All the World Cup Round of 32 gossip you need: Ronaldo’s girlfriend falls for fake AI drama, Erling Haaland and a Norway hot take, the most interesting USMNT player and more with Hannah Vanbiber

Testing, testing. Hello. Hello. Hello. Anna, you want to be our first guest test? Yeah. Testing, testing. I love it. Hell yeah. Okay. See how that sounded. Hi, Charlotte. Madeline, good day. We're back with another episode of the Sports Gossip Show presented by eBay Live. Woo, woo, woo. Sounds so echoey in here. I like that one. I can't hear. Is it echoey? I can't hear it. I don't know if it's actually echoey. It's just I'm used to different sound. What is it? Haptics? What is it? No, haptic is the buzzing on your phone. Nope. Haptic is when your phone vibrates. Well, technically the sound waves are vibrating. Acoustics? Acoustics. There it is. There we go. We are not in the same place. I can't believe we haven't done a remote recording in quite some time. No, we have been locked the heck in, in person. I much prefer it, I will say. Yes. But, you know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Um, so we are not in the same place right now. Um, and I think we're doing okay. I think we're doing great. You know what I was thinking about with this remote recording is I really, I really wish we had done an actual recording when I was on the boat in the Galapagos with that crazy good Wi-Fi. Early shareholders will remember when we went live on when I was on the boat in the Galapagos and I had better Wi-Fi than I do in my New York City apartment on this boat in the middle of the ocean. That was crazy. I feel like you FaceTimed me. We FaceTimed more when you were on that boat, I think simply because you could. Like you were, you were so excited because we went into it. When you went to the Galapagos, we went into it thinking there we are going to, it's going to be no contact. This is going to be like a separation. And then it turned out that the Wi-Fi like could power a small city. No, it was crazy. It was like the Wi-Fi was so good. I just kept wanting to FaceTime you to show you how good it was. It was truly unbelievable. It was like way too good for what it was meant for, which is like going on Instagram. And you know what I love about you? I love that. You know what, if that doesn't signal how much you love infrastructure, I don't know what does. Correct. Correct. That is so true. That is so true. That's pretty much what was going on there. So yes, I'm, I'm sad not to be in the same place, but when we are in the same place again, um, we, we have, we have a very cool thing to show our shareholders. So let that be a tease in the biz folks. Tease in the biz. You'll just have to wait and see folks. Um, which, you know, I feel I'm someone I don't like. Yeah. Waiting and seeing. Yeah. Um, I don't know, but we're just doing that. It's like when someone posts on their Instagram, like exciting thing coming soon. I can't tell you. And you're like, well, the, why are you posting this right now? No one asked, no one thought you had something exciting coming soon, but now I'm thinking you do, which is great for you, but I would like to know what it is now. Well, also it then builds it up. So everyone's like, Oh my God, are you starring in a movie? And they're like, got a new couch. And you're like, well, I overshot the mark on that one. You know, it's true. It's true. So I don't know why I just said that you'll have to wait and see, but sorry to everybody. And it will be worth it. This is a cool one. No, no, I promise. And it'll be worth it. Um, but we have an unbelievable episode today. We have a very special guest. Yes, we have Hannah Van Bibber, um, who is a writer and, uh, one of the hosts of the athletics world cup show. And we will get into, um, everything, everything that she's been up to. She's great. It is so fun. Um, talking to people who also who get the spirit of the show and are just like ready to rock. She told us some crazy sports gossip stories, um, that I had never heard of before. No, she told us crazy sports gossip stories about soccer, but then also there was one that was a rumor that was not confirmed. That's not about soccer. I'm going to have to let you listen to it to find out what it was that I had never heard before. And both of our reactions, were genuine. I want to say on the show, we did not know what she was going to say. And I had never heard that rumor before. That was a, that was a personal favorite now of mine. Um, and it has to do with, uh, with someone on the Yankees. So keep listening. Um, teasing the biz folks also will teasing the biz. We, um, are going to have a fun episode on Thursday because I'm sure everybody has heard by now that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are probably going to get married over the weekend. Hannah also had some thoughts about that as a, as a devout follower of that relationship. Yes. And I do just want to put out a call again to the tree pain Swift universe that listen, Taylor Swift or Travis Kelsey, if you ever want to come on to discuss your wedding flowers, as we talk a lot about athlete flowers on the show, these are the ultimate athlete wedding flowers. We loved your proposal flowers, Travis. I don't know how instrumental you were in putting those together, but they look nice. Not very compressed. So just put it out there again, Taylor, Travis, if you want to come on, talk about the flowers or the florist who does, who's going to do the flowers. Yeah. If you've grown that out there, if that florist gets permission to break that NDA from the powers that be also, can I, can I say, can I just, can I plug us for a second, please Taylor and Travis look, listen, someone listening to this show might be thinking, well, Charlotte and maybe you're getting a little bit out over your skis. If you think that Taylor Swift is going to come on your show. And to that, I say, I think that we are two gals with a sports podcast, which is a very male dominated field. Taylor Swift is someone who has done a lot for women in her industry, the music industry where the executives tend to also be