Spain Prevails, World Cup Winners and Losers, and Damon Vs. Leo With Chris Ryan and Anthony Dabbundo

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan and Anthony Dabbundo LIVE on Netflix to react to Spain defeating Argentina 1-0 to win the 2026 World Cup Final. Then, they discuss the winners and losers of the World Cup before comparing the careers of Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. (0:00) Intro (0:31) World Cup Final reactions (19:36) Biggest winners and losers of the World Cup (1:08:17) Matt Damon vs. Leonardo DiCaprio (01:40:18) NBA catch-up Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan and Anthony Dabbundo Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.comThe 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

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• 2:32Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Anthony Dabbundo is here. Chris Ryan is here. We are going to talk about the World Cup final and a whole bunch of other things. Wanted to mention I have a new rewatch of us coming tomorrow night. We're doing Hitch. One of the best rom coms of the last 21 years, or at least one of the most successful. All right. I've been cooped up for a week and a half, fellas. I have a lot of sports thoughts. CR, go big picture for us as the soccer historian. What did that Spain, the second time they ever won, Messi falls short, comes damn close to winning two in a row. What was the biggest historical storyline for you?

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would probably say the best team won the tournament and the best team won the game. So they played like Kirk Oldsberry was just texting me. He was like, that was ethical football. And that's what it was. Like those guys came to play the game, came to play the sport. Argentina tried to get into a street fight and the right team won.

• 3:29Bill Simmons?

  Dabbundo, what do you think?

• 3:31Speaker 04

  I think that was actually one of the most dominant World Cup finals of all time. And it ended 1-0 and it took more time for them to actually find the goal than we thought it would. But you going through the stats, going through the box score, I mean, they pitched a no hitter for 117 minutes, Bill. No shots.

• 3:51Bill Simmons?

  No shots at all.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  One touch in the whole box of Spain, the 18 yard box for an hour and five minutes. That is unbelievable. So yes, it took them a while to score and we kept saying, well, they're hanging around, they're hanging around. But Argentina got their ass kicked.

• 4:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, the first half just felt like everybody was playing it safe, feeling out, and it was like the worst of soccer. If you have all your casual soccer fans just coming in for this game who haven't watched any of the World Cup, they're like, oh yeah, this is why I don't watch soccer. This sucks. And then in the second half, it became, you know, a resemblance of what we watched for the whole World Cup. Spain, phenomenal. Argentina, just turning into a cross between the bad boy Pistons, the OKC Thunder, the last couple of years, doing all their garbage stuff and somehow always getting a favorable whistle, C R Y. What was happening with this? Somehow?

• 4:44Speaker 03

  So what Argentina does is, you know, God forbid, but this is also what some people accuse the Oklahoma City Thunder of doing, which is pushing the ref all the way to the limit where if you're not going to call everything a yellow, then nothing is going to be a yellow. And obviously, Enzo Fernandez went over that line at a certain point, but it's not an idiotic thing to do to basically put all the pressure on the referee to be like, if you guys don't want me to ruin the match, I basically need to get, let you get away with a bunch of crap here in this, in this game. You know, the thing with Argentina that was crazy was Lionel Messi is the greatest player of all time and probably one of the two or three greatest athletes I've ever seen in any sport.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  But I actually think there was, the way they played today showed the limitations of building a team around a 39-year-old who doesn't run. And they, they did not have an outlet and they did not have like any kind of central forward to go towards because they were still looking to Messi, who was kind of like wandering out in those mid spaces between the wing and the midfield there, I thought.

• 5:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my son watched the game with me and doesn't watch a lot of soccer. At one point, he's like, what position is Messi? And I'm like, I don't know. He just kind of wanders around. But yeah, they, listen, it worked until it didn't. But this Argentina team over and over again was so frustrating. It was the best live bet team probably in the history of the World Cup, right? If they're down one, nothing, you just knew they're going to flip the switch. They actually flipped the switch the last six minutes of this game, even though they're a guy down and all of a sudden started to do that same Argentina. I was talking to, my dad loves the World Cup. I was talking about him with it, uh, between the semis and the final. We were saying how Argentina reminded us of

• 6:26Bill Simmons?

  the Canadian teams we used to hate in hockey in the seventies where it was a power play and you were just like, ah, we're fucked. Like when they, when they could get where it was like basically their version of a half court or, you know, and they're under the ice and they could just like, and it was just, you just felt like the goal was coming for 15 minutes and they just weren't able to do that today. Cause Spain, I think, the bundle, like the way Spain plays and you don't even know who their best player is from game to game. And it's everybody and it's just tap and go, tap and go. It's the kind of stuff like the best soccer clubs here try to teach American players, but they do it the best. And it feels like this is sustainable for them.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  They've built a team all completely optimized for one skill and it's passing. Even their center backs, like Pau Cubarsi is 19 years old. He's already one of the best passers in the world. Their left back is one of the best passing left backs. Their right back is one of the best passing. So it's like, no matter what position on the field, we might not be the most quintessentially athletic. We might not be the fastest team, but technically they're on a different level from every other international team. And that was just, I mean, they just dismantled France and Argentina with, with relative ease, relative ease with Laminial Mal clearly not at a hundred percent.

• 7:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  And Neil Williams coming off the bench for 20 minutes because he's not fit enough to play a full hour or two, you know, or 90 minutes. That was, those were the guys that transformed them two years ago. They basically didn't have them to an extent and still won the World Cup.

• 7:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Williams won the Dion Waiters Award for the game CR. I think we could just give it to him right now. That header for the assist. That was an unbelievable soccer play and they didn't have the right replay for five minutes. And then they finally showed the right replay. It was like, that play was amazing.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  He did have a patented CR playing FIFA move towards the end of the game where it was like, he was like, he has the easy, easy cross layoff here. And then he tries to do like a 360 Ronaldinho flip, but yeah, he was incredible.

• 8:21Bill Simmons?

  Starts twisting the joystick in ways.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I was like, I got this.

• 8:25Bill Simmons?

  See, how painful was it watching Argentina get basically their ass kicked for 120 minutes? And thinking about England being up 1-0? And you guest hosted the pod for me on Wednesday after England lost. One of the all time turtles we've ever seen in any sporting event. It was just disgusting. I hated it so much. I don't understand it. I know they've been getting excoriated for it for three days. You were kind of after the game, almost like a little, the way you were talking about it, it felt like it hadn't fully sunk in what the opportunity was yet. The, do you feel it now when you watch?

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, you want to know why I feel this? Cause they put six on France yesterday in the meeting, this third cup match. And Saka had a hat trick and didn't play in the semis or?

• 9:08Speaker 04

  That was so, I got mad. I don't really care about England. I was viscerally upset when the lineup came in and it's like, yeah, but Kyle Saka is playing. He's starting up top on the right wing. I'm like, but he couldn't play 20 minutes off the bench? Three days ago, when they needed an outlet and they needed one guy to retain the ball? No, nothing.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Death prices, set pieces in the third place match were like pitch perfect. They, he hadn't been able to hit the like broadside of a barn the entire tournament. And then he looks like frigging Pele as soon as like the, the chips are off the table. I don't know. It was tough, but like Argentina had some kind of magic fairy dust sprinkled on them so much. So they even, and with still an extra time, I was like, they're going to figure out a way to get like, Simmons was pretty close when he fell backwards and, and skied that shot. Those couple of those set pieces in those corners that they were taking at the end there. I was like, they can still get an equalizer. And then the only thing standing in their way is that Messi's not that good at pens.

• 10:04Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that, that, I mean, look, like they say they're 50 50. Ask any Spanish fan, the history of Spain at shootouts in the last decade. I mean, you can make a case, like I know Spain hasn't had the results. 2018, they lost a shootout to Russia. 2021, they lost a shootout to Italy at the Euros. 2022, they lost a shootout to Morocco. Nations League last summer, they lost to Portugal. They've lost their last four big shootouts. They, they, I mean, they haven't lost, they haven't actually lost a game in real tournament soccer since the Euro 2016. It's crazy.

• 10:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, and this is the biggest criticism for soccer is when you can have games like this.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:43Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like one team knows they're not as good as the other team. And at some point, we watched it over and over again in the World Cup. Where teams go, you know what? We're probably better off if this just can get to PKs here. They were playing all the hits for just either whether you're a casual fan or a diehard fan of, I fucking hate this.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:01Bill Simmons?

  I went into this like, I would love to see Messi go back to back or England win would have been my two preferences. By the end of this, I was like, throw, throw Argentina to the La Brea tar pits. I hate this team so much.

• 11:13Speaker 04

  We gotta put Enzo Fernandez into like the bane hole from Dark Knight Rising.

• 11:17Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. What's crazy is they can, they can flip the switch either way. They can be like all time street ball, street thugs, rollerball. Which I thought, you guys did the pod after the, uh, the England game. That first 30 minutes of that game was literally rollerball with James Caan.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:34Bill Simmons?

  And then this game, they, they kind of laid loose. They were respectful. Second half, they did the rollerball thing. But then when they need to draw a foul in the last six minutes, nobody's better at doing the fake dives or the, oh my God, or throwing themselves backwards. And the ref falls for it every time. And I fucking hate it, Dabbundo.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  They could have gone down to six.

• 11:53Bill Simmons?

  They're the best of this by far.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  2026 Argentina. It's a, it's a great goalkeeper, Lionel Messi, and nine dudes getting ready to throw forearm shivers at any, anytime they have the opportunity. And then after the whistle, I didn't even see this until Twitter brought it up. The broadcast didn't even show it.

• 12:07Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  Peretta's got sent off for trying to fight Eric Garcia on the touchline.

• 12:12Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  No, we haven't. The broadcast.

• 12:15Bill Simmons?

  So we had, OKC did this and their fans are always like, what do you mean? Why is everyone picking on us? In the NFL, it's the Texans.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:24Bill Simmons?

  The Texans have been doing this the last couple of years and they'll probably, they're, they're bringing, I did a full week of, uh, NFL prep. During, uh, my little break, the Texans brought all 11 starters back. So everything they were doing last year, they're going to double up on. And I guess Argentina is, are they the kings of this CR? This is the team they're the best at?

• 12:43Speaker 04

  It's a skill. Like, how do they keep getting all these calls? And how do they seem to be out? There is a skill to it. I know everybody wants to scream about corruption and FIFA VAR, all that stuff. But like, there is a skill to the dark arts. Like, CR was saying earlier, being able to just toe the line and only occasionally cross it. And they've mastered it.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  But the thing that drove me crazy about this match, though, is that Argentina has been winning their matches 3-2, 2-1, like, actually, like, at least going, getting some shots on. Like, to not have a shot on goal is absolutely obscene when you've got Messi, you've got Lautaro Martinez still on the bench, that all they're doing is bringing on more and more defenders and more and more gangsters. And it's just kind of like, you guys, like, this is it. Like, there's not a tomorrow. Messi's probably not coming back for the World Cup in Portugal. Like, go for it. Go for it right now. And if you die on your shield, you die on your shield. Like, that's what it's gonna be. The fact that they seem to be playing for Penn so early was really disappointing.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  I'm not sure they could, CR. That's the thing. Like, they just, Spain had, just did this to France, too, though. If France was trying to score, they just couldn't keep the ball. Here's a, here's a crazy stat. So, since the World Cup, they have track of data, tracking data back to 1966 in the World Cup. And I asked Paul Carr from True Media, our good friend for this. Brazil previously had the record for fewest expected goals conceded at a World Cup. 3.6 in 1994. That was a dominant Brazil team. 3.6 in seven games. Spain just gave up 2.3 in eight games. Nobody sniffed their goal, except for one child, Cattolari header, in eight games.

• 14:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was, Cousin Sal said, if it went into PKs, they were gonna have to wake up the Spanish goalkeeper, because he was napping for the entire second half, basically. I don't, I still don't know his name. I watched all the Spain games. He was in, he was in so...

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Unai Simone, yeah.

• 14:39Bill Simmons?

  He was in so infrequently, I just can't remember.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  He just won Golden Glove at the World Cup, I think. I don't know.

• 14:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't, who, who actually was the best goalie in the World Cup? I mean...

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Unai Simone, he just gave up one goal.

• 14:51Bill Simmons?

  I know, but, but how many actual, how many...

• 14:53Speaker 03

  You made the argument, Emmy Martinez was, yeah, I mean, Emmy Martinez is pretty good, because he just stopped, like, it should have been 4-0, you know? Like, Emmy Martinez kept them out.

• 15:02Bill Simmons?

  Would've been great if the Cape Verde guy won, won the, uh, won the goalie award.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  If he were there and they brought him out, and they're like, hey...

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  De Bundo, you tweeted this earlier that Spain was 6-1 on July 6th?

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:15Bill Simmons?

