February 18, 2026 • 45 mins
On Episode 5, we have a hot take alert! Daniel poses the question: should there be term limits for national team coaches? Daniel and John dive into the White Wolves of Uzbekistan, the team's history in past World Cups, and how they might fare in this year's group stage. Finally, John tells the insane but true story of Brazilian con artist and former footballer, Carlos Kaiser. Plus, Daniel and John respond to listener emails.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the Away End. I'm Danielle Alergone and I'm
John Green. Hey. John, Hey. If you're listening to this
on your podcast feed and not watching it on YouTube,
you can't tell how youthful and alive John looks compared
to the cadaverous uh you know, husk of a man
we've been dealing with in previous episodes. You look amazing, John.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks. I shaved because you look so good, clean shaven.
I figure that I'm just going to create my inner Daniel.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's that's what that's what's that's lovely. I'm glad we're too,
uh you know, palatable, handsome middle aged men talking about soccer.
I have a question for you. Well, I have rather
a theory, and my theory is this, and I have
a little bit of evidence on it, but I want
to throw to you. I will posit that national team
(00:56):
coaches should be changed every four years, no matter what,
no matter what, especially actually especially if you win.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
So if you win the World Cup, you should immediately
be fired. Yes, we call this the Tottenham rule. I
just don't think that, and I'll explain my logic and
I'm interested to hear you what you think about this
and I bring this up actually because Thomas Tookele and
Carlo Sancelotti, Carlo Ancelotti, respectively, the coaches of the England
(01:30):
national team and the Brazilian national team, have both been
offered new contracts to continue past the World Cup. I
would say that England is a candidate, Brazil is always
a candidate just because of who they are. So let's
say one of them were to win this World Cup.
My argument is that they should not necessarily fired that
(01:52):
seems a little harsh, but that they should resign that
it's very difficult to have the continuity after you've climbed
the mountain. It's very difficult to then do the necessary
changes to renew.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
The team for the next World Cup, right because you've
already climbed the mountain with these guys, you trust them.
But part of understanding the cycle, the life cycle of
a team, is that four years is a really long time.
If you don't change, you know, forty percent of the team,
let's say, then you're gonna you're not gonna make it.
And my example as proof, I have two France two
(02:31):
thousand and two and Spain twenty fourteen, two teams they
win and then they crash out of the of the
next in the group stages of the next World Cup.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, those are both two good examples. I would say
that it is really hard for a coach who climbed
the mountain with one set of players to say, now
I shall say goodbye to fifty percent of you. Those
of you who are over the age of twenty nine
don't work for me anymore. That's hard. I think, however,
that you're maybe underestimating the extent to which people like
(03:08):
a contract and people like the sense of continuity. There's
a benefit to the sense of continuity sometimes, right like then,
as a player, you know that's going to be your
coach even after the World Cup. I do agree that
giving two coaches who should be vying for the World
Cup contract extensions before they've performed in the World Cup
(03:30):
feels a little ludicrous. Like the World Cup is overwhelmingly
the most important tournament, right, Like the Nation's League means
essentially nothing compared to the World Cup, and so I
think you do have to see how somebody does in
the World Cup. I don't think you should fire everybody
or force everybody to resign after the World Cup, no
matter what. I just think that's I mean, it's a take.
(03:52):
It's one of those takes that would get a lot
of attention online because people are like, well, that's a take.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, well I'm expecting this to be clipped and uh
and have those those little videos where someone's talking underneath
me and like making facial expressions of like what an
idiot this guy is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that'll happen.
I'm just saying that. I was about to say this
is not a game, but it just literally is a game.
(04:19):
But this child's playing is something that children do for fun.
It is it is uh Carlo Ancelotti, Uh, you know,
lifestyle influencer for glamorous old men. Uh, a real sort
of players manager. He knows how to work a locker room,
(04:41):
that managed Ego's brilliant coach, not necessarily a brilliant tactician,
but a winner obviously. But he hasn't done anything with
Brazil yet, like right, like he he lost to Bolivia
or something like like. That's it that that that's a
the extent of it, and so I think it's it's
(05:03):
super premature to say this is our guy for the
next cycle.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In general, I find it a little ludicrous that they
give out so many of these contracts, because in what
other field do you get like a five year contract
for having beaten Peru twice or whatever? Nothing personal, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Nothing, No, no, none taken. Well, I mean I was
going to say in writing you, It's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We do live in a contract based business where you
are given you are given a lot of a lot
of benefit if you showed past success, yeah, which is
no guarantee of future successes, certainly, but publishers. Publishers are
a little myopic about that stuff sometimes. So you're right there,
there is another field where people are rewarded for past success.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I want to I want to ask the two of
you because we have our ep here Sean with us.
Actually we're actually in the same room, which is a
weird things on. Hey, what's up, Daniel, So this question
for both of you. Have either of you had any
experience coaching your children?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Uh, not in any formal setting.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
No uh.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And in fact, when I have tried to just coach
any of my children, I've found that they do not
seem to take well to take any coaching advice from me.
I don't know what that means about me as a parent.
But if they they will listen to their actual coaches
for you know, soccer or basketball or tennis or like whatever.
(06:35):
But if I'm trying to give constructive.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Coaching advice about soccer, could it be that you don't
know anything about soccer.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Soccer specifically, Yeah, soccer specifically, yes.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, tennis, I remember you played tennis. That was the
one sport.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, that was semi decent.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
John, I have coached co coached along with my wife,
Henry's my son Henry's soccer team. The only real memory
I have of it.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
We had a good time. Sarah did most of the coaching.
She's a pretty good soccer player, and so she did
most of the training and the drills and teaching kids
to try to get in front of the ball occasionally,
that kind of thing. The biggest memory I have was
having a huge fight with the coach of the other
team where we almost went to shoving because the coach
(07:26):
of the other team was like, that was clearly off sides,
and I was like, the linesman is fourteen.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, so the consultant bar here.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I don't mean like, I don't mean like the linesman
is maybe fourteen I mean, like, on the way into
the game, the linesman took me aside and said, hey,
be nice to me. I'm only fourteen.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh as you were defending the linesman from an irate
parent coaching.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, from a coach who was also a parent, and
he was irate because he thought that this off side's
call was wrong, which it was, but like who cares? Yeah, right,
if you try to say that, if you try to
diffuse it by saying like who cares? This isn't very
important and that kid's fourteen, let's not be hard on him,
you only make the person more irate.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah yeah, parents doing best, way too much energy in
their kid's success. I remember a British parent of a
kid who I played like pee wee soccer with back
in the day, chewing out his son at halftime because
his son was had gotten called offside like six times
(08:30):
in the half, you know. And this was not a
sophisticated offside trap we're talking about. This was like, you know,
he was.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Just too he had a shon ty tone level understanding
of the offside.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like icing or something
and he uh yeah, And I just remember thinking like
that seems so mean, it seems like, you know, just
let the kids have fun kind of thing, you know,
like why are we doing this? I remember coaching my
son any sales team and about you know, he must
have been six years old, and about maybe two thirds
(09:04):
of the way through the season he was we were
walking back to catch the bus home and he was like, Bubby,
He's like, I don't think it's fair that we have
to wear the same jersey every week and the other
team gets to change colors. And then I was like
and I was like, I was like, you realize we're
playing different kids every week, you know, and he was
(09:25):
like mind blown.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Pool. He saw the primary benefit of playing soccer that
you get to change, you get to change jerseys every week,
and that's the only thing he liked about the game
was being denied him.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, he was like, you know, costume change, uh, and
we you know, it was like west Side Soccer here
in Manhattan, and you get you know, you get assigned
to color and it can be you know, cool color.
If you don't like the color, you're stuck with it
for forever. I believe it was purple that we had
and he just wasn't a fan, you know, Yeah, He
did score a wonderful goal that season, which was tremendous,
(10:02):
and I was very proud.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I the only time Alice ever scored a goal in
her legendary youth soccer career which rivaled my own. I
almost rushed the pitch. Yeah, it tore down the goalposts,
cut the net and it was like to go up
like seven to one.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
You know, that's the one that put it away, to
put it out of reach. They say six to one
is the most dangerous scoreline. So my older son played
like my younger son doesn't love soccer. He likes he
likes the World Cup a lot. He doesn't love playing,
even though I think he's he's pretty decent, and he
doesn't like watching any any any soccer. But my older
(10:42):
son is a big, big, big soccer head, and so
I was. I was coached his team here in west
Side Soccer one year and I was a co coach,
same as you, except my The other coach wasn't my wife,
but it was a guy named Howard, Coach Howard and
Coach Howard would arrive in an suv uh that would
(11:03):
park at the top of Riverside Park and his driver
would keep the suv on for the whole game and
then would go down. He's some kind of finance guy.
