Transcript of Jonathan Zaslow's World Cup Update | Hour 1

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A couple of those Egypt goals, including the one that was disallowed, Zico was the goal scorer, Egypt's, uh, Mustafa Zico, and his quote is the following. Quote, it's clear that this tournament has been fixed, end quote.

It's clear.

You just don't see that very much. Like, it's just—

it's not that plainly stated.

It's what they brought. It's what they brought on with the Baligan thing. I'm telling you, it— that's why optics matter in a sport that is supposed to aspire to objectivity. They famously have officials that have zero ties to either of the countries because they're supposed to be impartiality here and growing suspicions, things that you can point to. Yeah, Inter Miami making the Club World Cup is a little weird, but whatever. They just made it up. It's— but it just adds fuel. And when you have the Balogun thing burst through the dam, now you've allowed for everything to have credence.

The goalie can't be the one who says that because if he stopped the shots, they would win.

But it wasn't goalie. It was the goal scorer. Who is called the goal scorer? Oh, you're such a professional.

Big difference. Quite the opposite, actually.

I'm going to punish you now. By making you do a World Cup segment. I'm gonna—

I got lots to say on World Cup.

Okay, I'm gonna punish you, and you deserve it for that mistake.

Hey, make sure you're not late. It's time for Zaslo's World Cuck Update.

I mean, I don't know what that was. Trying to do a World Cup Update. The hell you doing there? I do have a few more things I want to say, Dan, as far as the World Cup is concerned now, because yesterday was the final round of 16 game. You know what comes next? You know what's next after round of 16?

I cannot believe how electric this World Cup has been.

It really has been.

So good.

All the ma—

we finally have the good matches that, that give life to this being one of the greatest tournaments of all time. We were missing those bangers, and Argentina in back-to-back matches give us instant classic after instant The Cabo Verde game was insane against all-time African underdogs. They run up against the greatest player at the tail end of his career, still having enough for one last shot.

Let me tell you what, that 13 on Cabo, what a shot. Shot of the tournament.

Did you see it? And how about those fans? Did you see it? Literal movie.

It was crazy.

He runs into the sand, gets over his lady. Boom. That's, that's how you end the movie, folks.

He was looking and the security was like, no, no, go back.

And he said, no, no, where is she? That's love right there.

She's got to know also to come down the stairs.

I'm the one who's doing this.

Your second topic, Zazz. Do you have another world cuck topic?

Well, I'll tell you what, I— all right, I don't know why you're saying it like that, but anyway, I have other things that I want to talk about. You know what, you can't take this away from me. I don't know if you saw Monday night, this past Monday night, CM Punk returns to WWE after months away and all sorts of rumor and innuendo.

He's not on the, on the right side with TKO, comes back in his hometown of Chicago and beats Sami Zayn, whose title reign lasts about a week. Much, much fanfare in Chicago.

CM Punk related to Daft Punk at all?

No, not at all.

Oh, really?

Yeah, but see, that punk's good. Not unlike Messi later in his career, finding top form, his body looking incredible. You know what this might set up? Cody Rhodes versus CM Punk. At SummerSlam.

Greg Cody Rhodes.

Hell yeah.

I'm going to SummerSlam.

I want to talk about this. Well done, Jeremy.

Your third topic, Zazzlo, of this World Cuck Update.

You know what, actually, I'll allow you to call it that here because there's a movie that just came out that I want to watch. It's by our pal Billy Corbin. It's called God for Bae.

That's not just coming out. It's the most popular documentary in the history of Hulu.

It just came out.

No, I mean, it was—

Man, you saw the movie.

What did you think?

It was excellent.

Excellent.

Yes, why don't you have a turn here?

It went—

you got a pre-screening?

It went deeper into religious power and cuckery than I've ever seen a documentary. I didn't get an advanced screening.

How cliché, a pool boy.

This movie, it— yes, and, and distinctly Cuban pool boy, like just not actually a pool man, a very pool boy, a Cuban kid who's not fully grown up who was having sex with the, uh, wife of Jerry Falwell's sons, the president of Liberty university, uh, his wife, and he liked to watch it in a corner of the room while he was wearing— while he was wearing very little clothing.

