaker 1: the John and Daniel guide to taking a penalty, because
Speaker 1: you and I have the same worldview when it comes
Speaker 1: to penalties. There's sort of, too broadly speaking, two ways
Speaker 1: of thinking about it. The pananka is on one extreme,
Speaker 1: but there's there's team plays it well and team kick
Speaker 1: it hard. Yeah, And I'm team kick it hard. I
Speaker 1: mean kick kick, kick the stuffing out of the ball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because then even if it if you get
Speaker 2: it on target, it'll go in most more often than not.
Speaker 2: I did want to say one thing, but it does relate.
Speaker 1: To the World Cup.
Speaker 2: Actually, John, that I noticed and almost like an asterisk
Speaker 2: to add to your deep dive on England. Uh Man,
Speaker 2: these players are totally knackered.
Speaker 1: Oh they are. They are Declan.
Speaker 2: Rice like, I don't know where he gets the energy.
Speaker 2: But his partner in the midfield, Martin Zubamendi, was one
Speaker 2: of the best players in the league. I think in
Speaker 2: one of the signings of the summer through like November,
Speaker 2: and then since then he's just it's been a steady
Speaker 2: drop off, and he just doesn't have the legs. And
Speaker 2: you know, he's like a you know, one of those
Speaker 2: first names on the team sheet kind of guys at
Speaker 2: his club and for country, for Spain, and Spain is
Speaker 2: as a side known for its you know, historically it's
Speaker 2: incredible midfielders, of which he is won. But if you
Speaker 2: play them into the ground, they then then the there's
Speaker 2: nothing that you can do. You can't you can't overcome
Speaker 2: the limitations of the human body, and these guys all
Speaker 2: look just wrecked.
Speaker 1: What I'm hearing is that the US men's national team
Speaker 1: is going to win the World Cup with a bunch
Speaker 1: of MLS ers because they're going to have fresher legs.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hearing. And I love what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I love your take.
Speaker 2: That was the subtext. I'm glad you can read between
Speaker 2: the lines for that optimistic message of jingoism that was
Speaker 2: embedded in my analysis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's only why it's only jingoism when we're talking
Speaker 1: about America apparently.
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, last thing, I appreciate you not condescending
Speaker 2: to me, and I expect and accept all abuse that
Speaker 2: I get. If Arsenal doesn't win anything, it shall be deserved.
Speaker 2: I will take it and I will accept it, and
Speaker 2: it will fuel me next year.
Speaker 1: God speed, Daniel. We're going to come back with a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the German national team, speaking of not
Speaker 1: the freshest legs on. We're going to deep dive into
Speaker 1: the German national team and what I think could be
Speaker 1: a tricky World Cup for them despite their strong history
Speaker 1: as a world cupping nation. So we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So Sean, if you could come on the screen real quick,
Speaker 1: because I believe Daniel did not go to Italy with us.
Speaker 3: That is correct. Daniel was not in Italy with us, but.
Speaker 1: We went to Italy together in nineteen ninety four. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to say who was the trip of
Speaker 1: a lifetime, but it was the trip of a lifetime.
Speaker 1: We also, as you might remember, went to Switzerland.
Speaker 3: I do remember going to Switzerland. I'm very curious, very
Speaker 3: very curious where this.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about that, Sean. That's not their business, that's not the
Speaker 1: listener's business. But you and I both know what we're
Speaker 1: thinking about.
Speaker 2: What happens in Basil. In Basil as they say, I believe.
Speaker 1: In this case it was los enn but yes, but
Speaker 1: look I am.
Speaker 2: I just want to say from Jump that I'm impressed
Speaker 2: that you did not place me in this memory as
Speaker 2: you you know, famously placed me inside memories of yours.
Speaker 1: Uh. Yeah, No. If there had been like a glowing
Speaker 1: light of joy in the memory, then I would have
Speaker 1: known that you were there. But there isn't. There's just
Speaker 1: the glowing light of Sean, and so he loves quite
Speaker 1: large in the memory. Anyway, Sean. When we went to Italy,
Speaker 1: which was not that long ago, I mean, admittedly we
Speaker 1: were we were younger than we are now, but like
Speaker 1: we were old enough to be conscious and like friends
Speaker 1: and we're still friends. Like you know, we had a consciousness. Yes,
Speaker 1: Germany was one year old. We forget this. I forgot
Speaker 1: this until I was doing the research and they kept
Speaker 1: prattling on about West Germany and East Germany and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, right, there was a Berlin wall up
Speaker 1: for my entire childhood.
Speaker 3: We arrived on the heels of history to Europe.
Speaker 1: We did. And remember that everything costs like thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand lira because of all the inflation in Italy at
Speaker 1: the time. But yeah, we arrived on the heels of history.
Speaker 1: That's beautifully put, Sean. I'm going to put that in
Speaker 1: my new novel quick while I still have a chance to.
Speaker 1: And I've been thinking about it because since nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three or nineteen ninety two, or whenever Germany became Germany again,
Speaker 1: it has been an astonishingly successful side. You might remember
Speaker 1: that guy Joachim Lowe who scratched his balls during the
Speaker 1: World Cup and then sniffed his hand. He was the
Speaker 1: manager for.
Speaker 2: A while, wasn't he the guy who maybe you don't
Speaker 2: remember that, Oh I remember that. I remember vividly he
Speaker 2: picked his nose and eat it as well.
Speaker 1: Or is that a different manager I think he might have.
Speaker 1: He is fascinated by the products of his own body,
Speaker 1: which is a legitimate fascination.
Speaker 3: Is so great, Like my stomach is turning right now
Speaker 3: due to the scatological nature of this part of the deep.