I didn't really know who he was. And uh, my
oldest son is my step son, and his dad is
Italian and Carolina and my wife didn't come to all
the games. Uh, and so the coach Howard just assumed
that we were like this intercontinental, very sophisticated gay couple. Uh,
(11:28):
me and my wife's six husband, who we like, you know,
he's Italian and I'm Peruvian, and we like knew more
about soccer and him. So we were kind of were
like unofficial coaches and you know, explaining the off side
rule and whatnot. And I remember he would he was
always trying to get us some run plays like this
was football, and then uh, you know, we did okay,
(11:50):
and uh we never corrected him because I thought it
was really funny that he thought we were a couple.
We did all right that season, and then I kind
of forgot about him. And then I was starting on
the TV other day and I was like, coach Howard
is Howard Lutnik. Oh wow, secretary of the guy who's
like currently trying to destroy the world economy, coach of
(12:14):
my kid's soccer team and uh, and I was kind
of I was just like, oh, wow, uh okay, I like,
it's just one of these very New York stories where
I was like, you know, you're you're you never know
who's going to be in your kids pee wee soccer
team and it might be the future Secretary of the
Treasury and Epstein Island visitor and Epstein Island visitor post. Uh.
(12:38):
I knew that man was discussing, uh interview. Uh these people, man,
what a bunch of hypocrites. Sean.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Have you ever been to Epstein's Island?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Have not? Have not not been there? Not in the files?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I am actually for myself, I'm not I'm not me.
What did you had a lot of conversations with weird
rich people trying to raise money for hospitals in Siri
Leo and over the years. Yeah, I was in there
because Michael Wolf forwarded Epstein an email of the best
selling authors of twenty fourteen just with the message, Eh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh wow, I guess he didn't like the vault in
our Stars.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I guess he wasn't a fan.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Wow, gosh, that was there any response? No, Michael Wolf.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
God, he really covered himself in glory. Oh all right,
we're gonna have a deep dive into the Uzbekistan national team,
which I'm very excited about, and we're also gonna hear
a story from me about the greatest footballer who never was.
But first, let's take a break.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Okay, we're back. This is the way and I'm Danielle
Larcone and John I'm going to tell you about the
Uzbekistani national team. The uzbek national team great. They are
known as the White Wolves, and because I am a
novelist and love literature, I'm gonna first talk about how
they were have been known as Asia's cursed team, and
(14:20):
there's a couple of examples, but I want to dive
into one which I think is pretty remarkable, but a
little bit of background. This year they're going to be
in Group K, which as you know, is Portugal, Colombia
and either New Caledonia, Jamaica or the Dr Congo. My
money's on Congo for this one. And so we sort
of you touched on this John last week, when you
(14:42):
sort of give us your deep dive into the national
team of called di'voir. But there's a lot of new
countries and I guess like pretty much in the newest
are the post Soviet republics. I think there's something super
interesting here because the Soviet Union collapses and now there's
suddenly a bunch of new teams. And think a month,
(15:03):
you can either especially the Central Asian republics, you can
kind of go with Asia, or you can go with YUEFA. Right,
you can go to the Asian Federation, or you can
go to YUEFA. And so a bunch of the former
Soviet republics joined YUEFA the European Federation, right, So I'm
talking about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia,
(15:27):
Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan Kyrgystan to Tajikistan. Ministan kind of
could have gone either way, and they joined the Asian Federation,
which I think is pretty interesting. Kazakhstan eventually switched back,
but Usbek's stayed with Asia for this most recent campaign.
(15:50):
They won six of their ten matches, three draws and
a loss, and they were second in their group behind Iran,
which means they qualified. But why were they the cursed team?
And I think this is a fun little story. They
only started playing as an independent nation in nineteen ninety two.
They had their first game in ninety two, and they've
been kind of on the cusp of getting to the
(16:12):
World Cup twice before this time. When they actually made
it in two thousand and six, they had this playoff
game against Bahrain and there was a really controversial decision
that ended up sort of making them lose their opportunity
to qualify. And what happened was this, they had a
(16:32):
first leg game. It was Bekistan in Bahrain and Uzbekistan
one nothing, but the game was annulled because the Japanese
ref made an error. He basically incorrectly awarded a free
kick to Bahrain instead of ordering a retake for penalty
infringement that had been scored right. So that game, a
(16:59):
player named server dejh Perov scored the penalty for Uzbekistan,
but the referee disallowed it because of encroachment by a
newsback player, but instead of ordering it to be retaken
as per the rules, he gives this free kick to
Bachrain and so instead of going up to nothing, they
stay at one nothing, and then Uzbekistan wanted basically to
(17:20):
be given the game as a three nothing victory if
you've rejected it. They had the whole game played again
and uh that replay ended up one to one no.
And then the second legend Bakrain ended up zero zero,
which meant it meant that Bahrain advanced to the next
round of playoffs on the away goals rule. The away goals.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Rule might be the worst rule in all of football.
It's given us some really incredible moments.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I have to say.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's it. It creates a kind of drama, but it it.
If you're Sean, can the game?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Can you tell me? Yeah? I was going to jump in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Actually, let's have JN because if you try, if you
try to pitch this idea to Sean, Sean's going to
be like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well wait, but first, Sewn, would you explain the away
goals rule? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Wow, this one might have me have me stumped. It's
something that happens within the game itself, like during gameplay.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I'll give you a hint. It has to do with
two legged playoffs. Two legged meaning we play at home
and we play away.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And then the combined score is what decides who wins.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
If you score a goal while your team is away,
it's it's awarded extra more points than that nailed.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That's it. It's a type. So if it's one to
one in uh tash Kent and then zero zero in Bahrain,
it's aggregate scorer is one to one. But because Bahrainy
national team scored a goal in Tashkent, then they advance. Right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Is this a rule that only happened for temporary like
or is this still a rule that is happening today.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So the the goal of that rule, like the purpose
of it was to encourage the visiting team to attack more,
to create more exciting football, because usually teams would if
the would be a visitor, they would just sit back
and defend for ninety minutes. Right, So the goal was
to create incentives to play more attacking football because your
(19:27):
away goals would be more interesting. It had the effect
actually of making the home team way more conservative than
they should be. So I'm not sure it actually resulted
in more attacking football. And it's a little bit of
a holdover from the days when travel was you know,
an exhausting journey like by steamship and like hike, you know,
(19:49):
whereas they don't use it. For example, anymore in the
Champions League, because like you know, it's just like jumping
on your private plane from Paris to Barcelona is not
like an arduous journey anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So they've mostly gotten rid of it because it mostly
didn't do what they expected it to do.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right. There was that famous game where there was that
Icelandic volcano that blew up, disrupting travel all over Europe
and making the Barcelona team go by bus to Milan
like and where they ended up losing, even though they
were by far the better team. So there are sort
(20:26):
of situations where travel is arduous but no longer. Yeah,
I didn't. It didn't have the sporting impacts that they
had hoped it would have.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
But back to the USBAC national team, they do not
qualify for that World Cup on account of a bad
referees mistake and thereby having to replay a game and
giving up in a wig.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yes, I just want to give a shout out to
the referee till she meets so Yoshida.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just brutal you named him.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I just want to name and shame because it was
a it was a big mistake and I'm sorry, mister Yoshida,
but you know you no one will buy you a
beer in Tashkent. But this year they won. Their coach,
Timour Capazze resigned afterwards, and you'll never guess who their
(21:10):
current manager is.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I won't.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You're right, Okay, do you want to hints or no? Yeah? Okay?
Former Juventus player, former Madrid player, defender, captain of the
Italian national team in two thousand and six World Cup
winner Ballon d'Or winner, Fabio Cannavaro.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Fabio Cannavarro is a manager.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, he's a manager. He's a okay man. You know,
I You're gonna be shocked to know this, but I
did not know much about these Becastanni national team until
last night.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Uh so I was looking into kind of arrow because
I'd sort of lost track of him since he retired.
Uh he's had a really undistinguished manager career, like managing
in China, you know, managing around Asia, like not really
doing much. But he got this job. I mean, look,
(22:09):
he brings arguably the experience of having been in a
World Cup, being a World Cup winner. That World Cup
two thousand and six, Italy kept five clean sheets, incredible defense,
which if you're going to be you know, a debutant,
a World Cup debutant, you probably want a defensive genius
(22:29):
mastermind like Kinnavaro to sort of be training you. I
don't expect them to be much in terms of an
attacking side. They're probably the highest profile player is this
kid Kuzanov who plays for n City, so therefore I
hate him. He's a really good player. I mean, he's young.
He had a nightmare first game. He come out of
(22:53):
thrown in the deep end. He gave away a penalty,
or he didn't give away a penal, he gifted a
goal to Nanny Medwiki, he got a a yellow card,
like in the first three minutes. He was like crying
at halftime almost But to his credit, balls of steel
on this kid, because he kept playing and he played
really well, and he's in the team, and you know,
(23:13):
he's a twenty year old kid making his debut at
Man City, has a rough game but sort of bounces back.
So I have great admiration for him, although I still
hate him. And the guy known as Uzbek Messi, which
I say with the largest air quotes you could imagine.