  And that's with only two weeks left in the tournament.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  And I think that Cape Verde game really fucked people up for how they thought of Spain, right? I know it did with me. It was a couple of rounds where I was like, I watched that Cape Verde game. Like, I don't, they're not gonna win. They could barely beat like a team that had less than a million people in their country. But it just felt like they got better as the tournament went along.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  They did. And like, I don't know, this game wasn't that different from the Cape Verde game where they just camped out.

• 15:41Bill Simmons?

  Right, true.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Final third, tried to score, ran into a hot goalie. You know, Lamine didn't play that much in that game. That's the beauty of the sport too, as much as we hate it, and we were heading toward one of the all-time stolen results in soccer history. If Argentina won that in shootouts, like that can just happen in a game where, like, in the NFL, you can't get your ass kicked for 60 minutes and then all of a sudden be down three to the level that that happened. And then, oh, they stole the game. It can just happen. And like, sometimes the ball doesn't go in. And that's, that's why we love the game. And that's why we also hate the game at the same time. But yeah, and the Uruguay game wasn't great either. You know, they played, they kind of slogged their way to a 1-0. And the reason I never stopped believing was that defensive number. At some point, if you never give up any chances at all, it's gonna be really hard to beat you in a World Cup.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  If they had had a basically a world-class striker, I don't know, like, that this tournament would have been within touching distance. Like, it might have just been a walk. But the fact that they were basically playing like Almo and getting goals from Marino and Oli Thabo, like, it was, it was like not a vintage, like, there was not a vintage center forward playing for Spain. If they had had a Fernando Torres or a David Villa, like, they would have been like miles away from the field. Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  And, and also, like, everybody else, all the other big stars, I think that's part of the reason Spain went under the radar too. It's like Mbappe and Haaland and Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Everybody else's stars turned up and were scoring goal after goal after goal. And Lamine wasn't fit, so it was like, well, I don't know about Spain.

• 17:14Bill Simmons?

  You know, I did feel like they were shading dudes over to his side. They were, seemed pretty determined to not let him do anything. And then on the Messi side, it was so interesting watching him in the England game. You guys talked about this on Wednesday where he kind of shifts to where the or basically where your scab on your arm is and then he shifts to where that is and just starts picking it. And for whatever reason, he ended up on the right side in the England game. And they never adjusted to it. And this was the thing. I listened to a lot of stuff after that game and then 24 hours after and everybody is just like, even fucking Trump said it. Trump's like, they let Messi on the right side, just doing his own thing over there. And but it just seemed like today's Spain was like, we kind of know where this guy is at all times.

• 17:59Bill Simmons?

  Whereas I don't know what.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  And we're gonna kick him if he gets any sniff of the ball. There was a couple times where Messi did have a, he did get the ball and he looked to turn and it's like, nope, we're kicking you right here. You can have your free kick. There was one, Bob got him pretty high and I was like, oh.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, Laporte dropped him at one point.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  And they're like, we're not like, the same thing to Elise in the France game.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  And there's a version of this where like Messi drops deep into midfield, kind of where Harry Kane plays and tries to play more as like a central playmaker. But that's Rodriville, you know, that's where Rodri controls the middle of that field for Spain. And there's really nobody better in the world than him at doing that.

• 18:35Bill Simmons?

  So one of the things you guys were talking about over and over again was that Argentina's back was going to be the thing that killed them. And that sometimes when they'd fall behind by a goal and they would have to put more offense in the field, that's when they turned into Argentina. And they had all these goals in the last, you know, after the 75 minute mark, all this stuff. I wonder why they didn't try to play that way sooner instead of going more thug ball. Like, what did you think as you were watching that, AD? Would you have gone more offense and tried to make it a more wide open game or you think playing for PKs was the right move?

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Playing that way.

• 19:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So you think the way they did it was the right move?

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Probably. I don't know that we know how good Argentina actually was. Like, if we go back and do the revisionist history, and this is very 2024 Chiefsian, right, where, and this is the comment everybody's done. They have the Mahomes character and then it's like, well, they're skating by and they're beating some bad teams and they're doing some comebacks and then they run into.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Get some calls. Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's like, well, and then you start to do the revisionist history, right? Like Switzerland was the better team for now. In the quarterfinal. And then Embolo throws himself to the ground, gets sent off and then the game's over. England was the better team for 70 minutes and then they stopped playing?

• 19:46Bill Simmons?

  They evacuated the game like they evacuated America in the 1770s, CR.

• 19:53Bill Simmons?

  They were just done.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  I was evacuated. I was like, don't make a Dunkirk joke.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Bill, would CR have been, would have been a loyalist in 1777?

• 20:04Speaker 03

  No, hey, I would have been open for business.

• 20:07Bill Simmons?

  Fighting with this Philly is Philly people.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:10Bill Simmons?

  I still, the England thing I can't get over. I just think they were better than Argentina. And I know this is soccer and this is how it goes. Can I ask you guys a random La Liga Premier League question? So these Argentinians that are on these teams, do they all play like this? Is it the same level or when they get together, do they gain strength from each other? And it's, it becomes even more dangerous. Like, what's the deal?

• 20:32Speaker 03

  It is a little bit like the guys in Old School where like when they're home, they're like, yeah, I'm going to go to Home Depot. We're going to see if we can put together a nice little Saturday, but when they see Frank the Tank, they're like, so you want to kick a guy up in the air?

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  They have a couple guy. I mean, Christian Romero's had his fair share of red cards at Tottenham. Enzo Fernandez might be the most hated player in soccer, period. At this point, I mean, outside of.

• 20:57Bill Simmons?

  I certainly learned how to hate him over the course of six weeks.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Fans are like at their wits end with him. Lissandra Martinez has had his moments. I wouldn't say all of them necessarily. I think there's, there's, it's a combination of factors, probably.

• 21:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, Trump picked Argentina to win the game before the game and Drake bet 1.5 million dollars on them reportedly. And I think we've now learned a valuable gambling lesson. If Trump and Drake are aligned on a, on a thing, let's go. All right. I had a, I wanted to go through winners and losers. Unless you have anything else you want to hit from that game. Was there any other, any other storylines? Pretty boring game for the most part.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  It was compelling drama, but it was not competitive. Yeah.

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• 23:22Bill Simmons?

  All right. I made this list. I didn't consult you on it. I have my biggest winners and my biggest losers of the World Cup. CR, who do you think was the biggest winner of the World Cup, other than Spain, obviously, because they won the World Cup? Who would be your number two runner-up winner?

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Holland. Erling Haaland.

• 23:41Bill Simmons?

  I had him third.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  But I'm guessing for you almost, but Erling Haaland would be up there. Bellingham would be up there.

• 23:47Bill Simmons?

  You think just because Holland, just because, just because for the casual fans, they didn't fully understand until the cup?

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is for a tournament.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  If you don't watch Man City, this is your first exposure to him and you get to see the Viking row, you get to see this guy like basically not touch the ball for 86 minutes and then the two times he does, he scores two great goals and he looks cool and everybody's just like, what the hell is up with this guy? So definitely a big breakout tournament for him, I think.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  He's also extremely Gen Z. He's so online. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. I mean, how many apps do we have that are regularly posting Snapchats in 2026?

• 24:27Bill Simmons?

  I'll tell you, he also won over Van Lathan. I don't know if you saw Holland's girlfriend.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  Is he a City guy now?

• 24:32Bill Simmons?

  No, he's a, he's a Holland's girlfriend guy.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 24:37Bill Simmons?

  My biggest winner of the World Cup. Oh, you go, AD. Who is your biggest winner?

• 24:41Speaker 04

  You could still make the case it's Leo Messi.

• 24:43Bill Simmons?

  So that's who I had as well.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, he was the best player at the World Cup at 39. 39. And I know that Argentina had to change some things up to get him, to build a system around him, but he's so good that it's still worth doing. And for him to, you know, he didn't end up winning the Golden Boot because there was some, you know, third place game, stat padding maybe, but he had the most goals plus assists. Like he's behind Mbappe, like he's up there doing, doing this stuff. And none of what Argentina did in this tournament is possible without Messi doing this. He hasn't played top level club in years, right? So I don't think anybody knew what to expect. He didn't play that much in the qualifiers relative to past, past qualifiers. So it's like, well, what are we going to get? And then, oh, oh, right. He has a hat trick in the first game. He's the best player in the tournament still at 39.

• 25:28Bill Simmons?

  You agree with that, Ciar?

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yes. And he also like ended once and for all any whispers about like, is it him and Ronaldo or is it him and Faridana? Like it's, it's him and then it's everybody else.

• 25:40Bill Simmons?

  So I had him as my biggest winner other than the team that won.

• 25:45Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about my life, like the biggest stars ever, just the people that we were just like, that dude. Cause before we were born, there was like the Babe Ruth types, right? And then Ali was the first one like that, where everybody was just like, that guy's the fucking greatest. And like, if you had a counter argument, people get mad. And then that turned into Jordan. And then that turned into Tiger in the 2000s, right? Tiger hit a point, especially in the 2008, that US Open, when he was playing on his bum knee before the car accident, where it was like, this guy's the greatest golfer we've ever seen. And it's funny, Messi's starting to ascend in the late 2000s. That was right when I started really watching soccer for, you know, for fun. That was really when Messi

• 26:27Bill Simmons?

  started to take off. That was when my daughter started playing AYSO, when she was like four. The fact that he's still around in 26, as this guy that has to be doubled and watched constantly, and is this the most feared guy in the entire tournament? It's incredible. Like, this is kind of what LeBron wishes we discussed him like these days at age 41, where it'd be like, oh, man, LeBron, gotta watch. And it's like, LeBron hasn't been that guy for five years, right? And Messi is somehow still this guy, but yet he came here to play soccer, right? He's playing in Miami, and this was supposed to be like his, oh, this is the next stage of his career. It doesn't feel that way. I don't, how many more years does he have, AD, that he could play at this level?

• 27:11Speaker 04

  You know, the demands of like, European club are vastly different from the demands of international. And you do tend to see like, some of these guys that stick around longer at the international level, because there's not as much pressing. You can build your system around one guy who just has a magical left foot or right foot, right? Why wouldn't he play Copa America in two years? I mean, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but he could. I don't doubt it. Would he be the star player, playing 120, 90 minutes every game? Maybe not, but I'm not going to bet against the guy.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  I think it basically depends, it depends on whether Scaloni stays as the Argentina coach. Because like, he's, that guy won a World Cup, he's been to another World Cup final, he's won several Copa Americas. If he wants to go coach in Europe, he can, but He's been, he and Messi have been like lockstep this entire, this entire cycle. And Messi has had problems with Argentina managers in the past, not like throwing tantrums kind of problems, but guys who have been like, well, we're actually going to make Messi part of a system and not play entirely around him. And if they get some coach in who wants to counter press a lot and run like crazy, he's not going to be able to do that.

• 28:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 28:22Bill Simmons?

  It seems conceivable to me that he could play at 43 in the 2030 World Cup. Cause one of the things like watching him, and it's a little like for, for some reason it reminds me of Jalen Brunson. These guys that are low to the ground, but strong. There was a couple of plays where sometimes Messi will just, he'll get low to the ground and he'll carry somebody on his back. And is able to keep the ball and the guy will go flying off his back and uh, he's just so low to the ground. And like, there's been running backs like that too. I don't know. I just feel like he could keep going.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  There was a moment in the England game where he like shrugs off Shad Spence, turns Declan Rice, and then like rides the challenge of Elliott Anderson before they gets wiped out.

• 29:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  In the midfield and you're like, he's how old? 39 doing that?

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Like against two of the best, most athletic midfielders in the world who are in their physical primes.

• 29:10Bill Simmons?

  What about that pirouette he did today when he was on the right side? And somehow did like the 360 and was going through the middle of the field. He is amazing.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  He had a pass today that was on the outside of his boot across the field to Simmons, who tried to draw a foul on Kukureya, but like, it was like, I was like, that is, that is the DPI pass. And it was this moment of genius and it gave where he to get the ball as much. My favorite thing about Messi this tournament, other than the obvious like heroics, has been when there's been like a contentious play on the field and the opposing team players try to get up in the ref's face and start yelling at one of the Argentina. Co is one of his teammates Messi like will kind of wander into the scrum and everybody's like, hey, man, I my my problem's not with you.

• 29:58Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  This dude's 5'7". He's not going to like knock anybody out. Everybody is just like, you're God. I'm sorry.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Well, there was one player who trash talked him. I don't know if you saw this gif that's been going around. Jude Bellingham and there's a there's a gif of Messi just kind of smiling and smirking at him like, hmm.

• 30:17Bill Simmons?

  Ironic, ironic you brought this up. That was my number two winner of the World Cup after the team and Messi. The Messi meme, I think is going to be a top five meme of all time. Like when you think like the Alonso morning meme of him being doing the whatever on the bench when he's like sad and like we've had a couple of these. I think this one. I even got a great email about it. The bundle. It's you should thank your lucky stars. You're here because I'm going to read this email to CR from Jeff B. Who wants to know? Because I had the same thought. How much Messi looked like De Niro in that moment with Bellingham when he made the.

