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

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 Viater, 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. Anthony DiBundo is here. Chris Ryan is here. We are going to talk about the World Cup final. And a whole bunch of other things. Wanted to mention I have a new rewatch of us coming tomorrow night. We're doing Hitch, um, one of the best rom-coms of the last 21 years, or at least one of the most successful. All right, uh, I've been cooped up for a week and a half, fellas. I have a lot of sports thoughts.

CR, go big picture for us as the soccer historian. Um, what did that— Spain, the second time they ever won, Messi falls short, comes damn close to winning two in a row. What, what was the biggest historical storyline for you?

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

DeBundo, what do you think?

I think that was actually one of the most dominant World Cup finals of all time. And it ended 1-0, and it took more time for them to actually find the goal than we thought it would. But you're going through the stats, going through the box score, I mean, they pitched a no-hitter for 117 minutes, Bill. No shots. They only had shots at all, one touch in the whole box of Spain, the 18-yard box, for an hour and 5 minutes. That is unbelievable. So yes, it took them a while to score, and we kept saying, well, they're hanging around, they're hanging around. But Argentina got their ass kicked.

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

So what Argentina does is, you know, God forbid, but this is also what some people accuse the Oklahoma City Thunder of doing, which is pushing the ref all the way to the limit where if you're not going to call everything a yellow, that nothing is going to be a yellow. And obviously Enzo Fernandez went over that line at a certain point, but it's not an idiotic thing to do to basically put all the pressure on the referee to be like, if you guys don't want me to ruin the match, I basically need to get— let you get away with a bunch of crap here in this, in this game. You know, the thing with Argentina that was crazy was Lionel Messi is the greatest player of all time and probably one of the 2 or 3 greatest athletes I've ever seen in any sport. But I actually think there was— the way they played today showed the limitations of building a team around a 39-year-old who doesn't run. And they, they did not have an outlet and they did not have like any kind of central forward to go towards because they were still looking to Messi, who was kind of like wandering out in those mid spaces between the wing and the midfield there, I thought.

Yeah. My son watched the game with me and doesn't watch a lot of soccer. At one point he's like, what position is Messi? And I'm like, I don't know. Rover. Just kind of, he just kind of wanders around. But yeah, they listen, it worked until it didn't. But this Argentina team over and over again was so frustrating. It was the best live bet team probably in the history of the World Cup, right? If they're down 1-0, you just knew they were going to flip the switch. They actually flipped the switch the last 6 minutes of this game, even though they were a guy down, and all of a sudden started to do that same Argentina. I was talking to My dad loves the World Cup. I was talking about him with it, uh, between the semis and the final. We were saying how Argentina reminded us of the Canadian teams we used to hate in hockey in the '70s where it was a power play and you were just like, ah, we're fucked. Like when they, when they could get where it was like basically their version of a half court or, you know, on their end of the ice and they could just like, and it was just, you just felt like the goal was coming for 15 minutes.

And they just weren't able to do that today because Spain, I think, the bundle, like the way Spain plays, and you don't even know who their best player is from game to game, and it's everybody, and it's just tap and go, tap and go. It's the kind of stuff like the best soccer clubs here try to teach American players, but they do it the best, and it feels like this is sustainable for them.

They've built a team all completely optimized for one skill, and it's passing. Even their center backs, like Pau Cubarsi is 19 years old. He's already one of the best passers in the world. Their left back is one of the best passing left backs. Their right back is one of the best passing. So it's like, no matter what, right, on the field, we might not be the most quintessentially athletic, we might not be the fastest team, but technically they're on a different level from every other international team. And that was just— I mean, they just dismantled France and Argentina with, with relative ease. Relative ease. With Lamine Yamal clearly not at 100%. Yeah. And Nico Williams coming off the bench for 20 minutes because he's not fit enough to play a full hour or two, you know, 90 minutes. Those were the guys that transformed them 2 years ago. They basically didn't have them to an extent and still won the World Cup.

Yeah, Williams won the Dion Waiters Award for the game, CR. I think we could just give it to him right now. That header for the assist, that was an unbelievable soccer play. And they didn't have the right replay for 5 minutes, and then they finally showed the right replay. It was like, that play was amazing.

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

Couple of twists in the joystick and wins.

I was like, I got this.

CR, how painful was it watching Argentina get basically their ass kicked for 120 minutes and thinking about England being up 1-nothing? And I, you guest hosted the pod for me on Wednesday after England lost one of the all-time turtles we've ever seen in any sporting event. It was just disgusting. I hated it so much. I don't understand it. I know they've been getting excoriated for it for 3 days. You were kind of after the game, almost like a little, the way you were talking about it, it felt like it hadn't fully sunk in what the opportunity was yet. The, do you feel it now when you watch it?

Yeah. You wanna know why I feel it's 'cause they put 6 on France yesterday in the meaningless third cup match, and Saka had a hat trick and didn't play in the semis.

Or that was so— I, I got mad. I don't really care about England. I was viscerally upset when the lineup came in, and it's like, yeah, but Kai Osaka is playing, he's starting up top on the right wing. I'm like, wait, he couldn't play 20 minutes off the bench 3 days ago when they needed an outlet, when they needed one guy to retain the ball? No, nothing.

Declan Rice's set pieces in the third place match were like pitch perfect.

They—

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

Yeah, that, that, I mean, look, like they say they're 50-50. Ask any Spanish fan the history of Spain at shootouts in the last decade. I mean, you could make a case, like, I know Spain hasn't had the results. 2018, they lost a shootout to Russia. 2021, they lost a shootout to Italy at the Euros. 2022, they lost a shootout to Morocco. Nations League last summer, they lost to Portugal. They've lost their last 4 big shootouts they, they, I mean, they haven't lost, they haven't actually lost a game in real tournament soccer since the Euro 2016. It's crazy.

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

Yes.

Where it's like one team knows they're not as good as the other team. And at some point we watched it over and over again in the World Cup where teams go, you know what, we're probably better off if this just can get to PKs here. Um, they were playing all the hits for just either whether you're a casual fan or a diehard fan of— I fucking hate this. Like, I went into this like, I would love to see Messi go back-to-back or England win would have been my two preferences. By the end of this, I was like, throw, throw Argentina to the LeBron tar pits. I hate this team.

We gotta put Enzo Fernandez into like the Bane hole from Dark Knight Rises.

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

Yeah.

And then this game, they, they kind of laid loose. They were respectful. Second half, they did the rollerball thing. But then when they need to draw a foul in the last 6 minutes, nobody's better at doing the fake dives or the, oh my God, or throwing themselves backwards. And the ref falls for it every time. And I fucking hate it, Tabundo.

They could have gone down.

They're the best at this by far.

2026 Argentina. It's a, it's a great goalkeeper, Lionel Messi, and 9 dudes getting ready to throw forearm shivers at any, any time they have the opportunity. And then after the whistle, I didn't even see this until Twitter brought it up. The broadcast didn't even show it. Paredes got sent off for trying to fight Eric Garcia on the touchline.

Right. No, we have this.

The broadcast.

So we had OKC did this and their fans are always like, what do you mean? Why is everyone picking on us? In the NFL, it's the Texans. Yeah, Texans have been doing this the last couple of years and they'll probably— they're bringing— I did a full week of NFL prep during my little break. The Texans brought all 11 starters back. So everything they were doing last year, they're going to double up on. And I guess Argentina is— are they the kings of this, CR? This is the team. They're the best at it.

