On Episode 12 of The Away End, John and Daniel unpack the wins and losses of the final World Cup playoff games and begin to look ahead, now that the 48 World Cup teams are set. Daniel does a deep dive into the Bosnia and Herzegovina National team, and John highlights Ali Al-Hamadi, a star player on the Iraqi team and former member of AFC Wimbledon.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the way in. I'm Danielle aller Con. I'm
John Green. We've had a lot to talk about today, John. Yeah. Yeah.
So it was the World Cup qualifying playoffs and I
thought we would start with that. We're also going to
do a deep dive into one of the newly qualified
nations and a story from you. I have no idea
what it is, and maybe we have time, maybe a
little bit of the mailbag. Right, we still start with
(00:28):
the results.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, let's start with the results, But shouldn't we
be not eurocentric, Daniel and start with the intercontinental playoffs?
That's so uh great, Ger, Yeah, you're so woke. All right,
sure we can do that.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I will say, in the spirit of fairness that I
watched Bolivia surname Yep, to my great dismay, not a
great game of football, a miserable game of football. The
same goalkeeper was wasting time, like in the fifty fifth minute,
a lot of like going down and thinking it. Bolivia
came back, they were down one nothing, they came back
(01:07):
and scored and won. But yeah, it was not a classic,
nor will it live long in memory. I did not
watch Bolivia Rock because it was started at midnight in
Buenos Aires, where I was. So I didn't get to
watch it, did you?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So I did. I did get to watch it because
the Iraqi national team has a former AFC Wimbledon player,
Ali al Hamdy, and I have met Ali al Hamedy
on a few occasions and I'm a huge fan of him,
both as a person and as a player. And the
thought that he could qualify for the World Cup and
I would sleep through it was not bearable to me.
(01:43):
So I stayed up and watched the game. And it
was a significantly better game than Bolivia Surnamal though that's
a low bar to jump over, and Ali al Hamdi
scored an AFC Wimbledon player scored in a playoff final
to send his nation to the World Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Pretty victual for me.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And it was very very It was Bolivia is not
going to beat the allegations that they just can't play
at sea level. I mean, they're a different team at
twelve thousand feet than they are at sea level, and
they will wait.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
They ran the first game in Mexico City, which is
famously not at sea level.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Not at sea level, but also not at Bolivia level.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Not at Bolivia level. For sure, for sure, which is
why I don't know where they played the second game,
but if it was at sea level, then you know,
then for sure Iraq had an advantage.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, at any rate, I don't know either, but Iraq
looked the better team throughout the game. Bolivia had a
good equalizer. For a minute, I thought that the game
was going to go to extra time, and then I
believe it was a kid who grew up in the
United States who scored for Iraq to send them to
(02:55):
the World Cup and the celebrations. I mean, one of
my favorite things that emerge from this round of the
World Cup playoffs was the Mexican fans and the Iraqi
fans singing together Mexican Iraqi. I'm gonna I'm gonna miss
the translation, Daniel, it's going to surprise you, but something
(03:17):
like together together, we are brothers.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh that's great, that's great. Yeah, that's the next great
fusion cuisine will be Iraqi Mexican I predict.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh, the world's crying out for it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, and certainly I will say that this I was
I was asking our producer Kurt if we could have
a sound effect, like some kind of like horn for
a group of death, because I feel like, yeah, this
really rounded out. A group which I think is a
veritable group of death is France, Norway, Senegal in Iraq.
I think that's that's actually a very tough group.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's a proper group of death. I mean, you've got
the best striker in the world playing for Norway. You've
got France probably the best team in the world. You've
got Senegal champions, one of the champions of Africa, arguably
champions of Africa. And you've got a rock whomedy and
so they always have a chance.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, and they're brothers of Mexico, so great. Okay, that
that settles that. There's a few games that I don't
think we need to say much about, although I do
want to mention that we had both been pining for
the presence of Jamaican fans at this coming World Cup,
and we're both disappointed that we're happy for the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Sad we won't have the reggae boys
(04:34):
lighting up every stadium in the United States where they play.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Or Yeah, it's a bummer, but I'm excited for Dr
Congo and they've also I mean you could see in
the celebrations in conchasa. How much that meant to the DRC,
and I'm really excited for them. And of course they've
got that great single fan who stands throughout the entire game, Daniel,
and has his arm up. Oh, stands very still for
(04:59):
an for the full ninety minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Like our most famous fan the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yes, it's very very similar Statue of Liberty. And hopefully
he'll get a visa and be able to come. He
was not able to be there in real life for
the playoff games in Mexico, but hopefully he'll get a
visa and be able to see his team play. Does
switch arms Nope, doesn't switch arms, doesn't move a muscle.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Wow, it's very oppressive. I don't think I can do it.
You know how tennis players have like one arm that's
like noticeably stronger than the other one. I wonder if
that happens to the r Congo's loan fan has to be.
I wanted to mention because I think this affects our
American listeners and parenthetically, I've been so happy to see
(05:47):
so many emails we get from all over the world,
not just US fans, but it's kind of inspiring that
Turkey defeated Kosovo and now enters another group of death
with the United States, and I think significantly complicates Marzio
Pochettino's job of getting the US out of the group.
(06:08):
It's it's it's not going to be easy. That Turkey
is a tough, tough team.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
If you can't beat Paraguay and Australia, you don't deserve
to make it to the last thirty two of the
World Cup, is my position.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I think that's true. But I think Paraguay is a
tough team to agree. I think we're in trouble as
a country. Yeah, I mean, well that is outside the
scope of the away and but yes, you're in trouble
in many ways. Yeah, I think it's gonna be it's
gonna be a challenge. I think Australia is better than
(06:45):
Americans think. I think Turkey is a is a superior
team technically. Then you yeah, Now I'm I I think
Turkey is the favorite in that group. Now, yeah, I
have nothing to say about Checchia and s Denmark.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I have one thing to say go for it, which
is that that's a pretty significant upset and that group Mexico,
South Africa, South Korea, Chechia. That's a pretty interesting group.
Like I'm going to struggle to pick a clear favorite
in that group.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, I'm excited for the Mexico South Africa rematch. Do
you remember that game the beginning the first game of
the of the twenty ten Yeah, yeah, and it was
a one wonder goal for South Africa, goal for all
of Africa, a goal for all of that believe. It
was a wonderful goal. Actually a beautiful goal, really beautiful.
(07:39):
So yeah, I'm excited for that game just because it'll
give me sort of nostalgic vibes which brings us my
friend to Sweden. Poland, Sweden. That was a great game.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well you've got a lot to say about that, because
your your beloved Victor Jokearez scored a hat trick in
the first match of the playoffs and then scored the
winner against Poland.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yes, he scores when he wants, as the song goes,
I predicted. Slash manifested this. It is possibly the only
good news for Arsenal in the last couple of weeks
that we have our Swedish oakfish player finally scoring goals
with some regularity. It was the eighteen he scored the
(08:27):
eighty ninth minute winner and he was very happy. He
has kind of this Adam and Tyne expression. You can't
really read what he's saying, but I think that was
Swedish for happiness and eliminating Poland and legendary striker Robert
Lewandowski from the World Cup. At his he's also a
forty seven years old, so he'll be all right.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, and I believe that means that he only made
one World Cup appearance in his long and storied career.
But that's still a good outcome. I would say for
a Polish striker, it's so hard to qualify out of Europe.
I mean, I think that the Europe I was thinking
this as I watched the Intercontinental playoffs where Jamaica did
(09:11):
not look very good and Bolivia did not look very good.
I was thinking that it is a lot easier, especially
this round, because of the US, Canada and Mexico all
qualifying automatically. It's a lot easier to get to the
World Cup if you're in Conca, calf or even if
(09:32):
you're in South America than it is if you're in Europe. Yes,
you're going to push back on this, No, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
No, I think you're right. I think you're right. I
think you used to be much harder class to qualify.
I'm sorry, I think you see much harder to qualify
from Latin, from South America. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
it's you know, now, it's like six teams, six and
a half spots out of ten. You know, it's pretty easy,
where whereas you know, Europe there's just so many more
(10:03):
countries now, I mean, since the Yugoslavia broke up and
since the Soviet Union broke up. You know, we're talking
about like an extra ten countries who all have legitimate
footballing pedigree, which is what which brings us actually quite
nicely to the operatic Italian tragedy of Bosnia's qualification. Since
(10:29):
I'm going to talk about Bosnia, I want to in
my deep dive in the part two of the Today's show,
we should focus on this through the eyes of the
Italian drama. And I just want to set it up
for listeners because I'm not sure everyone is aware. Italy
is four time World Cup winning side nineteen thirty four,
thirty eight eighty two in two thousand and six that
(10:50):
has now missed out on three straight tournaments. John, can
you tell me who was the last Italian to score
at a World Cup?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, I can tell you that Roberto Baggio missed penalty
and they otherwise they would have been a five time
World Cup winner.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Who was that? That's actually not true. That's actually not true.
That was the final Italian kick, but there was still
a Brazilian kick that would have won it. So that's true.
That's true. Okay, right, but anyway, yes, but.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
If they'd won that penalty shootout, they would have been
a five time World Cup winning for sure, for sure.
And yet still they've missed out on three consecutive World Cups.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Was it, Toti? No, I'll give you another hint and
then we'll move on. It was He played briefly for Liverpool,
although that's not the English side he's most associated with. Kieza. No, No,
he hasn't been around long enough. Who Mario Balotelli?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh, Mario Balatelli was the last person to score for Italy?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Wow? So is this some context? This is not a
sudden collapse. This is a kind of a long decline.
So after two thousand and six World champions they sort
of embody that curse of champions because twenty ten, they
failed to get out of the group stage then, I mean,
and it was like it was two draws against global
(12:11):
powerhouses New Zealand and Paraguay, uh, and then they lost
to Slovenia and that was that same story. In twenty fourteen,
the Italians beat England to one and then lost to
Costa Rica and Uruguay and they and England did not
get out of the group that year. So that was
when they made it, and then since then it's just
been you know, near miss, near miss, and then and
(12:33):
another one today.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Although it should be noted that in between missing these
World Cups, they won the Euros, like they so when
they qualify for tournaments they tend to do very well.
It's just that they they've managed to not qualify for
three consecutive World Cups, and that is I know that
you're going to say this is a long fall from grace,
and it's true on some levels, right, like the Italian
(12:57):
league is not what it used to be, et cetera,
et cetera, But like they are absolutely talented enough to
qualify for the World Cup hard stop. Yes, are they.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Better than Corusau, for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're better than Bosnia. They lost on the day because
they had a because their greatest enemy is within their
own minds Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Kind, guess keep that put that on a T shirt. Yeah,
And I love this moment because it was it was
kind of sad, and I thought that adn Jeco had
a really good response to it. But so when Bosnia
beat Wales on penalty kicks, there was a viral A
video went out or was someone caught a video of
(13:43):
two Italian players celebrating as if Bosnia was the gimme
and Wales was the tough team. Yeah, and it was,
you know, slightly embarrassing. One of the players who who
celebrated was Francisco Piosposito, who then went on to miss
his penalty in the boss shootout. Oh, very sad, very sad.
(14:03):
I hate to see somebody miss a penalty. Yeah, I know,
I know, because it's it's so unfair because it's like
you know, it is it's it's a lot of pressure
to put on a young man's shoulders.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
As we were watching that penalty shootout, actually I was
watching it with Sarah and I said to Sarah, I
don't think I could score if there was no goalie
with that level of pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
On me. I think that's probably true. Yeah, I think
I would miss the goal. I don't think I don't
think I could get the ball to the goal. Yeah,
I mean I missed a penalty kick in a like
Sunday League shootout, you know here in New York, and
I was I was like very distraught for about yeah,
(14:47):
forty five minutes after. Yeah, quite quite sad for the Italians.
And you know, of course everyone's resigned. I got to Sol,
the manager resigned and now you know it's not you know,
they they have a lot of work to do if
they're going to not make this kind of permanent position
of being, you know, a mid level European team as
(15:09):
opposed to where they believe in by rights, have a
have a earned you know, at the very top of
the European game. So it's tough. It's tough. My heart
goes out to them.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, as you as you wrote in the notes, trombone
a tri stay sad trombone an Italian.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yes, that's what Google tells me. It is how you
say it. I have not checked that with any Italian speakers.
That's a lot to chew on, and I think it
sets now all the groups and and now so we
can sort of like we're legitimately now in the preparation
phase for this World Cup about two months out. It's
(15:47):
the teams are set, the matchups are set, the stadiums
are set, the groups of death have been uh, you know,
set up and uh and now we can get legitimately
excited for the tournament to come.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And I have to say this round of playoffs was
very exciting for me, even Sean was watching. Sean, we
really appreciate you tuning in for some high quality intercontinental
playoff action and was It just reminded me of the
unbelievable levels of joy and heartbreak that are involved. And
(16:23):
we should mention some of the teams that didn't make
it. It was a bad World Cup playoff for all the
English speaking nations. For Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales, they
were all knocked out in the semi finals. And you know,
the heartbreak, the joy, the purity of emotion. It's so
hard to get any kind of pure emotion for me,
(16:43):
Like usually how many time I feel joy, it's a
little bit mixed with anxiety. Like I just announced this
new book which is very joyful and exciting and etc.
But like at the same time, it's mixed with a
feeling of dread. You know that people are going to
read this book and judge me and judge the book,
and that's so scary. But football, the emotions are so pure,
(17:05):
they're so simple.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
About your new book, I did think it was early
to write a memoir about our time as host of
the Wighend, But you know, I don't pretend to understand
your creative mind. But you know, hey, it's well, I did.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's about it's about two young people, which
describes Daniel and I perfectly, who are experiencing sudden and
unexpected fame and wild celebrity levels, which again describes Daniel
and I perfectly.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's great. But I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And I think, Daniel, if I'm very if I'm very careful,
and I let my editor know that there's just one
name that needs to be added. At the very end,
I can squeeze your name or Seawan's name into the
book if you win the World Cup bet that we have. Yeah,
that's true, that's true. Well, I feel confident that I
(18:02):
will not win because I'm terrible. I think our prognostications
of this of these playoffs really based on the literature
that we most like from each country turned out to
be a terrible way to predict, a catastrophic way of
trying to analyze. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go
with a different strategy for my World Cup.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Bracket maker.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go with which teams I think
are better, very.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Very innovative, very innovative. Let's take a quick break because
I want to talk about that joy and when we
do a deep dive on Bosnia in just a moment,
we'll be right back. Great, all right, So we're back
(18:53):
on the away and John, how much do you know
about the Bosnian national team? Not much.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I know how happy I was for our acquaintance and
the great writer Alexander Human when they qualified, and that's
about all I know.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
That's about all you know. Okay. So the first thing
that you need to know is that until nineteen ninety
two Bosnian players played for Yugoslavia and there and you know,
I didn't. I I know enough to know that Yugoslavia
was like a very good European side that, like Latin
American teams, were always respected a lot and I didn't
(19:34):
know the names of some of these players, and I
want to mention a few striker Bahid hal Hodozik, defender
Frouk Haasibjik, playmaker Ivika Ossim and I just wanted to
say those because they're fun to say. Very impressive. Daniel, Yeah,
but Safid Sushik is the one that I was like, WHOA,
(19:56):
I wish i'd seen him play. So he played at
Sarajevo and PSG PSG. He was voted in twenty ten
the best player ever to play for PSG. Someone called
him one of the best player that no one ever saw.
I looked up his highlights on YouTube and I highly
recommend them. He reminds me kind of like a Santi
Cazola or Chavirnandez type, like you could not take the
(20:19):
ball off him, you know, this close close control. That
was just absurd. So that I mentioned only to say
that Bosnia has real footballing pedigree. They the players that
they brought to the Yugoslav national team throughout the eighties
and nineties were top, top top players, I should say
eighties and early nineties. So when Yugoslavia descends into war,
(20:42):
it breaks up obviously into several nations Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia,
and I have to say not Albania. And I want
to thank one of our listeners, Andrew, who pointed out
very elegantly that I misspoke a couple of episodes ago
when we were talking about Albania's chances in the Intracontinental playoff,
(21:04):
and I incorrectly and quite ignorantly stated that Albinia has
been part of Yugoslavian part of Yugoslavia, and that was
not true. So my apologies, okay, and my apologies for
not correcting you. Well, you said never bet against Albania,
I remember, and then you didn't catch this error, so
I think, really you're the most I'm really at fault. Yeah,
as usual, Okay. So since ninety two, Bosnia plays an
(21:25):
independent nation in football in terms, it honestly hasn't gone great.
Croatcha obviously is the most successful of the former Yugoslavian nations.
They made the twenty eighteen final. They have kind of
the most famous players. Sloveni has qualified for two World Cups,
Serbia for three. Bosnia nearly qualified for two thousand and
four euros, they missed out by a single goal to Denmark,
(21:46):
and then in terms of the World Cup, they didn't
make twenty ten they lost to Portugal and then didn't
make the twenty twelve Euros. They qualified for twenty fourteen,
but they were placed in a group with Argentina and
they finished third, and they should have qualified actually for
the knockout rounds that in that tournament, but edin Jeco
(22:09):
scored a goal that was incorrectly called off side, and
you can look up there's a lot of videos posted
by Bosnians on YouTube of the goal, with you very
colorful commentary about what happened and how they were robbed.
They missed the twenty eighteen World Cup, the twenty twenty Euros,
which were played in twenty twenty one, but confusingly are
(22:30):
still known as the euros from twenty twenty, and the
twenty twenty two World Cup. So when it came to
qualifying for this tournament, Bosnia and herzegovi and I should say,
were drawn in Group H Austria, Cyprus, Romanian San Marino.
They finished second. They drew drawing away to Vienna but
losing it home to the Group winners Austria. This was
enough for the playoff where they beat Wales on penalties
(22:52):
and then they beat Italy on penalties as well, and
they thoroughly deserved it. I mean they did. They they
were bossing Italy kind of. Even when Italy was playing
with eleven men, Italy had a player sent off for
a very dumb foul that was a straight red, and
Bosnia from that point on really dombinate. They peppered the goal.
(23:14):
Don A Ruma played a great game to keep Italy ahead,
but you kind of saw that it was how it
was going to end, and eventually there was a goal
bundled in. It was not a beauty, but they all
count and now they're through because they won in penalty
kicks and they're in a group with Canada, Qatar and Switzerland.
I want to give a special shout out to edin Jecko,
(23:35):
who's forty years old. He is the striker kind of
the most famous Bosnian player. He's a national hero, all
time leading goal scorer for the national team with seventy
goals and just for people who want to compare that,
Harry Kane, you know who are many of ourlisers will
have heard of He has seventy eight for England, so
he's like edin Jeco in terms of the national team,
is like up there with the Harry Kanes. He's also
(23:56):
as old as time itself and is one of those
player makes me think, John, if we've just taken better
care of ourselves, we too could still be playing. He's
twice as old, more than twice as old as La Mignamol,
the Spanish superstar. So I'm happy for Bosnia and I
think they're going to be a tough team. I think
(24:17):
that they will beat Qatar. I think they will draw Canada. Yeah,
maybe maybe lose to Switzerland. I think Switzerland's is a
pretty pretty strong team, but that could be enough for
a third place berth and I think they'll be They'll
be into the round of sixty four or whatever it
is there, it's called now round of thirty two. Yeah,
(24:37):
I think it. I think that could happen. I think
that could happen.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You have you have covered the Bosnian national team brilliantly,
but you have left one important detail on the on
on the floor, I think, Daniel, which is that there
is a song widely sung in English by a Bosnian.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Band that.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Has become the song to sing around this World Cup,
and the chorus is I am from Bosnia. Take me
to America. I really want to see Statue of Liberty.
I can no longer wait. Take me to United States,
Take me to Golden Gate, I will assimilate.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And so like, people were singing that song all over
to celebrate the fact that they get to go to
the United States for the twenty twenty six World Cup.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I like that. I think that's really cute. I was
in the stadium when Peru qualified for the World Cup
in twenty eighteen. And after you know, we qualified, the
celebrations began. The players came out carrying suitcases and they
put on these Russian hats. Oh that's awesome. I love that.
And so you had the national team that had just won.
(25:52):
They were probably already half drunk. The stadium didn't empty
for like an hour. They came back out literally with
suitcases and these like, you know, Babushka hats, like the
big furry ones. It was so funny and uh and
and just so you know, hey, you know, it is
all about the trip. You know, who's on the plane.
Who's on the plane is what we will say. And
(26:14):
I couldn't be happier for my friend Alexander Himuon and
also for the nation of Bosnia. We hope they do well.
We do all right, So we're gonna come back with
a story and some mail and uh, let's take a
quick break. All right, all right, are you ready for
(26:44):
my story? Daniel? I'm so ready. Hit me.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
My story is the life story of my aforementioned hero,
Ali al Hamadi, the greatest player ever to play for
the football club I sponsor a FC Wimbledon and certainly
the greatest striker ever to play for them, and now
in a Raqi national hero. And I wanted to tell
this story because you know, a lot of times people
(27:11):
national identity is really complicated, and that's something we see
during the World Cup when, for instance, if you look
at the Kurasou national team, it's a lot of Dutch
players who were born in the Netherlands, have lived their
whole life in the Netherlands, but have a Kurrosoo parent.
And sometimes you even hear people say, well, that's not
really the Kurasow national team, or it shouldn't be because
(27:34):
those people are Dutch or whatever. And you hear that
with Wales and Ireland and lots of countries where there's
a large diaspora. And I think Ali al Hamedi's life
story is revealing of the complexity of national identity because
if you talk to him, he has a deep, deep
(27:55):
Scouse accent, so he sounds he is from Liverpool. He
moved to Liverpool when he was one year old, around
the same age that, if I'm not mistaken, you moved
from Peru to the United States when you were very young, right.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Three one or two three? Three years old? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, So you you don't have an accent in English
at all, or or you don't have, well, you do,
but I don't hear the accent because it's the same
accent I have.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
There you go, there, you go, just like saying no one,
no one can smell their own house, you know, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So Ali al Hamedi sounds very thoroughly Liverpudlian uh, you know,
in the in the way that that Stephen Gerrard or
Jamie Carricer do.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
H.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But he is also deeply, deeply Iraqi in terms of
his own sense of self. So he was born in Iraq,
he was born in my Son and then in the
very early stages of the Iraq War. He moved to
Liverpool because his father, who was at the time studying
(29:09):
to become a lawyer, was part of a peaceful protest
against the regime of Saddam Hussein and was jailed as
a result of being part of that protest. At the time,
his wife was pregnant with Ali al Hamedi's younger sibling,
and so when his father was released, they made their
way to the UK. He initially went to Jordan, then
(29:32):
was finally reunited with his whole family in Britain and
has lived in Britain ever since.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I think this is this is typical of a lot
of stories of you know, multi national identity. You know,
could Ali al Hamedi play for England, absolutely, But for him,
I think it's probably more meaningful to play for Iraq
from what he said publicly. And also you've got to remember,
(30:04):
like I think, Alielhammadi was twenty or nineteen when he
came to AFC Wimbledon. He was playing for Wickham. He
was in League Two, the fourth division of English football.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know, there's.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
What probably twelve hundred, fifteen hundred players above you. If
you're playing in League Two in England and yet immediately
upon arriving at AFC Wimbledon he became an absolute superstar
for a very very mediocre team. He scored twenty three
goals in forty two appearances. He was overwhelmingly the best player,
(30:42):
not just on the team, but the best striker in
League Two. And then he got picked up by Ipswich
Town in the Championship made his way to the Premier
League because Ipswich Town got promoted to the Premier League
in twenty twenty four and by then he was a
twenty two year old playing in the Premier League. He
didn't play a lot in the Premier League, but he
played sometimes. Then he really really struggled. He had a
(31:03):
really difficult period. He was training away from the rest
of the team. He was training with the reserves, with
the youth side. It was brutal. I suspect I don't
know this for a fact, but I think that would
be a really hard experience to go through, not being
able to train with your teammates and being told that
you weren't part of the first team. He went on
(31:24):
loan first to Stoke City and now is on loan
at Lutontown and the third division of English soccer and
so to go. You know, Daniel, you said a couple
episodes ago, you made a great point, which is that
it would be really surreal to go from you know,
playing for nothing, which Wutontown is playing for this season.
They're not going to get promoted, they're not going to
(31:45):
get relegated. They're in the third division. They're going to
stay in the third division, to an unbelievably stressful, high
stakes game playing Bolivia in a one off game for
a shot to send your nation to the World Cup
for the first time in forty years. Wow, well that
is a that is a a that's got to be
(32:06):
a surreal shift in mindset. And to score in that game,
it's what you dreamed of your whole life. And maybe
score in that game is what you dreamed of your
whole life, or maybe even you wouldn't have even been
able to dream of it because it's it felt so
remote as a possibility.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That's incredible. Yeah what a yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And so he scores in that game, you know, unbelievable
high we're talking about. I mean, imagine the getting forty
six million people, making forty six million people happy. Yeah,
what an incredible accomplishment. What a gift, what what a thing?
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think he scored.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I think he scored, you know, one or two goals
for for Loot and Town this season. Yeah, and he
goes and he scores for his country in the biggest
game they've had in his living memory and his in
Crowther's living memory, you know, shaving memory probably, do you know.
And and and for his for his father, for his
(33:05):
parents to be able to uh have have been on
a on a really difficult journey in their lives, having
been refugees, having been welcomed first in Jordan and then
in the UK, to qualifying a rock for the World
Cup is really really special. So I just wanted to
(33:25):
highlight his story as as someone I really admire as
a person and as a player. I just I just
think so highly of him, and I I you know,
every World Cup there are people who are not going
to make a bunch of headlines, who nonetheless have brought
joy to their country, and and he is one such person.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. I'm happy
for him for their proof of just how how much
did these tournaments mean to so many people around the world.
And I couldn't be happier for the Iraqis to have
made it, even though it came at the expense of
my Bolivian brothers. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
But I'll tell you what, if you watch the game,
you would have agreed that they did not deserve to
win it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, from what I saw in the Surnoon game, that
is certainly true. And you know, Peru, like four time
champion Italy, is just choosing to boycott this World Cup.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, just coming up protesting. Yeah, and who can blame you.
There's a lot to protest at the moment.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It is a significant moral stance that countries like Italy
and Bolivia and Peru are taking. Great. I love it.
Let's jump into the mailbag. We have a few more
minutes before you've got to go to I'm sure another
you know, taped deposition or something.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh, I'm actually getting on a plane to go home.
I'm in my parents. I'm visiting you from my parents'
home in North Carolina. Then I got to go. I
gotta go home, which I'll miss my parents, but I'm excited.
I also miss Indi Annapolis in the spring the only time.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It's great to be there. Great I'm actually Don going
from here to London to go see the the Arsenal game. Oh, congratulations,
I'm so happy for you. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. A
friend of mine, a Columbian friend, got us some, you know,
two tickets from another Colombian friend, and uh and apparently
(35:24):
they're good tickets, and so I'm very excited. Yes, So okay,
let's let me read these Don, Daniel, Shawn, and John.
Having watched American sports most of my life, I love
unconventional tactics, think aggressive fourth down attempts or two point
conversions in the NFL. What peculiar or non trigional tactics
should we look for in this World Cup? Are there
(35:44):
specific formations or set designs, set piece designs we should
watch for in which teams are most likely to utiless them?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Sincerely, Jared, hmmm, so it's you know, there isn't quite
as much of going for it on fourth and eleven
from your own nine yard line in football as there
is in football, But right I do think that Arsenal
(36:12):
loading the back post or the front post is a
really interesting tactic that has worked really well for them,
and it'll be interesting to see if that happens, it'll
be interesting to see. My favorite moment of unconventional tactics
is when the goalie comes up. That's when I experience
true joy. Yeah, there's a goalie comes up to take
(36:32):
for a last second corner kick.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's that's when.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I stand up and get ready for the miracle to happen,
which it never knows, but I I just a goalie
goal is the greatest thing that can happen in football.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
It's it's one of the most unexpected. Also, the long
shot from inside your own half catching your the goal
off his line. Yes, that's another source of great joy
for me. Yeah, well, I wanted to I wanted to
answer this question. I think, I think, and what I
was really interested in this question is for Jared Is.
I think something worth pointing out to newer fans is
(37:07):
that the national teams get so little time to train.
The reason why Arsenal's set pieces are such a weapon
is because they work at work on it, you know,
five times a week on the on the training grounds.
Whereas the national teams, you know, the best players from
any given country who might be playing in like you know,
ten different leagues come together and they have time to
(37:30):
you know, do a little bit of tactics. They probably
have a style, like the Spanish team has a style,
so everyone sort of knows what the kind of how
we play. But then there just isn't as much time
for the kinds of of you know, intricate you know,
passing formations and movements. You know, when you watch a
team that's well drilled, like a Barcelona, like a real Madrid,
(37:52):
well less less so Madrid, but like a man City.
You know, these these teams, you know, the players know
intuitively where they're teammates are going to be, because you know,
the managers have time to sort of inculcate these patterns
of play in there, in there into the squad. You
don't have that. You just don't have that. And so
(38:14):
what you're gonna see at the World Cup is a
lot less about tactics and a lot more sort of
like this sounds really corny, but it's actually true. I
think who wants it more? Which is like what your
you know, little league pee wee soccer coach used to
say to you know, in his halftime talk while you
were like sucking on orange slices and uh, but I
think it's actually kind of true. Like there's just not
(38:36):
enough time to have these kind of really intricate things
that Jared's asking for, And I think that's worth mentioning.
It's going to be, like, you know, there will be
kind of more individual moments of brilliance that will define
games as opposed to, you know, a team necessarily overpowering
another team tactically. What you will see. I think there
are there are There are definitely teams where you can
tell the basic level of understanding of where we move
(38:59):
is higher than others, right, Yeah, and those teams will win, you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Know, they'll usually win, usually win, but occasionally something weird
will happen.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yeah, like when Switzerland beat Spain in the first game
of the twenty ten World Cup and then Spain when.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
New Zealand held Italy to a goal withdraw.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, yeah, it happens, exactly, it happens. So John Ryan
asks the following based on his understanding of the Bosnia
Italy playoff, where the final kick was converted by Esmir
Bajrati Veric. I'm sure I pronounced that perfectly. Who actually
is American by birth but Bosnian by heritage plays in Milwaukee,
(39:41):
he says, Assuming you are both eighteen and have promising
international careers ahead of you, John, if you could choose
the Netherlands or some other country from your background, would
anything make you consider choosing them over Team USA? Daniel?
Is there any hypothetical that will lead you to play
for the US over Peru? More World Cup appearances, raising
your profile for the MLS or Europe star arding versus
running the bench, more money, et cetera. Thanks for the show.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
So I am by heritage, I believe qualified to play
for Ireland, and I still could, Daniel, It's not out
of the question.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I'm only forty eight. No, so it's all ahead of you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's all the good stuff and the bad stuff is
all in front of me, buddy. I I would almost
certainly want to play for the United States because that's
the team that I grew up rooting for. I of
course have a soft spot for Ireland. My dad is
a fan of the Irish national team, all that stuff,
(40:40):
But I just don't see myself playing for Ireland. I
think the way that you become the way that I
would maybe play for Ireland if I were eighteen and
really talented, is if I thought that was the place
where I would end up being able to play, you know,
like Ali al Hma, but he's not going to be
(41:00):
able to play for England, but he can play for
a Rock. I think he'd probably rather play for a
Rock as it happens, But like you know that that's
a factor as well, right, So, Like I think that
in that sense, I might want to play for Ireland
because it might be easier to make the national team,
although I'm not sure that that's true in the case
of Ireland.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, I mean there's so many hypotheticals here. Like you,
I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to make
it as a professional footballer. Yeah, it's a devastating realization. Yeah,
it's sort of sort of dawning on me.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That it's a slow dawn though, you know, like it's
like it's like Alaska in winter.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I'm not giving on Okay for me, No, there's
no chance I would play for Peru a thousand times
out of a thousand, because it's just the because I
you know, I go back to that idea of like
who would It would just mean so much, you know,
it would mean a lot to me to be able
to make Peruvians happy, you know. Yeah, and I just
(42:00):
don't think of the Americans would care as much. I
won an award once, john, like some international literature award
in Germany, and somehow the news came out in Peru
and there was a photo of me and it said
the headline was big. I wish I had this. I
was big, it said Gana al alercon wins as if
it had been like a boxing match or something like that.
(42:21):
You know, it was a rather obscure award that no
one cared about. But you know, I guess it was
a slow news day and this was published in like
one of the local Lima tabloids, And yeah, I just think,
you know, for selfish reasons. I think the pride it
would give me to make you know, thirty million plus
Perugans happy, would would just be so satisfying, and it
(42:46):
would just pale in comparison to making you know, dozens
of Americans happy.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Sean, are you playing for the Italian national team or
the American national team? I would play.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I would play for the US, I think because I
would want to give them a chance at success, to
finally bring one home.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
And it's just based on our high school experience. You
would be a game changing athletic asset to the United
States of America. You would be you would make Christian
Polisic look like ordinary.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, exactly, and that would be coming from my strong
tennis background, not my strong soccer background. But there's a
lot of parallels there, you know, you're I think there's
got to be some stat where like the amount of
miles you run in a five set tennis match has
(43:45):
to equal the amount of miles you would run in
a soccer match. Someone needs to look that up. I
don't know if that's it's got to be pretty similar,
but I think it's pretty similar.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I mean, you were.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Very It's just that also you and I also made
bad choices.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And just if with any wisdom we can impart on
the younger generation, as you know, don't make bad choices.
And then if you're specific upart.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
The younger generation, I think it's this, if you want
to be a professional athlete, don't smoke right.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So I'm actually John, we have one last question I
think is interesting and I'm going to actually sort of
build off this question that Dan k asked about international friendlies.
He mentions that international friendlies have no real bearing on
anything in terms of standings you know, but it's kind
of this situation. I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing and extrapolating from
(44:39):
Dan's question, but if you win, no one cares, and
if you lose, there's like this rending of garments and
it's like this huge problem. And we saw big drama
around England's loss to Japan and a kind of blackluster
draw and then you know, panic button among people who
(45:01):
follow the US men's national team because of the two
losses that we had. It's specifically the Belgium game, which
was a real pasting that the Gringos got. So what's
your take on the Do these international friendlies matter?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
They matter in two senses. They matter in terms of
building confidence, which I think is surprisingly important in football,
Like we're currently seeing a player like Mosala, who's one
of the best players in the world, go through a
crisis of confidence and we're seeing what it does to
the player and to the team that he plays for.
They also matter in the sense that they give you
(45:35):
a sense of where you're at, and I think that
losing to Portugal and Belgium, and losing to Belgium by
a very wide margin in a game where it must
be said the US did not look very good. Gives
us a sense of where they're at. It's true that
you're also trying to figure out a bunch of things,
(45:56):
but so is Belgium. Right Belgium isn't necessarily playing their best,
and the United States, as I said in our deep
dive about the US men's national team, has to acknowledge
that it is not a footballing power right now. In
many ways, the national team is better than it's ever been,
and yet it's also true that it's not that good.
(46:19):
It's not as good as Portugal, it's not as good
as Belgium, and that indicates to me that, you know,
making it to the last sixteen of the World Cup
would be a pretty good outcome for the US men's
national team, and having expectations that are higher than that would.
It'd be great if that happened, and we all hope
it does, or at least I hope it does, But
(46:41):
that's not what's most likely to happen. What's most likely
to happen is that we're going to struggle in our
friendly against Senegal, and we're going to struggle in our
friendly against Germany, and then we're going to play some
teams that hopefully are not quite as good as us
in the first round of the World Cup, and we're
going to make get to the knockout rounds. But that
(47:01):
isn't the same thing as being favorites to win the
World Cup, which we just aren't, or even contenders, yeah,
or even contenders in a meaningful way. Yeah, And that's
that's a difficult thing for Americans to accept, Daniel, because
we're used to being very very good at almost all sports.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yes, especially the ones we invented. We're quite good at those.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Basketball, baseball, yeah, yeah, American football, no one can, no
one can touch.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
No one can even come close to us in America football. Yeah.
All right, let's end there, John, great seeing you, Sean,
wonderful to see you. Thanks to Kurt and to Baheed.
Congratulations to Bahed, Yeah but he just got engaged. Congratulations. Yeah.
Our guest producers today and we will catch up again.
Thanks for listening, guys. As always, you can hit us
(47:49):
at Away Endpod at gmail dot com. Thanks
Welcome to the way in. I'm Danielle aller Con. I'm
John Green. We've had a lot to talk about today, John. Yeah. Yeah.
So it was the World Cup qualifying playoffs and I
thought we would start with that. We're also going to
do a deep dive into one of the newly qualified
nations and a story from you. I have no idea
what it is, and maybe we have time, maybe a
little bit of the mailbag. Right, we still start with
(00:28):
the results.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, let's start with the results, But shouldn't we
be not eurocentric, Daniel and start with the intercontinental playoffs?
That's so uh great, Ger, Yeah, you're so woke. All right,
sure we can do that.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I will say, in the spirit of fairness that I
watched Bolivia surname Yep, to my great dismay, not a
great game of football, a miserable game of football. The
same goalkeeper was wasting time, like in the fifty fifth minute,
a lot of like going down and thinking it. Bolivia
came back, they were down one nothing, they came back
(01:07):
and scored and won. But yeah, it was not a classic,
nor will it live long in memory. I did not
watch Bolivia Rock because it was started at midnight in
Buenos Aires, where I was. So I didn't get to
watch it, did you?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So I did. I did get to watch it because
the Iraqi national team has a former AFC Wimbledon player,
Ali al Hamdy, and I have met Ali al Hamedy
on a few occasions and I'm a huge fan of him,
both as a person and as a player. And the
thought that he could qualify for the World Cup and
I would sleep through it was not bearable to me.
(01:43):
So I stayed up and watched the game. And it
was a significantly better game than Bolivia Surnamal though that's
a low bar to jump over, and Ali al Hamdi
scored an AFC Wimbledon player scored in a playoff final
to send his nation to the World Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Pretty victual for me.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And it was very very It was Bolivia is not
going to beat the allegations that they just can't play
at sea level. I mean, they're a different team at
twelve thousand feet than they are at sea level, and
they will wait.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
They ran the first game in Mexico City, which is
famously not at sea level.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Not at sea level, but also not at Bolivia level.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Not at Bolivia level. For sure, for sure, which is
why I don't know where they played the second game,
but if it was at sea level, then you know,
then for sure Iraq had an advantage.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, at any rate, I don't know either, but Iraq
looked the better team throughout the game. Bolivia had a
good equalizer. For a minute, I thought that the game
was going to go to extra time, and then I
believe it was a kid who grew up in the
United States who scored for Iraq to send them to
(02:55):
the World Cup and the celebrations. I mean, one of
my favorite things that emerge from this round of the
World Cup playoffs was the Mexican fans and the Iraqi
fans singing together Mexican Iraqi. I'm gonna I'm gonna miss
the translation, Daniel, it's going to surprise you, but something
(03:17):
like together together, we are brothers.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh that's great, that's great. Yeah, that's the next great
fusion cuisine will be Iraqi Mexican I predict.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh, the world's crying out for it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, and certainly I will say that this I was
I was asking our producer Kurt if we could have
a sound effect, like some kind of like horn for
a group of death, because I feel like, yeah, this
really rounded out. A group which I think is a
veritable group of death is France, Norway, Senegal in Iraq.
I think that's that's actually a very tough group.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's a proper group of death. I mean, you've got
the best striker in the world playing for Norway. You've
got France probably the best team in the world. You've
got Senegal champions, one of the champions of Africa, arguably
champions of Africa. And you've got a rock whomedy and
so they always have a chance.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, and they're brothers of Mexico, so great. Okay, that
that settles that. There's a few games that I don't
think we need to say much about, although I do
want to mention that we had both been pining for
the presence of Jamaican fans at this coming World Cup,
and we're both disappointed that we're happy for the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Sad we won't have the reggae boys
(04:34):
lighting up every stadium in the United States where they play.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Or Yeah, it's a bummer, but I'm excited for Dr
Congo and they've also I mean you could see in
the celebrations in conchasa. How much that meant to the DRC,
and I'm really excited for them. And of course they've
got that great single fan who stands throughout the entire game, Daniel,
and has his arm up. Oh, stands very still for
(04:59):
an for the full ninety minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Like our most famous fan the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yes, it's very very similar Statue of Liberty. And hopefully
he'll get a visa and be able to come. He
was not able to be there in real life for
the playoff games in Mexico, but hopefully he'll get a
visa and be able to see his team play. Does
switch arms Nope, doesn't switch arms, doesn't move a muscle.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Wow, it's very oppressive. I don't think I can do it.
You know how tennis players have like one arm that's
like noticeably stronger than the other one. I wonder if
that happens to the r Congo's loan fan has to be.
I wanted to mention because I think this affects our
American listeners and parenthetically, I've been so happy to see
(05:47):
so many emails we get from all over the world,
not just US fans, but it's kind of inspiring that
Turkey defeated Kosovo and now enters another group of death
with the United States, and I think significantly complicates Marzio
Pochettino's job of getting the US out of the group.
(06:08):
It's it's it's not going to be easy. That Turkey
is a tough, tough team.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
If you can't beat Paraguay and Australia, you don't deserve
to make it to the last thirty two of the
World Cup, is my position.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I think that's true. But I think Paraguay is a
tough team to agree. I think we're in trouble as
a country. Yeah, I mean, well that is outside the
scope of the away and but yes, you're in trouble
in many ways. Yeah, I think it's gonna be it's
gonna be a challenge. I think Australia is better than
(06:45):
Americans think. I think Turkey is a is a superior
team technically. Then you yeah, Now I'm I I think
Turkey is the favorite in that group. Now, yeah, I
have nothing to say about Checchia and s Denmark.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I have one thing to say go for it, which
is that that's a pretty significant upset and that group Mexico,
South Africa, South Korea, Chechia. That's a pretty interesting group.
Like I'm going to struggle to pick a clear favorite
in that group.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, I'm excited for the Mexico South Africa rematch. Do
you remember that game the beginning the first game of
the of the twenty ten Yeah, yeah, and it was
a one wonder goal for South Africa, goal for all
of Africa, a goal for all of that believe. It
was a wonderful goal. Actually a beautiful goal, really beautiful.
(07:39):
So yeah, I'm excited for that game just because it'll
give me sort of nostalgic vibes which brings us my
friend to Sweden. Poland, Sweden. That was a great game.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well you've got a lot to say about that, because
your your beloved Victor Jokearez scored a hat trick in
the first match of the playoffs and then scored the
winner against Poland.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yes, he scores when he wants, as the song goes,
I predicted. Slash manifested this. It is possibly the only
good news for Arsenal in the last couple of weeks
that we have our Swedish oakfish player finally scoring goals
with some regularity. It was the eighteen he scored the
(08:27):
eighty ninth minute winner and he was very happy. He
has kind of this Adam and Tyne expression. You can't
really read what he's saying, but I think that was
Swedish for happiness and eliminating Poland and legendary striker Robert
Lewandowski from the World Cup. At his he's also a
forty seven years old, so he'll be all right.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, and I believe that means that he only made
one World Cup appearance in his long and storied career.
But that's still a good outcome. I would say for
a Polish striker, it's so hard to qualify out of Europe.
I mean, I think that the Europe I was thinking
this as I watched the Intercontinental playoffs where Jamaica did
(09:11):
not look very good and Bolivia did not look very good.
I was thinking that it is a lot easier, especially
this round, because of the US, Canada and Mexico all
qualifying automatically. It's a lot easier to get to the
World Cup if you're in Conca, calf or even if
(09:32):
you're in South America than it is if you're in Europe. Yes,
you're going to push back on this, No, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
No, I think you're right. I think you're right. I
think you used to be much harder class to qualify.
I'm sorry, I think you see much harder to qualify
from Latin, from South America. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
it's you know, now, it's like six teams, six and
a half spots out of ten. You know, it's pretty easy,
where whereas you know, Europe there's just so many more
(10:03):
countries now, I mean, since the Yugoslavia broke up and
since the Soviet Union broke up. You know, we're talking
about like an extra ten countries who all have legitimate
footballing pedigree, which is what which brings us actually quite
nicely to the operatic Italian tragedy of Bosnia's qualification. Since
(10:29):
I'm going to talk about Bosnia, I want to in
my deep dive in the part two of the Today's show,
we should focus on this through the eyes of the
Italian drama. And I just want to set it up
for listeners because I'm not sure everyone is aware. Italy
is four time World Cup winning side nineteen thirty four,
thirty eight eighty two in two thousand and six that
(10:50):
has now missed out on three straight tournaments. John, can
you tell me who was the last Italian to score
at a World Cup?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, I can tell you that Roberto Baggio missed penalty
and they otherwise they would have been a five time
World Cup winner.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Who was that? That's actually not true. That's actually not true.
That was the final Italian kick, but there was still
a Brazilian kick that would have won it. So that's true.
That's true. Okay, right, but anyway, yes, but.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
If they'd won that penalty shootout, they would have been
a five time World Cup winning for sure, for sure.
And yet still they've missed out on three consecutive World Cups.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Was it, Toti? No, I'll give you another hint and
then we'll move on. It was He played briefly for Liverpool,
although that's not the English side he's most associated with. Kieza. No, No,
he hasn't been around long enough. Who Mario Balotelli?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh, Mario Balatelli was the last person to score for Italy?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Wow? So is this some context? This is not a
sudden collapse. This is a kind of a long decline.
So after two thousand and six World champions they sort
of embody that curse of champions because twenty ten, they
failed to get out of the group stage then, I mean,
and it was like it was two draws against global
(12:11):
powerhouses New Zealand and Paraguay, uh, and then they lost
to Slovenia and that was that same story. In twenty fourteen,
the Italians beat England to one and then lost to
Costa Rica and Uruguay and they and England did not
get out of the group that year. So that was
when they made it, and then since then it's just
been you know, near miss, near miss, and then and
(12:33):
another one today.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Although it should be noted that in between missing these
World Cups, they won the Euros, like they so when
they qualify for tournaments they tend to do very well.
It's just that they they've managed to not qualify for
three consecutive World Cups, and that is I know that
you're going to say this is a long fall from grace,
and it's true on some levels, right, like the Italian
(12:57):
league is not what it used to be, et cetera,
et cetera, But like they are absolutely talented enough to
qualify for the World Cup hard stop. Yes, are they.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Better than Corusau, for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're better than Bosnia. They lost on the day because
they had a because their greatest enemy is within their
own minds Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Kind, guess keep that put that on a T shirt. Yeah,
And I love this moment because it was it was
kind of sad, and I thought that adn Jeco had
a really good response to it. But so when Bosnia
beat Wales on penalty kicks, there was a viral A
video went out or was someone caught a video of
(13:43):
two Italian players celebrating as if Bosnia was the gimme
and Wales was the tough team. Yeah, and it was,
you know, slightly embarrassing. One of the players who who
celebrated was Francisco Piosposito, who then went on to miss
his penalty in the boss shootout. Oh, very sad, very sad.
(14:03):
I hate to see somebody miss a penalty. Yeah, I know,
I know, because it's it's so unfair because it's like
you know, it is it's it's a lot of pressure
to put on a young man's shoulders.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
As we were watching that penalty shootout, actually I was
watching it with Sarah and I said to Sarah, I
don't think I could score if there was no goalie
with that level of pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
On me. I think that's probably true. Yeah, I think
I would miss the goal. I don't think I don't
think I could get the ball to the goal. Yeah,
I mean I missed a penalty kick in a like
Sunday League shootout, you know here in New York, and
I was I was like very distraught for about yeah,
(14:47):
forty five minutes after. Yeah, quite quite sad for the Italians.
And you know, of course everyone's resigned. I got to Sol,
the manager resigned and now you know it's not you know,
they they have a lot of work to do if
they're going to not make this kind of permanent position
of being, you know, a mid level European team as
(15:09):
opposed to where they believe in by rights, have a
have a earned you know, at the very top of
the European game. So it's tough. It's tough. My heart
goes out to them.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, as you as you wrote in the notes, trombone
a tri stay sad trombone an Italian.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yes, that's what Google tells me. It is how you
say it. I have not checked that with any Italian speakers.
That's a lot to chew on, and I think it
sets now all the groups and and now so we
can sort of like we're legitimately now in the preparation
phase for this World Cup about two months out. It's
(15:47):
the teams are set, the matchups are set, the stadiums
are set, the groups of death have been uh, you know,
set up and uh and now we can get legitimately
excited for the tournament to come.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And I have to say this round of playoffs was
very exciting for me, even Sean was watching. Sean, we
really appreciate you tuning in for some high quality intercontinental
playoff action and was It just reminded me of the
unbelievable levels of joy and heartbreak that are involved. And
(16:23):
we should mention some of the teams that didn't make
it. It was a bad World Cup playoff for all the
English speaking nations. For Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales, they
were all knocked out in the semi finals. And you know,
the heartbreak, the joy, the purity of emotion. It's so
hard to get any kind of pure emotion for me,
(16:43):
Like usually how many time I feel joy, it's a
little bit mixed with anxiety. Like I just announced this
new book which is very joyful and exciting and etc.
But like at the same time, it's mixed with a
feeling of dread. You know that people are going to
read this book and judge me and judge the book,
and that's so scary. But football, the emotions are so pure,
(17:05):
they're so simple.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
About your new book, I did think it was early
to write a memoir about our time as host of
the Wighend, But you know, I don't pretend to understand
your creative mind. But you know, hey, it's well, I did.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's about it's about two young people, which
describes Daniel and I perfectly, who are experiencing sudden and
unexpected fame and wild celebrity levels, which again describes Daniel
and I perfectly.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's great. But I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And I think, Daniel, if I'm very if I'm very careful,
and I let my editor know that there's just one
name that needs to be added. At the very end,
I can squeeze your name or Seawan's name into the
book if you win the World Cup bet that we have. Yeah,
that's true, that's true. Well, I feel confident that I
(18:02):
will not win because I'm terrible. I think our prognostications
of this of these playoffs really based on the literature
that we most like from each country turned out to
be a terrible way to predict, a catastrophic way of
trying to analyze. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go
with a different strategy for my World Cup.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Bracket maker.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go with which teams I think
are better, very.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Very innovative, very innovative. Let's take a quick break because
I want to talk about that joy and when we
do a deep dive on Bosnia in just a moment,
we'll be right back. Great, all right, So we're back
(18:53):
on the away and John, how much do you know
about the Bosnian national team? Not much.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I know how happy I was for our acquaintance and
the great writer Alexander Human when they qualified, and that's
about all I know.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
That's about all you know. Okay. So the first thing
that you need to know is that until nineteen ninety
two Bosnian players played for Yugoslavia and there and you know,
I didn't. I I know enough to know that Yugoslavia
was like a very good European side that, like Latin
American teams, were always respected a lot and I didn't
(19:34):
know the names of some of these players, and I
want to mention a few striker Bahid hal Hodozik, defender
Frouk Haasibjik, playmaker Ivika Ossim and I just wanted to
say those because they're fun to say. Very impressive. Daniel, Yeah,
but Safid Sushik is the one that I was like, WHOA,
(19:56):
I wish i'd seen him play. So he played at
Sarajevo and PSG PSG. He was voted in twenty ten
the best player ever to play for PSG. Someone called
him one of the best player that no one ever saw.
I looked up his highlights on YouTube and I highly
recommend them. He reminds me kind of like a Santi
Cazola or Chavirnandez type, like you could not take the
(20:19):
ball off him, you know, this close close control. That
was just absurd. So that I mentioned only to say
that Bosnia has real footballing pedigree. They the players that
they brought to the Yugoslav national team throughout the eighties
and nineties were top, top top players, I should say
eighties and early nineties. So when Yugoslavia descends into war,
(20:42):
it breaks up obviously into several nations Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia,
and I have to say not Albania. And I want
to thank one of our listeners, Andrew, who pointed out
very elegantly that I misspoke a couple of episodes ago
when we were talking about Albania's chances in the Intracontinental playoff,
(21:04):
and I incorrectly and quite ignorantly stated that Albinia has
been part of Yugoslavian part of Yugoslavia, and that was
not true. So my apologies, okay, and my apologies for
not correcting you. Well, you said never bet against Albania,
I remember, and then you didn't catch this error, so
I think, really you're the most I'm really at fault. Yeah,
as usual, Okay. So since ninety two, Bosnia plays an
(21:25):
independent nation in football in terms, it honestly hasn't gone great.
Croatcha obviously is the most successful of the former Yugoslavian nations.
They made the twenty eighteen final. They have kind of
the most famous players. Sloveni has qualified for two World Cups,
Serbia for three. Bosnia nearly qualified for two thousand and
four euros, they missed out by a single goal to Denmark,
(21:46):
and then in terms of the World Cup, they didn't
make twenty ten they lost to Portugal and then didn't
make the twenty twelve Euros. They qualified for twenty fourteen,
but they were placed in a group with Argentina and
they finished third, and they should have qualified actually for
the knockout rounds that in that tournament, but edin Jeco
(22:09):
scored a goal that was incorrectly called off side, and
you can look up there's a lot of videos posted
by Bosnians on YouTube of the goal, with you very
colorful commentary about what happened and how they were robbed.
They missed the twenty eighteen World Cup, the twenty twenty Euros,
which were played in twenty twenty one, but confusingly are
(22:30):
still known as the euros from twenty twenty, and the
twenty twenty two World Cup. So when it came to
qualifying for this tournament, Bosnia and herzegovi and I should say,
were drawn in Group H Austria, Cyprus, Romanian San Marino.
They finished second. They drew drawing away to Vienna but
losing it home to the Group winners Austria. This was
enough for the playoff where they beat Wales on penalties
(22:52):
and then they beat Italy on penalties as well, and
they thoroughly deserved it. I mean they did. They they
were bossing Italy kind of. Even when Italy was playing
with eleven men, Italy had a player sent off for
a very dumb foul that was a straight red, and
Bosnia from that point on really dombinate. They peppered the goal.
(23:14):
Don A Ruma played a great game to keep Italy ahead,
but you kind of saw that it was how it
was going to end, and eventually there was a goal
bundled in. It was not a beauty, but they all
count and now they're through because they won in penalty
kicks and they're in a group with Canada, Qatar and Switzerland.