This is why it's called World Cuck Update.

All right, get back in this seat here. That, uh, get back in the seat here. That is a prominently featured seat. That concludes our first ever World Cuck Update. Uh, excellent work by you. The end of the last hour I thought ended with perfect words and numbers together when Mike Ryan ended the segment with just the words and numbers Adam22. But Greg and Zazz were just staring at each other wildly confused, and I don't know how much of our audience— I really, I feel like I know our audience pretty well generally, just generally speaking, what our audience knows about and doesn't know about, but on this one I'm not totally sure.

So when the segment ended and Greg asked me, "Who's Adam22? I didn't get that," I was then in the awkward position of trying to explain to him he's probably America's most famous cuck at the moment, even more famous than Falwell's kid, even though Billy Corbin did the, God forbid, documentary on Jerry Falwell's kid.

So you just left it at world's biggest cuck at the moment? That's what you have in your arsenal?

Well, what else would you like me to say?

Podcaster.

It's worked out for Adam22.

Very much so.

Yeah, but he is famous not for being a podcaster.

It was cute that Zazz was pretending he didn't know who he was.

I have no idea who that is.

Sure. I think you see that guy and you're like, goals.

I'm gonna look him up now.

Yeah, Google him.

I don't know who would finish second place right now in terms of famous cuck, doesn't, likes to watch his wife have sex with others. For those of you not familiar.

I've seen this guy before.

So that was it. Are you going to do the show, Mike? Do you think you will indeed?

I have to do a little bit more research because I don't wanna make waves for the company. I don't know the full history there. Admittedly, there's only a couple of things I know about it. Adam22, and I expressed this, let me check and research to make sure I don't make waves here for Metal Ark. And the response from the producer was, Adam doesn't make waves, he makes tsunamis. So good bar by that guy. Give me a little— that guy knows what he's doing. He works with a lot of great talents. Afro Man, one of them, and Killer Mike, another one of them. So I'd like to be in that family, but I also gotta do some research.

Just be careful what show you get booked for. You never know, all of a sudden you got a lot of explaining to do to your wife.

I want to have the conversation—

Scooby-Doo—

with Greg Cody about the United States soccer team because Christian Pulisic is getting crushed by everyone. It is loud. And yesterday on the show, we were having the conversation about whether or not the World Cup was a success for the United States. I maintain, and I'm the only one here who maintains it, because the volume has gotten really loud around this team. That the United States met very middling expectations and therefore advancing to games that matter and the round of 16, I believe, is a success. And I think of them—

I don't know what, what would they be if they were a college football program?

Louisville?

Memphis?

Like, the United States would be somebody who's always around 16, around 17, around 20, others receiving votes. Like, what would, what would be the program that would best represent in college football what the United States actually is on merit? Not —what you expected because they were a host country and all of a sudden they were favorites in 5 games and you expected them to beat Belgium and they end up disappointing you. Would it have been a failure if the last game they lose in penalty kicks or they lose 1-0? Would you guys view this all as a failure? No. So it was the way the last game specifically went? Yes, they embarrassed themselves.

I didn't— from the beginning I didn't get a sense of this is an American team that thinks it can win. The goal that Matt Freese gave up was just diabolically embarrassing, like unfathomably embarrassing. Worst of the tournament, right? The worst of the tournament. Uh, Tim Ream could have stopped a goal and, and didn't. He got mossed. He's spent. Uh, and, and Pulisic, look, he's done being the face of this team. This team is not going to move forward if he's the best player. It's as simple as that. I don't expect them to have an Mbappé or somebody like that, or Lamine Yamal. They got to come up with new talent. It's just not good enough. To your analogy, college football, they're Cincinnati. They're the team that's thrilled to be 19th and zero people think they're going to win the world championship. You know, it's— it was very disappointing. It's not a successful tournament. They had an easy run. They had an easy run right up against Belgium. And they should have won. Now, if they reach the quarterfinals, everybody says it's a successful tournament.