Speaker 1: But he does it all. He does it all like
Speaker 1: on on the bench, Sewan, so like people can see,
Speaker 1: like the camera panned to him and he stuck his
Speaker 1: hand in his pants and then went wow. This is
Speaker 1: giving a new meetings to the phrase deep dive. John
Speaker 1: he also, while we're talking about Yochim Low has the
Speaker 1: single worst haircut among wealthy individuals on Earth. So like,
Speaker 1: obviously not everybody can afford a great haircut that's not
Speaker 1: on them, but he can. And his haircut looks exactly
Speaker 1: like like my eight nineteen eighty seven bowl cut, when
Speaker 1: my mom literally put a bowl on my head and
Speaker 1: cut around it, like that's what it looks like. He
Speaker 1: is no longer the manager. I'm not sure why I've
Speaker 1: devoted so much to the Deep Dive to him. The
Speaker 1: current manager is Julian Naglesman, which is surreal for me
Speaker 1: because I remember Julian Naglesman as a player, and he
Speaker 1: has a much better haircut and better personal hygiene so
Speaker 1: far as I've observed thus far. But in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: this guy, Joachim Low led Germany to the World Cup,
Speaker 1: and then in twenty eighteen they kind of bombed out
Speaker 1: in the group round, and then now they're very good.
Speaker 1: But there's two problems. Problem Number one is the problem
Speaker 1: that Daniel has identified, which is the legs problem. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of older players, right, so they've got
Speaker 1: Joshua Kimmick as their captain. I mean, basically it's Bayern
Speaker 1: Munich starting eleven plus Antonio Rudiger. They have a stunning
Speaker 1: number of players who play for Bayern Munich or else
Speaker 1: for Barusha Dortmund. And they've gone through a really long season.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Toaz thirty, Antonio Rudiger is thirty three three, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are not young players and they've gone
Speaker 1: through a very long season, and they're gonna then. The
Speaker 1: second problem this time around is that they're in an
Speaker 1: exceptionally hard group. And I I worry that this team
Speaker 1: that has won, depending on your worldview, either four or
Speaker 1: one World Cups, I worry that they're gonna be in trouble.
Speaker 3: John jumping in, can you will you tell us who
Speaker 3: else is in their group?
Speaker 1: So they've got curis L not the hardest opponent, but
Speaker 1: then they have Ivory Coast and Ecuador. Now, probably the
Speaker 1: top three are gonna get through to the knockout rounds
Speaker 1: because probably everybody's gonna beat Curs out. Everybody's gonna have
Speaker 1: at least three points. Probably teams with three points will
Speaker 1: make it to the knockout rounds, like the third place
Speaker 1: team with three points will make it to the knockout rounds.
Speaker 1: But I genuinely worry about Germany against both Ecuador and
Speaker 1: Ivory Coast. Especially against Ecuador. I think Ecuador is like
Speaker 1: my sleeper team of the World Cup. I think that
Speaker 1: they could go to like the semifinals and assuming like
Speaker 1: my so, I I think it's very possible that, like
Speaker 1: by the quarterfinals or even by the round of sixteen,
Speaker 1: Germany's up against somebody they they're going to struggle to beat,
Speaker 1: whether that's Brazil or Spain or France, could be a
Speaker 1: South American nation. I think they could be in for it.
Speaker 1: I think that this could be the year that we're
Speaker 1: talking about Germany as one of the early teams to
Speaker 1: go out. Even though they're like I think, third favorites
Speaker 1: to win the tournament, I think they're fourteen to one
Speaker 1: to win the tournament, there's still I think they're going
Speaker 1: to struggle. So I have a few things to say. John.
Speaker 2: One is I think that there's going to be a
Speaker 2: lot of teams that are going to go out early
Speaker 2: because there's that extra round of thirty two. So there's
Speaker 2: going to be, yeah, you know, sixteen teams that are
Speaker 2: going to go out.
Speaker 1: Sixteen teams are going to go out in the round
Speaker 1: of thirty two, and they're all going to look like failures.
Speaker 1: But that's just the nature of knockout rounds, right. I Mean,
Speaker 1: some of them are going to be up against teams
Speaker 1: that are easily beatable, But if you finish second in
Speaker 1: a group you could get there. Especially if you finish third,
Speaker 1: you're going to have a really hard knockout round game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's one thing.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I want to know is that
Speaker 2: I that I just build off your analogy of this.
Speaker 2: It's basically the Byron eleven Bayern Munich starting eleven plus Rudiger.
Speaker 2: It's also the Bayern Munich starting eleven minus Harry Kane. Yes,
Speaker 2: which actually I think is a huge problem that I
Speaker 2: see with Germany who's scoring the goals? Like who's there?
Speaker 2: Who's there starting number nine? If you don't have Harry
Speaker 2: Kane up there because he happens to be English. I mean,
Speaker 2: Kai Havertz is not really you know, you know, tearing
Speaker 2: up any trees this this season. He's coming back from injury.
Speaker 2: He's an odd duck as a as a as a nine.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love.
Speaker 1: I don't think he is a nine. I mean I
Speaker 1: was he a nine for Arsenal, like I feel like
Speaker 1: he's much more of a midfielder than he is a
Speaker 1: pure out and out striker.
Speaker 2: I would point you to the evidence of the Bournemouth
Speaker 2: game to the contrary on that.
Speaker 1: No, I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the best game that he played
Speaker 2: for Arsenal last season, when he was you know, when
Speaker 2: he played quite well, was as a nine, for sure,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I think back to these incredible opportunistic strikers
Speaker 2: that Germany has had, like merciv Close or Muller.
Speaker 1: Thomas Thomas, Robert Mueller, but he was the the special count.
Speaker 1: No Robert, special counsel for.
Speaker 2: The the Yes rest in Peace. Uh yeah, no, so
Speaker 2: not Robert Mueller, Thomas Mueller. But these kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, engineers of space that could find little holes
Speaker 2: and all their goals were scored were one touches. And
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering who among the current crop of German
Speaker 2: players can do that.
