Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Brian. That's weird. I know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking like I'm gonna come it with something
Speaker 1: not YEA halfway through somebody said I sounded burned out
Speaker 1: on the Sugar episode. Let's sad because I was kind
Speaker 1: of burned out. I was right before vacation. Oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: we've been going and going and going and going and
Speaker 1: going and going, but now you're recharged. Yeah. Oh man, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah good. I somehow transferred from like a type A
Speaker 1: person to a type V person on vacation. It was
Speaker 1: like that hardcore of a vacation. Wow. And that lasted
Speaker 1: a couple of days. Yep. I still got a little
Speaker 1: bit going on. Hang on to that be I still
Speaker 1: have the corn rows in my hair that I had
Speaker 1: put on the beach. Thank you. You like this shaking
Speaker 1: them around? Yeah? Uh so, Chuck, Yes, do you ever
Speaker 1: play soccer when you were a kid. I did not
Speaker 1: as a kid. Oh yeah, no, I didn't start until
Speaker 1: high school. So you played for your high school team.
Speaker 1: I played for B team and uh for a couple
Speaker 1: of years. And then at red And High School are
Speaker 1: the class in front of me was loaded with star
Speaker 1: talent like that you met like no, no, well that too,
Speaker 1: but um, yeah they were really good and so and
Speaker 1: I wasn't a very good soccer player. I mean I
Speaker 1: was okay, just because I'm fairly athletic, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: like these guys had played since they were kids and
Speaker 1: they all got scholarships to college and like they went state.
Speaker 1: So I was the type that was like, why bother,
Speaker 1: I'll never be that kid. Yeah, I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll sit on the bench and I you know, that
Speaker 1: was my role. So did you get any like did
Speaker 1: you score any goals or anything? Now? I had an
Speaker 1: assist one game, which was pretty excit my eighth grade year.
Speaker 1: And uh that's just the fact that I remember and
Speaker 1: assist in my eighth grade year shows how bad I
Speaker 1: wasn't soccer no, I know to me, and I got
Speaker 1: a football story like that. Yeah, I played for a
Speaker 1: little bit like um forty five minutes I think at
Speaker 1: the y Um, I was all ready to go like okay,
Speaker 1: a new sport, let's play this, and um we were
Speaker 1: playing We're like first day I got my T shirt
Speaker 1: on and like was learning how to dribble the ball,
Speaker 1: and um, some kid asked like when we're gonna have
Speaker 1: our first game, and the coaches like, oh, there's stuck
Speaker 1: going to be any games. We're just gonna scrimmage one
Speaker 1: another in our team and we're it's just practice. That's
Speaker 1: all you're ever gonna do is practice. There's not gonna
Speaker 1: be a game ever, that's weird. I was like, see
Speaker 1: you later. How long until my mom comes and gets like,
Speaker 1: I'm only in this to beat down someone else exactly,
Speaker 1: I'm so competitive, you know. But that was my experience
Speaker 1: with soccer and I never, like, uh, had a thing
Speaker 1: against it. It It. It just always seems so like European
Speaker 1: to me. It definitely is that where its origins came from.
Speaker 1: So I was sensing something. It's the world though it
Speaker 1: is now for sure. Well, I mean it always has been. Man,
Speaker 1: this that is a good setup. But to call it
Speaker 1: European though, I mean it's America's, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: one of the only nations that hasn't fully embraced soccer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's the soccer and the imperial system of measurement,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, And I have theories on that, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to. Oh, I want to hear that, and
Speaker 1: why the USA hasn't embraced it like other folks. Well,
Speaker 1: we have three perfectly good other sports. Yeah, well four
Speaker 1: if you count hockey, which is like soccer on ice.
Speaker 1: It is a lot like soccer on ice. When I
Speaker 1: was researching this, I realized, like, wow, you know there's
Speaker 1: basically one game, and then everything is a variation on
Speaker 1: that basic game. Yeah, it's uh to take an object
Speaker 1: and to try and drive it into an opponent's area. Yes,
Speaker 1: the same with American football, really right, same with basketball. Yeah,
Speaker 1: baseball is the one that's different. It is different, but
Speaker 1: technically if you look at the field as switching sides
Speaker 1: depending on who's on offense and who's on defense, and
Speaker 1: the outside of the stadium is like their goal, it's close,
Speaker 1: but like field hockey, lacrosse. You're right, the hi I yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think there's stem from the same prehistoric games,
Speaker 1: which were you know, took took in the gang running
Speaker 1: around with a rock trying to throw it at you know,
Speaker 1: whatever they use as a goal. Not took took in
Speaker 1: this case, but chick mo all all playing uh, what's
Speaker 1: what is it? Popped up polk go ahead, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. That's a mind game, was it?
Speaker 1: It's possibly the hardest game anyone's ever created, and they
Speaker 1: were playing it for two thousand years. Basically, it was
Speaker 1: a nine inch diameter heavy ball that couldn't touch the
Speaker 1: ground else the game was over. But you couldn't use
Speaker 1: your hands. I don't believe you hit it with your
Speaker 1: hip Yeah, I think I have heard of that. To
Speaker 1: win the game, you had to hit it through a
Speaker 1: ring that was like high overhead and like once somebody
Speaker 1: got it through the ring, the game was over. But
Speaker 1: like that sounds impossible. Hip ball hip ball exactly? You
Speaker 1: get a medicine ball and a hoop and and hip
Speaker 1: surgery afterwards. Yeah, I mean it sounds awful. But the
Speaker 1: Maya weren't the only ones who were who were playing
Speaker 1: a game like that, like kind of all over the
Speaker 1: world there were instances of soccer being played. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: China third century BC is where they have the oldest
Speaker 1: scientific evidence. Uh, and it was an exercise in a
Speaker 1: military manual. And then um, the Han dynasty had something
Speaker 1: called suchu, which is a leather ball filled with feathers
Speaker 1: and hair lighter. I guess than the Mayans. They probably
Speaker 1: learned a thing or two like that, this ball is
Speaker 1: way too heavy. Well, apparently the Chinese started out using
Speaker 1: human heads supposedly, really yeah, supposedly that predated succhi. Is
Speaker 1: that real though? I don't know, but I saw it
Speaker 1: in several places I know, but it was definitely worth repeating.
Speaker 1: I can't say if it's real or not. Well with succhi,
Speaker 1: that was a small net onto a bamboo cane, so
Speaker 1: like the net wasn't on the ground, no, but still
Speaker 1: pretty close to soccer, but you couldn't use your hands. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then in Japan they had kamari um, which they
Speaker 1: still play today. Actually, is it apparently a little more
Speaker 1: ceremonious than um succhi like Succi is a little maraucous,
Speaker 1: is the impression I had? Yeah, And I'm meant to
Speaker 1: actually see what kumari looks like. But the description here
Speaker 1: is that they stand in a circle and you pass
Speaker 1: the ball uh around to each other without letting it
Speaker 1: touch the ground. So it sounds like a Hackey circle.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little bit like pucked up poke yeah exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think all this lends creates the fact that
Speaker 1: it's sort of variations of similar games in different cultures
Speaker 1: at similar times. The Greeks the Romans had games like that.
