On Episode 8 of The Away End, we have our first guests! Miguel Salazar and Alex Shephard are the creators and founders of a new print magazine about football called Golden Goal, and they join John and Daniel to talk about their new journalistic venture and how it ties into the World Cup. Daniel takes a look at Japan's national team and asks: what is it about this team that sparks joy? And John regales us with a story about a financial battle brewing around the cost of security at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to The Away and the only soccer podcast that
regularly named checks Albert Camu and Tony Morrison. I'm Danielle Alarcon.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm John Green. Today we're doing something a little different,
something we haven't done before on this young podcast. We
have guests, not one guest, but two actual guests, a pair,
a duo. Also, if you're on YouTube, you might be
wondering where I am. I'm coming to you from a
bay in Jamaica. Are are you there doing research for
The Away and the Yeah? Yeah, oh it's work trip.
(00:35):
Thanks for asking one hundred percent of work trip. Both
research for my new novel which is set partly here,
no joke, and also uh yeah, I mean the Jamaica
national team, Daniel is it's all that anybody can talk
about here?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Still in the mix?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Are they going to make the World Cup? Are they not?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
In the got to beat New Caledonia, but let's get
to our guests.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Got to find the New Caledonia first, and then played.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That I would beat them. I was stunned on my
research to learn that New Caledonia is in Oceania. I
mean I would have bet my life on New Caledonia
being off the coast of Spain.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, Miguel and Alex, welcome to the Way End. You're
officially our first ever guests and we're super happy you
could join us. You are, Miguel, I know you. We
played soccer together. Miguel is an excellent player. Alex lovely
to meet you man. So you both are here because
you're starting this really crazy project. And I say crazy
because it's the print magazine in twenty twenty six and
(01:33):
it's called Golden Goal, And so I wonder if you
could just start by telling us sort of the idea
behind this beautiful project.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, thank you guys for having us on. We love
the pod. Very excited to be here. Yeah, Golden Goals
a magazine. Really, it's a magazine that we want to
kind of capture the World Cup feel like the World Cup.
We wanted to be fun, exciting, We wanted to cover
countries from all over the world. We have writers from
(02:03):
almost every continent besides Antarctica, and really we want it
to feel like what it feels like to be watching
the World Cup with people from around the world and
with commentary from around the world. But also we want
to we wanted to make something that feels like it
addressed the moment up it and to feel like a
(02:24):
serious publication but also something you want to hold in
your hands, something beautiful. It's for new fans to find
and team they want to support, but also seasoned supporters
who just want to hold something beautiful and read good
writing about soccer. So it is a bit ambitious, but
we are really excited to work on it.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I've noticed something in recent World Cups, in particular, especially
the recently politically fraught World Cups, that there's a kind
of like a myopic intensity that defines them. That in
the lead up there's this sort of like manic fixation
on everything that's wrong and messed up with those tournaments,
and then once they start, that intensity just turns on
(03:05):
a dime and is focused on the games themselves. And
I think what you lose in a lot of that
process is a sense of perspective. And I think that
people get cynical and jaded and worn out or you
just can't deal with any of it, but you also
forget about the beauty of the World Cup itself. And
I feel slightly insane making this comparison, but I think
(03:26):
this is the podcast to do it, but I have
started to talk about the World Cup the way that
Quinn Coompson talks about the South and the end of
Absolum Absolum when he says, no, I don't hate this out.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I don't don't I don't hate the World cuss And
I think, you know, I mean, that is a very
personally moving and meaningful part of that book for me.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
But it is sort of how I feel about it
that I'm like when I talk to people, especially people
who say, oh, I don't watch the World Cup anymore,
you know, I say, well, I don't hate the World Cup,
you know, but I kind.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Of want to figure out why. And this magazine is
about that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's so beautiful. There's a I know, Dan Friedman, a
writer also British guy, plays soccer with him on the
Brow West Side a bunch, and and he didn't watch
the last World Cup, and I just I admire him.
I admire that sort of like the kind of political
consistency of like, no, I can't be part of this.
And also I just know that I'm not able to
(04:19):
deny myself the pleasure, you know, because joy, yeah, exactly, yeah,
even though it's a corrupt form of joy. Because FIFA
is what it is and the world is what it is.
But you know, and maybe that's just like the sort
of like the compromise one makes with oneself, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, I mean, coming to you from the edge of
Orkabasa Bay, I can tell you that a lot of
forms of joy are pretty corrupt.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, for sure, for sure, Miguel and Alice, you want
to talk about like some of the stories, the kinds
of stories you guys are going to feature in the magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, happy to do that. We have some we have
really cool writers. We have a big anchor piece we're
doing is eleven writers on eleven players. Some of the
names for that include Juasu, murvem Ray and novelists like
Gabriela Aleman in the Brazilian Ecuadorian writer. And we are
(05:16):
also having dispatches from different parts of the world from
writers from all over the world from writing it was Beka,
stan to Iran to Ecuador. But yeah, so we have
a lot of pieces coming in from all over. But
we also have some essays on what makes the World
(05:37):
Cup so special, including the Panini album. I don't know
if you guys ever put together one of the Panini
albums with the stickers. Yeah, that's for me, like I
growing up. I think I only did actually did one
as a kid in two thousand and six, but that
was it was like a super special part of the
World Cup for me. The whole experience and and so
(06:01):
the history of that Panini album and also kind of
just how it resonates with different people in different parts
of the world. That's one of our essays. Alex can
speak a little more on some of the other stuff
we have we have planned.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I just want to say parenthetically before you jump in, Alex,
like here in Bogota, like there's a really like intense
Panini sticker trading scene and there's like spots all over
town where people like in the plazas once you know
what my kid is like desperately waiting to like, you know,
he doesn't care about soccer, but he cares about the Panini,
(06:34):
you know, And they're gonna be like mobs of people
in different plazas around town like trading Panini's right right
up through the end of the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And we should define what a Panini is for those
who don't know, it's these stickers of players, right that
that you build a sticker album.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's kind of like, uh, like I
guess the soccer coolent of like trading baseball cards, except
usually stick them on and put them in the in
the in the album and they'll hold The goal, uh
is obviously to get as much money out of you
as possible, but also to fill the album and then
and then your extra as you trade with friends and
(07:10):
see what you can get. It's it's really, you know, fun.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I love it, Danielle.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I don't know if this was your experience in putting
together the sticker albums, but I feel like from what
I've heard from family and from what I experienced in six,
it was always difficult to find they. There would always
be one team, one country that was for some reason
the stickers were scarce impacts and you could barely find them.
(07:38):
And then six that team happened to be Italy, which
won the World Cup. And I'd heard that in O
two the team whose stickers were very scarce was Brazil.
So I don't know if this was your experience with
the Pennie album, but it is a theory that has
been floating in the Internet that Patini has denied. But
I think we're going to try to get to the
bottom of it. I don't know if we will, but yeah,
(08:00):
so getting a piece of.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That, See, that's the kind of harding reporting I can
get behind.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Yeah, Alex Oh, yeah, I mean I was just in
the last twelve hours, I think I've edited pieces on
Italian masculinity and the national team from two thousand and
six to the president. I edited one piece about the
rise of Fabrizzio Romano and what it says about the
change in soccer journalism and the sort of rise of
influencer culture.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Within that and many other things.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I'm excited about the title of that, or the working
title I should say that right now, which is you know,
from Aguero to Here we Go, which I think.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I captures a lot about that.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
But one of the things I really liked about this
project is that Miguel and I will just like text
each other and we'll just be like, we need, you know,
who's an Iraqi novelist that we know that we can
pull into this, right, Who's someone in Haiti, Right, who's
someone in Uzbekistan that we can get? And I think
so much of this project for me has been about
challenging my own assumptions. I'm a political editor at the
(08:55):
liberal magazine The New Republic, and most of the soccer
writing I do is kind of myopically fixated on Giohnny
and Fentino and corruption and all these other questions. And
I think that's only a part of the way that
I see soccer, and that is only a minuscule part
of how.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The rest of the world sees soccer.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I think that the way that the thing that
really excites you about this project is just getting to
interact with people that experience it completely differently, and again,
especially as an American, you know in New York City
for this World Cup, who are excited about it, I think,
and not ambivalent or something else. And I think that,
you know, colliding all those different perspectives into a physical
(09:36):
package is just like, it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
What are you going to be watching for at the
World Cup this year? I mean, what are the what
are the storylines you're looking to follow?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I mean, I think we're going to be focused, like
everyone else, on the actual soccer for sure. One thing
I mean we noticed from the Club World Cup, which
felt like a staging ground for this World Cup, was
early on just the expense of the ticket pricing I mean,
Trump's going to be all over this, we'd assume. I
(10:07):
don't know if you guys saw the celebrations when Chelsea
won the Club World Cup last year, but he was
front and center there and so I think we'll see
a lot of him at this World Cup. But more
than that, I think what interests me in particular is
seeing how the immigration situation plays out, who is going
to be able to attend the World Cup, what the
atmosphere is going to be.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Like.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There's been a lot of.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Just debate and.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Like local kind of like disagreement over funding, how the
fan fests will be funded, how whether it's the security situation,
who's putting the bill essentially for the World Cup for
hosting it here in the US, And I think that's
going to be an ongoing question that, you know, I
don't know how it will play out in a few months,
(10:56):
but it's something that we're definitely going to keep our
eyes out for, along with what's going on in the
field and what's happening kind of around around it politically.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Yeah, I mean not to I guess sound like a
philosine after that, But one of the things that interests
me is in the last few years, especially as soccer
has gotten more and more tactical. I've sort of been
drawn to international soccer and it's comparative simplicity. But I
am curious to see if the sort of set piecification
or the rise of the meat Wall, as my friends
at the Double Pivot podcast call it, will, will sort
(11:28):
of be drawn into that. I am, obviously, both for
professional and personal reasons, interested in the ways that the
President inserts himself into this World Cup. But I think also,
and I just wrote about this for our newsletter, I'm
interested in the ways that the World Cup reveals surprising
things about the world to us. I think that we
(11:48):
can predict that, you know, it will reveal a lot
of disturbing and troubling things about the way that this
country is run right now. But for the newsletter I
just wrote, I wrote about the US Iran game nineteen
ninety eight World Cup, which Iran won. It's one of
the bigger upsets and recent World Cup history. But you know,
in that game, the team was booed by dissident Iranians
(12:10):
Iranian expats in France the entire time they won, you know,
and they wept with joy as they were being sort
of mercilessly mocked and jeered the entire time. And I
think that, you know, for all of the rightful focus
on the you know, the increasing corruption and greed surrounding
the World Cup, it still has the capacity to reveal
(12:31):
unexpected and I think, complicated things about the world around
us that nothing else and sports and maybe culture at
large does.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, there was this passage in your in the editor's
note I really like I'm going to read here. It
says FIFA and Donald Trump can only alter the World
Cup so much because they only own part of it.
The rest of it belongs to everyone else. The players,
of course, but the fans too. There's miraculously still the
possibility of magic, of transcendence, of floating above the inevitable
scandals and abuses. No other sporting cultural event is as
(13:01):
laden with as much meaning or baggage. I love that.
I think that what I like about the project so
much is is not shying away from all the complicated stuff,
but also not letting the complicated stuff deprive one self
of access to the joy that the game itself can bring.
(13:22):
I wanted to ask you guys kind of a corollary
John's question, which is what you definitely not want to
happen at the World Cup. And this could be like
like I definitely don't want, like you know, France to win,
or it could be like I definitely don't want Christian
Policicis to get injured, like whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know, I definitely want Columbia to do well and
I want all of our players to stay fit before
I don't want any injuries. I'm still scarred from the
Falcao injury in twenty fourteen that I think would have
like I think he would have really helped us against
Brazil when we left to Brazil to one. I would
(14:06):
like for Argentina not to win. I think they have
enough World Cups. They won the last one. But yeah,
I think, I guess. I think it's hard to be hopeful.
