July 20, 2026 • 52 mins
A collection of Colin’s best World Cup takes throughout this unforgettable World Cup. Colin discusses everything including the USMNT’s run, Spain’s dominance, Mbappe’s goals for France, Ronaldo’s impact with Portugal, Messi making history with Argentina, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh yeah, the whole casino, yes, one hundred percent. Oh yes,
the casino, the guitar casino has been That's what I'm saying.
So either the portugu and I'm not sure it might
be like that their Hollywood, Florida is a Columbian stronghold,
and there's different Portuguese stronghold elsewhere in the South Florida area,
but I have seen I saw zero Christiano Ronaldo or
(01:47):
Portugal jerseys at the casino. I've seen zero here. It's
it really seems like Columbia is gonna have a home
field advantage tonight in the game, and if that informs
my bet. I have not bet the game yet. I
thought of and I don't know which way I'm leaning,
but I feel like we're we're almost, We're almost. It's
almost mandatory to go with Columbia at this point.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It is, you know, I was thinking about this as
I was flying down today by the way commercial as
I was.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
That's not a good for you a man of the people.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So I was flying down in Row twenty eight and
I and I was thinking about as I was doing it,
that when was the last time that I turned on
a sporting event? And was shocked at what I was watching.
So the first half against Paraguay, the first fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Our aggressive, He's stunning.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think it's the best half of football any United
States soccer team has ever played.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
National team, And I was.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thinking, when's the last time you turned on a game?
I will say this when when Indiana started taking Alabama
to the woodshed, was like, whoa, the sport is seeds.
You know, that's one of those. But one of the things,
one of the things about the World Cup that it's
always been hard to gauge. We before the friendlies with
(03:07):
Senegal in Germany, we had been on about a nine
month drought.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
We had played terribly in Polisic had and scored in
a year.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And even with A C. Malaney, they had nagging injuries.
And I remember saying to one of the executives at Fox,
I've got horrible vibes about this.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I said, we better have a plan for how we're
gonna talk World Cup, not about the US men's national team.
I was like, we gotta I understand, we're all rooting
for a deep run. But I three weeks before the
World Cup, I was like, hey, guys on the show.
We had a meeting. We were like, hey, we can
all we're all rooting for the US, but we need
(03:43):
to put stakes in the ground on other countries that
are actually going to be playing in the big games,
because the US looked like it was in.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Total disarray instead. Correct, it's been magical. Mexico's good. Yes, England,
all the stars are scoring, all the strikers young and old.
There's been just enough upsets and we've gotten almost universally
(04:12):
permitting weather. Philadelphia had an ugly yes for one day. Yeah,
but I mean you look at the heat wave France
is going through. Correct, we have been so lucky. Just
enough controversy. The high ration breaks are kind of you know,
people are overwrought with that. And my take is they
really started those things.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
In like twenty eighteen or twenty twenty twenty two had
to do it well. Twenty fourteen in Brazil there was
an element of it. Twenty eighteen it was in Russia, right,
But twenty I'm not say twenty two in Katar.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
You had to have it.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I don't care about that, to be totally honest, I
love soccer around a purists.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I don't care about it.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
But to your point though, and then we get to
the US men's national team about this World Cup setting
up with the story, the stars and the best teams.
One of your long time march madness takes is upsets
are fun, but it makes the tournament worse. Ten groups
have been decided. We are ten for ten on the
favorite winning the group. Every single favorite has won its group,
(05:16):
and then we'll see what happens in the final two groups,
of which a lot of these Columbian fans are opening.
The favorite doesn't win because Portugal is one of them,
and then England obviously is the other favorite. So you
have no great teams that have been sent on Check one,
Check two. Is every single one of the huge stars.
It's not only scored had a multi goal game. Even
(05:37):
Christiano Ronaldo, who's forty one and might be wheeled into
the arena, has to at a multi goal game. Messi's
been unbelievable. Messi retired from World Cups in twenty fifteen.
Since then, he's played in three or four and one
to one and might win another. So that's happening, and
it is like the bracket is set up to where
(06:00):
are staring at France Germany in the round of sixteen,
We're staring at Argentina, potentially Portugal in the round of eight,
Mexico hosting England in Mexico City in the round of sixteen.
That's before we even get to the semis, before you
even talk about what you know, if it again, if
(06:23):
the seeding holds, so to speak, we could get Brazil
Argentina in the World Cup semis on one side of
the bracket and France, Spain or maybe the US in
the semis on the other side of the bracket. And
on top of all that, the US has played I
don't know, of my lifetime four of the six best
(06:46):
halves of soccer they've ever played.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
And I'm forty years old.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, and I said this the other day, is that
the great thing about tournaments that Illinois is a great
example of this. You can get to the final four
of the Elite eight having played one good team.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
They played Houston, yep.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And that's the reality is you get to the knockout
stage and you're like, oh, I don't want to play them. Boom,
they loose yellow cards, red cards, injuries. I mean the
reality is great teams get a little tight, just like
March badness, sure right. Unlike basketball, where tight means you
score seventy two nine eighty two, titan soccer means one
goalnot three. And you can see sometimes when you get
(07:22):
to these later stages that the heavy favorite who by
the way, is getting clovered by their country's media.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And so I mean this is why Turkey A when
they beat us, I'm like, guys, they had to win.
I mean it was like the coach is going to
get fired. I was so overjoyed with our effort. You know,
you and I have talked about this. People were so
disappointed with the outcome. And I said, timeout, go one
second before the kick. You would have said, are reserves tied?
(07:53):
Correct a desperate team, So the kick can't make me
think bad.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Outing, So I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I also, if we want to go glass really half full,
you know, probably good for the team to not get
a little too full of itself.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
All that.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I it's the World Cup.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
We had an opportunity to, you know, continue do what
Mexico did, Hey, it's a meaningless game.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
We're gonna go undefeated anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And I was prepared mentally for a draw or even
a loss before the game. When they scored two minutes in,
I'm like, oh my god, I hate you, tweeted like.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I'm not used to the US being the best team
in the world, but they I have.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
My My expectations going into this tournament for the US
team were very simple. If if somehow they don't get
out of the group, then you have to burn the
whole thing to the ground.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
They not only got out of the group, they won
the group.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
We have had for my entire life, well for everybody
here his entire life. The side from the opening tournament
in nineteen thirty a pretty hard ceiling of the round
of sixteen. We've made the quarters once, it was in
O two. The goal was to make the quarters again,
right and see what the hell happens, And they are
(09:12):
now well positioned to do that. They get they have
Bosnia in the first round and then Melchium, probably probably
Belgium at the sea they're off there.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Belgium has not been good.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
And I'm not just saying that because I had my
Father's Day ruined by betting Belgium and they scored zero goals.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But they were you know, back in twenty eighteen they
finished third, Yes, and since twenty fourteen they've made every
big European tournament.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
But they're not the same.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They're no a lot lesslayer's age out correct, got new
young players, they're not as dynamic.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
And Lekaku is not as good as he once was.
But Doku will be the best player on the field
in that game. But so be it. Like, well have
home field advantage.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And of all the teams you could play in the
round of sixteen, they're not They haven't played that great.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
They're not one of the best ones.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I but to your I want to circle back to
your first point, which is I have always spelt World
Cup time, all right, what's the US plan?
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Hold the other team to zero and hope you score
on a set piece.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
It's just been like, if you're playing a good team
and you're the US, that's likely.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
It's like you sure shit.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Better get shut them out and you know you can
get a little lucky or something. You know, one as
they say, moment of magic. That's not this team at
all at all. This team it's you probably gonna need
to score three because you might give up a few,
but you can score one, right, but you they can
score Oh yeah, it's and let's I have the We
(10:36):
talk a lot about how much coaching matters in the
NFL versus the NBA.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
It seems to me man like. I guess they call it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Managing, but managing in soccer might be on level with
coaching in the NFL as far as the importance and
setting a goal for us, instilling believe all of Patino
has been unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
He's just you know, I always said this when Wemby
came into the NBA, he was us. Yes, he won
to do in everything. He very domestic. Yannis wasn't yo
kich you kitch catch home fast enough. Weby's like, I'm
gonna do the monk thing for a couple of weeks,
but I'm gonna come back and start training and I
want to win the NBA All Star Game, MVP. I
could be a villain altro elbows. None of this nonsense
(11:17):
about well, I'm gonna slowly integrate into the American system.
And I think Pochettino his greatest asset has been Okay, guys,
I've done this. We're we're skilled, We're at home. Many
of the good teams are young or a little old.
(11:38):
You can I use these Seahawks as a comparison. Our
thirteen best players are all in their prime, correct or
going into it. That is, that was what Seattle was
last year. The Rams were good, but they had holes
you know, right, and the Rams are a little creaky
at certain spot Seattle, every spot you're like, oh, he's
in his prime.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Two that's rare in sports.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
That was the early Chiefs with Mahomes, when Kelsey was
getting a little old but was still late prime. You're like,
every one of their best players is in their prime.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
The only young guy was Mahomes, and it is the
only guy who wasn't supposed to be in his prime
yet was the quarterback.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
But he got to his prime imediately. The U, yes,
the US. It is a real.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Question of like, man, how many guys on this team
will be around in twenty twenty six, Like it's the
core will Yeah, I think three of the four best
players will. But in general, my point is this is
if you would have said ten years ago, here, you know,
looking in the future, here's the twenty five. Guys, they're
(12:37):
gonna be on your next three World Cup teams. What's
the one where you're gonna have the best combination of
them aging being at their peak?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
We just said twenty twenty six. So all the fact
that we.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Are now going into the knockout rounds because we clinched early,
we don't have to worry about any of the yellow
card accumulation. All those guys, said Polisic, who how do
I put this? Seems to be a little fragile. Seems
like he doesn't necessarily play. He needs to be one
hundred percent to want to go. Yeah, I'm not you know.