Speaker 1: So let me offer up a few names. There's Nicholas
Speaker 1: Folkrug who's now thirty three years old, plays for AC Milan.
Speaker 1: He may not even get called up because he's a
Speaker 1: I think a great striker. But he's not a young man.
Speaker 1: There's Nick Woltemadi who plays for Newcastle, who scores goals occasionally.
Speaker 1: He scores goals occasionally. I believe he has scored four
Speaker 1: goals for Germany. And then there's Dennis Undov who plays
Speaker 1: for Stuttgart, who also scores goals occasionally, Like he scores
Speaker 1: a fair number of goals in the Bundesliga, but he doesn't.
Speaker 1: And I think he may be the guy. But I
Speaker 1: think you're going to see a lot of You're going
Speaker 1: to see Leroy Sana play, You're going to see serge
Speaker 1: Ganabri play like You're going to see a lot of
Speaker 1: goals come from midfield and out on the wing if
Speaker 1: Germany have a successful World Cup. And sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: need an out and out striker, right, I mean, think
Speaker 1: about like the role that Roberto Fermino played in Liverpool's
Speaker 1: starting eleven for so along. He didn't score a ton
Speaker 1: of goals, but he didn't need to because he created
Speaker 1: a ton of goals.
Speaker 2: Or think about Olivia Jerux winning the World Cup for
Speaker 2: France as the starting number nine without scoring a goal
Speaker 2: in the tournament. That's also it's still very important player
Speaker 2: for very important tournament. Yeah, yeah, target man distributor, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm interested to see what Germany does if they if
Speaker 2: they I remember that when they went out in the
Speaker 2: group stage. I'm trying to think what year that was.
Speaker 2: Was that twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen they went in a
Speaker 2: group stage. Yeah, so I mean it can happen, and
Speaker 2: you know they don't. It's been a while since that
Speaker 2: phrase of like, you know, twenty two men kick a
Speaker 2: ball around for ninety minutes in the Germans win. Since
Speaker 2: that phrase was like kind of inviolable truths, I think
Speaker 2: it's a little bit more flexible now. But I'm interested
Speaker 2: to see what they do. They have a lot of
Speaker 2: players that I like. Lucilla for example, it's one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have some fine players. We'll see, we'll see. Thank
Speaker 2: you for that, Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see how the World Cup pans out
Speaker 1: for Germany, but also for everyone. I'm finally letting myself
Speaker 1: get really excited, Daniel. It turns out I am going
Speaker 1: to one game. I just got tickets to a game.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get fired up. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we will talk about the most important photograph ever taken,
Speaker 1: and until then, just imagine what it might be a
Speaker 1: photograph of. And when we come.
Speaker 4: Back, I will I will paint you a picture.
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm going to describe a photograph to you.
Speaker 1: Imagine a photograph of two men arm in arm, similar heights,
Speaker 1: one of them wearing a chain like a necklace, a cool,
Speaker 1: cool guy chain that looks kind of expensive, excellent postures.
Speaker 1: And then one of them is a beautiful man with
Speaker 1: a stunning, stunning head of hair, the perfect hairline, a
Speaker 1: wonderful jaw line, a strong chin. I just as attractive
Speaker 1: as a person can be in a really tight T shirt,
Speaker 1: arguably a little too tight, except that he can pull
Speaker 1: it off, because of course he can. And that man
Speaker 1: is Daniel, and an arm in arm with him is
Speaker 1: Lionel Messi, who has a terrible haircut, it must be noted,
Speaker 1: and for some reason, it's wearing a Brian Fairy T shirt. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about we're talking about one of the
Speaker 1: greatest physical specimens of all time and Lionel Messi exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell the story of how this photo
Speaker 2: came to be, John, and maybe along the way I
Speaker 2: want to give our listeners a little relationship advice. You'll
Speaker 2: be able to see for yourself this photograph. I think
Speaker 2: that as usual, John has described it in a way
Speaker 2: which you know, what made him famous as a fiction writer.
Speaker 2: But you'll be able to judge for yourself, So John,
Speaker 2: Once upon a time there were many, many magazines that
Speaker 2: were published the United States around the world. As you know,
Speaker 2: I've written for many of them. And magazines for our
Speaker 2: younger listeners are like very thin little books that were
Speaker 2: published on a regular.
Speaker 1: Say, they're more sort of like printed out websites.
Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, printed out websites. Yeah, but now
Speaker 2: the kids don't even go to websites, so it's.
Speaker 1: Like Instagram, but text based and printed.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was they were printed on a like
Speaker 2: on our schedule, right, So they are often known as periodicals.
Speaker 2: And there was a specific niche among these that were
Speaker 2: called glossies. And glossies were kind of the high end
Speaker 2: fashion magazines. So you know, there was the regular magazines
Speaker 2: or print on sort of regular paper, and the glossies
Speaker 2: got their name from the glossy paper that they were
Speaker 2: printed on, nice shiny paper, the kind you'd want to
Speaker 2: you know, wrap a gift for your mom for Christmas
Speaker 2: in you know, because it was kind of nice and
Speaker 2: uh and they were kind of lucrative, right, yeah, And
Speaker 2: just out of curiosity, Daniel, real quick, did you write
Speaker 2: for these glossies or did you model for them? I
Speaker 2: have a very funny story about not modeling for them,
Speaker 2: but uh, no, I've never written. I had never written
Speaker 2: for a glossy magazine. I should say until the year
Speaker 2: that I was engaged to be married. Now Godline and
Speaker 2: I were engaged for about two weeks, and it just
Speaker 2: so happened that in that period a glossy magazine finally
Speaker 2: called me up. And these were these magazines that had
Speaker 2: they had so much advertisement that they were like thick
Speaker 2: with advertisement. They had to just sort of come up
Speaker 2: with articles to fit in so they could have all
Speaker 2: this advertisements that they had to print. So Vanity Fair, Gqvogue,
Speaker 2: those are the glossies, and they paid I played so
Speaker 2: much money. Yes, one of these editors who worked at
Speaker 2: one of these magazines called me up and asked me
Speaker 2: if I was interested in writing a profile of Lionel Messi,
Speaker 2: and of course I was interested. Huge soccer fan, blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. The problem is that I was about to
Speaker 2: be married and the reporting trip would be then the
Speaker 2: week after my wedding, so terrible timing. But I talked
Speaker 2: it over Carolina and I was promised full access. So basically,
Speaker 2: I was told I would get to spend three days
Speaker 2: with the world's greatest player. I'd get to see a
Speaker 2: training session, I get to go to a game at
Speaker 2: the camp. No, I'd get to see what made him tick.