Speaker 1: They did UM and then in England. England considered the
Speaker 1: birth of modern soccer slash football yeah, but can't be
Speaker 1: traced to a single person, which is kind of neat, No,
Speaker 1: it can't. Um And for centuries they played a game
Speaker 1: that was, I guess the predecessor of um soccer. And
Speaker 1: it was like inter or inter village play, so like
Speaker 1: in a holiday, one village would be like, hey, let's
Speaker 1: play this game. That's gonna be soccer one day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so like the whole town was involved, and like
Speaker 1: the literally geographically and population wise, the whole town was involved,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of damage to property and apparently
Speaker 1: it was outlawed from like the thirteenth century to the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century. It was the hooligans were playing the sport
Speaker 1: up exactly. They weren't just the fans, and even though
Speaker 1: even though it was banned, it didn't go anywhere. And
Speaker 1: finally the band was lifted and school kids kind of
Speaker 1: took over from there and started making more formal rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think is really neat. Like you know, other sports,
Speaker 1: like I said, you can trace it back to a
Speaker 1: single inventor, but soccer is it was a game still
Speaker 1: as a game of the people, invented by kids who
Speaker 1: just like you said, started started like you know, narrowing
Speaker 1: down rules and as being kids, you know, yeah, being kids.
Speaker 1: In fact, the origin of the word soccer. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like this. Most people think like, oh, Americans invented that. Nope,
Speaker 1: not true. Soccer was the word for it eighteen years
Speaker 1: before the word football was used for it by the English.
Speaker 1: They invented the word soccer. Supposedly, although this is one
Speaker 1: as a matter of debate. Charles Redford Brown was an
Speaker 1: Oxford student. Uh well, I guess let's tell the story.
Speaker 1: It was um. At one point they had a meeting
Speaker 1: two at a I think at Cambridge, now at a
Speaker 1: well in Cambridge, but at a I believe it was
Speaker 1: a Freemason lodge, I think so. So they had this
Speaker 1: meeting and they basically said, all right, we gotta get
Speaker 1: real with these rules and really determine what this sport is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because like each each team, each school, UM, they were
Speaker 1: all playing something very similar, but they were to have
Speaker 1: their own rules, and before when one team wanted to
Speaker 1: play another team, they would say they'd have to spend
Speaker 1: However long it took to like decide what rule would
Speaker 1: overrule what rule, and it was just a big pain.
Speaker 1: So they finally came together at Cambridge and said, let's
Speaker 1: establish this, let's codify this. We like to pick up
Speaker 1: the ball and hit each other pretty hard. Well, we don't.
Speaker 1: We like to kick it around. And that's where the
Speaker 1: split between rugby and soccer came. Um they called it,
Speaker 1: uh well, they called it associate Asian football and association rugby.
Speaker 1: And at the time, and of course now kids still
Speaker 1: like to shorten things and they would add an e er,
Speaker 1: so they called rugby rugger, and they called association football
Speaker 1: uh a soccer, and then soccer and that was it.
Speaker 1: But it was among like soccer was played among the
Speaker 1: wealthier elite. And then once it started spreading to the
Speaker 1: lower classes, they called it football. And it spread through
Speaker 1: the world among the lower classes, and that's why just
Speaker 1: became football, and we have American football, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a silly name, it really is for that
Speaker 1: one because really the only person who foots it is
Speaker 1: the punter. And the kicker and there everyone you know
Speaker 1: knows that they are a bunch of chumps. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there's a a name mix up that that we
Speaker 1: should have for football, it should should be called rugby. Really,
Speaker 1: it much more resembles rugby than soccer. Yeah, man, this
Speaker 1: just gut confusing for a second, like it, but never
Speaker 1: I had just learned in this show that rugby and
Speaker 1: soccer were like, we're sort of the same game until
Speaker 1: they split. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I hadn't realized
Speaker 1: it either. And I think rugby stayed among the upper classes,
Speaker 1: the upper classes. You said soccer was upper classes. No,
Speaker 1: Soccer eventually spread to the lower class, and that's when
Speaker 1: it became a game of the people. But rugby never
Speaker 1: spread to the lower classes. I mean it may have now,
Speaker 1: but you would think rugby would be the you know,
Speaker 1: rough and tumble. Yeah, I don't know, makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: So that was eighteen forty eight, and that whole process
Speaker 1: really just kind of occurred over a few decades in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Um and apparently in nineteen o four
Speaker 1: FIFA came along, the Federation Internationale, the Football Association. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure what Continental accent that was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: but it was a European accent. And by this point
Speaker 1: that it was pretty the rules were pretty well defined.
Speaker 1: Um like century Well yeah, but they still had rule
Speaker 1: changes over the years. But um, in eighteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: is when they introduced goal kicks, and then eight seventy
Speaker 1: two corner kicks, and then one is when they had
Speaker 1: a single referee that would like run the show and
Speaker 1: throw people out of game or matches. I guess we
Speaker 1: shouldn't say games even though we're Americans. Their matches played
Speaker 1: on a pitch pitch out of field. Uh, but that's
Speaker 1: when they started like giving penalties and assigning free kicks
Speaker 1: and umpires who were previously overseeing the game became linesmen
Speaker 1: and it really and that's where the field itself took
Speaker 1: shape too, because they were like, well, we're gonna start
Speaker 1: in the middle of the field, we should draw a
Speaker 1: circle around it. Yeah, it'll everybody know where to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not let guys in there. And the gold penalty box
Speaker 1: if we're gonna have penalties, and if the goalkeeper can
Speaker 1: touch it, maybe he shouldn't be able to touch it
Speaker 1: out in midfield. And like it grew very organically, it
Speaker 1: seemed like from the shape of the lines of the
Speaker 1: field to the rules, right, pretty neat. Yeah, well apparently
Speaker 1: it's even still taking shape. Like they recently up there
Speaker 1: changed their rule where it used to be, um, if
Speaker 1: you were a forward, you there had to be a
Speaker 1: defender between you and the goal, and now they've changed
Speaker 1: it to make it more exciting, so you have to
Speaker 1: at least be in line with the defender. Gives more
Speaker 1: chances to take shots on goal apparently. Well, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the convoluted and ever evolving off side rule, which we'll
Speaker 1: get to later because we'll explain. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: everyone in the world knows about soccer, but a lot
Speaker 1: of this is gonna be explaining for Americans watching the
Speaker 1: World Cup right now. Yeah. World Cup fever America just
Speaker 1: won begana did you watch? Are you into it at all?
Speaker 1: I'm trying, Chuck, and it's not working. Well, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be. Well, you mean I just watched the
Speaker 1: NBA finals and and that was a little heartbreaking, that's right,
Speaker 1: because you're weirdly in Miami heat fan. Yeah, we're big
Speaker 1: heat fans, um and and the Heat didn't win. Are
Speaker 1: you gonna be a Heat fan and when Lebron leans
Speaker 1: or is that okay? Yeah, we like the whole team.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of worried though, because you know, they're talking
Speaker 1: about how the bench didn't really show up for the finals,
Speaker 1: the bench like the non starters. Well, I know, but
Speaker 1: Miami doesn't have much of the bench. Miami should have
Speaker 1: a great bench, like they're all great players, but they're
Speaker 1: just not. They didn't show up. They did last year.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, well they had different players too. At any rate,
Speaker 1: I'm worried about my team. Yeah, that's because they're done.
Speaker 1: They're not done. Look, don't bait me on the podcast.