I really hope he doesn't get god forbid kicked in
(13:08):
the calf again and have to miss ten days in
the World Cup. But he's healthy and I think they
feel great. And I thought Buchatino was so funny when
he was scolding the media when he was like, you
guys are acting like we go home in Turkey. A
advances like we won the group. We didn't need to
win this game. And they're gonna get even more confidence,
(13:30):
I would imagine, because I think they'll beat Bosnia handily
and then we'll see the I had it in front
of me before I'm gonna pull it up again. It's
we played Belgium, but Belgium's gotta win, and so I
want to see who the other team is. I don't
think it's totally set yet, but I'll pull it up.
But yeah, I think they're gonna make the quarters. And
I think we're gonna have the United States playing Spain
(13:50):
in a World Cup quarter.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Fine, I think we match up fine with Spain.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I don't think anybody matches up with France.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, I mean France looks really, really good.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So I was saying this, you know, every week I
do that Colin right, Colin wrong, and I don't mind
being wrong, but I like being right more than wrong.
And I said, losing to Turkey a proves a twenty
year point I've had. So anytime the American soccer team loses,
you gotta blame Jurgen Klinsman, Bruce Arena, Greg Berholt. It's
always the coach correct, And it's like, but why do
(14:21):
all of our coaches before Pochettino play the same counterattacking
style heavy on set pieces. That's right, because we can't
attack our personnel. It's the same day if you have
bad If you have a bad secondary, you got to
be very careful about bringing extra people in the pass
rock yep, right, great corners, jail break bringing sure.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
So suddenly last Pochettino's hyper aggressive. So it's not a
scheme thing. He didn't have any tactical blunders. We played
our backups and couldn't dominate possession sloppy, and it's like,
it proves my point. It's not a coaching thing. Our
scheme did not change. We went hyper aggressive all sports.
(15:03):
Andy Reid makes Mahome better. Mahomes be fine without it.
He may not get the rings, but he'd be great. Sure,
And Belichick deserves a lot of credit. But in the
end we have really good players. Now we're fit on
the back end.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
So is England, so is Norway.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
But when you watch us play, it was so to me,
it was so instructive to watch how aggressive we were
with our reserves still winning possession.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Sloppy, but it was.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But it proved the value of that, which is.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You cannot play that well and just have a couple
of great moments and get.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Two goals out of it, as opposed to.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
The previous philosophy, which seemed to be we have to
be perfect tactically because we can't give up a goal,
and then we hope to have a moment. It's also
a hell of a lot more fun to watch. Oh yeah,
I did look it up. I couldn't remember. So if
in order for you know, assuming we beat Bosnia, yes
it might be Belgium, but Belgium's most likely opponent there
(16:06):
is Senegal. Senegal absolutely can beat Belgium, and we're not
We've played Senegal before, we've played them in the warm up,
yet like we we're not gonna feel it'll be the
first time ever if we're in the round of sixteen
where we might be favored, and if we're not favored,
we're all gonna feel like, oh well, that's a coin flip,
(16:27):
like we definitely can win that game. And it does
seem like historically, and it's felt this way this tournament,
that there is no event in sports where home field
advantage has a bigger impact than the World Cup. It
does just feel like the it's impossible for the officials
not to somewhat get caught up in the emotion of
(16:49):
the crowd and fifty to fifty calls go the home
team's way and the other team gets a little more
rattled by in what's supposed to be a neutral site
tournament their games being you know, as raucous and rowdy
of a hostile fan base as they're going to experience.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's just there's so many things
to be excited about. And I've said this before. Of
course I root for Fox, I root for hard rock BET.
I work for my corporate sponsors and my partners. But
it could not work out better. The weather messy Rinaldo
Harry Kane, And it's interesting. Some people were worried that
it would dilute the field when they added teams, but most,
(17:28):
I mean some of these African nations, I don't know
anything about their teams, but.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Dude, they've been so I'm I'm like, speaking of competitive
speaking a hard rock bet, I have a I am
all in on Dr Congo tonight. All in the African
nations have been underrated. Congo advances with a win. Who's Bekistan.
I'm not gonna act like I've Scott Husbekistan, but I've
watched their games. They don't seem to be good and
(17:52):
Congo and they're only minus one forty like so the
I'm going to Portugal Columbia, I have no you know,
insight on that. But the African nations have I think
been pretty undervalued by the odds makers and they have
been really competitive. And to your point.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
About no pressure and tons of motivation correct to come back.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But your point about I saw your our colleague. But
a guy who's been on your podcast a couple times,
Michael Molbi, will say if the US big, if if
they were to make a World Cup final, it would
do the same type of rating domestically as the NFC
Championship game. He said, fifty to sixty million people's net
create would watch it. Even if the US, you know,
(18:38):
let's just say the US gets pop doesn't make it past.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
The quarters, which is you know, really where it's projected.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
If the bracket holds, this is what we are looking
at in the quarterfinals, France playing either Netherlands or Morocco.
Netherlands is my dark horse, and well they if they
can get past Morocco and round to thirty two, they
got a great chance. The bottom left part of the
bracket quarterfinal in La July tenth Spain US seems.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Like a pretty cool game Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
The quarterfinal here in Miami July eleventh, that would be
Brazil against England or Mexico. Of Mexico upsets them. Either
way Brazil eng would be sick. And then the other
quarterfinal in Kansas City July eleventh, what I would imagine
will be the highest rated non World Cup final in
world history. Again, if the bracket holds Argentina Portugal, Messi
(19:35):
Ronaldo for an opportunity to go to the semifinal, and
I understand that's just going with the chalk. But this
has been while in an exciting tournament. As I said,
all ten groups have been won by the favorites. This
has been a chalk chalk ish tournament, which is because
the star has been so good. I'm just I'm super
excited about it. And I do think there is now
(19:58):
an element of a moment like this. And the other
big thing about the World Cup is the time zones.
You need the games not at three am at the Olympic. Correct,
It's like it's less important that the game is in
the United States and more that it's in this hemisphere.
Like the last World Cup that I was this into
was twenty fourteen Brazil. Because Brazil is on the same
(20:21):
time zones as US, I wouldn't go into the games anyway,
so what did I care? I do think this will
create more interest domestically in the MLS, in the English
Premier League and in following these stars throughout their regular season.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
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until nine twenty seven, twenty twenty six. I know you
you're going to laugh at me for saying this, but
(21:44):
I think one of the things that helps us is
there has been a capitalization, a geopolitical growth from the
United States for the last ten years, and that is
separated from your own. I just read a story in
The Atlantic flying down. I have a subscription to the
Atlanta is why did Britain get poorer than the Mississippi?
And it's a big it's big discussion of Jamie Diamond
(22:05):
and all these you know, financiers in New York. We
have separated from Europe. Well, that plays to our strength
because a lot of these soccer stars to get him too,
the MLS to get Ken Griffin, a financier of Citadel.
He's the one that paid for Pochettino.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yes, he's so.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The reality is rich guys like to be part of
good momentum and cool stuff. Correct, And if we can
get to a final eight, I can see a world
in which we're like, we're gonna go over there and
we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Make big bids. Oh, try to get some better players, Fouler.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And remember was only Valen Balgan is only on our
team eligible because his.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Flight attendant Fighterdant said, Mom too pregnant to fly. That
lady get that lady should get if we find her
and get her a ticket to the next US.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And increasingly in the World Cup. You're not necessarily born
in the country or of the country. So there's a
lot of gray sure there. And my take is our
explosion of capital in the United States and in the
Americas could be a big advantage going forward.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
That's why momentum here could really be a huge It's hard.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
It's also why and where we put the cart a
little for the horse here, and I know you want
to get to other stuff. It's also why that game
against Bosnia is the biggest game in the history of
the US men's national team. And I know that sounds
crazy because it's around the thirty two game. We once
played a round of eight game against South Korea. I
(23:31):
get that that team, that team to get to the
round of eight had won one game in regulation. They
had to win, a draw, a loss, and then a
penalty kicks win. This every as long as they beat Bosnia,
this will feel like such a massive domestic success for soccer.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
There will be no shame If they lose in the
round of sixteen.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I think they'd be able to beat Belgium or Senegal
or Korea, anybody they can play there, but there would
be no shame in it. But if you do all
of this and then and then all of a sudden,
because we have, oddly, thanks to the Turkey a game,
lost thirteen straight games against European teams and.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
There's a little fluke to that little this.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
But then if all of a sudden Bosnia clips us
as the sixty third ranked team in the world, it
will feel like it was for naught. But you win
that game, and they should win that game. They're huge
favorites to win that game. Then you start to you know,
you start to believe crazier things can happen again. Korea
made the semi finals when they hosted this tournament. There
(24:32):
are six of the host nations in history. Their single
best World Cup appearance or you know, best World Cup
the furthest they've ever gone in the World Cup in
their nation's history is when they hosted it.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
This is an opportunity for us to do.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
It was a nice run. It was a nice run.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
But I mean, I think ultimately, if you look at
the teams in the World Cup, you know there is
a kind of a class of eight, and you know, Spain,
we all know who it is. Argentina. Belgium now counts,
although they've gotten a little older. But remember in twenty
eighteen they were one of the three four best teams
in the world. And I mean, I think it was
(25:14):
pretty obvious. I think the first seven or eight minutes
you could say it was nerves. But after that we
weren't winning enough one on one battles, we weren't maintaining
enough possession, We got very few good shots on goal.
We looked like we were outclassed. We looked like we
did against Paraguay, just flipped the sides and so. And
(25:35):
I also think it's a little bit like the NFL playoffs,
is that the better teams you face, the better coaches
you face, and you know you can get through the
AFC or the NFC South, you know, then you match
up against you know, the Buffalos and the Philadelphia's and
the mcveigh's, and you know, just the better coaches and
the better teams and your flaws become gigantic holes. And
(25:58):
I mean Matt Freeze like an MLS goalie tonight. I
mean when he had Tim Howard. We've had Tony Meola,
Casey Keller, Tim Howard, who was a huge physical presence,
a great athlete, hyper aggressive, big strong presence in goal.