Speaker 2: I'd get to talk to all his friends. I'd have
Speaker 2: full access. And I spoke with Carolina and she said,
Speaker 2: you gotta go, you gotta do this, and we would
Speaker 2: do the honeymoon later.
Speaker 1: And yeah.
Speaker 2: So basically, thirty six hours after my wedding, I'm on
Speaker 2: a plane to Barcelona. This was in the olden days
Speaker 2: when you didn't have Wi Fi on airplanes and everything
Speaker 2: was better. I rid in New York, so I flew
Speaker 2: from San Francisco to New York. I checked my email
Speaker 2: and that's when I got the first blow, which was
Speaker 2: that I would no longer have three days with Lionel Messi.
Speaker 2: I would have a single day.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I still thought a single day is good, you know.
Speaker 2: I was imagining us, like, you know, hanging out of
Speaker 2: his house. Like playing Xbox or you know, FIFA or something,
Speaker 2: and then like going to eat some Argentine barbecue somewhere,
Speaker 2: the grill and Barcelona somewhere, and then you know, riding
Speaker 2: riding in his car to the practice. I don't know
Speaker 2: what I was imagining, but you know, I was like,
Speaker 2: a day, that's still pretty good.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the night, he'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, man, you're so cool. I'd like to
Speaker 1: spend three days with you, like, cancel your flight back,
Speaker 1: like we're hanging out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I figured he'd probably you know, tuck me in,
Speaker 2: you know, give me the guest room in his gigantic
Speaker 2: house south of Barcelona.
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, to be lovely, and you'd get to
Speaker 1: know her as well, and then you and Carolina and
Speaker 1: Lionel Messi and his wife would become fast friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spend Christmas together, vacation together, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Normal stuff, normal stuff. So this is what I was imagining,
Speaker 2: right anyway, So I was like, well, I probably can't, can't.
Speaker 2: I might be able accomplish that in a day, you know,
Speaker 2: it's fine.
Speaker 1: I checked my mail.
Speaker 2: Again when I got to Barcelona, and now it was
Speaker 2: no longer a day. It was an hour.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So at this point, just to be clear for any
Speaker 2: husbands or wives out there that are sort of or
Speaker 2: newlyweds who are trying to start up a marriage and
Speaker 2: you're going to build a life together, I just want
Speaker 2: to be clear that I had given up my honeymoon
Speaker 2: to spend an hour with a soccer player. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was just beginning to dawn on me that this was
Speaker 2: the wrong way to start my marriage.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, but you weren't just spending an hour with
Speaker 1: a soccer player. You were also getting paid an obscene
Speaker 1: amount of money to write about that hour. Sure, but wait, okay,
Speaker 1: so here's what happened.
Speaker 2: I got to Barcelona and and I, you know, I
Speaker 2: was like, well, I've got you know, I had planned
Speaker 2: four days in town. Now I've got two extra days
Speaker 2: to report, So I'm just gonna report the ship out
Speaker 2: of this story, which is what I do. So I
Speaker 2: talked to everybody. I found the guy who took Messi's
Speaker 2: first photo. I d he has his little shop across
Speaker 2: from from Lamasia back when Messi was a teenager with
Speaker 2: like long hair, and he needed his his ID cards
Speaker 2: so we could enter the grounds. Of the stadium. I
Speaker 2: found the owners of the Argentine restaurant in the suburb
Speaker 2: where Messi had his has his gigantic home, and uh,
Speaker 2: and I got to sit in the booth where Messi
Speaker 2: sometimes goes to eat. He surrounds himselves with Argentines. Because
Speaker 2: if you've got to think about this, it's remarkable. Actually
Speaker 2: Messi arrived as a pre adolescent to Barcelona. He never
Speaker 2: stopped talking like an Argentine, like he he just was
Speaker 2: militant about keeping his accent forever. Yeah, and it's just
Speaker 2: And I should note because I spoke with learning out
Speaker 2: of the Faccio who wrote this great book about about
Speaker 2: Leo Messi and is an Argentine journalist living in Barcelona,
Speaker 2: that he's thrown us up with Argentine's and also specifically
Speaker 2: with Argentines of Italian descent. And there was a player
Speaker 2: actually I can't remember his name now, but he had
Speaker 2: a ponytail and he was on Barcelona that year and
Speaker 2: they were like, the only reason he plays is because
Speaker 2: Messi likes him having him around, like his only reason
Speaker 2: he's on the team because he's Italian Argentine like from
Speaker 2: the same area, speaks the same language, and so it
Speaker 2: makes Messi happy, so we gave him a contract and
Speaker 2: so he could just be Messi's buddy on the team.
Speaker 2: So I learned all kinds of really fun stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Also heard some really remarkable anecdotes that are not suitable
Speaker 2: for a family podcast about Ronaldinho and his time in Barcelona.