mostly male. So Taylor, if you want to give the most incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible boost that ever could have happened to a sports show, to two gals who are big fans of your work, just talk to us about your flowers. We would love to talk to you about your flowers. Give us the behind the scenes. What was your mood board? Like how did you end up landing on what you landed on? We truly see ourselves as the experts in athlete and pop star wedding flowers. If I do say so ourselves, I think we know a thing or two about them. So we are the only place I think that you can honestly talk about them. Also, did we talk about this week? I should be saving this for the episode tomorrow, but we'll talk about it again. Anyway, who cares? Um, that all of the calla lilies and the domestic market have been bought up. It's not true. And I love calla lilies. Charlotte, it's not true. Oh, it's not. It got debunked. You saw the two wall post about it. I believe it was page six or the post, whoever, whatever. That's the same thing. I guess. Is it wait, it's a train dog. Real. Uh, some, uh, outlet, I think called up some florists to ask about this and they were like, that didn't have, I, you, you can buy calla lilies. So while I would love for that to be true, because that would end up being true. I would love for that to be true. I would love for it to indicate that they are not compressed. Maybe it is true. Maybe it's still true. And they're throwing us off the scent by denying it. Um, I do think that that maybe was a rumor, unfortunately, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Well, you know, Madeline, you know what I say to that? Taylor, Taylor, come on the pod because we do amazing research here at this. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Let us talk about your flowers, please. Please. Please. We'll do it anywhere. We'll do it. Doesn't matter. We'll be there. Yeah. Literally anywhere. Even just on the internet. You can be remote. It can be 10 minutes. Doesn't whatever you got five. It can be 30 seconds. Taylor, you can pop, you can pop up and wave and go away. Nothing would be funnier than if we had Taylor Swift on the show to talk about her wedding flowers. That's the only, that's the only thing we're asking her about. Literally. That's the only tree pain approved. We will literally, we literally only want to ask you about the flowers. If you want to talk about, I think we will, but we really just want to talk to you about your flowers. If we had a Taylor Swift 10 minute version, wedding flower edition, 10 minute version edition, Taylor's version, which is a long title. I would turn into a fainting Victorian woman. I would be, which I think she would like that motif. Yeah. Oh yes. Kind of Ophelia-esque. Yeah. Oh God. When I was, when I was sick last week or for the past two weeks, my, my husband said, I was, I resembled a, an ill Victorian woman. Cause at one point I was just on the couch. I think I had the back of my hand on my head and he was like, are you doing a bit? And I wasn't. So no, you didn't feel good. Sensitive group. Exactly. So anyways, Taylor, if you're listening, come on the pod. We have an unbelievable conversation with Hannah. And as always, just want to say a reminder up top, please rate, review, like, and subscribe. It makes a really huge difference. We've seen such incredible feedback on our DCC America suite. hearts, deep dive, so many lovely emails and comments and a lot of new stories. subscribers and followers on our social channels and we just want to say thank you it really does make a huge difference and we love seeing all of your feedback about our show and it just means the world so just want to say that as well thank you so much also you can buy merch don't forget merch link below and we can say this at the end of because we're going to record an outro after this we will i just and i want to thank everybody coming on this journey with us um for the amount of times that the fourth wall is broken in this episode so without further ado hannah van buber okay we are thrilled to be joined by hannah van buber a writer for the athletic co-host of the athletic fc daily cup on amazon fire writer of the daily world cup newsletter hannah you are doing it all we are so thrilled to have you join us for this world cup discussion i am so excited to be here this is my favorite way to approach sports so i am down to talk whatever we're talking about today we love it well well yeah we're obviously here to talk to you about the world cup maybe we'll throw on a couple taylor swift and travis kelsey wedding questions at the end we'll see um but i feel like we got really lucky yesterday with some incredible matches first one being the paraguay germany match that ended in penalty kicks the first one was the first one was the first one was the first one was the first one of two that ended in penalty kicks yesterday um for people who may not know what's going on how shocking was the result that paraguay defeated germany uh it was insane it was like it was real like david and goliath story the pictures and the videos of like paraguay fans reacting was amazing i mean germany is a traditional power in the world cup one of the strongest teams and paraguay is like it's really incredible what they've done in the last couple of years and they've done um and beating germany on penalty kicks but they really they really outplayed them too like they won that game um so it's so exciting to see i was saying with two two matches ending in penalty kicks i think i like grew new gray hairs it was but it's also like absolute cinema meme like martin scorsese it was like the most perfect day of world cup action um but paraguay making it on i also i mean this is maybe some people will quibble with this but i think this makes the u.s national team win over paraguay look even better when they went and beat germany so it's pretty exciting on all fronts totally i was just gonna say that the u.s beat paraguay 4-1 if i am correct about that do you think that now it makes the u.s's chances look better going further in the