I just got my hands on that brand new cold ice by Cole Palmer and GoPuff. My God, I've never had ice like this. It's so refreshing and it's exactly like my favorite World Cup England star, Cole. Wait, he's not playing. Fuck, man. Nations League star.
That's a quick fix. That's a quick fix. Yeah, that's a quick fix. That's a quick fix. Those marketing people are sweating. Welcome to Ain't It Footy, where we are talking about the quarterfinal round of World Cup 2026, Canada, America, Mexico. I'm joined by, as always, Chris Martin. How are you? I'm good, mate. I'm very English right now, mate. Okay. Cheers. Yeah, you are, mate. And Jamel Johnson, how you doing, mate? What's up, mate? I give no bucks, mate. Are you English as well? I got cups, mate. Yeah, that's my mate right there. I'm doing British. I'm doing all right.
Anyway, so here we are, one step closer. Now we know what the semifinal is going to look like. But first, the quarterfinals, where we got to see, I think, was anything really shocking? No. No. I mean, there's some shocking decisions. I found myself shocked at that point. But I guess at this point, I'm like, is this, I guess, expected now?
I don't know. I don't know how to feel about it. Expected teams. The expected teams. The way they got there, dubious. Anyway, the first one we got to see was France 2, Morocco 0. Mbappe, again, I think this is like, I feel like youth soccer coaches and football coaches across the globe should be pointing at the stutter penalty technique again and be like, show me a motherfucker who's really doing it consistently in this World Cup. Show me. But listen, the four-minute delay, that's just enough time to think that a stutter is going to work.
You know, two minutes in, he's like, I'm not moving. But once he moved, he touched that ball like three minutes in. He was like, yeah, I'm going to stutter. I'm going to fuck him up. Watch this cut too. Real casual save. And then Mbappe scored in the 60th with, again, bro, this guy. The alternate angles where he just had my, who was the defender that he had frozen? Maybe Diop, I think is his last name. Had that dude frozen, used him as a training cone and was basically like, okay, so your ass is the far post. So I just need to curl it around your ass and it's going far post.
fucking so, so lethal. It was frightening to see. And then Dembele in the 66, you just can't give him any space when he's running a goal because he'll just casually slot it in like he did. Again, France, definitely the most potent offense. the favorite still or we need to talk a little bit about okay okay okay yeah yeah i mean but morocco didn't really like try you know what i mean yeah they would just i mean they look like they didn't believe they looked like the opposite of they were like disbelief yeah cynicism they're all in the head they all tried out for france when they were like 15 bro and they're all fucked up about it it's like the opposite thing they're like all these moroccan players are french actually look yeah they came didn't i see that what he was interviewed and they're like you still happy you chose morocco all right can you just wind your neck in journalist oh i'm sure i get in body space They were just like, are you still happy you chose Morocco? He's like, yeah, like, dude, just get off my back. I just lost the game before. Well, you look like Le Beuzeau now. I mean, man. Not everyone can do what Declan Rice did and just quickly change from Ireland to England and be the most English man in the world. It's not easy. It's not easy. It's not easy. But yes, now France will be in their eighth FIFA World Cup semifinal, which is equaling Brazil. But Germany has played 12. So look at them. Although, look, where are you now, Germany? You're not here. And then also, I just always say, is so good.
I can't stand how fucking good this guy is. And like just the last four months, he was just like, are y'all paying attention to what I'm fucking doing? Do I need to turn it up fucking louder for you? And Jesus, man, he's just like such a, such a great player to watch. He's so exciting. You just know he's going to either make the right touch, the right pass. And he's got that little flair. Bless him. But never, never seen a man look less assed with being the best player on the pitch, basically. He just looks, it's like, he doesn't have a, he doesn't have a kit. He doesn't have a boot deal or any sponsorship. He doesn't care. He's literally just like, just want to go on there, be awesome and then leave.
It's like me when I've got to play like a pickup. He's like, he's going back to his family, but he doesn't even want to do it. He just wants to go back. No, bro. Just give me the ball, bro. Here, I'm scoring from the fuck. Yeah, I scored, bro. I bet he doesn't shower. I bet he doesn't shower. He just gets in his car with his kit on. Full kit still on, kind of sliding because he's got no traction. He's like, shin pads, drives to the hotel. He's like, you guys, I'll see you there. I don't want to do the whole single thing in the changing room. Where's Matt? Hey, where's Michel? He's like, he left, bro.
Michael doesn't understand a word any of us are saying, guys. Did you see that thing where they were doing the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the tournament where everyone was saying their names and, you know, it's like, Kylian Pappé, William Saliba, and he's like, Michael, at least I... But his vibe is French, though. His energy is so... He's been down. What do you think the deal... When someone doesn't have a kit deal like that, who's that good? Because he just wears Nike Hypervenoms in custom colors. He's like one of these people who at Bayern, he was always coming correct with the boot choice. It always had to compliment the kit. He doesn't like to wear clashing boots. He's not like, bro, I'm not wearing a fucking pink boot when I'm wearing a cobalt blue fucking kit. No, fuck that. Is he holding... Is he bad with... Does he have bad management?
Is he holding out for a gigantic deal? Did he turn down a bunch of... I'm trying to figure out what his calculus is because when players are that good and they're not getting that endorsement check, I'm like, are you just... Are you like KD? I just think he just can't be bothered to go and do a... He's supposed to play chess in football, right? That's kind of what he does. He's just like... He might not be checking his email. He's like, yeah, you got to call him, bro. Do you have Michael's number? He's like, no. You're not going to get through to him. Unless you got Eze's number. I know they talk to each other, so if you can get to Eze, then you might be able to get to Eze.
But yeah, I'm sure after this, some fucking boot maker is going to back up a fucking gigantic truck of money and be like, please, for the love of God. I think he's got no, I think he doesn't, because he's obviously getting offered quite a lot. What do you think is going to be that big? He just doesn't want to do it, right? He's obviously going to make a nut. Skechers is definitely called. Skechers is called first. How much is a boot deal? What are we talking on these boot deals? What's my Saka's boot deal? Can we get some money on that? Let's see. Let's like Vinicius for Nike. Let's see. Can we make a price that we can? Can we get a boot?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. There has to be. I just need an example. They don't tell us the money. So, okay, according to Yahoo Sports, Bape is getting about 20 million euros a year from Nike.
Yeah, so you'd think you'd be offered like a few mil. Yeah, you gotta get, if Mbappe's getting 20, yeah, you're worth it. You're worth eight. That's an eight million dollar guy. Easy. Okay, so it's telling me, it's guessing that Saka, this is the internet with help from our little friend, artificial intelligence. So it's not true. Let's just make up a number. Let's just make up a number. What's the day I tell you it is? I mean, it's saying between two and four million pounds, which is based off industry estimates for player of Saka's caliber highest earner at Arsenal. I think that's too low.
Because he's the face of New Balance. Like, he's carrying the... They got money. If they got Shohei money, you gotta have money. I reckon he's on eight to ten seconds. Yeah. So at least a couple of mil, and he's like, nah. I think at least he's easily worth eight million a year.
So I don't know. Hey, if you're focused on the sport like that, fucking God bless you, bro. Then, you know, show them, show them. But also, why don't you get a bag for your mother? Okay. For your father, for your country. We're worried about you, Michael. We're worried about your lack of capital. We're worried about a multi-millionaire sport. Your capitalist instincts are fucking off, my God. What the fuck? Get your fucking bag. And then, I guess the next one worth talking about, Spain, Belgium, was the next match you got to see on Friday.
What do we, I mean, is it all about, is it all about Marino at this point? It's all about Marino. The whole World Cup's about Marino. This guy is also, talk about, I mean, he gives a fuck, but he's also as, it feels like as casual as Elyse is. He's like, yeah, coach, just let me know when you want me to come on and fucking score this winner, bro.
Okay, here we go. I saw a shout out to Billy Carpenter, who I follow on Twitter. Or probably Blue Sky, actually. And he said, he did a very funny post where he said, if you look at Haaland, you know, he's only 25 and he's so young to be that good. If he keeps working hard, one day he'll be as big a bag man as Mikel Moreno. One day, man. One day. If he tries. How is he not the starting striker for us at the beginning of the year?
match day one Marino up front how is that not the move I think there's just PTSD from the end of the last season where it was like dude this guy like they can there's no need to really mark him because he's not going to stretch a back line so I think that's like we have to break out of this predictability that we had because yeah it's he's just like an interesting player like that he's very specifically effective which I like that he's just used as one of those like life hammers for like when you're stuck in a car that's underwater to like break like in case of emergency oh yeah Marino and he'll shatter a fucking you know automotive window to get your ass out of trouble he's a like he he's like this is in the best way he's not fast yeah he's not skillful so he that's always like for me like you'll be so good because if you don't it's like you don't have some key attributes that make you good at football he's just extremely clever player because he always thinks it's not it's not like a luck thing right you can't always be in the right place like him and him and bellingham have the same thing they just like know where the ball's gonna go it's crazy what was it he he had a quote at the end of that one they're like how are you so lucky he's like i'm not lucky dude i'm fucking practicing all the time to figure out where i need to be when i need to be there is that for his whole life you know i mean like the players are organizing a night out and he's like well sexy details like
Don't bother. And then they're like, oh, he's in China White? And like, you just knew. He's like, I've been here an hour. I knew you guys would be here. Oh, Mikel's done it again. Roderick's organizing a night out in LA and they're like, don't even tell Mikel, bro. I just know he's going to fucking be there. And they go there. He's waiting for them at fucking, you know, what the fuck is, at Buffalo Wild Wings by fucking Inglewood or some shit. And he's like, I already knew, guys. I already knew. I've already paid the tab in advance. I already know what you're going to order. Everything's on the table right there. This is everything you're going to eat and drink tonight. I knew you were going to plan this night last week. I actually, this is, I reserved the table.
I was on the table. I've gotten into a fight with the waitress already. Yep. Everything's perfect. But we made up for it and we're getting a volcano cake at the end for free. All right. We're all good. We're all good here. But yeah, he's, I think, he's already got some kind of record, I believe. There are just two examples of a player scoring the winning goal for Spain in the knockout stage of the World Cup as a substitute. Marino versus Portugal and Marino versus Belgium. Beautiful. So he's that guy. He's a fucking legend, bro. I had the opposite of that for many years. I always knew when the cops were going to show up at a party.
That's good. That's good, right? That was some good news things. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, because you knew just when it was about to boil over. You're like, and we need a dip. And you just leave? Yeah, I would just leave. I'm just like, guys, I'm out of here. And people be like, where? Why? What are you doing? The music's so loud. Why would you go? You're actually just a snitch. I am the cop. You call the cops before you call your best friend Lucadenia. Yeah, I report to Lucadenia and Shaquille O'Neal. By the way, Lucadenia, he's like linked with... He's just a player. But a player that I like just... I think you sometimes get like club bias. It's him at Aston Villa. He's never really... It's Aston Villa, right? Normally. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean.
Just sort of completely just, again, he just looks like such a standard white dude. Isn't particularly fast. And I'm like, I guess this guy's just a complete journeyman. And then he's like, France is starting left back. He's going to PSG. I was like, all right, Jamel. Sorry, I doubt you're best. Chicago PD, bro. Chicago PD is a good show. And he's pretty fucking good, bro. He had a nice shot. What was that shot he had outside the box? Oh, yeah. Like the keeper got fingertips to him. Yeah, yeah. Would have been a top goal of the tournament. Again, in Belgium, I was like, there's going to be an upset. And then Philippine Courtois gets injured. And I am glad Spain, just for the Spain-France of it, you kind of want to see those two go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No disrespect to Belgium, but like they were just eking it out. They weren't like, it didn't feel like two powerhouses coming at each other, which is crazy. I mean, it was interesting because this was the first time Unai Simon let a goal into this entire tournament, which is, that's why I'm really, that's what's really so interesting about the France-Spain match. Like Spain's just ability to stay organized, defend well, but going against a fucking French juggernaut offensively, I think he's going to render some interesting stuff. But did you see like that? Sorry? Just a word on Belgium's coach. I think he had a pretty good tournament, man, just in terms of his game plans.
The only team to score on Spain is Belgium. Nobody saw that shit coming. And also up front, that guy, Charles de Catellaire. Just a fun player to watch, just to sort of... You're just an aerial freak. Yeah, I know. I was really enjoying watching him just cause a lot of havoc. White Belgian Randy Moss. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, listen. The chemistry that they had, Belgium had none of that for them to get this far despite hating each other. And the coach clearly doesn't fuck. I mean, Courtois doesn't fuck with the coach. He threw the coach under the bus fast as hell. Leo kind of being a player of the tournament, I'd say. Oh, 100%. But he was balling. And then he's going to make his pension money. Yes.
Is that in a nice part of Turkey, eh? Someone said it is in a nice part of Turkey, eh? I don't see Leo being like, yeah, man, I'm trying to grind it out in the Turkish. Like, it's gotta be. They're like, bro, I wake up under the sea. Like, little mermaid. Whoa. Turkey got Atlantis? Bro, they got it all, man. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's in Istanbul. Oh, it's in Istanbul. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's us being... Come on, man. Yeah, but it's like right on the coast of...
It's like, yeah, it's like, it's on the beach, but it's, yeah. Sorry, Turkish listeners for ignorance. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Look, we're barely getting the right pronunciation. I'm watching a Netflix drama with Steve Coogan from the 80s about how a lot of the heroin came into the UK under Thatcher from Turkey. So that's something I know about Turkey. There we go. So, all right. Thank you for the course. Beautiful settings and dangerous drugs. Yeah. Hey, bro, thanks. Thanks for getting all this gag into the frigging print, bro. Frigging needed it. This is what the game is all about, man. This is what America doesn't understand. Football, bro.
It's sports plus just like regular life, man. You got to know the heroin numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want to play on that level, man. Just like, yeah, you got to know when there is some, like the invisible hand of organized crime potentially shepherding a player through their career or keeping them at Liverpool for their entire career. Yeah.
just hypothetically speaking hypothetically speaking to say yeah okay then Chris I was thinking of you on Saturday yep when we had a doubleheader there were two games that day the first being Norway versus England where did you watch the Norway versus England so I normally go to the Fox and Hounds in Studio City which is a very English pub well here's the issue here's what I found out I had a friend it's so popular as you know despite having one toilet one place to piss they fit like 300 people in and people don't go fucking dual pissers they got a toilet and I gotta say somebody's been going there since I was of drinking age. Shout out, was it 2004? And even before that with a fake ID. If somebody had to shit, bro, just two people taking a piss. But times have changed. I'm sure it's something about that being, people like at the back of them are worried, is this guy peeing into the toilet just halfway through just going to sit down? You know, if you're about to do that in life where you like think it's a piss. I'm not worried. I'm not worried about someone having to poop in front of me. I'm like, damn, that's brave, dog. Like, you've been in jail. You don't want to be that guy. Yeah. Hold on. Yeah, you've been on it. Hold on. It's the cost of living in general, guys.
The drugs ain't strong enough and the booze ain't cheap enough for everybody to get drunk enough and high enough to not give a fuck. You're just one. You're just one of them. No one's cross-meaning enough to be like, ah, just like leaning on a guy while you're pissing? Yeah. You guys are leaning on each other? Yeah. When we used to be a country, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can lean on my fellow man in the freaking men's room. They're still doing that in Iowa right now. That's like one of those, like, you know, there's like 30, those today years old, you know, back in the, you know, if you remember this, you're old. It's like, remember the good old days when two guys?
We're just pissed next to each other. Shoulder to shoulder. Shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes you can hold their dick. Singing Wonderwall. Sometimes. Yeah, I guess a little bit. And that was a good time. That was called 1988, man. And the pub dust was flying, baby. Wait, it's okay. So you didn't notice the Fox. No, but what happened was I watched the Mexico game there. And then what they do is they sell. But when we were watching the game, ABC News, LA, filmed like the fans. And so, yeah. Pardon? Shout out. Shout out local news stations still doing their thing. So then.
you have to go buy the tickets. You have to buy tickets to go to the, watch the game, which is kind of insane. Anyway, we're buying tickets to just sit in a place and watch the game. We're not going to the stadium. Anyway, friend of mine went, he got there early. He went, oh, there's no one in line. He went to get a kebab. He came back. There was like 20 people in front of him. Like not, like not a huge, anyway, everyone, he got, he got stopped two from the front. And so they've sold out. And what happened was because it was on the news, loads of flipping yanks. I know that's a lot of our listeners. Oh my God. That's where the English guys watch the game. Let's go have an English experience.
So they wanted, so all these, the hard art like that. Yeah, that was damn, man. Soccer. Soccer. Sorry, I had to watch in Zebulon. Long story short, I watched in Zebulon. Oh, Zebulon. All right. But that was quite fun. But what I discovered, there was a bunch of usurpers there. Basically, like the fox and hounds of the English man's air. They were taking English, a bit of payback, I think. Yeah. And they were rooting for Norway as well. I feel like a lot of American people were from Norway. A friend of the podcast, Longest, calls me after the game. He watched it in Santa Monica at that golf club, Penmar, and he goes,
I'm watching the game and there's always like, it's sort of a scene there where people are like, oh, it's fun to watch the game. All these Americans are there. And they thought it was like, you know, Holland's captured the nation. So they thought it was funny to like, be like, like cheering and like going, ah, I want something bad. And as long as it's correct, this isn't funny. This isn't a joke, mate. This is like a one-off. This is every four years. This has been 60 years for us. And we actually care. We don't, it's like, for them, it's like watching an episode of flipping Love Island. This is not, this is our, this is our blind words. So he was, he was getting annoyed. But where I watched this, it was a perfect front row. Big screen was great. But they did a very funny thing, which is sporadically throughout the game. They just kept putting up.
a projected image of Harry Kane and Donald Trump playing golf, which I thought was quite funny actually. Yeah, that's, that's fine. Just to remind you, just so you know, is this your game? He wasn't having a great game anyway, in my opinion. They're like, is this why? Is this why? Absolutely Trump's fault. Yeah, that first goal from Andreas Sheldrup, I think that's how you say his name. Fuck. No, that's, as I like to call it, as I like to call it, it's a cross-cum shot. Thank you. If you pronounce it differently though, it's not a cross-cum shot, it's a cross-cum shot. Cum shot. Yeah, yeah. I remember the first time I saw that when I first would get play-by-play notifications on the Sky Sports app.
And it said cross cum shot. And I screenshotted it because I'm such a child. And I go, bro, what the fuck is this? It says Santi Cazorla cross cum shot. You know, you picture him angrily tugging away. At the time, because I was just so eager, me and my boy were like, what the fuck does that mean? They're like, why would there be a cum shot? They're like, did they get hacked? We were in the desert. We were in the desert. So we had sporadic cell signal. I was just able to get text message updates. And I remember just getting, just seeing that thing click across the stream. Like, what the fuck's going on, bro? They're doing cum shots.
The beautiful game, dude. It's not so beautiful. Across that becomes a shot. I guess you got to save that syllable. Who's got the time for becomes? Cross come shot. But he celebrated in such a like, I'm the king. It was like, nah, man. And I think afterwards he was like, I was trying to score. It's like, no way. No, you're not. Hey, listen, either way, whether he was or he wasn't, he definitely put a little too much sauce on it. At the point in the game, I'm like, it's too early.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Where are you at, England? You're 36 minutes in. Beware. Do you know what it reminded me of? It was obviously to make this Arsenal-centric, but it reminded me a bit of like, obviously North had a great tournament and a really good team. It reminded me of like Arsenal as they're getting good, like a few years ago, but then they play City. I mean, it kind of happened this year, to be honest, in one league. You think, no matter how well you play and how they don't really play well, all I was thinking was, England have been here so much in recent memory. Yeah, it's going to be like, no. And we've just got enough. Yeah, yeah. That was fun. But Jude's like, let me just do this quickly. Bash it in. And then...
Yeah, but I mean, they played great. I thought Norway were really good and their game plan in the first half, like England played well from Bellingham's goal to halftime, which was about four minutes. Right. And they didn't play well in the second half and then they played great for the first half of extra time and they kind of won the game. Listen, 2-2 would have been a just result, man. Yeah, exactly. Norway got mildly finessed.
But England was the better team in the end. Oh, yeah. I mean, there was, I mean, there was obviously Cable Gate. Cable of God. Cable of God. Cable of God. This long into the tournament for us to get a cable. Yeah. I can't believe FIFA didn't make them take down the cables. That's crazy. I was wondering, as an NFL fan, I'm like, what are they going to do with those cameras? Are they just sitting there? Does it happen in NFL sometimes? Yes. Sometimes a kick will hit the camera and they'll have to re-kick the ball. Right, right. Has there ever been like a ghost cable in situations? No, they always stop the game. Yeah, because they're like, well, they should. I mean, at first.
in real time, you're like, oh, you don't know what happened. And then when you watch it, you're like, it clearly, the trajectory just changed. And even like the way, I think what Anthony Gordon is the one that brings it down. No, Elliot Anderson. It was Elliot Anderson. It felt like he was bringing down a ball that was just tossed vertically straight up. Versus trying to trap a fucking goal kick that has a proper heart. He's just like, oh, okay, boom. And now we're off. Two passes. Obviously, FIFA just said, nah, because they said that's not true. So at the moment, FIFA is about as reliable as that AI search I did. AI is now more reliable than FIFA. You're like, if FIFA say something's true, we're like, this is the problem with the Balogun thing. Now you're just like, well, everything's screwed up. Nothing you say is reliable. Not that I thought they were that reliable anyway, but it's really like...
I mean, I'll take, but despite that, and I'm obviously English, so hugely biased, I think you, it didn't like, it wasn't like it hit the cable and went in the goal. So it's like, right. I don't know. Maybe that's just me. Cable's a part of the stadium. Cable connected to the stadium. That's the stadium. I mean, the thing is, it's foreign. That's all. Is it a foreign object? Yes. So by that metric, it should stop. It didn't. So FIFA's just going to FIFA. They're getting so much money out here. They can't be bothered with continuity of the rules and treatment of people. Like they're just bringing in cash on like forklifts, man.
Yeah. There's no time for justice. It all goes back into the game, though, Jamel. All of it. I'm sure they showed us their bank accounts. We see it's all straight back into that. That soundtrack ain't cheap. They had to pay for the future to die. Jelly Roll. We had to pay for Jelly Rolls Manjaro. Come on now. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to have to talk about the dumbest fuck to ever fuck. Patrick Sorloff. After this.
And we're back. Now, Jamel, when you said it would have been good Norway to England to, what I thought you were referencing was the moment when Norway almost went up 2-0 on England and fucking 2v1 breakaway. Somehow, Patrick Sorlot misses completely. I mean, based on what he says, he saw that Erling Haaland was clearly just in loads of space, just needed the ball. And he was going to probably most likely score, let's be real. But he said he thought he couldn't get the pass off, so he panicked and then tried to go take a shot on his own. And I've seen a lot of people be like, he's not a selfish player, so it doesn't really strike.
it didn't strike most people as him being selfish, but just more like, yeah, you don't, you don't know how to handle the stress of a moment like that where clearly the best option was just to lay the ball off. And like, there's so many angles. You see so many Norway fans and other fans posting angles to be like, look how much space he could have gone fucking heel side of him and get the fucking ball to him. Um, yeah, pretty fresh. I was even actually kind of upset watching because like, there it is. It's right there. It's right. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Do you not think it was, I mean, obviously again, like it, like stones at, I think stones sits in a really good, but I'm rewatching it. He does. I mean, he should still pass it.
I was like, yeah, no, no. He did as best as he could, given the situation. I was with Chris for a second, too, though. There's something about the defender, the way the defender tracks back affects the decision-making. He is like, he doesn't make the pass, like, round the front, as in between defender and goalie. That he cuts off. So then what he's seeing is he sees Haaland, so I guess he could cut it back to him where the defender is. But yeah, he's kind of like, it's very good defending, but you still, if you're like a high-level attacker, you should be able to make that work. It is the stress of the moment. You see it all the time in Street Fighter tournaments, man. When the heat is on, sometimes you just got to do the most basic thing.
Right. And you think you have to do something, yeah. You think you've got to do something special, just cheese. Just go low, low kick, low kick, low kick, low kick, low kick. They can't stop that. They can't stop that shit. Also, when you look at Chris, in your replay, could Holland have held his run just a moment that would have taken stones with Sorlot and then he could have just maybe had a little bit more of an angle if he held his run? Well, the hard thing is, hang on, if you go from the beginning, is it's, what's his face? It's like Rice or someone is just catching up with, as soon as Sorlot slows down, then...
an England player is like about to get onto the window is like microscopic again we're like hyper analyzing something these professionals have decided in milliseconds but um still coward yeah I mean if I'm playing FIFA I would have chopped and then I would have just laid it off triangle right there boom run onto it anyway yeah what he probably needs to do is as soon as he gets his first touches then bang it so you get one touch and then put it in his path once he takes a touch in a second he kind of fucks himself but is he right footed or left footed I think he kept putting it onto his left right I think he's lefty I think that's why they play him out yeah yeah it's uh a bit of a Victor Jokere's PTSD for me there against Newcastle. Yeah. Oh God. When everybody on the bench is like, at least he tried. At least he tried. At least he chose the worst angle possible. Yeah. It's tough when you're going that fast too with the ball. Yeah. We all know. We've played at the highest level. Every single one of us. We're just like the most boring. We have no hot takes in this podcast. I mean, just well done for trying guys. I mean like, God, have any of us really played at the highest level? We don't have any places. Who are we to discuss this? My hot take is I wanted England to win the whole fucking time.
It feels like a hot take the way everybody was acting about Norway. And all day, I'm like, fuck you guys. Fuck all that rowing. No. I'm going with the most evil, most racist shit possible, dog. This is the World Cup. I'm going with the top dog. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. I love it. Chris, how are you feeling? Because there's a lot of historical things lining up for you. You mentioned 66, though, too, right?
Four consecutive FIFA World Cup games. Longest winning run within a single edition since 1966. Okay, it's coming home. only the second manager to go unbeaten in his first six FIFA World Cup games in charge of England. The previous was Alf Ramsey in 1966. Coming home. There's a lot of 66 talk out here. There was quite a funny thing after the game where some American sawburst walking out. I mean, I'm now wearing, I don't wear an England shirt. I wear a lucky Hawaiian shirt. It's a red one. And then I'm with a fan in my mate Jason in an England shirt.
And then this guy's like, is it coming home? And I'm like, maybe. And he was like, oh, I thought it was going to be more confident. I was like, yeah, I've seen this many times. Have you met a proper football fan? Few of us would be like, fuck yeah, right now. I'm calling it, bro. Name it on, doggy. I think Argentina's a great matchup. It's going to be a great team. Two teams that haven't really played well. But I'm looking at the match winners, and I have to say this. He's on my background. And Jude Bellingham, who there was some journalists in the UK going, does even...
should even go in the squad to the World Cup, which is crazy. He is the most complete midfielder I think I've ever watched play football. He can do everything. He's got Marino, like that gene, but he can get a ball of someone on the, like, you know, that stop it in there's Mexico. He can dribble past, like, multiple guys. Yeah, and he wins head. It's just, he's so good. And the fact that he keeps coming up clutch is like, even the second goal is like, first one's just amazing. It made it look so easy. The second one is like, there's a guy in front of him, a defender. Yeah, he's just like there, like minutes before him to put it in.
So I think Bellingham is kind of pulling us over the line. And, you know, Declan Rice, poor bloke, was worried about, I think, doing a bum wee or something in the game. That's why he had to come off half-time. He'd been in bed for three days with food poisoning. Oh, what a kind way to say shit his pants. A bum wee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Terry bum wee. Is it because you're peeing out of your butt? Yeah, it's because you know when it comes out like a piss? Yeah, yeah. It's bumpy.
So it sounds kind when you think about it. Every match, everything sounds more grim for Declan Rice. Last time, he's had the worst nerve pain of his life, but he's got a soldier on. This time, he almost blew out his shorts with bum piss. He's just going to come out with no head. The next case, he's a headless man. He's in a Hellraiser type situation. Galloping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's galloping down the field with no head. Just to be a little bit selfish to talk about Arsenal for a second, we've got Saliba, who's fucked, is going to need surgery from everything we're reading about his condition. Just a little one. Just a little bit. Just a cute little...
hint of surgery. Saka is just being held together with cellophane tape, I believe is what you would say, Chris. For us, it's scotch tape. No, I'd say cello tape. Cello tape, okay. It's interesting, in Japan, we also say cello tape. So look at us. We probably stole it for you guys. No, that's clearly the Japanese pronunciation of cellophane tape. Cello tape. Speaking of which, I watched the game at the Getty. Oh, and then Rice, with his bum wee nerve pain, we're not going to see these guys, everyone's saying, until after that first international break, which I'm like, great. But that also makes me nervous. I'm like, are we going to reinforce properly so that we're not fucking chasing spirits?
calm that break. But the issue is, if Saka doesn't play, I mean, Nonny in the first half, did Zlatan say that the cable had a better game for England than Nonny? When I watched Nonny, I was like, I kept thinking he'd be really good at Gaelic football, which if you don't know, it's where, you can bounce it, you can dribble around people, and then you can kick it in a goal, or they have massive rugby posts out there, and it's like, he would be so good at that, because he's so good at getting past people, but then the last action is just absolute pony. He would be scoring so bad. So many Gaelic football goals from the wing, just trying to cross, just go straight to the upright. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so everybody saw that, right?
And Tuchel makes the changes, right? And England goes on to win the game. And then the press is like, hey, Tuchel, what'd you think? And he's like, man, we could play better. Obviously, Tuchel is talking about Matawake, man. Like, who else would he have possibly been talking about when he said that? He's not going to throw one guy under the bus, but he's like, yeah, we kind of played like shit. We got lucky. We're going to have to play better to win. And then the reporter goes to Jude Bellingham, a man who can actually do no wrong, and gets him all fired up. He's like, hey, coach.
Coach was talking shit about y'all, man. What do you think about that? He was saying y'all could do a lot better. He said he was disappointed. What'd you think about that? He wasn't going to get baited, though. He was like, I don't know, man. Okay. He was like, sure. All I know is, you know, all the lads out there, they were hustling. So shout out to them. That's all I know. There was another thing that Tuchel got asked, too, about like mentality or something. He was like, what? Yeah, the reporter starts bringing up mentality. Do you think it's a mentality problem? And Tuchel's like, are you dumb and shit, bro? Russell Westbrook. Bro, what? Yeah.
I just don't know why. The mentality was good because they played like shite and they got through the game. It just feels like that self-sabotaging English sports media shit. Yeah, why would a British guy be asking that? Shut up. I would ask that to throw you guys off. Right, right, right. If you're being antagonistic on purpose. Because it's not supportive. It's about tearing down people, baby. But I think it's going to be a good game. I mean, this is, again, I think we're about to move on to it, but England are going to be the away team based on decisions. By the way, can we just talk about Jed Spence for a second?
He came on. I was like, is he the greatest fullback to have ever played football? That was one of the best caveats I've played. Man, I'll take my chin strap off. Chin strap, yeah. Chin strap after you, Jed. Yeah, no more strap on. He's fucking us with his own penis. I mean, I joke, I joke, again.
I'm sorry. I just, yeah. Did he say he's fucking guys with his strap on? With his own pins. He wasn't feeling confident. He decided I needed a strap on for a while. Yeah. He finally popped that baby off. Now look. Daggered, daggered that thing. Talk about the amount of things on this podcast that become the World Cup reality. The advertising hoardings has obviously had a very controversial World Cup. But we've talked about like taking off like pits of your face or whatever. And it just like, he took it off and his opposite man could do nothing. And then he was just, he was, he was unstoppable. And I wanted to like, yeah, it ends like tragically. He catches like a stray ball on the chin, like without it.
I thought he was going to break his shit when he, because he had that shot that like narrowly missed, right? And then he snapped it on his face. And I'm like, yo, that thing looks heavy, bro. I thought it was like, I thought it was like in Forrest Gump where he just kept running and the leg was going to break off. He's running so fast, the strap just like fell off around him. Somehow he's running, but the chin strap like, yeah, it was soft. He's got like such a grimace on his face because the G-force of how fast he was running just rips it off his face. His hinges, you see metal hinges on the field. He snapped it on his own face and then I guess he just threw it off because he's like, well, fuck it, man, I already.
I already almost broke my jaw again. Fuck this stupid thing. Looked great, though. Looked great. So speaking of the opponent in the semifinal, Argentina. Three. Switzerland won. Goals from Alexis McAllister. A header. Dude, that fucking Julian Alvarez goal was so fucking nice, man. Meant to do it. Definitely meant to do that one. Yeah, definitely. God, yeah. He's been trying that shit the whole fucking tournament. He put a little action to it. Lartaro Martinez right at like the 121st minute just to fucking put a cherry on top to really be like, y'all have no fucking chance. Goodbye. You are band of shed. You have gone fishing. Enjoy Cabo. And yeah, now.
Hey, also this one, not without a bit of controversy, I gotta say, which I don't like because I, I'm one of these people, I'm a big, I'm a team Messi guy. I'm like, yes, bro. Messi is one of the greatest fucking players we've ever seen play the sport. I hate that shit happens in matches that like take away the enjoyment or have me being like, what the fuck was that? Like, what is going on? No, I don't like that shit. And all these conspiracy theories that come out, people are like, check out this data for the number of times VAR has intervened. And it goes on, they're like, fuck, it's just, God, I don't, I don't, it's a shitty dimension on it.
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm like, I don't ever want to... My brain is like, probably stuff, but whatever. It's a bit far-fetched. But then you are like, it's a lot of these ones in column A that are starting to line up. And I mean, they don't sound... When the conspiracy theorists don't sound insane, you're like... Because I mean, you look at the number of times, just generally, even Messi has skirted...
uh, getting a red card, right? Like a lot of people are playing clips from fucking the 2022 match between the Netherlands where he clearly handled the ball after like Nathan Ake tackled it. And they're like, bro, that's blatant handball. And then he's like, that's always been a thing. Like, you know, in England, in the Premier League, if you're like the English captain, you don't get, you don't get, it's always been that. But when it's like, when it's like just game defining decisions for everyone on the field, it's like,
We're going to talk about the Zembola. I don't think it invalidates anything. If America showed us anything, even when they're cheating on your behalf, it's still really hard, bro. It's like not easy. Sure, I get that. But even though they're cheating, it's still very difficult. You can't guarantee anything. But yeah, I get it. So the crazy part was there's this tackle from Leandro Paredes. He tackles. You see Mbolo go down. He gets carded. Mbolo had already had a yellow card earlier in the match. Then the fucking referees called to the VAR monitor. And then it turns into, well, hold on now. This actually isn't a yellow card because Mbolo was simulating.
And then we get this very dramatic moment where like, even the commentators like, surely they're not going to go out and then give him Bolo a second yellow for this. And lo and behold, he's shown a second yellow. He goes off. He's in disbelief. He's in fucking tears, which you can only imagine. You're like,
you know, Landon Donovan was like, I kind of get it, man. Sometimes when you see a guy coming in that hot, like you're just going to kind of like make sure you're not standing firmly on the ground to avoid injury. And, but I, and I get though too, yes, simulation is a punishable offense, but we haven't seen this, this other thing, if you're not enforcing it consistently, then it just feels like one of these things that is suddenly a change, the entire complexion of a match worthy offense like this. And it just didn't feel like it was one of those moments. It's like the refs, the refs are like, somebody's getting a yellow card. If I pull out this card, somebody's getting one. I'm not putting it back, which is way too horny.
You should be able to put it back. It's on the mistaken identity thing, right? Which is supposed to be used when they accidentally card someone on your team. It's the wrong player. It's normally when a white ref cards the wrong black guy. That's what that unofficially is. I like to see the stats break down of how many of those cards have been white guys giving them to the wrong black guy. The only other time it happened in the tournament was Tim Rehm. It was a white guy and Miguel Amarone. And then they gave Almarim the card. Right. So that is kind of... I don't know.
Yeah, it's but so it's just like, yeah, the guy's it did it like a pretty bad day. But yeah, also, yeah, I think he's still like touch it again. I thought he got touched. It's a chair pull for me, bro. I feel like he's a little more smarter than he's letting on. Yeah, like he's obviously coming in and Bolo's trying to anticipate the contact. And he's like, no, that's a chair pull, dog. And also in Bolo's dumb as shit for like, what are you doing trying to work a call against Argentina, bro? Yeah. Have you been watching anything? Yeah, you have to do that. It has to be the like, don't give him anything. Don't give him anything. He's given him, especially when they were like, I wasn't. I know you guys were watching it live. I was.
I was at dinner. So I was having to follow it. And then I was like, it sounded like they were just on, they were like Switzerland had them on the ropes, right? They were like on them, right? They had a lot of momentum. Switzerland finally scores for like the first time in what feels like fucking months. Yeah. Years. The other thing was, that was a great goal too from Indoi. Really, really good goal. The really other part that was interesting about the simulation thing, the last player to get a second yellow for simulation was Asamoah John in 2006. Wow.
20 fucking years it's been since they were doing shit like that. That's why I just like, just come on, man. On the VAR, I've sort of gone, it's good for me, it's got to be offside, objective, and... like goal line technology. That's great. That's actually a good invention. And then I think it's just got to be if it's a really dirty tackle and it's, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the only things. Let's not pick apart. I think there was a foul in the earlier phase of play that might overturn it. It's always been subjective. The referee, it's not objective. It's kind of like being alive, guys. This is what football is, bro. The refs are literally the fucking police, bro. There's like cops and judges and shit. Right. They're here to protect private property, AKA FIFA and add money. Yeah, dog. This is really what this is. And it's beautiful. But that's the thing though too, right? You need these tragedies to give you songs like All Right by Kendrick Lamar.
You know what I mean? You don't get it all right by Kendrick Lamar unless there's not some fuckery. However, there's also the kind of fuckery that exists when it's like true injustice, not the kind that comes from a VAR decision, but like those things you're like, that was the worst fucking call I've ever fucking seen in my fucking life and nothing was done about it. You know what I mean? Like the pre-VAR scars, the pre-VAR scars. I've just realized the irony is probably Arsenal don't win the league of my new rules. After review. After review. Come on.
Well, I mean, I don't know, but also with VAR decisions, wasn't there something like we would have also got more points if there weren't for VAR? No, I think we would have, we got by a mile the most VAR decisions in our family. Hell yeah, bro. Finally. You know what? And that's what I've been saying, bro. I love VAR. Just when I was out, back in on VAR. And it was all because the year before, they literally, we didn't get any calls. I bet if you look at the season before, we was at the bottom of the call list. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, something I heard on a, did I hear on Football Weekly or on AskBlog? I can't remember. They were like, do you think Jed Spence is that, you know, that penalty? Like, I watched that. I was like, well, that's not a penalty. I watched him as an England fan. I was like, he's initiated
But if an Argentina player did that, do you reckon they're overturning that? That's a question for you. Do you reckon or are they going to let Lionel Messi step up and miss another penalty? What do you think they're going to do? If it's Messi, it's staying. I think we all know that. But I don't know how many people love Lotero Martinez. Everybody doesn't love him. Maybe they punished Jed for, they're like, it's just not safe taking his chin strap off at this point in the game. We can't be condoning that. He's being reckless. Yeah. The manager throws up the racism protocols on him. They're like, what? What? And he's like, no, man, we got to check it out now. I didn't do nothing. I think it's a just ending. I think, like, once again.
England versus Argentina. It's two teams who are getting calls nonstop. I think they cancel the refs out in terms of... Oh, really? Okay. Because a couple of refs is going to be messy. A couple of refs is going to be Harry Kane. I just saw the XG of the final four teams in England have the worst XG of like plus four. And I think Argentina are next on plus eight. And so, you know... Wow. It'll be interesting. I do think England not playing in 100 Fahrenheit Miami Heat will help us. It's under a roof.
I assume Declan Rice is going to be fit. I think Rhys James is fit, which I think is pretty important. But the issue is, it looks, I mean, but how good was Saka, by the way, when he came on? It was like, it was just, it's like, he had that one moment where he was just like, I'm going straight through your ass. Like, fuck you. He's so clever. He's not a fucking platter. Yeah.
No, no, no, carry on. I was like, I was just going like, again, you just, with Saka, he's clearly not physically fit. I don't know if he'll ever be as physically strong or powerful as pre-hamstring injury, but he's so clever that he can do this stuff and it always makes the right decision, like 99% of the time. Not like Madueke. Madueke, every time he gets the ball, he makes the wrong decision. I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, the wire, the cable do more for England than Madueke the whole match. Exactly, exactly. So, it's bang on. But I think if Saka's fit again, that's a big difference because otherwise...
I assume he's fit enough to do 60 minutes or something. He came on at halftime so he could potentially do extra time. I think that's why he did that. Probably the smarter move. Yeah. You'd rather throw Saka on, but I don't know, like with his injury, although, you know, he's going to fucking do whatever he can. I mean, physically he's capable of. One thing I do want to just say is, you know, RIP, maybe the craziest looking manager, not RIP, but you're out of the tournament, Murat Yakin, the Switzerland manager, looking like a GTA loading screen. Man. How the fuck? This guy is unbelievable. Like with his like Cruella DeVille shock of white hair,
designer, like Italian glasses. I don't know, bro. He looks like he deals drugs I've never heard of. Like literally out of my pay grade. Orange cocaine. Yeah, I'm like, I don't know that. He's like, you don't know orange cocaine? It's bright orange, dog? Yeah. That's crazy. Is this a traffic cone ground up? Yes. Yes. It's called Scottish Coke. Is this not just iron brew? Yeah. Yeah, we put iron brew on a piece of parchment paper. We let that evaporate. So just the hard iron brew crystals remain. And then, yeah, you mix that with a parking cone. Well, listen, that's artisanal at least. Yeah, absolutely. He's just fucking, this guy's beautiful.
I got to say. I know. As the tournament went on and on, he just got more and more memes about him, but we're going to miss someone looking like that on the sidelines. Who was it? I want to say, was it Columbia? There was another coach from one of the Central American teams who also had a strong vibe with his long hair.
You know what I'm talking about? Oh, old boy from Columbia. He's not as hot, though. He kind of had more of a science fiction. Yeah, yeah. He looked like he was a character from Dark Crystal. Yeah. You know, like he looked like a Henson puppet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to get to the final to see if Thomas Tuchel just wears a badly fitted polo shirt in the final and not a suit. I want to see if he still wears... You gotta stick to your guns, bro. He's not wearing a suit. He can wear a fucking hat. Yeah, he's wearing a hat out. Yeah. He's not cutting his hair. He doesn't want to see his half-grown-in hair be a mess. He's got the hat on. We already know. He's a football coach after all. I don't know how to dress. All I know is...
So yeah, that sets up our semifinals. France versus Spain happening probably as you hear this today. Interesting tidbit. I don't know how relevant this is, but in the five times Yamal and Mbappe have squared off in single elimination matches, Yamal has scored four goals. They scored in three. Yeah. So that means they won the Euro semifinals, the Supercopa final, the Copa del Rey final, Nations League semifinals and Supercopa final. That last Supercopa final was a joke. And like they mutinied basically. I don't know if it's fair to compare in free fall Real Madrid to Barcelona, but you know, sure, sure. I mean, what do you think is going to win? What do you think is going to win? I don't know. I got to stay France. I got to stay France. Yeah. Spain's got a great defense, but.
yeah honestly saliba doesn't look the hottest out there so i i can see something happening but the ways i don't know yeah the easy my my like reflective answer is like france Yeah, I have that as well, but I do have a weird feeling like McKellino will like, it just, they almost look too, you know when a team is like, it's ridiculous logic, when they're like almost too good all the way through, I'm like, they haven't really had a challenge, so I could see Spain, I feel like it's going to be one all extra time penalties or, or Michelino, you know, he's going to come off the bench and just bag, is my kind of prediction. I think the, I think the Spanish will be tactically the most sound team that France will have to go against. And I don't know, who knows if the Spanish, former Spanish Prime Minister.
talking racist shit about them will motivate the French. But the former Spanish PM Rajoy, R-A-J-O-Y said, quote, they've won, this is talking about France, they've won every match they've played at this World Cup and are currently top of the FIFA rankings. They also have an exceptionally strong squad. That said, one thing they don't have is any French players. Don't know Rabiot, huh? Shut the, shut your dumb ass up. The French embassy replied, without wishing to spark a controversy, it is worth recalling the facts all the players on the French national team are French. Of the 26 players, 23 were born in France. The three who were born abroad are also French. And I'm like, this is just...
First of all, I don't expect a prime minister of a former colonial power to actually zoom out and give yourself some fucking context here. Fuck with. But these players are all connected to through France, through colonization. Okay, man. And you're Spain, bro. Quit acting like you don't make Nico Williams take a separate bus. Well, and also, like, you have anything to say about Laminia Mall? His mother is from Equatorial Guinea, which was under, previously under Spanish rule. You know they don't like his little brother. They might like Laminia. You know they be hating on his little brother. Riding around the power wheels and stuff. Yeah, I don't know about you, bro. And then, like, and also, like, you got Amaric Laporte. Naturalized.
fucking Dean Huysin. I mean, although he grew up in Spain, he grew to Spain when he was five. I feel like you're being too logical with this guy. No, I just like hate this, but I think it's the irony of people not, this is where I have to get a little bit fucking like sociological, historical here. But like, you're actually upset about the idea that this nation has relations with these countries through their own imperialism. It's not like these people are just showing up. It's like, yeah, because Cameroon, like look at all the places under French rule, Senegal. Like this is why, this is France's history.
So either way, these people are French. It's called a talent pool. Yeah, yeah. Hello. It's called a fuck yes. Okay? That's what they're trying to do. That's the one thing you can, yeah, you gotta just. Also like Platini was fucking Italian. You know what I mean? There's all, there's so many, like it's, that's what's so stupid about this because nationality is so, it's like, this isn't fucking the 1300s.
Anyway. I know. I'm still working out whether to, I'm just, you just got to go for what's best for you or what you want to do and it should be your choice. If I go for my son, I am like looking at his different options for who can play for. Yeah. Just smart money's on, you'll get in the Philippines team. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, all of us walk onto the Philippines team. Yeah. He's already in the team. Two and a half years of age. Oh, he's on the U3 team? No, he's not. He's a full international. He's their captain. Yeah. With the new 64 person World Cup, 64 team World Cup, whatever it's going to be, he can maybe, maybe Philippines will be in there. Don't sell your kids short, bro. He can play. I think he's got what it takes.
You guys go what it takes? Yeah. To play for the US. The French team, the amount of racism thrown at the Spanish, you know, like pin it up on the dressing room board. Yeah. Their whole board, it's like a murder board of racism with like the old red string connecting all of the, they're just like each game. Deshaun doesn't even need to do a team talk. Yeah. Check out all the racists. Anti-black racism, still very fashionable. Very fashionable. So let's use this to beat the fuck out of them. All right. Cool. Cool. Yeah. I bet Didier Deshaun was like, hey man, you know, I was there, man. 98, bro. I was with the brothers, you know, on that team.
Hey, my man, Killian, bro. You know, I'm good people, bro. I was talking to Patrick Vieira, Karen Bowe, all those guys, Desai, Marcel. They were like my friends, bro. Like, I didn't even see color, bro. And look what happened to us. We won, bro. Something special happened, too. They're like, they're not French. I go, hey, shut the fuck up, bro. Maybe they're black, but they're French. All right?
And we won that year, you know? I like the fact he's got the same voices. What's that? What's your guy? Oh, was that Denali's manager? Yeah, Denali's manager. Denali's manager, yeah. That's my scummy white guy character. I'm going to go Spain then. I'm going to check out Spain is my guess. Okay. The other thing, which I maybe agree with you, Chris, is I would love to see Lamine Yamal put in a fucking performance where we talk about him. Yeah. And it feels like this is, he's, he looked just a little bit kind of sharper. He had some moments against Belgium, but like, he really, like, you know how all the time when we even talk about, you're like, man, like this motherfucker owes us a goal.
like when you think about the output of your squad, Lamini Mall, you owe us, you owe your team a big performance. And if you come out and have a big performance, then I absolutely believe that they can be France. I think I will hinge all of my Spain excitement to how well Lamini Mall, if Lamini Mall shows up and plays, then I think they can be France. I'm staying with France, man. I think Spain actually has better cheese, low key, but I'm going with France, bro. I think it's, it's a hard one, you know, it's a hard one to decide. And maybe, maybe I'll get a flash of inspiration right before kickoff. All right, then elsewhere, the other, other semifinal match.
Chris, again, England, Argentina. How are you feeling about this one? Is it coming to the finals? Is it coming to the times yet? Is it coming to the times yet before we get home? I think England will win. I think it will be a quite bad game of just two teams. Both defenses are very... I just think England will have a couple more match winners. I just think Bellingham and Kane.
is Kane had a quiet game I think I kind of like England it's funny when Rice came off and we put Ezra in the middle to be more attacking I was like whoa this is why you need even Rice who's about to shit his pants is like very important player and I think as long as he's fit I think England will I think England will win this one but I think it will not be without some form of controversy and maybe penalties even I don't know there hasn't been the pens hasn't been for a while a lot of history between these two countries a lot of yeah I mean yeah obviously talking about imperialism and colonialism then yeah the 80 pretty recent with England still hanging on to the old island there. I think England, I don't know how much I just try to ignore my country's horrible past, but I think we had the Falklands war and we won and we technically own the Falklands still, but is that true? Don't get cancelled now.
But is it like to England? I'm pretty sure. I mean, according to the things I got taught by English people with absolutely no bias, England won the Falklands War in the 80s. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of cheeky, a lot of cheeky songs you think coming out of this reporter about the Falklands? Are there any songs about the Falklands War? I'm sure. There probably are. I don't really, I don't like those things. You don't like when you go below the belt to historical fucking trauma. I said this to someone at dinner on Saturday, still a territory from Jabari's Confirmed. I said this to someone on Saturday, I go, for how, like...
messed up England. I feel England's PR team is so good. As in like, obviously people and countries still resent the English, but I do think we get away with it a lot more. Just like America get more grief than England. Oh, for sure. Yeah, we get away with it too, baby. We are, yeah. We're both making it work with the work. You know what I mean? The English, you guys sound so proper. And even like ex-colonies are just like, yeah, you guys were pretty cheeky the way you, you know, ran our country for 200 years. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Can I buy you some fries? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it, guys. I'm going with
Oh no, I was just going to say, I just think Bellingham is like coming into his prime. Messi's past his prime. I just think that it's all been about match winners. So for me, it's going to be Bellingham will probably come up with a big goal and maybe just sneak it. Okay. Okay. Are you going with Jamel? I'm definitely going with England. I'm thinking 4-2. I'm thinking 4-2 is the correct score in order for you guys to win. I think anything less, Argentina will win. I'm also like, you can't go up 3-0 too fast. I honestly think that England is better than Argentina. I think if you just, just everything that we've seen in the tournament, I think England is a better team with better defenders, with better attackers.
Just overall. I also think Tuchel's in-game management's been really good. So he seems to be able to like fix stuff with subs and that. People critiquing the squad, but he has kind of found the one thing we lack is an overlapping right back. I think Benjamin White, obviously, he's the only kind of right. I think that's why he was in the mix and then he got injured. So yeah, I think we have more match winners and play like a better team. I think England gets out to a quick 2-0 lead and then the actual police are going to come onto the field and delay the game. There's going to be a 20-minute knives out. They're going to arrest Harry Kane. They're going to arrest Harry Kane on the field.
it's going to be like that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think it'll be three, one or three, two England. I just think, I think what I think, I think Argentina is going to score first for sure. And then they, I think then the England is going to claw their way back and then kind of destroy the sense of security and hope that Argentina has been floating on and not be able to get it together to claw back. That's my, I think, I think that's where it's going to end. If Jed Spence is listening, don't wear your chin strap. Take that shit off, bro.
Yeah, it's okay. I'm trying to think what I can manifest. Like the chin strap. I trust you. Yeah, you don't need the strap. It's the strength inside you the whole time. Yeah. It wasn't the chin strap. Yeah, you don't need to get tested, man. I trust you, baby. What can we manifest that's bizarre that's going to happen? We've done the hoardings. We've done the chin strap. What bizarre thing can manifest? Hoardings next. Oh, God.
Like it hits another cable and goes straight in the goal. That's the next thing. I think we're going to, I have a feeling we may see something very wacky. Yeah. There'll be something strange. There's going to be an escalation on the wackiness of FIFA. If we're going to see the hand of corporate God of FIFA come down and medal on Fitzandex, it's going to be this round. The hand of corporate God. I hope this is the episode. Because you know, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if Argentina wins. It matters if Argentina is getting eyeballs on the final. Yeah.
So if Argentina get knocked out in the third place playoff, which traditionally has nine people watching it, maybe they'll have double figures. They were playing Argentina so bad just to be like, yeah, bro, then we're going to flog them. So they actually get us some numbers on that third place match. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, what the fuck? I will say something, something that's going against England is I have money on three of the four teams left to win. And that, that team that I don't have any cash on is fucking Argentina. Which does mean I have first, you got to put some money on them. Just to keep it even. I'll do that. I got you. I'll throw a dollar down.
You do it and then Trump canceled the whole World Cup. I found out this wasn't an actual peace prize. Fucking liar. And then one last thing just to touch on. There's been a lot of missteps with marketing with FIFA. We saw Diego Luna seemingly be the marketing face of the U.S. men's national team here in the United States. And a lot of emphasis apparently was put on Cole Palmer because we just found out that there's a whole cold brand.
of ice cubes called the cold product range, including chewable pebble ice with added electrolytes and large football-shaped ice spheres. Available here and in the UK through GoPuff. The fucking ice cubes cost like six pounds or no, four pounds. Just to confirm, by football shape, do you mean round? Yeah, it looks like they have like a little octagonal. Oh, do they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be funny if they were so fucking just janky. They're like, uh, they're football-shaped? Yes, yes, yes. I'm glad you're in this meeting. I'm so glad. I'm going to take that idea and I'm going to say it's mine.
But yeah, it's funny because I can only imagine they, they banked all this money on Cole Palmer being part of the national team, being like, at this point, maybe having as much juice as like Bellingham or like a Holland where they're like, yeah, man. And we got Cole Palmer ice cubes. They're going to be buying the shit for the fucking finals for the semifinal. And this whole time, like he didn't get fucking selected. I guess he's going to have to look like this guy's flogging overpriced ice cubes during the World Cup. He's not even playing it. That's the craziest of all that was selling designer ice cubes. That's society. Just frozen water for six pounds. How many times have you actually needed ice sent to a location?
That's a very good point. That's, that's really like, if you're, if you're summoning ice from a delivery thing, you have it too good as a person. You have mobility issues and you're just stunting by getting on and off. Cause if you're doing that, it's a party where you've run out of ice, but no one's like, Ooh, check. And every time you know somebody's on their way, you're like, Hey bro, pick up a bag of ice on your way here. Pick up a bag of ice. That's all. That's how you get ice delivered to your party. It's true. It's always somebody who's on their way. Like, Oh shit. Uh, call them, call them, call them, call them. Yeah. And then you can summon a bag of ice. So what, and what is go is go puff. I was just looking up. So this is a,
This is like a British rival. It was weed? Yeah. Wasn't that shit weed in the beginning? And then they're like, bro, this is not it. So we'll deliver anything, man. We're doing convenience store stuff now. American? Because it says it's a rival to deliver. Oh, just munchies and drinks. Oh, I thought I could have swore GoPuff had weed. Listen, you know, I know a lot of, I know many of the outlets. Yeah. I've never seen GoPuff handing out the funky stuff. No, you can get weed through GoPuff. Holy shit. THC products in as fast as fucking 15 minutes. Is it Delta 9?
Yeah. No, no. But that's not a good, it's not a good name for a company because obviously it's GoPuff. Yeah, exactly. GoPuff. It's GoPuff. It doesn't exist anymore. When it goes bankrupt, we've already got the Daily Mail headline for it. Have you seen the quote? Chris, do you mind reading the quote of Cole Palmer? Are you looking at the document? Yeah, I'm reading it. Yeah, yeah. Where you can just see it. It's like such... I like him. Okay, all right. GoPuff was already part of the routine. So when they came to me with the idea, it just made sense. What started is a bit of fun turned into something proper. I've been involved in everything. The product, the packaging, content.
And that's what interested me. He's been involved in the ice formation. He's been involved in all of it. I had to get involved with that. So, hang on. His involvement, he would have been like, hang on. That's water that's hard. I just bought ice cream. My dad told me it was an ice tree in the garden at Christmas. I can see him. He's wearing a lab coat and shit. He's got the goggles on. And all they're doing is opening a freezer and pulling out an ice tree. Fuck me, man. He just thought ice just emerged from a freezer. There's like a machine.
Just like, I don't know what it is. Like a Stargate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a portal to the ice dimension? A portal for ice, yeah. I always thought it was a portal. I'm sorry, Cole, you always thought it was a portal? Yeah, where ice came out. Have you ever wondered, Cole, like when you drink and the ice melts and you have more liquid in your glass? No. No, I always drink stuff in bottles with, no, with just like opaque, so I've never seen inside. No, Cole, it's water. You reckon? No, it is. What? God damn. So then he has to be like, hang on, are we just selling frozen water? That doesn't sound sh**.
shut the fuck up, man. Here, take the $17 million and shut the fuck up, bro. And now watch the fucking tournament from your couch. By the way, so clearly doesn't fit on this roster. Have you ever seen that video of him saying that he doesn't love the new England home kit? Like the last time he was on the team, they're like, hey, what do you rate this new home kit, guys? And it's like Sokka and like, it's like a defender and Sokka and Cole Palmer and the defender and Sokka, like it's 10 out of 10, mate. And then Cole's like, I think it's more like a seven. And Sokka's like, Sokka's about to swing on him. Sokka's like, what's wrong with it?
He's like, I just think it's a 7, bro. Oh, shit. Wait, hold on. It was just slight as fuck, but it was just like, yeah, man, obviously he's the odd man out. If we're going to go with this way of naming products, Michael Elisa's deal is with a leasing office. Michael...
Michael Elise, eh? Yeah. It's like, it's a version of whatever, like, what is that one? What's the Zillow? But it's like, Michael, Michael Elise, eh? Yeah, yeah. Come lease your apartments with me, Michael. It's like, what is it? It's like buying a house, but for poor people. Yeah, come through, but it's, my properties got a certain je ne sais quoi. Yeah, je ne sais quoi. Oh, shit, okay. You ever played Monopoly? It's like that, but with real houses. Come on down, Michael Elise. Come on down to Erling's pool hall and pub.
Yeah, we got it all here. Fun and games for the kids, too. Okay, this is the video now. Yeah, I found it, I found it. 10 for me. 10, love it. I'm saying 10 as well. 9.5 for me. Yeah, it's just classic. It's a classic Kyle Palmer bit. Yeah, yeah, just him just being a dickhead. Just having a little fun. Have you seen that other clip where he thought the waiter was the chef? Like when he was at a restaurant? He thought the waiter made the food? You made this. Can I have some ketchup, please? Thank you.
That's so funny. That's amazing. You make this. I brought it out from the kitchen, motherfucker. Are you serious? That makes me think until that moment, he'd only ever had food cooked by his mom. It's his first time ever at a restaurant. I'm sorry. The person who brings me the food has been my mom who made it. Crazy. Because anybody said like, hey, sorry that we thought Cole Palmer should be on this team. Turns out you guys picked the right guys. Is anybody in the English media like...
Yeah, I mean, that's why Tuchel, whatever happens, I love him, because he's just like, not giving a shit about what the media, he's just like, this is the piece, this is how to, and Dan Byrne's been a bit of a revelation with his giant headers coming on. just a good yeah he's he's figured out he's figured something out but also like credit to him for not again to the press and other like the mobs being like oh it has to be this person he's like bro you don't have the gig I have the fucking gig have you seen how I'm dressed have you seen this polo shirt and this baseball hat I don't care come on man I don't play your games I don't play your games yeah no not today uh well that's gonna do it for this installment we've got just wow another which is by the time we record this next one we will have a winner Chris will either be heartbroken or maybe he'll be shining up his third place medal. We don't know. We don't know what it could be. But all options are on the table. I don't want to watch the third place play. I don't want to have to even go through that pageantry. So I hope they get to the final and then just lose as they always do. But at least it's my familiar. It's comfortable. I know that world. Yeah, why not? Anything to plug? Fellers? Oh yeah, I'm in Seattle. August 21.
Always prepared. Two. Always 21 and two. Love Seattle, acrismartin.com. There we go. And yeah, I'm at Puff TDC, August 20th. And The Battery in San Francisco, September 4th. Okay. Make sure you follow us at Ain't It Footy Pod on Instagram, too, if you don't already. Come through. Be a follower. Not a leader. Because we already got three of them. Yeah, we got that. The leadership group is pretty firm here. Yeah, there's not. I mean, there's nobody who will let you know right now. It's us. It's Gio Reyna's dad.
That's kind of it. And the marketing team over at Copa. They know how to pick a winner. All right. We will see y'all next time. Bye.