Speaker 2: The long and short of it is that when the
Speaker 2: club realized that Leo Messi was hanging out too much
Speaker 2: with Ronaldinho, basically sold Dnio, who was, I gotta say,
Speaker 2: is like the most electric player of his generation. But
Speaker 2: they were like, we cannot let this man influence our
Speaker 2: golden boy. And Ronaldino of course went on to fame
Speaker 2: and fortune playing in a Paraguay.
Speaker 1: In prison with his brother.
Speaker 2: And uh, anyway, that's a whole nother story. So you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of got this tour of Messi's Barcelona with
Speaker 2: Leonardo Faccho, who I mentioned before, and I learned this
Speaker 2: incredible fact which I love from from Leonardo's book, is
Speaker 2: that even when when Messi was a boy, he wouldn't
Speaker 2: speak in class, so he would actually they had to,
Speaker 2: you know, this kind of shared double desks, and he
Speaker 2: would whisper to the girl next to him and she
Speaker 2: would speak for him, so he's kind of always always
Speaker 2: had a spokesperson. So anyway back to the scene at hand,
Speaker 2: I finally do have my day where I get to
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go meet uh Luna and Messi and I
Speaker 2: get I'm told to get to the Portiva, which also
Speaker 2: known as Lamasia, around ten am, and I did punctually
Speaker 2: there and I get there and I'm like, hey, so
Speaker 2: you know I'm a journalist for this fancy glossy magazine.
Speaker 2: This has all been scheduled. Publicist editors have been negotiating
Speaker 2: my arrival. Can I walk around Lamasia? No, no, well
Speaker 2: you can't. I'm like okay, and they take me to
Speaker 2: this kind of press room and they tell me Messi
Speaker 2: will be there in a few minutes. It's super hot.
Speaker 2: This is like September. I was not given so much
Speaker 2: as a glass of water. And I waited and I
Speaker 2: waited and I waited, and then someone came in and
Speaker 2: told me that I'd be meeting Messi. Actually not then,
Speaker 2: but like before afternoon training. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: so can I watch the training And They're like, no,
Speaker 2: absolutely not, you cannot watch the training. So right outside
Speaker 2: the press room where I have there's like a little
Speaker 2: tiny balcony and I just kind of mentioned to this
Speaker 2: guy that from the balcony I could see one of
Speaker 2: the fields where the younger like you know, like you
Speaker 2: sixteen teams of Barcelona are practicing. And I just kind
Speaker 2: of mentioned it because I was just desperate to talk
Speaker 2: to someone because I've basically have been locked in a
Speaker 2: room at La Masia. And the guy was like, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no, you can't watch the kids train. You have
Speaker 2: to stay in this room. You can't look out the window.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like what the hell.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this?
Speaker 2: So kind of like I kind of like am peeking
Speaker 2: out the window and I see Messi and the other
Speaker 2: players arrive. They have super fancy cars, you know, Messi,
Speaker 2: these players, John, You've heard all the names Messi, Piquet,
Speaker 2: Carlis Puyol, Cesc, Fabergas, Esta, Chavier Nandez. I mean, these
Speaker 2: guys are like living legends. And I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: Barcelona with Pep. The Barcelona. That's like winning the league
Speaker 2: the Barcelona, it's like winning the Champions League. The Barcelona
Speaker 2: that is like the height of that kind of like
Speaker 2: amazing psychodrama of like Pep versus Mourinho. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just like these are the guys right, and naturally Messi
Speaker 2: did not come up to speak to me before training,
Speaker 2: and a little totem was sent up to tell me
Speaker 2: that he would come after training. So at this point
Speaker 2: training started like three. I've been there remever since ten,
Speaker 2: I've resorted to go into the bathroom and just like
Speaker 2: lapping water into my mouth out of the sink because
Speaker 2: I have not been given anything. It me's nothing, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm like eating like wadded up paper towels, just chewing
Speaker 2: on paper just to trick myself like I'm starving. And
Speaker 2: then I didn't know what had happened at training that day.
Speaker 2: I found out later, but I could tell because I
Speaker 2: am an astude judge of character. John As you know
Speaker 2: that something bad had happened at training, and I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what happened. I kind of saw the players trudging
Speaker 2: off with this look of there but for the grace
Speaker 2: of God, go I you know, this kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, they had seen something. I found it later
Speaker 2: that the something they had seen was a young player
Speaker 2: named iberhem Fli had torn his acl m and so
Speaker 2: I had of course, was not allowed to watch training,
Speaker 2: so I didn't see any of this, but I could
Speaker 2: sense something was wrong. And that is one of those
Speaker 2: things that I think really affects players' moods because they
Speaker 2: know that all of them are one bad turn, one
Speaker 2: injury like that away from sitting out for a year,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, and maybe, like in the case, we
Speaker 2: were here, maybe never quite being the same, never quite
Speaker 2: being the same exactly, which is precisely what happened to Fla.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, at this point, it's past six pm, so I've
Speaker 2: been there for a full working day, nothing to eat,
Speaker 2: super hot, and I'm not one to be dramatic, John,
Speaker 2: but I was basically being held prisoner at the Barcelona
Speaker 2: training ground by that point. That's how it felt.
Speaker 1: It does seem like you were actually more of a
Speaker 1: prisoner than when you played in a Peruvie in prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, there you go. Yes, And I'm glad you're
Speaker 2: bringing it full circle because you see, you're seeing what
Speaker 2: I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: So finally it's just before seven pm when the World's
Speaker 2: Greatest Player Final.
Speaker 1: He walks in.
Speaker 2: We sit down at this table. It's this little silver table.