world cup given germany's loss i think so with the there's a caveat to that i think it does make it look better i mean paraguay famously has an incredibly strong defense and the u.s scored on them many times uh which looks really good now after that germany game but the caveat is anything can happen in a knockout game as we saw yesterday so like the u.s team i we spoke with henry bushnell who's with them in california and he said they're feeling really confident but not overconfident and i feel like that's exactly where they should be like they're feeling really confident but not overconfident like i think they're at an 80 likelihood by the math of beating their next um their next opponent but we have to see i mean again penalty kicks anything can happen um so it's it's you can't be too sure but i feel great yes yeah i mean i think too with the loss to turkey a in the the last game of the knockout round madeline and i were talking about this because we were like i think that actually might be good for the vibes because if you just cruise to victory in every single game in the group stage it's like that can go to your head and i feel like it was it's important to be humbled every once in a while a hundred percent i'm gonna get the stat wrong so i won't say it but it's incredibly rare to win all your group stage games and then win the world cup i'm not saying that the u.s is gonna win the world cup because they're not i mean knock on wood but you can make it further if you do have face some adversity um and they got to play backups which is really important to for longevity through the tournament so i i do think it's good my mom was like is this a wake-up call is this really bad and i was like i think it's actually good that we had this this third game that didn't really matter to test things out so i mean i'm an optimist but no i i'm with you but i almost feel like it was necessary it kind of reminded me of the knicks losing game three during the finals after their winning streak like it feel a like it needed to happen the vibes need to be shaken up a little bit but it ultimately only helps them in the long run yeah yeah that's the perfect comp way to have that in your back pocket you know i'm just thinking about the knicks constantly and it was both game three that's true you're right oh this is a good omen whoa okay okay um another match that ended in penalty kicks late last night was the netherlands and morocco morocco ended up winning and they are moving on to play canada um in the next round how do you feel like canada's chances are they um beat south africa and their knockout match but i'm curious like i believe is correct me if i'm wrong this is the furthest that canada has ever gotten in a world cup is that correct in recent memory yes it ever in all of memory of all history yeah canada before this had never won a world cup i think they may have not even had a draw in a world cup match but they definitely never won so now they've won a knockout game which is like making it to the knockouts even winning a game was it would be a big deal so they're kind of in that stage where you're like you try something new like for me like doing a push-up and you're like oh maybe i can do one more oh my gosh i can't like i can't how far can i go so there's sort of that sense with canada like wait how far can they go um morocco is going to be tough though so this might be i mean the netherlands who morocco just beat were like many people's dark horse contender to like go to the finals and they got knocked out by morocco so that's not an easy out i guess that's the next challenge for canada but it is really fun seeing the hosts all do well so far and they already earned a parade in canada they really did they really did it's so funny watching um netherlands morocco last night uh actually i have a question you know the guy virgil uh yeah on on the netherlands okay so i had a really big like oh remember that guy moment watching the netherlands because i was like he's put he's 34 i'm like didn't he play in like 2010 even and it was one of the but then i and i know he has a last name but it just said yeah it says the 37 year old but it said just virgil on the back of his jersey is he going is he a one-name guy now do we know what's going on there i don't really know what's going on there i know i noticed that too and i was like i think of him as his full name like virgil van dyke so i don't really i guess he's going my one name now i mean he's famous enough so exactly it's all right usually you see that with like the brazilian players but you know what yeah go for it dude not to just toss that that was something that was not on the list of questions we sent along but that's a sports gossip show for you uh something about canada that is kind of dramatic in sports gossipy is jesse marsh their head coach who was an assistant for the u.s in 2010 2011 uh thought he was going to get the job before the u.s went back and hired greg berhalter again which is also an interesting choice a lot of interesting choices going on and he's sort of been like talking a little bit of trash about the u.s and he said after the um he he said that in 2010 2011 um the former u.s men's national team coach bob bradley had to quote had to beg his players to sing the national anthem and then after canada won jesse was he was like you know that you were you were a great generation of canadians kids will look up and it feels like he's becoming canadian again what's going on there which i know a lot of americans would love to become canadian but honestly i do thank you yeah i feel like i mean he's sort of known to be good at the story i feel like that's a lot of what's going on here it's funny because he is becoming canadian but his energy is very american it's like rah rah like talk up my team trash the other team like i'm like this is the most american dude you've ever seen but he a lot of people are like is he just trolling he's been accused of just doing this stuff for clicks which i'm like that's that's part of what they call the dark arts of soccer like get in your opponent's head troll