Latest / Brodie Pod / Ep. 36 World Cup Mega Preview, Brendan Soresby vs NCAA, Knicks up 2-1, & UFC 250

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Ep. 36 World Cup Mega Preview, Brendan Soresby vs NCAA, Knicks up 2-1, & UFC 250 · Brodie Pod

• Brodie Pod: Welcome back, everyone, episode thirty-six of the Brody Pod. Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube, turn on those notifications, follow us on Spotify, rate the show five stars. We'll stay up to date on the show. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter slash X, and Facebook and YouTube Reels at Brody Pod at Brody Pod everything. Matt, how you doing? Doing great, man. Yeah, have a good weekend. Wasn't bad, dude. Yeah. Other than there was no NBA finals over the weekend. Sure. They deserve a little break. But there was I did see that Dave Portnoy complained that there wasn't a game last night on Sunday night. He was saying there should be. You know, it's Sunday night, everybody's off, you know, nobody's has play in Sunday night. That'd be a perfect a perfect opportunity to to have a you know finals game. Yeah, instead it was a bunch of college baseball that ended up getting suspended, but you're in the super regional right now, getting ready for the college world series. Probably not gonna talk too much about that. This week on the podcast, 'cause I think that starts next week. But, Matt, I did have a question for the listeners slash viewers. I was I was thinking the other day. I was like, man, we're we're on all these platforms. We're on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. So I just want to ask people, how leave us in the leave us a comment. Drop a comment. You know what you're feeling. But how do you consume Brody Pod? Are you over on YouTube? If you're if you're over on Spotify, if you're over on the Apple, we probably won't see it if you're on the Apple, 'cause It's really tough to track everything over there. But yeah, let us know. Or if you just follow the clips on TikTok or Instagram, you know. If you fall if you're following the clips, you probably aren't seeing this, but yeah, let us know how you consume Brody Pod. With that we get into a little bit of the show preview. So this week, we didn't think there was gonna be a lot. Turns out there is a lot. Last episode we said there wasn't a lot, we're probably gonna be done short. Ended up going the same amount of time. This one is probably gonna be a longer episode, but we say that it'll probably end up being a shorter episode. That's just We normally lie, apparently. A show preview starting off, we got our Brodies of the Week, and then we're gonna do an NBA Finals recap so far between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs. Then we're gonna shift gears and we're gonna talk about the FIFA World Cup that's starting up this week. We also brought in an expert for that. So it's gonna be a good interview. And ⁓ yeah, I think if you're a casual soccer fan, you're gonna enjoy this interview. If you're a if you're someone that likes the nitty-gritty of soccer, you might still like this interview, but You probably won't like me and Matt speaking too much in it. And then we're gonna finish off the show with ⁓ some of the other sports, other news that's going around and a new game that Matt has for us. Matt's always finding new games to bring into the show and try out. So I think this is gonna be a good one. We're gonna it probably won't be something that we get exactly, but we're gonna keep it going until we get it perfect. That probably gives away a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'd like to tease tease before we get too far in the show. Yeah, a lot of these guys probably played it and girls. Yeah, and girls. It's viral last week. Yeah, don't give it away, Matt. But let's lead off. And this might be giving it away. Let's lead off with Brody's of the week. Matt, go ahead and start us off. So my first Brody, I guess his parents knew that eventually he would be on the show. He would be a talking point of the show. Mr. Brody Bumila. Ooh. Bumila Brody. Bumila. Six nine left handed pitcher for. Bishop Fehan High School out of Massachusetts. We had to go deep in the bag for this, Bradley Louise. I got deep, dude. Baseball America projected him as a first round pick in the upcoming draft. He's ranked number six overall. Six nine left handed pitcher. Recently, I guess not recently. This was like a month ago that he had this insane game, but we I just couldn't fit it in. You know, had a lot going on. Had a lot to talk about past few episodes. But I mean it this is this deserves spotlight. It a twenty strikeout no hitter on May ninth. Twenty strikeouts? Correct. So twenty strikeouts, no hitter on May 9th, which is almost a month ago, but still it deserves praise. ⁓ he was throwing upwards of a hundred and one miles an hour. Jeez, in high school? Yes. That's actually insane. I mean, a left hand pitcher, by the way. Left hand starting pitcher is kinda rare. And MLB. This guy's a first ⁓ projected first overall pick. Yeah, projected first round pick, ranked six somehow. I don't know who the five others ahead of them are. But if you're throwing I know it's again, I know it's high school, but if you're if you're throwing twenty strikeouts and you're throwing upwards of a hundred and one miles an hour as a starting pitcher, we're gonna see him and the pros in three years. Yeah, once he works his way through the farm system. Something like that. I mean, being six nine obviously helps tremendously. But I don't know if that would lead to early injury or not. I know. I did just look up when the MLB draft is. You wanna take a guess, Matt? I don't know. I d I did know the series while I looked it up, but it it turns out it's like in the midway point of the season. It's starts July eleventh through July thirteenth. Interesting. But normally a lot of the guys that get drafted, they don't come in and play immediately. They to the pharmacist and they go to AA or Is it ⁓ double A, triple A? Yeah. And then they worked their way up to the majors. It's rare that ⁓ will be the show. It's rare that a first round pick or that a a rookie comes in and and plays initially. Yeah, unless it's someone I mean, even Paul Skeens, I think, started off a little bit like they just have to go do some assignments in the minor leagues. Like even White Langford for the Rangers, I think he started out and now Paul Skins I think Paul Skins ended making like the opening day roster the next year. Yeah. But I think he started off with the This guy is on that trajectory. I tell you what, dude, we're seeing some some studs come out for baseball now. Like it might be the shohei effect, but we're starting to see some like the the generations that are moving up, we're starting to see more and more just talent come through. I know like it's always weird with high school, like kids getting drafted, but that's just the way ⁓ L B does it. It's not like how, you know, when LeBron was drafted back in the day out of high school, where to now like the NBA's made a role where you have to go to college. Like ⁓ O B is like, we'll take you as early as possible. Yeah. And this guy has he's I'm assuming he's gonna go to college and and pitch. He's got a couple extra years to get even faster. All right. Well listen so open invite to Brody Bamilia wanna come on the show. You are a Brody, so feel free to come do an interview. Yeah. So speaking of fantastic pitchers that throw really fast. Jacob Mizarowski. And tall guys. And tall guys. And his second year, he is seven and two so far. He's t which is tied sixth from for starting pitchers. He's a one and a half ERA, which is second. And he has a hundred and sixteen strikeouts, which is first among starting pitchers. As recent as yesterday, he threw a one correct he threw a one hundred and three point seven mile an hour pitch against the Rockies, which w is The fastest by a starter since tracking began in two thousand and eight. That's insane. Which I'm gonna take a little liberty here. I think that might be the fastest ever. Because I don't I mean, before two thousand and eight, I know there's been a bunch of good pitchers, but as a starter, yeah, that might be let me fact check that real quick. That's gotta be up there. Okay, so it is up there. But I do remember this. A roll dischapman has the record right now. It's at like one hundred five ⁓ it's one hundred five point eight is the fastest. That was in two thousand ten. Right. But he's not a starter. So you I think you are right. I think he's a closer. People say like Nolan Ryan holds like the mythical record. There was actually like no recording, but apparently he's throwing a pitch one hundred and six or something. That's like a it's like a wives tale or something. Yeah. Like Babe Ruth. ⁓ god, well don't stir the pot too much. ⁓ but Jacob Mizarowski, I don't know if you follow the pitching ninja on TikTok. Do you follow pitching ninja? I recently found him on TikTok and it is he does like deep dives into MLB pitchers. Apparently this Jacob Mizorowski got into an argument with his coach in one of the games that he was playing. And he was like the coach was like ready to take him out. There's a recent like yesterday. Might have been yesterday or the day before. Or not day before, but He's ready to take him out like the seventh inning or something. And he told his coach, like, no, I'm staying in and I'm finishing this inning. Which some people might take it as a little bit of a diva move, but if I'm an MLB manager or a fan of a team, like, I want a guy that's like, no, I got this, leave me in. Let me let me get myself out of the situation I got myself into. He struck the next two batters out. So. Yeah. Well, he gave up a hit, and the MLB pitch the MLB manager was like, I'm gonna come out there moving. He's like, Don't you dare. I'm handling this. And then he struck out the next two batters. Yeah. He's a dog, man. This is his second year, by the way. Yeah, I heard a I didn't say that earlier. Yeah, I heard a bunch about him last year. Like he was like the he's like they were like talking about Paul Schemes and they're Well this Jacob Mizrowski guy is pretty good. And then yeah, it looks like he's building on, he's becoming even more of a dominant force this year. So we don't do a lot of ⁓ L B talk, but when we do, it's should I say shutout? Lights out. Wouldn't be right. So he's got a fun fun little tidbit about him as well. He's got a a glove that is Pokemon themed. Custom made. He's got a Gengar Pokemon card ⁓ in his glove. Like there's a sleeve on the top of his glove. I think his glove is purple, which fits with Gengar, but he's got a Pokemon card in the glove. What? And and a sleeve on the glove. I'm looking this up right now. If I can find it, I'll include a picture Okay, yeah, he actually has Gengar in the on the glove. Yes. Is he pitch with this in the game? I think he does. I mean it works. I think the whole glove is purple, right? Yeah, the whole glove's purple and it does have a it has a a Pokemon card in the glove in the net of the glove. Yeah. It's so sick, dude. Which is a big step for nerds around the world. That an MLB One of the best MLB pitchers is coincidentally a nerd, quote unquote. Okay, so I can't I don't see a picture of him using it in a game, but there is a picture just like from his Instagram. Yeah, maybe he doesn't use it in the game. I don't know. It's like a warm up game. That's absolutely gotta tear up the PSA ranking of that card. Or maybe it increases it, the value, 'cause it was if he uses an MLB game. There's only one that's been in Mr. Ass is Globe, so also I'd like to know what the ⁓ what the story is on Y Gengar. Out of all the Pokemons, I'd probably yeah, I guess maybe it's his favorite, but I like out of all the Pokemon, that's probably not the one I would go with. It's one of my favorites. That's why I thought it was extra cool. Yeah. ⁓ you ⁓ Pokemon Nerd. A little bit. Support Pokemon on the podcast on Brody Five. Shout out. Getting into my Brodies of the Week, my first Birdie of the Week, I'm gonna go with Judge Ken Curry. I'd be like, ⁓ Judge, that's weird. It is weird, but not for this situation. Judge Ken Curry was the judge assigned to the case for Brennan Soresby's eligibility. And he was granted an injunction, actually, Monday. This podcast is coming out Wednesday. We're recording it on Monday. So today he was granted the injunction. And he will be eligible to play for the twenty twenty six season for Texas Tech. Soresby, if anyone doesn't know, have you if you've been living under a rock, Brandon Soresby was ESPN's number one transfer portal quarterback this offseason, signed with Texas Tech, and then got into a little bit of hot water around the gambling involved in the sport. He has acknowledged placing thousands of bets and wagering approximately ninety thousand dollars on college and professional sports over the past four years during his time at Indiana, Cincinnati, and it says at Texas Tech, but I don't know if he actually ever placed any bets at Texas Tech. ⁓ 'cause he just signed here in the off season. But this included wagers on his own team back in twenty twenty two. Like I said, this injunction came from Judge Ken Curry, who there was a previous judge assigned to this case, but he had ties to Texas Tech, so this guy stepped in and ⁓ it granted the injunction. ⁓ in short, if you don't know what this means, the injunction, it's basically acts as a restraining order against the NCAA because they initially said that Soresby was ineligible to play and Soresby wouldn't have had time to present his case in trial. on like why he should be able to play until after the season. So this case will probably end up just getting dropped because Sworesby won't have any eligibility after this season, but it's