I want to give a special shout out to edin Jecko,
(23:35):
who's forty years old. He is the striker kind of
the most famous Bosnian player. He's a national hero, all
time leading goal scorer for the national team with seventy
goals and just for people who want to compare that,
Harry Kane, you know who are many of ourlisers will
have heard of He has seventy eight for England, so
he's like edin Jeco in terms of the national team,
is like up there with the Harry Kanes. He's also
(23:56):
as old as time itself and is one of those
player makes me think, John, if we've just taken better
care of ourselves, we too could still be playing. He's
twice as old, more than twice as old as La Mignamol,
the Spanish superstar. So I'm happy for Bosnia and I
think they're going to be a tough team. I think
(24:17):
that they will beat Qatar. I think they will draw Canada. Yeah,
maybe maybe lose to Switzerland. I think Switzerland's is a
pretty pretty strong team, but that could be enough for
a third place berth and I think they'll be They'll
be into the round of sixty four or whatever it
is there, it's called now round of thirty two. Yeah,
(24:37):
I think it. I think that could happen. I think
that could happen.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You have you have covered the Bosnian national team brilliantly,
but you have left one important detail on the on
on the floor, I think, Daniel, which is that there
is a song widely sung in English by a Bosnian.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Band that.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Has become the song to sing around this World Cup,
and the chorus is I am from Bosnia. Take me
to America. I really want to see Statue of Liberty.
I can no longer wait. Take me to United States,
Take me to Golden Gate, I will assimilate.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And so like, people were singing that song all over
to celebrate the fact that they get to go to
the United States for the twenty twenty six World Cup.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I like that. I think that's really cute. I was
in the stadium when Peru qualified for the World Cup
in twenty eighteen. And after you know, we qualified, the
celebrations began. The players came out carrying suitcases and they
put on these Russian hats. Oh that's awesome. I love that.
And so you had the national team that had just won.
(25:52):
They were probably already half drunk. The stadium didn't empty
for like an hour. They came back out literally with
suitcases and these like, you know, Babushka hats, like the
big furry ones. It was so funny and uh and
and just so you know, hey, you know, it is
all about the trip. You know, who's on the plane.
Who's on the plane is what we will say. And
(26:14):
I couldn't be happier for my friend Alexander Himuon and
also for the nation of Bosnia. We hope they do well.
We do all right, So we're gonna come back with
a story and some mail and uh, let's take a
quick break. All right, all right, are you ready for
(26:44):
my story? Daniel? I'm so ready. Hit me.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
My story is the life story of my aforementioned hero,
Ali al Hamadi, the greatest player ever to play for
the football club I sponsor a FC Wimbledon and certainly
the greatest striker ever to play for them, and now
in a Raqi national hero. And I wanted to tell
this story because you know, a lot of times people
(27:11):
national identity is really complicated, and that's something we see
during the World Cup when, for instance, if you look
at the Kurasou national team, it's a lot of Dutch
players who were born in the Netherlands, have lived their
whole life in the Netherlands, but have a Kurrosoo parent.
And sometimes you even hear people say, well, that's not
really the Kurasow national team, or it shouldn't be because
(27:34):
those people are Dutch or whatever. And you hear that
with Wales and Ireland and lots of countries where there's
a large diaspora. And I think Ali al Hamedi's life
story is revealing of the complexity of national identity because
if you talk to him, he has a deep, deep
(27:55):
Scouse accent, so he sounds he is from Liverpool. He
moved to Liverpool when he was one year old, around
the same age that, if I'm not mistaken, you moved
from Peru to the United States when you were very young, right.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Three one or two three? Three years old? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, So you you don't have an accent in English
at all, or or you don't have, well, you do,
but I don't hear the accent because it's the same
accent I have.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
There you go, there, you go, just like saying no one,
no one can smell their own house, you know, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So Ali al Hamedi sounds very thoroughly Liverpudlian uh, you know,
in the in the way that that Stephen Gerrard or
Jamie Carricer do.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
H.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But he is also deeply, deeply Iraqi in terms of
his own sense of self. So he was born in Iraq,
he was born in my Son and then in the
very early stages of the Iraq War. He moved to
Liverpool because his father, who was at the time studying
(29:09):
to become a lawyer, was part of a peaceful protest
against the regime of Saddam Hussein and was jailed as
a result of being part of that protest. At the time,
his wife was pregnant with Ali al Hamedi's younger sibling,
and so when his father was released, they made their
way to the UK. He initially went to Jordan, then
(29:32):
was finally reunited with his whole family in Britain and
has lived in Britain ever since.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I think this is this is typical of a lot
of stories of you know, multi national identity. You know,
could Ali al Hamedi play for England, absolutely, But for him,
I think it's probably more meaningful to play for Iraq
from what he said publicly. And also you've got to remember,
(30:04):
like I think, Alielhammadi was twenty or nineteen when he
came to AFC Wimbledon. He was playing for Wickham. He
was in League Two, the fourth division of English football.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know, there's.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
What probably twelve hundred, fifteen hundred players above you. If
you're playing in League Two in England and yet immediately
upon arriving at AFC Wimbledon he became an absolute superstar
for a very very mediocre team. He scored twenty three
goals in forty two appearances. He was overwhelmingly the best player,
(30:42):
not just on the team, but the best striker in
League Two. And then he got picked up by Ipswich
Town in the Championship made his way to the Premier
League because Ipswich Town got promoted to the Premier League
in twenty twenty four and by then he was a
twenty two year old playing in the Premier League. He
didn't play a lot in the Premier League, but he
played sometimes. Then he really really struggled. He had a
(31:03):
really difficult period. He was training away from the rest
of the team. He was training with the reserves, with
the youth side. It was brutal. I suspect I don't
know this for a fact, but I think that would
be a really hard experience to go through, not being
able to train with your teammates and being told that
you weren't part of the first team. He went on
(31:24):
loan first to Stoke City and now is on loan
at Lutontown and the third division of English soccer and
so to go. You know, Daniel, you said a couple
episodes ago, you made a great point, which is that
it would be really surreal to go from you know,
playing for nothing, which Wutontown is playing for this season.
They're not going to get promoted, they're not going to
(31:45):
get relegated. They're in the third division. They're going to
stay in the third division, to an unbelievably stressful, high
stakes game playing Bolivia in a one off game for
a shot to send your nation to the World Cup
for the first time in forty years. Wow, well that
is a that is a a that's got to be
(32:06):
a surreal shift in mindset. And to score in that game,
it's what you dreamed of your whole life. And maybe
score in that game is what you dreamed of your
whole life, or maybe even you wouldn't have even been
able to dream of it because it's it felt so
remote as a possibility.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That's incredible. Yeah what a yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And so he scores in that game, you know, unbelievable
high we're talking about. I mean, imagine the getting forty
six million people, making forty six million people happy. Yeah,
what an incredible accomplishment. What a gift, what what a thing?
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think he scored.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I think he scored, you know, one or two goals
for for Loot and Town this season. Yeah, and he
goes and he scores for his country in the biggest
game they've had in his living memory and his in
Crowther's living memory, you know, shaving memory probably, do you know.
And and and for his for his father, for his
(33:05):
parents to be able to uh have have been on
a on a really difficult journey in their lives, having
been refugees, having been welcomed first in Jordan and then
in the UK, to qualifying a rock for the World
Cup is really really special. So I just wanted to
(33:25):
highlight his story as as someone I really admire as
a person and as a player. I just I just
think so highly of him, and I I you know,
every World Cup there are people who are not going
to make a bunch of headlines, who nonetheless have brought
joy to their country, and and he is one such person.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. I'm happy
for him for their proof of just how how much
did these tournaments mean to so many people around the world.
And I couldn't be happier for the Iraqis to have
made it, even though it came at the expense of
my Bolivian brothers. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
But I'll tell you what, if you watch the game,
you would have agreed that they did not deserve to
win it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, from what I saw in the Surnoon game, that
is certainly true. And you know, Peru, like four time
champion Italy, is just choosing to boycott this World Cup.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, just coming up protesting. Yeah, and who can blame you.
There's a lot to protest at the moment.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It is a significant moral stance that countries like Italy
and Bolivia and Peru are taking. Great. I love it.
Let's jump into the mailbag. We have a few more
minutes before you've got to go to I'm sure another
you know, taped deposition or something.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh, I'm actually getting on a plane to go home.
I'm in my parents. I'm visiting you from my parents'
home in North Carolina. Then I got to go. I
gotta go home, which I'll miss my parents, but I'm excited.
I also miss Indi Annapolis in the spring the only time.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It's great to be there. Great I'm actually Don going
from here to London to go see the the Arsenal game. Oh, congratulations,
I'm so happy for you. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. A
friend of mine, a Columbian friend, got us some, you know,
two tickets from another Colombian friend, and uh and apparently
(35:24):
they're good tickets, and so I'm very excited. Yes, So okay,
let's let me read these Don, Daniel, Shawn, and John.
Having watched American sports most of my life, I love
unconventional tactics, think aggressive fourth down attempts or two point
conversions in the NFL. What peculiar or non trigional tactics
should we look for in this World Cup? Are there
(35:44):
specific formations or set designs, set piece designs we should
watch for in which teams are most likely to utiless them?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Sincerely, Jared, hmmm, so it's you know, there isn't quite
as much of going for it on fourth and eleven
from your own nine yard line in football as there
is in football, But right I do think that Arsenal
(36:12):
loading the back post or the front post is a
really interesting tactic that has worked really well for them,
and it'll be interesting to see if that happens, it'll
be interesting to see. My favorite moment of unconventional tactics
is when the goalie comes up. That's when I experience
true joy. Yeah, there's a goalie comes up to take
(36:32):
for a last second corner kick.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's that's when.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I stand up and get ready for the miracle to happen,
which it never knows, but I I just a goalie
goal is the greatest thing that can happen in football.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
It's it's one of the most unexpected. Also, the long
shot from inside your own half catching your the goal
off his line. Yes, that's another source of great joy
for me. Yeah, well, I wanted to I wanted to
answer this question. I think, I think, and what I
was really interested in this question is for Jared Is.
I think something worth pointing out to newer fans is
(37:07):
that the national teams get so little time to train.
The reason why Arsenal's set pieces are such a weapon
is because they work at work on it, you know,
five times a week on the on the training grounds.
Whereas the national teams, you know, the best players from
any given country who might be playing in like you know,
ten different leagues come together and they have time to
(37:30):
you know, do a little bit of tactics. They probably
have a style, like the Spanish team has a style,
so everyone sort of knows what the kind of how
we play. But then there just isn't as much time
for the kinds of of you know, intricate you know,
passing formations and movements. You know, when you watch a
team that's well drilled, like a Barcelona, like a real Madrid,
(37:52):
well less less so Madrid, but like a man City.
You know, these these teams, you know, the players know
intuitively where they're teammates are going to be, because you know,
the managers have time to sort of inculcate these patterns
of play in there, in there into the squad. You
don't have that. You just don't have that. And so
(38:14):
what you're gonna see at the World Cup is a
lot less about tactics and a lot more sort of
like this sounds really corny, but it's actually true. I
think who wants it more? Which is like what your
you know, little league pee wee soccer coach used to
say to you know, in his halftime talk while you
were like sucking on orange slices and uh, but I
think it's actually kind of true. Like there's just not
(38:36):
enough time to have these kind of really intricate things
that Jared's asking for, And I think that's worth mentioning.
It's going to be, like, you know, there will be
kind of more individual moments of brilliance that will define
games as opposed to, you know, a team necessarily overpowering
another team tactically. What you will see. I think there
are there are There are definitely teams where you can
tell the basic level of understanding of where we move
(38:59):
is higher than others, right, Yeah, and those teams will win, you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Know, they'll usually win, usually win, but occasionally something weird
will happen.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yeah, like when Switzerland beat Spain in the first game
of the twenty ten World Cup and then Spain when.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
New Zealand held Italy to a goal withdraw.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, yeah, it happens, exactly, it happens. So John Ryan
asks the following based on his understanding of the Bosnia
Italy playoff, where the final kick was converted by Esmir
Bajrati Veric. I'm sure I pronounced that perfectly. Who actually
is American by birth but Bosnian by heritage plays in Milwaukee,
(39:41):
he says, Assuming you are both eighteen and have promising
international careers ahead of you, John, if you could choose
the Netherlands or some other country from your background, would
anything make you consider choosing them over Team USA? Daniel?
Is there any hypothetical that will lead you to play
for the US over Peru? More World Cup appearances, raising
your profile for the MLS or Europe star arding versus
running the bench, more money, et cetera. Thanks for the show.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
So I am by heritage, I believe qualified to play
for Ireland, and I still could, Daniel, It's not out
of the question.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I'm only forty eight. No, so it's all ahead of you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's all the good stuff and the bad stuff is
all in front of me, buddy. I I would almost
certainly want to play for the United States because that's
the team that I grew up rooting for. I of
course have a soft spot for Ireland. My dad is
a fan of the Irish national team, all that stuff,
(40:40):
But I just don't see myself playing for Ireland. I
think the way that you become the way that I
would maybe play for Ireland if I were eighteen and
really talented, is if I thought that was the place
where I would end up being able to play, you know,
like Ali al Hma, but he's not going to be
(41:00):
able to play for England, but he can play for
a Rock. I think he'd probably rather play for a
Rock as it happens, But like you know that that's
a factor as well, right, So, Like I think that
in that sense, I might want to play for Ireland
because it might be easier to make the national team,
although I'm not sure that that's true in the case
of Ireland.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, I mean there's so many hypotheticals here. Like you,
I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to make
it as a professional footballer. Yeah, it's a devastating realization. Yeah,
it's sort of sort of dawning on me.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That it's a slow dawn though, you know, like it's
like it's like Alaska in winter.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I'm not giving on Okay for me, No, there's
no chance I would play for Peru a thousand times
out of a thousand, because it's just the because I
you know, I go back to that idea of like
who would It would just mean so much, you know,
it would mean a lot to me to be able
to make Peruvians happy, you know. Yeah, and I just
(42:00):
don't think of the Americans would care as much. I
won an award once, john, like some international literature award
in Germany, and somehow the news came out in Peru
and there was a photo of me and it said
the headline was big. I wish I had this. I
was big, it said Gana al alercon wins as if
it had been like a boxing match or something like that.
(42:21):
You know, it was a rather obscure award that no
one cared about. But you know, I guess it was
a slow news day and this was published in like
one of the local Lima tabloids, And yeah, I just think,
you know, for selfish reasons. I think the pride it
would give me to make you know, thirty million plus
Perugans happy, would would just be so satisfying, and it
(42:46):
would just pale in comparison to making you know, dozens
of Americans happy.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Sean, are you playing for the Italian national team or
the American national team? I would play.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I would play for the US, I think because I
would want to give them a chance at success, to
finally bring one home.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
And it's just based on our high school experience. You
would be a game changing athletic asset to the United
States of America. You would be you would make Christian
Polisic look like ordinary.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, exactly, and that would be coming from my strong
tennis background, not my strong soccer background. But there's a
lot of parallels there, you know, you're I think there's
got to be some stat where like the amount of
miles you run in a five set tennis match has
(43:45):
to equal the amount of miles you would run in
a soccer match. Someone needs to look that up. I
don't know if that's it's got to be pretty similar,
but I think it's pretty similar.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I mean, you were.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Very It's just that also you and I also made
bad choices.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And just if with any wisdom we can impart on
the younger generation, as you know, don't make bad choices.
And then if you're specific upart.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
The younger generation, I think it's this, if you want
to be a professional athlete, don't smoke right.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So I'm actually John, we have one last question I
think is interesting and I'm going to actually sort of
build off this question that Dan k asked about international friendlies.
He mentions that international friendlies have no real bearing on
anything in terms of standings you know, but it's kind
of this situation. I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing and extrapolating from
(44:39):
Dan's question, but if you win, no one cares, and
if you lose, there's like this rending of garments and
it's like this huge problem. And we saw big drama
around England's loss to Japan and a kind of blackluster
draw and then you know, panic button among people who
(45:01):
follow the US men's national team because of the two
losses that we had. It's specifically the Belgium game, which
was a real pasting that the Gringos got. So what's
your take on the Do these international friendlies matter?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
They matter in two senses. They matter in terms of
building confidence, which I think is surprisingly important in football,
Like we're currently seeing a player like Mosala, who's one
of the best players in the world, go through a
crisis of confidence and we're seeing what it does to
the player and to the team that he plays for.
They also matter in the sense that they give you
(45:35):
a sense of where you're at, and I think that
losing to Portugal and Belgium, and losing to Belgium by
a very wide margin in a game where it must
be said the US did not look very good. Gives
us a sense of where they're at. It's true that
you're also trying to figure out a bunch of things,
(45:56):
but so is Belgium. Right Belgium isn't necessarily playing their best,
and the United States, as I said in our deep
dive about the US men's national team, has to acknowledge
that it is not a footballing power right now. In
many ways, the national team is better than it's ever been,
and yet it's also true that it's not that good.
(46:19):
It's not as good as Portugal, it's not as good
as Belgium, and that indicates to me that, you know,
making it to the last sixteen of the World Cup
would be a pretty good outcome for the US men's
national team, and having expectations that are higher than that would.
It'd be great if that happened, and we all hope
it does, or at least I hope it does, But
(46:41):
that's not what's most likely to happen. What's most likely
to happen is that we're going to struggle in our
friendly against Senegal, and we're going to struggle in our
friendly against Germany, and then we're going to play some
teams that hopefully are not quite as good as us
in the first round of the World Cup, and we're
going to make get to the knockout rounds. But that
(47:01):
isn't the same thing as being favorites to win the
World Cup, which we just aren't, or even contenders, yeah,
or even contenders in a meaningful way. Yeah, And that's
that's a difficult thing for Americans to accept, Daniel, because
we're used to being very very good at almost all sports.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yes, especially the ones we invented. We're quite good at those.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Basketball, baseball, yeah, yeah, American football, no one can, no
one can touch.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
No one can even come close to us in America football. Yeah.
All right, let's end there, John, great seeing you, Sean,
wonderful to see you. Thanks to Kurt and to Baheed.
Congratulations to Bahed, Yeah but he just got engaged. Congratulations. Yeah.
Our guest producers today and we will catch up again.
Thanks for listening, guys. As always, you can hit us
(47:49):
at Away Endpod at gmail dot com. Thanks
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