Everybody. Here's my perspective on this. And I just— I really think that we don't have quite an appreciation for how the sport gets passed down in other countries where the sport is 100 years old. What's MLS? Is it even 30 years old? Like, basically the best American soccer players have to do what WNBA players were doing recently. You have to go somewhere else to get the big money. You can't get it in this country. We are, whether you like to think so or not, new to this.

I know it doesn't feel like it because we've been talking about it for 40 years, but we do not have the pedigree of Belgium or any of these countries that have been playing soccer for 100 years. And when— on the men's side, on the men's side, when Zazz talks about yesterday, he says that he believes that American athletes, if they all went into soccer, that we would have the best team.

And I understand how it is that he arrives at that appraisal. I would also say I'd frame the question differently. Go ahead and give all the other countries America's means and see if you don't find that the best athletes are also there who don't have access to some of the things our athletes are able to have access to. And so therefore they get into situations where they can play all of the other sports as well.

You've seen when I, when I make the comparison of 30 or 40 years new to this, you've seen the world catch up to the NBA and basketball, right? You've seen it happen since the NBA went global and all of a sudden it became a thing everywhere. Where the cultural cachet of being great at that sport matters so much that everyone's fighting over the money. You've seen that happen in basketball. The world has caught up to the United States. It's going to take us about that long to start developing the same kind of soccer stars that will merit top 10 in this tournament instead of top 20.

Tony, you know that moment at a party or a tailgate where everything just sort of clicks?

I know it well. It's usually when I show up, everybody goes crazy.

Yeah, you usually take all the credit for it, but It's because Tony usually walks in with Cuervo. I walk in like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuervo is a thing that turns hanging out into this is the night.

It has that effect on people. It does.

You usually take the credit for it, but again, it's the Cuervo effect. It's like that moment in a big game where everyone in the crowd just starts standing up, hooting and hollering. Keep it Cuervo!

Keep it Cuervo, baby.

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Jonathan Sasslow. Shitty, you wanna know how that—

what were the kids doing? This is the Dan Levitar Show.

To chew on there. I haven't had an opportunity to even speak about what happened there, but I do agree they found a way to burn up all the goodwill. That was the only way that they could do it. Get destroyed. Look pathetic. Be as bad as you were while also having all the nightmares. Is Freese good enough? Is Tim Ream too old? Is he gonna get caught in a bad spot? Is Pulisic too fragile? Is this team whose maturity has been questioned for an entire World Cup cycle because of the backroom fighting and calling daddy to help bail you out of a situation. Is that all going to play out? And in one singular match it did. And oh, by the way, politics got involved too. They reached out and took the World Cup. And I've spoken to some people around U.S. soccer. They wish that stuff had never happened. You happen to know? I happen to know like that. That put them in a, in a bad spot. So I would love to touch on Pulisic, but let's talk about like why we're where we're at. So wise. We are the only developed Western country that does not fund its Olympic sports.

There are carve-outs the world over for Olympic sports. We don't do that. We have a pay-to-play system in soccer especially, and the rest of the world, these clubs are incentivized. I was reading about this yesterday.

It's really interesting.

It's like precious resources. You go into the favelas of Brazil, you find the next prodigy, and you sell him for millions and millions of dollars to the next feeder club until it obviously ends up somewhere in Barcelona, Real Madrid territory. But that's the business model. You go out, you find, you scout, you develop, and you sell the player, and that's your business model. Here, it's inverted.

I mean, I went through it here. My son played years of travel soccer.

Now, it's like that for basketball. It's become that way for basketball. It's become that way especially for baseball. And by the way, on the international level, the US does not have the success. That other countries have shown. So it's already caught up in some of the sports, but until this is changed, until you have local MLS clubs and this private model can see that, okay, maybe the coaches behind the scenes and these little travel teams don't make the money— have it— people are going to make money off of this if you change the system. Just, it's going to take time to template. It's going to take time for the clubs to actually see a return on their investment and nobody wants to stop the money train right now. They, they don't. You need to go out, you need to find a 7-year-old, you need to invest in their education, pay for their schooling, pay for their development, and sell that player for millions of dollars. That takes time. You're telling me I won't get an ROI on this for maybe 5 to 8 years, 10 years? No, thank you. Let's just keep it going. So that is the fundamental issue with U.S. soccer presently, and it's going to come to all the sports.

