What Went Wrong | The Beautiful Pod

Adam is joined by Nick Wright to talk the USMNTs brutal defeat and CR7. Chris Ryan then joins to discuss England v Mexico and Argentina v Cape Verde. Host: Adam FriedlandCohost: Chris RyanGuest: Nick WrightExecutive Producers: Adam Friedland, Marc Fineman, and Mason KleinWriters: Adam Friedland and Sam SerxnerProducers: Sam Serxner, Julia Cassidy, and Chris WholersEditor: Jon RoemerStudio Tech: Adam Tarin--See Adam on tour https://theadamfriedland.show/pages/tour--JOIN THE FRIEDLAND FAMILY FOUNDATION / PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION:https://www.youtube.com/@TheAdamFriedlandShow/join--Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheAdamFriedlandShow--Buy our merch: https://theadamfriedland.show/collections/new--X: https://x.com/adam_talkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theadamfriedlandshowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adamfriedlandshowclipsYouTube: Subscribe to @TheAdamFriedlandShow here:https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAdamFriedlandShowSubscribe to @TAFSClips here: https://www.youtube.com/@tafsclipsThe Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Adam Friedland?

  Welcome to The Beautiful Pod. It's Adam Friedland. At the top of the show, I'm joined by Nick Wright of Fox Sports to do a postmortem on the 4-1 loss, the United States against Belgium in the round of 16, the catastrophe of Seattle, they're calling it. And then after that, I go back in time to yesterday where I talked to CR about the Azteca and of course about the Messi. The Messi. It shouldn't even be Messi. It should be Cape Verde. The Cape Verde. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It makes me want to cry. Do you remember when the tournament was beautiful? It was. Anyway, enjoy the show. The Beautiful Pod is brought to you by FanDuel. This summer, America's number one

• 0:49Adam Friedland?

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• 2:37Adam Friedland?

  Nick Wright, I talked to you, you were in, you were in bad shape last night. This is my, we're, we're good friends.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Dear friends, dear friends.

• 2:47Adam Friedland?

  Last night, we watched a noble 4-1 defeat to.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  We didn't. There was nothing noble was, there was nothing noble about it.

• 2:55Adam Friedland?

  My question for you is, how does this affect LeBron's legacy? Okay? 30 seconds.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I do think Cristiano Ronaldo's performance, you know, has enhanced LeBron's legacy. I heard on the broadcast yesterday that he, you know, I think Landon said he's in the best shape of any 41-year-old. And I was like, oh, no, he's not. The, so in that regard, like, can you still be performing at the highest level at 41?

• 3:22Adam Friedland?

  Two-shiner.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? I just, just for, for, for the record. So it wasn't so much the US Men's National Team that made me think about LeBron, but it was Cristiano Ronaldo limping around out there. Um, but that was a catastrophe.

• 3:35Adam Friedland?

  You're a man with a code, and I respect you.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you started there, so I figured I'd go there. I, that was a catastrophe for us, bro.

• 3:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  And the only, this was the only thing that mattered was, can we break the hard ceiling of the round of 16? And the answer was resoundingly no.

• 3:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they're not very good. I mean, we lost to Turkey. We're dog shit. I mean.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that one, I didn't care. That was our B team. That was our backups. I.

• 4:04Adam Friedland?

  They weren't very good. I mean.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  They weren't, they weren't very good in that game. And listen, if we're going, here is the way, I think sometimes we patronize, like, the, the sports that.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  American media kind of parachutes into. You then don't give it the full respect of the full American media take storm. So can we please give the US international team the respect to have the discussion we would have if this were one of our major American domestic sports? Which is Christian Balisic.

• 4:39Adam Friedland?

  CP.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Did was a total no show the entire tournament.

• 4:44Adam Friedland?

  You have to feel for him though, right?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Why?

• 4:47Adam Friedland?

  Like, okay, you put on the hat, the red hat, right? And then he goes, he goes ahead and changes the rules in an unprecedented way. Donald Trump goes ahead and for a British guy. And you're like, I've been wearing the red hat the whole time.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  See, but that's, but he this.

• 5:04Adam Friedland?

  Why are you trying to save a British guy? An unprecedented move in World Cup history.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  So I listen.

• 5:11Adam Friedland?

  Damn red hat.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  I don't, I, I disagree when people say.

• 5:15Adam Friedland?

  Maggots himself.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  I, I disagree when people say how unprecedented it is. People are like in all of World Cup history. The vast majority of World Cup history didn't have any red cards given out due to VAR. So I'm gonna throw that in history out. Yeah. Well, you know what I mean? Like it, it previously in order to get a straight red, you had to do something so egregious. That in real time on the field, the referee was like, holy shit, what happened? And so he gave the red. So I don't really care about that piece of it. And I don't buy the idea that the, that Trump stepping in, it was bad juju for the US.

• 5:51Adam Friedland?

  Red cards.

• 5:54Adam Friedland?

  Suspension.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Well.

• 5:56Adam Friedland?

  Suspension of the suspension, they've never done it.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Except they literally did it right before the tournament for Ronaldo. They literally did it. For a friend. He, he got, he got a red card, got a three game ban. And then they were like, you know what? We're gonna suspend two of the suspension games. So that part I don't care about.

• 6:12Adam Friedland?

  Put the work in, he went to the White House, he put on a black tie, he sat there with Mohammed bin Salman, okay? He showed a little bit of respect. He returned back to our country after a decade being gone. I don't know where, why, but, uh, but yeah, this guy, this English guy who lived here for a month. Donald Trump's gonna turn around and no, I'm kidding, but listen, he's not R9. Like, we did it for a kind of like a pedestrian mediocre, not mediocre. He could bang it in the back of the net, but he was an.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Listen, he was, but the, here's the, here's the, to me, people are missing, people are missing the, the forest for the trees here. The reason Baligan was so important and the reason we thought him being suspended was catastrophic was because the guy who was, is doing a whole ad campaign about changing what American soccer is was awful. The whole tournament. He got kicked in the calf. Yes.

• 7:08Adam Friedland?

  No, he was nice during the group stages.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  No, he was not. He didn't play, bro.

• 7:14Adam Friedland?

  He looked like the Neymar.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Yes. First half of the first game, he was good. Yeah. And then he got kicked in the calf, came out, missed the second game. The third, the third game could only play part time and in a game we lost. In our first knockout round game, we're down a man. He can't go to full 90.

• 7:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  And then yesterday, he kicks a guy and then he's like, I can't play.

• 7:39Adam Friedland?

  Especially because he's a Croat and he's playing against Bosnia. That should have fired him up, dude.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  I didn't even think about that.

• 7:45Adam Friedland?

  Genuinely speaking, it's kind of like, it's, we're like hyping him up a little bit too much, like. And, and what I will say to defend Pulisic, he has never really bailed on the United States. He's always put in a shift for the States. I, I have to say that.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Are you being sarcastic? It's just not true.

• 8:01Adam Friedland?

  Yesterday, he was abject, right? But like beyond that, like.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Well, he skipped the gold cup because he was so tired.

• 8:08Adam Friedland?

  Baby. It made us look baby and like teachers pets for the president to go like, please can we have full.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  That I don't listen.

• 8:15Adam Friedland?

  A journeyman from a farmer's league?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  That is not the story. As you hold a child's vape, why, did you get that vape from a junior high school?

• 8:25Adam Friedland?

  What, what do you? Doo doo team who didn't even want to be there. Who was like telling, uh, like, uh, Doku, he couldn't like go see his kid being born. The Golden having sex with their talismanic midfielders like girl like they're a disaster. Their golden generation has been a disaster. They were like, uh, not being taken seriously going into this match.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  I know.

• 8:46Adam Friedland?

  Got gassed. They got, they got to, they, they thought they were gonna walk it.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  But that's, so that's why this is so disappointing, bro. Is because I understand Belgium's the number nine team in the world. They haven't looked like that for a moment in this tournament.

• 9:02Adam Friedland?

  They're a disappointment, a massive disappointment.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Right. They drew against Egypt. They drew against Iran. They needed an absolute miracle to beat Senegal. They have looked awesome in two matches this tournament. New Zealand and us. The fact that they did to us what they did to New Zealand is criminal. Like that, and did you?