(23:35):
I just feel like that that that's the kind of
name that is like a shows a real lack of
imagination because I watched clips of elder Scholmrudov, and I
can say, unless something is really lost in translation, this
is no Nael Messi at all. He's good, he's fine.
You know, he's scored a bunch of goals for the
national team, forty three goals in eighty eight appearances, so
(23:59):
he's a good striker, good finisher. I watched about twenty
minutes of highlights, maybe two dozen goals. All but two
of them were one touch finishes, just like Messi exactly.
So this is not you know, I mean, he's more
like the from my humble sort of like viewing of things.
(24:21):
He's not the Uzbek Messi. He's more like the Uzbek Chicharito.
You know, this is not a world class player, enough respect,
and I say this with all due respect to our
Uzbek listeners or our Ruzbek listener. Yeah, he plays in
the Turkish super League, and not even for one of
the teams you've heard of, John, one of the teams
that you have not heard of.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Ok, okay, and he's fine when he's when he wins
the Golden Boot. Daniel, you're really going to be eating
your words. I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I will I will happily eat my words, you know,
probably for my punishment for this will be the he
scores like a you know, a hat trick against Columbia
really be awful, and I apologize to our Columbian listeners
in advance for that. Anyway, I think it's going to
be an interesting team. My take from the research that
(25:10):
I did in preparation for this. They're going to be
a defensive team. They have Fibyo Knavado as their manager
who's going to set them up to not lose. And
they have a very talented young defender and Khusuinov and
then and he'll be there kind of stalwart in the
back despite his youth. They will not do very well
(25:30):
I think against Portugal. I hope they won't do very
well against Columbia. And then you know, like a lot
of these groups third places up up in the air.
You know, they could surprise the our Congo or Jamaica
or New Caledonia and you never know, you never know.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And I think that's exactly what makes this World Cup
so interesting, is the fact that a lot of the
third place teams, if they can snatch a win, will
go through.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I agree with that, I agree.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think three points will probably be enough to see
you through. And so you know, if you're Haiti, you
know you've still got a chance if you win one game.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, and we've got We actually got an email about that,
which we'll read in the next section, but about sure
of questioning whether that's actually true, but we'll see. I
think it's going to be interesting to see Uzbekistan play
in this World Cup. And I also just want to
congratulate them, as a Peruvian who is not in the
World Cup for making it. It's a huge accomplishment and
(26:30):
I think that they are probably no longer is just
cursed team, and so congratulations to all the Uzbeks out there.
We should take a.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Break, John, and we'll be right back with your story.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
All right, we're back on the way, and John, I
have an email for you. This is from Adejandro and
Daniel a Columbian here mios fan live in the United States,
and I'm loving your podcast. Thank you very much. In
episode four, while discussing Ivory Coast chances of coming out
of the group stage, you said, I think this would
be you, John, that a win and a close loss
in either of the two games should be enough. Looking
(27:17):
back at the ninety four World Cup, which is in
my view, the best reference twenty four teams three points
per win, Russia missed around of sixteen with three points
plus and a plus one goal difference. Assuming this World
Cup is like ninety four, duplicated, three points and zero
goal difference might not be enough, especially considering there should
be more groups where one team will lose all of
their games and the team team quality seems to be
(27:38):
more unequal than in previous World Cups. He signs off saying,
keep up the good work and thank you for sharing
middle aged dad thoughts about football. I feel seen a
great use of the youthful lingo there by being seen
Alejandro H. I appreciate that contemporary Yeah. Okay, so this
(28:01):
seems like a lot of math, John, But do you
have any response to ade handle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
My response is that I think eight of the twelve
third place teams are going to go through, So like,
how bad? So if four teams, you know, say draw
one one in their last game in their game against
say there's two bad teams in each group, if you
(28:25):
tie with the other bad team, you don't go through
because you finish in third place with one point and
somebody else finishes in fourth place with one point, and
I think that might be the case for at least
three or four of the of the team. So I
think if I think a win is enough, win with
some close losses are enough. That's my math. My math
(28:46):
is notoriously bad.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Though.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
You can ask Daniel, you can ask Sean, you can
ask anyone who went to high.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
School with Yeah, yeah, same. Well, I'm going to trust
your math on that, and I guess we'll you know,
I remember being in algebra class and the question was
something like, if you, you know, have a bicycle and
the radius of attire is this much, and you pedal
six times, how far will you go? And I just
(29:13):
remember being floored that one could actually know that without
moving the bicycle six times. So all of like, for me,
I'm just going to wait for the games to happen
and then someone will tell me who made it because
I get into that prediction mode and I just can't
do it. So but Alejandro, we appreciate your question. Should
(29:35):
we do emails and then you want to do your
story or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Let's do one more email and then we'll do the stories.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay, this is from Diego question. You both talked about
playing football yourselves in leagues or pickup games. I live
in Mexico and have played for many years in an
amateur Sunday leagues, although it's not ever actually played on Sunday.
The problem is that games tend to get violent alarmingly frequently.
I've lost count of the number of name games that
have come to blows. It's utterly ridiculous, maddening. Any advice.
(30:02):
Have either of you had similar experiences. I wonder how
frequentness is in the United States.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I've never gotten to blows in the United States playing football,
but I've also never played at a high level.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, I remember actually one one I played actually in
the league out in Oakland, and I remember a fight
broke out. It was this league where I remember there
was a security guard. They were checking for weapons when
you walked into the area the field that was out
by the airport in Oakland. What I do remember we
(30:36):
wore red jerseys and there was a fight that happened
in the game just before hours between a team that
wore blue and another team that wore red. And I
remember that when the fight broke out and the fans
because everyone wanted their families, and you know, it was
like a legitimate fight. I remember we all looked aroun
because were getting ready for our game, and we realized
we were wearing red jerseys as well, and everyone on
(30:58):
my team just quickly took their jerseys off because we
were like, we're not involved here. When we just held
our hands up and we let Blue and Red fight
it out, and they broke up and no one was injured,
and then we played our game.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I will say the most fun I've ever had at
pickup soccer was in a co ed league where it
felt like violence was really off the menu. Yeah, not
to make it entirely about sex and gender identity, but
like boy, I do think that there's something about there's
something about men, there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Daniel, Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. I've
played on plenty of co ed teams, and I agree
that does take the edge off in a way that
is useful for everybody and for the sport. I want
to highlight one more thing before we go to your
story again. From another listener from Luciano, who's an Argentine
who doesn't really enjoy football, but he wanted to do
(31:51):
a recommendation, and I just want to second this. There's
a really great Argentine author named Roberto Fontanaros who wrote
a book called put Football, and Luciano recommended it to us.
And I just want to say I was gifted this
book by an Argentine friend named Leandro many years ago,
and it's hilarious and wonderful, and so I just want
to echo what Luciano said. It's a great book for
(32:12):
those of you who read in Spanish. He says, best
wishes from the current champions. However, if we go back
to what I said in segment one, Skyloni is still
the coach of Argentina and I am officially worried about Argentina. Okay,
all right, I'm saying it going on the record.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Man, all right, I'm not worried about Argentina bobbing out
in the group phase. But I guess I've been wrong before.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
You have.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, I didn't say the group phase, but they might
lose to Uruguay, as our friend Bruno told us.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, no, that is possible.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
All right.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My story for you, Daniel is about the great Brazilian
footballer Carlos Kaiser. Now I think that you know part
of this story because you're part of the reason I
know about it. But I just had to tell this
story on the podcast. Carlos Kaiser was a footballer whose
career spanned His professional career spanned twelve years, during which
(33:03):
he made zero appearances. Now this story is meaningful to
me because I have always suspected myself. We all suspect ourselves,
suspect of ourselves that we could be great at something
we never got to be great at. And the thing
that I suspect I could have been great at is
I think I could have been a great locker room member.
I think I could have been great in the locker
(33:25):
room of a football team. Like when I first got
my first job at Booklist magazine. I remember, maybe six
months in, my manager had my performance review and she
basically said, you've been a great personality hire. Wow, you
(33:47):
don't do the job as such, but you're great to
have around.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
And how did you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Oh, that's kind of been my thing the time. Well, okay,
I mean, nobody labors under the delusion that I was,
in fact the best novelist of twenty fourteen, but I
was a personality higher.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Okay, So This is now two weeks in a row
we've had these kind of Remember last week he told
the story of your coach that put you in just
to teach the players the importance of trying hard, right,
And now you're saying you were the personality higher in
your first job. So there does seem to be this
theme of these kind of of of self deprecating stories
(34:34):
that I just I don't I don't buy it.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I feel like you were pretty good at Booklist. I'm
not being self deprecating at all. I am absolutely celebrating
my incredible, my incredible qualities as a personality higher. I
was a good reviewer, but my job wasn't reviewing. My
job was putting numbers into a database at which I
was completely mediocre. Oh I think anybody could do that job. Okay, Well,
(34:58):
I'm not saying I wasn't a good writer. I'm saying
saying that I wasn't a good publishing assistant.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, got it. But you were wonderful to have in
the locker room at book.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I was great to have in the locker room. And
I suspect, and I mean you guys might be the
two people who've seen me in a locker room setting.