It's only a matter of time. The reason why Europe is like this is not because they're socialist commies. They did this because they had 100 years heads up and, and found a system that worked.

So it wasn't always like this from the start?

No, they had to find their way. I spoke to— when I worked with Chelsea, I spoke to a person that developed— that was a head of their academy. I'm like, how do you even scout a 3-year-old? How do you even do that? How do you scout a 3-year-old for a parent club that is looking to either develop that player into a star for for themselves or sell that player later on. You find one thing that they are elite at, one, one, one skill that flashes and you work with everything else. I'm like, I'm just astonished at how you can look at a 3-year-old and make this investment. But it's happening. You see, college athlete— college athleticism is going to make its way to this. When Lane Kiffin offers, you know, a 7-year-old a scholarship, it's going to be that way. We are going to eventually find our way over to a European model. We're just— we're just playing 100-year catch-up.

Greg, which of these do you find more interesting as subject matter? Men in Blazers pointing out that the World Cup quarterfinals will feature none of the 20 most populous nations on Earth, none of the top 20. Or Carly Lloyd saying on X about Pulisic, you rest when your playing career is over, period. Every star American voice I have heard, male or female, Landon Donovan as as well, is just crushing Pulisic for taking himself out of a game where he lost possession 11 times in 45 minutes, more than anyone else on either team.

I think he merits all the criticism he's getting. He's the only star of this team. He's the only player we saw on TV commercials in the buildup to and during the World Cup. He's the star. He was supposed to be the leader, and he did the opposite of lead. You can't blame him. He wasn't totally healthy in the World Everyone's blaming him.

What do you mean you can't blame him?

You can either blame him or don't, because everyone's blaming him.

Okay, let me finish. You can't blame him because he wasn't totally healthy in the Cup, during the Cup run, but he was healthy enough to play, and he was healthy enough to succeed when he plays, and he didn't. He didn't do that. He's worthy of all the criticism.

How do you know he was healthy enough to succeed when he plays if he played and didn't succeed?

Because he wouldn't have played if he wasn't able to.

Correct. Gregg, let me help you out here, because over the course of his very charmed career, I might add, a career that is decorated, a career that for my money is the single best career of a U.S. men's soccer player ever. He won a Champions League with Chelsea. In that run to the Champions League, he was the best player on the pitch, in my opinion, against Real Madrid for stretches on end. He was the best player in Serie A. The thing about—

the consensus is he's the best American player there's ever been. Correct. On the men's side.

He could have been subbed easily. But throughout his entire career, we've been coddling him and he's been on a load management plan. He is obviously very fragile. He's small. He's injury-prone. He is prone to soft tissue injuries. We get that. The problem that everybody had, outside of being dispossessed 11 times— and by the way, the one goal that the US did score was because Christian Pulisic had an involvement in the buildup. They just had nothing going. Nobody was good. Good. I also am a fan of Bill Simmons's, uh, view on things, which is like, that looked like a player that just realized he was no longer the most popular player, no longer the best player. He didn't get any of the headlines. It was all about, we, we moved on to Balogun. So his comments were after the match, now it's time to get rest, so it'll be okay. And Sidney Leroux was right in saying he rested the entire World Cup. Carly Lloyd, you rest when at the end end of your career.

Here's Landon Donovan's quote on this, on the matter. The reality— the quote— the reality is he came out of a World Cup knockout game at home with his legs still intact. You would have had to bleep and drag me off the field, and I would have punched the doctor in the face and said, you're not taking me off the field. Put whatever you need to put in me, I'm staying on the field.

I agree with that. It's a World Cup. Because all the load management, all the coddling, the— okay, you don't play in the, in the last Gold Cup to help because we need your body ready. For when you're in the prime of your career at 27 years old. Again, like, this, this nation has suffered because of how we have treated him with kid gloves. For that to be the tone-deaf response after you just got eliminated in a game that you kind of asked out of— it's over. There is no more time to rest. That it was about being a host nation at 27 years old. You tone-deaf fool to have that quote after the match. Buddy, we're done. Enjoy the Home Depot ribbon-cutting ceremony. Enjoy being featured in the commercials 4 years from now. Enjoy being on the Fox broadcast. You are now yesterday's news.