It's hard to feel hopeful given the political situation sometimes
about the World Cup. But I just hope it can
be like a fun celebration. I mean, I'm going to
(14:28):
be here in New York, and I really hope to
like feel like I'm a part of the tournament, even
just walking around the city. I hope to be able
to speak with fans and and just like enjoy the tournament.
And I feel like that feels under threat because of funding,
because of the funding issues, the fan fests that are
(14:49):
being kind of broken up, and because of the political situation.
But I still feel like it's possible and really hope
feel hopeful for it.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
I mean, Miguel and I actually became friends during the
twenty eighteen World Cup, I think, but we were working
together at the New Republic and he had started fairly recently,
and we just kind of locked ourselves in a room
at work for a month and to the you know,
consternation and irritation of some of our colleagues, just yelled
for six hours a day while we were supposed to
be working. And I think, you know, what I'm hoping
(15:21):
for is to have interactions like that, right And I
think one of the things that is alarming about this
World Cup is that it's been hard to get to
the last couple and I think this should be one
that welcomes the rest of the world, and that's not
what's happening right now. And I think my hope is
that that still does happen. I have a piece going
up in the our most recent print edition, the April
(15:45):
issue of the New Republic, that is about I think
one of my concerns, which is just that it's not
just the possibility for geopolitical problems, but just for you know,
violence and chaos at this World Cup, just if you
look at you know, Minneapolis and the world around us
right now, and I think the lack of preparation for that,
lack of security funding at host cities is really scary
(16:07):
to me, And so that's sort of front of mine.
I hope that England doesn't win, mostly because I get
a perverse sense of joy from English media reactions to meltdowns,
and hope. I think what is most surprising to me,
as I'd written about this during the last World Cup,
but I had always been ambivalent about the US men's
(16:28):
team growing up, and I've come to really love them
in a way that surprises me.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And I hope that they do well.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And that feels kind of weird to say, because I
think that that kind of grows more politically fraught by
the week. But I think that even though they seem
to have taken a step back since the last World Cup,
they're still enormously talented, and I find the ways that
they have retained the US M and t's core kind
(16:59):
of brutality and sluggish identity with players of genuine technical
brilliance to be fascinating, and I just am kind of
excited to see how they play. The group draws very,
very kind to them.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I think it bums me out that love of country
and patriotism, which is I think can be beautifully expressed at
a tournament like this, can be sort of appropriated by
one or the other side of a political debate such
that you would feel ambivalent about like supporting your country,
you know, Like I think that's a bummer. But we
(17:37):
only have to look at the like you know what
happened with the hockey gold medals for women to know
that that's a reality.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I know. I mean, patriotism can be a cudgel, right,
And I remember over the years I've written in many
scripts of YouTube videos when I'm critical of the United
States that I love the United States, and my longtime
producing partner, who's British and Mexican all always cuts that
out of my scripts. She's like, that's a weird thing
to say. It's a weird position to take, and it
(18:07):
is a weird position to take, especially in twenty twenty six.
And yet I do feel a, yeah, you know, a
profound connection to the US men's national team. And I've
watched them since I was a kid, and I've rooted
for them since i was a kid. And you know,
I've never lived with success anywhere else. I remember when
I lived in the Netherlands, a Dutch friend of mindset.
(18:28):
It seems to me that you're sort of incurably American,
and that feeling of being incurably American is still with me.
I want to ask you guys about the golden goal
the name of the magazine. Do you think that FIFA
should bring back the golden goal rule for knockout games?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
This is funny because I think it's been a long
time point of that. Maybe that contention in a group
chat that we have, but I am firmly against the
golden goal. And the editors note that you read from earlier.
I was like, Miguel, do we need to have an
asterisk here where I can make it clear that I
think that this produced bad soccer. I mean, you love
(19:05):
when it goes well, but I think I still have memories.
I'm just old enough to, you know, have clear memories
of sitting through some really turgid extra time where you
know nobody wanted to give it up.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
I think.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I think the question of soccer rule changes is always
one where you try to you try to preserve the
possibility for transcendence without making people purposefully play bad. This
is one of the set piece questions too, And I
think that the golden goal rule is one of those
things that seems great on paper but in practice it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
But for the sake of marketing this magazine, I.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Hope that they bring it back for this World Cup.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
As an Arsenal fan, I feel like I'm being targeted
here with all this.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Personally attacked here.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, yeah, I got to say, vitrial.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
If you hate set piece goals in walking pace football,
might I recommend the third tier of English football and
where every ball is long and misplaced?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh man, I will say, And just parenthetically again, Alex,
you were saying you love British soccer meltdowns like I
have been consuming Tottenham meltdown content in the last twenty
four hours. It's just been absolutely beautiful and and just
a joy, just an absolute joy because I'm that petty
(20:27):
Yes it's.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
A Liverpool fan too.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It's been rare and you know, my whatever two plus
decades where I can I can sort of go scoreboard,
you know, or say, well, at you know, we just
won the league, so it doesn't really matter to me
what happens. So I am rooting for Arsenal to win,
just just to be clear right now. But but I
think it is also Liverpool's general mediocrity this year has
(20:50):
just made given me a sense of detachment where I
can just kind of enjoy everything right now, and maybe
nothing as much as the crisis at Spurs.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Because I forget if you were an Arsenal fan or not.
Did I just decide that you were because I like you.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I'm a Barcelona fan, but I feel like I've had
to choose in like a Premier League team just because
everyone I know in New York it watches DPL and
it's hard to get everyone to watch a Barcelona against
game at three am on a Saturday. So I've I've
(21:26):
been supporting Liverpool mostly because I also chose them when
Luis Diaz had joined, and now they have stabbed me
in the back and let him go to Byron and
he's doing great, so I'm I'm a little salty about that,
but I'm still I'm going to stand firm with Liverpool.
But my first team is Barcelona, of course, and I
(21:49):
know I have a lot of experience with shot and
fraud because my entire like watching watching soccer in Spain
is and half watching Barcelona and half watching Madrid hoping
they will lose every single game.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, exactly, you guys, Thank you so much. I am
a big fan of the magazine. I can't wait to
see it and hold in my hands. I'm gonna be
following you guys. You can find a supports magazine at
Goldengold dot world and of course we'll put a link
in the show notes so the folks can get there.
And yeah, I will enjoy the World Cup and I
(22:27):
hope all of our dreams come true.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Thanks guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Thank you awesome. Welcome back to the away End. Okay,
I want to start with this video that I sent you.
(22:51):
It isn't super high resolution, John, but for those of
you who are listening and not watching on YouTube, I'm
gonna just gonna describe it. I think you already saw it,
but okay, So in the video, there's three grown men,
three Japanese internationals. Their names are Hutu Yamaguchi, Hiroshiki Yotoki
and Yosuki I Deguch. They were in the nationals uniform,
which is beautiful dark blue uniform of Japan, the Blue Samurai,
(23:16):
and they're playing against another team. So it's three players
adults and there's one hundred school children.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
John, Yeah, one hundred Classic thirty thirty thirty ten formation.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Absolutely. I mean it's right there in the training coaching manual,
you know. So when you watch this video from a distance,
it's really kind of beautiful. You see this kind of
children swarming across the pitch, chasing after these three men,
this kind of the morphous cloud of red. It's like
it feels like the surface of a lake in a breeze,
just kind of these waves of red. But when you
(23:53):
look closer, you'd realize that these are children moving their
tiny little legs at like an extraordinary pace. And so
the image is both soothing and like deeply chaotic, and
it also reminds you know, if you've played, you know,
kiddie soccer, or if you coach your kids, you also
recognize that kind of inescapable child logic of like ball centrism,
where like the magnetism of the ball is such that
(24:16):
we all must get as close to it as possible,
and something that kids learn as they get older that
the use of space is as important as the use
of the ball. But that comes later, or you know,
sometimes it never comes at all.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Came me.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Now, all I got is space? Do anything else like
walk to the area where no one else is and wait. Okay.
So it takes these three grown men like literally like
half a minute to score, because the amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Thing about them scoring is that there are ten goalkeepers.
There are ten goalies who can use their hands, and
somehow they still manage to score.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, and they also managed to not hurt a child
like they do these like gentle lofting chips over these
you know, clouds of little children and and control the
ball well. And then you know, there's a one hundred
of them, but no one thinks that I should, you know,
close down the adult and so then the player chips
it over and uh, you know, it's a it's a
(25:16):
it's a beautiful header that manages to elude you know,
the ten goalkeepers as a spectacle. This is obviously from
a Japanese game show. Uh, and it's it's silly and
joyful and totally meaningless. I would parenthetically recommend anyone who's
ever feeling down about anything or uninspired just put in
best Japanese game show into YouTube or something and just
(25:38):
give into the surrealism of it. It's really a lovely
way to spend an afternoon on a rainy day. Anyway,
I wanted to mention this because I love it. It
sort of says something about Japan and Japan's culture. It
has nothing at all to do with Japan's chances of
this World Cup, but the away end is about joy
and this is a joyful moment for me. And when
(26:00):
I started doing the deep dive, I went back to
this and I remembered this video and looked for it
and laughed, and you know, just like gave into it
all all over again. So I love Japan. I loved
the Japanese team because I love Japan. I was in
Tokyo a couple of years ago and I was amazed
by it. And I have close Japanese friends. I've played
(26:21):
over the years with several of them, most recently played
from Japan and Taku, who used to absolutely embarrass me
and lots of other people every Sunday. It was so
good I loved Murakami in my twenties, as I'm sure
you did. I love the food. The Japanese national team.
If you have no if you just strictly want like fashion,
(26:43):
the Japanese national team jerseys are always just absolute bangers.
But let's talk about the actual football, right. Japan have
now qualified for eight World Cups in a row, every
World Cup since ninety eight. They of course co hosted
the two thousand and two World Cup Month of Football,
which permanently altered my circadian rhythms.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Never have I woken up at two am with so
much joy?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah? Yeah, the games were like at two, at four
and like six am.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, but I remember it was kind of great because
at the time I was working at Bookless magazine, and
so I would just wake up at two and then
by the time I got ready for work, the last
game would be wrapping up.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And when would you sleep at work?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh? Yeah, man, that job.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
There you go. So Japan is today a powerhouse of
Asian soccer. The Japanese women are powers of global soccer.
But that's a discussion for another day. And there's a
bunch of milestones, right. So in twenty eighteen, Japan became
the first Asian team to beat a South American team
at a World Cup. It was Columbia in a group
stage game. They played Belgium in the round sixteen. I
(27:55):
don't know if you remember that game from twenty eighteen. Yeah,
incredible game, and I want to mention this game because
they were winning to nothing. Belgium, you know, was like
one of the top teams ranked by FIFA at the time.
They ended up losing three to two, but what was
remarkable is that they they had a corner kick in
(28:16):
like the ninety fourth minute and they were tying one
of the top European teams, like one of the favorites
to win in a knockout game. And also all the
Belgian players are giants. They're absolute, you know, gigantic players,
and so naturally, if you were the coach, you would say,
short kick, run out the clock, you know, live to
(28:38):
fight an extra time, right, That's what a normal sort
of tactic would be. Instead, they lost the kick directly
into the mixer right in the center, which is immediately
caught by their gigantic goalkeeper, the Belgian goalkeeper, and quick
fast break and like literally eight second later they're knocked out.
(29:00):
Of the World Cup in Belgium scores crazy, and then
of course there were these images that came after of
the Japanese fans cleaning up the air of the stadium
like in tears, which is also very beautiful. In twenty
twenty two, Japan had a legitimate group of death like
and absolutely like listeners Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, Japan.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Wow, that is a really like serious group of death Sean,
do you want to come on for a second, knowing
nothing as you do about I'm sorry. We actually got
a letter today saying stop making fun of Sean.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I feel like I feel like I'm biting you, both
of us.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Absolutely, we're just trying to Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, let's
just leave it. If you can see Sean's beard. I
think the issue is that a lot of our listeners
are are audio only, and so they don't get to
see Sean's beard. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I think I mention that part of the reason that
I don't like it least because they're also so handsome,
and here we have like a legitimate Italian.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Oh so good looking, so good. I was gonna say
great looking for his age, but actually just great looking
at any age at any age.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
All right, so sean beautiful fan, Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, Japan.
