March 25, 2026 • 50 mins
On Episode 10, John and Daniel break down the World Cup Playoffs and discuss which teams have the best chance to advance. Daniel does a deep dive into the French National Team, and John regales us with the origin story of AFC Wimbledon, a team close to his heart.
Plus, John and Daniel read listener emails, one of which comes with a special song!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to the Away And I'm John Green,
I'm Danielle Alercon, and today we're gonna be talking about
the World Cup playoff matches that start tomorrow. As this
is being uploaded, Daniel, tomorrow, the joy of international football
is back with us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I had a question about that before we get to
the individual games. I was really thinking about this on
the way I was walking my dog this morning, that
it must be kind of a trip for the players
to go from games that matter to games it don't matter,
or vice versa. Right, So if you're in a club
team and now you've got to go and your club
(00:46):
team is like mid table, you're not going up, you're
not going down, everything's you know whatever, And then you've
got to go to a playoff like the ones that
we're about to talk about. Psychologically, it must be a
real trip. And then and there's you know, players who
are locked in a title race who are going to
play like a friendly against you know whoever. And and
(01:08):
I feel like that that that just must really be
jolting emotionally, don't.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
You think I would think playing in a playoff has
got to be so intense, especially these one game playoffs
where it's literally winner, go home. Your chances of playing
in a World Cup, which is something you've dreamed of
since you were a little kid, rest on ninety minutes
of football. But it can't be that much less pressure
(01:36):
than being in a title race in England or France
or Germany or whatever. I mean those that's got to
be a tremendous amount of pressure. I you, and then
you go play a friendly against like Slovenia, you know,
and you're like, here, we are playing football for no stakes. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I mean, do you remember the guy who uh or
the winning penalty kick in the World Cup last time?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Isn't his name Mundial? No? Mundial means global in world
means wait, wait, wait his name is close to give
me close. I'm getting there. You're very close. What is
his name? Oh? I mean, I feel like I just
mispronounced it, Daniel, you.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Did, Okay, I'm gonna give it to you. Its Gonzalo Montille.
And the reason I mentioned him is because I said,
you said moundieal. But okay, whatever I said it, I
said it perfectly, all right. So once again I am
pilloried for my pronunciation when it's not my fault that
I was raised in America.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You're You're fine. That was terrific. So Gonzalo Montiel scores
the winning world penalty in the World Cup final, then
like languidly takes off his shirt and strolls to the
to the corner flag. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And then uh, you know, pandemonium ensues like a whole
country celebrates. And then he went back to England a
couple of weeks later to play for.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Nottingham Forest and I just remembering, like, what must that
be like? You know, yeah, you're celebrating in a bus
tour where sixty million people have come out to see
you so much that the bus cannot move, and then
(03:18):
enjoy being fourteenth, right. I mean Forest fans are intense.
I'm not saying they're not. They don't love their football,
for sure, they love their club and they they's place
to play.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
But it's very different. It's very different. I remember seeing
him sort of like taking a corner kick and I
was like, man, this must be such a letdown. This
must be like you know, like like like playing at
the like at the at the YMCA, you know, like,
are you know, compared to playing in the hothouse of
(03:50):
a World Cup final and then having the cohonas to
hit that penalty kick. I mean, anyway, he's now back
in Argentstina.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Playing for River Play.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In case you were wondering, all right, the game's don
there's a lot of exciting playoff action coming up. Should
we start with Wales versus Bosnia?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
How do you want to do this? Yeah, let's go
with Wales versus Bosnia. Wales is a favorite in that game,
but not a huge favorite. I like Wales to go through.
I don't know much about the Welsh national team, but
except for what Ryan Reynolds has taught me through his
Wrexham program. But I feel like they've got better players.
(04:29):
They've got a lot of players in the Premier League.
There's no reason they can't. They can't. They can't make
it through that game. Whether they can make it past
Italy is another question entirely.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Okay, well, I'm going with Bosnia because one of my
favorite writers is Alexander Haimon.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Not just a writer you like, also a writer who's
your friend.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I would say we're friendly. I
wouldn't say he's like my closest friend, although there was
a time when I dreamed of being his close friend
because his first book, The Question of Bruno and his
novel nowhere Man were really for me, and when I
met him, I remember being completely starstruck. He's a wonderful guy,
(05:06):
super super nice. Anyway, he's Bosnian. And when I don't
have much writing on this on these games, like I
have no personal collection to either country, I really.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Just go with the literature. That's fair. So yeah, I'm
all in on BOSMBI. That's fair. Well. This brings us
to a difficult situation for you, then, Italy versus Northern Ireland,
two nations with I would say it's pretty strong literary heritage,
but I don't know if you have any writer friends there.
I have to go with Northern Ireland because there is
a small chance, believe it or not, Daniel, that a
(05:37):
player from AFC Wimbledon, the third tier English soccer team
I support and who will be learning more about later
in this very podcast, a player from AFC Wimbledon might
play for Northern Ireland in that game. Hmm, that's the
reason enough. I would go. Like der.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I was gonna say, uh, I really liked Dairy
Girls man.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Dairry Girls was great, so.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm gonna yeah, it was a good show with Northern Island.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, really well written. I kind of will to sleep
at the end. You know, it was very moving, very moving. Yeah,
I think Italy is like a fifteen to one favorite,
but we're both going Northern Ireland out of respect for
dairy girls. Great.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, so that leaves us with Italy versus probably Wales.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
What do you think? I mean, it's hard not to
see Italy going through from this group because they're overwhelmingly
the most talented team, but Italy has found a way
to fall apart in previous World Cup qualifying groups. The
pressure of this, the whole the pressure of these two
games of this like semi final final bracket, the semifinals
(06:47):
we played on March twenty sixth, the finals on March
thirty first. I can't even imagine the pressure of going
into that knowing you have to win and you're Italy.
And that's why I think it's possible that that Italy
doesn't go through because of the pressure.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, I mean, I remember Italy losing to North Macedonia
last time.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh and remember their goalkeeper just In tears.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The goalkeeper's Donna Rumo or the goalkeeper from North Macedonia.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
No no boffo.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Man, what a keeper he was h Yeah that was
because he was he was like forty seven years old
and he knew.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That would be he was going to do it again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Great flag, North Macedonia, great flag, great flag. Yeah yeah, Okay,
so you're going with Italy, I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Northern Ireland, just to shock the world. Northern Ireland versus
Wales Island goes through. Yeah, I'm very pro Irish. I
just find him to be charming Irish and Northern Irish.
All right, Well, we've got more Ireland down the road
to talk about. But first let's talk about Ukraine versus Sweden,
(08:03):
which we played in Spain because of the war. This
is probably the most toss up e of the semi
final games, partly because there is no home field advantage,
but partly because Ukraine and Sweden are both really good.
I both have really good football teams. Sweden no longer
have forty seven year old s a lot in Ibrahimovich,
(08:24):
but still have some good players. I'm going to go
Ukraine in that one because I like the Ukrainian national team.
I would love to see them go to the World Cup.
I know how much it would mean to that country.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Okay, I'm very torn here because I agree with you
kind of from a deal political point of view, and
so and what would mean to a country in the
midst of the war. At the same time, Sweden has
Victor Yokurez, a Arsenal striker, and I'm I'm kind of
selfishly want him to do well. I mean, he is
a player who has the first touch of a croquet mallet,
(08:59):
and sometimes watching him dribbles like watching a horse try
to do a step over. But he's been quietly effective
since the new year, and you know, scoring some important goals,
including some game winners.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I think we would do Arsenal a world of good
if he were to if he were to do well here.
So I'm really torn about this. But so so it's
like I'm balancing sort of like my selfish sort of Arsenal,
you know, fandom versus kind of this moral stance against imperialism.
(09:34):
And I think I have to go with Ukraine. Then
I have to support Ukraine, Okay, So we're both for Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay. Then we've got Poland versus Albania, which we played
in Poland. Poland is favored there. But you never count
out the Albanians in international football. Really, oh yeah, you
never count him out. Has Albebia ever qualified for the
World Cup?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Uh No, they haven't that I can think of, because
I mean they did as Yugoslavis shure they had, you know, Zugoslavia,
they were. They've never called up, they've never qualified. Okay, man,
So I guess actually, now that I think about it,
you can count out the Albanians. So here I have to.
I have to go back to literature. And there's only
(10:18):
one Albanian writer I know is Meel Kadare. It's pretty good,
but man, many good Polish writers and streating. I'm thinking
of Bruno Schultz, Street of Crocodiles, I'm thinking of uh
Tedis Borowski. This way for the guys, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
What about Joseph Conrad.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Joseph Conrad a little dense for me? But yeah, oh,
come on.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You don't mean that. You don't mean, man, I know
you don't. You liked First off, you like dense literature.
Second off, he's not that dense. I don't believe you.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, all right, don't believe me. I liked his book
about the guy with the bomb, the secret Agent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I didn't love Heart of Darkness. It's a little dense.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It's fair, but you know, yeah, but Poland takes this
one just because I can only name one Albanian writer
that I enjoyed, but I didn't, you know, Flip out
over Man who wrote that book A Minor Apocalypse. Do
you know this writer? Oh god, so good. It's called
a Minor Apocalypse by Taito's con wiki.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I'm trying to pronouncing that wrong.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And essentially the premises, it's like, uh, the these uh,
you know, communist anti communist dissidents go to this like
aging writer and they're like, dude, you're basically done. You're useless.
The Russian premieres in town. Here's a gallon of gasoline
and some matches. You know, go light yourself on fire
in front of the of the building tonight, because you know,
(11:57):
you've got nothing really else to offer the anti commun
this movement, and you're not writing anything. And so the
novel follows in the whole day as he thinks about it,
he's like and he goes around saying goodbye to his
friends and like his old lovers and sort of like
and everyone is like yeah, I mean this seems like
a good ending for you. You know, it's so funny
and dark, truly brilliant book. Okay, so Poland in a landslide.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah. Can I tell you real quick that one time
when I was in New York City, I was hospitalized
for an infection behind my eye. And I had this
roommate because this was a crowded New York City hospital
where everybody had a roommate, and so I had this
roommate named Al, and Al was convinced that he was
dying like that day. He had a heart problem. He
(12:42):
was eighty six years old, and so all night long
he called up his war buddies. He would call up
his war buddies and he would be like, yeah, it's Al,
gotta say goodbye. Unfortunately, you know, I got this heart
valve issue and it's not going to be long for me.