Yeah, I don't think he'll play again for the USMNT. And remember, when he elected to skip the Gold Cup, he's taking— showing Instagram photos of him on a beach in Hawaii or something. The optics were bad. The optics were bad.

And all this thing, this mess that happened happened at U.S. Soccer with the Reynas and the Berhalter, all the questioning of maturity. He's been captain before. A lot of that stuff happened on his watch. And we saw an immature nightmare play out on the field in which he was one of the main attractions for. And everything played out. Are you going to be that dog? Are you going to be healthy? Are you going to tell your body, not today? Sorry, we've turned the page. Christian Pulisic, enjoy MLS. You are no longer the face of this organization. We are moving past you.

Put it on the poll, please. Uh, Pulisic tone-deaf fool, yes or no, @LeBittardShow. Uh, he's getting hammered, uh, because he played poorly, but he's also getting hammered by the dual, uh, criticisms. And this one stings, is we have to have someone to blame when that's the result, because the blame is going to go everywhere, and he's our most famous player, so the expectations go to die with him. But also, he was the biggest problem.

You can blame everyone else, but you don't even know the names of some of those people.

Most of the casual fans, most of the people—

I can't tell you how many of my friends are reaching out with, "Oh good, I can go back to hating soccer now." Not soccer friends. I can go back— anti-soccer friends.

Fugazi soccer friends, you can add to the list.

My anti-soccer friends.

Because they performed like that. That's what they gave people. That's what they armed people with. And out of all the players, He couldn't have said that. I'm telling you, it's been a decade plus where we're like, be careful, Christian's our best shot. He has to be our best player in 2027. And for him to still talk about like it's a pre-2020, a pre-2026 issue. I'll save my body. Save your body for what, pal? You were saving your body for this. You didn't play in the Gold Cup for this, right? Yeah. We were constantly calling in favors to the clubs that you're at. Please be careful with Christian for this moment. The moment came and went. You were especially bad in it. And then you have that quote afterwards? Brother, get out of here. That's it.

Enjoy Austin FC. Right. I think his entire career, his entire future really deflated in the game against Belgium. Now, you can't oversell how crushing it was. It's a 2-1 game and Freese makes that awful play coming out of goal and then having the ball turned around and put in the net. While he's staring at it. That you can't overplay how crushing that was, but I blame Pulisic for a lot of what happened the other night. Just awful.

He's really getting crushed because what has happened here that has caught me a little off guard in terms of the volume around this, when you take American entitlement and wrap it with American expectation, what you get you get is really rabid sports opinions that people have not had on soccer in the last 4 years because they wanted to go and feel good about their country. Look, it's harder than it's been for a minute to feel good about the country given everything that's going on with it.

And so the amount of expectation I thought wrapped around this team was unreasonable given what I've seen the last 40 years and given what I saw over the course of this tournament where You— the volume has gotten so loud that I feel like I'm on an island saying, look, they performed to about what their expectations are. It's who they are. They were favored against Belgium, but a small favorite, and it was based on home country. And I was surprised that they were small favorites just because— does anyone not pay attention to what this team has been? Not just the last 40 years, recently as well. You should not expect them to win a round of 16 game against anybody, really. Like, that's not That's not a reasonable expectation in my lifetime.

You know what's been going on with Zion his entire career where it's taken forever for Pelicans fans to finally crush the guy because we can't have him be this sour superstar. If he's ever healthy, we need him to re-sign with us. If he's ever healthy, we got a shot. And then it eventually gets to a place where you're like, man, get this guy out of here. That's where we are with Christian. This was people biting their tongues for years because of how Now we all understood he was our best chance. I maintain that as disappointing as he was, I maintain our only shot in that game was creating space for Christian, having him take on people. That was the only way we were ever getting back in that game. He is the most talented men's player we have ever had. But I've been biting my tongue for years on his attitude. I've been biting my tongue for years on his fragility. I've been biting my tongue for years on his mindset. And for that to be the quote quote after that performance, a performance that burnt up so much goodwill for U.S. soccer, something that we were talking about— we are going to feel this impact for generations to come.

