Road to Qatar E122 #PremoPod

'@MikeMillerFC talks about the 2022 FIFA World Cup draw and much more! #PremoPod

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to podcast Hold of Games inBrooklyn. Hello, and welcome to this
episode of the premier podcast with you, as always, straight from Montreal,

(00:21):
came back your host Michael Miller andwith me today. There is absolutely nobody.
I'm doing this all by myself.I'm doing this all alone. It's
been a very long time. I'vebeen meaning to drop an episode such a
long time ago. But I've gonethrough some stuff in the previous year.
Uh, mainly to two knee surgeriesand a very very long recovery, UH,

(00:49):
and so many other things in mypersonal life. I've changed jobs,
even I've I've I've been drew alot of stuff. And you know,
the pandemic and I have this clubthat I run a lot of you know
about it, club bloger and inMontreal, which is the official FC Barcelona

(01:10):
supporters group in Montreal. And withthe pandemic and everything, we've had a
lot of challenges and we were ableto continue some of our activities throughout the
pandemic. A beautiful community we havetheir shout out to them, and yeah,
I'm I'm glad to be back.I'm very happy to be back.

(01:32):
And as you have probably noticed,I am going through some sort of rebranding
phase. And you know, tobe frank, when I started this Premier
podcast in twenty eighteen, I wantedto be all about Canadian soccer. And
I'm still very much all about Canadiansoccer, but the podcast became Canadian Premier

(01:57):
League centric. I covered a lotof the I covered the Canadian Premier League
a lot. I interviewed club presidents, managers, players, agents, and
I don't know what all this timethat I that I stepped away from the
pod. I kind of rethought thewhole, uh, the whole format,

(02:24):
and I'm like, I love theCanadian Premier League, but I want to
expend my horizons a little bit.Sure, this podcast will continue to be
focused on the Canadian soccer, butif something else pops up, your boy
might want to cover it, mightwant to discuss it, might want to
even have a guest or two todiscuss these topics. And you know,

(02:49):
the last episode, which was avery long time ago, I started going
deep with coach Matt of Minneapolis Citysc shout out to him too, A
very very good friend of the show, started talking about, you know,
MESSI leaving Barcelona. I had anepisode about the Super League with another friend
of the pot, sim Madamo ofthe Coucio podcast, and you know that's

(03:14):
it. I mean, this showwill continue to be about soccer, definitely
from a Canadian perspective. We're goingto continue talking about the Canadian Premier League,
We're going to continue talking about theCanadian national teams. But I don't
want to limit myself to that.I want to be able to talk about
whatever I want, whenever I want, and obviously the main focus will be

(03:37):
Canadian soccer since a lot of youlisteners tune in to listen to me ramble
about Canadian soccer. But it's notgoing to be as the format. We're
not going to be as rigid asit once was. I think that I
owe it to myself to be ableto talk about whatever I want, and

(03:58):
I think that it always makes makesfor some very good content when I do
so. So I'm going to continueto win whatever I want. And you
know, if you guys are notsatisfied with that, you can always let
me know. I'm always open tocriticism, but this is this is what
I want to do this time around. I want to be able to talk
about whatever I want. And onething that I do want to talk about

(04:21):
tonight is obviously the twenty twenty twofee for World Cup draw, which happened
today, April first, twenty twentytwo, and the one thing that I
didn't want to see ended up happening. My two nations, my two countries,
Canada and Morocco will be in thesame group group F. If I

(04:43):
had to pick a letter to sumup how I feel today, the letter
F is very much up there inin my top choices. I really was
not happy at all. If youfollow me on social media, I'm sure
you already saw a picture of mewearing both jerseys Canada and Morocco. And

(05:06):
you know, I know that alot of people out there feel as though
you should only love one team,you should only cheer for one team.
That was never the case for me. I'm proud to be Canadian, I'm
proud to be Moroccan. I've alwaysfollowed both teams. Both teams are very
near and dear of my heart.And now on December first, which has