them like i respect it i respect it i think it's it makes it more fun i can understand why like the players who he was talking about who are now commentators are taking serious issue with him saying you know they didn't want to sing the national anthem they came shot back and were like you're doing this for clicks you we different people show patriotism in different ways um but i feel like he's doing what he needs to do to bring canada to where they are like this level of support and belief is a big part of creating that culture um so i think it's fun it's good for the story it's good gamesmanship um But, yeah, he is he is such a character and he really likes to jab that needle into the U.S. But I mean, we're their rival. It's true. It's true. We are their rival. I feel like Jesse is just auditioning to be on the Real Housewives of Toronto or something like he wants to make a new franchise. So really, all of this is just for Andy Cohen. I mean, soccer is notoriously a very dramatic sport. Like the players are constantly in the tabloids for some of the craziest reasons I've ever read in my life. So I do kind of like that Jesse's like building team camaraderie and fan camaraderie via trash talking, essentially. Yeah. Which is maybe that'll work in their favor. Who knows? A hundred percent. I love a trash talking coach. So give us more. Same. I also think that the Real Housewives of Toronto would be just like an absolute masterclass in passive aggression. Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. Like now we need it. Sorry. Now we need it. We need it. I'm like Andy Cohen if you're listening. Andy Cohen. Call these women and Jesse Marsh. Yes. Another match that was that was in sync concert. Another match that was a little shocking almost at the end was Brazil's narrow defeat over Japan. Japan was up one zero for most of the match up until I can't remember the minute. But then Brazil tied and then they eventually won. With seconds to spare. Do we think that this is going to impact their vibes potentially going all the way? Or do we also feel like this is similar to the U.S. and that they needed to kind of have a moment of shaking things up and feeling like their confidence is a little bit shaken to help them advance further in the tournament? Yeah, it's hard for me to say like Brazil has outperformed, I think, a lot of our expectations already in winning that game. Japan was another dark. I think it's a course favorite for a lot of people. And so it's the vibes on Brazil to me are way better than I expected. Like Vinny Junior, everyone's obsessed with him. He's like showing out. They're an incredible team to get behind. And they they seem to be like we are rising to this moment. But they have a tough draw ahead. I mean, if they win their next game, they have England. A lot of people don't think that's a good match up for Brazil. I think they play Norway. Next in Norway. Norway might be underrated. I mean, they have Erling Haaland and in a knockout round with a star like that, anything can happen. So I hate to say this. I was so excited to see Brazil win just because there's such a you know, they're part of my World Cup memories. But I it didn't make me feel like, oh, now they're for sure going to go deeper than I thought. Yeah. Which is not that exciting of an answer, but I hope they do. But again, in knockouts, anything can happen. Japan really Brazil seemed to outplay Japan a lot in that second half. But Japan was leading for a lot of the game. So, yeah, I don't know. What do you take from that? I just I just made I have a prediction as as I'm sitting here. Yes, I I think Norway is going to win the World Cup. Oh, wow. What I really do. Is that is a hot take. I know. I know. I know that that's crazy. Sports wise, that's crazy. But if you look at the vibes and you like it, it was vibes wise. They brought 600 kilograms pounds. I couldn't tell you of salmon. They brought their own food. They are locked in their row. Their fans are doing all the rowing stuff that we talked about before the rowing on the New York subway, which is a level of dedication. Erling Haaland, this big six five Viking looking giant guy. He he is just a scoring machine, and I think I just sorry as I'm sitting here, I think something crazy is going to happen and I think Norway is going to win the World Cup. Also, they're coming off the most winter Olympic medals like ever. Oh, so and Victor Hovland won the golf thing yesterday. Whatever that was. Whatever golf thing that was, true Norwegian. So that's a good vibes thing. I love it. I was at the France Norway match, not to brag, but I was there and to be fair, Holland wasn't playing and it seemed like Norway didn't care to win that match because they were already through. But France did completely demolish them. So I'm curious if they meet them in the final and maybe it'll be a revenge match and they'll have the what they need. Sorry, as I'm saying this, I'm remembering that Norway can't play defense. So yeah, and that France exists, but I will say Erling Haaland did. Stick with me, go with it. Erling Haaland did say before that France match, he's like, we're probably going to lose anyways. Like, I don't know if you saw that interview. Yeah, he's like, we don't give a. Yeah, but maybe that kind of low, low stakes vibes that he's just like, whatever, it's all good means that they could potentially, to your point, Hannah, play them again and win. Who knows? It's like it's reverse psychology on themselves. Exactly. Like France is playing because they lost the final on penalty kicks last time. Which is like such an intense must win mentality. Norway is like, it's all gravy. We're just glad we're here. It's been 28 years. Like, right. Maybe that's the vibe. Yeah. All right. Well, OK. All right. I saw that on the record. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Anyway, should we talk about the U.S. Madeline? Where do you want to go from here? Let's talk about the U.S. OK, let's talk about the U.S. Airplane. I just want to say real quick for anybody listening, I have to be remote for these next two weeks, which I'm sure I will have already said at the top of the show, a little rusty in terms of the back and forth on the virtual. Yeah. So that's and that's on me. Yeah. We don't actually do that many remote now that I think about it. No, we don't. We haven't done one in a while. I think it's actually been months. So, Hannah, apologies. Yeah. It's going great from my perspective. OK. Take it away, Charlotte. No, you do it. I want you to do it. So U.S. men's national team team, they're playing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Excuse me. Tomorrow, when this comes out, how do we feel like their chances are? Bosnia is a pretty strong team. Do we feel like the U.S. are going to pull out the win? Yeah, Bosnia is a strong team. And I think some things have been said by some commentators like, oh, they're going to be easy. And that's not true of any team in the world. True of any team in this in these knockout stages. And a knockout can go any way. But I do think the U.S. will win. Knock on wood. I think it could be like the Australia game, which we won without Christian Pulisic really being at full force. Australia is a great team, but we we are playing differently than we're used to seeing. So I think I said earlier they are given like by the numbers an 80 percent chance of winning. So we've seen that anything can happen. But I feel pretty confident. The team, like I said, Henry is saying they're feeling confident, but not overconfident. They're feeling pretty good about it. So I'm hopeful. I think it'll be good. I think that they won't hit a real power until maybe the quarterfinals if they make it. So that's my hope that we get there. And then anything can happen. I know. Where is that match? What a great question. The the one question that I was going to ask, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. I know. Where is that match? The one tomorrow? Yeah. I think it's in San Francisco. Yeah, I think it's at Santa Clara where the 49ers play. Yeah, San Francisco Stadium. Or no, the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium is what it is called by FIFA. Because they removed the branding. Yeah, exactly. I kind of love that. It is not Levi's. I think we should go back to one of my firmest held beliefs in sports in general is that we've got to stop naming stadiums after like mortgage companies. Oh, 100%. I think that this should be a reset. And like Gillette from now on is just Boston Stadium like it used to be. I think maybe we just go back to that. I'm honestly into it. Yeah. Yeah, Charlotte's takes are sharp today. This is a great idea. Someone call stadiums. Rename all the stadiums. We're sick. We're sick of your companies. I've heard that you're supposed to have opinions on podcasts. So I'm just doing my best over here. I mean, men are saying crazy shit on podcasts. All the time. All the time. All the time. Hannah, who do you think is the most interesting player on the U.S. men's national team? On the U.S.? Ooh, that's a great question. I feel like, I mean, immediately Faler and Baligan popped into my head when you asked that. Flo, as we like to call him, his nickname. I don't know. I don't know if you guys have talked about sort of his origin story, but it's kind of crazy. I feel like I saw some clips of you talking about like he was born in the U.S. just because his mom was stuck here because she couldn't fly back to London. His family's from Nigeria. He grew up in London, came up through the Arsenal like youth development program. Arsenal just won the Premier League. Like he is, he's sort of the model of what it's going to mean for the U.S. to have superstars. He is like an international in the truest sense of the word. He could have declared for any of those three countries, us, Nigeria, or the U.K., or England, I should say, not the U.K. And he chose us. us because we like really went hard for him and he's like he scored he's already scoring goals out there he's so exciting to watch um the the the story of his birth almost feels apocryphal or like messianic like his mother was here stranded it's like what yeah even real but it's it's so cool he's so interesting he's i mean he's a striker which is to me one of the most interesting positions they just have like a lot of personality like i think of in track like sprinters have the personality like strikers and soccer have intriguing personalities to me so i i love flow i feel like that's one to watch he's really exciting i think he's my favorite player on the team too not just because we talked about him on the show but i do think his origin story does like add to his star power obviously he has star power as a soccer player for the men's national team in his own right you but i do think it adds to the lore and i think what makes a player the differentiator between a good and a great player is the lore behind the person and i feel like he's already got enough lore to kind of put him in a category of a great player i'm saying that on the show there's my charlotte hot take of the day i agree i don't even know it's a hot take it's just a take no but that's i mean it's what we were talking about with jesse marsh the canada coach understanding the power of a story and i and i like that you say it's sort of apocryphal or messianic because it it is it's like this this man was also you know in light of whatever the supreme court's going to do strong case for birthright citizenship just saying oh yeah yes yes he can become the poster child you and that citizenship you and that we're not winning the world cup i'm sorry a hundred percent we would not be winning that without without that yeah um what do you think has been the the sort of juiciest off the field story so far oh that's such a good question and there are so many um juicy is a good word because that leads me to like kind of messy i feel like i'm sure you guys talked about the ronaldo drama between the girlfriends um that's probably my favorite talk about that on the show please please share with our shareholders okay oh wow well this was this was messy um i'm kind of like sorry to these women uh actually just ronaldo's