Locker room like setting the most. I think I get
along with people. I think I'm I think I'm a
I think I'm a I think I'm a joiner. I
think I can I think I can bring people together.
I think I can resolve arguments. I think that like
(35:29):
like like money and Sola needed Roberta for me. Now
I would be a Roberta for me, you know, like
character in the locker room without the goals or the
obviously with none of the skills, which brings us back
to Carlos Geyser go On go On, who was the
ultimate personality higher he became friends with many professional footballers.
(35:54):
He did have a youth career. Okay, so he played
for Flamengo in his youth career, but he was not
good enough to be a professional footballer. And so what
he would do is he would go to a new
team and he would be like, oh, I gotta get
in match shape. You know, it's gonna take me a
minute to get in match shape. And then he'd do
all the workouts, the non footballing stuff, you know, the
lifting weights, the running, all that stuff, which he was
(36:15):
brilliant at because he was a you know, he was
a fit guy, and he would do all that stuff,
and then when it came time for him to sort
of approach the maybe being on the bench, he would
tear his hamstring. He tore his hamstring like nine or
ten times in his eleven year career, never once actually
tearing his hamstring. But back then there was no like
ultra sound to look for a torn hamstring. And then
(36:37):
eventually he would move on. After a short stint at
one club, he would move on to another. And he
played at some of the biggest clubs in all of Brazil.
I mean, he played for Flamengo twice, he played for Independiente,
he played for Flumenes, he played for Vasco da Gama.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I mean he play.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
He put an incredible career in which he made zero
appearances because he was a complete con artist. I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
My memory of the Carlos Kaiser story that the part
that I love. And I think he actually played in
Europe too, maybe in Portugal or something.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Is that one of the things that this all started
because he looked like a footballer.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, he had the look.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
He had the look, which is probably why you or
I could never sort of like, you know, fulfill the
Carlos Kaiser role even though we're you know, locker room dynamite.
But he was just like incredibly fit, handsome, and also
he was the other play I mean, this is the
whole thing. The other players loved him because he was
(37:37):
a big party guy. So he was like he was
like getting the booze, getting the girls, like making life
in the locker room for the players who actually played
like a lot of fun, which is why he was
able to stay at certain teams. There's also another anecdote
of his, which I don't know if you came across
in your in your research, that the one time he
(38:00):
did get into a game, he like got a red
card like immediately, like within ninety seconds, and then and
then dedicated it to the owner of the team because
he's the other the other away fans have been chanting
something derogatory to the team owner. So he went out,
he got thrown in the game, got a red card,
was suspended for three games, and then you know torres Hamstring.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
My favorite story about him is that at the end
of his career, he would use a toy cell phone
to pretend to be taking calls from other clubs like, oh,
I might have to might have to make a move here.
I'm good, I've got flumines on the phone. Oh god,
but it was a toy.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
What do you think that is? Is that is this
just like a guy who's really creative and was looking
for a way to make a living that was like
a soccer adjacent or is this a con artist who
could have been like, you know, a Ponzi scheme guy
in another life, Like, what is it?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, I think it goes back to something you've observed,
which is that professional football have an extraordinary amount of confidence.
And to be a con artist, you are essentially a
confidence artist. You are selling people on your confidence. And
it seems like he had all of the skills necessary
to be a professional footballer, except for the footballing skills.
He had that self belief, he had that you know,
ability to convey to you with confidence that he was
(39:19):
going to be an asset to your team. And then
by the end, he had a list of clubs that
had actually hired him. You know, he'd never made an
appearance for any of them. But this was the pre
video being everywhere era, the pre you know, Internet era,
and so it was still doable. Yeah, I imagine that
(39:40):
Carlos Kaiser wasn't the only Carlos Kaiser in the history
of football. He's just the only one we've heard about
because eventually, you know, it all came crashing down for
him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, but he's still living off of the twelve years
that he didn't play. Like. He made a documentary Oh yeah,
you know, like we covered history around Bulante and interviewed
a lot of who you know, quote unquote played with him. Yeah.
I also think in the age of powerful agents that
(40:09):
there are now there must be a number of unscrupulous
agents who are selling players who can't actually play but
look like they can play. Yeah, all over.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, the whole reason he got the name Carlos Kaiser
was because he looked like Franz Beckenbauer. And it is
still the case in football that like, if you look
like you can play, they take you seriously in a
way that they don't if you don't look like you
can play.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yes, I'm nodding my head in agreement because I feel
like I usually don't get picked first, if you know
what I mean. Yeah, but yeah, I have a friend Sina,
who looks like a retired soccer player, like a recently
retired soccer player. He's my age, he's our age. He's
(40:53):
incredibly fit because he he like lives in Bodaba to
like go on his bike to Khali, you know, like
a or a bike ride like wow, down to you know,
the low lens of Columbia is and so you know,
like I hadn't seen him in a while, I got
to go with that, you know, I gave him hugger
was like hugging a tree, like he's so fit, you know.
(41:16):
And uh, I feel like if you walked into a
bar and was wearing like a soccer jersey or some
you know, there'll be people who'd be like, oh, what
team did he play for? You know, like yep, he
just has that look. But he's actually, by his own admission,
and absolute terrible soccer player. Like the only he doesn't
even care about soccer, like the only thing he does
is his bike. But the look, it matters. The look
(41:37):
matters for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, and it's also how you care yourself, Like I mean,
I remember, there's a measure of just like the confidence
in your body, the understanding of your body in space
that you communicate in subtle ways when you're moving about
the world, and Carlos Kaiser obviously had that even if
he didn't have the footballing.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, God bless him.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
You guys mentioned there's a documentary, Like I'm shocked that, Hollywood.
This feels like ripe for like a narrative film of
like telling his story.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah, exactly. Like but to me, it's like one of
those films that you could make in a number of ways.
It could be like a Boogie Knights, or it could
be like a you know, twenty one Jump Street, you know,
like comedy, like it could be like.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
There's a darkness undertone potentially, or it could just be
more slap sticky.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah like that. Like they I feel like every five
years they make a movie about an adult going back
to high school who's like pretending. And I think this
could be that, you.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Know, I'm trying to I know, John, you are notoriously
not somebody who casts people in movies, indeed, but I
don't know I'm putting it if we want to put
on our casting hats, who should play Carlos Kaiser in
the Hollywood make I'm I'm looking at a picture of
him right now, and I'm a little torn but is
(42:54):
Bill Hayter? Is that is that too off? Like Bill
Hayter's like really long hair or something like that. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, you could do that. I mean I feel like
if you, uh, if you you know, if you want
to actually sort of sell this movie, you'd probably want
to do the more a guy from Secret Agent, you know,
m oh yeah, yeah, that guy would be good. He'd
be good. Yeah, keep it Brazilian yep. But you know,
(43:21):
the older guy could also be like a you know,
if you do like a retrospective or Kaiser is old
and he's telling his story in retrospect. There's kind of
a Dustin Hoffman h thing to it. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
I was thinking, the guy who plays h Football is
life guy from ted Lasso, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, that's him. That's it. That's it sold. All right.
We're gonna go soon and John and I will write
the script for the Kaiser film. Yeah, yeah, we'll just
write on text. That's a great that's a great new project. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
I don't have enough to be a good movie. There's
nothing against it as a movie. It's very hard to
get movies made about football. I've tried for years.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Well, well, I don't know, I feel like other sports
translate better on the like like the one of the
things that's terrible about Ted Lasso. It's a fun show.
I liked it. I enjoyed it a lot, actually, but
the actual football is terrible. It doesn't look believable. It
doesn't look real. It doesn't look like it looks like
it's in slow motion. Yeah, and it and whereas I
(44:20):
feel like if you watch Hoosier's the basketball looks pretty.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Real, well, you're they're also high school basketball players, which helps.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Yeah, exact, I mean fair. But even in that that
really wonderful comedy. Uh, next Goal Wins, which I really
enjoyed and recommend as a soccer movie, I didn't think
the soccer there, you know, and they're supposed to be terrible.
Even there, it didn't look real enough to sort of
pass the smell tups. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, but it's hard. It's not easy to make a
good soccer movie. But that said, like, it is the
world's game, and so if you could crack it, you
could you could have a movie with a huge audience.
So I'll keep trying. I'm not giving up on it.
It's my only remaining dream really is to make a
great soccer movie.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Sometimes dreams do come true. What is it your line?