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

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

I'm not sure they could, CR. That's the thing, like, they just— Spain had just did this to France too, though. Yeah, France was trying to score, they just couldn't keep the ball. Here's a, here's a crazy stat. So since the World Cup, they have tracking data back to 1966 in the World Cup. And I asked Paul Carr from True Media, our good friend, for this. Brazil previously had the record for fewest expected goals conceded at a World Cup, 3.6 in 1994. That was a dominant Brazil team. 3.6 in 7 games. Spain just gave up 2.3 in 8 games. Nobody sniffed their goal except for one trial de Catalá header in 8 games.

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

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

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

I mean, he just gave up one goal.

I know, but, but how many actual— how many actual shots?

Yeah, I mean, Emi Martinez is pretty good because he just stopped— like, it should have been for nothing, you know, like Emi Martinez.

Would have been great if the Cape Verde guy won, won the, uh, won the goalie. They brought him out and they're like, hey, Debundo, you tweeted this earlier that, uh, Spain was 6 to 1 on July 6th. Yeah, that's with only 2 weeks left in the tournament.

Yeah.

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

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

True.

Final third, tried to score, ran into a hot goalie. You know, Lamine didn't play that much in that game. That's the beauty of the sport too, as much as we hate it. And we were heading toward one of the all-time stolen results in soccer history. If Argentina won that in shootouts. Like, that can just happen in a game where— like, in the NFL, you can't get your, your ass kicked for 60 minutes and then all of a sudden be down 3 to the level that that happened, and then, oh right, they stole the game. It can just happen. And like, sometimes the ball doesn't go in, and that's, that's why we love the game. That's why we also hate the game at the same time. Um, but yeah, and the Uruguay game wasn't great either, you know. They played, they kind of slogged their way to a 1-0. And the reason I, I never stopped believing was that defensive number. At some point, if you never give up any chances at all, it's going to be really hard to beat you in a World Cup.

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

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

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

Yeah. I don't know what, and we're gonna kick him if he gets any sniff of the ball. There was a couple times where Messi did have a, he did get the ball and he looked to turn and it's like, nope. We're kicking you right here. You can have your free kick. There was one bobble, got him pretty high, and I was like, oh, but yeah, Laporte dropped him at one point. Yeah. And they're like, we're not letting— they did the same thing to Alissa in the France game.

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

Right.

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

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

Yeah, yeah.

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

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

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

No, Bill, would CR have been—

would have been Loyalist in 1777.

No, hey, I would've been open to fighting with this Philly— is Philly people.

Yeah.

I still, the England thing I can't get over.

Yeah.

I just think they were better than Argentina. They, and I know this is soccer and this is how it goes. Can I ask you guys a random La Liga, Premier League question? Sure. So these Argentinians that are on these teams, do they all play like this? Is it the same level or when they get together, do they gain strength from each other? And it's it becomes even more dangerous.

Like, it is a little bit like, uh, the guys in Old School where like when they're home they're like, yeah, I'm gonna go to Home Depot, we're gonna see if we can put together a nice little Saturday. But when they see Frank the Tank, they're like, so you want to kick a guy up in the air? That's so great.

Uh, yeah, they have a couple guys. I mean, Cristian Romero's had his fair share of red cards at Tottenham. Enzo Fernández might be the most hated player in soccer. Period. At this point, I mean, outside of—

I certainly learned that. Hate him.

Even the Chelsea fans are like at their wit's end with him. Uh, Lisandro Martínez has had his moments. I wouldn't say all of them necessarily. I think there's, there's— it's a combination of factors, probably.

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

It was compelling drama, but it was not competitive. Yeah. Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen. Nichts entspannt mich. Mich entspannt meine Steuer total.

Steuer?

Wie Finanzamt?

Die Steuererklärung?

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Hast du geheime Connections oder Excel-Superkräfte?

Nö, nur die WISO Steuer App. Wow, und das ist einfach? Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch.

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Abgabefrist: 31. Juli.

Was? Schaffst du ganz entspannt mit WISO Steuer. Ach ja. Alright, I made this list, I didn't consult you on it. I have my biggest winners and my biggest losers of the World Cup. CR, who do you think was the biggest winner of the World Cup other than Spain? Obviously, because they won the World Cup, who would be your number 2 runner-up winner?

Holland. Erling Haaland. But I'm kind of third, I'm guessing for you almost, but Erling Haaland would be up there.

Uh, Bellingham, you think just because Holland, just because, just because, uh, for the casual fans they didn't fully understand until the cup?

This is his first tournament.

If you don't watch Man City, this is your first exposure to him and you get to see the, the Viking row. You get to see this guy like basically not touch the ball for 86 minutes and then the 2 times he does, he scores 2 great goals and he looks cool and everybody's just like, what the hell is up with this guy? So definitely a big breakout tournament for him.

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

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

Is he a City guy now?

Because no, he's a, he's a Holland's girlfriend guy. Oh, okay. My biggest winner of the World Cup— oh, you go, AD. Who is your biggest winner?

I mean, you could still make the case it's Leo Messi.

The fact that— that's who I had as well.

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

You agree with that, Sierra?

Yes.

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

So I had him as my biggest winner other than the team that won. I was thinking about my life, like the biggest stars ever, just the people that we were just like, that dude. Because before we were born, there was like the Babe Ruth types, right? And then Ali was the first one like that where everybody was just like, that guy's the fucking greatest. And like, if you had a counterargument, people get mad. And then that turned into Jordan. And then that turned into Tiger in the 2000s, right? Tiger hit a point, especially in the 2008, that US Open when he was playing on his bum knee before the car accident, where it was like, this guy's the greatest golfer we've ever seen. And it's funny, Messi's starting to ascend in the late 2000s. That was right when I started really watching soccer for, you know, for fun. That was really when Messi started to take off. That was when my daughter started playing AYSO when she was like 4. The fact that he's still around in '26 as this guy that has to be doubled and watched constantly and is this the most feared guy in the entire tournament, it's incredible.

Like, this is kind of what LeBron wishes we discussed him like these days at age 41, where it'd be like, oh man, LeBron gotta watch. And it's like LeBron hasn't been that guy for 5 years, right? And Messi is somehow still this guy, but yet he came here to play soccer. Right. He's playing in Miami and this was supposed to be like his, oh, this is the next stage of his career. It doesn't feel that way. I don't— how many more years does he have, AD, that he could play at this level?

You know, the demands of like European club are vastly different from the demands of international. And you do tend to see like some of these guys that stick around longer at the international level because there's not as much pressing. You can build your system around one guy who just has a magical left foot or right foot, right? Um, why wouldn't he play Copa America in 2 years? I mean, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but he could. I don't doubt it. Would he be the star player playing 120, 90 minutes every game? Maybe not, but I'm not going to bet against the guy.

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

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

There was a moment in the England game where he like shrugs off Jed Spence, turns Declan Rice, and then like rides the challenge of Elliott Anderson before they get wiped out, right, in the midfield. And you're like, he's how old, 39, doing that? That's that, like, against two of the best, most athletic midfielders in the world who are in their physical primes.

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

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

Okay.

Right. And I'm like, this dude's 5'7". He's not gonna like knock anybody out.

