Transcript of Matthew And Brady Tkachuk, Taylor Twellman Talking World Cup, USMNT Sucks At Soccer Again + Mt Rushmore of Aquatic Animals

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at stellabluecoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of my take presented by DraftKings, we've got a twofer. We're live from Tahoe Week and it's been an awesome day. We've got the Kachuk brothers Awesome interview with them. Matthew and Brady, now teammates with the Florida Panthers. We're going to talk also some World Cup.

We have Taylor Twellman on to talk about U.S. men's national team, which we also do at the start of the show. Hank is back after a long journey. He finally got here. And Max. And Max. Well, we were spent all day with Max yesterday, but you're back. So great, great episode coming. And it's brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Chill week is here. You know what that means. No schedules, no plans, just more of the good stuff. Chevy Silverado makes that possible. There's a reason Chevy's called the heartbeat of America. And the Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. These trucks work hard so you can chill harder, whether that's getting out of town, heading to the lake, or just not turning around when you probably should. It's got the capability, the space, and the muscle, everything you need for a proper summer— coolers, gear, whatever your version of chill looks like. Because at the end of the day, Silverado helps you tackle more of what you love And let's be honest, you've earned the summer. Now it's time to go get it. So roll the windows down, turn the music up, and just listen.

That's the heartbeat of America. That's today's Chevrolet. Head over to chevy.com to learn more today. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, July 8th, and we suck at soccer yet again.

It was an ass kicking. It was not— there's no, no candy coating this one. We got our asses kicked. That was the worst performance from the U.S. that I've seen in years. Just completely lackluster from the start. So much blame to go around. Tim Ream, friend of the program, good guy, over the hill, turned into, into soccer Sean Bradley before our very eyes. Got dunked on twice. Just overall, just sluggish. Just what about the goalie? Yeah, I mean, that was the most embarrassing goal that I've ever seen possible. He did the young way.

He just couldn't kick.

He hit the ground. And that's— that was a knock against Matt Turner, too, is His, his play with his feet is known for being pretty poor. So we thought maybe with Matt Freese, he might be better at that. Absolutely choked that one. And then Tim Ream decided to just jump out of the way of the ball when they shot it at the net. Really, really bad. 4-1, I would say, doesn't even really do it justice. I would say in the PFT expected goals category, I had Belgium 6, US 0.5, and we had a goal. Malik Tillman, maybe the only guy that showed up yesterday and seemed like he was playing with his hair on fire. Uh, still love that guy. So much blame to go around. Christian Pulisic, the long-anointed Captain America, future face of this league for American soccer. Absolute no-show of a game. I would say worse than a no-show of a game. And then he checks himself out, just looks lackluster, looks like he doesn't care at all. Um, had the most turnovers on the field of anybody that played. Just really, really, really bad. As disappointing as I've ever seen, as disappointed as I've ever been in U.S. soccer after this game.

Losing, getting our ass kicked by Netherlands in the last World Cup, we at least played harder. That's the problem is like we looked like we weren't even playing hard. No imagination, no, no, uh, no pace on our counter press. It was just bad all around. There's really nothing good that you can take out of that game at all. At all. Besides Malik Tillman played pretty good at times. Really nothing that you can take out of that game.

It was a failure of a World Cup.

Yeah, I said, I said before it started, we have to get to the round of— we have to get to the quarterfinals, bare minimum.

And I know we beat—

we beat—

we— people were making very mean jokes online that we were James Franklin, Penn State James Franklin. And it is actually perfectly appropriate. Because if you look at who we played, we beat the teams we're supposed to beat. We, we lost to Turkey. Now, obviously that game, maybe we weren't playing all of our starters, but still we lost to Turkey. They're ranked around us. And then we absolutely got ass-fucked by the team that was better than us in Belgium. We are, we are not who we thought we were.

No, that, that's actually literally what I said about the US before this tournament was that we were Penn State. We're Penn State football. Like, that has been the perfect comparison of Penn State football. We play every time we— you know what, like, for the longest time, all you've needed to do in the United States is like beat Mexico once every 2 years. And maybe that's just what we're gonna do. Maybe that's just the future of U.S. soccer. It's like, we'll beat Mexico once every 2 years, we'll, uh, barely make our way out of group stages most of the time unless it's on home soil, then we'll put together a team that looks pretty good. Um, we'll barely make out of the group stage, might beat an inferior opponent, might take a good team to extra time, but when it— when the rubber meets the road, we play against a good team from Europe, they're just going to put it down our throat. And that's just what's always happened. It's probably what's going to continue to happen. And every 4 years, that's okay. I'll keep shoveling that shit into my own mouth. I will fall for it.

I will— I will overdose on copium. I will get very excited about US soccer, and I'll be disappointed again 4 years.

What do you say about the Golden Generation? Because this was— we, we had a disagreement a few months ago, like when we— well, actually was whenever we got, uh, Poach as the coach, and I was like, hey, we keep switching coaches, maybe our players just suck. And I— all I heard was, oh well, Pulisic plays for Chelsea and all these guys are really good and it's the best we've ever been. It's definitely not the best we've ever been. We've been better. We've gotten further.

We sucked No, so that's the, that's the thing is from a talent standpoint, you can't just throw out the rest of the top leagues in the world and their scouting departments and say they have no idea what they're doing because they do have U.S. players on their team. So the talent is there.

It's definitely Golden Generation. This is what I was told. This is the time.

That's what I'm saying is like, you can't say that the players aren't physically gifted and talented. They have the, the, you know, they're signed to the best teams sometimes. Certainly in the top leagues in the world. So like you can say that, you know, the, the club teams in Syria don't know what they're doing, but they, they think that our players are talented enough. They just mentally just shat the bed. Like there's something about the toughness that we lack. I don't know what you can say about that. I thought Pocho overall did a good job coaching this team and we did look good against Paraguay, uh, who ended up going on to beat Germany. And then, you know, they played well in the knockout stages. So they're, you know, did a good job.

We didn't get anywhere further than we've ever gotten.

Disappointment. Huge disappointment.

So I don't know if you can say he did a good job.

I still stand by the fact that, like, the players from a talent standpoint should be, with the exception of, like, you know, we have a 39-year-old center back and he's playing in MLS, but our captain, our captain, our captain, our captain.

Yeah, just that was Hank there.

Yeah, that was Hank. Listen, there's, there's no excuse for like the mentality that we had yesterday.

I just don't— I just been told this is a golden generation. We just got to the exact same spot and got embarrassed.

That's what I've just been saying is like, we're just going to keep— nothing's going to change no matter how good we think we're going to be. We're going to keep, keep overdosing on the copium. And it's— it was really— it was a bad performance, as, as disappointed as I've ever been in U.S. soccer, given we had every reason to be excited about this team too. We did. They played well in the group stage.

We, we beat the teams we should have beaten.

We lost it to like— we played okay, we played okay in the group stage, right?

But we, we, we— and then beat the teams that we should have beat, which doesn't always happen with U.S. soccer, like across the board. Look back through the World Cups, like we don't always beat the teams that we should beat, and we never beat them in like just a, a physical like beatdown fashion that we did against Australia and against Paraguay, who granted aren't the best soccer teams in the world. I agree. Like, we can't do that shit against European teams. We've seen that time and time again. But there was reason to have excitement about this team. And then just to have a— just a complete clusterfuck of a game like that sucks ass.

I do feel like the fact that it was being held in the United States, people were watching these other teams being like, oh, we're in this too. Like, we can make a run at this. If this was being held like, you know, like it was in Qatar, I don't think the people were convinced that this team was like really good and going to make a run just because it was happening around them so much. I'm like, oh, this World Cup's in the US where the US were in this, like we can beat these teams.

It was— I mean, it was fun. Rooting for your country is fun. It was a fun ride until it wasn't.

I—

my thing is I feel like it's just déjà vu all over again where it's every 4 years we do this and then, and then the think pieces come out being like soccer's too expensive and we don't have enough guys, kids playing it. What if we just suck at soccer? Like we just suck at soccer. That's okay. We have so many fucking awesome things. We're, we're dominant in football, we're dominant in basketball, we're dominant in baseball. Well, we didn't win the World Baseball Classic. Dominant in hockey. We have awesome sports. We have March Madness. We just suck at soccer. And that's okay.

I don't think that we suck at soccer.

I think that we suck at soccer.

No, I think you would say that if you get bounced in the group stage, you absolutely suck at soccer.

We suck. We, we are a massive country as big as ours with the resources that we have.

We absolutely suck.

We massively underperform at soccer.

That's the way I would put it. That's, that's a, that's a nice way of saying we suck massively underperforming. Yeah, come on, PFT, we suck at soccer.

I think you guys want to be more critical of this team than I am, but you can't. You can't be. You can't be.

Well, I just was because I said we suck at soccer. Yeah, you said we don't.

Well, you can't beat me at this because I, I am, I'm so much—

he said we suck.

I am so much more pissed off about, about how this team performed than you guys will ever be.

That is—

yes, yes, agreed.

Yes, I, I couldn't agree more about that.

Yeah, that's absolutely You guys cannot beat me.

If it's a competition of who's the most upset, you win for sure.

I am definitely the most upset. Yeah, like, it sucked. That shit sucked. Fuck that. Fuck. US soccer sucks. You're right.

Fuck it. Yeah, I just think most of it—

what? Belgium has 11 million people in their country.

Yeah, it's Ohio.

Like, this is fucking soccer. Like, and the same thing is about—

yeah, it's not even one of the top 3 Belgium teams, and it's all the last 20 years. This shit sucks.

We—

so we suck at soccer. We say we suck Suck at soccer, but I'm going to fall for it again in 4 years. We're going to—

I'm going to—

I'm going to trip over my dick in 4 years, right in time for the World Cup, and be like, this year it's going to be different, and I'll be excited about it. And then I'm going to— and then we're going to get throated again.

My, my take is not— my take is we suck at soccer and that's okay. Like, I don't care that we suck at soccer anymore. I'm going to root for the US team. I'm going to get excited when we're in a World Cup. I'm going to get hyped up and it's going to be fun to watch. And then I'm going to be reminded that we suck at soccer and then it's going to be like, Okay. Yeah, that's okay. We suck at soccer. We have so many other things going on.

I disagree that I, I do care that we suck at soccer. I agree that we suck at soccer.

I feel like there's just nothing that we can do, though. That's the thing is we try to fix it every single time. So it's like, what's the, what's the definition of insanity? Just doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I'm no longer going to expect a different result. I'm going to keep rooting for the US team. But when inevitably every single time we get to the round of 16 and we're reminded that we suck at soccer, I'm not going to be disappointed. I'm going to be like, oh yeah, we suck at soccer.

So where I differ is that I, I will definitely have my heart broken again.

I don't know, that was going to be like so far away from heartbreak though. We're so— we're so— the levels to this, like Belgium is like the 9th best team in the country and they just pieced us. There's so many other teams. Spain would have beaten us by 100. Senegal would have beaten us.

Easily with that.

So that's where it's like the levels of like, I can't get—

we just didn't care. That's, that's what I'm pissed off about is the fact that like we looked like we did not care.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

We're pissed off.

The goalie had a Mac football play. Yeah, that was, that was the definition of Mac-ction, what he did there.

Correct.

Yep.

The ref view of that goal is like, looks like a, uh, rec league, like JV soccer, and he went to Harvard.

It does. And that's the thing that the US has always had. We've always had some of the best goalies in the world. What happened? We've got— have we? Yeah, we got 300 million. I mean, Tim Howard was really, really good.

Yeah, no, I know. I, I didn't know that.

Well, Tim Howard is really, really good. Brad Friedel was really, really good. Casey Keller's really, really good. We've had very good goalkeepers. And to, to have Matt Turner and Matt Freese be the only two options that we had at goalie is—

sounds like It sounds like we have like good catchers in baseball. We should just have them play baseball. Maybe that's what we should do instead of the conversation being like, how do we get our best athletes to play more soccer? Why isn't Pulisic a fucking, uh, a wide receiver? He would be sick over the middle. He's got a little wiggle.

What?

He would be a good wide receiver.

He had like—

let's do the opposite instead of being like, hey, we got to get our best football players to play soccer. No, no, let's just get all the guys that are good at soccer to play like mid-level football, make college football a little bit better.

If we want to get our best athletes playing soccer, we're not— Hugo Gonzalez is going to play soccer.

We listen. We don't— it's not athleticism either. Like, that's the thing is everyone's like, oh, it's athletic. No, we just suck at soccer. Yeah, these guys are not— it's not like all these other guys are just monsters outside of a few. Like, they're not beating us with athleticism. They're beating us with skill. We just suck as skill guys.

Yeah, we'll never close the skill gap. USA will never close the skill gap compared to the rest of the world in soccer, right? Yeah.

So it is what it is.

So what about the coaching, though? You threw a lot of blame around.

You didn't say anything about the coach.

I thought the coach—

I'm saying the coach, I don't even understand.

I think the coach deserves— yeah, if you come out looking like that in the most important game in— I'm going to say most important game in U.S. soccer history. The fact that it was a home World Cup game, that's never been said before, Hank.

He just uses one time to say that. Yeah.

Where are we in the, like, the final four? 2002.

No, we're in the quarterfinals.

Quarterfinals, quarters, baby.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that should not be—

the fact that this was on a home field and that it had so much hype going into it, you have to put some of that on the coach. Absolutely. Yeah. If you look like you sleptwalked through the entire first half. Yeah, that's— that is 100% on the coach.

He also didn't get further than any other coach. And he had what I've been told is the golden generation. So like that to me is like, yeah, why would he be a good coach? Like he didn't do anything different. He didn't beat anyone.

He did do different things with the team. If you want to talk about results, I don't care about this. And I said going into the tournament that yes, that is— it's going to be on the coach because you do have players that should be, you know, the best that we've ever had. And Pulisic just doesn't care. That's what sucks is like a guy like that can't be the face of U.S. soccer. He does not care. He's, he's like looking forward to getting his break. He's never really been completely bought in on playing in all the tournaments. Like, he doesn't really give a shit. We need a dog out there. He's not a dog. I think this guy, Kevin Sullivan from Philadelphia, might be a dog. He like, he tries to fuck people up.

Doing this again.

Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. But no, that guy had to say was Philadelphia got me back in. Pulisic can't— a guy like that cannot be the face of your team, like, because you draw off that. And it seemed like he didn't care. He checked out of 2 games and he did the same in the World Cup in 2022. He just doesn't seem like he He loves playing for the U.S. national team, and that's okay, but he shouldn't be playing for the U.S. national team.

Hank, I want to hear from you in a second, but I also should say, like, Belgium should be embarrassed for themselves for the crying they did with the Balogun thing. They were so much better than us. They could have beaten us with 10 guys. They should never have said a word. They should have been like, all right, cool. You guys are going to get government interference to get him to play the game. We don't care. We'll still beat your ass. I would have respected that more. So Belgium, listen, I'm— I'm— you won the game fair and square. They were— they were mocking Trump in the locker room. That's all fair. You got to be able to do— we talk a lot of shit. They talk shit back. But the fact that they were ever scared of this team is nuts.

That is nuts. And also, it probably gave them some bulletin board material. It's like, it seems like everything stacked against them going into the game and they're like, fine, fuck it. We ball.

Hank, how you feeling?

I mean, I feel, I feel sad. I was the first game that I really sat down and watched every second of, and it was over from, from the second it started.

I, I, we had 60 seconds of joy.

I had, yeah, literally 61 seconds. Like in real time, the game was back. Um, I've had a lot of time in the airport. I had a lot of time thinking about the past few weeks, and I have been watching. I know I said I don't like soccer. I feel like I said this in the beginning that the group stage is who cares, but once the elimination games come, it's electric. It's been very fun to watch. Like it's been very fun to follow the last, you know, 2 weeks. Last week at, you know, we're at the beach while I was watching in the bar, all different people from all different cultures rooting for different teams. A lot of fun. I was excited about the US PFT. I was drinking the Kool-Aid again, spent a lot of time in the airport, was kind of bored. I was like, all right, let's, let's lock in. Took PFT's bet on DraftKings. Was like, USA, USA, USA. And within 10 minutes, the game was so clearly over.

Terrible. Yeah, that's, that's what happened.

And that's always going to happen.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, that's the— we suck at soccer.

And I think it's fine for people to, like, get excited about it. Like, I was excited. Like, people in the— like, people— every single bar in the airport, in the Denver airport was, like, filled with people, like, excited to watch the game. I think, like, 95% of people have completely forgotten that game happened, like, by tomorrow.. And they're like, all right, we suck at soccer. Life goes on.

Yeah, I'm on to summer league.

No.

Yeah, you play tonight.

I can't believe, like, you're still, like, really upset.

PFT was in his— he was, he was looking for anything last night.

Yeah, I was, I was hunting dopamine last night after the game was over because I was, I was so, so upset and so pissed. It was more that I was angry about this. So we started just roaming the streets of Tahoe. I was looking for any dope. We got some ice cream. I was walking by a store and Colton was like, would that make you happy if you went and rented that, that 3-wheel spider car? I was like, absolutely it would. I tried to rent a 3-wheeler. They said that they don't do it there. I had to go to like a different store. Then I went to the casino and gambled for about 6 hours last night, which did actually replace the dopamine for a period of time. So I was pretty happy about that. But no, I'm pissed off. I can't sugarcoat it.

I'm—

I'm really, really fucking upset at how bad and how little we cared. And we can talk about like a lot of people are doing the hand-wringing over the youth programs and be like, what should we do differently?

Spoiler alert, we do that every 4 years.

There's time. There's time for that. When you lose in the playoffs, if you're a football team, you lose in the playoffs. You talk about the guys that fucking sucked on the field. You don't talk about your scouting department. Well, it's terrible.

Max, this isn't football.

Like you care about football.

Yeah, right.

Soccer. We don't care about soccer.

No, I'm saying, Max, you see the hypothetical? You completely missed the point of what I was saying.

Okay.

Did you see the hypothetical that Stephen A. threw out there? There's like, would you rather have your team win a Super Bowl or the U.S. win a World Cup? I think I'd rather have my team win a Week 7 game.

That's not true.

Maybe, maybe. But maybe it was the Packers.

Yeah.

If it was the Cowboys, it would be electric if we won the World Cup.

Super Bowl versus World Cup is not even—

No.

Yeah.

Super Bowl.

Super Bowl.

If we had won 2 more games, I would have taken back every single thing I said and been like, this team is legit and like, we're, we're a soccer power. But it wasn't. We weren't even— we didn't even qualify for the World Cup.

That's it.

We were gifted an entry to the World Cup because we were hosting the party. It's like, all right, yeah, like you're having the party, you can come to your own party. And then they gave us our cupcake group stage and it was also an expanded field. Yeah, listen, everyone, like everyone, everyone got out of the group.

That's my— I mean, we already did the, the who, who, who's most upset off PFT won that easily. I, I, I, I like rooting for the US men's national team. It was fun. The way we lost to a team like Belgium, who's not even like one of the top 4 teams in the, in the, in the world, it's just the levels to it. Like, you just see that and you're like, okay, cool, we're so far away. You can't— we're basically a team, we're basically like an 11 seed that won a play-in game, and then they played, and then they played, maybe they won even the second round game, then they played a, uh, like an actual like top 10 team, got beat by 20, and you're like, all right, cool, we were never even close to a Final Four. Like, that was never in the realm of possibilities.