girl fiance i think it's his fiance georgina uh rodriguez basically ronaldo didn't score in the first match he sort of had a muted game which had everyone on the internet like piling on which let me be clear that's awful um he's he has scored now he's playing well but of course it brought up there's always drama around ronaldo like is he a and so people were like he's he's not playing for his team um and so there was a fake ai post that went viral that was supposed to be his teammates girlfriend saying calling ronaldo selfish um and then ronaldo's fiance saw that fake ai thing oh no and was like reposted it thinking it was real and said something like wow this generation is crazy or is coming on strong and she later deleted it like she must someone must have been like hey babe that's fake um but i was like this is such tea this is so messy when this when the partners get involved which good for them defend your man but i was just like maybe don't publicly just let them play sports so that was wild especially because like so much in this world cup there's so much ai like we don't know what like that german fan freddie i don't know if he's going to be there but he's going to be there i don't know if he's real or a psyop or what you know so there's kind of this weird ai element to it and the fact that ronaldo's fiance fell for one that was very public was like oh yikes i feel like it says a lot about about like our current state of the world it's like a story about ai fake news soccer uh wag drama social media like i feel like that it's like hitting everything bingo card yeah everything's in it everything's in it that's crazy it's also you know stars are just like us they they fall for ai you know i mean you're right there's also like train dog train dog hannah do you know about train dog yes okay good i was about to say yeah i didn't know about train dog if anyone doesn't know about train dog in your brain yeah it's a dog on it's just a dog on a train on the internet and people put the dog on the train in different pictures and madeline taught me about it and she keeps me young you know it's a commentary on ai and people falling for things and so it's like is this real oh my god a dog is a train how crazy it's like very obvious well for obvious reasons it's fake the dog is not a train um but i feel like it's nice commentary commentary on uh 2026 and the internet and ai yeah it's a beautiful thing 100 um well before we get to our question we ask all of our guests about your favorite sports gossip story of all time which we'll let you think about for a second we do need to talk about taylor swift and travis kelsey's potential upcoming nuptials that are maybe or maybe not happening at madison square gardens somewhere between now and friday it's unclear what's true what are your predictions do you think she's actually getting married there do you think it's a party do you think this is all a ploy for an album what do you think's going on oh ploy for an album would be really dark i feel like that's the darkest timeline like she's really really gone into deep manipulation um i feel like i think they're already married i think they've had a private ceremony i think it i think the question now is is this a real party that they are throwing that they will be at i'm there's like it makes sense in a way at first you're like msg who would have a wedding there but if you're taylor swift you can make anything look like a fairy tale and msg famously is a great place for like celebrities coming in privately uh it's not open air cameras can't get in like that kind of stuff it makes sense in that way uh but i'm just like is this all a distraction and she's doing something else or are they really throwing a party at msg i don't know but i think it's a great place to be and i think it's a great place to be i think they're already they've already tied the knot they've done their their private thing yeah i think they've already at least had a private ceremony at the minimum certain at the minimum at the minimum yeah yeah yeah it's not a whole wedding i have a i feel like we've talked about this before in the show of like how do you have well i think we talked about it in terms of aaron rogers and his his quote unquote wife britney with an eye um because we were like what is the rules around like marriage license and in terms of public record and how does that and like do you have to go you're like i can't quite madeline do you know you feel like we talked about this i can't i do know about this from california you can make your marriage records private so i'm guaranteeing that's already like it does not need to be public record you can apply for a marriage license that i think is confidential so okay i'm sure at the minimum they did that but i think it's a great place to be and i think it's a great place to be but yeah i don't know i get i mean i certainly believe they've already gotten married and gotten that license but i guess my logistical question related to that charlotte would be do they um have to go to a courthouse to you know because when i got here i had to like get get go to like the county register do they have like a private one that you can just have come to your house to sign like a um what is it like a notary like yeah like a notary if you're that famous that's what i want to know about i want to understand those logistics i wonder if you're that famous too i i wonder too because like i had to walk into the town hall with my husband and be like this is the guy we're gonna do it you know like i don't right and you can you bring someone to you i'm sure i feel like she can make anything happen but i do find it very interesting where like the the rules of civics and then celebrity how far those can bend so fascinating to see what happens there um well hannah thank you so much for your time we have to end on what is your favorite sports gossip story of all time i love this question and i had like 10 so i really had to whittle it down honestly taylor and travis probably is but we're not going to do that one uh it's been beaten into the ground um and i i