Hope is never justified, but it's always rewarded. No, the opposite,
the opposite. Yeah, that would be great. Hope is always rewarded.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
If the world we're sort of a wish granted factory
where you like, close your eyes and be like, I'd
like to win the World Cup.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
There you go, all right? That could be the premise
of our soccer movie, which we'll start writing immediately on text, John,
I think that's all the time we have for the way,
and man, I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I'll see you next week. Thanks to our producer Kurt
and Sean Taitone and everybody who works on the show
if making it.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Possible, Yeah, keep sending us emails at away ndpod at
gmail dot com. Thanks so much, guys, Take care,
Welcome to the Away End. I'm Danielle Alergone and I'm
John Green. Hey. John, Hey. If you're listening to this
on your podcast feed and not watching it on YouTube,
you can't tell how youthful and alive John looks compared
to the cadaverous uh you know, husk of a man
we've been dealing with in previous episodes. You look amazing, John.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks. I shaved because you look so good, clean shaven.
I figure that I'm just going to create my inner Daniel.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's that's what that's what's that's lovely. I'm glad we're too,
uh you know, palatable, handsome middle aged men talking about soccer.
I have a question for you. Well, I have rather
a theory, and my theory is this, and I have
a little bit of evidence on it, but I want
to throw to you. I will posit that national team
(00:56):
coaches should be changed every four years, no matter what,
no matter what, especially actually especially if you win.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
So if you win the World Cup, you should immediately
be fired. Yes, we call this the Tottenham rule. I
just don't think that, and I'll explain my logic and
I'm interested to hear you what you think about this
and I bring this up actually because Thomas Tookele and
Carlo Sancelotti, Carlo Ancelotti, respectively, the coaches of the England
(01:30):
national team and the Brazilian national team, have both been
offered new contracts to continue past the World Cup. I
would say that England is a candidate, Brazil is always
a candidate just because of who they are. So let's
say one of them were to win this World Cup.
My argument is that they should not necessarily fired that
(01:52):
seems a little harsh, but that they should resign that
it's very difficult to have the continuity after you've climbed
the mountain. It's very difficult to then do the necessary
changes to renew.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
The team for the next World Cup, right because you've
already climbed the mountain with these guys, you trust them.
But part of understanding the cycle, the life cycle of
a team, is that four years is a really long time.
If you don't change, you know, forty percent of the team,
let's say, then you're gonna you're not gonna make it.
And my example as proof, I have two France two
(02:31):
thousand and two and Spain twenty fourteen, two teams they
win and then they crash out of the of the
next in the group stages of the next World Cup.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, those are both two good examples. I would say
that it is really hard for a coach who climbed
the mountain with one set of players to say, now
I shall say goodbye to fifty percent of you. Those
of you who are over the age of twenty nine
don't work for me anymore. That's hard. I think, however,
that you're maybe underestimating the extent to which people like
(03:08):
a contract and people like the sense of continuity. There's
a benefit to the sense of continuity sometimes, right like then,
as a player, you know that's going to be your
coach even after the World Cup. I do agree that
giving two coaches who should be vying for the World
Cup contract extensions before they've performed in the World Cup
(03:30):
feels a little ludicrous. Like the World Cup is overwhelmingly
the most important tournament, right, Like the Nation's League means
essentially nothing compared to the World Cup, and so I
think you do have to see how somebody does in
the World Cup. I don't think you should fire everybody
or force everybody to resign after the World Cup, no
matter what. I just think that's I mean, it's a take.
(03:52):
It's one of those takes that would get a lot
of attention online because people are like, well, that's a take.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, well I'm expecting this to be clipped and uh
and have those those little videos where someone's talking underneath
me and like making facial expressions of like what an
idiot this guy is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that'll happen.
I'm just saying that. I was about to say this
is not a game, but it just literally is a game.
(04:19):
But this child's playing is something that children do for fun.
It is it is uh Carlo Ancelotti, Uh, you know,
lifestyle influencer for glamorous old men. Uh, a real sort
of players manager. He knows how to work a locker room,
(04:41):
that managed Ego's brilliant coach, not necessarily a brilliant tactician,
but a winner obviously. But he hasn't done anything with
Brazil yet, like right, like he he lost to Bolivia
or something like like. That's it that that that's a
the extent of it, and so I think it's it's
(05:03):
super premature to say this is our guy for the
next cycle.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In general, I find it a little ludicrous that they
give out so many of these contracts, because in what
other field do you get like a five year contract
for having beaten Peru twice or whatever? Nothing personal, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Nothing, No, no, none taken. Well, I mean I was
going to say in writing you, It's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We do live in a contract based business where you
are given you are given a lot of a lot
of benefit if you showed past success, yeah, which is
no guarantee of future successes, certainly, but publishers. Publishers are
a little myopic about that stuff sometimes. So you're right there,
there is another field where people are rewarded for past success.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I want to I want to ask the two of
you because we have our ep here Sean with us.
Actually we're actually in the same room, which is a
weird things on. Hey, what's up, Daniel, So this question
for both of you. Have either of you had any
experience coaching your children?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Uh, not in any formal setting.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
No uh.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And in fact, when I have tried to just coach
any of my children, I've found that they do not
seem to take well to take any coaching advice from me.
I don't know what that means about me as a parent.
But if they they will listen to their actual coaches
for you know, soccer or basketball or tennis or like whatever.
(06:35):
But if I'm trying to give constructive.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Coaching advice about soccer, could it be that you don't
know anything about soccer.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Soccer specifically, Yeah, soccer specifically, yes.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, tennis, I remember you played tennis. That was the
one sport.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, that was semi decent.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
John, I have coached co coached along with my wife,
Henry's my son Henry's soccer team. The only real memory
I have of it.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
We had a good time. Sarah did most of the coaching.
She's a pretty good soccer player, and so she did
most of the training and the drills and teaching kids
to try to get in front of the ball occasionally,
that kind of thing. The biggest memory I have was
having a huge fight with the coach of the other
team where we almost went to shoving because the coach
(07:26):
of the other team was like, that was clearly off sides,
and I was like, the linesman is fourteen.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, so the consultant bar here.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I don't mean like, I don't mean like the linesman
is maybe fourteen I mean, like, on the way into
the game, the linesman took me aside and said, hey,
be nice to me. I'm only fourteen.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh as you were defending the linesman from an irate
parent coaching.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, from a coach who was also a parent, and
he was irate because he thought that this off side's
call was wrong, which it was, but like who cares? Yeah, right,
if you try to say that, if you try to
diffuse it by saying like who cares? This isn't very
important and that kid's fourteen, let's not be hard on him,
you only make the person more irate.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah yeah, parents doing best, way too much energy in
their kid's success. I remember a British parent of a
kid who I played like pee wee soccer with back
in the day, chewing out his son at halftime because
his son was had gotten called offside like six times
(08:30):
in the half, you know. And this was not a
sophisticated offside trap we're talking about. This was like, you know,
he was.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Just too he had a shon ty tone level understanding
of the offside.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like icing or something
and he uh yeah, And I just remember thinking like
that seems so mean, it seems like, you know, just
let the kids have fun kind of thing, you know,
like why are we doing this? I remember coaching my
son any sales team and about you know, he must
have been six years old, and about maybe two thirds
(09:04):
of the way through the season he was we were
walking back to catch the bus home and he was like, Bubby,
He's like, I don't think it's fair that we have
to wear the same jersey every week and the other
team gets to change colors. And then I was like
and I was like, I was like, you realize we're
playing different kids every week, you know, and he was
(09:25):
like mind blown.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Pool. He saw the primary benefit of playing soccer that
you get to change, you get to change jerseys every week,
and that's the only thing he liked about the game
was being denied him.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, he was like, you know, costume change, uh, and
we you know, it was like west Side Soccer here
in Manhattan, and you get you know, you get assigned
to color and it can be you know, cool color.
If you don't like the color, you're stuck with it
for forever. I believe it was purple that we had
and he just wasn't a fan, you know, Yeah, He
did score a wonderful goal that season, which was tremendous,
(10:02):
and I was very proud.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I the only time Alice ever scored a goal in
her legendary youth soccer career which rivaled my own. I
almost rushed the pitch. Yeah, it tore down the goalposts,
cut the net and it was like to go up
like seven to one.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
You know, that's the one that put it away, to
put it out of reach. They say six to one
is the most dangerous scoreline. So my older son played
like my younger son doesn't love soccer. He likes he
likes the World Cup a lot. He doesn't love playing,
even though I think he's he's pretty decent, and he
doesn't like watching any any any soccer. But my older
(10:42):
son is a big, big, big soccer head, and so
I was. I was coached his team here in west
Side Soccer one year and I was a co coach,
same as you, except my The other coach wasn't my wife,
but it was a guy named Howard, Coach Howard and
Coach Howard would arrive in an suv uh that would
(11:03):
park at the top of Riverside Park and his driver
would keep the suv on for the whole game and
then would go down. He's some kind of finance guy.
I didn't really know who he was. And uh, my
oldest son is my step son, and his dad is
Italian and Carolina and my wife didn't come to all
the games. Uh, and so the coach Howard just assumed
that we were like this intercontinental, very sophisticated gay couple. Uh,
(11:28):
me and my wife's six husband, who we like, you know,
he's Italian and I'm Peruvian, and we like knew more
about soccer and him. So we were kind of were
like unofficial coaches and you know, explaining the off side
rule and whatnot. And I remember he would he was
always trying to get us some run plays like this
was football, and then uh, you know, we did okay,
(11:50):
and uh we never corrected him because I thought it
was really funny that he thought we were a couple.
