# Best Of World Cup: Yamal, Messi, Mbappe, Ronaldo, USMNT

An episode of [The Colin Cowherd Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1551365571), 21 Jul 2026, 53 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/arttrk.com/p/D5CA5/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4013d28e-5f67-4885-bff1-ae3300346830/4d5d43a6-3177-4e7b-8efa-b48e00113301/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=e829cf60-fc06-4d61-8691-ae330034683e

A collection of Colin’s best World Cup takes throughout this unforgettable World Cup. Colin discusses everything including the USMNT’s run, Spain’s dominance, Mbappe’s goals for France, Ronaldo’s impact with Portugal, Messi making history with Argentina, and more. All lines provided by @hardrockbet (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates! #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The volume.
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[1:11] Speaker 2: s q U a r E dot com slash go
[1:14] Speaker 2: slash colin. This is what hard rock bet looks like.
[1:23] Speaker 2: It's all yellow shirts.
[1:25] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the whole casino, yes, one hundred percent. Oh yes,
[1:29] Speaker 3: the casino, the guitar casino has been That's what I'm saying.
[1:32] Speaker 3: So either the portugu and I'm not sure it might
[1:35] Speaker 3: be like that their Hollywood, Florida is a Columbian stronghold,
[1:38] Speaker 3: and there's different Portuguese stronghold elsewhere in the South Florida area,
[1:42] Speaker 3: but I have seen I saw zero Christiano Ronaldo or
[1:47] Speaker 3: Portugal jerseys at the casino. I've seen zero here. It's
[1:52] Speaker 3: it really seems like Columbia is gonna have a home
[1:54] Speaker 3: field advantage tonight in the game, and if that informs
[1:57] Speaker 3: my bet. I have not bet the game yet. I
[1:59] Speaker 3: thought of and I don't know which way I'm leaning,
[2:01] Speaker 3: but I feel like we're we're almost, We're almost. It's
[2:04] Speaker 3: almost mandatory to go with Columbia at this point.
[2:06] Speaker 2: It is, you know, I was thinking about this as
[2:09] Speaker 2: I was flying down today by the way commercial as
[2:13] Speaker 2: I was.
[2:14] Speaker 4: That's not a good for you a man of the people.
[2:17] Speaker 2: So I was flying down in Row twenty eight and
[2:19] Speaker 2: I and I was thinking about as I was doing it,
[2:22] Speaker 2: that when was the last time that I turned on
[2:27] Speaker 2: a sporting event? And was shocked at what I was watching.
[2:33] Speaker 2: So the first half against Paraguay, the first fifteen minutes.
[2:37] Speaker 4: Our aggressive, He's stunning.
[2:39] Speaker 2: I think it's the best half of football any United
[2:42] Speaker 2: States soccer team has ever played.
[2:44] Speaker 5: National team, And I was.
[2:45] Speaker 2: Thinking, when's the last time you turned on a game?
[2:50] Speaker 2: I will say this when when Indiana started taking Alabama
[2:54] Speaker 2: to the woodshed, was like, whoa, the sport is seeds.
[2:58] Speaker 2: You know, that's one of those. But one of the things,
[3:00] Speaker 2: one of the things about the World Cup that it's
[3:01] Speaker 2: always been hard to gauge. We before the friendlies with
[3:07] Speaker 2: Senegal in Germany, we had been on about a nine
[3:10] Speaker 2: month drought.
[3:11] Speaker 4: We had played terribly in Polisic had and scored in
[3:13] Speaker 4: a year.
[3:14] Speaker 2: And even with A C. Malaney, they had nagging injuries.
[3:17] Speaker 2: And I remember saying to one of the executives at Fox,
[3:21] Speaker 2: I've got horrible vibes about this.
[3:23] Speaker 3: I said, we better have a plan for how we're
[3:28] Speaker 3: gonna talk World Cup, not about the US men's national team.
[3:31] Speaker 3: I was like, we gotta I understand, we're all rooting
[3:34] Speaker 3: for a deep run. But I three weeks before the
[3:36] Speaker 3: World Cup, I was like, hey, guys on the show.
[3:39] Speaker 3: We had a meeting. We were like, hey, we can
[3:41] Speaker 3: all we're all rooting for the US, but we need
[3:43] Speaker 3: to put stakes in the ground on other countries that
[3:46] Speaker 3: are actually going to be playing in the big games,
[3:48] Speaker 3: because the US looked like it was in.
[3:50] Speaker 2: Total disarray instead. Correct, it's been magical. Mexico's good. Yes, England,
[3:59] Speaker 2: all the stars are scoring, all the strikers young and old.
[4:04] Speaker 2: There's been just enough upsets and we've gotten almost universally
[4:12] Speaker 2: permitting weather. Philadelphia had an ugly yes for one day. Yeah,
[4:16] Speaker 2: but I mean you look at the heat wave France
[4:18] Speaker 2: is going through. Correct, we have been so lucky. Just
[4:23] Speaker 2: enough controversy. The high ration breaks are kind of you know,
[4:26] Speaker 2: people are overwrought with that. And my take is they
[4:29] Speaker 2: really started those things.
[4:30] Speaker 3: In like twenty eighteen or twenty twenty twenty two had
[4:35] Speaker 3: to do it well. Twenty fourteen in Brazil there was
[4:38] Speaker 3: an element of it. Twenty eighteen it was in Russia, right,
[4:43] Speaker 3: But twenty I'm not say twenty two in Katar.
[4:46] Speaker 5: You had to have it.
[4:47] Speaker 4: Absolutely.
[4:47] Speaker 3: I don't care about that, to be totally honest, I
[4:50] Speaker 3: love soccer around a purists.
[4:51] Speaker 4: I don't care about it.
[4:52] Speaker 3: But to your point though, and then we get to
[4:54] Speaker 3: the US men's national team about this World Cup setting
[4:58] Speaker 3: up with the story, the stars and the best teams.
[5:02] Speaker 3: One of your long time march madness takes is upsets
[5:05] Speaker 3: are fun, but it makes the tournament worse. Ten groups
[5:09] Speaker 3: have been decided. We are ten for ten on the
[5:12] Speaker 3: favorite winning the group. Every single favorite has won its group,
[5:16] Speaker 3: and then we'll see what happens in the final two groups,
[5:19] Speaker 3: of which a lot of these Columbian fans are opening.
[5:21] Speaker 3: The favorite doesn't win because Portugal is one of them,
[5:23] Speaker 3: and then England obviously is the other favorite. So you
[5:26] Speaker 3: have no great teams that have been sent on Check one,
[5:30] Speaker 3: Check two. Is every single one of the huge stars.
[5:33] Speaker 3: It's not only scored had a multi goal game. Even
[5:37] Speaker 3: Christiano Ronaldo, who's forty one and might be wheeled into
[5:40] Speaker 3: the arena, has to at a multi goal game. Messi's
[5:43] Speaker 3: been unbelievable. Messi retired from World Cups in twenty fifteen.
[5:49] Speaker 3: Since then, he's played in three or four and one
[5:53] Speaker 3: to one and might win another. So that's happening, and
[5:56] Speaker 3: it is like the bracket is set up to where
[6:00] Speaker 3: are staring at France Germany in the round of sixteen,
[6:03] Speaker 3: We're staring at Argentina, potentially Portugal in the round of eight,
[6:09] Speaker 3: Mexico hosting England in Mexico City in the round of sixteen.
[6:16] Speaker 3: That's before we even get to the semis, before you
[6:19] Speaker 3: even talk about what you know, if it again, if
[6:23] Speaker 3: the seeding holds, so to speak, we could get Brazil
[6:27] Speaker 3: Argentina in the World Cup semis on one side of
[6:30] Speaker 3: the bracket and France, Spain or maybe the US in
[6:35] Speaker 3: the semis on the other side of the bracket. And
[6:37] Speaker 3: on top of all that, the US has played I
[6:42] Speaker 3: don't know, of my lifetime four of the six best
[6:46] Speaker 3: halves of soccer they've ever played.
[6:48] Speaker 4: And I'm forty years old.
[6:50] Speaker 2: Well, and I said this the other day, is that
[6:52] Speaker 2: the great thing about tournaments that Illinois is a great
[6:54] Speaker 2: example of this. You can get to the final four
[6:56] Speaker 2: of the Elite eight having played one good team.
[6:58] Speaker 4: They played Houston, yep.