But then I was in the hospital without long enough
that he got the successful surgery and then he was
(13:04):
completely fine. And then he had to call back all
of his war buddies and be like, Okay, it's all
false alarm still here. I love that. Good for Al. Yeah, No,
I mean good, it's great. It's great to say, it's
great to be able to say goodbye, and it's even
better to be able to say hello again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I met a Chilean guy once who in Chile. He'd
been living in Sweden for many years and he'd worked
for the Swedish news agency. Like many Chilean exiles, he'd
gone to Sweden, and he told me that he'd been
He and another reporter were going to be sent to
Bosnia for the war to cover the war, and they
(13:44):
had to do all kinds of medical tech ups. So
he and this other guy both did their medical tech
ups and then the doctor called him and was like, okay,
you have we didn't You have terminal cancer. You can't
go to the war. You're going to die in a
matter of weeks. So he did exactly what Al did,
called everybody and said goodbye, and you know, told people
that he hated that he hated them and that he
(14:05):
they'd always been the worst to him, and they they
were like, just did all this stuff, and then they
turned out that they'd switched the files and they didn't
realize this until the other guy just killed over and
died and then they were like whoops and U And
he was basically on the trip I met him. He
was he you know, this guy in his like, you know,
late fifties. He was coming back to Chile to make
(14:26):
peace with all the people that he'd pissed off when
he thought he.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Was gonna die, had weeks to exactly exactly think. The
lesson from that is, maybe when you have weeks to live,
don't go on like a revenge tour and like tell
everyone you hate that you hate them.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, or maybe you know, double check to the diagnosis,
you know, get a second appurance.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Get a second opinion, get a second opinion. What else
should have done too? Okay, A right, So Ukraine is
going to play Poland in the final. Who's gonna win?
Daniel Ukraine versus Poland. I'm going with Ukraine. I know
that Poland is probably gonna win, but I'd like Ukraine
to win. I'm gonna go with Ukraine too. It would
be really fun to see Ukraine in Northern Ireland in
(15:08):
the World Cup. It's not gonna happen, but it wouldn't
be fun. It would be great. It would be great.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Sponsored by random betting site. Okay, Next is Slovakia and
versus Kosovo.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
This is a tough one for me. I don't know
a lot of Slovakian or coas of R writers. I'm
gonna I think Slovakia is probably gonna win. They're playing
at home, They've got that, They've got that beautiful stadium
in Brody Slava. I'm gonna go with Slovakia.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, they're playing at home, so I'm gonna go to
Slovakia as well. Okay, Turkey versus Romania playing in Istanbul,
this is tough. First see all I see is the
welcome to Hell sign.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Oh my god. Yeah, playing so hard. When Liverpool played
in Turkey last week, I was watching on television in
Indianapolis and I was intimidated.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, yeah, I I there's three. The Basicus is the
black and white team.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeuh yeah. And so I was the orange and yellow one.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the blue the blue, the blue and and uh
and yellow is uh it's Fenerbache. They are very intense, man.
I actually happened upon a Bisicas game uh in Istanbul once.
I didn't get to go into the game, although in
my memory I've revised it that I was there. But
I just remember the fans storm, you know, sort of
(16:31):
streaming in and just the noise and I would not
want to play in Turkey. And also, oh Paul pretty
great writer. Yeah, I saw him once from a distance.
He was very quiet. Yeah, yeah, he seemed very should
(16:52):
you like.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
See him speak or like, was he like at a
conference that you were No, he was.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Browsing books at the Frankfurt book Fair.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, oh wow. You didn't go up to him.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I didn't know, because what are you gonna say, like, yeah,
you know what. My son, my older son, Leone, had
a box of things that he was scared of when
he was a kid, and he would ask his mom
to keep it, and every once in a while she
would pull the shoe box out from the closet and
show it to him. And the box had a lot
of random things, but the one thing I remember that
it had was a paperback of my Name Is Read
(17:21):
By or I'm Pomoke, And the cover freaked him out,
and it was just a close up of a of
a kind of like a kind of very old Turkish
painting of a war scene.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And he would just look at it and then he'd
be like, no, that's enough and put it away. And
like we had to hide or on Pomoke from our
kid whole life is so metaphorically resonant, Daniel. It's incredible.
It's incredible how metaphors just bump into you. Yeah, it
might be something to do with my brain, Like the
(17:54):
box of things I'm afraid of that I look at
occasionally in order to remind myself of fear is the
best metaphor I've ever heard of, other than the other
metaphors that you've told me from your own life. Look
that one.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I did not come up with my child that, so
that's all on him. I think that there's only one
that Turkey gets out of this group. But you know,
whether they play the Black Air Coasovo, you gotta go
with Turkey.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yep. All right. So so far we have Turkey, Ukraine
and Northern Ireland going to the World Cup. Our last
European matchup is Chechia versus Ireland and Prague. Chechi is
favored by just on the quality of literature. I know,
I know, we're talking about some great check writers over
the years, but I still think that we've got to
go with Ireland there also. I mean, there's nothing like
(18:45):
Irish fans of the World Cup. It's special. So I'm
going with Ireland there and then we've got Denmark versus
North Macedonia. Never bet against North Macedonia, but I'm still
going to go Denmark. And then in the final, I'm
going to go Ireland, stunning the world and making it
out of that group.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
On literature alone. I'm torn, you know, Uh, you're torn.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I mean, don't get me wrong, like Aclaholic and kunder
is a great writer and everything.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But you've got you got James Joyce, Yeah, Samuel Beckett,
Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, whose last words were bless you, sister.
He said this to a nun as she was giving
him an injection. He said, bless you, sister. May all
your sons be bishops.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Oh yeah, okay, all right, call him toy Bin Oh
great writer, Yeah, great bank. Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney. Yeah,
all right, okay, convinced me. Okay, So so I'm going
Ireland all the way.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Here, Ireland all the way. So to recap, we have
we have Northern Ireland going all the way, pull, Ukraine
going all the way, uh, Turkey and now Ireland's great.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well here we get one of these.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, seriously, okay, we have Bolivia versus Surinam. This is
the intercontinental playoff Bolivia versus Surnam playing in Mexico, uh,
and the winner plays Iraq. Maybe maybe I think Bolivia
is favored there. Yeah, I think Belivia is probably gonna
win that game. Olivia versus I Rock is a really
(20:21):
interesting matchup, but I don't know if it's going to
happen because it's not clear that a Rock is going
to make it to that game. I wonder what happens
in that case. I don't think there's a precedent for
this kind of situation, Yeah, except like back in the
like thirties when teams would pull out of the World
Cup because like their boat wasn't big enough, you know,
to get you know, like the very early World Cup.
(20:43):
But this is quite a different situation. Yeah, I would
like Bolivia to win. The entire Surnam national team is
just like Dutch B teamers essentially, right, which is a fascinating,
uh sort of post colonial reality. I would like to
believe you to win because Belivisa hasn't been the World
Up in a long time, and more Latin America is
(21:06):
better for me.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Okay, North Caledonia, where is that exactly? It's actually New
Caledonia did I say North Caledonia? You did? I was
testing you, John. That is super embarrassing, super embarrassing. Well,
it's fine though, because New Caledonia is a nation of
two hundred ninety thousand people. And I would have bet
(21:28):
my life that it was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean,
but in fact it is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean,
just off the coast of Australia. And it was named
New Caledonia because a fella, a European fella, saw it
and thought it looked like Scotland. And yet they speak
French there. They speak In fact, they are part of France.
There is an independence movement and it's currently being negotiated
(21:51):
with France whether they will be fully independent, but currently
they are French citizens.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Interesting, Okay, Well I support the Newonian independence movement, but
want Jamaica to win.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, I want Jamaica. I just Jamaican's at the World Cup.
It's so special, like it's such a especially a World
Cup in the United States. It's such a it would
be so it would be so awesome, it would make
me so happy. That said, I think Dr Congo is
probably gonna win that that so New Caldaria plays Jamaica
and then the winner plays Dr Congo and it's hard
(22:25):
not to see Dr Congo winning that game.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, Derek Congo is a strong team for sure, just
in terms of spectacle, for the the for the the
joy that the World Cup would bring for all the
fans around the game.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
I think Jamaica in being playing the United States would
be wonderful. But we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'm gonna go with Jamaica there, even though that I
know that's a that's not the most likely thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we have out of this World Cup. I'm going
Bolivia and Jamaica out of these intercontinental playoffs. Yeah, and
I'm going to go Iraq and Jamaica and we'll see,
we'll see. I mean, the joy of the intercontinental playoffs
for me is that it's so unpredictable. Like New Caledonia
(23:14):
and Jamaica have never ever faced each other. This is
a completely unprecedented situation in human history, and who the
hell knows, but we'll find out. That's what makes it
so fun.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I love it, Okay, So and we'll check back in
and see who did better, although I guess or how
well we did because we kind of like serve agreed
on everything or almost everything. All right, let's take a
quick break and we'll be right back with a deep
dive on the national team of France. We're back on
(23:56):
the way, and John, I want to tell you something
about the national team of friends. But I want to
start with something that I learned when I'm married into
a Colombian family, which is that here in Latin America,
we are all taught the following that our national anthem
was judged to be the second most beautiful national anthem
in the world.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
After Le Marseilles La Marseilles, the.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
French national anthem.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And I always just.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Took this to be gospel truth because I was taught
this when I was a kid at the proven national
anthem was the second most beautiful national anthem in the world.
And then in my thirties, when I married into a
Columbian family, I've discovered that the Columbians are also taught this.