Speaker 1: We've had conversations about this before, have we. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we were depressed because you below the Miami Heat loss.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if there's like some sort of weird
Speaker 1: sports hangover that's going on right now that's keeping me
Speaker 1: from being on the world But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's like, no, I think I'm just not into soccer
Speaker 1: that much. So I mean, I'll keep watching here there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't have World Cup fever. I this
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying, I do because I follow I'm
Speaker 1: one of the soccer fans that like I don't follow
Speaker 1: the follow the Premier League and we'll get to all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But that's the number one league in the
Speaker 1: world pretty much, English Premier League. I don't follow MLSHO,
Speaker 1: no one does. No, they got their fans. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're getting a team here in Atlanta, so I'll probably
Speaker 1: go to some of those. Yeah, I might go to those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Lot of sports is often better than TV sports, I
Speaker 1: think always sometimes Jerry's just laughing everything. It depends on
Speaker 1: where you're sitting, especially, Uh yeah, well that's true for
Speaker 1: any live event. If you're in the nose bleeds, it's
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna suffer. Um. But I really get into
Speaker 1: the World Cup. I watched the f A Cup, um,
Speaker 1: and I watched the Olympics. The f A Cup that's uh,
Speaker 1: which that's also every four years, but it's in the
Speaker 1: two years. That is that European is it? Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The Football Association Cup? Is that what that is? I
Speaker 1: just always called that a cup, the fock Cup, yeah,
Speaker 1: or I guess you'd call it the Euro two and
Speaker 1: that right, Jerry. I think there's something else that's the
Speaker 1: euro Cup it Yeah, I think there's um, well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this. We we mentioned that FIFA came about
Speaker 1: in nineteen o four and that it took over codifying
Speaker 1: the rules, setting up regions this for international play. These
Speaker 1: aren't professional leagues, and they put together something called the
Speaker 1: World Cup eventually in nineteen thirty. And technically I'm sure
Speaker 1: FIFA was involved, but really it sounds like Uruguay took
Speaker 1: the reins and said, hey, like, we're we got a
Speaker 1: really good team. We just beat all of you in
Speaker 1: the Olympics, and we want to do it again. So
Speaker 1: what if we pay for all of you to travel
Speaker 1: to Uruguay and we'll all play. We'll have a nice
Speaker 1: little tournament and see what happens. So Uruguay pretty much
Speaker 1: paid for everybody's passage to Uruguay and then soundly beat
Speaker 1: everyone and became the first World Cup champions in nineteen Yeah,
Speaker 1: a common thing that would happen later for the host
Speaker 1: team to win. Yeah, big advantage because you're at home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and actually that's if you host the World Cup, you're
Speaker 1: guaranteed entry into the World Cup. That's right. Uh, whil
Speaker 1: should talk about the World Cup a little bit? Then
Speaker 1: why not everyone else has to qualify? Host team gets in,
Speaker 1: Like you said, Uh, they're thirty two teams and they
Speaker 1: come from six regions and it's it's it's you have
Speaker 1: to play your way in basically. Yeah. So those six regions,
Speaker 1: you said, like, it's divided differently for each World Cup
Speaker 1: because they just want to have a good balance. Right.
Speaker 1: So the US, the North American had three slots, South
Speaker 1: America had five, Europe had thirteen, Asia had for Africa
Speaker 1: had five. Then there's Oceanica which doesn't get a direct spot,
Speaker 1: but um, those are kind of up for grabs, like
Speaker 1: you gotta play away in Mexico and Uruguay got those
Speaker 1: last two spots because Mexico hammered New Zealand, yes, which
Speaker 1: is part of Oceana, right, and they had to play
Speaker 1: for their spot, that's right. So those those teams that
Speaker 1: ended up playing for their spot aer going on to
Speaker 1: the World Cup had the opportunity to because over the
Speaker 1: last four years they've started accumulating points, correct, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you play qualifying matches right in. FIFA's keeping track of
Speaker 1: all this stuff and figure out who's who and who's
Speaker 1: doing well enough, and then ultimately thirty one teams plus
Speaker 1: the host country are elevated into World Cup play, that's right,
Speaker 1: and the World Cup play um divides those thirty two
Speaker 1: teams into eight groups of four, and those eight groups
Speaker 1: are populated by the top seeds. So they want to
Speaker 1: make sure that one group isn't like the first four
Speaker 1: seeded teams in the world. Yeah, they're knocking it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they wanted like to be a good tournament right over,
Speaker 1: so as much as you can at least, right. So,
Speaker 1: there's a top seed in each of the groups, and
Speaker 1: then the other ones are randomly picked, the other three
Speaker 1: in each group, and then you have group play, which
Speaker 1: is around robin where every team plays every other team
Speaker 1: and they're accumulating points during this group play. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: get three points for a win, one for a tie,
Speaker 1: nothing for a loss. Uh. And with the groups, there's
Speaker 1: there's always one group that's super tough. If you've got
Speaker 1: three or more good teams in a group, it's called
Speaker 1: the group of death. And the US is in that
Speaker 1: group right now, Germany, Ghana, US and Portugal. So although
Speaker 1: Portugal apparently they're not showing up well, they got spanked
Speaker 1: by Germany. But I did see that game and it
Speaker 1: was Pepe's fault in part that they got spanks so bad. Well,
Speaker 1: Germany is really good. Yeah, but Portugal wasn't supposed to
Speaker 1: be like four to nothing back, No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a huge margin of victory. Yes,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say up that, but because I expected Germany
Speaker 1: to win, and that huge margin of victory can really
Speaker 1: bite Portugal in the end. So when you have UM
Speaker 1: on the hind end, right, when you have teams playing
Speaker 1: one another, UM, they're accumulating points. If for some reason,
Speaker 1: at the end of group play, UM and all teams
Speaker 1: have played one another, all four teams have the same
Speaker 1: amount of points, you then go to point differential. So
Speaker 1: Germany really like help themselves out they did in Portugal
Speaker 1: really again got bit in the rear end by losing
Speaker 1: forward and nothing. That's a huge point differential. And then
Speaker 1: beyond that, if everybody still somehow had the same number
Speaker 1: of points accumulated the same point differential, then they'll go
Speaker 1: to total number of goals scored. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a fashion show. That's that's the fourth If if that
Speaker 1: is even, then yes it's a walk off. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's how they do the group play. And then after
Speaker 1: group play comes the uh knockout round. Yeah, then you're
Speaker 1: down to sixteen and it's basically just single elimination and
Speaker 1: that's where there are no ties. You can have ties
Speaker 1: in the group round, um, but you can't in the
Speaker 1: knockout round because you've got to knock somebody out you do.
Speaker 1: So if you're tied at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a shootout, which is when you alternate
Speaker 1: the free kicks or I guess penalty kicks until I
Speaker 1: think there's five, and then whoever whoever has the most
Speaker 1: wins and that's you know, it's kind of exciting, but
Speaker 1: I think purists don't like to see it come down
Speaker 1: to the PK's, you know, oh really, Yeah, they want
Speaker 1: to decide because I don't know what the the percentages are.
Speaker 1: But it's uh, pretty rare to to stop. I'm not rare,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty easy to score a p K. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so a penalty kick. Your goalie is in front of
Speaker 1: the eight yard by eight foot goal, yeah, which wants
Speaker 1: a lot of ground to cover. Yeah, it is. And
Speaker 1: there's he's not allowed to come out from the goal line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he or she you're right, you're right, I'm sorry, is
Speaker 1: huge me a ham Uh, well, you're not a fan.
Speaker 1: And the pelee right exactly, I've heard of both of them. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the soccer ball is placed ten yards, no,
Speaker 1: twelve yards away from the goal line, and that's where
Speaker 1: you take your kick. So yeah, it's easy, but that's
Speaker 1: the whole point to shootout. It gets high scoring. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is exciting, but um it
Speaker 1: it'd be like at the end of a baseball game
Speaker 1: if it's tied, to have like a home run derby.