did think my runner-up was probably uh have you guys heard that it's just completely a rumor that a rod has two paintings of himself as a centaur in his house stop that's yes this isn't my real one but this is but let's explore it anyway let's explore it first oh my god okay it was just an article on us weekly like in 2009 or something like a while back that was based on like the us weekly reporter knew someone who knew someone who had been sleeping with a rod and that woman was like he has two paintings of himself as a centaur one above his bed oh my god yeah and they ran the story because it's us weekly no offense but they don't need to verify any of their reporting there right and it sort of took off and the only time he was asked to like respond to it at some point and his response was something like no i don't have a painting of myself as a minotaur and everyone was like did he just mess up the mystical creature or is he well not lying and it is a centaur or wow does he have a painting of himself as a minotaur and he said no i don't but he does because that's very specific also what is a minotaur is that like horse head human body you know i think it is the creature who guards a maze that you have to enter in greek mythology i could be completely messing this up but i think it's like the guardian of a maze and i think it's like a standing maybe like a bull's head with a standing body i could google it but why why why would we do that let people write in and say y'all don't know your greek mythology which they've said before hannah which is right i know you anyways i do think about that a lot and i really hope it's true um but the one i was gonna pick because it is world cup related is um and maybe you've talked about this but it's the um uh john harks and eric winalda scandal no from 1998 oh man this one is nuts um so i mean it's a short story basically they were teammates on the u.s team they i'm pretty sure they were both in the yeah the 94 team you know huge year for us turned soccer around in america um then the team was going in 1998 they qualified for the world cup john harks who was the captain of the team and then eric winalda who was a player on the team apparent this came out later so many years later eric winalda went on a podcast and told this tea and the coach confirmed it although john harks says it's not true the story is that john harks was having an affair with winalda's wife and the coach cut harks from the team because of it and then they lost every game in the world cup and finished like last no oh my god and i was like this is the perfect example of how off the pitch matters on the pitch like yes you can't have an affair with your teammate's wife but also apparently when all the like asked the coach to keep him on the team anyways because he was like we can't win without him and the coach was like no i don't need that drama and then they did terribly wait didn't happen yeah i found out about that like i don't know when it when he went on that podcast and i was just like how how is it how are you saying this out loud like what is how it's crazy that that's you know what yeah that's just an example of like when i'm so thrilled that someone went rogue or that the media training didn't stick yes yes thank you eric i know i and he's like maybe he's just like processed it but wow that's a great story that's amazing the coach was like yeah now that it's out that is why i cut him from the team so at least two people have said that soccer has so many stories like that i don't know if it's true or not i don't know if it's true or not i don't know if it's true or not i don't know if it's true or not i don't know if it's true or not i don't know there's one um kevin de bruyne in 2010 the belgian like that's a whole different thing but i feel like there's so many examples of these teammates having affairs with wives or girlfriends of other teammates doesn't happen in other sports or at least they're not talking about they're not talking about it maybe they better media training maybe so i think maybe we should do a world cup roundup of all of the players who slept with other players wives teammates wives yes that'd be like a 12 hour podcast yeah i think that's a good idea i think that's a good idea i think that's a good idea i podcast i know i know we need research help on that one yeah um well hannah thank you so much you are doing such incredible work covering the world cup i read every world cup daily and you've been just a star on the on the show so thank you for giving us a little bit of your time we know how busy you are um where can people find you once again ah thank you so much what a great set um you can find me on i'm doing the show it's on amazon fire there's also a podcast version of it for people who don't want to buy an amazon fire uh my husband bought like five so we have a couple extra to give out and then i'm also it's so it was so sweet um i'm also writing our daily newsletter which you can find on the new york times home page or the athletics home page somewhere it's called the world cup briefing um and you can find me on theathletic.com amazing thank you so much hannah thank you it's been so fun i'm thank you so much for inviting me we'll have you back careful yes okay we'll hold you to it thanks y'all i'm gonna do it i'm gonna say it oh what a great conversation with hannah truly i had to say it i'm sorry you i'm sorry no it was it warranted an uh what a great conversation i um the i i don't think we overhyped the a rod centaur slash minotaur story no no it reminded me a lot and i didn't say this in the discussion but that book series what is it anima um anamorphosis anamorphs is that what it was called that's all i was thinking about the visual i'm like did a rod collect those books did one of his kids have a scholastic book fair and he bought those books and then was like hmm actually this might make good art let me get two of them wouldn't it be amazing if he's like no i don't have a painting of myself as a centaur because he actually has a painting of himself morphing into one so technically he's not lying