(24:40):
And then I think, like most Latin Americans are taught
that their national anthem is the second most beautiful national
anthem in the world. And it was funny because until
I realized this, I never even thought to consider like
when was this tournament of national anthems held?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And who are the judges? Was just like like Eurovision
but for national anthems exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And also you know, how would you judge that, like
what would be the fair way? Was it a bracket
system or like a you know, friendly like you know,
why would that even exist? Who would you know? The
whole thing is just so perposteous. But it was just
one of those things that I just never questioned.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I was like, oh, we have the second most beautiful
national anthem in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So but what's funny is that everyone agreed that the
French national anthem was like the top the best, right, right.
And I mentioned this because it's not just national anthems
in which France is a global powerhouse. I have vivid
memories of watching the French national team over the years,
(25:38):
beautiful memories, and I think I've mentioned this before on
this podcast, but I'm not sure. One of the first
places that I learned the lessons of kind of narrative
and drama was watching the nineteen eighty six quarterfinal match
between France and Brazil, and I mentioned it was because
the main lesson of drama, like if you want to
(26:00):
create drama. It's you you you know, as a writer,
you make indelible characters that people love, and so that
you're invested in their mistakes, the readers invested in their mistakes, right,
so that you're you're you know, kind of this a
more sophisticated version of like, don't go in there, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And and.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I learned this because I was watching this game, and
and I loved two players on the team on each
team the number tens for both Brazil and France. The
Brazilian number ten is to talk at this, uh, just
such a character, uh and a and a and a
beautiful player. And the French number ten was Michelle Platini.
Both were these kind of very technical midfield generals with
(26:43):
tremendous vision the other kind of players that make the
other players around them better, which I think is kind
of a a requirement for anyone who wants to be
in the discussion of being great, truly great. The game
I remember was breathless.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
There was a point at which Brazil had a penalty,
and the French veendor who gave away the penalty later
revealed that platin had come up to him and said
before the pen was taken and he said, you better
pray this guy misses or I'm going to kick your ass,
which which kind of flies in the face of mine.
Makes everyone better thing, but you know, it does sort
(27:17):
of speak to the intensity that Platini had. The Brazilian
player did, in fact miss. The game was one one
at full time, went to extra time, went to penalties,
and both Socrates and Platini missed. And I loved both
of these teams. I was watching through my like a
horror movie. I couldn't decide what I wanted. It really
was like it put me through the ringer. France eventually
(27:37):
won in penalty kicks despite Platini's miss, and went on
to lose to Germany in the Semis. So In nineteen
ninety eight, I was studying abroad in France and at
the end of the semester I flew to Abijean and
then eventually to Morocco. I traveled around a bit and
went to Spain to visit a cousin of mine who
lived in Barcelona. This was a summer of nineteen ninety
eight and I almost almost John took a train to Paris,
(28:01):
but I thought to myself, I really have no more
money and I need to go back to New York
to work, and I'm sure that would be amazing, But
you know what, France never wins anyway, so it's not
like I'm gonna miss anything, And of course they wont.
I spent some of the money I made that summer
on a Zidon jersey, a player that I had another
sort of like midfield general number ten, leader of a team,
(28:24):
player I love, despite the fact that he played for
Madrid and well, I loved a lot of French players
over the years, not the least of which is Terryan Ree,
arguably the greatest striker in French history arsenal legend, whose
jersey I'm currently wearing. So I guess France when they
found out that I doubted them that year, they just
(28:45):
really stepped it up. And in response to those doubts,
they've become one of those handful of teams that's always
always in the mix, that really could win it all.
They're in the conversation for every tournament. They've been in
the finals for three of the last five tournaments, an
incredible feat. They won in twenty eighteen, of course. But
(29:05):
I just wanted you to understand the depth of talent
that France has because you know, when you present the
US men's national team, you were like, oh my god,
they have like twenty players in the Premier League or whatever.
Paris and her suburbs const do what must be like
the greatest concentration of soccer talent in the world. And
just to underline this, I wanted to tell you a
crazy fact. There were more players born in Paris and
(29:28):
surrounding areas playing in the African Cup of Nations this
past year than in any other country in the tournament.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Wow yeah, wow, astonishing, right, And that's obviously has to
do with the you know, intense footballing culture, with the training,
with you know, the mass migration which is transformed France.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It has to do with the passion. It's just, you know,
this is a footballing nation that has so much talent
that they're able to export it to other countries. So
players you've obviously heard of Killian Mbappe, and by you,
I mean the listeners I know you John have. He
was the super young in twenty eighteen. He won the
Best Young Player of the Year. He scored four goals
(30:11):
in seven games, including one against Peru, which I'm sure
was like the most special goal to him, that's the
one he remembers. That's probably the one he remembers most
things about all night. He has blossomed since then, obviously
to become one of the greatest players.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Just the forty goals in all comps for Madrid this season.
Just the forty Yeah. So, but you know he's not
the only player John, you know, and Madrid fans still
complain about him.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
They're very spoiled, They're very spoiled, They're so lucky. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Dde de Champ's France manager, who looks like one of
those senior execs from that show mad Men. Just an
absolute embarrassment of talents. And I'm just gonna name a
couple or a few. Usman Deanble reigning bellond'or winner, his
teammate at PSD, Bradley Barcola, Arsenal's Williams Saliba, Byron's Michael
o'lisse incredible player, Barcelona's Jules kunde ugo Ekitik, who you
(31:13):
know from Liverpool, and the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
So much talent.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The logical conclusion here is to say that France might
not win the World Cup, but they're definitely going to
be in the mix. I wouldn't be surprised they made
it to the Semis. And like we said, with these playoffs,
like you know, once we get into the knockout rounds
of the tournament, anything can happen. But they're definitely one
of the teams to watch, you know. And I just
want to end by saying it wasn't just that nineteen
eighty six quarter final that sort of taught me the
(31:39):
lessons that I think have helped make me a novelist
or storyteller. There was another iconic French moment, which I'm
sure you remember, that also kind of reinforced that lesson
of narrative and the creation of drama, and that was
the two thousand and six zinjin Zi don headbutt against
one of.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
The most dramatic failures of of keeping a cool head
in all of human history.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Incredible, incredible actually, to name check Alexander Himon once more,
he described it as watching a man commit suicide in public.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It was so dramatic.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It was, you know, ten minutes for a full time
and the deflation of the national team of players around
him once.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He was gone. It was just it was there was
like there could only be one winner after that. It
was incredible. So we should tell the story real quick
of what happened. I was watching from Chicago with a
bunch of my friends. I'm sure you were. You were
watching wherever you were. Billions of people literally were watching
the World Cup final. It was an extra time and
the greatest player, you know, one of the greatest players ever,
(32:44):
the greatest player on the pitch, but by a country mile,
was Zennidine Zadan, This French player and one of the
opposing players apparently called his sister a name, and then
Zenidine Zidan headbutted, the guy, got a red card, was
sent off off and France lost the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, that's exactly what happened. The Italian player was Mattrazzi.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeh. And it wasn't even you know. I mean, let's
put it this way. If you headbutted an opponent every
time your sister got called a name, you'd get a
lot of red cards.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah, it's true, but I think that in some
way I should mentioned this also, he is he done
when they won in ninety eight, scored two goals in
the final, and he'd already scored a goal in Italy
against Italy in that game, and moments before he had
(33:43):
nearly scored a bullet header from from a distance where
it was unthinkable that you could even get off a
powerful shot. He headed the ball from almost the eighteen
yard line of the box, and the Italian keeper Buffon
had been incredible saved, and so he was like, you know,
a fingertip away from being like the first person to
(34:05):
score two goals in two World Cup finals, you know,
and then like literally three minutes later, he gets a
red card and no one at the time knew why
because there wasn't when we saw it, and I was
wearing Miisi Don jersey that I'd bought in ninety eight.
There were the same number of like replays, you know,
like like we didn't see it for a long time
in the stadium, no one knew why unless they'd seen
(34:26):
it happen.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, because it was off the ball. It wasn't it
was It was just a nothing moment where he completely
lost his cool. And you have to say, who knows
how the game goes? I mean, obviously it's an extra time,
it's probably going to go to penalties. That's a lottery.
Who knows how the game goes? If he doesn't get
a red card. But with him getting a red card,
it felt inevitable that France was going to lose.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, So we'll we'll see what happens with
France here. But I want to thank the Nation of
France for their everything they've taught about narrative, specifically the
national team of France for teaching me to be a writer.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I also want to dedicate.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
This description of the France national team and their chances
to my son's friend Camillo, who's French, half French and.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Really special kid in our family.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
So yeah, let's take.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
A quick break and we'll be robt. All right, Welcome
back to the away and it's my turn to tell
a story, and Daniel, I'm going to tell you the
(35:43):
story of the football team I love so much AFC Wimbledon,
because I don't think I've ever told you this story,
and I know I haven't told a lot of the
listeners this story. So in eighteen eighty nine a club
was formed in southwest London called Wimbledon FC. They spend
most of their time as an amateur team, but then
eventually they rose up to the professional ranks through promotion
and in nineteen eighty eight, they reached the pinnacle of
(36:07):
English football at the time by winning the FA Cup.
They beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final. They won
this big cup. Princess Diana handed it to them. It
was a big deal. And then almost immediately the club
started to fall apart because of poor ownership and rich people,
as they often do, treating football clubs as assets rather
than as community based organizations. And so eventually the club
(36:33):
was basically bankrupted and the only proposed solution from the
ownership team was to move the club away. Now we
know this happens a lot in American sports, the Baltimore
Colts become the Indianapolis Colts, etc. It had never happened
in English football because fundamentally, it's not the Arsenal Gunners
or the Liverpool Reds. It's Arsenal and Liverpool. And it
(36:57):
was Wimbledon, which was a club the community of Wimbledon
in southwest London, where the tennis tournament happens. But even so,
in the year two thousand and one, the club was
moved against the will of all the fans, to Milton Keynes,
this new city that had been created sort of from scratch,
(37:18):
about seventy miles away and the community of Wimbledon was
left without a football club. The one young woman described
this to me. She said, it was like my dad.
