America Gets Bounced, World Cup Picks, Knicks Fan Bliss, ‘Heat 2’ and ‘The Odyssey’ With Chris Ryan, Anthony Dabbundo, and Jason Concepcion

作词:李宇宙 作词:李宇宙 I watched a whole two hour pregame show I run a game show I also saw the Odyssey today A three hour Just a grueling Trying to get through it Watching our hero try to land the plane at the end And was hoping maybe The rest of the coma Just trying to land the plane was hoping there were some parallels for America today And CR It was not It was a terrible, terrible, terrible performance by us Another pod, another colonoscopy here for us Yeah, that was a real talent disparity And maybe a little bit of a wake-up call It's been an awesome tournament I think that the country has embraced the sport It's been really, really Like one of the greatest couple of sporting weeks of my life But that was Real Madrid's goalkeeper And Manchester City's winger came on in the 60th minute Tillumins just won the Europa League with Aston Villa And I thought maybe that extra 15 to 20% of talent really kind of put us in our spot What did you think? What about you, DeBundo? We wondered what would happen The first time this defense actually got tested Because the three games that the starters played Were not against teams Were going to test them And I couldn't have imagined they could have failed that test anymore I mean, it was every single time It was very simple Belgium played a long ball They won the long ball Our defense panicked Desk panic, Reem panic Richard's panic, Freeman panic And they gave away the ball over and over again And any team, I mean Belgium were fine But I thought they made it way too easy It's ridiculous This was, it felt like karaoke Of all the things you would be worried about in a bad America game Right? Most of the guys, we talked about this for the tournament The guys I was the most worried about were Reem and Desk Desk was unplayable I mean, I was like, he was so bad that he takes a lot of time Reem looked every bit 38 years old The keeper had one of the worst F-ups we've had in a long time In a World Cup game And then the other piece was Hey, would be nice to pool like just Was awesome and stayed healthy for an entire game And he's stunk in the first half and then got hurt in the second half And CR was almost wondering Everybody talking about Balgan when he got the red card he was out And then the dialogue for three, four days was He's our best guy We can't lose our best guy And then he comes back Our best guy is back And you know, it could have gone one of two ways for Pulosec Where it's like, oh, he's going to show everybody who the actual best guy in this team is Or he was going to have the game he had today Where he looked like he was a freshman in high school playing varsity Yeah, I don't know whether or not Pulosec was still carrying that calf injury And whether that had anything to do with it Obviously he kind of kicked through a Belgian player on that foul And basically heard himself But you feel bad to see his tournament and that way I still go back to what I just said originally It was even our best player It would be kind of middle to your Belgian player You know, like our best of our best Would be Maybe Belgian bench players And I got to say One thing that kind of jumped out at me was More than even the Belgian red card being overturned Was when they announced the starting lineup And I know each one of these guys has different reasons But when Belgium didn't start De Bruyne, Lukaku, or Doku I was like, I think they're getting ready for Spain I kind of wondered what I mean, De Bruyne didn't come on Lukaku comes on at the end scores the final goal Doku was basically toying with us And I think it could have been worse Honestly, yeah, like I think we got lucky a little bit To get out of there without giving up six De Bruyne, can you explain Wrestling the three guys and like what would be the NBA equivalent of somebody doing that How about Joe Maz? Never mind, too soon Too soon No, no, it's not Yeah, so I mean, you know, if you go back to the round of 16, round of 32 Belgium was down to no, they were getting pumped, like swarmed by Senegal They had no answers and they pulled off Doku and De Bruyne in the 65th, 70th minute And it literally felt like Rudy was waving the right flag, Rudy Garcia And you're like, all right, that's it. I even tweeted Like his final move as manager of Belgium is removing his two best players They did actually play better. They just scored two goals I mean, Senegal's goalie had a mishap. They just started chipping balls up to Lukaku And then they survived. So I guess the plan was like working to ride with the guys who brought us here And it was Luca Bakio, but they clearly made it change too. They they changed up their midfield completely And and played more defensive midfielders and the first 10 minutes of the match Well, I think Ohnana the guy who ended up getting hurt may have won every single ball in the middle of the park For about 10 straight minutes and I'm just like, oh boy, this is this is not going well And then when he got hurt, they actually played better. That was their only good 15 minutes Was right before half time and still just didn't matter But his sub who scored the crazy freeze mistake. Yeah, Vinokin Yeah, he started his last match too. And like he's you know, he plays for like club brews He's a fine player, but the tactics were just they shredded our press And that was the one thing. It's like we can press them. We can press them and they were like, no, you can't We're kicking it over the press over and over and over again And they had I mean, just no answers. They lost every second ball Yeah, we lost all the 50 50 balls. The passes have felt like we couldn't get three or four straight passes in a row Everybody the 1B1 staff like I was think back to the Paraguay game, which feels like it was a hundred years ago now And Pulisic just destroying their left side for a half hour straight I don't I don't know if anyone beat anybody 1v1 for an hour on our side Nope. And the only guy who felt athletically like he could be on the field with those guys was Balgan And it felt like over and over again they almost unlocked them or he would make this run but then the pass was behind Um, and then finally what was that 12 minutes left He's ripping down the left side. It was interesting that he went toward the close post on that shot But he hit it about 700 miles an hour and it almost like it was so hard that it almost went in But it felt like if they had gotten that goal then maybe the crowd gets into it who the hell knows They needed they needed a little bit of like you know something like what Mexico had last night First of all, I feel like the crowd kind of got taken out of it a little bit Um, I mean maybe a go on eight minutes will do that maybe all crowd Like that comparison Yeah, I mean, Belgium is better they they panicked they gave a ball I mean there's a ball that lands Three US defenders are standing in the penalty area all three of them just watch the ball bounce in their penalty That's like 101 soccer defending 101 never let the ball bounce in your penalty area And the one Belgian guy gets on it guy raskin I watch a lot of soccer I had to google him Like he plays it for Rangers in the SPL like he's not you know This is not like they ran into a world-class team here Belgium was played off the park a week ago by Senegal I believe So they have four goals in this game Belgium CR The first one screw up by three defenders just all the the I thought you oh you and then they score Second goal it's a 1v2 guide beads both guys go the baseline crosses it wide open Um, gets it Third goal is in the running for worst goals this country's ever given up in a World Cup I don't know what the top five is but it has to be in the top three where you have just multiple things collapsing But once then the fourth goal which the game is over at that point but that was also something that you would see And like you know a JV soccer game well I will note that Belgium went for that fourth goal too So we should not underestimate that the maybe how much they hate this team Or he would happen over the last couple of days and how much that might have I mean it's the World Cup Those guys don't need extra motivation But we may have you know the Balaghan thing may have just created a certain sense of like these guys think that their president is going to fucking try and beat us like no way Like that fourth goal they didn't need that one and and I felt like that was pointed You're saying that was the ff you goal yes Doku could have been out in the corner like dribbling around in circles and that wouldn't have we wouldn't have been able to take it off of them That felt like they were going for a fourth Yeah the one narrative I'm not going to accept is like oh we would have won if if Trump had got in boat Balaghan back like we sucked That didn't fit anything the team was terrible that was the worst we've played not always at the worst we played all tournament But I've watched a ton of soccer as you guys have that was the worst anyone's played for like about a week when we were talking about like these final 32 final 16 games, that first hour was about as bad as we've seen any but like couldn't complete a pass defensive screw ups. Nobody was dangerous. Our best guy was invisible. Desk was so bad he had to come out. It was really rough, but I think Belgium, I like beer. Chocolate's been pretty good. -Waffles. -Other than that, the waffles are solid. Other than that, I don't have a lot of tolerance for these Belgians. See, I think that's it. -Did you move the movie "Come on World Cups" for us? -It's a good one. Love that movie. -All right, George. -What else? Is there anything else to like about Belgium? -I can't say I've never been Flemingoay. I think at this point in the World Cup, there's no friendly opposition. You're going to figure out a way to get mad at everybody. I thought one of the things that Belgium kind of exposed for us is the lack of identity. I mean, it's sort of hard because you're here, you're watching all this stuff about the USMNT and you're like, "Right, yeah, we believe in this and this is incredible and this is happening." But I don't really know if I could tell you how the US wants to play. I thought Belgium kind of exposed that. Not that I would want to be Paraguay from the France match, but they obviously had an idea. They were going to kick the hell out of France and try to make it into a refereed match that might come down to pens. We did not seem to have that game plan coming into this. I'm sure Pochettino had something in mind, but as soon as Tim Rehm got kind of put on skates, the plan seemed to go up and smoke. What do you think about like the way that Pochettino set us out, Anthony? -Ream getting dunked on really did feel like the turning point in a lot of ways because they had played so hard. -The second goal. -Yeah, 33 minutes in. Tillman hits the free kick. You know, you're like, "We have our own Leo Messin. We're back. We got this." And it felt like they felt like they were back and they switched off again and they didn't stop the cross. The first time he was asked to defend the entire tournament, completely disaster. And that's why they had to change the formation so he didn't have to play right back. You go back four years ago, same exact thing. It was desk getting picked on over and over again by the Dutch. And they beat us with very similar-esque goals if you go look at those goals. So it feels like it's the same pattern. They're running into this same wall. But, you know, Pochettino did have this team playing so much better and more cohesively. I just think they got surprised. Really got to see it through a change up and they got out class. But there's no way you can tell me that this was just Belgium. This was the U.S. giving them the game. -I also wonder. I thought I really liked Burrhalter. And it felt like when he came in- -The Bastion. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. When he came in and then all of a sudden we had more speed on the outside and he's a little point guard-ish and, you know, all of a sudden the corner kicks. He only had, I think, one or two. But the corner kicks, he's just the best guy in the team with those. -He had the shot from distance and tried to cheat the crowd when he was going in. -Yeah, I just thought he, you know, and he's kind of gritty, which that was one of the things that you really noticed today was there was not a lot of nastiness. Like Paraguay, who was a disgrace on Fourth of July. That was just the combination of soccer games. -Yeah, but if that was us, we would have been like, "I love this." -I was there, I mean, 100 degree heat. And it was just loving every second of it. -Yeah, that entire goal was to 2004 pistons, you know, a much better opponent, basically. And it worked. But, you know, for us, we had this great crowd. It was something, I bet on England yesterday and one of the reasons I did it was because of something CR said over the weekend about, or maybe it was when we did the colon ask report about, these guys are in pressure stadiums all the time. Like it's not like they're, "Oh, my God, the crowds psyched me out." You know, all of these guys have played in the worst possible locations everywhere. -England did a PR masterclass. As soon as their previous match had ended before Mexico, they were like, "Well, we're not gonna have enough time to get used to the altitude and we know it's gonna be tough and we're gonna be the underdogs in Azteca." And then after the match, Harry came and was like, "Yeah," or Declan Rice was like, "Altitude wasn't that bad." -Right. -Yeah, it was fine. -Right. And I'm sure there's 10 stadiums that those guys are playing in all around. So, with, same thing with Belgium, like, "Oh, the crowd's gonna be nuts and Seattle." But, guess when they're not nuts, after you give up a goal in eight minutes and you can't complete a pass for 40 minutes. All right. So, big picture. What do we build on from this debundo? Because it feels like we have two-thirds of a core of something really good and built around Baogan. I thought it was just dangerous and awesome, the whole tournament. And there's some speed now, there's some young legs, but it feels like a stopper. Maybe they have to figure out once and for all. Sorry, guys, I have two Philly fans on here, but is, is pool sick and bead? Is just just like, he looks great in February when we're playing Charlotte or New Orleans. But when we actually need him in April, May, June, you can't count on him. Like, what are the three things you're looking at that we'd have to build on from this? -That does feel like a little harsh on pool of sick. I mean, he's bad in this tournament, but he has carried the U.S. through some really dark times, really, really dark times in the last five to six to seven to eight years. So, I think it's Baligan, Tillman, and pool of sick that come away from me as like the core you can build around, but it starts at the back. I mean, they have one good center back. Maybe two with Freeman? But goalkeepers are problem. Who replaces Tim Reame? The backup defenders look pretty bad against Turkey. That's where it starts. It has to start there because they are not going to be able to defend good teams with the guys they're rolling out. -What do you think, Mike McKenney and Adam's are the, like, are they unassailable as a mid central midfield partnership? Because I do think to your point about like, we were unable to kind of like route away through Belgium at certain points. Like, you wonder whether or not someone with a little bit more composure on the ball and like, you know, those guys give so much effort. They're like all engine, but I don't know if there is a guy in the England, the America setup that could do that. That is a little bit more of a playmaker. But I think we were kind of crying out for something in the midfield there. -That's the number one issue with U.S. talent development right now. I mean, they just don't have that guy. There isn't a Kevin DeBrona. There isn't a, Kigurri Teeleman's even. There isn't a Leandro Trossard who's going to come in and play make like that. McKenney did a pretty good job the first few games, but then today he was bad. And you do wonder, are McKenney and Tillman too similar and now and what they do? And do you have a passer? Who is that person? I don't know that that person exists. I don't think he does. At least I haven't seen him. People hoped it was going to be Georena. And honestly, like, you know, Georena is a very polarizing figure. But when Reina's the sob at half, you don't feel great about the second half because Reina is a bigger name than he is a performer at this point in his career. And he had the great goal in the opener, but he gave them basically zero in the second half. -Well, so what's the, what are the goalies stopper on the horizon prospects? Do we have people that are like brewing? There was a guy, Slanina, that people hyped up, but that hasn't really come to fruition yet. It's probably not going to be Matt Freese long-term. He's already 27. This is where it gets hard. -I don't know. -It's also about, like, what, you know, I hope, and I guess as soon Pochitino is going to stay on fingers crossed. -For at least half of a cycle, if not another full-world cup cycle, that might be a little bit much to ask because he's pretty young. And it's hard for me to imagine he's going to do what, five or six years then as the US coach. And to be fair, by the time we get to 28 say, like, you could maybe go and try and get, like, you know, if you put enough money in front of one of these guys, you could get somebody, you could get Marino, you could get, you could try and go for PEP or whoever, like, you could go for somebody and try to bring in like one of the biggest managers in the world, which is what they just did. It's just, you know, he had, he had a really nice run of games and then the team kind of fell apart. And I don't know if he had, like, I don't, I mean, he seemed like a little surprised by how bad things were going and didn't, didn't really have like a counter move yet, you know, and that's what he really did to develop. -I got to say, I was really surprised. I don't know why I thought, I really thought that we're going to play well today. I don't know if that meant they were going to win. But I was surprised, they stunk. I didn't, I got to say, I didn't see that one coming. I really thought like a, especially getting Balgan back and Belgium had looked so bad in that Senegal game for two-thirds of the game. And it was like, maybe we can catch these guys. -I thought maybe it was going to be a little bit like the Canada Miracco match where it was like, we play our asses off and really do well. But like, there's just like a class difference. And they, they wind up turning it on at the right point in the match. I did not expect to get Boat Race. -All right. So let's go. Glass have full for a second. -Sure. -So they made the sweet 16. The tournament, although we do this all the time with the World Cup where everybody decides this was this watershed. This has been going on since 1994 in this country where every time either America makes a run or when we had it here, everyone's like, this is it. This is the moment for soccer. I feel like soccer has been happening for 20 plus years. And especially Premier League, LaLiga, and the, when, once the HD on the TVs and once the ESPN chart showing in all these other channels bought in, like, soccer's here. Like, people know Holland is. It's not like he's like, oh, who's this guy? Who's this guy in Norway who came out of nowhere? Like, people fucking know who all these guys are. So soccer's here. We're one of the best 20 teams, which I think considering we didn't make a World Cup recently. That's, that's a bonus. And then I don't know, I do think I think those three guys you mentioned earlier at DeBundo, like, that's a good foundation. And now we just have to steal somebody else's really good player and make them come here and live here in America. Michael, is that a Netflix romcom? We're in a messy place in MLS. Can we acquire him by Eminent Domain and make him suit up? This would be a really good Netflix romcom where the person who runs the US soccer team, they decide they're going to try, you know, those romcoms where there's some sort of, there's a bet where there's some sort of, like, there was a ploy, but then the person actually falls in love with who they're supposed to tempt. And then they find out 20 minutes left. Let's do that. Let's get one of those people. I'm ready for those. My wife would watch that movie. I don't know. Let's steal somebody though. Who could, there's nobody? Is there, well, we've already, we've already did that with the German, like, like, did you ever serve in Germany? Please come more of them. Just Tillman, Balagin are all dual national guys that the US convinced to play for us. I mean, that was one thing, you know, Berholtz, it doesn't get a lot of credit for much these days. Greg Berholtz, but only one of the defining features of his coaching and his running of the program was getting more talent in the front door. And that has led to, yes, they've established themselves as like a pretty consistently teens-ish team in the world. How you get to that next step, I mean, there's been a lot of teams that have tried for many decades and it tends to be like the same eight teams almost every time. So you said that before, before the tournament, what's it, eight teams ever that won the tournament? Yeah. You're a guise, one of them. And they were like, and now when you look at, you're a guise, you look at them, and now round of 16 was par. That's been par for this team forever. I mean, I think the frustrating thing is like, you get one on home soil, you get the best manager you've ever have. You get the most dominant group stage. And then you still look, I argue they looked worse in this match. And they did against the Dutch four years ago. Like that match was more competitive than the final score leads on. This match was less competitive, maybe than the final score leads on. Yeah, this felt like it could have been worse. Yeah, you look at the Fando lads right now, France favorite minus 175 Spain plus 340, Argentina plus 450 and C. R. Zinglin at five to one. And then Norway just like 17 to one come. Hey, they're Holland during the day in Miami. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just that's like you're really fun. Just I'm putting everybody on my back bet. We need to go sell some sunscreen in Miami this weekend. That's a good business idea. So did this come down to that Senegal didn't hold on to that lead. Senegal didn't hold on to that lead to nothing. Because that's what we would have played, right? I felt like we matched up better with Senegal than we did with Belgium. And I know everybody wanted to call Belgium washed and like they kind of are, but it's still a big difference in passing quality from what Belgium can offer versus what the Senegalese did. I would have preferred to have played Senegal. We still are. What's your relationship with number 10 on Belgium, the left wing, the little guy who just started just going nuts. Yeah, he just won the Premier League with and was very instrumental at the end for Arsenal. So I recognize him and acknowledge him, but I am not an Arsenal fan. So it's a little bit tough. He really schooled us. He was he was getting doubled at times and just seemed to be able to get the ball where he wanted to go. I hate Arsenal, but I actually like trust aren't quite a bit. He's probably my favorite Arsenal player. I'm allowed to have one these days. You know, those wings are scary when they're just completely still in the defense is paralyzed and they haven't even done anything like, oh God, what's they going to do? What's going to do something? What's happening? What do you think about the, like the, just in terms of your question about like, where do we go from here? I mean, it's interesting that the three host nations of the cup went out in three successive days, right? So Canada, then Mexico, then the US. I don't think it's going to diminish people's interest in the tournament, just because there's still so many incredible players playing. And this has been a tournament that's been defined by the fact that like Jude Bellingham, Erling Hall and Leon Messi, Killingham Bope, Harry Kane are all dealing. Like, this isn't like, oh, yeah, I have to learn who this guy is. It's like, no, these are the best players in the world and they're playing like it. So I think that this will remain a really kind of central sports story for another 10, 12 days, but it is disappointing that all of those, those countries went out over the weekend and we're not going to get any of them in the semis or the quarters, rather. What was the highlight of the tournament for you, DeBundo? I know what it is for CR England, three Mexico, two or the best games I've ever seen. Three Cabo Verde, two. That was also one of the best games. And they happened last week. I mean, it was unbelievable. But those two matches, it's why we love the game. Yeah, going to the Azteca, Darren Fletcher, I want to give a shout out to Darren Fletcher. He has called so many different sports now. He calls a lot of stuff in London. He's called baseball, but he has been so good these last two international tournaments. He did Euro 2024. He did. And now he's, you know, I think the number one guy, no disrespect to strong and stew, but like him and Hargraves are so fun. They made the game interesting. He's always working in these NFL or other sport references that kind of work, but don't really quite work. But you can see what he's trying to do. I love those guys. And then yeah, I mean, it was just the scenes. I mean, I was singing along to the anthems last night in my living room. It was so much fun. CRG, well, up there in Wonderwall after the game or now. I didn't. I think the bar that I was in was was not quite an England bar, believe it or not. And that was barely got out of their life. No, it was fine. Everybody was cool. But I think there were a couple of like silent fist pumps to myself. So, so walk us through the through the night last night for you. I get a red card with 30 minutes left. This turns into pre 2004 Red Sox territory of like, Oh, God, here we go. Here comes the fuck job. Well, and then Tuckel puts on all these centerbacks, not all these, but he puts on like he basically decides, okay, like this is what it's going to be. We're going to defend fortress and we're going to put all like we're going to put Dan Bern who can just head away everything John Stone's out there. We're going to pull off Kane at a certain point. We're going to pull off Saka. And he just was like if we're going to we're going to either live or die on these the 90 minutes plus 11 minutes of stoppage time. And I thought that was brilliant and incredibly brave to do it that way. Because if they had gone to extra time or to pens, he doesn't have the best players on his team out there to get a goal or even to kick penalties. I mean, he's got centerbacks taking penalties. So I thought it was amazing that they were like, I don't think these guys can get it over our heads. And we're going to prove it. Who is the six seven guy you brought in? Dan Bern. A lot of people made fun of him for big. A lot of people made fun of Tuckel for taking Dan Bern. And it was like, this is why you bring him for this one reason is you bring him in for this. It was like watching an NBA center just clearing out the paint, throwing it around. I thought that game was awesome. I really loved it. I think England's really good. I'm not just saying that because CR is here. I don't see why they couldn't win at CR. It's a really weird setup right now. There's like some stardust around messy. France definitely looks the most competent. I don't know what's going on in Spain. They kind of seem to be playing with their food like in a lot of these matches. But I think right now I just I think it's France's tournament to lose. Like they are just it's so overwhelming. How much talent they have? What do you think, DeBundo? Well, that's very convenient. You say that CR because I wrote a piece for the ringer today is this France's tournament to lose. And, you know, everybody has crowned France. France has not yet played a team that will challenge them in midfield that will try to keep the ball that will try to press them. And that's because most teams can't power why can't do that? Sweden certainly can't do that. Norway's backups can't do that. And so France looked very good and always does against those kind of teams. But we have seen Spain in the past the last couple of years beat France by saying, we're going to keep the ball. And your press isn't good enough to win it off of us. Yeah. And that has worked for Spain. I think it could work for England. I think it could work for Argentina. I mean, people forget it's four years ago now. But Argentina was kicking France's ass for the first 70 minutes of that World Cup final. It wasn't until in Bobbase, you know, sprinkled the pixie dust that that game turned around. And like certainly if you get into an end to end contest, nobody is beating France. But I think all three of the other favorites have a decent matchup to just say, hey, we're going to keep the ball. And you're not going to be able to get it off of us. And good luck because they shop. They don't want to press. They don't like to press Spain's defense is given up. What is it now? One and a half total expected goals in five games. It's ridiculous. How good they're their presses. And so they get Belgium. Who does Morocco? Morocco, France, France, England, Norway. I would be shocked if it wasn't France and Spain. Yeah. I only saw the second half of the Spain today because I was at the Odyssey for three hours. Classic Portugal though, I wasn't surprised at all by their, not wearing a goal. Not pulling Ronaldo off is is embarrassment. I mean, this is, we talked about this in the pod we did before the tournament that Dabundo was like, are they going to accept that this guy shouldn't be out there when it actually matters? And all I know is that watch the second half and in the little, the little added time all that. I never saw him come out. He was out of the car. They can't make in subs in the broadcast dark kept saying, you know, this is the time that see all seven comes off. I mean, it's like he should have been Lukaku for them. He should have been the closer. And we're, or even if he's capable of that, I really don't know what he, what he really is able to do. I mean, he started patting himself on the back for scoring on his back stand. I mean, while like his, not necessarily his generational cohort, but the guys who he would consider, you know, he's a part of that group. All those dudes have like seven goals are leading their teams and Ronaldo's divisive and Ronaldo can't run anymore. It was really funny. I mean, the stat that came out of the Croatia game, he had one touch in the penalty area and it was the penalty that was, you know, handed to him and then his backup comes in Gonzalo Ramos, who again, four years ago had the hat trick at the World Cup, people seem to ignore that. And he scored on his first touch in the winning goal for Portugal. So we're like, oh, maybe Martínez will sub in and we'll go with Ramos. No. And there were opportunities today. You know, if you wanted to be critical of Spain, there were chances like we're a more functioning attack. It's not just Ronaldo. Lea was bad off the bench, Neto gave them nothing, Felix gave them, like they're all of their attackers were bad today. Yeah. And Martin was competent team might have tried to create it some chances because their midfield hung in there. I mean, those two midfields went toe to toe today. It was pretty even game. And Norway with their keeper and with Holland, they have no chance to do it 2011, maps. No, they certainly do. I definitely think of ways. 17 or 11. Oh, I don't think that's I don't think I think Norway is very, very well organized, no exactly what they want to do. They have Odegard. They have Holland, like they, they could do one there. They might be the best coach team in the tournament. Their coach has done an incredible job of maximizing what they're good at and trying to hide as much as possible what they're bad at. It's like we can't defend wide. So we're just going to like, we're going to turn it up. And then the minute we win the ball, it's go, go, go. We're sending a bunch of numbers forward, Holland, Holland, where's Holland? Oh, he scored. Oh, he scored again. It'll be interesting to see you too cool when they get when they get Norway on on Saturday, whether too cool starts stones or even Dan Bern to deal with Holland lurking back there because even Gabrielle, who plays for Arsenal, for Brazil, seemed small against him. And they're going to need, they're going to need to muscle up with him. So big picture. We're parachuting above this tournament. It feels like it's been an A or an A plus when you think that all the world stuff that you have Black eyes and like things where you're like, whoa, that happened and certainly this one has. But as like a sporting event and as like a piece of like a spectacle, it's just been incredible. How was that like you made earlier the about all the best guys are playing their best is the number one thing you would want with any of these things. Like, I hope that's what happens in 2028 when they have the Olympics basketball, right? You want all these guys to also be at their best when they're going against each other. It feels like that's been happening. And then the Cape Verde thing was incredible. Yeah. And even America just even getting to where they got to today was really fun. But I just ordered a jersey. I can't wait to wear it. Cape Verde. And the and the fact that Messi can still do it at this level, but it feels like out of anybody in the tournament, even though all these guys are absolutely super famous. It feels like Holland has has won over the casual fans the most because the people that aren't watching, you know, Sunday at six in the morning on Pacific time and just kind of parachute in these cups. No, people are just like kind of dumbfounded by this guy. Yeah. Probably the newest addition to the kind of super galaxy of stars that we have. Yeah. Him and Bellingham. So if you watch England