[7:00] Speaker 2: And that's the reality is you get to the knockout
[7:02] Speaker 2: stage and you're like, oh, I don't want to play them. Boom,
[7:03] Speaker 2: they loose yellow cards, red cards, injuries. I mean the
[7:08] Speaker 2: reality is great teams get a little tight, just like
[7:12] Speaker 2: March badness, sure right. Unlike basketball, where tight means you
[7:16] Speaker 2: score seventy two nine eighty two, titan soccer means one
[7:19] Speaker 2: goalnot three. And you can see sometimes when you get
[7:22] Speaker 2: to these later stages that the heavy favorite who by
[7:26] Speaker 2: the way, is getting clovered by their country's media.
[7:29] Speaker 4: Right.
[7:29] Speaker 2: And so I mean this is why Turkey A when
[7:32] Speaker 2: they beat us, I'm like, guys, they had to win.
[7:35] Speaker 2: I mean it was like the coach is going to
[7:37] Speaker 2: get fired. I was so overjoyed with our effort. You know,
[7:41] Speaker 2: you and I have talked about this. People were so
[7:43] Speaker 2: disappointed with the outcome. And I said, timeout, go one
[7:47] Speaker 2: second before the kick. You would have said, are reserves tied?
[7:53] Speaker 2: Correct a desperate team, So the kick can't make me
[7:57] Speaker 2: think bad.
[7:57] Speaker 4: Outing, So I agree with you.
[8:01] Speaker 3: I also, if we want to go glass really half full,
[8:04] Speaker 3: you know, probably good for the team to not get
[8:07] Speaker 3: a little too full of itself.
[8:09] Speaker 5: All that.
[8:10] Speaker 4: I it's the World Cup.
[8:12] Speaker 3: We had an opportunity to, you know, continue do what
[8:15] Speaker 3: Mexico did, Hey, it's a meaningless game.
[8:17] Speaker 4: We're gonna go undefeated anyway.
[8:19] Speaker 3: And I was prepared mentally for a draw or even
[8:23] Speaker 3: a loss before the game. When they scored two minutes in,
[8:26] Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, I hate you, tweeted like.
[8:29] Speaker 4: I'm not used to the US being the best team
[8:31] Speaker 4: in the world, but they I have.
[8:34] Speaker 3: My My expectations going into this tournament for the US
[8:39] Speaker 3: team were very simple. If if somehow they don't get
[8:42] Speaker 3: out of the group, then you have to burn the
[8:45] Speaker 3: whole thing to the ground.
[8:46] Speaker 1: Right.
[8:46] Speaker 4: They not only got out of the group, they won
[8:48] Speaker 4: the group.
[8:49] Speaker 3: We have had for my entire life, well for everybody
[8:52] Speaker 3: here his entire life. The side from the opening tournament
[8:56] Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty a pretty hard ceiling of the round
[9:00] Speaker 3: of sixteen. We've made the quarters once, it was in
[9:03] Speaker 3: O two. The goal was to make the quarters again,
[9:08] Speaker 3: right and see what the hell happens, And they are
[9:12] Speaker 3: now well positioned to do that. They get they have
[9:14] Speaker 3: Bosnia in the first round and then Melchium, probably probably
[9:18] Speaker 3: Belgium at the sea they're off there.
[9:20] Speaker 4: Belgium has not been good.
[9:21] Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying that because I had my
[9:23] Speaker 3: Father's Day ruined by betting Belgium and they scored zero goals.
[9:26] Speaker 2: But they were you know, back in twenty eighteen they
[9:29] Speaker 2: finished third, Yes, and since twenty fourteen they've made every
[9:32] Speaker 2: big European tournament.
[9:35] Speaker 5: But they're not the same.
[9:36] Speaker 2: They're no a lot lesslayer's age out correct, got new
[9:38] Speaker 2: young players, they're not as dynamic.
[9:40] Speaker 4: And Lekaku is not as good as he once was.
[9:43] Speaker 4: But Doku will be the best player on the field
[9:46] Speaker 4: in that game. But so be it. Like, well have
[9:47] Speaker 4: home field advantage.
[9:48] Speaker 3: And of all the teams you could play in the
[9:50] Speaker 3: round of sixteen, they're not They haven't played that great.
[9:53] Speaker 4: They're not one of the best ones.
[9:55] Speaker 3: I but to your I want to circle back to
[9:57] Speaker 3: your first point, which is I have always spelt World
[10:01] Speaker 3: Cup time, all right, what's the US plan?
[10:04] Speaker 4: Hold the other team to zero and hope you score
[10:07] Speaker 4: on a set piece.
[10:08] Speaker 3: It's just been like, if you're playing a good team
[10:10] Speaker 3: and you're the US, that's likely.
[10:12] Speaker 4: It's like you sure shit.
[10:14] Speaker 3: Better get shut them out and you know you can
[10:16] Speaker 3: get a little lucky or something. You know, one as
[10:19] Speaker 3: they say, moment of magic. That's not this team at
[10:22] Speaker 3: all at all. This team it's you probably gonna need
[10:26] Speaker 3: to score three because you might give up a few,
[10:28] Speaker 3: but you can score one, right, but you they can
[10:31] Speaker 3: score Oh yeah, it's and let's I have the We
[10:36] Speaker 3: talk a lot about how much coaching matters in the
[10:39] Speaker 3: NFL versus the NBA.
[10:41] Speaker 4: It seems to me man like. I guess they call it.
[10:44] Speaker 3: Managing, but managing in soccer might be on level with
[10:48] Speaker 3: coaching in the NFL as far as the importance and
[10:50] Speaker 3: setting a goal for us, instilling believe all of Patino
[10:53] Speaker 3: has been unbelievable.
[10:54] Speaker 2: He's just you know, I always said this when Wemby
[10:56] Speaker 2: came into the NBA, he was us. Yes, he won
[11:00] Speaker 2: to do in everything. He very domestic. Yannis wasn't yo
[11:04] Speaker 2: kich you kitch catch home fast enough. Weby's like, I'm
[11:07] Speaker 2: gonna do the monk thing for a couple of weeks,
[11:09] Speaker 2: but I'm gonna come back and start training and I
[11:11] Speaker 2: want to win the NBA All Star Game, MVP. I
[11:14] Speaker 2: could be a villain altro elbows. None of this nonsense
[11:17] Speaker 2: about well, I'm gonna slowly integrate into the American system.
[11:21] Speaker 2: And I think Pochettino his greatest asset has been Okay, guys,
[11:27] Speaker 2: I've done this. We're we're skilled, We're at home. Many
[11:34] Speaker 2: of the good teams are young or a little old.
[11:38] Speaker 2: You can I use these Seahawks as a comparison. Our
[11:41] Speaker 2: thirteen best players are all in their prime, correct or
[11:44] Speaker 2: going into it. That is, that was what Seattle was
[11:47] Speaker 2: last year. The Rams were good, but they had holes
[11:50] Speaker 2: you know, right, and the Rams are a little creaky
[11:52] Speaker 2: at certain spot Seattle, every spot you're like, oh, he's
[11:55] Speaker 2: in his prime.
[11:56] Speaker 4: Two that's rare in sports.
[11:59] Speaker 2: That was the early Chiefs with Mahomes, when Kelsey was
[12:02] Speaker 2: getting a little old but was still late prime. You're like,
[12:04] Speaker 2: every one of their best players is in their prime.
[12:06] Speaker 4: Right.
[12:06] Speaker 3: The only young guy was Mahomes, and it is the
[12:09] Speaker 3: only guy who wasn't supposed to be in his prime
[12:11] Speaker 3: yet was the quarterback.
[12:12] Speaker 4: But he got to his prime imediately. The U, yes,
[12:14] Speaker 4: the US. It is a real.
[12:16] Speaker 3: Question of like, man, how many guys on this team
[12:19] Speaker 3: will be around in twenty twenty six, Like it's the
[12:22] Speaker 3: core will Yeah, I think three of the four best
[12:27] Speaker 3: players will. But in general, my point is this is
[12:31] Speaker 3: if you would have said ten years ago, here, you know,
[12:35] Speaker 3: looking in the future, here's the twenty five. Guys, they're
[12:37] Speaker 3: gonna be on your next three World Cup teams. What's
[12:40] Speaker 3: the one where you're gonna have the best combination of
[12:42] Speaker 3: them aging being at their peak?