absolutely caused an uproar in college sports. Everyone's upset about it. I think ninety nine percent of the people are upset about it unless you're a Texas Tech fan. I am a Texas Tech fan. I'll go ahead and say that now. I'm happy we're getting a quarterback to play, but there is some, you know, gray area of like what this means for the sport. Matt, do you think this is something that is good for the poor people are saying this sets a bad precedent for college football and just college sports and moving forward? Is that something you agree with? I mean, ⁓ obviously, yes, sets a bad precedent. Do I think he should be able to play it? Yes. And he's just a kid at the end of the day. A kid with a you know, a a problem. And if he can get it sorted out through the ⁓ the schools help him out. So I mean if he can get it under control I don't see a reason why you shouldn't play. But also I mean this opens a whole can of worms for other issues that might get overlooked besides gambling, you know? Yeah. I know that the the whole big there's like a the Big Twelve commission is like having meetings and stuff about this. I think I they're all kind of I guess upset. From this, ⁓ you know, from from what transpired there. ⁓ I don't know if that will lead to anything more, but I guess they're upset about it. Yeah, this isn't a good reason. It's not like Swarzby's getting off scot free either. He I forgot to mention he is gonna have to serve a two game suspension at the start of the year for Texas Tech, which Texas Tech was talking a lot of trash to Texas about wanting to play them in the first week of college football, so not having Swarsby would hurt for that. But I People are upset that the NCAA th I guess the ruling just means nothing. I'm be honest, the NCAA's kind of been like a shell organization, it seems like, for the past couple of years around f college football. Like if you look back to when players started getting paid to play college football, that was something that didn't come down from the NCAA. It was kind of a judge ruling again. So it kind of seems like the legal system keeps having to overstep the NCAA. And I I think this is why we saw Nick Saban kind of in court a little bit. Like it needs to be a better governing body 'cause it seems like everyone's kind of just like disrespects the NCAA now. Like it's not really the the governing body that it once was where it was punishing kids for breaking the rules or something. I th I don't know. I think this does set a bad precedent moving forward. Like, yes, now players, if they're gambling on their teams, they can get out of it. They can just challenge it with an injunction. But Also, there's a little bit of a gray area because like it was only some of the games that he played in. He didn't it wasn't like he was betting on his team to lose either. So I I I go back and forth on it. Obviously, like I kind of have to take my bias out of it being a Texas Tech fan. It's still probably something that is not good for college football. It it's probably it's not call it's not good for college football, but they need to find a better governing body. Cause it seems like it just keeps going to like the legal rulings on this. Yeah, and like I said in the previous podcast, Calvin Ridley got caught gambling on his team. He got suspended for an entire season. But that's NFL and that's like, you know, grown men. Grant I mean, I know college guys are grown men, but they're still kids. Right. They still make mistakes. But I don't know if that that punishment would be correct for Soresby or not. I don't know. It's Like you said, it's such a gray area. And I will say this is gonna be something that is not gonna be done just now. Like, yeah, the ruling came out, but think about all the all the ⁓ different schools that Texas Tech's gonna go and play at this year. You think their fans aren't gonna be yelling this? You think this isn't gonna be something that still is a distraction moving forward for Texas Tech? Like this is something they gotta deal with all season when they go to like a a rival school or somewhere else or just like fans in general, you know, wanna you know, they yell crazy things at games to begin with, now that you've just given a more ammo to yell at. And if the he comes out and he's not playing the best, everyone's gonna get on him quickly. Especially Texas Tech fans. It's gonna be a wild distraction. So I either way, I think this is it's good for Texas Tech to get their quarterback, but it also might be bad 'cause this is just gonna cause more distractions in the season move. I think we got around that situation pretty good, Matt. Maybe Will Hammond gets some plan time this season. Yeah. Well he definitely will in the first I just don't know if he's cleared to play the first two weeks. I'll be interested to see who the quarterback is. Well, I did see on on Twitter somebody was like, Texas should now take that deal. Yeah. To play tech in the first game of the season. That's probably what it is waiting on. That'd be some crazy sucker stuff. Some frowned upon whatever. Moving on to my next Brody of the Week. This one's around tennis. Alexander and forgive me my name forgive me here on the name pronunciation, Alexander Zerev. Z Zverev, Alexander Zaverev. He won the Rul Come on. Come on. It's it's all the European names, get me. Won the Roland Guerros this past weekend. It's his first major title. He was previously 0 3 in finals and majors. He lost in the US Open in 2020. He lost Roland Garros in 2024 and the Australian Open in 2025. Granted, he's been like a superstar in the tennis world. He's like the number two ranked tennis player right now. And he absolutely went on a run in Roland Garros. He's the first German man to win a major since nineteen ninety six Australian Open. That was Matt, you want to take guess? And what? It was Boris Becker. You weren't getting it. It's I mean it's I'm looking at it right now. You're looking at the notes. That's the first German man to win the Roland Garros since nineteen thirty seven. That was Henner Heckel. He also becomes the seventh oldest man to win his first major at twenty nine years of age. He's battled a lot of injuries. ⁓ there's been some legal stuff too. He's kind of a divisive figure in tennis. ⁓ it's good to see him get over the hump. And ⁓ yeah, it was all I just watched the final on Sunday. Like we said, there wasn't a lot of sports on Sunday. I watched this Sunday morning. So also it was really hot. A lot of tennis players were complaining about the heat and rolling gharrows. It's like come down here to Texas where it's like ninety to a hundred. In the summer. I think that was it for Brodies of the Week. Moving on, Matt. I'm surprised none of us chose the Brody of the Week that was involved in the NBA finals. The Knicks currently are leading the series 2-0, and game three is going on as we record the podcast. We will not know the answer to what happened in game three until after this podcast, ⁓ even though this episode's dropping on Wednesday. Do a little recap here. Game one: the Knicks won 105 to 95. In game two, the Knicks also won that 105 to 104. Both those were in San Antonio. And so now the Spurs are the first team to go down 0-2 at home. And also it's the first time that the Spurs have just trailed in a final series. Yeah, I know they won the first game against OKC, which was in OKC, which was a big deal for them still in the first the first game of the series, especially on the road. Now they gotta go into MSG. Play two more games down ⁓ two. It's gonna be a much tough crazy hostile environment. I mean that might be the hardest environment to play in in the NBA. Especially for a fan base as starved as the Knicks fans are. Yeah. Fifty years since their last title. And ⁓ I will also say, like, it seemed like the Spurs they're just they're acting like a very young team. ⁓ I know game one, it kind of seemed like Jalen Brunson took over in the fourth quarter. Game two, I mean the Spurs overcame a fourteen ⁓ deficit in the fourth, had a chance to possibly go down and win the game. It was tied one ⁓ four, one ⁓ four, and then Wimby passes it in to the back of Stefan Castle. Jalen Brunson grabs the ball, gets fouled, shoots the free throw, makes one of them, and then Wimby also then has a chance again to win it, and just that it doesn't drop. Just seems like they're a young team. And I will s shout out to the Knicks. It seems like they are First all, they haven't lost since it's like May, since actually since April. It went undefeated through May. They're on a thirteen game winning streak, probably longer by the time this podcast comes out. They are absolutely fired on all cylinders. Flip that. What? Flip that. Now they're gonna lose tonight. You just wait, I got more coming. I got more in the chamber to to to curse the Knicks. But I'm just I'm just shocked at how well this Knicks team is playing. Like I thought maybe the rust and rest would affect them a little bit. It did not at all. It seems like even Jalen Brunson not having like the cre I mean, like he's still averaging, I think, thirty in this finals through the first two games. But like the rest of the role players are stopped stepping up. Like we had Dan on last week to talk about this finals, and it seems like Landry Shamit, one of their one of their like bench players has come off. He's shooting lights out. The cats absolutely playing bully ball with Wemby. Josh Hart's getting every freaking rebound or loose ball on the ground. It It's just inc incredible. Mikhail Bridges playing out of his mind. It just seems like this whole Knicks team is cohesively playing so well. It seems like they're a team of destiny right now. Yeah. And I you said the Spurs are playing like a young team, but Dylan Harper on the Spurs rookie, their first round pick this year, he's playing like a dog. He's playing like he's been there before. And he he kind of looks like the only one outside of Wimby. I know they need ⁓ Every year in the playoffs there's just somebody on on the playoff team that you need like a playoff riser. Right? Like Jalen Brunson, playoff riser. When it comes down to it, when he needs to to make plays and to make shots, he does it. Same thing with our beloved Luca. I mean Kat's been rising in this finals too. There's been a lot of great game too. Great game too. It's like Wemby wasn't even affecting him in the last game. Yeah. And I will say Jalen Brunson in these in the fourth quarter of these games has absolutely gone nuclear. He's taken over the game. I think game two, he went out with like a knee injury and then he came back. Was that was game two, right? I think so. Yeah. I know game one he had like fourteen or thirteen. And the in game two, he goes out in the first half with that knee injury, then comes back in the second half and absolutely goes nuclear. ⁓ great stuff out of Jalen Brunson there. I will say game four is going on As this podcast, this podcast comes out on Wednesday. Game four is on Wednesday night in MSG. And I'll go ahead and say it, Matt. You want to talk about curses? I'll go ahead and say it. Congrats to the New York Knicks on winning their third NBA title since 1973. Switching up quick, huh? Fantastic. Why okay, you remember from the preview last week, I said I said they the Spurs needed to split the series at home. They needed to go go one and one. They did not. It's going ⁓ two back to MSG. Are we are we serious? Like Before the CZ even or before the series even started, you had I had Spurs and Seven. I still have I s listen, if it goes to a game seven, give me Spurs, but I don't think we're gonna get there. I'm hoping If Spurs take it to another Game Seven, that would be insane. Well I'm glad you're talking about that because if they end up do going to a game seven, we will do a preview next week because game six is Tuesday, June sixteenth. Game seven will be Friday, June nineteenth. So we'll be able to do a preview for that, but I don't think we're gonna be talking about it. That's why I'm getting ahead before next week. I want to make sure that we're ahead of all the other clips out there that are gonna have the Knicks winning. Yeah, fair. So I want to make sure I get out there. Congrats to Jalen Brunson winning finals MVP. Congrats to New York Knicks. You guys deserve it. Hopefully New York is still here next week. Yeah, adding on to that, I do have a little stat here. Teams to score A hundred exactly one hundred and five points in consecutive finals games. The nineties Pistons, who ended up winning the finals. And then as recent as 2019, the Toronto Raptors, who also won the NBA finals. In the game one, Knicks scored a 105. Game two, the Knicks scored 105. That's consecutive. No, I so I think I'm right to say congrats to the New York Knicks. All signs you're pointing towards New York. Burning down. Yeah, we're gonna test this Brody Pod curse. I hope I I hope I do curse it to a game seven, but I d I just don't think we're gonna get there. And I I think by the time next week it's gonna be over. Dude, a if Landry Shaman is shooting, what, fifty percent from three, I don't think there's anything we can do to to curse that team. Yeah. No, it's we'll see. I mean, don't get me wrong, if the Spurs go in there and if the Spurs I mean I mean even if the Spurs win one, they go down three one. There should be a Wimby takeover game where he scores like forty five and twenty rebounds and they win off that. There's there's gotta be at least one of those. Yeah. Maybe maybe it's tonight, maybe it's Wednesday, but But it's it's tough when the Knicks haven't lost since April. Yeah. Since the NFL draft, the Knicks haven't lost. It's just hard to to see the Spurs getting swept, but they're I want them to win one, but the Knicks just playing so well. Like everybody on that team is playing well. I mean, yeah, whether they do get it done in four or get it done in six, I think the Knicks got it wrapped up. Yeah, do you think Brunson hasn't had the best first two games? Like he shot poorly and they still come out on top. And game game two was rigged for the Spurs. Some of those calls by the refs were absolutely insane. That was that that was Adam Silver trying to get the Spurs a game. And the Knicks accusation. That's high accusing. I mean stretched that that was it was it was crazy on some of the calls that the Spurs were getting. So I'm I'm gonna go ahead and say it congrats to the Knicks. And ⁓ yeah, we'll tell what's we'll test this curse. Yeah, this is why I had the OKC though beating the Spurs, just based off of them being there before and the Spurs are just too young, inexperienced. No. And the Knicks are obviously much more experienced. And it's and it's showing. I will throw one more tit. Tibet out there and if the Knicks win, the Knicks win. But do you remember the last European overcome and O two deficit? Giannis. Okay. Mikhail Bridges is on the New York Knicks. He was on that Suns team. And Giannis went and rattled four straight to win it. So I did yeah, I saw like a a meme saying that Mikel Bridges has been up two o in the finals before, and there's been a a very good European on the other side. Yeah. He's got PTSD, so granted that one, Giannis ⁓ the Bucks went into Phoenix lost the first two and then they won the next two at home. But I think the Spurs, they're going on the road now for game three, game four. I just think it's over. Whether it's this week or next week, ⁓ unless we get to a game seven. That's the only caveat I'll say, but I I just don't see it getting to a game seven. Me neither. Moving on, last thing before we get to our FIFA interview, just real quick, I want to shout out the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. ⁓ I watched game three, which Vegas won. ⁓ double overtime five four. The Hurricanes were down zero four to Vegas and then in the third period came back to score four. Tie it, sent it into overtime, which like I said, they just lost in double overtime. It was winning a they won a Vegas won off a ricochet off the inboards and off a Carolinas goalie into the net. So it was kind of crazy. But just shout out this is the highest scoring Stanley Cup final in forty five years through three games. So it's been absolutely electric. Some people are saying this is the greatest Stanley Cup finals of all time. So if you have anything that you want to watch, I highly suggest throwing this on. It's been absolutely electric. If you like scoring, this is the series for you, especially in the Stanley Cup final. That's kind of my issue with hockey and shocker. It's just not high scoring, you know? It's a lot of it's just making it worth more points. A lot of very good defense. But I mean, the the NHL finals have been Very high scoring. No. So I mean it's been like I said, I'm I'm rooting for Carolina. They are down two one in that series. I think I d I think by the time this podcast comes out, they'll play game four. But Carolina's a fun team. Vegas, they've they're kind of the new kids on the block, but they keep being in the Stanley Cup final. They've already won it. I'd just like to see Carolina do it. I like the I like the teams that go on a run. Moving on, we will come back and do our FIFA World Cup interview with our expert and Get ready for the soccer that's about to go down. All right, we're back to do our FIFA World Cup preview. And we've brought on the expert Tavis. Tat Tavis, thank you for coming on. We're gonna talk a little bit of soccer. ⁓ he has a good soccer background and way more than me and Matt. Probably me and Matt together times ten. He actually understands the sport, so we're coming to him and we're gonna use some of our general questions to get a little specific, but ⁓ overall just happy to have you on the show. I appreciate it, guys. ⁓ Try not to let you down. I mean it's should be pretty easy. No, you absolutely stepped in. We needed someone and you were you were the right man to step in. You might listen, if this goes well, you could become the soccer expert full time for Brody Pot. Every every four years you come on for the World Cup. Yeah, there's tons to talk about. I mean, not every four years. You got tournaments every every summer. So There we go. I actually did he Not only does he know the sport, he played the sport, huh? Did play the sport. So didn't. Tried to at least. It can teach us what the offsides is. Still learning that. Still learning. Still learning that in hockey. So. Well, okay. Tavis, there's a lot of concern with this this World Cup being here at home in America. FIFA World Cup. It's coming here. A lot of Americans are going to get introduced to soccer for the first time. A new generation, just kind of starting off here. Let's see if we can get some of those general Americans to become soccer fans by the end of this interview. If someone watches the Super Bowl, what is the first thing that they need to understand about the World Cup and is it the equivalent of the Super Bowl? Or would you say it's even bigger? The World Cup's bigger. I think when you when you look at the grand scheme of things, American football is played mostly here, right? Soccer is in other countries when you get down to the nitty gritty, South America, you get into Brazil, Argentina is a language, right? When you think of Brazilian soccer you have the yogo bonito, which is just beautiful. Just it's almost like dancing on the pitch, right? So it it's almost a love language down there for them. Is it a playstyle? Yeah, it's just how you play. How'd you pronounce that? Yogo bonito? Yogo bonito. Yeah, it's I mean it's great. great Dinho, ⁓ Neymar, who we just talked about a little bit ago, just they're they're fluid on the ball. They look beautiful doing it and you know, and they get the Brazilian flair. Especially I've seen the the commercial with Timothy Chalamet and the three on three soccer. Is that like a part of the culture there in Brazil as well where they have like the little goals and it's like Yeah, playing in the favelas and stuff. Yeah, the favelas. For sure. ⁓ the Call of Duty maps. Yeah, for real. ⁓ but I mean over you go over in Tokyo and stuff and they have, you know, pitches on top of roofs and they just play. So it really is a global sport. Yeah, it's it's it's more global than anything, I would say, you know For us as Americans, if we want to take anything away from the tour we're gonna have over the next month here is in order for us to do anything at this stage, we need to mimic other countries and what they do for the sport. Can't put our own flair on it. not when you have baseball, basketball, and football that take the reins and even hockey. Speaking on that kind of same breath, if the United States was to somehow pull off this World Cup. We had a question last week on the Brody Pod, but where would this rank amongst like the biggest moments in American sports? We have the Miracle on Ice. ⁓ the USA hockey team just won it again this past year in the Olympics. We had the NBA go over, the Redeem team go and win with LeBron, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, all those guys taking over. Would this be bigger than those moments? I think the only one comparable would be the Miracle on Ice, right? You look at it as basketball, we should dominate compared to every every other nation. Right. Football, like American football, I think we would dominate if that was ever a thing. I know they've talked about it in the future. We are fourteenth in the world right now, world rankings for soccer. And I don't think that's even close to where we should be. ⁓ I think they're being a bit modest just because of how we hold ourselves. But it it's going to be interesting. I think this if we were to somehow win By the grace of God, it would be very, very outspoken. And I think a lot of people would start to look at it a different way. But moving on to some of the team USA storylines, Tavis, we got to try and get these Americans to care about the US team. ⁓ I have my memories from 2014. Tim Howard absolutely having electric, you know, being able to lead us to, I think it was the quarterfinals that year. ⁓ 2018 we didn't qualify. I think 2022 we also made it to the quarterfinals. But what would you say is like a realistic expectation for this USA team? I know you say we're top fourteen ranked right now. Is there a chance that we see a Cinderella run out of this USA team? Or do you think it would if we made to the round sixteen, that would be considered we're we're batting a thousand. We're over what we're over our skis. Yeah, I think making round of sixteen is should be our goal. I think every year, every team's goal should be to win it. But realistic expectations is if we make round of sixteen Good if we can win the round of sixteen and push into a round of eight game, I think that's you know, everyone should be jumping for joy. what would you say the ceiling is? Would you would you say the ceiling is winning it or would you put like round of four? Round round of eight. Round of eight would be the absolute ceiling. Yeah, I don't I don't think we beat if we get down to the nitty gritty of the eights, I don't think we beat anybody that's gonna be there. Okay. You said we s we shouldn't be ranked fourteen. Where do you think we should be ranked? You think it would rank that high because the We're hosting it? I I would say yes, right? 'Cause Mexico's ranked above I think Mexico's fifteen and then Canada is right at the bottom like lower twenties. Realistically, I don't agree with FIFA's rating 'cause Italy hasn't qualified in three World Cups and somehow they're still like eight, which makes no sense. I I did like what they did over this knowing that we've already qualified, we did take harder matches going up into this World Cup, as we I mean, we just played Germany on Saturday and that game was rough. And I think that we needed that. ⁓ I think we'll I think we should be around the twenty area, especially with this group that Pochettino's taking. I I I I'm not hopeful. And I say that 'cause I've played with some of those guys, so I know some of them. Okay. Got a little got an inside scoop there. So what would you say is like so a successful run would be round of sixteen? Yeah, we have to make round of sixteen. Like if we don't make round of sixteen, like changes need to happen. Who do we be beating on our way to to run a 16? Don't tease it yet, Matt. He's got all the he's got all the matches coming up. Okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. You're getting you're getting ahead. That's good question, though. He's you're key. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ so Tavis, in the same breath of the American team, which American player becomes a household name by July? Like when we get to these wood round rounds that we're going on a run on, who is the guy that, you know Matt, I know you brought him up last podcast. Christian ⁓ pulsinic pulsinic? Polisic. Polisic. Christian Polisic. You didn't even know his name. I mean, come on. Well, I didn't even know he was on the team. I thought he was gonna I thought he wasn't gonna make it this year. I thought that he just changed house after last year or after last World Cup. He I think he's one of the ones that's just gonna stay. He has to. That's just what it is. Is there any any new superstars you'd say? I think Balogon has to have a good World Cup. If he wants to move from Monaco during the summer transfer window, I think Balogon needs to have a good World Cup. West U on the USA team? Yep. Okay. He's a it's funny how it works, right? Balogon's definitely not American. He's he's English. You're allowed to have one change. You're allowed to have one change of allegiance, essentially. So he he actually signed for America, the US rather than England because he he felt that he wasn't going to make that squad. And rightfully so, they probably have the best striker right now in Harry Kane, so is it like the Olympics where like one of your parents has to be from that country or you can just pledge allegiance to that country, you're good. From the start, one of your parents, like you have to be either born we have several, like Sergio Des was born in Germany, I believe. Okay. So but he's American by default for parents and stuff like that. But you're allowed to switch think once after you do like twelve years or something like that. Something it's something weird. Okay, so there is like some parameters. You can't just be like switching teams just 'cause you like, ⁓ I'm not gonna make this team. Correct. Okay. I think the biggest name for me, Weston and Christian will do good. Weston's a great guy. The person that I want to see step up and make a difference is Malik Tillman. Malik Tillman. Okay. He had a big where does he play? ⁓ Byron Leverkusen in Germany. So he plays as he plays as a 10. I don't know if they'll deploy him as a 10, which is pretty much behind the striker. You're gonna have to learn your numbers. Every every position's associated with the number. Matt, how many how many people are out there on the field at once? For ⁓ both teams combined? Yeah. Twenty eight. I'm gonna say twenty four. Twenty two. Twenty two. Okay. See, this is what we're learning. We're getting ready for the World Cup. I didn't know it either. I just thought that was a funny question. don't know. We learned so much about that. Very funny, good job. Yeah. Okay. Davis, next question here. Does playing at home for the US actually help these teams as help the US team as much as we think? Like for the NFL players, when they're playing at home they play a lot better. It's not even for the fans. I I honestly don't think the American fans are going to help them. What helps them is the the weather. Ooh, I did s okay, I did see there was a little bit about the heat coming up. Like where players are already starting to cramp and friendlies. The Norway team. Yeah, Norway was out sunbathing and everything. There's a big thing about them on Twitter that they were dying in the heat. Okay, yeah. So Norway battle in the heat. Yep. Is there anyone else that's struggling with the heat? England went to Florida, which I think was probably a smart move, but also a terrible move. Wait, did they get to choose where they're playing or they get to they get to choose like where they live in the states while the tournament's yeah they all got ⁓ host cities so like here we have Frisco is hosting Sweden so we'll have s team Sweden got here yesterday. ⁓ so they're at Frisco at at Toyota Stadium FC Dallas. Should we go play some music outside of their hotel room like what the what the OK C Thunder fans were doing to the Spurs? Right. So they have Mansfield has I wanna say Mansfield has a team. So FC Dallas has one, Mansfield has one, Houston has one Every every big city pretty much is hosting a team. I did see that Messi was in college station. They're I think they're actually I think their team is gonna be in KC. Okay. I saw that him and Marcel Reed did a jersey swap. Yeah. No, no, no. Messi Messi didn't do the jersey swap. Marcel Reed just brought his jersey to the picture. Okay. I thought it was a jersey swap, but was like the most Yeah. Like someone one of the big ⁓ FIFA guys that I watch for video games, he ⁓ he was like, I don't know what Marcel Reid was thinking. Like this guy has Pele and Maradona jerseys and any jersey he wants 'cause he's one of the greatest ever play. And Marcel Reed just gave him jersey. He's like, honestly, guys, that's just going. Yeah. He's like, honestly, guy, that's just gonna be used as like a dish towel. And I was like, Well Probably. Yeah, he's probably got plenty of other good jerseys. That's probably just one he's gonna put like in the room that doesn't go in his house a lot, or probably just gonna stay in the box. Okay. Moving on to okay, we talked about some of the weaknesses that the other teams are gonna be battling. What is the biggest weakness for team USA? What do we struggle with? Defense. Well, we do like scoring in this country, so we're not good at that either. So ⁓ no. Yeah. I feel like he's just roasted team USA. This isn't getting anyone fired up at all. No, I mean we we can score. It's going to be a different style than what we're used to under Ponchettino. than we saw with Michael Bradley and ⁓ yeah, our coaches from Argentina. Yep. And so it's gonna be a different style. ⁓ it's gonna be three in the back instead of a traditional four with two wing backs. So essentially what you're looking at is you're gonna have three center backs, right? You have your goalie, three center backs, and you have two wing backs that slide in when we don't when we're out of possession. It's almost like a five it's almost like you're playing five back. Correct. So when we're out of possession, you'll have five in the back. You'll have three center backs and two wing backs, and then your two center mids will drop in to kind of make like a seven. So we're it's almost like we're adding more to the middle of the field and then we can move them back as needed. Versus We're trying to attack through the wings. Okay. Just because we're not strong. We don't have Balogon is good. Haji right is good. Ricardo Pepe is good. But they aren't clinical and they aren't killers. They're not the Zlatani Vahimoviches. They're not the Cristiano Ronaldo up top. You know, they're not these guys that are gonna go in and score you, you know, ten goals in a World Cup. Well, that's what we need. We need to get these guys we gotta get that dog in ⁓ Yeah, well, that's a whole other issue for a whole other day. That starts at the youth youth level. So there's the weaknesses so what would you say is the like what potential matchup do you wanna see most or what Americans wanna see the most? in this World Cup. Maybe in the group stage or possibly less playing or the US is playing or a non US game. Who would you the US? Who would we want to play? I mean obviously Canada or Mexico. We we gotta establish with our neighbors who's better at soccer, but I mean we've done that last, you know, five years. They know they know better to pick on ⁓ Big Bro. But we wanna win all three of our games to get a favorable matchup going into the knockouts. If we could, I I think it would be cool to have a a quarter or a a round of thirty two or a round of sixteen against a Mexico. I don't think it's possible. What about a great break? I the I know last time we were talking beef with them or yeah, England. We were talking beef with them and then we ended up tying ⁓ we're like, this isn't even our top sport, this is y'all's top sport. Like there's a lot of trash talk between us and and England on it. It would have to be late on. So I mean, they'd have to go on a run for sure. Do I think they can do it? Yes. Right. Do I think it they can go on a run? Yes. It's not going to be pretty. Would it be like the round of sixteen late run or it would it be even later? I think it'd be later. I think it'd have to be round of eight, round of four before we play anybody. ⁓ that'd be a lot of pride on the line too. Yeah. Okay. So you're saying you'd like to see England, Mexico, or Canada? Yeah. I mean I would like to see any of ⁓ I just don't know if it's possible. Trying to see. I thought there was five in each group. I guess there's only four. So we is yeah, we're playing all three of ⁓ Our group looks actually pretty I'm not gonna say weak, but it seems like we got a nice favorable matchup in the group stage. So we can play we could play Mexico in the round of sixteen quarter semis or the finals, depending on where we finish in our group and where they finish in their group. Okay. I think that's Do you think that this is the most talented US team ever? From what you've said so far, it does not sound like that. But I know there's been a lot of resources added to soccer recently. I'll say this. I think they have all the talent in the world. I don't think mentally they're there. I think with just like everything else, I think it goes back to errors, right? If you go back to LeBron versus Kobe, Kobe versus MJ, stuff like that. I like I think it's gonna be he's bringing basketball in for us. If if you take Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, those greats, Tim Howard, those guys were determined they weren't soft. I think now the generation that's playing now is a bit softer. I think they're more skillful and more talent. No, we're soft. But I think we're too soft. So but I I mean that goes to LeBron now versus Jordan, right? What era could they run? I think both of them would do well in either era, but it's just a different game. Correct. So it it's a different game from what we played before. Okay. I was I was gonna ask about the playstyle. So you you talked about the South American playstyle, it's more, I guess, romantic, fluid, whatever you want to call it. Does that differ from Country to country and like continent to continent. Like how does that compare to like European question math? European English is a lot more physical, I would say. They're probably the most physical crunching tackle, like we're gonna get stuck in, you're gonna get bloody, we don't care. Yeah. And Brazil South American teams are more flare. That's where unfortunately you get more of the flopping, the diving and stuff is more South American players when you watch some of these bigger tournaments like we were talking earlier, Champions League, stuff like that. Yeah. When you start watching those competitions, you start seeing more of the South American players diving and stuff like that. And more of your I would say Western Western European teams are more like gonna get stuck in, gonna get physical. So forgive my casualness. Diving? It's like flopping. Diving. LeBron, Shea go into the line after being touched by on the pinky. Right. Okay. I know I know a little bit of ball. I've seen I've seen I just Yeah. I have seen the joke where it looks like they're they're having to get like the stretcher out for ⁓ and then the ref puts up the card and they stand up perfectly fine. Yep. So I I mean in in in my opinion is the game's just transferred to that and I hate it. But that wasn't me playing. I'm glad to know it's not just basketball. It's every sport kind of moving that direction. Yeah. Okay. So moving on to kind of the global scale of this World Cup. Who would you say are the true contenders right now? I know we always have like the powerhouses, whether it's Argentina, Brazil, France, England, Spain, Germany. You know, who are those kind of the true contenders? Is there someone another big country that I'm I'm missing out on that I'm not mentioning? No. France. I think France wins it all. I think that's the safe bet. I think that's the betting man's bet. ⁓ I think the only person that beats France is Mbappe. Yeah. I'm not even really worried about Mbappe, in my opinion. I think Uzman had a ⁓ Tremendous year. Usman de Bailey. One Ballador. I know I'm not saying it correct. I'm American. Forgive me. What's the Ballador? Is that the MVP? Yes, but it's for it would be like every league is qualifying. Like So he's the best of the best. He's the best player in the world right now. Like season to season. Who was it? It was Usman de Bailey. Usman de Bailey. That's a cool name. I think Fran the only team that beats France is France, and that's France's problem. In my opinion. Well, they also are they also a soft team? No, they are Killian's very dramatic, we'll say. Okay. So they struggle with the mental side of things? Yeah, he is from what I've seen, right? Just following him from PSG to Real Madrid, you know, national team, they kinda let him do his thing. He is the star boy. But when he is not the star boy, he gets mad. Who does that sound like, Matt? Try to think of a professional player that that would. Odell Beckham? Ooh, Odell Beckham. AJ Brown? Possibly AJ Brown. Right, AJ Brown. More recently AJ Brown? Yeah. Okay, so you kinda answered my question if you had to pick one team to win the World Cup. You said France. But which powerhouse, maybe out of the teams that I mentioned or something, is just getting too much hype this year? Like, you know, Argentina winning, beating France in the last World Cup. Spain? Spain. Well, what's Spain's I think I think Spain's second in odds to win, right? I find it really hard for Spain to win because they are relying on a nineteen year old kid. Well, they got a young stud. Yeah, their yes their best player and who who's going to be a great player, Lamin Yamal, is who they're gonna have to use. I love these soccer names. I mean, he did it for Barcelona this year. Barcelona did great, but when you're representing your nation on the world stage in front of millions of people globally, all the pressure. That's a lot of pressure for a nineteen year old. Might be something that he struggles with this World Cup, but in the next couple of World Cups he's gonna be Spain's going to be good going forward. I I I think Spain makes a a top four and they might push to a final. But they just being that young, they're just they're ahead of schedule. Almost like kind of what we're seeing with the Spurs right now. Yep. I I I just think if they run into Argentina who have, you know, World Cup winners now since they won, then you run into France who have proven players, England who have proven players. I think they get into a a sticky situation. Now I think skillfully they'll probably they could beat any of those teams on any given day. But I think relying as a nation on a nineteen year old is crazy. That's just kind of crazy. Especially when like soccer's a religion for, you know, these other nations. Yeah. But to us it's just our yeah. Fifth sport. Fifth sport. Sometimes sixth. So out of the also those giant nations, which one do you would you say is like flying under the radar that no one Maybe like the other we talked about Spain getting too much hype. Who's kinda not getting hype that you're like, that's kinda weird. These guys aren't getting like maybe is it a Germany? Like Germany always could go on. No. I don't think Germany's gonna be good this World Cup. ⁓ they didn't look too good against the US and I think that says a lot about the US. ⁓ in that friendly. They always kick at the US. I I I think they played they played ⁓ well. ⁓ I think the team that isn't getting enough hype is going to be Brazil, in my opinion. Absolutely legendary team. I think they have a solid defense. I think their defense is gonna win them games, in my opinion. Jesse some low scoring. I think they they pass around people and I think they I think they can sneak into a a top four. And I think it would be a really good What if they end up going like PK's? Then they have to have offense, right? I mean they're there's still stud there's still studs on the team. I you have Neymar getting called up for his last World Cup, Rafinha's good, little Bobby as we call him, Indrick, ⁓ his favorite player was Sir Barbie Charlton. played for United, Little Bobby, we call him. ⁓ he ⁓ he's going to be good. He's one of those nineteen year old kids that is just way above where he should be. Would you have Matt? Well I was gonna ask I know I know Messi, I know Ronaldo, I know, you know, Neymar. What separates those top tier guys from I guess the rest of the crop? Right? Like Mbappe is super young, but he's still I guess in that top tier as well. Like I guess I know you know, LeBron and MJ, I know what separates them from the rest of the you know, basketball, but what is the you know, what is the the separating factor, I guess, for for shocker? Ronaldo and Messi are above everyone. I don't think we've ever seen, you know, at least in my lifetime, I never get to watch Pele, but that goes back to you know, you're going back to the fifties where Pele could have just been a superhuman and everyone else was electricians. Right? Like Wol like Walt Chamberlain. Yeah like Will Chamberlain back in the day. Right. So But if you're looking right now, Ronaldo Messi, what separates them and what separates them from each other is Messi is gifted, in my opinion. Just touch wise, just I mean, even in life, I don't think he was supposed to live past like 12. He had like a heart defect or something. Shit. And and stuff like that. And now he's, you know, one of the greatest players to ever play. And I got to witness that as a kid. He's just gifted, right? And Ronaldo worked for it. What separates them now Ronaldo looks like a Greek god. Right. What separates those two now from everyone else is mental. Yeah. You saw a little bit of it. Ronaldo can get a little prima donna ish, right? Sometimes he and he definitely did, but you cannot take away everything he's done. Where Killian is just getting started and is already inheriting that, and it's costing him games and teammates and relationships, and that's not good. And almost goes maybe back to Messi and Ronaldo have like you said, they've been around for a while. They've grown up with this pressure. They've already proven that what they can do. Well, maybe not Ronaldo. We'll see. Still has to get the World Cup. But he's still considered one of the greatest players of all time. Messi, same way. Like these other players just haven't had the time or the experience yet to be on that same level as them. Yeah. I the World Cup I don't think is fair to judge a person based on what they've done in their career. Like yes, Messi got the the eluding ⁓ trophy, you know, four years ago in Qatar. Ronaldo still hasn't got one, but Messi has played with better players than Ronaldo has. At a time Ronaldo was the only person on Portugal. If Ronaldo was in his prime in this squad that Portugal is taking, I'm betting on Portugal. Ooh 10,000% because they'll team is pretty good. Portugal's really good. I mean they have the best player in the Prem this year, Bruno Fernandez, who plays for my team United. He broke the assist record this year for us ⁓ in a team that is well below par. I I would almost compare them ⁓ I would put them against the US team and the US might win. And that's and we're talking, you know, top three biggest club ever behind, you know, maybe Real Madrid. So the US isn't that bad. I I mean this this United team is terrible. Okay. ⁓ z I Matt, to sum it up, I'll I'll say it probably looks like Messi and Ronaldo. It looks like when the dads would go play football with the kids in the yard. Yeah. I just I just didn't matter I just well I didn't know if you know kind of age and experience mattered for the World Cup as much as it's not him. No, it it depends, right? Like Namar I think it hurts because he hasn't played at a high level and has the better half of his, you know, last five, six years has been hurt. Messi and Namar have stayed in great shape. Messi's playing in the MLS. Ronaldo's playing in the Saudi league. You know, it's not great competition. They're both kind of doing their own thing, making their money before they, you know, say see you later. Good for them. I think they both earned it at this point. What I think is great and what would be great for the sport is there is a chance those two play each other one last time in this World Cup. Ooh, that would be a big matchup. And one of those dates. So if they both finish one in their bracket or in their group, they could play in Dallas. Ooh. Dallas would shut that down in the round of six or in the round of sixteen. Jerry Jones would have an aneurysm. And then they can play in the quarters in Kansas City. So they had they have three chances to meet. They can meet in the round of sixteen, the quarters, ⁓ which is round of eight, or they can meet in the final. Yeah, we can see I they probably wouldn't be matched up on each other position wise. Yeah. Yeah, no, they're they both play up top. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So my next question here, is there a dominant team in this World Cup that's like, go ahead, ride it in, they're winning it, or it's this c World Cup kind of wide open? Like could could we see a Cinderella possibly? I think the weather is gonna take effect. Like I would say France is that team. Like I I like I said earlier, France is the only team that's going to beat themselves based on on their mental. But with that being said, I think weather is going to play a huge factor 'cause these players aren't used to it. Which is where I think the US has that advantage. So if they wanted to do a Cinderella, it's the now. I think our best ever fit I think our best ever finish was back in ninety four when it was here. And I think that was quarters. Yeah, I think we we keep making it to the quarterfinals, but we can't get past that. Yeah. I was gonna ask us I was gonna ask us earlier, but Messi plays for Miami. Yeah, inner Miami. David Beffan's team. And so he's kinda used to the right the weather already. Correct. Yeah, especially being in Miami. So that will give him a leg up. Yep. I guess against You that of I mean you can say the same about Ronaldo though, playing in Saudi. I mean, that's a desert, right? Fair enough. That was why when we didn't get the US. Not as humid though. Not as humid as Florida though. No, a hundred percent. But also that's why when we did the Guitar World Cup, we moved it to December rather than the middle of summer. Yeah, they did move that. You know what I mean? So yeah, that was off schedule. The time zones, that also could play an effect. I know at least on the fan side of things, Europe's all pissed off at the US because We're playing it in our time zone. We had to wake up at four AM for the guitar final. So I mean we have to do it every year when it's overseas. Yeah, so they can they can sit back. We've we have to watch football at eight AM in Britain sometimes. So you know what I mean, if I want to watch their games in the morning, right? When I'm watching, you know, our domestic leagues for, you know, the Premier League and stuff like that, games start at six AM. I have to get up and watch that if I want to watch United play. I mean they play They their times are the same as ours, just six hours, you know, ahead. So six six and eight and eleven. So now it's now it's their turn. Yeah. Now they they can shut up for a month. Yeah. And and and if they really cared that much, ⁓ most of ⁓ are gonna be here. So it's true. If you're a true fan, you'll be here. The true fans are gonna be here. Just spitting facts. There we go. ⁓ moving on to some of the superstars in this World Cup. Tavis, who would you say is the face of soccer right now? Yum. Okay. The nineteen year old kid. From Spain. Yeah. I would say if you ask most kids, that's probably who they're gonna say. Okay. That's ⁓ that's that's easy that's an easy one. I we kinda went over it, but it was just part of still the questions coming up. So ESPN released top fifty players in the World Cup and they had Yamal at two and Dembele at one. Okay. Wait, Mba Mbele is the Valley d'Or winner. Winger for France. Okay. Okay. And so in that same breath Is this the final World Cup chapter for some of the older legends like Messi? I know Ronaldo, he's set to appear in his sixth World Cup, which is a record for Portugal. What other maybe legends could we see possibly this being in their last World Cup? I think Messi and Ronaldo are gone after this one. Tiago Silva for Brazil. Neymar's probably gone for Brazil. I think those two are gonna be gone off that team. ⁓ Manuel Noyer, who's been top three goalkeeper for the past two decades from Germany. He's probably done after this. Robert Lewandowski for Poland played at Barcelona this year. Had a great season at Barcelona. I think he's done after this. I mean those are huge names, all names that have changed the landscape of the sport in my opinion. Almost like is this kind of the most we've seen in the world? Like this is the last ride for a lot of legend. I think so. I think there's a lot of people that are set to kind of past the torch. Okay. And in that same breath, what young players could you see becoming a breakout superstar of the tournament? I we talked about the nineteen year old from Spain. ⁓ but is there any other young superstars that catch your eye and you're like, this is a guy that could have a t have himself a tournament and kind of shake the soccer world upside down. Yeah, I obviously Amal is the the one kid that Spain's relying on. ⁓ we've touched on. I think people that need to have a good World Cup To cement themselves as that next upcoming Erling Holland. I I think he's done it domestically, but I I want to see him perform at the world stage. Pedry for Spain, ⁓ plays for Barcelona, midfielder. I I think he's gonna have a good cup. And I think if Spain wants to push, I think that midfield is going to have to be solid. Okay. And I think the person I'm I want to watch the most is Olisse for France. Okay, we haven't mentioned him. Yeah, he had a big money move last summer from the Premier League to Bayern Munich. He played in Bayern Munich, which y if y'all decide to get into the sport, you'll learn the Premier League is where you should be if you want to compete. Then you have La Liga, which is Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and that's about it. There's 17 other teams that don't really matter. And then you have Germany where it's Bayern Munich and then 19 other teams that don't matter. Okay. So Some people call ⁓ farmers' leagues. But Yeah, you you were telling me that we just need to get into like the ⁓ we need to get into the sport and just pick a team and then just ride with them as they when they get relegated or moved up. Yeah. I mean if Yeah, we need to come up with that. We need we need to Get on FX and watch watch ⁓ Wrexham. Watch Rob McAlinny and, you know, ⁓ Deadpool take Wrexham from fifth division football in England to they are I remember, yeah, the story of them moving up. Four years in the row they moved up and now they're in the championship and they had a chance. They were until the last week were in a spot to play a promotion game to maybe get promoted into the Premier League this season and it would have made it five automatic promotions from bottom literally conference league, which is below the fourth tier, so fifth tier to fourth tier, third, second, and then top league within five years. I think more sports should do that. I think like there should be like men's football teams, like just Matt, can you imagine us go sign up for like a Frisco team or something and and get actually moved up all the way to like the Dallas Cowboys? And there's there's XFL. Yeah, but I'm saying like even the steps below that. ⁓ yeah, I mean baseball has just been three leagues below and that might be the closest to That's the only thing we have. 'Cause like I mean hockey has it a little bit with the you have the AHL, the Co A H L the WHL, so The NBA G League. Yeah. Okay. But you know who doesn't have it in America? Who? Soccer. No. We don't have our own farm system for MLS. We have MLS next, which is kinda cool, I guess. But every other nation that is going to be here as a promotion relegation will only happen. Yep. And if we want to succeed as a country, we need to go to that. We need to grow the farm system. Correct. There's no reason we aren't top eight every year, any big tournament. We have more people. If Croatia can make it to a Final Four or make it to a final with a population smaller than Dallas, we have an issue. Skill issue, apparently. Very big. Okay, and moving on here. What is the soccer equivalent? And this is gonna get into the American sports, but what is the soccer equivalent of Patrick Mahomes and then what is the soccer equivalent for Victor Womenyama? Maybe that next generational talent, the alien. Killian and Holland. So Mba Mbappe would be the Patrick Mahomes, and then who was it for Victor Wimanyama? Erling Holland. Erling Holland, okay. I would have to put Killian with Victor just because they're both French. Okay. That's so keep it keep it fair. Way to tie it in. Keep guys a guy's a natural. Okay, and then kind of in that last thing for the superstars, what player could become a global celebrity this summer? Global. That would take it away like Victor Victor going and modeling for Versace over the summer. Who's gonna do that? I know we've talked about the nineteen year old from Spain a lot, but like, is there anyone that's like They could just like transform and become a overnight superstar, whether it's for a big team or for a small team. Maybe a dollar. There's really that's that's the fun thing about our sport, right? Is our sport he's taken away from us, Matt. Yeah. We haven't qualified yet until it gets it. It gets it. He deserves it. Until you get in there and suffer the pain of promotion relegation and stuff like that. I think there's a couple. Jow Neves, Portugal, midfielder. I think if he has he's had an incredible run, he's like twenty one. If he has a good World Cup, I think we see him step up and come into that bracket of top five best midfielders right now. Okay. Federico Valverde for Uruguay, place for Real Madrid, had a fantastic season. I think he's another one. If those two guys perform very well, I think next year their stock and value will rise so much that it's gonna be like, hey, these two guys need to be on our team and people are gonna try to move for ⁓ In the in the Premier Leagues and stuff, right? Correct. Okay. I mean, they both play for very good clubs, right? ⁓ John Nevis plays for PSG, who just won Champions League over Arsenal. And so I mean that's the you know, the glory every year is to win that. That's I would say Champions League is the Super Bowl. How quickly from these other leagues are these guys meeting with the national teams and practicing with them? 'Cause like it seems like They're playing a lot with the soccer of the major leagues and then they kinda go off and play with these international teams. Are they like building Every six weeks. Okay. Every six weeks I think there's a international break, a two week break will they'll come in and That's actually a lot quicker than I thought. I thought maybe it like they get they finish and then a month later they're playing with their team and they might play with them three months before. Once these guys so like once these guys are done, they're pretty much gonna have a two week holida or two week holiday and then they're back at it for next season. So Going into the the only bad thing, the downside of World Cup year is one, you just played like the guys that played for PSG in Arsenal, Barcelona, that made that final four push just finished up. They literally just finished last week. You know what I mean? Or two they gotta go play a World Cup. Now they're gonna get called up to the World Cup team. Now they're gonna play another, you know, they could play another seven, eight games, right? And then they're gonna go right back into their season. And so that could also tie into like they don't have the best chemistry with those guys. Well, not only that, I think when it comes to this, when you're at this high of a level, chemistry, yes, matters, but a lot of these guys you put ⁓ on a field and they're gonna perform. I mean, that's just the So maybe just the overuse, like they're just the fatigue. Yeah, fatigue. I mean, these guys are playing seventy, eighty games a year. And, you know, we only get limited subs, right? So ninety minutes is what you're playing. On average, I think it's 14 miles a game is what you run. Damn. That's like a half mar that's it's over a half marathon every game. And they all wear trackers. You you've probably seen it. I made fun of it too when it came out, but when they all take their shirt off and it looks like they have the sport the sport bras. Yeah, they're all wearing sports bras. The NFL players are wearing that now. Yeah, it's a chip. It's made by Audi and Adidas. Yeah, it's like the new new track and it's I they gotta find a better way of putting those sensors on ⁓ Yeah, I mean you can put it in a sleeve. Okay. Put it in their boot. So g going on to some of the Cinderellas. We've talked about the big nations. What's a smaller nation that you could see shocking the road? I know you're talking about Croatia having the population of Dallas going on a run, but is there any other smaller nations? I know people in my Instagram comments on our video was talking about Haiti. Is there anyone not having it? Is there anyone that's they they go ⁓ and three, I'm sorry. Okay. I I don't think they have a chance. They have Brazil, Morocco, and Scotland, like I They're going 0 for 3. I think they should they call that the death group in the comments, actually. The group at death. ⁓ group. I would say that's probably probably pretty close. I know we we were talking about it earlier. I think that one's I mean, France's group is pretty good too. France, Norway, they sh they should win. Like France should win their group. Norway should get second, is what it should be. But I would not Norway can't be good at everything, dude. They're good at the Winter Olympics. Yeah. I wouldn't count Senegal out. The the African teams have definitely stepped up over the last couple of years. And they might be more used to the climate as well in the US. Correct. And it's just like the Middle East teams too. Yep. Cinderella team, a dark horse. Croatia's definitely up there. Like we said earlier. Okay. I would be interested if they could find a way to do it. I would like to see Netherlands make a run. The Netherlands, okay. I haven't heard anything on the Netherlands. They're without their I would say probably right now they're without their best attacker. Chavi Simmons, he tore his ACL three games left in the Premier League, so he's done for ⁓ for the next couple months. Their experience in the back with an inexperienced goalkeeper, so that might hurt them. But I think I think they can scrap together some wins and put on a run. Okay. True for the Netherlands. That might be our that might be our dark horse re rooting for them, Brady Potts. Yeah. The Dutch. And just and just so on some of the rivalries. I know we talked about who would you want to see the US play, but Is there any of these teams that you just want to see play? Like I know you talked about Messi and Brazil, Messi Ronaldo, Portugal, Argentina would be great. Okay. I mean, I think that's what everyone, any football fan right now is is hoping for. Would it be awesome? Yeah. Would it be awesome to see them somehow manage to both make a final and that's where they f their final game is Messi Ronaldo World Cup final in America? Like that would be awesome. That would just be cinema. Poetic. Would that be the peak of sports? Or close to it. I mean ⁓ I would say it'd be pretty close. Would it solve the goat debate? Like would people have to respect that? I don't think so. I know everyone says Messi gets put on the stack team of Argentina and I it's really hard for me. Like I'm a United fan. Ronaldo played at United. I love Ronaldo. But I will never discredit Messi and everything he's done. For me, I just you can sit here and argue he's the GOAT 'cause he has more goals. He's the goat 'cause he's done more for his team. He's won more trophies, yada yada. I don't care about that, in my opinion. I'm just happy that I was able to see two people that are the greatest of the game to ever play play at the same time. Yeah. And if they met in a final, could you imagine what that T V rating would be, Matt? Because it's not just US. Yeah, that'd probably be the biggest biggest sporting event of all time. Usually. A hundred percent. Those ticket prices would be insane. ⁓ more than the ⁓ S G for the game three, game four, the finals? Yeah. Well those combined plus times Fucking I w I would say I would go on to say if they somehow met in Dallas in the round of sixteen, those tickets are going to skyrocket. 'Cause I think they're already like the cheapest ticket right now for a World Cup game, I think, is nine hundred dollars. Damn. So then five thousand to get in or something. If that got announced, I I I bet they're gonna be higher than that. Wow. And you're talking eighty thousand seats at Jerry World. Jerry Jones is salivating. Right now. Yeah. You're talking eighty thousand seats. And mind you, we get a huge game for the first game of the World Cup in Dallas. We get England Croatia. ⁓ that's right. I've yeah, that's which is a really high profile game. Yeah, that'll be a good one. S kind of on to the I didn't know this was a thing going on this year, but there's a new forty eight team format. They've expanded from thirty two teams to forty eight, and I think it's a total of like a hundred and four matches. You as a as a true soccer fan, is this good or bad for this? For the tournament or for the sport. I know we've seen it with I think March Madness just got announced, Matt, that they're expanding. People aren't happy about that. Are you excited about the new format or do you think it's it's gonna dilute the competition? I I'm indifferent. I think it's good for the sport if we are trying to grow, right? Right. But at the same time, I think it makes it less winning it now means less, in my opinion. Because it's a lot easier to make the tournament. Correct. And your groups are a lot less saturated with talent. Okay. There might be just a couple good teams in each group. Right. 'Cause I mean, what you talked about group of death, right? That has been every year we've had a World Cup, there's always been a group of death. This year is really hard to label a group of death because the the talent spread out. Yeah, even like the the one with with Haiti. Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, and Scotland, that doesn't have the same as kind of years past where it's been just some like you might see Messi and Ronaldo in the first one. Right. Let's look at twenty two. I've got to pull it up here just to see. In that time, right, you had group F, which is Morocco, Croatia, Belgium, and Canada. Like that's four good nations. Yeah, four right. Group E, Spain, Germany, Costa Rica. Costa Rica's not in this World Cup. ⁓ it was a lot harder for them to qualify having the US, Mexico, and Canada already in. Right. I would have thought with the forty eight team format though, it'd be a lot easier to qualify. We ought we get automatic bids. Right. As host nations, yeah. Correct. So we get automatic bids. Yep. ⁓ but the problem with that is we're in CONCACAF, so we only have a limited like the gold cup. And we still played in that. And unfortunately for some of these smaller nations that are out there, our twos and threes and sometimes four are better than their ones. So it was a lot harder for them to qualify. ⁓ Because we already had three spots taken. Okay. But they also Costa Rica also retired their best goalie, a couple good defenders, so like they're gonna go through a rebuild. Okay. But you had group B, so in twenty twenty two, England, the US and Wales. I mean that's a lot So it seems like the countries that are gonna benefit the most from this format are like the already big established countries 'cause they're not having to play the best competition in their correct stage. I I agree with that. I think the hardest group right now to advance out of is probably the France, Sinegal, Norway group. Okay. Yeah, I think I think the format listen, a casual soccer fan here, but having more teams in it seems like if you win it now, it's like, ⁓ there was more people that had a chance to could possibly knock you off. But it also could be just the we're gonna see more of the main countries make it through, get through to the the round final going through the rounds and then eventually get to the finals. Like the smaller countries just kinda get swallowed up. Yep. Okay. I think it's good for college football. I think they should do it. Right? I think I think they should go to top three. Going off script here, Tavis. But for for my sport, I I I don't think so. Okay. And then kind of this is my last set of questions I have here, so we can kind of go lightning around a little bit. But so what's one team that you're buying stock in and what is one team that you are selling on? I would buy I'd buy on Portugal. Okay. And I'm selling Spain. Selling Spain. Just because the nineteen year old you're really crushing him and the US's hopes here. Yeah, I I think he's good and I I hope he proves me wrong. Okay. I just for me If I had to put myself in his shoes, that would be extremely tough. Right. Speaking of shoes, who do you think is gonna be the golden boot winner? I think that's the ⁓ V P for the World Cup, right? That's what they call it. Golden ⁓ boot winner. We've established we're casuals, Matt. It's going to be it's probably gonna be Mbappe. Okay. It's gonna be so it's gonna be Mbappe, Ulisse, or Dembele. It's going to be someone from France. 'Cause they're gonna make the run to get all the goals. ⁓ I d yeah, I just think they're they're going to smoke. Is their defense? Yeah. Up to par as well? Yeah, they're they're solid all the way around. If they can keep the attitudes in check, they'll win. Shouldn't even be close. I know I made a bracket on East B and I I had France winning, even though I knew nothing about you just chose on the colors. It's good to know that my pick is has some melanation. I gotta didn't know there was a I didn't there was a bracket prediction. I need to make one. There's there's always a bracket. Yeah, there's that that team just stacked. I mean, it shouldn't even be that hard for ⁓ but and the worst part is they left they left people off that should've went. Next one here, fans are a big part of the World Cup. Which fans bring the best atmosphere? I know Croatia, I always see the checker pattern. ⁓ Brazil always seems like they have a big following, Mexico. But what fans do you think have the best atmosphere they bring to the World Cup? Ever whether it's this World Cup or any they bring ⁓ to every World Cup. It's gonna have to be a European team. Norway with the vibe. Brazil gets rowdy. The South American teams get rowdy. They ⁓ I I feel like South America, Mexico and stuff is more influenced by alcohol and they get a little bit more rowdy because if you watch, like when y'all start watching, it's not if y'all are gonna start watching after this. Right. They don't drink overseas in England during games and stuff. You have to sit on the concourse. Just business. Business as usual. Is it Viking champ for Norway? Yep. Is that what they just do a Viking champion score every game? their team pro ⁓ team picture that someone created. Yeah. Photoshop like landing on American soil just in Viking gear with the Viking ships. So the backdrop is from Vikings, the T V show? Okay. That's that's where I just wonder why it looked familiar 'cause Yeah, that was from the first season with Ragnar and all them. Yep. I'll put a picture in the podcast for anyone that wants to see it. It was so sick. You see Holland With his long hair just looking like a albino Viking there. Yeah. It's like a freak. That that means war in America if they're gonna come dry on our soil and start trying to be Vikings. Okay, and ⁓ next one, biggest upset you see in this World Cup. Maybe it's in the group stage or Biggest maybe in the round. And you can be bold with the prediction here. This is it's all prediction. I know. We this won't be recorded or put out on any of the clips. That's fine. We can we can put it out. Biggest upset. If Senegal performs, Norway gets third in their group and doesn't get favorable matchup and gets knocked out in the round of 32. There we go. And the Vikings are done. Yep. That's what I like to see. All right. And ⁓ we've kind of gone over most overrated, underrated players. First coach fired after this tournament. First coach fired. I think Pochettino's gonna leave, so I don't count his firing, but I think he should be fired. From the US? Yeah. I think he leaves. I think he's gonna take a job in Italy for AC Milan. Which is ironically where he was already interviewing. Yeah, where Christian Polisic plays, ironically. A little collusion going on. Yeah. First coach fired. Francis coach is already leaving. He's already said he's done after this World Cup. The this is a send off tournament for them. They want him to retire at the top. So they have a little bit more there. I don't think Spain makes a r Spain makes a move. If England doesn't make it to the final four, I think Thomas Tuchel's gone. Ooh, little trouble little trouble across the pond. Yeah. I think if England doesn't make it to a Final Four, Thomas Tuchel's gone too. How quickly are they bringing coaches in for these national teams? Like 'cause they gotta give ⁓ at least like four years to start getting teams ready, right? Like Yeah. It I mean I mean we brought Ponchettino in nine months ago. We didn't even give him a full year. There we go. So I mean with it and then he's gonna leave us. Yep. I think he leaves. I it's almost like a Hail Mary move by the US. Yeah, it it definitely was. It was like, Hey, we're we're on home soil. We need a coach of that's gonna whip these guys into shape. And I think they probably got the best one that they could have got. The only person that I would have liked to see more would have been Carlo Ancelotti of Brazil, Brazil's coach. But I mean he wasn't available at the time, he was still coaching elsewhere. Right. This might be a casual question. It will be, but so Nas national coaches versus like the s the normal team coaches. What's the What is the difference? Can one like I don't know United's coach? Can he coach for the national team or whatever? Thomas Tuchel, Germany's coach or England's coach, ⁓ he coached PSG, Chelsea, you know, those are some big clubs that he was at. Carlo Ancelotti is probably top three greatest managers of all time. Real Madrid, I mean just trophy after trophy after trophy. He's definitely in the top five. Sir Alex is number one, Pep's two. Kind of kinda go off from there. I didn't know if I didn't know if like coaches could get called up. No. The national team or not. I mean they can. ⁓ Brazil, this is the first time in I think they said sixty years that Brazil's not taking the Brazilian manager. So they changed things up a little bit. It a lot of people are scared that it takes away the yogo bonito. Ooh, the swagger Yeah, the Brazilian coach lets them do what they want because it's pretty and they've won, you know, five World Cups. So Obviously it works. But they haven't won one recently, so since what, two thousand? Or ⁓ not two thousand, ⁓ two. That sounds about right. ⁓ two might have ⁓ been France too, honestly. Maybe it was Brazil. I'll fa I'll fact check it real quick. I don't know, it was a wee little lad then. Yeah, well it was two thousand two. That sounds about right. All right, final question here. Last question, one final question, Tavis, and then you can have the floor to say anything else you need to, but What is your World Cup final prediction? Who are the two countries that are gonna be pitted up against each other and who you got winning? France versus Spain. 3-1. France wins. Okay. Killing Killian Mbappe strikes a hat trick again. He's the first player to do it against Argentina, and they they lost, and I think he does it again. And they win. Matt, you got you have France? I'd have France winning it, but who would who would be Spain's like competition to To beat them like through the finals. So the bracket works, it depends on how you do in your group. Right. So if they win their group, they should be on opposite sides. But I mean, it it's I can't stress it enough. I I honestly feel the weather is going to take a lot into consideration with these teams. Yeah. I think it's good it's going to I'm be watching from guys cramping now on that on the field. I don't think I think that will be some of it. Dehydration cramps will be some of it. But the other, the flip side of that, it has been extremely wet. the last couple of weeks and it's not supposed to start or stop anytime soon. And some of these stadiums are outdoors. I'm about to say it wouldn't really affect it in Dallas because Jerry World's gonna cover it. But you have let's see MetLife. MetLife, Chicago. Chicago. Kansas City. LA. SoFi. This spot. That's SoFi. That's yeah, that's an open field. See here. I don't know the weather in Cali, but Foxboro. So New England will be interesting. Yep. Atlanta's closed. Dallas is close. Houston's close. Kansas City's open. Inglewood, which is SoFi, is close. Pasadena's the Rose Bowl. That's open. Are they playing at the Rose Bowl? Yep. Pasadena. Miami is retractable roof, right? Yeah. No, no, no. If it's hard rock, no. It is hard rock. No, hard rock's not retractable. Yeah, hard rock is open. Okay, so hard rock's open. NetLife. Philly. San Fran, Santa Clara. These are a lot of stadiums. Seattle's open. Seattle's gonna gonna be fine though. That's they always have great great. If it's in Mexico City, Mexico City's open. All three of Mexico are open. Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterey. I'm pretty sure all three of those are open. What stadiums are in Canada? Toronto and Vancouver. I wanna say BC Palace is closed where Toronto is. Canada's gotta be covered, dude. They they have they too much winter up there. I want to say Toronto's closed and Vancouver's open. That'd be interesting. I mean, it sounds like the worst weather places are gonna be closed. Like the the Texas stadiums and then Atlanta. Philly. But you also have to take in c consideration that they were in New Jersey practicing last week and it was eighty five there and they had ice packs on their backs, they were passing out. Yeah, they can't. They're not used to this. Yeah, that's true. This is like England. When it gets above, you know, seventy five over there, like they're starting to cry. The coronavirus business. Yeah. Yeah. That's like you know, it's it's seventy five at midnight here. Summer doesn't start until it's eighty. True. Yeah. If we're lucky. Also, it's been just so humid as well. Yeah. It's not even just the the temperature, just the humidity as well. It's been terrible. And the one thing we didn't touch on, right? Well obviously the weather I think is a factor, but when you're in a country like Spain, right? It's very small. Portugal small, right? When you have those host nations, guitar small. I like I like where you're going with this. The US is ⁓ huge. Yeah, we're big. You have fifty great states, that's what it is. Well, you have Iran, who is stationed in Mexico, and they're gonna play all three of their games in the US and then have to go back to Mexico. It's a lot of travel too. That's a lot of travel, that's a lot of playing. The US is stationed in LA. They play two games at SoFi and one in Seattle. Okay, that's that's just right off the coastline. Yeah, so we're talking a t a two hour plane ride. We got a f we got a favorable matchup. They're gonna be fine. So but I mean you're talking Argentina is in Kansas City. I don't know where their games are. But I mean if they're in the middle of the US and they don't play in Kansas City, say they play in Englewood or they have to go down to Miami, I mean you're looking at those six hour flights. I was I was telling Matt last podcast, I was like, I'm really excited to watch these teams play at the football stadiums that I know so well. It's also been interesting to see them like a lot of the turf they've had to bring in the grass for FIFA's regulations. Yeah. I don't really agree with that they're gonna rip it out and the NFL players have to go back to the turf, but seems like everyone's kinda bending over for FIFA and letting FIFA do what they want. But it's just gonna be interesting 'cause also like the Cowboys stadium, they're elevating the field like fifteen feet. Yeah. So it fits the regulations. So FIFA makes substantially more though. Yeah. So they go I mean, not even that. Like you're talking about the graphs and stuff like that. What about all the name changes, right? All the the logos that have been covered up. ATT Stadium's not ATT because it's not a FIFA sponsor. ⁓ it's they're calling it Dallas Stadium. It's Dallas, Dallas Stadium, right? So all the point Atlanta is not Mercedes Benz because it's not a FIFA sponsor. So they had to cover the Benz logo up. Is there anyone that is a FIFA sponsor that gets to keep it? Coca Cola and I wanna say it's Coca Cola and Nicelobe. They only have two sponsors. I wanna say those are the only two that are allowed to be present visible. One's an alcohol and one's Coke. Coke has always been FIFA. But there's all I think one of 'em's beer. I I wanna say it's Nicolobe. Interesting. I could be wrong. That's another interesting factor we just learned about soccer right there. So FIFA dictates everything. They are they are the governing body of all of soccer. There's a lot of ins and outs, politics of that, right? We'll see. I I think we'll have it back in sixteen to twenty years. I think it will be back. Okay. I say it wasn't gonna be another time in our lifetime, but no, it will be back. It's been twenty years since it's been here. Twenty two years. It will be back. They have to. Yeah, especially with all the shady infrastructure we have here. Right. Cause I mean, you're looking at when you do these big ones, South Africa, twenty ten. None of those stadiums now are being used. They're all overrunned. Stadiums are gone. Qatar built all of their stadiums in two years. That's so crazy. Literally built eight stadiums in two years. Right? Yeah, they're just not getting used. ⁓ Rio? Rio Rio was the Olympics. Yeah, Rio was the Olympics. Trying to think of where else we had. And this is giving like an Olympic vibe. Yeah, it it very much is. It's just at a greater stage and it's a s a sport for many outside of the US as a religion. Until it becomes a religion for us, we will not win. There we go. We'll start it here. Well, cool Tavis, I appreciate you coming on. Was there anything else that we missed that we didn't talk about? I think we got a lot of it covered. Yeah. No, I I think we're good. Okay. I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, for the casual fans, if you if you don't know anything about soccer, same thing I told these two guys, pick a team, follow ⁓ and you'll learn. There's hardship everywhere. So you'll learn. It starts with us, America. We gotta start getting into soccer. Yep. For sure. All right, cool. I appreciate you coming on, Tavis. ⁓ you know what? I think you earned it. I think you can come back on four years, talk World Cup again. So probably we're on working. We're gonna change it to Euros in two years. Yeah, we'll change it. We'll yeah, when the when the when the CONCAF was it the Golden Cup Cup Gold Cup, Gold Cup and Euro Cup two years. We'll bring it on for the show. ⁓ thank you for coming on and everyone, we will come back and we will do some of the other sports news going around. But I can't stress this enough. World Cup starting this week. Get ready, pick a team. USA's about to make a run. We'll be right back. All right, and we're back to do some other sports updates, kind of stuff going around. Starting off with today is officially the is golf's longest day. It is the qualifying for amateurs to the US Open, which is coming up. It's the third major of the year. It's gonna be June eighteenth to twenty first. We'll be doing a preview for that next week. But shout out to all the amateurs that made it through and we'll get to playing the US Open. Call it the longest day 'cause they've been playing all day, Matt. I know. We could qualify. We'd qualify for the US Open next year. I mean, sure you had a US Open qualifier last year. Last year. Yeah. So Sergio. We got it and then. Sergio and Joel Damon, I believe, are their most notable. Shout out all the golfers out there making a name for themselves. Next event going up. This one's actually this weekend, this Saturday. UFC Freedom 250. It's at the White House Lawn. Can't wait to see this fight. It's going to be outdoors. Starting off with the main event, which is Ilya Taporie taking on Justin Gagey. It is a title fight in the lightweight division. Ilya Taporie had stepped away from stepped away from UFC for a little bit and is back to make his return. He's a perfect seventeen and ⁓ going up against Gus Justin Gagey, who is seven twenty-seven and five. So Ilya is the smaller guy, but he's like one of the best pound for pound fighters out there. I'm very intrigued to see like what type of shape he's in to for this fight. Also, it's gonna be outdoors, but I think it's gonna be an absolute classic. He's gonna have to go and get in and it's gonna be ugly with Justin Gacy, who's taller, has more reach, so he's gonna have to really get in and beat him up a little bit, take him to the ground possibly. The co-main event, I don't know if it's the co-main event, but it is a title fight as well. Alex Piera is fighting serial, serial gain. This fight is actually interesting because it's a heavyweight. Alex Pierre is fighting in the heavyweight. Alex Pierre is 6'4-205. Gain, on the other hand, is 6'4-247. So 40 pounds difference. And that's when they get to heavyweight. There is no limit on heavyweight. You can be as big as you want. The next fight under that one is the Bantamweight. It's not a title fight, but it's Sean O'Malley, so it's got my interest, my interest triggered. Sean O'Malley's taking on Sababi, I think is how you pronounce it. I'm really just watching it Sean O'Malley, but ⁓ he is 14-2. The next fight, Josh Hokit taking on Derek Lewis. Matt, you want to take a guess on the size difference between these guys? I know Derek Lewis is huge. Yeah. ⁓ so Josh Hokit is 6'1, 233. Derek Lewis is 6'3. two sixty three. He's a big fella. Also a funny, funny guy. Yeah. He's gonna have probably six inches of reach total. Also, I like he's a funny guy. He loves fighting in front of Trump, and that's what he's gonna get at the White House. Josh Hokit, by the way, is a perfect nine and ⁓ So undefeated record on the line. Did that for an upset. Yeah. ⁓ other notables on this card, Michael Chandler's fighting in the lightweight, Bo Nichols fighting in the middleweight, eight and one. I love Bo Nickel. Yeah, I bow nickel, that's gonna be interesting one. There's a lot of intrigue if he wins his fight, who he's gonna call out possibly. Yeah, I just come comes with the wrestling background. Exactly that's exactly where I like him. You think you can take bow nickel? I think he would kill me probably. Yeah, just it's it it's it's interesting to to see the the different backgrounds of the UFC fighters. You know, I I would think it's easier for like a guy with a wrestling background to get into strike MMA. To ⁓ yeah, to get into MMA versus like a striking background. No, I think I think you're right on it. I think it's easier for those wrestlers to go to striking versus a striker trying to learn wrestling. Like you've seen Sean O'Malley, he kinda has been there's been a couple fights where a guy's got on his back and takes it to the ground and Sean O'Malley, certified bona fide striker. ⁓ he's had to work a lot on his ground game versus someone as Bo Nickel who's come in. He's really been able to learn the striking, but he had that incredible college wrestling career to be able to Transform over the UFC. He's taking on Kyle Dakis, who is a who is 17 and 4. So I think it's gonna be a real good test for Bo. I think it's fight's gonna be a pretty good one. And then the under under card is Diego Lopez taking on Steve Garcia. I like Diego Lopez. He fights with a little bit of swagger. He's a very tough-headed guy as well. He got a good jaw on him. He can take a he can take a punch very well. ⁓ but obviously, I think this card is just absolutely stacked. ⁓ most I like React to UFC. definitely gonna be watching it, but I just wanted to mention it because it is such a stacked card. You'd not want to miss it this weekend. Saturday, you do have plans. You're watching UFC two fifty. Also, it's gonna be on the White House lawn. I've been seeing the contraption that they're they're setting up out there in the lawn. A lot of the UFC fighters are kind of w they they don't know really how it's gonna the weather's gonna be. Like we just talked about weather for FIFA, but it's gonna be an outdoor fight versus normally they're fighting indoors in these arenas in Vegas or something. So There's also talks that the bugs were you gonna say something? What yeah, I thought you were gonna finish what you're saying. Okay. And there's also like a lot of interest in the bugs, apparently, that's going around the White House. There's talks that bugs could be a factor in this fight. I don't know. I think it's just something that's permit to Washington DC. I was thinking like mosquitoes, but apparently there's ⁓ there's a big thing with with the bugs. What were you gonna say, Matt? I was gonna ask about the spectators. Are they gonna allow like how many and If they are gonna allow spectators to I I haven't done any research on this. Yeah, so there is so there's I think it's five thousand tickets or something like that. Or it it it is limited on tickets that are gonna be around the ring, but then farther down the lawn, there's gonna be like a watch party area where they're gonna have like a big ⁓ I guess plasma TV up that's gonna be showing the fight and everything. So you'll be able to hear those reactions still. But it it's just gonna be interesting. Dana White has come out and said this will be a one time thing. We're not doing it again. We're not coming back to the White House. He does like to do these one off events like they did the spear in Vegas. So it's really just gonna be like a spectacle. And the car is absolutely loaded. So Yeah, that's only like peop people like to miss the undercarts, but like this is gonna be one you're gonna be watching every fight leading up to the main event. Also, I don't know if Trump is gonna be there or not. I imagine he's probably I would think not. And there's a recent, you know, attempt. They're at the White House. Trump is most definitely gonna be there. Well he's at the next game right now. That's not gonna be happening on Saturday. ⁓ yeah, but I mean That series is gonna be down on Wednesday. There's a r there was a recent attempt. Yeah. Not too long ago. I mean, obviously the security is gonna be ⁓ unbelievable. If someone tries something at the White House, that person should be checked. They're gonna be checked. They're gonna be checked. I don't yeah. Like is it Like it not just anybody could get it. I feel like you gotta be No, you gotta know someone somebody. Yeah. To be even one of those five thousand people. I think maybe there might be more than five thousand, but I just know like there's not a Dana White's like giving out tickets. Like I don't think it's something you could buy a ticket to. Yeah, that would make more sense. ⁓ But with that, that was really the ⁓ and ⁓ the Mavs and stars are leaving the AAC. That's hap that's happened this last week. That was kind of some old news, but I wanted to talk about it. A lot of people are upset about it. I'm kinda happy about it. It kind of makes what the Mavs did to the stars where they had that lawsuit with them. Kind of makes the Mavs look really bad now because they wanted to control the AAC and then now they're also leaving the AC once the stars are decided. So Mavs just cannot catch a break. Now Dallas is going to be the only big city team without a team in the city. Yeah, in the city. I mean, there's still gonna be Fifteen minutes from Dallas. But still. I mean, yeah. They're not gonna be in there's not gonna be the stadium in Dallas. Yeah. The Cowboys and Rangers are in Arlington. There's a lot of talk what they're gonna do with the AAC. I imagine they'll just move Wings games over, but that's not happening until twenty thirty. But just wanted to mention on the podcast as well. Now, with that, we will get into our final segment. We normally do one final question or keep three cup five, but Matt has another game for us and Matt, go ahead and start sharing your screen here. Yes, sir. And ⁓ I can yeah. You want to break down the game you want me to? I got it. Okay. This is it's been a game that's been popular as of late. Last week is blown up across Twitter, across whatever. ⁓ not only this, but ⁓ I'll start with this one though. Seventeen and ⁓ you're gonna build ⁓ build a roster that could potentially go seventeen and ⁓ undefeated NFL. Undefeated in the regular season. There's a lot of other ones. There's an eighty two and ⁓ one for for basketball. You pick five players and see if they can go undefeated. ⁓ for this one. Got a quarterback. This is current. The basketball one that's all time. This one is current. Current quarterback. You got two running backs, two receivers, two tight ends, an O line, a defense, and a head coach. Yep. And I will also mention we will probably be doing this a lot until we get a perfect seventeen and ⁓ team. We're just gonna do one run each podcast, see if we get it. Yeah. So starting off, is these are random teams too that you get. So you gotta be s you gotta be kind of strategic on how you choose your play. Absolutely strategic. I've done this for I guess the past week, right? Okay, so it still haven't gone seventeen and ⁓ so it's it's very hard to do. So starting off, we got is Houston our first team? Houston is the first team. Okay, so we got a wide open board for Houston. And I already know where we should go here. Are you thinking defense here? I am thinking defense. I am also thinking defense. I think this is a great scope. With the best defense in the NFL. All right. Second one is Miami. So And this is what happens when you play a game like this. We're already backs against the wall here. Luckily though, they have one outstanding player. Huh, are you thinking Devon A Chane? I am thinking of Devon A Chan. Or A Chan. Chan. Okay. Lucked out there. Hopefully we don't get a team like that later on down the road. ⁓ Just like the Dolphins, there's one really good player. Yeah. Jeremiah Love. Psych. Yeah. Trey McBride. Can spell. This is a quick hitter. This is a good good segment. Okay. Chargers. It's and you get teams like this where you could go Herbert a lot of directions. For quarterback that might not be the best option. Also good head coach, Jim Harbaugh. He's not bad, I think. There's also Marron Hampton. Offensive line. You want the Chargers offensive line? No, I'm just saying like they do have they had a high draft pick a couple years ago. They might have the worst of line in the NFL. I'm gonna go ahead and coach here. You like you like Jim? I like Jim because there's better quarterbacks to get. We might get them. Okay. Ooh, Jets. Also have a good receiver. Garrett Wilson. There's Garrett Wilson. There's Brees Hall. Brees Hall. I think there's better options at running back, but Garrett Wilson can be a good receiver. I don't know if the game's gonna We can't go we can't go Geno Smith. No, but I was gonna say their O line I don't think the game is gonna reflect real life. Obviously the Jets are horrible, but their O line is not that bad. But I think running back or receiver is probably our best bet. Ball's in your hand. I like I like receiver or line here. I probably lean towards Garrett Wilson though more. I do like Garrett Wilson. All right. Ohio State legend. Okay, Giants. Now do we go offensive line? I don't think so. They're Cam Scadaboo. No I mean Malik Neighbors. ⁓ there is ⁓ okay. So it's not gonna count him having an injury. Malik neighbors would also be great. In real life, it'd be great. I don't know how the game calculates. I guess we'll find out. Players. If we go three and ten, it'll be If you told me if you told me my team has a wide receiver core of Garrett Wilson and Malik Malik Neighbors, I'd be ecstatic. Okay. Now, Colts also have a good tight end, also have a good offensive line, but they also have Jonathan Taylor, who was one of the best running backs last year. Yeah. ⁓ I think you have to go Jonathan Taylor. But then you're rolling the dice. Yeah, Tyler Warren. Or they do have a good office. But he's do not click Daniel Jones. JT is just a top five, right? So when he when he get it, you gotta pick it, I think. Okay, Rams. We could go Stafford here. Stafford or O line. I d I think Rams have to have a go. Stafford just won the MVP though. Yeah. Right? And it w and we're kind of rolling the dice if we don't take Stafford now. I think wouldn't this be funny? We go seventeen ⁓ our first attempt. I know. It's looking good, but it's something's coming down the pipeline. Something is coming, dude. The Browns are Ooh, now Raider now this is an interesting one. Brock Bowers. This is one of the better ones to get for tight end. Okay. Even though I do think their O line will be very good this upcoming season. And now we're locked in. Atlanta's offensive line. I don't know much about ⁓ I don't know much about Atlanta's offensive line. That's your NFC. I know a lot about ⁓ It's not the worst, but again, I don't know how they're gonna rank. All right. Before you click it, Matt, before you click it, do we want to take a prediction on what we are? ⁓ I'm gonna say I'm gonna say based on where we are right now, this ha there's no way this team loses a game. I'm gonna say we're in real life fifteen and two. I think fifteen and two is where we're gonna be. But in real life, is this team losing a game? I hope we don't get it our first attempt. This team is scoring sixty points a game, probably. All right. Here we go. Sixteen and one. No, you're so close. I mean that was a good team. Did it say you like where we messed up? No, it doesn't tell you that. Maybe there you go. Tim Harbaugh maybe zipped us up. Maybe they don't like Malik neighbors coming off the injury, but Maybe the Falcons line lost us a game. I wouldn't be surprised, but that's just a fun game. Everybody's doing it now. It's a huge thing on Twitter, obviously. But Matt, go ahead and ⁓ save that. We'll put that out on our Twitter. They got you. Yeah, like I said, it's hard. It's very hard to get a seventeen in a team. I've seen very few people do this even on Twitter. They were close. I've seen very few screenshots of s of a seventeen in a team. We'll do it eventually on these podcasts. Take a while, but We'll get there. All right, with that, we will get into closing out the show. Thank you everyone for listening. Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube. Turn on those notifications so you never miss a podcast or a reel. If you want to follow us on Spotify, please rate the show five stars. Helps out a lot. If you want to stay up to date on the show, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, where you'll be able to see our 16 to 1 team and Facebook at Brody Pod at Brody Pod and Everything. Thank you, everyone. Have a great week. Take care. God bless. And Matt, love y'all. Later.