You know, my dad had been going to every game
for forty years and it was like they'd taken away
my dad's church, you know. I mean, it's such a
big part of your identity when you're a supporter of
(37:39):
a football club and to have that suddenly just completely
rested away from you and told that it's you know,
not in the best interests of the sport as a
whole for your club to exist is absolutely devastating. And
what Wimbledon fans did is they started over. So the
club that was Wimbledon FC took the lead place and
(38:01):
became known as MK Dons Milton Keynes Dons. The Wimbledon
fans refused to acknowledge the Dons part of Milton Keynes Dons,
but at any rate that's the official name of that team.
And they were by then in the third division of
English football, which is still a professional league. And this
new club, or this Phoenix club, the rebirth of Wimbledon FC,
(38:23):
was called AFC Wimbledon and they started down in the
ninth tier of English soccer. I mean at away games,
they were literally sitting on hay bales paying fifty cents
to watch their team play, when just five years earlier
they'd been in the Premier League and thousands of people
became owners of this new AFC Wimbledon because it wasn't
(38:45):
going to be owned by any rich person. It was
going to be owned by the fans, by all of
them together, so that this could never happen again. And
even if they had to spend eternity in the amateur
ranks of English football, at least they would have a
club of their own. But they worked their way up.
After two years they got promoted to the eighth Division.
Then they got promoted to the seventh division. Then they
(39:05):
were stuck there for a few years and slowly worked
their way up until by twenty eleven they were just
one promotion away from being back to being a full
time professional team. They had a game, a playoff final
to get there. It was nil nil against Lutontown. You
know Lutontown They were in the Premier League not long ago,
(39:26):
but back then they were in the fifth Division along
with AFC Wimbledon. And it was nil nil at the
end of full time and at the end of extra
time and it went to penalties, and Wimbledon's goalkeeper at
the time was this nineteen year old kid working part
time at a rental car place named Seb Brown who'd
actually been in the pub where AFC. He was like
six years old, and he was in the pub where
(39:48):
AFC Wimbledon was originally formed back when all of this
went down, and Seb Brown saved two penalties against Lutontown
to send AFC Wimbledon back to the Football League, back
being a full time professional team, which they've been ever
since twenty eleven. Our community has been sponsoring them. They
wear our logo on the liminal space between left thigh
(40:11):
and buttock on the back of their shorts. It says DFTBA,
which stands for Don't Forget to be Awesome. We've been
sponsoring them since twenty fourteen. But these days AFC Wimbledon
is up in the third Division. And what's really incredible
is that Milton Keynes, the team that used to be US,
is in the fourth division. And so after all that,
(40:33):
after all that trauma and hurt and stealing away a
football club, they don't even get to play US every
season because they're not good enough. But when we do play.
I've been to a few games where where AFC Wimbledon
played against Milton Keynes and it is the most ferocious.
I mean, look, I've never been to Turkey. I've never
(40:53):
seen galatass or I play. I'm sure that's more ferocious.
But it is the most ferocious thing I've ever seen
in English soccer. It is incredibly dramatic. There are many songs.
My favorite of the songs that Wimbledon fans sing is
where were you? Where were you? Where were you when
you were us? Wow? That's also like a metaphor. I
(41:16):
would put that in my scary box they sing. They
also sing you franchise bastard, you know what you are? Wow?
It's pretty For the Milton Keynes players, no, they know
what they's. No, they don't have to sign a professional
contract with that club. We've got one. There's only one
(41:37):
player ever who's signed as far as I can remember,
who used to play for AFC Wimbledon, who signed for
Milton Keynes. And that guy gets a lot of abuse.
I bet Connor Lemon high Evans He's not well liked
around Southwest London. I hate that guy. Yeah, I've always
disliked him. So that's the story, the very abbreviated story
of the football club I love so much, and that
(41:59):
I've devot did so much of my time and treasure
two over the years. I just it makes how many
games do you get to?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
How many games do you get to go to a year?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Season? I probably go to five or six games a year,
so I go to a fair number. Yeah. Yeah, I
probably go to one Liverpool game a year. If I'm
lucky in five or six Wimbledon games. That's great. Well,
I'd like to hitch a ride next time or one
of these. Oh, man, you would have so much fun. Yeah,
I'll let you know. It's a quick flight from Colombia. Yeah.
(42:32):
I think there's direct flights actually from the Wimbledon. Yeah. Yeah,
it's not far if you can, if you can get
to if you can, if you can get to Heathrow,
it's not that far away.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, all right, all right, we'll do it. We'll do it, man.
I love that story, and I'm a fan. Now, I'm
a fan. Now I'll be I'll be checking them out.
What are their chances of a promotion this season? Very
exceptionally low. I mean, we have the second lowest budget
in the third division, so just not getting relegated is
a huge win. Okay, all right, well that'll take that's great,
you'll take it exactly wonderful. I have a new team
(43:07):
to support then in the third Division. I've been looking
for a team for the third Division to support.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
John. We got some mail, yeah, awandpod at gmail dot com. Everybody, Yeah,
we got a lot of mail. We get a surprising
amount of male and I enjoy it very much. So
this one says, Hey, Daniel, Sean, and John, I love
the new pod. What a great intro to global football.
Thanks for making it and sharing it. I've long thought
John would find one of my parenting choices funny slash interesting.
(43:34):
Growing up, my lullabies were family versions of Irish drinking songs,
including show Me the Way to Go Home. When my
daughter was born almost three years ago, I decided the
logical next step was football. Chance she gets You'll never
walk alone and show me the way to plow Lane.
Every night tonight she decided to sing along. I grabbed
a voice memo of it to share. Thanks and DFTBA Emily.
(43:57):
So let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Show me the.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Way to Ploway.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
For by I want to go home well ahead a
Foper crown twenty years ago and.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Want one of my whenever I may roam to sell
Hurst Parker again, you can always hear me sing in
this song show Me the Way to Plowing.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Oh my god, that's so stinking cute. So that's the
song that we sang for twenty five years, Daniel, as
we were trying to get back home to Wimbledon, trying
to build a stadium to replace plow Lane, the stadium
where Wimbledon played from the early nineteen hundreds. And uh,
(44:58):
and we finally did. We finally built a stadium across
the street from that old stadium, and it's called the
New plow Lane. And we still sing that song to
remind us of the long journey that we've been on.
And I have to confess that hearing that makes me
tear up a little.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
It's beautiful, Emily, thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I really loved it. Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Okay, emotional clarity here, let's move on. This one's a
little bit of a critique. John, Yeah, we need that sometimes,
it says dear John and Daniel. I am writing with
an observation the smugness with which you and John Green
congratulate yourselves on your powerful hair has not gone unnoticed
in the chrome domosphere. Won't someone think of the balls
(45:44):
as that renowned poet my mother once said, grass does
not grow on a busy street.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yours, Luke, Luke Sean isn't this today, But if you were,
I would just bring him on right now to talk
about his luxurious head of hair. I mean, there's something
about our high school that just made for beautiful, strong
(46:12):
heads of hair.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Spend the water. Yeah, I want to say that. This
comes from my friend Luke, And I was like, you know, Luke,
do you want me to you know, can I say
you're you know? I was going to share this anonymous,
because actually came I'll be honest in the form of
a text, and he said, say my full name. So
this is one of my friend Luke Dempsey. Luke is
(46:35):
such a good friend and such a wonderful writer. He
wrote this book called Club Soccer one oh one, which
is one hundred and one stories of club soccer teams
from around the world. It's a great book, a really
fun book. And Luke and I used to go see
Red Bulls games together.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
No nice. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, he lives in La now and I can't remember
now if he's which side of the l traffic Go
divide he is now.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
But he's also a big United fan anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
So Luke, I have nothing to apologize for. I just
want to say, yeah, neither do I. It's just jeans man.
I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, it's just this is this is what I was given.
So it's true that you were given a good head
of hair, Daniel, but you also do extraordinary things with it.
Like even when we were in high school, I would
always be like, my god, that guy has great hair.
And it's not entirely just because of the thickness of it.
It's also because of the way you style it. So
I think you deserve a little bit of credit. You're again,
(47:36):
your memory of me in high school is just completely
bizarrely exaggeratedly, you know, nice to me. I just feel
like mostly my style was just not washing my hair enough.
And you, I mean, you can say that all you want,
but I think we both know which one of us
(47:57):
ended up with our mutual high school crush. Let's move on.
Let's move on. Yes, very lastly, a correction, and this
is key This is from Daniel's son, Alisio. We have
a very important correction. Alisio rights. The camaraderie on the
chess team is quite strong. When one of us loses,
we are sad. When we do well, we are all happy.
(48:20):
I disagree with the statement made on the podcast yours, Elisio.
That's so great. Corre slight correction to your correction. It's Eliseo.
But that's okay. Once again, once again I am pillaried
for completely correct pronunciation. I look, we'll leave that aside.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
And I just want to apologize to Elise for this
mischaracterization of the spirit of the chess team at his
local school here in Bota.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
And you know, I want.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
To wish the chess team of at Anglo all the
best in their upcoming tournament and also you know his
his chests club at Kaipa as well.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I'm sure you'll do great. Yeah, And let's a on
my front. I just want to say it was my bad.
