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

Join The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Anthony Dabbundo LIVE on Netflix to react to the USMNT losing 4-1 to Belgium in the World Cup's round of 16. Then, Jason Concepcion joins the pod to give more World Cup thoughts, discuss what the Jaylen Brown trade means, break down the TV landscape, and much more. (0:00) Intro (0:31) Belgium defeats Team USA 4-1 (41:14) More World Cup thoughts (01:06:17) What the Knicks win meant for Jason (01:13:50) The TV landscape, ‘The Odyssey,’ and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan, Anthony Dabbundo, and Jason Concepcion Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers As the Official Beer Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, Michelob ULTRA away $1million in FIFA World Cup tickets and prizes. https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 MICHELOB ULTRA® FIFA® WORLD CUP 26TM SUPERIOR ACCESS. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on 12/1/25 and ends on 7/31/26. Multiple entry periods. Visit https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 for free entry, entry deadlines, and Official Rules. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. The 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated?

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Trimfyia guselkumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions increase risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore the possibilities. Ask your doctor about Trimfyia. Tap this ad to see new joint data and learn more about Trimfyia, including important safety information.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Trimfyia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Trimfyia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimfyia, proper training is required. Trimfyia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions increase risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfyia today.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimfyiarradio.com.

• 2:32Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, we are live on Netflix, right after Team USA got knocked out of the World Cup. I have Anthony Dabbundo and Chris Ryan here. Wanted to mention, Ali Newrewatchables is now up, and Zach Lowe and I did a basketball podcast yesterday, if you missed it. All right, guys. I don't know why, but I had, I had hope. I was excited for this game. I, especially when Balligan got thrown back in with the Seattle crowd, I watched the whole two hour pregame show. Ironically, 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, was hoping maybe there was some parallels-

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Just trying to land the plane, man.

• 3:18Bill Simmons?

  Was, was hoping there were some parallels for America today, and CR, there was not. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible performance by us.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  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, and you know, Telemans just won the Europa League with Aston Villa, and I, I thought maybe that extra 15 to 20% of talent really kind of put us in our spot. What did you think, Anthony?

• 4:04Bill Simmons?

  What about you, Dabbundo?

• 4:06Speaker 03

  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 who 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, it was very simple. Belgium played a long ball. They won the long ball. Our defense panicked. Dest panicked. Ream panicked. Richards panicked. Freeman panicked. And they gave away the ball over and over again. And any team, I mean, Belgium were fine, but I, I thought they made it way too easy. It's ridiculous.

• 4:38Bill Simmons?

  This was, it felt like karaoke of all the things you would be worried about in a bad America game. Right? Most guys, we talked about this before the tournament. The guys I was the most worried about were Ream and Dest. Dest was unplayable. I mean, that was like, he was so bad that they took him out at halftime. Ream 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, it would be nice if Pulisic just was awesome and stayed healthy for an entire game. And, and he stunk in the first half and then got hurt in the second half. And, um, see, I was almost wondering, everybody talking about Balogun, when he got, uh, the red card, he was out. And then the dialogue for three,

• 5:22Bill Simmons?

  four days was, he's our best guy. We can't lose our best guy. And then he comes out, our best guy is back. And, you know, it could have gone one of two ways for Pulisic 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.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know whether or not Pulisic was, um, still carrying that calf injury and whether that had anything to do with it. Obviously, he, um, kind of kicked through a Belgian player on that foul and, and basically hurt himself. But you feel bad to see his tournament end that way. I, I still go back to what I just said originally. It was that even our best player, it would be kind of a middle tier Belgian player, you know, like our best of our best was, would be maybe Belgian bench players. And I gotta say, one thing that kind of jumped out at me was more than even the Balogun 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

• 6:26Speaker 03

  they're getting ready for Spain.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Like, I, I kinda wondered what, I mean, De Bruyne didn't come on, Lukaku comes on at the end, scores the, the, the final goal. Doku was basically toying with us. And I think it could have been worse.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Honestly. Like, I think we got lucky a little bit to, to get out of there without giving up six.

• 6:47Bill Simmons?

  De Bundo, can you explain resting the three guys and like, what would be the NBA equivalent of somebody doing that?

• 6:53Speaker 04

  Uh, how about Joe Mazz? Nevermind, too soon, too soon, too soon. No, not ready yet. 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 2-0. They were getting punked, like swarmed by Senegal. They, 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 white flag, Rudy Garcia. And you're like, alright, that's it. I even tweeted like, his final move, his manager at Belgium is removing his two best players. They didn't 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, the plan was like, we're gonna

• 7:35Speaker 04

  ride with the guys who brought us here. And it was Luca Bakio. But they clearly made a change too. They, they changed up their midfield completely. Uh, and, and played more defensive midfielders. And the first 10 minutes of the match, oh, I think Onana, 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 halftime. Uh, and still just didn't matter. But, but yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Because was it his sub who scored the, the crazy freeze mistake?

• 8:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, Van Aken. And he started, started last match too. And like, he's, you know, he plays for like, Club Brugge. He's a fine player, but the, the, the tactics were just, they, 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.

• 8:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we lost all the 50-50 balls. The passes, it felt like we couldn't get three or four straight passes in a row. Everybody, the 1v1 stuff, like I was thinking back to the Paraguay game, which feels like it was 100 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.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 8:53Bill Simmons?

  And the only guy who felt athletically like he could be on the field with those guys was Balgon. And it felt like over and over again, they almost unlocked him or he would make this run, but then the pass was behind him or. 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, 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?

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, anything's possible. 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.

• 9:35Bill Simmons?

  A goal in eight minutes will do that.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Maybe all crowds would sound like that compared to as TECO.

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, as much as Belgium is better, they, they panicked. They gave a ball away. 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 area. 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 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. Unbelievable.

• 10:13Bill Simmons?

  So they have four goals in this game, Belgium CR. The first one, screw up by three defenders, just all the, I thought you, I, I, oh, you, and then they score. Second goal, it's a 1v2. Guy beats both guys, goes baseline, crosses it wide open, gets it. Third goal is in the running for worst goals this country's ever given up in a World Cup.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  And that was the backbreaker, yeah.

• 10:39Bill Simmons?

  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 all at once. Then the fourth goal, which the game is over at that point, but that was also something that you would see in like, you know, a JV soccer game.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Well, I will note that Belgium went for that fourth goal too. So we should not underestimate the, the maybe how much they hate this team or hate what happened 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 Balogun thing may have just created a certain sense of like, these guys think that their president's gonna fucking try and beat us. Like no way. Like that fourth goal, they didn't need that one. And, and I feel like that was pointed.

• 11:25Bill Simmons?

  You're saying that was the FFU goal?

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:27Bill Simmons?

  Like Spygate 2007?

• 11:28Speaker 03

  The middle finger to the crap. 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 him. That felt like they were going for a fourth.

• 11:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The one narrative I'm not going to accept is like, oh, we would have won if, if Trump had gotten Balogun back. Like, we sucked. That had nothing. The team was terrible. That was the worst we've played. Not only is that the worst we've 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 anybody. Like couldn't complete a pass, defensive screw ups. Nobody was dangerous. Our best guy was invisible. Dest was so bad he had to come out. It was, it was really rough, but I think Belgium, I like the beer. Chocolate's been pretty good.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Waffles.

• 12:23Bill Simmons?

  Other than that, the waffles are solid. Other than that, I don't have a lot of tolerance for these Belgian CR. I think that's it.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  The movie In Bruges.

• 12:32Bill Simmons?

  Couple of World Cups for us.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  It's a good one. Love that movie.

• 12:33Bill Simmons?

  In Bruges. What else? What else? Is there anything else to like about Belgium's CR?

• 12:37Speaker 03

  I can't say. I've never been, uh, you know, I think at this point in the World Cup, there, there's no, there's no like friendly, 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 a lack of identity. I mean, it's sort of hard because you're here, you're watching all the stuff about the USMNT and you're like, right, yeah, like, we believe in this and like, this is incredible and this is happening. But I don't really know if like, I could tell you how you, the US wants to play, you know? And I thought Belgium kind of exposed that, like, not that I would want to be Paraguay from the France match, but they obviously had an idea. They were gonna like, kick the hell

• 13:19Speaker 03

  out of France and try to like, 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 Ream got kind of put on skates, the, the plan seemed to go up in smoke. What did you, what did you think about like, the, the way that Pochettino set us out, Anthony?

• 13:42Speaker 04

  You know, Ream getting dunked on really did feel like the turning point in a lot of ways because they had played so bad.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  The second goal.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, 33 minutes in, Tillman hits the free kick. You know, you're like, we have our own Leo Messi now.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're back, we got this, yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  And it felt like they felt like they were back, and then they like, switched off again, and they didn't stop the cross. Dest, the first time he was asked to defend the entire tournament, completely disaster. And that's why he's, you know, 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 Dest getting picked on over and over again by, by the Dutch, and they, they beat us with very similar-esque goals. If you go look at those goals. So, it feels like the same pattern. They're running into the same wall, but, you know, Pochettino did have this team playing so much better and more cohesively. I just think they got, they got surprised. Rudy Garcia threw a, threw a change up and they got outclassed, but they got, they, they, there's no way you can tell me that this was just Belgium. This was the US giving them the game.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  I also wonder, I thought, I really like Berhalter.

• 14:42Bill Simmons?

  And it felt like when he came in.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Sebastian, yeah.

• 14:45Bill Simmons?

  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.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  He had the shot from distance and tried to cheat the crowd.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  I thought that was going in.

• 15:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just thought he, you know, and he, 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 4th of July, like that was just the abomination of a soccer game.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but if that was us, we would have been like, I love it. I was there in 100 degree heat and it was just loving every second of it, screaming.

• 15:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, their entire goal was to 2004 Pistons, you know, a much better opponent, basically, and it worked. But, um, 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 Colin Asprey pod about, um, these guys are in pressure stadiums all the time. Like, it's not like they're, oh my God, the crowd psyched me out. I, you know, they, all of these guys have played in the worst possible locations everywhere.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  England did a PR like masterclass. They were, as soon as their previous match had ended before Mexico, they were like, well, we're not gonna enough, 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 Kane was like, yeah, like, or Declan Rice was like, altitude wasn't that bad. We were, you know, like, it was fine.

• 16:16Bill Simmons?

  Right. And I'm sure there's, 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 in 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. Um, all right. So, big picture.

• 16:34Bill Simmons?

  What do we build on from this, Dabbundo? Because it feels like we have 2/3 of a core of something really good and built around Balogun, who I thought 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, is, sorry guys, I have two Philly fans on here, but is Pulisic Embiid, is 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 out from this?

• 17:14Speaker 04

  That does feel a little harsh on Pulisic. I mean, he's bad in this tournament, but he has carried the US through some really dark times, really dark times in the last 5 to 6 to 7 to 8 years. So I think it's Balogun, Tillman and Pulisic 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 goalkeeper's a problem. Who replaces Tim Ream? 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.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Dabbundo, do you think McKenney and Adams are the, like, are they unassailable as a central midfield partnership? Because I do think to your point about like, we were unable to kind of like route a way 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.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  That's the number one issue with US talent development right now. I mean, they just don't have that guy. There isn't, there isn't a Kevin Debrana. There isn't a... Kyuri Tilman's even, there isn't a Leandro Trossard who's gonna come in and play make like that. McKenney did a pretty good job the first few games, but then tonight he was bad. And you do wonder, are McKenney and Tilman too similar now in 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 gonna be Gio Reyna, and honestly, like, you know, Gio Reyna is a very polarizing figure, but when Reyna's the sub at half, you don't feel great about the second half, because Reyna 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

• 19:10Speaker 04

  in the second half.

• 19:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, so what's the, what are the goalie stopper on the horizon prospects? Do we have people that are like brewing?

• 19:20Speaker 04

  There was a guy, Slenina, that people hyped up, but that hasn't really come to fruition yet. It's probably not gonna be Matt Fries long-term. He's already 27.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  This is where it gets hard. I don't know.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's also about like, well, you know, I, I, I hope and I guess assume Pochettino's gonna stay on, uh, 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 gonna do, what, five or six years then as the US coach? And to be fair, like, by the time we get to 2028, 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 get Mourinho, 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

• 20:13Speaker 03

  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, and then the team kind of fell apart, and I don't know if he had, like, I don't, he seemed like a little surprised by how bad things were going, and didn't, didn't really have like a, a counter move yet, you know? And that's what he really needs to develop.

• 20:34Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, I was really surprised. I don't know why. I thought, I really thought they were gonna play well today. I didn't know if that meant they were gonna win. But I was surprised they stunk. I didn't, I gotta say, I didn't see that one coming. I really thought like, especially getting Balogun 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.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  I thought maybe it was gonna be a little bit like the Canada Morocco 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 raced.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  All right. So let's go glass half full for a second.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:13Bill Simmons?

  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's been happening for 20 plus years and especially Premier League, La Liga, and the, when, once the HD on the TVs and once ESPN started showing it and all these other channels bought in, like soccer's here. Like, people know who 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

• 21:56Bill Simmons?

  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, De Bundo, like, that's a good foundation. And now we just have to steal somebody else's really good player and make them, make them come here and live here in America.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Michael O'Leary.

• 22:16Bill Simmons?

  Is it a Netflix rom com?

• 22:18Speaker 03

  We know Messi plays in MLS. Can we acquire him by eminent domain and make him suit up?

• 22:24Bill Simmons?

  This would be a really good Netflix rom com where the person who runs the US soccer team, they decide they're gonna, you know those rom coms where there's some sort of, there's a bet? Where there's some sort of like that 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?

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Well, we've already kind of done that. We already did that with the German, like with the, did your dad ever serve in Germany? Please come play for us.

• 22:57Bill Simmons?

  Let's get more of them.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  Yes, Tillman and Balligan are all dual national guys that the US convinced to play for us. I mean, that was one thing, you know, Berhalter doesn't get a lot of credit for much these days, Greg Berhalter, but maybe 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, it tends on to be like the same eight teams almost every time. So.

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  You said that before, before the tournament. What's it? Eight teams ever that won the tournament?

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uruguay is one of them and they were like.

• 23:38Bill Simmons?

  And now when you look at.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Well, Uruguay was one of them.

• 23:42Bill Simmons?

  You look at the FanDuel odds now.

• 23:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. 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'd argue they looked worse in this match than 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.

• 24:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this felt, it could have been worse. Yeah. You look at the FanDuel odds right now. France favorite, minus 175, Spain plus 340, Argentina plus 450, and CR's England at five to one. And then Norway, just like 17 to one. Come hither.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  Holland during the day in Miami. Yeah.

• 24:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Just, that's like, you're really fun. Just, I'm putting everybody on my back bet.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  We need to go sell some sunscreen in Miami this weekend. That's a good, that's a good business idea.

• 24:38Bill Simmons?

  So did this come down to that Senegal didn't hold on to that lead? Senegal didn't hold on to that lead 2-0? Cause that's who we would have played, right?

• 24:45Speaker 04

  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, in passing quality from what Belgium can offer versus what the Senegalese did.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  I would have preferred to have played Senegal.

• 25:00Bill Simmons?

  CR, what's your relationship with number 10 on Belgium? The left wing, the little guy.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Oh, Trossard? He plays for Arsenal. Yeah, he just won the Premier League with and was very instrumental at the end for Arsenal. So I recognized him and acknowledged him, but I'm not an Arsenal fan, so it's a little bit tough. He really schooled us. He was getting doubled at times and just seemed to be able to get the ball where he wanted to go.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  I hate Arsenal, but I actually like Trossard quite a bit. He's probably my favorite Arsenal player, if I'm allowed to have one these days.

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  You know, those wings are scary when they're just completely still and the defense is paralyzed and they haven't even done anything like, oh, God, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna do something? What's happening?

• 25:45Speaker 03

  What do you think about the, like, 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 gonna 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 Haaland, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, 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 host countries went out over the weekend

• 26:30Speaker 03

  and we're not going to get any of them in the semis or the quarters, rather.

• 26:34Bill Simmons?

  What was the highlight of the tournament for you, De Bundo? I know what it is for CR.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Oh, England 3, Mexico 2.

• 26:40Bill Simmons?

  One of the best games I've ever seen.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Argentina 3, Cabo Verde 2.

• 26:43Bill Simmons?

  That was also one of the best games I've ever seen.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  And they all happened in the last week. I mean, it was unbelievable, but those two matches, that's why we love the game.

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  We go into the Azteca, Darren Fletcher, I want to give a shout 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 Stu, but like him and Hargraves are so fun. They make 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.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  See, aren't you well up there in Wonderwall after the game or no?

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I didn't. I think the bar that I was in was, uh, was not quite an England bar, believe it or not.

• 27:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, in LA? Barely got out of there last?

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it was fine. Everybody was cool, but I think there were a couple of like silent fist bumps to myself.

• 27:48Bill Simmons?

  So, so walk us through the, uh, through the night last night for you. You got 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.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  Well, and then Tuchel puts on all these center backs, 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 Burn, who can just head away everything, John Stones 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 gonna, we're gonna either live or die in 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 center backs taking penalties.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  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.

• 28:47Bill Simmons?

  Who was the 6'7" guy you brought in?

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Dan Burn. A lot of people made fun of him for big, a lot of people made fun of Tuchel for taking Dan Burn. And it was like, this is the, this is why you bring him. For this one reason is you bring him in for this.

• 28:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was, it was like watching an NBA center just clearing out the paint, throwing it around. Um, 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.

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  I don't see why they couldn't win at CR.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  It's a really weird setup right now. There's like some stardust around Messi. France definitely looks the most competent. I don't know what's going on with Spain. They kind of seem to be playing with their food, like in, in a lot of these matches. But I, I think, I think right now, I just, I think it's France's tournament to lose. Like they're just, it's so overwhelming how much talent they have.

• 29:41Bill Simmons?

  What do you think, Dabbundo?

• 29:42Speaker 04

  Well, it'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. Paraguay 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."

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  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 Mbappe's, 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, have like 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 has given up, what is it now, one and a half total expected goals in five games? It's ridiculous how good their, their press is.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  And so they get Belgium. Who does Morocco? Morocco, France, right?

• 31:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  England, Norway.

• 31:03Speaker 04

  I would be shocked if it wasn't France and Spain.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:07Bill Simmons?

  I only saw the second half of the Spain today because I was at the Odyssey for three hours.

• 31:14Bill Simmons?

  Classic Portugal though, I wasn't surprised at all by their not scoring a goal.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Not pulling Ronaldo off is an embarrassment.

• 31:23Bill Simmons?

  I mean, this is, we talked about this in the pod we did before the tournament, that De Bundo was like, are they going to accept that this guy shouldn't be out there when it actually matters? And all I know is I watched the second half and the little, the little added time, all that. I never saw him come out. He was out there the whole time, right?

• 31:41Speaker 03

  They kept making subs and the broadcast doc kept saying, you know, they're leaving. Is this the time that CR7 comes off? I mean, it was like, he should have been Lukaku for them. He should have been the closer. And, or, 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 Uzbekistan and kind of didn't really, you know, and meanwhile, 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.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  It was really funny. I mean, the stat that came out at 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 seemed to ignore that and he scored on his first touch in the winning goal for Portugal. So we're like, oh, maybe Martinez will sub in and we'll, we'll go with Ramos. No. And there were opportunities today. I, you know, if you wanted to be critical of Spain, there were chances like where a more functioning attack. It's not just Ronaldo. Liao was bad off the bench. Neto gave them nothing. Felix gave them, like they're, all of their attackers were bad today.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  But, you know, a competent team might have created some chances because their midfield hung in there. I mean, those two midfields went toe to toe today. It was a pretty even game.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  And Norway with their keeper and with Holland, they have no chance to do a 2011 Mavs?

• 33:08Speaker 03

  No, they certainly do. They, I definitely think Norway is a shot.

• 33:11Bill Simmons?

  Fando says no, 17-0.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't, I don't think that's, I, I don't think, I think Norway is very, very well organized, know exactly what they want to do. They have Odegaard, they have Holland, like they, they could do one there.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  They might be the best coached 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 gonna like, we're gonna turtle up and then the minute we win the ball, it's go, go, go. We're sending a bunch of numbers forward. Holland, Holland, Holland, where's Holland? Oh, he scored. Oh, he scored again.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  It'll, it'll be interesting to see if Tuchel, when they get, when they get Norway on, on Saturday, whether Tuchel starts Stones or even Dan Burn to, to deal with Holland lurking back there because even Gabrielle, who plays for Arsenal for Brazil, like seemed small against him and they're gonna need, they're gonna need to muscle up with him.

• 34:04Bill Simmons?

  So, big picture, we're parachuting above this tournament. It feels like it's been an A or an A+.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, all World Cups have black eyes and, and like things where you're like, whoa, that happened and, 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.

• 34:22Bill Simmons?

  The point 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, when they have the Olympics basketball, right? You want all of 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.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:44Bill Simmons?

  And the, even America, just even getting to where they got to today was really fun, but.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  I just ordered a jersey. I can't wait to wear it. Cape Verde.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  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 perished within these cups, that people are just like kind of dumbfounded by this guy.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's probably the newest addition to the like kind of super galaxy of stars that we have.

• 35:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Him and Bellingham. So if you watch England and you watch Real 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.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  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.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think it has 91, it has 91 million now, or maybe it's 100 by this point.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  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 has won over the most people too, because of the iconic row.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  People on Broad Street in Philly rowing yesterday, right after Norway 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, seeing the different communities cycle in and out of the city for like the last two, three weeks. And then the fourth of July being Saturday with France game, and then downtown Center City was just absolutely jumping all night Saturday into the, into the wee hours in the pouring rain. Like the city has 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.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  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.

• 37:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, the best thing for us here, it'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 gonna happen with the Olympic basketball too, which will be a shorter version of this, but same thing, 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 beat Spain today. It's not happening. I don't see it.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  It's a dream World Cup for this. I mean, the sports books have gotten crushed. Every, the, the back to back times where Mbappe, Kane and Haaland both scored two goals, or Mbappe, Messi and Haaland both scored two goals. People were, I mean, if you bet any good player, they automatically score. It's like, this has been a dream.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, the two goal bet too, right? If you're doing the Haaland two goals with Norway to win, which is usually like four to one, five to one, and you're just cleaning up on those. What were we gonna say, CR?

• 38:08Speaker 03

  I was just gonna ask whether or not you thought there would be much of a post, post tournament kind of accounting of like the, the Balogun red card and Trump getting involved in sports karma or anything like that.

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  I think if the, if the game wasn't such a blowout, I don't think.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Right. If he scores, if he scores the like, and we win two, one, or if he scores the final pen, yeah, it's, it's a much, much bigger story.

• 38:34Bill Simmons?

  Trump could have done anything he wanted and we weren't gonna beat Belgium in that game. It's the fact that they were just resting guys that would have been like, two of our best five guys, like, I don't know. I think, I think that one will come and go. I do think it was interesting, though. It's interesting precedent being set of the president be like, huh, sports.

• 38:56Bill Simmons?

  What if I should get in and throw my elbows around a little bit here?

• 38:59Speaker 03

  I think he has a very open audience in FIFA.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, they conjured up a prize for him.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  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 the 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.

• 39:29Bill Simmons?

  Can you imagine if he had also gotten involved in the Jaylen Brown trade?

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't like this. I have a full investigation, trying to figure out what the Celtics are doing here.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  He called it a veto.

• 39:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Do you have a Jaylen Brown trade opinion before we go? I know you did this on gambling show.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  I've always loved Jaylen Brown. I loved him, so happy to have him. I think it's, it is gonna be weird. I'll be honest. Like, we'll be a better regular season team. It's gonna be fun. They had to do it. Makes a lot of sense. 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 CONCACAF and that's gonna be the chance to do that. So.

• 40:15Bill Simmons?

  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 are guys that you said this before the tournament, guys that are in good leagues, playing on good teams. So, you know, you figure that keeps going. I just.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  That's gonna 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 gonna 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 Messi or a Lewandowski to come play for them. Those kinds of developments are probably good for the US MNT, if bad for MLS maybe, or maybe not. But the ultimate thing that they're gonna really want is to create, how do, how do US national teams play? And, and create this kind of playing identity that I think Poche could probably do. I just don't know if he's gonna stick around for the long haul.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  I hope he does. I love Mauricio Pochettino. 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 some fun.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  The Netflix audience, we did a little poll, who's gonna win the World Cup? And Netflix audience says France, but only 54%.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Who was second?

• 41:41Bill Simmons?

  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.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  It would be very England to go win at the Azteca and then show up flat Saturday.

• 41:55Bill Simmons?

  The bundle, we can hear on the Ring of Gambling Show, keep doing those social media clips you're doing as well. And we'll have to have you on one more time before the end of the World Cup. I'm sad, but we press on. There's more soccer to be had. We're gonna take a break and I'm gonna come back with old friend Jason Concepcion right after this. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We're in the heart of the World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Michelob Ultra. Every play matters here. FIFA World Cup 26 for you. The stakes are just as high. Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26. It's giving you a chance to win $1 million worth of tickets

• 42:36Bill Simmons?

  and prizes. Michelob Ultra, from the pitch to the pour, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobultra.com/superioraccess/fifa world cup 26. Michelob Ultra FIFA World Cup 26 Superior Access. No purchase necessary. Opening US residents 21 plus begins on December 1st, 2025, ends on July 31st, 2026. Multiple entry periods. Visit www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/fifa World Cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  All right, CR is still here.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  I am.

• 43:18Bill Simmons?

  Old friend, Jason Concepcion is here. You can hear him on the Wait A Second Podcast. I made an appearance early. I'm due for another appearance. Ironically, cut back a little on the pods, the next couple of weeks, probably one to two a week for the next three weeks. One of the reasons is I gotta do my Zodiac deep dive. I gotta get ready for this, my Zodiac killer Wait A Second appearance. Jason, you just watched the USA game. We just covered it for 40 minutes, but give us, give us your takes watching from afar.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  Um, my main takeaway was I knew we were in trouble when we were doubling Leo Trossard early. I knew we were in trouble when Leo Trossard, who is one of my favorites for Arsenal, super sub microwave scorer as an Arsenal supporter, love him. He's maybe 5'7". 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. We looked like we were afraid of contact. We didn't initiate any contact.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  We weren't getting up in the air and it's just a bad performance all around at every level.

• 44:35Bill Simmons?

  You know what I realized? Actually, just over the last 40 minutes, Jason?

• 44:39Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 44:39Bill Simmons?

  CR, CR's Team England.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  No, that's not, come on.

• 44:43Bill Simmons?

  This is the good son.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Be respectful.

• 44:44Bill Simmons?

  No, you're sad. You're sad we lost, but really, deep down.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  I have dual citizenship in the world, in the globe of soccer.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  An England thing. No, you let go of Macaulay Culkin tonight and you're holding on to Elijah Wood, England.

• 44:58Bill Simmons?

  That's what's happening. Have you been obsessed with the World Cup, Jason? What's been your relationship with it?

• 45:04Speaker 05

  I love the World Cup. I've, I've been, you know, much like Alexi Lalas, I've been, I've been waiting.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  With bated breath, low these 20, it feels like years, but more.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:19Speaker 05

  For the US to kind of finally up shift 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've started paying attention. We still got knocked out because, listen, there's a reason that Tim Ream at 38 is still starting for this squad. And that's because you saw what the team looked like against Turkey, eh? And it wasn't good when he didn't play.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  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.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  It's just like in basketball in a playoff series when somebody's like, that guy can't defend. Everything runs at him. You know, I think they knew Ream 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.

• 46:31Speaker 05

  Let's just jump over him. Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Then he, then he kind of went on tilt a little bit, I think. But it was, it was, we got picked on in that department.

• 46:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's funny. I really got in a soccer 08, 09 range was when I really like started become watching it and trying to understand.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Who can forget your brief love affair with Tottenham Hotspur?

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then, if you go back in my archives, there's a couple decent calls.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  It's been referenced multiple times to me over the course of a couple of weeks. Yeah.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  But, and then my daughter started playing and I was in this whole club soccer world. And my, my, one of her first coaches said something that has always stuck with me ever since. Cause when we went to elevens. We, you know, you go from like nine V nine to eleven V eleven. And the coach said, yeah, elevens are tough because if you don't have eleven, the ball always finds the person you don't want it to find. And it felt like we had the two for me and was poor Ream, who's thirty eight. Not totally his fault. And then Dest, 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 it just felt like the ball was always finding the wrong people in this game. And that's what happens in soccer.

• 47:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. Dest was completely washed. It was, it was tough.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  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,

• 47:52Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  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 Ream. 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 or their phones right now, 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, are good problems to have. You know, they're, they're, they're soccer problems, not like, can anybody on this team play?

• 48:29Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  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're 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 shithousery squad, right?

• 49:07Bill Simmons?

  That would be pretty funny.

• 49:10Speaker 05

  But we're like, but we're 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 point, CR, 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.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  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.

• 49:54Bill Simmons?

  Do we need like a Draymond Green type?

• 49:58Bill Simmons?

  We brainwash?

• 49:59Speaker 03

  That's luxury.

• 50:00Bill Simmons?

  Some sort of midfielder who's just like, he's just getting very close to the line game after game. You're worried about him?

• 50:06Speaker 05

  If 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 Busquets, like in this country.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  You want to produce an Argentinian, basically.

• 50:16Speaker 05

  Yes, somehow, somehow, you know?

• 50:20Bill Simmons?

  JC, who is your MVP of the World Cup so far? We still have two weeks left.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  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 going to happen. He seems to like lollygag through periods of play where he's just kind of strolling around and then he sees a sequence unfolding. He just is in the right spot, the way he runs, you know, the, the, the way he seems to play up his Viking ogre kind of image at, 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.

• 51:04Bill Simmons?

  CR, no, no John Wick bad guy stuff for him or anything? Has Hollywood investigated him at all?

• 51:09Speaker 03

  I mean, he plays for Manchester City, so you know, like, nobody except for Waz likes them. And so it's like, he plays for the, 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, 1A would be Messi, who could be doing a 2019 Tigers Masters here, you know, like, this could be like going out, like, like, like the GOAT that he is.

• 51:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And Bellingham, I think, is the other one who even the real soccer fans know who that is, but the super casual ones are like, wow, this guy's really good, number 10 on England. I think he's, I think he was just incredible in the Mexico game yesterday.

• 51:53Speaker 05

  For some Man City context, Bill, they're currently facing 115 Premier League charges for circumventing like their version of the salary cap. So it would be like if

• 52:05Bill Simmons?

  aspiration times 110?

• 52:06Speaker 05

  115 Kawis.

• 52:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  And you're talking to an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan. So yes, we do take it personally.

• 52:13Speaker 05

  Yes, we do take it personally.

• 52:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's funny. When I was thinking about, when I was trying to pick my EPL team in 07.

• 52:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:20Bill Simmons?

  Everyone was telling me how they were the Clippers. They were like the sad sack Clippers. Yeah. And then the net quickly flipped. Um, favorite national anthem, JC?

• 52:30Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 52:30Bill Simmons?

  Anything really knock your socks off as we hear?

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Dude, Mexico last night was incredible.

• 52:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, Mexico.

• 52:36Bill Simmons?

  I thought Mexico was great last night.

• 52:37Speaker 05

  Mexico was, was bone chilling last night. I will also say, I, I, one note I have for, uh, for Boach and Team USA, I love, why don't we do the arms around each other?

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Wait, for John Denver or during the anthem?

• 52:54Speaker 05

  Just during the anthem. Everybody else is like arm in arm and singing it.

• 52:58Bill Simmons?

  It's a good note.

• 52:58Speaker 05

  Head up like, and we're like a foot away from everybody.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  I think France's anthem is still really strong.

• 53:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Marcela is great.

• 53:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think that's, that's way up there too. There's been, there's been some clunkers. I don't want to name any countries, but there's a couple where like, wow. Well, that's it. That's what you're rolling with?

• 53:17Speaker 03

  You know, the Brazil anthem, when it's in Brazil, you're like, this is the most incredible thing I've ever heard. But when it plays at like MetLife, you're kind of like, where's this one going? Like this, like, you know, cause like it just doesn't have like the entire crowd is into it. So that's.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  CR, what would be your move? Would you be a, close your eyes and, and sing? Or would you be a belted out? Or would you just be trying to stay cool?

• 53:41Speaker 03

  I would, I would, well, I think personally I would go the route of the Mexico players who are just like crying and screaming at the top of their lungs. I am not too cool for the anthem, like in that case. Yeah.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  You'd be, would you do that, JC? A little crying?

• 53:53Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:53Bill Simmons?

  Some tears?

• 53:54Speaker 05

  I would definitely, you would see the chords in my neck standing out. That would, that would be the level of intensity.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Bill, you would be like Nick Sirianni, just like tears, like bubbling out of your, your face, but no, no, no singing.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  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 winning the cup, Jason?

• 54:16Speaker 05

  I mean, this is, this is not.

• 54:20Speaker 05

  Like some wild prediction, but I think this is France's tournament.

• 54:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, this means it's not gonna happen. Everybody's saying that. Usually when everybody agrees on that, then then the rules of soccer have to trumpet somehow, right?

• 54:32Speaker 03

  I picked Spain to to win it, but I picked Spain to win it based on this this stupid idea I had that Germany was gonna beat France earlier. Uh, and obviously that was quite wrong. So don't listen to me, but it it just does seem like it. Whatever game you want to play, France can play it. If you want, 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 they do. There's nothing you can do to really fluster them unless what De Bundo said, which is like, can can Spain keep the ball away from them forever?

• 55:06Bill Simmons?

  The only thing you can do to fluster France is to give them a lead with two minutes left in an NBA game.

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  Uh, CCR, what would? How many more wins does England need now?

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Uh, quarter, send me three more wins.

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  Would that change your life? Like?

• 55:29Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I'm from Philadelphia. It's I think it would be incredible for my family, but and I would just, 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 was during the the 66 World Cup. So it would be very tempting to want to go over there for the celebrations, but uh, it it is. It it's it's still like I'm I'm playing dress up a little bit, you know, I can't I can't shed the soccer hipster accusations that easily.

• 56:01Bill Simmons?

  And who are you rooting for, JC? Who's your team now? You're just jumping on Norway, that's it?

• 56:05Speaker 05

  For years I've been, and I remain this, it's France with the Netherlands as a backup. So obviously France, but now I'm going France Norway.

• 56:15Bill Simmons?

  Okay, okay. I'm gonna root for Norway and I'm gonna bet on them at 17 to one or whatever the hell it is and and do it that way.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  I don't think that's that bad of a bet.

• 56:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated?

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

• 56:44Speaker 00

  Trifaya guselkumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore the possibilities. Ask your doctor about Trifaya. Tap this ad to see new joint data and learn more about Trifaya, including important safety information.

• 57:24Bill Simmons?

  All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you are live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the

• 58:08Bill Simmons?

  middle with steady, calculated money moves, and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865, is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FTIC. 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 is about as boring as it gets. Basketball, we are now moving into this LeBron, he's orchestrating this perfectly.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  You can't pretend like nothing is happening in sports when we can do a frame-by-frame analysis of Brad Stevens' press conference today.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  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, did the, we didn't want to have 70% of the cap tied up with two guys. Okay, but then they also tried to trade for Giannis, 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, Ciara and I have talked about this on the pod already. You haven't given your take yet. What is it?

• 59:21Speaker 05

  Well, my take was, and I'm waiting for it, is the classic Brian Curtis, now they tell a story because it simply must be there. The only answer to this is

• 59:37Speaker 05

  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

• 59:51Speaker 05

  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, you know, 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? And like, so.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, he did use the word usage, which I thought was the 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 I thought usage means we don't need to pay two guys to just trade, do dueling banjos anymore with the way the league is. Was my interpretation, is that fair?

• 1:00:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 1:00:47Speaker 03

  It's exactly, I mean, he was like, it's kind of like what Kirk said during the colonoscopy pod, when he was just like, they want to be a one. You're the one who called the pod that.

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  I know, now that is what it's called now.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  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 Giannis. Maybe they feel like Giannis was like this big.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  Or a better trade asset they could have spun or whatever.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  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 with Zach, they're going to be good in the regular season.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  They're going to be good.

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  Has good regular season basketball teams. They play.

• 1:01:25Bill Simmons?

  It's going to be good. Hugo will be better, Shyam will be better. To J C's point about the now they tell us.

• 1:01:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it's gonna 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. And I just, I don't think they're gonna do it. I think they're gonna take the high road if there is stuff. I don't, I don't see them doing it. The only stuff that's gonna come out is this ancillary stuff like, you know, I talked about this on the pod a week ago, but Brown and Tatum being in France together, but not interacting. And people that were there like, this is weird. They're, one guy's over there and just like,

• 1:02:15Bill Simmons?

  and you know, Tatum taking forever. Kind of like how Embiid hasn't done the welcome to Philly post yet for Jaylen Brown. Like, you can read between the lines with some of this stuff, CR. You just can.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I guess that's true. I mean, I saw that Embiid was at the Brazil match, uh, in full Brazil regalia. I was gonna 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. Uh, he did one the night that the trade happened and seemed to be

• 1:02:46Bill Simmons?

  Was muted.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Pretty confused and pretty upset. And I think he's getting his head around becoming a rival. Like, you know, he's going to, he's going to a rival team. I think that like, he's a competitive dude and he probably was like, I will be a Celtic probably for life. I, you know, the Celtics thing is so strange to me because there's like, on one hand, this like, like mythology about their relationship to their star players and those players' relationships to the city. But like, this modern era has been about turnover. I mean, Isaiah Thomas, the Kyrie and Gordon Hayward iteration, you know, Pete, Paul Pierce and KG being traded to Brooklyn. Like, those guys don't sell late, you know? Like, whatever they do.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  They did with Marcus Smart, certainly.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, they don't like, it's like, yeah, we're gonna take a beating for two months and then people are gonna be, gonna be back at the, the Garden. So like, I respect it. I think that sometimes they get a little bit of like, uh, like they get like a little bit too much leeway when it comes to like, we're like a, 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 when they have like dislocated hips. Like, give me a break. But

• 1:03:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh geez, CR.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  I'm just saying.

• 1:03:54Bill Simmons?

  It's hurtful. I'm in a lot of pain this week. No, I mean, the 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 root canal during that press conference.

• 1:04:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Bill Simmons?

  It's you go from like, oh my God, I bought my favorite team. I'm gonna bring my whole family. We're sitting courtside. This is so great. I'm having such a good time. And now, you know, the worm has turned.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  If Jason was still like-

• 1:04:20Bill Simmons?

  This is not a popular trade.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  A writer, we were still doing this, like, we would probably have like a Tom Dundon, Matt Ishbia, Bill Chisholm group chat post that we were manufacturing.

• 1:04:31Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Yes, that's a great take.

• 1:04:52Speaker 05

  High turnover.

• 1:04:53Bill Simmons?

  You're drinking Dolan juice.

• 1:04:55Speaker 05

  Every contract is a bad contract.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's like so hard to be smart. The cap 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 now, but like the rosters are squeezed and inevitably, everybody who's smart looks dumb under this, under this regime.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, even look at Mark Walters and the Lakers, like the Dodgers would keep LeBron on the team and just 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 gonna 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 gonna be like, oh, just spend my way out of it, you know, like, no, it's not gonna happen anymore.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, this starts- Previous version of this, the connective tissue was the Bradley Beal contract. Where the Wizards were like, ah, fuck, what are we gonna do? I mean, he's our best player. And 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 kinda can't have two of these.

• 1:06:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Bill Simmons?

  So, the Pistons are, you know, Pistons won 61 games last year. They didn't even know if they wanted to bring Durham back because the moment that contract is $8 million 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 Wick, the previous owner, he wanted to take care of his guys, they just won the title. And, and, uh, 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 sixth MVP last year, but that contract's a little too rich for my blood.

• 1:06:52Bill Simmons?

  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.

• 1:07:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think there's a corrosive effect that we're gonna see over time, too, where, you know, there's a connection with players that

• 1:07:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  That, that cities have. And, I mean, I'm watching that video of the kid crying because Jaylen 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 success. They wanted to create this and they've created it with eight new champions in a row, it's unprecedented. But You know, like the league was built on a specific kind of dominance that allowed

• 1:07:53Speaker 05

  characters to develop over time with the fanbase and there is a connection with with teams and with the communities around them that maybe is getting severed, you know, and and is that good?

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  And also with this model of having one big star and then a lot of turnover in your two through 10, say.

• 1:08:16Bill Simmons?

  It's the football motto. It's the quarterback with everybody else.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  I I mean, like, the Sixers have kind of done that around Embiid and star two over the last 10 years, and it's it's soul deadening after a while where you're like, who is this year's Marco Belinelli? Who is this year's J.J. Reddick? Who is this year's Robert Covington? Who is this year's X, Y, Z? It's kind of awesome, even though the Knicks were like thrown somewhat thrown together, you know, Mitchell Robinson was the longest tenured 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 folk heroes. Like, they'll never buy another drink or a Chipotle bowl in New York City again. And fewer and fewer teams are going to have that if they all abide by this, like, well,

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  we can have one star and then it's up to the G M. to just find like the right rotation of guys every year.

• 1:09:09Bill Simmons?

  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 NBA 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.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Bill Simmons?

  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 cancels.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  You can only use it as a gas station.

• 1:09:45Bill Simmons?

  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 repeater 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 courtside seat around the team like, 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 gonna 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 Jay Cease here, you've been on the podcast since the Knicks won the 2026 NBA championship.

• 1:10:27Speaker 05

  Since then.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What happened?

• 1:10:31Bill Simmons?

  You were just like, was it like the end of the Odyssey? What was it like for you?

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  It was like.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  Don't give away the end of the Odyssey.

• 1:10:37Speaker 05

  Spoiler on a 3,000 year old story.

• 1:10:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, people know the work.

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  I can honestly say that game four into game five 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 for the parade. It was just like, I gotten to a point in my life, you know, you watch 20 years of bad Knicks 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.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  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. And to see it has been incredible.

• 1:11:39Bill Simmons?

  It was like you're in the rom com where you're giving up on love and then finally you found somebody on a, on a trip to Tuscany. And that was it.

• 1:11:45Speaker 05

  That is 100% right. Now, I will say this, and this is very not like me, after we smoked the Cavs, smoked that Cavs pack in the Eastern Conference Finals.

• 1:11:59Speaker 05

  I was texting, you know, my Knicks groups and I'm like, I really, I think we're gonna win it. I think we're gonna win it. If you, especially if we got the Spurs. Just looking at the underlying stuff, we'd beat them, uh, what was it? Two out of three in the, in the season. Pretty comprehensively on the same game plan every time. We almost beat them in the game we lost.

• 1:12:21Speaker 03

  You guys won the cup against them, right?

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  Won the cup against them in a game that they were trying to win.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  The Knicks did the double.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  They did the double.

• 1:12:29Bill Simmons?

  Didn't get no credit for it. First, when do you raise the banner? Do you have to separate the banners? What happens?

• 1:12:35Speaker 05

  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,

• 1:12:45Speaker 05

  to critique Adam Silver a little bit more. They, that's his baby, the cup. And the fact that they didn't play up much more. This historic double that has happened.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  A new bar has been set for NBA greatness.

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  A new bar in an era of parody.

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 05

  Right? In an era of parody, 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 the, and that should be trumpeted everywhere. And it frankly hasn't, and that is a miss from Adam Silver in the NBA.

• 1:13:24Bill Simmons?

  The 53 years felt like it kind of trumped the cup, which I understand.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, I get it. I get it.

• 1:13:30Bill Simmons?

  When they were down a lot of points in game four.

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:13:34Bill Simmons?

  Cause this, this, I went through basically the same experience you did with the Red Sox in game four and game five in the, against the Yankees.

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:13:42Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like two cra- these sporting events that just blend together now, where I don't even remember what happened in what game anymore. But there were also like a couple of dark moments where you really like, look at your past. And, and you think like, oh man, and that the real doubt starts creeping in. What was, that must've happened in game four a couple of times, right?

• 1:14:01Speaker 05

  Game four, it wasn't the full existential doubt because I still thought, okay.

• 1:14:06Bill Simmons?

  You thought you were better.

• 1:14:07Speaker 05

  I, I, I thought, yeah, I thought we'd 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 can still win this series. But that said.

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:14:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, you had Trump game three, flipping the karma, and then down 29 in game, in game four.

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And despite the fact that I'd seen all these comebacks now, going back two, three seasons, I was just like, okay, you know, just like, that's it. We're not going to 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 third, 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 looked so tired. They looked absolutely gassed. I thought the one, you know, obviously, the Knicks don't want to go down double digits

• 1:15:18Speaker 05

  early in every single game. But it was very smart of them that no matter how many blocks when Wemby 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.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  CR, do you think new Spurs head coach Billy Donovan will be able to fix some of that stuff?

• 1:15:50Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if he has a title yet.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  Do we not, we forgot to put you on this Google Meet, Mitch. My bad.

• 1:15:56Bill Simmons?

  Hey, guys, was there a meeting?

• 1:15:58Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:15:59Bill Simmons?

  Mitch, we forgot to tell you.

• 1:16:00Speaker 03

  We just didn't want to waste your time. Honestly, like, you got, you got bigger things to do.

• 1:16:04Bill Simmons?

  I just got together with the other assistants. We just wanted to come up with some ideas for you.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:16:13Bill Simmons?

  That's like we just did from hell. We did hand that rocks a cradle where she hires Rebecca Demaree. It's like, don't hire Rebecca Demaree as your daddy.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  It's like, ah, Billy Donovan. He's only won a couple of titles and coached two other teams.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  That was really, actually, Jason's description of this whole experience was so moving that I'm gonna trash the joke I was gonna make about them raising not only the NBA Finals banner, the cup banner, but also the contract of payments to, of dark money payments to Jalen Brunson that they're obviously making.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  Let me just say-

• 1:16:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, can we do that on Wait A Second? Can we, can we?

• 1:16:47Speaker 05

  Let me just say this, and I'll say this with a, 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.

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:17:05Speaker 03

  They're shooting on IMAX.

• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  But that being said, like, I, I am completely, I, 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?

• 1:17:22Bill Simmons?

  I didn't, I didn't think it was a good thing.

• 1:17:24Speaker 05

  Like an early flag?

• 1:17:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what, yeah, it was just, it was weird that they were bringing him in.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  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 Newt Rockne of this team. Um, I, I-

• 1:17:38Bill Simmons?

  Did you, did you guys hear they're filming the Roommates Pod in 70 millimeter, starting in September?

• 1:17:43Speaker 05

  70, 70 millimeter IMAX?

• 1:17:46Bill Simmons?

  They have Nolan cinematographer?

• 1:17:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Speaker 03

  Quintero is just like, like, this Mikhail.

• 1:17:53Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says The Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, opens in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles, nationwide October 30th. Episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. So what TV are we supposed to watch as the World Cup winds down, JC?

• 1:18:59Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 1:19:00Bill Simmons?

  What do you into these days?

• 1:19:02Speaker 05

  Uh, second season of The Agency, which is a show I know that

• 1:19:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, CR.

• 1:19:08Speaker 05

  Uh, which is itself an adaptation of Le Bureau de l'Agence, uh, 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.

• 1:19:21Speaker 03

  It's pretty good.

• 1:19:22Speaker 05

  It's pretty good. And the changes they made to make it to, you know, kind of like American intelligence it, uh, more, just hit for me. And I'm loving it.

• 1:19:32Bill Simmons?

  So I can run that back. I haven't watched one episode. Can I bang that out this?

• 1:19:36Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  You will like it. I think you will like it. Yeah.

• 1:19:39Bill Simmons?

  Is fa- is it shame fastbender or just fastbender?

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  It's, it's fastbender pretending to be an American spy and, and it doesn't totally work, but it's still pretty good.

• 1:19:48Bill Simmons?

  Weird sex with his maid or anything?

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  No, he's, he's basically playing like, like a, yeah, I mean, he has some weird sex, but still, like, yeah.

• 1:19:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's par, par for the course with him.

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's a spy.

• 1:19:59Bill Simmons?

  CR, what's been your favorite thing of the summer TV?

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  You know, there's a show on Apple called Star City. That's been, uh, it's like a spinoff of another show they have called For All Mankind, and it's set in, um, the Russian, the Soviet space program in the sixties and seventies. And it's really great.

• 1:20:15Bill Simmons?

  That sounds like CR Mad Libs.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  It's, I, I could only be me.

• 1:20:19Bill Simmons?

  They have, uh, one of the co-showrunners of the Americans.

• 1:20:23Speaker 03

  It's the for all man guy, guys, but it's really good.

• 1:20:27Bill Simmons?

  Uh, I've been hate watching The Living Hell at a 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.

• 1:20:39Bill Simmons?

  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, episode five?

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  I think when Amy Adams showed up on set and she was like, wait, you guys aren't all doing accents? It's just me.

• 1:21:09Bill Simmons?

  Right. She, the hope was starting to flicker out of her eyes, I would say. One of the 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 Apple's just like, do you think it'd be weird if, if these parents didn't care that their kid chopped his toe off? And seems like a complete maniac and a destructive force to others. Like might be putting himself or 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. They just, I, I don't know what it is. So I, Apple, like this seems like their lane now. They have like three different lanes.

• 1:21:53Bill Simmons?

  And one of these lanes is these wealthy, crimey, um, families in disarray, couples that hate each other.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  Like prestige pulp. Yeah.

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  It's like prestige divorce, divorce pulp.

• 1:22:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Bill Simmons?

  Did you finish the bear, JC?

• 1:22:09Speaker 05

  I, I, I did not finish the bear, but I'm getting ready to, to struggle through it with all respect to the bear.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  I was a fan of the final season. I think you'll, yeah.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  They did the pit, right? Pit style?

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 1:22:22Bill Simmons?

  They did pit style, just like everything in one day?

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  Set mostly on one day. Yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 05

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Bill Simmons?

  What are we missing now? CR, what are we missing now in the TV landscape? What are we not doing?

• 1:22:35Speaker 03

  I mean, there's a lot of genre stuff on Dragons. Pretty good this year, I think. 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-y succession, kind of like normal people behaving badly show that everybody kind of falls in love with.

• 1:22:54Speaker 03

  Trying to think of like what, what's coming that's even exciting, but, uh,

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  It feels like it's drifting back toward movies. I made this point.

• 1:23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:01Bill Simmons?

  Six, seven weeks ago where, um, it fit, I wonder if the creativity is starting to, I finally saw Obsession.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Did you like it?

• 1:23:08Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:23:11Bill Simmons?

  It was really good.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  Bill, I know.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  I didn't love, the lead actor would be my, uh, my one.

• 1:23:15Speaker 03

  Okay, but.

• 1:23:16Bill Simmons?

  Like, if Chalamet is in that movie, that's like one of the best movies of all time.

• 1:23:20Speaker 05

  I think he, his, his bill is like five times the budget of that movie.

• 1:23:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, if you put Chalamet in that lead part, we're talking about this movie for 25 years from now.

• 1:23:29Speaker 03

  Did you, I'm sure you did not see this, but the, the main actress from that movie, Indy Navarrete.

• 1:23:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he too?

• 1:23:36Speaker 03

  He too.

• 1:23:37Bill Simmons?

  Wait, why? Don't you know me at this point when you're like, I'm sure you didn't see this, but.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  Well, you were at the Odyssey all day.

• 1:23:44Bill Simmons?

  Like, anything happens without me knowing with he too? I have this question, actually, speaking of heat. It's a mailbag question from Victor. Longtime fan, diehard Magic fan in Orlando. Recently I was rewatching The Town and the entire Fenway heist was for $3 million. Realizing this is what Bismack Biyombo made for the Spurs this season had me thinking, are the prizes in heist movies too small or are NBA contracts too big? What would Neil McCauley have had to do to get a year of Devin Booker's salary? You're the best man on this issue. I have noticed this in some of our heist things where they're like, we gotta take this down. And I want it to be like $29 million or something.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  You almost wonder if they should go back in ADR, like what's it? Cause if you go back to like the 1950s noirs and they're like robbing a horse racetrack and it's like, what's the take? 10 grand.

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  10 grand, guys.

• 1:24:39Speaker 03

  And it's like, maybe we should go back in and be like, a million dollars.

• 1:24:43Bill Simmons?

  It's like, we were talking about when Jason was on for the Survivor, like. Oh, that Mr. Beast bumped it to 2 million bucks. It's like, this was a million dollars in 2000. Like, the NBA salary cap was 18 million dollars in 2000 or whatever. Like, how is it not 10 million dollars to win Survivor now? So heist movies higher? Would you bump it up, CR?

• 1:25:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I think we actually have a lot of really ridiculous heist movies where they go for like, we're gonna 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.

• 1:25:13Bill Simmons?

  Do you wanna quickly have the Heat 2 conversation?

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's talk about Leo being sureless. This is the thing that has been rumored for a long time. I think everybody was waiting to find out if he was gonna be Neil or Chris. And he's sureless. He's gonna be the star of the movie.

• 1:25:30Bill Simmons?

  I get asked this question all the time, and I'm sure both of you do too, from people in our lives. Like, what do you think? Is this really happening? I'm really, listen, I'm gonna go.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  You're gonna go?

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad they're doing it. I'm obviously gonna 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. This one, we've seen this go wrong. I ended up not seeing Gladiator 2 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. And Michael Mann, who, you know, our all-time favorite, he's been on nine rewatchables movies, including today with Ali. But when you get to directors in their 80s, JC.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:19Bill Simmons?

  Gets a little dicey. Like, I don't know if I want people directing expensive movies or running my NFL team, or there's just...

• 1:26:28Speaker 05

  This was a conversation I was having with some friends recently. Like, who is the director in their 80s, historically, who is like crushing it?

• 1:26:38Speaker 05

  And I, I think that there are, there are different variables like, but at the top level of triple A type of movie, it's like, kind of nobody, kind of nobody like I,

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, seventies even gets dicey.

• 1:26:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:59Speaker 05

  Kubrick, 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,

• 1:27:10Bill Simmons?

  I know, but this is sacred IP though.

• 1:27:12Speaker 05

  It is.

• 1:27:12Bill Simmons?

  This is, the difference is, it's not just him making a movie, but I would support if he was 100 years old, he wanted to make a movie. It's just, why haven't we done Heat Two before now? Why are we doing it now? I know he wrote the book, but is it worth doing

• 1:27:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you could say, and I will hear the argument that this is like Ridley Scott returning to the alien universe where it's like, but Ridley Scott like 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 Heat Two specifically is the presence of Jerry Bruckheimer, who himself is not a spring chicken, 82 years old, but is like one of the great showmans. 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 DiCaprio signs on for this and is like, let's hope it's okay. You know, like,

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  It is true. He has had impeccable taste over the years.

• 1:28:13Speaker 03

  And we do have, there's just gotta be some guardrails here. Yeah. And he has to know, there's gonna be three things in this movie that I do that people are gonna be breathless over, you know, and otherwise I just don't know why, like, why, why didn't he just do Ferrari then, you know, or whatever else? Like, he just doesn't make his choices idly.

• 1:28:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, I saw, I won't spoil anything from The Odyssey today because I know you guys haven't seen it.

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  There's also an embargo on it, I think.

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing I'll say is, Chris Nolan, guy who, you know, over the course of a long movie, there's gonna be a couple of set pieces in there. You know, it's like, like when you're watching an awesome WWE championship match, there's gonna be a couple bumps that they thought about ahead of time and that you're gonna be like, holy shit.

• 1:29:04Bill Simmons?

  And that's, that's what a Michael Mann, when his movies are really cooking, they'll have like three, four sections in there that you're just like, wow.

• 1:29:14Speaker 03

  The stuff I'm most looking forward to in 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, in Central America or whatever and, and it'll be like different than Heat. So the city stuff will be cool, but I, I'm looking forward, if they bring it page for page out for that stuff.

• 1:29:35Bill Simmons?

  There's, there's another existential, existential question here, JC. You know, CR has obviously known Sean longer than me.

• 1:29:45Bill Simmons?

  They've been friends since when? Mid 2000s?

• 1:29:47Speaker 03

  Early 2000s, yeah.

• 1:29:49Bill Simmons?

  You've done a lot of big picture appearances with him, seen a lot of movies. We started the rewatchables from a Heat podcast we did. Heat, I feel like is RIP.

• 1:29:59Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:30:00Bill Simmons?

  And I'm really interested to see how you handle this.

• 1:30:03Speaker 03

  I'll be interested to see how you handle this.

• 1:30:05Bill Simmons?

  I think with Heat 2, I feel like that's, I feel like I should be in pole position for the first pod with CR.

• 1:30:11Speaker 03

  You are in pole position though.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't know though. Maybe America decides.

• 1:30:16Speaker 05

  Why not all of you? Why not, why not the triumvirate? Yeah.

• 1:30:20Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that's, maybe that's what needs to happen.

• 1:30:23Speaker 05

  Because I think like, as a, let me just say as a fan, as a fan of y'all also, that's what I want to see is that trio.

• 1:30:33Bill Simmons?

  JC's saying, don't choose CR, that it should just be me and Sean together, the three of us for Heat 2.

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:30:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, maybe, what, maybe American, maybe we do a poll.

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  America votes.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  America votes, bro. We've done, we did, we did the three Heat or the four Heat?

• 1:30:49Speaker 03

  Well, we've done two Heats and Michael Mann. We have not done four Heat yet.

• 1:30:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm ready because I have, I have some thoughts from recent watches. I have more heat opinions. I didn't think I had any more heat opinions, but I actually do.

• 1:31:03Speaker 03

  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, yeah, there's still a couple of tricks up our sleeve.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that was my favorite one where we like, we give De Niro and Pacino a red card.

• 1:31:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31:18Bill Simmons?

  In the first minute of the pod, they're just out of the pod.

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  We're resting them for heat five.

• 1:31:23Bill Simmons?

  You're not allowed to do Pacino, take it all. How excited are you for the Odyssey on a scale of one to 10, JC?

• 1:31:30Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm excited. It's, I, it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's gonna be a, like an iconic. Nolan is one of the iconic guys currently working, and you could argue that he's the best director currently working. 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.

• 1:32:01Speaker 05

  It's been gestating that long. I'm excited. I'm excited.

• 1:32:06Bill Simmons?

  I sat next to somebody you've both potted with over the years, many times, Molly Rubin,

• 1:32:13Bill Simmons?

  in the screening today, and let's just say, she was digesting a lot.

• 1:32:19Speaker 03

  A popcorn or mythology?

• 1:32:22Bill Simmons?

  Lot of things in a wheelhouse, there's books, I don't, you know, there, 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, so I was, 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.

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  I think you're allowed to say like, I saw it and I liked it, but the like, full review and, and plot.

• 1:32:51Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was incredible, and most importantly, my guy Matt Damon.

• 1:32:58Bill Simmons?

  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 DiCaprio, I feel like he's in the mix.

• 1:33:11Speaker 03

  This is a very exciting argument to have.

• 1:33:14Speaker 05

  This is, it is a really interesting one.

• 1:33:17Bill Simmons?

  I just think his basketball reference page is better than people realize.

• 1:33:19Speaker 03

  I think I tried to do, I tried to make a Damon versus Cruz take, take case that you guys laughed me out of your, off of a set for like during rewatchables, but Damon Leo is a good argument to make.

• 1:33:32Bill Simmons?

  I remember my HBO show 10 years ago, playing that one up right after The Martian. Cause 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 his school ties is 92, 93 range. So he's, he's been 35 years now banging out watchable movies.

• 1:33:53Speaker 05

  With, with Leo, would, I think you would have to say no Titanic. We don't put Titanic in the mix. Cause I just think with Titanic, it takes Leo to a level that Matt Damon has never.

• 1:34:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, honestly, honestly, it might happen with The Odyssey.

• 1:34:14Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:34:14Bill Simmons?

  I know Titanic was.

• 1:34:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:34:16Bill Simmons?

  Titanic was a billion dollar movie that won a bunch of awards. I don't know if that's not happening with The Odyssey. Like it's fucking sold out all through, all through the summer in LA already.

• 1:34:27Speaker 05

  But like Titanic was the type of like cultural impact that like the Taliban had to ban it. Like it was that level movie.

• 1:34:35Bill Simmons?

  That is true.

• 1:34:36Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 1:34:37Bill Simmons?

  You keep it going eight, nine times.

• 1:34:39Speaker 03

  To be fair, they were banning stuff left and right. So it was kinda.

• 1:34:43Speaker 05

  But when they were there like, uh, no music, no makeup for women, but, and also Titanic, you cannot watch that movie in the, in the borders of Afghanistan, period. Like I think that is a crazy, crazy, crazy impact.

• 1:34:57Bill Simmons?

  It's a, it's a pretty awesome achievement. I'm really happy for Damon. It is impeccably well cast.

• 1:35:04Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:35:04Bill Simmons?

  And people know this, I think from the IMDB. Do you guys know who Charlize Theron plays in this movie?

• 1:35:11Speaker 03

  Uh, I forget, but I, I know that she's fairly important.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  I want to say it's Cersei maybe, or?

• 1:35:17Bill Simmons?

  She plays, she plays Calypso.

• 1:35:20Speaker 05

  Oh, Calypso. Okay.

• 1:35:22Bill Simmons?

  And she's well cast.

• 1:35:24Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:35:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just gonna.

• 1:35:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:35:27Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:35:28Bill Simmons?

  Also happy for my, my girl Anne Hathaway, but yeah, no, it was, uh, it's really something. I'll be interested to see what the reaction is. It seems like everybody had that reaction, like, holy shit.

• 1:35:37Speaker 05

  I'm excited for Burnthall, just Burnthall. You wanna know about the horse?

• 1:35:43Speaker 05

  Talk about the horse.

• 1:35:44Speaker 03

  Your dad wasn't that big of a deal?

• 1:35:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, 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 Burnthall, I gasped and Mallory started laughing and I was like, I had no idea. My guy, he's here. Uh, but those are the most fun kind of movies. Anyway, uh, yeah, I'll see. What, what else are you looking forward pop culture wise this summer? See, or anything?

• 1:36:09Speaker 03

  Me? Oh, I can't wait for Resident Evil, uh, the Zach Craig or follow up to Weapons and it looks awesome.

• 1:36:16Bill Simmons?

  JC?

• 1:36:17Speaker 05

  Same. Did you, you know, loved the video games?

• 1:36:20Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 1:36:20Speaker 05

  And the trailer knocked me out.

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  Any reality? Nothing? Are you out on reality now, Jason?

• 1:36:27Speaker 05

  No, I'm, I'm, well, I'll tell you my most dirty reality secret is Below Deck. I watch it year round.

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:36:36Speaker 05

  The Bravo show Below Deck.

• 1:36:37Bill Simmons?

  My wife is like, like, just, just inhales it. What is it about Below Deck? I don't really understand it.

• 1:36:44Speaker 05

  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 cooldown 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.

• 1:37:26Bill Simmons?

  Interesting.

• 1:37:27Speaker 03

  Has that ever happened on Below Deck?

• 1:37:29Speaker 05

  It's almost happened several times.

• 1:37:33Speaker 05

  It's almost happened.

• 1:37:35Bill Simmons?

  My wife really enjoys the different people that come in that that rent the boat, the different types of people they pick.

• 1:37:43Speaker 05

  Johnny Damon.

• 1:37:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, 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, CR. I'm, I gotta say, this is the least amount of reality I've watched in a long time.

• 1:37:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, you might be aging out.

• 1:37:59Bill Simmons?

  We're between eras.

• 1:37:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm also probably aging out. I think when the challenge just became a professional sporting event and stopped having people screaming at each other, hooking up in a closet.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:09Bill Simmons?

  Nobody's hooking up in a closet or a bathroom or anywhere. I was like, I don't know. I don't know where we go with this. All right, guys, I think we covered everything.

• 1:38:16Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 1:38:17Bill Simmons?

  America's gone. The Knicks are NBA champions. The Celtics are in complete flux. AJ Brown is on the, on the Patriots. He too's 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.

• 1:38:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:38:33Bill Simmons?

  CR, I will see you for your watchables next week. People can watch us do Ali today. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal and Chris and Jack and everybody at 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.

• 1:38:53Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.

• 1:39:30Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6th.

• 1:40:15Bill Simmons?

  Get tickets now.

• 1:40:17Speaker 06

  The Mosquito Bowl is the incredible true story of four college football stars who walked away from NFL careers after Pearl Harbor to enlist in the Marines. From Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg, in starring Nicholas Galatine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis, comes a story of brotherhood and sacrifice. Four men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield. The Mosquito Bowl, in theaters October 30th.