I hear that.

But everybody's just like, you're God. I'm sorry. I'm just like, yeah.

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

Ironic, ironic you brought this up. That was my number 2 winner of the World Cup after the team and Messi. The Messi meme, I think, is going to be a top 5 meme of all time. Like when you think like the Alonso mourning meme of him being, doing the whatever on the bench when he's like sad. And like, we've had a couple of these. I think this one. I even got a great email about it. DeBundo, it's— you should thank your lucky stars you're here, 'cause I'm gonna read this email to CR from Jeff B., who wants to know, 'cause I had the same thought, um, how much Messi looked like De Niro in that moment with Bellingham when he made the— so he said, what was the most appropriate De Niro movie and moment that captured the Messi face in that scene? And he gave us 5 options. Number 1 was the Jackie Brown Don't Say Another Word moment right before he shoots Bridget Fonda in the parking lot. Number 2 was De Niro and Pesci facing off in the desert in Casino. Number 3 was the Heat diner scene with Pacino, the— there's a flip side of that coin.

Uh, number 4, this was the one I had, um, Jimmy Conway deciding to whack Maury, our favorite scene in Goodfellas. Yes, the greatest cigarette anyone's ever smoked. Um, but he said option 5 going De Niro adjacent. Can we go De Niro adjacent for this, for best De Niro? He's going with, uh, Vincent Hanna's okay, motherfucker in, uh, in Heat. Okay, motherfucker.

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

That's good. All right, I think that's the answer. Uh, all right, so I have, I have that, I have that second after Messi as the non-Spain winner in the World Cup. Haaland was third. So I know Jamal didn't have the, like, he didn't even score today. He had one goal, basically had hockey assists and whatever. I still feel like it was a great World Cup for him from a visibility, people knowing who he is. I thought the photo of him and Messi, which nobody believed was real for 2 weeks. And it's just like, I think overall, like a really positive World Cup for him where it's like, this is the foundation. You can see him coming back in 2030 and being the biggest star we have. He was obviously playing hurt. So I would have him on there. Is that a bad opinion, AD?

I think we'll look back in like 6 or 7 years and be like, well, you mean Jamal won the World Cup with Spain and nobody will remember that he wasn't a star player. You just get, you kind of get credit for it. It wasn't an Mbappé level World Cup, right? In 2018 when Mbappé just electrified all of us, right? And scored all the goals and did all the the athletic freak moves. But you know, it is crazy how much timing plays into this because Jamal was incredible last summer, incredible two summers ago at the Euros. Yeah, wasn't great this summer because he wasn't even a grade 2 hamstring injury where they, they showed him on Friday in training still wearing a bandage on the leg. So we'll never know. And these only— these things only come around every once every 4 years. So hopefully he's healthy for the next one. But I, I do feel like he'll probably look back and be disappointed in his own thing, even if he'll say, look, I won the World Cup, what are you going to say? I mean, he's already won the World Cup, he's already won the Euros, he's won La Liga, he was the best player at the Euros 2 years ago, and now he's, you know, the— I think he won young player of the tournament at this one.

I haven't been watching, but I mean, all he needs to do now is what, go win the Champions League with Barcelona, and he's got the most accomplished resume of a sub-21-year-old of all time.

Well, like, my wife didn't know who he was 3 weeks ago, now knows who he is. Like, he and I watched the game with my 18-year-old son, and at halftime we were like, isn't it crazy you're the same age as the right wing who's drawing 2 guys over? Like, so I, I think when you put it in that context, it's pretty nuts.

Were you like turning to Ben and be like, when are you gonna do something special like this?

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

I would say my, uh, caveat for, uh, Lamine is, is that you could, you could make that Barcelona in parentheses because they had 5 guys on this Spain team Mm-hmm. Pedri, Ferran Torres, Kubarsi, the defender.

Pedri, you say Pedri?

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

I thought Pedri was really good in this tournament. My, my 5th winner is America because it seemed a little inconceivable that we were gonna pull off this 40-location World Cup when the heat and we don't have domes everywhere. I thought it was great for the country. I thought anecdotally, um, just everybody that went, I never heard bad experiences of like, oh my God, I went to the World Cup, it fucking sucked, it took 8 hours to get in and out. Um, I like being in the different cities. I like that it was, you know, some traditional cities like Kansas City and Dallas and, uh, you know, Philadelphia, Boston, even though it was Foxborough. But, uh, I just thought it was cool. I, I thought Um, and then the having Azteca in Canada too. But I, I really like, I thought it was a huge win. What'd you think, C.R.?

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

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

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

This is number one for me.

Yeah, by far.

Trying to think. 2012 Olympics was great. I was also there, so that made it even greater. Yeah. Well, all the stuff you mentioned about the different cities and the people and the different cultures, not to, not to get corny, but I would say our country kind of needed it. We needed some positivity and some, uh, you know, I thought like, think about like what happened in Boston. The Scotland-Boston thing went so well that we apparently are going to do some sort of combination things with the two cities, like join events back and forth, like Glasgow, Austin, like cultural exchange.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know what's going on, but it was really cool. And when you think like, I don't even know how if how many bad things happened, but there was a million good things, you know. And I don't know, I was a little worried. The heat was— seemed okay, um, but just in general, I hope we get it back again. Uh, more winners.

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

Yeah.

And the next World Cup is 2030, and it's Spain, Morocco, Portugal. So that knocks out Africa and Europe. And they're doing these ceremonial games in South America to commemorate 100 years of the World Cup. So they're knocking out 3 continents in 1 World Cup, which means for them, they can go back to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East in 2034.

Mm-hmm.

Qatar in '22. And then in 2038, the only continent left to host the World Cup is North America again, where—

sounds great—

they want to expand the World Cup again. So I would, I would say we're an odds-on favorite.

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

Yeah, I'm gonna say travel-wise, that one does.

That would be tough.

Yeah, that'd be a tough one. Be tough, tough plane flight. Uh, quickly, more winners. Cape Verde, we mentioned, awesome for them. The Messi Jamal photo got 2 days of internet content for everybody. Jude Bellingham, kind of controversial heading into the World Cup. People thought, I don't know, is he a team player? Should we even keep him on? By the end of it, people are like, is this the Is this the most talented soccer player who's ever lived? I would say that was a win for him.

Yeah.

And then finally that last goal he scored in the meaningless third place game and you, unless you bet on the over for goals, which Debundo was urging us for, that like doubled the over, right? It like tripled the over, right? What was the over?

I mean, I also bet France, so kind of lost on that one, but we did bet the over. Yeah, it was 2.5 and then it went to 3.5 CR.

I don't know. Come on. But yeah. Did you see that in Jude Bellingham CR?

I had seen that the year previous, the, the 2 years ago at Madrid, he looked like the best player in the world and also really the most clutch, which is what he was for England until that Argentina match where I don't know whether it was a matter of him running outta gas or Argentina just game planning for him, but he barely seemed to get a look in during that match. So yeah, a disappointing end of the tournament, but for, for him it was like such a huge huge like statement tournament and like, you know, he becomes now the centerpiece of that England team for the next generation if Kane goes away. Also, just like for England in general, the Wonderwall thing, I think this was a very likable England side when there have been England sides that you could be like, I could kind of take or leave these dudes. And for the most part, like a really, really like easy to cheer for side.