• 30:55Bill Simmons?

  So he said, what was the most appropriate De Niro movie? And moment that captured the messy face in that scene? And he gave us five options. Number one was the Jackie Brown, don't say another word moment right before he shoots Bridget Fonda in the parking lot. Number two is De Niro and Pesci facing off in the desert in Casino. Number three was the heat diner scene with Pacino, the there's a flip side of that coin. Number four, this was the one I had. Jimmy Conway deciding to whack Maury, our favorite scene in Goodfellas.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:31Bill Simmons?

  The greatest cigarette anyone's ever smoked.

• 31:35Bill Simmons?

  But he said, option five, going De Niro adjacent. Can we go De Niro adjacent for this for best De Niro? He's going with Vincent Han is okay, motherfucker. And in heat, okay, motherfucker.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  To me, it reminded me of De Niro on the payphone calling Van Sant and being like, because there's a dead man on the other end of this phone.

• 31:59Bill Simmons?

  That's good. All right. I think that's the answer.

• 32:02Bill Simmons?

  All right. So I have, I have that. I have that second after Messi as the non Spain winner of the World Cup. Holland was third. So I know Yamal didn't have the, like, he didn't even score today. He had, I basically had hockey assists and whatever. I still feel like it was a great World Cup for him from a visibility, people knowing who he is. I thought the photo of him and Messi, which nobody believed was real for two weeks. And it's just like, I think overall, like, a really positive World Cup for him, where it's like, this is the foundation. You can see him coming back in 2030 and being the biggest star we have. He was obviously playing hurt. So I would have him on there. Is that a bad opinion, AD?

• 32:45Speaker 04

  I think we'll look back in like six or seven years, like, well, you mean Yamal won the World Cup with Spain, and nobody will remember that he wasn't a star player. You just get, you kind of get credit for it. It wasn't an Mbappe level World Cup, right? In 2018, when Mbappe just electrified all of us and scored all the, and did all the athletic freak moves. But, you know, it is crazy how much timing plays into this because Yamal was incredible last summer, incredible two summers ago at the Euros.

• 33:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 04

  Wasn't great this summer because he wasn't, even a grade two hamstring injury, where they, they showed him on Friday in training, still wearing a bandage on the leg. So we'll never know, and these only, these things only come around every once every four years. So hopefully he's healthy for the next one, but I, I do feel like he'll probably look back and be disappointed in his own thing, even if he'll say, look, I won the World Cup. What are you gonna say? I mean, he's already won the World Cup, he's already won the Euros, he's won La Liga, he was the best player at the Euros two years ago, and now he's, you know, the, I think he won Young Player of the Tournament at this one. I haven't, I've been watching, but, I mean, what, all he needs to do now is what? Go win the Champions League with Barcelona, and he's got the most accomplished resume of a sub 21-year-old of all time?

• 33:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, like, my wife didn't know who he was three weeks ago, now knows who he is. Like, he, and I watched the game with my 18-year-old son, and at halftime, we were like, isn't it crazy? You're the same age as the right wing who's drawing two guys over? Like, so I, I think when you put it in that context, it's pretty nuts.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  You're like turning to Ben, be like, when are you gonna do something special like this?

• 34:08Bill Simmons?

  It's like, what's happening? Congrats, you got into college.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  I would say my caveat for, uh, Lamine is, is that you could, you could make that Barcelona in parentheses, because they had five guys on this Spain team. Uh, Pedri, Fran Torres, uh, Kubasi, the defender.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Pedri. You say Pedri?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, Pedri and Almo and, and Yamal. So like, if you want to go watch more of that Spain team, you can watch Barcelona.

• 34:34Bill Simmons?

  I thought Pedro was really good in this tournament. My, my fifth winner is America because it seemed a little inconceivable that we're going to pull off this 40 location World Cup when the heat and we don't have domes everywhere. I thought it was great for the country. I, I thought anecdotally, um, just everybody that went, I never heard bad experiences of like, oh my God, I went to the World Cup and fuck it sucked. It took eight hours to get in and out. Um, I liked being in different cities. I liked that it was, you know, some eight traditional cities like Kansas City, Dallas and, uh, you know, Philadelphia, Boston, even though it was Foxborough, but, uh, I just thought it was cool.

• 35:14Bill Simmons?

  I, I thought, um, and then, uh, having Azteca in Canada too, but I, I really like, I thought it was a huge win. What'd you think, CR?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was really, really awesome to see American sports fans and American football fans take to all these different nations being camped at their, at their cities. Like the Lawrence, Kansas, Algeria story was fantastic. Outside of Philly, there were like Haiti was there. I think Ivory Coast was there. So it's just been like very, very cool to see people embrace other cultures and embrace other like sports cultures that way. And I think if you had told us in like May, you know, everybody's going to be doing Viking rows and Lawrence, Kansas is going to become an outpost of Algeria. Like you'd be like, what are you talking about? But this was a really heartwarming experience for the most part.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  It was a perfect example of phrases that have never been uttered before in history of being uttered. It's like the Ecuadorians and the Ivorians are playing flip cup in a Philadelphia parking lot against each other. Like, wait a minute, what? And then, you know, there's a lot of like, we are the world, peace and love. And the halftime show really leaned into that today too. And Tom, Tom Cruise with dramatic readings of soccer ethos and the global game and all that stuff is nice, but it actually happened in real life. And like, we watched it happen for months. You know, the Mexicans and the Koreans singing Gognum style in the streets of LA on opening day when they both won, like the, those kinds of things are, are what make this tournament so unique. And there is nothing else in the world, not even the Olympics that, that come close to that.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  I think this is my favorite summer sporting event since 2012 Olympics, London.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  It's number one for me.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  By far.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  Trying to think 2012 Olympics was great. I was also there. So that made it even greater.

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, all the stuff you mentioned about the different cities and the people and the different cultures. Not to, not to get corny, but I would say our country kind of needed it. We needed some positivity and some, you know, I thought like, think about like what happened in Boston. The Scotland, Boston thing went so well that we apparently are going to do some sort of combination things with the two cities.

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  It's like joint events back and forth.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Like Glasgow, Boston, like cultural exchange. Yeah.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but it was really cool. And when you think like, I don't even know how, if, how many bad things happened, but there was a million good things, you know? And I don't know. I was a little worried. The heat was seemed okay.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  But just in general, I hope we get it back again.

• 37:45Speaker 04

  More winners. FIFA, I don't know if you've, you've seen this, but FIFA has kind of rigged it in a way because they're supposed to rotate continents.

• 37:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  And the next World Cup is 2030 and it's Spain, Morocco, Portugal. So that knocks out Africa and Europe. And they're doing these ceremonial games in South America to commemorate 100 years of the World Cup. So they're knocking out three continents in one World Cup, which means for them, they can go back to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in 2034. Qatar in 22. And then in 2038, the only continent left to host the World Cup is North America again. Where they want to expand the World Cup again. So I would, I would say we're an odds on favorite.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  Was that, was that Trump Infantino press conference where he's like, it's going to be in America and in China? Was that him just making something up as it, as he was going along? Or is that?

• 38:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm going to say travel wise, that one does.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  That would be tough. Yeah.

• 38:38Bill Simmons?

  That'd be a tough one. A tough, tough plane flight. Ah, quickly more winners. Kate Verdi, we mentioned. Awesome for them. The Messi Yamal photo got two days of internet content for everybody. Jude Bellingham.

• 38:53Bill Simmons?

  Kind of controversial heading into the World Cup. People thought, I don't know, is he a team player? Should we even keep him on? By the end of it, people are like, is this the, is this the most talented soccer player who's ever lived? I would say that was a win for him. And then finally, that last goal he scored in the meaningless third place game. And you, unless you bet on the over for goals, which De Bundo was urging us for. Like doubled the over, right? It like tripled the over, right?

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I also bet France, so kind of lost on that one. But we did, yeah, it was two and a half and then it went to three and a half CR.

• 39:24Bill Simmons?

  Come on. But yeah, did you see that in Jude Bellingham's CR?

• 39:27Speaker 03

  I had seen that the year previous, the, the, two years ago at Madrid, he looked like the best player in the world. And also really the most clutch, which is what he was for England until that Argentina match. Where I don't know whether it was a matter of him running out of gas or Argentina just game planning for him. But he barely seemed to get a look in during that match. So a disappointing end of the tournament, but for, for him, it was like such a huge, huge like statement tournament. And like, you know, he becomes now the centerpiece of that England team for the next generation. If Kane goes away, also just like for England in general, the wonderwall thing. I think this was a very likeable England side when there have been England sides that you could be like, I could kind of take or leave these dudes.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  And for the most part, like a really, really like easy to cheer for side.

• 40:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was in Hawaii for the game they won on Saturday. And we were in the car listening to the radio after, because we watched the game in a place. And they did the wonderwall thing and my wife didn't know what was going on. And she's like, this is awesome. What is this? And I was like, they do this after every game. And she was like, that's unbelievable. This is, has there ever been a better, she was going nuts about it. But it is like the perfect sports song. I feel like we have a new wave of sports songs in the 2020s. Cause Mr. Brightside is another one.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:46Bill Simmons?

  That's taken off. I feel like we finally shed some of the 90s, 2000 ones. Your generation, De Bundo, I think is really.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Cooking? I don't know.

• 40:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think you're cooking with some of these songs.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Soccer does have some of the best ones, like freed from desire is such a great, you know, dance song. Titanium, people love titanium. It's like a perfect pre-match anthem, but why, why don't?

• 41:05Speaker 04

  NFL teams, college teams, like college teams have, I guess with the, you know, the alma mater of the schools, but so many of these pro teams could, could lean into this a little bit.

• 41:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Pats had, the Patriots had the outfield's your love that they would play in key moments. And there's this famous, you can look it up on YouTube. It's probably the best Patriots fan clip. The Ravens game where we never should have beaten the Ravens. When we came back and won 35 31, when they did the double pass, cheating at the line that whole game. They had a defensive stand. There's a timeout and the whole crowd is singing your love for the entire timeout. And it's fucking awesome.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, Pittsburgh has Renegade, right? But they do that.

• 41:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Renegade's a good one, too.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Like mid-game.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Bill, when I go home today and I look that up on YouTube, like I guarantee you it's the first time I will have YouTube searched Patriots fan clips. And I am so.

• 41:54Bill Simmons?

  I thought you were gonna say the outfield your love.

• 41:59Bill Simmons?

  Quickly, more winners. Mbappe, even though France, you know, they made the final four, but he certainly came out of this tournament. I don't think he lost any standing, I would say.

• 42:09Speaker 04

  He needed it. He needed it.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Also, Olise, I think, was the guy who, like, like Holland, if you hadn't watched a lot of Bayern, Olise just leapt off the screen to people.

• 42:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I have Thierry Henry. I thought he was awesome. I really thought, uh, he had a couple great, that one time was like a week ago when he broke down Spain for like five minutes. How they play was one of the best broadcast clips. Um, I thought he had to do a lot of work on that set.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  That understatement.

• 42:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll get to more on that later when we get to the losers. Three, I have four more winners. Gambling. The World Cup is incredible to gamble on. Cause you can do, I, you can, you can get a little risky and, you know, like you can roll the windows down and put your arms out and just do the straight up 90 minute win-loss bet. You could bet the draw. You can go to the one to advance, which was the one I settled in, but, um, you can parlay stuff. I actually really enjoyed, and I felt like I was getting pretty good at it by the end of Bundo. Now, probably partly because I was listening to you a lot, but, um, I had the winner today. I had Spain with a DDP sunny gray, uh, three-team parlay CR.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  That's the fighter?

• 43:28Bill Simmons?

  I think, yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Are you the only guy in the world who bets Spain in sunny gray today?

• 43:35Bill Simmons?

  No, Sal definitely did. Sal definitely did.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  That's not, that's not what I meant.

• 43:41Bill Simmons?

  Just me and Sal. I thought the game was really fun. I thought Beckham was weirdly a winner for the World Cup, even though he's retired a million years ago. It felt like he was everywhere and there were a lot of celebrities all over the place, but it felt like he, it felt like he was like the royalty at the World Cup and I don't really understand why. And he was in every ad too.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  He's David Beckham. Everybody knows him.

• 44:02Bill Simmons?

  Azteca I have as a winner, just because it was fun to have them involved. And then last but not least, people that bitch about US Soccer's infrastructure, banner week for them when we, when we lost. It was really a lot of soul searching about how we, how we come up with our strategies.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  I've been, I've been reading about the Chinese Communist Revolution to try to figure out.

• 44:24Bill Simmons?

  Chuck Close comes in with a General, General Sal documentary. Any other winners before we get the losers really quick?