Speaker 1: That would be awesome. I would love to see that. Uh. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: before nineteen o two, the um the penalty could be
Speaker 1: taken and this is for any penalty. You could take
Speaker 1: it from anywhere along this twelve. Now they center it
Speaker 1: right in the middle. But used to be able to
Speaker 1: take it as long as you were twelve yards out,
Speaker 1: like the way o where the right left if you
Speaker 1: wanted to. Oh yeah, but I mean that was nineteen
Speaker 1: o two, so it's been in the center for quite
Speaker 1: a while. So, uh, you've got the knockout round that
Speaker 1: begins with sixteen teams. Then you have eight teams four
Speaker 1: and then the final two and in the final to
Speaker 1: play hundreds and hundreds approaching a billion people watched that game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the one of the biggest events on
Speaker 1: the planet. Um. I think they said the last one
Speaker 1: three point two billion people. Uh oh no, that was
Speaker 1: just watched part of the World Cup. UM at some
Speaker 1: point in time. Yeah, exactly. I think seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifteen million people watched the UM World Cup finals, the
Speaker 1: last one in two Thousen, which was Spain and Netherlands.
Speaker 1: And that's my other team, Netherlands. If you're American, you've
Speaker 1: always got your backup teams because it's just no fun
Speaker 1: to be like, no, I won't root for anyone else,
Speaker 1: and I've always rooted for Netherlands in Germany and like
Speaker 1: England of course. But you know that sad dudes? Why
Speaker 1: are they said, Well, it's just a common thing that
Speaker 1: England hasn't won a World Cup for so long. There's
Speaker 1: sort of like the Chicago Cubs of of international soccer
Speaker 1: in English fans or notorious for just being depressed already,
Speaker 1: like at the start of the World Cup. Um there, Well,
Speaker 1: I probably can't say that joke. There's some good jokes
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, but I mean it's a big deal
Speaker 1: to win the World Cup, so much so that like
Speaker 1: huge deal. It happens every four years. Twice during World
Speaker 1: War Two there wasn't a World Cup, so there's there.
Speaker 1: We're in the twentieth World Cup ever, and only I
Speaker 1: think eight teams, eight nations have ever won it. Italyst
Speaker 1: like four, I can't remember who is three, maybe Brazil,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh, And then like England and France
Speaker 1: each have one and they had it when they were hosting,
Speaker 1: so apparently there's a huge home field advantage. But um,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an enormous deal to win the
Speaker 1: World Cup. Like not only are you saying or have
Speaker 1: you shown that you're the best team in the world,
Speaker 1: Like not just space is involved, but time as well,
Speaker 1: Like you're one of the greatest soccer teams ever to play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's neat because all these all these players,
Speaker 1: um play professionally as well, so they're pitted against each other.
Speaker 1: Like you know, if you've got a guy from Germany
Speaker 1: on your team and you're playing Germany, like all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, your opponent or your teammate is now your
Speaker 1: opponent because you're playing for your national team. So it's
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's it's a more emotionally charged, I
Speaker 1: think for that reason. Well, so let's let's talk about like,
Speaker 1: let's take a giant step back and talk about the
Speaker 1: basics of playing soccer after a message brick, Okay, Americans
Speaker 1: and Canadians and Josh, you've got two teams. You've got
Speaker 1: eleven players, which includes your goalkeeper on each side. And
Speaker 1: the goal is obviously to kick the soccer ball into
Speaker 1: the goal. The goal is to make a goal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the ball has to be completely over the line
Speaker 1: if the if the goalkeeper manages to get a hand
Speaker 1: on it while it's you know, on the line. And
Speaker 1: again he's he or she or she is he allowed
Speaker 1: to use his hands in what's called the goal box. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's the only player allowed to use his or
Speaker 1: her hands. Um. And you know, it's a sport of gentlemen,
Speaker 1: at least it started out that way. So you're supposed
Speaker 1: to kind of admit when you've had a handball, although
Speaker 1: that doesn't go down quite as much anymore. No. Now
Speaker 1: it's usually the other players raising their hand and saying
Speaker 1: he touched it with his hand, right, and then the
Speaker 1: guy be like, oh, it's so true. It just goes
Speaker 1: down from there apparently a player named Diego Maradona. Oh,
Speaker 1: the hand of God. Yeah, and the World Cup one.
Speaker 1: And then he later said like, yeah, I hit it
Speaker 1: with my fist a little bit. Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? Well, it's now it's soccer legend. It's like
Speaker 1: the immaculate reception in football. It's the hand of God
Speaker 1: goal and soccer. But mayor Donne he's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest ever so because he used his hands. No, no, uh,
Speaker 1: you've got two forty five minute periods. Um. The thing
Speaker 1: that Emily likes about soccer is it lasts for a
Speaker 1: finite amount of time. You'd think, well, no, it does,
Speaker 1: and there's something called extra time. Well it is, and
Speaker 1: that's the clock never stops like it does in other sports.
Speaker 1: But while players are down, are injured, or there's a
Speaker 1: stoppage of play, um for for injury, they will keep
Speaker 1: track of that time and they add it on. But
Speaker 1: it's never that much. It's like a few minutes usually. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so at the end of the forty five minutes, Uh,
Speaker 1: you'll see a little guy on the sideline hold up
Speaker 1: a digital clock that says like four minutes, and then
Speaker 1: so you play for an extra four minutes and that
Speaker 1: gets really exciting because you know, if it's coming down
Speaker 1: to the wire, you know, like you know you're if
Speaker 1: you score a goal to win in penalty time, that's
Speaker 1: like huge, That's like triple O t in NHL hockey.
Speaker 1: But some guys have been accused of like faking injury
Speaker 1: to add injury time. Yeah, well, or extra time or
Speaker 1: or to keep Yeah. I mean, should we talk about
Speaker 1: diving and faking and well traumatic, let's let because it's
Speaker 1: a big deal. Uh. Diving is um when a player
Speaker 1: either completely fakes we'll say, exaggerates contact or injury or
Speaker 1: completely fakes it like not even gets touched, dives on
Speaker 1: the field, rolls around on the ground holding their shin
Speaker 1: usually like they've got a compound fracture, and um, it's
Speaker 1: a it's it's a big controversy in the sport, and
Speaker 1: it's I think the biggest reason why Americans don't fully
Speaker 1: embrace the sport. Uh supposedly that's yeah, a huge reason
Speaker 1: because Americans are used to American football, where you spit
Speaker 1: out teeth or tape up a broken bone to play
Speaker 1: the game. Like you're not going to see an NFL
Speaker 1: player rolling around on the ground screaming unless they have
Speaker 1: a bone sticking up through their skin like they're tough.
Speaker 1: And uh, Americans are used to that. And I think
Speaker 1: when Americans see a soccer player get tapped on the
Speaker 1: shin and they roll around on the ground screaming, I
Speaker 1: think they don't admire that quality. There's the nicest way
Speaker 1: I can say it. It's becoming more more prevalent in basketball.
Speaker 1: They call it flopping. Yeah, because of international a lot
Speaker 1: of players is one of the theories. Oh is that right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the influx of European players. It's like man who nobly
Speaker 1: he's one of the greatest floppers ever. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: But the NBA is now finding floppers, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: probably not going to change much. No, it's not because
Speaker 1: they find them like five grand, yeah, which is no
Speaker 1: big deal when you're super rich. But I think it's
Speaker 1: very controversial. Um, I'm trying to not insult people, but
Speaker 1: speaking very generally, Northern European countries, England, America aren't into it,
Speaker 1: except Germany is supposedly big into Germany will dive for sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: Southern European and South American countries do it more. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while Americans hate it. Every language has a term
Speaker 1: for like a complimentary term for what they call gamesmanship.