We did all right that season, and then I kind
of forgot about him. And then I was starting on
the TV other day and I was like, coach Howard
is Howard Lutnik. Oh wow, secretary of the guy who's
like currently trying to destroy the world economy, coach of
(12:14):
my kid's soccer team and uh, and I was kind
of I was just like, oh, wow, uh okay, I like,
it's just one of these very New York stories where
I was like, you know, you're you're you never know
who's going to be in your kids pee wee soccer
team and it might be the future Secretary of the
Treasury and Epstein Island visitor and Epstein Island visitor post. Uh.
(12:38):
I knew that man was discussing, uh interview. Uh these people, man,
what a bunch of hypocrites. Sean.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Have you ever been to Epstein's Island?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Have not? Have not not been there? Not in the files?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I am actually for myself, I'm not I'm not me.
What did you had a lot of conversations with weird
rich people trying to raise money for hospitals in Siri
Leo and over the years. Yeah, I was in there
because Michael Wolf forwarded Epstein an email of the best
selling authors of twenty fourteen just with the message, Eh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh wow, I guess he didn't like the vault in
our Stars.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I guess he wasn't a fan.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Wow, gosh, that was there any response? No, Michael Wolf.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
God, he really covered himself in glory. Oh all right,
we're gonna have a deep dive into the Uzbekistan national team,
which I'm very excited about, and we're also gonna hear
a story from me about the greatest footballer who never was.
But first, let's take a break.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Okay, we're back. This is the way and I'm Danielle
Larcone and John I'm going to tell you about the
Uzbekistani national team. The uzbek national team great. They are
known as the White Wolves, and because I am a
novelist and love literature, I'm gonna first talk about how
they were have been known as Asia's cursed team, and
(14:20):
there's a couple of examples, but I want to dive
into one which I think is pretty remarkable, but a
little bit of background. This year they're going to be
in Group K, which as you know, is Portugal, Colombia
and either New Caledonia, Jamaica or the Dr Congo. My
money's on Congo for this one. And so we sort
of you touched on this John last week, when you
(14:42):
sort of give us your deep dive into the national
team of called di'voir. But there's a lot of new
countries and I guess like pretty much in the newest
are the post Soviet republics. I think there's something super
interesting here because the Soviet Union collapses and now there's
suddenly a bunch of new teams. And think a month,
(15:03):
you can either especially the Central Asian republics, you can
kind of go with Asia, or you can go with YUEFA. Right,
you can go to the Asian Federation, or you can
go to YUEFA. And so a bunch of the former
Soviet republics joined YUEFA the European Federation, right, So I'm
talking about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia,
(15:27):
Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan Kyrgystan to Tajikistan. Ministan kind of
could have gone either way, and they joined the Asian Federation,
which I think is pretty interesting. Kazakhstan eventually switched back,
but Usbek's stayed with Asia for this most recent campaign.
(15:50):
They won six of their ten matches, three draws and
a loss, and they were second in their group behind Iran,
which means they qualified. But why were they the cursed team?
And I think this is a fun little story. They
only started playing as an independent nation in nineteen ninety two.
They had their first game in ninety two, and they've
been kind of on the cusp of getting to the
(16:12):
World Cup twice before this time. When they actually made
it in two thousand and six, they had this playoff
game against Bahrain and there was a really controversial decision
that ended up sort of making them lose their opportunity
to qualify. And what happened was this, they had a
(16:32):
first leg game. It was Bekistan in Bahrain and Uzbekistan
one nothing, but the game was annulled because the Japanese
ref made an error. He basically incorrectly awarded a free
kick to Bahrain instead of ordering a retake for penalty
infringement that had been scored right. So that game, a
(16:59):
player named server dejh Perov scored the penalty for Uzbekistan,
but the referee disallowed it because of encroachment by a
newsback player, but instead of ordering it to be retaken
as per the rules, he gives this free kick to
Bachrain and so instead of going up to nothing, they
stay at one nothing, and then Uzbekistan wanted basically to
(17:20):
be given the game as a three nothing victory if
you've rejected it. They had the whole game played again
and uh that replay ended up one to one no.
And then the second legend Bakrain ended up zero zero,
which meant it meant that Bahrain advanced to the next
round of playoffs on the away goals rule. The away goals.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Rule might be the worst rule in all of football.
It's given us some really incredible moments.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I have to say.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's it. It creates a kind of drama, but it it.
If you're Sean, can the game?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Can you tell me? Yeah? I was going to jump in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Actually, let's have JN because if you try, if you
try to pitch this idea to Sean, Sean's going to
be like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well wait, but first, Sewn, would you explain the away
goals rule? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Wow, this one might have me have me stumped. It's
something that happens within the game itself, like during gameplay.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I'll give you a hint. It has to do with
two legged playoffs. Two legged meaning we play at home
and we play away.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And then the combined score is what decides who wins.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
If you score a goal while your team is away,
it's it's awarded extra more points than that nailed.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That's it. It's a type. So if it's one to
one in uh tash Kent and then zero zero in Bahrain,
it's aggregate scorer is one to one. But because Bahrainy
national team scored a goal in Tashkent, then they advance. Right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Is this a rule that only happened for temporary like
or is this still a rule that is happening today.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So the the goal of that rule, like the purpose
of it was to encourage the visiting team to attack more,
to create more exciting football, because usually teams would if
the would be a visitor, they would just sit back
and defend for ninety minutes. Right, So the goal was
to create incentives to play more attacking football because your
(19:27):
away goals would be more interesting. It had the effect
actually of making the home team way more conservative than
they should be. So I'm not sure it actually resulted
in more attacking football. And it's a little bit of
a holdover from the days when travel was you know,
an exhausting journey like by steamship and like hike, you know,
(19:49):
whereas they don't use it. For example, anymore in the
Champions League, because like you know, it's just like jumping
on your private plane from Paris to Barcelona is not
like an arduous journey anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So they've mostly gotten rid of it because it mostly
didn't do what they expected it to do.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right. There was that famous game where there was that
Icelandic volcano that blew up, disrupting travel all over Europe
and making the Barcelona team go by bus to Milan
like and where they ended up losing, even though they
were by far the better team. So there are sort
(20:26):
of situations where travel is arduous but no longer. Yeah,
I didn't. It didn't have the sporting impacts that they
had hoped it would have.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
But back to the USBAC national team, they do not
qualify for that World Cup on account of a bad
referees mistake and thereby having to replay a game and
giving up in a wig.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yes, I just want to give a shout out to
the referee till she meets so Yoshida.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just brutal you named him.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I just want to name and shame because it was
a it was a big mistake and I'm sorry, mister Yoshida,
but you know you no one will buy you a
beer in Tashkent. But this year they won. Their coach,
Timour Capazze resigned afterwards, and you'll never guess who their
(21:10):
current manager is.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I won't.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You're right, Okay, do you want to hints or no? Yeah? Okay?
Former Juventus player, former Madrid player, defender, captain of the
Italian national team in two thousand and six World Cup
winner Ballon d'Or winner, Fabio Cannavaro.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Fabio Cannavarro is a manager.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, he's a manager. He's a okay man. You know,
I You're gonna be shocked to know this, but I
did not know much about these Becastanni national team until
last night.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Uh so I was looking into kind of arrow because
I'd sort of lost track of him since he retired.
Uh he's had a really undistinguished manager career, like managing
in China, you know, managing around Asia, like not really
doing much. But he got this job. I mean, look,
(22:09):
he brings arguably the experience of having been in a
World Cup, being a World Cup winner. That World Cup
two thousand and six, Italy kept five clean sheets, incredible defense,
which if you're going to be you know, a debutant,
a World Cup debutant, you probably want a defensive genius
(22:29):
mastermind like Kinnavaro to sort of be training you. I
don't expect them to be much in terms of an
attacking side. They're probably the highest profile player is this
kid Kuzanov who plays for n City, so therefore I
hate him. He's a really good player. I mean, he's young.
He had a nightmare first game. He come out of
(22:53):
thrown in the deep end. He gave away a penalty,
or he didn't give away a penal, he gifted a
goal to Nanny Medwiki, he got a a yellow card,
like in the first three minutes. He was like crying
at halftime almost But to his credit, balls of steel
on this kid, because he kept playing and he played
really well, and he's in the team, and you know,
(23:13):
he's a twenty year old kid making his debut at
Man City, has a rough game but sort of bounces back.
So I have great admiration for him, although I still
hate him. And the guy known as Uzbek Messi, which
I say with the largest air quotes you could imagine.
(23:35):
I just feel like that that that's the kind of
name that is like a shows a real lack of
imagination because I watched clips of elder Scholmrudov, and I
can say, unless something is really lost in translation, this
is no Nael Messi at all. He's good, he's fine.
You know, he's scored a bunch of goals for the
national team, forty three goals in eighty eight appearances, so
(23:59):
he's a good striker, good finisher. I watched about twenty
minutes of highlights, maybe two dozen goals. All but two
of them were one touch finishes, just like Messi exactly.
So this is not you know, I mean, he's more
like the from my humble sort of like viewing of things.
(24:21):
He's not the Uzbek Messi. He's more like the Uzbek Chicharito.
You know, this is not a world class player, enough respect,
and I say this with all due respect to our
Uzbek listeners or our Ruzbek listener. Yeah, he plays in
the Turkish super League, and not even for one of
the teams you've heard of, John, one of the teams
that you have not heard of.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Ok, okay, and he's fine when he's when he wins
the Golden Boot. Daniel, you're really going to be eating
your words. I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I will I will happily eat my words, you know,
probably for my punishment for this will be the he
scores like a you know, a hat trick against Columbia
really be awful, and I apologize to our Columbian listeners
in advance for that. Anyway, I think it's going to
be an interesting team. My take from the research that
(25:10):
I did in preparation for this. They're going to be
a defensive team. They have Fibyo Knavado as their manager
who's going to set them up to not lose. And
they have a very talented young defender and Khusuinov and
then and he'll be there kind of stalwart in the
back despite his youth. They will not do very well
(25:30):
I think against Portugal. I hope they won't do very
well against Columbia. And then you know, like a lot
of these groups third places up up in the air.
You know, they could surprise the our Congo or Jamaica
or New Caledonia and you never know, you never know.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And I think that's exactly what makes this World Cup
so interesting, is the fact that a lot of the
third place teams, if they can snatch a win, will
go through.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I agree with that, I agree.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think three points will probably be enough to see
you through. And so you know, if you're Haiti, you
know you've still got a chance if you win one game.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, and we've got We actually got an email about that,
which we'll read in the next section, but about sure
of questioning whether that's actually true, but we'll see. I
think it's going to be interesting to see Uzbekistan play
in this World Cup. And I also just want to
congratulate them, as a Peruvian who is not in the
World Cup for making it. It's a huge accomplishment and
(26:30):
I think that they are probably no longer is just
cursed team, and so congratulations to all the Uzbeks out there.
We should take a.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Break, John, and we'll be right back with your story.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
All right, we're back on the way, and John, I
have an email for you. This is from Adejandro and
Daniel a Columbian here mios fan live in the United States,
and I'm loving your podcast. Thank you very much. In
episode four, while discussing Ivory Coast chances of coming out
of the group stage, you said, I think this would
be you, John, that a win and a close loss
in either of the two games should be enough. Looking
(27:17):
back at the ninety four World Cup, which is in
my view, the best reference twenty four teams three points
per win, Russia missed around of sixteen with three points
plus and a plus one goal difference. Assuming this World
Cup is like ninety four, duplicated, three points and zero
goal difference might not be enough, especially considering there should
be more groups where one team will lose all of
their games and the team team quality seems to be
(27:38):
more unequal than in previous World Cups. He signs off saying,
keep up the good work and thank you for sharing
middle aged dad thoughts about football. I feel seen a
great use of the youthful lingo there by being seen
Alejandro H. I appreciate that contemporary Yeah. Okay, so this
(28:01):
seems like a lot of math, John, But do you
have any response to ade handle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
My response is that I think eight of the twelve
third place teams are going to go through, So like,
how bad? So if four teams, you know, say draw
one one in their last game in their game against
say there's two bad teams in each group, if you
(28:25):
tie with the other bad team, you don't go through
because you finish in third place with one point and
somebody else finishes in fourth place with one point, and
I think that might be the case for at least
three or four of the of the team. So I
think if I think a win is enough, win with
some close losses are enough. That's my math. My math
(28:46):
is notoriously bad.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Though.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
You can ask Daniel, you can ask Sean, you can
ask anyone who went to high.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
School with Yeah, yeah, same. Well, I'm going to trust
your math on that, and I guess we'll you know,
I remember being in algebra class and the question was
something like, if you, you know, have a bicycle and
the radius of attire is this much, and you pedal
six times, how far will you go? And I just
(29:13):
remember being floored that one could actually know that without
moving the bicycle six times. So all of like, for me,
I'm just going to wait for the games to happen
and then someone will tell me who made it because
I get into that prediction mode and I just can't
do it. So but Alejandro, we appreciate your question. Should
(29:35):
we do emails and then you want to do your
story or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Let's do one more email and then we'll do the stories.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay, this is from Diego question. You both talked about
playing football yourselves in leagues or pickup games. I live
in Mexico and have played for many years in an
amateur Sunday leagues, although it's not ever actually played on Sunday.
The problem is that games tend to get violent alarmingly frequently.
I've lost count of the number of name games that
have come to blows. It's utterly ridiculous, maddening. Any advice.
(30:02):
Have either of you had similar experiences. I wonder how
frequentness is in the United States.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I've never gotten to blows in the United States playing football,
but I've also never played at a high level.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, I remember actually one one I played actually in
the league out in Oakland, and I remember a fight
broke out. It was this league where I remember there
was a security guard. They were checking for weapons when
you walked into the area the field that was out
by the airport in Oakland. What I do remember we
(30:36):
wore red jerseys and there was a fight that happened
in the game just before hours between a team that
wore blue and another team that wore red. And I
remember that when the fight broke out and the fans
because everyone wanted their families, and you know, it was
like a legitimate fight. I remember we all looked aroun
because were getting ready for our game, and we realized
we were wearing red jerseys as well, and everyone on
(30:58):
my team just quickly took their jerseys off because we
were like, we're not involved here. When we just held
our hands up and we let Blue and Red fight
it out, and they broke up and no one was injured,
and then we played our game.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I will say the most fun I've ever had at
pickup soccer was in a co ed league where it
felt like violence was really off the menu. Yeah, not
to make it entirely about sex and gender identity, but
like boy, I do think that there's something about there's
something about men, there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Daniel, Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. I've
played on plenty of co ed teams, and I agree
that does take the edge off in a way that
is useful for everybody and for the sport. I want
to highlight one more thing before we go to your
story again. From another listener from Luciano, who's an Argentine
who doesn't really enjoy football, but he wanted to do
(31:51):
a recommendation, and I just want to second this. There's
a really great Argentine author named Roberto Fontanaros who wrote
a book called put Football, and Luciano recommended it to us.
And I just want to say I was gifted this
book by an Argentine friend named Leandro many years ago,
and it's hilarious and wonderful, and so I just want
to echo what Luciano said. It's a great book for
(32:12):
those of you who read in Spanish. He says, best
wishes from the current champions. However, if we go back
to what I said in segment one, Skyloni is still
the coach of Argentina and I am officially worried about Argentina. Okay,
all right, I'm saying it going on the record.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Man, all right, I'm not worried about Argentina bobbing out
in the group phase. But I guess I've been wrong before.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
You have.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, I didn't say the group phase, but they might
lose to Uruguay, as our friend Bruno told us.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, no, that is possible.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
All right.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My story for you, Daniel is about the great Brazilian
footballer Carlos Kaiser. Now I think that you know part
of this story because you're part of the reason I
know about it. But I just had to tell this
story on the podcast. Carlos Kaiser was a footballer whose
career spanned His professional career spanned twelve years, during which
(33:03):
he made zero appearances. Now this story is meaningful to
me because I have always suspected myself. We all suspect ourselves,
suspect of ourselves that we could be great at something
we never got to be great at. And the thing
that I suspect I could have been great at is
I think I could have been a great locker room member.
I think I could have been great in the locker
(33:25):
room of a football team. Like when I first got
my first job at Booklist magazine. I remember, maybe six
months in, my manager had my performance review and she
basically said, you've been a great personality hire. Wow, you
(33:47):
don't do the job as such, but you're great to
have around.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
And how did you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Oh, that's kind of been my thing the time. Well, okay,
I mean, nobody labors under the delusion that I was,
in fact the best novelist of twenty fourteen, but I
was a personality higher.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Okay, So This is now two weeks in a row
we've had these kind of Remember last week he told
the story of your coach that put you in just
to teach the players the importance of trying hard, right,
And now you're saying you were the personality higher in
your first job. So there does seem to be this
theme of these kind of of of self deprecating stories
(34:34):
that I just I don't I don't buy it.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I feel like you were pretty good at Booklist. I'm
not being self deprecating at all. I am absolutely celebrating
my incredible, my incredible qualities as a personality higher. I
was a good reviewer, but my job wasn't reviewing. My
job was putting numbers into a database at which I
was completely mediocre. Oh I think anybody could do that job. Okay, Well,
(34:58):
I'm not saying I wasn't a good writer. I'm saying
saying that I wasn't a good publishing assistant.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, got it. But you were wonderful to have in
the locker room at book.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I was great to have in the locker room. And
I suspect, and I mean you guys might be the
two people who've seen me in a locker room setting.