Yeah, we, I was in Hawaii for the game they won on Saturday. And we were in the car listening to the radio after, because we watched the game in a place, and they did the Wonderwall thing. And my wife didn't know what was going on, and she's like, this is awesome, what is this? And I was like, they do this after every game. And she was like, that's unbelievable, this is— has there ever been a better— she was going nuts about it. But it is like the perfect sports song. I feel like we have a new wave of sports songs in the 2020s, because Mr. Brightside's another one. Yeah, that's taken off. I feel like we finally shed some of the '90s 2000 ones. Yeah, your generation, Debundo, I think was really cooking.

I don't know.

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

Soccer does have some of the best ones, like Freed from Desire is such a great, you know, dance song. Titanium— people love Titanium. It's like a perfect pre-match anthem. But why, why don't NFL teams, college team— like, college teams have, I guess, with the, you know, the alma mater of the schools. But so many of these pro teams could, could lean into this a little bit.

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

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

Yeah. Renegade's a good one too. Like mid-game.

Yeah.

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

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

Yeah.

He, he needed it. He needed it.

Yeah.

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

Yeah. I have Thierry Henry. I thought he was awesome. I, I really thought, uh, he had a couple great— that one time, it was like a week ago when he broke down Spain for like 5 minutes, how they play, was one of the best, um, broadcast clips. Um, I thought he had to do a lot of work on that set. Yeah, we'll get to more on that later when we get to the losers. Uh, 3— I have 4 more winners. Gambling. Ah, the World Cup is incredible to gamble on because you could do—

I—

you can, you can get a little risky and, you know, like you can roll the windows down and put your arms out and just do the straight up 90-minute win-loss bet. You could bet the draw. You can go to the one to advance, which is the one I settled in. But, um, you can parlay stuff. I actually really enjoyed and I felt like I was getting pretty good at it by the end of Bundo. Now, probably partly 'cause I was listening to you a lot, but I had the winner today. I had Spain with a DDP Sonny Gray 3-team parlay, CR.

DDP, that's the fighter?

Yes. I think. Yeah.

Are you the only guy in the world who bet Spain and Sonny Gray today?

No, Sal definitely did. Sal definitely did.

That's not what I meant.

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

Um, he's David Beckham, everybody knows him.

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

I've been reading, uh, about the Chinese Communist Revolution to try to figure out how to—

Chuck Closeman comes in with the General Tso documentary. Any other winners before we get to losers really quick?

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

Also, shout out to being in bars and having the bar play Telemundo, uh, every once in a while. That really hits hard.

Yeah, I, in general, bars I think were winners too. Yes, it was really fun to watch.

It's the best part of sport.

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

You're gonna be at the bar for about like 2 hours, 2 and a half hours.

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

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

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

What a call.

Topless pull or regular pull, Sarah?

Regular pull, bud.

Thanks.

Okay.

Losers. England's coach. I'm starting with him.

Tuchel.

You bring him in because it's like, you know what, we're not going to be fucking pussies anymore.

We're going to—

this is a brave new England. We're going to attack. We have a really good You know, we have all this talent on offense and we're going to be the aggressors. This is a new version of us. And then all of a sudden they get a 1-0 lead against Argentina and just fucking turtle, which is fine. You guys talked about this on Wednesday. If it's Azteca and you're down a man, I get it. But why are you doing that in this game? And you could feel the goal coming for 15 minutes and then it just I just don't understand it. And I, and I heard people talking about it after, and the best point I heard, I can't remember who said it, was like, find me the one England fan who's like, no, no, we did the right thing. The person doesn't exist, right? Everybody was against this. So why?

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

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

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

And it's also like he, he was brought in partially to be unsentimental and he had this whole phase of the first part of his time with the squad where it looked like he was falling out with Bellingham and he was just like, Bellingham needs to play like for the team and not play for himself. But at the end, I thought he was way too sentimental about Kane, who I thought like looked completely gassed in that match. And he could have brought on Watkins to be an outlet or Tony to be an outlet. And he just decided to stick with Kane, who was kind of anonymous in the last half an hour. And you know, he was late to close down Enzo too.

He's part of the, partly at fault for the first goal.

Yeah. It was interesting on the podcast Wednesday hearing Ian Wright talk about that. He was pretty critical of the Harry Kane piece.

Yeah.

Um, especially when you think about it, like you could also just put your fastest guy on the team at high forward. So they at least have to think about, oh, if we're pushing everyone up, like That could happen. I got a bunch of emails about levels of losing with the England loss because it wasn't a typical loss, because you have to factor in the history and the fact that the World Cup is every 4 years, right? But remember, I mean, I wrote and rewrote the column. I can't remember how many times, but I had the different levels and there were 2 levels that I felt like it was a combo of the guillotine, which you felt the guillotine the moment they Turtled. And then, uh, the stomach punch of the second goal. I think the combo of those. So it was, it was somewhere in that. Wasn't like the last level, but it was somewhere in there. I, I thought it was an awful loss.

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

It's right.

Okay.

Motherfuckers, we're gonna go back down the other end and put it right to them.

Yeah.

They were like, shit, we have to play for 20 more minutes like that. Like, it, it just, it just was a really, really bad miscalculation.

That was like the weight of that's, you know, franchises, countries, whatever can have the baggage of the losses. Like we see this happen with the Buffalo Bills sometimes and depending on the sport, these teams, but the Knicks even had it when the Knicks fell behind by 29 in game 4. It's like, oh my God. And then all of a sudden that flipped and it just never flipped back for England. Right. That last 30 minutes, the baggage came, but then they never had the, The American tip in, you know, the guys to do it.

Like, who's gonna go create the goal now? Like Nico O'Reilly, Esri Konsa, defenders. Yeah, Dan Byrne was playing striker. It was great.

A couple more losers. Uh, Pulisic. I think when you think about what was sitting there before the tournament versus how we ended, where it was just a 3-day argument about how much was he to blame and does this guy have it, and Landon Donovan came flying in off the top rope and and this is kind of the moment for him. Like he's at that side, what is he like 27?

27, right?

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

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

Which could matter going forward. And yeah, like, he just doesn't display the kind of leadership that we look for from our best players on our best sports teams. We expect that, and he's never really given it. And I think that's why you start to feel these, these things bleed into the on-the-field stuff as well.

Incredibly bad sign that all those ex-players felt like they had the green light to tee off on him. Yeah, right after the tournament, it was like, if you guys do this, there will be no pushback. Feel free to go on your pods and rip this guy. And it— that's, that's not, that's not a positive development.

No.

Well, it's not new.

Last summer, Pulisic's dad was arguing with Landon Donovan using ChatGPT over whether or not Christian Pulisic should or should not sit out the Gold Cup. So this isn't new, right? You know, the Landon stuff. Then when Carly Lloyd throws her hat in the ring, and Sydney Leroux—

she whipped her hat in the league.

A lot of people are throwing their hats in the ring, getting ready to get their shots at the piñata. So something, when there's smoke, there's fire.