I thought about disagreeing with your dad the moment he
said that, because I knew he was wrong. But then
sometimes just with the vibe of the pod, you want
to just keep flowing. You want to yes and somebody
and that was my mistake. I should have interrupted him
the moment he said that instead of the chess teams
as camaraderie, and it's not Daniel's fault or my fault
(49:24):
that we've never been inside of one of those chess
locker rooms and seen that camaraderie up close chess locker rooms.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I'm sorry, Okay, I'm making it worse.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
So, I'm sorry to so, John, you didn't need to
throw him ntoer the bus just to get to on
my son's good set. Anyway, We're gonna end there before
I offend any of my children anymore. John, Thanks, as always,
thanks to our producer Kurt Sean will be back next week.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
We're gonna have to quiz him on something for you
seams always then, and we'll do it against her. Can't wait.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yes,
Hello, and welcome to the Away And I'm John Green,
I'm Danielle Alercon, and today we're gonna be talking about
the World Cup playoff matches that start tomorrow. As this
is being uploaded, Daniel, tomorrow, the joy of international football
is back with us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I had a question about that before we get to
the individual games. I was really thinking about this on
the way I was walking my dog this morning, that
it must be kind of a trip for the players
to go from games that matter to games it don't matter,
or vice versa. Right, So if you're in a club
team and now you've got to go and your club
(00:46):
team is like mid table, you're not going up, you're
not going down, everything's you know whatever, And then you've
got to go to a playoff like the ones that
we're about to talk about. Psychologically, it must be a
real trip. And then and there's you know, players who
are locked in a title race who are going to
play like a friendly against you know whoever. And and
(01:08):
I feel like that that that just must really be
jolting emotionally, don't.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
You think I would think playing in a playoff has
got to be so intense, especially these one game playoffs
where it's literally winner, go home. Your chances of playing
in a World Cup, which is something you've dreamed of
since you were a little kid, rest on ninety minutes
of football. But it can't be that much less pressure
(01:36):
than being in a title race in England or France
or Germany or whatever. I mean those that's got to
be a tremendous amount of pressure. I you, and then
you go play a friendly against like Slovenia, you know,
and you're like, here, we are playing football for no stakes. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I mean, do you remember the guy who uh or
the winning penalty kick in the World Cup last time?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Isn't his name Mundial? No? Mundial means global in world
means wait, wait, wait his name is close to give
me close. I'm getting there. You're very close. What is
his name? Oh? I mean, I feel like I just
mispronounced it, Daniel, you.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Did, Okay, I'm gonna give it to you. Its Gonzalo Montille.
And the reason I mentioned him is because I said,
you said moundieal. But okay, whatever I said it, I
said it perfectly, all right. So once again I am
pilloried for my pronunciation when it's not my fault that
I was raised in America.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You're You're fine. That was terrific. So Gonzalo Montiel scores
the winning world penalty in the World Cup final, then
like languidly takes off his shirt and strolls to the
to the corner flag. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And then uh, you know, pandemonium ensues like a whole
country celebrates. And then he went back to England a
couple of weeks later to play for.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Nottingham Forest and I just remembering, like, what must that
be like? You know, yeah, you're celebrating in a bus
tour where sixty million people have come out to see
you so much that the bus cannot move, and then
(03:18):
enjoy being fourteenth, right. I mean Forest fans are intense.
I'm not saying they're not. They don't love their football,
for sure, they love their club and they they's place
to play.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
But it's very different. It's very different. I remember seeing
him sort of like taking a corner kick and I
was like, man, this must be such a letdown. This
must be like you know, like like like playing at
the like at the at the YMCA, you know, like,
are you know, compared to playing in the hothouse of
(03:50):
a World Cup final and then having the cohonas to
hit that penalty kick. I mean, anyway, he's now back
in Argentstina.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Playing for River Play.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In case you were wondering, all right, the game's don
there's a lot of exciting playoff action coming up. Should
we start with Wales versus Bosnia?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
How do you want to do this? Yeah, let's go
with Wales versus Bosnia. Wales is a favorite in that game,
but not a huge favorite. I like Wales to go through.
I don't know much about the Welsh national team, but
except for what Ryan Reynolds has taught me through his
Wrexham program. But I feel like they've got better players.
(04:29):
They've got a lot of players in the Premier League.
There's no reason they can't. They can't. They can't make
it through that game. Whether they can make it past
Italy is another question entirely.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Okay, well, I'm going with Bosnia because one of my
favorite writers is Alexander Haimon.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Not just a writer you like, also a writer who's
your friend.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I would say we're friendly. I
wouldn't say he's like my closest friend, although there was
a time when I dreamed of being his close friend
because his first book, The Question of Bruno and his
novel nowhere Man were really for me, and when I
met him, I remember being completely starstruck. He's a wonderful guy,
(05:06):
super super nice. Anyway, he's Bosnian. And when I don't
have much writing on this on these games, like I
have no personal collection to either country, I really.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Just go with the literature. That's fair. So yeah, I'm
all in on BOSMBI. That's fair. Well. This brings us
to a difficult situation for you, then, Italy versus Northern Ireland,
two nations with I would say it's pretty strong literary heritage,
but I don't know if you have any writer friends there.
I have to go with Northern Ireland because there is
a small chance, believe it or not, Daniel, that a
(05:37):
player from AFC Wimbledon, the third tier English soccer team
I support and who will be learning more about later
in this very podcast, a player from AFC Wimbledon might
play for Northern Ireland in that game. Hmm, that's the
reason enough. I would go. Like der.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I was gonna say, uh, I really liked Dairy
Girls man.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Dairry Girls was great, so.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm gonna yeah, it was a good show with Northern Island.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, really well written. I kind of will to sleep
at the end. You know, it was very moving, very moving. Yeah,
I think Italy is like a fifteen to one favorite,
but we're both going Northern Ireland out of respect for
dairy girls. Great.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, so that leaves us with Italy versus probably Wales.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
What do you think? I mean, it's hard not to
see Italy going through from this group because they're overwhelmingly
the most talented team, but Italy has found a way
to fall apart in previous World Cup qualifying groups. The
pressure of this, the whole the pressure of these two
games of this like semi final final bracket, the semifinals
(06:47):
we played on March twenty sixth, the finals on March
thirty first. I can't even imagine the pressure of going
into that knowing you have to win and you're Italy.
And that's why I think it's possible that that Italy
doesn't go through because of the pressure.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, I mean, I remember Italy losing to North Macedonia
last time.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh and remember their goalkeeper just In tears.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The goalkeeper's Donna Rumo or the goalkeeper from North Macedonia.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
No no boffo.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Man, what a keeper he was h Yeah that was
because he was he was like forty seven years old
and he knew.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That would be he was going to do it again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Great flag, North Macedonia, great flag, great flag. Yeah yeah, Okay,
so you're going with Italy, I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Northern Ireland, just to shock the world. Northern Ireland versus
Wales Island goes through. Yeah, I'm very pro Irish. I
just find him to be charming Irish and Northern Irish.
All right, Well, we've got more Ireland down the road
to talk about. But first let's talk about Ukraine versus Sweden,
(08:03):
which we played in Spain because of the war. This
is probably the most toss up e of the semi
final games, partly because there is no home field advantage,
but partly because Ukraine and Sweden are both really good.
I both have really good football teams. Sweden no longer
have forty seven year old s a lot in Ibrahimovich,
(08:24):
but still have some good players. I'm going to go
Ukraine in that one because I like the Ukrainian national team.
I would love to see them go to the World Cup.
I know how much it would mean to that country.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Okay, I'm very torn here because I agree with you
kind of from a deal political point of view, and
so and what would mean to a country in the
midst of the war. At the same time, Sweden has
Victor Yokurez, a Arsenal striker, and I'm I'm kind of
selfishly want him to do well. I mean, he is
a player who has the first touch of a croquet mallet,
(08:59):
and sometimes watching him dribbles like watching a horse try
to do a step over. But he's been quietly effective
since the new year, and you know, scoring some important goals,
including some game winners.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I think we would do Arsenal a world of good
if he were to if he were to do well here.
So I'm really torn about this. But so so it's
like I'm balancing sort of like my selfish sort of Arsenal,
you know, fandom versus kind of this moral stance against imperialism.
(09:34):
And I think I have to go with Ukraine. Then
I have to support Ukraine, Okay, So we're both for Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay. Then we've got Poland versus Albania, which we played
in Poland. Poland is favored there. But you never count
out the Albanians in international football. Really, oh yeah, you
never count him out. Has Albebia ever qualified for the
World Cup?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Uh No, they haven't that I can think of, because
I mean they did as Yugoslavis shure they had, you know, Zugoslavia,
they were. They've never called up, they've never qualified. Okay, man,
So I guess actually, now that I think about it,
you can count out the Albanians. So here I have to.
I have to go back to literature. And there's only
(10:18):
one Albanian writer I know is Meel Kadare. It's pretty good,
but man, many good Polish writers and streating. I'm thinking
of Bruno Schultz, Street of Crocodiles, I'm thinking of uh
Tedis Borowski. This way for the guys, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
What about Joseph Conrad.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Joseph Conrad a little dense for me? But yeah, oh,
come on.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You don't mean that. You don't mean, man, I know
you don't. You liked First off, you like dense literature.
Second off, he's not that dense. I don't believe you.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, all right, don't believe me. I liked his book
about the guy with the bomb, the secret Agent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I didn't love Heart of Darkness. It's a little dense.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It's fair, but you know, yeah, but Poland takes this
one just because I can only name one Albanian writer
that I enjoyed, but I didn't, you know, Flip out
over Man who wrote that book A Minor Apocalypse. Do
you know this writer? Oh god, so good. It's called
a Minor Apocalypse by Taito's con wiki.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I'm trying to pronouncing that wrong.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And essentially the premises, it's like, uh, the these uh,
you know, communist anti communist dissidents go to this like
aging writer and they're like, dude, you're basically done. You're useless.
The Russian premieres in town. Here's a gallon of gasoline
and some matches. You know, go light yourself on fire
in front of the of the building tonight, because you know,
(11:57):
you've got nothing really else to offer the anti commun
this movement, and you're not writing anything. And so the
novel follows in the whole day as he thinks about it,
he's like and he goes around saying goodbye to his
friends and like his old lovers and sort of like
and everyone is like yeah, I mean this seems like
a good ending for you. You know, it's so funny
and dark, truly brilliant book. Okay, so Poland in a landslide.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah. Can I tell you real quick that one time
when I was in New York City, I was hospitalized
for an infection behind my eye. And I had this
roommate because this was a crowded New York City hospital
where everybody had a roommate, and so I had this
roommate named Al, and Al was convinced that he was
dying like that day. He had a heart problem. He
(12:42):
was eighty six years old, and so all night long
he called up his war buddies. He would call up
his war buddies and he would be like, yeah, it's Al,
gotta say goodbye. Unfortunately, you know, I got this heart
valve issue and it's not going to be long for me.