• 9:24Adam Friedland?

  Big Rom, Big Rom is the only one that I, uh, will vouch for. I would, he's, he's one of my favorites.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Not De Bruyne?

• 9:32Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  I mean, he didn't even play yesterday.

• 9:35Adam Friedland?

  That's why they won yesterday. It was because De Bruyne, they, they literally, they gave him the.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  They didn't play. No, Lukaku's an all-time great.

• 9:42Adam Friedland?

  Big Rom, especially when he's fat. When he's fat, he bangs it in the back of the net. Not as good. Kelsey Lukaku, six-pack Lukaku, kind of, kind of a disappointment. When he has a little belly, then that's really when you're in trouble. He's kind of Mariano. He's kind of enter Sandman style right now. They bring him in. They bring him in. He's the closer. Uh, no, genuinely, we were playing, it, it was a, it was a good draw for us.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  No, that's the thing. We had, we had a perfect draw. We got super, you know, fortunate of the 32 teams to make the knockout round. Bosnia, Bosnia is like 29th. We're at home and, and to have that performance. Can I ask you this?

• 10:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  For the 45 seconds after the Tillman free kick, did you think we were gonna win?

• 10:34Adam Friedland?

  Cause I I thought the the World Cup, yes, I thought they were

• 10:38Speaker 02

  No, not the World Cup, just that game.

• 10:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, no, I you know what it is truly? The country is so like, uh, effed up outside of sports. Sports have been great. It's sports summer, right? We've got games every day. How dope is that? We got the and we got this. It's been, come on, Nick. We've had the best summer ever. Okay. And we have to do it because of our jobs. Cause we're serious sports pundits and there's nothing they can say to stop us. No, but I in reality, like, um, like, look, look at like the US men's national team, like, genuinely like played a real system and that was the novel thing. The first half of the first game I thought was, it looked like this is a sea change. This is miles better than we've ever seen before. But think it just like the personalities, like Trump making that move.

• 11:26Adam Friedland?

  I think alienated half of the stadium. I mean, generally speaking, like we thrived and I'm not saying we won chips, right? We thrived when we had Dempsey and Donovan. We had like a little bit of a scrappy edge to us. Dempsey was crip walking on the fucking pitch. He was saying, you don't know where I'm from, homie. Like he was a Texas guy, one of those guys that said Patna. You know, those guys, like a UCK kind of guy. It was cool that we had that on our team. These guys are just like, there's nothing like, uh, that grabs me or grips me about the personalities on the team. It is a just fool's errand to believe that tactical football is, uh, can apply to knockout, uh, to knockout game state. We've seen it over and over again. Pep Guardiola tried to over manage over and over again.

• 12:11Adam Friedland?

  Every time he'd go up against Carlo Ancelotti and he'd be like, I'm gonna play Kyle Walker at nine and I'm not, I'm gonna have my goalie is a midfielder and he'd overthink it. And yeah, this is, uh, this is something that is suited to a league campaign. It's not suited to knockout football. Knockout football is bloody and brutal and unfair. And it just waltzing in there and being like, we're playing a Terrible team that doesn't want to be there. Literally, they have not looked like they wanted to be at the World Cup the entire time. They're like, we got shirts and the country says we have to have a soccer team. Genuinely, and then we're like, oh yeah, we're amazing now. No, have some fucking humility. We're America. They beat us before in the knockouts.

• 12:54Adam Friedland?

  Just have a little bit of fucking revenge on your mind. Don't, don't have the president being a suck up to the fucking head of FIFA.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  You are, listen, you, the.

• 13:03Adam Friedland?

  It's inept of like, uh, uh, like at being a, an autocrat, he's being inept at it. Like what they used to do is just say, I'm going to kill your family unless you throw this match. And that's how Peru loses 6-0. You don't brag about being like, hey, I talked to the teacher and the teacher says that we can, that Flo can come back. No, we look like nerds.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  But that has, that had nothing to do with how we played yesterday.

• 13:26Adam Friedland?

  It alienated. It wasn't. There was a spirit around.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  What alienated the stadium was that, that Belgium scored immediately.

• 13:37Adam Friedland?

  Oh, Pulisic, he was storming the capital and, and Trump didn't even care. He was there with a, a.

• 13:45Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean, the truth is this, they were, they got too impressed with themselves and they literally waltz in. And they looked at like Belgium's recent form. They're like, oh, they, they couldn't score against Iran.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  But that's why, so that's why I'm saying the Tillman goal should have been a hard reset. It's like, oh shit. We're very lucky. We're not down 2-0 right now.

• 14:06Adam Friedland?

  Donovan and Nancy had the spirit. There was a soul there.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Those teams were not good, bro. You are, you are romanticizing those teams because of your age.

• 14:16Adam Friedland?

  He was 38 years old, right? We didn't, even in the first match where we, we cracked four. We saw it going back the other way and we're like, oh, it's going to be a disaster if anyone tries to attack us. The thing we used to do well is create keepers. That was the one thing we did well.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Right, Tim Howard.

• 14:33Adam Friedland?

  In the prep, three, we had Guzan, Friedel and Howard. And Howard was like, like, that is the one thing America did when we were crap at ball. Right? And now we have this guy from Harvard. It's, it's one of the most embarrassing, it's hilarious. I mean, that howler at the back, you don't see, like, it's, it's, it's.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  So let me ask you this question. Let me ask you a serious soccer question. I read just some random tweet this morning. And I

• 14:58Adam Friedland?

  Are you sure?

• 14:59Speaker 02

  You know what?

• 15:00Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, you know.

• 15:02Adam Friedland?

  It's one of the most well researched periods in history.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I just.

• 15:05Adam Friedland?

  Six million is just an estimate. Okay.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Stop.

• 15:09Adam Friedland?

  We'll cut that.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  We'll cut. You're, you don't have to cut anything. I'm not responsible for what you say.

• 15:15Adam Friedland?

  Nick, you're my bad. I'm just.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  And the take of it, here was the gist of the tweet.

• 15:20Adam Friedland?

  Let's hear it.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  That guys, three through 11.

• 15:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Norway versus the United States.

• 15:27Adam Friedland?

  Uh.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Are not that different. But Norway's Norway's best guy.

• 15:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Is a demigod. And Norway's second best guy, Odegaard, would be the best player in American soccer history by a mile. Okay, but still would be the best player in our history by a mile.

• 15:45Adam Friedland?

  I guess.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Uh, maybe. It, like, is. Is really what our ceiling is, is not about the overall development of thirty guys. But the fact that every team that's gonna make the final eight has one of these, you know, a guy who might one day or already has been a finalist for the Ballon d'Or and we'll never, we've never had anyone.

• 16:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  You know, even being able to buy a ticket to the event.

• 16:16Adam Friedland?

  Ronaldo Messi.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  No, I know, but say, you understand what I mean? That's why I said a finalist.

• 16:20Adam Friedland?

  We don't have any like top ten talent in the, in the States. The problem is youth.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  We don't have a top fifty player in the world.

• 16:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, probably, yeah. We, the problem is, the, the, in, in Europe, like, sports is free. People go to academies young and like, uh, the whole thing about like if LeBron played soccer is like, it kind of ignores like the way that they're trained, like Spain, for instance, like La Masia, like Barcelona's academy is like, we will never have uh, physical advantages over other national sides. We are going to be the smartest at, at, at sports. We're going to like, uh, we're going to out tactic and out maneuver and out chess every other team. And we're gonna have a, a six like Busquets or like Guardiola used to be, uh, like, you know, the deep line playmaking midfield.

• 17:07Adam Friedland?

  And we, he's gonna make a turn against you every single time and you're gonna know the move is coming and you're not gonna be able to stop it. And he's gonna see every pocket of space around him, right? Like, uh, there is more to just raw athleticism. I, I mean, like, people have mentioned, I mean, the best soccer player of all time is five, six, you know? There's something about, uh, there's an education aspect to it and the problem is, is like,

• 17:30Speaker 02

  No, but there, but so this is, this is why I brought up Norway and Holland.

• 17:34Adam Friedland?

  Degree there, yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  The, the reason I brought up Norway and Holland is, is because I understand what you're saying, that there are ways to do it without great athletes. But there also is a way to do it with just one great athlete. Like Holland, Holland is,

• 17:52Adam Friedland?

  Maybe.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, again, maybe not.

• 17:55Adam Friedland?

  And you would get him to a final, but like, he was with truck drivers and you could never like drag it across.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  But I'm not, I'm not talking about the US winning the tournament. I'm saying, can we just turn our hard ceiling?

• 18:08Adam Friedland?

  They just made soccer look whack yesterday and it's so beautiful. I mean, like, the two games we saw this weekend were like the most beautiful games I've ever seen in any sport. I mean, like, and, okay.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you're talking about Argentina, Cape Verde and Mexico England?

• 18:23Adam Friedland?

  And you can't say chase down block, okay? What game is better? Then, then the, the Azteca, which was the most frenetic, insane, like, uh, like, white knuckle, like, I feel like I'm still like, like calming down after it was two days ago. And then Cape Verde, like the, the equalizer in extra time, like the guy trying to find his girlfriend, like soccer looked so cool.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  It was so great. And you said what moment was better? You said, I can't say the chase down block.

• 18:49Adam Friedland?

  What other game, I can't, I'm, I honestly,

• 18:53Speaker 02

  So game six, 2012 against Boston, 45, 15 and five for LeBron legacy game. But, uh,

• 19:00Adam Friedland?

  I mean, like emotionally.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  It was, listen.

• 19:03Adam Friedland?

  Just Cape Verde, it's like, you didn't know any of these guys' names and they're playing against God. They're playing against Messi. They're gonna tell, they were waiting outside the bus afterwards and they can get a picture with Messi.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  So this is,

• 19:16Speaker 02

  This shouldn't be lost in the US's catastrophic performance yesterday. And I'm not just saying this because it's on my network. This has been. One of the greatest months of sport I've ever seen in my life.

• 19:31Adam Friedland?

  I think that's thinker, maybe Ronaldo literally may have played his last game yesterday and that's how bad Tim Ream, Tim Ream ruined Ronaldo's day.

• 19:41Adam Friedland?

  Like it really just, it was so beautiful and like there was a, I saw a friend of mine, asking what team he should follow and declaring Arsenal and then less than 24 hours later.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Don't be afraid to name drop, bro.

• 19:56Adam Friedland?

  Van, Van declared Arsenal, which I'm like, I would never wish upon my greatest enemy. It's like someone saying they're converting to Judaism. I'm like, you don't want no part.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  That's your team. They just won the Premier League.

• 20:06Adam Friedland?

  A horrible life. It's been, it's been a tech.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  They're the champs.

• 20:10Adam Friedland?

  It was a, it was a.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  They went to penalties against PSG to get the double. How can you say that's no good?

• 20:18Adam Friedland?

  Down. We shut their asses down.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  No, he should. Van should root for Man City just because Holland's so fun.

• 20:25Adam Friedland?

  No, it's plastic. Come on. It's not a real team. There's no history. What are you going to root for like a?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  You told him not to root for Arsenal. So who are you going to tell him to root for?

• 20:34Adam Friedland?

  This is the hope that kills you. It's like, I'm going to be a Bills fan or something. I was like, what?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Well, you know who my team is, right?

• 20:40Adam Friedland?

  What?

• 20:40Speaker 02

  You know who my team is, right?

• 20:42Adam Friedland?

  You're Arsenal, no?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Well, no, I mean, kind, the guy who does stats for our show is a diehard Arsenal fan. And so on his behalf, I root for them for him. But this is such a layup for you. Who is the team I root for?

• 20:58Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. Is he going to the Sixers or where is he going? The Knicks?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Well, no, you're on the right, you're on the right track. Liverpool. There you go. Liverpool. Never walk alone.

• 21:11Adam Friedland?

  They're the other big six club that I could see myself like, romanticizing there like a working class club. But I just, I adopted Arsenal because they had like the crossovers and dunks guys. And Man, Man U was like kind of the Celtics.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Aren't you a part owner of Arsenal or something dumb? Don't you pay them money to be a fan?

• 21:31Adam Friedland?

  I'm a club member and I'm proud of it.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. You pay them money to be a fan?

• 21:34Adam Friedland?

  38 pounds a year to be a.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Can, can, can we talk before I go about Ronaldo?

• 21:43Adam Friedland?

  It's really just, I've been talking about it every episode of the show because this is really the culmination of 20 years of these two intertwines, kind of.

• 21:54Adam Friedland?

  Like, uh, superstars.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 21:55Adam Friedland?

  And it, it, the, the contrast, I think that everyone's kind of ignoring yesterday out of empathy for him. Like, seeing him just be like, the Euros is more, he was, he got, he was injured in the final.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  I know.

• 22:08Adam Friedland?

  It's just like, it's like, bro, just shut up. Just be like, I'm, I'm, I'm fucking sick at ball. Fuck you. Just be like, don't be so insecure so publicly. Like, you're, so, he's a genius of the game, right? And it's like, uh, it's really painful to see how this story is ending and, and what Messi is doing right now, which is, and karmically, I'm like, I hated Ronaldo. I loved Messi. I'm like, good. If someone told me this was happening, I'd be like, fuck, yeah. But it's actually like too painful to even celebrate.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  And this is where Roberto Martinez, the Portuguese manager, had a very tough job. Because he,

• 22:45Adam Friedland?

  He's a loser.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  The, well, listen.

• 22:48Adam Friedland?

  He's just like, what's Ronaldo's autograph?

• 22:50Speaker 02

  I know. So like, most famous Portuguese people in history in order. You ready?

• 22:57Adam Friedland?

  Okay, yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Number one, Vasco da Gama.

• 23:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Number two, Ferdinand Magellan. Number three, Cristiano Ronaldo.

• 23:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  So Roberto Martinez was in a position where,

• 23:11Adam Friedland?

  Well, he's like, kind of like, he's like a Democratic campaign, uh, consultant. Every, he loses every time, but he gets a better job. He was in, he was in, he was in Belgium.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  He was Belgium with the golden generation.

• 23:25Adam Friedland?

  Well, they were like,

• 23:25Speaker 02

  They did get to a semi.

• 23:27Adam Friedland?

  Other, like, it was just a waste of time.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  So what Ronaldo needed to be was late-stage Kareem. Which is, hey, you're still useful. You're still gonna get minutes. And we might even, like, people go back and look, 1988 NBA Finals, Game Six, season on the line. They ran the play for Kareem. Kareem got a phantom foul, made the free throws. They go on to win the championship. Ronaldo, they, they needed to set the precedent from the beginning of the tournament that Ronaldo was gonna be used in that role as like the ultimate sub. He didn't have the courage to do it. Then I didn't believe in.

• 24:07Adam Friedland?

  Written them to a chip. I mean, actually, technically speaking, they had the best midfield in.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 24:13Adam Friedland?

  Same for Spain, maybe, but.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  So I was at Portugal Columbia in Miami.

• 24:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  And I was totally out on Portugal. And then in their knockout round game, who'd they play in round one? I forget. Croatia. They played Croatia.

• 24:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  And I I bet Croatia.

• 24:33Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you're you're you're having a rough one this tournament.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  It hadn't been great.

• 24:37Adam Friedland?

  Let's go.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  I I I'd rather not.

• 24:41Adam Friedland?

  You. Oh, God, it broke my heart when I heard you say that.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Cape Verde Spain. That was all it. Listen, it it it it happens. You know, you you live and you learn.

• 24:50Adam Friedland?

  It's not fair.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Um, it's not fair, but it's fine. I so I bet Croatia. And the moment Ronaldo came out of the game, I text my buddy that I bet with and I said, we lost. It was tied. And I was like, we're gonna lose. I was like, Portugal just unlocked what they need to do.

• 25:06Adam Friedland?

  I mean, immediately scored.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:08Adam Friedland?

  And he's just.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  And I thought that because Roberto Martinez had the courage in a tie game, what could be Ronaldo's last game to take him out, that he was then going to do that yesterday. And if at any point yesterday, I believe they had taken Ronaldo out, they could have beaten Spain.

• 25:27Adam Friedland?

  What a loser. Just tell me to fuck off. Tell me you're on the bench, dude. You stink and you're making the team worse. It sucks because it's like actually protecting Ronaldo. Listen, this is not going to be a mark against his legacy. This is not going to be remembered. Right now, watching this is is like, it hurts my insides because it's like you see someone that's so desperately insecure that it could just be like, he's so good. In any other era, he'd be the best player in the world, right? In any other era, you can't say that about Bird. Like, Bird wouldn't be the best player in the world now. In any other era, this guy is the best player in the world, right? And it sucks. If he was just like, bro, it sucks. I play at the same time as this freak.

• 26:10Adam Friedland?

  He's like, Jesus Christ, it sucked. Like, and guess what? He probably made me work harder.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Do you think his biggest fans?

• 26:18Adam Friedland?

  Tragic.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  What percentage of the biggest Ronaldo fans, deep down, know they're on the wrong side of the argument?

• 26:26Adam Friedland?

  They're bought.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  No, no, what I'm saying.

• 26:28Adam Friedland?

  But he's bought.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  I saw that. I don't know if I believe that story or not. I saw it.

• 26:33Adam Friedland?

  You bought something for LeBron?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 26:36Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Because I just don't know what I believe on Twitter.

• 26:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  But I, but so what percent, if we had a hundred, I show speed types in the room, diehard Ronaldo fans.

• 26:49Adam Friedland?

  He's a nice kid. Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  I, no, I, I'm not, this wasn't a knock on him. I like him. But I'm saying, I'm saying diehard Ronaldo fans, you got a hundred in the room. What percentage of them now, if you asked and be like, hey, who's better, Messi or Ronaldo all time?

• 27:06Adam Friedland?

  I think that they're like, finally, I think they're finally just like, he's not as good, but I think he's cooler, which is not.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Is that what it is?

• 27:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, which is also not true. Like, there's no one left. It's really sad. Genuinely speaking, like Cristiano Ronaldo, I, standing over the ball at Old Trafford, the theater of dreams, before a free kick, it was one of the most scary, intimidating juggernaut, like, uh, you know, like, it's a, he is a great. And, uh, the, the problem is, I've explained this before the show, like Messi's, uh, context for understanding his career is that Argentina said he was a loser because he never won for them. And Diego Armando is better and you'll never be.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Maradona. Did you call, did you call Maradona Armando?

• 27:52Adam Friedland?

  Diego Armando Maradona. Yeah, yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Sorry.

• 27:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. They're like, you'll never be as good as this guy who was good for six years and destroyed himself with cocaine when he was a genius in the game. He's, honestly, to, for me, he's the second best of all time. But like, uh, so Messi was homesick. He missed, he left home at 13. He was never able to return until he got in that World Cup. And what we're seeing right now is he's free. Uh, Cristiano Ronaldo's framework for his career is Messi. So you see one guy looking in one direction, the other guy looking at, and he's like, why is he? Isn't he looking back? I mean, I'm not saying that Messi is not being, isn't competitive, but it's just like, it doesn't. It it matters so much to Ronaldo and it genuinely speaking, like, uh, his entire life, he's been just trying to get as good as he can at sports.

• 28:34Adam Friedland?

  Because he wants, except, I mean, like, he thought it would make his dad stop doing drugs and like, he destroyed, like, he bought his dad, his brother, brother a mansion. And he was like, hey, do you want to come see me play for Sir Alex Ferguson? You know, Manchester United, they're like, yeah, I'd rather hang out with your brother and just do drugs.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  No, hold on. I have one announcement for you and then I gotta go.

• 28:58Adam Friedland?

  What is that? We're going to the final.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? You're on the right track, but not quite.

• 29:03Adam Friedland?

  Oh, close.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Uh, so I, the, you're a big Knicks fan.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you're a Laker fan, but you, but, yeah, yes. So.

• 29:15Adam Friedland?

  I like the Tibbs, uh, the Tibbs, like, uh, identity that's still.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Yes. So the guy who you, I'm sure you saw at all the games. Um, middle aged white guy, always wearing sunglasses, slicked back hair. No, just shut up for a second. Sitting next to DJ Khalid, the best seats in the house next to the Knicks bench is one of my buddies Richie. So he has those seats and a box at Arsenal. He's a diehard Arsenal fan. He has the best seats for the Knicks and a box at Arsenal.

• 29:52Adam Friedland?

  Richie?

• 29:52Speaker 02

  And I, yeah, my buddy Richie. And I have kind of an open ended invite. If I can make it to England for an Arsenal game.

• 30:01Adam Friedland?

  We're gonna go.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  To go with him. I, I am, you, my, my, my buddy Josh, our stats producer and you. Are gonna be my plus ones, assuming Richie's, you know, will allow it and we'll go to an Arsenal game together.

• 30:14Adam Friedland?

  You guys on FaceTime with TT this summer?

• 30:16Speaker 02

  What? I, he's in LA, you know, I'm working on it. When I did your pod the first time, you were like, this is your, you know, your golden goose. That's your guy.

• 30:27Adam Friedland?

  That position like him. Imagine Holland as like a, a box president's juggernaut. And imagine someone that's also technically like, uh, can do everything else. He's the most comprehensive.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Are you finding yourself a little?

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Because Thierry has been, Thierry's been unbelievable on the broadcast.

• 30:47Adam Friedland?

  What's that?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Zlatan is, Thierry's been unbelievable on the broadcast, but Zlatan's kind of overshadowing him a bit. Is it making you mad?

• 30:54Adam Friedland?

  When you listen to what Thierry says, you learn so much about the game. There's a really good clip of him talking about what Wenger taught him about passing to teammates.

• 31:04Adam Friedland?

  He like expressed frustration and Wenger's like, you have to study how everyone receives the ball. And you have to tailor every dish to everyone's like, uh, skillset. So it's like, he, he said that like an actual true genius on the pitch is just like, understanding how everyone else plays to such a specific degree. It's not everyone adjusting to your game. And, uh, when you listen to him, I mean, his, what he said after the Cape Verde match was like, he's just, he's a poet and he's-

• 31:32Speaker 02

  No, he's great. He's absolutely great. Um, all right. You're the best. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

• 31:38Adam Friedland?

  Thank you so much, dude. There's no one better to, to talk American ball with. It was a joke. I never believed. I am an English fan.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Come on. I'll talk to you later.

• 31:48Adam Friedland?

  All right. Bye.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 31:49Adam Friedland?

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• 32:33Adam Friedland?

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• 32:43Speaker 03

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• 33:43Speaker 04

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• 34:13Speaker 04

  Reese James is gonna be the cane that they're gonna throw back to Jude. By now, you should've ganged he realized Bobby Manu. Jordan Pickett for Dean Henderson and James Trefford are the goalies.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  Dan Burn, the word is on the street that Ivan Tony in your heart is Gordon. Rashford, you've heard it all, preferred it, Ollie Watkins, Henderson, Jordan. I don't believe that Morgan Rogers feels the way I do about Saka.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  And Noni Madaway, Kane, O'Reilly.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Niall, Ian Anderson, Stones and Kwanzaa.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Denver, Jets fans, Ezri Kwanzaa. But Declan Rice is a...

• 35:34Speaker 02

  You're gonna be the one that sings with me.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  And after all...

• 35:44Speaker 02

  You're my sucker ball.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  All right, come on, England, come on, the lads.

• 35:56Speaker 05

  I thought that was one of the best songs I've ever heard.

• 35:59Adam Friedland?

  I'm gonna go pee and then we get started. Sports, summer, marches on, Chris ride in Los Angeles. How are you enjoying this tournament? I, I, I can't get enough of it.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  You know, the best thing I can say about last night, the England-Mexico match is after watching it, I felt like I played in it. Like, it was, it was so emotionally exhausting. It was, the 11 minutes of added time were the most gripped I have ever been by a sporting event, honestly.

• 36:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Were you terrified for your life leaving the stadium?

• 36:30Adam Friedland?

  You're like, the cartel's gonna get my ass. Yeah, I love the subplot of the like 17 hotels that they booked and they still managed to find England.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  I can't believe that that one got out.

• 36:41Adam Friedland?

  You know what, it would have been, it would have been good if they got everyone from the Harry Kane TV show, right? They got all, all the guys that acted in whatever that show is on.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  Wait, the Gareth, it's the Gareth Southgate.

• 36:52Adam Friedland?

  The Southgate, yeah, yeah. They could have gotten, I don't know, maybe, what's his name? The guy that did the Nazi in Inglourious Basterds, Kristoff Waltz.

• 37:03Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Yeah, he could have been the gaffe, but get all those boys. Get all those boys and while you're at it, get everyone from the Lakers show on HBO and from the Clippers one that no one watched.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. And get the real Clipper Daryl. I'm talking decoys on decoys. Yeah, they have to do a Saddam Hussein style decoy system.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  But it's like, did they really think that some guy working at the Mexico Hyatt was not going to be like, they're staying here?

• 37:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, not if they marched in all those guys from that show. Doppelgangers. Doppelganger. Yeah. The, I just saw, they put a, on Instagram reels, they put a clip of Kane crying. He's like, but I always, I always hit penalties, coach. And then Southgate's like, it's all right. You did it for Britannia. I want to talk England. I want to talk also Messi and this weekend, all the games that we missed from this weekend. But I think in, in Argentina, Cape Verde and Mexico, England, I, it's in the top 10 of games I've watched in anything of my life.

• 38:11Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah. And also like, I think the players think that too. I think that the guys in that Argentina, Cape Verde match were like, I took part in something like way bigger than myself and the same thing for England, Mexico.

• 38:24Adam Friedland?

  The guy trying to find his girlfriend after scoring in extra time. Every, it's, it's been, it's a movie, Chris. This tournament is a movie and thank you, Gianni Infantino. Thank you, Marco Rubio. Thank you, US State Department. We'll, we'll get to the red card. I think it'll be less of a discussion point when this comes out tomorrow, but I do want to mention it. But in those two games, I think like cinema, like just, we haven't processed them yet, but where do you see them in like the scope of like any athletic competition you've seen throughout your entire life?

• 39:01Speaker 05

  Well, you know what? It's like, the, the World Cup always brings in new football fans and I have had several people ask me like, is it always like this? And it's not, you know? It's like their club seasons are like more of like a long form, like a marathon. They're not like this, like batting down the hatches, let's fucking go. But it is kind of like what's.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  Primally interesting about soccer is the idea of like, bunch of guys want to get the ball in a net, and a bunch of guys want to stop it from happening, and it's just a battle of the wills sometimes. And when it actually plays out, in a place like Azteca, you're just like, this is better than apocalypse now, dude. Like, I can't believe I'm watching this.

• 39:43Adam Friedland?

  I don't think I've ever seen a stadium like that before.

• 39:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:47Adam Friedland?

  I mean, it was just frenetic and psycho, like, in that stadium. I literally, the England fans, how did they get them out?

• 39:56Speaker 05

  No, you have to watch, like, Copa Libertadores games at Boca, or something like that. But like, it's not even, even that had, like, this was like Istanbul meets Buenos Aires meets, you know, everything you could want in a football match.

• 40:11Adam Friedland?

  Meets the, like, Serbian basketball games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, seriously, like, did Sicario get them out of the stadium? I wanted to see that. And also, just like, was there, like, a nurse Joker situation for Jordan Henderson? Like, I'm worried about him.

• 40:31Speaker 05

  Nurse Joker.

• 40:32Adam Friedland?

  A nurse Joker situation.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  Someone's just like walking away from the hospital. I have seen him in a cast, so he has since, he has since gotten out of surgery. But did you see that when England was coming to Azteca, they had the pickup trucks leading in the bus? That are the same pickup trucks.

• 40:48Adam Friedland?

  Sicario.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  From Sicario, yeah.

• 40:50Adam Friedland?

  Dude, oh my god, yesterday truly was the day of the soldado.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  I almost didn't want the match to start, because, like, all of the footage was so incredible, all of, like, the social media, like, the buildup was so.

• 41:04Adam Friedland?

  Down to the hour delay.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I mean, yeah, and the fireworks the night before. Also, just for us to be American snobs, seeing people react as if, like, this is zero class from the Mexicans, as if, like, that doesn't happen every Champions League knockout.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  Seriously.

• 41:24Adam Friedland?

  Like, it's one of the coolest things. It makes you feel like you're on the team.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:28Adam Friedland?

  Like, I'm, yeah. The funniest example of that, of course, So seventy four, the German tabloid, whatever it billed, sent in like sexy girls for a sexy girl party, pool party to like, party with the Dutch. And the night before the final, they released it, like in the, in the, and all of them were on the phones with their wives until like 5 a.m.

• 41:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:52Adam Friedland?

  Like apologizing. Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 05

  This is like what we were saying about Algeria, Algeria, Austria last week, where it's like, I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying it's not new.

• 42:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Oh, no, no. It's always been crap. And going back to your point about a ball in the middle of a field and guys wanting to kick it about and fight each other. That is literally what this game started off as.

• 42:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:13Adam Friedland?

  It started off as guys from Eaton trying to fight guys from a factory with a ball in the middle of the field.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:19Adam Friedland?

  And that was like sporting and posh to have like a brutal, like, you know, like assault. It was kind of like, yeah, it was, it was more akin to like the basketball that you play in the pool. You know what I mean?

• 42:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just like elbows and like, yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 05

  And dudes drowning. Let's do England, Mexico first, right?

• 42:39Adam Friedland?

  Just last point, down to the point, down to the soft power propaganda of the, of the regime, like Donald Trump's, like getting the red card dismissed.

• 42:50Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 42:51Adam Friedland?

  The, the, exactly.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  I just want to say, we are, so we are recording this on Monday. They play tonight. I, regardless of whether every other country would, would or wouldn't try to do this, do you think it's bad sports karma that you did it?

• 43:07Adam Friedland?

  Lie about it. Just lie about it. It's like the Venezuela thing, right? Like, it's, just lie, like, Trump was like, and so like, we just sent in Delta Force and they, we paid off like some, some schmuck cousin and

• 43:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:21Adam Friedland?

  it was so easy. And now we're going to steal the oil. We've always stolen the oil. Just don't say that you're stealing the oil.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Make us feel better about this process.

• 43:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, just send Kissinger into the locker room and say, if you don't lose, we will give you the wall. Okay? And then act like, oh, Peru naturally lost 6-0. Okay? Just the, it's, it's, it's not classy, right? We used to have guys that went to Yale that were in a, some sort of secret society where they, they did like, uh, they did battle raps from history against each other and it's not as badass as it sounds and they used to kill the president, but guess what? They wore a suit, okay? And that, we just want the, get the Yale guys back in there. Now I'm, now I'm going to, what is this? Fetterman with his hoodies? Just, they used to have cla- okay, um, no, uh, just absurd and now come on, let's go Kevin

• 44:14Adam Friedland?

  De Bruyne, Remontatta, uh, the Americans, I'm done with America. Uh, no, if they don't win, it's, makes it bad, right? But they have to win this match.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  Yes, I think if they win, there, whether or not there will be an asterix, I think we've seen that like, the way that people consume information and news goes so fast that I don't think that people are gonna be like, well, I can't really be happy about this because Balguin had a red card.

• 44:42Adam Friedland?

  He's not R9, okay? He's not a fucking Ronaldo Nazario, he's not like, yeah, he's not, he's not a central figure in that squad. They, they could have won it without him. Uh, Trump said it was their best player, so I, you know what, Trump, I respect, nothing but respect for the office of it. Okay, anyway, England, Mexico, in the Azteca, the ghosts of the head of God, uh, just literally, I, I'm still catching my breath from that match last night. The rain, the atmosphere, the fucking penalties, the fucking sending off, it had everything. It is arguably, were it not for the messy game, the, the best game of the World Cup.

• 45:24Adam Friedland?

  In a, in a World Cup that every single fucking game is, is a fucking all-timer.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  And it had this thing that we've been talking about this entire show, which is the best players playing the best in the biggest games, which is what I think is really cooking everyone's noodle, is Holland be introducing himself to 100 million people that didn't know who he was or didn't really know he was like that. Jude and Harry getting after it in this match and being like, we're actually better than you guys and we are gonna like, show you. Bellingham in the first half, like in that, like-

• 45:57Adam Friedland?

  And it had a 4-4-2, Chris. It had a 4-4-2.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  Here's my big takeaway from this one.

• 46:04Adam Friedland?

  Yes.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  Uh, is Tuchel what we thought Carlo was?

• 46:08Adam Friedland?

  Uh, Tuchel is now going into to moron season. I'm sorry, like they they accomplished what he almost fucked up, which is they played such a high press. There was so much space between the rest of the team and their front three, and they just gave Mexico possession. But what they did was they shit housed it to the first drinks break.

• 46:31Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:32Adam Friedland?

  Which, mind you, because the because of the temperature in my studio that I'm shooting this right now, I think we will begin to institute.

• 46:39Speaker 05

  Hydration breaks.

• 46:40Adam Friedland?

  Hydration breaks. Yes, we will. Okay. And uh.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  It's kind of amazing to watch the managers adapt to the reality where you can tell they're kind of playing to the break.

• 46:52Adam Friedland?

  Yes. And in the Aseca, that's what you have to do. Uh, there's a really good clip of Brad Friedel talking about it where he's like, you're they're not as good. Their players are nowhere near as good as yours. You have to catch your second breath. And the England, one of the assistant coaches, I forgot his name. He was like, we wanted to go into the end of the first quarter, quarter.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  I know.

• 47:15Adam Friedland?

  Uh, nil nil. And they accomplished it. They gave Mexico far too much of the ball. But as you were saying before, moments, guys, Jude cracked two, and then the clearance at the far post, the clearance at the far post. I mean, that is, it was, uh, what would have been remembered about that match, uh, had it not come so early in the match and had it not just the entire energy of the entire thing been so frenetic and insane.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  So.

• 47:43Adam Friedland?

  And had we, yeah, go ahead.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  The reason why I said the Carlo thing is we were like, Carlo just understands man management and he understands where to put guys on the field and positionally. If not necessarily like mind blowing tactics, but like, I want to have Martinelli play here or I want to, that's what we thought Carlo was going to do when he got his pants pulled down. In this match, when Konza goes off, Tusho was like, this is why I brought Dan Burn. Is that like, we are gonna win or lose in the 90, well, plus 11. And not, I'm not playing for pens. If this goes to extra time, we're dead because we've been running around up at altitude with 10 men. So what he does is he brings on Burn for the exact right moment that he has to, which is

• 48:29Speaker 05

  dealing with 700 crosses at Azteca in a fucking lightning storm. There is only one guy you can bring for that. And it's this six foot seven monster who will put his face into a bicycle kick. Yeah.

• 48:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 05

  He's already at 100 feet higher. Yeah. And then when he bet it all and put, he pulled Kane, he pulled Saka, he pulled Nico, and he, and he pulled Anderson, and he puts on all those fucking center backs. He's just like, we're gonna deal with it. It's gonna be a war, but we are dealing with it. I had nothing but respect for that. It's, he parked the bus, but he parked the bus in a way that was just like, if this doesn't work, I'm willing to die on my shield right here.

• 49:08Adam Friedland?

  Two guys really fucking put in massive shifts. First is Princess Diana on the left as an outball. I mean, Gordon was fucking running for 90 minutes.

• 49:18Speaker 05

  He was insane. He left him on to be the outlet. It was nuts.

• 49:22Adam Friedland?

  They need to make a beanie baby of Anthony Gordon, I think. Yeah. They need to make, uh.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  Did you see Aguirre say fuck you to him, like, and laugh? But like, when he was like, it was amazing.

• 49:33Adam Friedland?

  I love the chippiness. I loved how chippy it was. I loved how like, uh, literally the, also him and fucking Jude, uh, as a front line with, you know, uh, what was it? Eight center backs behind them.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, Konza Stones, Gaye, yeah.

• 49:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Dan Burn. Jett Spence, who I would say utility men could play anywhere on the pitch. Uh, no, genuinely speaking, Sam loved that. Sam loved that. Uh, that, thanks, brother. Thanks, brother. Uh, no, genuinely speaking, uh. The game had so many phases, right? You had the like, why are they giving Mexico so much of the ball? Then you had the two minutes of like-

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Do you think to your first point, do you think that that was because of Declan's yellow? Like, do you think that threw them off to get a yellow in the midfield? Like, like the most important player they've got in a lot of ways gets a yellow in the first minute? And it's like, oh crap, is this going sideways already?

• 50:32Adam Friedland?

  It caused everyone to lock in and like focus, I think, genuinely speaking, because it's like a roll of the dice. After those two goals, everyone's thinking, oh yeah, Saka and Dec have to come off, right?

• 50:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 50:43Adam Friedland?

  And then Quinones, Asamoah Gi on All-Star, first, first, Jesus Christ, this guy, we're gonna miss him for four years. Where does he go Saudi?

• 50:53Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 50:54Adam Friedland?

  What, what are his stats in Saudi?

• 50:56Speaker 06

  He had like 31 goals.

• 50:57Speaker 05

  Jesus Christ.

• 51:01Adam Friedland?

  In front of like guys that fly out OnlyFans models and poop on them. Uh, sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Well, they fund the show. How did Duran not have stats like that, remember?

• 51:13Speaker 06

  He did for a second, but then he like, he went off the plot.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  What happened to Ivan Tony? Was he begging him out there?

• 51:18Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 51:19Adam Friedland?

  How many, how many goals does he have? I mean, Penhalda's horse there.

• 51:25Speaker 06

  32.

• 51:26Adam Friedland?

  Oh, better than Quinones.

• 51:28Speaker 06

  One less, Quinones said 33.

• 51:30Adam Friedland?

  Okay, uh, genuinely, that's the player of Mexico's tournament. Um, Mexico doesn't leave that match with their heads, uh, hanging, hanging low. The, after the, uh, bringing it back to 2-1, they closed that half really well. Um, and it required a lot of heroic saves and a lot of heroic, like, uh, you know, like the, the fucking clearance off the line in June. Second, third quarter, I think England got it together, right? And, uh, at 3-1, I'm like, oh, this is being put to bed.

• 52:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 52:02Adam Friedland?

  The red card changed everything. Then I think what you were describing is the Southgate DNA. I think that England, uh, were like, we're not gonna be too proud. Like, I think like Brazil was, like Brazil, I think is a, is a squad where you can't get, uh, 11 guys behind the ball.

• 52:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, and Carlo got spooked and brought Neymar on too.

• 52:22Adam Friedland?

  I know, at nil-nil. I know. I feel like it's sad. But he was talking shit in like in the grill of that like Norway goalie, whatever. Anyway, so, so yeah, genuinely speaking, where does this leave England? England has a path now. They have Messi in the semis. They have Norway next match. Benedict Arnold himself, Erling Haaland, is going to be coming up against them after he was born in our beautiful, beautiful kingdom, you know? And he turns his back. He turns his back. The raiding marauder, marauders of the... The Ro thing I think is lame, okay? I think it's lame. I talked to Norwegians, they think it's lame too.

• 53:06Adam Friedland?

  Actually, they're like, there's a complicated debate on the left about...

• 53:13Adam Friedland?

  It's so funny. They're so funny. They all have healthcare and they're debating about a cheer. No, I want to give just Anthony Gordon and, and this was the Jude game, I think, in his England history. I think it's fair enough to say. Like, would you say the same?

• 53:32Speaker 05

  It's just like, it's also like, he's the one that never seems spooked by it. Like, that's the thing is, it's like, I wonder whether or not we, it's not that we overestimate it, Azteca, but these guys have all played at Galatasaray, they've all played at PSG. Like, they've played in like, they, he plays at the Bernabeu, like, he knows pressure.

• 53:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Are you not entertained?

• 53:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I thought that header, I was like, that dude's about to go flying through the net headfirst. Like, that's how much he wants it.

• 54:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Of their two moments, guys, the cool, like, contrast between the two is, we were saying, I was saying to Waz last episode, like, Kane thrives in calmness and having his brain completely empty and just thinking about like, the attempt on goal and like, just kind of like, trying different attempts around a keeper like throughout a 90-minute span.

• 54:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:26Adam Friedland?

  Jude thrives on chaos and that game state required chaos and he rose the occasion. He is for me, the England player of the tournament, but it's obviously close. It's not even worth debating. I mean, it's the it's one of one or the other. The funny thing on the horizon is day game Miami Norway, England.

• 54:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, well.

• 54:47Adam Friedland?

  There there will be.

• 54:48Speaker 05

  That's a trap. That's a trap game in some ways because you get through Azteca and then you start dreaming about Argentina and you got to take care of business against Sotogard and Holland. But I.

• 54:57Adam Friedland?

  What day is that?

• 54:58Speaker 05

  Saturday. It's at 5pm Eastern, I think.

• 55:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you have six days of recovery. I don't know if Jordan Henderson will be ready by then. That that.

• 55:07Speaker 05

  I think he might not. Yeah.

• 55:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they Jordan Henderson's gone. Obviously, he's with Kobe's broken arm guy in Switzerland right now. So there is there. There's a roster crisis. I think I think it's fair enough to say, right?

• 55:22Speaker 05

  This is the nice thing about this English team is they're relatable. I would have been Jordan Henderson if I had been on that team. I would have got a yellow card on the sideline and then I would have fallen down celebrating Wonderwall.

• 55:31Adam Friedland?

  It was a very like, like Don Zimmer being thrown down by Pedro moment.

• 55:38Adam Friedland?

  It was like you can't not laugh. It looked so painful. It looked brutally. It was like it broke it. It was like a spaghetti. You just saw it like fold like an accordion in his arm. They need a vet presence in the locker room, and I think that this is a crisis. They need Jarrel Quanza in the next match available. This is a massive crisis going into the next match.

• 56:01Speaker 05

  Is Reece James ever going to play again? Is he is he is he out for this tournament?

• 56:07Speaker 05

  He was getting into it with a Choa on the sideline. So I was like, oh, is this like a prelude to him?

• 56:12Adam Friedland?

  I thought you were gonna say Cholo.

• 56:15Adam Friedland?

  With a Cholo. Yeah, he's like the Smith. So the Smiths are actually not the best band of all time. Yeah, it must have been hard for them to like go against the Depeche Mode Smiths country.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  Seriously.

• 56:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, they really rock with it. Maybe it's American Mexicans, Borso. There is one person, I think. They can maybe they labor has a new leader in Parliament. Britannia has someone who's at the wheel again.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  Prime Minister in waiting, Andy Burnham. Yeah.

• 56:44Adam Friedland?

  He, he, he plays ball also. There's a clip of him, uh, uh, scoring a, a class finish. I think Trump loved going to Buckingham Palace. I think he's got sway with FIFA. You gotta get this Quanza card.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  Special relationship. Yeah.

• 56:59Adam Friedland?

  You gotta get it out and then you got a petition to, to have another vet brought in and you know who that man is.

• 57:07Adam Friedland?

  It's pretty obvious.

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Trent?

• 57:08Adam Friedland?

  He's at, no, come on.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  Baller, Boden?

• 57:13Speaker 06

  Harry Maguire.

• 57:16Adam Friedland?

  He's at the ready. Maguire's on fire.

• 57:19Speaker 05

  Signing panini stickers in Miami.

• 57:21Adam Friedland?

  He's been there the whole time. Maybe the right one for you.

• 57:24Speaker 05

  He's been in jail in America the whole time?

• 57:27Adam Friedland?

  No, that was in, uh, Greece. Uh, he cleared it up.

• 57:29Speaker 05

  One last, can I ask one last boring question, which is I saw a lot of critique of Mexico for just lumping in crosses for 40 minutes.

• 57:37Adam Friedland?

  It's Mexico.

• 57:38Speaker 05

  I didn't really, it's like, they're not Bayern Munich. Like, I don't really know. They're not going to carve England up when England's just going to be standing in their own box the whole time, right?

• 57:46Adam Friedland?

  But they're supposed to be doing Cruyff turns for like 90. No, it's, it's Mexico. And guess what? It almost worked.

• 57:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:53Adam Friedland?

  It nearly worked. I mean, their striker plays for Wolves. Like, it's just like, it, honestly, credit to them. They were like, they were, they had a ton of chances. It, it was hell. It was white knuckle. Like, uh, I don't think that they leave that, if, if their fans are giving them, and I mean.

• 58:08Speaker 05

  No, it was more like online punditry. Like, that was bad tactics. And I was just like, I don't know. It's like usually, that's the easiest way to attack a, a big block like that.

• 58:18Adam Friedland?

  It's going to be 44 years before they can El Tree make it to the quarterfinals.

• 58:26Adam Friedland?

  Poor guys. Cape Verde, Argentina.

• 58:28Speaker 05

  Let's talk.

• 58:29Adam Friedland?

  Let's talk about it.

• 58:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:30Adam Friedland?

  I, for me, I, I turned, uh, to my girlfriend's brother. I was watching it with him and I said, I said, that was beautiful.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, the first one.

• 58:39Adam Friedland?

  It was, it was. One of the most incredible matches I've ever watched in my entire life. I think we were saying before that it was like pure cinema. It's like a cliche. I just in the scope of sports games, I can't like where for me, what's the most special is like when I have like an emotional attachment to something. When Dec hit those two free kicks against Real Madrid, it was like, it meant something to me. When Kobe had the 60, obviously it meant something to me. The, the, the fact that I didn't know any of these people's names at all.

• 59:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:15Adam Friedland?

  No one did. And if you say, Sam, even Sam didn't even attempt to lie that he knew any of their names. You did say you knew one of them.

• 59:23Speaker 06

  Well, he played for Benfica.

• 59:24Adam Friedland?

  Who was it?

• 59:25Speaker 06

  Cabral.

• 59:28Adam Friedland?

  He's lying. No, I mean, uh, the, the players were at the Argentina bus because they wanted to meet Messi. They're going to be able to tell their families and grandkids they played against Messi and they almost beat him.

• 59:40Speaker 05

  There was a post somebody did where it was all of the Cape Verde players. Their most recent Instagram post was any shot of them with Messi.

• 59:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 05

  Like, and it was like nine of them, but it was like, same dude. That's what I would do.

• 59:55Adam Friedland?

  It's the most beautiful, like sporting event I've ever seen. It's, it's just these guys that were fearless in the face of like demons. The best player of all time. Both of the criminals scored also. You got, you got Christian Romero and you got the butcher get goals. Although they, they ruled out, they said own goal in the Romero thing.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Adam Friedland?

  Sam, that wasn't fair, right? It was on frame.

• 1:00:23Speaker 06

  I think it was probably a little wide.

• 1:00:28Adam Friedland?

  No, they wanted to take the assist away from Messi. Everyone knows that Infantino wants Messi out of this turn. No, I mean, I, I guess it leaves Argentina with the tastiest path to the final. And it kind of gives us just like a collision course for a rematch of the last, of the last World Cup final.

• 1:00:49Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:00:50Adam Friedland?

  Speaking of like when you said, uh, when you said like games in the World Cup typically aren't like the, like this, I think maybe there was something in the cosmos. I get so like hokey, like when I talk about, uh, ball, but like something in the cosmos changed.

• 1:01:07Adam Friedland?

  The last final changed things and now everything is chaotic and like incredible. These games are supposed to suck and, uh, like.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  Even the games that suck are amazing. Like even France Paraguay was incredible because France was like, we're not gonna fucking succumb to this. Like too bad, you know, like, and they're laughing at those guys. Like in Cape Verde, Argentina, the thing that was obviously amazing was Cape Verde, like going for it. Uh, my favorite moment of that match was when Argentina scored their third, I think Scaloni grabbed like Tagliafacco and or Tagliafico and Montiel and he was like, nobody fucking plays anymore. Like no more football. Like we, all you guys do is stop these guys.

• 1:01:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Yeah. Messi signed Vozinha for Inter Miami after the match, which is like funny. Like the only people he ever gives flowers to are goalies. Like there, there was a Champions League match, uh, Celtic, uh, Barcelona 2-1 and he said Fraser Forster, he said, is not from this planet. Messi said is not from this planet about Fraser Forster. Granted, he was on an absolute heater. It was incredible to, to see, uh, to, to like, I mean, that is like the game or day of his life. When they hit that equalizer in extra time, um, I just kept screaming, oh my God, oh my God,

• 1:02:35Adam Friedland?

  oh my God. The added element for me, I'm sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dick ride again of like the, the chance of like saying that this could be goodbye. It just made it, it just made it like, you know, all the more like insane and incredible. Um, we haven't even mentioned Croatia Portugal yet. That's how insane this World Cup has been. You know, uh, that game was maybe the fourth craziest game of the weekend. Uh, and like, I, I don't understand like how in, like, how are they getting every single one to be this, this nuts?

• 1:03:12Speaker 05

  We're recording now. I have no idea what's gonna happen in Spain, Portugal. It could be even crazier.

• 1:03:17Adam Friedland?

  Well, it's gonna be boring. They're gonna like let see you like win it. Maybe see you next fucking World Cup when you're 46 years old in Portugal. See you next World Cup when you're 46 years old in Portugal. Cut that, guys. Come on. Cut that, guys. I, yeah, there's, the way Messi took down that, that through ball. And, and just one touch and then fired it in. I was like, and, and the way that this goalie, who was a nobody, nothing, was unbeatable at the time.

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Adam Friedland?

  It, it's just like, I don't understand how they could keep topping it. And it's, it's just like, it's so cool that for work, I have to watch this and I can't, I can't be told not to.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  You're right though, because like every time he gets the ball, like there is like a weird like pregnant moment where you're like, ah, man, like this is probably one of the last like hundred times I'm gonna see him do this. You know what I mean? Like, I know he might keep playing for Inter and maybe he goes superhero and, and plays one more World Cup. I don't know if that's possible, but yeah, like during that Cape Verde thing, I was like so torn between wanting Cape Verde to pull up the greatest upset maybe in sports history versus wanting Messi to stay in the tournament.

• 1:04:38Adam Friedland?

  The, Henri, like after the whistle was like, the story is not the result. The story is, is these guys that they did something so, what was their FIFA ranking?

• 1:04:52Speaker 06

  In the hundreds.

• 1:04:53Adam Friedland?

  In the hundreds?

• 1:04:56Adam Friedland?

  He's wrong.

• 1:05:00Adam Friedland?

  I think we're booking tomorrow. Okay. It, yeah. Let's go a golden boot tally. Let's go through, the, the really dope thing is that Messi, Haaland and Mbappe are all, all uneven goals at seven.

• 1:05:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's Kane have six?

• 1:05:18Adam Friedland?

  Kane is at six, yeah. But that's because of the agenda. That's that's because the anti-British agenda.

• 1:05:27Speaker 05

  That's because he shares more.

• 1:05:28Adam Friedland?

  And then and then, of course, Cristiano Ronaldo right in their heels at three. Yeah, so I think he's an outside chance, depending on what happens today. Real quick, Norway, Brazil, did Carlo get too stupid? Okay, that's the real question, like Martinelli changed the game when he came off. I thought the profile of the game changed.

• 1:05:52Adam Friedland?

  To be fair, they could have very easily won that match. They missed a penalty and Endric just blew a one on one with the keeper. Holland announced himself, he had a moment, I think Norway now.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Who was Holland scoring? I didn't notice.

• 1:06:08Speaker 05

  Alison Becker. Who was the center back who was guarding Holland?

• 1:06:10Adam Friedland?

  Alison Becker.

• 1:06:11Speaker 05

  Oh, he's playing center back?

• 1:06:13Adam Friedland?

  The keeper was Alison Becker from Liverpool.

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:06:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, he's the.

• 1:06:18Speaker 05

  He wasn't done any favors by his defense.

• 1:06:20Adam Friedland?

  He plays ahead of Marmar Doshvili.

• 1:06:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:06:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Gabriels crap, you know my agenda, I want him out. He's terrible on the ball. Who is the center back? Who was the center? Okay, Holland announced himself, any other takeaways from that match?

• 1:06:38Speaker 05

  No, I I feel like they. I feel like that's probably the last big Neymar moment we're gonna get in his career. Speaking of like goodbyes, I don't, I wonder whether he's done on the national team after this.

• 1:06:53Adam Friedland?

  We don't even recognize that that was goodbye to Neymar. That's how like insane like the, just like the next match is coming and we, there's something even crazier we have to focus on.

• 1:07:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like they were talking as lots on about it after the match and he was like, this is a guy who's like, won plenty of trophies and played well for his country and clubs, but there always is gonna be a feeling like there was something more that could have been achieved.

• 1:07:16Adam Friedland?

  Special Neymar memory in international tournaments, I think, was the goal against Croatia, where he needed that extra touch because he knew that it would have been cleared on the line and then he roofed it.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Adam Friedland?

  I watch that all the time. He's the most what if superstar I think we've seen the last 20 years.

• 1:07:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I I remember. Actually, fun fact, do you, do you know what Barcelona did for him to get him to finalize the deal?

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  I did know.

• 1:07:48Adam Friedland?

  When he was leaving from Santos? They organized an orgy for his father in London.

• 1:07:52Speaker 05

  That's cool.

• 1:07:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. He's a family man. He loves his family. Okay. France, Paraguay, I said some was, you need a racist low block to defeat this team. It was a perfect blueprint for the racist low block. There was a member of parliament, she says, it was like, it was like she was in Nuremberg in front of a fucking like a hundred thousand.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  She was so awful, yeah.

• 1:08:14Adam Friedland?

  Horrific, horrific, the way like, the other thing is this, like, no one registers, like, Mbappe, like, gets just as bad a treatment as Vinny or any other, like, superstar of color, especially after the last World Cup. There was an incident with Enzo, of course. You need to literally approach France like they're PSG in the Champions League final, as I said last episode, and like, what you have to do is like, recognize you don't have as many good, good players. You have to have 11 players buy in and like, be psychos. And the only team, I think, remaining that's equipped to like, defend for their lives

• 1:08:56Adam Friedland?

  is Argentina, I think, at this point. England doesn't have enough talent, they could, they could buy in, but I don't see them being talented enough to actually pull that off. Any other takeaways from France, Paraguay?

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  Manu Kone, come down to Liverpool FC, play with a real club, let's go, be our number six, play with Grav. I, I loved when he blew up, like, he basically did Paraguay to Paraguay, and.

• 1:09:23Adam Friedland?

  So you're done with Endo, you think he's a loser?

• 1:09:25Speaker 05

  I, I believe he's quite injured.

• 1:09:27Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:09:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying, you think he's a loser.

• 1:09:30Speaker 05

  I think he's a great vibes guy, I don't know if he should play defensive midfield for us. And then, I loved. That Ole say is like, single-handedly able to destroy somebody try to do shithousery on a, on France, because he can just like, cut in and dribble 30 yards and nobody can bring him down, and nobody can touch him. He's next.

• 1:09:51Adam Friedland?

  Do you think he has more dribbles than French words? Like, you know?

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  Like, honestly, like, that's

• 1:09:56Adam Friedland?

  More completed dribbles or French words that, yeah. Why does he play for them? It's insane. Uh, Mbappe, fun fact, has never lost a World Cup match. Isn't that crazy?

• 1:10:07Speaker 05

  Did you see there's an image of like, a bunch of Paraguay fans and then a dude standing in a, in a Mbappe dictator t-shirt, like, among them?

• 1:10:16Adam Friedland?

  It's gonna get to his head. Honestly, Mourinho might, uh, just have him sent to Guantanamo. Like, I don't know how those two personalities are gonna jive. Uh, Norway, Brazil, we talked about. USA, Belgium, coming up over the horizon tomorrow. Let's, we're gonna talk about it tomorrow, but, uh, the red card, honestly, it's, it, it's a little bit, just lie. Just say Infantino realized that the ref was, uh, taking money from what, what he called

• 1:10:47Speaker 05

  Just say the VAR assistant was watching something else when he was supposed to be watching the, like,

• 1:10:52Adam Friedland?

  Frame him! Dude, just like, what happened to the David Sterns of the world, okay? This, like, uh, just, just bear, like, hide the body, okay? Throw him into the sea, international waters. I'm exhausted.

• 1:11:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Adam Friedland?

  I love you.

• 1:11:09Speaker 05

  Hydration.

• 1:11:09Adam Friedland?

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