I think it's very obvious. Talked about this with Klosterman about, you know, is there an edge that we need? Is that gonna be the thing that makes the difference between being one of the 16 best countries and one of the 4 to 8? And you watch Argentina the last couple games, it's like we would've fucking died against them. They would've, they would've absolutely bullied us the whole time. Another loser, FIFA. Everybody hates FIFA and that did not change after this World Cup. I think FIFA was looking to rehab their image at all, mission not accomplished. Uh, people just don't like them, and that's not going to change. Here's another one. Goddamn, I hated these. The hydration breaks. Yeah, they're just commercials. Let's call them what they are. These aren't hydration breaks. Like, some of these games, it was 70 degrees outside. I understand when we're in the fucking Middle East playing soccer, I get it, when it's 100 degrees on the field. Um, but these are commercials, and I don't know, AD, you care about soccer as much as anyone I know. Like, this isn't soccer. You're supposed to play straight through for 45 minutes with 3 to 9 minutes of added time after.

You're not supposed to just stop halfway through.

Yeah, they have it in place in the Premier League for very specific circumstances. They have it in place for other leagues. If the temperature is above X, we will enable for a brief hydration break. I don't like— I mean, look, FIFA kind of also stuck it to us because now the Americans, the, the boogeymen of soccer to everybody else in the world, We get blamed for instituting hydration breaks. It was FIFA's decision. FIFA did this as a, as a, as a grab, as a money grab, and try to level the playing field. Uh, indoor games with hydration breaks, they were like timeouts, and you could literally see teams like, oh, we just got to get to the hydration break. Yeah. And then change up our ta— that's not how the game was designed to be played. If you want to break it into quarters, that's a different debate.

We basically did.

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

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

It's insulting. Yeah. Like France-Paraguay, July 4th in Philly, they needed a hydration break. It was 100 degrees. Yeah. But you know, the semifinals, Spain and France, when it's 78 indoors in, in Dallas, don't need it. Don't need it. Don't want it. Who wants this?

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

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

If you're in a dome, you don't need a hydration break. Let's, let's just all agree on that one.

Yeah.

Uh, I had Ronaldo as a loser. We don't need to go in that.

Mm-hmm.

Sideline reporters. Something I noticed.

Our man Jeff Shreves. I don't lose touch.

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

Was it Courtois for Belgium?

Yeah, yeah.

Belgium. Yeah, yeah. Nobody—

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

The backup blew the game.

He blew the game. And we never had Lisa Salters being like, yeah, the starting goalie's out of the game because of this. And I got to be honest, I kind of liked it. Yeah, I like the mystery of being like, yeah, I don't know why that guy just left. We're all going to be fine. We don't need an answer sometimes.

Anyway, I think it's harder to work them into the game because it's so flowing, it's so quick, right? As with the NFL, you know, like, all right, there was a punt, we're gonna have like 48 seconds, right?

We have time.

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

And that was my last— that— wait, hold on, VAR, because that was my last debate here. Okay. Um, I had Lawless. We don't need to kick a dead body, but Lawless just could not have been a worse 6 weeks for him.

Uh, he'll be back in 2 years. I'm sure he'll, he'll be on a Netflix deal to do the women's game. He'll be— no matter what happens, you can't kill him.

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

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that was definitely a penalty.

It was like, it was, didn't Marino stepped on Otamendi's foot. Was that what happened? But it took like—

sold the shit out of it. Yeah, yeah.

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

Like, yeah, right. Uh, all right, last one other than VARs. Was Turkey the team that they made them flag They didn't give them the plane home. Or Uruguay. Uruguay. There's— what a tough flight, uh, flight home. And then last but not least, VAR. Okay, make the case.

Make the case.

What's up? AD's the defender. Let's hear it.

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

Because now Germany, Germany handball 2002, CR.

Yes.

Look, I, as somebody, I, I've been watching Premier League since '05, about like for the first 10, 15 years of watching it. 80% of the coverage was about refereeing. Like, it's not like this didn't overshadow the sport the whole time. I think it just takes away from what makes football amazing, which are those cathartic moments where you think something, you know, when something incredible has happened and the crowd goes wild and the players go wild, and then all of a sudden it's like, well, we're going to go look on a screen for 45 seconds to 5 minutes. And I just need it to be about very specific things, whether it's offsides or whatever. And I needed to have a cap on how long they can look at something. And I do think some of the fouls that they're looking at, they're looking at in like stop motion, like slow-mo, when it really should be more evaluated as what happened in real time.

The Balogun situation being the perfect example of that, right? The other problem that VAR now has is actually VAR has created a problem in and of itself because they're letting plays play out now. Right. Yes. Flag used to go up in the old days and there wasn't VAR. The ref blew the play dead immediately because the ref made the decision. There is no review. But now when the flag goes up, we watch the next 10 seconds of soccer happen and then they're like, goal! And then, oh no, the flag was up.

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

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

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

Swiss. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All these games, all these games blend in together. But I do think they need— and Balogun was another one where they almost need a third card where if you get sent off, maybe you get sent off for 50, like a blue card. Maybe it's like, oh, he didn't mean to do that, but that was definitely something. So you're gone for 15 minutes. For the next 15 minutes, you guys are playing 11v10.

Sin bin. Yeah, yeah.

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

Yeah, I think I, I'm of two minds of it. Enzo Fernandez today is a really good example of like, he gets a yellow for dissent, he probably should have gotten 5 yellows over the course of the match.

He deserved to get kicked off. Yeah.

Uh, that Koulibaly play is very bang bang. I mean, he definitely helicoptered him, but it wasn't like the De Jong tackle from Spain-Holland from like years ago when De Jong kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest. It was like a pretty bang-bang play in midfield, but like, he's gotta know better. He just got his first yellow 8 minutes ago.

Yeah.

He needs to know, like, if I get sent off in a World Cup final, we are going to lose. And I like watching guys have to play with that kind of calculus sometimes just because it makes the game like have that much more extra layer of drama.

It's the 5 fouls in basketball, right?

Yes.

Where it's like, okay, yeah, I can't challenge that shot anymore. I have 5 fouls.

Okay, now we can attack Wemby. He's got 5 fouls.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, right.

Yeah, I just, it feels like there's a better way to do the whole system because they're on the one hand it's like, whoa, yellow card, red card. This is how we've always done it. Well, but you didn't always have VAR, right? So if you're gonna change that part of it, then maybe the rest of it should evolve. And I feel the same way with the, uh, with the NBA too. Like, you know, may, there's gotta be something better than just flagrant fouls, flagrant one, flagrant two. Like I, I I do think we can evolve with that. I don't like VAR. Um, I thought it ruined at least 20 of the most fun moments in the tournament where it was like, oh, that's a goal. Oh, it's not because here we go. I also think if you're gonna have the VAR, maybe the offsides, maybe they could be a tiny bit more leeway, you know, where it's like, oh, he was, you know, this far over past the guy, it's offsides. Like, is it? It's like 8 inches.

There's a couple of like proposals out there to how to adjust offsides. I don't know if any of them will ever get passed, and if they do, do they get passed by UEFA but not FIFA or what? But like Wenger—

no, that would be a disaster. Different offside rules would be fun to referee, huh? But no, the rule is basically the Wenger rule is like Arsène Wenger, Arsenal's former manager, wants to make it so that any part of your body is in line with the last defender, you are on. You have to have—

so you can be basically like, my hand is back here with the guy. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't be opposed to way better, but you have to have it. You have to have it.

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

I got one more too.