But then I was in the hospital without long enough
that he got the successful surgery and then he was
(13:04):
completely fine. And then he had to call back all
of his war buddies and be like, Okay, it's all
false alarm still here. I love that. Good for Al. Yeah, No,
I mean good, it's great. It's great to say, it's
great to be able to say goodbye, and it's even
better to be able to say hello again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I met a Chilean guy once who in Chile. He'd
been living in Sweden for many years and he'd worked
for the Swedish news agency. Like many Chilean exiles, he'd
gone to Sweden, and he told me that he'd been
He and another reporter were going to be sent to
Bosnia for the war to cover the war, and they
(13:44):
had to do all kinds of medical tech ups. So
he and this other guy both did their medical tech
ups and then the doctor called him and was like, okay,
you have we didn't You have terminal cancer. You can't
go to the war. You're going to die in a
matter of weeks. So he did exactly what Al did,
called everybody and said goodbye, and you know, told people
that he hated that he hated them and that he
(14:05):
they'd always been the worst to him, and they they
were like, just did all this stuff, and then they
turned out that they'd switched the files and they didn't
realize this until the other guy just killed over and
died and then they were like whoops and U And
he was basically on the trip I met him. He
was he you know, this guy in his like, you know,
late fifties. He was coming back to Chile to make
(14:26):
peace with all the people that he'd pissed off when
he thought he.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Was gonna die, had weeks to exactly exactly think. The
lesson from that is, maybe when you have weeks to live,
don't go on like a revenge tour and like tell
everyone you hate that you hate them.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, or maybe you know, double check to the diagnosis,
you know, get a second appurance.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Get a second opinion, get a second opinion. What else
should have done too? Okay, A right, So Ukraine is
going to play Poland in the final. Who's gonna win?
Daniel Ukraine versus Poland. I'm going with Ukraine. I know
that Poland is probably gonna win, but I'd like Ukraine
to win. I'm gonna go with Ukraine too. It would
be really fun to see Ukraine in Northern Ireland in
(15:08):
the World Cup. It's not gonna happen, but it wouldn't
be fun. It would be great. It would be great.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Sponsored by random betting site. Okay, Next is Slovakia and
versus Kosovo.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
This is a tough one for me. I don't know
a lot of Slovakian or coas of R writers. I'm
gonna I think Slovakia is probably gonna win. They're playing
at home, They've got that, They've got that beautiful stadium
in Brody Slava. I'm gonna go with Slovakia.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, they're playing at home, so I'm gonna go to
Slovakia as well. Okay, Turkey versus Romania playing in Istanbul,
this is tough. First see all I see is the
welcome to Hell sign.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Oh my god. Yeah, playing so hard. When Liverpool played
in Turkey last week, I was watching on television in
Indianapolis and I was intimidated.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, yeah, I I there's three. The Basicus is the
black and white team.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeuh yeah. And so I was the orange and yellow one.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the blue the blue, the blue and and uh
and yellow is uh it's Fenerbache. They are very intense, man.
I actually happened upon a Bisicas game uh in Istanbul once.
I didn't get to go into the game, although in
my memory I've revised it that I was there. But
I just remember the fans storm, you know, sort of
(16:31):
streaming in and just the noise and I would not
want to play in Turkey. And also, oh Paul pretty
great writer. Yeah, I saw him once from a distance.
He was very quiet. Yeah, yeah, he seemed very should
(16:52):
you like.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
See him speak or like, was he like at a
conference that you were No, he was.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Browsing books at the Frankfurt book Fair.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, oh wow. You didn't go up to him.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I didn't know, because what are you gonna say, like, yeah,
you know what. My son, my older son, Leone, had
a box of things that he was scared of when
he was a kid, and he would ask his mom
to keep it, and every once in a while she
would pull the shoe box out from the closet and
show it to him. And the box had a lot
of random things, but the one thing I remember that
it had was a paperback of my Name Is Read
(17:21):
By or I'm Pomoke, And the cover freaked him out,
and it was just a close up of a of
a kind of like a kind of very old Turkish
painting of a war scene.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And he would just look at it and then he'd
be like, no, that's enough and put it away. And
like we had to hide or on Pomoke from our
kid whole life is so metaphorically resonant, Daniel. It's incredible.
It's incredible how metaphors just bump into you. Yeah, it
might be something to do with my brain, Like the
(17:54):
box of things I'm afraid of that I look at
occasionally in order to remind myself of fear is the
best metaphor I've ever heard of, other than the other
metaphors that you've told me from your own life. Look
that one.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I did not come up with my child that, so
that's all on him. I think that there's only one
that Turkey gets out of this group. But you know,
whether they play the Black Air Coasovo, you gotta go
with Turkey.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yep. All right. So so far we have Turkey, Ukraine
and Northern Ireland going to the World Cup. Our last
European matchup is Chechia versus Ireland and Prague. Chechi is
favored by just on the quality of literature. I know,
I know, we're talking about some great check writers over
the years, but I still think that we've got to
go with Ireland there also. I mean, there's nothing like
(18:45):
Irish fans of the World Cup. It's special. So I'm
going with Ireland there and then we've got Denmark versus
North Macedonia. Never bet against North Macedonia, but I'm still
going to go Denmark. And then in the final, I'm
going to go Ireland, stunning the world and making it
out of that group.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
On literature alone. I'm torn, you know, Uh, you're torn.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I mean, don't get me wrong, like Aclaholic and kunder
is a great writer and everything.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But you've got you got James Joyce, Yeah, Samuel Beckett,
Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, whose last words were bless you, sister.
He said this to a nun as she was giving
him an injection. He said, bless you, sister. May all
your sons be bishops.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Oh yeah, okay, all right, call him toy Bin Oh
great writer, Yeah, great bank. Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney. Yeah,
all right, okay, convinced me. Okay, So so I'm going
Ireland all the way.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Here, Ireland all the way. So to recap, we have
we have Northern Ireland going all the way, pull, Ukraine
going all the way, uh, Turkey and now Ireland's great.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well here we get one of these.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, seriously, okay, we have Bolivia versus Surinam. This is
the intercontinental playoff Bolivia versus Surnam playing in Mexico, uh,
and the winner plays Iraq. Maybe maybe I think Bolivia
is favored there. Yeah, I think Belivia is probably gonna
win that game. Olivia versus I Rock is a really
(20:21):
interesting matchup, but I don't know if it's going to
happen because it's not clear that a Rock is going
to make it to that game. I wonder what happens
in that case. I don't think there's a precedent for
this kind of situation, Yeah, except like back in the
like thirties when teams would pull out of the World
Cup because like their boat wasn't big enough, you know,
to get you know, like the very early World Cup.
(20:43):
But this is quite a different situation. Yeah, I would
like Bolivia to win. The entire Surnam national team is
just like Dutch B teamers essentially, right, which is a fascinating,
uh sort of post colonial reality. I would like to
believe you to win because Belivisa hasn't been the World
Up in a long time, and more Latin America is
(21:06):
better for me.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Okay, North Caledonia, where is that exactly? It's actually New
Caledonia did I say North Caledonia? You did? I was
testing you, John. That is super embarrassing, super embarrassing. Well,
it's fine though, because New Caledonia is a nation of
two hundred ninety thousand people. And I would have bet
(21:28):
my life that it was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean,
but in fact it is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean,
just off the coast of Australia. And it was named
New Caledonia because a fella, a European fella, saw it
and thought it looked like Scotland. And yet they speak
French there. They speak In fact, they are part of France.
There is an independence movement and it's currently being negotiated
(21:51):
with France whether they will be fully independent, but currently
they are French citizens.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Interesting, Okay, Well I support the Newonian independence movement, but
want Jamaica to win.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, I want Jamaica. I just Jamaican's at the World Cup.
It's so special, like it's such a especially a World
Cup in the United States. It's such a it would
be so it would be so awesome, it would make
me so happy. That said, I think Dr Congo is
probably gonna win that that so New Caldaria plays Jamaica
and then the winner plays Dr Congo and it's hard
(22:25):
not to see Dr Congo winning that game.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, Derek Congo is a strong team for sure, just
in terms of spectacle, for the the for the the
joy that the World Cup would bring for all the
fans around the game.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
I think Jamaica in being playing the United States would
be wonderful. But we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'm gonna go with Jamaica there, even though that I
know that's a that's not the most likely thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we have out of this World Cup. I'm going
Bolivia and Jamaica out of these intercontinental playoffs. Yeah, and
I'm going to go Iraq and Jamaica and we'll see,
we'll see. I mean, the joy of the intercontinental playoffs
for me is that it's so unpredictable. Like New Caledonia
(23:14):
and Jamaica have never ever faced each other. This is
a completely unprecedented situation in human history, and who the
hell knows, but we'll find out. That's what makes it
so fun.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I love it, Okay, So and we'll check back in
and see who did better, although I guess or how
well we did because we kind of like serve agreed
on everything or almost everything. All right, let's take a
quick break and we'll be right back with a deep
dive on the national team of France. We're back on
(23:56):
the way, and John, I want to tell you something
about the national team of friends. But I want to
start with something that I learned when I'm married into
a Colombian family, which is that here in Latin America,
we are all taught the following that our national anthem
was judged to be the second most beautiful national anthem
in the world.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
After Le Marseilles La Marseilles, the.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
French national anthem.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And I always just.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Took this to be gospel truth because I was taught
this when I was a kid at the proven national
anthem was the second most beautiful national anthem in the world.
And then in my thirties, when I married into a
Columbian family, I've discovered that the Columbians are also taught this.