(05:27):
matched day three of the group stage, Canada and Morocco will face each other.
And you know, there's a solidchance that one team might even eliminate
the other from the competition. AndI don't know how I feel about that.
This draw really ruined the entire competitionfor me. I see everyone out

(05:48):
there sporting their jerseys, waving theirflags. I feel like I'm gonna have
to isolate myself and enjoy this WorldCup on my own, which totally fricking
sucks because you know, and I'mnot saying that I would pick, or
that I should pick, or thatI'm thinking about picking. But if I
pick Canada, my Moroccan, myMoroccan friends and family will hate me for

(06:14):
it. And if I pick Morocco, well, most of you guys will
hate me for it. So I'mbetween a rock and a hard place.
I don't know what to do.I don't know how to feel, I
don't know what to think. AllI know is that I wish it didn't
have to happen this way, butit will, and hopefully my wish is
for that match to be as meaninglessas possible. I hope that one of

(06:36):
these two teams will already have qualifiedby the time they'll face each other.
But yeah, it's a tall order. Belgium always in the top, always
in the top seven. They've beenI think the previous I think it's the
third straight World Cup that they're actuallytop seated Croatia. Obviously, they were

(07:00):
the finalists of the twenty eighteen WorldCup. A lot of people forget about
that, And yeah, this isgoing to be our tournament. This is
how it's gonna have to start andhopefully not end. I believe that.
And you know, I'm going tostart talking about Canada a lot more since
this is a Canadian podcast. ButCanada is strong enough to make it out

(07:24):
of this group, and for itto happen, they're gonna there's gonna have
to be a surprise. And whenI look at Belgium and when I look
at Croatia, what I see istwo squads who have had a lot of
success in the previous cycle, ifnot cycles. However, they haven't done
a very good job at renewing theirrosters. And that's where the door might

(07:49):
open for a team like Canada.I strongly believe that Canada is in the
very beginning of a very long cyclewhich could take us all the way to
twenty twenty six and beyond. Actually, not a lot of us were thinking
about twenty twenty two as even beinga possibility just four years ago. We

(08:13):
were all betting the farm on twentytwenty six and then boom, they just
saved us four years. We couldwe get to talk about Canada at the
World Cup four years prior to whatwe thought we would be able to.
And for podcasters such as myself,it's a gift from the sky. And

(08:35):
did did this qualification motivate me toto start the Premiere podcast again? Hashtag
Primo Pods. By the way,hashtag Premo Pods At Primo Pod, I
changed all the handles, but ifyou want to keep it simple, just
follow me at Mike Miller FC,Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, which is

(08:56):
which are my personal social accounts.But yeah, I didn't know when I
was going to make a comeback.And you know, I can't really call
that a comeback because I've never stopped. I've never stopped my other projects,
the blog Agrown podcast, Bloggroun inMontreal, and you know, I've been

(09:16):
pretty consistent when it came to those. But for the Premier Podcast, I
took a little step back. Itook a little break. I had to
think about the format, I hadto think about what I wanted to do
with it. And we're gonna getWe're gonna go back to the Canadian men's
national team in a second. Butto be completely frank with you, one
of the reasons why I decided torethink the format is because after four years

(09:41):
of being promised anything and everything,the province of Quebec still doesn't have a
Canadian Premier League franchise. And oneof the reasons why I was really pushing
hard for the Canadian Premier League sincetwenty eighteen. One of the reasons why
I decided to cover it as muchas I I have since twenty eighteen was

(10:01):
because I wanted to contribute in creatingsome sort of a buzz in the province
of Quebec and the rest of Canadawhen it came to how important it was
for us to have a team,if not two teams, And you know,
to be honest with you, Isee franchises being granted to Saskatoon,

(10:22):
Vancouver, Windsor Ontario, and youknow, these are still these projects are
still in their early stages, andI'm like, how come we can't do
the same in Montreal, well inthe Montreal region, or in Quebec City.
How come we can't be granted afranchise conditional to a stadium or an

(10:45):
ownership group or what have you,and then we can build from that.
But you know, since twenty eighteen, we've had nothing, nothing at all.
Promises from this guy or that guy, and you know who I'm talking
about, but nothing more than that. And I can't blame anyone in particular,
but as a soccer fan, Ican be very disappointed because and I

