Speaker 1: Welcome in What's Driving Nick Rat Episode four seventy five,
Speaker 1: Wow Getting Closed Episode five hundred. This episode of What
Speaker 1: Right with Nick Wright is presented to you by boost Mobile.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Demanse. Busy week for you moving into a
Speaker 1: new spot. Busy month for everybody that's been dialed into
Speaker 1: the World Cup as just wall to wall NonStop action
Speaker 1: up to an including games like this afternoon. Like we
Speaker 1: have had three games, Demanse in the last five days
Speaker 1: that would have been the game of the tournament in
Speaker 1: half of the World Cups of my lifetime. Argentina Cape
Speaker 1: Verday Friday night was an all time classic. Mexico England
Speaker 1: Sunday Evening was as hyped as any round of sixteen
Speaker 1: game I've ever seen, exceeded the hype and then kept
Speaker 1: exceeding it, and in a sneaky one just a couple
Speaker 1: hours ago, Argentina Egypt just an epic. Egypt up to nothing,
Speaker 1: Argentina comes back to steal it. We'll get more into
Speaker 1: that game later. However, one of the last lasting legacies
Speaker 1: demand of this World Cup might be the entire world
Speaker 1: coming around to my side. That instant where you play
Speaker 1: makes sports worse. Egypt having a goal stolen for a
Speaker 1: penalty that happened fifteen minutes prior in the lead up
Speaker 1: to the to the goal. Was just unreal, and so
Speaker 1: all of that. Uh yeah, Egypt did then didn't writing
Speaker 1: another they scored right after the same guy. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: right about that, So all of that. But the big
Speaker 1: story is, of course, one of the few games of
Speaker 1: this tournament that has not been a classic, not been
Speaker 1: that well played, not actually that interesting unless you were
Speaker 1: rooting for one of the two teams involved. That was
Speaker 1: Belgium in the US. We'll get to that in a second,
Speaker 1: but first straight to voicemail, brought to you by our
Speaker 1: friends at boost Mobile. Donovan Mitchell signs a four year,
Speaker 1: smooth two hundred and seventy million dollar extension. As we
Speaker 1: inch closer and closer to the first NBA player that
Speaker 1: will in fact average one million dollars a game. For
Speaker 1: someone to do that, we need someone to sign a
Speaker 1: four year to what would the no, that's wrong on that.
Speaker 1: He's almost seventy million a game, So we need someone
Speaker 1: to sign a three year two forty six or a
Speaker 1: four year three twenty eight for someone to average a
Speaker 1: million a game. We'll get there. Soon enough. Caleb Williams
Speaker 1: signed a jersey for the pope evidently, and the Royals
Speaker 1: do something that's more rare than a perfect game, score
Speaker 1: a run in every inning, but nobody cares because the
Speaker 1: Royals are that they actually aren't very good, but there's
Speaker 1: still a cool little accomplishment. Also a couple reminders subscribe
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Speaker 1: right mailbag at gmail dot com is how you do that.
Speaker 1: Also another reason to subscribe Thursday to Monday. I am
Speaker 1: going I actually might miss the last like ten minutes
Speaker 1: of the TV show because I there is a four
Speaker 1: pm kickoff between France and Morocco in Boston that I
Speaker 1: need to get to. TV show ends that moon. It's
Speaker 1: usually about a third three and a half hour drive,
Speaker 1: so I want to give myself a little extra wiggle room.
Speaker 2: And so if you want it quick one.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if a flight would actually be faster
Speaker 1: like it's far as yeah, like the show, yeah and so,
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Speaker 1: flight delayed then you're just out of there. And so
Speaker 1: I mean I hired, I'm not driving. I hired a
Speaker 1: car to basically for the day, but kick off at four.
Speaker 1: So maybe I leave the studio in Manhattan around I
Speaker 1: don't know, eleven forty and hopefully get there. The other
Speaker 1: piece of that is there's a building collapsing in Manhattan
Speaker 1: right now as we speak. They've had to evacuate a
Speaker 1: few blocks of Midtown, So I don't know what that's
Speaker 1: gonna do to traffic. I'm not sure. I know. I
Speaker 1: hope to get there on time. We will see. Because
Speaker 1: of that, Thursday's Pod is now Wednesday's pod, so we're
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Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about any of that. All
Speaker 1: right to mom's a, let's get right to it. The
Speaker 1: letdown of the tournament Belgium in the US.
Speaker 3: So historic World Cup run by the USA ended like
Speaker 3: so many of them have for US before, in a
Speaker 3: loss in the round of sixteen.
Speaker 2: What do you think happened out there? We were getting bullied.
Speaker 2: That was a rough output.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, Brew and I we didn't really argue. We
Speaker 1: don't really argue that much, but disagreed about what happened
Speaker 1: in this game. On the TV show this morning, Brew
Speaker 1: was pretty adamant that Belgium was just that much better
Speaker 1: than the United States and that's what happened. I disagree
Speaker 1: with that. I do think pretty clearly Belgium was better,
Speaker 1: that's obvious, and that I had maybe overrated in my
Speaker 1: I had the level at which the US men's national
Speaker 1: team was playing, and I may be underrated Belgium, but
Speaker 1: Belgium hadn't played very well in this tournament. Belgium had
Speaker 1: to draw against Egypt. Belgium had to draw against Iran.
Speaker 1: Belgium played awful for eighty plus minutes of a knockout
Speaker 1: round game against Senegal, and then got one late goal
Speaker 1: due to Lakaku being awesome, another late goal due to
Speaker 1: a disastrous play by the Senegalese goalkeeper, and then they
Speaker 1: stole it seconds before it went to penalties in extra time.
Speaker 1: The one game all tournament Belgium had looked dominant was
Speaker 1: against New Zealand, and it was just an older Belgium
Speaker 1: team eight years removed from its golden generation, being in
Speaker 1: their primes, and it seemed there was a reason the
Speaker 1: United States was slim but favorites in the game, and
Speaker 1: so I don't think it was as clear cut simply
Speaker 1: as well that you know, we played finally played a
Speaker 1: top ten team in the world, and we got what
Speaker 1: was coming to us. Because that's not to me what
Speaker 1: happened in yesterday's game. What happened in Monday night's game
Speaker 1: was the moment was too big for our guys and
Speaker 1: our back line, which has been this whole tournament the
Speaker 1: shakiest part of the team. We went into the tournament
Speaker 1: the first team in World Cup history to have our
Speaker 1: starting goalkeeper be a goalkeeper from MLS. Our defenders are,
Speaker 1: you know, either older players or some of our less
Speaker 1: frontline guys, you know, compared to some of our attackers
Speaker 1: in our midfield, and they got exposed and they seemed
Speaker 1: shook from the opening kick a minute into the game.
Speaker 1: Belgium could have scored eight minutes into the game. When
Speaker 1: they did score, it was simply because it was the
Speaker 1: soccer version of a group of infielders letting a foul
Speaker 1: ball drop. Nobody wanted to head the ball out of play,
Speaker 1: and then what was so devastating was they had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to steady themselves when one of the absolute revelations
Speaker 1: of the tournament, Malik Tillman, hits another awesome free kick
Speaker 1: twice in two games, the very end of the Bosnia
Speaker 1: game and midway through the first half of the Round
Speaker 1: of sixteen game. We had a moment that reminds you
Speaker 1: of the best clubs are the best countries in the world.