It is crazy, though, because Portugal lost. Messi is losing right now as we speak, 2-1 to Egypt, which is crazy. So like, weird stuff happens in soccer. This was not a weird stuff happens game. This was a vastly, vastly superior, more prepared opponent than we were. That's it. It was just—

what are you going to say, Max?

We saw the goalie thing was weird.

That we saw that had to have been—

we saw normal in soccer. We saw Like any professional level.

So here's the thing, Max, is like sometimes with goalies, they become goalies because they're not really that good in the field and they don't really practice that much using their feet. We've got two guys that kind of fit that description. And yeah, it was—

why was he out there?

So sometimes you got to come out and—

but he was so far out.

You can come out. A lot of goalies do come out that far and— and yeah, I know the ball, but I mean, it was— it was a simple play. And you can't fuck that up.

Do you think—

are you—

what are your thoughts about Hank in general?

I need some more dopamine.

What does it all—

Hank face.

Yeah.

Messi just scored. We're going to talk about it after this.

But yeah, what are my thoughts on it? Me? All right. My thought— all right. Here are my thoughts on Hank, because I was— and to Hank's credit, He hasn't really done this yet. He's probably thought about it, but I thought we were going to see Hank wheeling in the straw man that he's been building for the last 3 weeks to be like, I was told that we were going to win the World Cup, which is not something that I've ever said. So I'm pleasantly surprised with Hank. So good job. Fair play to Hank.

You haven't said that.

Yeah, I know. I thought that you would say like, I was told that we were good enough to win the World Cup.

I've known this.

I have been well aware of where Hank was.

Hashtag Hank was right.

The whole time I've just been laughing when it's senior— but this has been a thing for like 3 years. My issue again, like, I— the World Cup is fun. Like, I have enjoyed the World Cup. I know I said that beginning, like, I don't care about soccer. World Cup, entertaining. Yeah, good summer, summer entertainment. The knockout games are electric, star players, all that stuff. We're not even part of the World Cup in my mind. But the problem is gonna be, and like, somehow it's gonna happen in like 3 months. Like, I don't know how it's gonna happen. It's gonna like be like way too quickly. We're going to be in like a CONCACAF, like, yeah, sectional against like Jamaica and PFT is going to be like, oh my God, we won 4 to 1. Like we're back. That's when it gets annoying. And then it doesn't like, it just keeps coming up where it's like, I'll tell you, it does not matter. Every time you talk about soccer for the next 3 years, it doesn't matter.

We, I won't, I won't talk about soccer.

We might not like, are we, there's a chance now that we're not hosting the World Cup. We don't even qualify for the next one.

They, oh, now they expanded the field.

Yeah.

So it's, if we don't qualify, then then they should just never play soccer.

I mean, we've only missed qualifying for the World Cup one time since, what, 1990? So it's not like we have a hard time qualifying. Usually we did fuck up bad in 2018.

I will not lie.

I don't really talk about soccer unless it's the US in the World Cup. So the only way I'll tell you how they're going to get me back, Hank, might be right.

Talk about— you talk about like the Copa America and like that's—

I bring up once every like 9 months on the show and Hank's like, oh, why are we talking about this again? I'll tell you how they'll get me back. They're probably going to hire Pep as, as the head coach of the national team.

And it won't matter.

And if they do that, I'll get back in. I'll get back in.

What? Who's Pep?

One of the best coaches of all time.

And he's said in the past things that would make you think maybe he wouldn't hate coaching.

He's best friends with Joe Mazzulla.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That would get Hank back.

Yeah, I get Hank back.

He's Joe Mazzulla's favorite coach.

What's, what's his accolades? He's got—

he coached—

he coached Holland.

EPL Champions League.

But even if we have the best coach of all time, we'll never have the guys.

Correct.

That's my point. That was what— that was what I was saying. Like, it's okay to just— again, it's okay to be like excited about the World Cup, excited to watch the US men's national team. I mean, in that camp, I was so pumped to watch that game last night. But it's like, hey, we're just never going to be on par with the best countries in the world because it's never going to be our number one sport. It will never be important enough. And it's just— it's a reality.

It's so much further ingrained in those cultures and countries. They're like, well, the skill gap's too far, we'll never keep up. Yeah, that's about it.

We're cooked.

Yeah.

I will say, like, I know this isn't even political, but I'm not— I'm not a parent, but I don't understand. I do— like, hockey is expensive sport and they always talk about like how it's like travel soccer is like pricing out people. How is travel soccer expensive?

Yeah.

I mean, well, it's because it should be the It's soccer. The people, the people that set up the— like travel hockey, travel baseball, and kind of little more equipment and all that shit.

Yeah.

Yeah. The people that set up the youth leagues around America did it in a way to make themselves money when it first started being talked about as like the sport of the future, quote unquote, back in the '80s. And the people that set it up, they set up the leagues to benefit them. So you have to pay if you want a good coach and not like somebody's dad that has read a book about coaching soccer. You have to pay that guy a lot of money. The field rentals cost a lot of money. The referees, they try to like swag the kids out with cool equipment and bags and shit to make it feel like you're not completely wasting your money. But that's— that system is completely broken. It sucks. And I thought Poach, he talked about a couple of weeks ago. He's like, the reason why we don't have, you know, the most skilled players in the world is because like all these kids grow up with a soccer ball at their feet from the time that they can walk. And everything about like playing keep away from your brothers or sisters or like your dad tries to get the ball and you just dribble it away from— like you've got all those tiny little muscle memories built up because you've been playing soccer since you were like 2 years old.

And unless we get every kid in America to do that, which we won't, then we're going to have— there's going to be a skill gap there. It's not necessarily about having our best athletes playing soccer, although that would help. It's just about just having that deep background for each individual player.

Again, I think, I think, I think could have gone a long way towards the future of soccer, but like no kid was watching that game being like, oh yeah, no, that would have been a huge—

they had it.

Yeah, they didn't even come— they like lost in shootouts, right? Let alone if they won that game, it's like, that's what I'm saying, it would have been a pendulum that swung, but it swung the wrong way.

If we had lost in penalties, I would have been like, I would have actually been disappointed. The way we lost, how could you even be disappointed? It's so It's— we're so far away.

Some of the best players on the team didn't even grow up in America.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's what we need.

We need more of that.

All these teams, that's how the whole world is.

We need more of that.

But it's like, how is that even—

we do need more foreigners to play.

Yeah, we need all foreigners.

Yeah, we should actually have as few Americans as possible, right, on our American soccer team.

Pep's won 3 Champions League, 6 EPLs.

Pretty good.

He's the best friend.

He's won 3 Champions League with 2 different teams.

And he helped the Celtics win the NBA championship.

Oh, yeah.

A couple of years ago.

So, yeah, he's— but again, Zach, it feels like you're with me.

Like Pep, it won't matter. He can only do so much.

Unless Pep can just find a bunch of players that aren't American to be American.

Even coach this year, like he goes against AC Milan. He's a great coach, but it's a golden age of who we have. These are the best players for this U.S. team that will ever— up into this time is our best shot. It doesn't matter because like it's so ingrained through generations, correct? Like, like say if Hank has a kid, he loves soccer. Hank's not gonna be able to teach his kid about the game.

He will not the way that—

but if he did, it's just like, it's— there's— the gap is too big. It'll never be closed, unfortunately.

But again, I'm, I'm not saying that Pep is going to make a difference. I'm saying that's the move that they could pull that that could bring me back and get me excited again so that I will have my heart broken again.

What are the thoughts on maybe just getting all the way behind rooting for country and not the actual gameplay? Because, you know, the gameplay probably will end in heartbreak.

And that's me.

Yeah.

And that's rooting for country. And it's like, it's the, it's the, the name on the front of the jersey knowing that we're probably going to be in the exact same spot in 4 years. Sweet 16 look like shit.

The party of the World Cup is fun, correct? Like that all the bars get super packed and everyone, it's everyone on the team.

Talking shit. I don't take back any of the shit I talk. No, it's fun to talk shit. It's so fun when you're, when you're just piecing up Bosnia and you're piecing up all these little puppies and Herzegovina. Yeah, yeah, you're just fucking them up. Who do we— Paraguay, get out of here. It's fun.

You see, that, that's what got me back was seeing how we played, because we've never played like that before. And so I was, I was fully bought in. And it's— I— Hank was right, it's not gonna happen.

Can we, can we actually play, like, is there a way that we could just play an independent schedule? Like, could we be like BYU kind of does this, where it's like if you just play— if you play teams, uh, that you can beat and then you go to the playoff or you go, you know, step up in competition, you one time a year you get killed. But let's just like stack a— let's stack a schedule where we just win all the time. I think what you're saying is like all these countries and we just fuck them up, because then maybe one— I mean, Belgium's small.

That's the problem. That would actually be worse for us.

Belgium is small.

Become Notre Dame.

Would have smoked us.

Become Notre Dame and we have our traditional game against Mexico. Every 2 years and then we just schedule. Yeah, nobody's countries from around the world.

We go, Americans, we like winning. And that's the worst part about this is that we're competing in a sport that we're never going to win at. So it's like, I kind of don't— I will take my ball and go home.

We got it. We got a home and home against Nepal in the next 3 years.

Yeah.

And then every time World Cup qualifying comes around, we just tell FIFA, like, look at these, look at the numbers that we put up in the last 3 years. We've— we lost 2 games. And we won 12. Most of them were against Kyrgyzstan. So we should be in the World Cup, correct? By our resume that we've put together.

Correct.

Okay, let's do— let's talk some more World Cup. We're going to talk about this Argentina game because they just took the lead with 90 minutes in the 90th minute. That is— that's the Messi effect. Before we do that, DraftKings, DraftKings. Right now we're actually in California. We're using the predictions market. DraftKings, win or go home. That's it. The cup knockout round. Is now, and DraftKings has you covered for every single match. The DraftKings app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. We're in California right now. We got the predictions market loaded up, so follow every knockout round thriller, every penalty shootout, every stoppage time moment That ends a nation's run. Sweat the matches that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the world's biggest stage. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend $5 to get $200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings.

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OK, Henry, hot seat, cool throne.

My hot seat is my Mount Rushmore partner, the guy sitting next on my right.

Oh no, Zach.

Zach, by the way, can I— before whatever Hank is about to say, your eyes have been insane today.

I appreciate that, big guy. Thank you. Like, so kind.

I think maybe it's— they're just matching Lake Tahoe's blue. But oh my God.

And he's doing contacts. And he's—

and you're doing contacts.

Oh, they're popping.

Thank you.

You're not doing PEDs, are you? There's no, like, blue contact lens?

No, just like standard from the eye doctor. Okay. We were active today on the golf course. I didn't— I didn't want to risk the glasses falling off.

Yeah, it's almost like icy blue.

Put them in sport mode with the contacts.

Yeah. So now that we've given you this compliment, Hank, go ahead.

Kastanat went live last night. Uh, and they announced— oh, there was— this list is long. All the people that got accepted into Streamer University, uh, people like Shaz Delicious, Cool Butterfly, Suki Mellow, Cooly T Shoddy, Dean Blandino, uh, Cute Guns, King 68 the Great, So Pink.

Yeah, and Reg Too Funny, Zacky Blue Eyes.

No, Zach, on this list that I—

now, Zach, those are all great streamers. Zach, you know what the first question is going to be.

Mando Millions, you're familiar with him?

Not entirely. No, that might be a different demo. I'm not— I'm not—

you know where this is about to go.

You know what the first question is going to be. Do you want to address the first question before I even ask it?

I don't think he knows.

You know what the first question is. Did you actually apply?

Yes, 100%. Application in.

Swear.

Sent in.

Swear all the way.

Yeah. Do you have confirmation that on time?

Did.

Yeah, I had that.

I had a confirmation photo. I remember sharing to Max. I can find it in my camera.

You had about 40 minutes left to submit a video. That was the other night. And you— I don't think you finished the video.

I had to finish the video.

Okay, I can find it. Did you finish the video on time?

Yeah, I got it in. I have a screenshot. That was— where did we go?

So you and Dylan Brown both got rejected.

Application received.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, right now I definitely put it in.

What fee was there to, to apply to StreamerU?

I didn't have a fee to apply.

Okay.

So there's like some rumors floating around online that like you had to pay $3,000 to apply, but that just wasn't the case.

So you— why didn't you get accepted?

A lot of great— a lot of great people applied. I didn't get accepted.

They should do like— they should do an exit interview with you. Like, I want to know why you didn't get in. They should— that would be nice if they said, hey, 'If you're looking to get in next year, here's the things that you could improve on.' They let RawdogMoon in. Oh, RawdogMoon.

RawdogMoon's awesome.

I will say it's a big university. I've, uh, I never got into a big university before, more of like a community college guy, but—

Yeah, do they have streamer community college?

I would just guess—

Big universities are easier to get into than smaller universities.

Mm, I didn't get any big universities.

No, that's, that's on, on, on the whole, it's probably true.

That's like ACT, SAT stuff though, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Do you think there's a chance we need to get your Do you get your dad into streaming so that way you become a legacy streamer?

I think it— I think what needs to happen is like, you know how you get, you get your GPA up and then you transfer? I just need to work now on getting my streaming GPA up so that I can transfer a different time.

So take care of all your gen eds right now.

You need to go to like DrDisRespect's community college. Uh, no, I know, I know what I said.

I just—

I know what I said.

I just think head down, stream more. I don't know about Dr. Disrespect.

Myers Leonard. Myers Leonard, you.

We just got to head down and work, boys.

Okay.

Didn't get accepted.

Okay.

Shout out to everybody who did though. It's going to be a super great learning experience.

No, not shout out. Fuck him. Fuck Raw Dog Moon.

Zach, you think—

Straight to th bank.

Wait, say that one again.

Straight the number 2 th bank.

Straight to the bank.

That guy rocks.

Yeah.

Straight to the bank.

He lives at the bank. That guy's richer than all of us.

Yeah, that guy lives at the bank.

That guy's got his PayPal keep it right.

That's good. Fucking Josh got in.

That's an aggressive Josh. Fuck, fucking Josh, man. Shout out fucking Josh.

The U is a V.

But, uh, Zach, I, I think that maybe you need to stream more. I think that that's probably a good start, is to get those streaming numbers up. That way when you apply, they, they look at your resume and say, okay, he's not, you know, actively trying to start stream— because I'm sure they don't want to let people in that say, I want to start streaming. They want people that have shown that they want to do it on their own, that, you know, are dedicated to it, that they know will come in and then take the, the education that they get, which I'm sure is extremely valuable, and put that into practice.

That's what I'm saying. Head down. Just got to stream more.

Zach, would you—

we're lockstep with that, Pete.

You're 100% correct.

You could be more correct.

Would you like me to tell you the truth or say nothing? You have those options.

Oh, always the truth. Yeah, for sure.

You don't want me to just say nothing?

I, I, I would.

I would.

Truth or nothing?

I'll take it. I'll take truth.

I'm insanely disappointed in you. She said you wanted the truth.

All right, I understand that.

Uh, Zach insanely seemed to—

Zach, no, I had to throw an insanely.

Zach, I want to tell you something. Definitely, I'm not— I'm not insanely— I'm just pretty disappointed in you.

I, I take that. I take what you're seeing and I receive that and I completely understand.

We're not mad.

We're not mad.

Yeah, we're just disappointed to a, to a a level that you've never experienced in your life. Insanity.

Insanely. I'm proud of you for trying.

I know we didn't try hard enough because we didn't get in. If we would have tried hard enough, we would have got in. Obviously, I didn't put enough work into it to even be, be considered. And that's on me.

I'm disappointed in how hard you tried.

I might be more disappointed in you than the time when your dad had to fire you from the car shop.

That was family stuff, though.

Yeah, that was. Well, no, that was business.

The firing was business.

Yeah.

It didn't— it leaked over a little, but not, not too much.

Zach, so what I like to do when I have a problem that I'm trying to solve is I try to figure out how to, how to divide it into small steps, bite-sized pieces, and you make a plan and you set goals. So if we're going to try to stream more, what's a goal that we could set?

I just got to get, uh, I just got to get in the lab on not only like a regimen base, but also like, yeah, not just going into it to go into it. You got to come in with a plan.

You got to come in a couple times a week.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking. That's what I'm asking. Thank you, memes.

What's like—

what do you—

what do you—

how many times—

I'm trying to think what makes sense here.

How many hours a week? Let's talk about that.

Hours.

What do you think hours-wise?

Are you saying what makes sense? Like, what makes sense for me to not be insanely disappointed in you? 15 times a week.

I'm trying to think hours.

I actually don't care how many hours you stream as long as you get into streamer university. Like, I can't believe that our son didn't even get into college.

We're not going to pay your rent anymore.

I hate to say it, this is the first This is—

you got to get a job. Yeah, you got to get a job. You got to go get a job or go to college. Those are your choices.

This was tough the first time. This is tougher the second time.

How many hours a week? This is— how many hours a week can we dedicate to streaming, Zach?

I could—

I don't hear the word. I think I want to hear the word could.

The problem is you're comfortable here with rejection.

7 days in a week.

I want to hear the words will. Not could.

I'm, I'm not the best at time management, but does, does 18 to 20 make sense?

Sure.

It sounds like you're afraid of streaming, you know.

18 to 20.

Exactly. I want to have a real conversation.

That was strong, right? That was too strong.

That's a lot.

You can't back it down.

That's a lot, Zach.

Max better at time management than me.

So maybe, maybe—

are you, are you scared of streaming?

No, definitely not. I'm not scared. I'm not scared of my—

well, I'm sensing some fear.

No, I could—

I could—

some—

not fear. No fear. No fear.

What is the source of the reluctance?

No reluctance.

I think we're in—

there's definitely—

we're not in a good spot, but we can work to get into a better spot.

Okay. How about 18 to 20? Sounds ambitious.

That was strong.

How about—

how about 6? 6 sounds good.

I can rip 6. 15. I can definitely rip 6. So we'll—

10.

10.

Let's say 10.

Even 10.

Let's say even 10.

10 hours a week.

Yeah, definitely.

That include like—

I can rip 10.

You also stream from your house.

That's what I'm saying. I, I wanted to make sure that, that got— you can stream from your house too.

Yeah, we just need—

we need you getting reps. Yeah, certainly. And like, we're gonna help you out, but like, if someone— if someone else can't do it, solo still run the ball. Yeah, yeah, solo stream.

I think you got to do— you got to have a schedule.

Yes, regimen is good, right? Schedule routine is good.

I will say schedule is hard with our schedule.

Schedule.

Like, we can't—

well said. Put that on a quote card. Schedule is hard with our schedule.

That's facts.

Like, Zach's streaming schedule is hard to make a consistent streaming schedule for Zach. It is hard to do that with also the part of My Take schedule.

Yeah, but there's also Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays are not happy.

But then sometimes we have an interview. Like, we, we would say like, okay, every Monday, Wednesday after the act. Yeah, but then we have this interview and then you can't do it that— yeah.

Zach, can I give you, uh, Do you want truth or silence again? Another option.

I think, I think, I think I take the truth because, okay, I don't give a fuck about this bullshit streaming school.

I just want you to stream, okay?

I actually don't care that you didn't get in. Fuck them. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna start our own streaming school. No, I don't want to get in.

You know, he got—

they rejected my boy, I reject them. Zach's Streaming School for Kids That Can't Stream Good, like, starting next year.

I understand how my current stream— my—

yeah, yeah, we could pick up like— and we'll just get the— we'll get the leftovers, we'll get the mutants, we'll have like, you know, like some 7-year-olds, some old people, some weirdos that don't even know how to turn on the camera. This is a— this is the idea, and we'll charge them all.

I could tell my current streaming resume is rejectable.

Exactly.

It's like anything in life, the thing is you got to build that book.

You got to figure out schedule. Yes, stick to the schedule. And really, this is just us saying we think you'd be good at streaming. We encourage you to do it more. In fact, we are— yeah, I'm close to issuing my first command. I command you to stream more.

Yeah, I can do that.

10 hours a week.

A 10-piece.

That's a command.

Yeah, 10-piece.

Also, uh, do that. The, the eye comment stands. They look hot.

I did appreciate the comment or compliment. Separate.

I'm booking a separate sandwich of compliments on your eyes.

Different chapter. It's okay for this book to have a compliment and also maximum disappointment. That's okay.

Okay.

We learn from both.

Okay.

They call it a shit sandwich.

Yeah.

All right, Hank.

Good.

Good.

Hot seat.

Great.

How's it, Hank? My cool throw-in is Novak Djokovic.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's back.

Won a 5-hour and 50-minute match at Wimbledon. Still going. Things on to the quarterfinals, maybe semifinals.

Let's go.

Insane run for 39-year-old.

Oh!

Ahh!

Okay? Good job Hank.

My first— well my hot seat is actually who's back of the week because I fucked up who's back of the week on Monday. Ovi is back or he's coming back to the Capitals and he might be back for 2 years. So I said I didn't talk about Ovi at all. He said he's come back. His wife said he might come back and play 2 more years now. So I— Ovi's just going to have a lifetime contract. He can go out on the ice as long as he wants. It's going to stink if he has to play meaningful playoff minutes because that was— it was not pretty in the playoffs.

Yeah.

The last time we were in it.

Ovi plays hockey, to answer your question.

No, I have a more serious question for PFT.

Oh, I don't know.

Do you think your Wizards time has cut into your Capitals time?

Because I feel like if that was a Wizards—

that was Wizards news, that would not—

good question. Yeah, that's valid. I took my eye off the puck. Yes, yes, I've—

it has.

And that's the thing, it's like my brain can only process so many sports at once, and now that I've let the Wizards into my life, it is pushing other things out. That's 100% true. Like earlier this morning, I accidentally stole a car, and that's— that probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm bringing it to you.

You should say Firefest. That's a good—

that's a good—

get more into that story.

Okay, this probably has something to do with the fact that I am paying more attention to the Washington Wizards. So any mistake that I make, it's like, yeah, well, my brain is operating at 80% capacity because I've got— I've got Wizard stuff floating around in there now. But Ovi's back. That's very cool. I love watching him play hockey.

I also kept the car on and walked away.

Oh, we can get into this later.

That'll be Firefest on Friday.

Tune in, tune in for BFD Firefest. Also, well, my cool throne is Sean Payton's imagination.

Yeah.

Goddamn, does this guy have an imagination? There's a Seth Wickersham article that came out. It talks about— it was a year that he spent with Sean Payton, and Sean had this idea. He'd never— he never brought it to the brass at the Broncos, but he was considering it. He wanted to cuck himself. Coach Cuk and hire Bill Belichick to be the head coach of the Broncos until he got 15 wins and got the all-time wins record from Don Shula. And then Sean Payton would have demoted himself to being offensive coordinator to help Belichick get up to 15 wins, and then he would have retaken over. He probably— he should have had the Holiday Inn chair on the sidelines, up in the booth coaching from the Cuk chair. Yeah, it is. It's crazy that this was an actual plan. Or a thought that he had. This is one of the more harebrained schemes of all time, but goddamn, I wish it happened. Yeah, that's why I'm so upset about it. Like, I got mad when, when Kyle Shanahan came out and said that if the Niners had made the Super Bowl that one year where the Eagles kind of asterisk beat them in the NFC Championship Game, that he was going to have Phil Rivers come out of retirement for one week and play in the Super Bowl.

I'm pissed off that I know that because now I'm just like, Goddamn it. I wish that had happened. That's what I'm thinking about the Belichick Broncos situation. Yep. Yep.

Also would have been funny if Belichick then fired Sean Payton as head coach. Yeah. I mean, you would have the right.

You're going to make him head coach.

Yeah, you would have the right.

He's going to be— Hank, what would you have felt about that?

I would have loved that. I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a bro move. Yeah. I've heard one. And Belichick deserves to be the all-time win leader. So that—

what do you mean deserves participation trophy?

What are you talking about?

Deserves.

He just deserves it.

Oh, well, just for everything he's done for the game of football.

But I mean, Don Shula did a lot for the game of football too.

Also, wouldn't the most deserving one be the one who did it?

Hey, there's still time. I believe he deserves it. I think, I think we'll get there.

I don't think Belichick would, would agree with you on that.

Yeah, no, he actually would say you're a pussy.

Yeah, okay, his words, not mine.

Yeah, that was Bill Belichick right there.

Don't get mad at us, not us.

I think I wish this had happened.

Really? I feel like you would have been upset by it when Brady played for the Buccaneers. You weren't like Belichick coaching for another NFL team.

When Brady played for Buccaneers, what?

I'm just saying, like, it's weird.

What? What? How did I feel about that?

Well, you were probably missing that. He was the— that used to be the quarterback of the Patriots.

We talked about it like every week on this podcast. I was like, I'm rooting for Brady.

I know, but he got you. But ideally, he just got you. You would want him to be the quarterback for your team.

But you just like did the thing where you invented how I feel. Yeah. And you're like, oh, when Brady played for the Bucs, you hated that. Never, never.

Take a step back.

You should have hated that.

He's got it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's very rare, but yeah, he's got you in the corner. But now he's beating you up.

But Big Cat, do you agree with what I'm saying? That like seeing Belichick coaching for a different— Yeah, he like— it's got to be kind of weird, right? Weird.

But he did just checkmate you because he's saying he would root for Belichick.

Always.

Okay. All right.

He got you.

All right.

It's okay.

I did.

For me, I wish it had happened.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, he did say him too.

He would—

he would have liked that too. All right. My hot seat is Hank, because Chris Middleton's on the Wizards, and that's a great signing.

The Avengers.

Yeah, that's a great signing.

That's a great signing. Really good, good value too. Great value. Listen, keep the same energy you had for the Trae Young contract when we make a good investment in a quality veteran. That's what I'm saying.

Also, my hot seat is Zach because of Streamer Universe.

No, uh, Zach, you're good. Zach, you're good.

Zach, you're good.

Yeah, we're good.

We're gonna keep this in between the white lines.

I already got— I got a plan. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna put, we're gonna put it together.

Since we last spoke, Zach, uh, Tell me this. Let's actually— I just woke up from a coma from Sunday night. Oh, I can't wait to watch Ronaldo in his next World Cup game.

Oh, that's, that's great. You just woke up the other day. He gets to play Spain soon.

No, no, I'm waking up right now. I, I fell asleep on Sunday, woke up right now.

What? And where are you at globally? What time zone?

Right now, right here in this moment. Hey, I haven't seen any sports the last 2 days. When's Ronaldo play again?

Saudi League kicks up here in a couple weeks, a couple months.

Oh, okay.

Well, all right. Well, at least Messi's still in, right?

Uh, yeah, I think, I think Argentina may have won today.

Yeah, yeah, incredible game.

They did win. They did win. Incredible game. Some really good goals in that game.

The, the, the possibly rigged Argentina being down 2-0 and then—

oh, unfortunately no, not possible.

Egypt's coach has gone in all—

yeah, here's what I'll say though, immediately tor. Here's what I'll say. It was just good news about, uh, Argentina winning. Incredible game. The header to go ahead with like 5 minutes left in the game. They score 3 goals like rapid succession to stave off elimination. The one good thing is it's not like Aisho Speed was there saying that he somehow distracted Messi on his penalty kick that got saved.

He was right behind the net.

Oh, he was.

It was great.

It was He got fucking owned again.

It was a great save, though. And to fully answer your question, you'll never see Ronaldo on the world stage again.

He said he doesn't have the next World Cup.

Yeah, the Euros, I guess.

Maybe Portugal. I mean, Spain does. They don't have to qualify.

So I'm going to think about €3. A lot of guys compare that to the World Cup.

Max's lunch.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he'll never—

sandwich joke.

Good. That was tough. Man, it was.

So I looked up the quotes from their, their head coach. This is about as nuclear as a coach can go after a game.

Okay.

So he said, we look better than the reigning champions, better in everything. But the result was influenced by internal factors on the pitch and external factors off it. Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running. In football, there are sometimes external factors that go beyond the technical aspects. The world champion receives support at every level.

Mm.

Okay.

There seemed to be pressures from the Argentina side on this outcome, and they objected to the selection of the referee. We haven't seen respect. We haven't seen fair play. I want to put it in beautiful words and say hard luck, but we have been treated unfairly and it has been an injustice. Whoa. FIFA rigged.

There's a lot of examples of them kind of riding for Messi. Today wasn't one of them. Okay, there we go.

That was— that was really nice.

That was good of you.

That was a great game.

Yeah.

It was an awesome game.

Awesome.

The VAR thing did suck though.

Yeah.

So like, take back a goal. What could have been one of the best goals in the history of the World Cup to pull that back because of a foul that took place 90 yards away from the goal that the referee missed. I don't—

I don't—

I don't know where we're going with VAR, but we need to draw— we need to rein it in. Yeah, we need to rein in VAR. It's gone too far.

Yeah.

Okay. My cool thrones. I have two. The first is the Big 12. Well, actually, I should say the Monster Energy Big 12 Conference because they signed a deal today with Monster Energy and now they are going to be referred to as the Monster Energy Big 12 Conference. That's real.

I love this.

That's real. I love it. Going to be patches on all their jerseys on the field. Sure. It's perfect.

What a perfect conference for it.

It's football.

They need more money.

The Monster Energy Big 12 Conference. Please refer to it by its, its given name.

Yeah. So is the, uh, the Sun Devil like the pitchfork? Is that just going to be the Monster logo?

I don't know.

That would rock.

It's crazy.

ASU is probably the most Monster Energy university.

Listen, I saw the numbers. I don't know if they're getting paid enough for this, but it is in, in the concept of it is smart in the fact that if you want your conference to do better, just sell everything. Everyone gets a piece of it. They can go get more players. You can be better.

You will—

money makes money. You'll get more TV, right? All these things. So smart by Brett Uromak. But yeah, the Monster Energy Big 12 Conference.

What does this mean for the Dr Pepper tuition giveaway? Or is the Big 12 going to have like— are they going to have Monster Energy giveaways? I don't know.

I don't know.

That would be pretty cool.

And it's very good.

And if they ban the underhand toss, that could— that levels the Big 12 up a step in my mind.

Yeah.

It could. And then my other cool throne is ABS because it's doing its job. We have 7 umpires that have informed the MLB that they will be accepting their buyout and retiring at the end of 2026. So all the umpires are basically like, yeah, this kind of sucks because we're getting shown up, uh, for actually sucking. CB Buckner, Laz Diaz, Lance, uh, Barksdale, some of the guys that are, uh, deciding to retire.

So legends.

Good job, ABS.

Retirement tour for getting the old guys out for Barksdale.

Yeah, it's good. It's good.

All right, Zach, I think you are correct. The hottest seat in the world today was anyone who wanted to see Portugal win because Spain was a tough pool when it comes to bracket.

They had— they fought hard.

I will say another hot seat maybe got today would have to be guys who try to live forever because unfortunately the gentleman who does do blood transfusions with his son and spend $5 million on a company to try to live forever, He's currently sick.

Oh no, that's a hot seat.

I feel bad. He dedicated his stomach to eating him.

His stomach's eating him.

He's got an incurable autoimmune disease.

I was seeing online he could just eat meat maybe and it would work again.

What do you mean his stomach's eating him from the inside?

I think his stomach is attacking him.

Does that mean like, is there like a diet? Could we do that?

You're gonna die.

I think it's going after him.

Well, I don't want to die, but like, if your stomach's eating you, then you're— I would assume that your stomach just keeps getting smaller. Also kind of sus to be, to be eating yourself, especially when your girlfriend has a perfect pussy. Yeah, medically, which he has told us.

I'll say it, didn't know the autoimmune disease is incurable. This feels a little insensitive now.

Uh, by who, us?

By me. I feel bad.

Oh, I mean, he's made his entire life opening up the his own medical books.

That's a good point. Great point, PFT. I want to—

he's got a lot of free advertising and publicity. For himself on that.

All right, I'm gonna say something, uh, that— listen, I hope if this is real, I hope he— I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see anyone get sick. I don't want to see anyone suffer. Is there a chance, Windy Fingers, that he announces that he has an incurable disease that somehow he cures?

I think there's a very good chance of that, yes.

That'd be a good move.

That would probably help his business.

That he cures via some proprietary formula that you too can purchase.

Just saying, I hope that's not the case. I hope he's— I hope somehow he finds a way to beat this. But I'm just putting my Spidey senses up. That does feel like that's on the table, though.

Now you say it, definitely makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I didn't really think about it like that.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So it kind of, kind of, kind of tough. Your stomach starts eating itself. Maybe a little meat, maybe some vegetables, and no more blood transfusions with your son.

Also, I, I don't like anyone who's like, I'm going to live forever. Like, I don't think that's like the one thing that we all know is the universal truth. No one does.

Yeah.

Impossible. You can't tempt fate.

But sometimes, sometimes narcissists have a very difficult time coming to terms with that. And so then they would make their entire personality fighting back against it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

You're cool. Then a cool throne. Guys who like to see fights, you have Conor McGregor's back.

Yeah, you'll see this weekend.

Conor McGregor had fought since 2021.

Oh, what's he been up to?

Uh, a lot of boating, maybe some movies.

He went on Fallon. I saw that. Very cool.

Maybe like, uh, a movie, Roadhouse. Roadhouse, great movie. I don't— it might have been CGI. I'm not sure how he was that jacked in the movie. He looked huge if you guys saw that movie.

Uh, are you a fan of Conor McGregor?

I'm a, I'm a fan of elite athletes. And he, he puts on a— sometimes you can put on a good fight. What was it, pandemic? He choked out Cowboy. That was good. That was pretty good fight. That was a flying knee. Never mind, I apologize for that.

That's okay.

I'm disappointed.

You, Hank, you fucked yourself for the Mount Rushmore coming up. He is, he is in hell. No, no, we're good. The confidence is—

he also has to cook his dinner.

I just wanted to bring up the names that did get accepted.

They're very funny.

Really trying to throw Zach under the bus. I kind of feel bad I did, but the names on that list just made me laugh.

What was the rich guy's name again?

Straight to the bank.

Yeah, straight to the bank.

Good. Hot seat. Cool throne.

How are you feeling? You ready for this? You ready for Mount Rushmore?

Always.

Yeah. Okay.

For this, let's, let's do it. You got an ad before we get to Mount Rushmore.

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Okay, Mount Rushmore time. We're doing the Mount Rushmore of aquatic animals, and, uh, who has first pick?

I went first last time, so I think you do, Big Cat, right? No, no.

Oh, it's Hank. So you're second, PFT, we're third. We're a little out of order because we didn't do Mount Rushmore on Wednesday and Friday, so we've changed the order.

Are you going to let memes participate today?

Yeah. What was your problem with that?

I just— I listen to the show.

Yeah.

And I just heard a lot of I, I, I, I, I, I know.

Well, you obviously didn't listen to the show then.

Yeah.

Yikes.

It was so long.

We literally said before, because you weren't around and Max wasn't around to even the playing field, we'd go mano a mano a mano. So you just didn't listen to the show. Meme said, yeah, that's fine. I'll sit out this one.

I just— I was wondering where Meme was.

That's all. Where's Meme?

Where's Meme? Where's Meme? I'm here.

I'm here.

Yeah, Meme's sitting right there. And he said, yeah, that's a smart idea because why would I have a partner and no one else does?

He also did say, where's Hank?

So we did, uh, Mount Rushmore of, uh, aquatic animals. No Googling. Yep, no Googling. This one we felt, I think, better than the weapons.

No Googling.

Yeah.

Uh, R11 thought we had the second pick. We're gonna go with the smartest animal in, in, in the ocean— dolphins.

Okay.

Okay.

Interesting. Zach asked me about where I would put Dolphins on my list. I think it's a good pick. I did say kind of a chick pick. Dolphins are kind of chick animals.

Dolphins are awesome.

They are.

I love them.

Dolphins are awesome.

Great. Very smart.

I like, I like Dolphins. They are a good pick.

Why can only chicks like Dolphins?

Just chick vibe.

I didn't say it. I just said I like Dolphins. They were on our list.

Great. Yeah, I love women and women love dolphins. Nothing wrong with that.

Travel in packs. Great hunting techniques.

Yeah.

So when they go over the waves, they surf, speak like in sonar. Yep.

Yep. They can— they've saved humans' lives.

Yeah.

Dolphins are sick.

Max pulled his visor down over his eyes. Max, why are you uncomfortable right now?

I'm not uncomfortable. I just can't believe— I can't believe Henry Lockwood didn't pick something that I thought was going to get picked.

Okay.

Okay.

So I'm up.

Yeah, you're up.

Well, my 1-1's still on the board, so I'm gonna take it. The great white shark.

Okay.

Great white shark. Awesome apex predator.

Kind of like— but it's like not the ape. Like, they don't really kill that many people.

Well, they dominate the water.

Mm-hmm.

They, they are— they own the water.

So we're gonna go specific.

I'm gonna go specific sharks, or I think—

yeah, I think you can. There's, there's enough variety in the shark world out there that I'll be okay with.

All right, then yeah, we'll go specific. We'll go specific too.

Okay. All right, so our first pick is killer whale. Uh, love killer whales. Um, I learned a fact about killer whales. Did I share it on this show?

What, orcas?

Yeah, killer whales. Um, I wanted to say killer whales. What's wrong with that?

I thought they don't. You guys went on this entire rant like 2 weeks ago about how they don't kill people. Yeah, yeah.

No, no, they don't kill people. They kill other animals.

Got it.

The whole thing is they don't kill people because they respect people and they only eat the thing they're supposed to eat. But sometimes they'll fuck up a sea lion, a seal, a salmon, whatever you want.

With killer whales, weren't there a bunch of ailes that are a bunch of killer whales that were trying to fuck up humans, like tipping their ships over?

They do kill people when they're captive. Which actually is the most badass thing you can do because they get, they get put in jail and then they're like, fuck this, I'm going to kill all these fat people at SeaWorld.

It's a great pick. I had that. That was my second.

Yeah.

Killer whale be a slang term or they're synonymous with orca.

What would they be?

Orcas? Would that just be like an offhand, like, way to describe them?

Like, are you asking if they would appreciate being called killer whales? Yes, I think they probably prefer orcas, but Okay.

I just hear it.

Just like we're not doing the PC thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's fun names.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right.

Well, I'm not the one who said dolphins were chick picks. I had your back on dolphins.

I'm just saying. Yeah, I wasn't even calling them killer whales.

Okay.

We could call it orcas. What? What do you guys want to do for the next pick? Did I— Do you like what I said?

I'm good with—

I'm good with what I just said.

Either of those.

What would you say?

Okay.

Just—

yeah.

Corner the market.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's the biggest, the biggest thing in the ocean. The blue whale. It's fucking massive.

Haas.

Absolute beast. Great pick.

It's good pick.

Thank you. Love blue whales.

It's pretty good pick.

I do. I love blue whales.

Clean the whales.

Clean them.

Okay.

PFT.

Okay. I'm going to go with my second pick. I'm gonna go with hippos.

We had it on our list.

Massive.

Yep.

Maybe the most deadly animal on this list.

Hippos don't swim. It counts, but I'm just saying hippos don't swim.

They, they run around, they run on the ground.

I'm just saying that's a fun fact.

That's how they swim.

It's just a fun fact to say. Yeah, hippos don't swim.

They don't—

they actually don't know how to swim.

Yeah, that's how— that's how Leroy used to swim.

They run on the bottom of the water.

He would run with his hind legs on the bottom and then he'd take his front paws and act like he was swimming, but he had no idea.

Mm-hmm.

I feel like when you have young kids, you just learn fun facts about animals like no one else.

It's so sick.

Yeah.

I mean, I watched it live. I went to the, to the Linkin Park Zoo there. I watched the hippo just— he just fucking walking on the bottom.

Hippos are like the most chill looking animal that actually will fuck you up.

Oh, yeah.

You ever seen him eat like whole watermelons all at once? That's just awesome.

Yeah.

Slow-mo when they crush them.

That could be your skull.

Oh yeah, so I think Mudang counts under this pick too.

Uh, it's a pygmy hippo. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, happy birthday by the way, Mudang.

Okay, you guys have two.

We would like to go with nothing. We'd like to go giant squid.

Okay, yeah, yeah, good pick.

It's a dude pick.

Badass.

It's a badass pick. It's a badass pick.

Uh, and then we will go with the bluefin tuna.

Okay, okay.

Delicious.

Tastes great.

Yeah, tastes great.

It tastes great.

Tastes great.

Like the coolest thing to catch if you're, if you're a fisherman. Like that, that bluefin tuna is like your, you know, that's a, that's, that's what you want to catch. Mm-hmm.

Agree.

Trophy fish.

Trophy fish.

Yeah. Good picks.

Good picks.

Really enjoyed those.

Same.

All right, my next pick, I'm gonna go with crocodile.

Okay, we had it on our list.

Very deadly. Have you ever heard the story of Gus? I think the, the crocodile's name was Gus, the killer croc from, I want to say, Congo. Uh, guess how many people Gus the crocodile has killed and eaten in his life? Gustave is his name.

7.5 million.

This one crocodile.

Yeah.

Has not— no, that's not— that's not close.

Okay.

300 people.

Oh, that's way less than I thought.

Yeah, but this one fucking Gus is a lot of people. I think it's the animal that's got the most— the most confirmed kills of any animal for an individual. And he's 71 years old right now.

Um, okay.

Gus.

Gus. All right. We have our last two picks. The first one we know we're going to go hammerhead shark.

Yeah.

Love a hammerhead shark. They look so fucking cool. And also the only shark that I feel confident I could fuck up by just punching it right in the middle of the nose.

Hammerheads have a bad marketing. I feel like they, they were hot when we were kids and you don't hear so much about hammerheads.

They just look like they're awesome aliens.

Yeah.

You like see a hammerhead at an aquarium. Yeah.

Yeah.

Looks cool.

It's a showstopper. It's a panty dropper.

Yeah, big time.

All right, boys, we got to figure out our last one. I don't know what to do.

I like 9.

I was going to say 9. Do you want to go with 9?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Max, no, no.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to go with the octopus. The octopus. I like the octopus, guys. Fucking weirdo out in the ocean. Yeah.

Smart.

Very smart.

I saw that documentary, The Octopus Teacher. Yeah. And I, I still eat calamari, but I feel bad now whenever I eat it.

The, uh, our good friend Nick Tarani has made the, the case that the octopus has the worst PR of any animals out there because they just should be— they should be kids' favorite animal more often.

Yeah.

Because they are like weird and, and interesting and smart. Um, but you know, kids don't— they don't fall on the octopus.

Yeah, they don't. Okay, probably it's hard to say.

Yeah, and then you could say octopi. That's kind of cool.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay, good pick. Thanks. Kumbaya. Kumbaya. Uh, my last pick, this is going to be the one that might win it or, or lose it for me.

I love this. I'm excited. I'm excited.

Mermaids. Mermaids. Okay, they got the rack. They got the rack.

You're just, you're just thinking of tits.

I'm thinking of tits. Yeah, yeah.

You're like, how can I get tits into this?

Decent pick. Yes, for sure. Um, but just like a chick that's part fish, part chick—

mermaids aren't real.

It's all right, I'm all right with them having it.

Okay.

Yeah. All right.

Wow.

And we also don't know that.

Yeah, we haven't explored so much of the ocean.

Our next pick was literally gonna be mermaid with big tits, so there we go.

Oh, okay.

Where they got the clams.

The clams look like a hot chick in the water. Hot chick in the shower.

Fourth pick, we would like to take alligator. Okay.

All right, good pick, good pick. Yeah, so the, the one that we were gonna take that was gonna be adjacent to mermaid was— and I don't know if it would have worked— SpongeBob. Yeah, he does live under the ocean.

Good pick.

Yep.

I don't know, we kept it in, we kept it in the middle, we kept in the middle of fairway this time.

No one, uh, no one mentioned beavers or otters or turtles.

Turtles.

The one that I thought—

big misses: turtles, seals.

People are going to be pissed about turtles.

I think we had a discussion in the car about penguins. Would they have passed? Probably not.

What about polar bear? Would that have played?

Yeah.

See, that's where the penguin— yeah, polar bear.

I think I would have allowed a penguin. I think polar bears and hippos—

like hippos—

hippos are basically underwater for most of their day.

Lobster.

King crab, Alaskan king crab. We had high up swordfish.

Swordfish.

What about marlin?

Yeah, I—

we had marlin, then swordfish is kind of— we were thinking trophy fish.

Yeah, Marlin's a trophy fish.

Uh, mahi-mahi, just because I had—

Marlin is like the trophy.

Yeah, Marlin's like the number one trophy fish.

Hank's just hungry.

I had, I had mahi-mahi like every meal in, in, uh, St. Martin. It was so good.

Yeah.

Stingray.

Yeah, yeah, red snapper, king-size jellyfish, clownfish, puffer fish, seahorse.

I had seahorse on my honorable mention.

Salmon. Isn't every seahorse female?

No, I think it's the men carry the babies though.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Um, what about anaconda? Anaconda. I thought about that one.

I don't know if that's fully— this is a ball.

No, I think that would work. I think that would play. Yeah, those things are fucking terrifying. Like, that's the scariest thing on the planet, I I think just from watching that movie when I was a kid.

But what about Piranha?

Piranha's good.

Piranha or Barracuda.

Barracuda.

We saw, we saw Barracuda.

Yeah. Scary. It was like Zach said, Chef Donnie went and tried to pet it.

Barracuda is so scary.

Chef Donnie literally, I swear to God, he went and like tried to play with this barracuda.

Barracudas are so scary.

Goldfish.

Yeah. Goldfish.

RIP.

The old-fashioned goldfish. Oh, picking Larry would have been a great pander pick.

Big miss, Larry.

Oh, that would have been a great pander pick.

We're such idiots.

Holy fuck. Wow.

I'm actually happy that we all fucked that up. Yeah, that sucks because that would have been— oh, Paul the Octopus.

What do you guys think about, uh, narwhals?

Don't really understand them.

Yeah, they seem like they're fake, but they're real.

Belugas.

Those are— are those just small whales?

I mean, we picked different types of whales.

No, I just didn't know what a beluga— I'm not sure what a beluga is.

Yeah, they're belugas.

Humpback whales. I love watching them jump out of the water. Mm-hmm. I think Hank probably does too.

Yep, big time.

Yeah. Why don't you pick it?

We were going to try and get orcas.

Oh, that's why you were getting mad at me. You thought orcas was going to last all the way back.

We thought we had the second pick.

Oh, you thought dolphin was going to go 1-1.

Shark.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great white sharks.

Got a great white shark. Was the easy one.

Yeah, it does have a whole weak. That is a good pick.

Michael Phelps would have been a good pick.

Oh, I just thought of it.

Michael Phelps would have been a great pick. So you want the— should say orca for us?

Well, it's the animal.

Yeah.

Okay.

Orca.

Yeah, it's fine. It actually is better for us because we have— we don't want two whales back to back. So it's better.

Orca, blue.

Yeah. Yeah.

Blue whale. Because if it says killer whales, blue whales, be like, oh, dude, you just took too many whales.

How do we think everyone did there?

I was shocked by Dolphin going 1-1.

I was, I was shocked.

We thought we were gonna get Dolphin at 3.

I thought we thought it was— we were fighting about what we were gonna do at 3 because it was gonna go—

yeah, the great white shark. Orca.

Hey, where me and Zach might not be the best about wrestling, it's all right. Long season. We talked about already there's like 20 more of these left.

We— I think we took a different approach for most of the picks of like attributes.

I was also like, and then I was saying just food.

I was just like, yeah, well, you just ate ate so much fish this past week, so you were just thinking about the fish.

I ate a lot of fish and my friends like caught a big tuna last week and it looked awesome.

Yeah, because I was just saying, when you said tuna, we were thinking trophy fish, but you didn't think marlin.

At one point our list was going like ceviche.

Yeah.

Uh, and then what is the— calamari came up.

Yeah, yeah, this is Hank's equivalent of going shopping at the grocery store.

Well, I haven't eaten dinner yet.

Yeah, yeah.

Bass would have been good. Oh, Uh, what about, uh, striped musky? Sturgeon.

Sturgeon.

Yeah, those things are like prehistoric.

Yeah, goliath grouper. That's—

yeah, sturgeon.

That was the one I was trying to think of what those were called.

Asian carp. Asian carp were fucked up.

Salmon.

What about the one that lives at the bottom that's got the light and it like lures you in with a little thing?

I don't know what that is because we didn't have Google. Yeah, I know, I know what it is.

Is it lanternfish? Is that what you said? Anglerfish. Okay.

Oh yeah. What about like sea slugs at the way, way bottom?

Sea cucumbers.

That shit is crazy.

Pinfish.

Yeah.

What about sea onions, Shane?

All the rich people on the Titanic.

Oh yeah.

Osama bin Laden. You should have picked that, Hank.

Shout out.

Shout out.

Why didn't you shout him out again?

Oh, because I think I, I said that because of 9/11.

So much Tom Brady. That's what delayed—

yeah, the Patriots, the NFL canceled a week, and then the next week they came back. Drew Bledsoe got knocked out, Brady came in. Shout out! There you go.

Oh man. Okay, uh, we got great interview with the Kachuk brothers, then Taylor Twellman talking some more soccer.. And then we're going to finish with Guys on Chill.

Before we get to the Kachuk Brothers, they're brought to you by Twisted Tea. The Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack is here. We drank one of these out on— we drank actually several of them out on the course today. I had the lemonade. The Twisted Tea lemonade is delicious. We also had the Rocket Pop going, which tastes just like the ice cream treat that we all grew up eating, the popsicle. The half and half was fantastic and the original is always good. Uh, try the refreshing hard lemonade. It's made with real lemons. It's only available in the new party pack, so grab it while you can. It's a brand new summer party pack with a brand new Twisted Lemonade, and it's got refreshing hard iced tea that's real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. If you're hanging out at the bar, if you're hitting the lake or the beach for a weekend, or if you're day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there. Turn your day up a notch. Make a good time a great time. Keep the good times going all day, all summer. Keep it twisted. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. And now here are the Kachuk Brothers.

Okay, we now welcome on two very, very special guests. We are live from the American Century Championship in Tahoe. It is the Kachuk Brothers, Matthew, Brady, teammates. Let's start with that. I want to talk about your golf game because I actually have a question that you guys aren't going to like about your golf game. But let's start with teammates. On the Florida Panthers? Has it fully set in yet? And like, what's the vibe? Are you guys like, this is the coolest thing ever?

Let me go.

Yeah, the new team.

Yeah. It for me, it hasn't sunk in yet. I get just still so surreal. I mean, there's been a couple of times where at the rink when we went down there right after the trade and it's like, holy cow, this is going to be every day for 6 months. And we're, we're figuring out when our first fight's going to be. So I think it's definitely going to happen around mid-camp sesh. But, but no, we're— I mean, it's crazy. We're going to live now 3 minutes away from each other and I don't even think it's going to hit until the first game of the year.

Yeah.

Wow.

This is real life. Yeah.

Are you— so, Matthew, because you obviously, you know, you won Cups with the Panthers, you're one of the vets on the team. Are you going to be able to yell at your brother when he fucks up? Like, are you going to—

Yeah. Nobody's safe on that team. You can't even like like you can't even make a play in poker and not get chirped on this team. So there's nobody off limits. It is crazy though, like Brady's 20, 26, and year 9, because I'm in year 11, and he's the second youngest guy on the team.

That's nice.

So it's a very like the core of the team is all from 20. I think Anton Lindell's 20, 24 and then to 30 or 31. So everybody on the team's pretty much in that age range without, you know, a couple older guys. So I think he's going to fit in perfectly. And even just like being in Florida years past, like getting to know some of the guys, like it felt like he's, you know, yeah, been around enough where the camaraderie part and the getting to know guys, like that's going to be so easy where for most guys that's a hard thing to do coming to a new team. So so we flew down— he got traded on Sunday, Father's Day, best day ever! And we went down Monday, got him help with all the house, and my wife helped his wife out with that, then brought them to the rink and introduced everybody, it just fit like perfectly.

Are you gonna haze 'em?

Ahh... You have to haze 'em.

See, you're already not passing the test. Now you're going soft on your own brother.

No, no, no, no, no.

I did notice that. The teammates are gonna see this.

I just don't want to tell him what we're doing. Okay. He doesn't know like the pranks we pull in this locker room. Like nobody's safe at all. So he'll get it out of the gates. I just can't give away my secrets, but—

I hide my car keys.

That's the one thing.

Yeah. Hide the car keys.

You should actually just have—

That's like a nice prank. Yeah. It's if we move your car. That's like very nice.

You should just have your dad be like, "I don't love you, Brady." Yeah. "Haha, gotcha." Gotcha.

You're like, "That would hurt." Yeah. "That would hurt." Come to the first game in a 19 jersey.

That would hurt a lot. Is there truth to the rumor that you forced your way to the Panthers to improve the podcast?

Yeah, no, there's been a lot of things out there that a lot of people have fabricated, but you know what? That's a part of it.

So that's a part of it. And the podcast is going to be better. Like when you're face to face, it's—

Oh, it's going to be so much better. Yeah, it's going to be. We're actually talking about how we're going to do it. So it's, I think everybody's pretty happy.

Do you know who was the first guy actually we talked to or I talked to that said we should do to do a podcast, like, probably 3 years ago, was my GM, Bill Zito.

No way.

It was like, you guys, I gotta do this. Like, it would be genius idea. Like, you guys would crush it. Everybody in hockey, that's never been done. People would listen to it. And then I talked to him, like, a couple weeks ago when you were in Florida, and he's like, yeah, me and my wife, his wife Julie, were talking about it and thought it'd be a great idea.

And yeah, yeah.

So we—

that's, that's pretty cool. You have the blessing of the GM.

Oh yeah, he's like the most on board. He was the guy who told us we should have started.

Well, it's good for hockey. Like, it's not— I mean, there's, you know, some, some— I would say there's some people who play sports that maybe they shouldn't be as live as possible. Like, I think, like, maybe Jaylen Brown or Micah Parsons going live on Twitch right after a game sometimes get him in trouble. But podcasting, like, for hockey, you grow the sport.

Yeah, we just, like, tell what all of our listeners have talked about, or said to us, like, in person stuff, they love the behind-the-scenes stories of what's actually happening right now with current players. Like, it's one thing for a former player to talk about, like, you know, in my day this is what happened, but for them to hear, like, current events type stories, like, they love it. So we got a lot more where that came from and a lot more good ones with us playing together now.

You just kind of shit on Spit and Chicklets, but that's fine. I actually have a question. We love those guys.

Okay, I wish they I wish they had it when they were playing.

Okay.

They have millions of unreal stories.

Interesting you say you love them because I, uh, I might have texted a couple of guys being like, hey, the Chuck brothers are coming by, got any questions? And the only question that I got out of it was, why are you dodging them on sandbaggers?

Oh my God. He has canceled on us like 5 times.

I don't know about that. He said that you guys were dodging them for the sandbaggers.

We might have dodged them once.

Yeah, we did dodge them once.

Things didn't line up.

I didn't like where my game was at. I don't want to embarrass myself.

No, I think, I think a good sandbagger though would be this year in Florida.

Yeah.

We can go to Yan's course.

Yeah.

He's right there.

MJ could be on your team.

Let's say we'll do, we'll do you, me, dad versus those three. I mean, we've, I've played enough with Yan's. Yan's a great player. Whit's obviously really good.

Yeah.

And Biz scares me. I've, I've heard that he says he's not good, but he actually is really good.

He can be good.

Yeah. So we'll, we'll link up. If it doesn't happen this year with me and him being on the same team, my dad being in Naples, we got big issues.

Yeah.

How much of partying at Eleven was a driving factor in you wanting to play in Florida? I feel like I would just want to stay there.

I've actually never been to Eleven.

I swear.

There's no footage of me being there. But that was an incredible night. I mean, it just felt like we were the only people there. It was incredible. Yeah, but I heard that spot's great. I've never been.

Fantastic spot.

Well, now that he saw that after one championship with the Olympics, that's where we go when we won the Stanley Cup. So yeah, it's a little bit of motivation to win it again and go back there for a crazy party.

Hell yeah.

When was the last time you guys got to a fight, like a physical fight?

Probably— I don't know if we haven't thrown punches and, you know, since we've been kids, but 3 years ago. But the biggest wrestling— it's by far the biggest wrestling match we've been in I can remember was 3 years ago. It was— he was playing like be a pro mode in NFL.

Yeah.

And I'm like, let me just do one play. He was the quarterback, and I throw like, obviously, a Hail Mary. I get hit as I'm throwing, pick six the other way, and he goes, we're going right now. He was genuinely pissed off.

I have no idea why I was so mad at him, but I was so pissed off. I was like, just put in such a good shift.

Oh, that's so perfect. So wait, who won?

I think you probably— it's like the same old story the last bunch of years. You win like 90%, but I make you tap out.

Yeah, I don't have the killer instinct with him for some reason, but, uh, yeah, win 90%, maybe fatigue gets in there. I'm just like, all right, let's just get this condition.

Yeah, I've never been a great condition.

Yeah, I need to hop on the bike.

Yeah.

Um, all right, so golf game. Brady, this is your first time here, right?

Yep.

Matthew, how many times you played? This is 3.

3.

Brady, are you thinking about how many patrons you're gonna maybe hit?

I saw what I did, a pre-scout. Everybody does pre-scout of the, the holes and the hole locations. Yeah, I'm pre-scouting the ropes. Yeah, with where in my shots I could potentially hit him. So I expect a little bit narrower. So now that it's— oh, there's going to be a couple, there's going to be a couple fours, a couple tuggies, couple Ric Flairs. So we'll see, we'll, we'll see, we'll see. I think I've taken my, uh, taken the over, whatever.

Yeah, dude, I don't know how to do it.

It's a crazy part of this tournament is there's, you know, a lot of guys that, you know, they might consider themselves to be decent golfers, but but when we play on the weekends, if you— if there were— was a gallery on every hole, people would be dying left and right. So yeah, you gotta— you gotta have somebody watching, like a designated 4-person.

The gallery treats it though like it's the Masters, right? They're— they're right there.

Yeah. So forgetting it's mostly— I mean, for me, an amateur golfer, that I have no idea.

Yeah.

I mean, there are sticks. Yeah.

How do you normally shoot?

Yeah, we play with Marty today.

Marty Fish is incredible.

They both awesome.

Yeah, awesome.

So like, they're safe around those guys, but us— not with us.

I'd say my game, I'd be happy in the mid-80s.

Okay, okay.

So yeah, that's a lot of people you're gonna hit.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's 3 around at least. Yeah, I think the over-under is probably 9.5 for the weekend for you.

Yeah.

Where did you finish the last few years?

I think around 30. I would have—

that's good.

So yeah, try to get in the try to get in the top third. Um, but there's no excuse this year. I mean, we kind of fumbled this year, and so I've had 2 months to play golf, so hopefully I can be a little bit better.

Was it, was it weird watching the playoffs for the first time in a long time?

Yeah. And a bunch of guys on my team, like, we were actually talking before the playoffs, like, are you gonna watch? Like, no, like, it's gonna piss me off too much. Like, I love it so much, and it's, it's really motivating too, I think. I think even just watching it and being in your summer training in the dog days and you're like, we should be out there. Right. Then you do an extra rep the next day and be like, all right, we're getting back there next year. So I love watching it, but it was a little, still frustrating knowing that we had a good team and we had a chance we would've got in. But more motivation for next year and we needed to get him and get us over the top hopefully for next year.

And it's not your team anymore. It's our team. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Yeah.

It's a good point. Still feels, Yeah. Crazy saying that.

Yeah. Like he called me on a free agent, free agent, what's it? Free agent frenzy.

Yeah.

I think it's called. And like, it's cool to talk about like our team now. Yeah. Like it's not like, hey, what do you guys think you're doing? Like, ah, what about you? It's like, we can just talk about one team. And I know all of our family and all of our friends are just super jacked up to have one team to watch.

Yeah. So, so how close was it to somewhere else? Do you know? Like, was it, was it between a couple teams and you're like, oh shit, this could go either way?

Yeah, it was, it was a couple of teams in the mix there. And I mean, of course, it was always enticing and just with him and with their team just being around, I've just seen the professionalism that they have day in, day out. And it's all about winning. So, I mean, it was a good process. It was, you know, it was a very unique process. But, you know, it was fun going through that. And ending up in Florida was, was pretty special.

I had no idea. Like we, I, we were in the member guest in St. Louis at our, at my course there. And, uh, he was on the phone a little bit on the Saturday. I'm like, that's weird. Like he's just leaving me for a hole. Like I gotta play this by myself. Like what? There's no phone call. It's that important. It's a member guest. Like this is the most important thing in the world right now. And, uh, so I knew something like was maybe happening and had no idea about Florida. Like seriously, no idea. And we're at our parents' house the next day. Next day getting ready for a little gold medal party we were gonna have that night with all our family and friends. And he gets a— no, you got a call, but you didn't have your phone.

So for Saturday, I was told, you know, things are happening fast, so be by your phone. Saturday, nothing happened. Sunday, all day, just like it was always right, right on my lap. 5 minutes for family pictures, I didn't have it. That's when it happened. Of course. And then, and then we're at Grandpa, we're sitting there, and he's like, huh, this is interesting. Like, he's on his Apple Watch. He's Oh, I just saw a tweet from Emily Kaplan, Pierre LeBrun, like Brady just got traded to Florida.

I was like, what?

I immediately ran to my phone, had like 5 missed calls.

I was like, holy shit, what's going on?

Yeah.

How much insight did you have during that process in terms of like which teams it could possibly be?

No, for me, it's, no, with that, what I had, I had a no-move clause. So no, I was fortunate that. You know, for the teams, it was kind of up to me which teams were included. And, you know, for me, I included, you know, 4 teams. And so just talk with them throughout this, you know, on video calls, on Zoom calls, and just getting to know, you know, the GMs, coaches. So then when it comes down to it, you know, my position, I had the final say of, you know, yes or no. So, but I think towards that last day, it was just happening fast for all the teams involved. And, and then got a phone call that, you know, was happening with Florida. And it was kind of a no-brainer there.

Are the 4 teams public?

Can we guess? You have to tell us if we get it right.

Okay.

So Florida, obviously.

I know he's not going to.

Yeah.

Nobody knows. Everybody thinks they know, but nobody knows.

Everybody speculates. Colorado.

Unfortunately, I was hanging with you guys this morning. At the coffee shop. So Vegas, I know for sure because you guys told me that.

I think that might have been me actually.

Yeah.

All right, so we have 2 of the 4.

Yeah.

Was Chicago on there? Okay.

Colorado.

It's got to be— no, I want more gas each.

All right, say it. Oh, Sharks.

It's a good one, but Dallas.

Wow. Okay.

So now that wasn't like— he wasn't saying no to both of us. He was just like, no, you're just saying, oh, okay, it wasn't responding.

Okay, podcast, we're gonna get it out of you after the cameras are turned off. We're just gonna say it on your next one.

Yeah.

One thing you won't say about yourselves, I'll brag on you guys. You guys are heroes. You saved a life today. You don't know that we know that, um, but we were driving back to the hotel. I accidentally stole a car this morning, so I was driving it back to drop it off at the front desk. And, uh, and there was a lady that was pulling around a corner with the flattest tire that you've ever seen in your life. Her wheel was pretty much falling off her car. She had no idea, and you guys were just yelling at her, be like, hey, hey, pull over. Did you offer to help change the tire?

So yeah, I have to press timeout. Okay, now both heroes, he immediately just teed off on the next hole. He was like, okay, it's handled over there. But I saw it, I don't think she had any idea.

No idea.

It was the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life.

Like, we were like, roll down the window, like, your front tire popped. She's like, what? And stepped out and she's like already on the phone and she's just showing it. And it was like, it's just a tough bounce. Yeah, it was one of those things.

She was willing to drive back to Reno. Like, she was driving back to California.

Yeah, the thing was about to fall off 500 feet away. We saw it. Memes, our guy Memes was like, hmm, that's Brady.

But it was funny because it was like everybody like helping her, trying to guide her. At Matthew, all of a sudden we just hear the tee shot. He had nothing to do with it.

He's like, oh yeah, right.

There was so many like cooks in the kitchen too. Like, I didn't want to be another annoying— yeah, here's what you do. Yeah, they were here. You, Marty, everybody handled it great.

Yeah.

Uh, last time we had you guys on, you guys said you were going to do a Team USA meetup over the summer. So have you scheduled it? Like, I know obviously you were probably talking to Quinn Hughes when you maybe were going to go to Minnesota because that was one of the 4 teams.

So Quinn actually— no, it's funny you say that because Quinn in the summer in Jersey, he actually moved— him and Jack, uh, moved like 3 doors down from me for the month of June. And when I— those guys are complete legends, so it was fun to see them, see them buzzing around. But no, there's some good sauna sessions just chatting it up and love that. Yeah, seeing what he was thinking, stuff like that. But they're the best. We had so much time together and just, just great guys.

There's been, there's been a lot of like opportunities to, like, I know a few guys went to DC for the Fourth. A bunch of guys, a bunch of us are going to ESPYs on Wednesday, like next week. Oh, nice. Bold is going to be here this week.

Matt Boldy.

So like, yeah. And it's just, yeah, he's, he's going to have a chance. I guess he's a really good player. So he might have a chance this week. This weekend, but we've, uh, the group chat is alive and well. Like, hell yeah, we've done a great job of, of keeping— not even keeping in touch, just like constant communication and just having— I don't know, like, all it takes is one person to have a memory of that and like see something or have a picture or like find picture of the day or something, they'll send it in, and then the group chat gets going for a while. It's I'm telling you, like, collectively the best group of guys ever. So all like-minded, like all played together at one point, like very, very similar personalities. And it was, it was just a blast. And yeah, that group's— that, that's a tough group to beat personality-wise.

Who's, who's the one guy on the group chat that has not been pulling their weight? There's always one. We call them out right now.

No, I think—

no, there's got to be one guy who's gone silent for a a while.

I mean, I'll cheer him because he's my boy, Sandy. Sandy, Sandy, once in a while I'll throw in like a like or—

but yeah, but he's not doing— he's not, he's not adding it. He's just doing the thumbs up, just pumping iron.

It's hard to get an award though on that group chat because it's like, once it gets going, I mean, Millsy, Troach, Charlie, Austin in there, Helly, like it's it's just constant with us. So yeah, it's, I mean, I guess it's easier to hide, but everybody's very active.

So this is kind of a dumb, maybe a bad question, but obviously we're all Americans. We were rooting for Team USA in the World Cup. But is there a small part of you that's like, yeah, they couldn't do the thing we could do?

Not at all.

No, we were definitely like, yeah, we did it. You didn't.

No, it's, it wasn't. I mean, it's just incredible on that stage. I mean, it was an unfortunate last game, but just to see how unified the country was watching them was like just so awesome to be a part of and kind of brought us back to Milan.

It reminded us a lot of that. Like, I mean, I'm sure not a ton of people were watching the Olympics compared to the end when we were there. And just like each game, it was like each game that US won, it was like double the viewers for the next one and the next one. And that's kind of how we felt going back to Milan. But it's amazing what what the world stage and playing for your country will do for the whole country and having success. And just, I keep going back to like, it's amazing how that was the first Olympics that NHL players were in since 2014. Like, what a shame, like 12 years not having that. Like, it's so unfortunate, but I mean, I guess it was worth the wait for America.

Do you guys have any advice for the US soccer team? How to be a better American sports team?

They were, I love those guys. Like, I was such a super fan. I was kind of a bandwagon fan. Because I'm not a huge soccer guy, but, I'm just mad at them.

I know that came off really angry.

You do need toughness.

I am. I am a little bit upset with the team.

This is like my view watching them because I was watching the England-Mexico game the game before. I couldn't believe how big England's like midfielders and defense were. So maybe just get a little bit bigger.

Get bigger.

Get stronger.

Yeah.

Get your weight up.

But they're great. And like having it in the US was so cool. Yeah. Like me and my friends in St. Louis, like like for the 3 or 4 games prior, like we would always go somewhere to watch and it's just like out of— I know the last game was not ideal, but that in itself was a win for the rest of the country. Just how important it was for all of us to watch and support, I guess.

Yeah.

And then a spin zone is that, with the whole Balogun red card, you guys are kind of like a distant memory with, you know, Team USA getting involved in politics.

That's good. Yeah.

Right.

That's a policy.

That's a policy.

They cut all the heat off you guys.

Like, oh yeah, no, nobody— it feels like everyone, if he wouldn't have came back, it would have been controversy. If he came back, I mean, yeah, that's just— I guess that's sometimes just sports. It's all good.

Yeah.

I'm glad that we can move on from like getting like people asking you guys questions about why did you pick up a phone call?

Like, that's—

that was— that was the stupidest news cycle ever.

Yeah.

Yeah. But that— yeah, we loved watching in the Olympics this year. The Four Nations, are we doing that again this year?

Uh, World Cups in '28. So it's like every 2 years they have—

they have a unique thing that they're doing at the All-Star Game this year. What is that? 3-on-3 tournament for like US, Canada, Finland, Sweden, under— what is it, under-23?

Yeah, I just like the All-Star Game and hockey, like the traditional one, like the 3-on-3 in the skills. Like, I mean, it wasn't doing that well. Like, it was a hard watch, I think. And then we did the Four Nations and then the Olympics. So I think they're kind of rallying around that. I told— I think we were talking about it on our pod not too long ago. They should just bring all the guys that played like the 6 forwards, the 3D, and Helly. They should just make that the Team USA for—

I'd be more than happy. I'd be more than happy to spend my break sitting on the bench and watching.

Yeah, without a doubt. Wait, so speaking of your pod, Wingmen, go, go subscribe. Do you guys— now that you guys have been doing it for what, what, uh, like almost a year, right?

Almost a year.

Almost a year. Do you have any newfound respect for us? You want to compliment us?

Yes.

You know, because we're on 10 years.

Yeah, we talked about it this morning. Yeah, probably the hardest thing in the podcast world is scheduling. Yeah. And just like figuring out— that's why like I'm very happy he's in Florida, not on a team on the West Coast, because that would have been a nightmare. Vegas.

So that's what you brought up.

That's what I brought up. I did slip. I did slip. I'm like, I'm just happy he's in Florida and like, not Vegas. Yeah, very, very much appreciation. And you guys are obviously so good at like—

I mean, you didn't have to say that with different guests too.

It's like, no, he's right.

You could always have— you always have certain like questions, right? And then it's like what you can do like off the cuff and like, yeah, if you don't want to go too far one way and then not talk about what you got to talk about, right? So definitely a lot of respect for the podcast world, especially you boys.

We did run into— I think we're in minute 90 with Belichick, and we hadn't asked him a single question about Tom Brady yet. Yeah, Big Cat was like, oh yeah, let's—

yeah, Tom Brady was pretty good, right?

Yeah, he's like, all right, interview's over.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so for you, Matthew, what— actually, I saw Zach showed this to me before we sat down. Um, you went up in an F-16.

I did. How awesome was that? Insane.

Was it crazy? Were they pulling like—

that's the most FOMO I've ever had in my have seen that.

Where were you?

And, you know, I invited—

yeah, still in Ottawa, Canada. Shit, they don't have F-16s. They got the F-18s, not quite as good. Uh, pull the high Gs.

It was great nose authority though. Amazing though. Um, we pulled 9.5 Gs, uh, for a few seconds, but the hardest one that I did was like 7.5 for probably Rath, the guy flying me, complete legend. I I think he said it was like 15 to 20 seconds, and by the end of it, my circle was like this, and I was seeing light out of this. Everything else was dark. I was like a breath or two away from just passing out.

Oh shit.

I never, never felt like I had to puke except for when he let me fly it. And of course, I'm just like turning at 9 o'clock, and we're just doing barrel rolls in the sky. I'm like, whoa, okay.

Wait, he said, you want to take out— you want to take the sticks?

No, he just said, plane's yours. He goes, see that thing there? Do whatever you want with it. So immediately I'm like, yeah.

Do you think he was just like letting you do it and he was actually like when you hand a kid an unplugged controller?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

I know, Matthew, you're really good.

Yeah.

I was not very good. So I think that's why I definitely knew I was flying. But that was being in control of that plane over the water. I mean, so high up, but like you're looking down, it's the ocean. It was a little intimidating, time in my life I would love to do it.

You're trying to reenact Top Gun Maverick.

Without a doubt. Yeah, I'm like breathing like the F-16 breath when it wasn't— didn't even need to.

Yeah, start talking like pilot. Yeah, we're gonna be out of the water.

Just those guys are unreal though. Like, the Thunderbirds, they are top-notch at what they do. It's amazing. Like, we were— I flew on Friday with them as they were doing their test run for the air show the next day, and their wings are like this far away from each other in certain maneuvers. It's just, it's unreal. A lot of, a lot of credit.

Um, Brady, do you think you're getting a video when you go back to Ottawa, or you think you're getting booed?

I think I'm for sure going to get booed.

Yeah. You going to get a video though, or no?

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I don't— we'll see what they got for me. I don't know.

I mean, are you like thinking about that at all?

I feel like they give videos to guys that have been like places for like a year now.

I mean, I would I would think they would.

Not sure.

I don't know what's going to happen, but yeah, hopefully. I heard some rumblings that it's early on in the season, so.

Oh, nice. Yeah.

Okay.

So that'd be fun to get back.

I mean, yeah. Also, does it make you not feel better, but like you guys lost to the Hurricanes. The Hurricanes were just dominant. Was that, I mean, were they just as good as we watched where it's just like, it's just so hard to beat them?

Yeah. I mean, I think what they did so well is just didn't give you any ice. They suffocated you. And that's how I felt all series, like tried doing whatever, just they gave you no room to do it. And yeah, I mean, just sucks getting swept. Like, just, I mean, everybody can always say you played better than that, but then they got swept and, you know, I know for myself wasn't good enough. So that was first time. It was a tough pill to swallow.

Yeah. I got a really dumb question for you guys. When you were little, how long did it take you to spell your name? It feels like something that a kid might not easily pick up on.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Thank you.

I talked way earlier than Brady. Brady was like a really—

I had my own language. Wait, really? Yeah, it's the same.

How late?

I was speaking gibberish until 26.

Did you have a name for your language?

No. So did you ever have— because I came up with—

because my son's like that now. Yeah, he's like just turning 2, but he speaks his own language.

But I don't want to get in trouble.

Did your— wait, did your dad— did you ever like— did your parents ever take you to like the doctor and being like this?

I went to a speech, um, was a therapist, and I couldn't get my S's right. I was like, that's normal, Sammy Sprinkler. So yeah, so I got it all dialed in.

Zach.

Yeah, I still can't— I still can't spell your guys' names. I just, I just throw a bunch of consonants.

That's why I just tell people, don't even look at the T.

I just literally, when I, when I spell it, I just throw a bunch of K's, C's, and H's at it. I'm just like, somewhere in there it's gonna make sense.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, we got Zach.

Zach's gonna ask the, the Roback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off First purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com. Also, thank you to Matthew and Brady because they did this on short notice. We were just, they were actually having a nice lunch. I was like, hey, can you just— lunch, lunch, drinks. So all, all-time guys.

All right, Zach, you ready?

Uh, yes, sir. Gentlemen, uh, thank you for your time today. Did have a quick question. Uh, Matthew, do you hear recently went back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Panthers, and then Brady, you coming down to Florida that kind of brings together the ultimate team chemistry you could have being brothers. Some are speculating you guys could be in like guaranteed championship territory, and I was just curious if you felt the same, and if so, if you'd like to declare that here today.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and our team did not have our best year last year at all. And for us to have a chance to get at the top of the mountain, we needed to get somebody like him. So we are a better team now than we were at the end of the season. So all you can ask for is a chance, and I think we got a chance.

Brady, you should guarantee it. Really, like, make yourself feel at home.

There's been enough controversy around me in the last little bit, so I need to go a couple weeks without controversy.

Well, you got another question?

Uh, yeah, quick follow-up. I know you guys make your careers out on the ice. We are here at beautiful Lake Tahoe this weekend. If it's 1v1 head-to-head, we're pivoting, the ice melts, swim race, who's Who's crossing the finish line first?

Wow. I think depending on the length of it, I think short distance I get him and then he's just— his cardio is just as low average as it's going to get. So I think I got him.

Yeah, you got me on long distance. Blow my load early.

Cardio is a factor. What's going to happen when one of you gets in a fight next year? Are you going to feel like an extra special, like, I got to go and go defend him, or is it just teammates?

I mean, that's tough because when he fought at Four Nations, I've never been more nervous going into it. I'm like, the last thing I need for him is to get knocked out on this stage. Like, that'd just be brutal. But when he was fighting, like, I truly felt like I could fight anybody because I had super strength. Like, the adrenaline that I felt, like, seeing him go and like seeing— I don't even know. All he kept saying was like— I couldn't speak again, speak English, but I was like, just fuck yeah, for like 20 times. And And then like once he, you know, fought, did great, I was like, I feel like I could take anybody.

Yeah, yeah. Same thing with me though. Like for mine, like I was as calm and chill— like not calm, I was like seeing red. And then for him, I'm like a little bit like— you get more nervous when it's not you.

Yeah, that's my teammate. Is it? But also like, is it like the bro— like you don't want to see your big brother get beat up and then you, you got to defend your little brother?

Yeah, I think that I mean, I have a feeling that if somebody's, I mean, he's obviously like pretty close to the, he's a light heavyweight in the world, definitely in that tier of whatever you want to call it.

Sneaky called you fat. Cardio.

Hey, Jon Jones is a light heavyweight.

That's true, that's true.

But I have a feeling that like Brady, especially early, like he's definitely going to want to like, I don't want to say like show off, like everything, like the type of player he is, but I think he's, he's gonna come out of the gates like as fired up and wanting to like initiate himself in the team, right?

Earn your stripes. Yeah.

And the best way to do that is being like playing hard, playing physical, producing, and then every once in a while, like, beating the fuck out of someone. So I have a feeling like the first time one of the guys on the team gets like hit clean, but like maybe hard, I have a feeling Brady's gonna, gonna try to Yeah, earn his stripes. That's a great way. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.

Gotta prove it.

Do you guys have a favorite thing to say to someone when you know you want to fight them, or you just like, you want to go? What do you say?

I think my favorite are the ones you don't say anything. It's like you just both know.

Yeah, you lock eyes. Yeah, you lock eyes. Kiss or fight.

Oh yeah, yeah, mutual.

It's just, you know, and it like— I think those are my favorite.

Yeah, you can't even explain that. Yeah, you just both somehow like like, don't need to— both the wires are crossed.

It's just, you know, it's happening.

It's all— but is there— do people say you want to go?

I love it.

Yeah, kids used to tell us about that.

I hear, I hear like, let's go.

Yeah.

And then like, you're not gonna say no because then you want to look like— no, it depends who it is, right? You don't want to be like, no. I mean, you could say that to somebody that's like not good, but like, if it's fair trade-off or whatever, you're like, yeah, let's go. And sometimes you catch them off guard and and all of a sudden your gloves are off.

I think Yan said his favorite was just saying, you want one?

Yeah.

You want one?

You want one? Yeah. You want one? Want to go? Let's go.

Let's get the boys going.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, someone says that? Yeah.

I think I used that last year.

Oh, that's awesome. Let's get the boys fired up.

You said that with Anders Lee, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And it was funny because we did it the first time in Ottawa and then And we played a couple weeks later, like one of our last games of the year for like the playoff push. And then he skates right up to me. He's like, same thing as last time, big boy.

I was like, sounds good.

Have you ever thought like this is going to get the boys going and then it absolutely does not get the boys going?

I mean, you could argue that that's what happened in playoffs. Stahl proceeded to win the Conn Smythe, but I mean, my, my thought was, you know, we're playing against a powerhouse. And try to set the tone.

But I fucking love—

I feel like a fight, it doesn't even matter like who wins or loses. Both teams are either fired up because their guy like won the fight and got everyone going, and then the guy that doesn't, it's like, all right, like now we're pissed off.

Right.

I don't know.

It's— yeah, yeah, it's always a positive side.

It's always mutual, mutual, like, uh, what do you call it, momentum.

It's also, yeah, you just, you just decide how it affected the game after the game's over. Like, if you win, you're like, well, it's because of the fight.

Yeah.

If you lose, you're like, well, we probably shouldn't have fought.

Yeah.

The Monday morning quarterback.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

I have never played with— and I've never played with someone or played in a situation like— I remember playing in Calgary once and we were up 3-nothing, like, early in the game on the road, and one of the guys on the team got asked to fight and fought him, and it was, like, awesome. And, like, we still won the game. But after that period, guys were, like, going up to him being like, hey, like, like, we had the momentum, like, don't do it. I'm like, fuck that. Like, that was unreal.

Yeah, I don't care.

You should have respect for the guy.

Yeah, right. I'm like, that was amazing. You didn't get momentum off that. Like, I don't care if we're up 3-0 and they scored the next shit. Like, yeah, that was amazing. So yeah, I think, I think that's looked into more from the outside, like, because of results, than in the actual locker room.

Do you guys have specific guys in the league right now where you're like, there's probably a good chance I'm gonna to fight him?

I say more for me than him.

Yeah, who, who would it be?

I don't—

I can't be—

I can't because I know, like, someone who's like 5'5".

Signing you up for a million fights.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden I'm fighting you 2 times a year. Here we go. This game, this game, this game.

Yeah.

You just got to pick somebody small.

Yeah.

Yeah. Could you take Willie?

I fought him before.

Yeah.

Yeah, we love him. He's, he's a great player. Yeah, I think He's a beast. Got a lot of respect for him.

He's awesome.

Yeah, I love— are you gonna have to like go out of your way? Because obviously you guys are close being brothers. Are you— is there going to be like some bit of— I don't want to say like, you know, like we were alluding to earlier, like you want to let your teammates know like, yeah, he's my brother, we're close, but ultimately like this is about us as a team and not just his and my relationship.

Do you—

yeah, for sure. Like keeping— are your lockers going to be next to each other?

No, we're we're spread out a little bit. Like at Olympics, we weren't by each other. We obviously roomed together that. But I mean, he's already saying like, he's like, when I'm down in Florida, like, don't be pissed off one day when I'm golfing with 3 of the boys. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, hey, I get it.

He's holding the spot.

Yeah, yeah. You lost your spot. But I think that's what I'm most excited about is like, yeah, getting to know and building relationships with all these guys that, you know, I know.

But right.

It's going to be, of course, great doing it with him, but he's not we're not going to be shoulder to shoulder all day, every day. We're gonna—

yeah, you guys should shit talk each other.

Yeah, behind each other's back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All your teams like, damn, they hate each other.

I know, I know our teammates at the Olympics thought we were nuts because of like the shit talking we would do to each other, like in cards or in the locker room or whatever it was. They're like, these— and like kind of just helps loosen everybody up.

I don't know, it's The boys, I guess, also, yeah, you have proof that it works because you won a gold medal.

So I think that's why, I think that's why we're really excited too, because we had success at the Olympics, proved that we actually played with each other like on the same line there. So prove that works. So just hoping for more success down in Florida because just need another chance at a championship.

Yeah.

All right. Well, golf game's probably going to get better in Florida too.

Yeah. Play more, more often than before.

So what, what is, uh, what's the goal for this week? Where do we want to finish this? I know you said you finished what, like 30th?

Yeah, I want to finish— I, if I can finish, I mean, I, I look at top third as a goal, but somewhere, somewhere around— yeah, number— I think there's 90 guys in the tournament, right? Top 30 would be awesome.

Yeah, I just want to be positive points.

Yeah, you gotta be Charles.

Strictly looking out for myself. Yeah, yes, positive points.

It's hard though, like everything in hole's so tough, and like staying in it mentally, and then you're waiting a lot.

Like, it's 2 doubles around. That's where I'm looking at, dude. We play—

we play—

crush you.

And I thought you were talking about drinks.

That's a start.

The greens are insane though.

The greens are insane.

Yeah, there was a couple holes where it was just like the hole was on a, a hill. It was like halfway down the hill.

They just do such amazing— such an amazing job. Like, this course is an incredible show.

It's the best place like on earth. It's like the sun is always shining. It's nuts. So, um, all right, thank you, boys. Everyone subscribe to the podcast, and, uh, we'll have you in the office when you, uh, come to Chicago this year.

Oh yeah, I love that.

Yeah, yeah, show them around.

I want him to do the, uh, the gauntlet. Yeah, the gauntlet.

Well, what was I— not last year's, the year before. Oh, because I got— was hurt last year. Yeah, the year before.

Yeah, the year before he came by.

What's up? What are the gauntlets? What, uh, like sports?

Uh, it's cornhole, soccer, baseball, football, 3-point shot, 3-point shot, trivia. Maybe we gotta add hockey for you guys. Yeah, yeah, trivia is not gonna—

that's where they got me.

No, yeah, we've had some— listen, we've had some— we had, I think at one point we had, uh, some guys from the Detroit Tigers come in and one of the questions was like, name the 6 biggest cats species and he just didn't get tigers. It was just like, what the fuck, dude? So yeah, that happens to you guys. You don't get panthers out of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, all right, well, thanks, boys. Appreciate it. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. We are live for the American Century Championship. It is Taylor Twelman, and he's going to talk some soccer with us. We also were just talking—

do we have to?

Yeah, we have to.

Okay, we have to.

All right, let's just rip the Band-Aid off because we already taped some of the podcast. And here's where I'm at with U.S. soccer. PFT's in a little bit of a different spot. PFT's, uh, he, he cares maybe a little bit more, invested a little more. I, I love watching them.

Yep.

I love, you know, getting behind my country. Um, I'm now at a point where I just think we suck at soccer, and that's okay.

Yep.

And that's okay. And it's not like we suck, we're the worst team in the world. It's we suck relative to the big boys, where it's like, hey, the level levels to this are insane. And watching us get absolutely embarrassed by Belgium, who is not— they're not a top 5 team, no chance.

So like, and that's not being disrespectful to Belgium, but they're right.

So I'm gonna root for them every time they're in the World Cup, every time we're in a big game, I'm gonna root for them.

Belgium or the US?

The US. But I'm also gonna just go into it being like, hey, you know what, soccer's not our sport, so it's okay. Like, we're gonna get to the round of 16, we're gonna lose, And then I'm going to be like, I feel like this is an AA meeting.

Yeah, this is going. Dan, to your point, like it's— yeah, it's— it goes against us as Americans, right? You accept that we're not even in the top 3 or 4, right? You know, like hockey, we're— you know what I mean? It's big to win the gold medal. We all celebrated it because it's not a given. We're not number one. But we're in the conversation, right? We have a seat at the table.

Yeah.

It's very difficult for us as Americans just to look at the men's program and say, wow, man, we can't get in the Final Eight, right? We can't.

Right.

Like, really?

In our own— in our own country?

Yeah.

In our own—

in that environment.

I know.

At Seattle.

Yeah.

That's going to be the most difficult part for me. And I wasn't on the field. That has to be the most difficult part for them as well to look back 5 years, 10 years, unless 2030 they do this miraculous run and they use it for motivation. But they'll still always go, what the hell happened in Seattle?

Right.

Well, us 3 were together watching the game. Yeah. 5 minutes in, all 3 of us, including Marty Fish, who was with us, looked at each other, said, what is going on? Why are we so slow?

Yeah.

Why are we sluggish? Why do we look like we're running in quicksand?

So it was that first goal. Oh my God, hey, someone go step up.

Even before that first goal where, I mean, we had— Freese made a spectacular save.

Unbelievable save. Otherwise it was 1-0 2 minutes in, right?

Yeah, yeah. No, it's— to me, I keep going back and forth because I, I was, I was very upset yesterday. I stormed out of the restaurant afterwards.

I know what an Irish exit that was. I looked around going, yeah.

Oh well, it was, it was— can I just tell real quick, uh, it was very funny because we, we independently— you were with your family and Marty Fish and his family. We were all of us together. We watched the game together, then independently we all just, uh, went to the same ice cream place.

Yes.

Yeah.

But we get to the ice cream place and you turn to your wife and you're like, just order me something, I gotta make a video. And I look over like across the street and you're like underneath a tree just ranting into your phone. I was like, oh geez, that's right.

It was so cathartic. It was, it was SportsCenter and Yahoo. I did two hits.. And I look, you know, I'm like, hats disheveled to the side. I look like I'm 14 beers deep. May or may not have been. Yeah, that's a tough one. Here's the thing. That's— it just—

it sucks.

Yeah, it really sucks.

I go back and forth between the sky is falling, just mostly because I'm still pissed off about it. And then in my calmer moments, I think to myself, we played some really good soccer in this World Cup. Objectively good, entertaining soccer. That we've never seen the United States do before.

In what game other than Paraguay?

Paraguay. I thought that we were good against Australia as well.

Okay.

I thought that first half against Australia.

My generation would have won that game against Australia in the same manner.

Yeah, most likely. Most likely.

And Bosnia, we would have won that game too, because it wasn't like this free-flowing attacking. I'm putting this seeded. I don't know if we did. Like, I think Paraguay was really high level.

Yeah, sure.

But 20— 2002, we were beating Figo and Portugal 3-0, 20 minutes in, right? So I, I don't know. I don't know that answer. Is Paraguay an anomaly? Is that the barometer? But I thought Portugal in 2002 was the barometer, and then we flamed out in 2006. I don't know this answer, right?

Portugal 2002, we, we did— there was a lucky goal in that one too, but you make your own luck. We were attacking I mean, the team— I guess the team that, that I saw—

yeah, we had an own goal against Paraguay.

It's true. We— the team that I saw, um, attacking in like group stage and against Bosnia, I feel like that's a different style of soccer, like more aggressive. It gave me more reason to be optimistic about the future of the U.S. men's national team. And then what was so, so shitty about the game last night was just the lackadaisical nature. They, they looked like they didn't care.

And to me, look like the moment was too big.

Yeah, I think it was, yeah, a combination of like they just—

because I think they cared. I, I think all three of us— I know what you're saying.

No, the lights were too bright.

They looked like they were afraid to, you know, play the same style of soccer that they were playing before.

But let me throw something out. I firmly believe— I, I'm not— let me, let me say this. Do you think the Balogun news less than 36 hours before kickoff threw off the entire thing a little bit?

I think it did. And I think it probably gave Belgium bulletin board material too.

Oh no, where they're like, it is truly us.

The goal celebrations after them. They're going like this to— they're waving their hands, they're putting their hands in. They knew there was too much talk.

Well, and there's also— it's the vibes of the story going into the game is like, we lost our best player on a bad red card, the— we're the underdogs, the feel-good story, and then it completely flips to the, you know, America's the bad guys and everything is—

yes.

Yeah, I think it definitely had something to do with it.

I also—

you, you obviously know soccer so, so well. The Paraguay game Is that also game flow? Because Paraguay, you saw what they did against Germany where it's like what they want to do is they want to squeeze you to death. They want to play defense. They want to make it a 1-0 game, a 0-0 game. Scoring so quickly, it's like, well, now they have to play our game.

Absolutely. Now, to your— it's a great observation. And that's where I think you're going with what your comment is about. The sky isn't falling. Paraguay just wants to squeeze you. That's all they did in qualifying. They only gave up 6 goals. And that's Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, all of Ecuador, all of these South— that's amazing. The United States punched them in the face. They couldn't recover. So GameFlow, it's a great observation. And that's what you're talking about. What I'm saying is, though, that wasn't sustained because Australia, solid win, but no generation before them doesn't win that game.

Right.

It's the same type of game that we usually used to win.

Right.

Fight them, work hard, do this. But Paraguay, there was an energy to the game. That Paraguay was completely stone-faced, like, who is this, right? The fact that they couldn't really do that against Bosnia raised my alarm bells a little bit against Belgium because I was like, hang on a minute, right? This is in San Francisco, a home game. Bosnia has no real chance of attacking where Paraguay did have a little bit more of that. I, I just, I, I'm not saying the sky is falling, but I feel like I do this every 4 years.

Yeah.

Yep.

And then we do the conversation about soccer being too expensive and all this stuff.

It's like the rinse and repeat. You're like, dude, I— the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over.

I said that earlier in the podcast. Yeah. And it's like, and again, it's not like I'm, I'm rooting against the US. I want us to do well, but it's okay to just kind of put your hands up and be like, hey, Hey, we're always going to be the 4th or 5th sport, and we're— it's never going to be a priority as a country to be the best at soccer. And this is what the result is going to be.

And that's why I think the loss in the manner that they did is so heartbreaking.

Yeah, right.

Because I do believe, and I've said this the entire tournament, if they got to that quarterfinal to play Spain, I think this country, all of a sudden something clicks. And then you're the underdog. No one expects you to do anything. And then you're kind of more free, right? The expectation level was overwhelming for this group. A majority of that group plays at high-level competition in Europe. That is the biggest surprise for me. Yeah, that is the big— when you're playing in Serie A, the Bundesliga, and the Premier League and all this, that round of 16 game, the whole reason 12 years ago when we lost to Belgium, we were talking about how do you get more experience of playing high-level competition? Guys, this generation has that, right? They had a worse result. Yeah, yeah, they had a worse game. Yeah, that's the heartbreaking and disingenuous feeling that I have of going like, do we even— do we know what we're doing?

Yeah. So we were, we were favorites in that game too, which is crazy against Belgium. So this game, like this time around. Yeah, but didn't you before they thought that we were fair and I don't think you before they favored.

Oh man, I did.

Oh no, I bet so much.

I did.

I bet on them. I bet on them too. But if I'm being objective, like, we have never proven that— like, that's kind of uncharted territory for us to—

true.

But you got to think of what Vegas is looking at. Yeah, they just played Senegal. Senegal completely outplayed them.

Yeah.

U.S. beat Senegal. They're at home. Belgium played 30 extra minutes. Yeah, 30 extra minutes, which, by the way, De Bruyne didn't even play.

Right.

Doku's off the bench. Lukaku's off the bench. It was brilliant from Rudi Garcia. To play his youngest squad because I went into the game saying in the group stage Belgium was the 4th oldest team in the World Cup. Not in the round of 16. Yeah, they played a completely different team. They were running, they were fighting, they were motivated. But I know what you're trying— I know what you're saying. Like, we weren't favored 70-30, but I thought we were at least 60-40, 55-45. Yeah, it just goes to home field because of the way the group stage our road's been easy. It was an easy road. Belgium was playing Egypt and other teams.

We weren't.

Yep. That, that game, um, 2014 against Belgium, that was— so in that game, like, we, we came away from that feeling a lot better about U.S. soccer as a program, I think.

Yes.

Than we are right now, which is— I, I am kind of in like sky is falling. Do you think that, that Poach is— he's proven that what he's tried to do is worthy of given him another shot, tried again, 4 years, or do you think that we should go in a different direction?

Yeah, he didn't get enough time. So no matter— I, I, in my opinion, in order to fully observe and I would say objectively critique a national team international manager, you have to have a full 2 years. He didn't even get that.

Yeah.

So to answer your question, if Poach wants to come back, then he— in my opinion, I want to see that. I want to see 4 years with keep in mind they've got to now qualify. Yeah, see, the problem with this whole thing was the last 3 and a half years felt like a waste.

Yeah, yeah.

Copa America was a complete debacle. There's no World Cup qualifying. The friendlies are here or there. Gold Cup, you got your star players asking not to come in because they need a mental break.

That's another thing we should talk about.

We— and we should. But so to answer your question very shortly, yeah, if Pacho wants to come back, sure. But knowing him, getting to know him He is an everyday grind kind of guy. He's a club manager. So I don't know if this result leaves a real negative taste in his mouth that he doesn't want to do it, or does it motivate him and say, give me 4 years, 4 years with this group and then let me see what I can do?

Yeah. Okay. That's a, that's a fair answer. I know to, to your earlier point that you alluded to, like Jelich, Jelich seems— and if you really need mental health breaks, people should take those mental health breaks and You should take that space if you need it. But it does seem that Jelic has not— he doesn't have a passion for playing for the United States. It doesn't— for whatever reason, he doesn't ever seem—

You're talking Pulisic or—

Oh, I'm sorry. What did I say?

You said Jelic.

Jelic. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pulisic.

Jelic plays for the Brewers.

Yeah, I mix it up.

That'd be amazing if he ever wins a Battle of the Derby.

If you want to do that discussion too, I could go on one of all these. Only if our best athletes played. Okay.

I got my Croatians mixed up, but, but But Pulisic, yeah. So he, he, he takes some time off. It doesn't— it never felt to me like he has the passion to play for the United States and represent. It doesn't get him excited for whatever reason. And he's been anointed as being Captain America. We've talked about it, how he's like the future face of United States soccer. And it seems like it's just not working out. Like, at what point do you say if you're, you know, in charge of putting together the final roster, like, you might be a very talented player, there, but we need guys that are going to demonstrate a passion for this and are going to be leaders to get everybody else fully invested. And it seems like you might not be that guy. Yeah, it—

the general media is asking a lot of questions of Pulisic now, aren't they?

And Jelich. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, if he can only hit the ball, I'm not letting him off the hook for this.

Yeah, I agree. Jelich, it's your fault we lost to Belgium. Listen, I was there when Christian was— I called his first game. I was introduced to him. I've gotten to know him. Failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup really hurt Christian Pulisic. And I think that has changed the trajectory of him with the national team. You will never hear me say that he doesn't care playing for the red, white and blue. I know he does. The problem is he doesn't want to be be that guy, right? He doesn't. He thrives when he's your third attacker for Milan, and then he's one of the best, right? But what we're not talking about is none of us can be surprised that Pulisic had a bad World Cup when from January 1st to the beginning of World Cup camp, he had zero goal contributions after 6 months where he led Serie A in goal contributions. That is 180 degrees difference. Yeah, that is black and white. That is completely opposite. It. So I don't know what happened. We know publicly that he broke up with his longtime girlfriend. I don't know if that's it, if personally he's going through something, if he's tangling with, do I go back to England because Tottenham and Manchester United and these teams are sniffing?

Do I go to MLS because then there's 3 MLS teams that are willing to offer him $60, $70 million to go back? So I, I don't know. But the last 6 months for Christian Pulisic were opposite of what Balogun was. And so coming into the World Cup, I thought the Senegal game would just bring it back to him and it would come. And the injury in the Paraguay game really scared— it looked like it scared him. Yeah, it did, didn't it? Like, it just looked like he lost his mojo. Yeah, because of 45 minutes against Paraguay, he was really good.

Yeah, he was, he was creating every time he touched the ball.

He was unbelievably good even without the ball. His runs awesome. Yeah, this one's weird. Yeah, it's weird. And he's going to have to ask and deal with that. Listen, when you're put on the mantle, it's a— it is what it is.

Yeah.

And you're judged by in critical moments in big games. Yeah, that's a tough one. The only thing I'll say about Christian Pulisic against Belgium is he was not the only one that didn't deliver that plays at a big club and that should have been at a higher level. Yeah, he wasn't, but he didn't do what he needed to do. And that's where this one becomes really interesting. He's got a— he's got a target on his back now.

Yeah. Yeah.

The Gold Cup thing. Can I— can I just say something? Because I wasn't with you guys and we didn't talk about it. I just don't understand why the messaging and how he portrayed it to the public, that was really mismanaged.

Yeah. He needs— he needs just a friend to run stuff by because whenever he gives an interview, he's like, yeah, you know, it's just another tournament. We're talking about like the World Cup. It's like, you got— if you're, if you're doing an interview, if you're talking media, you have to at least put on a face and, and act like you— I'm so glad you brought up that comment, by the way.

Everyone in the world, if you got a half a brain, we know it's not just their tournament. So that actually told me he's nervous about the tournament.

There's pressure.

Yeah, see, see, I've always been told embrace the pressure because it almost takes your anxiety down when you're like, yeah man, this is a big tournament.

Yeah, yeah, this is the World Cup.

What do you want me to do? I'm gonna do my best. He, it's just another tournament I'm trying to play. Then after the game, weird comment about the ankle.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I just, I kind of sprained my ankle. Christian, you came out of a World Cup game down, right? It can't just be an ankle. It can't, right?

Yeah.

Not, not to the, not to the fans, not to your teammates, not to anyone.

It can't.

So I couldn't agree with you more. The messaging, it's a little weird.

Yeah, it's all strange. Can we— we can zoom out, talk a little bit more about soccer as a whole and the World Cup as a whole today. What happened with Argentina?

Are you Messi or Ronaldo guy? Messi.

All right.

All right. We can— we can proceed. Yeah. Just absolutely insane. People are going to be upset about the VAR being used. They brought it in to like 100 yards away. It was one of the best goals I've ever seen. Like, it was— it was unbelievable.

Absolutely.

For those of you listening and watching, You got to go watch it.

Yeah, the guard that was—

the goal that was taken back was—

yeah. At what point does FIFA step in and say like, hey, VAR is a great tool, well, let me— but it's like we're, we're losing control of Skynet, right?

Let me ask you, because I'm going to reverse it, but same topic. Does it drive you nuts the way American football has turned into regarding the catch?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

What are we doing?

I—

here's what I don't understand about VAR, and, and you could tell me this is the dumbest thing ever for soccer. I get it, offsides, you need the rule. Everyone's like, oh, there should be no offsides. Why can't it just be where your feet are? Yeah, like that. The thing that drives me nuts is when it's like an offsides and the guy's feet are completely on, but it's his shoulder, but his shoulder or his arm or like his hand is dangling. That has no outcome. The, the spirit of the rule is you can't get behind the defender.

If you're—

if your elbow is behind the defender, that does not change how you're playing soccer.

Big Cat, I could not agree with you more. And I bet you a million dollars that after this World Cup, there will be real consideration of Arsène Wenger and his idea of offside, of being daylight between the defender.

I like that.

I do. I like that.

Because what bothers me— and we can thank the Premier League for ruining VAR— my pinky was offside. Miss me with it, right? Yeah. What are we doing?

Lukaku's dick was offside. I actually did.

I was actually gonna say it's like circumcising mosquito right now with what we're doing.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Really, where are we going with this?

Yeah, the Croatia goal was bullshit. Like, that was— that's just spirit of the sport. He was not—

it didn't— it didn't create— let's watch that goal, okay? And we have 6 eyeballs. I still have not seen the ball turn differently, right? But the chip in the ball said it hit his hair, right? And it spiked up, and you're like, I've watched the video with my eyes. I don't see it. I hope Favre has been exposed for certain things, and I wish American football— this Dez Bryant complete the catch thing, it's— guys, I don't—

I— well, you know what it is? It's—

we were—

I was saying what it was like. It was, it was that one year that after the Saints, uh, Rams NFC Championship Game where they're like, yeah, we're gonna make pass interference reviewable.

It's like, why?

This is going to be brutal.

It's, it's a bad watch. Now we all know gambling is more than likely the reason behind it. VAR is really, really important. For 2010, Frank Lampard scored a goal for England. Ball hit underside the bar, went all the way completely behind the line. Ref and linesman didn't see it. Goal doesn't count. That is why we need VAR. Yeah, we need VAR to expose offside. We need to change the offside law. The red cards—

whoa.

Yeah, well, this tournament's been really interesting to me because in MLS we don't have this dissecting certain things. It's got to be clear and obvious for you to rescind something.

Yeah.

Or give something. And I think this tournament's exposed it. I just hope FIFA doesn't bury their head in the sand and say, no, it's fine. It is what it is.

It's also like they're— being a ref is hard. The human element should be part of— it should be part of the game, you know what I mean? Where it's like you can't review every little play.

I'm a massive St. Louis Cardinals fan, right? 1985 World Series.

Yeah.

God bless his soul.

Yeah.

Like that umpire, that moment. Like it's a human element, right? Part of, you know, nowadays we would have had a World Series.

Yeah. Is it crazy to say there should be two refs? That's a lot of ground for—

it's been discussed—

one ref to cover. Like, I know they're running the diagonal system. System and all that. So they're trying to get the assistant referees— you know, in one corner you got the assistance out over here. But like, that's a big-ass field. I feel like we could have two. And in basketball we have multiple refs. In football we've got like half the guys on the field or reference.

Well no, the soccer purists would tell you right now, well, we have three refs. And you're like, whoa, hang on a minute. The assistant referee's their goal in the game. They go into the game making sure they're in line with the last defender. Their whole goal is offside. That's all they care about, right?

Yeah.

Adding a second ref and each ref does each half.

Yeah.

Okay. There's an— there's an intriguing part to that because you can then say, well, the ref goes against the attacking team one half, defending team the other half. So there's going to be no like playing favorites or anything like that.

Right.

I think there's value to it. Now, there's not value to it. I would argue against myself. On the point is, well, VAR is supposed to protect that. My issue is this: if you have VAR or instant replay in any sport and you still can't get calls right, we've got a problem.

Yeah, yeah, we've got a problem officiating. Like, because if you referee everything to the letter of the law, if you had VAR in NFL and everything was up to this, like, Sky Judge, you could call a penalty for holding.

But no, they'll be holding on every single play.

You have to let them play at some point.

It's the NBA when we— they've started to get a little bit out of it, but like the fact that we would just spend 5 minutes seeing if it glanced off someone's pinky and it's like, yeah, just, just call, just call it, just call the game. Yeah, call the game, call the game.

All that said, this World Cup has been awesome. So I know that we've just basically been saying all the things that we're frustrated about right now, but it's been an incredible—

what I'd argue the last 30 minutes we just talked is growth of this thing. Yeah, I do think that— listen, you guys and your listeners and your viewers, they intelligently talk the game now.

Yeah, I, yeah, maybe we say a lot of dumb stuff.

Yeah, dude, I say dumb stuff and I'm supposed to be an expert. It happened. But my point is it is more mainstream than we've ever had it in the conversation, in the discussion. I got in a massive argument. TSA pre-agent was so upset about a VAR call in a Morocco game, you know, and he wouldn't let me go by him. I was like, dude, my flight leaves in 20 minutes.

Yeah.

You're right. And that's good. Secretly, I got on the plane, I was like, that was the coolest thing.

No, because if you, if you have people complaining about stuff, that means they care. Like, if they don't complain, then they're just not watching.

Yeah, yeah. Even though like half the country's lost their mind about the whole Caitlin Clark thing, we're talking about the WNBA.

Yeah, way more.

Yeah.

So like, I do think, yeah, there's like people pulling you aside.

They have lost their brains. What are we—

holy nuts.

So we're, uh, oh my God, we are loving the World Cup. I'm loving the penalty kicks. I love— we, Big Cat and I both love the penalty, penalty shootout.

Okay, so I got a question for both of you. Yeah. Would you rather be the goalie or the taker?

Taker.

I'd bury it every time.

Perfect. I just wanted that soundbite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And which number penalty would you want to take?

I want to go first. I'd want to go third.

Okay.

Why first?

Because I want to set the tone.

I like that. Why third?

Because you're like kind of, kind of somewhere in there where people don't really remember if you made— like, there's still time left, but also it could be a significant one.

Yep.

I would not want to be first or fifth. Absolutely not.

So go ahead. So the story is— and I want to keep this going because I think your listeners will appreciate— the story is your best penalty taker always takes one. And I always wondered, okay, but any kind of sports psychologist will tell you the biggest you-know-what, and the, the guy that wants the pressure is 4 or 5.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, so because that person needs—

it's a high leverage. It's like a, it's like a real leveraged spot.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, but one sets the tone.

Always has, always will.

I'm not a math guy, but I, I feel like it's like in baseball, you want your best hitter to lead off, right? I know that traditionally in baseball it's been a little bit different where you've had your best hitters hitting 3, 4.

Did you know right now there's only 18 guys in major leagues that are hitting over 270?

I saw a clip.

What are we talking?

I saw a clip the other day on Instagram. This is a strikeout. I saw a clip the other day where it was, it was just introducing the NL All-Star team from like '99. Every guy was hitting like .360. It was so nuts to see.

It was like, it was like Tony Gwynn right now would be a pinch hitter.

Yeah, it was jarring to see.

What's crazy is like in the penalties with Germany, They were having discussions about who's going to take the next one. I feel like that's something that they should have probably sorted out.

Guys, we had 3 weeks ago, legit players for them declined to take a penalty.

Yeah, that's crazy. I would always—

how does that happen?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I've lived this.

I'd make sure I declined well in advance.

Yeah.

So take me out of the game. And that's—

so that's— no, but we're laughing.

Yeah.

But Dan brings up your point. Shouldn't you have already talked about this in training?

Correct.

Yeah, right.

Correct.

But you make Subs, things happen. All I'm going to say is, and I lived it, I lived it in 2006 MLS Cup, we had 2 players, 2 really good players say they didn't want to take a penalty.

That's crazy.

And I sat there and I was like, and it really, guys, it, it truly made me one of the most mad I've ever been because I, I have so much more respect for you. If you raise your hand, you want to take it, you miss it, you will always— I will always get your back for sure because you stepped up. But you don't want to take it. So now every time you think of that, that, that those 3 Germans. Yeah. So then Jonathan Tah, who, who apparently full disclosure from his teammates, raised his hand, goes, I'll 100% take one. Well, good. I want my guy to take one.

Yeah.

Now it's one of the worst penalties I've ever seen.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

How does that happen, by the way? How do you sky it?

It's unreal.

How do you hit it? That it just happened with Colombia and Switzerland. Like, I don't understand how you missed the goal that bad.

Last year at the American Century Championship, I have an Eagle chip. Never ever have I bladed it in my life.

Yeah.

And I skull you know what the hell out of that ball across the green to the other side. I look at my caddie, go, it's pressure.

Yeah.

Jonathan Todd's probably taken 100 penalties in his life and never hit one over the goal. It comes down to the round of 32. He's got to make it to stay and he hits it.

Hit literally—

Adam Vinatieri hadn't kicked the ball that high, right? Like, he legitimately hit that 30 rows into the stands.

I just don't understand. I guess the part I don't understand— pressure makes sense, but like, these guys are so good. If you just put it in low, low corner, high corner, like, it's almost impossible.

I think if you just hit it really strong— yeah, hard— the goalie's gotta really come up with a big save, right?

They have to guess right.

But I took a penalty once. It was Dortmund, and it's called the Yellow Wall, and behind the goal it's 30,000, 35,000, and everybody's dressed in yellow. That goal, that is a big goal. When I'm there for practice, that goal looked at this small. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I just think pressure makes it and everything comes in. The other part is Paraguay goalie on cleats, he's 6'10". With cleats on, he's 6'10".

Yeah.

So then he go— goes like this, and Jonathan probably looks at the goal and says says, I—

where the hell am I going?

Where am I going with this thing?

Yeah, Messi got one saved on him today. Messi's 4.

Yeah, he's in the World Cup.

He's not—

this World Cup. Yeah, no, he's not a great one.

Did you ever take the, uh, the old MLS style penalty where it was like the shootout thing where you dribbled?

My head is so low, I would have been like a bobblehead and tripped over my own feet. That was— I would love to do that in our All-Star Game. Yeah, I'd love to see the current players try to do that.

Yeah, that was a wild time.

You got 5 seconds, the whistle blows, The goalie can bum rush you.

Yeah.

And you got 5 seconds to shoot it.

Yeah.

Rock.

What? So Messi, I mean, it's insane what he's doing, guys.

It's unreal.

People were— I saw a clip go viral a couple of weeks ago where the announcer was saying this is probably his last World Cup. In 2018, they were saying that he's won a World Cup and he's leading the goal scorers this— in this year's World Cup. Like, what is it? Just that he's like because his game was never about athleticism, that he's able to do it this late? Like where it's just, it's always been his touch, his, the way he sees the game, the angles.

Like, is that why his brain is next level? I will tell you this because it's been a true pleasure to follow him and I've done 80-some-odd percent of his games in MLS with Inter Miami. And I'll tell you, there's two things that stand out to me. I've never seen anyone more competitive like he is. He's accomplished everything in his life, and he's going up against the Colorado Rapids, and he wants to beat their brains in, right? Like legitimately embarrass them. So I'm sitting there thinking, this guy's different, way different. The other part is, and everybody talks about it, he walks a lot. Yeah, he walks with such a purpose, it really screws the opposition's brains, right?

So like, this—

what, he's still walking? And then all of a sudden floating around. And, you know, I made this analogy. It's kind of a weird one, but I'm going to go with it. You know, when you're sitting on a summer night in the lake and the lake water is really still and there's this fly that bounces off the water. If you think about Messi's career, he's never really been tackled that hard.

Yeah.

If you think about it, he's never been like Barcelona, Argentina, even Miami. He's got such a sixth, seventh sense of where everybody else is. That he dodges a lot of trouble.

Yeah.

Like, look at that run. He didn't score today against Egypt, but that run he—

No, he did score.

No, I'm saying, oh, on the one. Yeah, dude, it was unbelievable.

Yeah.

And I'm like, he's 39. Yeah, it's not unreal, but he's the most competitive guy I've ever met.

All right.

So I got a question off that. Haaland has been insane. He's a breakout star. I think a lot of people who watch EPL obviously knew who he was.

Yeah, but the general public.

Yeah.

So you're 100% right.

Right, but he does the same thing where he's walking. That clip is so cool. If you haven't seen it, his header goal against Brazil, where he, he actually looks like he's disinterested in the game, like looks down while the ball is being played. Yeah, and he was setting up the defender, and then it's just, it's just boom, out of nowhere, he's now sprinting to a spot, heading the ball in. What is that like? Like, how does that work? I don't understand how guys are able to do that.

First off, Big Bear, great question. Um, when I was 21, England great, played in the World Cup in '82, it became— he was our assistant coach, um, with the Rebs. His name was Paul Mariner. He looked at me and goes, you run too much. And I was, I was playing number 9, and I'm thinking, you know, first off, I think my shit doesn't stink. I just literally scored 30 goals the year before. I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm buzzing around, I'm going to run everybody to death. He goes, you run too much. So we would watch tape and he would show me guys, the highest level, that they float, they would bait the defender. So Haaland and Messi are two different, completely play two completely different players, but they're doing the same thing to the opposition. They want to lull you to sleep. They want to just get there. And then when they have to turn it on, that defender, it's no different than a cornerback in the NFL. He's gonna be caught flat-footed, right? Because he's slowing down. And Haaland does it brilliantly in that clip. The clip's unbelievable. I put it on my Instagram because it's so focused on him and he's walking and the defender's doing this and the defender goes like this and he's gone.

Yeah. So even, even I was told at 22, 23, dude, stop running because it's easier for a defender to react 'cause you're buzzing and he just follows you.

Yeah.

You got to get him to stop and then go.

Just separation.

Yes. Now, Messi at his heyday was the quickest player on the field, hands down. He was. When I played against him, he was wearing— I think he wasn't even wearing 10 yet for Argentina. It was 2007 Copa America, and he had this aura around him. But what I noticed— and he was what, 18, 19 at the time— what I noticed was the moment he wanted to turn it on, he blew by it in 2 or 3 seconds.

Seconds, right?

Erling Haaland and Mbappé over 60, 70 yards, they cannot, they cannot run. And that's why when Americans go, well, the best athletes, dude, our sport, like, we've got really good athletes, right? Chris Richards is an absolute stud of an athlete. It's more than that.

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, Haaland's a perfect example. He's an incredible athlete, but it's the fact, like, there's an art of finishing a goal Like, that takes— like, Harry Kane, yeah, Harry Kane's like, okay, he's not, you know, the best player, he's not like lighting it up athletically-wise, but he can— he knows how to, yes, put the ball in the back of the net.

It's a craft. Yeah, it really is a craft.

Do you think if I were to give you odds on, uh, France or the field at this point, who are you taking?

France.

I would have taken France before the tournament.

They're so good and they're so deep.

They could have 3 teams in the World Cup and all would be in the round of 16. Yeah, they're that good.

Um, what is it about them?

They do an unbelievable job developing their— so if you look at the Senegalese, Algeria, Morocco, France, if you look at all of those players in this World Cup, France had a, a, a touch in like, I, I want to say 80%, it might be a little less, on all of them in development.

Wow.

So there's something about France where they develop develop the masses, and then they throw their fishing net out and see who wants to come, and then the other ones go play for other countries.

We got to start doing that. Dude, we, we gotta do it more.

You're 100% correct. Yeah, I'm telling you, there's some value to thinking, let's just develop everybody in the United States. Yeah, and if they want to go play for Bosnia or Mexico, so what? But at least it gives us the better odds of having 3 Weston McKinneys. Yeah, France is insane. You think about Zinedine Zidane could have played for Algeria. His son is playing goalkeeper for Algeria. They just— their development is— they are as athletic as any team in the world, maybe more athletic, but tactically and technique-wise, they're the next level. I did it. I wrote the list out. Top 10 best attacking players in the world. France has 3 of them.

It's crazy.

Olisée, Dembélé, and Mbappé. And you could argue Olisée is probably top 6. So they have 3 of the top 6. That's insane.

Yeah, they've been dominant. So if it's not France, who would it be?

I think, I think we're going to a repeat, guys. I do. I think it's France against Argentina.

Really?

I think France will play in their 3rd straight World Cup, which is— I think only Brazil with Zico did it. Maybe, maybe Italy. I'm not positive. And then I think Messi and Argentina, it's just I just, I just think the stars are aligned. Cape Verde, Egypt. I just feel like they're finding ways to get out of it. But when they meet in the final against France, I just feel like France is going to be a difficult test for them.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that would be an—

I mean, Argentina now plays Switzerland.

Yeah, right, right.

Switzerland to beat Colombia on penalties. That's a little bit of an upset. Colombia should have won that game. They didn't. Didn't. It's just like Argentina kind of has this field set up where it's like, boom, we're in the final.

Yeah.

And then, and then with Brazil, what's wrong with Brazil?

They lost their aura.

Yeah.

How?

I was in the building.

I was in the building. 2014, they lost to Germany.

Yeah.

7-1 at home.

That was it.

You would have thought it was the funeral of the entire nation.

Yeah.

7-1, guys.

It was—

so there used to be this feeling, and I played against Brazil, I'm going to say, 3 or 4 times. When you walked out and you saw yellow, blue, and white, you immediately needed to change your underwear because you're like, I'm going to be running my ass off defending this entire game. They were— they, they, they were— they're them, right? Dude, they haven't had that since '14. No, none of it.

They don't play beautiful anymore.

No, they play scared.

There's—

yeah, they play samba music in the stadium. And I'm watching a team— they have 38% possession. And lost to Norway.

Yeah.

Okay, statistically, since that stats, that's the lowest Brazil's ever had in a World Cup knockout round game.

And they were scared. They had chances.

Of course, I mean, they missed penalties, all that, but still, you're Brazil, right? Samba meant you knock it around, you don't counterattack.

Yeah.

Oh, it drives me— it's a real— it's a loss for the world game, I'm gonna tell you that right now. Yeah, because they're the number one country in the world in exporting professional professional players still to this day. There's no country that produces professional players like Brazil, but they don't have any of that— what we used to love—

the swag.

Boring.

So can you, if you were to just kind of map out how the next couple weeks are going to look, what is going to be the heartbreaking moment for England? Because you, you, you kind of said it earlier, it doesn't sound like it's coming home.

I was rooting for them against Mexico because I thought it was too early for them to be out. I wanted them to be out later.

And I hate Mexico.

Yeah, that's right.

But I was like my rival.

So, but I also was just like, this just feels— the round of 16 and they were awesome. Like, that doesn't feel right for an English heartbreak.

No, no, no, totally. The jadedness of the fan. Yeah, they can't lose it.

Yeah, they got it. They got to lose.

Got to come in deeper.

Yes, they have more heartbreaking fashion.

Totally. They have to fully believe again. And then once at that moment where they fully believe that that it's coming home. It— they will realize that it is not.

I mean, right now they're playing Norway in the quarterfinal. Yeah, there's no way they lose that game, is there?

Yeah, that might be it.

You know what I mean? Yeah, think about it. Erling Haaland has literally ate every defender in the Premier League's lunch for the last 3 years for Man City.

You might be right. Yeah, you might be right.

Could that be the moment?

Yeah, that's it right there.

My professional soccer opinion, I, I don't— I think England beats I think they're a better team than Norway overall. I do too. Yeah, but Norway's got something going that it's hard to match, and they remind me— yes, they remind me a lot of '94 Sweden, and that team went to the semifinal in '94. There's just— there was an aura with that Swedish team. Norway's got something going right now. They just— and their goalkeeper has been fantastic. He's not getting enough credit because Erling Haaland, everything he touches hits the back of the net. Yeah, but their goalkeeper is brilliant against Brazil. Brilliant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, all right, Taylor, this has been awesome. I got one last question. Roback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. All right, back to this tournament that you're about to play in, American Century Championship. Last, last year I saw you because I stayed for the weekend, and I saw you on Saturday after your round. You were tied for first.

Yep.

Can you win it? Win it?

Yes.

So what happened on Sunday?

Real simple.

Hole—

give me a minute.

Hole 4.

I had a 14-foot eagle putt and it rimmed out. That goes in. I have a 5-point lead, 4-point lead. And Joe, having played with Joe numerous amount of times, Joe's a gamer. Joe could double the first hole like he did last year. And he will put his bootstraps on and he'll dig in. But that would have been a nice little—

yeah, right?

And then 2 holes later, I had 8-foot for birdie, and the same thing, it rimmed out and came back to me. And that's when I was like, okay, so it—

they—

you're gonna test me this way, right? The thing I'm most proud about was even after those 2 holes, I still got to hole 14 or 15 with a lead, right? Then the wheels came off. I shoot 1 over, Joe shoots 3 under, boom, it's over. So I just— I hit whatever number of greens I hit. I think it was like 48 in a row. Big Bear, I just got to make putts. Yeah, I got to make putts. I got to make putts. You got to make putts here, dude. You guys played this course the other day.

I think I hit a green.

You got to be— you have to make putts.

Yeah, you have to.

Yeah, I mean, I hit— I, I hit my best shot on the par 3 was was it, 8, 7?

Oh yeah.

And, uh, then I 4-putted. It's got a 5.

Yes, you have to make putts.

Yeah.

And that's the thing. So there's, there's about 8, 9 really good sticks that can flip it up, turn it, turn it up. But again, it's pressure. You've got to show up. And the one thing I haven't done a good enough job is pars are fine, you need them. You're better off making birdies and bogeys if you want to win. Yeah, but if you want to just compete and be in the final group, make your par, shoot 2-under, 1-under, whatever it is. But that's where the Marty Fishes, John Smoltz— like John Smoltz last year, thought 31 on the back, or whatever the number was. Yeah, he just flipped it up.

Yeah, right.

So that's what you— honestly, in order to win it, that's what you have to do.

So who can win it? So Smoltz, uh, Marty can win it.

Yes.

Steph Curry.

Steph Curry for sure.

Who else can win?

Um, Jake Owen is a sneaky good stick.

Can Romo win it?

Romo absolutely can. Yeah, Romo. And I love you, buddy, but you're probably on the range right now doing a million different exercises. Romo will hit 7,000 balls, so it's— but Romo absolutely can. Um, but it just comes down to Sunday, who makes putts and who doesn't. Yeah, and that's really what it comes down to. You cannot win it on Friday, which I've learned, but you can lose it on Friday if you don't just stay the course and make birdies, but make your pars and just get points. Yeah, yeah, no doubles, and you stay, you stay the course.

When do you find out who, who you're playing with on Friday?

Honestly, I, I'm so wrapped up at other side, I'd never know. But the email, email or text comes Thursday.

Okay, okay.

But I asked this year, I said if the United States beats Belgium, I would really like the first tee time.

So you might still—

so I can watch it. So I don't know, I might have the first tee time and they're like, yeah, let's just give it to him anyways. Um, because obviously I wanted to watch that game and that would have been right at like 12.

So you're the jinx. I'm the jinx.

Yeah, maybe the stars are aligning for you.

No, it's great.

That's awesome. Let's not talk about Trump or the president.

You're the jinx, Taylor. All right, well, Taylor, this was awesome. We love having you on and, uh, best of luck this tournament.

And Yelich sucks.

Yeah, yeah, piece of shit. You're afraid to compete in the home run derby.

Oh man.

Okay, let's wrap it up. Guys on chill.

Henry, this is actually a great one.

Uh, yeah.

Is it chill to not give a fuck about sports until the playoffs? NFL and college football are my exceptions. I admit I get rock hard when the pigskin's on my TV, but NBA, MLB, college basketball seem like such a drag to watch in the regular season, but when playoffs roll around, I get very invested and love the storylines. In conclusion, make regular seasons mean something again. I don't— in the conclusion, I don't— regular seasons, there's just sports where I think it's okay for some people to like watch every game of, and— but the people that watch every game of every sport, like, that's a lot.

I think it's—

I enjoy watching the playoffs of like baseball and hockey. Yeah, I'll watch every playoff game of any team. The regular season, I'm not like— I just am not a person that's going to be like, I'm watching every regular season game.

It is. It's more fulfilling if you're invested all season and then you're like, all right, now we're in the playoffs. Like, if you see the ups and downs of a baseball season and then you get to the playoffs. But yeah, I mean, getting older and like realizing maturity is like you don't have to watch every single game of every single thing to be like, hey, I like this sport, I like this team.

Also, sometimes life gets in the way. Like, it's, it's tough if you want to be like a diehard baseball fan, watch every game, you basically have to just— that's all you do in the summertime is like your schedule revolves around baseball.

But there is, there is like, like the Cubs, for example, this year are actually hilarious. You know, the most schizophrenic team I can remember in a long time in the fact that they've had that— they had two 10-game winning streaks and a 10-game losing streak. They have last week they scored 22 runs on Wednesday and then lost 17-1 on Friday. It is fun to like experience the absolute roller coaster and get into like a mindset where it's like, I'm not going to freak out about any result the Cubs have day to day because they're just— they make no sense. And that's— that part is actually fun.

But like the World Cup, for example, it's chill to just hop on the bandwagon.

Oh yeah.

For a couple of weeks. And like, I think in cities and stuff, it's like, yeah, when your city's team is in the playoffs, it's like, all right, I'm fucking— I'm watching every game in the playoffs.

Yeah, I think it's chill. I think it is chill.

I've always thought taking a nap on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with golf on the TV background is one of my ideal nap situations. Wanted to get your take on the perfect nap. Looks like— love the show. You guys are the best.

I mean, yeah, that's the classic nap.

We done Mount Rushmore best naps?

I think we might have.

I think we have.

Best times to fall asleep.

Perfect nap is like early or springtime or Or fall, windows open, game on, little fall asleep on the couch, get like the fresh air coming in, fall asleep. And then like, it's the really perfect nap is like a Saturday afternoon, falling asleep at like maybe a couple minutes left in the first half of the afternoon window, and then waking up like halfway through the third quarter and, and being like, all right, let's go, like we got you know, 25 games finishing right now. That's a beautiful nap.

I also like the post-Thanksgiving nap at about like 5 or 6 p.m. Had a few glasses of wine, belly's full right before. Then you wake up and you get the leftover sandwich. Mm-hmm. That's a pretty good nap too.

Windows open though. So it's nothing like right after a long beach day, like day in the sun, golf, right after golf.

Yeah, but like beach, beach, and then wake up and it's still like ready for dinner.

Like, yeah, like, yeah.

But you also have to time it correctly because there's nothing worse than doing the nap where you sleep too much and you wake up and you're like, what fucking time is it? Where am I? I slept too much. It's like that, that nice, like 20-minute. I feel like if I go longer than like 30 minutes, I get fucked up.

The road trip nap is also nice too, because it feels like you teleported. Yeah, that's like, oh, we got like 3 hours and next thing you know, 15 minutes and then we're there.

Hank loves that one.

I do.

My naps now are just going to be— how long can I—

those are like, those are naps out of necessity. Like, yeah, not really comfort.

My naps—

Hank is the best sleeper of all time.

Yeah, by far.

He got super seasick on a boat last week and at one point we just lost him and he actually just passed out like for like a good 30 minutes of this boat trip.

His body just deactivated.

Yeah, you're basically like, puke. My 3-year-old, we went on a boat last week and my 3-year-old just laid down on the floor of the boat and just snapped for 20 minutes. This is the Hank move.

I thought it was one of those things. He was like, I'm seasick. And then he went to like another part of the boat and his eyes were closed, obviously, because he was sleeping. But I thought he was like, oh shit, he's really going through it. He like, yeah, he like needs to close his eyes. And I talked to him after. He's like, oh no, I was just asleep. Like, pass out.

That's love. That Love that. Also, my naps now are just how long can I fall asleep until my kids find me? And they always find me fast.

What's up, fellas? I'm 27. I've been playing men's league baseball for the last 2 years. I ran D1 track but also played football and baseball growing up. My men's league is really competitive with a lot of former college players and so organized that they have historical stats going back 20 years.

Whoa.

I'm closing in on the stolen base record in a season.

This league sounds like the worst, by the way.

How do I do it?

Hold on though, I want to hear about this because I agree with you, Max, but unless everyone is opted in.

How do I be more chill in men's league? Is there any way to be chill in men's league baseball? Do I go for the record? Anything else?

Get in a different league, but in a weird way, if everyone is opted in to like taking it super seriously and taking and keeping records, then you're signing up. It's the problem with like the rec sports is when you show up and there's just one team that's just taking it way more seriously than everyone else. Like if these guys are just super hardos and they're like, this is our super hardo league, God bless them.

But it sounds like this guy is not. He might not because the way that he's asking this question, he's like, this is a league that they take way too seriously. And I'm finding myself also taking it too seriously and I don't like what I'm becoming. And you know what? You're right, buddy.

But I don't like what you're becoming.

So because men's league baseball steals and men's—

he's got it. Yes.

But can we all agree he's got to go for the record?

Has to go for the record.

You're already— you're a douchebag. Get the record.

I also— I like that he's— he's acknowledging what he's—

but he has to get this right. You got to get there because actually that's actually the least chill thing is to take it so seriously and not get the record.

Record.

Yeah, then you're the biggest loser of all time. Because at least if you're like, yeah, I take my, my men's league super seriously. Oh yeah, and by the way, I'm the Ricky Henderson of the league. Then everyone be like, okay, cool, that's, that's sick, dude.

Steels in the men's league is, is like, that's not even something you ever bring up, even if someone asks you.

I—

it would be funny though if it went even harder, if this league, like, there was a fantasy league that people could like follow along and have players from this super hardo team and like compete against each other. Oh, I got this guy, he's racking up the steals this year. I'll never forget that season.

Yeah.

All right, last one. Uh, Bartender here. Any advice on remaining chill behind the bar? Chill levels are high to start the night, but after a few hours, chill levels can be severely depleted as you expect dealing with drunks all night. Everyone loves a chill bartender, so the chiller I am directly correlates to the level of tips I get. Help a brother out. Also, I know PFT is just going to say there's an easy solution to this. Just get drunk. That's not really an option. So any other ideas?

That was my—

appreciate it.

Okay.

That was my suggestion. Maybe just have— if you just have like some fake whiskey, people like it when you take shots with them at the bar.

True.

So you can pour yourself like a fake shot when you see a group of people doing a shot, then it looks like you're drinking with them. They'll give you big tips.

I like that idea. That's a good idea. Um, I, I, I don't really know what else. Like smoke breaks. Just use your smoke breaks or just smoke wisely on the job. Yeah, get some cool visors. Yeah, get some cool visors. Maybe smoke some weed, do some coke. I don't know. I, I don't really know. Like, it's, it's a really hard job to be a bartender. After, like, being around drunk people that much by the end of the night has to be so grating and so, like, hard to deal with. So I think it's really just, yeah, get really drunk with them. I feel like he's right.

I feel like we're all also, like, overdosing on gas fumes right now.

Yeah, that's fine. I like the smell of gas.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

It is good. It's good. It's really good. All right, you want to do, uh, numbers, random generator? Let's do it. Random number generator.

17, 12, 16.

Zach, would you like to make a prediction for how you do tonight on your cooking? Zach is doing our annual— our annual Zach grills for the whole squad night. How are you feeling?

I feel good about it. I got some reps in at this point. I feel like I can put together a decent meal.

Yeah, I think you've done it, what, like 2 or 3 times? So it's more than annual.

I think twice. Last time they caught us on a grill that may have had a lot of— Airbnb grill had a lot of stuff at the bottom of it. We had a little bit of a fire. I'm going to make sure to clean out the grill even better this time so we can avoid flames.

Yeah. All right. 50. Ready?

44.

36. Anyone say 36? You don't want to win these.

36.

Maus, 36.

Yeah, these Mickey Mouse.

Zach, you're bleeding.

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna— are you bleeding after this? What's happening? I'm picking my cuticle sometimes, so I just, I ripped one.

I would love to help Zach with the, with, with the meal one of these years.

No, it's better for Zach to just— he can handle it.

Makes— we can have some— we could have like a real good family meal.

He can do this.

We could eat, but we could do, we could do—

it would be elevated.

I can do like a pasta.

All right, fine, I'll let you I'll say that you make a pasta.

You can—

you could— you can't go outside.

Deal.

All right.

Yes, you can't go outside. That's fine. You can do anything you want. And you're gonna make us bread, Bread Boy?

No, I am— I'm bad at making bread.

That's me.

Which is crazy because you make it all the time. Well, according to me, you love bread.

Oh, happy birthday to Robbie Fox. Good guy, Robbie Fox and O.J. Simpson.

Bad guy, O.J.

Simpson and Alec Ingold.

Any missed memes?

Trying to find some.

Okay.

Striking out memes. Striking out some embarrassing memes.

Memes. You got any?

No.

I've heard of Kevin Bacon.

Oh, he's been on the show.

Kevin Bacon has been on the show. Good one.

Good for him. Love you guys.