Speaker 1: So it's just a different philosophy and other parts of
Speaker 1: the world and we I don't understand it as an American,
Speaker 1: it's cheating to me. But UM, I read a good
Speaker 1: blog post from this one guy who has a few
Speaker 1: theories arranging from the broken window theory to uh where
Speaker 1: like if you are exposed to it all the time,
Speaker 1: you get used to it, and then if you're not
Speaker 1: exposed to it, like you're an American, when you see
Speaker 1: somebody do it like you're exposed to in the World Cup,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden booms he seems horrendous. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: uh And from that all the way to um he
Speaker 1: thinks that just how some countries UH view the law,
Speaker 1: even in ethics. Like he traveled to Argentina and he said,
Speaker 1: in Argentina, I had a lot of conversations with soccer
Speaker 1: players and they were like, in America, you follow rules,
Speaker 1: because the rules in Argentina you break rules until you
Speaker 1: get caught. So it's you should try and get away
Speaker 1: with it unless you get caught. It's part of the game. Um.
Speaker 1: He was. He had a conversation apparently with one guy
Speaker 1: about the newspapers in the US. How you can go
Speaker 1: to a newspaper box and it's just full of newspapers.
Speaker 1: And they were like, why don't you take all the newspapers?
Speaker 1: You know, I've thought that before, and it's like, because
Speaker 1: you really only need one, Yeah, unless you want to
Speaker 1: go sell them. I guess. So you have some free time, sure,
Speaker 1: go sell some newspapers that you told. Anyway, diving to
Speaker 1: put a bow on it very controversial still and some
Speaker 1: in England are calling for it now, like hey, we're
Speaker 1: falling behind here because we're not embracing this tactic. So
Speaker 1: we should be diving more. We should be diving more.
Speaker 1: If you can't beat them, join them kind of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if that's the prevalent attitude
Speaker 1: because it's um. Like I said, it started out as
Speaker 1: the gentleman's sports. You admit when you foul, you certainly
Speaker 1: don't fake uh a foul or an injury. Well that's
Speaker 1: what happened to Peppe. He didn't like that Thomas Mueller
Speaker 1: was was diving. Yeah, pretended like his eyes were gouged
Speaker 1: out in the match. It's a lot of pro wrestling
Speaker 1: theatrics that happened. Yeah, just look up on YouTube, like
Speaker 1: best top ten dives. It's kind of fun to watch
Speaker 1: some of these grown men roll around like that. There's
Speaker 1: this one when they're clearly not injured. There's one that
Speaker 1: was probably the most um fantastical dive of all time,
Speaker 1: and it took place in a qualifying match between Chile
Speaker 1: and Brazil to get into the World Cup. It was
Speaker 1: like the match that you have to win, and um,
Speaker 1: the goalkeeper for Chili, Roberto Rojas, suddenly screams and is
Speaker 1: grabbing his eye and like a couple of feet away
Speaker 1: from him is like a lit flare just going off
Speaker 1: on the field right, and like he's bleeding from his
Speaker 1: eye and everything, and everyone's like what just happened? Apparently
Speaker 1: he lit the flare himself, throw it on the ground,
Speaker 1: fell down, screaming, had a blade in his glove, cut
Speaker 1: his eye open. That's w yes, and um, he was
Speaker 1: just riding on the ground and they took the game
Speaker 1: like they technically gave it to Chili and like disqualified
Speaker 1: Brazil automatically. And somebody, one camera man happened to have
Speaker 1: gotten photos of Rojas, basically of Rojas like cutting himself
Speaker 1: and um they Chili got disqualified, Brazil got into the
Speaker 1: World Cup, and Rojas was banned from international play forever.
Speaker 1: But he started wrestling well. Apparently. Brazil later offered him
Speaker 1: a job as a goalie trainer. He was so good,
Speaker 1: so like the the country he almost dove into disqualification
Speaker 1: offered him a job. Yeah. So you know, it's a
Speaker 1: part of the game now. Um, I think what most
Speaker 1: UH soccer fans agree on is that it's because it's
Speaker 1: a part of the game, then it's the onus is
Speaker 1: on the ref to spot that stuff and not allow
Speaker 1: it and not be fooled by flailing arms and you know, oh,
Speaker 1: my eyes, my eyes. Yeah, that's just crazy. Like that's
Speaker 1: a ref job is to keep an eye off for deception. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a big pitch. I like, I don't I've
Speaker 1: always lobbied for more refs. I don't see why they
Speaker 1: don't have. I mean, they have linesman stuff, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's a lot of room out there. I'd
Speaker 1: have two or three dudes. There's a lot of room.
Speaker 1: Do we say how big the field is? Yeah? It varies,
Speaker 1: which is odd. Yeah, there's not a regulation field yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's uh, typically a hundred yards by fifty yards
Speaker 1: like an NFL football field. I also saw another typical
Speaker 1: one is a hundred and twenty yards by seventy five yards,
Speaker 1: which is that's big. That's like two football fields almost
Speaker 1: into a square. I should have looked up for World Cup, um,
Speaker 1: but I did not. I think that might be the
Speaker 1: regulation size. So it's a lot of ground to cover.
Speaker 1: And each side has ten men or women or eleven
Speaker 1: ten eleven including the goalie, right, Okay, and um, the
Speaker 1: the personnel is divided into You've got a goalie on
Speaker 1: each chan, and then you also have three different other
Speaker 1: types of players. You have um fullbacks also known as defenders.
Speaker 1: You have halfbacks, which are known as midfielders. And then
Speaker 1: you have forwards and they do different jobs depending on
Speaker 1: their name, and you can have different numbers of them.
Speaker 1: It's up to the coach. There's not a regulation like
Speaker 1: you have to have this many fullbacks, this many forwards.
Speaker 1: Play to your strengths, right, and then the formation that
Speaker 1: you're using can be described in numbers. So the example
Speaker 1: of the grabster gives them this one is four or
Speaker 1: four two formation would be four full backs, four midfielders
Speaker 1: and two forwards. Right, that's right, So what are the
Speaker 1: full back to chuckers? The full backs are generally the defense,
Speaker 1: the defenders. They hang closer to the goal. On a
Speaker 1: full attack, they will cross you know, the center line
Speaker 1: and and you know, try and score. But generally the
Speaker 1: fullbacks are defenders. Uh, you're they. If you hear someone
Speaker 1: say you're marking your opponent, that just means you're you're
Speaker 1: getting up on him and defending him or her right,
Speaker 1: rather than like a zone, you're defending the person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well not really. It's not like a Manda manner zone.
Speaker 1: It's just if if a player with the ball comes
Speaker 1: near you, you go to either mark them or tackle them.
Speaker 1: Um or actually you market player without the ball tackle
Speaker 1: tackle a player with the ball. But if you're an
Speaker 1: American and you don't know much about soccer and you
Speaker 1: hear tackle and you think, why are they still standing?
Speaker 1: Tackle doesn't mean like NFL football where you take them
Speaker 1: down to the ground physically. It means you you're making
Speaker 1: a defensive play. Like when you see you guys slide
Speaker 1: in like a slide tackle, that's a that's a tackle.
Speaker 1: You're making a play on the ball. To a defender,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't doesn't mean that anyone's hitting the ground.
Speaker 1: You can both be on your feet. Uh, and it
Speaker 1: could be considered a tackle. I didn't know that. Um.