Riyama admitted, admitted, admitted he would rather watch HBO Boxing on the Smart Channel. And that's what he was watching during the days over like World Cup semifinals. I thought you liked sports, Raheem. Jesus. What would you have, AD?

Real Madrid is a loser. Uh, how does a team— and look, there's— we could do a whole pot on that, but like, Real Madrid have Vini Jr., Mbappé, and Bellingham, and they have underachieved dramatically for the last 2 years. There's fights within the camp, there's literal players fighting each other. I mean, CR did a good pot on this as well back in, uh, in the spring. The fact that they have all this talent and can't put together a coherent team that can challenge for the Champions League or La Liga is, is embarrassing.

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

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

No crochet. Roman Anthony, the next Ted Williams, is out for the whole year. I think our most expensive guy is Trevor Story, who hasn't played at least for 2 and a half months. They have so many utility infielders popping in and out, you almost don't know who's who at this point. And then they have these two guys in the middle of order who are crushing, and every starter goes 6 innings, and the team has chemistry now. And it doesn't make sense. Sports doesn't make sense. And I feel like that with soccer, it's got to be the same thing where you can load up all of these— you can basically have an all-star team, but you end up like that one Eagles team that year with Asamoah and all those guys. Oh my God.

Oh wow. Eagles Dream Team reference.

Parlor. Yeah.

Boston Red Sox reference.

Yeah.

It's a thing.

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

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

Ah, yes. Great.

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

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

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

I don't, I, uh, got really low, but we could not be lower.

We, I do think this could be a, a, like a mid-August podcast. 'Cause I, I did the column 20 years ago when I picked my EPL team and I had all these different factors. This is, this could be more of just the heart wants what the heart wants. It's like, can I just root for Haaland for an entire season? No, just put a giant Man City bet on and maybe that's just who I root for. I don't know. I'm willing to accept suggestions though. Some of the guys that jumped out, like, I did enjoy Bellingham, I gotta say. And that's probably Messi. I can't— Messi's out because he's an MOS. I can't jump on his bandwagon. So I don't know, I'm going to need some guidance from you guys.

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

I can't because of John Henry.

John Henry is a non-starter.

Yeah, I can't. I can't do it. I can't do it.

You get your 2 John Henry teams.

It's, it's Newcastle. They're, they didn't get relegated, right?

No, they're fine.

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

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

Anyway, Jeff Chow loves Arsenal, Bill, so you have two— you could choose another— you could choose Arsenal with Jeff. I would advise against—

who's, who's Adam Friedland's team? Is that Arsenal too? Yeah, yeah, that can't—

they seem to be— I think they might have surpassed Man United in recent years. This is anecdotal, but like in terms of their popularity in America. Yeah, yeah.

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

Ooh.

Manchester United, I think.

United. Yeah.

Who's the most like rooting for the Lakers? Mm. City.

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

All right, CR.

Here we go. It's time.

Okay.

In 2016, when I had my failed HBO show, we did some sort of ad campaign, and one of my takes was every Leo movie would be just a little bit better if Matt Damon was in it. And people got mad and said I was a Boston homer. Now we are 10 years later, and Matt Damon in the best movie of his life, The Odyssey, a movie you and I have both seen. I'm not going to do— we won't do any Odyssey spoilers in the on this podcast, but I might on my Wednesday podcast. Um, but Damon kind of needed this for the resume. This was like, like the, the, the late '30s Messi World Cup title to just vault him up to a different thing. Um, let's go big picture Damon versus Leo, and then I have a whole bunch of categories that I didn't prepare you for at all. Okay, Damon versus Leo, go.

All right, so Damon essentially has twice as many movies as Leo. Right? Like, he is more of an everyday player, I think. Likes to play— He'll come and do a cameo. He'll do a supporting actor part. He doesn't have the sense of self that I think DiCaprio does, where there's like— Leonardo DiCaprio knows there are Leonardo DiCaprio parts with Leonardo DiCaprio directors, and he is fine sitting out 5 years to wait for one of those. I think that Daemon— has played a bigger part in my moviegoing life. And in a weird way, I just have more affection for him because he's more approachable as an actor and as like a celebrity, whereas DiCaprio still seems like a space alien to me. But you can't deny that if you take Leonardo's 5 best movies and put them up against Damon's 5 best movies— well, I was gonna say you can't deny it, but I'm— I don't know, Bill, do you?

We're, we're going through this. Um, Obviously I'm team Damon, but I had a whole bunch of categories. And as we go through this, I think you're going to realize, because I think the general perception would be, oh, Leo's had a better career, Leo's a better actor. So my question is, are we sure? Um, best movies by decade. Okay, so '90s, 2000s, 2010s, '20s. So Damon now has Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Martian, and The Odyssey.

Yep.

Leo has Titanic, The Departed, I would say Wolf of Wall Street, and Won't Battle. Yep. That's pretty tight. Maybe slight edge to Leo.

I, I go DiCaprio there.

Yeah.

But not, but it's kind of, it's, it's your, by giving them both The Departed, it's a little bit of like a, of a push, but yeah, I go DiCaprio still.

Iconic rewatchables. Damon has Interstellar, Ocean's— Interstellar we have not done yet. Interstellar, Ocean's Eleven, Rounders, Bourne Identity. I'm all doing movies we— I did these categories so that if, if I mentioned a movie, then we can't mention it again because obviously Good Will Hunting isn't iconic rewatchables. So 4 more movies, iconic rewatchables we haven't mentioned yet. Interstellar, Ocean's Eleven, Rounders, Bourne Identity. And then for Leo, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Catch Me If You Can, and The Aviator, I would say— or 3, I think. I think Damon wins. And if you go actual rewatchables we've done, yeah, we've done 7. We haven't done all the Bourne's, but I think, I think Damon wins that one.

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

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

What do you think? Yeah, it's Leo.

Okay. Yeah.

Slight edge or just a full Leo?

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

It's a little like the Kyrie Irving, I play 55 games a year and my stats are awesome.

Yeah.

Whereas Damon's like, I'm here to entertain my fans for 82 games a year. Plus playoffs.

Little Mikael Bridges. Yeah.

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

No interest. Damon.

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

Damon's happy to be appearing in Steven Soderbergh movies that like 11 people saw.

Yeah. Yeah. Action movies that we haven't even mentioned yet. Damon, The Rip, Green Zone, Elysium, and the whole Bourne franchise. Leo's basically Body of Lies and Blood Diamond.

TIA.

Damon wins this one. She says, "Africa, daddy." Um, fun movies, just like, fuck it, let's do it. Damien's got Air, We Bought a Zoo, and the Ocean's trilogy. Leo hates fun, doesn't really make fun movies, not interested.

He doesn't. He like, there's no Midnight Run in Leo's.

No, you know what, this would be fun to do this for 4 months. Noble swing movies. Damien has The Last Duel, Stillwater, Downsizing, The Informant, Jerry, and Promised Land. Where it's like, eh, took a swing.

Yeah.

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

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

Okay.

Making a 3.5-hour, you know, murder epic about Native Americans in Oklahoma is like a pretty big swing.

Next category is Gotta Keep Working. Damon has The Great Wall and The Instigators, and Leo has Great Gatsby and Body of Lies. Are you a Body of Lies guy, CR?

I am a huge Body of Lies guy.

Are you really?

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

Great.

Do I need to revisit it?

Phone acting. Really, really fun movie.