[12:44] Speaker 4: We just said twenty twenty six. So all the fact
[12:47] Speaker 4: that we.
[12:47] Speaker 3: Are now going into the knockout rounds because we clinched early,
[12:50] Speaker 3: we don't have to worry about any of the yellow
[12:51] Speaker 3: card accumulation. All those guys, said Polisic, who how do
[12:56] Speaker 3: I put this? Seems to be a little fragile. Seems
[12:59] Speaker 3: like he doesn't necessarily play. He needs to be one
[13:02] Speaker 3: hundred percent to want to go. Yeah, I'm not you know.
[13:06] Speaker 3: I really hope he doesn't get god forbid kicked in
[13:08] Speaker 3: the calf again and have to miss ten days in
[13:11] Speaker 3: the World Cup. But he's healthy and I think they
[13:15] Speaker 3: feel great. And I thought Buchatino was so funny when
[13:18] Speaker 3: he was scolding the media when he was like, you
[13:20] Speaker 3: guys are acting like we go home in Turkey. A
[13:23] Speaker 3: advances like we won the group. We didn't need to
[13:27] Speaker 3: win this game. And they're gonna get even more confidence,
[13:30] Speaker 3: I would imagine, because I think they'll beat Bosnia handily
[13:34] Speaker 3: and then we'll see the I had it in front
[13:36] Speaker 3: of me before I'm gonna pull it up again. It's
[13:38] Speaker 3: we played Belgium, but Belgium's gotta win, and so I
[13:42] Speaker 3: want to see who the other team is. I don't
[13:43] Speaker 3: think it's totally set yet, but I'll pull it up.
[13:45] Speaker 3: But yeah, I think they're gonna make the quarters. And
[13:47] Speaker 3: I think we're gonna have the United States playing Spain
[13:50] Speaker 3: in a World Cup quarter.
[13:52] Speaker 4: Fine, I think we match up fine with Spain.
[13:54] Speaker 2: I don't think anybody matches up with France.
[13:57] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean France looks really, really good.
[13:59] Speaker 2: So I was saying this, you know, every week I
[14:02] Speaker 2: do that Colin right, Colin wrong, and I don't mind
[14:04] Speaker 2: being wrong, but I like being right more than wrong.
[14:06] Speaker 2: And I said, losing to Turkey a proves a twenty
[14:10] Speaker 2: year point I've had. So anytime the American soccer team loses,
[14:14] Speaker 2: you gotta blame Jurgen Klinsman, Bruce Arena, Greg Berholt. It's
[14:19] Speaker 2: always the coach correct, And it's like, but why do
[14:21] Speaker 2: all of our coaches before Pochettino play the same counterattacking
[14:25] Speaker 2: style heavy on set pieces. That's right, because we can't
[14:28] Speaker 2: attack our personnel. It's the same day if you have
[14:31] Speaker 2: bad If you have a bad secondary, you got to
[14:33] Speaker 2: be very careful about bringing extra people in the pass
[14:36] Speaker 2: rock yep, right, great corners, jail break bringing sure.
[14:41] Speaker 5: Okay.
[14:42] Speaker 2: So suddenly last Pochettino's hyper aggressive. So it's not a
[14:47] Speaker 2: scheme thing. He didn't have any tactical blunders. We played
[14:51] Speaker 2: our backups and couldn't dominate possession sloppy, and it's like,
[14:55] Speaker 2: it proves my point. It's not a coaching thing. Our
[14:59] Speaker 2: scheme did not change. We went hyper aggressive all sports.
[15:03] Speaker 2: Andy Reid makes Mahome better. Mahomes be fine without it.
[15:07] Speaker 2: He may not get the rings, but he'd be great. Sure,
[15:10] Speaker 2: And Belichick deserves a lot of credit. But in the
[15:14] Speaker 2: end we have really good players. Now we're fit on
[15:17] Speaker 2: the back end.
[15:18] Speaker 5: So is England, so is Norway.
[15:20] Speaker 4: Yep.
[15:21] Speaker 2: But when you watch us play, it was so to me,
[15:25] Speaker 2: it was so instructive to watch how aggressive we were
[15:29] Speaker 2: with our reserves still winning possession.
[15:32] Speaker 5: Sloppy, but it was.
[15:34] Speaker 4: But it proved the value of that, which is.
[15:38] Speaker 3: You cannot play that well and just have a couple
[15:41] Speaker 3: of great moments and get.
[15:42] Speaker 4: Two goals out of it, as opposed to.
[15:44] Speaker 3: The previous philosophy, which seemed to be we have to
[15:47] Speaker 3: be perfect tactically because we can't give up a goal,
[15:51] Speaker 3: and then we hope to have a moment. It's also
[15:53] Speaker 3: a hell of a lot more fun to watch. Oh yeah,
[15:55] Speaker 3: I did look it up. I couldn't remember. So if
[15:58] Speaker 3: in order for you know, assuming we beat Bosnia, yes
[16:03] Speaker 3: it might be Belgium, but Belgium's most likely opponent there
[16:06] Speaker 3: is Senegal. Senegal absolutely can beat Belgium, and we're not
[16:10] Speaker 3: We've played Senegal before, we've played them in the warm up,
[16:12] Speaker 3: yet like we we're not gonna feel it'll be the
[16:16] Speaker 3: first time ever if we're in the round of sixteen
[16:21] Speaker 3: where we might be favored, and if we're not favored,
[16:25] Speaker 3: we're all gonna feel like, oh well, that's a coin flip,
[16:27] Speaker 3: like we definitely can win that game. And it does
[16:30] Speaker 3: seem like historically, and it's felt this way this tournament,
[16:35] Speaker 3: that there is no event in sports where home field
[16:37] Speaker 3: advantage has a bigger impact than the World Cup. It
[16:40] Speaker 3: does just feel like the it's impossible for the officials
[16:44] Speaker 3: not to somewhat get caught up in the emotion of
[16:49] Speaker 3: the crowd and fifty to fifty calls go the home
[16:52] Speaker 3: team's way and the other team gets a little more
[16:55] Speaker 3: rattled by in what's supposed to be a neutral site
[16:59] Speaker 3: tournament their games being you know, as raucous and rowdy
[17:03] Speaker 3: of a hostile fan base as they're going to experience.
[17:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, it's just there's so many things
[17:10] Speaker 2: to be excited about. And I've said this before. Of
[17:12] Speaker 2: course I root for Fox, I root for hard rock BET.
[17:15] Speaker 2: I work for my corporate sponsors and my partners. But
[17:18] Speaker 2: it could not work out better. The weather messy Rinaldo
[17:22] Speaker 2: Harry Kane, And it's interesting. Some people were worried that
[17:26] Speaker 2: it would dilute the field when they added teams, but most,
[17:28] Speaker 2: I mean some of these African nations, I don't know
[17:30] Speaker 2: anything about their teams, but.
[17:32] Speaker 3: Dude, they've been so I'm I'm like, speaking of competitive
[17:35] Speaker 3: speaking a hard rock bet, I have a I am
[17:39] Speaker 3: all in on Dr Congo tonight. All in the African
[17:43] Speaker 3: nations have been underrated. Congo advances with a win. Who's Bekistan.
[17:47] Speaker 3: I'm not gonna act like I've Scott Husbekistan, but I've
[17:50] Speaker 3: watched their games. They don't seem to be good and
[17:52] Speaker 3: Congo and they're only minus one forty like so the
[17:56] Speaker 3: I'm going to Portugal Columbia, I have no you know,
[17:59] Speaker 3: insight on that. But the African nations have I think
[18:03] Speaker 3: been pretty undervalued by the odds makers and they have
[18:07] Speaker 3: been really competitive. And to your point.
[18:10] Speaker 2: About no pressure and tons of motivation correct to come back.
[18:15] Speaker 3: But your point about I saw your our colleague. But
[18:19] Speaker 3: a guy who's been on your podcast a couple times,
[18:21] Speaker 3: Michael Molbi, will say if the US big, if if
[18:25] Speaker 3: they were to make a World Cup final, it would
[18:29] Speaker 3: do the same type of rating domestically as the NFC
[18:32] Speaker 3: Championship game. He said, fifty to sixty million people's net
[18:35] Speaker 3: create would watch it. Even if the US, you know,
[18:38] Speaker 3: let's just say the US gets pop doesn't make it past.
[18:44] Speaker 4: The quarters, which is you know, really where it's projected.