(24:40):
And then I think, like most Latin Americans are taught
that their national anthem is the second most beautiful national
anthem in the world. And it was funny because until
I realized this, I never even thought to consider like
when was this tournament of national anthems held?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And who are the judges? Was just like like Eurovision
but for national anthems exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And also you know, how would you judge that, like
what would be the fair way? Was it a bracket
system or like a you know, friendly like you know,
why would that even exist? Who would you know? The
whole thing is just so perposteous. But it was just
one of those things that I just never questioned.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I was like, oh, we have the second most beautiful
national anthem in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So but what's funny is that everyone agreed that the
French national anthem was like the top the best, right, right.
And I mentioned this because it's not just national anthems
in which France is a global powerhouse. I have vivid
memories of watching the French national team over the years,
(25:38):
beautiful memories, and I think I've mentioned this before on
this podcast, but I'm not sure. One of the first
places that I learned the lessons of kind of narrative
and drama was watching the nineteen eighty six quarterfinal match
between France and Brazil, and I mentioned it was because
the main lesson of drama, like if you want to
(26:00):
create drama. It's you you you know, as a writer,
you make indelible characters that people love, and so that
you're invested in their mistakes, the readers invested in their mistakes, right,
so that you're you're you know, kind of this a
more sophisticated version of like, don't go in there, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And and.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I learned this because I was watching this game, and
and I loved two players on the team on each
team the number tens for both Brazil and France. The
Brazilian number ten is to talk at this, uh, just
such a character, uh and a and a and a
beautiful player. And the French number ten was Michelle Platini.
Both were these kind of very technical midfield generals with
(26:43):
tremendous vision the other kind of players that make the
other players around them better, which I think is kind
of a a requirement for anyone who wants to be
in the discussion of being great, truly great. The game
I remember was breathless.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
There was a point at which Brazil had a penalty,
and the French veendor who gave away the penalty later
revealed that platin had come up to him and said
before the pen was taken and he said, you better
pray this guy misses or I'm going to kick your ass,
which which kind of flies in the face of mine.
Makes everyone better thing, but you know, it does sort
(27:17):
of speak to the intensity that Platini had. The Brazilian
player did, in fact miss. The game was one one
at full time, went to extra time, went to penalties,
and both Socrates and Platini missed. And I loved both
of these teams. I was watching through my like a
horror movie. I couldn't decide what I wanted. It really
was like it put me through the ringer. France eventually
(27:37):
won in penalty kicks despite Platini's miss, and went on
to lose to Germany in the Semis. So In nineteen
ninety eight, I was studying abroad in France and at
the end of the semester I flew to Abijean and
then eventually to Morocco. I traveled around a bit and
went to Spain to visit a cousin of mine who
lived in Barcelona. This was a summer of nineteen ninety
eight and I almost almost John took a train to Paris,
(28:01):
but I thought to myself, I really have no more
money and I need to go back to New York
to work, and I'm sure that would be amazing, But
you know what, France never wins anyway, so it's not
like I'm gonna miss anything, And of course they wont.
I spent some of the money I made that summer
on a Zidon jersey, a player that I had another
sort of like midfield general number ten, leader of a team,
(28:24):
player I love, despite the fact that he played for
Madrid and well, I loved a lot of French players
over the years, not the least of which is Terryan Ree,
arguably the greatest striker in French history arsenal legend, whose
jersey I'm currently wearing. So I guess France when they
found out that I doubted them that year, they just
(28:45):
really stepped it up. And in response to those doubts,
they've become one of those handful of teams that's always
always in the mix, that really could win it all.
They're in the conversation for every tournament. They've been in
the finals for three of the last five tournaments, an
incredible feat. They won in twenty eighteen, of course. But
(29:05):
I just wanted you to understand the depth of talent
that France has because you know, when you present the
US men's national team, you were like, oh my god,
they have like twenty players in the Premier League or whatever.
Paris and her suburbs const do what must be like
the greatest concentration of soccer talent in the world. And
just to underline this, I wanted to tell you a
crazy fact. There were more players born in Paris and
(29:28):
surrounding areas playing in the African Cup of Nations this
past year than in any other country in the tournament.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Wow yeah, wow, astonishing, right, And that's obviously has to
do with the you know, intense footballing culture, with the training,
with you know, the mass migration which is transformed France.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It has to do with the passion. It's just, you know,
this is a footballing nation that has so much talent
that they're able to export it to other countries. So
players you've obviously heard of Killian Mbappe, and by you,
I mean the listeners I know you John have. He
was the super young in twenty eighteen. He won the
Best Young Player of the Year. He scored four goals
(30:11):
in seven games, including one against Peru, which I'm sure
was like the most special goal to him, that's the
one he remembers. That's probably the one he remembers most
things about all night. He has blossomed since then, obviously
to become one of the greatest players.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Just the forty goals in all comps for Madrid this season.
Just the forty Yeah. So, but you know he's not
the only player John, you know, and Madrid fans still
complain about him.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
They're very spoiled, They're very spoiled, They're so lucky. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Dde de Champ's France manager, who looks like one of
those senior execs from that show mad Men. Just an
absolute embarrassment of talents. And I'm just gonna name a
couple or a few. Usman Deanble reigning bellond'or winner, his
teammate at PSD, Bradley Barcola, Arsenal's Williams Saliba, Byron's Michael
o'lisse incredible player, Barcelona's Jules kunde ugo Ekitik, who you
(31:13):
know from Liverpool, and the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
So much talent.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The logical conclusion here is to say that France might
not win the World Cup, but they're definitely going to
be in the mix. I wouldn't be surprised they made
it to the Semis. And like we said, with these playoffs,
like you know, once we get into the knockout rounds
of the tournament, anything can happen. But they're definitely one
of the teams to watch, you know. And I just
want to end by saying it wasn't just that nineteen
eighty six quarter final that sort of taught me the
(31:39):
lessons that I think have helped make me a novelist
or storyteller. There was another iconic French moment, which I'm
sure you remember, that also kind of reinforced that lesson
of narrative and the creation of drama, and that was
the two thousand and six zinjin Zi don headbutt against
one of.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
The most dramatic failures of of keeping a cool head
in all of human history.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Incredible, incredible actually, to name check Alexander Himon once more,
he described it as watching a man commit suicide in public.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It was so dramatic.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It was, you know, ten minutes for a full time
and the deflation of the national team of players around
him once.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He was gone. It was just it was there was
like there could only be one winner after that. It
was incredible. So we should tell the story real quick
of what happened. I was watching from Chicago with a
bunch of my friends. I'm sure you were. You were
watching wherever you were. Billions of people literally were watching
the World Cup final. It was an extra time and
the greatest player, you know, one of the greatest players ever,
(32:44):
the greatest player on the pitch, but by a country mile,
was Zennidine Zadan, This French player and one of the
opposing players apparently called his sister a name, and then
Zenidine Zidan headbutted, the guy, got a red card, was
sent off off and France lost the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, that's exactly what happened. The Italian player was Mattrazzi.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeh. And it wasn't even you know. I mean, let's
put it this way. If you headbutted an opponent every
time your sister got called a name, you'd get a
lot of red cards.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah, it's true, but I think that in some
way I should mentioned this also, he is he done
when they won in ninety eight, scored two goals in
the final, and he'd already scored a goal in Italy
against Italy in that game, and moments before he had
(33:43):
nearly scored a bullet header from from a distance where
it was unthinkable that you could even get off a
powerful shot. He headed the ball from almost the eighteen
yard line of the box, and the Italian keeper Buffon
had been incredible saved, and so he was like, you know,
a fingertip away from being like the first person to
(34:05):
score two goals in two World Cup finals, you know,
and then like literally three minutes later, he gets a
red card and no one at the time knew why
because there wasn't when we saw it, and I was
wearing Miisi Don jersey that I'd bought in ninety eight.
There were the same number of like replays, you know,
like like we didn't see it for a long time
in the stadium, no one knew why unless they'd seen
(34:26):
it happen.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, because it was off the ball. It wasn't it
was It was just a nothing moment where he completely
lost his cool. And you have to say, who knows
how the game goes? I mean, obviously it's an extra time,
it's probably going to go to penalties. That's a lottery.
Who knows how the game goes? If he doesn't get
a red card. But with him getting a red card,
it felt inevitable that France was going to lose.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, So we'll we'll see what happens with
France here. But I want to thank the Nation of
France for their everything they've taught about narrative, specifically the
national team of France for teaching me to be a writer.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I also want to dedicate.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
This description of the France national team and their chances
to my son's friend Camillo, who's French, half French and.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Really special kid in our family.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
So yeah, let's take.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
A quick break and we'll be robt. All right, Welcome
back to the away and it's my turn to tell
a story, and Daniel, I'm going to tell you the
(35:43):
story of the football team I love so much AFC Wimbledon,
because I don't think I've ever told you this story,
and I know I haven't told a lot of the
listeners this story. So in eighteen eighty nine a club
was formed in southwest London called Wimbledon FC. They spend
most of their time as an amateur team, but then
eventually they rose up to the professional ranks through promotion
and in nineteen eighty eight, they reached the pinnacle of
(36:07):
English football at the time by winning the FA Cup.
They beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final. They won
this big cup. Princess Diana handed it to them. It
was a big deal. And then almost immediately the club
started to fall apart because of poor ownership and rich people,
as they often do, treating football clubs as assets rather
than as community based organizations. And so eventually the club
(36:33):
was basically bankrupted and the only proposed solution from the
ownership team was to move the club away. Now we
know this happens a lot in American sports, the Baltimore
Colts become the Indianapolis Colts, etc. It had never happened
in English football because fundamentally, it's not the Arsenal Gunners
or the Liverpool Reds. It's Arsenal and Liverpool. And it
(36:57):
was Wimbledon, which was a club the community of Wimbledon
in southwest London, where the tennis tournament happens. But even so,
in the year two thousand and one, the club was
moved against the will of all the fans, to Milton Keynes,
this new city that had been created sort of from scratch,
(37:18):
about seventy miles away and the community of Wimbledon was
left without a football club. The one young woman described
this to me. She said, it was like my dad.