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

So what about, uh, Damon and Affleck also reprising Good Will Hunting for the Jay and Silent Bob thing, right?

Right. Yeah, Damon's— Damon's happy to pop in. All right, regret it.

He shows up everywhere.

Yeah, Regrettables is going to be a loss for Damon. Leo has J. Edgar, Celebrity, Man in the Iron Mask, and The Beach. I don't think he would do those 4 over again. Damon has Suburbicon, The Monuments Men, Stuck on You— although he did meet his wife on Stuck on You— All the Pretty Horses, Legend of Bagger Vance, and Brothers Grimm.

Mm-hmm.

Tough one. So Leo wins that. Um, last one is younger movies. Movies they made before they became who they became. Damon has— now Damon's 4 years older— School Ties, The Rainmaker, Geronimo, Courage Under Fire. Leo's got Gilbert Grape, This Boy's Life, Quick and the Dead, Basketball Diaries, and Romeo and Juliet. And Damon also turned down The Quick and the Dead.

This is really tight for me because I— it's not like I'm like a big let's throw on Gilbert Grape on a Friday night guy. Yeah, but I really like Basketball Diaries. I really like Quick and the Dead. I'm going to, I'm going to edge it for Damon though.

Edging it because of school ties.

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

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

Sure.

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

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

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

Uh, counterpoint. Has Damon ever been as funny as Wolf of Wall Street? That's pretty— Is there anything as funny in Damon's whole entire catalog that tops Leo in Wolf of Wall Street? Throwing the orange juice.

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

Leo's also hysterical in one battle.

It's fair. All right, we'll do a draw. Villain. Leo has Django. Yes. Damon. Interstellar, Departed, Talented Mr. Ripley, and School Ties. That's a fucking Mount Rushmore. Damon, easily.

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

Damon is a great asshole dick. Yes, right? School Ties, soon as he realizes Brendan Fraser's Jewish, like, it's fucking on. And then, uh, I just watched The Departed. That's a category coming up. Damon's unbelievable in that. I just think he's a better dick. Biggest regret? Damon not being able to do Manchester by the Sea because he was booked to another movie and had to give it to Casey Affleck. Leo not doing Boogie Nights, he says, is his biggest regret.

Mm-hmm.

But that also would've meant he didn't do Titanic.

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

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

Yeah.

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

He wins that. Pretty good. It's pretty good fight.

Um, Podcast interview, talk show presence.

Damon.

I think Damon's an A+. Yeah.

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

Yeah. Yeah. Here's my Jack Nicholson Departed story. I've never told that before. Yeah. I've, I've seen him do it. Uh, television. Damon has SNL, Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas.

Sure.

Project Greenlight, 30 Rock, Entourage. He has 7 Emmy Noms for TV. Leo basically has Growing Pains and Parenthood, so I think Damon wins this one. Box office gross, Damon is higher, but he's made twice as many movies. He's at estimated, like, close to $12 billion. Leo's at $6.5 billion. Director buddies.

Yeah.

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

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

they only made one movie though. I don't, I can't count PTA.

Okay.

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

Yes.

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

Yeah. He's been in the last, he's been in the last 3, right? So he's, no, he has, wasn't in Tenet, but he's done Oppenheimer, Interstellar, and now Odyssey.

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

With all due respect to Lukas Haas and, and Eve from Entourage, I'm gonna go with Damon here.

Okay, great. Role model potential. Damon, devout family man, stepdad, friend, charity guy for clean water, feeding people. 100 credits because he's just trying to feed his family.

Mm-hmm.

Leo, uh, he's banging models. Cares about climate change though.

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

Screenwriting. Damon won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting with Affleck. Leo's written nothing, so he wins that. Okay. These are big ones. Most iconic movie moment that you could describe in 4 words or less. For Damon, I have beating Teddy KGB, It's Not Your Fault, and Tommy has the peeping. And I don't know what would be from The Odyssey, but it was—

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

Damon's— they're, they're together. They're like this. Leo's got front of the Titanic, dead guy's phone. And sleeping in a bear. What would it be from The Odyssey? What's the forward great moment from The Odyssey?

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

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

Yeah, I mean, there's like 5 things in Django where you're like, oh my God.

Best Picture Oscar movies. These are movies they appeared in that either got nominated or won. Damon had 3 winners: Oppenheimer, Departed, Saving Private Ryan. Nominated for Odyssey, Ford v Ferrari, Martian, True Grit, and Good Will Hunting. So he's got 3 that won, 5 nominated.

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

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

Okay.

Odyssey will, Odyssey will get nominated for Best Picture, I'm guessing. And will probably win. So that would be the fourth. Leo has One Battle, Departed, Titanic, all won. Killers of the Flower Moon and Don't Look Up both got nominated. I think I blocked that out of my mind.

Don't look, got nominated. I didn't— yeah, okay.

And that's Time in Hollywood. Okay, no, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Revenant, Wolf of Wall Street, Django, Inception, The Aviator, Gangs of New York. So he has more. Yeah, better batting average too, so I think he wins Um, he also wins for nominations because he won for The Revenant, got nominated for One Battle, Once Upon a Time, Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Gilbert Grape. Um, Damon got— he won Best Screenplay for Good Will Hunting, got nominated for The Martian, Good Will Hunting, and Invictus. And he's gonna get nominated for The Odyssey.

He sure will.

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

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

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

He should have been nominated. So he's not nominated for Departed?

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

Oh, that's right.

I think they had to pick, so he still wins. Um, all right, two more. Range. I'll give you 5 characters from each. You tell me more impressive range. Rick Dalton, Jordan Belfort, Hugh Glass from The Revenant, Billy Costigan and Jack Dawson from Titanic for Leo.

Okay.

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

I think if you also factor in things like Behind the Candelabra and The Informant, I think Damon's got more range, weirdly. Is that, is that a crazy thing to say?

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

He'll, he's like a rock band who's like, look, like we simply, we just can't play clubs anymore. Like it, it would be pandemonium.

You know, this don't catch the world.

Let's play football stadiums only and play the Middle East.

You know what I mean?

Like they can't play like a 600-cap room. They have to go play. Arenas because that's what they're— and Damon could still, like, just show up and be like, hey, yeah, I'll be in 30 Rock.

Head to head. The Departed. That's our last category. We debated this. We did The Departed. We did the re-Departed. We talked about who won that movie. Um, so there's 3 questions. Who won? Who had the harder part? What happens if they switch roles?

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

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

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

Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he's great.

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

Just fucking kill me. Just fucking do it. Just fucking kill me. Um, okay, we laid out all the categories. Caveat: if Damon wins Best Actor for The Odyssey, they'll now be pretty even with all this stuff. I, I actually think it's a real conversation now, because if you're going most impressive acting career the last 35 years, I think I would have said Leo, right?

Yes.

Daniel Day-Lewis.

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

So when Leo does a movie, it makes you go, huh, Leo did a movie like you're, you, your interest is piqued. But Damon's pumping out 3 a year, and we've kind of learned that every once in a while there's going to be the instigators.

Yeah, you might go make The Great Wall.