[18:47] Speaker 3: If the bracket holds, this is what we are looking
[18:51] Speaker 3: at in the quarterfinals, France playing either Netherlands or Morocco.
[18:56] Speaker 3: Netherlands is my dark horse, and well they if they
[18:59] Speaker 3: can get past Morocco and round to thirty two, they
[19:01] Speaker 3: got a great chance. The bottom left part of the
[19:04] Speaker 3: bracket quarterfinal in La July tenth Spain US seems.
[19:09] Speaker 4: Like a pretty cool game Wow.
[19:11] Speaker 3: The quarterfinal here in Miami July eleventh, that would be
[19:17] Speaker 3: Brazil against England or Mexico. Of Mexico upsets them. Either
[19:21] Speaker 3: way Brazil eng would be sick. And then the other
[19:24] Speaker 3: quarterfinal in Kansas City July eleventh, what I would imagine
[19:28] Speaker 3: will be the highest rated non World Cup final in
[19:31] Speaker 3: world history. Again, if the bracket holds Argentina Portugal, Messi
[19:35] Speaker 3: Ronaldo for an opportunity to go to the semifinal, and
[19:39] Speaker 3: I understand that's just going with the chalk. But this
[19:42] Speaker 3: has been while in an exciting tournament. As I said,
[19:45] Speaker 3: all ten groups have been won by the favorites. This
[19:48] Speaker 3: has been a chalk chalk ish tournament, which is because
[19:52] Speaker 3: the star has been so good. I'm just I'm super
[19:55] Speaker 3: excited about it. And I do think there is now
[19:58] Speaker 3: an element of a moment like this. And the other
[20:01] Speaker 3: big thing about the World Cup is the time zones.
[20:04] Speaker 3: You need the games not at three am at the Olympic. Correct,
[20:08] Speaker 3: It's like it's less important that the game is in
[20:12] Speaker 3: the United States and more that it's in this hemisphere.
[20:14] Speaker 3: Like the last World Cup that I was this into
[20:17] Speaker 3: was twenty fourteen Brazil. Because Brazil is on the same
[20:21] Speaker 3: time zones as US, I wouldn't go into the games anyway,
[20:24] Speaker 3: so what did I care? I do think this will
[20:27] Speaker 3: create more interest domestically in the MLS, in the English
[20:32] Speaker 3: Premier League and in following these stars throughout their regular season.
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[21:33] Speaker 2: until nine twenty seven, twenty twenty six. I know you
[21:42] Speaker 2: you're going to laugh at me for saying this, but
[21:44] Speaker 2: I think one of the things that helps us is
[21:46] Speaker 2: there has been a capitalization, a geopolitical growth from the
[21:52] Speaker 2: United States for the last ten years, and that is
[21:55] Speaker 2: separated from your own. I just read a story in
[21:57] Speaker 2: The Atlantic flying down. I have a subscription to the
[21:59] Speaker 2: Atlanta is why did Britain get poorer than the Mississippi?
[22:03] Speaker 2: And it's a big it's big discussion of Jamie Diamond
[22:05] Speaker 2: and all these you know, financiers in New York. We
[22:08] Speaker 2: have separated from Europe. Well, that plays to our strength
[22:11] Speaker 2: because a lot of these soccer stars to get him too,
[22:13] Speaker 2: the MLS to get Ken Griffin, a financier of Citadel.
[22:19] Speaker 2: He's the one that paid for Pochettino.
[22:21] Speaker 4: Yes, he's so.
[22:22] Speaker 2: The reality is rich guys like to be part of
[22:26] Speaker 2: good momentum and cool stuff. Correct, And if we can
[22:28] Speaker 2: get to a final eight, I can see a world
[22:31] Speaker 2: in which we're like, we're gonna go over there and
[22:34] Speaker 2: we're gonna.
[22:35] Speaker 4: Make big bids. Oh, try to get some better players, Fouler.
[22:38] Speaker 2: And remember was only Valen Balgan is only on our
[22:43] Speaker 2: team eligible because his.
[22:45] Speaker 3: Flight attendant Fighterdant said, Mom too pregnant to fly. That
[22:49] Speaker 3: lady get that lady should get if we find her
[22:51] Speaker 3: and get her a ticket to the next US.
[22:53] Speaker 2: And increasingly in the World Cup. You're not necessarily born
[22:56] Speaker 2: in the country or of the country. So there's a
[22:58] Speaker 2: lot of gray sure there. And my take is our
[23:02] Speaker 2: explosion of capital in the United States and in the
[23:04] Speaker 2: Americas could be a big advantage going forward.
[23:06] Speaker 4: That's why momentum here could really be a huge It's hard.
[23:10] Speaker 3: It's also why and where we put the cart a
[23:12] Speaker 3: little for the horse here, and I know you want
[23:14] Speaker 3: to get to other stuff. It's also why that game
[23:18] Speaker 3: against Bosnia is the biggest game in the history of
[23:24] Speaker 3: the US men's national team. And I know that sounds
[23:27] Speaker 3: crazy because it's around the thirty two game. We once
[23:29] Speaker 3: played a round of eight game against South Korea. I
[23:31] Speaker 3: get that that team, that team to get to the
[23:34] Speaker 3: round of eight had won one game in regulation. They
[23:38] Speaker 3: had to win, a draw, a loss, and then a
[23:40] Speaker 3: penalty kicks win. This every as long as they beat Bosnia,
[23:47] Speaker 3: this will feel like such a massive domestic success for soccer.
[23:51] Speaker 4: There will be no shame If they lose in the
[23:52] Speaker 4: round of sixteen.
[23:53] Speaker 3: I think they'd be able to beat Belgium or Senegal
[23:56] Speaker 3: or Korea, anybody they can play there, but there would
[23:58] Speaker 3: be no shame in it. But if you do all
[24:00] Speaker 3: of this and then and then all of a sudden,
[24:03] Speaker 3: because we have, oddly, thanks to the Turkey a game,
[24:06] Speaker 3: lost thirteen straight games against European teams and.
[24:10] Speaker 4: There's a little fluke to that little this.
[24:12] Speaker 3: But then if all of a sudden Bosnia clips us
[24:15] Speaker 3: as the sixty third ranked team in the world, it
[24:17] Speaker 3: will feel like it was for naught. But you win
[24:20] Speaker 3: that game, and they should win that game. They're huge
[24:22] Speaker 3: favorites to win that game. Then you start to you know,
[24:26] Speaker 3: you start to believe crazier things can happen again. Korea
[24:29] Speaker 3: made the semi finals when they hosted this tournament. There
[24:32] Speaker 3: are six of the host nations in history. Their single
[24:36] Speaker 3: best World Cup appearance or you know, best World Cup
[24:41] Speaker 3: the furthest they've ever gone in the World Cup in
[24:43] Speaker 3: their nation's history is when they hosted it.
[24:45] Speaker 4: This is an opportunity for us to do.
[24:48] Speaker 5: It was a nice run. It was a nice run.
[24:53] Speaker 2: But I mean, I think ultimately, if you look at
[24:56] Speaker 2: the teams in the World Cup, you know there is
[24:58] Speaker 2: a kind of a class of eight, and you know, Spain,
[25:02] Speaker 2: we all know who it is. Argentina. Belgium now counts,
[25:05] Speaker 2: although they've gotten a little older. But remember in twenty
[25:08] Speaker 2: eighteen they were one of the three four best teams
[25:10] Speaker 2: in the world. And I mean, I think it was
[25:14] Speaker 2: pretty obvious. I think the first seven or eight minutes
[25:18] Speaker 2: you could say it was nerves. But after that we
[25:20] Speaker 2: weren't winning enough one on one battles, we weren't maintaining
[25:25] Speaker 2: enough possession, We got very few good shots on goal.
[25:28] Speaker 2: We looked like we were outclassed. We looked like we
[25:31] Speaker 2: did against Paraguay, just flipped the sides and so. And
[25:35] Speaker 2: I also think it's a little bit like the NFL playoffs,
[25:38] Speaker 2: is that the better teams you face, the better coaches
[25:42] Speaker 2: you face, and you know you can get through the
[25:44] Speaker 2: AFC or the NFC South, you know, then you match
[25:48] Speaker 2: up against you know, the Buffalos and the Philadelphia's and
[25:51] Speaker 2: the mcveigh's, and you know, just the better coaches and
[25:53] Speaker 2: the better teams and your flaws become gigantic holes. And
[25:58] Speaker 2: I mean Matt Freeze like an MLS goalie tonight. I
[26:01] Speaker 2: mean when he had Tim Howard. We've had Tony Meola,
[26:04] Speaker 2: Casey Keller, Tim Howard, who was a huge physical presence,
[26:07] Speaker 2: a great athlete, hyper aggressive, big strong presence in goal.
[26:12] Speaker 2: Matt Freeze looks like an MLS goalie, you know, an
[26:15] Speaker 2: embarrassing mistake playing with his feet. I mean, that's like
[26:19] Speaker 2: that stuff you see in a Tuesday night in the MLS.
[26:22] Speaker 2: That's just not good enough. And again it's not exposed
[26:24] Speaker 2: against Paraguay that didn't have much of a dynamic offense,
[26:27] Speaker 2: or Australia, but it does get exposed against Belgium. And
[26:35] Speaker 2: you know, I thought, again one of the things I've
[26:37] Speaker 2: said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to kind
[26:41] Speaker 2: of project that you don't understand soccer. You could see
[26:45] Speaker 2: it very quickly. First five or six minutes. We just
[26:48] Speaker 2: could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We couldn't
[26:51] Speaker 2: win the one on one battles until the very end.
[26:53] Speaker 2: We couldn't get quality shots and when Belgium was in
[26:56] Speaker 2: their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
[26:58] Speaker 2: greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims, a thirty
[27:02] Speaker 2: eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
[27:05] Speaker 2: about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
[27:08] Speaker 2: So the back end was our weakness. And again you
[27:12] Speaker 2: face better countries and better players and it's completely, absolutely exposed.
[27:17] Speaker 5: Also listen, Christian Polisic.
[27:18] Speaker 2: If you look at the best teams, Harry Kanes had
[27:20] Speaker 2: a great tournament, so is Messi, so is Embape, so
[27:24] Speaker 2: is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian Pulisic did not. He's
[27:28] Speaker 2: a slight player. He's always been fragile. He gets banged
[27:31] Speaker 2: up again and I didn't think he played with any
[27:33] Speaker 2: confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning his one on
[27:37] Speaker 2: ones and he kind of, you know, gave the ball
[27:41] Speaker 2: up early in his one on one opportunities. He just
[27:45] Speaker 2: gave it up. That that feels a little bit like
[27:48] Speaker 2: kind of bailing. You're lacking confidence. Then later he gets
[27:51] Speaker 2: injured on a legal play.
[27:53] Speaker 5: Was not a foul.
[27:54] Speaker 2: So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
[27:57] Speaker 2: I think we faced a team that beat us. I
[28:00] Speaker 2: think it was five to two in a friendly with
[28:03] Speaker 2: great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of felt
[28:05] Speaker 2: like we weren't playing some of our best players. But
[28:07] Speaker 2: you know, in this instance, we played our best players
[28:09] Speaker 2: and we were just outclassed, you know, And you know,
[28:13] Speaker 2: you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
[28:19] Speaker 2: is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
[28:22] Speaker 2: before Beljium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
[28:26] Speaker 2: is that soccer is always going to be about who's
[28:29] Speaker 2: got the worst, who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
[28:36] Speaker 2: who can create better opportunities more shots on goal?
[28:39] Speaker 5: I mean, how many quality shots did we get on
[28:41] Speaker 5: goal tonight?
[28:43] Speaker 4: Two?
[28:45] Speaker 2: Even the Malik Tillman goal on the free kick was
[28:48] Speaker 2: a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose this
[28:54] Speaker 2: way than be frustrated. I mean, Balligan really only got
[28:57] Speaker 2: one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes I
[29:02] Speaker 2: wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no shots
[29:05] Speaker 2: on goal, Belgium two to one. Physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
[29:12] Speaker 2: First USA corner kick was at the end of the
[29:14] Speaker 2: first half. I just think when you see a team
[29:19] Speaker 2: that has a higher level of skill, more experience in
[29:23] Speaker 2: bigger games inside one point, stue Holden was asked about
[29:26] Speaker 2: how do you get better in big games and his
[29:28] Speaker 2: answer was appropriate, you play in them. And Belgium just
[29:31] Speaker 2: felt like they had been in more games like this.
[29:36] Speaker 2: You know, it was funny in the first seven or
[29:37] Speaker 2: eight minutes, I saw that they were calling it nervy
[29:40] Speaker 2: and I'm like, yeah, I'll give you that for about
[29:42] Speaker 2: five minutes, and then it was really really clear we
[29:46] Speaker 2: could not There must have been six, seven, eight, nine
[29:50] Speaker 2: straight moments where it would come down to a one
[29:53] Speaker 2: on one battle and Belgium always came out with a
[29:55] Speaker 2: ball and we met our match.
[30:00] Speaker 4: But we know.
[30:02] Speaker 2: Now if we flipped goalies, would we have a greater opportunity. Yeah,
[30:07] Speaker 2: but we weren't going to beat Belgium. I thought Matt
[30:11] Speaker 2: Freeze felt like a little bit out of his depth.
[30:14] Speaker 5: This was a little too.
[30:15] Speaker 2: Big for him, and it happens. But we kind of
[30:21] Speaker 2: know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas. You know,
[30:25] Speaker 2: we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been, We're closer
[30:28] Speaker 2: to Portugal than we've ever been. But there does feel
[30:31] Speaker 2: like a gap, a skill gap between England. Five of
[30:34] Speaker 2: the top thirty three players in this tournament, where I
[30:38] Speaker 2: was reading an article before the tournament by Fox. Five
[30:40] Speaker 2: of the top thirty three were from England. And I mean,
[30:43] Speaker 2: you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch Harry Kane against Mexico.
[30:47] Speaker 2: They were easily the two best players in the pitch.
[30:51] Speaker 2: And you watch that in NBA games, you know, you
[30:53] Speaker 2: see that when you watch great football teams, you can
[30:57] Speaker 2: just see the best players jump through the television. So
[31:00] Speaker 2: it didn't matter if we were playing a four to
[31:02] Speaker 2: two three one, or we had geol rena substitute in
[31:07] Speaker 2: at half, it just didn't matter. We just got outclassed.
[31:12] Speaker 2: And that's where we stand as of today, you know,
[31:15] Speaker 2: and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball, baseball,
[31:19] Speaker 2: and hockey league in the world. And you can look
[31:21] Speaker 2: at the Olympics and say, well, look at what we did.
[31:23] Speaker 2: Our men's and women's won gold at the Olympics in hockey.
[31:26] Speaker 2: But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer. Soccer's got
[31:31] Speaker 2: forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer, that's
[31:36] Speaker 2: like six to seven billion annually in hockey. Because of
[31:39] Speaker 2: the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights. If
[31:46] Speaker 2: you want to dominate international soccer. It is much harder
[31:50] Speaker 2: than dominating international hockey.
[31:53] Speaker 5: It's just it means more to.
[31:55] Speaker 2: Far more countries. It's just hockey, just not as broad.
[32:01] Speaker 2: It often feels like a cold weather experience, a cold
[32:04] Speaker 2: weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer. Norway's good
[32:11] Speaker 2: at it, Cape Verde is good at it, Argentina and
[32:15] Speaker 2: France are amazing at it. And so you know, we
[32:18] Speaker 2: generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally for sports.
[32:25] Speaker 2: Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred million dollars
[32:28] Speaker 2: between our men's and women's team annually, four hundred million,
[32:31] Speaker 2: and that's that's on par with many of the top teams,
[32:35] Speaker 2: but not greater then. And we also don't have the
[32:38] Speaker 2: cultural fixation, fascination, intensity, or passion that other nations do.
[32:44] Speaker 2: I don't look at this World Cup as a failure.
[32:46] Speaker 2: I think we earned ourselves another World Cup sometime very soon.
[32:52] Speaker 2: Our infrastructure is so capable of hosting it. But I
[32:56] Speaker 2: think it's just it's the one sport, one Rubik's cube
[33:02] Speaker 2: we're trying to decipher, and it really comes down to revenue.
[33:09] Speaker 2: It's massive, very difficult to buy your way to championships
[33:14] Speaker 2: and again we have some really nice players. But saying
[33:19] Speaker 2: in a globe with two hundred and fifteen countries that
[33:23] Speaker 2: were not in the top eight, there's no great shame
[33:27] Speaker 2: in it. But I thought we were out classed. And
[33:29] Speaker 2: I will say Sebastian Burhalter adds great energy, We had
[33:35] Speaker 2: great fight until the end. But we met our match.