Matt Freeze looks like an MLS goalie, you know, an
embarrassing mistake playing with his feet. I mean, that's like
(26:19):
that stuff you see in a Tuesday night in the MLS.
That's just not good enough. And again it's not exposed
against Paraguay that didn't have much of a dynamic offense,
or Australia, but it does get exposed against Belgium. And
you know, I thought, again one of the things I've
said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to kind
(26:41):
of project that you don't understand soccer. You could see
it very quickly. First five or six minutes. We just
could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We couldn't
win the one on one battles until the very end.
We couldn't get quality shots and when Belgium was in
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims, a thirty
(27:02):
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely, absolutely exposed.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Also listen, Christian Polisic.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
If you look at the best teams, Harry Kanes had
a great tournament, so is Messi, so is Embape, so
is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian Pulisic did not. He's
a slight player. He's always been fragile. He gets banged
up again and I didn't think he played with any
confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning his one on
ones and he kind of, you know, gave the ball
(27:41):
up early in his one on one opportunities. He just
gave it up. That that feels a little bit like
kind of bailing. You're lacking confidence. Then later he gets
injured on a legal play.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Was not a foul.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us. I
think it was five to two in a friendly with
great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of felt
like we weren't playing some of our best players. But
you know, in this instance, we played our best players
and we were just outclassed, you know, And you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
(28:19):
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Beljium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
got the worst, who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal?
Speaker 5 (28:39):
I mean, how many quality shots did we get on
goal tonight?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Two?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Even the Malik Tillman goal on the free kick was
a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose this
way than be frustrated. I mean, Balligan really only got
one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes I
wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no shots
(29:05):
on goal, Belgium two to one. Physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA corner kick was at the end of the
first half. I just think when you see a team
that has a higher level of skill, more experience in
bigger games inside one point, stue Holden was asked about
(29:26):
how do you get better in big games and his
answer was appropriate, you play in them. And Belgium just
felt like they had been in more games like this.
You know, it was funny in the first seven or
eight minutes, I saw that they were calling it nervy
and I'm like, yeah, I'll give you that for about
five minutes, and then it was really really clear we
could not There must have been six, seven, eight, nine
(29:50):
straight moments where it would come down to a one
on one battle and Belgium always came out with a
ball and we met our match.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
But we know.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Now if we flipped goalies, would we have a greater opportunity. Yeah,
but we weren't going to beat Belgium. I thought Matt
Freeze felt like a little bit out of his depth.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
This was a little too.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Big for him, and it happens. But we kind of
know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas. You know,
we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been, We're closer
to Portugal than we've ever been. But there does feel
like a gap, a skill gap between England. Five of
the top thirty three players in this tournament, where I
(30:38):
was reading an article before the tournament by Fox. Five
of the top thirty three were from England. And I mean,
you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch Harry Kane against Mexico.
They were easily the two best players in the pitch.
And you watch that in NBA games, you know, you
see that when you watch great football teams, you can
just see the best players jump through the television. So
(31:00):
it didn't matter if we were playing a four to
two three one, or we had geol rena substitute in
at half, it just didn't matter. We just got outclassed.
And that's where we stand as of today, you know,
and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball, baseball,
and hockey league in the world. And you can look
(31:21):
at the Olympics and say, well, look at what we did.
Our men's and women's won gold at the Olympics in hockey.
But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer. Soccer's got
forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer, that's
like six to seven billion annually in hockey. Because of
the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights. If
(31:46):
you want to dominate international soccer. It is much harder
than dominating international hockey.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
It's just it means more to.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Far more countries. It's just hockey, just not as broad.
It often feels like a cold weather experience, a cold
weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer. Norway's good
at it, Cape Verde is good at it, Argentina and
France are amazing at it. And so you know, we
(32:18):
generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally for sports.
Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred million dollars
between our men's and women's team annually, four hundred million,
and that's that's on par with many of the top teams,
but not greater then. And we also don't have the
cultural fixation, fascination, intensity, or passion that other nations do.
(32:44):
I don't look at this World Cup as a failure.
I think we earned ourselves another World Cup sometime very soon.
Our infrastructure is so capable of hosting it. But I
think it's just it's the one sport, one Rubik's cube
we're trying to decipher, and it really comes down to revenue.
(33:09):
It's massive, very difficult to buy your way to championships
and again we have some really nice players. But saying
in a globe with two hundred and fifteen countries that
were not in the top eight, there's no great shame
in it. But I thought we were out classed. And
(33:29):
I will say Sebastian Burhalter adds great energy, We had
great fight until the end. But we met our match.
And that's okay. I mean it's not okay. It's infuriating.
It's in Seattle. But I don't think you walk away
from this and say so we gave it a good run,
(33:51):
we gave it a good fight. You just keep chipping away.
Remember England has won one World Cup, Spain has won
one World Cup. This shit is hard, you know, And
I'm sure I'll just get blast in my text tonight
when I wake up tomorrow. We'll we will never compete.
(34:13):
This is worthless. We got out class tonight, but it's
worth the fight. It's just you know, look it up sometime,
look up soccer revenues globally and what we're going up against.
Belgium added on that final goal. So if you count
the friendly against tonight five to two and four to one,
(34:35):
our back end was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweet in
the two times we face Belgium gives you a sense
of where we currently are the on the soccer global map. Remember,
our average age is under twenty seven, so a majority
of this team is back with more European and international experience.
(34:58):
It's not on our soil. But generally group stages aren't
our greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is
a very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine
years old is the average age, still one of the
youngest teams at this World Cup. So, by the way,
if you're wondering, I am healthy enough to do a
forty five minute podcast today, but my boss has called
(35:19):
me after yesterday's show. I played hurt yesterday. I had
a fever and the stomach virus is going around the Midwest.
So I went to bed last night at seven thirty five,
took THEO flu.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
I broke my fever. So I'm okay. Stomach's a mess.
It's a Midwest thing.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
But we had this planned and I think it's fitting
because there's so many things I want to talk about
with Danny Parkins. So you know, listen, every four years
after we lose in the World Cup. The drum beats.
It's our culture, you know, it's our youth movement. But
I did think it was kind of instructive that Carli Lloyd, Stuholden,
(35:58):
Alexi Lawless all kind of had the same drum beat,
which is, hey, Christian Pulisic, nobody wants to hear about rest.
This isn't baseball. You don't have a game tomorrow. We
don't want to hear about rest. And I think it's fair,
and I'll tell you why. Polistics twenty seven Messi is
a smaller athlete, has never messed a World Cup game,
(36:20):
and you know he hasn't been healthy one hundred percent
of the time. We know Polistics not Arling Holland. He's
not a soccer version of Krok, but he gets banged
up a lot. He's twenty seven. But there is an
indifference or a lack of urgency. Sometimes that comes off
as condescending from Polistic, like he's above it all.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
And we don't like that from ara athlete.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
By the way, if you said that in Argentina, the
Argentinian press would savage you. If you said it in
Greece or Italy or London, you'd get crushed for it.
I think my knock on polistic is that this is
this is different than the other sports. It's every four years.
Soccer already faces a little cynicism because of the flopping,
(37:05):
so you kind of fake injuries all the time. So
like when you come up and say, all right, I
can still see on the pitch, you can still move.
I don't want to hear about rest. I don't think
that's unfair. I think it's pandering to call that unfair.
I think that's very reasonable. International Soccer commentary by Carly
(37:25):
Stewing Alexi of.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Course, and he after the game said that he thought
he maybe sprained his ankle. We expect you to play
through a sprained ankle, right right, Like I mean, if
you would have come out afterwards that he would have
ruptured his achilles. You know, no one would have said anything,
you know, but it was like, wait, you kicked the
(37:47):
other guy. You kind of stubbed your foot into the ground.
You were hobbling around out there. We expect you to
be able to hobble that off. And I'm not saying
that I could do it, but I am saying that
world class athletes should be able to do it.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
And this is the thing. I am not a twenty
four to seven, three.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Sixty five soccer person, but I really prepped very hard
ahead of this World's Cup. I take my job very
seriously with how first things. First overtime is going, Like
Nick Wilds and Brew are not on the show with me,
so I'm doing the full hour with me and Dax
McCarty and maybe other soccer people that we bring on.
So like, I prepped my ass off ahead of this
(38:27):
World's Cup. Part of that was watching the five part
Team USA documentary, and in the documentary there was a
whole section of time on Polisic feeling defensive and pushing
back against the old American soccer establishment guys like Alexi
and Landon, who had criticized him for skipping the Gold Cup.
(38:49):
They were like, You've got to play in the Gold Cup.
It's because this is such a huge tournament for Team
USA and it's a home World Cup, and he was like,
I need the rest and I have to prioritize rest,
and they really criticized him and he pushed back against it.
And then Polisic also, I know he's not the most
media friendly guy, but I think that's a little overstated.
(39:09):
There's also a nine part documentary just about him on Paramount,
It's the Polisic Story. And then he was profiled in
GQ ahead of this tournament and he said, it's just
another big tournament. Like I came out of this thing saying,
I honestly wonder if the World Cup is as big
(39:30):
of a deal to him as playing for AC Milan.
He makes his money from AC Milan. It's the biggest
American transfer fee in the history of our country. Like
it's weird to say, but I honestly felt like, do
we care, does Donovan care? Does Alexi care more about
(39:50):
wearing the crest of America than Polistic does? And I
know he laid his body on the line and had
the great goal in the last World Cup against Iran
and all of those things. But you wouldn't never catch
MESSI saying it's just another tournament about the World Cup.
And so I think when you combine skipping the Gold Cup,
it's just another tournament. Asking out of both a group
(40:14):
stage game and a knockout stage game with non devastating injuries.
These people who are soccer establishments, people in America who
played the game, they did not reach this conclusion on
Polisic just because of the game against Belgium. This is
years in the making for them with Polisic, and I
think it's totally fair to question if playing for America
(40:38):
in the World Cup is his absolute number one priority.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Listen, I've said this about Luka Dantis his reality now
and Joe Burrows. They're both like one more injury away
from we're out of the peak. They're injury prone. Like
I've said that about Luca, He's never in great shape.
He now has three straight years of being injured. If
it becomes four, that devastatingly great. Trade isn't as great
(41:09):
as you bought. Neither Dallas or the Lakers are viable.
So and I think but one of the things that
pushes back I would push back is our soccer culture
isn't terribly hard. I mean, we still consider playing college
soccer a big deal. Where if you go internationally to
a Morocco, the best African nation now in terms of soccer.
If you go to England and you go to other
(41:30):
places like that that collegiate soccer, it's academies and ours
is hey get a D one scholarship and it's a
little I would say it's a little precious. It doesn't
really it's And by the way, in basketball, one of
the reasons there's so many great international players that if
you served like our great domestic players is their academy
system is better than our AAU system. And I do
(41:52):
think sometimes the people that cover soccer for a living,
especially the print people, New York Times, the Athletic, they
get a little precious, they get little defensive, they start pandering.
You don't understand soccer. I don't have to be a
chef to know the fish is undercooked. I'm sending it
back to the kitchen. I don't have to be a
music critic to know that guy's a hack and that
person's great. Like you don't have to be an expert
(42:12):
pholistic is twenty seven injury prone. And to your point,
there's a sense he lacks kind of like urgency. There's
a certain aesthetic and a certain commentary where I feel like, bro,
this shit matters like a lot. I mean, I mean this,
this World Cup was so successful, America is probably going
(42:34):
to get another one sooner than anticipated. I've read that
several times. This has been a ground breaking way.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, listen, it's a that's why you have There's a
lot here and I think it's fascinating. And I know
sometimes like the hottest take is the best take, but
I think there's a lot here. Like the World Cup
has been a huge success rating raids attendance. My six
year old asked for a jersey, like you know what
(43:01):
I mean, Like he's getting into it. So like growing
soccer in America, all that's like that is happening even
without the US stepping forward. I also think the US
did make progress in this specific way if you look
in the rearview mirror, like I think they say we're
the eighteenth best team in the world for a number,
(43:23):
I think the gap between US and like the fiftieth best.
Speaker 5 (43:26):
Team has grown.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Whereas like we've the last now four World Cups that
we've made, we've made it to the same round every time,
the round of sixteen. But in the past we've kind
of eked our way there draws won to one games
and in this World's Cup, and I know part of
it is where the host country so we got the
pot one draw. I know part of it is expanded
field so there's a round of thirty two now, so
(43:49):
a little bit weaker competition, but we kind of kicked
the shit out of some teams. Scored three goals, scored
four goals, had the most first half goals of any
team in the whole tournament through the round to thirty two.
We're putting the ball in the back of the that.
I do think we have separated ourselves a bit from
Paraguay and Australian teams like that. But when you lose
(44:09):
as convincingly as we did to Belgium, right, the whole
thing was, are you going to take a step forward?
We still have a huge gap between us and the
truly top team. Well yes, well it's interesting you bring
that up. So here are the quarter finalists France, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain.
Those are world powers.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Switzerland once again fifth sixth straight World Cup. I think
this is the third or the fourth time they made
it to the quarters. Historically respected Morocco is now brilliant
federation apparently depths top African nation, and then Norway has
a superstar. Okay, so either superstar soccer power, respected historical
(44:55):
relevant European team or the best African nation that two
beat us out. I would say this between Casey Keller,
Tim Howards.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
We were.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Uniquely weak in goalie. We had an MLS goalie. Our
goalies have always been English Premier League Casey, European guy
for fifteen years. If we had one of our usual
goalies in we lose two us. We don't give up
the second or the third goal. We give up the first,
we give up the last. We lose two to one.
We're outplayed. But the sense is well, if Belgium beat Spain,
(45:31):
we're losing to really good people. So A, you're right,
there's growth. B look at who ends up in the quarters,
the best African nation superpowers. The other thing that should
be noted is participation. Remember this, Danny, look at the
world going forward. A lot of parents don't want their
kids to play football because of violence. Basketball genetically, Let's
(45:53):
be honest, it is a really tall person sport. Baseball
to kids often a lot of standing around and boring.
Hockey super expensive. Soccer's fun. There is pay to play,
but it's cheaper than hockey, probably two to three times cheaper.
This will increase participation. And my guess is, although albeit
or pay to play, I think in communities, if you
(46:16):
really saw if the local teams really saw a spectacular
kid at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old. You'd
find a way to engineer it and get them in.
There's a lot of visibility now with soccer, the academy
system is broader, So I do to think to your point,
this was an absolute win, better goalie.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
We lose two to one, and we were embarrassed. We
weren't beaten.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
It's not that we lost, it's how we lost. And
it got really embarrassing in the last thirty.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Look, I mean honestly, I thought it was kind of
embarrassing from jump with how cautious they played, Like I
did not consider the fact that we could get blown
out in that game, and we did, and I thought
that that was a parent Pretty early on I was like,
oh my god, like it just like the moment felt
a little too big for them, and it is. I mean,
Egypt almost beat Argentina and would have been further than us,
(47:05):
and then we would have been like, well what about
this group? That is to like, why can't we be Egypt?
And I do think it's totally fair to be like,
why can't we have our earling Holland, Like we thought
it was going to be Freddie Adou.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
It wasn't. We thought it was going to be Christian Polisick.
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Now people are like, there's this kid, Kevin Sullivan who's
sixteen on Philly and MLS And I'm like, I can't
keep waiting for the Great Savior to come. And I
do think, and again, I am not an expert on
the pay to play thing, but there is something too.
Our best player is Floren Balligan, who was completely developed
(47:40):
in England. Like he's you know what I mean, parents
are Nigerian. He came up through the English club scene
and the only reason he was able to play for
America is because his mom had him here in birthright
citizenship because she was pregnant and deemed that it wasn't
good for her to fly back when she was pregnant.
And he was like, I don't know that I will
start if I play on England. And because of Harry
(48:00):
Kane and everything that they have, right, so I'll go
play for America. Like, we got to figure out why
they were able to develop our best player and figure
out a way for us to be able to develop
a couple of our own best players.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, and and and by the way, they're they're you know,
if you look at France and a lot of these nations,
you there is these routes to get your best players.
Apparently the federation in Morocco. I was reading about it
this morning actually as my stomach flu is ravaging through
the house. Morocco's federation apparently has done a really good
job to find connections through Europe and that's why they
(48:37):
have so much depth. If you watch Morocco talking about
a dark horse, like you watch them maybe the fastest
team left many they are like in France, speed, they
they they got a bunch wings, midfielders, they move, they're
hard to defend.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
So I think a lot of this is.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Federation based, academy based, and it's hurting our basketball a
little bit. I mean, who are at best to Mastic
players Cooper Flag and Edwards, Jason Tatum, And.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
It feels like I was a drop off, like like
what Trey Young. I mean, the analytics don't like Jaleb Brown.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
So yeah, I mean I think, I think, but I
do believe every four years there is this chorus is
that we're not growing. There's clear growth from participation to
elevation of skill and technical expertise. I think we're a
little soft. I think the soccer culture is a little
harder in England than Argentina than it is here. But
(49:31):
I felt I did too.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
I felt growth, like I said, kind of looking like
we distanced ourselves from the lesser teams which we were
a part of. And I'm not sure if we've grew
enough in the direction of the top teams. And I'm
going to be very interested in like because listen, poach
Tina was expensive, Like, what what do they do with him?
(49:55):
I know everybody wants him back, and I do too.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
I like him.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
It did seem interesting to me that it was like
we weren't tough enough, we weren't ready to play, but
we love the manager. It's like, I don't know, some
of that might be on coaching. I don't exactly know,
but I do think that you know, they've opened up
USA soccer complexes and training development programs, Like you spend
more money on it, you will develop better players and
(50:21):
you need a continuity of program. And to your point,
this tournament kind of flipped my whole life. Watching the
US on the international level, it was like, can we
score goals?
Speaker 5 (50:33):
Right?
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Like we we had four goals We had four goals
in the twenty twenty two Worlds Cup in total, our
in total this time.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
It's like, okay, we can score goals.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Like if we took Tim Howard and a couple of
great oracle American defenders in the past and put them
on this team with ball again and some of our
midfielders and you know, forward players, like, we could have
had a great team.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
It's just we don't have the We gotta we got
to put it all together at once. Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
See, I feel better about this because I'd rather say
we got to find a better goalie than we just
don't have the technical skill to score goals. I feel
broadly great about our technical skill. It'll only get better.
This whole team comes back, probably with three to four editions,
but we just have to find a goalie. I always
felt like we got a goalie. I wish we had
seven guys who could pass and dribble like they do
in England. So I feel broadly yeah, I think.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I mean, listen, Tim Reim was too old and too
slow as like our main defensive player, right, so I
think it is probably yeah. I was reading articles about
like projecting the twenty thirty men's national team roster and
it's very difficult to do. But there are names. You know,
Dax McCarty, rf our first things, first analysts, who's been great.
He played a ton of MLS.
Speaker 5 (51:43):
He played on the men's national team. He knows MLS.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
He's like, yeah, there's a lot of really young talent,
but they just we need to hit like we need
to hit on some stars. I mean, Belgium is sobbing
in Lukaku and it's like we would he be our
best player.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
He came off the bench for them.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Weston McKinney is really good for us, but he's been
like okay on Juventus. You know, Christian Polisic a huge deal.
He led Milan in goals and assists, but Milan was
really disappointing, like they weren't you know. He was like
a good player on a historically great team that also
had a bad year. So we do need to We
have players who are playing in Spain and Italy and
(52:24):
Europe and made all over, but like we need we
need stars. We need to keep leveling up. We're not
We're not there yet.