• 44:31Speaker 04

  Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargraves as broadcast team. There's a really interesting dynamic that I've now since learned about. The Brits don't like him. And I think, I think I know why. I mean, he's a little bit different than the traditional commentator. I think if I listened to him every week for a year, I might get a little annoyed. But for him to come into the tournament and steal the show and make it such an entertaining broadcast, him and Graves are fun, Hargraves are funny together. They bounce off each other really well. And I think everybody was like, why don't these guys call the final? And look, I love Stu Holden, but yeah, yeah. Fletcher and Hargraves were, were the, were the star commentary team. And I know Awful Announcing just did a rankings and they got by far the highest score of the NBA teams. And it felt that way.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Also shout out to being in bars and having the bar play Telemundo. Every once in a while, that really hits hard. Yeah.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  I, in general, bars I think were winners too. It was really fun to watch.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  It's the best bar sport.

• 45:26Bill Simmons?

  It really is because it's you can kinda you can come down here and be in a conversation, but monitor and you know, it's you can kinda jump in and out of games.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  You sort of know you're gonna be at the bar for about like two hours, two and a half hours.

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  100%.

• 45:40Speaker 04

  If my big, if my team is in a big game, I like my teams I root for, I need to be locked in in like a living room setting, quiet with friends or close small group. I cannot watch a big game in a bar, except for soccer, where like the whole entire bar is is involved and invested in the game. That is the one sport that I feel like, maybe I'm not gonna be able to analyze it to the level that I would hope to, but I'm still gonna enjoy it a lot more than if I go watch a college football game or an NFL game or my favorite team in a baseball world, like a playoff game, forget it. Like, I gotta be on the couch.

• 46:12Bill Simmons?

  I watched the Cape Verde, um, that the 3-2 game, Argentina game. I watched that at a bar with my daughter and her boyfriend and my wife, and the place was out of its mind. Um, and then penalty kicks in a bar is really fun, too. That's like anybody, everybody's paying attention to that.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  I gotta tell you, I was watching Argentina Cape Verde on my phone at a hotel pool, and it was like 2-2 and I, or whatever, and I'm like, I can't believe like this might be the greatest sporting upset ever. And some guy in the pool is like, I bet Argentina! And I was just like, congratulations, man. You can really tell the future.

• 46:53Bill Simmons?

  What a call. Topless pool or regular pool, Ciar?

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Regular pool, bud. Thanks.

• 47:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything, and whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now, that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or, if they do, you

• 47:42Bill Simmons?

  go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. Losers. England's coach, I'm starting with him. You bring him in because it's like, you know what? We're not going to be fucking pussies anymore. They went outside the Brave New England. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna attack. We have a really good, you know, we have all this talent in offense and we're going to be the aggressors. This is a new version of us. And then all of a sudden they get a one, nothing lead against Argentina and just fucking turtle, which is fine that you guys talked about this on Wednesday. If it's Azteca and you're down a man, I get it. But why are you doing that in this game?

• 48:27Bill Simmons?

  And you could feel the goal coming for 15 minutes and that it just, I just don't understand it. And I, and I heard people talking about it after. And the best point I heard, I can't remember who said it was like, find me the one England fan who's like, no, no, we did the right thing. The person doesn't exist, right? Everybody was against this, so why?

• 48:48Speaker 03

  I, I think that he felt like they were losing control of the midfield. Like they could not keep the ball and that he did not have the right options to put into the game to keep the ball. So he had to put the options in to defend. That's the only argument I can make for what he did. He did it 15 minutes too early, at least.

• 49:07Bill Simmons?

  That's how I felt. You agree with that, AD?

• 49:09Speaker 04

  I do. And you know, there's one guy you gotta key in on if you're going to play that strategy. When you're playing Mexico, they don't have the one player who you really need to watch out for. Right? And Argentina does. We know who he is. And to get done on two separate situations, one of which where, you know, it's a one on one. Messi draws a second defender. Nobody's out on Enzo Fernandez, who is an excellent long range shooter. That can't happen. And then you just let Messi sit on the right side and just ping crosses and that is a death sentence. But I think, I think the most jarring thing was the soccer, the soccer element. Soccer is an elite outlet and elite at keeping the ball. He can be play on the transition. How can he not give you 20 minutes? Why are you bringing on Konso for Gordon?

• 49:52Speaker 04

  When you could bring on soccer for Gordon and, and immediately changes the whole complexion of the last 20 minutes just by having him on the pitch?

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's also like he was brought in partially to be unsentimental and he had this whole phase of the first part of his time with the squad where it looked like he was falling out with Bellingham and he was just like Bellingham needs to play like for the team and not play for himself. But at the end, I thought he was way too sentimental about Kane, who I thought like looked completely gassed in that match. And he could have brought on Watkins to be an outlet, or Tony to be an outlet. And he just decided to stick with Kane, who was kind of anonymous in the last half an hour and no.

• 50:29Speaker 04

  He was late to close down Enzo too. He's partly at fault for the goal.

• 50:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was interesting on the podcast Wednesday, hearing him write talk about that. He was pretty critical of the Harry Kane piece.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:40Bill Simmons?

  Especially when you think about it, like, you could also just put your fastest guy in the team at high forward. So they at least have to think about, oh, we're pushing everyone up. Like, that could happen. I got a bunch of emails about levels of losing with the England loss. Because it wasn't a typical loss because you have to factor in the history and the fact that the World Cup is every four years, right? But remember, I mean, I wrote and rewrote the column. I can't remember how many times, but I had the different levels. And there were two levels that I felt like it was a combo of the guillotine, which you felt the guillotine the moment they turtled. And then the stomach punch of the second goal, I think the combo of those. So it was somewhere in that wasn't like the last level, but it was somewhere in there. I thought it was an awful loss. Sorry.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  I think the scariest thing, not even the scariest, but when the Enzo Fernandez scored that first goal, it did not seem like anyone on England was like, game on, let's go. Now it's

• 51:35Bill Simmons?

  Right. Okay.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  Like, we're gonna go back down the other end and put it right to them. They were like, shit, we have to play for 20 more minutes like that. Like, it just, it just was a really, really bad miscalculation.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  That was like the weight of, that's, you know, franchises, countries, whatever can have the baggage of the losses. Like, we see this happen with Buffalo Bills sometimes. And depending on the sport, these teams, the Knicks even had it when the Knicks fell behind by 29 in game four. It's like, oh, my God. And then all of a sudden that flipped. I mean, it just never flipped back for England. Right? That last 30 minutes, the baggage came, but then they never had the, the merit, they never had the OJ tip in.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  You don't have the guys to do it. Like, who's gonna go create the goal now? Like, Nico O'Reilly? Esri Konsa? Defenders? That's your plan? Dan Burn was playing striker. It was great.

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  Couple more losers. Pulisic.

• 52:27Bill Simmons?

  I think when you think about what was sitting there before the tournament versus how we ended, where it was just a three day argument about how much was he to blame? And does this guy have it? And Lena Donovan came flying in off the top rope. And this is kind of the moment for him. Like he's at that, what is he like 27?

• 52:45Speaker 04

  27.

• 52:45Bill Simmons?

  Right? This is 23 to 27 is supposed to be, I feel like one of your athletic peaks as a soccer player. But not only did it not happen, I had more questions about him after the tournament than I had before, which is durability? How good is this guy? If this guy's your best player, how far are you going? Do you feel worse about him now, AD? Or do you have all these things anyway?

• 53:07Speaker 04

  On the field, my opinion doesn't really change. He's still their best player. I know nobody wants to hear that right now. It's such a far fall, though. Like the first 45 minutes against Paraguay, he was so amazing, right? And this is like, this is his moment. And then he gets the injury and that's kind of the story of his career. But off the field, I think it would be impossible to not have more questions about him. One, he's always had this Captain America moniker that he was handed. Has he ever actually wanted it? Not clear. He never seems to like the attention of all the documentaries and stuff. But he likes to walk around like he's their best player and like he's, everybody's supposed to know it. He's not the captain of this team and he wouldn't have been the captain's second choice if, if Tim Ream wasn't 38 or wasn't on the team. He wouldn't have been second or third or fourth choice for captain.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  That's always alarming if my best player is never close to actually wearing the armband. I don't know what his relationship with Pochettino is, which could matter going forward. And yeah, like he just doesn't display the kind of leadership that we look for from our best players on our best sports teams. We expect that and he's never really given it. And I think that's why you start to feel these, these things bleed into the on the field stuff as well.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Incredibly bad sign that all those ex-players felt like they had the green light to tee off on him.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Right after the tournament. It was like, if you guys do this, there will be no pushback. Feel free to go in your pods and rip this guy. And that's, that's not, that's not a positive development.

• 54:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, Klosterman and I talked about-

• 54:36Speaker 04

  It's not new. Last summer, Pulisic's dad was arguing with Landon Donovan using ChatGPT over whether or not Christian Pulisic should or should not sit out the Gold Cup. So this isn't new, right? You know, the Landon stuff, but then when Carli Lloyd throws her hat in the ring and Sidney LaRue-

• 54:50Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, she whipped her hat in the ring.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  A lot of people are throwing their hats in the ring, getting ready to get their shots at the pinata. So something, when there's smoke, there's fire. I think it's very obvious.

• 55:01Bill Simmons?

  Talked about this with Klosterman about, you know, is there an edge that we need? Is that going to be the thing that makes the difference between being one of the 16 best countries and one of the four to eight? And you even watch Argentina the last couple of games. It's like, we would have fucking died against them. They would have absolutely bullied us the whole time. Another loser, FIFA. Everybody hates FIFA and that did not change after this World Cup. If FIFA was looking to rehab their image at all, mission not accomplished. People just don't like them and that's not going to change. Here's another one. God damn, I hated these. The hydration breaks.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  They're just commercials. Let's call them what they are. These aren't hydration breaks. Like some of these games, it was 70 degrees outside. I understand when we're in the fucking Middle East playing soccer, I get it, when it's 100 degrees on the field. But these are commercials and, I don't know, AD, you care about soccer as much as anyone I know. Like, this isn't soccer. You're supposed to play straight through for 45 minutes with three to nine minutes of added time after. You're not supposed to just stop halfway through.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, they have it in place in the Premier League for very specific circumstances. They have it in place for other leagues. If the temperature is above X, we will enable for a brief hydration break. I don't like, I mean, look, FIFA kind of also stuck it to us because now the Americans, the boogeymen of soccer to everybody else in the world, we get blamed for instituting hydration breaks. It was FIFA's decision. FIFA did this as a grab, as a money grab and tried to level the playing field. Indoor games with hydration breaks, they were like timeouts. And you could literally see teams like, oh, we just got to get to the hydration break-

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  And then change up our ta- that's not how the game was designed to be played. If you want to break it into quarters, that's a different debate.

• 56:45Bill Simmons?

  We basically did.

• 56:46Speaker 04

  But they, you know, they did that without doing it. And I think that's why it feels deceptive.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  I thought it was interesting to see managers tactically evolve to knowing that they had to get to a hydration break or something could change after a hydration break. But more often than not, the hydration break ruined momentum within the match. And I would be very curious to see a simulation of this World Cup without those breaks and see how many, what kind of variance we got in results. Because I think that there was a way in which it kind of like anytime the underdog was threatening that the sort of favorites had this hydration break, to be like, okay, let's go get our shit together, guys. Like, what's going on? Ultimately, like, I saw one clip of Mo Salah saying to Zlatan, like, thank God we had a hydration break out

• 57:34Speaker 03

  there. We would have been dead. But I think that was like in Houston, or wherever he was playing, it was hot. When you see guys getting hydration breaks in air-conditioned stadiums, it's just, it's kind of beyond the pale.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  It's insulting. Yeah, like France, Paraguay, July 4th in Philly, they needed a hydration break. It was 100 degrees.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  You know, the semifinals, Spain and France, when it's 78 indoors in Dallas, eh, don't need it. Don't need it. Don't want it. Who wants this?

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Most of the time in England, they're playing, it's like 40 degrees and raining. So it's like, it's like the reverse of the days.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  When they hit the 80s, it's like, all right, maybe we need a break. But yeah.

• 58:10Bill Simmons?

  If you're in a dome, you don't need a hydration break. Let's, let's just all agree on that one. Yeah. I had Ronaldo as a loser. We don't need to go in that.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 58:20Bill Simmons?

  Sideline reporters. Something I noticed.

• 58:23Speaker 04

  Our man Jeff Shreves. Don't let him touch them.

• 58:26Bill Simmons?

  No, like, we, I'm so used to football and basketball especially, where we have to go to sideline reporters, even when they don't really have content to give us. But anytime somebody gets injured, even a little bit, we have to go. And it's like, oh, there's Lisa Salters, she's in the tunnel. And it's like, oh, he, he, his finger bent back, they just put it back, he'll be back in a minute. In the World Cup, there was mystery. With like, who was the team where, what was it like a week ago when the, the team's goalie just left? It was like, yeah, he's injured. He's, who was the goalie? I'm blanking on the country.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  Was it Courtois for Belgium?

• 59:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, Belgium.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:04Bill Simmons?