and you watch Rayal Madrid, Jude's not like a new new name or anything. But I think his performance in Mexico was like, that's the kind of thing they write songs about. And both guys embrace it. Like you said earlier, like they play up to the startup, you know, Jude does the patented wide arms and Holland has all of his celebrations. He's hilarious on social media. I saw his tweet got like 22 million views in the first like two hours that it was posted. His selfie. Yeah, that's 91. It has 91 million now. Or maybe it's maybe it's a hundred by this point and he's just hilarious. And he's so he's so quintessentially Norwegian, right? It like fits every stereotype that people think of when they think of like the Vikings and then they're doing the rowing and everything. And they've definitely probably been the fan base that is one over the most people too because of the iconic row. For sure. One of the exact love and really. Even Philly rowing yesterday right after I won I can't tell you guys like living in Philly where we've had you know, Ecuadorians, we've had Brazilians, we've had the French, the Iraqis, we've had the Paraguayans. Just seeing the different communities, the Croatians were awesome, seen the different communities cycle in and out of the city for like the last two or three weeks. And then the 4th of July being Saturday with France game and then downtown center city was just absolutely jumping all night Saturday into the to the Wii hours in the pouring rate. It's never been more fun. Being a host city has been has been a dream and I can't wait till we get to do it again in 12 years. Yeah. The games are on the other side of town for LA, but it's been so cool to see like the Mexico fans showing out, especially in the east side of LA and like I was at the I watched the Ecuador game at a bar and it was just like this is this is what it's all about. It's so fun. Well, the best thing for us here, that's not the case everywhere, but for here the games are on at normal times that we can construct days around and that's been, you know, something we lose when the thing is overseas. The games are on in the middle of the night and weird shit like that. And I think that's going to happen with the Olympic basketball too, which will be a shorter version of this. But same thing with all the prime time games and all that stuff, everybody will be watching. I think it's I think it's been an a plus. I've loved it. I've loved the gambling. I love the irrational confidence I have now. I was like, there's no way Portugal will be Spain today. That's not happening. I don't see it. Do you think you want to just dream world cup for this? I mean, the sports books have gotten crushed every that the back to back times where in Bob Bay, Kane and Holland, both scored two goals this or in Bob Bay, Messy and Holland, both scored two goals. People were just, I mean, if you bet any good player, they automatically score. It's like, this has been a dream of two goals, right? Yeah. If you're in the Holland, two goals with Norway to win, which is usually like four to one, five to one. Yeah. It's cleaning up on those. What were you going to say, C.R.? I was just going to ask whether or not you thought there would be much of a post, post tournament kind of accounting of like the, the Balrogon red card and Trump getting involved in sports karma or anything like that. I think if the, if the game wasn't such a blowout, I don't think, right. I think if he scores, if he scores the light and we went to one or if he scores the final pen, yeah, it's, it's a much much better story. Trump could have done anything he wanted that we were going to be Belgium and that came. It's the fact that they were just resting guys that would have been like two of our best five guys. I don't know. I think, I think that one will come and go, I do think it was interesting, no, interesting precedent being set of the president be like, huh, sports. What if I should get in and from a little bit here? I think he has a very open audience in, in FIFA, do we, I mean, they, they, they counted up a prize for him. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's, it's a two way street and, you know, one of the things that makes the world cup so fascinating as a historical object is like this sort of in the cross, the crossing of the streams of politics and governments and different, you know, from these different countries and how they get involved with what happens on the field. So it's, it's not the first time that's happened, but it was certainly like, holy shit, he's really doing this. Can you imagine if he had also gotten involved in the Jalen Brown trade? Yeah. Like this. I have a full investigation trying to figure out what the subjects are doing here. The bundle of gold. Yeah. Do you have a Jalen Brown trade opinion before we go? I know you did this on gambling show. I've always loved Jalen Brown. He loved it. So happy to have him. I think it's, it is going to be a weird, I'll be honest, we'll be a better regular season team. It's going to be fun. They had to do it. It makes a lot of sense. I'm, I'm pleasantly intrigued, but I don't know. Things just always end badly. I'm programmed to expect the worst with the, with the sixers, much like I am with the US men's national team in the round of 16, but you know what, I already have my eyes on it. Copa America, 2028. We need to get more matches against good teams. We can't just keep beating up on Conca Caff and that's going to be the chance to do that. So, well, even in the 2020s, having, you know, this is the big difference between where we were 12 years ago, which a lot of the guys that we had out there, guys that are, you said this before the tournament, guys that are good leagues playing on good teams. So, you know, you figure that keeps going. That's going to be an interesting development over the course of the next couple of years. I saw a couple of MLS teams have been talking about like, they want their model to be like, we develop young players and sell them to Europe. And that's going to be both financially good and it's also good for like US soccer because those guys will then get experience in these, in these leagues and making it less about the designated players and seeing if they can get a messier 11-dowski to come play for them. But those kinds of developments are probably good for the USMNT if bad for MLS, maybe, or maybe not. But the ultimate thing that they're going to really want is to create, how do US national teams play and create this kind of playing identity that I think Push could probably do. I just don't know if he's going to stick around for the long haul. I hope he does. I love Marisa Pugetino. He has done such a great job with this team and I know today went really badly, but I still think he's the man for the job and look, he's bought in. We like him. He likes us. Kumbaya. Let's have fun. The Netflix audience. We did a little poll who's going to win the World Cup and Netflix audience says France, but only 54%. Who was second? I don't know. How didn't tell me who was second. I'll tell you this. If Norway sticks around 16-1, 17-1, that's just a fuck it bet for me. It would be very England to go win at the Azteca and then show out flat Saturday. A little wonder, we can hear in the mirror gambling show. Keep doing those social media questions. clips you're doing as well, and we'll have to have you on one more time before the end of the, uh, World Cup, uh, I'm sad, but we press on. There's more soccer we had. We're going to take a break and I'm going to come back with, uh, old friend Jason concept scene on right after this. This episode is brought to you by Mikalobe Ultra. We are in the heart of the World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Mikalobe Ultra, uh, every play matters here. FIFA World Cup 26 for you. The stakes are just aside, Mikalobe Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26 is giving you a chance to win $1 million worth of tickets and prizes. Mikalobe Ultra from the pitch to the poor, superiors worth playing for. Enter now at Mikalobe Ultra dot com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26. Mikalobe Ultra of FIFA World Cup 26 superior access, no purchase necessary, open a US residence 21 plus begins on December 1st, 2025 ends on July 31st, 2026 multiple entry periods. Visit www dot Mikalobe Ultra dot com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. All right. All right, CR is still here, I am old friend, Jason Csepsionis here. You can hear him on the way to second podcast. I made an appearance early. I'm due for another appearance. Ironically, cut back a little on the pods the next couple weeks, probably one to two week for the next three weeks. One of the reasons is I got to do my zodiac deep dive. I gotta get ready for for this my zodiac killer way to second appearance. Uh, Jason, you just watched the USA game. We just covered it for 40 minutes, but give us give us your takes watching from afar. My main takeaway was I knew we were in trouble when we were doubling Leo Trussard early. I knew we were in trouble when Leo Trussard, who is one of my favorites for Arsenal super sub microwave score as an Arsenal supporter, love him. He's maybe five, seven, I don't know what the stats on him are, but he's holding off our defenders like he was prime Shaq and I, and I knew at that point, like we just didn't have the physicality to be in this game. We came out soft to we looked like we were afraid of contact. We didn't initiate any contacts. Uh, we weren't getting up in the air and it's just a bad performance all around at every level. You know what? I realized actually just over the last 40 minutes, Jason. What's that? Cheers team England. No. This is the good sun. You're sad. You're sad. We lost. But really deep down. I have to listen to it in a globe of soccer. England thing. No, you let go. McCauley Culkin tonight. And you're helping on your legs with England. That's what's happening. Uh, work. Have you been obsessed with the World Cup? Jason would spend your relationship with it. I love the World Cup. I've been, you know, much like Alexi Lollis, I've been, I've been waiting with baited breath low. These 20. It feels like years, but more for the US to kind of finally upshift out of this, get one game into the knockouts and then get knocked out mode, which it seems like no matter what the talent is. And certainly, I think this is the most offensively capable team that I can remember seeing since I started paying attention, um, we still got knocked out because listen, there's a reason that Tim Reem at 38 is still starting for this squad. And that's because you saw what the team looked like against Turkey and, um, it wasn't good when he didn't play. And we're, so we're just not, we, there's always something and this time it was that we just couldn't get organized in the back and just looked shambolic, had a good strategy, I think, but just didn't execute in, in moments and it all fell apart. It's just like in basketball and the playoff series when somebody's like, that guy can't defend everything. Once it him, you know, I think they knew Reem in certain circumstances was going to be a problem for us and, you know, his athleticism is much diminished and, and I think that they started like saying, like, let's test this dude. And obviously, then he, then he kind of went on till a little bit. I think, but it was, it was, it was, he, we got kicked on in that department. So, it's funny. I really got in a soccer, oh, eight, oh, nine range was when I really like started to become watching it and trying to understand who can forget your brief love affair with Tottenham Hotspur. Yeah. And then, and if you go back in my archives, there's a couple of decent, multiple times to me. So weeks, yeah, but, and then my daughter started playing and I was in this whole club soccer world. My, one of her first coaches said something that has always stuck with never since because when we went to 11s, we, you know, you go from like 9v9 to 11v11. And the coach said, yeah, 11s are tough because if you don't have 11, the ball always finds the person you don't want it to find. And it felt like we had the, the two for me and, and, and was poor Reem, who's 38 now, I'm told of his fault. And then, Des, who I just didn't really trust. And it just felt like, and they kept, they also kept attacking the sides too in a way that I thought, like, seemed intentional in the first half, but just felt like the ball was always finding the wrong people in this game. And that's what happens in soccer. Yeah. Des is completely washed. It was, it was tough. That's right. Yeah. And like, that's, I, if I was going to take like a kind of silver lining, I think these are the kinds of problems that more accomplished nations also face where you're like, that's right. Oh, man. Well, like, we haven't quite figured out right back or we haven't quite figured out the right side of our midfield or we need a center back to replace Reem. Like, other countries have had to deal with stuff like this. We don't necessarily have the most eye popping talent pool where you're like, well, obviously this dude is coming next. But I'm sure there are US soccer freaks out there who are like screaming at their televisions of their phones right now and being like, I know who's next, it's coming, you know, but it's like, I think that I think we're actually the problems that we have are the good problems to have. You know, they're, they're, they're soccer problems. Not like can anybody on this team play right? I agree. I completely agree with that. I think that the people forget, like, you look at the World Cup and it's like everybody mostly plays bad, even the really good teams mostly play below their level. I think part of the, part of the thing that's so frustrating for the US is like, we are bad at, at minimizing the holes in our squad and that seems to be a recurring issue year after year. And, and for instance, like, I'm not saying that we should become overnight like a Paraguay style shit, how's the really squad, right? You know, they're pretty funny, but like, but wouldn't like never pulling a jersey like ever, where you, you don't like hardly ever, are we pulling a jersey, hardly ever, are we going hard into a tackle on purpose? You know, and it's like those little things can minimize some of your shortcomings sometimes and we just, we're, we play like we're above that sometimes. And to your points, you know, it's also the fact that while this is the most talent that I can remember seeing, particularly on the offensive side, it's also not great. We don't have any world class players. Yeah. It would be nice to have a top six Premier League player, like a top six club guy on our team and we just don't yet. Do we need like a Dremon green type? We brainwashed. It's like a midfielder who just like, he's just get very close to the line game after game. You're worried about him. Maybe he could also pass and play in tight spaces. Like if we, you know, if we could somehow produce a, if we could somehow produce a sketch, like it would produce an Argentinian basically somehow, somehow, you know, JC, who is your MVP of the World Cup so far? We still have two weeks left. I think Holland just in the way that he's captured people's imagination. And in the way that he just always scores, he always scores and you know what's gonna happen. He seems to like lolligag through periods of play where he's just kind of strolling around and then he sees a sequence unfolding and he just is in the right spot, the way he runs, you know, the way he seems to play up his Viking ogre kind of image at moments and in his clear sense of humor, I just think he's been, he's been unreal, he's been dealing at an unreal level. See our no, no John Wick bad guy stuff for him or anything is Hollywood's best game in the world. You know, like nobody except for was likes them and so it's like he plays for the like the most sort of like evil empire team that's in the Premier League, I think, but you know, if I just to go along with what Jason's saying, like Holland would be my, my number one pick and number two, one A, would be messy, who could be doing a 2019 Tigers masters here. You know, like, yeah, this could be like going out like, like, like the goat that he is. Yeah, it's and belling him, I think is the other one who even the real soccer fans know who that is, but the super casual one's like, wow, this guy's really good number 10, I think one. I think he's, I think he was just incredible in the Mexico game, Astra. For some man, city context bill, they're currently facing 115 Premier League charges for for sure. inventing like their version of the salary cap. So it would be like if Aspirations times a hundred and fifteen collies. Yeah And you're talking to an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan. So yes, we do take it personally. Well, it was funny when I was thinking about when I was trying to pick my EPL team in '07. Everyone was telling me how they were the clippers. They were like the sad sack clippers. Yeah, and then that quickly flipped. Favorite national anthem, JC? Wow. Anything really knocked your socks off as we hear to get to Mexico last night. Mexico. Yeah, Mexico was great last night. Mexico was was bone chilling last night. I will also say one note I have for uh for poach and team USA. I love why don't we do the arms around each other? We predict John Denver or during the anthem. Did just during the anthem. Everybody else is like arm in arm and singing it. It's a good note. Head up like and we're like a foot away from everybody. I think France's anthem is still really strong. Yeah, yeah, Marcella is great. Yeah, I think that's that's way up there too. There's been there's been some clonkers. I don't want to name any countries, but there's a couple who are like wow. Well, that's it. That's what you're rolling with. You know the Brazilian anthem when it's in Brazil. You're like this is the most incredible thing I've ever heard. But when it plays it like met life, you're kind of like where's this one going? Like this, you know, because like it just doesn't have like the entire crowd is into it. So that yeah, what would be your move? Would you be a pose your eyes and and sing or would you be a belted out? Or would you just be trying to stay cool? I would, I would think personally, I would go the route of the Mexico players who were just like crying and screaming at the top of their lungs. I'm not too cool for the anthem like in that case. Yeah, you beat. Would you do that JC little crying? Oh, yeah, yeah, I would definitely you would see the chords in my neck standing out that that would be the level of intensity. Bill, you would be like Nick Seriani just like tears bubbling out of your face, but no, no, no singing. No, I would do the head back with the eyes closed intent the intense one. I always think that one. That one looks really great. Who do you have win in the cup? Jason. I mean, this is, this is not like some wild prediction. But I think this is Francis tournament. This means that it's not going to happen. Everybody's saying that you're doing everybody agrees on that. Then, then the rules of soccer have to trump it. I could spain to win it. But I picked spain to win it based on this stupid idea I had that Jeremy was going to beat France earlier. And obviously that was quite wrong. So don't listen to me. But it just does seem like whatever game you want to play, France can play it. If you want to, you want to have a shootout, they'll kill you. If you want to try and kick them, they don't care. If you want to sit back, they don't care. Like, there's nothing you can do to really fluster unless what DeBundo said, which is like can, can spain keep the ball away from them forever. The only thing you do to fluster, France is to give them a lead with two minutes left in an NBA game. Yeah, I wish I would be there. I'm sure it would be just an amazing experience to be in England for that to happen. That's actually where my parents met. It was during the 2006 broke up. So it would be very tempting to want to go over there for the celebrations. It's still like I'm playing dress up a little bit. I can't shed the soccer hipster accusations that you know. We run for JC, who's your team now? You're just jumping on Norway, that's it. For years, I've been and I remain this. It's France with the Netherlands is a backup. So obviously France, but now I'm going France, Norway. Okay, okay. I'm going to root for Norway and I'm going to bet on them at 17 to 1 or whatever the hell it is and do it that way. I don't think that's that bad of a bet. Yeah, so now we have soccer dying. We're going to go down to less games and then the tournament's going to be over. And then we're all going to be staring at each other. Wimbledon's as bad as boring as it gets, basketball, we are now moving into this LeBron. He's orchestrated perfectly. You can't pretend like nothing is happening in sports when we can do a frame-by-frame analysis of Brad Stevens's press conference. Well, that's the way. So that was the most exciting thing that happened non-soccer today was the Celtics press conference, which I respect that they had to say what they're going to say. But on the one hand, we didn't want to have 70% of the cap tied up with two guys. Okay, but then they also tried to trade for Yannis who would have tied the cap up with 70% and also Paul George makes 50 million a year. So I still don't know. Jason, you haven't, Sarah and I have talked about this in the pot already. You haven't given your take yet. What is it? Well, my take was, and I'm waiting for it, is the classic Ryan Curtis. Now they tell us story because it simply must be there. The only answer to this is all the whispering about the relationship between Tatum and Brown, all that stuff must have really amounted to something and they really must have felt like, listen, Brown is not going to submit to the kind of team that this was in the past, and we will not dedicate ourselves to the kind of team that Brown wants. And it's going to be a problem if we let it go any further than this. Clearly, they were under the gun. And it's interesting that Brad Stevens said nothing that betrayed them being under the gun. He made it to your point. He really framed it as a purely fiscal decision when it's like, don't you still have two players amounting to that much money? Well, he did use the word usage, which I thought was the one. One slip where he was like, when you have 70% of your cap tied into two players and a high usage for those two players, we came to the conclusion that this isn't going to work. And that that usage means we don't need to pay two guys to just trade, do doing banjos anymore with the way the league is. Was my interpretation a Zephyr? Yeah, that's fair. It's exactly what he was like. It's kind of like what Kirk said during the colonoscopy pod when he was just like, they want to be, oh, well, you're the one who called the pod. That's what it's called. It's like they wanted to be a one-contract team. They want, well, that's what they say they wanted. Yes, they were looking for Yannis. Maybe they feel like Yannis was like this big or a better trade asset that could have spun or whatever. I don't think we're going to know who won this trade or whether it was a giant mistake by Boston until next spring, because I think they'll be, you were saying this was exact, they're going to be good in the regular season. They're going to be good. It has good regular season basketball teams. They play very well. It's going to be good. Who would be better, Shyam, I'm going to be better. The JC's point about the now they tell us. I don't think it's going to happen just because I think they're so conscious about what's happened with the Red Sox and Patriots in years past when those pieces come out after the fact. And everybody in Boston is too crazy about sports and has knows all the signs and can read between the lines of pieces like that. I don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to take the high road if there is stuff. I don't see them doing it. The only stuff that's going to come out is this Anseler stuff. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but Brown and Tatum being in France together, but not interacting. And people that were there like, this is weird. One guy's over there and Tatum taking forever. Kind of like how Embed hasn't done the welcome to Philly post yet for Jalen Brown, like you can read between the lines with some of this stuff, C.R. You just can. I guess that's true. I mean, I saw that Embed was at the Brazil match in former Brazilian Alia. I was going to say, we might not have to wait for now they tell us, because we'll just have to wait for Jalen to do a Twitch stream where he's like, now I'll tell you, he did one the night that the trade happened and seemed to be pretty confused and pretty upset. And I think he's getting his head around becoming a rival. He's going to a rival team. I think that he's a competitive dude. And he probably was like, I will be a Celtic probably for life. The Celtic thing is so strange to me because there's like on one hand this mythology about their relationships and their star players and those players' relationships of the city, but this modern era has been about turnover. I mean, Isaiah Thomas, the Kairian Horton Hayward iteration. You know, Paul Pearson KG being traded to Brooklyn, like those guys don't sell late, you know? Like whatever they do. They did it with Marcus Smart, sir. Yeah, they don't, like it's like, yeah, we're going to take a beating for two months and then people are going to be back at the garden. So like, I respect it. I think that sometimes they get a little bit of like, like they get like a little bit too much leeway when it comes to like, we're like an institution that really respects the players who play for us and keeps them in our hearts. And it's like, you guys fucking trade people and they have like dislocated hips. Like give me a break. But I'm just saying you're hard following a lot of pain this week. Now, I mean, Isaiah Thomas thing was tough to defend, but that was previous ownership. I will say the new owner Chisholm looked like he was getting a ruckan out during that press conference. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you go from like, oh my God, I bought my favorite team. I'm going to bring my whole family. We're sitting courtside. This is so great. I'm just having such a good time. And now, you know, the Wormis term. If Jesus is not a rapper or a traitor, a writer, we were still doing this. Like we would probably have like a Tom Dundin, Matt Ishbia, Bill Chisholm group chat post that we were manufacturing. Here's, with that in mind, CR, here is what I would pitch to you and be like, CR, I'm working on a take. I don't, this is all I have, but help me flesh this out because I think this is a piece. The second apron era has turned every owner into James Dolan. Yes. That's a great stage. It's like turn over. You're drinking Dolan juice. Yeah. Every contract is a bad contract. Yeah. Yeah. It's like so hard to be smart. The cat fights against itself to retain your best player. You have to give them a contract that's immediately bad, immediately. And it's all about depth. But now, but like the rosters are squeezed and inevitably, everybody's smart looks dumb under this under this regime. Yeah, even looking more qualters in the and the Lakers. Like the Dodgers would keep LeBron on the team and just to have him like wave at the crowd every every night. Like they don't care about money, but like he obviously knows that that team is going to be decimated if they have Luca LeBron and AR like all on like that that salary tier. So you're right, Jason. It's just like the idea of like a Cuban or a bomber who's going to be like, I'll just spend my way out of it. You know, like, no, it's not going to happen anymore. Well, this starts previous version of this. The connective tissue is the Bradley Bill contract. Whether Wizards are like, what the fuck, what are we going to do? I mean, he's our best player. In the moment they sign it, it becomes one of the worst contracts in the league. Now we have the next version of this, which is you kind of can't have two of these. So the pistons are, you know, pistons won 61 games last year. They didn't even know if they want to bring Durham back because the moment that contract is eight million dollars a year too high, it has all of these crazy ramifications. The other way, when Brown signed for 304 million, the mistake in retrospect was maybe trying to knock that number down a little, but it was a previous, it was with the previous owner. He wanted to take care of his guys. They just won the title and, and, you know, it plays out the way it plays out, but it's weird to hear a team say, look, man, I know he was 6th MVP last year, but that contract's a little too rich for my blood. Like, we do ringer, ringer 100. I don't care where you have Jalen, but if you had him outside the top 20, that would have been insane. And there's 30 teams. Yeah, I think there's a corrosive effect that we're going to see over time, too, where, you know, there's a connection with players that, yeah, that, that cities have. And I mean, you, I've watched in that video of the kid crying because Jalen Brown was his favorite player. It's like, that's, that's real. That happens. And I think if you have a system that's based on just too much of that, who knows what you lose? Like, obviously, the parody era from the perspective of the actual parody is a, is a success. They wanted to create this and they've created it with eight new champions in a row that's unprecedented. But, you know, like the league was built on a specific kind of dominance that allowed characters to develop over time with the fan base. And there is a connection with, with teams and with the communities around them that maybe he's getting severed, you know, and, and is that good? And also with this model of having one big star and then a lot of turnover in your two through 10 say, yeah, with everybody else. I mean, like the sixers have kind of done that around and beat and star two over the last 10 years. And it's, it's sold ending after a while where you're like, who is this year's Marco Bellanelli? Who is this year's JJ Redak? Who is this year's Robert Cuffington? Who is this year's XYZ? It's kind of awesome. Even though the nicks were like thrown somewhat thrown together, you know, Mitchell Robinson was the longest 10 year Nick. It's kind of awesome to watch that core come together, piece by piece over the years and develop and build out. And like those guys are now full, full curious, like they'll never buy another drink or it should pull label in New York City again. And fewer and fewer teams are going to have that if they all buy by this. Like, well, we can have one star and then it's up to the GM to just find like the right rotation of guys every year. It's, it's a huge issue for the league. I don't think they see it. I think they're just focused on how much can we make from the media deal? Can we add two expansion teams? Can we grow the league? Can we create MBA Europe? Every decision they're making is financial, which includes this last CBA, where you have this second apron. And I've talked about this with other sports too. You're basically, it's a protection against yourself. Yeah. It's, it's like, if, if, like I give one of my kids, like a credit card they can use, but it's got a limit on it. And it's like, if you go over the limit, the card just automatically can't only use the gas stations. Yeah. That's what the second apron is. It's like, yeah, you can, you can go above the second apron, but your picks get frozen, you can't make two for one trades. There's all these tax for Peter shit that happens. And you have to be a fucking idiot. And you see somebody like James Dolan who, you know, has not been shy about spending money. That's for sure. He gives away every court side seat around the team. Like it, you know, on the one hand, doesn't seem to care about money at all, but even he understands, yeah, we can't have Mitchell Robinson anymore. We're going to have to replace him with Andre Drummond and he'll cost $12 million less, but this is what we have to do. By the way, since J. C. Sir, we had, you've been on the podcast since the next one though. Oh my God. 2020 is going to be a lot of trips since they have. Yeah. What happened? You were just like, was it like the end of the Odyssey? What was it like for you? It was like the end of the Odyssey. People are on a 3,000 year old story. Yeah. People though the word. I can honestly say that game 4 into game 5 was the peak of my life. Like I'm not even joking. It was the most remarkable period of my life that I've ever felt. I flew back to the parade. It was just like, I got to a point in my life. You know, you watch 20 years of bad Nick's teams after the 90s, and so I got into a point where I was like, you know what? Let's just be good. Let's just get in the mix. Get in the playoffs every year. Be respectable. Don't be a dumpster fire. Don't be a scandal plagued. 17 win team. Like just, just compete. And I'm fine with that. So I had put away for real any actual hope that I would ever see this. So it was like you're in the rom-com where you're giving up on love. And then finally you've found somebody on a trip to Pasconi. That was it. That was 100% right now. I will say this. And this is very not like me. After we smoked the calves, smoked that calves pack in the Eastern Conference finals. I was texting, you know, my Nick's groups. And I'm like, I really, I think we're going to win it. I think we're going to win it. Especially if we got the spurs. Just looking at the underlying stuff, we'd beat them. What was it? Two out of three in the season. Pretty comprehensively on the same game plan every time. We almost beat them in the game we lost. You guys went the cup against them, right? One the cup against them in a game that they were trying to win. The next did the double. They did. Didn't get her credible for it. How do you know when you raised the banner? When they separate the banners, what happens? There should be a double banner with like an attachment where the cup like attaches the cup banner attaches to the bottom of the regular banner. And let me also say to critique Adam Silver a little bit more. That's his baby, the cup. And the fact that they didn't play up much more. This historic double that has happened. A new bar has been set for NBA greatness. And a new bar in an era of parity. Yeah, right? In an era of parity, a new bar has been set. The cup predicted the NBA finals. And for the first time in its history, a team has gone, done the double, won both. And that should be trumpeted everywhere. And it frankly hasn't. And that is a miss from Adam Silver. The 53 years felt like it kind of trumped the cup, which I understand. Yeah, when they were down a lot of points in game four. Sure. Because this, this, I went through basically the same experience you did with the Red Sox and game four and game five in the Gensie Yankees. Yes. Where it's like to create these sporting events that just blend together now and where I don't even remember what happened and what game anymore. But there were also like a couple dark moments where you really like look at your past. And you think like, oh man, and that the real doubt starts creeping in. What was that must have happened in game four a couple of times, right? Game four, it wasn't the full existential doubt because I still thought okay I thought yeah I thought we go back to especially after yeah I thought we were the better team and I thought we were gonna win the series so I thought okay we go back to San Antonio I think we could still win the series but that said you know down 29 in the second quarter I just turned the sound off I'm like okay this is a wash we're not winning this game well yeah Trump game three flip in the karma and then down 29 and game in game four absolutely and despite the fact that I'd seen all these comebacks now going back to three seasons I was just like okay you know just like that's it we're not gonna get this one that's fine and I didn't start to get like feel that a little I mean it was 2018 like in the middle yeah far away even into that fourth but when they couldn't when the spurs couldn't make it more than that I started to get it you know I started to get really interested and then you know as the run was developing you started to feel it and they just the spurs look so tired they looked absolutely gas I thought the one you know obviously the next don't want to go down double digits early in every single game but it was very smart of them that no matter how many blocks when when we would have in the first quarter they just kept running at him run at him make him jump make him turn around make him react to things and it's like a boss battle where you're just chipping away at the energy bar of like the video game boss so that you get to the end and he's he's tired and that's what happened every every single game followed that exact plan CR do you think new spurs had coach Billy Donovan will be able to fix something no yet we forgot to put you on this Google meet Mitch my bad we're sorry guys was there meeting no no no I can't bitch you know what to tell you we just didn't want to waste your time honestly like you got you got no I just got together with the other assistants we just want to come up with some ideas for you no you want to give a speech go for it yeah we'll just circle back afterwards and maybe just clean that up a little bit no I that's like we just did from how we did hand that rocks a cradle where she hires her back in the morning and say yeah don't hire beckon martin martin martin martin's your nanny say I'm Billy Donovan so they want a couple titles and coach two other teams that was really actually Jason's description of this whole experience was so moving that I'm going to trash the joke I was going to make about them raising not only the NBA finals banner the cup banner but also the contract of payments to dark money payments to jail in front of that they're obviously making yeah can we do that on wait a second can we can we let me just say this and I'll say this with it in a complete sincerity that I've just it's just a thing that I've noticed and I think everything is above board it is it is notable like the massive jump in production level that the roommates pod underwent like kind of suddenly yeah oh there's you know I'm ex but that being said like I am completely I believe that everything is above board and and right let me ask you this did you guys feel like it was a red flag in the moment how much popovich was talking to the team and making speeches I didn't I didn't think it was a good thing like I know what yeah it was just it was it wasn't great and I and I wonder if the spurs would rather that had not got out or if the spurs were like get this out that pop is still like the new rockney of this team um I do you you guys hear their film in the roommates pod in 70 millimeter start in September 70 millimeter i'm act they have no cinematographer yeah wait a minute it's just like like this me kale um so what TV are we supposed to watch as the world cup winds down JC oh wow what do you into these days uh second season of the agency which is a show I know that which is itself an adaptation of neburu de les gens from French television is out and I think it's it's not as good as the bureau but it to me it's good enough pretty good it's pretty good and the changes they made to make it to you know kind of like American intelligence it more just hit for me and so I can run that back I haven't watched one episode can I bang that out this oh yeah you like it I think you like it yeah it's fat is it shame fastbender or just fastbender it's it's fastbender pretending to be an American spy and and it doesn't like but it's still so there's made or anything like he's basically playing like like a yeah I mean he has some weird sex but still like yeah yeah yeah that's part part of the spurs with him yeah he's a spy see what what's been your favorite thing in the summer you know there's a show on apple called star city that's been uh it's like a spin-off of another show they have called for all mankind and it's set in um the Russian the Soviet space program in the 60s and 70s and it's really great that sounds like CR Mad Libs it's like I can only be me to have uh one of the co showrunners of the Americans it's the for all mankind guys but it's really good uh I've been hate watching the living hell out of Cape Fear which I think is one of the worst shows I've seen in the last five six years and now it's hit the point it's six episodes in um I could tap out right now and not even care about what happened or do I just hate watch my way through the rest of this I'm more interested like when shows like this when they don't work and they become campy trying to read the the signs of some of the like they have good actors in this like when did Amy Adams felt like around episode four or episode five I think when Amy Adam showed hope started going as we you guys aren't all doing accents it's just me right she the hope was starting to flicker out of her eyes I would say um hey one of things apple does amazingly well from a comedy standpoint it's the worst parenting you've ever seen in your life and they'll do it over and over again with these these like wealthy families some sort of drama crisis thing and apples just like do you need to be aware of the if these parents didn't care that their kid chopped his toe off and seems like a complete maniac and a disciplined for some others yeah like might be putting himself for other people in danger like no it's like hey Bobby we're gonna go out for for for dinner tonight you stay home with the dog um they just I don't know what it is so apple like this seems like they're laying now they have like three different lanes and one of these lanes of these wealthy crimey families and disarray couples that hate each other like press the chair yeah yeah yeah it's like prestige divorce divorce pulp yeah um did you finish the bear JC I did not finish the bear but I'm getting ready to to struggle through it with all respect to the bear I was a fan of the final season I think you'll yeah they did it right pit style what's that they did pit style just like everything in one day set mostly on one day yeah oh wow okay yeah we're missing now see what are we missing now in the TV landscape what are we not doing I mean there's a lot of genre stuff on dragons pretty good this year I think um it's uh it's just that we don't really have like uh I you know that I mean we actually really don't have like a white Lotus E succession kind of like normal people behaving badly show that everybody kind of falls in love with um trying to think of like what what's coming that's even exciting but uh feels like it's drifting back toward movies I made this point yeah we used to go where um it fit I wonder if the creativity is starting now I finally saw obsession do you like it oh it was really good I didn't love I didn't love the lead actor would be my uh my one okay but I know if Shalame is in that movie that's like one of the best movies a lot of time I think he his his bill is like five times the budget I can't I can't say if you put Shalame in that lead part we're talking about this movie for 25 years ago did you I'm sure you did not see this but the the main actress from that movie Indy never ready oh he too he too wait don't you know me at this point when you're like I'm sure you didn't see this but you were like anything happens without being knowing with he too um I have this question actually speaking of heat it's a male back question from Victor long time fan diehard magic fan in Orlando recently I was rewatching the town and the entire Fenway heist was for three million dollars realize it and this is what this back Bianco made for the spurs this season had me thinking are the prizes and heist movies too small or mba contracts too big what would Neil McCauley have had to do to get a year of Devon Booker's salary you're the best man I solved this issue I have noticed this in some of our heist things where they're like we got to take this down yeah and I want it to be like twenty nine million dollars and they should go back in ADR like what's it because if you go back to like the 1950s and wars and they're like robbing a horse race track and it's like what's the take ten grand it's like maybe we should go back in and be like a million dollars it's like we were talking about when Jason was on for the survivor like oh that Mr. Beast bumped it to two million bucks it's like this was a million dollars in two thousand like the NBA salary cap was eighteen million dollars in two thousand or whatever like how is it not ten billion dollars to win survivor now um so heist movies higher would you bump it up CR yeah but I think we actually have a lot of really ridiculous ice movies where they go for like we're going to take a billion in crypto off this guy. It's just that those aren't as good as Den of thieves and heat in the town and stuff. Do you want to quickly have the heat to conversation? Let's talk about the ol' being shirtless. This is the thing that has been rumored for a long time. I think everybody was waiting to find out if he was going to be Neil or Chris and he's shirtless. He's going to be the star of the movie. I get asked this question all the time and I'm sure both of you do too from people in our lives. What do you think? Is this really happening? I'm going to go. I'm glad they're doing it. I'm obviously going to see it. I obviously care that it's happening. I am aware of every single casting anything that's happened with this thing. I'm just nervous. We've seen this go wrong. I ended up not seeing glad eight or two on the advice of many people. Just in general, some of the scary, bad sequels that we've had that you end up just kind of forgetting happened. Michael Mann, who are all-time favorite. He's been a nine rewatchable's movies, including today with Ali. When you get directors in their 80s, J.C. gets a little dicey. I don't know if I want people directing expensive movies or running my NFL team. This was a conversation I was having with some friends recently. Who is the director in their 80s? Historically, who was crushing it? I think there are different variables, but at the top level of AAA type of movie. It's like kind of nobody. Kind of nobody. Like I can- 70s even gets dicey. Yeah. Yeah. So Kubrick still had the fastball to the very end. And to be fair to Michael Mann, he's still from everything we've seen semi-recently still got it. But yeah, it people- No, but this is sacred. It is. This is the difference is it's not just him making a movie, but I would support if he was 100 years older on make movie. It's just, why haven't we done he too before now? Why are we doing it now? I know he wrote the book, but is it worth doing it? Yeah. I mean, you could say- And I will hear the argument that this is like really Scott returning to the alien universe where it's like- But really, Scott Lee makes- can still make two movies a year. And they're not always that good and he shoots with five cameras and it seems like he's getting a little fast and a little sloppy. The thing that gives me some confidence in sheet two specifically is the presence of Jerry Brockheimer who himself is not a spring chicken, 82 years old, but is like one of the great shomans. And I hope that the combined forces of these two very old men will make up for whatever deficiencies the other has and make sure that this is like- I just don't think to caprio signs on for this and is like, let's hope it's okay. You know, like- It is true. He has had impeccable taste over the years. And we do have- It's just got me to go through- Yeah, and he has to know there's going to be three things in this movie that I do that people are going to be breathless over, you know? And- Otherwise, I just don't know why- why- why- why- didn't you just do Ferrari then, you know, or whatever else? He just doesn't make his choices idly. Well, I saw- I won't spoil anything from the out of city today because I know you guys haven't seen it. There's also an embargo on it, I think. The only thing I'll say is, Kristallon, guy who, you know, over the course of a long movie, there's going to be a couple set pieces in there, you know? It's like- Like when you're watching an awesome WWE championship match, there's going to be a couple of bumps that they thought about ahead of time and that you're going to be like, holy shit. And that's- that's what a Michael man, when his movies are really cooking, they'll have like three or four sections in there that you're just like, wow. The stuff I'm most looking forward to- The stuff I'm most looking forward to- And Heat 2 also is stuff that hasn't- that is not heat. Like it's from- like it'll be either in the desert or it'll be in Central America or whatever, and it'll be like different than heat. So the city stuff will be cool, but I'm looking forward if they bring it page for page out for that stuff. There's- there's another existential- existential questionnaire, JC. You know, CR's obviously known Sean longer than me. They've been friends since when, mid 2000. Early 2002. You've done a lot of big picture appearances with them, seen a lot of movies. We started the rewatchables from a heat podcast we did. Heat, I feel like, is RIP. And I'm really going to make sure to say I handle this. I think with Heat 2, I feel like that's- I feel like I should be in pole position for the first part of the CR. You are in pole position, don't you? I don't know. Maybe America decides. Why not all of you? Why not- why not to try him for it? Yeah. Maybe that's- maybe that's what needs to happen. Because I think- let me just say as a fan. As a fan of y'all also. That's what I want to see. Is that trio? JC say and don't choose CR that it should be me and Sean to gather the three of us for Heat 2. Okay. I don't know. Maybe what- maybe American- maybe we do a poll. American votes. American votes. What's wrong? We've done- we did the three-heater of the four-heat. Well, we've done two heats in Michael Man. We have not done four-heat yet. I'm ready because I have- I have some thoughts from recent watches. I have more heat opinions. I don't think I have any more heat opinions. We still have a couple of ways to go. We can do the blind heat rewatch. No notes. We can do heat, but we're not allowed to talk about De Niro Pacino. Like, there's still- Oh, wow. Yeah. There's still a couple of tricks up our sleeve. Oh, that was my favorite one where we- like, we give De Niro Pacino a red card in the first minute of the pod. They're just out of the pod. We're resting them for Heat 5. You're not allowed to do a Pacino thing at all. How excited are you for the Odyssey and a scale of one to 10, JC? I'm excited. It's- you know, it's- it's a- it's going to be a like an iconic- no one is one of the iconic guys currently working. You can argue that he's the best director currently work. Certainly, the only one currently that would be allowed to make a film like this. And I mean, I'm all in considering that this has its roots in him not getting to make Troy. It's been gestating that long. I'm excited. I'm excited. I sat next to somebody you've both potted with over the years many times, Bailey Rubin, in the screening today. And let's just say she was digesting a lot. A lot of things- a lot of things that are in wheelhouse. There's books. I don't- you know, there's this whole other level for this movie that if you want to go back and then also dive into- I was going blind. I could barely remember anything from, you know, I read these books in high school, you know. So I was kind of re- re- re- remembering a lot of the stuff that was in there. But I know there's an embargo. I saw people tweeting about it. I think I like to say like I saw it and I liked it, but they're like full review and plot- I thought it was incredible. And most importantly, my guy Matt Damon. You know, I still feel like he's alive in the Damon versus Leo thing. I know I'm like one of the only people holding on to it, but if we go best, best like seven Matt Damon movies versus best seven in the Capitol, I feel like he's in the mix. This is a very exciting argument to have. It is a really interesting one. I just think his basketball reference page is better than people realize. I think I tried to do that. I tried to make a Damon versus Cruz take case that you guys laughed me out of your- off of a set for like during re-watchables, but Damon Leo is a good argument to make. I remember by HBO show 10 years ago playing that one up right after the Martian because Damon had momentum, but Leo's been steady. He's a little bit younger, but Damon's career also like you go back to basically school ties is 92, 93 range. So he's been 35 years now banging out watchable movies. With Leo, I think you would have to say no Titanic. We don't put Titanic in the mix because I just think with Titanic, it takes Leo to a level that Matt Damon has never seen. Honestly, it might happen with the Odyssey. I know Titanic was a billion dollar movie that won a bunch of awards. I don't know if that's not happening with the Odyssey. It's fucking sold out all through the summer in LA already. But Titanic was the type of cultural impact that the Taliban had to ban it. It was that level movie. People going eight, nine times. They were banning stuff left and right. But when they were like no music, no makeup for women, and also Titanic cannot watch that movie in the borders of Afghanistan period, like I think that is a crazy, crazy, crazy impact. It's a it's a pretty awesome achievement. I'm really happy for Damon. It is impeccably well-cast. people know this, I think from the IMDB, do you guys know who Charlize Theron plays in this movie? I forget, but I know that she's fairly important. I want to say it's Cersei maybe. Oh, Cersei, she plays Calypso. Oh, Calypso, okay. And she's well cast. Oh, she's going to say that. Also happy for my girl Ann Hathaway, but yeah, no, it was, it's really something. I'll be interested to see what the reaction is. It seems like everybody had that reaction, like holy shit. I'm excited for Bernthal. Just Bernthal. You want to know about the horse? No, don't talk about the horse. You're daddy's side. So I intentionally read nothing and knew nothing. I knew a couple of the people that were in, but there were a couple where I was like, and when I saw Bernthal, I gasped when Malar started laughing. And I was like, I had no idea. My guy, he's here. But those are the most fun kind of movies. Anyway, the Odyssey. What else are you looking for? Pop culture wise, the summer's here or anything? Me? Oh, I can't. We're going for Resident Evil. The Zach Kregger follow up to weapons. And it looks awesome. JC? Same that you've, you know, loved the video games. Me too. And the trailer knocked me out. Any reality? Nothing? Are you out of reality now, Jason? No, I'm, I'm, well, I'll tell you my most dirty reality secret is below deck. I watch it year round. Oh my god. My wife as well. My wife, like, like, just, just, inhales it. What is it about below deck? I don't really understand it. It's a perfect reality procedural. It's, it does the same formula over the course of like two episodes. And it just does it like on an, on an assembly line. It's charter. Comes in. There is workplace dynamics. And then there is the cool down where they all go out to the club or whatever. But for me, the thing is they're all truly working. They're actually doing a crazy job out there on the high seas. And you can't beat the stakes in reality television. Of if this all goes wrong, somebody drowns. It's interesting. Has that ever happened on below deck? It's almost happened several times. It's almost happened. My wife really enjoys the different people that come in. That that rent the boat. The different types of people they pick. And then really Johnny Damon, she was all excited about that. But she really likes the tipping at the end and the dynamics with that. And whether the people, I just, I can never buy into it. See, I'm not, I gotta say this is the least amount of reality. I've watched it a long time. Yeah, you might be aging out between Harris. I'm also probably aging out. I think when the challenge just became a professional sporting event and started having people screaming at each other and hooking up in a closet. Yeah, nobody took out a bit of a closet or a bathroom anywhere. I don't know, I don't know where we go with this. All right, guys, I think we covered everything. I think so. America's gone. The next are NBA champions. The Celtics are in complete flux. AJ Brown is on the on the Patriots. He too is coming out. Just a lot of crazy shit's happening right now. JC, I will see you on wait a second in the next couple of weeks. CR, I will see you for the watchables next week. People can watch us do Ali today. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau and Chris and Jack and everybody. That's Spotify. I'm going to be back one more time this week. Not sure when. So stay tuned for that. Thanks for watching on Netflix. Must be 21 plus some president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming. 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