(11:07):
know that I'm being perhaps a littlegreedy, because we already have an MLS
club here in Montreal, and we'vehad we've had professional soccer here for generations,
so it's not like we're really missingprofessional soccer here. But there is

(11:28):
a gap in the pyramid. AndI thought that the Canadian Premier League would
fill that gap. And I knowthat the Canadian Premier League is a Division
one league, same as MLS,but between you and I, MLS is
MLS and the Canadian Premier League isthe Canadian Premier League. We're not talking
about the same budgets, we're nottalking about the same infrastructures, we're not

(11:48):
talking about the same developmental structure structuresreally, because the MLS, you know,
MLS clubs have to have have tohave their own developmental systems academies,
reserve teams and what have you,whereas in the Canadian Premier League we're more

(12:13):
focused on partnerships between CPL clubs andthe grassroots. And I felt like that
could have actually filled a void inthe province of Quebec. And we've seen
a lot of young soccer players herein the province of Quebec who were developmentally

(12:35):
ready to make it to professional soccers, but not quite ready to make it
to the MLS. And I thoughtthat, you know, being able to
have the Premier League as an optionhas helped a lot of them continuing their
professional career. And there was alot of them across the league. We're
not going to start naming all ofthem, but there's a lot of them
across the league, and today orthis week rather, I I was pleased

(13:03):
to see that. I was pleasedto see the creation of League One Canada,
which basically is an umbrella created tooversee League one BC, League one
Ontario and the p LSQ. AndI noticed that there was a little asterisk
the PLSQ will have to change itslogo and possibly it's brand. Is it

(13:26):
going to be called League one Quebec. We shall see, but I'm expecting
it to be called League one Quebecin twenty twenty three, and I'm expecting
it to have the same logo asLeague one Ontario, League one BC and
obviously League one Canada, and I'mexcited to see that finally we're going to
have some sort of uniformity between allthird division leagues across the country and perhaps

(13:48):
this League one Canada entity will overseethe creation of a second division in Canada.
But you know, I've always thoughtthat the best way to build the
pyramid would be from the ground up, from the grassroots to the third division,
and then the next steps would comein time, in due time.

(14:15):
And to see the creation of Leagueone Canada, I feel is a very
very good thing for Canadian soccer altogetherand I can't wait to see what's going
to happen next. With that thatbeing said, and going back to the
FIFA World Cup, um, shoutout to the Voyagers, Shout out to
everyone who made it to bemo Fieldto see all those matches to Adminton,

(14:37):
even the Commonwealth Stadium aka the Iceteca. And I didn't have a chance to
go to the to the to thegames myself. You know, my work
schedule doesn't permit me to travel fourmatches and make it all the way back
to Montreal and time to get backto work. But that definitely definitely good

(15:01):
to see how not only interested,but passionate Canadians are about soccer. And
you know, I come from it. I'm thirty seven years old. I
come from a generation where soccer waswas important from a community perspective, but
it wasn't as well developed as itis today. Lots of kids played soccer

(15:24):
at the park, but not alot of them played organized soccer, not
even not even recreational soccer. Iwas one of those kids. I played
soccer in the park with my friendsor during fizzad, but you know,
I didn't play organized soccer, Andnow you know I played recreational soccer.

(15:45):
My my, my club has ahas a soccer team, actually the club
that I that I'm the president ofClublocron of the Montreal Um. But you
know, when I look around meand I and I ask her, like,
a lot of my friends have children, and their children most of them
play organized soccer now, which wasnot the case back then. Back then,

(16:07):
everybody played hockey and in the summermost kids played baseball. So to
see that people are interested in theCanadians men's national team or women's national team,
or you know, any other nationalteam at any other level, or
you know, even Paralympic. It'snice to see that our national teams are

(16:32):
doing well because when our national teamsdo well, it encourages people to get
involved at the grassroots level because perhapstheir kids could be next. Their kids
could be the next Alphonso Davies orthe next Jonathan David, or the next
Milan Borion or the next Samuel Piatonly to name a few. And I