Speaker 1: Did you know they also call bait that you use
Speaker 1: for fishing tackle silly silly josh. Um. All right, so
Speaker 1: you've got your goal area. We discuss penalty kicks. Uh.
Speaker 1: That is uh, if you follow someone within the penalty box,
Speaker 1: then you get that free penalty kick. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a guaranteed goal, but chances are you're going
Speaker 1: to get a goal out of that. Yeah. I would
Speaker 1: imagine the percentage is a lot higher. The only time
Speaker 1: you're allowed to touch it with your hands is if
Speaker 1: it goes out on the side. Uh, and then you
Speaker 1: throw the ball in with two hands over your head.
Speaker 1: It's called to throw in. Um. If it goes out
Speaker 1: on the inline, you're either going to have a goal
Speaker 1: kick by your goalkeeper or if the people who are
Speaker 1: coming to score on you, the attackers, kick it out,
Speaker 1: then the opposing team's goalie kicks it back in right
Speaker 1: the defender goalie. Yeah. Yeah. If the defender kicks it out,
Speaker 1: then you get what's called a corner kick, and a
Speaker 1: corner kick is what you call a set piece, and
Speaker 1: that's when you you put the ball in the corner
Speaker 1: and you kick it in front of the goal. And
Speaker 1: the set of it is is you there are many
Speaker 1: different formations, um you'll use for a corner kick, and
Speaker 1: the object is to get it up in the air
Speaker 1: and try and head it in or get it in
Speaker 1: however you can. But um, there's just different formations in
Speaker 1: front of the goal. Uh, you're marking your opponent if
Speaker 1: you're a defender, you're trying to get free from being
Speaker 1: marked if you're an attacker, and when the ball's in
Speaker 1: the air, it's kind of every man for himself. That's
Speaker 1: where it gets a little rough. That's the and that's
Speaker 1: the basic strategy is is so you've got the fullbacks
Speaker 1: back protecting the goal virtually at all times. The midfielders
Speaker 1: are doing a little bit of that. They run a lot,
Speaker 1: but they're also the ones who are like driving the
Speaker 1: ball down the field and then trying to kick it
Speaker 1: towards the goal so that the forwards who are closer
Speaker 1: to the opponent's goal can head it in or kick
Speaker 1: it in. And that's the basic strategy. Of moving the
Speaker 1: ball back and forth through soccer. Right. Yeah, you'll typically
Speaker 1: see an offensive attacker shoot down the wing on the
Speaker 1: on the side of the field with the ball and
Speaker 1: essentially do what a corner kick is, which is just
Speaker 1: get it in the air towards the center of you know,
Speaker 1: the field, in front of the goal. Because once it's
Speaker 1: in the air, you can head it. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: head it, you can kick it, you can chest it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't chest the goal in that's generally to uh,
Speaker 1: to get the ball back down on the ground. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for you to to you absorb its momentum exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: if you if the ball is in the air and
Speaker 1: somebody's going to head it and you kick, try to
Speaker 1: kick the ball, you might get what's called a yellow card, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a penalty card. So you've got your one
Speaker 1: referee running around, right and uh, if he sees you
Speaker 1: do that and he decides to give you a yellow card,
Speaker 1: he will pull literally a yellow card from his pocket,
Speaker 1: hold it up. I'm showing it to everybody, right, and
Speaker 1: then he puts it back and he pulls out a
Speaker 1: little notebook and he writes down the number, which is
Speaker 1: so cute. That you know, it's just not kept up
Speaker 1: by someone else, right, exactly thousands of people and and
Speaker 1: a huge computer network. But he writes it on a
Speaker 1: little bit um, and he doesn't like the way that
Speaker 1: never came out, so he'll erase it sometime and try
Speaker 1: it again. And um, so that you've got a yellow card,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really do anything. It's basically it amounts to
Speaker 1: a warning. You've been tagged by the rest. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you can get a yellow card for any um penalty
Speaker 1: they deemed severe enough, like any hard foul. They can
Speaker 1: give you a yellow card on or uh yeah, or
Speaker 1: they can just say it was a regular foul, no
Speaker 1: yellow card needed. Uh. And you get a free kick
Speaker 1: from that spot. And it's either indirect or direct, meaning
Speaker 1: if it's indirect, another player has to touch it before
Speaker 1: you can take a shot on goal, before you can
Speaker 1: take a shot on goal. But if it's a direct,
Speaker 1: the person kicking it can try to kick it into
Speaker 1: the goal. Yeah. And that's another set piece. That's when um,
Speaker 1: you see someone you know goes to take a free
Speaker 1: kick and you see if it's close enough, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's down the field, you just kind of restart
Speaker 1: immediately and get the game going again. But if it's
Speaker 1: close enough to the goal, we can get a shot.
Speaker 1: That's when you see the players lined up in a
Speaker 1: row ten yards. You can't get closer than ten yards
Speaker 1: to the ball, and that's you know, they're covering their
Speaker 1: private parts and uh, trying to position themselves. And it
Speaker 1: looks weird if you're not used to it, Like why
Speaker 1: would you line up in a wall in front of
Speaker 1: the guy kicking it. Well, it's because you want a
Speaker 1: big wall in front of the guy kicking it and
Speaker 1: the goal there is to not even just I mean
Speaker 1: you want it. You can't block the ball, which would
Speaker 1: be great, but um, it's to mask the getting the
Speaker 1: goalkeeper's way. Can they jump at all? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: yeah you can jump at that ball. I mean I
Speaker 1: took one to the face one time. It's not fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't even tolerate like a dodgeball or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah, you'll see you'll see players jump
Speaker 1: and kind of turn their body away from contact so
Speaker 1: they don't get mauled. But like I said, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: One thing you're trying to do is to shield the
Speaker 1: the goalkeeper. So they like a lot of times they
Speaker 1: don't even see the kick coming because of the wall,
Speaker 1: and then it's in the net behind him and boom,
Speaker 1: and then they roll around the ground and say, my eyes,
Speaker 1: I'm flopping all right, So chuck um. If you have
Speaker 1: a yellow card and uh, you do something else, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna get a red card. And a red
Speaker 1: card means that you're a jet from the games. Red
Speaker 1: in a single game or in a tournament, even in
Speaker 1: some tournaments. Yeah, or you can go straight to red
Speaker 1: if you do something really really bad. That's what happened
Speaker 1: to Peppe. Yeah, you can go Pepe mia Ham. And
Speaker 1: those are the three soccer players you know? And uh,
Speaker 1: can you name one American? Um Americana to know he's
Speaker 1: Argentinian American men like the guys on the team right now?
Speaker 1: Can you name one? You know? It's sad Is. I
Speaker 1: keep wanting to say carch Karai and I know he's
Speaker 1: like volleyball. Yeah, I don't know why my brain keeps
Speaker 1: going there. Well, you're not a fan. I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to make you seem dumb for not knowing. You're definitively
Speaker 1: proving that. I just wondered how little you followed it. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know any of the guy's names. The answer
Speaker 1: is not at all into it. Landon Donovan is probably
Speaker 1: the most famous American soccer player, right yeah, Landon Donovan,
Speaker 1: but he was not even named to the team due
Speaker 1: to some controversy. Are not due to some but causing
Speaker 1: controversy because he's old. Okay, he's like early thirties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, that's old, but it is. But America's you know,
Speaker 1: the coach came out, you're in Klinsman, the former German star,
Speaker 1: and said, we're not gonna win anyway, so we're just
Speaker 1: trying to get better. Americans is not there loser attitude? Well,
Speaker 1: it is, but it's realistic. You know the Germans, they
Speaker 1: they throw down the realism and he's uh, he's you know,
Speaker 1: anything can happen. But America is not on the same
Speaker 1: level because chances are the kids out there their dad
Speaker 1: didn't play, and their grandfather and their great grandfather. It's uh.