  He's just like, yeah, he's hurt. It's like, oh, he's coming out of the game. It's like, what happened? This is like their second best player. This guy's out of the game.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  The backup blew the game.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  And the backup blew the game. And we never had Lisa Salters being like, yeah, the starting goalie's out of the game because this. And I gotta be honest, I kinda liked it.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:23Bill Simmons?

  I liked the mystery of being like, yeah, I don't know why that guy just left. We're all gonna be fine. We don't need an answer sometimes. Anyway.

• 59:30Speaker 04

  I think it's harder to work them into the game. Cause it's so flowing. It's so quick.

• 59:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  Whereas the NFL, you know, like, all right, there was a punt. We're gonna have like 48 seconds.

• 59:37Bill Simmons?

  Right. We have time.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  I think it makes it all the more profound for a loser that I am sure you're gonna mention at one point, Bill, which is VAR. And.

• 59:45Bill Simmons?

  That was my last, wait, hold on VAR, cause that was my last loser.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  I gotta warm up a debate here. Okay.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  I had Lalas. We don't need to kick a dead body, but Lalas just could not have been a worse six weeks for him.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  It doesn't matter though. He'll be back in two summers. He'll be back in two years. I'm sure he'll, he'll be on a Netflix deal to do the women's game. And he'll be, no matter what happens, you can't kill him.

• 1:00:07Bill Simmons?

  This is.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  He'll be there.

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Lolling you.

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Lalas is over there. He's just turned. There's no, no interest in hearing anything he says. Um, I didn't love the main team either. I, I thought Stu Holden, he's fine. He, he's good at like breaking down the big picture stuff, but you gotta talk more about when a team is doing the rough house shit. It was like, he was really afraid to be critical of, ooh, I don't know, we need a replay of that. It was almost like he didn't want, he wanted to be the opposite of Jeff Van Gundy when Van Gundy kinda lost his mind with the refs and what is, oh my God, what's that call? He did the opposite. There were calls, that first goal that got taken away today. I still don't understand what the penalty was.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, that was definitely a penalty. It was like, what?

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Marino stepped on Otamendi's foot. Was that what happened? But it took like.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Otamendi sold the shit out of it. Yeah.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but the Spanish players in the, uh, the box up in the stands, like David Villa and all those guys seemed to know like, oh, they're gonna call that off immediately. And Stu Holden's like, what, what, what? Like, yeah.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  Right. Uh, all right. Last one other than VAR's. Was Turkey the team that they made them flag?

• 1:01:17Bill Simmons?

  They didn't give them the plane home. Or Uruguay, Uruguay, there's what a tough flight, uh, flight home. And then last but not least, VAR. Okay, make the case.

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  Make the case.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  AD, what's uh, AD's a defender, let's hear it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Look, I, I understand why people don't like VAR. VAR gets so many more calls, right? If you want to debate the offside rule, if you want to debate the red card rules, if you want to debate what is and isn't a penalty and how the game should be repped, that is a fair thing. But VAR is a good application of the current rules and everybody overlooks just how many bad calls were made in the pre VAR era that would have made ridiculous goals stand or vice versa. Because now-

• 1:01:58Bill Simmons?

  Germany, Germany handball 2002 CR.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Yes, look, I, as somebody, I've, I've been watching Premier League since oh five about like for the first 10, 15 years of watching it. 80% of the coverage was about refereeing. Like it's not like this didn't overshadow the sport the whole time. I think it just takes away from what makes football amazing, which are those cathartic moments where you think something, you know, when something incredible has happened and the crowd goes wild and the players go wild and then all of a sudden, it's like, well, we're going to go look on a screen for 45 seconds to five minutes. And I just need it to be about very specific things, whether it's offsides or whatever. And I needed to have a cap on how long they can look at something. And I do think some of the fouls that they're looking at,

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  they're looking at in like stop motion, like slow mo when it really should be more evaluated is what happened in real time.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  The Balligan situation being the perfect example of that, right? The other problem that VAR now has is actually VAR has created a problem in and of itself because they're letting plays play out now, right?

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  Flag used to go up in the old days and there wasn't VAR. The ref blew the play dead immediately because the ref made the decision, there is no review. But now when the flag goes up, we watch the next 10 seconds of soccer happen and then they're like, goal! And then, oh no, the flag was up.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  This is Egypt, Argentina, it's, it's, it's Egypt second, right? Yeah.

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  We see that with a ton of goals now, like called back because-

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  They know they have VAR as the safety net. They're letting extra things play out. So we're seeing more almost goals that again would not have been goals ever because the referee did put his hand up. And so I think we only look at the times when VAR gets it wrong. If you wanted to, again, if you want to debate offside rule and where should the line be? That's a totally different debate. But VAR, I still think is good at adjudicating that. Brian Phillips did write a great piece though for The Ringer, which I enjoyed reading on why VAR sucks. And I don't agree with him, but I always read him.

• 1:03:57Bill Simmons?

  I hate VAR. I think if you're gonna have it, VAR is gonna catch more stuff, right? VAR is basically, it's the camera at a four-way intersection and you went through and you thought it was a yellow, but it was a red and it nails you. If you're gonna have VAR, I do think they need to rethink the card system because, and the perfect example is when they called the flop and the guy got the red card. What game was that?

• 1:04:21Speaker 04

  Swiss.

• 1:04:22Bill Simmons?

  All these games, all these games blending together. But I do think they need, and Balgon was another one, where they almost need a third card. Where if you get sent off, maybe you get sent off for 50, like a blue card. Maybe it's like, oh, he didn't mean to do that, but that was definitely something. So you're gone for 15 minutes. For the next 15 minutes, you guys are playing 11 v 10.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Sinbin, yeah.

• 1:04:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's, there's some sort of better version of this, that the two yellows, that second one, which could go any given way, and it could really change who should have won the game. And I don't like that.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I'm of two minds of it. Enzo Fernandez today is a really good example of like, he gets a yellow for dissent. He probably should have gotten five yellows over the course of the match.

• 1:05:05Bill Simmons?

  He deserved to get kicked off. Yeah.

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  That Kubarsi play is very bang bang. I mean, he definitely helicoptered him, but it wasn't like the De Jong tackle from Spain-Holland from like years ago when De Jong kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest. It was like a pretty bang bang play in midfield, but like, he's got to know better. He just got his first yellow eight minutes ago. He needs to know, like, if I get sent off in a World Cup final, we are going to lose. And I like watching guys have to play with that kind of calculus sometimes, just because it makes the game like have that much more extra layer of drama.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  It's the five fouls in basketball, right? Where it's like, okay, I can't challenge that shot anymore. I have five fouls.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  Okay, now we can attack Wemby. He's got five fouls. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:05:48Bill Simmons?

  Right, right. Yeah, I just, it feels like. There's a better way to do the whole system because they're on the one hand, it's like, whoa, yellow card, red card. This is how we've always done it. Well, you didn't always have VAR.

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:06:02Bill Simmons?

  So if you're going to change that part of it, then maybe the rest of it should evolve. I feel the same way with the, with the NBA too. Like, you know, may, there's got to be something better than just flagrant fouls, flagrant one, flagrant two. Like I, I do think we can evolve with that. I don't like VAR. I thought it ruined at least 20 of the most fun moments in the tournament. Where it's like, oh, let's go. Oh, it's not because here we go. I also think if you're going to have the VAR, maybe the offsides, maybe they could be a tiny bit more leeway, you know, where it's like, oh, he was, you know, this far over past the guy. It's offsides. Like, is it? It's like eight inches.

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  There's a couple of like proposals out there to how to adjust offsides. I, I don't know if any of them will ever get passed. And if they do, do they get passed by UEFA but not FIFA or what? But like Wenger. No, that would be a disaster. Different offside rules would be fun to referee, huh? But no, the rule is basically the Wenger rule is like Arsene Wenger, Arsenal's former manager, wants to make it so that if any part of your body is in line with the last defender, you are on. You have to have. So you can be basically like, my hand is back here with the guy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I wouldn't be opposed to it.

• 1:07:12Bill Simmons?

  Way better.

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  But you have to have it. You have to have it.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  That's a way better one. My last loser is Raheem Palmer, refused to watch the World Cup.

• 1:07:20Speaker 04

  I got one more too.

• 1:07:21Bill Simmons?

  Admitted, admitted, Raheem Palmer admitted he would rather watch HBO boxing on the smart channel. And that's what he was watching during the days over like World Cup semifinals. I thought you liked sports, Raheem. Jesus. What would you have, AD?

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Real Madrid is a loser. How does a team, and like there's, we could do a whole pot on that, but like Real Madrid have Vinny Jr., Mbappe and Bellingham, and they have underachieved dramatically for the last two years. There's fights within the camp. There's literal players fighting each other. I mean, CR did a good pot on this as well back in, in the spring. The fact that they have all this talent and can't put together a coherent team that can challenge for the Champions League or La Liga is, is embarrassing.

• 1:08:03Bill Simmons?

  This is why we love team sports, like the Red Sox. The Red Sox have somehow won 13 straight.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  Oh, God. They were under on when the Red Sox were going to get mentioned in the World Cup.

• 1:08:15Bill Simmons?

  No crochet, Roman Anthony, the next Ted Williams is out for the whole year. I think our most expensive guy is Trevor Story, who hasn't played at least for two and a half months. They have so many utility infielders popping in and out. You most don't know who's who at this point. And then they have these two guys in the middle of order who are crushing and every starter goes six innings. And the team has chemistry now and it doesn't make sense. Sports doesn't make sense. And I feel like with soccer, it's gotta be the same thing where you can load up all of these. You can basically have an all-star team, but you end up like that one Eagles team that year with Asamoah and all those guys. The dream team. It's like, oh my God.

• 1:08:51Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. Eagles dream team reference, parlay, Boston Red Sox reference, cash.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  This is kinda why, I mean, like even though like PSG definitely got nation state funding to build their club up. Like it's kind of amazing to watch how they had Mbappe, they had Messi, and they got rid of like a lot of their star players. And now play like the most perfect encapsulation of club football and have won multiple Champions Leagues because of it.

• 1:09:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have one last announcement before we we send Dabbundo away. It's my daughter's last soccer season this year. This is it. I've been riding with her since 2009. I'm gonna get back into Premier League and La Liga in a real way. And I'm I'm doing some real scouting now and trying to figure out who to attach to. And it's tough. It's tough to wade in, especially as old as I am now. Just like, oh, you are now my favorite team. Like this is an issue, but I think the answer is pick a team every year. And just put a big bet on them before the season.

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  Ah, yes.

• 1:09:56Bill Simmons?

  And I think I'm gonna do that this year because, and I don't know if it's gonna be Premier League or La Liga, but I'm gonna obviously be consulting with both of you and try to target a team. And that's just gonna be my team for the year.

• 1:10:07Speaker 03

  Do you have any residual Tottenham affection from your original, like, uh, your original?

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  It's a good time to buy low, Bill. Let me tell you, we could not be lower.

• 1:10:17Bill Simmons?

  I don't.

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  We could. We could not really low, but we could not be lower. We.

• 1:10:20Bill Simmons?

  I do think this could be a of like a mid-August podcast. Cause I did the column 20 years ago and I picked my EPL team and I had all these different factors. This is, this could be more of just the heart wants what the heart wants. It's like, can I just root for Holland for an entire season?

• 1:10:36Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:10:36Bill Simmons?

  Just put a giant Man City bet on and maybe that's just who I root for. I don't know. I'm willing to accept suggestions though. Um, some of the guys that jumped out, like, uh, I did enjoy Bellingham, I gotta say. Um, and that's probably.

• 1:10:55Bill Simmons?

  Messi, I can't, Messi's out because he's an MOS. I can't jump on his bandwagon. So I don't know. I, I, I'm gonna need some guidance from you guys.

• 1:11:03Speaker 04

  Well, CR, I mean, you could pitch Liverpool. They're a fun team.

• 1:11:06Bill Simmons?

  I can't because of John Henry.

• 1:11:07Speaker 04

  The John Henry thing is a non-starter. Yeah.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  I can't. Can't do it. I can't do it after the book of bets.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  You get your two John Henry teams.

• 1:11:15Bill Simmons?

  It's, is Newcastle, they're, they didn't get relegated, right?

• 1:11:18Speaker 04

  No, they're fine.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they have to sell their best players to meet financial regulations. They have, they have a hard second apron situation going.

• 1:11:25Bill Simmons?

  That was the one when, when I was trying to pick a team, that was the one that really captured my fancy, but it didn't pass the, if I travel to go see the team play, is it a destination you'd want to go? And that was like, not great for Newcastle. But I've always enjoyed, I've enjoyed the fans and the whole thing. Anyway.

• 1:11:41Speaker 04

  Jeff, Jeff Powell loves Arsenal, Bill. So you have two, you, you could choose another, you could choose Arsenal with Jeff, I would advise against.

• 1:11:48Bill Simmons?

  Who's, who's Adam Friedland's team? Is that Arsenal too?

• 1:11:51Speaker 04

  I think there are. Yeah.

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that can't do that.

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

  They seem to be, I think they might've surpassed Man United in recent years. This is anecdotal, but like.

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  In terms of their popularity?

• 1:12:00Speaker 04

  In America, yeah.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:02Bill Simmons?

  Who is the most like rooting for the Yankees? Cause that's who I don't want to pick.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:12:06Speaker 04

  Manchester United, I think.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  United, yeah.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  Who's the most like rooting for the Lakers?

• 1:12:13Speaker 03

  Hmm. Is that, would that be City? I mean, City's more like new money. Like they, they, they're more like.

• 1:12:20Bill Simmons?

  So they're like the Dodgers.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that would be more like the Dodgers where it's just like every good player winds up there because they just have the money to buy them.

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  And Chelsea are spending money like the Dodgers. They're run by a group that own the doc, but they're run very poorly.

• 1:12:35Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna be consulting you, DeBundo. Thanks for, uh, thanks for coming on. We're sending you away and CR and I have to do a Matt Damon versus Leo DiCaprio battle. Once and for all, we're gonna figure this out. Thanks, DeBundo. Good to see you. We'll see you on the Ringer Gambling Show this week.

• 1:12:48Speaker 04

  Vamos a pana, Bill.

• 1:12:52Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Torturo gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Torturo 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. 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?

• 1:13:36Bill Simmons?

  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. All right, CR. Here we go. It's time. In 2016, when I had my failed HBO show, we did some sort of ad campaign and one of my takes was every Leo movie would be just a little bit better if Matt Damon was in it. And people got mad and said, I was a Boston homer. Now we're 10 years later. And Matt Damon, in the best movie of his life, The Odyssey, a movie you and I have both seen.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm not gonna do, we won't do any Odyssey spoilers on this podcast, but I might on my Wednesday podcast. But Damon kinda needed this for the resume. This was like, like the late 30s Messi World Cup title, to just vault him up to a different thing. Let's go big picture Damon versus Leo. And then I have a whole bunch of categories that I didn't prepare you for at all.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  Damon versus Leo, go.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  All right, so Damon essentially has twice as many movies as Leo, right? Like, he is more of an everyday player, I think, likes to play. He'll come and do a cameo, he'll do a supporting actor part. He doesn't have the sense of self that I think DiCaprio does, where there's like, Leonardo DiCaprio knows there are Leonardo DiCaprio parts with Leonardo DiCaprio directors, and he is fine sitting out five years to wait for one of those. I think that Damon...

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  Has played a bigger part in my movie going life and in a weird way, I just have more affection for him because he's more approachable as an actor and as like a celebrity, whereas DiCaprio still seems like a space alien to me. But you can't deny that if you take Leonardo's five best movies and put them up against Damon's five best movies.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  Well, I was gonna say you can't deny it, but I'm, I don't know, Bill, do you?

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  We're, we're going through this. Um, obviously I'm team Damon, but I had a whole bunch of categories and as we go through this, I think you're going to realize, because I think the general perception would be, oh, Leo's had a better career, Leo's a better actor. So my question is, are we sure? Um, best movies by decade.

• 1:16:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:16:04Bill Simmons?

  So nineties, two thousands, two thousand teens, twenties. So Damon now has Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Martian and The Odyssey.

• 1:16:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:16:15Bill Simmons?

  Leo has Titanic, The Departed, I would say Wolf of Wall Street and One Battle.

• 1:16:21Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:16:23Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty tight. Maybe slight edge to Leo?

• 1:16:26Speaker 03

  I, I go DiCaprio there.

• 1:16:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. But not, but it's kind of.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  It's, it's you're, by giving them both The Departed, it's a little bit of like a, of a push, but yeah, I go DiCaprio still.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  Iconic rewatchables.

• 1:16:43Bill Simmons?

  Damon has Interstellar, Oceans, Interstellar, we have not done yet. Interstellar, Oceans 11, Rounders, Bourne Identity. I'm all doing movies, we, I did these categories so that if, if I mentioned a movie, then we can't mention it again, because obviously Good Will Hunting is an iconic rewatchables. So four more movies, iconic rewatchables we haven't mentioned yet. Interstellar, Oceans 11, Rounders, Bourne Identity. And then for Leo, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Catch Me If You Can and The Aviator.

• 1:17:13Bill Simmons?

  I would say, or three, I think, I think Damon wins. And if you go actual rewatchables we've done.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, because The Martian.

• 1:17:21Bill Simmons?

  Damon, we've done 10. Leo has done seven. We haven't done all the Bourne's, but I think, I think Damon wins that one.

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but this is, this speaks to like Damon being willing to be the third, the third lead of oceans, you know, like, and DiCaprio doesn't do that.

• 1:17:38Bill Simmons?

  Oscar bait is our next category. Damon, Ford versus Ferrari, True Grit, Invictus, The Good Shepherd, Siriana and Talented Mr. Ripley, which is a key part of the Damon case. If you're gonna, that probably his best performance in any movie. Leo has Don't Look Up, The Revenant, Django Unchained, Revolutionary War and The Aviator.

• 1:18:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's Leo.

• 1:18:04Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Bill Simmons?

  Slight edge or just a full Leo?

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  I think Leo, full Leo for Oscars and especially if you look at the totality of his work. He's like, more often than not, if he acts, it's gonna be considered an Oscar nominee.

• 1:18:21Bill Simmons?

  It's a little like the Kyrie Irving, I play 55 games a year and my stats are awesome. Whereas Damon's like, I'm here to entertain my fans for 82 games a year, plus playoffs.

• 1:18:29Speaker 03

  Louis McHale Bridges, yeah.

• 1:18:32Bill Simmons?

  Awesome team player movies. Damon, Oppenheimer, Margaret, Saving Private Ryan, Contagion and Dogma. Leo, Marvin's Room and other than that, not a team player.

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  No, it's just Damon. Yeah.

• 1:18:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Damon wins that going away. Leo's not interested in being just, you know, setting some picks, grabbing some rebounds, hitting a couple of threes.

• 1:18:55Speaker 03

  Damon's.

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  Damon's happy to do it.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Appearing in Steven Soderbergh movies that like 11 people saw.

• 1:18:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Bill Simmons?

  Action movies that we haven't even mentioned yet.

• 1:19:05Bill Simmons?

  Damon, The Rip, Green Zone, Elysium and the whole Bourne franchise. Leo's basically Body of Lies and Blood Diamond.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  TIA.

• 1:19:16Bill Simmons?

  Damon, Damon wins this one.

• 1:19:18Speaker 03

  This is Africa. Daddy.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  Fun movies, just like fuck it, let's do it. Damon's got Air, We Bought a Zoo and the Ocean's Trilogy. Leo hates fun, doesn't really make fun movies, not interested.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  He doesn't, he like, there's no midnight run in Leo's.

• 1:19:37Bill Simmons?

  No, he's not like, you know what, this will be fun to do this for four months. Noble swing movies. Damon has The Last Duel, Stillwater, Downsizing, The Informant, Jerry and Promise Land. Where it's like, eh, took a swing.

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  Kudos. Leo has Killers of Flower Moon, Shutter Island and Gangs of New York.

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  I, I think Damon takes more swings for swing movies, so I edge him, though I admire what Leo will like go and get his name behind.

• 1:20:08Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:20:09Speaker 03

  Making a three and a half hour, you know, murder epic about Native Americans in Oklahoma is like a pretty big swing.

• 1:20:19Bill Simmons?

  Next category has got to keep working. Damon has The Great Wall and The Instigators, and Leo has Great Gatsby and Body of Lies. Are you a Body of Lies guy, CR?

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  I am a huge Body of Lies guy.

• 1:20:29Bill Simmons?

  Are you really?

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  Yes. Sneaky Oscar Isaac Dion Waiters in that, in the first act.

• 1:20:37Bill Simmons?

  Do I need to revisit it?

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  Phone acting, really, really fun movie.

• 1:20:40Bill Simmons?

  Never, never took with me. Um, I think those Leo's movies are better. Best cameo. Damon has Chasing Amy and then Eurotrip, where he plays the guy with the shaved head, does the song, sings the band, which is really funny. Leo's too snobby to do cameo, so.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  What about Damon and Affleck also reprising Good Will Hunting for the Jay and Silent Bob thing?

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  Right, right. Yeah, Damon's, Damon's happy to pop in.

• 1:21:04Speaker 03

  Thor, he shows up everywhere, yeah.

• 1:21:07Bill Simmons?

  Regrettable is going to be a loss for Damon. Leo has Jay Edgar, Celebrity, Man in the Iron Mask, and The Beach. I don't think he would do those four over again. Damon has Suburbicon, The Monuments Men, Stuck on You, although he did meet his wife on Stuck on You. All the Pretty Horses, Legend of Bagger Vance, and Brothers Grimm.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Tough one. So Leo wins that. Um, last one is younger movies.

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  Movies they made before they became who they became. Damon has, now Damon's four years older. School Ties, The Rainmaker, Geronimo, Courage Under Fire. Leo's got Gilbert Grape, This Boy's Life, Quick in the Dead, Basketball Diaries, and Romeo and Juliet. And Damon also turned down The Quick in the Dead. So Leo was sloppy seconds.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  For me, because it's not like I'm like a big, let's throw on Gilbert Grape on a Friday night guy.

• 1:22:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  But I really like Basketball Diaries. I really like Quick in the Dead. I'm gonna, I'm gonna edge it for Damon, though.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  Edging it because of School Ties?

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. And Courage Under Fire is really good. And he's really good in Courage Under Fire.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Kind of should have been nominated. Damon has a couple of should have been nominated's and so does Leo. Okay, now we're getting more fun part. Biggest flaw. So for Dame and I had said yes too much. He has 100 acting credits. And for Leo, it's said no too much. He only has 48. That includes all the TV. So I think that's a I think that's a draw. Movies with a guy trying to get home, just trying to get home.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:22:47Bill Simmons?

  Damon has the Martian, Interstellar, The Odyssey and Private Ryan, and Leo just has The Revenant. So Damon kills that. And that's like

• 1:22:53Speaker 03

  Damon not really trying to get home in Interstellar. He's more trying to stop other people from getting home, right?

• 1:22:59Bill Simmons?

  Somebody's trying to get home. Yeah.

• 1:23:02Bill Simmons?

  Comedy. Damon has multiple SNL guest appearances, including playing Kavanaugh. He's all the Kimmel stuff that's been like a 25 year running joke. 30 Rock got nominated for an Emmy. All the Kevin Smith movies, all his pop-ins and that, and then who he played in Ocean. Leo, no comedy at all.

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Counterpoint. Has Damon ever been as funny as Wolf of Wall Street?

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  Is there anything as funny in Damon's whole entire catalog that tops Leo and Wolf of Wall Street? Throwing the orange juice.

• 1:23:35Bill Simmons?

  He's really fucking funny. Yeah, that's a good one. That might have, that's at least a draw then. I mean, Damon really has a big body of work.

• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  Leo is also hysterical in one battle.

• 1:23:49Bill Simmons?

  It's fair. All right, we'll do a draw. Villain. Leo has Django.

• 1:23:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  Damon. Interstellar, Departed, Talented Mr. Ripley and School Ties. That's a fucking Mount Rushmore. Damon, easily.

• 1:24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this is a great example of volume over hits. Like Damon has more at bats being a villain than Leo does.

• 1:24:13Bill Simmons?

  Damon is a great asshole dick.

• 1:24:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:24:16Bill Simmons?

  Right? School Ties, soon as he realizes Brendan Fraser's Jewish, like it's fucking on. And then I just watched it, Departed. That's a category coming up. Damon's unbelievable in that. I just think he's a better dick. Biggest regret.

• 1:24:34Bill Simmons?

  Damon not being able to do Manchester by the Sea because he was booked to another movie and had to give it to Casey Affleck. Leo not doing Boogie Nights, he says is his biggest regret. But that also would have meant he didn't do Titanic.

• 1:24:49Speaker 03

  I bet it's, it's, I bet it's Damon, just because Manchester by the Sea, even though he said the right person got that role and it's really hard to imagine anybody but Casey Affleck in that role. But because Damon is such a huge supporter of Lonigan, it's kind of, I would have to imagine that's a bigger regret than Leo passing on Boogie Nights to be in the biggest movie ever at the time.

• 1:25:13Bill Simmons?

  I agree. Biggest movie roles turned down. Damon, the famous Avatar, had to turn it down because of Bourne Identity and it would have gotten 10% of the box office if he had done it. So it cost him $250 million that he didn't do it. He also had the Heath Ledger part in Brokeback Mountain that he decided not to do. Because he jokes that I was already in a gay cowboy movie I couldn't do too. Leo has The Matrix, he turned down Neo. Talented Mr. Ripley turned that down and they gave it to Damon. Boogie Nights, American Psycho, could have played the Christian Bale part.

• 1:25:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  And Anakin Skywalker in the second Star Wars prequel. So I think he wins that.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  He wins that.

• 1:25:56Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 1:25:59Bill Simmons?

  Podcast interview, talk show presence.

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  Damon in my mind.

• 1:26:04Bill Simmons?

  Damon's an A+. Yeah.

• 1:26:05Speaker 03

  Damon also becomes self-aware where he's like, I know exactly what you need, which is really good anecdotes and I have a billion of them.

• 1:26:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah. Here's my Jack Nicholson departed story. I've never told it before. Yeah, I've, I've seen him do it. Television.

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  Damon has SNL, Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas.

• 1:26:27Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:26:28Bill Simmons?

  Project Greenlight, 30 Rock, Entourage. He has seven Emmy noms for TV. Leo basically has growing pains in parenthood, so I think Damon wins this one. Box office gross, Damon is higher, but he's made twice as many movies. He's at estimated like close to 12 billion. Leo's at six and a half. Director buddies.

• 1:26:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:48Bill Simmons?

  Leo has Scorsese and Tarantino, I would say at this point. Is Tarantino has to be a director buddy?

• 1:26:54Speaker 03

  Sure. And you could, I mean, obviously PTA, he wanted him for Boogie Nights, he got him for One Battle. I think that they have like a pretty close relationship.

• 1:27:02Bill Simmons?

  They only made one movie though. I can't count PTA.

• 1:27:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:27:04Bill Simmons?

  Damon has Soderbergh. Like Soderbergh could be like, I'm filming something in my garage tomorrow. Damon's like, I'm there.

• 1:27:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:27:12Bill Simmons?

  Is Nolan an official director buddy for him? I feel like he is.

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's been in the last, he's been in the last three, right? So he's, no, he wasn't in Tenet, but he's done Oppenheimer, Interstellar, and now Odyssey.

• 1:27:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that counts. Lonergan, definitely. Kevin Smith.

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Bill Simmons?

  So would you go Soderbergh, Nolan, Lonergan, Kevin Smith, or Scorsese and Tarantino?

• 1:27:33Speaker 03

  I think I'd go DiCaprio. I think I might go Scorsese and Tarantino.

• 1:27:38Bill Simmons?

  Lifelong famous buddies. Damon has Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, and Krasinski, I think counts, because they've had 20 years together. Leo is Lucas Haas, Tobey Maguire, and E from Entourage.

• 1:27:51Speaker 03

  With all due respect to Lucas Haas and E from Entourage, I'm gonna go with Damon here. Okay, great.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  Role model potential. Damon, devout family man, stepdad, friend, charity guy for clean water, feeding people. Hundred credits, because he's just trying to feed his family.

• 1:28:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:09Bill Simmons?

  Leo is banging models. Cares about climate change, though.

• 1:28:12Speaker 03

  He does care about climate change. A role model for me, or a role model for like, I think Damon has the kind of life I would love to have, which it just seems like you work a lot, got a cool family, it's, yeah.

• 1:28:28Bill Simmons?

  Screenwriting, Damon won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting with Affleck. Leo's rent nothing, so he wins that. Okay, these are big ones. Most iconic movie moment that you can describe in four words or less.

• 1:28:44Bill Simmons?

  For Damon, I have beating Teddy KGB, It's Not Your Fault, and Tommy Has the Peepin'. And I don't know what would be from the Odyssey, but it would definitely be something.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Isn't that more of a Philip Seymour Hoffman moment?

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  Damon's, they're together, they're like this. Leo's got Front of the Titanic, Dead Guy's Phone, and Sleeping in a Bear.

• 1:29:14Bill Simmons?

  What would it be from the Odyssey? What's the four word great moment from the Odyssey?

• 1:29:17Speaker 03

  I think it was, uh, plucking the bow. When Damon plucks the bow.

• 1:29:23Bill Simmons?

  I think Leo wins. I think the Titanic thing's more famous than anything Damon did.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's like five things in Django where you're like, oh my God.

• 1:29:33Bill Simmons?

  Best Picture Oscar movies. These are movies they appeared in that either got nominated or won. Damon had three winners, Oppenheimer Departed, Simp, Prevarian. Nominated for Odyssey, Ford vs Ferrari, Martian, True Grit, and Good Will Hunting. So he's got three that won. Five nominated.

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  We don't know, he probably will get nominated for Odyssey. We don't know that yet.

• 1:29:55Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying the, the movie itself.

• 1:29:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:29:57Bill Simmons?

  Odyssey will, Odyssey will get nominated for Best Picture, I'm guessing, and will probably win. So that would be the fourth. Leo has One Battle, Departed, Titanic, all one.

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  Killers of Flower Moon and Don't Look Up both got nominated. I think I blocked that out of my mind.

• 1:30:12Speaker 03

  Don't Look Up got nominated? I didn't, yeah, okay.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

• 1:30:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:30:18Bill Simmons?

  No, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Revenant, Wolf of Wall Street, Django, Inception, The Aviator, Gangs of New York. So he has more.

• 1:30:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:24Bill Simmons?

  Better batting average too, so I think he wins that. He also wins for nominations because he won for The Revenant. Got nominated for One Battle, Once Upon a Time, Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Gilbert Grape.

• 1:30:37Bill Simmons?

  Damon got, he won Best Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. Got nominated for The Martian, Good Will Hunting, and Invictus. And he's gonna get nominated for the Odyssey.

• 1:30:46Speaker 03

  He sure will.

• 1:30:46Bill Simmons?

  Still less. I think he got robbed for Talented Mr. Ripley. And I think he got robbed, I think he should have won for Will Hunting. He lost to Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. If we're doing that over again, I think Will Hunting wins.

• 1:30:59Speaker 03

  I agree with you. But I still think for Oscars, so wait, Leo had, what were Leo's nominations again? Do that again?

• 1:31:06Bill Simmons?

  Leo has more. One Battle, Once Upon a Time, Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, Aviator, and Gilbert Grape supporting. And got robbed honestly twice for Titanic and Catch Me If You Can.

• 1:31:16Speaker 03

  He should have been nominated for Departed?

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't because it was the same year as Blood Diamond. Remember? He should have been.

• 1:31:24Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:31:24Bill Simmons?

  I think they had to pick. So he still wins. All right, two more.

• 1:31:31Bill Simmons?

  Range.

• 1:31:34Bill Simmons?

  I'll give you five characters from each. You tell me more impressive range.

• 1:31:38Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:40Bill Simmons?

  Rick Dalton, Jordan Belfort, Hugh Glass from The Revenant, Billy Costigan and Jack Dawson from Titanic for Leo.

• 1:31:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  Damon, Odysseus, Colin Sullivan, Tom Ripley, Will Hunting and Mike McDee.

• 1:32:03Speaker 03

  I think if you also factor in things like behind the candelabra and the informant,

• 1:32:10Speaker 03

  I think Damon's got more range weirdly. Is that, is that a crazy thing to say?

• 1:32:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it is. I think Leo is very good at knowing exactly what he should do. Doesn't mean his stats aren't great, but Damon I think is, I think Damon will try to be funny.

• 1:32:26Speaker 03

  He's like a rock band who's like, look, like we simply, we just can't play clubs anymore. Like it would be pandemonium, you know, the Stones can't show up and play the Middle East. You know what I mean? Like they can't play like a 600 cap room. They have to go play like arenas because that's where they're, and Damon could still like just show up and be like, hey, yeah, I'll be in 30 Rock.

• 1:32:49Bill Simmons?

  Head to head, The Departed. That's our last category. We debated this. We did The Departed. We did The Re Departed. We talked about who won that movie.

• 1:33:02Bill Simmons?

  So there's three questions. Who won? Who had the harder part? What happens if they switch roles?

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  I think DiCaprio won. I think Damon had the harder part. I think the movie is still incredible if they switch roles.

• 1:33:16Bill Simmons?

  I think that's the answer. And I, and I remember, I don't remember exactly how he put this when we did the pod, but I think part of The Departed was that we didn't totally know Leo had that in him. Cause it was like, you know, we grew up watching him as a kid or we watched him grow up as a kid and become a leading man. And he was like Titanic, catch me if you can. And then we didn't think he could be gritty Boston crime movie Leo. Then he pulled that off. At the same time, he pulled Blood Diamond. I do think Damon had the harder part though.

• 1:33:50Speaker 03

  Damon has the harder part, but Leo shows things like in those therapy scenes.

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's great.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:58Bill Simmons?

  He's great.

• 1:33:59Speaker 03

  Farmiga, where you're just like, this guy is, is like hearing Jimmy right now. Like this is electric stuff. Damon's like really good at being a closeted prick who is, is leading a double life and it's a very hard part. And the audience is gonna hate him for the whole, the whole movie, pretty much as soon as they find out who he is. But DiCaprio is just so electrifying when you watch that movie.

• 1:34:25Bill Simmons?

  Just fucking kill me. Just fucking do it. Just fucking kill me.

• 1:34:30Bill Simmons?

  Okay, we laid out all the categories.

• 1:34:34Bill Simmons?

  Caveat, if Damon wins best actor for The Addison, they'll now be pretty even with all this stuff. I, I actually think it's a real conversation now because if you're going most impressive

• 1:34:49Bill Simmons?

  acting career of the last 35 years, I think I would have said Leo. Right?

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:34:56Bill Simmons?

  Daniel Day.

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  I also think that there is like a kind of, DiCaprio, when he is in a movie, like that movie is almost guaranteed to do pretty to very well in the box office, whereas Damon has been in some clunkers and his association with the film does not necessarily make it a blockbuster.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  So when Leo does a movie, it makes you go, huh, Leo did a movie. Like your, your, your interest is piqued. But Damon's pumping out three a year and we've kind of learned that every once in a while, there's gonna be the instigators.

• 1:35:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, you might go make the Great Wall. Yeah.

• 1:35:31Bill Simmons?

  Right. Every once in a while, it's like, oh, it's a, it's a Matt Damon clunker. We'll be fine. We'll get him next time. Whereas Leo, every time, there's more pressure on it. This all leads to, I thought Damon, I thought that was the best I've ever seen him in a movie. And I also thought, very similar to The Revenant, without, uh, I don't want to spoil anything yet because I know a bunch of people haven't seen it, but, um, just a grueling movie to be in. And Damon's talked about that a lot with, um, some of the interviews that he's done, where it's just like, I don't think this was, I think it was a rewarding experience. I don't think anything was fun. He had to lose a ton of money, uh, ton of weight. He had, there was a lot of stuff on water and, um, you know, he was just basically getting the shakes. He had to grow this giant beard.

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  Hey, ages 30 years, he has to, and you know, like, that movie is, is somewhat segmented where he's acting with certain people who are like, man, that was a great three weeks of shooting. See you later, Matt. And Matt's got like six more months. You know what I mean? Like, he really was in, I mean, he's in like 80% of the shots of probably one of the most demanding film performances I've ever seen. Yeah.

• 1:36:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was thinking like, who would have been, because I've heard, like Van was saying, that would have been a better Christian Bale movie, which whatever, people could have opinions.

• 1:36:49Bill Simmons?

  Only one I can think of in the last 30 years that I think would have been as good as Damon in this is, is early 2000s Russell Crowe. I totally could have seen him in this.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  So the thing, again, not, I don't want to get into spoilers about The Odyssey, but it, it's not a Gladiator part. It's gotta have two elements of it. It's gotta have a guy who's been kept from his family for decades, but it's also a guy who's working through why that is. And a guy who kind of steps on his own dick a couple of times and, and, and screws things up for himself and other people. And so it's not as simple as this is Maximus, he's awesome, and everybody follows him. It's gotta be a little bit of, of Colin Sullivan in there too. A little bit of like, I've made mistakes and, and I think that that's what he brings to the role that's so special that I'm not sure Christian Bale necessarily would have. I could see Bale getting very lost in like a method or a look or a voice.

• 1:37:44Speaker 03

  And Damon gets to bring all the associations that we have with Damon to that role so that we are like, yeah, you know what, like, I'm cheering for this guy to get back, even though I know one of the reasons or some of the reasons why he's not back is him.

• 1:38:00Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:38:02Bill Simmons?

  I do think Russell Crowe could have done it back in the day.

• 1:38:04Speaker 03

  Physically, for sure. Yeah.

• 1:38:06Bill Simmons?

  It's and more like it's a little proof of life ish, right? There's like a say.

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  Do you think no one was like really thinking a proof of life meets meets Homer? I don't know why I'm giving him an Australian accent.

• 1:38:19Bill Simmons?

  I liked it. Who else? Who else could have played it? Like, I don't think.

• 1:38:23Speaker 03

  Benassi and I were, you know, talking about this last week when, when, when I guess hosted and we were talking about like, this would have been a very cool Heath Ledger part.

• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I heard that. Yeah.

• 1:38:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:35Bill Simmons?

  But I mean, Heath Ledger has been dead for 20 years.

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  No, I, yes, I'm aware, but like, uh, it could have been at a different time. I wonder if someone like Keanu could have done it, but it's hard to imagine Keanu as a master tactician, which is what Odysseus is.

• 1:38:55Bill Simmons?

  It was interesting. I, I, the only other one I could think of from the last 30 years was Denzel.

• 1:39:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:03Bill Simmons?

  Sure. Which would have been, would have been, uh, really interesting for all the people that go nuts about the casting of, uh, the Odyssey.

• 1:39:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think Denzel, like the, the Denzel role, given like how much you could physically expect from a guy his age at this point, it would have been like, maybe like.

• 1:39:19Bill Simmons?

  The Legosama, right?

• 1:39:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Or, yeah, or even Legosama. That would have been interesting.

• 1:39:24Bill Simmons?

  So did you think Damon had this in him?

• 1:39:28Speaker 03

  I'm trying to remember the last time he's done something so physically demanding. And it's been a while, right? I mean, the, the Jason Bourne movie.

• 1:39:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, he's in his.

• 1:39:38Speaker 03

  I guess he's yoked in the rip and he's got his Odyssey beard in the rip, but.

• 1:39:42Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:39:43Speaker 03

  It's nowhere close to this. It's nowhere near it.

• 1:39:45Bill Simmons?

  He's in his mid 50s. One of the things that I thought was cool about it is it's a little like we were talking about Messi before. Like you're at the tail end of where you could be the guy in a movie like this, right? I think four years from now, no way. You know, and, and I do think it was important that it was a truly famous actor in the role. You know, I, I'll talk about it more on Wednesday, but I, I just was blown away by the Odyssey. I thought it was incredible.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  I, I think it's also awesome that he and all the things he said about this movie were like, this was gonna be it for me, doing a movie like this, this way. Like, maybe I'll do another Bourne reboot where I'm

• 1:40:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  bringing along a new Jason Bourne person, or maybe I'll do another action movie, but it's never gonna be like, hey, I need you to get on this ship. And you're on the ship, man. Like, you're strapped to the mast.

• 1:40:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:33Bill Simmons?

  Do you think Leo could have been in this movie?

• 1:40:35Speaker 03

  I do, but, uh, but I'm glad it was Damon. I really am. And I, and I think, I think if like, what we got out of these 18 months was Leo in One Battle and Damon in The Odyssey, then we got the right handout to us.

• 1:40:52Bill Simmons?

  Playing the, each guy playing the perfect role for whatever their life is.

• 1:40:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:40:56Bill Simmons?

  At this point in time. Yeah, if you're doing the, the switches, I don't think Damon could have been in Wolf of Wall Street in the same way. I don't think it would have been as good.

• 1:41:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:41:08Speaker 03

  Not at all. I think DiCaprio brings like that kind of arrogance that Damon often undercuts with like, his, his own like approachability and like his kind of humility that he has.

• 1:41:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't think Damon could have been in Titanic either.

• 1:41:23Bill Simmons?

  I think

• 1:41:23Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll tell you what, I don't, I don't think that, I don't think, I know that this wasn't a one to one, but as an example of what Leo couldn't do, I don't think like Leo could have done The Martian. Necessarily.

• 1:41:34Bill Simmons?

  Where he's just by himself for an hour, yeah.

• 1:41:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but where he's also being so funny and, and like, kind of playful, like, it seems like he'd be like, more like, no, my garden blew up, you know?

• 1:41:45Bill Simmons?

  I think Damon could have done Rick Dalton. I'm not sure it would have been as good.

• 1:41:51Bill Simmons?

  And then, uh, on the flip side,

• 1:41:55Bill Simmons?

  Leo as Mike McDeen Rounders has my interest.

• 1:41:58Speaker 03

  It does.

• 1:41:59Bill Simmons?

  It's a slightly different performance, but I almost think he would have been better as Worm with a leather jacket on, just being a scumbag. I always wanted to see that version of him.

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  But Damon as Rick Dalton, I think he could have done it.

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  I would have been fun if Damon got to play with Booth and that we had like the departed guys back together.

• 1:42:19Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that'll happen. And then I don't think, I don't think Leo could have hopped into Ocean's Eleven as the, uh, the, like Damon will do stuff that I just don't think Leo would have done.

• 1:42:30Speaker 03

  Leo's not gonna be like, I'll be here to support Brad Pitt and George Clooney on a caper movie.

• 1:42:34Bill Simmons?

  Right. Facial hair, last category? I mean, that beard was fucking unbelievable.

• 1:42:40Speaker 03

  Is it better than the Django facial hair?

• 1:42:43Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I think it is.

• 1:42:46Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't believe it wasn't, it wasn't a real, I couldn't believe it wasn't a fake beard. I found that out after the movie. I was like, I thought for, yeah.

• 1:42:54Speaker 03

  For a year.

• 1:42:56Bill Simmons?

  Crazy. How many times are you gonna see, uh, The Odyssey in the theater?

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  I'm gonna go see it with you this week. So that'll be two and I'll probably go see it a third time. Cause I, this is one of those where you're like, I really want to see this as many times as possible on a big, big screen.

• 1:43:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what our final verdict was. I'm just glad Damon's in the conversation. I never gave up. I was mocked 10 years ago.

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  Overall point is that after The Odyssey, if, if it's not, Damon could be in the lead and it's pretty, pretty close if he's not.

• 1:43:32Speaker 03

  Whose career would you rather have?

• 1:43:34Bill Simmons?

  I was just gonna ask you. Would you have rather done 100 movies?

• 1:43:37Speaker 03

  I would rather have Damon's. I think it just seems like.

• 1:43:39Bill Simmons?

  I would have rather have been in more movies with more people and had more experiences. But I also get why Leo played it the way he played it.

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of yacht parties.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, true. Um, I thought Leo got a little Scorsese heavy too, would be my other thing. I think Damon spread around a little more.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  That's a good point. I mean, you could probably make the same argument that, that Damon got a little over invested in Soderbergh, but I think it's also paid off both, for both of those guys.

• 1:44:08Bill Simmons?

  Do you see any way The Odyssey doesn't win best picture?

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  After seeing it, it's kind of hard to believe. It's kind of hard to believe that the whole entire town wouldn't be like, "Hey, this movie's gonna make a billion dollars." Like, "We'll never be able to do something like this again." It's pushing the limits of technology. And it is really, really, really great. You know, uh, it's hard to imagine like, uh, an indie studio movie from award season and people are like, "That's better." And there might be movies that are better quote-unquote "films", but it's really hard for me to imagine you guys going into the Oscars and being like, "Yeah, it was nice, The Odyssey. You can get a bunch of technical awards."

• 1:44:52Bill Simmons?

  And I think Damon, we, we gotta see who else is gonna be in that category, but I would say he's, has a good chance.

• 1:44:57Speaker 03

  It was also really cool, just this last Oscars, to have sitters in one battle and have it be like two movies that lots of people had seen. Um, I think it's good for the Oscars to have it be that way.

• 1:45:09Bill Simmons?

  I liked what you and Sean said about on the pod on Wednesday about, um, the greatest directors embracing whatever the newest technology is and trying to get ahead of it, which was, you know, people like Kubrick. That was one of the things that made him special. But I, I thought the same thing watching it. It was like, "All right, there's only 41 IMAX theaters in the country or whatever." It's like, "All right, cool." But there's still 41 theaters and anyone else who sees this in any other theater is still gonna think it's awesome. But if you're lucky enough to see it on one of the IMAX theaters, it's like, "I've never seen a movie like this."

• 1:45:43Speaker 03

  And if they're smart, they'll do what they did with Interstellar and they'll re-release this, you know, intermittently over the next 10 years because people will turn out to go see this.

• 1:45:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree. All right, CR. How, uh, how you feeling about Jaylen Brown?

• 1:45:58Speaker 03

  He hasn't given a press conference yet.

• 1:46:01Bill Simmons?

  Has Embiid acknowledged him?

• 1:46:03Speaker 03

  Uh, there's been like acknowledgement through Mike Gansey, the, the president of the team has been like, Embiid's super excited, but I, I was like, pretty surprised that he has not given like the team press conference yet. And I couldn't tell if that was because there was like another deal gonna, in the works where it was like, we don't want to have to have him sit down and be like, I can't wait to play with this person and then have that person traded.

• 1:46:30Bill Simmons?

  Then he's like the backup for the Clippers if they can't get Kawhi.

• 1:46:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I, uh, I just find that strange, but otherwise I'm like, super excited. I just, I'm so excited to have like a fresh coat of paint on this team.

• 1:46:43Bill Simmons?

  The Mavs caught my attention today with the weird three-way trade they were in where Lou Dort got sent to Atlanta. They get Reese Shea in Dallas. They use some of their exception for it, which I thought was just, I'm, I'm not selling my Reese Shea stock yet. I thought he was on the wrong team. I still think there's something there. Um, but it did make me think, I still feel like that's the Embiid team if it ever happens. Dallas.

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  Yes, you mentioned. I, I have to say that that was, in my time in Philadelphia, that was a take that was roundly rejected.

• 1:47:12Bill Simmons?

  That they would trade him?

• 1:47:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just think it's like, it would be really weird to, to do that without seeing Embiid and Jalen Brown like together. Now, I know you would essentially want to like, if you're going to get off of Embiid, why not get off of him before the season starts, but I, I, I want to see them give it a shot with this, with this lineup.

• 1:47:34Bill Simmons?

  Did you watch any summer league?

• 1:47:37Speaker 03

  Who'd I watch? Oh, I've watched, uh, LeBaron. I watched some Philly summer league. Yeah.

• 1:47:43Bill Simmons?

  Hugo finally got it going in the summer league. Well, we, we don't get to, I was excited at 28 the other day. I was like, thank God. Uh, we still don't know what's gonna happen with LeBron. He's just dragging this thing out and I don't really want to talk about it.

• 1:47:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, but did you see like Silver was like, this is, this is like getting a little bit problematic for schedule making and stuff?

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:04Bill Simmons?

  Cause it's, cause if he goes to Golden State, that team's going to be on all the time.

• 1:48:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:08Bill Simmons?

  I mean, it's, the only one I don't believe is Philly. Cause I just, you know, he's got a 12 year old daughter. He's just gonna be like, hey.

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  If you've got a 12 year old daughter.

• 1:48:17Bill Simmons?

  Moving to Philly.

• 1:48:18Speaker 03

  Why not then, then is Cleveland really in, in the cards if it's, if he's got a 12 year old daughter and the most important thing is to be home?

• 1:48:26Bill Simmons?

  And she's like a big volleyball player, apparently, but I just, I've had a 12 year old daughter. I don't, I don't think she would have been psyched when she was 12 of, we were like, hey, we're moving. We're going to Philly.

• 1:48:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:39Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna make all new friends. Like I, I just don't know how well it would go. I still think it's, I, I've never wavered. I think it's gonna be Cleveland. It was interesting. The Kashi market and the Polly market, all the prediction ones all spiked. That it was gonna be, um, that it was gonna be Miami. And it got up to like 55%.

• 1:48:57Speaker 03

  Was that because of Pat Riley's press conference where he was like, we're still having one big one?

• 1:49:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. This feels like a long con. I would still bet on Cleveland. I think that's gonna happen. I just think they're trying to figure out how to actually get him on the team where they don't have to just pay him the minimum.

• 1:49:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:49:12Bill Simmons?

  Cause you have to like trade somebody or whatever. We'll see.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  I think he should go to Golden State. I think it would be such an amazing story. I think it would be must see. I would, I would be so excited to watch him and Steph play together, even if it was kinda like a, a seniors golf tournament. It would be awesome.

• 1:49:28Bill Simmons?

  I am, I've been rooting for that since April. I hope it happens. I feel like it's gonna be Cleveland. How was, uh, how was your guest hosting appearance before we go? Did you enjoy it?

• 1:49:37Speaker 03

  You know what? Hosting is hard, but it was really fun. It was just, but it was like, duh, this is a little harder than it looks. It's one thing to like throw alley oops to Greenwald for 55 minutes. It's another thing. Yeah.

• 1:49:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, thanks for doing that.

• 1:49:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:53Bill Simmons?

  Good to see you. Thanks for letting me. Thanks, everybody who watched on Netflix. Thanks to, uh, Gahan and Eduardo and Jack and everybody, uh, behind the scenes. I'm gonna be back on Wednesday with one more podcast and then, uh, rewatchables pitch. And then there's rumors. We, we might be doing a live rewatchables on Netflix a week from Monday. Stay tuned. Uh, I'm, I'm excited for that one and nervous as well. Good to see you, CR. Thanks.

• 1:50:15Speaker 03

  Good to see you too, bud. Welcome back.

• 1:50:16Bill Simmons?

  Bye, everybody.

• 1:50:23Bill Simmons?

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• 1:51:01Bill 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 6. Get tickets now.