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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(01:11):
s q U a r E dot com slash go
slash colin. This is what hard rock bet looks like.
It's all yellow shirts.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh yeah, the whole casino, yes, one hundred percent. Oh yes,
the casino, the guitar casino has been That's what I'm saying.
So either the portugu and I'm not sure it might
be like that their Hollywood, Florida is a Columbian stronghold,
and there's different Portuguese stronghold elsewhere in the South Florida area,
but I have seen I saw zero Christiano Ronaldo or
(01:47):
Portugal jerseys at the casino. I've seen zero here. It's
it really seems like Columbia is gonna have a home
field advantage tonight in the game, and if that informs
my bet. I have not bet the game yet. I
thought of and I don't know which way I'm leaning,
but I feel like we're we're almost, We're almost. It's
almost mandatory to go with Columbia at this point.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It is, you know, I was thinking about this as
I was flying down today by the way commercial as
I was.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
That's not a good for you a man of the people.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So I was flying down in Row twenty eight and
I and I was thinking about as I was doing it,
that when was the last time that I turned on
a sporting event? And was shocked at what I was watching.
So the first half against Paraguay, the first fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Our aggressive, He's stunning.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think it's the best half of football any United
States soccer team has ever played.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
National team, And I was.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thinking, when's the last time you turned on a game?
I will say this when when Indiana started taking Alabama
to the woodshed, was like, whoa, the sport is seeds.
You know, that's one of those. But one of the things,
one of the things about the World Cup that it's
always been hard to gauge. We before the friendlies with
(03:07):
Senegal in Germany, we had been on about a nine
month drought.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
We had played terribly in Polisic had and scored in
a year.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And even with A C. Malaney, they had nagging injuries.
And I remember saying to one of the executives at Fox,
I've got horrible vibes about this.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I said, we better have a plan for how we're
gonna talk World Cup, not about the US men's national team.
I was like, we gotta I understand, we're all rooting
for a deep run. But I three weeks before the
World Cup, I was like, hey, guys on the show.
We had a meeting. We were like, hey, we can
all we're all rooting for the US, but we need
(03:43):
to put stakes in the ground on other countries that
are actually going to be playing in the big games,
because the US looked like it was in.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Total disarray instead. Correct, it's been magical. Mexico's good. Yes, England,
all the stars are scoring, all the strikers young and old.
There's been just enough upsets and we've gotten almost universally
(04:12):
permitting weather. Philadelphia had an ugly yes for one day. Yeah,
but I mean you look at the heat wave France
is going through. Correct, we have been so lucky. Just
enough controversy. The high ration breaks are kind of you know,
people are overwrought with that. And my take is they
really started those things.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
In like twenty eighteen or twenty twenty twenty two had
to do it well. Twenty fourteen in Brazil there was
an element of it. Twenty eighteen it was in Russia, right,
But twenty I'm not say twenty two in Katar.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
You had to have it.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I don't care about that, to be totally honest, I
love soccer around a purists.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I don't care about it.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
But to your point though, and then we get to
the US men's national team about this World Cup setting
up with the story, the stars and the best teams.
One of your long time march madness takes is upsets
are fun, but it makes the tournament worse. Ten groups
have been decided. We are ten for ten on the
favorite winning the group. Every single favorite has won its group,
(05:16):
and then we'll see what happens in the final two groups,
of which a lot of these Columbian fans are opening.
The favorite doesn't win because Portugal is one of them,
and then England obviously is the other favorite. So you
have no great teams that have been sent on Check one,
Check two. Is every single one of the huge stars.
It's not only scored had a multi goal game. Even
(05:37):
Christiano Ronaldo, who's forty one and might be wheeled into
the arena, has to at a multi goal game. Messi's
been unbelievable. Messi retired from World Cups in twenty fifteen.
Since then, he's played in three or four and one
to one and might win another. So that's happening, and
it is like the bracket is set up to where
(06:00):
are staring at France Germany in the round of sixteen,
We're staring at Argentina, potentially Portugal in the round of eight,
Mexico hosting England in Mexico City in the round of sixteen.
That's before we even get to the semis, before you
even talk about what you know, if it again, if
(06:23):
the seeding holds, so to speak, we could get Brazil
Argentina in the World Cup semis on one side of
the bracket and France, Spain or maybe the US in
the semis on the other side of the bracket. And
on top of all that, the US has played I
don't know, of my lifetime four of the six best
(06:46):
halves of soccer they've ever played.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
And I'm forty years old.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, and I said this the other day, is that
the great thing about tournaments that Illinois is a great
example of this. You can get to the final four
of the Elite eight having played one good team.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
They played Houston, yep.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And that's the reality is you get to the knockout
stage and you're like, oh, I don't want to play them. Boom,
they loose yellow cards, red cards, injuries. I mean the
reality is great teams get a little tight, just like
March badness, sure right. Unlike basketball, where tight means you
score seventy two nine eighty two, titan soccer means one
goalnot three. And you can see sometimes when you get
(07:22):
to these later stages that the heavy favorite who by
the way, is getting clovered by their country's media.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And so I mean this is why Turkey A when
they beat us, I'm like, guys, they had to win.
I mean it was like the coach is going to
get fired. I was so overjoyed with our effort. You know,
you and I have talked about this. People were so
disappointed with the outcome. And I said, timeout, go one
second before the kick. You would have said, are reserves tied?
(07:53):
Correct a desperate team, So the kick can't make me
think bad.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Outing, So I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I also, if we want to go glass really half full,
you know, probably good for the team to not get
a little too full of itself.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
All that.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I it's the World Cup.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
We had an opportunity to, you know, continue do what
Mexico did, Hey, it's a meaningless game.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
We're gonna go undefeated anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And I was prepared mentally for a draw or even
a loss before the game. When they scored two minutes in,
I'm like, oh my god, I hate you, tweeted like.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I'm not used to the US being the best team
in the world, but they I have.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
My My expectations going into this tournament for the US
team were very simple. If if somehow they don't get
out of the group, then you have to burn the
whole thing to the ground.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
They not only got out of the group, they won
the group.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
We have had for my entire life, well for everybody
here his entire life. The side from the opening tournament
in nineteen thirty a pretty hard ceiling of the round
of sixteen. We've made the quarters once, it was in
O two. The goal was to make the quarters again,
right and see what the hell happens, And they are
(09:12):
now well positioned to do that. They get they have
Bosnia in the first round and then Melchium, probably probably
Belgium at the sea they're off there.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Belgium has not been good.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
And I'm not just saying that because I had my
Father's Day ruined by betting Belgium and they scored zero goals.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But they were you know, back in twenty eighteen they
finished third, Yes, and since twenty fourteen they've made every
big European tournament.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
But they're not the same.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They're no a lot lesslayer's age out correct, got new
young players, they're not as dynamic.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
And Lekaku is not as good as he once was.
But Doku will be the best player on the field
in that game. But so be it. Like, well have
home field advantage.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And of all the teams you could play in the
round of sixteen, they're not They haven't played that great.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
They're not one of the best ones.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I but to your I want to circle back to
your first point, which is I have always spelt World
Cup time, all right, what's the US plan?
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Hold the other team to zero and hope you score
on a set piece.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
It's just been like, if you're playing a good team
and you're the US, that's likely.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
It's like you sure shit.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Better get shut them out and you know you can
get a little lucky or something. You know, one as
they say, moment of magic. That's not this team at
all at all. This team it's you probably gonna need
to score three because you might give up a few,
but you can score one, right, but you they can
score Oh yeah, it's and let's I have the We
(10:36):
talk a lot about how much coaching matters in the
NFL versus the NBA.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
It seems to me man like. I guess they call it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Managing, but managing in soccer might be on level with
coaching in the NFL as far as the importance and
setting a goal for us, instilling believe all of Patino
has been unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
He's just you know, I always said this when Wemby
came into the NBA, he was us. Yes, he won
to do in everything. He very domestic. Yannis wasn't yo
kich you kitch catch home fast enough. Weby's like, I'm
gonna do the monk thing for a couple of weeks,
but I'm gonna come back and start training and I
want to win the NBA All Star Game, MVP. I
could be a villain altro elbows. None of this nonsense
(11:17):
about well, I'm gonna slowly integrate into the American system.
And I think Pochettino his greatest asset has been Okay, guys,
I've done this. We're we're skilled, We're at home. Many
of the good teams are young or a little old.
(11:38):
You can I use these Seahawks as a comparison. Our
thirteen best players are all in their prime, correct or
going into it. That is, that was what Seattle was
last year. The Rams were good, but they had holes
you know, right, and the Rams are a little creaky
at certain spot Seattle, every spot you're like, oh, he's
in his prime.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Two that's rare in sports.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
That was the early Chiefs with Mahomes, when Kelsey was
getting a little old but was still late prime. You're like,
every one of their best players is in their prime.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
The only young guy was Mahomes, and it is the
only guy who wasn't supposed to be in his prime
yet was the quarterback.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
But he got to his prime imediately. The U, yes,
the US. It is a real.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Question of like, man, how many guys on this team
will be around in twenty twenty six, Like it's the
core will Yeah, I think three of the four best
players will. But in general, my point is this is
if you would have said ten years ago, here, you know,
looking in the future, here's the twenty five. Guys, they're
(12:37):
gonna be on your next three World Cup teams. What's
the one where you're gonna have the best combination of
them aging being at their peak?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
We just said twenty twenty six. So all the fact
that we.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Are now going into the knockout rounds because we clinched early,
we don't have to worry about any of the yellow
card accumulation. All those guys, said Polisic, who how do
I put this? Seems to be a little fragile. Seems
like he doesn't necessarily play. He needs to be one
hundred percent to want to go. Yeah, I'm not you know.
I really hope he doesn't get god forbid kicked in
(13:08):
the calf again and have to miss ten days in
the World Cup. But he's healthy and I think they
feel great. And I thought Buchatino was so funny when
he was scolding the media when he was like, you
guys are acting like we go home in Turkey. A
advances like we won the group. We didn't need to
win this game. And they're gonna get even more confidence,
(13:30):
I would imagine, because I think they'll beat Bosnia handily
and then we'll see the I had it in front
of me before I'm gonna pull it up again. It's
we played Belgium, but Belgium's gotta win, and so I
want to see who the other team is. I don't
think it's totally set yet, but I'll pull it up.
But yeah, I think they're gonna make the quarters. And
I think we're gonna have the United States playing Spain
(13:50):
in a World Cup quarter.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Fine, I think we match up fine with Spain.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I don't think anybody matches up with France.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, I mean France looks really, really good.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So I was saying this, you know, every week I
do that Colin right, Colin wrong, and I don't mind
being wrong, but I like being right more than wrong.
And I said, losing to Turkey a proves a twenty
year point I've had. So anytime the American soccer team loses,
you gotta blame Jurgen Klinsman, Bruce Arena, Greg Berholt. It's
always the coach correct, And it's like, but why do
(14:21):
all of our coaches before Pochettino play the same counterattacking
style heavy on set pieces. That's right, because we can't
attack our personnel. It's the same day if you have
bad If you have a bad secondary, you got to
be very careful about bringing extra people in the pass
rock yep, right, great corners, jail break bringing sure.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
So suddenly last Pochettino's hyper aggressive. So it's not a
scheme thing. He didn't have any tactical blunders. We played
our backups and couldn't dominate possession sloppy, and it's like,
it proves my point. It's not a coaching thing. Our
scheme did not change. We went hyper aggressive all sports.
(15:03):
Andy Reid makes Mahome better. Mahomes be fine without it.
He may not get the rings, but he'd be great. Sure,
And Belichick deserves a lot of credit. But in the
end we have really good players. Now we're fit on
the back end.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
So is England, so is Norway.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
But when you watch us play, it was so to me,
it was so instructive to watch how aggressive we were
with our reserves still winning possession.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Sloppy, but it was.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But it proved the value of that, which is.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You cannot play that well and just have a couple
of great moments and get.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Two goals out of it, as opposed to.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
The previous philosophy, which seemed to be we have to
be perfect tactically because we can't give up a goal,
and then we hope to have a moment. It's also
a hell of a lot more fun to watch. Oh yeah,
I did look it up. I couldn't remember. So if
in order for you know, assuming we beat Bosnia, yes
it might be Belgium, but Belgium's most likely opponent there
(16:06):
is Senegal. Senegal absolutely can beat Belgium, and we're not
We've played Senegal before, we've played them in the warm up,
yet like we we're not gonna feel it'll be the
first time ever if we're in the round of sixteen
where we might be favored, and if we're not favored,
we're all gonna feel like, oh well, that's a coin flip,
(16:27):
like we definitely can win that game. And it does
seem like historically, and it's felt this way this tournament,
that there is no event in sports where home field
advantage has a bigger impact than the World Cup. It
does just feel like the it's impossible for the officials
not to somewhat get caught up in the emotion of
(16:49):
the crowd and fifty to fifty calls go the home
team's way and the other team gets a little more
rattled by in what's supposed to be a neutral site
tournament their games being you know, as raucous and rowdy
of a hostile fan base as they're going to experience.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's just there's so many things
to be excited about. And I've said this before. Of
course I root for Fox, I root for hard rock BET.
I work for my corporate sponsors and my partners. But
it could not work out better. The weather messy Rinaldo
Harry Kane, And it's interesting. Some people were worried that
it would dilute the field when they added teams, but most,
(17:28):
I mean some of these African nations, I don't know
anything about their teams, but.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Dude, they've been so I'm I'm like, speaking of competitive
speaking a hard rock bet, I have a I am
all in on Dr Congo tonight. All in the African
nations have been underrated. Congo advances with a win. Who's Bekistan.
I'm not gonna act like I've Scott Husbekistan, but I've
watched their games. They don't seem to be good and
(17:52):
Congo and they're only minus one forty like so the
I'm going to Portugal Columbia, I have no you know,
insight on that. But the African nations have I think
been pretty undervalued by the odds makers and they have
been really competitive. And to your point.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
About no pressure and tons of motivation correct to come back.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But your point about I saw your our colleague. But
a guy who's been on your podcast a couple times,
Michael Molbi, will say if the US big, if if
they were to make a World Cup final, it would
do the same type of rating domestically as the NFC
Championship game. He said, fifty to sixty million people's net
create would watch it. Even if the US, you know,
(18:38):
let's just say the US gets pop doesn't make it past.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
The quarters, which is you know, really where it's projected.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
If the bracket holds, this is what we are looking
at in the quarterfinals, France playing either Netherlands or Morocco.
Netherlands is my dark horse, and well they if they
can get past Morocco and round to thirty two, they
got a great chance. The bottom left part of the
bracket quarterfinal in La July tenth Spain US seems.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Like a pretty cool game Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
The quarterfinal here in Miami July eleventh, that would be
Brazil against England or Mexico. Of Mexico upsets them. Either
way Brazil eng would be sick. And then the other
quarterfinal in Kansas City July eleventh, what I would imagine
will be the highest rated non World Cup final in
world history. Again, if the bracket holds Argentina Portugal, Messi
(19:35):
Ronaldo for an opportunity to go to the semifinal, and
I understand that's just going with the chalk. But this
has been while in an exciting tournament. As I said,
all ten groups have been won by the favorites. This
has been a chalk chalk ish tournament, which is because
the star has been so good. I'm just I'm super
excited about it. And I do think there is now
(19:58):
an element of a moment like this. And the other
big thing about the World Cup is the time zones.
You need the games not at three am at the Olympic. Correct,
It's like it's less important that the game is in
the United States and more that it's in this hemisphere.
Like the last World Cup that I was this into
was twenty fourteen Brazil. Because Brazil is on the same
(20:21):
time zones as US, I wouldn't go into the games anyway,
so what did I care? I do think this will
create more interest domestically in the MLS, in the English
Premier League and in following these stars throughout their regular season.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
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until nine twenty seven, twenty twenty six. I know you
you're going to laugh at me for saying this, but
(21:44):
I think one of the things that helps us is
there has been a capitalization, a geopolitical growth from the
United States for the last ten years, and that is
separated from your own. I just read a story in
The Atlantic flying down. I have a subscription to the
Atlanta is why did Britain get poorer than the Mississippi?
And it's a big it's big discussion of Jamie Diamond
(22:05):
and all these you know, financiers in New York. We
have separated from Europe. Well, that plays to our strength
because a lot of these soccer stars to get him too,
the MLS to get Ken Griffin, a financier of Citadel.
He's the one that paid for Pochettino.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yes, he's so.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The reality is rich guys like to be part of
good momentum and cool stuff. Correct, And if we can
get to a final eight, I can see a world
in which we're like, we're gonna go over there and
we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Make big bids. Oh, try to get some better players, Fouler.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And remember was only Valen Balgan is only on our
team eligible because his.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Flight attendant Fighterdant said, Mom too pregnant to fly. That
lady get that lady should get if we find her
and get her a ticket to the next US.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And increasingly in the World Cup. You're not necessarily born
in the country or of the country. So there's a
lot of gray sure there. And my take is our
explosion of capital in the United States and in the
Americas could be a big advantage going forward.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
That's why momentum here could really be a huge It's hard.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
It's also why and where we put the cart a
little for the horse here, and I know you want
to get to other stuff. It's also why that game
against Bosnia is the biggest game in the history of
the US men's national team. And I know that sounds
crazy because it's around the thirty two game. We once
played a round of eight game against South Korea. I
(23:31):
get that that team, that team to get to the
round of eight had won one game in regulation. They
had to win, a draw, a loss, and then a
penalty kicks win. This every as long as they beat Bosnia,
this will feel like such a massive domestic success for soccer.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
There will be no shame If they lose in the
round of sixteen.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I think they'd be able to beat Belgium or Senegal
or Korea, anybody they can play there, but there would
be no shame in it. But if you do all
of this and then and then all of a sudden,
because we have, oddly, thanks to the Turkey a game,
lost thirteen straight games against European teams and.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
There's a little fluke to that little this.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
But then if all of a sudden Bosnia clips us
as the sixty third ranked team in the world, it
will feel like it was for naught. But you win
that game, and they should win that game. They're huge
favorites to win that game. Then you start to you know,
you start to believe crazier things can happen again. Korea
made the semi finals when they hosted this tournament. There
(24:32):
are six of the host nations in history. Their single
best World Cup appearance or you know, best World Cup
the furthest they've ever gone in the World Cup in
their nation's history is when they hosted it.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
This is an opportunity for us to do.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
It was a nice run. It was a nice run.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
But I mean, I think ultimately, if you look at
the teams in the World Cup, you know there is
a kind of a class of eight, and you know, Spain,
we all know who it is. Argentina. Belgium now counts,
although they've gotten a little older. But remember in twenty
eighteen they were one of the three four best teams
in the world. And I mean, I think it was
(25:14):
pretty obvious. I think the first seven or eight minutes
you could say it was nerves. But after that we
weren't winning enough one on one battles, we weren't maintaining
enough possession, We got very few good shots on goal.
We looked like we were outclassed. We looked like we
did against Paraguay, just flipped the sides and so. And
(25:35):
I also think it's a little bit like the NFL playoffs,
is that the better teams you face, the better coaches
you face, and you know you can get through the
AFC or the NFC South, you know, then you match
up against you know, the Buffalos and the Philadelphia's and
the mcveigh's, and you know, just the better coaches and
the better teams and your flaws become gigantic holes. And
(25:58):
I mean Matt Freeze like an MLS goalie tonight. I
mean when he had Tim Howard. We've had Tony Meola,
Casey Keller, Tim Howard, who was a huge physical presence,
a great athlete, hyper aggressive, big strong presence in goal.
Matt Freeze looks like an MLS goalie, you know, an
embarrassing mistake playing with his feet. I mean, that's like
(26:19):
that stuff you see in a Tuesday night in the MLS.
That's just not good enough. And again it's not exposed
against Paraguay that didn't have much of a dynamic offense,
or Australia, but it does get exposed against Belgium. And
you know, I thought, again one of the things I've
said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to kind
(26:41):
of project that you don't understand soccer. You could see
it very quickly. First five or six minutes. We just
could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We couldn't
win the one on one battles until the very end.
We couldn't get quality shots and when Belgium was in
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims, a thirty
(27:02):
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely, absolutely exposed.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Also listen, Christian Polisic.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
If you look at the best teams, Harry Kanes had
a great tournament, so is Messi, so is Embape, so
is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian Pulisic did not. He's
a slight player. He's always been fragile. He gets banged
up again and I didn't think he played with any
confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning his one on
ones and he kind of, you know, gave the ball
(27:41):
up early in his one on one opportunities. He just
gave it up. That that feels a little bit like
kind of bailing. You're lacking confidence. Then later he gets
injured on a legal play.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Was not a foul.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us. I
think it was five to two in a friendly with
great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of felt
like we weren't playing some of our best players. But
you know, in this instance, we played our best players
and we were just outclassed, you know, And you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
(28:19):
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Beljium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
got the worst, who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal?
Speaker 5 (28:39):
I mean, how many quality shots did we get on
goal tonight?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Two?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Even the Malik Tillman goal on the free kick was
a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose this
way than be frustrated. I mean, Balligan really only got
one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes I
wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no shots
(29:05):
on goal, Belgium two to one. Physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA corner kick was at the end of the
first half. I just think when you see a team
that has a higher level of skill, more experience in
bigger games inside one point, stue Holden was asked about
(29:26):
how do you get better in big games and his
answer was appropriate, you play in them. And Belgium just
felt like they had been in more games like this.
You know, it was funny in the first seven or
eight minutes, I saw that they were calling it nervy
and I'm like, yeah, I'll give you that for about
five minutes, and then it was really really clear we
could not There must have been six, seven, eight, nine
(29:50):
straight moments where it would come down to a one
on one battle and Belgium always came out with a
ball and we met our match.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
But we know.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Now if we flipped goalies, would we have a greater opportunity. Yeah,
but we weren't going to beat Belgium. I thought Matt
Freeze felt like a little bit out of his depth.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
This was a little too.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Big for him, and it happens. But we kind of
know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas. You know,
we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been, We're closer
to Portugal than we've ever been. But there does feel
like a gap, a skill gap between England. Five of
the top thirty three players in this tournament, where I
(30:38):
was reading an article before the tournament by Fox. Five
of the top thirty three were from England. And I mean,
you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch Harry Kane against Mexico.
They were easily the two best players in the pitch.
And you watch that in NBA games, you know, you
see that when you watch great football teams, you can
just see the best players jump through the television. So
(31:00):
it didn't matter if we were playing a four to
two three one, or we had geol rena substitute in
at half, it just didn't matter. We just got outclassed.
And that's where we stand as of today, you know,
and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball, baseball,
and hockey league in the world. And you can look
(31:21):
at the Olympics and say, well, look at what we did.
Our men's and women's won gold at the Olympics in hockey.
But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer. Soccer's got
forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer, that's
like six to seven billion annually in hockey. Because of
the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights. If
(31:46):
you want to dominate international soccer. It is much harder
than dominating international hockey.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
It's just it means more to.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Far more countries. It's just hockey, just not as broad.
It often feels like a cold weather experience, a cold
weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer. Norway's good
at it, Cape Verde is good at it, Argentina and
France are amazing at it. And so you know, we
(32:18):
generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally for sports.
Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred million dollars
between our men's and women's team annually, four hundred million,
and that's that's on par with many of the top teams,
but not greater then. And we also don't have the
cultural fixation, fascination, intensity, or passion that other nations do.
(32:44):
I don't look at this World Cup as a failure.
I think we earned ourselves another World Cup sometime very soon.
Our infrastructure is so capable of hosting it. But I
think it's just it's the one sport, one Rubik's cube
we're trying to decipher, and it really comes down to revenue.
(33:09):
It's massive, very difficult to buy your way to championships
and again we have some really nice players. But saying
in a globe with two hundred and fifteen countries that
were not in the top eight, there's no great shame
in it. But I thought we were out classed. And
(33:29):
I will say Sebastian Burhalter adds great energy, We had
great fight until the end. But we met our match.
And that's okay. I mean it's not okay. It's infuriating.
It's in Seattle. But I don't think you walk away
from this and say so we gave it a good run,
(33:51):
we gave it a good fight. You just keep chipping away.
Remember England has won one World Cup, Spain has won
one World Cup. This shit is hard, you know, And
I'm sure I'll just get blast in my text tonight
when I wake up tomorrow. We'll we will never compete.
(34:13):
This is worthless. We got out class tonight, but it's
worth the fight. It's just you know, look it up sometime,
look up soccer revenues globally and what we're going up against.
Belgium added on that final goal. So if you count
the friendly against tonight five to two and four to one,
(34:35):
our back end was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweet in
the two times we face Belgium gives you a sense
of where we currently are the on the soccer global map. Remember,
our average age is under twenty seven, so a majority
of this team is back with more European and international experience.
(34:58):
It's not on our soil. But generally group stages aren't
our greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is
a very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine
years old is the average age, still one of the
youngest teams at this World Cup. So, by the way,
if you're wondering, I am healthy enough to do a
forty five minute podcast today, but my boss has called
(35:19):
me after yesterday's show. I played hurt yesterday. I had
a fever and the stomach virus is going around the Midwest.
So I went to bed last night at seven thirty five,
took THEO flu.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
I broke my fever. So I'm okay. Stomach's a mess.
It's a Midwest thing.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
But we had this planned and I think it's fitting
because there's so many things I want to talk about
with Danny Parkins. So you know, listen, every four years
after we lose in the World Cup. The drum beats.
It's our culture, you know, it's our youth movement. But
I did think it was kind of instructive that Carli Lloyd, Stuholden,
(35:58):
Alexi Lawless all kind of had the same drum beat,
which is, hey, Christian Pulisic, nobody wants to hear about rest.
This isn't baseball. You don't have a game tomorrow. We
don't want to hear about rest. And I think it's fair,
and I'll tell you why. Polistics twenty seven Messi is
a smaller athlete, has never messed a World Cup game,
(36:20):
and you know he hasn't been healthy one hundred percent
of the time. We know Polistics not Arling Holland. He's
not a soccer version of Krok, but he gets banged
up a lot. He's twenty seven. But there is an
indifference or a lack of urgency. Sometimes that comes off
as condescending from Polistic, like he's above it all.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
And we don't like that from ara athlete.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
By the way, if you said that in Argentina, the
Argentinian press would savage you. If you said it in
Greece or Italy or London, you'd get crushed for it.
I think my knock on polistic is that this is
this is different than the other sports. It's every four years.
Soccer already faces a little cynicism because of the flopping,
(37:05):
so you kind of fake injuries all the time. So
like when you come up and say, all right, I
can still see on the pitch, you can still move.
I don't want to hear about rest. I don't think
that's unfair. I think it's pandering to call that unfair.
I think that's very reasonable. International Soccer commentary by Carly
(37:25):
Stewing Alexi of.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Course, and he after the game said that he thought
he maybe sprained his ankle. We expect you to play
through a sprained ankle, right right, Like I mean, if
you would have come out afterwards that he would have
ruptured his achilles. You know, no one would have said anything,
you know, but it was like, wait, you kicked the
(37:47):
other guy. You kind of stubbed your foot into the ground.
You were hobbling around out there. We expect you to
be able to hobble that off. And I'm not saying
that I could do it, but I am saying that
world class athletes should be able to do it.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
And this is the thing. I am not a twenty
four to seven, three.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Sixty five soccer person, but I really prepped very hard
ahead of this World's Cup. I take my job very
seriously with how first things. First overtime is going, Like
Nick Wilds and Brew are not on the show with me,
so I'm doing the full hour with me and Dax
McCarty and maybe other soccer people that we bring on.
So like, I prepped my ass off ahead of this
(38:27):
World's Cup. Part of that was watching the five part
Team USA documentary, and in the documentary there was a
whole section of time on Polisic feeling defensive and pushing
back against the old American soccer establishment guys like Alexi
and Landon, who had criticized him for skipping the Gold Cup.
(38:49):
They were like, You've got to play in the Gold Cup.
It's because this is such a huge tournament for Team
USA and it's a home World Cup, and he was like,
I need the rest and I have to prioritize rest,
and they really criticized him and he pushed back against it.
And then Polisic also, I know he's not the most
media friendly guy, but I think that's a little overstated.
(39:09):
There's also a nine part documentary just about him on Paramount,
It's the Polisic Story. And then he was profiled in
GQ ahead of this tournament and he said, it's just
another big tournament. Like I came out of this thing saying,
I honestly wonder if the World Cup is as big
(39:30):
of a deal to him as playing for AC Milan.
He makes his money from AC Milan. It's the biggest
American transfer fee in the history of our country. Like
it's weird to say, but I honestly felt like, do
we care, does Donovan care? Does Alexi care more about
(39:50):
wearing the crest of America than Polistic does? And I
know he laid his body on the line and had
the great goal in the last World Cup against Iran
and all of those things. But you wouldn't never catch
MESSI saying it's just another tournament about the World Cup.
And so I think when you combine skipping the Gold Cup,
it's just another tournament. Asking out of both a group
(40:14):
stage game and a knockout stage game with non devastating injuries.
These people who are soccer establishments, people in America who
played the game, they did not reach this conclusion on
Polisic just because of the game against Belgium. This is
years in the making for them with Polisic, and I
think it's totally fair to question if playing for America
(40:38):
in the World Cup is his absolute number one priority.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Listen, I've said this about Luka Dantis his reality now
and Joe Burrows. They're both like one more injury away
from we're out of the peak. They're injury prone. Like
I've said that about Luca, He's never in great shape.
He now has three straight years of being injured. If
it becomes four, that devastatingly great. Trade isn't as great
(41:09):
as you bought. Neither Dallas or the Lakers are viable.
So and I think but one of the things that
pushes back I would push back is our soccer culture
isn't terribly hard. I mean, we still consider playing college
soccer a big deal. Where if you go internationally to
a Morocco, the best African nation now in terms of soccer.
If you go to England and you go to other
(41:30):
places like that that collegiate soccer, it's academies and ours
is hey get a D one scholarship and it's a
little I would say it's a little precious. It doesn't
really it's And by the way, in basketball, one of
the reasons there's so many great international players that if
you served like our great domestic players is their academy
system is better than our AAU system. And I do
(41:52):
think sometimes the people that cover soccer for a living,
especially the print people, New York Times, the Athletic, they
get a little precious, they get little defensive, they start pandering.
You don't understand soccer. I don't have to be a
chef to know the fish is undercooked. I'm sending it
back to the kitchen. I don't have to be a
music critic to know that guy's a hack and that
person's great. Like you don't have to be an expert
(42:12):
pholistic is twenty seven injury prone. And to your point,
there's a sense he lacks kind of like urgency. There's
a certain aesthetic and a certain commentary where I feel like, bro,
this shit matters like a lot. I mean, I mean this,
this World Cup was so successful, America is probably going
(42:34):
to get another one sooner than anticipated. I've read that
several times. This has been a ground breaking way.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, listen, it's a that's why you have There's a
lot here and I think it's fascinating. And I know
sometimes like the hottest take is the best take, but
I think there's a lot here. Like the World Cup
has been a huge success rating raids attendance. My six
year old asked for a jersey, like you know what
(43:01):
I mean, Like he's getting into it. So like growing
soccer in America, all that's like that is happening even
without the US stepping forward. I also think the US
did make progress in this specific way if you look
in the rearview mirror, like I think they say we're
the eighteenth best team in the world for a number,
(43:23):
I think the gap between US and like the fiftieth best.
Speaker 5 (43:26):
Team has grown.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Whereas like we've the last now four World Cups that
we've made, we've made it to the same round every time,
the round of sixteen. But in the past we've kind
of eked our way there draws won to one games
and in this World's Cup, and I know part of
it is where the host country so we got the
pot one draw. I know part of it is expanded
field so there's a round of thirty two now, so
(43:49):
a little bit weaker competition, but we kind of kicked
the shit out of some teams. Scored three goals, scored
four goals, had the most first half goals of any
team in the whole tournament through the round to thirty two.
We're putting the ball in the back of the that.
I do think we have separated ourselves a bit from
Paraguay and Australian teams like that. But when you lose
(44:09):
as convincingly as we did to Belgium, right, the whole
thing was, are you going to take a step forward?
We still have a huge gap between us and the
truly top team. Well yes, well it's interesting you bring
that up. So here are the quarter finalists France, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain.
Those are world powers.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Switzerland once again fifth sixth straight World Cup. I think
this is the third or the fourth time they made
it to the quarters. Historically respected Morocco is now brilliant
federation apparently depths top African nation, and then Norway has
a superstar. Okay, so either superstar soccer power, respected historical
(44:55):
relevant European team or the best African nation that two
beat us out. I would say this between Casey Keller,
Tim Howards.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
We were.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Uniquely weak in goalie. We had an MLS goalie. Our
goalies have always been English Premier League Casey, European guy
for fifteen years. If we had one of our usual
goalies in we lose two us. We don't give up
the second or the third goal. We give up the first,
we give up the last. We lose two to one.
We're outplayed. But the sense is well, if Belgium beat Spain,
(45:31):
we're losing to really good people. So A, you're right,
there's growth. B look at who ends up in the quarters,
the best African nation superpowers. The other thing that should
be noted is participation. Remember this, Danny, look at the
world going forward. A lot of parents don't want their
kids to play football because of violence. Basketball genetically, Let's
(45:53):
be honest, it is a really tall person sport. Baseball
to kids often a lot of standing around and boring.
Hockey super expensive. Soccer's fun. There is pay to play,
but it's cheaper than hockey, probably two to three times cheaper.
This will increase participation. And my guess is, although albeit
or pay to play, I think in communities, if you
(46:16):
really saw if the local teams really saw a spectacular
kid at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old. You'd
find a way to engineer it and get them in.
There's a lot of visibility now with soccer, the academy
system is broader, So I do to think to your point,
this was an absolute win, better goalie.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
We lose two to one, and we were embarrassed. We
weren't beaten.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
It's not that we lost, it's how we lost. And
it got really embarrassing in the last thirty.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Look, I mean honestly, I thought it was kind of
embarrassing from jump with how cautious they played, Like I
did not consider the fact that we could get blown
out in that game, and we did, and I thought
that that was a parent Pretty early on I was like,
oh my god, like it just like the moment felt
a little too big for them, and it is. I mean,
Egypt almost beat Argentina and would have been further than us,
(47:05):
and then we would have been like, well what about
this group? That is to like, why can't we be Egypt?
And I do think it's totally fair to be like,
why can't we have our earling Holland, Like we thought
it was going to be Freddie Adou.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
It wasn't. We thought it was going to be Christian Polisick.
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Now people are like, there's this kid, Kevin Sullivan who's
sixteen on Philly and MLS And I'm like, I can't
keep waiting for the Great Savior to come. And I
do think, and again, I am not an expert on
the pay to play thing, but there is something too.
Our best player is Floren Balligan, who was completely developed
(47:40):
in England. Like he's you know what I mean, parents
are Nigerian. He came up through the English club scene
and the only reason he was able to play for
America is because his mom had him here in birthright
citizenship because she was pregnant and deemed that it wasn't
good for her to fly back when she was pregnant.
And he was like, I don't know that I will
start if I play on England. And because of Harry
(48:00):
Kane and everything that they have, right, so I'll go
play for America. Like, we got to figure out why
they were able to develop our best player and figure
out a way for us to be able to develop
a couple of our own best players.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, and and and by the way, they're they're you know,
if you look at France and a lot of these nations,
you there is these routes to get your best players.
Apparently the federation in Morocco. I was reading about it
this morning actually as my stomach flu is ravaging through
the house. Morocco's federation apparently has done a really good
job to find connections through Europe and that's why they
(48:37):
have so much depth. If you watch Morocco talking about
a dark horse, like you watch them maybe the fastest
team left many they are like in France, speed, they
they they got a bunch wings, midfielders, they move, they're
hard to defend.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
So I think a lot of this is.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Federation based, academy based, and it's hurting our basketball a
little bit. I mean, who are at best to Mastic
players Cooper Flag and Edwards, Jason Tatum, And.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
It feels like I was a drop off, like like
what Trey Young. I mean, the analytics don't like Jaleb Brown.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
So yeah, I mean I think, I think, but I
do believe every four years there is this chorus is
that we're not growing. There's clear growth from participation to
elevation of skill and technical expertise. I think we're a
little soft. I think the soccer culture is a little
harder in England than Argentina than it is here. But
(49:31):
I felt I did too.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
I felt growth, like I said, kind of looking like
we distanced ourselves from the lesser teams which we were
a part of. And I'm not sure if we've grew
enough in the direction of the top teams. And I'm
going to be very interested in like because listen, poach
Tina was expensive, Like, what what do they do with him?
(49:55):
I know everybody wants him back, and I do too.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
I like him.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
It did seem interesting to me that it was like
we weren't tough enough, we weren't ready to play, but
we love the manager. It's like, I don't know, some
of that might be on coaching. I don't exactly know,
but I do think that you know, they've opened up
USA soccer complexes and training development programs, Like you spend
more money on it, you will develop better players and
(50:21):
you need a continuity of program. And to your point,
this tournament kind of flipped my whole life. Watching the
US on the international level, it was like, can we
score goals?
Speaker 5 (50:33):
Right?
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Like we we had four goals We had four goals
in the twenty twenty two Worlds Cup in total, our
in total this time.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
It's like, okay, we can score goals.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Like if we took Tim Howard and a couple of
great oracle American defenders in the past and put them
on this team with ball again and some of our
midfielders and you know, forward players, like, we could have
had a great team.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
It's just we don't have the We gotta we got
to put it all together at once. Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
See, I feel better about this because I'd rather say
we got to find a better goalie than we just
don't have the technical skill to score goals. I feel
broadly great about our technical skill. It'll only get better.
This whole team comes back, probably with three to four editions,
but we just have to find a goalie. I always
felt like we got a goalie. I wish we had
seven guys who could pass and dribble like they do
in England. So I feel broadly yeah, I think.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I mean, listen, Tim Reim was too old and too
slow as like our main defensive player, right, so I
think it is probably yeah. I was reading articles about
like projecting the twenty thirty men's national team roster and
it's very difficult to do. But there are names. You know,
Dax McCarty, rf our first things, first analysts, who's been great.
He played a ton of MLS.
Speaker 5 (51:43):
He played on the men's national team. He knows MLS.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
He's like, yeah, there's a lot of really young talent,
but they just we need to hit like we need
to hit on some stars. I mean, Belgium is sobbing
in Lukaku and it's like we would he be our
best player.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
He came off the bench for them.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Weston McKinney is really good for us, but he's been
like okay on Juventus. You know, Christian Polisic a huge deal.
He led Milan in goals and assists, but Milan was
really disappointing, like they weren't you know. He was like
a good player on a historically great team that also
had a bad year. So we do need to We
have players who are playing in Spain and Italy and
(52:24):
Europe and made all over, but like we need we
need stars. We need to keep leveling up. We're not
We're not there yet.
Host
Colin Cowherd
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