Does Japan get out of the group? Only two teams
can get out of the group. Does Japan get out
of Germany, Spain, Costa Rica?
Speaker 6 (30:26):
Well, I know that the running idea here is that
I don't know much or maybe anything at all. But
I can say that this is something that I know
because I remember watching these games, and I remember Japan
surprising everybody by defeating Germany and by defeating Spain. So
(30:51):
they did they did it.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
They got out, They got out of the group in
first place. In fact, that is you're not doing a
good job of being the guy it doesn't know anything.
I mean, that's incredible.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
From time to time I think I will. It depends
on the question, right whether or not I will I
will know something or not. I guess my question is
they I know they lost to Costa Rica. It was
that a game that they on paper should have won. Yeah,
and then then weirdly lost that game, but then beat
(31:23):
Germany and Spain.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Right, Yeah, Costca had a good team that year. Costa
Rica actually that was one of the most surprising groups ever,
probably because Germany, Spain Japan, Costa Rica. I think everyone
would have said Spain and Germany get out of the group,
and in fact it was it was Costa Rica and Japan.
So it was one wonderful surprise that sport gave us.
(31:45):
They went on, of course, to lose to Croatia in
penalty kicks on the round of sixty.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Very unfortunate, very unfortunate. Yeah, and then Croatia made it
all the way.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Croatia didn't make it all the way. You're thinking, twenty eight,
that's what.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That's all the that's all the way. That's all the way. Man.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
The Sebomi finals is all the way. You're right, that's fair.
That's that's pretty much all the way. That's most of
the way, all right. So in twenty twenty six, Japan
absolutely rolled through qualifying. They were the first team outside
of the three hosts to qualify, and the friendlies since
then have been kind of a mixed bag. So they
lost the United States, which was a little weird, but
they also scored their first ever victory against Brazil, coming wow,
(32:27):
coming back from two down to win. It was one
of Machelotti's first games. He didn't look happy. They drew
with Paraguay, but they beat Ghana, so it's kind of
like up and down. They have a couple further warm
up games this month later this month against England and Scotland,
which should sort of give us a little more insight
into where the team stands. Now, I want to this
(32:49):
is this stat actually totally blew my mind. So as
of September twenty twenty five, there are over one hundred
and fourteen Japanese players active in European leagues in European teams.
That's a ninety percent increase over the past five years. Wow,
wow percent growth. It's crazy. So we in the United
States have like twenty five Yeah, exactly, exactly, So Japan
(33:11):
is a legit team. I mean, look, some of these
players you'll recognize. Karu Mintoma from Brighton. Love that player,
really great, takomimin Amino, late of your parish now at Monaco, Yeah,
a good player. Yep, Uhar Wataru Endo who currently is
on Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Great player. I mean yeah, both Endo and Minnemino were
players you just loved rooting for.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So you have a real talent and
you know they have a group that I think is doable.
This time, right, So their group is Netherlands, Tunisia and
UEFA Playoff B, which could be either Ukraine, Sweden, Poland
or Albania, and I for one am hard pressed to
(34:00):
pick who would win there. I know I'm going to
be rooting for Ukraine, but I don't actually know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Who's the favorite. Sweden and Poland are both also good.
Albania has good players. That's That's a tough group. So
who knows who that'll be, but it's probably going to
be somebody that Japan can can at least draw. You
think Tunisia is probably beatable. The Netherlands is an interesting
challenge for Japan, but not an impossible one.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, I'm gonna say that. I mean Netherlands. What I
was taught as the child, Netherlands is the greatest team
that's never won a World Cup, and I think you
know we can agree on that they've been in the
World Cup final twice in seventy eight and twenty ten,
proud footballing heritage, and yet not imperious and not unbeatable.
(34:50):
I'm gonna say John that this year Japan is going
to get out of the group. Kind of does everyone's
getting out of the group and the round of sixteen
is no longer the rund of sixteen now the first
knockout round. Of course, it's the round of thirty two.
So the question is will they get past the first
knockout round, because they've never gotten past that despite being
a team that you know routinely wins Asian Cups, a
(35:12):
team that has this depth of talent, that they have
over one hundred players playing in the top leagues in Europe.
So now will they win the round of thirty two game?
Let's assume so check this out. The winner of Group
F gets the runner up of Group C, and the
winner of Group C gets the runner up of Group F.
(35:33):
So you're asking John, what's Group C? Brazil, Morocco, Haiti
and Scotland.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Oh no, right, Oh, that's a disaster. You're either going
to give to razila Morocco almost.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
You're going to get almost certainly going to get Brazil
and Morocco with respect to our Scottish and Haitian friends.
So the real thing is this, they already beat Brazil
once in a friendly. It's entirely likely that Japan's gonna
have to do it again for real in a World
Cup if they want to break the hoodoo of getting
past the round of thirty two.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Imagine the size of the catastrophe if Brazil lost in
the round of thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oo wow, yeah, I mean no, one.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Hundred and fifty million people would be oh my god,
I'd hate to be Carl Ancholotti.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Then unthinkable, It's unthinkable. I mean, that's like the the
you know, there are teams that are just happy to
be there and teams where if they win a game
or score a goal, that's enough. And then there's the
pressure that teams like Brazil face, you know, or Morocco
they were hosting afkon. We talked about this in the
first episode, and you know, the entire weight of the
nation is a lot is a lot to take, Yeah,
(36:46):
which maybe makes them beatable. I don't know, because Japan
is in that in between phase where they have real talent,
really good players, and the question is, but no one
actually thinks they're gonna win anything.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, they could win a knock out.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That yeah, I think I think they could do it.
I think they could do it. We'll see. So anyway,
that's that's my take on Japan. I'm really looking forward
to buying a japan Jersey and enjoying those games.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, it's gonna be great. All Right, we're gonna take
a break and then we'll be back with a story
from me about football and security funding, riveting. We'll do
right back, all right, Daniel, We're back with you away
(37:42):
in and I'm gonna tell you a story about a
small town New England select board. So if you've never
lived in New England, there are these town boards that
can be very powerful. In this case, it's a town
board of five people who are elected, but they're volunteers
in a little town called Foxborough, Masachusetts, which happens to
be home to a very large stadium where I believe
(38:05):
the New England Patriots play their football games.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I've heard of it. Yes, it's called Foxborough Stadium, or
it used to be.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I believe it's called Foxborough Stadium. Maybe it's got maybe
it's called Gillette Stadium because it's been papered over by
some kind of corporation. But in our hearts it will
always be Foxborough Stadium, got it. Well, the town board
there has has said, look, it's going to cost us
about seven point eight million dollars to do security for
this event that we're hosting I believe seven games of
(38:35):
the World Cup, and we're gonna need FIFA, which expects
to make eleven point seven billion with a B dollars
from the World Cup. We're gonna need FIFA or somebody
to pay that money. And it's very complicated. There are
a lot of different parties involved, including the Craft family
who owns the New England Patriots, and also this group
(38:57):
Boston Soccer that is a a a separate group from
FIFA but sort of aligned with FIFA, that's bringing the
World Cup to Boston, although technically to Foxborough, and they
cannot seem to come to an agreement on this seven
point eight million dollars now. They announced Boston Soccer and
the Craft family announced that they had come to an agreement,
(39:17):
but the Foxborough select Board immediately responded, you've come to
an agreement with yourselves, not with us. You have not,
in fact come to an agreement with us, got it?
And it is not at all clear if these games
which are now scheduled for I don't know ninety five
days from now, are actually going to happen because it's
(39:38):
the seven point eight million dollar disagreement.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Seven point eight million dollars when you're gonna make eleven billion.
Seems like like just you know, fish it out of
the you know, between the sofa cushions, you know, like
that's what like FIFA spends on, like SODA's at the offices,
Like just give them money.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Right, Yeah, that's how I feel, too, right like, And
it's not it's forced security, and I'm all like, I
want this to be a secure World Cup. That's something
I worry about and so I'm all for it. I
also feel like it's a solvable problem. But it's one
of those things where big, powerful institutions think they can
come up against a little select board and automatically win
(40:17):
just by throwing around their weight. And I sort of
love that these New England town councils are like, you
don't understand, We've been doing this since like seventeen fifty one.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
It's like a it's like a Manhattan co op, you
know exactly. It won't be believed by the celebrity resident,
you know, your influencer.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, yeah, they were not getting a break on rent.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
No no noise after eight pm, sorry, you know, no
smiling in the elevator, that's the rules. I love it.
I love it. Yeah, what who's the bad guy here?
And does it start with an F and in an A.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I think it starts with an F and NS in
an A, as it usually does. But all so, like,
I'm so biased at this point, you know that, Like
I haven't really looked deeply into the question of who's
the bad guy. It's just that the bad guys always FIFA,
so it has to be FIFA. But yeah, there's a
lot of a lot of a lot of mutual finger
pointing in this, in this and it's hard. It's hard
(41:21):
to know, except that it seems to me that it's
going to be expensive for the town to host the
fricking World Cup, and it makes sense that they're going
to need some support to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna look this up because I think
that the listeners want to know. Okay, So the games
that are going to be held in Boston slash Foxborough,
hand versus Scotland.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Oh god, that's going to be a banger.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, Iraq of Bolivia, Yeah, that's gonna be a good one.
Haitian fans are gonna come. That's gonna be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
That then there's the winner the playoff between Iraq, Bolivia
and Suranon versus Norway, Holland early Holland, our Noda Guards debut.
All the wonderful players from Bodo Glimpse are just going
to be there, just you know, playing. Can they play
in the heat? Are they able to? I don't know,
who knows? Who knows? Yeah, Norwegians. In June in Boston,
(42:22):
we'll see h Scotland versus Morocco. That's a great game. Yeah,
England versus Ghana that's also a great game, a class
colonial matchup. Yeah. And then this one is going to
be another banger here Norway versus France.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I mean those are good games that Boston has if
I now see, if I were Foxborough would come to
some kind of agreement just so I could host those games.
I mean they count Select Kennedy free tickets.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, I would, I would probably. You know, you only
need three votes, FIFA, make.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
It work, FIFA. If there's anything you're good at, it's
bribing elected officials.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, like that's like one of the tenants of the organization. Yeah.
I hope they come to an agreement. I hope Foxboro
gets the money it needs. When I read about this,
I thought, what was remarkable was that the Boston Soccer
which is kind of what I understood was kind of
an offshoot of FIFA that was like a nonprofit that
was created just for this to put on these seven games.
(43:26):
They basically said, yeah, you'll get your money, you know,
June first, and the town council was like, oh, hell no,
we're not going to start ordering the equipment that we
need to make these games flow safely, like twelve days
before the tournament starts. That's preposterous. And you know what,
I think they're right. I think they're absolutely right, and
(43:48):
I hope they get their money. Yeah, yeah, thank you. John.
We have a couple of letters before we go. Do
you want to hear them? I'll read this one for
you because it's a question just for you, Dear Daniel,
John and Sean. We would love to hear John's answer
to the question of which, if any domestic team he supports.
We know about his support for Wimbledon and Liverpool because
he won't shut up about fucking Liverpool. But there's nothing
(44:10):
like going to your hometown team's game. I can honestly
say my soccer interest sword into soccer obsession during my
visits the Red bull Areno while I lived in New York,
joining the crowd and singing for Columbian star Juan Pablank,
future American star Josie Altadoor and a cast of guys
like John Wolgek, who they might have just found playing
pick up on the Opper West Side. Took my consumerist
interest and turned it into ritual participation in community action,
(44:32):
a switch which felt like learning to live.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Man.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
This guy can write.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, so, Luke asks, has John been to an Indie
eleven game? Their next game home game is the US
Open Cup against Des Moines Menace on the seventeenth, and
they host Detroit in the League on the twenty first.
We'd love to hear about that experience.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, I have been to several India eleven games. I
mean the issue with American soccer teams for me, and look,
this is also an issue with Liverpool Football Club not
going to pretend otherwise, is that they are franchises. Now
usl is opening itself up to promotion and relegation, which
is really exciting, and I think I'll go to more
Indie eleven games in the future now that that's part
(45:12):
of the now that there's some real jeopardy. So there's
some meaningful jeopardy for these very wealthy people who own
these institutions. But it's hard for me with MLS a
little bit because they're guaranteed their league spot and they
paid hundreds of millions of dollars to basically create a monopoly.
English football's a little different, but still there's a sense
(45:36):
in which these community assets are the playthings of billionaires.
I think that what makes it a little different for
me than most American sports is that one there's the
jeopardy of relegation. Even a team like Spurs can get relegated,
as we may find out in May. But secondly, there's
(45:58):
the fact that they are still treated as community institutions.
You know, they're not moved around the way the Baltimore
cults become, the Indianapolis cults become the God only knows
what's cults, and so I struggle a little bit with that.
I mean, the reason I love AFC Wimbledon is because
we're owned by our fans. There is no rich guy
in charge, you know, it's all the fans who make
(46:22):
the big decisions, and I think that's really beautiful and
should be a model for the rest of the world
and is a model in some parts of Europe, but
not most, and so it's something I struggle with. But
I do enjoy the INDI eleven games a lot, and
I enjoy I think, to Luke's question, that feeling of
ritual participation in community action is really really powerful.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's the best thing.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
What about you, I mean, do you have a do
you have a team?
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, I mean I have a well, okay, I'll say
a couple of things. I spent a lot of time
read beul Arena when my older son, who loves football,
was was not you know, it was in middle school,
in high school. My youngest son, who's turning thirteen later
this month, doesn't care really about club soccer, only cares
(47:12):
about the World Cup, and so I could never interest
him in like taking the train to Harrison, New Jersey
to watch the Red Bulls games. There's a new USL
team in New York called Brooklyn FC, which when we
move back to New York, I'll probably go see a
couple of those games, see what that's like. But then
here in BA where we're living now, I just found
(47:35):
the the Colombian Gooner's Club and the bar that they
watched the games at and and I went to one
of the games. I went to the to the Chelsea game.
Not a classic. Not many Arsenal games are classics these days,
I will say, but it was beautiful. Man. They one
(47:56):
of the guys takes out of cornet and plays every
time Marsenal scores, he plays like a fanfare. There was
a man literally crying at the end of the game
because the last few minutes were so tense and ry
I had to make a couple of really brilliant saves
to to keep our our slim margin of victory. And
(48:17):
also this was remarkable to me was that there were
people there who recognized me as the host of and
so people kept sending me beers over, which was great.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
That's fun, it is.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
It was really fun. And and so it's great to.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Be recognized as the host of a radio show, you know,
like that's when you've really made it, Daniel, Like it's
you and Ira Glass who are known for being the
visible hosts of radio shows.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, it's a it's an odd thing. It's an odd thing,
you know. I I loved it, and I think that
to answer Luke's question, the switch that Phil feels like
learning to live. I think you can create that experience
of like watching the game with friends, watching the game
with community, watching the game with other fans of the
(49:04):
same team sort of scratches that same itch as being
at the stadium. Sometimes it can. I have great memories
of watching you know, World Cup Finals with friends, you know,
at our house, at other people's houses, are watching big games,
even with one, you know. I remember watching the Arsenal
against the Madrid first leg last year at a bar
(49:28):
in Manhattan with a with ib, a friend of mine,
and man, you know, it was like we were good
friends before that and we're better friends now, you know,
like we went through that, so I didn't there's something
about that. But you know, John, if I come position
you in Annapolis, we'll go to any eleven game. How
about that?
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I love it. Yeah, you got to come visit me.
We got a guest room and everything. All right, We're
gonna read this email from Raoul as well. I suspect
this Raoul is a friend of ours actually, but he writes, greetings, gentlemen.
I've been enjoying the pot of great deal, and I
have noticed a recur theme. Both of you have spoken
about the role that football has played in your relationship
with your father's not your mother's, though, and how it
has influenced your relationship with your own children. I wonder
(50:06):
if you could expand on the ways that football is
affected you're parenting. As I write this, I've just returned
from watching my oldest, my older daughter's final high school
basketball game. They were eliminating in the quarterfinals of the
city Championship, playing away at a school in far Rock,
Away more than twenty miles from the Upper West Side
but still technically in New York City. Cleo played amazingly well,
probably your best game of the season. And I don't
know who is sad or basketball has given her and
(50:28):
our family so much, and I imagine that football is
not the same for your family, so, though perhaps not
in the same way as so, can we talk about
that a little bit?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
In Yeah, I think that's lovely. I mean, I, you know,
I really identify with this the kind of sense of
purpose that high school sports gave me, and the camaraderie
and the discipline. So I know sort of a lot
(50:59):
about what role was talking about. And I missed that
for my kids a little bit. Because Elisel plays chess,
you know, so there's a team aspect to it, but
it's very much one on one and that's his his
you know, sport. To the extent that it is a sport,
we could debate, but I mean he'll say it is,
of course. And then the thing he likes to do
(51:22):
is like rock climbing, which again is very individual, you know.
So I feel like that the like I wish he
were in a team because I think being part of
a team is an important thing. How about you, y'all?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, my son is a boxer, and so he loves,
really loves boxing and watching boxing and the science of
it and the you know the complexity of movement and
defense and all that stuff. But again, there's not that
sense of camaraderie that you have when you're on a team,
(51:54):
especially a team that spends a lot of time together.
You know. He has a sense of camaraderie with the
people he shares the gym with, but it's a little different.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I think, I think there to hit each other. Yeah,
I was gonna say that. I think that watching your
kid play basketball, although of course injuries can always happen,
is different from watching your child in a ring with
another person. That wants to punch him in the face.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Uh is it hard to watch some box? He doesn't
box much. He's not really allowed to box the way
that he wishes he were, and indeed the way that
his coach wishes he were. He's his coach is always like,
she's always like he's so good, and I was, I'm like,
I don't. I don't really care how good he is.
(52:36):
You know, it doesn't really matter. He's not he's not
going to go pro in this because his dad will
do everything in his power to prevent that. Right.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
It's like, right before the boxing match, you know, a
streaker comes on the ring and it's like.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Who's that.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Oh, it's you know, the box his dad. He's oh,
now he's changed himself to the to the to the ring.
He won't get up.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
I would do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
John, you know, like thank you, you know, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Chess is a non contact sport, but any sale takes
every loss very seriously. There's emotional pain. It's not a
physical pain.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
It's not physical pain. Yeah. And then my daughter is
a really good volleyball player, and I do love that
for her. I love that she's able to be on
a team that they're so encouraging of each other, that
they fight for each other, that they love each other.
That's all you want from your experience of adolescence, I think,
is to have friends who love you with that ferocity
(53:41):
that you experience in high school, you know. And I
was really lucky to have those friends, even though I
wasn't on the soccer team or the basketball team. And
I know you feel that way about the folks that
were on the soccer team with you.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, you know,
if all goes well, thirty years later you can have
a podcast together.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
So yeah, I mean, if you're really lucky, if.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
You're really lucky. Okay, Roll continues, and I want to
read the last bit here. He says, in two episodes,
at least you spoke about talent and effort as they
relate to success, and I'm curious what you think about
what I see as a bit of a contradiction. On
the one hand, we as parents often tell our kids
that if they just work hard at something, usually school,
but it could be art, music, theater, even writing, they
will succeed, and the same is often true for sport.
(54:29):
There are, however, cruel limitations which when it comes to sport,
we usually have no trouble recognizing and explaining to our children.
When it comes to school work, I'm reluctant to tell
them that hard work may not lead to the results
they want. Sometimes people are just talented, and talents are
not equally distributed throughout a population. Have you come across
this issue in your parenting? And if so, has football
provided you any guidance? Keep up the good work, both
(54:50):
with the pod and everything else, and Roll says, stop
making fun of Sean. I just don't feel like we're
making it.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
We're making fun of Sean.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
We love Sean. We love Sean.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Sean is my fa hey saw no respected, No disrespect
to Daniel, but Seawan is my favorite person on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Absolutely, yeah mine too? Yeah disrespected? John, Yeah, I'm taking it.
Speaker 2 (55:10):
Well, all right, okay, heard heard?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Yes, thank you Rol for your question. And yeah, do
do you have any any guidance on that?
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yeah? I mean I think a lot of times, the
stuff that we're talented at and the stuff that we
get positive feedback for are the same stuff. And you know,
at least when I was a kid, all I want
I don't even know if I'm a good writer. I
was just told that I was a good writer when
I was in third grade, and as a result, I
worked really hard on writing. It's hard to know what
the what the line was, you know, was I was
(55:40):
I actually talented? Or was I just told that I
was talented? And so I worked really hard on it
because I wanted the affirmation of adults. I never know
where that falls, do you right?
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yeah, No, I think that's fair. I mean I think
that that it's you know, you can ever do a
double blind study with your kids in terms of like
different ways to raise them, and you're always sort of
trying to figure out the right way to do it,
and and you know, the between pushing them and encouraging them.
I was just thinking about that, you know, the intense
(56:11):
academic pressure that I was raised in, you know, with
uh and that caused me grave anxiety. It's so different
like what the way I raised my kids, you know. Yeah,
but there's no way too, there's no way I have
of knowing if I am who I am because I
was told that I had to, you know, get perfect grades,
(56:36):
and if that sort of learning to deal with that
anxiety and that pressure when I was young has helped
me in situations as an adult. Having said that, I
have a much more lesly fair attitude with my kids
or and I find it difficult to implement the kind
of pressure that my parents put on me with great
intentions and you know, with with you know, decent results
(56:58):
on my own children. I just don't see how how
to do it.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, I'm very much in the same boat.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
It doesn't feel natural to me.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
It doesn't feel natural to me, it doesn't feel right
to me. And so I'm raising my kids very differently
from how I was raised. Probably that said, like, my
parents were very supportive of my writing. They just wanted
me to take it as seriously as I would take
going to med school. You know. They were very supportive
of the idea of me being a writer or a
creator or whatever. But they wanted me to take it
(57:26):
as seriously as as I would, you know, being a
warrior or whatever. And I kind of have. And yeah,
to your point, it's it's been effective in a lot
of ways. But the way that we raise our kids
is very much to school is important, you know, But
but school is not the only important thing in your life. Yeah, right,
(57:49):
I hear you, And you know, and I just want
to I just want to take a second, Daniel, if
I can to say how disappointed I am in you
for not becoming a doctor.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
It's a huge letdown. Yeah, you know what. The die
was cast and we had to dissect the like and like.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Pig.
Speaker 5 (58:10):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
When we had to dissect that fetal pig, I was like,
this is all over for me, Sean. Can you come
back on so we can talk quickly about dissecting the
fetal pig. Do you remember that.
Speaker 6 (58:20):
I just got a waft of formaldehyde and uh psychosomatic formaldehyde.
That's uh yeah, I may or may not be in
my in my office, but yeah, that was uh, that's
that too, is why I that's the only reason I
did not become a doctor.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yes, otherwise otherwise yeah, yeah, just three people pursuing the
creative life for fear of fetal pigs.
Speaker 1 (58:50):
Exactly, exactly. Now. Just to finish with with Raoul's question,
I think that you always I mean, at least I
would never tell my kids there's something that they can't do.
I think I would always sort of be upfront with
my kids about the risks and the challenges and the
work that would be required to do. It. But I
can't imagine never telling my kids they weren't talented enough
(59:11):
to pull something off because people surprise you, and you know,
who are you really to say? I have heard many
examples of famous, successful writers who have or this, even
a guy on my staff at Roan Bulante who was
told by a journalism professor that he would never be
a journalist.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
I didn't get into the advanced fiction writing class at
Kendon College. There were fifteen applicants for twelve spots and
I didn't get in. I remember that, and look, yeah,
I know you remembered it. I told everybody, yeah, traumatic
and look now, man, yeah you're yeah, God, I still
couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
You're like the abes.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
Of writers said, I couldn't make it, but I did.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
He sed it, all right, all right, that's all the
time we have for today. On the away end, remember
to keep sending us your emails away ndpod at gmail
dot com. Sean, thank you, John in Jamaica. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Yeah, thanks everybody for listening this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
We'll see you next week.
Welcome to The Away and the only soccer podcast that
regularly named checks Albert Camu and Tony Morrison. I'm Danielle Alarcon.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm John Green. Today we're doing something a little different,
something we haven't done before on this young podcast. We
have guests, not one guest, but two actual guests, a pair,
a duo. Also, if you're on YouTube, you might be
wondering where I am. I'm coming to you from a
bay in Jamaica. Are are you there doing research for
The Away and the Yeah? Yeah, oh it's work trip.
(00:35):
Thanks for asking one hundred percent of work trip. Both
research for my new novel which is set partly here,
no joke, and also uh yeah, I mean the Jamaica
national team, Daniel is it's all that anybody can talk
about here?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Still in the mix?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Are they going to make the World Cup? Are they not?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
In the got to beat New Caledonia, but let's get
to our guests.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Got to find the New Caledonia first, and then played.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That I would beat them. I was stunned on my
research to learn that New Caledonia is in Oceania. I
mean I would have bet my life on New Caledonia
being off the coast of Spain.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, Miguel and Alex, welcome to the Way End. You're
officially our first ever guests and we're super happy you
could join us. You are, Miguel, I know you. We
played soccer together. Miguel is an excellent player. Alex lovely
to meet you man. So you both are here because
you're starting this really crazy project. And I say crazy
because it's the print magazine in twenty twenty six and
(01:33):
it's called Golden Goal, And so I wonder if you
could just start by telling us sort of the idea
behind this beautiful project.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, thank you guys for having us on. We love
the pod. Very excited to be here. Yeah, Golden Goals
a magazine. Really, it's a magazine that we want to
kind of capture the World Cup feel like the World Cup.
We wanted to be fun, exciting, We wanted to cover
countries from all over the world. We have writers from
(02:03):
almost every continent besides Antarctica, and really we want it
to feel like what it feels like to be watching
the World Cup with people from around the world and
with commentary from around the world. But also we want
to we wanted to make something that feels like it
addressed the moment up it and to feel like a
(02:24):
serious publication but also something you want to hold in
your hands, something beautiful. It's for new fans to find
and team they want to support, but also seasoned supporters
who just want to hold something beautiful and read good
writing about soccer. So it is a bit ambitious, but
we are really excited to work on it.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I've noticed something in recent World Cups, in particular, especially
the recently politically fraught World Cups, that there's a kind
of like a myopic intensity that defines them. That in
the lead up there's this sort of like manic fixation
on everything that's wrong and messed up with those tournaments,
and then once they start, that intensity just turns on
(03:05):
a dime and is focused on the games themselves. And
I think what you lose in a lot of that
process is a sense of perspective. And I think that
people get cynical and jaded and worn out or you
just can't deal with any of it, but you also
forget about the beauty of the World Cup itself. And
I feel slightly insane making this comparison, but I think
(03:26):
this is the podcast to do it, but I have
started to talk about the World Cup the way that
Quinn Coompson talks about the South and the end of
Absolum Absolum when he says, no, I don't hate this out.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I don't don't I don't hate the World cuss And
I think, you know, I mean, that is a very
personally moving and meaningful part of that book for me.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
But it is sort of how I feel about it
that I'm like when I talk to people, especially people
who say, oh, I don't watch the World Cup anymore,
you know, I say, well, I don't hate the World Cup,
you know, but I kind.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Of want to figure out why. And this magazine is
about that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's so beautiful. There's a I know, Dan Friedman, a
writer also British guy, plays soccer with him on the
Brow West Side a bunch, and and he didn't watch
the last World Cup, and I just I admire him.
I admire that sort of like the kind of political
consistency of like, no, I can't be part of this.
And also I just know that I'm not able to
(04:19):
deny myself the pleasure, you know, because joy, yeah, exactly, yeah,
even though it's a corrupt form of joy. Because FIFA
is what it is and the world is what it is.
But you know, and maybe that's just like the sort
of like the compromise one makes with oneself, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, I mean, coming to you from the edge of
Orkabasa Bay, I can tell you that a lot of
forms of joy are pretty corrupt.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, for sure, for sure, Miguel and Alice, you want
to talk about like some of the stories, the kinds
of stories you guys are going to feature in the magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, happy to do that. We have some we have
really cool writers. We have a big anchor piece we're
doing is eleven writers on eleven players. Some of the
names for that include Juasu, murvem Ray and novelists like
Gabriela Aleman in the Brazilian Ecuadorian writer. And we are
(05:16):
also having dispatches from different parts of the world from
writers from all over the world from writing it was Beka,
stan to Iran to Ecuador. But yeah, so we have
a lot of pieces coming in from all over. But
we also have some essays on what makes the World
(05:37):
Cup so special, including the Panini album. I don't know
if you guys ever put together one of the Panini
albums with the stickers. Yeah, that's for me, like I
growing up. I think I only did actually did one
as a kid in two thousand and six, but that
was it was like a super special part of the
World Cup for me. The whole experience and and so
(06:01):
the history of that Panini album and also kind of
just how it resonates with different people in different parts
of the world. That's one of our essays. Alex can
speak a little more on some of the other stuff
we have we have planned.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I just want to say parenthetically before you jump in, Alex,
like here in Bogota, like there's a really like intense
Panini sticker trading scene and there's like spots all over
town where people like in the plazas once you know
what my kid is like desperately waiting to like, you know,
he doesn't care about soccer, but he cares about the Panini,
(06:34):
you know, And they're gonna be like mobs of people
in different plazas around town like trading Panini's right right
up through the end of the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And we should define what a Panini is for those
who don't know, it's these stickers of players, right that
that you build a sticker album.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's kind of like, uh, like I
guess the soccer coolent of like trading baseball cards, except
usually stick them on and put them in the in
the in the album and they'll hold The goal, uh
is obviously to get as much money out of you
as possible, but also to fill the album and then
and then your extra as you trade with friends and
(07:10):
see what you can get. It's it's really, you know, fun.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I love it, Danielle.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I don't know if this was your experience in putting
together the sticker albums, but I feel like from what
I've heard from family and from what I experienced in six,
it was always difficult to find they. There would always
be one team, one country that was for some reason
the stickers were scarce impacts and you could barely find them.
(07:38):
And then six that team happened to be Italy, which
won the World Cup. And I'd heard that in O
two the team whose stickers were very scarce was Brazil.
So I don't know if this was your experience with
the Pennie album, but it is a theory that has
been floating in the Internet that Patini has denied. But
I think we're going to try to get to the
bottom of it. I don't know if we will, but yeah,
(08:00):
so getting a piece of.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That, See, that's the kind of harding reporting I can
get behind.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Yeah, Alex Oh, yeah, I mean I was just in
the last twelve hours, I think I've edited pieces on
Italian masculinity and the national team from two thousand and
six to the president. I edited one piece about the
rise of Fabrizzio Romano and what it says about the
change in soccer journalism and the sort of rise of
influencer culture.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Within that and many other things.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I'm excited about the title of that, or the working
title I should say that right now, which is you know,
from Aguero to Here we Go, which I think.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I captures a lot about that.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
But one of the things I really liked about this
project is that Miguel and I will just like text
each other and we'll just be like, we need, you know,
who's an Iraqi novelist that we know that we can
pull into this, right, Who's someone in Haiti, Right, who's
someone in Uzbekistan that we can get? And I think
so much of this project for me has been about
challenging my own assumptions. I'm a political editor at the
(08:55):
liberal magazine The New Republic, and most of the soccer
writing I do is kind of myopically fixated on Giohnny
and Fentino and corruption and all these other questions. And
I think that's only a part of the way that
I see soccer, and that is only a minuscule part
of how.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The rest of the world sees soccer.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I think that the way that the thing that
really excites you about this project is just getting to
interact with people that experience it completely differently, and again,
especially as an American, you know in New York City
for this World Cup, who are excited about it, I think,
and not ambivalent or something else. And I think that,
you know, colliding all those different perspectives into a physical
(09:36):
package is just like, it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
What are you going to be watching for at the
World Cup this year? I mean, what are the what
are the storylines you're looking to follow?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I mean, I think we're going to be focused, like
everyone else, on the actual soccer for sure. One thing
I mean we noticed from the Club World Cup, which
felt like a staging ground for this World Cup, was
early on just the expense of the ticket pricing I mean,
Trump's going to be all over this, we'd assume. I
(10:07):
don't know if you guys saw the celebrations when Chelsea
won the Club World Cup last year, but he was
front and center there and so I think we'll see
a lot of him at this World Cup. But more
than that, I think what interests me in particular is
seeing how the immigration situation plays out, who is going
to be able to attend the World Cup, what the
atmosphere is going to be.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Like.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There's been a lot of.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Just debate and.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Like local kind of like disagreement over funding, how the
fan fests will be funded, how whether it's the security situation,
who's putting the bill essentially for the World Cup for
hosting it here in the US, And I think that's
going to be an ongoing question that, you know, I
don't know how it will play out in a few months,
(10:56):
but it's something that we're definitely going to keep our
eyes out for, along with what's going on in the
field and what's happening kind of around around it politically.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Yeah, I mean not to I guess sound like a
philosine after that, But one of the things that interests
me is in the last few years, especially as soccer
has gotten more and more tactical. I've sort of been
drawn to international soccer and it's comparative simplicity. But I
am curious to see if the sort of set piecification
or the rise of the meat Wall, as my friends
at the Double Pivot podcast call it, will, will sort
(11:28):
of be drawn into that. I am, obviously, both for
professional and personal reasons, interested in the ways that the
President inserts himself into this World Cup. But I think also,
and I just wrote about this for our newsletter, I'm
interested in the ways that the World Cup reveals surprising
things about the world to us. I think that we
(11:48):
can predict that, you know, it will reveal a lot
of disturbing and troubling things about the way that this
country is run right now. But for the newsletter I
just wrote, I wrote about the US Iran game nineteen
ninety eight World Cup, which Iran won. It's one of
the bigger upsets and recent World Cup history. But you know,
in that game, the team was booed by dissident Iranians
(12:10):
Iranian expats in France the entire time they won, you know,
and they wept with joy as they were being sort
of mercilessly mocked and jeered the entire time. And I
think that, you know, for all of the rightful focus
on the you know, the increasing corruption and greed surrounding
the World Cup, it still has the capacity to reveal
(12:31):
unexpected and I think, complicated things about the world around
us that nothing else and sports and maybe culture at
large does.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, there was this passage in your in the editor's
note I really like I'm going to read here. It
says FIFA and Donald Trump can only alter the World
Cup so much because they only own part of it.
The rest of it belongs to everyone else. The players,
of course, but the fans too. There's miraculously still the
possibility of magic, of transcendence, of floating above the inevitable
scandals and abuses. No other sporting cultural event is as
(13:01):
laden with as much meaning or baggage. I love that.
I think that what I like about the project so
much is is not shying away from all the complicated stuff,
but also not letting the complicated stuff deprive one self
of access to the joy that the game itself can bring.
(13:22):
I wanted to ask you guys kind of a corollary
John's question, which is what you definitely not want to
happen at the World Cup. And this could be like
like I definitely don't want, like you know, France to win,
or it could be like I definitely don't want Christian
Policicis to get injured, like whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know, I definitely want Columbia to do well and
I want all of our players to stay fit before
I don't want any injuries. I'm still scarred from the
Falcao injury in twenty fourteen that I think would have
like I think he would have really helped us against
Brazil when we left to Brazil to one. I would
(14:06):
like for Argentina not to win. I think they have
enough World Cups. They won the last one. But yeah,
I think, I guess. I think it's hard to be hopeful.
It's hard to feel hopeful given the political situation sometimes
about the World Cup. But I just hope it can
be like a fun celebration. I mean, I'm going to
(14:28):
be here in New York, and I really hope to
like feel like I'm a part of the tournament, even
just walking around the city. I hope to be able
to speak with fans and and just like enjoy the tournament.
And I feel like that feels under threat because of funding,
because of the funding issues, the fan fests that are
(14:49):
being kind of broken up, and because of the political situation.
But I still feel like it's possible and really hope
feel hopeful for it.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
I mean, Miguel and I actually became friends during the
twenty eighteen World Cup, I think, but we were working
together at the New Republic and he had started fairly recently,
and we just kind of locked ourselves in a room
at work for a month and to the you know,
consternation and irritation of some of our colleagues, just yelled
for six hours a day while we were supposed to
be working. And I think, you know, what I'm hoping
(15:21):
for is to have interactions like that, right And I
think one of the things that is alarming about this
World Cup is that it's been hard to get to
the last couple and I think this should be one
that welcomes the rest of the world, and that's not
what's happening right now. And I think my hope is
that that still does happen. I have a piece going
up in the our most recent print edition, the April
(15:45):
issue of the New Republic, that is about I think
one of my concerns, which is just that it's not
just the possibility for geopolitical problems, but just for you know,
violence and chaos at this World Cup, just if you
look at you know, Minneapolis and the world around us
right now, and I think the lack of preparation for that,
lack of security funding at host cities is really scary
(16:07):
to me, And so that's sort of front of mine.
I hope that England doesn't win, mostly because I get
a perverse sense of joy from English media reactions to meltdowns,
and hope. I think what is most surprising to me,
as I'd written about this during the last World Cup,
but I had always been ambivalent about the US men's
(16:28):
team growing up, and I've come to really love them
in a way that surprises me.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And I hope that they do well.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And that feels kind of weird to say, because I
think that that kind of grows more politically fraught by
the week. But I think that even though they seem
to have taken a step back since the last World Cup,
they're still enormously talented, and I find the ways that
they have retained the US M and t's core kind
(16:59):
of brutality and sluggish identity with players of genuine technical
brilliance to be fascinating, and I just am kind of
excited to see how they play. The group draws very,
very kind to them.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I think it bums me out that love of country
and patriotism, which is I think can be beautifully expressed at
a tournament like this, can be sort of appropriated by
one or the other side of a political debate such
that you would feel ambivalent about like supporting your country,
you know, Like I think that's a bummer. But we
(17:37):
only have to look at the like you know what
happened with the hockey gold medals for women to know
that that's a reality.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I know. I mean, patriotism can be a cudgel, right,
And I remember over the years I've written in many
scripts of YouTube videos when I'm critical of the United
States that I love the United States, and my longtime
producing partner, who's British and Mexican all always cuts that
out of my scripts. She's like, that's a weird thing
to say. It's a weird position to take, and it
(18:07):
is a weird position to take, especially in twenty twenty six.
And yet I do feel a, yeah, you know, a
profound connection to the US men's national team. And I've
watched them since I was a kid, and I've rooted
for them since i was a kid. And you know,
I've never lived with success anywhere else. I remember when
I lived in the Netherlands, a Dutch friend of mindset.
(18:28):
It seems to me that you're sort of incurably American,
and that feeling of being incurably American is still with me.
I want to ask you guys about the golden goal
the name of the magazine. Do you think that FIFA
should bring back the golden goal rule for knockout games?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
This is funny because I think it's been a long
time point of that. Maybe that contention in a group
chat that we have, but I am firmly against the
golden goal. And the editors note that you read from earlier.
I was like, Miguel, do we need to have an
asterisk here where I can make it clear that I
think that this produced bad soccer. I mean, you love
(19:05):
when it goes well, but I think I still have memories.
I'm just old enough to, you know, have clear memories
of sitting through some really turgid extra time where you
know nobody wanted to give it up.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
I think.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I think the question of soccer rule changes is always
one where you try to you try to preserve the
possibility for transcendence without making people purposefully play bad. This
is one of the set piece questions too, And I
think that the golden goal rule is one of those
things that seems great on paper but in practice it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
But for the sake of marketing this magazine, I.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Hope that they bring it back for this World Cup.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
As an Arsenal fan, I feel like I'm being targeted
here with all this.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Personally attacked here.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, yeah, I got to say, vitrial.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
If you hate set piece goals in walking pace football,
might I recommend the third tier of English football and
where every ball is long and misplaced?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh man, I will say, And just parenthetically again, Alex,
you were saying you love British soccer meltdowns like I
have been consuming Tottenham meltdown content in the last twenty
four hours. It's just been absolutely beautiful and and just
a joy, just an absolute joy because I'm that petty
(20:27):
Yes it's.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
A Liverpool fan too.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It's been rare and you know, my whatever two plus
decades where I can I can sort of go scoreboard,
you know, or say, well, at you know, we just
won the league, so it doesn't really matter to me
what happens. So I am rooting for Arsenal to win,
just just to be clear right now. But but I
think it is also Liverpool's general mediocrity this year has
(20:50):
just made given me a sense of detachment where I
can just kind of enjoy everything right now, and maybe
nothing as much as the crisis at Spurs.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Because I forget if you were an Arsenal fan or not.
Did I just decide that you were because I like you.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I'm a Barcelona fan, but I feel like I've had
to choose in like a Premier League team just because
everyone I know in New York it watches DPL and
it's hard to get everyone to watch a Barcelona against
game at three am on a Saturday. So I've I've
(21:26):
been supporting Liverpool mostly because I also chose them when
Luis Diaz had joined, and now they have stabbed me
in the back and let him go to Byron and
he's doing great, so I'm I'm a little salty about that,
but I'm still I'm going to stand firm with Liverpool.
But my first team is Barcelona, of course, and I
(21:49):
know I have a lot of experience with shot and
fraud because my entire like watching watching soccer in Spain
is and half watching Barcelona and half watching Madrid hoping
they will lose every single game.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, exactly, you guys, Thank you so much. I am
a big fan of the magazine. I can't wait to
see it and hold in my hands. I'm gonna be
following you guys. You can find a supports magazine at
Goldengold dot world and of course we'll put a link
in the show notes so the folks can get there.
And yeah, I will enjoy the World Cup and I
(22:27):
hope all of our dreams come true.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Thanks guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Thank you awesome. Welcome back to the away End. Okay,
I want to start with this video that I sent you.
(22:51):
It isn't super high resolution, John, but for those of
you who are listening and not watching on YouTube, I'm
gonna just gonna describe it. I think you already saw it,
but okay, So in the video, there's three grown men,
three Japanese internationals. Their names are Hutu Yamaguchi, Hiroshiki Yotoki
and Yosuki I Deguch. They were in the nationals uniform,
which is beautiful dark blue uniform of Japan, the Blue Samurai,
(23:16):
and they're playing against another team. So it's three players
adults and there's one hundred school children.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
John, Yeah, one hundred Classic thirty thirty thirty ten formation.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Absolutely. I mean it's right there in the training coaching manual,
you know. So when you watch this video from a distance,
it's really kind of beautiful. You see this kind of
children swarming across the pitch, chasing after these three men,
this kind of the morphous cloud of red. It's like
it feels like the surface of a lake in a breeze,
just kind of these waves of red. But when you
(23:53):
look closer, you'd realize that these are children moving their
tiny little legs at like an extraordinary pace. And so
the image is both soothing and like deeply chaotic, and
it also reminds you know, if you've played, you know,
kiddie soccer, or if you coach your kids, you also
recognize that kind of inescapable child logic of like ball centrism,
where like the magnetism of the ball is such that
(24:16):
we all must get as close to it as possible,
and something that kids learn as they get older that
the use of space is as important as the use
of the ball. But that comes later, or you know,
sometimes it never comes at all.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Came me.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Now, all I got is space? Do anything else like
walk to the area where no one else is and wait. Okay.
So it takes these three grown men like literally like
half a minute to score, because the amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Thing about them scoring is that there are ten goalkeepers.
There are ten goalies who can use their hands, and
somehow they still manage to score.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, and they also managed to not hurt a child
like they do these like gentle lofting chips over these
you know, clouds of little children and and control the
ball well. And then you know, there's a one hundred
of them, but no one thinks that I should, you know,
close down the adult and so then the player chips
it over and uh, you know, it's a it's a
(25:16):
it's a beautiful header that manages to elude you know,
the ten goalkeepers as a spectacle. This is obviously from
a Japanese game show. Uh, and it's it's silly and
joyful and totally meaningless. I would parenthetically recommend anyone who's
ever feeling down about anything or uninspired just put in
best Japanese game show into YouTube or something and just
(25:38):
give into the surrealism of it. It's really a lovely
way to spend an afternoon on a rainy day. Anyway,
I wanted to mention this because I love it. It
sort of says something about Japan and Japan's culture. It
has nothing at all to do with Japan's chances of
this World Cup, but the away end is about joy
and this is a joyful moment for me. And when
(26:00):
I started doing the deep dive, I went back to
this and I remembered this video and looked for it
and laughed, and you know, just like gave into it
all all over again. So I love Japan. I loved
the Japanese team because I love Japan. I was in
Tokyo a couple of years ago and I was amazed
by it. And I have close Japanese friends. I've played
(26:21):
over the years with several of them, most recently played
from Japan and Taku, who used to absolutely embarrass me
and lots of other people every Sunday. It was so
good I loved Murakami in my twenties, as I'm sure
you did. I love the food. The Japanese national team.
If you have no if you just strictly want like fashion,
(26:43):
the Japanese national team jerseys are always just absolute bangers.
But let's talk about the actual football, right. Japan have
now qualified for eight World Cups in a row, every
World Cup since ninety eight. They of course co hosted
the two thousand and two World Cup Month of Football,
which permanently altered my circadian rhythms.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Never have I woken up at two am with so
much joy?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah? Yeah, the games were like at two, at four
and like six am.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, but I remember it was kind of great because
at the time I was working at Bookless magazine, and
so I would just wake up at two and then
by the time I got ready for work, the last
game would be wrapping up.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And when would you sleep at work?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh? Yeah, man, that job.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
There you go. So Japan is today a powerhouse of
Asian soccer. The Japanese women are powers of global soccer.
But that's a discussion for another day. And there's a
bunch of milestones, right. So in twenty eighteen, Japan became
the first Asian team to beat a South American team
at a World Cup. It was Columbia in a group
stage game. They played Belgium in the round sixteen. I
(27:55):
don't know if you remember that game from twenty eighteen. Yeah,
incredible game, and I want to mention this game because
they were winning to nothing. Belgium, you know, was like
one of the top teams ranked by FIFA at the time.
They ended up losing three to two, but what was
remarkable is that they they had a corner kick in
(28:16):
like the ninety fourth minute and they were tying one
of the top European teams, like one of the favorites
to win in a knockout game. And also all the
Belgian players are giants. They're absolute, you know, gigantic players,
and so naturally, if you were the coach, you would say,
short kick, run out the clock, you know, live to
(28:38):
fight an extra time, right, That's what a normal sort
of tactic would be. Instead, they lost the kick directly
into the mixer right in the center, which is immediately
caught by their gigantic goalkeeper, the Belgian goalkeeper, and quick
fast break and like literally eight second later they're knocked out.
(29:00):
Of the World Cup in Belgium scores crazy, and then
of course there were these images that came after of
the Japanese fans cleaning up the air of the stadium
like in tears, which is also very beautiful. In twenty
twenty two, Japan had a legitimate group of death like
and absolutely like listeners Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, Japan.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Wow, that is a really like serious group of death Sean,
do you want to come on for a second, knowing
nothing as you do about I'm sorry. We actually got
a letter today saying stop making fun of Sean.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I feel like I feel like I'm biting you, both
of us.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Absolutely, we're just trying to Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, let's
just leave it. If you can see Sean's beard. I
think the issue is that a lot of our listeners
are are audio only, and so they don't get to
see Sean's beard. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I think I mention that part of the reason that
I don't like it least because they're also so handsome,
and here we have like a legitimate Italian.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Oh so good looking, so good. I was gonna say
great looking for his age, but actually just great looking
at any age at any age.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
All right, so sean beautiful fan, Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, Japan.
Does Japan get out of the group? Only two teams
can get out of the group. Does Japan get out
of Germany, Spain, Costa Rica?
Speaker 6 (30:26):
Well, I know that the running idea here is that
I don't know much or maybe anything at all. But
I can say that this is something that I know
because I remember watching these games, and I remember Japan
surprising everybody by defeating Germany and by defeating Spain. So
(30:51):
they did they did it.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
They got out, They got out of the group in
first place. In fact, that is you're not doing a
good job of being the guy it doesn't know anything.
I mean, that's incredible.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
From time to time I think I will. It depends
on the question, right whether or not I will I
will know something or not. I guess my question is
they I know they lost to Costa Rica. It was
that a game that they on paper should have won. Yeah,
and then then weirdly lost that game, but then beat
(31:23):
Germany and Spain.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Right, Yeah, Costca had a good team that year. Costa
Rica actually that was one of the most surprising groups ever,
probably because Germany, Spain Japan, Costa Rica. I think everyone
would have said Spain and Germany get out of the group,
and in fact it was it was Costa Rica and Japan.
So it was one wonderful surprise that sport gave us.
(31:45):
They went on, of course, to lose to Croatia in
penalty kicks on the round of sixty.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Very unfortunate, very unfortunate. Yeah, and then Croatia made it
all the way.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Croatia didn't make it all the way. You're thinking, twenty eight,
that's what.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That's all the that's all the way. That's all the way. Man.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
The Sebomi finals is all the way. You're right, that's fair.
That's that's pretty much all the way. That's most of
the way, all right. So in twenty twenty six, Japan
absolutely rolled through qualifying. They were the first team outside
of the three hosts to qualify, and the friendlies since
then have been kind of a mixed bag. So they
lost the United States, which was a little weird, but
they also scored their first ever victory against Brazil, coming wow,
(32:27):
coming back from two down to win. It was one
of Machelotti's first games. He didn't look happy. They drew
with Paraguay, but they beat Ghana, so it's kind of
like up and down. They have a couple further warm
up games this month later this month against England and Scotland,
which should sort of give us a little more insight
into where the team stands. Now, I want to this
(32:49):
is this stat actually totally blew my mind. So as
of September twenty twenty five, there are over one hundred
and fourteen Japanese players active in European leagues in European teams.
That's a ninety percent increase over the past five years. Wow,
wow percent growth. It's crazy. So we in the United
States have like twenty five Yeah, exactly, exactly, So Japan
(33:11):
is a legit team. I mean, look, some of these
players you'll recognize. Karu Mintoma from Brighton. Love that player,
really great, takomimin Amino, late of your parish now at Monaco, Yeah,
a good player. Yep, Uhar Wataru Endo who currently is
on Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Great player. I mean yeah, both Endo and Minnemino were
players you just loved rooting for.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So you have a real talent and
you know they have a group that I think is doable.
This time, right, So their group is Netherlands, Tunisia and
UEFA Playoff B, which could be either Ukraine, Sweden, Poland
or Albania, and I for one am hard pressed to
(34:00):
pick who would win there. I know I'm going to
be rooting for Ukraine, but I don't actually know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Who's the favorite. Sweden and Poland are both also good.
Albania has good players. That's That's a tough group. So
who knows who that'll be, but it's probably going to
be somebody that Japan can can at least draw. You
think Tunisia is probably beatable. The Netherlands is an interesting
challenge for Japan, but not an impossible one.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, I'm gonna say that. I mean Netherlands. What I
was taught as the child, Netherlands is the greatest team
that's never won a World Cup, and I think you
know we can agree on that they've been in the
World Cup final twice in seventy eight and twenty ten,
proud footballing heritage, and yet not imperious and not unbeatable.
(34:50):
I'm gonna say John that this year Japan is going
to get out of the group. Kind of does everyone's
getting out of the group and the round of sixteen
is no longer the rund of sixteen now the first
knockout round. Of course, it's the round of thirty two.
So the question is will they get past the first
knockout round, because they've never gotten past that despite being
a team that you know routinely wins Asian Cups, a
(35:12):
team that has this depth of talent, that they have
over one hundred players playing in the top leagues in Europe.
So now will they win the round of thirty two game?
Let's assume so check this out. The winner of Group
F gets the runner up of Group C, and the
winner of Group C gets the runner up of Group F.
(35:33):
So you're asking John, what's Group C? Brazil, Morocco, Haiti
and Scotland.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Oh no, right, Oh, that's a disaster. You're either going
to give to razila Morocco almost.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
You're going to get almost certainly going to get Brazil
and Morocco with respect to our Scottish and Haitian friends.
So the real thing is this, they already beat Brazil
once in a friendly. It's entirely likely that Japan's gonna
have to do it again for real in a World
Cup if they want to break the hoodoo of getting
past the round of thirty two.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Imagine the size of the catastrophe if Brazil lost in
the round of thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oo wow, yeah, I mean no, one.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Hundred and fifty million people would be oh my god,
I'd hate to be Carl Ancholotti.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Then unthinkable, It's unthinkable. I mean, that's like the the
you know, there are teams that are just happy to
be there and teams where if they win a game
or score a goal, that's enough. And then there's the
pressure that teams like Brazil face, you know, or Morocco
they were hosting afkon. We talked about this in the
first episode, and you know, the entire weight of the
nation is a lot is a lot to take, Yeah,
(36:46):
which maybe makes them beatable. I don't know, because Japan
is in that in between phase where they have real talent,
really good players, and the question is, but no one
actually thinks they're gonna win anything.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, they could win a knock out.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That yeah, I think I think they could do it.
I think they could do it. We'll see. So anyway,
that's that's my take on Japan. I'm really looking forward
to buying a japan Jersey and enjoying those games.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, it's gonna be great. All Right, we're gonna take
a break and then we'll be back with a story
from me about football and security funding, riveting. We'll do
right back, all right, Daniel, We're back with you away
(37:42):
in and I'm gonna tell you a story about a
small town New England select board. So if you've never
lived in New England, there are these town boards that
can be very powerful. In this case, it's a town
board of five people who are elected, but they're volunteers
in a little town called Foxborough, Masachusetts, which happens to
be home to a very large stadium where I believe
(38:05):
the New England Patriots play their football games.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I've heard of it. Yes, it's called Foxborough Stadium, or
it used to be.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I believe it's called Foxborough Stadium. Maybe it's got maybe
it's called Gillette Stadium because it's been papered over by
some kind of corporation. But in our hearts it will
always be Foxborough Stadium, got it. Well, the town board
there has has said, look, it's going to cost us
about seven point eight million dollars to do security for
this event that we're hosting I believe seven games of
(38:35):
the World Cup, and we're gonna need FIFA, which expects
to make eleven point seven billion with a B dollars
from the World Cup. We're gonna need FIFA or somebody
to pay that money. And it's very complicated. There are
a lot of different parties involved, including the Craft family
who owns the New England Patriots, and also this group
(38:57):
Boston Soccer that is a a a separate group from
FIFA but sort of aligned with FIFA, that's bringing the
World Cup to Boston, although technically to Foxborough, and they
cannot seem to come to an agreement on this seven
point eight million dollars now. They announced Boston Soccer and
the Craft family announced that they had come to an agreement,
(39:17):
but the Foxborough select Board immediately responded, you've come to
an agreement with yourselves, not with us. You have not,
in fact come to an agreement with us, got it?
And it is not at all clear if these games
which are now scheduled for I don't know ninety five
days from now, are actually going to happen because it's
(39:38):
the seven point eight million dollar disagreement.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Seven point eight million dollars when you're gonna make eleven billion.
Seems like like just you know, fish it out of
the you know, between the sofa cushions, you know, like
that's what like FIFA spends on, like SODA's at the offices,
Like just give them money.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Right, Yeah, that's how I feel, too, right like, And
it's not it's forced security, and I'm all like, I
want this to be a secure World Cup. That's something
I worry about and so I'm all for it. I
also feel like it's a solvable problem. But it's one
of those things where big, powerful institutions think they can
come up against a little select board and automatically win
(40:17):
just by throwing around their weight. And I sort of
love that these New England town councils are like, you
don't understand, We've been doing this since like seventeen fifty one.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
It's like a it's like a Manhattan co op, you
know exactly. It won't be believed by the celebrity resident,
you know, your influencer.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, yeah, they were not getting a break on rent.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
No no noise after eight pm, sorry, you know, no
smiling in the elevator, that's the rules. I love it.
I love it. Yeah, what who's the bad guy here?
And does it start with an F and in an A.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I think it starts with an F and NS in
an A, as it usually does. But all so, like,
I'm so biased at this point, you know that, Like
I haven't really looked deeply into the question of who's
the bad guy. It's just that the bad guys always FIFA,
so it has to be FIFA. But yeah, there's a
lot of a lot of a lot of mutual finger
pointing in this, in this and it's hard. It's hard
(41:21):
to know, except that it seems to me that it's
going to be expensive for the town to host the
fricking World Cup, and it makes sense that they're going
to need some support to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna look this up because I think
that the listeners want to know. Okay, So the games
that are going to be held in Boston slash Foxborough,
hand versus Scotland.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Oh god, that's going to be a banger.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, Iraq of Bolivia, Yeah, that's gonna be a good one.
Haitian fans are gonna come. That's gonna be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
That then there's the winner the playoff between Iraq, Bolivia
and Suranon versus Norway, Holland early Holland, our Noda Guards debut.
All the wonderful players from Bodo Glimpse are just going
to be there, just you know, playing. Can they play
in the heat? Are they able to? I don't know,
who knows? Who knows? Yeah, Norwegians. In June in Boston,
(42:22):
we'll see h Scotland versus Morocco. That's a great game. Yeah,
England versus Ghana that's also a great game, a class
colonial matchup. Yeah. And then this one is going to
be another banger here Norway versus France.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I mean those are good games that Boston has if
I now see, if I were Foxborough would come to
some kind of agreement just so I could host those games.
I mean they count Select Kennedy free tickets.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, I would, I would probably. You know, you only
need three votes, FIFA, make.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
It work, FIFA. If there's anything you're good at, it's
bribing elected officials.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, like that's like one of the tenants of the organization. Yeah.
I hope they come to an agreement. I hope Foxboro
gets the money it needs. When I read about this,
I thought, what was remarkable was that the Boston Soccer
which is kind of what I understood was kind of
an offshoot of FIFA that was like a nonprofit that
was created just for this to put on these seven games.
(43:26):
They basically said, yeah, you'll get your money, you know,
June first, and the town council was like, oh, hell no,
we're not going to start ordering the equipment that we
need to make these games flow safely, like twelve days
before the tournament starts. That's preposterous. And you know what,
I think they're right. I think they're absolutely right, and
(43:48):
I hope they get their money. Yeah, yeah, thank you. John.
We have a couple of letters before we go. Do
you want to hear them? I'll read this one for
you because it's a question just for you, Dear Daniel,
John and Sean. We would love to hear John's answer
to the question of which, if any domestic team he supports.
We know about his support for Wimbledon and Liverpool because
he won't shut up about fucking Liverpool. But there's nothing
(44:10):
like going to your hometown team's game. I can honestly
say my soccer interest sword into soccer obsession during my
visits the Red bull Areno while I lived in New York,
joining the crowd and singing for Columbian star Juan Pablank,
future American star Josie Altadoor and a cast of guys
like John Wolgek, who they might have just found playing
pick up on the Opper West Side. Took my consumerist
interest and turned it into ritual participation in community action,
(44:32):
a switch which felt like learning to live.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Man.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
This guy can write.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, so, Luke asks, has John been to an Indie
eleven game? Their next game home game is the US
Open Cup against Des Moines Menace on the seventeenth, and
they host Detroit in the League on the twenty first.
We'd love to hear about that experience.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, I have been to several India eleven games. I
mean the issue with American soccer teams for me, and look,
this is also an issue with Liverpool Football Club not
going to pretend otherwise, is that they are franchises. Now
usl is opening itself up to promotion and relegation, which
is really exciting, and I think I'll go to more
Indie eleven games in the future now that that's part
(45:12):
of the now that there's some real jeopardy. So there's
some meaningful jeopardy for these very wealthy people who own
these institutions. But it's hard for me with MLS a
little bit because they're guaranteed their league spot and they
paid hundreds of millions of dollars to basically create a monopoly.
English football's a little different, but still there's a sense
(45:36):
in which these community assets are the playthings of billionaires.
I think that what makes it a little different for
me than most American sports is that one there's the
jeopardy of relegation. Even a team like Spurs can get relegated,
as we may find out in May. But secondly, there's
(45:58):
the fact that they are still treated as community institutions.
You know, they're not moved around the way the Baltimore
cults become, the Indianapolis cults become the God only knows
what's cults, and so I struggle a little bit with that.
I mean, the reason I love AFC Wimbledon is because
we're owned by our fans. There is no rich guy
in charge, you know, it's all the fans who make
(46:22):
the big decisions, and I think that's really beautiful and
should be a model for the rest of the world
and is a model in some parts of Europe, but
not most, and so it's something I struggle with. But
I do enjoy the INDI eleven games a lot, and
I enjoy I think, to Luke's question, that feeling of
ritual participation in community action is really really powerful.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's the best thing.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
What about you, I mean, do you have a do
you have a team?
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, I mean I have a well, okay, I'll say
a couple of things. I spent a lot of time
read beul Arena when my older son, who loves football,
was was not you know, it was in middle school,
in high school. My youngest son, who's turning thirteen later
this month, doesn't care really about club soccer, only cares
(47:12):
about the World Cup, and so I could never interest
him in like taking the train to Harrison, New Jersey
to watch the Red Bulls games. There's a new USL
team in New York called Brooklyn FC, which when we
move back to New York, I'll probably go see a
couple of those games, see what that's like. But then
here in BA where we're living now, I just found
(47:35):
the the Colombian Gooner's Club and the bar that they
watched the games at and and I went to one
of the games. I went to the to the Chelsea game.
Not a classic. Not many Arsenal games are classics these days,
I will say, but it was beautiful. Man. They one
(47:56):
of the guys takes out of cornet and plays every
time Marsenal scores, he plays like a fanfare. There was
a man literally crying at the end of the game
because the last few minutes were so tense and ry
I had to make a couple of really brilliant saves
to to keep our our slim margin of victory. And
(48:17):
also this was remarkable to me was that there were
people there who recognized me as the host of and
so people kept sending me beers over, which was great.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
That's fun, it is.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
It was really fun. And and so it's great to.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Be recognized as the host of a radio show, you know,
like that's when you've really made it, Daniel, Like it's
you and Ira Glass who are known for being the
visible hosts of radio shows.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, it's a it's an odd thing. It's an odd thing,
you know. I I loved it, and I think that
to answer Luke's question, the switch that Phil feels like
learning to live. I think you can create that experience
of like watching the game with friends, watching the game
with community, watching the game with other fans of the
(49:04):
same team sort of scratches that same itch as being
at the stadium. Sometimes it can. I have great memories
of watching you know, World Cup Finals with friends, you know,
at our house, at other people's houses, are watching big games,
even with one, you know. I remember watching the Arsenal
against the Madrid first leg last year at a bar
(49:28):
in Manhattan with a with ib, a friend of mine,
and man, you know, it was like we were good
friends before that and we're better friends now, you know,
like we went through that, so I didn't there's something
about that. But you know, John, if I come position
you in Annapolis, we'll go to any eleven game. How
about that?
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I love it. Yeah, you got to come visit me.
We got a guest room and everything. All right, We're
gonna read this email from Raoul as well. I suspect
this Raoul is a friend of ours actually, but he writes, greetings, gentlemen.
I've been enjoying the pot of great deal, and I
have noticed a recur theme. Both of you have spoken
about the role that football has played in your relationship
with your father's not your mother's, though, and how it
has influenced your relationship with your own children. I wonder
(50:06):
if you could expand on the ways that football is
affected you're parenting. As I write this, I've just returned
from watching my oldest, my older daughter's final high school
basketball game. They were eliminating in the quarterfinals of the
city Championship, playing away at a school in far Rock,
Away more than twenty miles from the Upper West Side
but still technically in New York City. Cleo played amazingly well,
probably your best game of the season. And I don't
know who is sad or basketball has given her and
(50:28):
our family so much, and I imagine that football is
not the same for your family, so, though perhaps not
in the same way as so, can we talk about
that a little bit?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
In Yeah, I think that's lovely. I mean, I, you know,
I really identify with this the kind of sense of
purpose that high school sports gave me, and the camaraderie
and the discipline. So I know sort of a lot
(50:59):
about what role was talking about. And I missed that
for my kids a little bit. Because Elisel plays chess,
you know, so there's a team aspect to it, but
it's very much one on one and that's his his
you know, sport. To the extent that it is a sport,
we could debate, but I mean he'll say it is,
of course. And then the thing he likes to do
(51:22):
is like rock climbing, which again is very individual, you know.
So I feel like that the like I wish he
were in a team because I think being part of
a team is an important thing. How about you, y'all?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, my son is a boxer, and so he loves,
really loves boxing and watching boxing and the science of
it and the you know the complexity of movement and
defense and all that stuff. But again, there's not that
sense of camaraderie that you have when you're on a team,
(51:54):
especially a team that spends a lot of time together.
You know. He has a sense of camaraderie with the
people he shares the gym with, but it's a little different.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I think, I think there to hit each other. Yeah,
I was gonna say that. I think that watching your
kid play basketball, although of course injuries can always happen,
is different from watching your child in a ring with
another person. That wants to punch him in the face.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Uh is it hard to watch some box? He doesn't
box much. He's not really allowed to box the way
that he wishes he were, and indeed the way that
his coach wishes he were. He's his coach is always like,
she's always like he's so good, and I was, I'm like,
I don't. I don't really care how good he is.
(52:36):
You know, it doesn't really matter. He's not he's not
going to go pro in this because his dad will
do everything in his power to prevent that. Right.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
It's like, right before the boxing match, you know, a
streaker comes on the ring and it's like.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Who's that.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Oh, it's you know, the box his dad. He's oh,
now he's changed himself to the to the to the ring.
He won't get up.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
I would do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
John, you know, like thank you, you know, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Chess is a non contact sport, but any sale takes
every loss very seriously. There's emotional pain. It's not a
physical pain.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
It's not physical pain. Yeah. And then my daughter is
a really good volleyball player, and I do love that
for her. I love that she's able to be on
a team that they're so encouraging of each other, that
they fight for each other, that they love each other.
That's all you want from your experience of adolescence, I think,
is to have friends who love you with that ferocity
(53:41):
that you experience in high school, you know. And I
was really lucky to have those friends, even though I
wasn't on the soccer team or the basketball team. And
I know you feel that way about the folks that
were on the soccer team with you.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, you know,
if all goes well, thirty years later you can have
a podcast together.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
So yeah, I mean, if you're really lucky, if.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
You're really lucky. Okay, Roll continues, and I want to
read the last bit here. He says, in two episodes,
at least you spoke about talent and effort as they
relate to success, and I'm curious what you think about
what I see as a bit of a contradiction. On
the one hand, we as parents often tell our kids
that if they just work hard at something, usually school,
but it could be art, music, theater, even writing, they
will succeed, and the same is often true for sport.
(54:29):
There are, however, cruel limitations which when it comes to sport,
we usually have no trouble recognizing and explaining to our children.
When it comes to school work, I'm reluctant to tell
them that hard work may not lead to the results
they want. Sometimes people are just talented, and talents are
not equally distributed throughout a population. Have you come across
this issue in your parenting? And if so, has football
provided you any guidance? Keep up the good work, both
(54:50):
with the pod and everything else, and Roll says, stop
making fun of Sean. I just don't feel like we're
making it.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
We're making fun of Sean.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
We love Sean. We love Sean.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Sean is my fa hey saw no respected, No disrespect
to Daniel, but Seawan is my favorite person on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Absolutely, yeah mine too? Yeah disrespected? John, Yeah, I'm taking it.
Speaker 2 (55:10):
Well, all right, okay, heard heard?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Yes, thank you Rol for your question. And yeah, do
do you have any any guidance on that?
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yeah? I mean I think a lot of times, the
stuff that we're talented at and the stuff that we
get positive feedback for are the same stuff. And you know,
at least when I was a kid, all I want
I don't even know if I'm a good writer. I
was just told that I was a good writer when
I was in third grade, and as a result, I
worked really hard on writing. It's hard to know what
the what the line was, you know, was I was
(55:40):
I actually talented? Or was I just told that I
was talented? And so I worked really hard on it
because I wanted the affirmation of adults. I never know
where that falls, do you right?
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yeah, No, I think that's fair. I mean I think
that that it's you know, you can ever do a
double blind study with your kids in terms of like
different ways to raise them, and you're always sort of
trying to figure out the right way to do it,
and and you know, the between pushing them and encouraging them.
I was just thinking about that, you know, the intense
(56:11):
academic pressure that I was raised in, you know, with
uh and that caused me grave anxiety. It's so different
like what the way I raised my kids, you know. Yeah,
but there's no way too, there's no way I have
of knowing if I am who I am because I
was told that I had to, you know, get perfect grades,
(56:36):
and if that sort of learning to deal with that
anxiety and that pressure when I was young has helped
me in situations as an adult. Having said that, I
have a much more lesly fair attitude with my kids
or and I find it difficult to implement the kind
of pressure that my parents put on me with great
intentions and you know, with with you know, decent results
(56:58):
on my own children. I just don't see how how
to do it.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, I'm very much in the same boat.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
It doesn't feel natural to me.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
It doesn't feel natural to me, it doesn't feel right
to me. And so I'm raising my kids very differently
from how I was raised. Probably that said, like, my
parents were very supportive of my writing. They just wanted
me to take it as seriously as I would take
going to med school. You know. They were very supportive
of the idea of me being a writer or a
creator or whatever. But they wanted me to take it
(57:26):
as seriously as as I would, you know, being a
warrior or whatever. And I kind of have. And yeah,
to your point, it's it's been effective in a lot
of ways. But the way that we raise our kids
is very much to school is important, you know, But
but school is not the only important thing in your life. Yeah, right,
(57:49):
I hear you, And you know, and I just want
to I just want to take a second, Daniel, if
I can to say how disappointed I am in you
for not becoming a doctor.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
It's a huge letdown. Yeah, you know what. The die
was cast and we had to dissect the like and like.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Pig.
Speaker 5 (58:10):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
When we had to dissect that fetal pig, I was like,
this is all over for me, Sean. Can you come
back on so we can talk quickly about dissecting the
fetal pig. Do you remember that.
Speaker 6 (58:20):
I just got a waft of formaldehyde and uh psychosomatic formaldehyde.
That's uh yeah, I may or may not be in
my in my office, but yeah, that was uh, that's
that too, is why I that's the only reason I
did not become a doctor.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yes, otherwise otherwise yeah, yeah, just three people pursuing the
creative life for fear of fetal pigs.
Speaker 1 (58:50):
Exactly, exactly. Now. Just to finish with with Raoul's question,
I think that you always I mean, at least I
would never tell my kids there's something that they can't do.
I think I would always sort of be upfront with
my kids about the risks and the challenges and the
work that would be required to do. It. But I
can't imagine never telling my kids they weren't talented enough
(59:11):
to pull something off because people surprise you, and you know,
who are you really to say? I have heard many
examples of famous, successful writers who have or this, even
a guy on my staff at Roan Bulante who was
told by a journalism professor that he would never be
a journalist.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
I didn't get into the advanced fiction writing class at
Kendon College. There were fifteen applicants for twelve spots and
I didn't get in. I remember that, and look, yeah,
I know you remembered it. I told everybody, yeah, traumatic
and look now, man, yeah you're yeah, God, I still
couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
You're like the abes.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
Of writers said, I couldn't make it, but I did.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
He sed it, all right, all right, that's all the
time we have for today. On the away end, remember
to keep sending us your emails away ndpod at gmail
dot com. Sean, thank you, John in Jamaica. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Yeah, thanks everybody for listening this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
We'll see you next week.
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