You know, my dad had been going to every game
for forty years and it was like they'd taken away
my dad's church, you know. I mean, it's such a
big part of your identity when you're a supporter of
(37:39):
a football club and to have that suddenly just completely
rested away from you and told that it's you know,
not in the best interests of the sport as a
whole for your club to exist is absolutely devastating. And
what Wimbledon fans did is they started over. So the
club that was Wimbledon FC took the lead place and
(38:01):
became known as MK Dons Milton Keynes Dons. The Wimbledon
fans refused to acknowledge the Dons part of Milton Keynes Dons,
but at any rate that's the official name of that team.
And they were by then in the third division of
English football, which is still a professional league. And this
new club, or this Phoenix club, the rebirth of Wimbledon FC,
(38:23):
was called AFC Wimbledon and they started down in the
ninth tier of English soccer. I mean at away games,
they were literally sitting on hay bales paying fifty cents
to watch their team play, when just five years earlier
they'd been in the Premier League and thousands of people
became owners of this new AFC Wimbledon because it wasn't
(38:45):
going to be owned by any rich person. It was
going to be owned by the fans, by all of
them together, so that this could never happen again. And
even if they had to spend eternity in the amateur
ranks of English football, at least they would have a
club of their own. But they worked their way up.
After two years they got promoted to the eighth Division.
Then they got promoted to the seventh division. Then they
(39:05):
were stuck there for a few years and slowly worked
their way up until by twenty eleven they were just
one promotion away from being back to being a full
time professional team. They had a game, a playoff final
to get there. It was nil nil against Lutontown. You
know Lutontown They were in the Premier League not long ago,
(39:26):
but back then they were in the fifth Division along
with AFC Wimbledon. And it was nil nil at the
end of full time and at the end of extra
time and it went to penalties, and Wimbledon's goalkeeper at
the time was this nineteen year old kid working part
time at a rental car place named Seb Brown who'd
actually been in the pub where AFC. He was like
six years old, and he was in the pub where
(39:48):
AFC Wimbledon was originally formed back when all of this
went down, and Seb Brown saved two penalties against Lutontown
to send AFC Wimbledon back to the Football League, back
being a full time professional team, which they've been ever
since twenty eleven. Our community has been sponsoring them. They
wear our logo on the liminal space between left thigh
(40:11):
and buttock on the back of their shorts. It says DFTBA,
which stands for Don't Forget to be Awesome. We've been
sponsoring them since twenty fourteen. But these days AFC Wimbledon
is up in the third Division. And what's really incredible
is that Milton Keynes, the team that used to be US,
is in the fourth division. And so after all that,
(40:33):
after all that trauma and hurt and stealing away a
football club, they don't even get to play US every
season because they're not good enough. But when we do play.
I've been to a few games where where AFC Wimbledon
played against Milton Keynes and it is the most ferocious.
I mean, look, I've never been to Turkey. I've never
(40:53):
seen galatass or I play. I'm sure that's more ferocious.
But it is the most ferocious thing I've ever seen
in English soccer. It is incredibly dramatic. There are many songs.
My favorite of the songs that Wimbledon fans sing is
where were you? Where were you? Where were you when
you were us? Wow? That's also like a metaphor. I
(41:16):
would put that in my scary box they sing. They
also sing you franchise bastard, you know what you are? Wow?
It's pretty For the Milton Keynes players, no, they know
what they's. No, they don't have to sign a professional
contract with that club. We've got one. There's only one
(41:37):
player ever who's signed as far as I can remember,
who used to play for AFC Wimbledon, who signed for
Milton Keynes. And that guy gets a lot of abuse.
I bet Connor Lemon high Evans He's not well liked
around Southwest London. I hate that guy. Yeah, I've always
disliked him. So that's the story, the very abbreviated story
of the football club I love so much, and that
(41:59):
I've devot did so much of my time and treasure
two over the years. I just it makes how many
games do you get to?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
How many games do you get to go to a year?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Season? I probably go to five or six games a year,
so I go to a fair number. Yeah. Yeah, I
probably go to one Liverpool game a year. If I'm
lucky in five or six Wimbledon games. That's great. Well,
I'd like to hitch a ride next time or one
of these. Oh, man, you would have so much fun. Yeah,
I'll let you know. It's a quick flight from Colombia. Yeah.
(42:32):
I think there's direct flights actually from the Wimbledon. Yeah. Yeah,
it's not far if you can, if you can get
to if you can, if you can get to Heathrow,
it's not that far away.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, all right, all right, we'll do it. We'll do it, man.
I love that story, and I'm a fan. Now, I'm
a fan. Now I'll be I'll be checking them out.
What are their chances of a promotion this season? Very
exceptionally low. I mean, we have the second lowest budget
in the third division, so just not getting relegated is
a huge win. Okay, all right, well that'll take that's great,
you'll take it exactly wonderful. I have a new team
(43:07):
to support then in the third Division. I've been looking
for a team for the third Division to support.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
John. We got some mail, yeah, awandpod at gmail dot com. Everybody, Yeah,
we got a lot of mail. We get a surprising
amount of male and I enjoy it very much. So
this one says, Hey, Daniel, Sean, and John, I love
the new pod. What a great intro to global football.
Thanks for making it and sharing it. I've long thought
John would find one of my parenting choices funny slash interesting.
(43:34):
Growing up, my lullabies were family versions of Irish drinking songs,
including show Me the Way to Go Home. When my
daughter was born almost three years ago, I decided the
logical next step was football. Chance she gets You'll never
walk alone and show me the way to plow Lane.
Every night tonight she decided to sing along. I grabbed
a voice memo of it to share. Thanks and DFTBA Emily.
(43:57):
So let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Show me the.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Way to Ploway.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
For by I want to go home well ahead a
Foper crown twenty years ago and.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Want one of my whenever I may roam to sell
Hurst Parker again, you can always hear me sing in
this song show Me the Way to Plowing.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Oh my god, that's so stinking cute. So that's the
song that we sang for twenty five years, Daniel, as
we were trying to get back home to Wimbledon, trying
to build a stadium to replace plow Lane, the stadium
where Wimbledon played from the early nineteen hundreds. And uh,
(44:58):
and we finally did. We finally built a stadium across
the street from that old stadium, and it's called the
New plow Lane. And we still sing that song to
remind us of the long journey that we've been on.
And I have to confess that hearing that makes me
tear up a little.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
It's beautiful, Emily, thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I really loved it. Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Okay, emotional clarity here, let's move on. This one's a
little bit of a critique. John, Yeah, we need that sometimes,
it says dear John and Daniel. I am writing with
an observation the smugness with which you and John Green
congratulate yourselves on your powerful hair has not gone unnoticed
in the chrome domosphere. Won't someone think of the balls
(45:44):
as that renowned poet my mother once said, grass does
not grow on a busy street.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yours, Luke, Luke Sean isn't this today, But if you were,
I would just bring him on right now to talk
about his luxurious head of hair. I mean, there's something
about our high school that just made for beautiful, strong
(46:12):
heads of hair.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Spend the water. Yeah, I want to say that. This
comes from my friend Luke, And I was like, you know, Luke,
do you want me to you know, can I say
you're you know? I was going to share this anonymous,
because actually came I'll be honest in the form of
a text, and he said, say my full name. So
this is one of my friend Luke Dempsey. Luke is
(46:35):
such a good friend and such a wonderful writer. He
wrote this book called Club Soccer one oh one, which
is one hundred and one stories of club soccer teams
from around the world. It's a great book, a really
fun book. And Luke and I used to go see
Red Bulls games together.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
No nice. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, he lives in La now and I can't remember
now if he's which side of the l traffic Go
divide he is now.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
But he's also a big United fan anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
So Luke, I have nothing to apologize for. I just
want to say, yeah, neither do I. It's just jeans man.
I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, it's just this is this is what I was given.
So it's true that you were given a good head
of hair, Daniel, but you also do extraordinary things with it.
Like even when we were in high school, I would
always be like, my god, that guy has great hair.
And it's not entirely just because of the thickness of it.
It's also because of the way you style it. So
I think you deserve a little bit of credit. You're again,
(47:36):
your memory of me in high school is just completely
bizarrely exaggeratedly, you know, nice to me. I just feel
like mostly my style was just not washing my hair enough.
And you, I mean, you can say that all you want,
but I think we both know which one of us
(47:57):
ended up with our mutual high school crush. Let's move on.
Let's move on. Yes, very lastly, a correction, and this
is key This is from Daniel's son, Alisio. We have
a very important correction. Alisio rights. The camaraderie on the
chess team is quite strong. When one of us loses,
we are sad. When we do well, we are all happy.
(48:20):
I disagree with the statement made on the podcast yours, Elisio.
That's so great. Corre slight correction to your correction. It's Eliseo.
But that's okay. Once again, once again I am pillaried
for completely correct pronunciation. I look, we'll leave that aside.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
And I just want to apologize to Elise for this
mischaracterization of the spirit of the chess team at his
local school here in Bota.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
And you know, I want.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
To wish the chess team of at Anglo all the
best in their upcoming tournament and also you know his
his chests club at Kaipa as well.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I'm sure you'll do great. Yeah, And let's a on
my front. I just want to say it was my bad.
I thought about disagreeing with your dad the moment he
said that, because I knew he was wrong. But then
sometimes just with the vibe of the pod, you want
to just keep flowing. You want to yes and somebody
and that was my mistake. I should have interrupted him
the moment he said that instead of the chess teams
as camaraderie, and it's not Daniel's fault or my fault
(49:24):
that we've never been inside of one of those chess
locker rooms and seen that camaraderie up close chess locker rooms.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I'm sorry, Okay, I'm making it worse.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
So, I'm sorry to so, John, you didn't need to
throw him ntoer the bus just to get to on
my son's good set. Anyway, We're gonna end there before
I offend any of my children anymore. John, Thanks, as always,
thanks to our producer Kurt Sean will be back next week.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
We're gonna have to quiz him on something for you
seams always then, and we'll do it against her. Can't wait.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yes,
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