Speaker 1: Where you have a three kick specialist take a direct
Speaker 1: kick at the top of the box and doesn't need
Speaker 1: someone to put a head on the back end of it,
Speaker 1: doesn't need some fancy action. Nope, right over the wall
Speaker 1: into a spot the keeper can't get it. I know
Speaker 1: this one took a deflection, but it was just so
Speaker 1: awesome and in that moment, the US could have taken
Speaker 1: a deep breath said Okay, we're here, the crowds into it,
Speaker 1: we see the level Belgium's gonna play at. We are
Speaker 1: up to it, we're prepared for it, and now we
Speaker 1: just have to be the better side for sixty minutes
Speaker 1: of soccer. And instead, within one minute we allowed them
Speaker 1: to take the lead again. We trailed in this game
Speaker 1: for eighty of the ninety minutes. The only moments we
Speaker 1: didn't trail were minutes zero to nine and I guess
Speaker 1: thirty one to two. That's it. We trailed for multiple
Speaker 1: goals for the final thirty minutes of the game thanks
Speaker 1: to a yackety Sacks style cartoonish mistake by our goalkeeper.
Speaker 1: And we never once seemed to threaten Belgium the way
Speaker 1: we had been threatening teams all tournament. And listen, I
Speaker 1: understand Belgium was a step up in class, a big
Speaker 1: step up in class, but that is not the full
Speaker 1: story of what happened yesterday. We got shook by what
Speaker 1: was in front of us, and by what was in
Speaker 1: front of us, I don't just mean the opposition, I
Speaker 1: mean the opportunity. And that's the really really disappointing part.
Speaker 1: The really really disappointing part is for months leading up
Speaker 1: to this I discussed how this tournament, the the pivot
Speaker 1: point of this tournament was going to be whether or
Speaker 1: not we could break through the glass ceiling of the
Speaker 1: Round of sixteen. And we're gonna get more deep into
Speaker 1: that later in the show like about whether or not
Speaker 1: this was a success or a failure, But it feels
Speaker 1: like everyone on the team also felt like that was
Speaker 1: the pivot point, and they crumbled under that pressure, and
Speaker 1: it denied that unbelievable Seattle crowd an opportunity to really
Speaker 1: get into the game, which is as disappointing a part
Speaker 1: of it as anything else. The fact that that crowd
Speaker 1: was dying to be a twelfth man like Stadio aas
Speaker 1: Teca was for the Mexican side, even in defeat on
Speaker 1: Sunday night, and the crowd got nervous a minute into
Speaker 1: the game because Belgium almost scored. The crowd was then
Speaker 1: extra nervous when the US was trailing for the first
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of the game essentially, and then for one
Speaker 1: minute after the Tillman goal, they were there, and then
Speaker 1: Belgium went right back and took it. And Demonsey, You're
Speaker 1: just not going to have another opportunity like this the
Speaker 1: next time the Earth. Like this is gonna sound funny,
Speaker 1: but it's true. The next time, the earliest possible chance
Speaker 1: the US is gonna have for another home World Cup,
Speaker 1: you will be my age. Yeah, so and so like no,
Speaker 1: they definitely won't be there. I mean, the World Cup
Speaker 1: in four years is in Spain, Portugal, Morocco. Now I
Speaker 1: will say FIFA is doing something a little tricky because
Speaker 1: they're supposed to kind of rotate continents, right, So next
Speaker 1: year's World Cup, instead of just being in Spain or
Speaker 1: being in Spain and Portugal, it's Spain, Portugal and Morocco
Speaker 1: the way this one was the US, Canada and Mexico. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that checks off Europe and Africa because Morocco's in Africa.
Speaker 1: But then they are also doing one hundred anniversary one
Speaker 1: off matches I believe in Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina one
Speaker 1: match in each country. Well, that checks off South America
Speaker 1: the next World So so just the next World Cup
Speaker 1: gives you Europe, Africa, and South America as done. They
Speaker 1: did it, yep. The next World Cup is already on
Speaker 1: the books in Saudi Arabia, so that checks off Asia.
Speaker 1: So in theory they could as early as twenty thirty
Speaker 1: eight give another one to the United States. And the
Speaker 1: United States has done a brilliant job hosting the Games,
Speaker 1: and we do have the best stadiums in the world,
Speaker 1: so maybe we'll get it again sooner than we probably should,
Speaker 1: but that's still twelve years out. And so all these
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, almost all these guys, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be gone. All right, let's do some follow ups
Speaker 1: here before we get to the other stuff.
Speaker 3: So after the Games, Latin said that that was a
Speaker 3: reality check for the for Team USA. So what do
Speaker 3: you think that our reality is?
Speaker 1: Our reality right now is that the quarterfinals is our
Speaker 1: absolute ceiling and the round of sixteen is playing to
Speaker 1: our seed. Our reality check right now is there is
Speaker 1: you We are nowhere close to being a firmly entrenched
Speaker 1: top ten nations right like we are the We are
Speaker 1: closer to the teams that are ranked in the twenties
Speaker 1: like Iran, Norway, Senegal, Uruguay, Austria, Egypt, then the teams
Speaker 1: that are ranked in the low teens, like well in Mexico,
Speaker 1: I think we're right in line with. But in Mexico
Speaker 1: right now is technically ten, but they've moved up quite
Speaker 1: a bit during this tournament. Colombia, Germany, Croatia, Italy which
Speaker 1: plays great except for when it comes to making the
Speaker 1: World Cup. And we do feel like we are leaps
Speaker 1: and bounds away from teams firmly in the top ten
Speaker 1: like Spain and England. And even though they didn't have
Speaker 1: a good showing of this World Cup, and they haven't
Speaker 1: had a great showing in the World Cup in years, Brazil,
Speaker 1: Brazil's been disappointed by Brazil standards prior to this year.
Speaker 1: They make the quarters every single year of the World Cup.
Speaker 1: That's been you know, our dream is to make the
Speaker 1: quarters repeatedly. So I do think that is uh, that
Speaker 1: is the reality of it. But that doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: couldn't have won Monday Night. Belgium again has not been
Speaker 1: They have been far from unbeatable in the tournament. They
Speaker 1: are past what was you know, they're an aging team
Speaker 1: that has passed their version of the Golden Generation. And
Speaker 1: so I think it's laton, you know, Bruce said on
Speaker 1: the TV show we all got drunk on sports patriotism,
Speaker 1: yes and no. Like I understand that the Vegas odds
Speaker 1: are tilted, you know, colored a bit by the fact
Speaker 1: that so many Americans wanted to bet on the US,
Speaker 1: but the international sportsbooks also had this game as a
Speaker 1: coin flip slightly leaning to the United States. It was
Speaker 1: not blind. It might have been drunken you know, patriotic
Speaker 1: optimism that was fueling the thirty to one US to
Speaker 1: win the tournament.
Speaker 2: Bets.
Speaker 1: It was not drunken US optimism that installed the US
Speaker 1: as slight, but favorites yesterday. And here's the other piece
Speaker 1: of it, like there have not been many once we
Speaker 1: have gotten to the knockout rounds, there just haven't been
Speaker 1: many walkovers. Like I'm just gonna go backwards through the games.
Speaker 1: Today's Egypt Argentina game a freaking classic that our Egypt
Speaker 1: was as Argentina in the rankings is two, Egypt in
Speaker 1: the rankings is twenty four, so you know we are
Speaker 1: sixteen Norway or Belgium, pardon me, is eight, so we
Speaker 1: are far closer to Belgium than Egypt is to Argentina.
Speaker 1: Egypt was up to nothing in that game at the
Speaker 1: seventy eight minute mark and that game ended up being
Speaker 1: a classic. Sunday Night Brazil Norway. It's zero Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Norway is again about as far in the rankings from
Speaker 1: Brazil as the US is from Belgium. Norway one. Mexico
Speaker 1: England was a classic that England won three to two.
Speaker 1: France played Paraguay. That game was won nothing on a
Speaker 1: France penalty kick. Now again, Paraguay played a particular style
Speaker 1: to make that happen, but it was close. Morocco played Canada. Yes,
Speaker 1: that ended three to nothing, but that game was zero
Speaker 1: zero at halftime and one nothing in the seventy eighth minute. Again,
Speaker 1: Argentina Cape Verde three to two in extra time. Colombia
Speaker 1: Gana was a one nothing game. Australia Egypt went to
Speaker 1: penalty kicks. The last actual walkover and maybe the only
Speaker 1: walkover of the knockout round was Spain and night elating Austria.
Speaker 1: And again, Spain went into this tournament the number one
Speaker 1: team in the world and Austria is outside of the
Speaker 1: top twenty. There just haven't been these dominating, embarrassing blowouts
Speaker 1: in the knockout round. And England against Dr Congo was
Speaker 1: a game England had to pull out of the fire.
Speaker 1: Belgium against Senegal was a game Belgium had to pull
Speaker 1: out of the fire. Shoot Bosnia Ertzkovina was us. What
Speaker 1: we did to them was one of the bigger blowouts. Yes,
Speaker 1: France killed Sweden, Spain killed Austria, but those are the
Speaker 1: two best teams in the tournament. Probably just so disappointing.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the poch, this one about
Speaker 1: the coach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Pochatino has been a little bit of a
Speaker 3: rejuvenation for the squad.
Speaker 2: He's also up for a new contract. Do you believe
Speaker 2: that he's the guy for the job?
Speaker 1: Listen, we had Darren Fletcher, uh, who's right now actually
Speaker 1: calling the game that's on right now is Switzerland, Columbia
Speaker 1: and Vancouver. We had him on and he was adamant
Speaker 1: that the US should do everything they can to keep Poachatino.
Speaker 1: And I agree. I understand that ultimately this tournament was
Speaker 1: not a rousing success, and we'll get more into that layer.
Speaker 1: But I really like the guy. I think he has
Speaker 1: the right mentality and I think it You want to
Speaker 1: see what a full cycle because they hired him late,
Speaker 1: what him being able to put his hands on this
Speaker 1: team for a full cycle would really mean. I think
Speaker 1: they're paying him six million bucks a year. And like
Speaker 1: the soccer jobs, demons are crazy and the coaching no,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean, the the turnover in them as
Speaker 1: far as if you coach a Premier league team like
Speaker 1: you can coach for two years and be five like
Speaker 1: they just there is not a lot of job security,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, So for him
Speaker 1: the ability to play or to coach and know he's
Speaker 1: gonna have this job through the next World Cup, I
Speaker 1: think I would think would be really attractive to him.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that we're able to hold on
Speaker 1: to him. All right. Before we get to flow ball again,
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Speaker 1: All right, Demante, let's talk flow Balligan.
Speaker 3: So do you think all the controversies controversies surrounding Balagin
Speaker 3: in the Red Car was worth it? And do you
Speaker 3: think that this was more of a hindrance for the
Speaker 3: USA or motivation for Belgium?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think I don't think it will. I certainly
Speaker 1: it ended up being motivation for Belgium. There's no denying that, Okay,
Speaker 1: But the idea I don't. I simply do not buy
Speaker 1: that if only the US didn't have its most effective
Speaker 1: offensive player out there, yesterday would have been better. Like
Speaker 1: everyone's I and this idea that well, we had all
Speaker 1: these vibes working for us, and then it all shifted.
Speaker 1: I anyone that listens to this show or watches me
Speaker 1: has a very good idea or an exact idea of
Speaker 1: what I think about our current president. Okay, not a fan,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say, and it is an
Speaker 1: easy like, well, you know, the Knicks couldn't lose, showed
Speaker 1: up to a game, they lost. The US men's national
Speaker 1: teams on this great run. He steps in, then they lose.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about that line of reasoning about that
Speaker 1: the president stepping in threw off the vibes. It ignores
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of guys on our men's
Speaker 1: national soccer team love the guy that a lot of
Speaker 1: the fans who are part I would imagine part of
Speaker 1: the vibes, love the guy like this, it is a
Speaker 1: very kind of siloed mindset of well, I, you know,
Speaker 1: theoretical soccer fan don't like the president. Therefore I didn't
Speaker 1: like the fact that he got involved with the team,
Speaker 1: and that hurt the vibes. While not acknowledging that for
Speaker 1: folks out there that love him and maybe they before
Speaker 1: didn't care as much about the team, they're like, oh
Speaker 1: now now Trump's invested in it, I'm invested in it too.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say those vibes canceled each other out. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the only question is this was Belgium. Whatever added
Speaker 1: motivation they got from feeling like we're getting screwed here,
Speaker 1: was that offset by the fact by the added benefit
Speaker 1: the US got from having one of, if not its
Speaker 1: very best player on the pitch. And I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: we came out ahead in that one if we were
Speaker 1: if anybody related to US soccer thought we'd like to
Speaker 1: have our best player. But what about those vibes, what
Speaker 1: about the bulletin board material. They could have simply released
Speaker 1: a statement out of respect. They could have on the
Speaker 1: demons the kid in the old fair Play commercial. Sorry,
Speaker 1: they could have just announced Flow is not playing. Don't
Speaker 1: you worry your pretty little hearts, Flow is not gonna
Speaker 1: play now. Also demant, I will say, go ahead you.
Speaker 3: These guys are soccer players, Like they also realized that
Speaker 3: Baligan got screwed over, right, Like, I feel like it
Speaker 3: shouldn't motivate them, and the fact that that was the
Speaker 3: wrong call. He shouldn't be suspended.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, that's just.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of how I I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good point. I don't think anybody watched the
Speaker 1: ballot play and was like any of the other people
Speaker 1: in the World Cup. It was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he better be banned for multi games. Like and the
Speaker 1: fact that I think Flow handled it really well, shook
Speaker 1: the ref's hands, didn't lose his mind to all that.
Speaker 1: I just and nobody is thinking about the the other
Speaker 1: the road not travel, which is it's totally in play
Speaker 1: that if ballot is suspended, Belgium starts off just as hot.
Speaker 1: And in that scenario, instead of being down one goal
Speaker 1: and then two goal most goals most of the game,
Speaker 1: maybe we just lose that thing five to nothing. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a tournament we have led early every single game,
Speaker 1: Belgium has the same start because Belgium didn't get that
Speaker 1: start because our attackers made mistakes. Belgium got the start
Speaker 1: because our defense lost its head. And Belgium scores eight
Speaker 1: minutes in just like they did and utter in total.
Speaker 1: Panic sets in like, oh my god, we haven't been
Speaker 1: trailing at all and we're doing it now without our guy,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? And they lose even worse.
Speaker 1: So No, I do not think that the red card
Speaker 1: being overturned or the suspension being suspended, whatever hurt the
Speaker 1: United States. I think that is what the kids would
Speaker 1: call cope rather than dealing with the fact that we
Speaker 1: just got beat Man, and we got beat in part
Speaker 1: because we got tight. We every the entire commentary leading
Speaker 1: up to it is it's the biggest game in all
Speaker 1: of their lives. Every single person on the US men's
Speaker 1: national team, it's the biggest game they've ever played. And
Speaker 1: guess what they fucking look like it like, not everybody
Speaker 1: is you know, built for biggest game of my life.
Speaker 1: Watch me cook. Like a lot of people and I
Speaker 1: understand these aren't usually you know, pro athletes, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people are in the office just going Kobe
Speaker 1: into the waste paper basket and then somebody's like, hey,
Speaker 1: ten bucks, you can't do that again, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, they're in the cubicle over Like the pressure
Speaker 1: is a real thing. And the amount of pressure because
Speaker 1: of how much the country was invested, because everybody they
Speaker 1: were starting to you know, dream a big dream and
Speaker 1: believe and all of it. It really seemed to me
Speaker 1: that it got to them. And I'm not saying they
Speaker 1: would have yes, And I want to be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they would have won the game absent of that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying like that that if it were a
Speaker 1: friendly with no pressure at all, they would have won.
Speaker 1: I am saying they would have put on a better,
Speaker 1: a more quality showing. And and and Belgium on the
Speaker 1: other hand, Listen, Belgium made the semifinals two World Cups ago,
Speaker 1: but it's just really Lacacu and de Briyana and to
Speaker 1: Briano didn't even play that were a part of that squad.
Speaker 1: That's part of this squad. Last year's Belgium team got
Speaker 1: grouped and it was a catastrophe. This year it looked
Speaker 1: like it was going to be equally as embarrassing as
Speaker 1: getting grouped, where you barely find a way to win
Speaker 1: your to come out of your group the way they
Speaker 1: did with the win over New Zealand, and then they're
Speaker 1: gonna lose the round of thirty two game to Senegal.
Speaker 1: Them coming they were down to nothing demons against Senegal
Speaker 1: in the eighty second minute. They they scored I think
Speaker 1: in the eighty fourth and eighty eighth minute, and then
Speaker 1: one minute before we go to penalty kicks, they scored again.
Speaker 1: I do wonder if that was a little pressure release
Speaker 1: from for them, like oh all right, we avoided catastrophe.
Speaker 1: We got out of the group. We won a game
Speaker 1: in the expanded tournament where actually the underdogs. Everyone kind
Speaker 1: of thinks, now this is where the alegant stuff applies
Speaker 1: for them, that we're kind of getting screwed here. We
Speaker 1: can play free and easy. And they they did, and
Speaker 1: and so they did. Now the other sad part is
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 3: No, I was just gonna Do you think the story
Speaker 3: goes away now that we're eliminated or do.
Speaker 2: You think this is the type of thing that sticks
Speaker 2: with us?
Speaker 1: Well, listen, I think no. I think the story mostly
Speaker 1: goes away. I think Trump will bring it up as
Speaker 1: best as he can. But they've got bigger there's bigger
Speaker 1: stuff going on. Uh, they've got phone calls right now,
Speaker 1: evidently with Mitch McConnell, which I didn't know was possible,
Speaker 1: but I read about that right before we got on
Speaker 1: the air. But this is the this is the bigger story.
Speaker 1: The final question here, demanse the bigger things about me.
Speaker 1: If we're being honest here.
Speaker 3: Does your win is the sports media on Budsman feel
Speaker 3: feel hollow after how this game went?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, little, I mean I you gotta ask theman,
Speaker 1: say your mom and your sister. We were on our way.
Speaker 1: It was such a turn of mood for me over
Speaker 1: the from Sunday morning until last night. Sunday morning, here's
Speaker 1: our after Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm resigned to the fact that I am going
Speaker 1: to spend an obscene amount of money on four tickets
Speaker 1: to Brazil Norway, Okay, Like I'm just gonna take the
Speaker 1: whole family. And then all of a sudden there's rain
Speaker 1: in the forecast. And then all of a sudden, Diora
Speaker 1: is talking about maybe wanting to go to a Yankee game,
Speaker 1: and Deanna is talking about how it's three weeks man,
Speaker 1: and I and I and I and I'm looking and
Speaker 1: I'm like, these tickets are I mean, I don't I
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't say, but it's all public, Like it's upper
Speaker 1: deck was two thousand dollars a ticket, So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy four bad seats. I don't even know
Speaker 1: that they really want to go, Like what, like what
Speaker 1: am I doing? And then all of a sudden, people
Speaker 1: start opening the door, and I'm like, wait, does everybody
Speaker 1: think is everybody only going because they think I want
Speaker 1: them to go? So then I pulled. I pull your
Speaker 1: mom aside and I'm like, hey, what if I go
Speaker 1: by myself? And she's like that would be great. I'm
Speaker 1: like really, I'm like fantastic. So now I've already anchored
Speaker 1: and how much this is going to cost? And now
Speaker 1: it's flipped and I'm like.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 1: Instead of instead of looking for four bad seats, demanse,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for one awesome seat and I ended up sitting.
Speaker 1: I'll send you the pictures. I was dead middle, lower level,
Speaker 1: second to last row, so row twenty nine, dead middle.
Speaker 1: And when I say dead middle, the luxury box behind
Speaker 1: me is you know when you watch these games and
Speaker 1: you see the row of all the guys wearing the
Speaker 1: exact same blue blazers that say FIFA on them. All
Speaker 1: those guys are right behind me. I'm sitting right in
Speaker 1: front of the FIFA box, and with the FIFA guys
Speaker 1: are all the Brazilian legends. I am two rows in
Speaker 1: front of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, CAFU, like some of the just
Speaker 1: so all these guys, they're all right there. I took
Speaker 1: pictures of all these guys. I was such a fan
Speaker 1: in this I'm not even taking pictures of these guys.
Speaker 1: But regardless. So but I'm not in the story. I'm
Speaker 1: not at the game yet. So I'm now I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, so I'm saving fifty five hundred bucks. I'm
Speaker 1: not buying four tickets. I'm just buying one awesome ticket.
Speaker 1: Brazil's gonna win, so we're going. I was like, we
Speaker 1: gotta go down one hundred and twenty fifth Street in Harlem.
Speaker 1: I know one of these, like African stands is selling
Speaker 1: World Cup merch and I want an absurd Brazil hat,
Speaker 1: which I bought, and it is the picture that I took.
Speaker 1: So I get that Brazil hat. We go to breakfast
Speaker 1: or brunch before I leave for pinstation. On the way there,
Speaker 1: I get the text from either Matt Ford or Daniel
Speaker 1: or whomever saying, ballots suspension's been overturned.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And in that moment, I'm like, I said to your
Speaker 1: mom and your sister, I was like, you guys don't
Speaker 1: get it. It's like in the entirety of sports media,
Speaker 1: I was the only person with the take of I
Speaker 1: don't care what the rules say. I think we can
Speaker 1: get this overturned just leaning on the history of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like check just check the last one
Speaker 1: hundred years of FIFA in the World Cup and who
Speaker 1: gets the tournament and what happened with you know, Italy
Speaker 1: back in the thirties and forties, and like, I like,
Speaker 1: it feels like week and exactly what I said should
Speaker 1: happen is what happened. And I was like, I get
Speaker 1: to be the only person, the only person that had
Speaker 1: this take and it happened. Yeah, And now everybody's like, actually, Nick,
Speaker 1: that was bad. Actually maybe you cost us the game.
Speaker 1: It's just devastating. And by the way, Brazila lost and
Speaker 1: by the way, that game cost me way more than
Speaker 1: the tickets. Just a real, just cascading event of disaster.
Speaker 1: But we move on, we move on. We're okay, unlike
Speaker 1: Captain America. So let's and I didn't know. Colin told
Speaker 1: me that the internet got mad at me for these takes.
Speaker 1: I truly did not know this. Let's talk Christian polistic h.
Speaker 3: So you took to you took to Twitter after the
Speaker 3: game to greet arrow some grievances towards a guy, Christian Polissik,
Speaker 3: who was hurt throughout the tournament. What frustrated you the
Speaker 3: most with your boy, Christian.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is not a hot take. This is not
Speaker 1: being unfair. I said after the first game, when they
Speaker 1: were talking about him missing a World Cup game because
Speaker 1: he got kicked in the calf, that I was not
Speaker 1: comfortable with it. And everybody tried to Kevin Durant shame me.
Speaker 1: That's what every everybody was trying to indirectly be like, oh, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: all right, if he goes out there and plays and
Speaker 1: pops his achilles, blood's on your hand. When I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew this was not a Kevin Durant style, and
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say I knew. I had a feeling then
Speaker 1: I have a feeling now that if he reaggravated what
Speaker 1: was this is what we knew. Okay, I'm gonna back
Speaker 1: up even further. All right, here's my frustration. Christian Polisic,
Speaker 1: who in the last World Cup scored a goal in
Speaker 1: a must win game against Iran. In the first half
Speaker 1: on the goal got banged into I think by the keeper,
Speaker 1: played the rest of the first half limping around out there,
Speaker 1: and then at halftime can't play anymore, I'm out, and
Speaker 1: the team listened. To his credit, he scored the game
Speaker 1: winning goal to the team's credit. They held on without it,
Speaker 1: but then we got bounced in the next round, and
Speaker 1: he was still like, you know, ailing the next few years.
Speaker 1: We are ramping up to this home World Cup, Gold
Speaker 1: Cup important for the US international not just warm up.
Speaker 1: You get to a trophy. It's not a great trophy.
Speaker 1: You get a trophy. Nope, I'm not playing, says Christian Polisic.
Speaker 1: How did Landon Donovan, the former greatest American player ever
Speaker 1: feel about that? How does Clint Dempsey feel about it?
Speaker 1: Hates it? How does his coach feel about it? Poo
Speaker 1: Chattino hates it? Doesn't matter. I've had this grueling AC
Speaker 1: Milan schedule. I played in the Premier League and because
Speaker 1: I'm on AC Milan, we were in Champions League. I
Speaker 1: played fifty games. I played thirty five hundred minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: that puts you roughly, I don't know, two hundredth in
Speaker 1: international soccer in minutes, more than most, but a lot
Speaker 1: like all the Imbape and Holland and all the best
Speaker 1: players in the world are playing a shit ton of games.
Speaker 1: But you need to rest, no problem, get your rest.
Speaker 1: The rest was so I'm peaking in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: getting ready for the World Cup. Funny thing happened about
Speaker 1: peaking in twenty twenty six. He stopped scoring entirely. He
Speaker 1: went from January one until a week before the tournament
Speaker 1: started for club or country zero goals. Finally got one
Speaker 1: against Senegal, broke the drought. No problem, rearing, ready to go,
Speaker 1: comes into the first game of the home World Cup,
Speaker 1: gets kicked in the calf. We're up three to nothing.
Speaker 1: They sit him out the second half. All right, no problem,
Speaker 1: we're up three to nothing. He played an awesome first half.
Speaker 1: Be careful about it. After the game, all of his
Speaker 1: teammates they're laughing at the idea that he's actually gonna
Speaker 1: miss time. They are dismissing it out of hand. And
Speaker 1: then first day of training, second day of training, third
Speaker 1: day of training is off to the side. We didn't
Speaker 1: find out. Oh, he got kicked in the calf in practice,
Speaker 1: and they got kicked in the calf again again, calf
Speaker 1: strain where you're worried about the Achilles not typically how
Speaker 1: you you get that from being kicked in the calf.
Speaker 1: But we gotta be careful, so careful. And what was
Speaker 1: up to that point the biggest game of his career
Speaker 1: an opportunity to pretend actually clinched the group. He can't
Speaker 1: even give it a go, and even though all his
Speaker 1: teammates thought initially it was nothing, he's now missing the
Speaker 1: second game of the World Cup. Well, I don't love that,
Speaker 1: but they won, so it's fine, all right. Game three
Speaker 1: against Turkey a actually a kind of meaningless game because
Speaker 1: Turkey a lost. We've clinched the group. I would like
Speaker 1: to get you back up to form, He's asked. Going
Speaker 1: into that game. He's like, well, obviously, you know I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be able to play the full ninety
Speaker 1: after missing a game. Well that that's not really a thing.
Speaker 1: Guys in international football get rotated out all the time
Speaker 1: and then the next game play the full ninety. But
Speaker 1: it's a meaningless game, no problem, We'll deal with it.
Speaker 1: Play thirty minutes against Turkey A look kind of good
Speaker 1: for parts of it. Okay, now we're onto the knockout round.
Speaker 1: Knockout round against boz a game that if we lose,
Speaker 1: an utter catastrophe and Christian polistics not one of our
Speaker 1: seven best guys on the field and one of our
Speaker 1: guys gets a red card. And despite that, when we
Speaker 1: are figuring out how we're gonna hold on with just
Speaker 1: ten men and we have limited subs. One of the
Speaker 1: guys that has to come out of the game is
Speaker 1: Polisic because he still can't go the full ninety. Again,
Speaker 1: we won the game anyway. It not ideal, but so
Speaker 1: what he's back, He's in full form and now we
Speaker 1: have our moment, biggest game of this guy's career for
Speaker 1: the US the moment. He is the only guy on
Speaker 1: our team that can look eye to eye with Dobryna
Speaker 1: Dokulakaku and say I play in the same leagues as you.
Speaker 1: I played for Chelsea, I play it for AC Milan,
Speaker 1: I played in Champions League. We have other guys that
Speaker 1: played in the same leagues, but he is looked at
Speaker 1: as you know, you know, star ish, and he's arguably
Speaker 1: our single worst attacking player in the first half of
Speaker 1: that game. It's not just that he's not good, it's
Speaker 1: that here's a fun stat. In the first forty five
Speaker 1: minutes of the game. In the first half, he lost
Speaker 1: possession eleven times, the most of anyone on either team.
Speaker 1: So not great, but luckily we're only down a goal.
Speaker 1: It's now the second half. Steal a goal get to
Speaker 1: extra time, become a legend. And seven minutes and eight
Speaker 1: minutes into the half, he tries to shoot and he
Speaker 1: kicks a guy and by his own words, he twisted
Speaker 1: his ankle or sprained his ankle, his words, and because
Speaker 1: of that, he limps around on the field for four minutes.
Speaker 1: The other team scores, and then he asks out, And
Speaker 1: then after the game he says how disappointed he is,
Speaker 1: but at least now he has a lot of time
Speaker 1: to rest. He had no shit, man, for you, you
Speaker 1: got four years to rest.
Speaker 5: Bro, Come on, come on, bro, come on.
Speaker 1: This is not the guy. You're not the guy. You
Speaker 1: might be the most talented, but you're not the guy.
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna patronize soccer fans or his teammates
Speaker 1: or the sport by treating this any differently than we
Speaker 1: would treat it. If I don't even know what the
Speaker 1: context is. Here's the thing about Ad. Ad gets killed
Speaker 1: for being injury prone, gets killed for it. Ad also
Speaker 1: like eighty stuff. You know, he had the injury where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, nothing happened, and it's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: he broke his thumb. Yeah, it looked like nothing, But
Speaker 1: then it turned out he broke like something. If it
Speaker 1: comes out tomorrow Polistic's got a broken ankle, then take it.
Speaker 1: But from what I know what it appears, I know,
Speaker 1: and again people are gonna get mad about this. But
Speaker 1: this is one of those takes that I know people
Speaker 1: are gonna get mad about. But I also know two
Speaker 1: things about it. One, a lot of the people who
Speaker 1: are mad are pretending to be mad because they agree
Speaker 1: with me. And the other one is I'm right. If
Speaker 1: it turns out Polistic broke a bone in his ankle,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna have a lot of egg on my face.
Speaker 1: But the reason I'm pretty confident Christian Ballistic didn't break
Speaker 1: a bone in his ankle is because from what I
Speaker 1: know about how he deals with Payne suffered on the bitch.
Speaker 1: Had he broke a bone in his ankle. We just
Speaker 1: saw the little gurney guys he'd we'd just seen the wed,
Speaker 1: just seen him carried off. Yes, so I just I don't.
Speaker 1: The US men's national team played four hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: minutes in this tournament. He played two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: four of them. According to I think it's pronounced foot mob,
Speaker 1: but f otmob dot com, which is like the Basketball
Speaker 1: Reference for Soccer. In this tournament, he was our eighth
Speaker 1: best guy. To catastrophe. It's a total catastrophe, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to pretend it's not. And the nonchalance of
Speaker 1: I now get time to rest, Bro, you skip the
Speaker 1: Gold Cup to rest the next World Cups in four
Speaker 1: years in Europe, like you'll be thirty one. So I
Speaker 1: do wonder if his feeling is I work for ac Milan.
Speaker 1: I do this for you guys out of the kindness
Speaker 1: of my heart, like I don't. My job is to
Speaker 1: be awesome for the team that pays me, not for
Speaker 1: the US men's national team, and that is what it is.
Speaker 1: I also think it is fair, and this is the
Speaker 1: like point I was trying to make. Many guys on
Speaker 1: the team yesterday would have had to be taken out
Speaker 1: with the injury Polistic had to be taken out with
Speaker 1: how many guys on the team would have missed a
Speaker 1: game and missed half of Game one and the entirety
Speaker 1: of game two with what happened to him in the
Speaker 1: Paraguay game. You finish this World Cup with one assists,
Speaker 1: no goals, a couple shots, a few nice passes. So
Speaker 1: it's to be the greatest player in the history of
Speaker 1: the country. Like what are we talking about? People mad
Speaker 1: at me? Like oh, and also I just want to
Speaker 1: say this. We don't need to clip this, but I
Speaker 1: want to be on the record about this. And one
Speaker 1: of those clipper folks out there that gets all this,
Speaker 1: you know, Elon Bucks from clipping stuff from our pod
Speaker 1: doesn't even tag us in it. It's as I scroll
Speaker 1: through Twitter, I see my face given my takes and
Speaker 1: then some clutch seasons, you know whatever. Twenty eight is like,
Speaker 1: you know, getting all the views. Clip this please, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need folks to stop acting like I don't watch
Speaker 1: a shit ton of soccer outside of the World Cup.
Speaker 1: It kind of irritates me. I don't pretend you guys
Speaker 1: ever see me get passionate month long hockey takes No,
Speaker 1: you know why, because I don't watch. It's gonna take
Speaker 1: a huge seed change if you all of a sudden
Speaker 1: hear me arguing, staring across the table and be like,
Speaker 1: here's why Ovechkins in the Gretzky combo. No, I'm full
Speaker 1: of shit, or I had a career change. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't really get super I don't spend a ton of
Speaker 1: time doing American professional baseball stuff outside of the playoffs.
Speaker 1: You know why, because I'm not super dialed. I don't
Speaker 1: pretend to be dialed into stuff I'm not dialed into.
Speaker 1: I happen to really like international soccer. Now, I'm as
Speaker 1: I am, I as locked in as I am to
Speaker 1: the NBA or the NFL. No, But do I, I
Speaker 1: don't know, follow it more than probably ninety six percent
Speaker 1: of the country. Yes, am I equipped to have these conversations,
Speaker 1: of course, like they're a little a little too much
Speaker 1: of the nose in the air soccer elitist is talking
Speaker 1: about what I can or can't give a take on,
Speaker 1: like pump your brakes, folks. Uh. But here's the other thing.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be super dialed in international soccer
Speaker 1: to know Polistic wasn't good enough and appears to be,
Speaker 1: to put it, kind of fragile. And I I, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what more to say about it.
Speaker 3: The America somewhere as Polician No, and.
Speaker 1: Our two best players in this tournament didn't grow up here,
Speaker 1: which is probably a problem. Tillman grew up in Germany.
Speaker 1: Ballot Ballot grew up in England. I think that's probably
Speaker 1: not ideal. And I just now again, like Clinton, Dempsey
Speaker 1: and Landon grew up in the States and they were awesome.
Speaker 1: But I just I this is there's no Christian Ballistic
Speaker 1: maybe can turn his international career around, because that's the
Speaker 1: other thing. Christian Ballistics international career has not really gone
Speaker 1: as well as I think his biggest supporters thought it would.
Speaker 1: Like as a kid, he's, you know, star adjacent in
Speaker 1: for Dortmund. Chelsea gives him a nice contract for a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old American and he and he wasn't quite
Speaker 1: good enough. He then goes to Milan and he's really
Speaker 1: really good with Milan, really good. But and again Milan's
Speaker 1: a big club, don't get me wrong, and Syria A
Speaker 1: is obviously you can make the argument it's the second
Speaker 1: best league in the world, maybe third. I know some
Speaker 1: people might even argue, whatever, it's not the EPL, but LAL, Bundesliga,
Speaker 1: Seria A. You know, pick your flavor. And Milan's one
Speaker 1: of the very best clubs. And he won a Champions League.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not trying to act as if he's he didn't.
Speaker 1: He hasn't played well with Milan, but This past year
Speaker 1: with Milan was his worst year, and now he's coming
Speaker 1: off a disastrous World Cup. He can still become a
Speaker 1: really good European professional footballer. As they would say, I
Speaker 1: don't think he can be an American soccer legend anymore.
Speaker 1: Gonna take a hell of a World Cup in twenty
Speaker 1: thirty one or twenty thirty one when he's thirty one
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty All right, demonse, let's talk success or failure.
Speaker 1: But first, actually, before we do that, Oh my goodness, gracious,
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Speaker 1: let's do failure.
Speaker 3: So you talked all tournament about how making the quarterfinals
Speaker 3: will be a huge success for the US. We fell
Speaker 3: short of that mark again, So how would you rate
Speaker 3: our output of the tournament?
Speaker 1: Wholly and entirely unfulfilling. It is in that I that
Speaker 1: was that was gonna be I all right, I can
Speaker 1: only it's too good of a joke not to make it.
Speaker 1: But you have to know how much I love you
Speaker 1: and how proud of you I am every single day.
Speaker 1: And now it's been now it's been ten years, it's
Speaker 1: been ten years. But it's right in it's right in
Speaker 1: that mediarrea where it is not success or failure. It
Speaker 1: is so much of like your high school classes, like
Speaker 1: you didn't fail. I'm not gonna say you succeeded, but
Speaker 1: we can't. It's objectively wrong to call it a failure.
Speaker 1: But I'm also not gonna be like writing home about it,
Speaker 1: like we're not putting a lot of stuff on the
Speaker 1: fridge commemorating it. But there's no failure there. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what it was. Anything short of getting to the yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely no, you're right, you didn't. You didn't fold like
Speaker 1: they did it the final moment. That part's definitely true. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I was just sitting right there. Yeah, not getting to
Speaker 1: the round of sixteen would have been of utter failure.
Speaker 1: Not getting out of the group. You would have to
Speaker 1: consider just outlawing, like just getting rid of the team,
Speaker 1: just being like, you know what, in America, soccer stops
Speaker 1: at the club level, like we're not fielding a team.
Speaker 1: Losing to Bosnia in the round of thirty two, as
Speaker 1: Tierrian's laton reminded us a lot of yesterday that round
Speaker 1: didn't used to exist, would have been mortifying, and winning
Speaker 1: yesterday would have made this the greatest team in American history.
Speaker 1: It's a very it's very like so, and losing in
Speaker 1: a different fashion would have made it a stomach punch,
Speaker 1: but still, wow, really good run. Instead, we lost worse
Speaker 1: than we've lost in the knockout round since the thirties. Guys.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing about the US World Cup history.
Speaker 1: First ever World Cup and invitational in nineteen thirty We
Speaker 1: win our first two games, oddly enough, one of them
Speaker 1: against Belgium, and then we're one of four teams to
Speaker 1: make the knockout round. Argentina clocks US six to one.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty four World Cup in Italy we play again.
Speaker 1: You ask you want to ask FIFA about how Italy
Speaker 1: got the World Cup in nineteenth In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: don't we play Italy. In the first game, we get
Speaker 1: clocked by Mussolini's guys seven to one. All right, not great.
Speaker 1: We then don't make a knockout round until the nineties.
Speaker 1: And here's how we do ninety four. Play the team
Speaker 1: that ends up winning the tournament, Brazil. We lose one nothing,
Speaker 1: no shame. In that two thousand and two our one
Speaker 1: knockout round victory. We play Mexico, a team we had
Speaker 1: just beaten a year prior, a team we're familiar with.
Speaker 1: We win. We then play Germany, the team that goes
Speaker 1: on to come in second in that tournament. We lose
Speaker 1: one nothing. Twenty ten we play Gone, a team kind
Speaker 1: of on our level. It's one, it goes into extra time.
Speaker 1: We lose two to one. Twenty fourteen, we play Belgium,
Speaker 1: it goes into extra time, we lose two to one.
Speaker 1: Last World Cup, we play Netherlands. We lose three to one.
Speaker 1: It's not ideal, but it's you know, it's two to
Speaker 1: one in the eightieth minute, with a chance to steal it.
Speaker 1: Netherlands scores, they beat us. It's a respectable performance. This
Speaker 1: one we just got clocked and it's just another hard
Speaker 1: ceiling of this round where we can't even be a
Speaker 1: game away from being a game away, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a reminder of how far we have to go. And
Speaker 1: so I don't this tournament was not a failure, and
Speaker 1: the tournament for soccer in America has been a rousing success,
Speaker 1: Like I think there are I do think this how
Speaker 1: great these games have been has created more soccer fans.
Speaker 1: I do think there will be more people that either
Speaker 1: check out their local MLS team or start on you know,
Speaker 1: early Saturday Sunday mornings watching European soccer. I do think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen, and I do think in calling
Speaker 1: a company guy if you want, I think Fox has
Speaker 1: absolutely killed the execution of this tournament and made all
Speaker 1: these games feel so big and so important. But the
Speaker 1: US men's national team did not succeed. The objective was
Speaker 1: always make the quarters, see what happens, and as a fan,
Speaker 1: I'm bummed that we just don't get the five day
Speaker 1: lead up to holy shit, US Spain with a chance
Speaker 1: to go to the Semis La min Ya malt that
Speaker 1: team that by some people's eyes is the number one
Speaker 1: team in the world, the pre tournament favorites to win
Speaker 1: the thing. Let's go see what happens. We don't get it,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't because we ran into a juggernaut. And
Speaker 1: that's the other piece of it that makes this so
Speaker 1: tough to stomach.
Speaker 2: If Belgium, you know what, if Belgium, men's.
Speaker 1: Listen, you're right. If Belgium beats Spain and it's that
Speaker 1: Belgium's peaking, maybe we feel a little bit better. But man,
Speaker 1: oh man, we got fortunate with our draw. First of all,
Speaker 1: demon's the way it works. The top twelve teams in
Speaker 1: the world all gets separated into different groups. There's twelve groups.
Speaker 1: The top twelve all get their own group, except if
Speaker 1: you're a host nation, then you get one of those groups.
Speaker 1: So this year, Canada, Mexico and the US, which were
Speaker 1: not top twelve teams, you had to be a top
Speaker 1: nine team to get your own group. Because Canada, Mexico
Speaker 1: and the US were ten, eleven, twelve. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: get that next time around, so we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: harder group stage. Of all the teams that made the
Speaker 1: round of thirty two, our first round opponent, Bosnia was
Speaker 1: the third worst as far as world rankings, so we
Speaker 1: had an awesome draw there. Of the sixteen teams that
Speaker 1: made the round of sixteen, Belgium was exactly middle of
Speaker 1: the pack, so we had an average draw there. So
Speaker 1: it's just and we're at home. So the you know,
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that Poachtino coaches this team up, you know,
Speaker 1: gets us all the way up before next World Cup
Speaker 1: to twelve thirteen in the world and we get a
Speaker 1: tough group draw. We're in the group of death, we
Speaker 1: end up surviving the group, coming in second or third,
Speaker 1: and we play our round one game is against a
Speaker 1: retooled Germany team and we're just out. We're better, and
Speaker 1: we're out. Not gonna have this path again, and we're
Speaker 1: not gonna be back home. And that's why you can't
Speaker 1: call this a success. I do have one path though,
Speaker 1: forward for us. Before we do that, though, let me
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Speaker 1: boost mobile dot com. All right, demonse, let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about Uh, soccer move in this country moving forward?
Speaker 2: Oh going there?
Speaker 3: So yeah, with the with the combination of us hosting
Speaker 3: the tournament and having a fun run, there's been a
Speaker 3: lot more eyes on soccer. Do you think that it
Speaker 3: will be it'll hold in our country and we'll be
Speaker 3: interested in it moving forward?
Speaker 1: So I yeah, I mean I do think this helps
Speaker 1: a lot because this tournament's been so great. I also
Speaker 1: think that Messi and Argentina pulling it out of the
Speaker 1: fire today, you know, helps the more the longer Messi's
Speaker 1: in this tournament, He's just, you know, the biggest star
Speaker 1: in the world. I think that helps a ton. What
Speaker 1: I actually ask me the follow up here because I
Speaker 1: have an idea here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, while the outcome in the World Cup was disappointing,
Speaker 3: the combo of an exciting run host Uh, there's no
Speaker 3: free agency.
Speaker 1: In world the free agency thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's no free agency in World Cup soccer.
Speaker 2: How do we get better?
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. We are no time soon going
Speaker 1: to all of a sudden become an academy like France
Speaker 1: or Spain where we just have like just twenty awesome guys.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the path. I think that we
Speaker 1: don't try to follow that model. I think we try
Speaker 1: to follow the model of how has you know, how
Speaker 1: did Egypt almost beat Argentina today? Why did Norway beat Brazil?
Speaker 1: Why did Croatia make back to back semifinals? Why did
Speaker 1: Morocco make the semifinal last year? And this year we'll
Speaker 1: see how if they can upset France on Thursday in
Speaker 1: a game, albeit a super duper star leading the way.
Speaker 1: Egypt's got most Sala, Norway's got Holland Croatia had Luka
Speaker 1: Modric and uh, who's the other team I mentioned? Oh,
Speaker 1: Morocco's got a Kimi. I I think it is possible
Speaker 1: that we can develop one of the best players in
Speaker 1: the world and see how far we can ride that
Speaker 1: guy and listen nobody the I do think that one
Speaker 1: of the there are a lot of things I would do.
Speaker 1: One of the things I would do if I were
Speaker 1: running American soccer is and I know this is kind
Speaker 1: of a cliche idea to a degree, but I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a bad one. I would have guys in
Speaker 1: different parts of the country whose job it is to
Speaker 1: follow because rivals or whatever rivals is turned into or
Speaker 1: whatever still does like, you know, the best seventh and
Speaker 1: eighth graders in football, Like they have those lists. And
Speaker 1: I would go talk to the best running backs, the
Speaker 1: best twelve year old running backs or even younger in
Speaker 1: the country and their parents and be like, hey, just
Speaker 1: so you know, you believe your kid can make the NFL,
Speaker 1: just you know, just throwing it out there. Here's for
Speaker 1: an all pro running back career earnings. And here is
Speaker 1: the career earnings for the one hundredth best soccer player
Speaker 1: in the world. Just food for thought.
Speaker 2: Just twelve.
Speaker 1: The shout.
Speaker 2: The who's that old twelve year old running back? His dog?
Speaker 2: He never made it in the NFL though.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, but uh is that serious? I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I swear to God, I used to watch I used
Speaker 3: to watch all the YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: Okay, no, but uh maybe that is maybe that is
Speaker 1: uh a little old. Okay, Sure. My point is this,
Speaker 1: I do think I I and I get it. It's like, oh, guys,
Speaker 1: you know, MESSI is not some I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: need the biggest, strongest. I do think there is something
Speaker 1: you know. Im Bape is a sick athlete. Holland is
Speaker 1: a sick athlete, and so many of our best athletes.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, how are you And they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I you know, I hit five point fifty in baseball.
Speaker 1: I was you know, I averaged twenty eight and twelve
Speaker 1: in basketball, and now I'm a defensive end. You know,
Speaker 1: Like it's they are just naturally gifted, awesome athletes. I
Speaker 1: do think it would help us greatly if we had
Speaker 1: a few lottery tickets on those kids, if they really
Speaker 1: went into soccer, because I don't think we're ever going.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can compete on the full team
Speaker 1: level of the best teams in the world. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we can't stumble upon our earling Holland he's
Speaker 1: the kid of a pro athlete who filed in his
Speaker 1: dad's footsteps. Like That's the other thing. The NBA is
Speaker 1: becoming so much more kids of pros, and I just
Speaker 1: do wonder if there is so much more money in
Speaker 1: international soccer than there is in the NFL, except for
Speaker 1: for the quarterbacks, that I just wonder if we can't
Speaker 1: convince maybe again, maybe it's maybe the conversation is with
Speaker 1: retired nflers with young young kids like hey, instead of
Speaker 1: steering your kid towards the NFL. What about steering your
Speaker 1: five year old towards soccer, because there is a level
Speaker 1: of speed, strength, athleticism that we're leaving on the table.
Speaker 1: And even if that means because these kids go to
Speaker 1: you know, the best players in the world, they go
Speaker 1: to academies when they're like ten years old, like the
Speaker 1: that well, and again I don't know. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just like, there's just a lot of guys. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't even think about this. This kind
Speaker 1: of literally is happening, right. It's Alex Freeman who's on
Speaker 1: the team. His dad's Antonio Freeman. And so I just
Speaker 1: think our path is not how do we become Spain,
Speaker 1: it's how do we become Croatia? Like we're with Luca Madrich,
Speaker 1: like with a spectacular all time singular great player and
Speaker 1: a few other great ones. But man, oh man, last
Speaker 1: thing on this, and then I do want to watch
Speaker 1: the final half hour of Switzerland Columbia. This tournament's been
Speaker 1: one of the greatest months of sports in my life.
Speaker 1: It's just and I am very after When Switzerland Columbia ends,
Speaker 1: there's eight games left and only seven that I really like,
Speaker 1: I don't care so much about the third place game,
Speaker 1: but there's seven of the best games of your life
Speaker 1: left and all tomorrow for the first day in forever,
Speaker 1: there's no games on and then Thursday we get France
Speaker 1: Morocco from Boston at four. Friday we get Spain Belgium
Speaker 1: at six pm Eastern. I'm gonna be you eastern times
Speaker 1: from LA I should have been in the US or
Speaker 1: could have been the US. Saturday we get Norway England
Speaker 1: at five o'clock from Miami, and then Saturday night we
Speaker 1: get Argentina against Oh wait, hold on, did I give
Speaker 1: you the wrong time? Spain Belgium's on at three eastern,
Speaker 1: not six eastern. Wow, I didn't realize that. Oh they're
Speaker 1: not putting it on at night. Okay, wow, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that at all. But we have game. We have
Speaker 1: amazing games Thursday, Friday, at doubleheader Saturday, and then then
Speaker 1: the real sadness kind of kicks in where there's no
Speaker 1: games for a number of days, and then Semifinal one
Speaker 1: is Tuesday. Oh, Semifinal two is Wednesday. So I just realized, guys, Sorry, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: we were gonna do a sh show at four o'clock.
Speaker 1: We are not doing a show that is up against
Speaker 1: the World Cup semifinal, So we're gonna we might push
Speaker 1: that toill later in the show to day. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how we're gonna do that, or maybe I'll just
Speaker 1: do an emergency episode by myself. I'm not sure. But
Speaker 1: so there's another reason subscribe to the pod. We're not
Speaker 1: gonna counterprogram the World Cup semifinal. It show's popular, not
Speaker 1: that popular, We're not We're gonna go ahead and not
Speaker 1: do that. Uh, but we just did an hour and
Speaker 1: twenty minutes on the US. We'll do We'll be back
Speaker 1: here tomorrow where we will do I'm sure a ton
Speaker 1: more on the World Cup and where's Lebron going, NBA
Speaker 1: free agency, all of that. A huge thank you too,
Speaker 1: Hard Rock, Bet, Boost Mobile and our newest sponsor, Square.
Speaker 1: How about that huge thank you to Blue Duck, and
Speaker 1: a volume to Demon's and everybody. Everyone. Enjoy the games.
Speaker 1: Talk to you guys soon, see you guys tomorrow. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the pod so you know when we're live. What's
Speaker 1: right