Locker room like setting the most. I think I get
along with people. I think I'm I think I'm a
I think I'm a I think I'm a joiner. I
think I can I think I can bring people together.
I think I can resolve arguments. I think that like
(35:29):
like like money and Sola needed Roberta for me. Now
I would be a Roberta for me, you know, like
character in the locker room without the goals or the
obviously with none of the skills, which brings us back
to Carlos Geyser go On go On, who was the
ultimate personality higher he became friends with many professional footballers.
(35:54):
He did have a youth career. Okay, so he played
for Flamengo in his youth career, but he was not
good enough to be a professional footballer. And so what
he would do is he would go to a new
team and he would be like, oh, I gotta get
in match shape. You know, it's gonna take me a
minute to get in match shape. And then he'd do
all the workouts, the non footballing stuff, you know, the
lifting weights, the running, all that stuff, which he was
(36:15):
brilliant at because he was a you know, he was
a fit guy, and he would do all that stuff,
and then when it came time for him to sort
of approach the maybe being on the bench, he would
tear his hamstring. He tore his hamstring like nine or
ten times in his eleven year career, never once actually
tearing his hamstring. But back then there was no like
ultra sound to look for a torn hamstring. And then
(36:37):
eventually he would move on. After a short stint at
one club, he would move on to another. And he
played at some of the biggest clubs in all of Brazil.
I mean, he played for Flamengo twice, he played for Independiente,
he played for Flumenes, he played for Vasco da Gama.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I mean he play.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
He put an incredible career in which he made zero
appearances because he was a complete con artist. I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
My memory of the Carlos Kaiser story that the part
that I love. And I think he actually played in
Europe too, maybe in Portugal or something.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Is that one of the things that this all started
because he looked like a footballer.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, he had the look.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
He had the look, which is probably why you or
I could never sort of like, you know, fulfill the
Carlos Kaiser role even though we're you know, locker room dynamite.
But he was just like incredibly fit, handsome, and also
he was the other play I mean, this is the
whole thing. The other players loved him because he was
(37:37):
a big party guy. So he was like he was
like getting the booze, getting the girls, like making life
in the locker room for the players who actually played
like a lot of fun, which is why he was
able to stay at certain teams. There's also another anecdote
of his, which I don't know if you came across
in your in your research, that the one time he
(38:00):
did get into a game, he like got a red
card like immediately, like within ninety seconds, and then and
then dedicated it to the owner of the team because
he's the other the other away fans have been chanting
something derogatory to the team owner. So he went out,
he got thrown in the game, got a red card,
was suspended for three games, and then you know torres Hamstring.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
My favorite story about him is that at the end
of his career, he would use a toy cell phone
to pretend to be taking calls from other clubs like, oh,
I might have to might have to make a move here.
I'm good, I've got flumines on the phone. Oh god,
but it was a toy.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
What do you think that is? Is that is this
just like a guy who's really creative and was looking
for a way to make a living that was like
a soccer adjacent or is this a con artist who
could have been like, you know, a Ponzi scheme guy
in another life, Like, what is it?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, I think it goes back to something you've observed,
which is that professional football have an extraordinary amount of confidence.
And to be a con artist, you are essentially a
confidence artist. You are selling people on your confidence. And
it seems like he had all of the skills necessary
to be a professional footballer, except for the footballing skills.
He had that self belief, he had that you know,
ability to convey to you with confidence that he was
(39:19):
going to be an asset to your team. And then
by the end, he had a list of clubs that
had actually hired him. You know, he'd never made an
appearance for any of them. But this was the pre
video being everywhere era, the pre you know, Internet era,
and so it was still doable. Yeah, I imagine that
(39:40):
Carlos Kaiser wasn't the only Carlos Kaiser in the history
of football. He's just the only one we've heard about
because eventually, you know, it all came crashing down for
him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, but he's still living off of the twelve years
that he didn't play. Like. He made a documentary Oh yeah,
you know, like we covered history around Bulante and interviewed
a lot of who you know, quote unquote played with him. Yeah.
I also think in the age of powerful agents that
(40:09):
there are now there must be a number of unscrupulous
agents who are selling players who can't actually play but
look like they can play. Yeah, all over.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, the whole reason he got the name Carlos Kaiser
was because he looked like Franz Beckenbauer. And it is
still the case in football that like, if you look
like you can play, they take you seriously in a
way that they don't if you don't look like you
can play.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yes, I'm nodding my head in agreement because I feel
like I usually don't get picked first, if you know
what I mean. Yeah, but yeah, I have a friend Sina,
who looks like a retired soccer player, like a recently
retired soccer player. He's my age, he's our age. He's
(40:53):
incredibly fit because he he like lives in Bodaba to
like go on his bike to Khali, you know, like
a or a bike ride like wow, down to you know,
the low lens of Columbia is and so you know,
like I hadn't seen him in a while, I got
to go with that, you know, I gave him hugger
was like hugging a tree, like he's so fit, you know.
(41:16):
And uh, I feel like if you walked into a
bar and was wearing like a soccer jersey or some
you know, there'll be people who'd be like, oh, what
team did he play for? You know, like yep, he
just has that look. But he's actually, by his own admission,
and absolute terrible soccer player. Like the only he doesn't
even care about soccer, like the only thing he does
is his bike. But the look, it matters. The look
(41:37):
matters for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, and it's also how you care yourself, Like I mean,
I remember, there's a measure of just like the confidence
in your body, the understanding of your body in space
that you communicate in subtle ways when you're moving about
the world, and Carlos Kaiser obviously had that even if
he didn't have the footballing.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, God bless him.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
You guys mentioned there's a documentary, Like I'm shocked that, Hollywood.
This feels like ripe for like a narrative film of
like telling his story.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah, exactly. Like but to me, it's like one of
those films that you could make in a number of ways.
It could be like a Boogie Knights, or it could
be like a you know, twenty one Jump Street, you know,
like comedy, like it could be like.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
There's a darkness undertone potentially, or it could just be
more slap sticky.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah like that. Like they I feel like every five
years they make a movie about an adult going back
to high school who's like pretending. And I think this
could be that, you.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Know, I'm trying to I know, John, you are notoriously
not somebody who casts people in movies, indeed, but I
don't know I'm putting it if we want to put
on our casting hats, who should play Carlos Kaiser in
the Hollywood make I'm I'm looking at a picture of
him right now, and I'm a little torn but is
(42:54):
Bill Hayter? Is that is that too off? Like Bill
Hayter's like really long hair or something like that. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, you could do that. I mean I feel like
if you, uh, if you you know, if you want
to actually sort of sell this movie, you'd probably want
to do the more a guy from Secret Agent, you know,
m oh yeah, yeah, that guy would be good. He'd
be good. Yeah, keep it Brazilian yep. But you know,
(43:21):
the older guy could also be like a you know,
if you do like a retrospective or Kaiser is old
and he's telling his story in retrospect. There's kind of
a Dustin Hoffman h thing to it. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
I was thinking, the guy who plays h Football is
life guy from ted Lasso, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, that's him. That's it. That's it sold. All right.
We're gonna go soon and John and I will write
the script for the Kaiser film. Yeah, yeah, we'll just
write on text. That's a great that's a great new project. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
I don't have enough to be a good movie. There's
nothing against it as a movie. It's very hard to
get movies made about football. I've tried for years.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Well, well, I don't know, I feel like other sports
translate better on the like like the one of the
things that's terrible about Ted Lasso. It's a fun show.
I liked it. I enjoyed it a lot, actually, but
the actual football is terrible. It doesn't look believable. It
doesn't look real. It doesn't look like it looks like
it's in slow motion. Yeah, and it and whereas I
(44:20):
feel like if you watch Hoosier's the basketball looks pretty.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Real, well, you're they're also high school basketball players, which helps.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Yeah, exact, I mean fair. But even in that that
really wonderful comedy. Uh, next Goal Wins, which I really
enjoyed and recommend as a soccer movie, I didn't think
the soccer there, you know, and they're supposed to be terrible.
Even there, it didn't look real enough to sort of
pass the smell tups. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, but it's hard. It's not easy to make a
good soccer movie. But that said, like, it is the
world's game, and so if you could crack it, you
could you could have a movie with a huge audience.
So I'll keep trying. I'm not giving up on it.
It's my only remaining dream really is to make a
great soccer movie.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Sometimes dreams do come true. What is it your line?
Hope is never justified, but it's always rewarded. No, the opposite,
the opposite. Yeah, that would be great. Hope is always rewarded.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
If the world we're sort of a wish granted factory
where you like, close your eyes and be like, I'd
like to win the World Cup.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
There you go, all right? That could be the premise
of our soccer movie, which we'll start writing immediately on text, John,
I think that's all the time we have for the way,
and man, I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I'll see you next week. Thanks to our producer Kurt
and Sean Taitone and everybody who works on the show
if making it.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Possible, Yeah, keep sending us emails at away ndpod at
gmail dot com. Thanks so much, guys, Take care,
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