[33:40] Speaker 2: And that's okay. I mean it's not okay. It's infuriating.
[33:44] Speaker 2: It's in Seattle. But I don't think you walk away
[33:48] Speaker 2: from this and say so we gave it a good run,
[33:51] Speaker 2: we gave it a good fight. You just keep chipping away.
[33:54] Speaker 2: Remember England has won one World Cup, Spain has won
[34:01] Speaker 2: one World Cup. This shit is hard, you know, And
[34:07] Speaker 2: I'm sure I'll just get blast in my text tonight
[34:11] Speaker 2: when I wake up tomorrow. We'll we will never compete.
[34:13] Speaker 2: This is worthless. We got out class tonight, but it's
[34:19] Speaker 2: worth the fight. It's just you know, look it up sometime,
[34:22] Speaker 2: look up soccer revenues globally and what we're going up against.
[34:28] Speaker 2: Belgium added on that final goal. So if you count
[34:31] Speaker 2: the friendly against tonight five to two and four to one,
[34:35] Speaker 2: our back end was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweet in
[34:41] Speaker 2: the two times we face Belgium gives you a sense
[34:44] Speaker 2: of where we currently are the on the soccer global map. Remember,
[34:49] Speaker 2: our average age is under twenty seven, so a majority
[34:53] Speaker 2: of this team is back with more European and international experience.
[34:58] Speaker 2: It's not on our soil. But generally group stages aren't
[35:02] Speaker 2: our greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is
[35:04] Speaker 2: a very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine
[35:08] Speaker 2: years old is the average age, still one of the
[35:11] Speaker 2: youngest teams at this World Cup. So, by the way,
[35:14] Speaker 2: if you're wondering, I am healthy enough to do a
[35:16] Speaker 2: forty five minute podcast today, but my boss has called
[35:19] Speaker 2: me after yesterday's show. I played hurt yesterday. I had
[35:22] Speaker 2: a fever and the stomach virus is going around the Midwest.
[35:24] Speaker 2: So I went to bed last night at seven thirty five,
[35:28] Speaker 2: took THEO flu.
[35:29] Speaker 5: I broke my fever. So I'm okay. Stomach's a mess.
[35:32] Speaker 5: It's a Midwest thing.
[35:33] Speaker 4: Whatever.
[35:33] Speaker 2: But we had this planned and I think it's fitting
[35:36] Speaker 2: because there's so many things I want to talk about
[35:37] Speaker 2: with Danny Parkins. So you know, listen, every four years
[35:42] Speaker 2: after we lose in the World Cup. The drum beats.
[35:47] Speaker 2: It's our culture, you know, it's our youth movement. But
[35:52] Speaker 2: I did think it was kind of instructive that Carli Lloyd, Stuholden,
[35:58] Speaker 2: Alexi Lawless all kind of had the same drum beat,
[36:02] Speaker 2: which is, hey, Christian Pulisic, nobody wants to hear about rest.
[36:07] Speaker 2: This isn't baseball. You don't have a game tomorrow. We
[36:11] Speaker 2: don't want to hear about rest. And I think it's fair,
[36:14] Speaker 2: and I'll tell you why. Polistics twenty seven Messi is
[36:18] Speaker 2: a smaller athlete, has never messed a World Cup game,
[36:20] Speaker 2: and you know he hasn't been healthy one hundred percent
[36:22] Speaker 2: of the time. We know Polistics not Arling Holland. He's
[36:27] Speaker 2: not a soccer version of Krok, but he gets banged
[36:29] Speaker 2: up a lot. He's twenty seven. But there is an
[36:32] Speaker 2: indifference or a lack of urgency. Sometimes that comes off
[36:35] Speaker 2: as condescending from Polistic, like he's above it all.
[36:39] Speaker 5: And we don't like that from ara athlete.
[36:41] Speaker 2: By the way, if you said that in Argentina, the
[36:43] Speaker 2: Argentinian press would savage you. If you said it in
[36:46] Speaker 2: Greece or Italy or London, you'd get crushed for it.
[36:50] Speaker 2: I think my knock on polistic is that this is
[36:55] Speaker 2: this is different than the other sports. It's every four years.
[37:01] Speaker 2: Soccer already faces a little cynicism because of the flopping,
[37:05] Speaker 2: so you kind of fake injuries all the time. So
[37:08] Speaker 2: like when you come up and say, all right, I
[37:11] Speaker 2: can still see on the pitch, you can still move.
[37:15] Speaker 2: I don't want to hear about rest. I don't think
[37:17] Speaker 2: that's unfair. I think it's pandering to call that unfair.
[37:21] Speaker 2: I think that's very reasonable. International Soccer commentary by Carly
[37:25] Speaker 2: Stewing Alexi of.
[37:26] Speaker 1: Course, and he after the game said that he thought
[37:33] Speaker 1: he maybe sprained his ankle. We expect you to play
[37:36] Speaker 1: through a sprained ankle, right right, Like I mean, if
[37:39] Speaker 1: you would have come out afterwards that he would have
[37:40] Speaker 1: ruptured his achilles. You know, no one would have said anything,
[37:44] Speaker 1: you know, but it was like, wait, you kicked the
[37:47] Speaker 1: other guy. You kind of stubbed your foot into the ground.
[37:49] Speaker 1: You were hobbling around out there. We expect you to
[37:52] Speaker 1: be able to hobble that off. And I'm not saying
[37:55] Speaker 1: that I could do it, but I am saying that
[37:57] Speaker 1: world class athletes should be able to do it.
[38:00] Speaker 5: And this is the thing. I am not a twenty
[38:04] Speaker 5: four to seven, three.
[38:05] Speaker 1: Sixty five soccer person, but I really prepped very hard
[38:10] Speaker 1: ahead of this World's Cup. I take my job very
[38:12] Speaker 1: seriously with how first things. First overtime is going, Like
[38:16] Speaker 1: Nick Wilds and Brew are not on the show with me,
[38:19] Speaker 1: so I'm doing the full hour with me and Dax
[38:21] Speaker 1: McCarty and maybe other soccer people that we bring on.
[38:24] Speaker 1: So like, I prepped my ass off ahead of this
[38:27] Speaker 1: World's Cup. Part of that was watching the five part
[38:30] Speaker 1: Team USA documentary, and in the documentary there was a
[38:34] Speaker 1: whole section of time on Polisic feeling defensive and pushing
[38:41] Speaker 1: back against the old American soccer establishment guys like Alexi
[38:45] Speaker 1: and Landon, who had criticized him for skipping the Gold Cup.
[38:49] Speaker 1: They were like, You've got to play in the Gold Cup.
[38:51] Speaker 1: It's because this is such a huge tournament for Team
[38:54] Speaker 1: USA and it's a home World Cup, and he was like,
[38:56] Speaker 1: I need the rest and I have to prioritize rest,
[38:59] Speaker 1: and they really criticized him and he pushed back against it.
[39:02] Speaker 1: And then Polisic also, I know he's not the most
[39:06] Speaker 1: media friendly guy, but I think that's a little overstated.
[39:09] Speaker 1: There's also a nine part documentary just about him on Paramount,
[39:14] Speaker 1: It's the Polisic Story. And then he was profiled in
[39:17] Speaker 1: GQ ahead of this tournament and he said, it's just
[39:20] Speaker 1: another big tournament. Like I came out of this thing saying,
[39:25] Speaker 1: I honestly wonder if the World Cup is as big
[39:30] Speaker 1: of a deal to him as playing for AC Milan.
[39:33] Speaker 1: He makes his money from AC Milan. It's the biggest
[39:36] Speaker 1: American transfer fee in the history of our country. Like
[39:40] Speaker 1: it's weird to say, but I honestly felt like, do
[39:45] Speaker 1: we care, does Donovan care? Does Alexi care more about
[39:50] Speaker 1: wearing the crest of America than Polistic does? And I
[39:53] Speaker 1: know he laid his body on the line and had
[39:56] Speaker 1: the great goal in the last World Cup against Iran
[39:58] Speaker 1: and all of those things. But you wouldn't never catch
[40:01] Speaker 1: MESSI saying it's just another tournament about the World Cup.