Yeah, right. Everyone's like, oh, it's a, it's a Matt Damon clunker, we'll be fine, we'll get him next time. Whereas Leo, every time there's more pressure on it. Um, this all leads to— I thought Damon, I thought that was the best I've ever seen him in a movie. And I also thought, very similar to The Revenant, without, uh, I don't want to spoil anything yet because I know a bunch of people haven't seen it, but, um, just a grueling movie to be in. And Damon's talked about that a lot with, um, some of the interviews that he's done where it's just like, I don't think this was— I think it was a rewarding experience. I don't think anything was fun. He had to lose a ton of money, a ton of weight. He had— there was a lot of stuff on water and, um, you know, you're just basically getting the shit kicked out. He had to grow this giant beard Hey, age is 30 years.

He has to— and you know, like, that movie is, is somewhat segmented where he's acting with certain people who are like, man, that was a great 3 weeks of shooting. See you later, Matt. And Matt's got like 6 more months, you know what I mean? Like, he really was in— I mean, he's in like 80% of the shots of probably one of the most demanding film performances I've ever seen.

Yeah, yeah. I was thinking like, who would have been— because I've heard Like Van was saying, that would've been a better Christian Bale movie, which, whatever, people could have opinions. Um, the only one I can think of in the last 30 years that I think would've been as good as Damon in this is, is early 2000s Russell Crowe. I totally could have seen him in this.

So the thing, again, not, I don't want to get into spoilers about The Odyssey, but it, it's not a gladiator part. It's gotta have two elements of it. It's gotta have a guy who's been kept from his family for decades, but it's also a guy who's working through why that is. And a guy who kind of steps on his own dick a couple of times and screws things up for himself and other people. And so, it's not as simple as, "This is Maximus, he's awesome, and everybody follows him." It's gotta be a little bit of Colin Sullivan in there too. A little bit of like, "I've made mistakes." And I think that that's what he brings to the role that's so special that I'm not sure— Christian Bale necessarily would've. I could see Bale getting very lost in, like, a method or a look or a voice. And Daemon gets to bring all the associations that we have with Daemon to that role so that we are like, "Yeah, you know what? Like, I'm cheering for this guy to get back, even though I know one of the reasons, or some of the reasons, why he's not back is him." Right.

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

Physically, for sure.

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

Do you think Nolan was like really thinking, uh, proof of life meets, meets Homa? I don't know why I'm giving him an Australian accent.

I liked it. Um, who else, who else could have played it? Like, I don't think Affleck could have played it.

Fantasy and I were, uh, you know, talking about this last week when, when, when I guest hosted and we were talking about like, this would've been a very cool Heath Ledger part.

Down. I heard that. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I mean, Heath Ledger has been dead for 20 years.

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

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

Yeah, sure.

Which would've been, would've been, uh, really interesting for all the people that go nuts about the casting of, uh, The Odyssey.

Yeah, I think Denzel, like the, the Denzel role, given like how much you could physically expect from a guy his age at this point, it would've been like maybe like Menelaus or, yeah. Or yeah. Or even Leguizamo. That would've been interesting.

So did you think Damon had this in him?

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

Yeah.

I mean, he's in his, I guess he's yoked in the Rip and he's got his Odyssey beard in the Rip, but right. It's nowhere close to this. It's nowhere near.

He's in his mid-fifties. One of the things that I thought was cool about it is it's a little like we were talking about Messi before, like you're at that tail end of where you could be the guy in a movie like this, right? I think 4 years from now, no way. You know, and, and I do think it was important that it was a truly famous actor in the role. You know, I, I'll talk about it more on Wednesday, but I, I just was blown away by The Odyssey. I thought it was incredible.

I, I think it's also awesome that he and all the things he said about this movie were like, this was going to be it for me doing a movie like this, this way. Like, maybe I'll do another Bourne reboot where I'm right. Bringing along a new Jason Bourne person, or maybe I'll do another action movie, but it's never going to be like, hey, I need you to get on this ship and you're on the ship, man. Like, you're strapped to the mast.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Do you think Leo could have been in this movie?

I do. But, uh, but I'm glad it was Damon. I really am. And I, and I think, I think if like what we got out of these 18 months was Leo in one battle and Damon in the Odyssey, then we got the right hand dealt to us.

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

Yes.

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

No, not at all. I think DiCaprio brings like that kind of arrogance that Damon often undercuts with like his, his own like approachability and, like, his kind of humility that he has.

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

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

Where he's just by himself for an hour. Yeah.

Yeah. But where he's also being so funny and, like, kind of playful. Like, it seems like he'd be, like, more like, "No, my garden blew up." You know, I think Damon could have done Rick Dalton.

I'm not sure it would have been as good. Um, and then, uh, on the flip side, Leo as Mike McD and Rounders has my interest.

It does.

It's a slightly different performance, but I almost think he would have been better as Worm with a leather jacket on, just being a scumbag. I always wanted to see that version of him. Um, But Damon is Rick Dalton. I think he could have done it. I would have been the funnest.

Damon got to play Cliff Booth, and then we had like the Departed guys back together.

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

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

Facial hair, last category. I mean, that beard is fucking unbelievable.

Is it better than the Django facial hair?

I don't— I think it is. I couldn't believe it wasn't— it wasn't a real— I couldn't believe it wasn't a fake beard. I found that out after the movie. Yeah, he grew it.

Yeah, for a year.

Like, crazy. How many times are you going to see, uh, The Odyssey in the theater?

I'm gonna go see it with you this week, so that'll be 2, and I'll probably go see it a 3rd time. 'Cause I— this is one of those where you're like, I really wanna see this as many times as possible on a big, big screen.

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

I think your point, overall point, is that after The Odyssey, if, if it's not Damon could be in the lead and it's pretty pretty close if he's not. Whose career would you rather have?

I was just gonna ask you, would you rather done 100 movies?

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

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

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a lot of yacht parties, you know.

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

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

Do you see any way The Odyssey doesn't win Best Picture?

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

And I think Damon, we, we got to see who else is going to be in that category, but I would say he has a good chance.

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

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

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

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

He hasn't given a press conference yet.

Has Embiid acknowledged him?

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

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

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

The Mavs caught my attention today with the weird three-way trade they were in where Lou Doris got sent to Atlanta. They get Risacher in Dallas. They used some of their exception for it, which I thought was a smart— I'm, I'm not selling my Risacher stock yet. I thought he was on the wrong team.

Yeah.

I still think there's something there. But it did make me think, I still feel like that's the Embiid team if it ever happens. Dallas.

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

That they would trade him?

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

Did you watch any Summer League?

Who did I watch? Oh, I watched, uh, LeBron. I watched some Philly Summer League.

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

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

Yeah.

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

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

He's just gonna be like, hey, if he's got a 12-year-old daughter, he should just— moving to Philly. Why not? Then, then is Cleveland really in, in the cards if it's If he's got a 12-year-old daughter and the most important thing is to be home.

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

Yeah.

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

Was that 'cause of Pat Riley's press conference where he was like, we're still on one big boy rule?

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Well, thanks for doing that.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Thanks to everybody who watched on Netflix. Thanks to, uh, Gahal and Eduardo and Jack and everybody, uh, behind the scenes. I'm gonna be back on Wednesday with one more podcast and then, uh, Rewatchables pitch. And then there's rumors we might be doing a live Rewatchables on Netflix a week from Monday. Stay tuned.

Yes.

And, uh, I'm excited for that one and nervous as well. Good to see you, CR.

Thanks.

Good to see you too, bud. Welcome back.

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