Speaker 2: There's three chairs. It's me across from Messi and his
Speaker 2: publicist is kind of in the middle, and so begins
Speaker 2: the world's worst interview. He batted me away like I
Speaker 2: can't remember what I asked him, but you know, he's
Speaker 2: like he gave me his look like he'd rather be
Speaker 2: at the dentist, I mean, and just looking at me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like disheveled and sweaty. And the tightness of
Speaker 2: my shirt that you mentioned, John, My shirt was a
Speaker 2: normal size at the beginning of the day, but after
Speaker 2: like you know, eight hours of being held hostage at
Speaker 2: the barnbers Blown training ground in like a hot September day,
Speaker 2: the shirt was just stuck to me, which is what
Speaker 2: you so kindly pointed out.
Speaker 1: And I asked my first question.
Speaker 2: He said this thing, and I'm going to imitate an
Speaker 2: artistein accent he said, Jay, which is basically like, dude,
Speaker 2: I've been asked this so many times, like you could
Speaker 2: like he's rolling his eyes in like oh god. And
Speaker 2: it got worse from there. It just got worse, Like
Speaker 2: every single question was worse. And I had I had
Speaker 2: prepared three days worth of questions John, and then I
Speaker 2: have you know, I realized that something bad has happened
Speaker 2: at training. I realize that that he's not interested in
Speaker 2: speaking with me. He doesn't know what a GQ is,
Speaker 2: or what a you know, Vogue is, or what a
Speaker 2: New York He doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care. He's just like this weird guy who's
Speaker 1: all sweaty, is sitting here.
Speaker 2: You know, he's like been waiting for me for eight hours,
Speaker 2: like a freaking stalker, and now he's asking me dumb
Speaker 2: questions that I've been asked before, and you know, so
Speaker 2: he's just being monosyllabic, and at the end of it,
Speaker 2: it's just like it's just devastating, you know. He basically
Speaker 2: the publicist just kind of calls time on it and
Speaker 2: it's done before he walks out. We take this photograph,
Speaker 2: I asked the publicsers, Okay, we take a photograph, and
Speaker 2: he said this thing to me. He's like, of course,
Speaker 2: I know we all have feelings, uh and and uh
Speaker 2: you know I I I it was. It was a
Speaker 2: very very humiliating thing to hear. So I took my photo.
Speaker 2: Messy walks out immediately, of course, forgets the entire interaction
Speaker 2: that I have never forgotten, and the publicists can sense
Speaker 2: my humiliation, which is actually manifesting as physical pain. Like
Speaker 2: at this point, it's just like like, this is the
Speaker 2: worst reporting experience of my life, possibly one of the
Speaker 2: most humiliating experiences of my life at all, you know,
Speaker 2: the whole of it. And then keep in mind I
Speaker 2: skipped my honeymoon for this, right and uh and and
Speaker 2: the publicist says to me, says, uh, you know, I know,
Speaker 2: I know Leo really well. If you have any other questions,
Speaker 2: I'm happy to answer for him in his voice, you know,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 1: Way worse than if you just said nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It just shatters all all you know, norms of reporting
Speaker 2: and ethics. I teach journalism. You can't do it, you know.
Speaker 2: I was like, I so needless say. I wrote my
Speaker 2: draft in which I included that moment, and I sort
Speaker 2: of created this kind of like, you know, Frank Sinatra
Speaker 2: has a cold situation where you're writing around the limitations
Speaker 2: of the celebrity, right, And then got a very kind
Speaker 2: she wasn't that kind, a very efficient, carefully worded email
Speaker 2: from editor saying that the article was not going to
Speaker 2: be published, and then I could kindly take my kilfee
Speaker 2: and go away.
Speaker 1: Uh, and so rude.
Speaker 2: I have never written for a glossy magazine, John, and
Speaker 2: that was as close as I got.
Speaker 1: I also have never written for a glossy magazine. But
Speaker 1: I didn't have to fly to Barcelona, did not have
Speaker 1: that experience.
Speaker 2: I did go to get to go to a game
Speaker 2: at the cap Noll, and I did get to go
Speaker 2: to a press conference with Pep, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It wasn't It wasn't all bad.
Speaker 1: The emotional distance though between I'm going to spend three
Speaker 1: days with Lionel Messi and I'm going to spend fifteen
Speaker 1: incredibly bad minutes with Lionel Messi. Yea is. It's quite
Speaker 1: a delta. It is, and it's it's very.
Speaker 2: Instructive, and I think it really you learn a lot
Speaker 2: about humility. And also I think it has shaped in
Speaker 2: some ways the kind of journalism that I do, Like
Speaker 2: I don't do any journalism with famous people.
Speaker 1: You know, you interviewed me once. I remember for an
Speaker 1: article you were writing, and when you interviewed me, you
Speaker 1: were great. I was very impressed. I thought you did
Speaker 1: a very thorough job. At no point did I did
Speaker 1: I feel like saying I've been asked this question a
Speaker 1: million times before, so to police, please know that you've
Speaker 1: got fans. It's just a messy, isn't one of them.
Speaker 2: That's fine, that's fine because I still have the photograph
Speaker 2: which proves we're best friends.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting to like, it is a really
Speaker 1: interesting conundrum. What do you do with that fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: when you have to write the article, right, like you
Speaker 1: have to write the article. You don't want to. You
Speaker 1: do want to assume, like, hey, Messi has bad days
Speaker 1: just like everyone. Frank's not sure a cold style, and
Speaker 1: also this was an unusually bad day. But you also
Speaker 1: kind of want to write about the machine that's trying
Speaker 1: to make you know, Messi into a global international superstar
Speaker 1: and trying to make him into an American celebrity as
Speaker 1: well as a global celebrity. And it's just so hard,
Speaker 1: like when you have so little to work with, it's
Speaker 1: so hard, it is.
Speaker 2: And actually, John, there's something really interesting that you I'm
Speaker 2: glad you mentioned that because it reminds me that it
Speaker 2: wasn't just that the publicist said, let me give you
Speaker 2: Messy quotes and you run them as if they were
Speaker 2: quotes from him. They also wanted me to say that
Speaker 2: we had spoken at an Argentine training camp, because the
Speaker 2: club has certain rules about what when the players can
Speaker 2: speak and when they can't, which is why you get
Speaker 2: these situations where players leave their clubs, go to their
Speaker 2: national teams and then give some incendiary quote to like
Speaker 2: a local you know, local journalists, like you know, another
Speaker 2: Argentine Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea goes away on international duty
Speaker 2: mentions that he likes Madrid and then like all Hell's
Speaker 2: breaks loose because it's interpreted as this kind of slight
Speaker 2: to the city of London and Chelsea and whatever. So
Speaker 2: they wanted me to lie not only with like quotes
Speaker 2: that were made up, they wanted me to say that
Speaker 2: the quotes that were made up had happened in a
Speaker 2: place that they hadn't happened, where I would not be right.
Speaker 2: All of that went into my draft, which might be
Speaker 2: why my peer, that might be why they killed it.
Speaker 1: Man. Yeah, yeah, I've been on the other side of
Speaker 1: that coin. Not on a messy scale obviously, but on
Speaker 1: you know, the complicated relationship between publicists and the reporters
Speaker 1: they work with scale. And that's what my novel is about,
Speaker 1: because it is a really strange complex exchange of access
Speaker 1: and information, and you know, on some level you're trading
Speaker 1: your private life for public praise. And it's messed up, man,
Speaker 1: it's really messed up. And good on you for having
Speaker 1: the proper journalistic ethics in that moment.
Speaker 2: Or the lack of journalistic tops to be unable to
Speaker 2: elicit an interesting question or interesting response out of Lianel Messi.
Speaker 2: But I did feel like I felt like a defender,
Speaker 2: you know, like a hapless defender going up against you know,
Speaker 2: against a Messi, you know, in the game incidentally that
Speaker 2: I saw, he played against the Athletico Madrid when Falcao
Speaker 2: was on Madrid, and so it was bill they were both.
Speaker 2: It was relatively in the season. They were both at
Speaker 2: the point like point like the joint top scorers in
Speaker 2: the league. Messi scored a hat trick and also scored
Speaker 2: a fourth goal that was an own goal just because
Speaker 2: he ran out of player and the player panicked and
Speaker 2: shot it into his own net.
Speaker 1: Uh one f.
Speaker 2: And Falcao did not have a touch like in the
Speaker 2: bottom he didn't have a dangerous touch the whole game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's life, that's life.
Speaker 1: Let's just some mail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's do it now. Okay, hey guys,
Speaker 2: I'm loving your podcast. I always had this take, and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's a hot one. I think
Speaker 2: all of America, North and South should play for the
Speaker 2: World Cup spots. For all the spots, not separate CONCA,
Speaker 2: CAF and South America. I think quote unquote powerhouses like
Speaker 2: Mexico and the US would struggle to qualify, and more
Speaker 2: South American teams may go to the World Cup. Curious
Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts. Keep up the good work, Randy thoughts.
Speaker 1: John Well, I'm opposed to it because it would make
Speaker 1: it so much harder for the US and Mexico to qualify,
Speaker 1: But I'm in favor of it in the sense that
Speaker 1: it would lead to there being better teams in the
Speaker 1: World Cup. I genuinely think the US, like if South
Speaker 1: America had four and a half more spots, I think
Speaker 1: the US would qualify. I think it would be really
Speaker 1: hard for Honduras, for Costa Rica, for Jamaica to qualify.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly Cursou would struggle, but I think, you know,
Speaker 1: even with more spots, it would be hard for those
Speaker 1: smaller countries in North America and I but I see
Speaker 1: the argument because isn't the World Cup supposed to be
Speaker 1: the best forty eight teams coming together to play a tournament,
Speaker 1: or is it ultimately supposed to be the world's teams
Speaker 1: coming together to play a tournament. I guess that's the question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm gonna say that it's already difficult for Costa.
Speaker 1: Rica and al Duas and Guatemala.
Speaker 2: Then to make it a qualify for a little cust
Speaker 2: that isn't a huge change. And I just think that
Speaker 2: you could go if you push the logic of this question,
Speaker 2: then you basically end up having a you know, a
Speaker 2: two hundred team World Cup, and which we have a
Speaker 2: World Cup. We have a World Cup the last two
Speaker 2: years just to qualify for the World Cup with forty
Speaker 2: eight teams, And that seems to me.
Speaker 1: Don't tempt me with a good times. I just don't.
Speaker 2: I I think that there's you know, look, I don't
Speaker 2: think of that help Peru qualify. I do think we
Speaker 2: would make it hard of the United States to qualify.
Speaker 2: I think there's something about also these long international rivalries
Speaker 2: that last generations, like uh yeah, Peruchile, you know, pu Parauay, Peru, Columbia,
Speaker 2: pre Epidoor, all the you know, all the countries we play,
Speaker 2: we have the major major rivalries and global football. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
Speaker 2: that's precisely what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got another question from Fletcher, who writes hig Guys.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the pot. I think John has used the
Speaker 1: word ultra to refer to himself a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I'm from Scotland, where that term has a specific and
Speaker 1: not positive definition. I was wondering what that word means
Speaker 1: to both of you and how you think the current
Speaker 1: ultra phenomenon FIST and the wider super fan culture. Fletcher. Fletcher,
Speaker 1: first off, thank you for listening. Secondly, I was my
Speaker 1: high school team's ultra that that is like a specific
Speaker 1: kind of ultra. I'm not I'm not saying that I like, uh,
Speaker 1: break glass bottles and grind them into heads of opposing players.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that when I was fourteen, I went to
Speaker 1: the away games. That's my definition of ultrum. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a certain tongue in cheek quality
Speaker 2: the way you were using the word, which I admire.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to communicate is a level of
Speaker 1: a level of tongue in cheakness to it. I will
Speaker 1: say that the part of football culture, like there's that
Speaker 1: great Bill Buford book among the thugs about traveling with
Speaker 1: Manchester United supporters, and the part of football culture that
Speaker 1: would act violently or you know, in any way that
Speaker 1: isn't in good fun toward other fans and their fan
Speaker 1: communities is reprehensible. Anytime you take it outside the world
Speaker 1: of we're here to have a good time, it's it
Speaker 1: misses the point of sport. To me, the point of
Speaker 1: sport is to have those rivalries and those conflicts in
Speaker 1: a completely peaceful, peaceable way. And if you start to
Speaker 1: treat your football club identity like like a reason to
Speaker 1: go to war, you missed the point of football to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I I think I've said this before,
Speaker 2: but I feel like the World Cup is one of
Speaker 2: the few places where I love and celebrate nationalism. And
Speaker 2: I think that that the kind of jingoism, which is
Speaker 2: sort of the fiercer, less palatable cousin of nationalism is
Speaker 2: uh is kind of the distortion of that kind of fandom,
Speaker 2: which I don't like. But I'm with you. I think
Speaker 2: it's all in good fun. And and and John was
Speaker 2: a great ultra, a great fan, but certainly we use
Speaker 2: the words in tongue in cheek to describe what it
Speaker 2: was like to have a single fan away at a
Speaker 2: high school game. Magical, magical, drawn.
Speaker 1: You mean they can't put me on the under the bench,
Speaker 1: but they didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So Lily asks the following, what is the
Speaker 2: best way to score or tally your World Cup brackets
Speaker 2: to declare a winner? I have a bet established, but
Speaker 2: we haven't figured out the numbers yet. I have added
Speaker 2: a golden goal type rule where, regardless of brackets, whoever
Speaker 2: calls the winner of the World Cup automatically wins. My
Speaker 2: boyfriend I happy they've selected two different winners, and whoever
Speaker 2: correctly predicted will feel like a winner regardless. He happily
Speaker 2: agreed to this auto win given that he picked Spain
Speaker 2: and I picked Norway. But he's an Arsenal fan and
Speaker 2: they manage to find a way to lose all the time.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that, Lily. That really stings, given today's
Speaker 2: content of today's show. I think that's a I think, Lily,
Speaker 2: not to side with your Arsenal loving boyfriend, but I
Speaker 2: do think that he has a greater chance of being
Speaker 2: right here than you do. Spain is definitely one of
Speaker 2: the candidates to take it all. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I can say the same about Norway.
Speaker 1: Depends how erly Holland fares, but yeah, I would have
Speaker 1: to be a hell of a tournament for him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this, Daniel, because you and Sean
Speaker 1: and I are going to do this and there is
Speaker 1: a small chance. And the deal is that whoever wins
Speaker 1: gets their name in the other person's book, unless Sewn wins,
Speaker 1: in which case he gets his name in both of
Speaker 1: our next books. Yeah, and so I've actually asked the
Speaker 1: printer of my new book, Hollywood Ending, what the last
Speaker 1: date possible is for me to make one change, And
Speaker 1: that change would be to insert one of your names
Speaker 1: into the book. I even know where it would go,
Speaker 1: like I know what page it's on, and you would
Speaker 1: be a movie director. And I am excited about this possibility.
Speaker 1: But if it goes all the way to the final,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I'll be able to do it,
Speaker 1: just timing wise, because the book will get oppressed too quickly.
Speaker 1: But if someone's got a really really big lead going
Speaker 1: into the final, then I think I can, like a
Speaker 1: week before be like well it's going to be Daniel.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could just insert it just now because
Speaker 2: you just just becuz, you know, just just in case
Speaker 2: to cover yourself.
Speaker 1: I could. It's not a bad idea. Actually, why not?
Speaker 1: I mean you have you have the name of a
Speaker 1: movie director, Sean has the name of an actor. I could.
Speaker 1: I could squeeze them both in. Yeah, squeeze them in.
Speaker 1: Why not? But no, no, no, let's not. Let's not. Let's not. No. No.
Speaker 2: I think I like this kind of golden goal situation,
Speaker 2: but I don't think that's what we need to do.
Speaker 2: We need to do sort of accumulation of points game
Speaker 2: by game.
Speaker 1: Do you get one point for every game you get right?
Speaker 1: Or do you get more points if you get I
Speaker 1: think you get one point for every game you get right,
Speaker 1: and then do you recede it after the first round.
Speaker 1: Let's not forget let's you have to make a role.
Speaker 1: Let's not figure it out on the airth I mean, Daniel,
Speaker 1: you've always got such good ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A key one being not to you know, sort
Speaker 2: of like start elaborating, you know, spitfire ideas that are
Speaker 2: half formed on tape in front of our millions of fans.
Speaker 1: We don't want to.
Speaker 2: We will spare you guys all of that. Those are
Speaker 2: the questions we have. We have a special guest next week,
Speaker 2: John Yeah, and that's gonna be very exciting. He's gonna
Speaker 2: join us for the mail bag section. I also want
Speaker 2: to mention about Arsenal. This comes out Wednesday morning. We're
Speaker 2: recording on a Monday Wednesday afternoon. Arsenal has a chance
Speaker 2: to reset their season and make make it to the
Speaker 2: Champions League semifinals. So I will either be by the
Speaker 2: time you hear this, you know, once more sort of
Speaker 2: inhabiting in a fancy land of hope, or I will
Speaker 2: be even more despondent. And you in the future already
Speaker 2: know and I currently do not, So that's exciting. I
Speaker 2: don't know emails at away ndpod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 2: anything else done.
Speaker 1: No, just thanks for all your emails away in pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. It's great to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sean and Kurt for making the podcast happen,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: Take care,