Speaker 1: When it's ingrained in your society over generations and generations,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get better. And it's not a national sport.
Speaker 1: It's like fifth. Well, let's talk about England and it's
Speaker 1: it's probably the best prime example of having soccer as
Speaker 1: a national sport. Yeah, one of I should say, but
Speaker 1: it's the one that has kind of set the stage
Speaker 1: for how you have a national functioning sport of soccer.
Speaker 1: So England and you're talking about their Premier League. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Barclays Premier League is the top soccer league in
Speaker 1: the world. Every not every nation, but almost every nation
Speaker 1: has their own own professional league. Um. You've got the
Speaker 1: Premier League, which is numerous Uno, uh, Spanish Premira, the
Speaker 1: Italian league, it's probably the second best right now, Spanish
Speaker 1: is probably third. You've got the Bundesliga in Germany, France
Speaker 1: has one, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, we've got our own MLS. Um.
Speaker 1: But the best players in the world generally played for
Speaker 1: the Premier League. Yeah, around the world, not just you
Speaker 1: don't have to just be yeah British, you can from
Speaker 1: wherever and play for for these teams. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: MLS in the United States is getting better, but it's
Speaker 1: generally like where old players go to play. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a question for you, did did um? And that's
Speaker 1: an old tradition. Apparently Pale finished out his his career
Speaker 1: with the New York Cosmos. Yeah, there's a great documentary
Speaker 1: on that team. The Beckham played for the Galaxy in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Um Landon Donovan plays MLS, But that's twice
Speaker 1: that you've called him old. I'm sorry, Mr Donovan. If
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, well, I mean it's it's up
Speaker 1: and comers who aren't good enough to play in the
Speaker 1: other world leagues. And it's older guys who used to
Speaker 1: play for the Premier League and you know, want to
Speaker 1: come to the US and live in l A and
Speaker 1: make a little scratch. So I have a question about that,
Speaker 1: because it was more than a little scratch, Like they
Speaker 1: paid Beckham like quarter of a billion dollars to come play.
Speaker 1: Do you know if like they recoup that in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, Like did it pan out to be
Speaker 1: a good investment or was it all for him? Um?
Speaker 1: I mean they obviously signed a David Beckham for I mean,
Speaker 1: he was good, but he wasn't like England's best player
Speaker 1: or anything knows name recognition. They were trying to get seats.
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering, like that's a lot of cash. Could
Speaker 1: they don't really have made that back because he wasn't
Speaker 1: their only player. I mean, I'm still he saw to
Speaker 1: feel the team around him. Well, Donovan plays for l
Speaker 1: A too, I think, is that right? Yeah? Um, did
Speaker 1: you see that the ad of Beckham's from a couple
Speaker 1: of years back, the Pepsi ad where he kicks like
Speaker 1: three balls into three different trash cans on the beach,
Speaker 1: and like, was it real? If it's not, it's the
Speaker 1: most amazing, editing job you've ever seen in your life.
Speaker 1: It was probably real. Usually don't fake that stuff. It's
Speaker 1: crazy what he did. Then, Yeah, and these I mean
Speaker 1: the men and women of the international on if you're
Speaker 1: playing for your country, the talent is unbelievable. Yeah, because um,
Speaker 1: like there's all there's professional leagues and then each FIFA team,
Speaker 1: which by the way, has more member nations than the
Speaker 1: u n which is really saying that. I think it's
Speaker 1: like two. Oh, that's pretty cool. Um, But each fiefa
Speaker 1: member team also as a national team that you play for.
Speaker 1: So you were saying that, like for the English Premier
Speaker 1: League players for the best players from around the world
Speaker 1: typically go play there, but when it's World Cup time
Speaker 1: they go back to their home countries and like you
Speaker 1: were saying teammates will play against one another for their
Speaker 1: their nations and yeah, and then when they go back
Speaker 1: to their club, teams are just like, hey, good to
Speaker 1: see again. Um. So, the Premier League, the prem as
Speaker 1: they call it, has other sub leagues, and you, uh,
Speaker 1: if you finish in the bottom three in your division,
Speaker 1: you were relegated and sent down to another league's you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a minor league baseball. Um, but
Speaker 1: not a player. The whole team gets sent down. The
Speaker 1: whole team gets sent down, which is pretty neat, makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're you know, if you have any friends that
Speaker 1: follow the prem there, unless they're like, man, you fans
Speaker 1: are arsenal fans who are like the big hot teams.
Speaker 1: It's like the Yankees, although people certainly take issue with that.
Speaker 1: I hate the Yankees. Um. Yeah, you're fighting to not
Speaker 1: get relegated. And then if you are in the top
Speaker 1: three of the lower division, then you get sent up,
Speaker 1: and if you're the top two, you automatically get sent up.
Speaker 1: If you're for the third place, the next four the
Speaker 1: highest ranked teams playoff. And that's a big deal because
Speaker 1: more money, more advertising revenues. Yeah, it's just it's you
Speaker 1: don't want to get sent back and relegated. It's bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 1: And I didn't really have I I had no idea
Speaker 1: about this until researching this article. Um, I didn't really have,
Speaker 1: um a sense of like just how bad it is.
Speaker 1: I can imagine, like the difference in revenue for a
Speaker 1: team between you know, being in the Premier League and
Speaker 1: being in the first division the one below. It year
Speaker 1: over year just nuts. So I mean like depressing I
Speaker 1: think is a team. Yeah, I can imagine how often
Speaker 1: does that happen? Well, it depends on your team. So
Speaker 1: but every year, every year they go down and three
Speaker 1: teams go up. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1: if you're an American prim fan, you pick out just
Speaker 1: a team. I don't based on like anyone picks out
Speaker 1: a sports team when they're not from that country, UM,
Speaker 1: based on players you like or whatever, and then you
Speaker 1: follow them, and um all all of my American friends
Speaker 1: that follow have picked out different teams. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: But then I'll watch a few, uh, like I watched
Speaker 1: the finals and stuff, but generally I just follow like
Speaker 1: the international play. It's just the style of game. I
Speaker 1: don't have time for all the sports. You know, I
Speaker 1: know you're a busy man, busy guy. So Chuck, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about the dark side of soccer hooliganism. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gotten a lot better. Um. Yeah, apparently really bad though,
Speaker 1: like who soccer hooligans or sometimes fighting for their team's
Speaker 1: honor and sometimes they're just drunk Englishmen who like the
Speaker 1: scrap and use as an excuse. But it got bad
Speaker 1: for a while, but they've cracked down on. I think
Speaker 1: when they started cracking down on teams and penalizing the
Speaker 1: clubs themselves for acts of hooliganism. I think think that
Speaker 1: might have caused some changes. Yeah, that's that's crazy. They
Speaker 1: the UM, I don't know if it was FIFA who
Speaker 1: did it. Maybe it was the was it the Premier
Speaker 1: League itself was saying like if your team is associated
Speaker 1: with hooliganism, will sanction your team and you guys have
Speaker 1: to play in an empty stadium and we'll totally miss
Speaker 1: out on ticket sales. That's huge. Um. The hooligans themselves
Speaker 1: could be banned from even traveling to where a match
Speaker 1: was like, you can't get into this city, Yeah, not
Speaker 1: the stadium, the city. Um, and yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: apparently it worked pretty well, but in the interim, a
Speaker 1: lot of people died, Like a lot of people have
Speaker 1: died because of soccer. Um, well, not only hooliganism, but
Speaker 1: uh stampedes and being crushed and yeah, that's gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better too. But um, you know, I remember growing
Speaker 1: up hearing a couple of times where there was some
Speaker 1: like awful smashing of people. Yeah, in hundreds of people
Speaker 1: f a Cup match there was um in Britain, fans
Speaker 1: were crushed. And remember in the Black Friday episode that
Speaker 1: we did, we talked about crushing death and what that's like.
Speaker 1: I think in the article that I cited, there's a
Speaker 1: picture of somebody being crushed to death, like up against
Speaker 1: the fence at that game. It's a pretty famous picture.
Speaker 1: It's awful. I can't imagine, yeah, being crushed to death
Speaker 1: the worst. Uh. So, I guess we should explain the
Speaker 1: off sides rule just because that is a confusing thing
Speaker 1: for some Americans who don't follow soccer. Um is it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's it's changed some over the years, and uh,
Speaker 1: we'll just go ahead and explain it. UM easily stated,
Speaker 1: you're off side if an offensive attacking player is UM
Speaker 1: in front of all of the defenders. They say, behind
Speaker 1: the line of defenders. But if you're watching as if
Speaker 1: they're an attacker, then I just call it in front
Speaker 1: of um before the ball is kicked to you. So
Speaker 1: it originated in the early days basically to keep the
Speaker 1: lazy kid from just hanging out in front of the
Speaker 1: goal and waiting for the ball to come down there.
Speaker 1: They called it um. In the forties they called it
Speaker 1: sneaking and sneaker yeah, like you're a big fat sneaker
Speaker 1: because you're just waiting there like a lazy get So,
Speaker 1: in greater detail, the attacking player you have to be
Speaker 1: on the opponent's half of the field. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: know the field split down the middle. You gotta be
Speaker 1: on the off pens of half of the field. For
Speaker 1: it to be called off sides, the attacking player is
Speaker 1: closer to the goal line than the last defensive player.
Speaker 1: Goalie doesn't count and the ball, so that's important the ball.
Speaker 1: You can be off sides, you can be in front
Speaker 1: as long as the ball isn't isn't coming your way. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you play the ball or interfere or with a defender,
Speaker 1: that's when it When it's off sides. As soon as
Speaker 1: that players kick the ball and the balls in the air,
Speaker 1: you can run in front of that defender or behind
Speaker 1: the defender. I know that sounds so confusing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wasn't confused by it before, but I am now. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's my best way of describing. That's what off
Speaker 1: sides is. If you if you want to just watch
Speaker 1: the game, simply just remember you can't just be hanging
Speaker 1: out in front of the goal. Yes, that was my understanding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the clear up. That's the real, basic, most basic
Speaker 1: version of the rule without any of the subtleties. And
Speaker 1: you can't be all sides. Uh. If it's a throw
Speaker 1: in or a corner kick or a goal kick, then
Speaker 1: it's you know, every man for himself. You can do
Speaker 1: whatever you want. It's only when it's in regular play,
Speaker 1: not a restart. Does that makes sense? Yeah, okay, yeah
Speaker 1: it does. He explained it pretty well. I think so.
Speaker 1: And I know that people are gonna say I butchered it,
Speaker 1: but whatever, bring it. Well, I'm sure somebody will explain
Speaker 1: it very eloquently. We can read it for listener mail
Speaker 1: exactly nothing else. Go USA, we play um and this
Speaker 1: is one of the rare shows that we turn around
Speaker 1: really quick because it's Newsy. Thanks to Jerry for that
Speaker 1: way to go, Jerry. Um, but the US plays a
Speaker 1: Portugal Sunday, and if we win that we're looking really good.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I don't know Portugal, because even if
Speaker 1: we played Germany, we'll still have accrued enough points from
Speaker 1: beating Ghana and Portugal to go to the final two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will lose to Germany. I think everyone's kind of
Speaker 1: accepted that, apparently the coach, especially who is a German.
Speaker 1: I gotta figured it out. Okay, I understand soccer now,
Speaker 1: but our our striker, Josie Altador went down, which is
Speaker 1: not good strikers are Um. We forgot to mention that
Speaker 1: defensive fullbacks you can be a sweeper as well, where
Speaker 1: you're just like going back and forth in front of
Speaker 1: the goal. Yeah, kind of sweeping. And then there's uh,
Speaker 1: some of the offensive Fords can play the striker position,
Speaker 1: which is just like a pure offense. You're attacking all
Speaker 1: the time, attacking all the time. Attack, attack, But we
Speaker 1: lost our striker, which is a big deal. Sure doesn't
Speaker 1: bode well. Uh well, thanks for all this, chuck, I
Speaker 1: got nothing else, I understand soccer to a t. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I wish I was a super expert because
Speaker 1: I know it probably wouldn't be nearly as fine. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we got some stuff wrong and we'll hear about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll hear about it. Yeah. But yeah, go go World Cup.
Speaker 1: Here's go World Cup. Here's my prediction. We're all winners.
Speaker 1: Actually have no prediction. Maybe everyone will tie from here
Speaker 1: on out. Jerry, who do you go for besides the US?
Speaker 1: She likes chili, Chili in Germany. Nice going, Jerry, Chili
Speaker 1: is a dark horse. Well, we'll see what happens. Huh. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about soccer, watch the
Speaker 1: World Cup. Now that you've listened to this episode, you'll
Speaker 1: know what's going on if you didn't before, and possibly
Speaker 1: it made it more enjoyable for you. You can also
Speaker 1: type soccer soccer, not football. It's gonna bring up a
Speaker 1: totally different article in the search bar at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com. Don't type in footie. No, no one
Speaker 1: knows what that is. Um and uh, since I said
Speaker 1: search bars, time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: props to nurses and our continuing effort to not slight people.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read this one. I couldn't help but notice, guys,
Speaker 1: when I was listening to how placebos worked and stood
Speaker 1: out to me when you gave Dr Beecher credit for
Speaker 1: first noticing the placebo effect in World War Two, but
Speaker 1: you completely overlooked the obvious fact that it was the
Speaker 1: nurses who had recognized it, and we're putting the placebo
Speaker 1: effect you could use before Dr Beacher realized that was
Speaker 1: what was happening. They were making keen clinical observations at
Speaker 1: the bedside and applying those principles in the field to
Speaker 1: the benefit of their patients research and action. Of course,
Speaker 1: credit is due to Dr b for formalizing and publishing
Speaker 1: the study. Also, I know you guys are sticklers for
Speaker 1: accurate language, Please remember that doctors aren't the only ones
Speaker 1: who prescribed meds. Nurse practitioners and physicians assistants do as well.
Speaker 1: It would be more accurate refer to prescribers in the
Speaker 1: context of this podcast as healthcare provider or clinician when
Speaker 1: talking generally about the person who determines the patient's plan
Speaker 1: of care. What would you guys do? And Jerry uh
Speaker 1: s y s k is my favorite keep it up.
Speaker 1: And that's from Amy nurse, US Air Force. If this
Speaker 1: makes it the reader mail, she says, please give a
Speaker 1: shout out to my fellow nurses in uniform, so men
Speaker 1: and women around the world and uniform and nurses nurse
Speaker 1: it up. Hats off, nurse, hats off. Thanks for that, Amy, Um,
Speaker 1: and thank you Chuck. That was a good one. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
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