[40:06] Speaker 1: And so I think when you combine skipping the Gold Cup,
[40:10] Speaker 1: it's just another tournament. Asking out of both a group
[40:14] Speaker 1: stage game and a knockout stage game with non devastating injuries.
[40:20] Speaker 1: These people who are soccer establishments, people in America who
[40:23] Speaker 1: played the game, they did not reach this conclusion on
[40:26] Speaker 1: Polisic just because of the game against Belgium. This is
[40:30] Speaker 1: years in the making for them with Polisic, and I
[40:33] Speaker 1: think it's totally fair to question if playing for America
[40:38] Speaker 1: in the World Cup is his absolute number one priority.
[40:49] Speaker 2: Listen, I've said this about Luka Dantis his reality now
[40:53] Speaker 2: and Joe Burrows. They're both like one more injury away
[40:57] Speaker 2: from we're out of the peak. They're injury prone. Like
[41:01] Speaker 2: I've said that about Luca, He's never in great shape.
[41:03] Speaker 2: He now has three straight years of being injured. If
[41:06] Speaker 2: it becomes four, that devastatingly great. Trade isn't as great
[41:09] Speaker 2: as you bought. Neither Dallas or the Lakers are viable.
[41:13] Speaker 2: So and I think but one of the things that
[41:15] Speaker 2: pushes back I would push back is our soccer culture
[41:18] Speaker 2: isn't terribly hard. I mean, we still consider playing college
[41:21] Speaker 2: soccer a big deal. Where if you go internationally to
[41:24] Speaker 2: a Morocco, the best African nation now in terms of soccer.
[41:28] Speaker 2: If you go to England and you go to other
[41:30] Speaker 2: places like that that collegiate soccer, it's academies and ours
[41:34] Speaker 2: is hey get a D one scholarship and it's a
[41:38] Speaker 2: little I would say it's a little precious. It doesn't
[41:41] Speaker 2: really it's And by the way, in basketball, one of
[41:43] Speaker 2: the reasons there's so many great international players that if
[41:46] Speaker 2: you served like our great domestic players is their academy
[41:49] Speaker 2: system is better than our AAU system. And I do
[41:52] Speaker 2: think sometimes the people that cover soccer for a living,
[41:56] Speaker 2: especially the print people, New York Times, the Athletic, they
[41:58] Speaker 2: get a little precious, they get little defensive, they start pandering.
[42:01] Speaker 2: You don't understand soccer. I don't have to be a
[42:03] Speaker 2: chef to know the fish is undercooked. I'm sending it
[42:06] Speaker 2: back to the kitchen. I don't have to be a
[42:08] Speaker 2: music critic to know that guy's a hack and that
[42:10] Speaker 2: person's great. Like you don't have to be an expert
[42:12] Speaker 2: pholistic is twenty seven injury prone. And to your point,
[42:16] Speaker 2: there's a sense he lacks kind of like urgency. There's
[42:20] Speaker 2: a certain aesthetic and a certain commentary where I feel like, bro,
[42:24] Speaker 2: this shit matters like a lot. I mean, I mean this,
[42:30] Speaker 2: this World Cup was so successful, America is probably going
[42:34] Speaker 2: to get another one sooner than anticipated. I've read that
[42:37] Speaker 2: several times. This has been a ground breaking way.
[42:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, it's a that's why you have There's a
[42:44] Speaker 1: lot here and I think it's fascinating. And I know
[42:47] Speaker 1: sometimes like the hottest take is the best take, but
[42:49] Speaker 1: I think there's a lot here. Like the World Cup
[42:51] Speaker 1: has been a huge success rating raids attendance. My six
[42:58] Speaker 1: year old asked for a jersey, like you know what
[43:01] Speaker 1: I mean, Like he's getting into it. So like growing
[43:04] Speaker 1: soccer in America, all that's like that is happening even
[43:08] Speaker 1: without the US stepping forward. I also think the US
[43:13] Speaker 1: did make progress in this specific way if you look
[43:17] Speaker 1: in the rearview mirror, like I think they say we're
[43:20] Speaker 1: the eighteenth best team in the world for a number,
[43:23] Speaker 1: I think the gap between US and like the fiftieth best.
[43:26] Speaker 5: Team has grown.
[43:28] Speaker 1: Whereas like we've the last now four World Cups that
[43:30] Speaker 1: we've made, we've made it to the same round every time,
[43:33] Speaker 1: the round of sixteen. But in the past we've kind
[43:36] Speaker 1: of eked our way there draws won to one games
[43:40] Speaker 1: and in this World's Cup, and I know part of
[43:42] Speaker 1: it is where the host country so we got the
[43:43] Speaker 1: pot one draw. I know part of it is expanded
[43:47] Speaker 1: field so there's a round of thirty two now, so
[43:49] Speaker 1: a little bit weaker competition, but we kind of kicked
[43:52] Speaker 1: the shit out of some teams. Scored three goals, scored
[43:54] Speaker 1: four goals, had the most first half goals of any
[43:57] Speaker 1: team in the whole tournament through the round to thirty two.
[43:59] Speaker 1: We're putting the ball in the back of the that.
[44:01] Speaker 1: I do think we have separated ourselves a bit from
[44:05] Speaker 1: Paraguay and Australian teams like that. But when you lose
[44:09] Speaker 1: as convincingly as we did to Belgium, right, the whole
[44:13] Speaker 1: thing was, are you going to take a step forward?
[44:15] Speaker 1: We still have a huge gap between us and the
[44:18] Speaker 1: truly top team. Well yes, well it's interesting you bring
[44:23] Speaker 1: that up. So here are the quarter finalists France, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain.
[44:29] Speaker 1: Those are world powers.
[44:31] Speaker 2: Switzerland once again fifth sixth straight World Cup. I think
[44:36] Speaker 2: this is the third or the fourth time they made
[44:37] Speaker 2: it to the quarters. Historically respected Morocco is now brilliant
[44:42] Speaker 2: federation apparently depths top African nation, and then Norway has
[44:48] Speaker 2: a superstar. Okay, so either superstar soccer power, respected historical
[44:55] Speaker 2: relevant European team or the best African nation that two
[44:59] Speaker 2: beat us out. I would say this between Casey Keller,
[45:05] Speaker 2: Tim Howards.
[45:06] Speaker 4: We were.
[45:09] Speaker 2: Uniquely weak in goalie. We had an MLS goalie. Our
[45:12] Speaker 2: goalies have always been English Premier League Casey, European guy
[45:17] Speaker 2: for fifteen years. If we had one of our usual
[45:20] Speaker 2: goalies in we lose two us. We don't give up
[45:23] Speaker 2: the second or the third goal. We give up the first,
[45:25] Speaker 2: we give up the last. We lose two to one.
[45:27] Speaker 2: We're outplayed. But the sense is well, if Belgium beat Spain,
[45:31] Speaker 2: we're losing to really good people. So A, you're right,
[45:35] Speaker 2: there's growth. B look at who ends up in the quarters,
[45:39] Speaker 2: the best African nation superpowers. The other thing that should
[45:42] Speaker 2: be noted is participation. Remember this, Danny, look at the
[45:47] Speaker 2: world going forward. A lot of parents don't want their
[45:49] Speaker 2: kids to play football because of violence. Basketball genetically, Let's
[45:53] Speaker 2: be honest, it is a really tall person sport. Baseball
[45:57] Speaker 2: to kids often a lot of standing around and boring.
[46:00] Speaker 2: Hockey super expensive. Soccer's fun. There is pay to play,
[46:04] Speaker 2: but it's cheaper than hockey, probably two to three times cheaper.
[46:07] Speaker 2: This will increase participation. And my guess is, although albeit
[46:13] Speaker 2: or pay to play, I think in communities, if you
[46:16] Speaker 2: really saw if the local teams really saw a spectacular
[46:19] Speaker 2: kid at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old. You'd
[46:21] Speaker 2: find a way to engineer it and get them in.
[46:23] Speaker 2: There's a lot of visibility now with soccer, the academy
[46:26] Speaker 2: system is broader, So I do to think to your point,
[46:29] Speaker 2: this was an absolute win, better goalie.
[46:33] Speaker 5: We lose two to one, and we were embarrassed. We
[46:37] Speaker 5: weren't beaten.
[46:37] Speaker 2: It's not that we lost, it's how we lost. And
[46:40] Speaker 2: it got really embarrassing in the last thirty.