(16:56):
don't know. I can't remember eightysix because I was only I was barely
two years old. So for me, it's going to be a first and
for a lot of you guys,it's going to be a first two.
And for those of you who remembernineteen eighty six, I'm sure that you
didn't think that you could that youwould live to see the day when Canada
would take part. And not onlyone World Cup, but let's keep in

(17:21):
mind, Canada's qualified for twenty twentysix as one of the co hosts as
well, So it's going to beback to back World Cups for Canada for
the very first time in history,and that fact gets overlooked. Not a
lot of people talk about that,but that's also something to be very proud
of. Another fun fact to beproud of is the fact that John Herdman
is the first ever manager to takewomen's and men's national sides to their respective

(17:48):
World Cups, taking the Canadian women'snational team back in the day and now
the Canadian men's national team to theWorld Cup. So lots and lots and
lots of things to be proud of, lots and lots of things to look
forward to, and lots of lotsof information to digest. That being said,
today's episode is kind of a tryingof me checking up on you,

(18:11):
as Bill Burr would say. ButI'm gonna definitely have guests. That's something
that I that I really appreciate aboutthe old format, and I'm going to
keep that going from time to time. I'm gonna bought on my own,
but I really do enjoy having guests, and I have a very solid lineup
of guests that I that I knowI can count on. But today this

(18:33):
is only me telling you all thatI'm back and I'm very excited and you'll
be able to count on a moreconsistent amount of of Primo pods from here
on out. I know that whenI was getting my surgeries, you know,

(18:55):
sometimes I would bought every single day, and then I would take away
for a month, and then Iwould bought a single day. There was
a time when I did podcast likeI thought. I think I was like
dropping episodes every single day for likeone hundred days during the start of the
of the pandemic. I'm not gonnado that again, but I'm gonna look

(19:15):
for a more consistent schedule. Isit gonna be once a week, once
every second week, I'm not sure, but it's definitely going to be more
consistent leading us all to the tothe twenty twenty four World Cup in November
and December twenty twenty two, andin the meantime, I'm going to try
to cover as much Canadian soccer aspossible at every level. But there's gonna

(19:37):
be some episodes about other stuff aswell, or perhaps I'm going to talk
about a mishmash of things within thesame episode. All I'm saying is that
I'm going to be a lot moreconsistent when it comes to the schedule,
but a lot more free when itcomes to the content, and that's the
only way that I could be consistent, because content gets created every single week

(20:00):
in the world of soccer, butnot necessarily in the world of grassrooods soccer
in Canada, let's say so.For that reason, I think that it's
best that I allow myself to havethe freedom to talk about whatever I want.
But Canadian soccer is Canadian soccer isalways going to do. This show's
bread and butter, and I callit bread and butter, and this show's

(20:22):
not earning its stand But you getmy You get my point. You get
the gist of what I'm trying tosay. So thank you all for tuning
in. I know this is ashort one, but there's gonna be There's
gonna be an episode next week,and I'm sure that you're going to be
happy to learn who my guest isgoing to be for that episode. In
the meantime, thank you all forlistening, and we'll catch you next week

(20:45):
for another episode of the premiere podcast. Okay, I don't see nigga.

(21:06):
I'm gonna look at your face,but you can't seeky Okay all over your
right, but niggas can't see twentytwenty in visions your live baby, but
you can't see me. Classes on, you can't see me play, don't

(21:30):
like baby, don't believe. Letmething your reads. I say we okay,
right before your very eyes. Youwon't even been your life. Okag
dot to drain all day, Nigga'scaze. I better keep this see you

(21:59):
mom. I'm talking this one foryou, big baby, because your bitches
can't see can't see me. Youcan't see no evorn heba sig eva who

(22:38):
want to see me? You don'twant to see me, but you want
can see me, but you can't. If you can't see me, you
can't between your eyes, you'll liveYour line run into your eyes. You

(23:06):
won't line usualize what you can't see. You won't care you can't see me