nothing would bring me greater joy truly truly no that's the dream that's the dream right there it really is anyone in a rod's camp or who has ever known a rod can confirm or deny that just reach out our dms are open they're open um i will say though another big takeaway from the conversation with hannah was just how exciting this world cup has been and we're kind of our only just getting started with the knockout stage and it's i think going into this world cup they were pretty bad vibes honestly like pr wise all the fifa corruption the ticket sales the price of new jersey transit tickets and then they lowered them whatever blah blah blah that i was a little worried about the general vibes of the matches and how people would feel watching them and now that we're in it i'm like this is such an exciting world cup and i'm locked in i can't wait to see what happens next i could not agree more and i think it's such a good point it's like you and i were a little worried i mean i also think that being in new york and sort of the knicks mania that swept the city it felt like how is anyone going to care about anything else but it actually has been the perfect off-ramp yes um and and to to because it's like a come down after your team wins and especially when your team wins after they've been bad for so long i think a lot of people in new york at least it's like you question your identity it's like you question your identity or like who am i if i'm not a suffering knicks fan and the world cup i feel like you walk down the street and it's all the places that we're playing the knicks games are now playing the world cup like fancy restaurants a restaurant we go to all the time was like oh we're playing the world cup and i was like but you're like a niche cool place i'm like is new york city a sports town now and i think that that is the power of the world cup once it gets going you get so locked in and not just new york city across the country yeah um it's been really interesting really exciting that it it has felt appropriately big no it's been so exciting and as people have said on the internet it really does feel like we're having a giant sleepover with a bunch of other countries and it's so fun and we don't want it to end that's just nice i didn't come up with it but it's nice i miss well it is nice i miss the scots i know hey you never know what little update um scotland boston and oh i'm forgetting hold on let me this sorry i have to open my phone for a second here everybody and i have this stupid blocker where it doesn't let me open instagram for five seconds um so you're all on that journey with me this blocker i don't think really works well it doesn't because i just bypass it and it just ends up taking longer i think you need to get one of those bricks apparently well i have one but i'm not setting that up that would prevent me from going on i do have one i also haven't set it up either um uh it turns out you know how you were saying madeline that if scotland and the u.s don't have some kind of joint tourism situation they've you know missed a huge opportunity yeah well apparently according to mayor michelle woo of boston glasgow and boston are now sister cities is that true that's official i think so oh my god wow pretty cool i love it this is great news fabulous wow congratulations that's great i love it i love it we should go to scotland oh please please scotland scottish well we've already said ireland's tourism depart or the whatever the irish embassy followed us on instagram and then we never got a dm so ireland you may have some competition if scotland gets involved so where do you want us to go we'll come do a little little fun little gallivant no that is so true ireland and scotland if you're listening also whatever happened to us being on traders that was a whole dream yeah what happened in that film in the scottish highlands yeah hey what's going on there in bc come on can i can i ask you a question what to be fair we never submitted an application so well no but i think okay i think we should be on the celebrity one oh we could be because we're not look we're not we're not celebrities however i do think it would throw all of the other celebrities for a real loop if we showed up. Oh my God. We'd be insane. We'd be insane. But also we could pretend not to know each other because we're not actually celebrities. A hundred percent. No one's going to know. So we could just have a little alliance. If I'm sorry, if Marcus Jordan and Larsa Pippen can go on traders and pretend not to know each other, we can go on traders and pretend not to know each other. Absolutely. I think we'd make it all the way. And here's, well, I won't say this because I don't want the producers of the traders to think that I would skirt any rules. Oh, don't listen, producers. However, if one of us did win, we could just make it packed before that we would split the money. Oh yeah. Split the money. Of course. And on that note, well, as always, please rate, review, like, and subscribe. It makes a huge, huge difference. You can follow us on Instagram at split the money. Sports gossip and Tik TOK at sports gossip show. You can subscribe to our sub sec at sports gossip show.subsac.com. You can become a paying subscriber. We made a new chat because we had to on Instagram. I don't know why, but if you pay for our Instagram subscription, you need to join the new chat. It's in there. So, but if you can't find it, let me know. I'll send it to you just an FYI. And you can buy our merch linked below in our description on YouTube or in the link of bio on our social channels. You, it blows my mind. Every time you do that halfway through him, I was like, what else is she going to say? I need it on a shirt. Like the, the AMC, we come to this place for magic that Nicole Kidman speech, but I want that, but my speech or, or the hat. Nevermind. Okay. This is an offline situation. Anyway. Um, thank you to everybody for listening and, uh, we'll be back with another episode on Thursday. I'll tell you what's left. Don't want to miss it. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye.