Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil About this episode What do Vladimir Putin, David Hasselhoff and a shadowy businessman named The Meat Baron have in common? The remains of a fan-owned German football club that sold its soul, got stuck in the middle of a war, then woke up from a $200 million nightmare... to the basement of the standings. Correspondent Bradley Campbell travels to Gelsenkirchen, a mining town where soccer never stopped — and salvation was always a piece of merch away.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 9,307 words · 25 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Pablo Torre? This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef, cooked right when you order it, with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory, two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles, side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill. My move?
0:42 Pablo Torre? QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.
1:09 Speaker 01 Onnit's Black Friday Sale doesn't start until later this month, but listeners get in early. If you're new to Onnit, go to Onnit.com and use code PABLO for 30% off your first order, starting today. If you've never tried Onnit, start with AlphaBrain. It's their daily nootropic built to support focus, memory, and mental clarity on days when you need to be locked in, whether that's powering through a tough workout or staying focused during back-to-back meetings. Get early access and save 30% off your first order at Onnit.com. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com. And use code PABLO. Some exclusions apply.
1:54 Pablo Torre? This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools.
2:36 Pablo Torre? It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. And today, we're going to find out what this sound is.
3:14 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
3:17 Speaker 02 You're listening to DraftKings Network.
3:31 Speaker 03 How's it going, man?
3:33 Pablo Torre? Yeah, I'm all right, but you're finishing... Is this lunch?
3:37 Speaker 03 Granola bar, which technically I guess is lunch right now.
3:40 Pablo Torre? Yeah, I've been tracking you across the office. I am always rushing around from thing to thing. You seem haggard, especially lately.
3:48 Speaker 03 It's been a stretch, dude.
3:49 Pablo Torre? You are trying to be kind to yourself by eating a kind bar.
3:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
3:55 Pablo Torre? A real luxury.
3:56 Speaker 03 Oh, it's good. It's good. Well, dude, question.
3:59 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
4:00 Speaker 03 Have you ever done something... And this will go somewhere. Have you ever done something to someone where you ask them to, you know, like, a favor for you? They do it, and only then afterwards do you realize that, oh man, you just asked him to do like something absolutely wretched.
4:16 Pablo Torre? Yes. First time I moved out of my parents' apartment. Asked a friend, can you help me move, having never done it myself? And moving in New York is basically like, would you like to?
4:32 Speaker 03 Would you like to be basically stuck in a set of stairs trying to maneuver a couch at like a
4:36 Pablo Torre? Truly.
4:37 Speaker 03 64 degree angle.
4:38 Pablo Torre? My good buddy Juan, I am so sorry, he got the bottom part of the couch. And I was like just steering it from the top, which is an unequal distribution of labor. So, yeah, I did that, which I am still living down.
4:55 Speaker 03 I did this with my cousin Max, who lives in Germany. And we were talking on Zoom, and I looked on, you know, kind of Google Maps? And I found out where he was at, and I'm like, oh dude, he's next to Borussia Dortmund.
5:08 Speaker 04 Haaland's, Haaland's volley is beautiful beyond compare.
5:13 Speaker 03 And at that time, they were incredible. They had Aaron Holling, they had Christian Pulisic. Is there any chance, like, you could get me a hat?
5:22 Pablo Torre? Yeah, you're that kind of cousin. You're like, oh wait, you're in, you're in Germany.
5:25 Speaker 03 Exactly.
5:26 Pablo Torre? Can I get some merch?
5:27 Speaker 03 Can I get some merch? And he was just like, yeah, okay. So, so he gets one, and then I proudly like put the Borussia Dortmund hat on the next time we're on Zoom. And I'm like, Max, check out my hat. And he was like, yeah.
5:42 Pablo Torre? He responded the way that Juan responded when I asked him to help me move a couch.
5:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, and that's, that's a good hat, Bradley. And I was like, what's up? And he was like, well, Borussia Dortmund, they're, they're our enemy. Like, we root for this team called Schalke, and we just hate Borussia Dortmund. And I'm just like, oh.
6:04 Pablo Torre? Yeah. I wasn't familiar with the geopolitics of intra-German professional soccer clubs.
6:11 Speaker 03 It's huge.
6:12 Pablo Torre? But apparently, Bradley, as I understand now where you're headed, yeah, this is, this is a thing.
6:18 Speaker 03 But then he told me, like, well, it's, it's okay. It's just, uh, it's been a hard time to be a Schalke fan. And I was like, what do you mean?
6:29 Speaker 05 Oh man, don't ask me. It's almost desperate to see what's going on at the moment, especially no one really knows.
6:36 Speaker 03 So of course I asked him. And he told me about this storied team of his, Schalke 04, one of the best in all of German football, just became dead inside.
6:49 Speaker 05 Well, fans described it as being blood empty. That's kind of a phrase we use here.
6:56 Speaker 03 Blood empty?
6:57 Speaker 05 Yeah, they're standing on the field, blood empty. It's like standing on the field and leaving a hollow impression of yourself.
7:05 Speaker 03 Wow, that's a great phrase. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great phrase.
7:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, welcome to the German language.
7:15 Speaker 03 He went on to tell me all about Schalke 04's downfall. And as he was doing this, I realized that it was a very German story, a Faustian tale, if you will. One involved a deal with the devil, the selling of a soul, and a story that dropped his favorite football club out of the top division and down into a geopolitical firestorm that our own president has said could lead us to World War III.
7:43 Pablo Torre? Right. I have a sense now of your cousin Max.
7:46 Speaker 03 Yep.
7:47 Pablo Torre? God bless him, his favorite club. But in terms of the Faustian bargain here, this deal with the devil, who is the devil in this story?
7:58 Speaker 03 So at first, I had absolutely no idea. So I went to Germany to find out.
8:24 Pablo Torre? Something very big is supposed to happen as early as today, Thursday, May 15th, 2025.
8:43 Pablo Torre? What you're hearing there is Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing, earlier this week, to "restart peace talks" directly with Ukraine, the nation he'd invaded. And ostensibly, this would end the war that has impacted both all of Europe, certainly, as well as the United States. And what Putin says here is that these talks should "start without delay," as early as May 15. And look, the whims of Vladimir Putin, the whole way that his dictatorship in Russia can offer both destruction and salvation in one fell swoop, might not immediately seem
9:28 Pablo Torre? like an urgent sports story to you. But what you're about to hear today in the story of Schalke 04, this big German soccer team, is a story that's about a lot more than just Europe, or international politics, or our correspondent Bradley Campbell's cousin, Max. This is a story about the strings that get attached to offers of sports salvation. Which means that this is a story about your favorite team, as well. So this is one of those stories that I greenlit not because I love German soccer. It's a story that I greenlit because there was this Faustian deal with the devil.
10:13 Pablo Torre? And so when it comes to people who are not familiar with Faust and that deal, I mean, this is an omnipresent kind of story throughout human history.
10:21 Speaker 03 I mean, if you've seen The Little Mermaid, that's a Faustian tale. If you've watched Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny, also Faustian tale.
10:30 Pablo Torre? Right, The Little Mermaid gets to be among...
10:34 Speaker 03 Gets to walk.
10:35 Pablo Torre? Among us, on land.
10:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, Tenacious D gets to shred.
10:46 Pablo Torre? That's right. But the original, right, which goes back centuries.
10:50 Speaker 03 Seventeen hundreds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:51 Pablo Torre? Or earlier. It's about an astrologer who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. And that story ends, I suppose, quite literally with Faust, the astrologer, in hell.
11:05 Speaker 03 Yeah. Which, judging from what we heard from Max and the blood-empty soccer team, is kind of where Schalkau was.
11:17 Speaker 03 I flew the overnight to Amsterdam, because it's a much cheaper flight.
11:22 Speaker 03 And then, gosh, I took a couple of different commuter rails.
11:28 Speaker 03 And then got to a little West German town called Gelsenkirchen. It felt like being on Amtrak and then going through the Alleghanies, and then all of a sudden landing in Pittsburgh.
11:41 Pablo Torre? So as you look out the train window, it's Europe, but you're describing, at this point, a very familiar part of America.
11:51 Speaker 03 Definitely, definitely. It had this vibe of industry and kind of this vibe of an area that's seen better days. It was the center of the mining region in Germany. But all the mines have been capped. So there's no mines anymore. They've switched from coal power to natural gas.
12:07 Pablo Torre? Amid these rolling hills is a ruin that also hearkens back to this time when it was thriving.
12:17 Speaker 03 And it's full of fans with just a ton of hope and a ton of faith.
12:22 Speaker 05 Schalkau fans are notorious for illusionary optimism, basically. And you already heard the comments on the internet, on the radio. They scored a goal at the weekend, which is, at this point, is kind of rare. Okay, we scored a goal. We can win. If we win this game, we win the next game. We win the whole season. We get up and next year, we're going to be German champions. This whole crazy, loving fantasy of becoming the champion once again.
12:48 Speaker 05 Immediately kicks in.
12:50 Speaker 03 It's always like lottery or nothing. But then you start like walking through Gelsenkirchen. You're like, this is, this is a poor area. It's a lot of working class immigrants, a lot of them coming from Turkey. And then a ton of working class Catholics, so much that Pope John Paul II.
13:05 Pablo Torre? I mean, this is the original.
13:06 Speaker 03 I know, the cool Pope. He visited the area in 1987 and is also, I learned, an honorary Schalke 04 member.
13:14 Pablo Torre? So somewhere JP2 and Cousin Max are kindred spirits.
13:19 Speaker 03 And then also my grandmother as well. Her family owned a barge, an actual barge that they went up and down the Rhine River. Everyone had to pitch in and work, you know? It's kind of all hands to keep everything, everything afloat. And if the ship lists, you know, you gotta fix it yourself.
13:39 Pablo Torre? Right, so this is the home of Schalke 04?
13:41 Speaker 03 Yep.
13:42 Pablo Torre? For those like me who didn't know much about Schalke, when they clicked on this episode, what is the word you would use to describe just their sort of aesthetic, their vibe?
13:54 Speaker 03 Old.
13:58 Pablo Torre? How old are we talking?
14:00 Speaker 03 They formed in 1904.
14:02 Pablo Torre? Okay, so that's the 04.
14:03 Speaker 03 That's the 04 in Schalke 04. And God, they're, they're known as one of the historic clubs in Germany. Seven time German champions.
14:17 Speaker 03 Although the last one was in 57, 58.
14:28 Pablo Torre? And the visuals here, what does this place look like?
14:32 Speaker 03 It's up on a hill, it's right outside of town. So you've got grass field upon grass field. Everything just feels structured and efficient and German.
14:45 Pablo Torre? It feels like a factory.
14:47 Speaker 03 Completely, completely.
14:48 Pablo Torre? And when you realize who they've produced, what this factory has put out into the world. So Mesut Ozil, Turkish, right? Son of Turkish immigrants?
14:58 Speaker 03 Yep.
14:59 Pablo Torre? One of the greatest midfielders in the world.
15:09 Speaker 03 Those creative midfielders, for sure.
15:11 Pablo Torre? And then, the greatest goalkeeper, many would argue.
15:15 Speaker 03 Ever.
15:16 Pablo Torre? Manuel Neuer is from there.
15:27 Pablo Torre? The larger picture here is just that here is this factory, producing this raw material, and then refining it, along this assembly line, exporting it out to the wider football world.
15:40 Speaker 03 That truthfully is one of the coolest parts about Schalke 04 is that it's one of these rare professional teams that look like the town.
15:48 Pablo Torre? So this team, when you look at the business of it, yeah, they're on the Forbes Top 10 list alongside Bayern Munich, alongside Barcelona, alongside Manchester United. These are the biggest brands in soccer.
16:02 Speaker 03 The other part that I liked is, they're completely owned by fans, but at times, it can put them in a bind.
16:08 Pablo Torre? So the perspective I want to bring here is from Green Bay. So, Green Bay, the Packers.
16:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:13 Pablo Torre? This is considered in America the most populist case study in how to do something like this.
16:17 Speaker 03 Completely.
16:18 Pablo Torre? Fan-owned, lots and lots and lots of members, and I think it's Green Bay, hundreds of thousands. In this case, Schalke is dealing with how many members?
16:27 Speaker 03 190,000 members.
16:29 Pablo Torre? But the idea is that like, there's no, there's no one billionaire owner. It's this mess of people.
16:36 Speaker 03 God knows that's my dream.
16:38 Pablo Torre? To own a soccer club.
16:40 Speaker 03 But at least like, to have a say in some sort of team's direction, like where they're sailing, I think would be absolutely important, rather than having just like, you know, some billionaire owner's teenage sons, you know, deciding who to buy based on their Madden rating.
16:55 Pablo Torre? Yes. Brooke Johnson, not a character in this specific story. And so, as they are living your dream, as they are voting on decisions, deciding collectively how to try to proceed with this idyllic populist football vision, in an era, of course, of billionaires, and petro-states, and oligarchs, and the deepest pockets you've ever seen in the history of sports, it does raise another concern about, so where is the money coming from, Bradley?
17:26 Speaker 03 That's the big question. I mean, you need massive amounts of money to compete at, at the highest levels of football.
17:31 Pablo Torre? Yeah. Winning is correlated directly, across the board here, with money.
17:38 Speaker 03 So here begins our Faustian tale.
17:43 Speaker 03 Enter the Meat Baron, a man named Clemens Tonys.
17:48 Speaker 03 Who says, quote, "I am not a godfather."
17:54 Pablo Torre? Which is totally a thing a godfather would say.
17:56 Speaker 03 Hundred percent, hundred percent. He's like, "I don't like that term. There is no such thing as a godfather." Again, godfather vibes.
18:03 Pablo Torre? Okay, so obviously, we want to meet the godfather.
18:06 Speaker 03 Meat Baron was like, "Sorry dude." So he never responded to any of our emails. But we did talk to a German reporter from Reuters named Thesila Hummel.
18:14 Speaker 06 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
18:16 Speaker 03 Who's an expert in all things Meat Baron.
18:19 Speaker 06 It's a very, very fascinating character, you know? I mean, he's originally a butcher. He grew up in post-war Germany. He often told the tale how poor everybody was back then and how much he's kind of rooted in the working class, which he truly is.
18:40 Speaker 03 He says that Tonys transformed from butcher to effectively running the Tyson Chicken of West Germany.
18:48 Speaker 06 And he was a big, big, big Schalke 04 fan for his whole life. I mean, being a Schalke fan is something that you're born into. It's something that is so much part of that working class identity in that part of Germany.
19:07 Speaker 03 And he couldn't just dump his own money into it. There's rules preventing that.
19:10 Pablo Torre? That meat money wasn't good.
19:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. So what he had to do is he had to catch one of these like giant big fish sponsors that they could put across like the crest, right across the front of their jersey. Think like crypto.com for the Lakers.
19:23 Pablo Torre? They need a sponsor, in other words. It's very American, ideal, and so...
19:28 Speaker 03 So they got Gazprom.
19:31 Pablo Torre? Gazprom.
19:35 Speaker 03 A state-owned Russian natural gas supplier, huge industrial giant. But at that time,
19:43 Speaker 06 No one ever really heard of that company. I mean, their business was selling gas to kind of bulk clients to other German, like German utilities. They didn't really have consumers. So the brand was completely unknown. It popped up out of the blue and suddenly it was everywhere.
20:03 Speaker 03 They went to Schalke and they did this presentation. This is why Gazprom is great. So I actually found a guy in Germany who was in the room where it happened.
20:14 Speaker 07 Yeah, I remember. I was actually at the at the presentation of Gazprom with my daughter. So yeah, it was 2007. She was four years old. So first time that she was in the stadium.
20:25 Speaker 03 This is Axel Hafer. He's the current chairman of Schalke 04. And Truffaut Pablo, he actually saw a connection between this giant, state-run natural gas supplier and this tiny mining town in Germany.
20:39 Speaker 07 When Gazprom was presented, there was, they basically shot a commercial where you had Gazprom employees somewhere in Siberia that were drilling for gas. So and that was very similar to, you know, the mining images that we all had in our minds. So it looked like a very good fit. It was actually a good fit at that time.
20:59 Pablo Torre? And so Gazprom, when they saw Schalke, what were they seeing in this club?
21:06 Speaker 03 So they were also using Schalke as marketing. They had this really big goal of creating a second pipeline, connecting Russia to Germany, even more of their natural gas called Nord Stream 2 was the big project, as in the second Nord Stream pipeline.
21:21 Speaker 08 The Nord Stream pipeline is one of the world's largest infrastructure projects along a carefully chosen 1,224-kilometer route to transport 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Russia to the European Union.
21:36 Speaker 03 They thought that sponsoring a major historic German soccer club would be a great way to get that done.
21:43 Speaker 07 Everybody was happy. This was, oh, this is a good deal. This is a very big company. It's very important. It's a good partner. Relationships with Russia have historically been very good. So between Germany and Russia. So in 2007, I would say absolutely fine.
21:59 Pablo Torre? So now I'm getting a sense of the devil in this story.
22:04 Speaker 03 Well, actually, no, Pablo, I think it's important that we step back here for just a minute. And it's kind of wild to think now, but during this period of time, Russia and Putin were considered great business partners. And I learned this from that Reuters reporter, Tissalo Hummel.
22:20 Speaker 06 The first thing is that, look, Putin wasn't the devil. He wasn't the devil for Tanya. He wasn't the devil for Schalke. He was the devil for nobody in Germany 15 years ago. That's just not how it was.
22:35 Speaker 03 And the same thing in the US at the time. If you remember, there was President Barack Obama.
22:40 Pablo Torre? Familiar with that guy?
22:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, mocked then, you know, mocked Senator Mitt Romney for holding, quote, "antiquated views on Russia."
22:48 Speaker 09 A few months ago, when you were asked, "What's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America?", you said Russia, not Al Qaeda. You said Russia. In the 1980s, are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years.
23:03 Pablo Torre? But Putin, to the West, looking like an ally, like an economic engine.
23:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:09 Pablo Torre? I admittedly, yeah, forgot about this entirely.
23:12 Speaker 03 I think it's important when we hear Axel from Schalke and listen to him, you got to even magnify it more because Germany, they're absolutely familiar in dealing with communist leaders and businesses in a way that I would say few, if any, other Western democracies are because their country at one point was split east and west.
23:31 Pablo Torre? Yeah, that was the whole wall thing, I believe.
23:34 Speaker 03 Culminating with arguably the greatest moment in world history.
23:40 Pablo Torre? So I like that you have power ranked all of the moments in world history. And the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bradley Campbell's number one slot.
23:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, but more specifically.
23:55 Speaker 03 David Hasselhoff, dancing and singing atop the Berlin Wall while it fell,
24:03 Speaker 03 wearing a black leather jacket, stone-washed denim.
24:07 Pablo Torre? I do not apologize for liking that a lot.
24:14 Pablo Torre? So, this has now become so much more German than I even anticipated when I greenlit a story about German soccer and German politics.
24:22 Speaker 03 You're welcome.
24:23 Pablo Torre? So Schalke has accepted this deal with Gazprom. And so, the question, I suppose, is how much did they know that there were these strings attached? How much Faust did they know was gonna be in this bargain?
24:36 Speaker 03 I mean, that's the nature of a Faustian bargain, is you don't really know in real time how bad it will get.
24:43 Speaker 07 We are not only getting a very good deal and getting better money for what we are offering than with other partners. We were not getting that for free. So I guess the price for that was obviously, you know, political greenwashing, if you want to say so, but also the risk that something would happen.
25:02 Speaker 03 Something did.
25:12 Pablo Torre? This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
25:43 Pablo Torre? Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence, and unwrap more of who you are. This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box. The Dell XPS 13 Laptop. With a beautiful design and cutting-edge performance, it helps you unlock more possibilities. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet, with touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and long-lasting battery life to power you through your day. Built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds, and Intel Core processors, it's fast, reliable, and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities with XPS. While shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards,
26:27 Pablo Torre? fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. This Black Friday sale is one you don't want to miss. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.
26:51 Pablo Torre? I'm pretty sure this won't shock anyone out there, but buying a car is just a hard process. You have to figure out what you want from thousands of options, then you have to find somewhere that's offering a good deal, then you get hit with unexpected fees. But let's just break it down, and think about how you describe your ideal car to a friend. You know, something like, "Good gas mileage, four-wheel drive, reliable, under 30 grand." Luckily, CarGurus makes it that easy. Just describe it to CarGurus the same way. With Guru, you search in your own words and you get listings, real listings, that match. No endless filters, just the car that fits your life. CarGurus also helps you shop with more transparent pricing, allowing you to see when dealer fees are included
27:35 Pablo Torre? so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than 4 million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one most-visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus.com.
28:13 Speaker 10 Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
28:28 Speaker 11 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
28:39 Speaker 10 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
28:44 Speaker 12 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
28:50 Speaker 10 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
29:18 Pablo Torre? So I'm thinking about the original astrologer, Faust, who makes this deal with the devil for knowledge and power and gets it. And it is awesome.
29:26 Speaker 03 Awesome.
29:27 Pablo Torre? Right? For some amount of time. So what did that look like for Schalke 04? The high of getting all of this power?
29:36 Speaker 03 It was pure domination. The first year that they did the deal with Gazprom, Schalke went second place in the Bundesliga. But more than that, the next year, they reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
29:50 Speaker 13 German teams have ambushed Manchester United Champions League campaigns before, but Radek Ferguson can hardly ask for more than a semifinal against a mid-table Bundesliga side.
30:00 Pablo Torre? And so this team that hadn't won in Germany since the 50s is now competing to the point where they make the Champions League semifinals in 2011.
30:11 Pablo Torre? They are playing Manchester United, again, one of the top brands, one of the top clubs in the world.
30:16 Speaker 03 With the best players.
30:17 Pablo Torre? And things are going better than anybody could have thought.
30:28 Speaker 03 And Gasprom, like, they're living life at this point, too. This is 2011. They ink a deal to get Nord Stream 2 up and running.
30:34 Pablo Torre? They get their pipeline, their sequel.
30:36 Speaker 03 Exactly. They get the sequel. But then comes 2014 Pablo, and that is when the story truly follows the tale of Faust.
30:47 Speaker 14 More than 200,000 protesters gathered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev today furious over the government's refusal to sign a trade agreement with the European Union. Police used tear gas in clubs to beat back demonstrators who surrounded President Viktor Yanukovych's office.
31:04 Speaker 03 Ukrainians overthrow their president in the Maidan Revolution. Russia responds by annexing Crimea by force.
31:11 Speaker 15 Russian troops spreading out throughout the strategic Crimean peninsula. President Obama speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
31:20 Speaker 03 And during this hostile takeover of Crimea, a lot of Shalke fans are, um, they're pissed.
31:28 Speaker 07 It started to be more and more controversial. I guess from an economical perspective, it was financially still a very attractive deal. But the discussion that we had at that time was, okay, is it worth the risk?
31:40 Speaker 16 There is a growing international chorus slamming Russia's actions. The British Prime Minister saying there is no excuse. Canada withdrawing its ambassador from Moscow.
31:50 Speaker 03 For the EU and the US, it was clear that not really. They imposed sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian officials linked to the Crimean takeover. They said it was, quote, "undermining the democratic process and institutions in Ukraine."
32:05 Speaker 17 The Russian military must stand down. The aspirations of the Ukrainian people must be respected, and political dialogue must be allowed to continue.
32:16 Pablo Torre? And so this is where I am familiar with the West's view of Russia, right? Like Obama made that joke, this isn't the 80s anymore.
32:22 Speaker 03 Turns out it is.
32:23 Pablo Torre? And now, if you're Schalke, the pressure clearly would be to cut ties with Vladimir Putin's gas giants. Like, how can you possibly be the team with Gazprom across your chest in all these ways?
32:37 Speaker 07 It's politics, yeah? So you have different views there. And we have 190,000 members. So you have everything from the far left to the far right. I mean, everything there. So in the board, some people were a bit more skeptical. Some said, okay, it's still a good partner. Yes, there are political problems, but we are a sports club and that's not our problem. So for me personally, I mean, I never bought a Gazprom jersey. So, um, so because I just thought, okay, yeah, no, doesn't, doesn't feel right.
33:04 Pablo Torre? This is him sticking to sports, right? This is another refrain we are familiar with in America.
33:09 Speaker 03 And so the partnership with Gazprom continues, as Tissalo Hunter from Reuters told me.
33:15 Speaker 06 Maybe that should have been the moment where people should have changed their minds and kind of updated their, do a software update in their, in their, in their strategic thinking, which Ternyaz and Schalke did not do. And you can say that maybe from that point in time, it became really a grave mistake and it went downwards ever since.
33:40 Pablo Torre? Well, the fact that the 2018-2019 season happens, as that is happening, right? So I'm going back to the record that I'm consulting here. They make another run in the Champions League.
33:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, they make it to the round of 16. But that's when they run into a club who made an even bigger deal with an even more powerful entity.
34:01 Speaker 18 Four places in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League are confirmed. Four more will be decided this week with Manchester City and Schalke set to complete their round of 16 time with a second.
34:13 Pablo Torre? Right, so Manchester City might be the prime example of what you need to take over this sport.
34:21 Speaker 03 The deal you need to make.
34:22 Pablo Torre? So they made a deal with a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. And so as a matter of scale, yeah, like Schalke 04 is Faustian bargain. This is not raiding in comparison to Man City.
34:37 Speaker 03 I feel like there's a lesson here, you know? Like, no matter how rich you are.
34:48 Speaker 03 Someone's always richer than you.
34:54 Pablo Torre? And I just gotta jump in here for a second to put an even finer point on this observation. Because as much as you might think that Vladimir Putin's favorite state-owned energy company would have more than enough in its pockets, Manchester City is indeed owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, which bought it in 2008, 2009. And this makes Manchester City the single richest club in the entire Premier League. They have spent billions on buying players. This most recent transfer window, in fact. They just outspent everybody else. And none of this is especially close. And so, in that pivotal round of 16 against Man City in 2019,
35:38 Pablo Torre? Schalke loses 10 to 2 on aggregate. At which point, [BLEEP] really spins out of control. Schalke proceeds to finish in 12th place the following season.
35:51 Speaker 03 Then the meat bear makes dumbass comments about Africans that anger the fanbase. Rightfully so, I would add.
35:57 Pablo Torre? And then the whole pandemic happens, meaning that Schalke's fans slash owners can't even get into their building anymore, which cuts off the team's revenues at the knees. And as for what is happening in front of those now-empty seats, the team goes winless in its first 14 matches.
36:17 Speaker 03 They've learned through five different managers and finished the season dead last in the league by a lot.
36:24 Pablo Torre? But the worst part about finishing dead last in the league in such a way was the fact that Schalke then got relegated. Down to the second division.
36:36 Speaker 03 And because it's COVID, there's no market for players. So they just get deeper and deeper in debt. Then a COVID outbreak hits the Meat Baron's factories.
36:45 Pablo Torre? Of course.
36:45 Speaker 03 PR nightmare. And the Meat Baron, after 19 years, finally steps down.
36:51 Pablo Torre? Which is all to say that the Gazprom era of Shalke 04, beyond being morally compromised by Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula, also wasn't going great on the pitch. And so the Meat Baron, who I cannot help but think of at the end of that insane litany of events, government named Clements Tonys. The Meat Baron, did he get any sort of cosmic punishment for his role in this bargain, for leading Shalke down this particularly crazy path?
37:26 Speaker 03 Nah.
37:27 Speaker 06 For Tonys personally, not so much for the club, but for Tonys personally, the whole thing still made huge sense. He made money in Russia. So I'm not even sure if he feels like Faust himself.
37:45 Speaker 03 So he was fine, but the fans weren't. And when I was in Germany, I talked to some, and they're just like, who are we? And what happened to our soul? And I guess even worse was this knowledge that they were still falling. Their club was still getting worse and going down and down. And they hadn't hit rock bottom yet.
38:06 Pablo Torre? It does feel like there should be a German word for that feeling.
38:11 Speaker 03 Blood empty.
38:21 Pablo Torre? Did you know over 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated? And 90% don't get enough potassium, which is a chelectrolyte, responsible for energy, muscle function, and clear thinking? Well, that's why you can be drinking water all day and still feel tired or foggy or just off. And while most hydration packs really load up on the sugar, Instant Hydration contains zero sugar. There's no glucose spike and no sugar crash. And that is really important to me because it not only gives me electrolytes without loading me up with sugar, but it also helps me avoid that late afternoon crash. You know, that time of day when your eyes start drooping as you reply to yet another email and you need something to get you back on track.
39:02 Pablo Torre? Just mix a packet of Instant Hydration with water and I am feeling ready to push through to the end of the day. For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com/ptfo and use my promo code PTFO for over 40% off your first subscription order. It's Instant Hydration's best offer available. That's instanthydration.com/ptfo, promo code PTFO. Cozy makes furniture for the part of life that nobody warns you about. Getting the couch into the room, making the room feel like you, then actually living on it, spills and all. With Cozy, your home can grow with you by adapting to new spaces, new styles, and every era of your life. It's modular furniture, so you can actively adjust your furniture to fit any space.
39:47 Pablo Torre? It's all built around making the entire home comfortable and easy so that your stuff works with your life, not around it. The covers are washable and interchangeable, so a refresh is only one wash away and the spill goes from panic to shrug. And it all ships to your door in easy-to-move boxes. Plus, Cozy's free one-on-one design consultations make the whole home vision a lot less intimidating. Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan because Cozy makes every part of the process easy. So, visit Cozy today. That's C-O-Z-E-Y dot com and make yourself at home.
40:23 Pablo Torre? Life in 2026 is tough. We all have our struggles and we could all use some help. But trying to figure out how to get the right mental health treatment for you can feel overwhelming. Talkiatory helps you move from "I know I need help" to actually having a psychiatrist who listens and a clear personalized treatment plan. Talkiatory is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. With Talkiatory, you can meet with a licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and supports you over time with consistent, evidence-based care.
41:07 Pablo Torre? And all 800-plus clinicians are in-network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs. Head to talkiatory.com/ptfo to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/ptfo to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/ptfo. So this brings us now to February 2022. And in the sports calendar, this is a familiar point. The Winter Olympics in Sochi have just finished up.
41:49 Pablo Torre? Vladimir Putin, Russian pride, everyone's riding high. And then...
41:55 Speaker 19 Right now, there is a sound of bombardment coming from all around us, and all of the civilians from this area are fleeing.
42:02 Speaker 07 I still remember that week. Absolutely crazy. So you basically had the troops starting to move, and it was obvious that something could happen.
42:13 Speaker 03 So again, that's Axel, who I met up with in Germany, Chairman of Schalke 4. And he was really remembering this time where it wasn't this question of "Is Russia gonna invade?", it was this question of "When are they going to invade Ukraine?"
42:29 Speaker 07 It was highly likely that something would happen. And so just the weekend before the invasion... We started to get enormous pressure. "Okay, you need to terminate the contract. You need to take Gazprom on your jersey, etc."
42:42 Speaker 03 So some fans already had. They actually put duct tape across the Gazprom on the jersey so you couldn't see it, covering up that logo. But the board that they had elected continued to kind of wait.
42:54 Speaker 07 We're not the richest club and we will never be the richest club. And our fans are not the richest. But it's a very emotional club and that's obviously what is once more important than anything else. So you need to keep the feeling of belonging and really helping each other. That is more important than a bit more money, as long as it doesn't kill you. That's the thing.
43:19 Speaker 03 So that is a bind for Axel and Schalke to have to figure out.
43:25 Speaker 03 And it's like you're trying to protect this thing that you love. And it's like, you know, it's not just simply just cutting ties to make a statement.
43:32 Speaker 07 Exactly. And that was exactly the challenge that we all had was, okay, are we willing to risk the existence of the club to do the right thing? And how could we actually derisk that scenario?
43:45 Speaker 03 So they were working on Pablo 24/7, talking to Gazprom's representatives. It was actually, they were open to it because Nord Stream 2, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So getting out of contracts was the priority, but you know that that takes time, which is something they didn't have.
44:04 Speaker 07 So during that week, I basically did nothing else than just talking 24/7 with everybody. Because obviously, everybody was very nervous. And this balance of what is exactly the right point in time where we can, we can basically manage the financial risk and still do the right thing, we had to find it.
44:28 Speaker 03 The thing that they really needed was a new source of money.
44:31 Speaker 07 We started discussions with, actually with the old mining association. So the company that used to operate all the mines is still active and has a few assets. And we basically went to them and said, listen, if something happens, is there anything that we could do? And they said, yeah, for sure, we will help you.
44:50 Speaker 07 If you need to do it, we will support you. We will basically find some money and we will basically step in as an interim sponsor.
44:58 Pablo Torre? So just to recap this, what Axel is saying is that they go from Gazprom, Vladimir Putin's state-owned gas giant, to a local union, which doesn't have nearly the amount of money that they have. But it is, it's that all-hands concept again. You know, just the whole community rallying together to step up. But you know, while this is happening, I want to be like, oh, it's all warm and lovely. The Russian troops are still there.
45:25 Speaker 07 And yeah, then we had on Thursday morning, 4 a.m., or I can't remember the exact time, it was basically before everybody got up. Obviously, the invasion started.
45:35 Speaker 20 Russian troops are closing in on the capital. Their military vehicles have been filmed entering the city. And in the last few hours, multiple explosions have been reported. Exact figures are unknown, but there are reports of large numbers of Ukrainian casualties, both military and civilian, since the invasion began, and of Russian military deaths.
45:55 Speaker 21 Streams of people...
45:57 Pablo Torre? And so at this point in the story of Faust,
46:01 Pablo Torre? what happens is that he is condemned and judged for the deal he has struck. In the middle of the night, to put the most literary sort of emphasis on this, "A pack of devils carry his soul to hell," Bradley. So is that what happens to Schalke 04 here?
46:20 Speaker 03 Kinda, yeah. But it's a lot slower of a death, which is in some ways a little bit crueler. You know, without a massive sponsor in the club in disarray, they drop again back to the second division, and they risk an even further drop to the third division.
46:36 Pablo Torre? And that's the devil. The devil's carrying them to the netherworld.
46:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're struggling each week just to survive. And for fans, it's just pure psychological torture. They're watching this team just absolutely stink on the field.
46:50 Pablo Torre? Your cousin. I cannot help but think.
46:52 Speaker 03 It's so bad.
46:53 Pablo Torre? Of Cousin Mac.
46:54 Speaker 03 Worse than that, Pablo, is that there's a rule that if you're in the third division, you have to be financially stable. Schalke wasn't stable, so if the worst comes to worst, we're actually going to be forced to drop down to the amateur level. And so I'm not even being hyperbolic when I say like, each week was facing annihilation?
47:15 Pablo Torre? When it comes to identifying the devil, which is the reason you went searching in Gelsenkirchen in Germany in the first place, the devil isn't exactly Russia in our story, right? The devil seems to be the pursuit of money, frankly.
47:32 Speaker 03 And the loss of control.
47:33 Pablo Torre? And the loss of control.
47:35 Speaker 03 They needed to center themselves in a way, just kind of overcome these massive mistakes. And again, they had so much debt, so they had to be smart about it. And you know, they put out a call, I guess, or you know, cast nets to try and find which Schalke 04 member anywhere in the world could help them out.
47:56 Pablo Torre? And who did they end up finding?
47:58 Speaker 03 Let's go, let's go. How's it going? Good. Yeah? Game day? Game day, yeah. Matthias Tillmann, and he's been a fan of Schalke since he was five years old, and bought his first jersey, which is a right of any, you know, upstanding Schalke member, nearly three decades ago.
48:18 Speaker 22 It was in 1994.
48:23 Speaker 22 And since then, I bought one or two jerseys every year, always with a favorite player. So I collect jerseys, so I have a lot.
48:32 Speaker 03 So he moved back to Germany and started doing the Lord's work, man. I'm like, I don't know if you've seen a recent photo of Daryl Morey, but...
48:39 Pablo Torre? Oh, yeah, I mean, I've seen Daryl recently. And dude is aging. Speaking of US presidents, he's aging like one.
48:45 Speaker 03 I mean, running a losing franchise is just absolutely brutal.
48:49 Speaker 22 So I wake up every day at 6 a.m. So that's the same, every single day. But I have four kids. So yeah, you have to get up and bring them to school, to kindergarten. And then I drive here, so it's like 30, 35 minute drive for me. And then normally I arrive here, I have one other colleague in the management board, and we discuss the most important things of the day. And yeah, then obviously as a CEO, you have a lot to manage.
49:19 Speaker 03 It is truly a massive amount of work.
49:22 Speaker 22 That's what it takes. That's what it takes, yeah.
49:24 Pablo Torre? Which is a Faustian bargain of a different kind.
49:28 Speaker 03 But it's a different sort of pact.
49:31 Speaker 22 A lot of people in this region,
49:34 Speaker 22 they spend every penny they have on this club and spend all their time for this club. And yeah, that's why this club is more than just football.
49:47 Speaker 03 So the love is genuine, but let's get real. Dude was a former investment banker for Deutsche Bank. He was hired to kick ass. And that's exactly what he's doing. He realizes that, yeah, the club's got a lot of heart, but it's time for it to get a little professional, too.
50:03 Pablo Torre? But how do you do that when you're loaded down with all of this insane debt from the Gazprom Meat Baron era?
50:10 Speaker 22 Five years ago, we had debt around 200 million, 220.
50:16 Speaker 22 But we had, the value of our squad was also 200 million. Today, it's around, the value of the squad is around 20 million, but we still carry 160 million debt. So the ratio has changed. And we are coming from a time where we had over 300 million in revenue to where we have just over 100.
50:35 Pablo Torre? What a nightmare. 200 million to 20.
50:39 Speaker 03 It's real, it's real.
50:40 Pablo Torre? I mean, that's an insane fall.
50:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. And I guess his big goal is just to get the debt down to 50 million dollars, which he says is a manageable size. And look, he's upfront with the fans. He's like, our football club, it's gonna suck for a year or two. But with patience, there will be a pathway back up to the top.
50:59 Pablo Torre? Yeah, you're describing, you know, trust the process, which I, of course, personally have some fondness for. But you're talking about a rebuild. This is an old fashioned rebuild.
51:09 Speaker 03 100%, it's a rebuild. But again, a rebuild with 190,000 fans voicing in on how to rebuild it. And so, oh my God, Matthias gets absolutely pummeled in the newspapers for this process. So what his answer was is they're gonna have another separate cooperative that will run Veltan's Arena, which is like the Madison Square Garden. So people will be able to buy a stake in the co-op separate from Schalke 04. And also businesses will be allowed to buy shares in this too. That is the solution. And it's gonna be run completely independently of the other club as a way to generate money.
51:51 Pablo Torre? And with that money, with this new revenue stream, what do they want to do? Like, are they buying soccer players? Are they improving their facilities? What's their goal?
52:01 Speaker 03 It's all of that. I mean, the goal is to get back up to the top division. And so whatever that takes. But I think the bigger goal than that, it's local control.
52:09 Pablo Torre? Which is also a philosophy, I now understand, that is adored, true to this region, for sure.
52:17 Speaker 22 What I think is important that you don't lose your DNA. And I think that is in Schalke, it's very important. Like what I said in the beginning, like everybody knows where we're coming from. Our roots are here in that region from the coal mining. And I think for us, it's very important to be the club of the region for the people in the region. And the values have not changed. They're still the same. Hardworking people and you have to honor that.
52:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, look, man, they're not gonna ever replicate the size or money or deep pockets of a state.
52:55 Pablo Torre? No.
52:55 Speaker 03 A natural gas company. But I guess you asked me earlier, when are the angels gonna come? Who are these angels? And the simple answer is the angels are themselves. It's like Schalke is gonna pick Schalke back up.
53:08 Speaker 22 Investors come and go. They want to make money. They have whatever their interest is. But people here will stay. There's a saying here that players will come and go. Even CEOs will come and go, but we will stay. It's us. And that's why we have to determine the future and not other people. And once you're on that ship, you feel the energy. That's why I think when you are there in the stadium, it's a different atmosphere. Because people know that's our ship and we can determine the direction. And that, I think, makes a big difference.
53:42 Pablo Torre? And so now I kind of feel like I'm on your grandma's barge. Or also perhaps a Bernie Sanders event. My skepticism here is is simple, though. Like, how do you win in this era of soccer? How do you win against the Petro states and oligarchs and sovereign wealth funds? And the deepest pockets in the history of sports?
54:03 Speaker 03 I really wanna say you just do it with your own gumption. But I don't know, man. After the meeting with Matthias, I walked over to Veltten's Arena for a match against FC Kaiserslautern, who happened to be nicknamed the Red Devils.
54:21 Speaker 03 Just gets too perfect sometimes.
54:22 Pablo Torre? Bit on the nose, but...
54:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got in there and, um, God, it was like an absolute rock concert. Fortunately, we couldn't film there, so you've just gotta imagine this. You're walking into a giant arena and it's sold out. There's 62,075 fans and they are screaming their heads off before the game even starts. I'm thinking they're gonna crush.
54:47 Pablo Torre? Well, how does it go? How does the crushing go?
54:49 Speaker 03 The devil just absolutely pummels them.
54:52 Speaker 04 Schalke can maybe salvage some pride right now. It's Kaisan coming forward and scything them apart as Deiske Yocota makes it three.
55:03 Speaker 03 They get beat three to nothing, but someone else was in there with me and I had no idea. And that was Cousin Max. He was in the stadium. He got like a last second ticket, bought it, and so he was there watching. I had no idea, but...
55:20 Pablo Torre? That feels cosmic too, though.
55:21 Speaker 03 I know, I know. It really does, it really does. And the reason why it does is because I was just thinking about a lot of things, but one of them was like, good God, how much of a [BLEEP] I was.
55:32 Pablo Torre? That's probably what this episode is about, is you being a terrible relative.
55:36 Speaker 03 Absolutely. I'm like, here's this absolutely beautiful thing that was at the risk of just like, um, not continuing, and here I am asking, hey dude, can I get you a Borussia Dortmund hat, man?
55:49 Pablo Torre? Knowing nothing about anything.
55:51 Speaker 03 Oh my God, nothing about anything. And it's just absolutely stunning. And I didn't even tell you, like beforehand, they actually, they had a minor's choir sing a sonnet beforehand just to like warm everything up.
56:12 Speaker 03 There's like so much to love about this community and, uh, yeah, it was, it was just beautiful.
56:20 Pablo Torre? So what, what do you decide to do with these feelings now that are sloshing inside of you?
56:26 Speaker 03 I decided to board the ship.
56:43 Speaker 03 Pablo, I'm abandoning my journalistic integrity.
56:50 Pablo Torre? And so, near the end here, Bradley, this video that you're playing is what?
56:55 Speaker 03 It's me signing my name to a document that made me an official member of Schalke 04.
57:02 Pablo Torre? Right, so this is you becoming one of the 190,000 members.
57:07 Speaker 03 190,001. I'm also in the process of buying a share of the Co-op.
57:13 Pablo Torre? Right, which is just the most Brooklyn [BLEEP].
57:15 Speaker 03 This whole time, you've been talking to the co-owner of a German professional soccer team, and, I would add, a budding real estate magnet of Gelsenkirchen.
57:27 Pablo Torre? And so, if you are now wondering how Bradley Campbell's new soccer club is doing as its season draws to a close, I do have a bit of news here.
57:40 Pablo Torre? Schalke 04, which had been playing in the second division of German soccer this season, has spent all year trying to climb out of this hole left by Gazprom and, yes, their own generally horrible decision-making. The prospect of being sent down to the third division was looming.
58:00 Pablo Torre? But we here at Pablo Torre Finds Out are happy to now tell you that while Schalke 04 is yet again coming down to the final match this weekend, meaning that, yes, Putin's alleged peace talks and Schalke's future are once again intersecting, it does appear that they have fended off relegation this season.
58:23 Pablo Torre? And things did not look good for a while here, to be clear.
58:28 Speaker 03 We fixed ourselves, and, you know, we're marching our way back up to daylight once more.
58:33 Pablo Torre? I just got two questions before we get so truly, like, highfalutin celestial about this. Where's the hat?
58:40 Speaker 03 The hat?
58:41 Pablo Torre? The Borussia Dortmund hat that is responsible for why we are here doing this story.
58:45 Speaker 03 Oh, I made amends.
58:48 Speaker 03 Here it is.
58:48 Pablo Torre? So, okay, so the black and yellow familiar Borussia Dortmund logo has been vandalized. In a, what an expert way it has been painted over here, but describe what this is.
59:03 Speaker 03 We crossed out the '09 and we put an S04 across the BBD.
59:10 Pablo Torre? Right.
59:10 Speaker 03 In bright royal blue letters.
59:13 Pablo Torre? Incredible rebranding. On that question of rebranding, my second question, my final question on the show today.
59:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
59:21 Pablo Torre? Is, did Schalke 04 ever get a new sponsor? Like, what replaced Gazprom across the jersey? What's the, what are you doing?
59:30 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm here.
59:34 Pablo Torre? So, this is a...
59:35 Speaker 03 That's my jersey.
59:36 Pablo Torre? Beautiful, beautiful blue and white Sun Mini-Mule.
59:43 Speaker 03 Yep.
59:43 Pablo Torre? Sun Mini-Mule. What is Sun Mini-Mule across the chest of your jersey?
59:49 Speaker 03 It's a Swiss granola bar.
59:52 Pablo Torre? Goddamn.
1:00:02 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.
1:00:08 Pablo Torre? And I'll talk to you next time.
1:00:25 Speaker 21 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market. Love the crown molding. Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile. Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet? No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen. No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you. Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
1:00:50 Speaker 23 Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.
1:00:54 Speaker 24 Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals. No kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
Previous Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist) Next The Sporting Class: Worldwide Leaders, Killer Apps, and Michael Jordan's Special Contribution Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated