Transcript of America Gets Bounced, World Cup Picks, Knicks Fan Bliss, ‘Heat 2’ and ‘The Odyssey’ With Chris Ryan, Anthony Dabbundo, and Jason Concepcion New

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This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one. A no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuers' terms and conditions. The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix right after, uh, Team USA got knocked out. Of the, uh, World Cup. I have Anthony DiBondo and Chris Ryan here. Uh, wanted to mention Ali, new rewatchables is now up, and Zach Lowe and I did a basketball podcast yesterday if you missed it. All right guys. Um, I don't know why, but I had, I had hope. I was excited for this game. I, especially when Balogun got thrown back in, uh, with the Seattle crowd. I watched the whole 2-hour pregame show.

Ironically, I also saw The Odyssey today. Um, a 3-hour, just a grueling trying to get through it, watching our hero try to land the plane at the end.

And, uh, was, was hoping maybe there was a parallel just trying to land the plane, man.

Was hoping there were some parallels for America today and CR. There was not. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible performance by us.

Uh, another pod, another colonoscopy here for us. Uh, Yeah, that was a real talent disparity and maybe a little bit of a wake-up call. It's been an awesome tournament. I think that the country has embraced the sport. It's been really, really like one of the greatest couple of sporting weeks of my life. But that was Real Madrid's goalkeeper and Manchester City's winger came on in the 60th minute and, you know, Tielemans just won the Europa League with Aston Villa and I thought maybe that extra 15 to 20% of talent really kind of put us in our spot. What did you think, Anthony?

What about you, Dabunda?

We wondered what would happen the first time this defense actually got tested because the 3 games that the starters played were not against teams who were going to test them. And I couldn't have imagined they could have failed that test anymore. I mean, it was every single time. It was, it was very simple. Belgium played a long ball, they won the long ball, our defense panicked. Dest panicked, Ream panicked, Richards panicked, Freeman panicked, and they gave away the ball over and over again. And any team— I mean, Belgium were fine, but I thought they made it way too easy. It's ridiculous.

This was— it felt like karaoke of all the things you would be worried about in a bad America game, right? Most of the guys— we talked about this for the tournament— the guys I was the most worried about were Ream and Dest. Dest was unplayable. I mean, that was like, he was so bad that he had to come out at halftime. Ream looked every bit 38 years old. The keeper had one of the worst fuck-ups we've had in a long time in a World Cup game. And then the other piece was, hey, it would be nice if Pulisic just was awesome and stayed healthy for an entire game. And, and he stunk in the first half and then got hurt in the second half. And Sierra, I was almost wondering, everybody talking about Balogun when he got the red card, he was out, and then the dialogue for 3, 4 days was, he's our best guy, we can't lose our best guy. And then he comes back, our best guy is back. And it, you know, it could have gone one of two ways for Pulisic where it's like, oh, he's going to show everybody who the actual best guy on this team is.

Or he was going to have the game he had today where he looked like he was a freshman in high school playing varsity.

Yeah, I don't know whether or not Pulisic was still carrying that calf injury and whether that had anything to do with it. Obviously he kind of kicked through a Belgian player on that foul and basically hurt himself, but you feel bad to see his tournament end that way. I still go back to what I just said originally, it was that even our best player would be kind of middle-tier Belgian player, you know, like our best of our best was, would be maybe Belgian bench players. And I gotta say, one thing that kind of jumped out at me was more than even the Balogun red card being overturned was when they announced the starting lineup. And I know each one of these guys has different reasons, but when Belgium didn't start De Bruyne, Lukaku, or Doku, I was like, I think they're getting ready for Spain. Like, I, I kind of wondered what— I mean, De Bruyne didn't come on, Lukaku comes on at the end, scores the, the, the final goal. Doku was basically toying with us, and I think it could have been worse, honestly.

Yep. Yep.

Like, I think we got lucky a little bit to, to get out of there without giving up 6.

Dobundo, can you explain resting the 3 guys and like, what would be the NBA equivalent of somebody doing that?

Uh, how about Joe Mazz?

Never mind.

Too soon.

Too soon.

Too soon. Too soon. No, not ready yet.

No, it's not. Yeah, so I mean, you know, If you go back to the round of 16, round of 32, Belgium was down 2-0. They were getting punked, like swarmed by Senegal. They had no answers, and they pulled off Doku and De Bruyne in the 65th, 70th minute, and it literally felt like Rudy was waving the white flag. Rudy Garcia. And you're like, all right, that's it. I even tweeted, like, his final move as manager of Belgium is removing his two best players. They didn't actually play better, they just scored two goals. I mean, Senegal's goalie had a mishap. They just started chipping balls up to Lukaku. And then they survived. So I guess the plan was like, we're gonna ride with the guys who brought us here, and it was Luca Bakio. But they clearly made a change too. They changed up their midfield completely, uh, and, and played more defensive midfielders. And the first 10 minutes of the match— oh, I think Onana, the guy who ended up getting hurt, may have won every single ball in the middle of the park for about 10 straight minutes. And I'm just like, oh boy, this is, this is not going well.

And then when he got hurt, they actually played better. That was their only good 15 minutes. Was right before halftime, uh, and still just didn't matter.

But yeah, was it his sub who scored the, the crazy freeze mistake?

Yeah, Vanaken. Yeah, and he started, yeah, started last match too. And like, he's, you know, he plays for like Club Bruges, he's a fine player, but the, the, the tactics were just— they shredded our press. And that was the one thing, it's like, we can press them, we can press them, and they were like, no, you can't, we're kicking it over the press over and over and over again. And they had, I mean, just no answers. They lost every second ball.

Yeah, we lost all the 50-50 balls. The passes felt like we couldn't get 3 or 4 straight passes in a row. Um, everybody, the 1v1 stuff, like I was thinking back to the Paraguay game, which feels like it was 100 years ago now, and Pulisic just destroying their left side for a half hour straight. I don't, I don't know if anyone beat anybody 1v1 for an hour on our side.

Nope.

And the only guy who felt athletically like he could be on the field with those guys was Balogun. And it felt like over and over again they almost unlocked him, or he would make this run, but then the pass was behind him, or, and then finally, what was that, 12 minutes left, he's ripping down the left side. It was interesting that he went toward the close post on that shot, but he hit it about 700 miles an hour and it almost like, it was so hard, it almost went in. But it felt like if they had gotten that goal, then maybe the crowd gets into it. Who the hell knows? Yeah, anything's possible.

They needed, they needed a little bit of like, you know, something like what Mexico had last night. First of all, I feel like the crowd kind of got taken out of it a little bit. Um, I mean, maybe a goal in 8 minutes will do that. Maybe all crowds would not like that comparison though. Yeah, I mean, as much as Belgium is better, they, they panicked. They gave a ball away.

I mean, there's a ball that lands. 3 US defenders are standing in the penalty area. All 3 of them just watch the ball bounce in their penalty area. That's like 101 soccer defending, 101. Never let the ball bounce in your penalty area. And the one Belgian guy gets on it, Guy Raskin. I watch a lot of soccer. I had to Google him. Like, he plays for Rangers in the SPL. Like, he's not, you know, this is not like they ran into a world-class team here. Belgium was played off the park a week ago by Senegal.

It's unbelievable. So they have 4 goals in this game, Belgium-CR.

Mm-hmm.

The first one, screw up by 3 defenders, just all the, the, I thought you, I, I, oh, you, and then they score. Second goal, it's a 1v2. Guy beats both guys, goes baseline, crosses it wide open. Gets it. Third goal is in the running for worst goals this country's ever given up in a World Cup. And that was, I don't know what the, I don't know what the top 5 is, but it has to be in the top 3 where you have just multiple things collapsing all at once. Then the 4th goal, which the game is over at that point, but that was also something that you would see in like, you know, a JV soccer game.

Well, I will note that Belgium went for that 4th goal too. So we should not underestimate the, the maybe how much they hate this team or hate what happened over the last couple of days and how much that might have, um, I mean, it's the World Cup. Those guys don't need extra motivation. But, uh, we may have, you know, the Balogun thing may have just created a certain sense of like, these guys think that their president's gonna fucking try and beat us. Like, no way. Like, that 4th goal, they didn't need that one. Um, and, and I felt like that was pointed.

You're saying that was the F, F you goal? Yes. Like Spygate 2007.

Middle finger to the, to the crowd.

Doku could have been out in the corner, like dribbling around in circles and that wouldn't have we wouldn't have been able to take it off of them. That felt like they were going for a fourth.

Yeah.

The one narrative I'm not going to accept is like, oh, we would have won if Trump had gotten Balogun back. Like, we sucked. That had nothing to do with anything. The team was terrible. That was the worst we've played. Not only is that the worst we played all tournament, but I've watched a ton of soccer, as you guys have. That was the worst anyone's played for like about a week. When we were talking about like these final 32, final 16 games, that first hour was about as bad as we've seen any, but like couldn't complete a pass. Defensive screw-ups. Nobody was dangerous. Our best guy was invisible. Dest was so bad he had to come out. It was, it was really rough. But I think Belgium, I like the beer. Chocolate's been pretty good. Other than that, the waffles are solid. Other than that, I don't have a lot of tolerance for these Belgians here. I think that's it. The movie In Bruges.

That's a good one. Love that movie.

What else? What else? Is there anything else to like about Belgium?

I can't say. I've never been, uh, Flemish. I think at this point in the World Cup, there, there's no, there's no like friendly, friendly opposition. You're gonna figure out a way to get mad at everybody. I thought one of the things that Belgium kind of exposed for us is a lack of identity. I mean, you know, it's sort of hard because you're here, you're watching all the stuff about the USMNT, and you're like, right, yeah, like we believe in this, and like this is incredible, and this is happening. But I don't really know if like I could tell you how the US wants to play, you know? And I thought Belgium kind of exposed that, like, not that I would want to be Paraguay from the France match, but they obviously had an idea they were going to like kick the hell out of France and try to like make it into a refereed match that might come down to pens. We did not seem to have that game plan coming into this. I'm sure Pochettino had something in mind. But as soon as Tim Ream got kind of put on skates, the plan seemed to go up in smoke.

What did you think about the way that Pochettino set us out, Anthony?

You know, Ream getting dunked on really did feel like the turning point in a lot of ways because they had played so bad.

The second goal.

Yeah. 33 minutes in, Tillman hits the free kick. You know, you're like, we have our own Leo Messi now.

Yeah, we're back. We got this.

We're back.

And it felt like they felt like they were back. And then they like switched off again and they didn't stop the cross. Dest, the first time he was asked to defend the entire tournament, completely disaster. And that's why he's, you know, that's why they had to change the formation so he didn't have to play right back. You go back 4 years ago, same exact thing. It was Dest getting picked on over and over again by, by the Dutch. And they, they beat us with very similar-esque goals if you go look at those goals. So it feels like the same pattern. They're running into this same wall. But, you know, Pochettino did have this team playing so much better and more cohesively. I just think they got, they got surprised. Rudi Garcia threw it through a changeup and they got outclassed. But they got, they, they, there's no way you can tell me that this was just Belgium. This was the US giving them the game.

I also wonder, I thought I really like Berhalter and it felt like when he came in, Sebastian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When he came in. And then all of a sudden we had more speed on the outside and he's a little point guard-ish and you know, all of a sudden the corner kicks, he only had I think 1 or 2, but the corner kicks, he's just the best guy in the team.

He had the shot from distance and tried to cheat the crowd out.

I thought that was going in. Yeah.

Yeah.

I just thought he, you know, and he, and he is kind of gritty, which that was one of the things that you really noticed today was there was not a lot of nastiness like Paraguay who was a disgrace on 4th of July. Like that was just an abomination of a soccer game.

Yeah.

But if that was us, we would've been like, I like I was there in 100-degree heat and it was just loving every second of it, screaming.

Yeah. Their entire goal was to 2004 Pistons, you know, a much better opponent basically. And it worked. But, um, you know, for us, we had this great crowd. It was something I bet on England yesterday. And one of the reasons I did it was because of something CR said over the weekend about, or maybe it was when we did the Colin Asprey pod about, um, these guys are in pressure stadiums all the time. Like, it's not like they're gonna be, oh my God, the crowd psyched me out. I, you know, they, all of these guys have played in the worst possible locations everywhere.

England did a PR, like, masterclass. They were, as soon as their previous match had ended before Mexico, they were like, well, we're not gonna have enough time to get used to the altitude, and we know it's gonna be tough, and we're gonna be the underdogs in Azteca. And then after the match, Harry Kane was like, yeah, like, or Declan Rice was like, altitude wasn't that bad.

We were right.

You know, like it was fine.

Right. And I'm sure there's, there's 10 stadiums that those guys are playing in all around. So with the same thing with Belgium, like, oh, the crowd's going to be nuts in Seattle. But guess when they're not nuts? After you give up a goal in 8 minutes and you can't complete a pass for 40 minutes. Um, all right. So big picture, what do we build on from this, Debundo? Because it feels like we have two-thirds of a core. Of something really good and built around Balgan, who I thought was just dangerous and awesome the whole tournament. And there's some speed now, there's some young legs, but it feels like a stopper. Maybe, maybe they have to figure out once and for all is, is, sorry guys, I have two Philly fans on here, but is, is Pulisic Embiid? Is just, just like he looks great in February when we're playing Charlotte, Or New Orleans, but when we actually need him in April, May, June, you can't count on him. Like, what are the 3 things you're looking at that we'd have to build out from this?

That does feel a little harsh on Pulisic. I mean, he's bad in this tournament, but he has carried the US through some really dark times, really dark times in the last 5 to 6 to 7 to 8 years. So I think it's Balogun, Tillman, and Pulisic that come away from me as like the core you can build around, but it starts at the back. I mean, they have one good center back, maybe two with Freeman, but goalkeeper's a problem. Who replaces Tim Ream? The backup defenders look pretty bad against Turkey. That's where it starts. It has to start there because they are not going to be able to defend good teams with, with the guys they're rolling out.

Do you think McKennie and, uh, McKennie and Adams are, are the— like, are they unassailable as a mid— a central midfield partnership? Because I do think to your point about like we were unable to kind of like route away through Belgium at certain points, like you wonder whether or not someone with a little bit more composure on the ball and like, you know, those guys give so much effort, they're like all engine. But I, I don't know if there is a guy in the England or the America setup that could do that, that is a little bit more of a playmaker. But I think we were kind of crying out for something in the midfield there.

That's the number one issue with U.S. talent development right now. I mean, they just don't have that guy. There isn't, there isn't a Kevin De Bruyne. There isn't a Youri Tielemans even. There isn't a Leandro Trossard who's going to come in and playmake like that. McKennie did a pretty good job the first few games, but then today he was bad. And you do wonder, are McKennie and Tillman too similar now in what they do? And do you have a passer? Who is that person? I don't know that that person exists. I don't think he does. At least I haven't seen him. People hoped it was going to be Gio Reyna, and honestly, like, uh, you know, Gio Reyna is a very polarizing figure, but when, when Reyna's the sub at half, you don't feel great about the second half because Reyna is a bigger name than he is a performer at this point in his career. And he had the great goal in the opener, but he gave them basically zero in the second half.

Well, so what's the— what are the goalie stopper on the horizon prospects? Do we have people that are like brewing?

There was a guy, Slonina, that people hyped up, but that hasn't really come to fruition yet. Uh, it's probably not going to be Matt Fries long term. He's already 27. This is where it gets hard. I don't know.

Yeah, it's also about like what, you know, I, I, I hope and I guess assume Pochettino is going to stay on, uh, fingers crossed for at least half of a cycle, if not another full World Cup cycle. That might be a little bit much to ask because he's pretty young. And it's hard for me to imagine he's gonna do what, 5 or 6 years then as the US coach. And to be fair, like by the time we get to 2028, say, like you could maybe go and try and get, like, you know, if we, if you put enough money in front of one of these guys, you could get somebody, you get Mourinho, you could get, you could try and go for Pep or whoever. Like you could go for somebody and try to bring in like one of the biggest managers in the world, which is what they just did. It's just, you know, he had, he had a really nice run of games and then, and then the team kind of fell apart. And I don't know if he had like, I don't, he seemed like a little surprised by how bad things were going and didn't, didn't really have like a, a counter move yet, you know?

And that's what he really needs to, to develop.

I gotta say, I was really surprised. I don't know why. I thought, I really thought they were gonna play well today. I didn't know if that meant they were gonna win. But I was surprised they stunk. I, I didn't, I gotta say, I didn't see that one coming. I really thought like, especially getting Balogun back and Belgium had looked so bad in that Senegal game for two-thirds of the game. And it was like, maybe we can catch these guys.

And then I thought maybe it was gonna be a little bit like the Canada Morocco match where it was like, we play our asses off and really do well, but like, there's just like a class difference.

And right.

They, they wind up turning it on at the right point in the match. I did not expect to get boat raced.

All right, so let's go glass half full for a second.

Sure.

So they made the Sweet 16, the tournament, although we do this all the time with the World Cup where everybody decides this was this watershed, this has been going on since 1994 in this country where every time either America makes a run or when we had it here, everyone's like, this is it. This is the moment for soccer. I feel like soccer's been happening for 20+ years and especially Premier League, La Liga, and the, when, once the HD on the TVs and once ESPN started showing it and all these other channels bought in, like, soccer's here. Like, people know who Haaland is. It's not like he's like, oh, who's this guy? Who's this guy in Norway who came out of nowhere? Like, people fucking know who all these guys are. So soccer's here. We're one of the best 20 teams, which I think considering we didn't make a World Cup recently, that's, that's a bonus. And then I don't know, I do think, I think those 3 guys you mentioned earlier, Debundo, like, that's a good foundation. And now we just have to steal somebody else's really good player and make them, make them come here and live here in America.

Michael, how we did that?

Maybe it's a romcom.

Is it a Netflix romcom where Messi plays in MLS? Can we acquire him by eminent domain and make him suit up?

This would be a really good Netflix romcom where the person who runs the US soccer team, they decide they're gonna try, you know, those romcoms where there's some sort of there's a bet or there's some sort of like that there was a ploy, but then the person actually falls in love with who they're supposed to tempt, and then they find out 20 minutes left. Let's do that. Let's get one of those people. I'm ready for those. My wife would watch that movie.

I don't know.

Let's steal somebody though. Who could— there's nobody, is there? Well, we've already kind of done that.

We've already did that with the German, like with the— did your dad ever serve in Germany? Please come play for us.

Let's get more of them.

Uh, yes, Tillman, Balligan are all dual national guys that the US convinced to play for us. I mean, that was one thing, you know, Berhalter doesn't get a lot of credit for much these days, Greg Berhalter, but maybe one of the defining features of his coaching and his running of the program was getting more talent in the front door. And that has led to— yes, they've established themselves as like a pretty consistently teens-ish team in the world. How you get to that next step, I mean, there's been a lot of teams that have tried for many decades, and it tends on to be like the same 8 teams almost every time.

Right. So you said that before, before the tournament, what's it, 8 teams ever that won the tournament?

Yeah.

Uruguay's one of them. And they were like, and now when you look at Uruguay, you look at the FanDuel odds now.

Yeah.

Round of 16 was par. That's been par for this team forever. I mean, I think the frustrating thing is like you get one on home soil, you get the best manager you've ever had, you get the most dominant group stage, and then you still look, I'd argue they looked worse in this match than they did against the Dutch 4 years ago. Like, that match was more competitive than the final score leads on. This match was less competitive maybe than the final score leads on.

Yeah, this felt like it could have been worse. Yeah, you look at the Fanduel odds right now, France favorite, -175, Spain +340, Argentina +450, and CRZ England at 5-to-1. And then Norway, just like 17-to-1.

Come hither, Holland, during the day in Miami. Yeah.

Yeah, just that's like your really fun, just I'm putting everybody on my back bet.

We need to go sell some sunscreen in Miami this weekend. That's a good, that's a good business idea.

So did this come down to that Senegal didn't hold on to that lead? Senegal didn't hold on to that lead 2-0 because that's what we would've played, right?

I felt like we matched up better with Senegal than we did with Belgium. And I know everybody wanted to call Belgium washed and like they kind of are, but it's still a big difference in passing quality from what Belgium can offer versus what the Senegalese did. I would've preferred to have played Senegal. We still might have.

Sierra, what, what's your relationship with number 10 on Belgium? The left wing, the little guy.

Oh, Trossard. He plays for Arsenal.

He's going nuts.

Yeah, he just won the Premier League with and, and was very instrumental at the end for Arsenal. So I, I recognize him and acknowledge him, but I'm, I'm not an Arsenal fan, so it's a little bit tough. He, he really schooled us.

He was awesome.

He was getting doubled at times and just seemed to be able to get the ball where he wanted to go.

I don't, I hate Arsenal, but I actually like Trossard quite a bit. He's probably my favorite Arsenal player if I'm allowed to have one these days.

You know, those wings are scary when they're just completely still and the defense is paralyzed and they haven't even done anything. Like, oh God, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna do something? What's happening?

What do you think about the, like the, just in terms of your question about like, where do we go from here? I mean, it's interesting that the 3 host nations of the cup went out in 3 successive days, right? So Canada, then Mexico, then the US. I don't think it's gonna diminish people's interest in the tournament just because there's still so many incredible players playing. And this has been a tournament that's been defined by the fact that like Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Harry Kane are all dealing. Like, this isn't like, oh yeah, I have to learn who this guy is. It's like, no, these are the best players in the world and they're playing like it. So I, I think that this will remain a really kind of central sports story for another 10, 12 days.. But it is disappointing that all of those host countries went out over the weekend and we're not gonna get any of them in the semis.

Mm-hmm.

Or the quarters rather.

What was the highlight of the tournament for you, Debundo? I know what it is for CR.

Oh, England 3, Mexico 2.

It's one of the best games I've ever seen.

Or have you seen the 3, Cabo Verde 2?

That was also one of the best games I've ever seen.

And they all happened last week. I mean, it was unbelievable. But those two matches, that's why we love the game. Yeah, I would go into the Azteca. Darren Fletcher, I want to give a shout to Darren Fletcher. He has called so many different sports now. He calls a lot of stuff in London. He's called baseball, but he has been so good these last two international tournaments. He did Euro 2024, he did, and now he's, you know, I think the number one guy. No, no disrespect to, to Strong and Stu, but like him and Hargraves are so fun. They make the game interesting. He's always working in these NFL or other sport references that kind of work but don't really quite work, but you can see what he's trying to do. I love those guys. And then, yeah, I mean, it just the scenes. I mean, I was singing along to the anthems last night in my living room. This is so much fun.

See, aren't you well up there in Wonderwall after the game, or no?

Uh, no, I didn't. I, I think the bar that I was in was, uh, was not quite an England bar, believe it or not.

Oh, in LA, barely got out of there alive.

Yeah, no, it was fine. Everybody was cool. But I think there were a couple of like silent fist bumps to myself.

So what— so walk us through the, uh, through the night last night for you. You get a red card with 30 minutes left. This turns into pre-2004 Red Sox territory of like, oh God, here we go. Here comes the fuck job.

Well, and then Tuchel puts on all these center backs, not all these, but he puts on, like, he basically decides, okay, like, this is what it's gonna be. We're gonna defend fortress and we're gonna put all, like, we're gonna put Dan Burn who can just head away everything. John Stones out there. We're gonna pull off Kane at a certain point. We're gonna pull off Saka. And it just was like, if we're gonna, we're gonna either live or die on these the 90 minutes plus 11 minutes of stoppage time. And I thought that was brilliant and incredibly brave to do it that way because if they had gone to extra time or to pens, he doesn't have the best players on his team out there to, to get a goal or even to kick penalties. I mean, he's got center backs taking penalties. So I thought it was amazing that they were like, I don't think these guys can get it over our heads and we're gonna prove it.

Who was the 6'7 guy you brought in?

Dan Burn. A lot of people made fun of him for being, a lot of people made fun of Tuchel for taking Dan Burn.

And it was like, this is This is why you bring him for this one reason is you bring him in for this.

It was amazing. It was like watching an NBA center just clearing out the paint, throwing it around. I thought that game was awesome. I really loved it. I think England's really good. I'm not just saying that 'cause CR's here. I don't see why they couldn't win it, CR.

It's a really weird setup right now. There's like some stardust around Messi. France definitely looks the most competent. I don't know what's going on with Spain. They kind of seem to be playing with their food, like in a lot of these matches. But I think, I think right now I just, I think it's France's tournament to lose. Like they're just, it's so overwhelming how much talent they have.

What do you think, Dabunda?

Well, that's very convenient you say that, CR, because I wrote a piece for The Ringer today. Is this France's tournament to lose? And you know, Everybody has crowned France. France has not yet played a team that will challenge them in midfield, that will try to keep the ball, that will try to press them. And that's because most teams can't. Paraguay can't do that. Sweden certainly can't do that. Norway's backups can't do that. And so France looked very good, and always does, against those kind of teams. But we have seen Spain in the past, the last couple years, beat France by saying, we're going to keep the ball and your press isn't good enough to win it off of us. Yeah, and that has worked for Spain. I think it could work for England. I think it could work for Argentina. I mean, people forget it's 4 years ago now, but Argentina was kicking France's ass for the first 70 minutes of that World Cup final. It wasn't until Mbappé, you know, sprinkled the pixie dust that that game turned around. And like, certainly if you get into an end-to-end contest, nobody is beating France. But I think all 3 of the other favorites have, have like a decent matchup.

To just say, hey, we're going to keep the ball and you're not going to be able to get it off of us. And good luck, because they don't want to press. They don't like to press. Spain's defense has given up— what is it now? 1.5 total expected goals in 5 games. It's ridiculous how good their, their press is.

And so they get Belgium. Who does Morocco— Morocco, France, France, England.

I would be shocked if it wasn't France and Spain.

Yeah.

I only saw the second half of the Spain today because I was at the Odyssey. For 3 hours. Classic Portugal though. I wasn't surprised at all by, by their not scoring a goal.

Not pulling Ronaldo off is an embarrassment.

I mean, this is, we talked about this in the pod we did before the tournament that the mundo was like, are they going to accept that this guy shouldn't be out there when it actually matters? And all I know is I watched the second half and, and the little the little added time, all that. I never saw him come out.

He was out there.

They kept making subs and the broadcast, Dark, kept saying, you know, is this the time that CR7 comes off?

I mean, it was like he should have been Lukaku for them. He should have been the closer. And, or, or even if he's capable of that, I really don't know what he, what he really is able to do. I mean, he started patting himself on the back for scoring on Uzbekistan and scored the penalty, you know. And meanwhile, like, his not necessarily his generational cohort, but the guys who he would consider, you know, he's a part of that group. All those dudes have like 7 goals, are leading their teams, and Ronaldo's divisive, and Ronaldo can't run anymore.

It was really funny. I mean, the stat that came out at the Croatia game, he had one touch in the penalty area, and it was the penalty that was, you know, handed to him. And then his backup comes in, Gonzalo Ramos, who again, 4 years ago had the hat trick at the World Cup. People seem to ignore that. And, uh, he scored on his first touch in the winning goal for Portugal. So we're like, oh, maybe Martinez will sub in and we'll go with Ramos. No. And there were opportunities today. I, you know, if you wanted to be critical of Spain, there were chances like where a more functioning attack— it's not just Ronaldo. Leão was bad off the bench. Neto gave them nothing. Félix gave them— like, they're— all of their attackers were bad today. Yeah. But, you know, Martinez might have created some chances because their midfield hung in there. I mean, those two midfields went toe to toe today. It was pretty even game.

And Norway with their keeper and with Haaland, they have no chance to do a 2011 Mavs.

No, they certainly do.

Okay.

They, they, I definitely think Norway is a shot. Fandaz says no.

17-0-1.

Oh, I don't, I don't think that's, I, I don't think, I think Norway is very, very well organized, know exactly what they want to do. They have Ødegaard, they have Haaland, like they, they could do one there.

They might be the best coached team in the tournament. Their coach has done an incredible job of maximizing what they're good at. And trying to hide as much as possible what they're bad at. It's like, we can't defend wide, so we're just gonna like hurt— we're gonna turtle up. And then the minute we win the ball, it's go, go, go. We're sending a bunch of numbers forward. Haaland, Haaland, Haaland. Where's Haaland? Oh, he scored. Oh, he scored again.

It'll, it'll be interesting to see if Tuchel, when they get, when they get Norway on, on, uh, Saturday, whether Tuchel starts Stones or even Dan Burn to, to deal with Haaland lurking back there because Even Gabriel, who plays for Arsenal, uh, for Brazil, like seemed small against him and they're gonna need, they're gonna need to muscle up with him.

So big picture, we're parachuting above this tournament. It feels like it's been an A or an A+.

When you think like, all World Cups have black eyes and, and like things where you're like, whoa, that happened. And, and certainly this one has, but as like a sporting event and as like a piece of like a spectacle. It's just been incredible.

How was that?

Like you made earlier, the, about all the best guys are playing their best is the number one thing you would want with any of these things. Like, I hope that's what happens in 2028 when we, when they have the Olympics basketball, right? You want all of these guys to also be at their best when they're going against each other. It feels like that's been happening. And then the Cape Verde thing was incredible.

Yeah.

And the Ameri— even America, just even getting to where they got to today was really fun.

But I just ordered a jersey. I can't wait to wear it. Cape Verde.

And the, and the fact that Messi can still do it at this level. But it feels like out of anybody in the tournament, even though all these guys are obviously super famous, it feels like Haaland has, has won over the casual fans the most because the people that aren't watching, you know, Sunday at 6 in the morning on Pacific time and just kind of parachuted in these cups, the people are just like kind of dumbfounded by this guy.

Yeah, he's probably the newest addition to the like kind of super galaxy of stars that we have.

Yeah.

Him and Bellingham. So if you watch England and you watch Real Madrid, Jude's not like a new name or anything, but I think his performance in Mexico was like, that's the kind of thing they write songs about.

And both guys embrace it. Like you said earlier, though, like they play up to the stardom. You know, Jude does the patented wide arms and Haaland has all of his celebrations. He's hilarious on social media. I saw his tweet got like 22 million views in the first like 2 hours that it was posted. His selfie.

Yeah, it has 91 million now. Or maybe it's 100 by this point.

And he's just hilarious. And he's so, he's so quintessentially Norwegian, right? It like fits every stereotype that people think of when they think of like the Vikings and then they're doing the rowing and everything. And they've definitely probably been the fan base that has won over the most people too because of the iconic row.

For sure.

Or people on the block street in Philly rowing yesterday. Right after Norway won. I can't tell you guys, like, living in Philly where we've had, you know, Ecuadorians, we've had Brazilians, we've had the French, the Iraqis, we've had the Paraguayans. Just seeing the different communities. The Croatians were awesome. Seeing the different communities cycle in and out of the city for like the last 2, 3 weeks. And then the 4th of July being Saturday with France game. And then downtown center city was just absolutely jumping all night Saturday into the wee hours in the pouring rain. Like, the city has never been more fun. Being a host city has been, has been a dream. And, uh, I can't wait till we get to do it again in 12 years.

Yeah. Yeah. The games are on the other side of town for LA, but it's been so cool to see like the Mexico fans showing out, especially on the east side of LA. And like, uh, I was at the, I watched the Ecuador game at a bar and it was just like, this is, this is what it's all about. It's so fun.

Well, and the best thing for us here, it's not the case everywhere, but for here, the games are on at normal times.

Yeah.

That we can construct days around. And that's been, you know, something we lose when the thing is overseas. The games are on in the middle of the night and weird shit like that. And, and I think that's gonna happen with the Olympic basketball too, which will be a shorter version of this. But same thing, all the primetime games and all that stuff, everybody will be watching. I think it's, I think it's been an A+. I've loved it. I've loved the gambling. I love the irrational confidence I have now. I was like, there's no way Portugal beats Spain today. There, it's not happening. I don't see it.

Hey, do you think, do you want to just—

a dream World Cup for this? I mean, the sportsbooks have gotten crushed every— the, the back-to-back times where Mbappé, Kane, and Haaland both scored 2 goals, this— or Mbappé, Messi, and Haaland both scored 2 goals. People were just— I mean, if you bet any good player, they automatically score. It's like, this has been a dream.

Well, the 2-goal bet too, right? Yeah. If you're doing the Haaland 2 goals with Norway to win, which is usually like 4-to-1, 5-to-1. And you're just cleaning up on those. What were you gonna say, CR?

I was just, uh, gonna ask whether or not you thought there would be much of a, uh, post, post-tournament kind of accounting of like the, the Balogun red card and Trump getting involved in sports karma or anything like that.

Uh, I think if the, if the game wasn't such a blowout, I don't think, right.

If he scores, if he scores the, like, and we win 2-1, or if he scores the final pen. Yeah. It's, it's a much, much bigger story. Trump could have done anything he wanted and we weren't gonna beat Belgium.

Paul Drummond in that game. It's the fact that they were just resting guys that would've been like two of our best five guys.

Like, I don't know.

Uh, I think, I think that one will come and go. I do think it was interesting though. It's interesting precedent being set of the president be like, huh, sports. What if I should get in and throw my elbows around a little bit here?

I think he has a very open audience in, in FIFA.

Do you mean?

Yeah.

I mean, they, they conjured up a prize for him.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think there's, it's a two-way street. And you know, one of the things that makes the World Cup so fascinating as a historical object is like the sort of in, in the cross, the crossing of the streams of politics and governments and different, you know, from these different countries and how they get involved with what happens on the field. So it's, it's not the first time that's happened, but it was certainly like, holy shit, he's really doing this.

Can you imagine if he had also gotten involved in that Jaylen Brown trade? Yeah, I don't like this. I have a full investigation trying to figure out what the Celtics are doing here.

Yeah.

Do you have a Jaylen Brown trade opinion before we go? I know you did this on Gambling Show.

I've always loved Jaylen Brown. He's loved him. So happy to have him. I think it's— it is going to be weird, I'll be honest. Like, we'll be a better regular season team. It's gonna be fun. They had to do it. Makes a lot of sense. Uh, I'm, I'm pleasantly intrigued, but I don't know, things just always end badly. I'm programmed to expect the worst with the, with the Sixers, much like I am with the US men's national team in the round of 16. But you know what, I already have my eyes on it. Copa América 2028. We need to get more matches against good teams. We can't just keep beating up on CONCACAF, and that's going to be the chance to do that.

So, well, even in the 2020s, having, you know, this is a big difference between where we were 12 years ago, which a lot of the guys that we had out there, guys that are— you said this before the tournament, Guys that are in good leagues playing on good teams. So, you know, you figure that keeps going. I just—

that's going to be an interesting development over the course of the next couple of years. I saw a couple of MLS teams have been talking about like they want their model to be like, we develop young players and sell them to Europe. And that's going to be both financially good and it's also good for like US soccer because those guys will then get experience in these, in these leagues and making it less about the designated players and seeing if they can get a Messi or Lewandowski to come play for them. Those kinds of developments are probably good for the USMNT, if bad for MLS, maybe, or maybe not. But the ultimate thing that they're going to really want is to create how do, how do US national teams play and create this kind of playing identity that I think Poach could probably do. I just don't know if he's going to stick around for the long haul.

I hope he does. I love Mauricio Pochettino. He has done such a great job with this team. And I know today went really badly, but I still think he's the man for the job. And look, he's bought in. We like him. He likes us. Kumbaya. Let's have some fun.

The Netflix audience, we did a little poll who's going to win the World Cup, and Netflix audience says France, but only 54%.

Who was second?

I don't know. Cahill didn't tell me who was second. I'll tell you this. If Norway sticks around, 16 to 1, 17 to 1, that's just a fuck it bet for me.

It would be very England to go win at the Azteca and then show up flat Saturday.

Um, we can hear on the Ringer Gambling Show, uh, keep doing those social media clips you're doing as well, and we'll have to have you on one more time before the end of the, uh, World Cup. Uh, I'm sad, but we press on. There's more soccer to be had. We're gonna take a break and I'm gonna come back with, uh, old friend Jason Concepcion right after this. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We are in the heart of the World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Michelob Ultra. Uh, every play matters here. FIFA World Cup 26. For you, the stakes are just as high. Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, is giving you a chance to win $1 million worth of tickets and prizes. Michelob Ultra, from the pitch to the poor. Superior is worth playing for. Enter now at mikelobeultra.com/superioraccess/fifa-world-cup-26. Mikelobe Ultra FIFA World Cup '26 Superior Access. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on December 1st, 2025. Ends on July 31st, 2026. Multiple entry periods. Visit www.mikelobeultra.com/superioraccess /WorldCup26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right, CR is still here.

I am.

Old friend Jace Concepcion is here. You can hear him on the Wait a Second podcast. I made an appearance early. I'm due for another appearance. Ironically, cut back a little on the pods the next couple weeks, probably 1 to 2 a week for the next 3 weeks. One of the reasons is I, I gotta do my zodiac deep dive. Gotta get ready for, for this, my Zodiac Killer, wait a second, uh, appearance. Uh, Jason, you just watched the, uh, USA game. We, we just covered it for 40 minutes, but give us, give us your takes watching from afar.

Um, my main takeaway was I knew we were in trouble when we were doubling Leo Trossard early. I knew we were in trouble when Leo Trossard, who is one of my favorites for Arsenal, super sub, microwave scorer as an Arsenal or love him. He's maybe 5'7". I don't know what the stats on him are, but he's holding off our defenders like he was prime Shaq. And, and I, and I knew at that point, like, we just didn't have the physicality to be in this game. We came out soft. We looked like we were afraid of contact. We didn't initiate any contact. Uh, we weren't getting up in the air, and it's just a bad performance all around at every level.

You know what I realized actually just over the last 40 minutes, Jason? What's that? Sierra's Team England.

No, let's not. Come on, this is the good son. Be respectful.

No, you're sad.

You're sad we lost, but really deep down, I have dual citizenship in the globe of soccer.

England thing. No, you let go Macaulay Culkin tonight and you're holding on to Elijah Wood. England. That's what's happening. Uh, well, have you been obsessed with the World Cup, Jason? What's been your relationship with it?

I love the World Cup. I've, I, I've been, you know, much like, uh, uh, Alexi Lalas, I've been, I've been waiting with bated breath low these 20, it feels like, years, but more.

Yeah.

For the U.S. to kind of finally upshift out of this get one game into the knockouts and then get knocked out mode, which it seems like no matter what the talent is— and certainly I think this is the most offensively capable team that I can remember seeing since I've started paying attention— um, we still got knocked out. Because listen, there's a reason that Tim Ream at 38 is still starting for the squad. And that's because you saw what the team looked like against Türkiye, and it wasn't good when he didn't play. And so we're just not— there's always something, and this time it was that we just couldn't get organized in the back and just looked shambolic. Had a good strategy, I think, but just didn't execute in moments, and it all fell apart once again.

It's just like in basketball in a playoff series when somebody's like, that guy can't defend, everything runs at him. You know, I think they knew Ream in certain circumstances was going to be a problem for us. And, you know, his athleticism is much diminished. And I think that they started like saying like, let's test this dude. And obviously then he kind of went on tilt a little bit, I think. But it was, it was, we got picked on in that department.

Yeah, it's funny. I really got into soccer '08-'09 range was when I really like started to become watching it and trying to understand.

Who can forget your brief love affair with Tottenham Hotspur?

Yeah. And then, and if you go back in my archives, there's a couple decent comments.

Multiple times to me over the course of the couple weeks.

Yeah. But, and then my daughter started playing and I was in this whole club soccer world. And my, my, one of her first coaches said something that has always stuck with me ever since. 'Cause when we went to 11s, we, you know, you go from like 9v9 to 11v11. And the coach said, yeah, 11s are tough. 'Cause if you don't have 11, The ball always finds the person you don't want it to find. And it felt like we had the, the two for me and the, and on was poor Ream, who's 38, not totally his fault. And then Dest, who I just didn't really trust. And it just felt like, and they kept, they also kept attacking the sides too in a way that I thought like seemed intentional in the first half, but just felt like the ball was always finding the wrong people in this game. And that's what happens in soccer.

Yeah. Desk was completely washed. It was, it was tough. It was very tough. Yeah.

And like, that's, I, I, if I was gonna take like a kind of silver lining, I think these are the kinds of problems that more accomplished nations also face where you're like, that's right. Oh man. Well, like we haven't quite figured out right back, or we haven't quite figured out the right side of our midfield, or we need a center back to replace Ream. Like other countries have had to deal with stuff like this. We don't necessarily have the most eye-popping talent pool where you're like, well, obviously this dude is coming next, but I'm sure there are US soccer, uh, freaks out out there who are like screaming at their televisions or their phones right now being like, I know who's next, it's coming, you know? But it's like, I think that, I think we're actually, the problems that we have are the, are good problems to have, you know? They're, they're, they're soccer problems, not like, can anybody on this team play right?

I agree. I completely agree with that. I think that the people forget, like, you look at the World Cup and it's like everybody mostly plays bad. Even the really good teams mostly play below their level. I think part of the thing that's so frustrating for the US is we are bad at minimizing the holes in our squad, and that seems to be a recurring issue year after year. And for instance, I'm not saying that we should become overnight a Paraguay-style shithousery squad, right?

Yeah.

Although it'd be pretty funny.

But we're like, but—

We're like never pulling a jersey, like ever. You don't— like hardly ever are we pulling a jersey. Hardly ever are we going hard into a tackle on purpose, you know? And it's like those little things can minimize some of your shortcomings sometimes. And we just— we're— we play like we're above that sometimes. And to your point, CR, it's also the fact that while this is the most talent that I can remember seeing, particularly on the offensive side, it's also not great. We don't have any world-class players.

Yeah.

It would be nice to have a top 6 Premier League player, like a top 6 club guy on our team. And we, we just don't yet.

Do we need like a Draymond Green type? Could we brainwash?

That's luxury.

Some sort of midfielder who's just like, he's just getting very close to the line game after game, you're worried about him.

Maybe if he could also pass and play in tight spaces, like if we, you know, if we could somehow produce a, if we could somehow produce a Busquets, like you want to produce an Argentinian basically. Yes, somehow, somehow, you know.

JC, who is your MVP of the World Cup so far? We still have 2 weeks left.

I think Haaland, just in the way that he's captured people's imagination. And in the way that he just always scores. He always scores and you know what's going to happen. He seems to lollygag through periods of play where he's just kind of strolling around, and then he sees a sequence unfolding and he just is in the right spot. The way he runs, the way he seems to play up his Viking ogre kind of image at moments and his clear sense of humor. I just think he's been unreal. He's been dealing at an unreal level.

CR, no John Wick bad guy stuff for him or anything? Is Hollywood best suited to him at all?

He plays for Manchester City, so nobody except for Waz likes them. And so it's like he plays for the most evil empire team that's in the Premier League, I think. Okay. You know, if I just to go along with what Jason's saying, like Haaland would be my, my number one pick and number 2, 1A would be Messi, who could be doing a 2019 Tigers Masters here. You know, like this could be like going out like, like, like the GOAT that he is.

Yeah. It's, and Bellingham I think is the other one who even the real soccer fans know who that is, but the super casual ones are like, wow, this guy's really good. Number 10 on England. I think he's, I think he was just incredible in the Mexico game yesterday.

For some Man City context, Bill, they're currently facing 115 Premier League charges for circumventing like their version of the salary cap. So it would be like if—

Aspiration times 100.

115 Kawhis.

Yeah.

Right.

And you're talking to an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan. So yes, we do take it personally.

Yes, we do take it personally.

Well, it's funny when I was thinking about when I was trying to pick my EPL team in '07. Yeah, everyone was telling me how they were the Clippers. They were like the sad sack Clippers.

Yeah.

And then, then that quickly flipped. Um, favorite national anthem, JC?

Wow.

Any, anything really knock your socks off as we hear? We got Mexico.

Mexico.

Yeah, Mexico was great last night.

Mexico was, was bone chilling last night. I will also say, I, one note I have for, uh, for Poach and Team USA, I love Why don't we do the arms around each other?

Wait, for John Denver or during the anthem?

Just during the anthem. Everybody else is like arm in arm and singing.

It's a good note.

Head up, like, and we're like a foot away from everybody.

I think France's anthem is still really strong.

Yeah, yeah, Marseillaise is great.

Yeah, I think that's, that's way up there too. There's been, there's been some clunkers. I don't want to name any countries, but there's a couple who are like, wow, well, that's it, that's what you're rolling with, you The Brazil anthem, when it's in Brazil, you're like, this is the most incredible thing I've ever heard.

But when it plays at like MetLife, you're kind of like, where's this one going? Like this, like, I like, you know, 'cause like it just doesn't have like the entire crowd is into it.

So that's just, Sierra, what would be your move? Would you be a close your eyes and, and sing, or would you be a belt it out, or would you just be trying to stay cool?

I would, I would be, well, I think personally I would go the route of the Mexico players who are just like crying and screaming at the top of their lungs. I'm not too cool for the anthem, like in that case. Yeah, you'd be—

would you do that, JC? A little crying? Oh yeah, some tears.

I would definitely— you would see the cords in my neck standing out. That would, that would be the level of intensity.

Bill, you would be like Nick Sirianni, just like tears like bubbling out of your, your face, but no, no, no singing.

No, I would do the head back with the eyes closed, intent— the intense one. I always think that one, that one looks really great. Who do you have winning the cup? Jason.

I mean, this is, this is not like some wild prediction, but I think this is France's tournament.

Oh, this means it's not gonna happen. Everybody's saying that. Usually when everybody agrees on that, then, then the rules of soccer have to trump it somehow, right?

I picked Spain to, to win it, but I picked Spain to win it based on this, this stupid idea I had that Germany was gonna beat France earlier. And obviously that was quite wrong. So don't listen to me, but I did. It just does seem like it, it, whatever game you want to play, France can play it. If you want to, you want to have a shootout, they'll kill you. If you want to try and kick them, they don't care. If you want to sit back, they don't care. Like they do. There's nothing you can do to really fluster them unless what Debundo said, which is like, can, can Spain keep the ball away from them?

Yeah.

Forever.

The only thing you can do to Fluster France is to give them a lead with 2 minutes left in an NBA game and then they just start whipping the ball around.

Too soon.

Um, uh, uh, see, CR, what would, how many more wins does England need now? Uh, 4 quarters.

That'd be 3 more wins.

Would that change your life?

Like, no, I mean, I'm from Philadelphia. It's, I think it would be incredible for my family, but, and I would just, I wish I would be there. Sure, it would be just an amazing experience to be in England for that to happen. That's actually where my parents met was during the '66 World Cup. So it would be very tempting to want to go over there for the celebrations. But, uh, it is, it's, it's still like I'm, I'm playing dress up a little bit, you know, I can't, I can't shed the soccer hipster accusations that easily.

And who are you rooting for, JC? Who's your team now? You're just jumping on Norway, that's it?

For years I've been, and I remain this, it's France with the Netherlands as a backup. So obviously France, but now I'm going France-Norway.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm gonna root for Norway and I'm gonna bet on them at 17 to 1 or whatever the hell it is and, and do it that way.

I don't think that's that bad of a bet.

Yeah, I don't.

So now we have soccer dying. Um, we're gonna go down to less games and then the tournament's gonna be over and then we're all gonna be staring at each other. Wimbledon's is about as boring as it gets. Hey, basketball, we are now moving into this LeBron— he's orchestrating this perfectly.

You can't pretend like nothing is happening in sports when we can do a frame-by-frame analysis of Brad Stevens's press conference.

So that was the most exciting thing that happened, uh, non-soccer today was the Celtics press conference, which I respect that they had to say what they're going to say. But sure, on, on the one hand, did the 'we didn't want to have 70% of the cap tied up with two guys. Okay, but then they also tried to trade for Giannis, who would have tied the cap up with 70%. And also Paul George makes $50 million a year. So I still don't know. Jason, you haven't— Sierra and I have talked about this on the pod already. You haven't given your take yet. What is it?

Well, my take was, and I'm waiting for it, is the classic Brian Curtis now they tell us story. Because it simply must be there. The only answer to this is all the whispering about the relationship between Tatum and Brown, all that stuff must have really amounted to something, and they really must have felt like, listen, Brown is not going to submit to the kind of team that this was in the past, and we will not dedicate ourselves to the kind of team that Brown wants. And it's going to be a problem if we let it go any further than this. Clearly, they were under the gun. And it's interesting that Brad Stevens said nothing that betrayed them being under the gun. He made it, to your point, he really framed it as a purely fiscal decision when it's like, don't you still have two players amounting to that much money?

Well, he did use the word usage, which I thought was the one. Yes, I thought that was interesting. Slip where he was like, when you have 70% of your cap tied into 2 players and a high usage for those 2 players, we came to the conclusion that this isn't going to work. And that, that usage means we don't need to pay 2 guys to just trade, do dueling banjos anymore with the way the league is. Was my interpretation. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's fair.

It's exactly, I mean, he was like, it's kind of like what Kirk said during the colonoscopy pod when he was just like, they want to be A one— you're the one who called the pod that.

I know.

Now that is what it's called now.

It's like they wanted to be a one-contract team. They want— well, that's what they say they wanted. Yes, they were looking for Giannis. Maybe they feel like Giannis was like this big—

or a better trade asset they could have spun or whatever.

I don't think we're going to know who won this trade or whether it was a giant mistake by Boston until next spring, because I think they'll re— you were saying this with Zach, they're going to be good in the regular season. They're going to be good. Has good regular season basketball teams. They play—

it's going to be good. Hugo will be better. Shyam will be better. To JC's point about the now they tell us, I don't think it's going to happen just because I think they're so conscious about what's happened with the Red Sox and Patriots in years past when those pieces come out after the fact and everybody in Boston is is too crazy about sports and has, knows all the signs and can read between the lines of pieces like that. And I just don't, I don't think they're gonna do it. I think they're gonna take the high road if there is stuff. I don't, I don't see them doing it. The only stuff that's gonna come out is this ancillary stuff. Like, you know, I talked about this on the pod a week ago, but Brown and Tatum being in France together but not interacting. And people that were there like, This is weird. They're— one guy's over there and just like, and you know, Tatum taking forever. Kind of like how Embiid hasn't done the welcome to Philly post yet for Jaylen Brown. Like you can read between the lines with some of this stuff, CR.

You just can.

I guess that's true. I mean, I saw that Embiid was at the Brazil match in full Brazil regalia. I was going to say, we may not have to wait for now they tell us because we'll just have to wait for Jaylen to do a Twitch stream where he's like, now I'll tell you. He did one the night that the trade happened and seemed to be pretty confused and pretty upset. And I think he's getting his head around becoming a rival. Like, you know, he's going to, he's going to a rival team. I think that like, he's a competitive dude and he probably was like, I will be a Celtic probably for life. I, you know, the Celtics thing is so strange to me because there's like, on one hand, this like, like mythology about their relationship to their star players and those players' relationship to the city. But like this modern era has been about turnover. I mean, Isaiah Thomas, the Kyrie and Gordon Hayward iteration, you know, Paul Pierce and KG being traded to Brooklyn. Like those guys don't sell late, you know, like whatever they do, they did it with Marcus Smart.

Yeah.

They, they don't like, it's like, yeah, we're going to take a beating for 2 months and then people are going to be, we're going to be back at the Garden. So like, I respect it. I think that sometimes they, get a little bit of like, uh, like they get like a little bit too much leeway when it comes to like, we're like a, an institution that really respects the players who play for us and keeps them in our hearts. And it's like, you guys fucking trade people when they have like dislocated hips. Like, gimme a break.

Right.

But, oh geez, CR, I'm just saying.

It's hurtful.

I'm in a lot of pain this week. No, I mean, it, they, the Isaiah Thomas thing was tough to defend, but that was previous ownership. I will say the new owner, Chisholm, Um, looked like he was getting a root canal during that press conference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, you go from like, oh my God, I bought my favorite team. I'm gonna bring my whole family. We're sitting courtside. This is so great. I'm having such a good time. And now, you know, the worm has turned.

If Jason was still a writer and we were still doing this, like we would probably have like a Tom Dundon, Matt Ishbia, Bill Chisholm group chat post that we were manufacturing.

Here's With that in mind, CR, here is what I would pitch to you and be like, CR, I'm working on a take. I don't— this is all I have, but help me flesh this out because I think this is a piece. The second apron era has turned every owner into James Dolan.

Yes, that's a great take.

High turnover.

You're drinking Dolan juice.

Yeah, every contract is a bad contract. Yeah, yeah, you— it's like so hard to be smart. The, the cap fights against itself. To retain your best player, you have to give them a contract that's immediately bad. Immediately. And it's all about depth, but now— but like, the rosters are squeezed, and inevitably everybody who's smart looks dumb under this, under this regime.

Yeah, even look at Mark Walters in the— and the Lakers, like the Dodgers would keep LeBron on the team and just have him like wave at the crowd every, every, every night. Like they don't care about money, but like he obviously knows that that team is gonna be decimated if they have Luka, LeBron, and AR like all on like that, that salary tier. So you're right, Jason, it's just like the idea of like a Cuban or a Ballmer who's gonna be like, oh, I'll just spend my way out of it. You know? Like, nope, it's not gonna happen anymore. Anymore.

Well, this starts previous version of this. The connective tissue was the Bradley Beal contract where the Wizards were like, well, fuck, what are we gonna do? I get, I mean, he's our best player. And the moment they sign it, it becomes one of the worst contracts in the league. Now we have the next version of this, which is you kind of can't have two of these.

Yeah.

So the Pistons are, you know, Pistons won 61 games last year. They didn't even know if they wanted to bring Durant back because the moment that contract is $8 million a year too high, it has all of these crazy ramifications the other way. When Brown signed for $304 million, the mistake in retrospect was maybe trying to knock that number down a little, but it was a previous— it was Wick, the previous owner. He wanted to take care of his guys. They just won the title. And, and, uh, you know, it, it plays out the way it plays out, but It's weird to hear a team say, look, man, I know he was 6th MVP last year, but that contract's a little too rich for my blood. Like, we do Ringer, Ringer 100. I don't care where you have Jaylen, but he— if you had him outside the top 20, that would have been insane. And there's 30 teams.

Yeah, I think there's a corrosive effect that we're going to see over time too, where, you know, there's a connection with players that— yeah.— that cities have. And watching that video of the kid crying because Jaylen Brown was his favorite player, it's like, that's real. That happens. And I think if you have a system that's based on just too much of that, who knows what you lose? Obviously, the parody era, from the perspective of the actual parody, is a success. They wanted to create this and they've created it with 8 new 2 champions in a row. That's unprecedented. But the league was built on a specific kind of dominance that allowed characters to develop over time with the fan base. And there is a connection with teams and with the communities around them that maybe is getting severed. And is that good?

And also with this model of having one big star, and then a lot of turnover in your 2 through 10, say.

It's the football motto. It's the quarterback with everybody else.

I, I mean, like, the Sixers have kind of done that around Embiid and Star 2 over the last 10 years. And it's, it's soul deadening after a while where you're like, who is this year's Marco Bellinelli? Who is this year's JJ Redick? Who is this year's Robert Covington? Who is this year's XYZ? It's kind of awesome. Even though the Knicks were like thrown somewhat thrown together, you know, Mitchell Robinson was the longest tenured Knick.

Yeah.

It's kind of awesome to watch that core come together piece by piece over the years and develop and build out. And like those guys are now folk heroes. Like they'll never buy another drink or a Chipotle bowl in New York City again. And it, fewer and fewer teams are going to have that if they all abide by this. Like, well, we can have one star, And then it's up to the GM to just find like the right rotation of guys every year.

It's, it's a huge issue for the league. I don't think they see it. I think they're just focused on how much can we make from the media deal? Can we add 2 expansion teams? Can we grow the league? Can we create NBA Europe? Um, every decision they're making is financial, which includes this last CBA where you have this second apron. And I've talked about this with other sports too. You, you're basically, it's a protection against yourself.

Yeah.

It's, it's like, uh, if, if like I give one of my kids like a credit card they can use, but it's got a limit on it, and it's like if you go over the limit, the card just automatically cancels.

You can only use this at gas stations.

Yeah, that's what the second apron is. It's like, yeah, you can, you can go above the second apron, but your picks get frozen, you can't make 2-for-1 trades, um, there's all these tax repeater shit that happens, and you have to be a fucking idiot. And you see somebody like James Dolan who you know, has not been shy about spending money, that's for sure. He gives away every courtside seat around the team. Like, you know, on the one hand, doesn't seem to care about money at all, but even he understands, yeah, we can't have Mitchell Robinson anymore. Yeah, we're gonna have to replace him with Andre Drummond, and he'll cost $12 million less, but this is what we have to do. By the way, since JC's here, we had— you've been on the podcast since the Knicks won the— oh my God, 2026 NBA Championship. Yeah. What happened?

Did you—

you were just like— was it like the end of The Odyssey? What was it like for you?

Don't give away the end of The Odyssey. Oh, people read the books.

3,000-year-old story.

Yeah, people know the work.

Um, I, I can honestly say that game 4 into game 5 was the peak of my life. Like, I'm not even joking. It, it was the most remarkable period of my life that I've ever felt. I flew back for the parade. It was just like I, I gotten to a point in my life, you know, you watch 20 years of bad Knicks teams after the '90s, and so I'd gotten to a point where I was like, you know what, let's just be good. Let's just get in the mix, get in the playoffs every year, be respectable. Don't be a dumpster fire. Don't be a scandal-plagued 17-win team, like, just, just compete. And I'm fine with that. So I had put away for real any actual hope that I would ever see this. And to see—

so it was like you're in the rom-com where you'd given up on love and then finally you found somebody on a trip to Tuscany.

That is—

that was it.

That is 100% right. Now, I will say this, and this is very not like me. After we smoked the Cavs, smoked that Cavs pack in the Eastern Conference Finals, I was texting, you know, my Knicks groups, and I'm like, I really— I think we're gonna win it. I think we're gonna win it. If you— it— especially if we got the Spurs, just looking at the underlying stuff. We'd beat them, uh, what was it, 2 out of 3 in in the season pretty comprehensively on the same game plan every time. We almost beat them in the game we lost.

You guys won the Cup against them, right?

Won the Cup against them in a game that they were trying to win!

The Knicks did the double—

They didn't get no credit for it. First place. When do you raise the banner when like you have to separate the banners?

What happens there should be a double banner with like an attachment where the cup like attaches the cup banner attaches to the bottom of the regular banner. And let me also say to critique Adam Silver a little bit more. They— that's his baby, the Cup. Yeah. And the fact that they didn't play up much more this historic double that has happened.

Yeah.

A new bar has been set for NBA greatness.

A new bar in an era of parody.

Yeah.

Right. In an era of parody, a new bar has been set. The Cup predicted the NBA Finals. And for the first time in its history, a team has gone, done the double, won both. And the— and that should be trumpeted everywhere. And it frankly hasn't. And that is a miss from Adam Silver.

53 years felt like it kind of trumped the Cup, which I understand.

Yeah, I get it.

When they were down a lot of points in Game 4.

Sure.

Because this, this I went through basically the same experience you did with the Red Sox in Game 4 and Game 5 in the, against the Yankees.

Yes.

Where it's like two cra— these sporting events that just blend together now and where I don't even remember what happened in what game anymore.

Yeah.

But there were also like a couple dark moments where you really like look at your past and, and you'd think like, oh man. And that the real doubt starts creeping in. What was, that must've happened in Game 4 a couple times, right?

Game 4, it wasn't the full existential doubt because I still thought, okay, you thought you were better. I, I thought, yeah, I thought we'd go back to— especially after, yeah, I thought we were the better team and I thought we were going to win the series. So I thought, okay, we go back to San Antonio, I think we could still win the series. But that said, you know, down 29 in the second quarter, I just turned the sound off. I'm like, okay, this is a wash, we're not winning this game.

Well, you had Trump game 3 flipping the karma, and then down 20 9 in game, in game 4.

Absolutely. And despite the fact that I'd seen all these comebacks now going back 2, 3 seasons, I was just like, okay, you know, just like, that's it, we're not gonna get this one, that's fine. And I didn't start to get like, feel that a little. I mean, it was 2018, like in the middle, yeah, third, even into that fourth, but when they couldn't— when the Spurs couldn't make it more than that, I started to get, you know, I started to get really interested. And then, you know, as the run was developing, you started to feel it. And they just— the Spurs looked so tired. They looked absolutely gassed. I thought the one, you know, obviously the Knicks don't want to go down double digits early in every single game, but it was very smart of them that no matter how many blocks Wemby would have, in the first quarter, they just kept running at him. Run at him, make him jump, make him turn around, make him react to things. And it's like a boss battle where you're just chipping away at the energy bar of like the video game boss so that you get to the end and he's, he's tired.

And that's what happened. Every, every single game followed that exact plan.

CR, do you think new Spurs head coach Billy Donovan will be able to fix some of that stuff?

I don't know if he has the title yet, but do we not—

we forgot to put you on this Google Meet, Mitch.

Oh, shit.

My bad. We were just talking.

Guys, was there a meeting?

No, no, no, no, no.

Shit, bitch, we forgot to tell you.

We just didn't want to waste your time, honestly. Like, you got— you got bigger things to do.

No, no, I just got together with the other assistants. We just wanted to come up with some ideas for you.

No, you want to give a speech? Go for it. Yeah. We'll circle back afterwards and maybe just clean that up a little bit. No, I—

That's like we just did from hell. We did Hand That Rocks the Cradle where she hires Rebecca de Mornay. It's like, don't hire Rebecca de Mornay as your nanny. It's like, ah, Billy Donovan, he's only won a couple titles and coached two other teams.

That was really— Jason's description of this whole experience was so moving that I'm gonna trash the joke I was gonna make about them raising not only the NBA Finals banner, the cup banner, but also the, uh, contract of payments to— of dark money payments to Jalen Brunson that they're obviously making.

Let me just say, can we do that on—

wait a second, can we, can we Let me just say this, and I'll say this with it in a complete sincerity, that I've just— it's just a thing that I've noticed, and I think everything is above board. It is, it is notable, like, the massive jump in production level that the roommates pod underwent, like, kind of suddenly.

Yeah. Oh, they're shooting IMAX.

But that being said, like, I, I am completely— I believe that everything is above board and right. Let me ask you this. Did you guys feel like it was a red flag in the moment how much Popovich was talking to the team and making speeches?

I didn't think it was a good thing.

Like an—

I don't know what—

Yeah, it was just, it was weird that they were bringing him in.

And I wonder if the Spurs would rather that had not got out, or if the Spurs were like, get this out that Pop is still like the Newt Rockne of this team.

Have you guys heard they're filming the, uh, Roommates pod in 70mm starting in September?

70mm IMAX.

They have Nolan cinematographer. Yeah, it's just like, like, so what TV are we supposed to watch as the World Cup winds down, JC? Oh wow, what are you into these days?

Uh, second season of The Agency, which is a show I know that— oh, which is itself an adaptation of Le Bureau de l'Agence from French television, is out. And I think it's— it's not as good as The Bureau, but it— to me, it's good enough.

It's pretty good.

It's pretty good. And the changes they made to make it to, you know, kind of like American intelligence it, uh, more just hit for me. And so I can run that back.

I haven't watched one episode. Can I bang that out this Oh yeah, you'll like it.

I think you will like it.

Yeah. Is it shame Fassbender or just Fassbender?

It's, it's Fassbender pretending to be an American spy and, and it doesn't totally work, but it's still pretty good.

Sex with his maid or anything?

No, but he's basically playing like, like a, yeah, I mean, he has some weird sex, but still.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's part of the course with him.

Yeah. He's a spy.

Sierra, what, what's been your favorite thing of the summer to you?

You know, there's a show on Apple called Star City. That's been, uh, it's like a spin-off of another show they have called For All Mankind, and it's set in, um, the Russian, the Soviet space program in the '60s and '70s. And it's really great.

That sounds like CR Mad Libs.

It's— I can only be me.

They have, uh, one of the co-showrunners of The Americans.

It's the For All Mankind guys, but it's really good.

Uh, I've been hate-watching the living hell out of Cape Fear. Which I think is one of the worst shows I've seen in the last 5, 6 years. And now it's hit the point, it's 6 episodes in, um, I could tap out right now and not even care about what happened. Or do I just hate watch my way through the rest of this? I'm more interested, like, when shows like this, when they don't work and they become campy, trying to read the, the signs of some of the— like, they have good actors in this. Yeah, like when did Amy Adams— felt like around episode 4, episode 5.

I think when Amy Adams showed up on set, she was like, wait, you guys aren't all doing accents? It's just me, right?

She— the hope was starting to flicker out of her eyes, I would say. Um, one of the things Apple does amazingly well from a comedy standpoint, it's the worst parenting you've ever seen in your life, and they'll do it over and over again with these, these like wealthy families some sort of drama crisis thing. And Apple's just like, do you think it'd be weird if the, if these parents didn't care that their kid chopped his toe off and seems like a complete maniac and then disappeared for 4 hours?

Yeah.

Like might be putting himself or other people in danger. Like, no, it's like, hey Bobby, we're gonna go out for, for, for dinner tonight. You stay home with the dog. Um, they just, I, I don't know what it is. So Apple, like this seems like their lane now. They have like 3 different lanes. In one of these lanes of these wealthy, crimey, um, families in disarray, couples that hate each other.

Like prestige pulp.

Yeah, yeah, it's like prestige divorce, divorce pulp.

Yeah.

Um, did you finish The Bear, JC?

I, I, I did not finish The Bear, but I'm getting ready to, to struggle through it. With all respect to The Bear, I was a fan of the final season.

I think you'll—

yeah, they did the pit style.

What's that?

They did pit style, just like everything in one day.

Set mostly on one day. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Yeah.

What are we missing now? CR, what are we missing now in the TV landscape? What are we not doing?

I mean, there's a lot of genre stuff on. Dragon's pretty good this year, I think. Um, it's, uh, it's just that we don't really have like a, you know, that, I mean, we actually really don't have like a White Lotus-y Succession kind of like normal people behaving badly show that everybody kind of falls in love with. Um, trying to think of like what, what's coming that's even exciting.

But, uh, feels like it's drifting back toward movies. I made this point, yeah, 6, 7 weeks ago where, um, it fit. I wonder if the creativity is starting to— I finally saw Obsession.

Do you like it?

Oh, it was really good. I didn't love the lead actor, would be my, uh, my one question. Okay. But like, if Chalamet is in that movie, that's like one of the best movies of all time.

I think he— his, his bill is like 5 times the budget of that movie.

I just say, if you put Chalamet in that lead part, we're talking about this movie for 25 years from now.

Did you— I'm sure you did not see this, but the, the main actress from that movie, Indi Navarrete—

Oh, he too?

He too?

What?

Could be happening.

Why don't you know me at this point when you're like, I'm sure you didn't see this, but you were— Oh, like anything happens without me knowing with he too? Um, I have this question, actually, speaking of Heat. It's a mailbag question from Victor. Longtime fan, diehard Magic fan in Orlando. Recently I was rewatching The Town, and the entire Fenway heist was for $3 million. Realizing this is what Bismack Biyombo made for the Spurs this season had me thinking, are the prizes in heist movies too small, or NBA contracts too big? What would Neal McCauley have had to do to get a year of Devin Booker's salary? You're the best man to resolve this issue. I have noticed this in some of our heist things where they're like, we gotta take this down.

Yeah.

And I want it to be like $29 million.

You almost wonder if they should go back in ADR. Like, what's it? Because if you go back to like the 1950s noirs and they're like robbing a horse racetrack and it's like, what's the take? 10 grand.

We got it. 10 grand, guys.

And it's like, maybe we should go back in and be like, a million dollars.

You know?

Well, it's like, We were talking about when Jason was on for the Survivor, like, oh, that MrBeast bumped it to $2 million. It's like, this was $1 million in 2000. Yeah, the NBA salary cap was $18 million in 2000 or whatever. Like, how is it not $10 million to win Survivor now? Um, so heist movies higher? Would you bump it up, CR?

Yeah, but I think we actually have a lot of really ridiculous heist movies where they go for like, we're gonna take a billion in crypto off this guy. It's just that those aren't as good as Den of Thieves and Heat and The Town and stuff.

Do you wanna quickly have the He Tu conversation?

Yeah, let's talk, let's talk about Leo being shirtless. Let's look, this is, this is the thing that has been rumored for a long time. I think everybody was waiting to find out if he was gonna be Neil or Chris, and he's, and he's shirtless. He's gonna be the star of the movie.

I get asked this question all the time, and I'm sure both of you do too, from people in our lives. Like, what do you think? Is this really happening? I, I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna go.

You're gonna go.

I'm glad, I'm glad they're doing it. I'm obviously gonna see it. I obviously care that it's happening. I am aware of every single casting, anything that's happened with this thing. I'm just nervous. This one, we've seen this go wrong. I ended up not seeing Gladiator 2 on the advice of many people. Um, just in general, some of the scary bad sequels that we've had, um, that you end up just kind of forgetting happened. And Michael Mann, who, um, you know, our all-time favorite. He's been on 9 Rewatchables movies, including today with Ali. But, um, when you get directors in their 80s, JC—

Yeah.

Gets a little dicey. Like, I, I don't know if I want people directing expensive movies or running my NFL team, or— there's just—

this was a conversation I was having with some friends recently, like, who is the director in their 80s historically who was crushing it. And I think that there are different variables, but at the top level of AAA type of movie, it's kind of nobody. Kind of nobody.

Yeah, '70s even gets Stacy.

Yeah. Yeah, Kubrick still had the fastball to the very end. And to be fair to Michael Mann, he's still, from everything we've seen semi-recently, still got it. But yeah, it—

people, I know, but this is— people can all—

pretty quick.

It is.

This is the difference, is it's not just him making a movie, but I would support if he was 100 years old to want to make movie. It's just, why haven't we done Heat 2 before now? Why are we doing it now? I know he wrote the book. But is it worth doing that?

Yeah, I mean, you could say, and I will hear the argument that this is like Ridley Scott returning to the Alien universe where it's like, but Ridley Scott like makes, can still make 2 movies a year and they're not always that good. And he shoots with 5 cameras and it seems like he's getting a little fast and a little sloppy. The thing that gives me some confidence in Heat 2 specifically is the presence of Jerry Bruckheimer, who himself is not a spring chicken, 82 years old. But is like one of the great showmen. And I hope that the combined forces of these two very old men will make up for whatever deficiencies the other has and make sure that this is like, I just don't think DiCaprio signs on for this and is like, let's hope it's okay. You know, like it is true.

He has had impeccable taste over the years and we do have, there's just gotta be some guardrails.

Yeah. And he has to know. There's gonna be 3 things in this movie that I do that people are gonna be breathless over, you know? And otherwise, I just don't know why, like, why, why didn't he just do Ferrari then, you know? Or whatever else. Like, he just doesn't make his choices idly.

Well, I saw, I don't, I won't spoil anything from The Odyssey today because I know you guys haven't seen it.

There's also an embargo on it, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, the only thing I'll say is, uh, Chris Nolan, guy who, you know, over the course of a long movie, there's gonna be a couple set pieces in there, you know? It's like, like when you're watching an awesome WWE Championship match, there's gonna be a couple bumps that they thought about ahead of time and that you're gonna be like, holy shit. Um, and that's, that's what a Michael Mann, when his movies are really cooking they'll have like 3, 4 sections in there that you're just like, wow.

The stuff I'm most looking forward to in Heat 2 also is stuff that hasn't, that is not Heat. Like it's from, like it'll be either in the desert or it'll be in, in Central America or whatever. And, and it'll be like different than Heat. So the city stuff will be cool, but I, I'm looking forward if they bring it page for page out for that stuff.

There's another existential question here, JC. Mm-hmm. You know, CR's obviously known Sean longer than me. Mm-hmm. They've been friends since when? Mid-2000s?

Early 2000s, yeah.

You've done a lot of big picture appearances with him. You've seen a lot of movies. We started the Rewatchables from a Heat podcast we did. Heat, I feel like, is RIP.

Uh-huh.

And I'm really gonna be interested to see how you handle this.

I'll be interested to see how you handle this.

I think with He Too, I feel like I should be in pole position for the first part of a CR.

You are in pole position.

I don't know.

Maybe America decides.

Why not all of you? Why not the triumvirate?

Yeah, maybe that's what needs to happen.

Because I think, let me just say, as a fan, Fan of y'all also. That's what I want to see is that trio.

JC's saying don't choose CR, that it should just be me and Sean together, the three of us for Heat 2.

Okay.

I don't know, maybe American. Maybe we do a poll. America votes. America votes. Let's throw— we've done— did we do— we did the 3 Heat or the 4 Heat?

Well, we've done 2 Heats and Michael Mann. We have not done 4 Heat yet.

I'm ready because I, I have, I have some thoughts from recent watches. I have more Heat opinions. I don't think I have any more Heat opinions, but I actually do.

We can do the blind Heat rewatch, no notes. We can do Heat, but we're not allowed to talk about De Niro, Pacino. Like, there's still—

oh wow.

Yeah, there's still a couple of tricks up our sleeve.

Oh, that was my favorite one where we like, we give De Niro and Pacino a red card in the first minute of the pod. They're just out of the pod.

We're resting them for Heat 5.

You're not allowed to do a Pacino Take it all. Um, how excited are you for The Odyssey on a scale of 1 to 10, JC?

Um, I'm excited. It's, I, it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's going to be a, like an iconic— Nolan is one of the iconic guys currently working. You could argue that he's the best director currently working. Certainly the only one currently that would be allowed to make a film like this. And I mean, I'm all in, considering that this has its roots in him not getting to make Troy. It's been gestating that long? I'm excited. I'm excited.

I sat next to somebody you've both potted with over the years many times, Malie Rubin, in the screening today. And let's just say, she was digesting a lot.

A lot of things.

Yeah, a lot of things in her wheelhouse. There's books. I don't— you know, there's this whole other level for this movie that if you want to go back and then also dive into— I was going blind. I could barely remember anything from, you know, I read these books in high school, you know. So, so I was, I was kind of re-remembering a lot of the stuff that was in there, but I know there's an embargo. I saw people tweeting about it.

I think you're allowed to say like, I saw it and I liked it, but the like full review and plot points—

I thought it was incredible. And most importantly, my guy Matt Damon. You know, I still feel like he's alive in the Damon versus Leo thing. I know I'm like one of the only people holding on to it, but if we go best, best like 7 Matt Damon movies versus best 7 DiCaprio, I feel like he's in the mix.

This is a very exciting argument to have.

This is— it is a really interesting one.

I just think his basketball reference page is better than people realize.

I think I tried to do that. I tried to make a Damon versus Cruz take case that you guys laughed me out of your— off of a set for, like, during rewatchables. But Damon Leo is a good argument to make.

I remember my HBO show 10 years ago playing that one up right after The Martian because Damon had momentum. But Leo's been steady. He's a little bit younger. But Damon's career also, like, you go back to basically School Ties is '92, '93 range. So he's been 35 years now banging out watchable movies.

With Leo, I think you would have to say no Titanic. We don't put Titanic in the mix. Because I just think with Titanic, It takes Leo to a level that Matt Damon has never—

Well, honestly, honestly, it might happen with The Odyssey. Oh, I know Titanic was okay. Titanic was a billion-dollar movie that won a bunch of awards. I don't know if that's not happening with The Odyssey like that. It's fucking sold out all through, all through the summer in LA already.

But like Titanic was the type of like cultural impact that like the Taliban had to ban it.

Like it was that level movie. That is true.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, people going 8, 9 times.

They were banning stuff left and right. So yeah, but when they—

when they're like, uh, no music, no makeup for women, but— and also Titanic, you cannot watch that movie in the borders of Afghanistan, period. Like, I think that is a crazy, crazy, crazy impact.

It's, uh, it's a pretty awesome achievement. I'm really happy for Damon. It is impeccably well cast. Okay, and people know this, I think, from the IMDb. Do you guys know who Charlize Theron plays in this movie?

Uh, I forget, but I, I know that she's fairly important.

I want to say it's Circe, maybe.

She plays, she plays Calypso.

Oh, Calypso. Okay.

And she's well cast. Oh, oh, just gonna—

okay, okay.

Also happy for my, my girl Anne Hathaway. But yeah, no, it was, uh It's really something. I'll be interested to see what the reaction is. It seems like everybody had that reaction, like, holy shit.

I'm excited for Bernthal. Just Bernthal.

You want to know about the horse?

No, talk about the horse.

Your dad wasn't that big of a deal.

Yeah.

Well, so I intentionally read nothing and knew nothing. I knew a couple of the people that were in, but there were a couple where I was like, and when I saw Bernthal, I gasped and Mallory started laughing and I was like, I had no idea. My guy, he's here. Uh, but those are the most fun kind of movies anyway. Uh, The Odyssey. What, what else are you looking forward pop culture-wise this summer, CR? Anything?

Me? Oh, I can't wait for Resident Evil. Uh, the Zack Greger follow-up to Weapons, and it looks awesome.

JC, same.

That you've, you know, loved the video games.

Me too.

And the trailer knocked me out.

Any reality? Nothing? Are you out of reality now, Jason?

No, I'm— well, I'll tell you my most dirty reality secret is Below Deck. I watch it year round.

Oh my God.

The Bravo show Below Deck.

My wife is like— just inhales it. What is it about Below Deck? I don't really understand it.

It's a perfect reality procedural. It does the same— formula over the course of, like, 2 episodes, and it just does it like on an assembly line. It's Charter comes in, there is workplace dynamics, and then there is the cooldown where they all go out to the club or whatever. But for me, the thing is, they're all truly working. They're actually doing a crazy job out there on the high seas. And you can't beat the stakes in reality television of if this all goes wrong, somebody drowns.

Interesting.

Has that ever happened on Below Deck?

It's almost happened several times. It's always happened.

My wife really enjoys the different people that come in that, yeah, that rent the boat, the different types of people they pick. And then really, oh, Johnny Damon, she was all excited about that, but she really likes the tipping at the end and the dynamics with that and whether the people— I just, I can never buy into it, Sierra. I'm, I gotta say, this is the least amount of reality I've watched in a long time. Oh yeah, you might be aging out or between eras. Yeah, I'm also probably aging out. I think when The Challenge just became a professional sporting event and stopped having people screaming at each other, hooking up in a closet. Yeah, nobody's hooking up in a closet or a bathroom anywhere. I was like, I don't know, I don't know where we go with this.

Yes.

All right, guys, I think we covered everything.

I think so.

America's gone. The Knicks are NBA champions. The Celtics are in complete flux. AJ Brown is on the Patriots. He Too's coming out. Just a lot of crazy shit's happening right now. JC, I will see you on Wait a Second in the next couple weeks.

Yes.

CR, I will see you for Rewatchables next week. People can watch us do Ali today. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal and Chris and Jack and everybody. At Spotify. I'm going to be back one more time this week. Not sure when, so stay tuned for that. Thanks for watching on Netflix. Must be 21+ in President's Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ in President's District of Columbia, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope Is Here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.