[46:42] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[46:42] Speaker 1: Look, I mean honestly, I thought it was kind of
[46:44] Speaker 1: embarrassing from jump with how cautious they played, Like I
[46:48] Speaker 1: did not consider the fact that we could get blown
[46:50] Speaker 1: out in that game, and we did, and I thought
[46:52] Speaker 1: that that was a parent Pretty early on I was like,
[46:54] Speaker 1: oh my god, like it just like the moment felt
[46:56] Speaker 1: a little too big for them, and it is. I mean,
[47:01] Speaker 1: Egypt almost beat Argentina and would have been further than us,
[47:05] Speaker 1: and then we would have been like, well what about
[47:06] Speaker 1: this group? That is to like, why can't we be Egypt?
[47:09] Speaker 1: And I do think it's totally fair to be like,
[47:11] Speaker 1: why can't we have our earling Holland, Like we thought
[47:13] Speaker 1: it was going to be Freddie Adou.
[47:14] Speaker 5: It wasn't. We thought it was going to be Christian Polisick.
[47:16] Speaker 5: It wasn't.
[47:17] Speaker 1: Now people are like, there's this kid, Kevin Sullivan who's
[47:20] Speaker 1: sixteen on Philly and MLS And I'm like, I can't
[47:23] Speaker 1: keep waiting for the Great Savior to come. And I
[47:27] Speaker 1: do think, and again, I am not an expert on
[47:29] Speaker 1: the pay to play thing, but there is something too.
[47:34] Speaker 1: Our best player is Floren Balligan, who was completely developed
[47:40] Speaker 1: in England. Like he's you know what I mean, parents
[47:43] Speaker 1: are Nigerian. He came up through the English club scene
[47:46] Speaker 1: and the only reason he was able to play for
[47:48] Speaker 1: America is because his mom had him here in birthright
[47:50] Speaker 1: citizenship because she was pregnant and deemed that it wasn't
[47:54] Speaker 1: good for her to fly back when she was pregnant.
[47:56] Speaker 1: And he was like, I don't know that I will
[47:58] Speaker 1: start if I play on England. And because of Harry
[48:00] Speaker 1: Kane and everything that they have, right, so I'll go
[48:02] Speaker 1: play for America. Like, we got to figure out why
[48:05] Speaker 1: they were able to develop our best player and figure
[48:09] Speaker 1: out a way for us to be able to develop
[48:10] Speaker 1: a couple of our own best players.
[48:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and by the way, they're they're you know,
[48:16] Speaker 2: if you look at France and a lot of these nations,
[48:19] Speaker 2: you there is these routes to get your best players.
[48:23] Speaker 2: Apparently the federation in Morocco. I was reading about it
[48:26] Speaker 2: this morning actually as my stomach flu is ravaging through
[48:29] Speaker 2: the house. Morocco's federation apparently has done a really good
[48:33] Speaker 2: job to find connections through Europe and that's why they
[48:37] Speaker 2: have so much depth. If you watch Morocco talking about
[48:39] Speaker 2: a dark horse, like you watch them maybe the fastest
[48:42] Speaker 2: team left many they are like in France, speed, they
[48:45] Speaker 2: they they got a bunch wings, midfielders, they move, they're
[48:49] Speaker 2: hard to defend.
[48:50] Speaker 5: So I think a lot of this is.
[48:54] Speaker 2: Federation based, academy based, and it's hurting our basketball a
[48:58] Speaker 2: little bit. I mean, who are at best to Mastic
[49:00] Speaker 2: players Cooper Flag and Edwards, Jason Tatum, And.
[49:03] Speaker 5: It feels like I was a drop off, like like
[49:05] Speaker 5: what Trey Young. I mean, the analytics don't like Jaleb Brown.
[49:09] Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I think, I think, but I
[49:12] Speaker 2: do believe every four years there is this chorus is
[49:16] Speaker 2: that we're not growing. There's clear growth from participation to
[49:20] Speaker 2: elevation of skill and technical expertise. I think we're a
[49:25] Speaker 2: little soft. I think the soccer culture is a little
[49:28] Speaker 2: harder in England than Argentina than it is here. But
[49:31] Speaker 2: I felt I did too.
[49:33] Speaker 1: I felt growth, like I said, kind of looking like
[49:36] Speaker 1: we distanced ourselves from the lesser teams which we were
[49:41] Speaker 1: a part of. And I'm not sure if we've grew
[49:44] Speaker 1: enough in the direction of the top teams. And I'm
[49:48] Speaker 1: going to be very interested in like because listen, poach
[49:51] Speaker 1: Tina was expensive, Like, what what do they do with him?
[49:55] Speaker 1: I know everybody wants him back, and I do too.
[49:58] Speaker 5: I like him.
[49:58] Speaker 1: It did seem interesting to me that it was like
[50:01] Speaker 1: we weren't tough enough, we weren't ready to play, but
[50:03] Speaker 1: we love the manager. It's like, I don't know, some
[50:06] Speaker 1: of that might be on coaching. I don't exactly know,
[50:09] Speaker 1: but I do think that you know, they've opened up
[50:13] Speaker 1: USA soccer complexes and training development programs, Like you spend
[50:18] Speaker 1: more money on it, you will develop better players and
[50:21] Speaker 1: you need a continuity of program. And to your point,
[50:25] Speaker 1: this tournament kind of flipped my whole life. Watching the
[50:29] Speaker 1: US on the international level, it was like, can we
[50:31] Speaker 1: score goals?
[50:33] Speaker 5: Right?
[50:33] Speaker 1: Like we we had four goals We had four goals
[50:36] Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty two Worlds Cup in total, our
[50:39] Speaker 1: in total this time.
[50:41] Speaker 5: It's like, okay, we can score goals.
[50:43] Speaker 1: Like if we took Tim Howard and a couple of
[50:46] Speaker 1: great oracle American defenders in the past and put them
[50:49] Speaker 1: on this team with ball again and some of our
[50:51] Speaker 1: midfielders and you know, forward players, like, we could have
[50:54] Speaker 1: had a great team.
[50:55] Speaker 5: It's just we don't have the We gotta we got
[50:58] Speaker 5: to put it all together at once. Okay.
[51:00] Speaker 2: See, I feel better about this because I'd rather say
[51:03] Speaker 2: we got to find a better goalie than we just
[51:05] Speaker 2: don't have the technical skill to score goals. I feel
[51:07] Speaker 2: broadly great about our technical skill. It'll only get better.
[51:11] Speaker 2: This whole team comes back, probably with three to four editions,
[51:14] Speaker 2: but we just have to find a goalie. I always
[51:17] Speaker 2: felt like we got a goalie. I wish we had
[51:18] Speaker 2: seven guys who could pass and dribble like they do
[51:20] Speaker 2: in England. So I feel broadly yeah, I think.
[51:22] Speaker 5: That makes sense.
[51:23] Speaker 1: I mean, listen, Tim Reim was too old and too
[51:25] Speaker 1: slow as like our main defensive player, right, so I
[51:29] Speaker 1: think it is probably yeah. I was reading articles about
[51:32] Speaker 1: like projecting the twenty thirty men's national team roster and
[51:35] Speaker 1: it's very difficult to do. But there are names. You know,
[51:38] Speaker 1: Dax McCarty, rf our first things, first analysts, who's been great.
[51:41] Speaker 1: He played a ton of MLS.
[51:43] Speaker 5: He played on the men's national team. He knows MLS.
[51:46] Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, there's a lot of really young talent,
[51:48] Speaker 1: but they just we need to hit like we need
[51:52] Speaker 1: to hit on some stars. I mean, Belgium is sobbing
[51:54] Speaker 1: in Lukaku and it's like we would he be our
[51:57] Speaker 1: best player.
[51:58] Speaker 5: He came off the bench for them.
[52:02] Speaker 1: Weston McKinney is really good for us, but he's been
[52:05] Speaker 1: like okay on Juventus. You know, Christian Polisic a huge deal.
[52:10] Speaker 1: He led Milan in goals and assists, but Milan was
[52:14] Speaker 1: really disappointing, like they weren't you know. He was like
[52:16] Speaker 1: a good player on a historically great team that also
[52:18] Speaker 1: had a bad year. So we do need to We
[52:21] Speaker 1: have players who are playing in Spain and Italy and
[52:24] Speaker 1: Europe and made all over, but like we need we
[52:27] Speaker 1: need stars. We need to keep leveling up. We're not
[52:29] Speaker 1: We're not there yet.

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