For him to be the one to say that shows you how weird and corroded his world became with all this babying. We're not babying you anymore, man. You're, you're a fully finished product. You are 27 years old. We're done with you now. We're done with that. You want back into this team, you're gonna have to say You want back in this team, you're gonna have to grow from this. You want, you want all the commercials and adulation? Fine, let that be your legacy. But this is gonna be the first thing people think about now unless you change it.

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Dan Levitar. I want to address Tony and all men who would wear that shirt in public. Greg Cody.

Don't do it. This is the Dan Levitar Show.

It's not just the quote, because he's a notoriously terrible quote. It's that he asked out of the game. Game that he subbed himself out. Like, I don't know that there are a set of circumstances that I can put in front of everyone in the hypothetical that would have made people louder in their anger at a single player than the things that happened in his career and in that game and in the quote after the game. It's just an avalanche of stuff where you're like, how does it— how do you give us the appearance that you don't care?

Yeah, I totally agree with that. But team-wise, living up to expectations is not success to me. The round of 16 is the United States team's purgatory. It's where they always are. It's where they've gotten and then failed.

But it's who they are, though. It's not— that's not an accident.

I know, but sooner or later you have to outgrow that. Sooner or later you have to move forward. It's been 32 years since the U.S. previously hosted a World Cup.

They are, they're toddlers here. Like, the world has— these are franchise— these are countries that have played for 100 years, more than, more than 100 years. Like, we are still new to this. I know America is impatient, okay? I get, and I get that 30 and 40 years sounds like a long time, but when you're talking about feeder systems, imagine if right now I decided, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go right now to China and I'm going to put in the baseball Dominican feeder system on baseball. Let's see if in baseball China can be as good, uh, what, what it's taken Japan. Japan is— Ohtani's the best player in baseball because of how long they've been playing baseball in Japan. But I remember at the beginning, which was about 40 or 45 years ago, we'd go to exhibitions in Japan and, uh, the Japanese teams would get crushed by the American players every time.

And then, Dan, sometimes you just don't have the juice. China commits Tons of resources. According to Pablo Torre finds out, they're stealing Yannick Sinner's brainwaves to create the perfect athlete, and they never make the World Cup.

This doesn't mean anything to you guys in terms of the fact that MLS—

is it even 30 years old yet? Is MLS 30 years old? It's about 30.

Yeah, just about 30.

Yeah. So, so we have what in terms of world leagues, where does MLS rank in just soccer? In soccer, is it— it would be low top 10. Low, low top. It's not in the top 5, right?

Would it be on the pyramid? It's all subjective. There's a big Saudi League is better thing, but they're, they're OLI, no doubt. They're, they're not among the global elite until next season. They have this wonky calendar. It's still in its infancy, no doubt. But I do think the Federation needs to systematically change how they approach things. Look, we're good on the women's side, not just because we have these incredible God-given athletes, these incredibly talented women were in that— for that gender, that's the sport. That's a sport. If you want to make money, that or women's basketball, there isn't American football to compete with. But why were we so successful? Yeah, we have these incredible athletes, but we also have programs like Title IX that legislate this, that force the development. And I think that's where you have to be with the men's side too. You need to replicate what the rest of the world is doing.

I couldn't agree more. Inter Miami. Has a very great youth academy that has seen young players grow up and make the big team. And all of a sudden they're playing with Leo Messi. And there's no reason the United States cannot do that and grow their own players. The North American Soccer League has been— was around in the late '60s. My argument is that soccer is not a new sport. A new sport to this country. At some point we have to stop making excuses.

Greg, I'm not saying it's a new sport. I'm saying when it comes to cultural cachet, young people, what do they want to be in this country?

They want to be football players, they want to be basketball players, they want to be baseball players. It's not even hockey, even though we're pretty damn good at hockey. America, the world right now, Americans have gotten pretty damn good at hockey. But, but in terms of cultural cachet, I don't know where you put it. Soccer's low on the list, and you have to have cultural cachet Like, it's got to be important to a kid to be popular the way rock stars want to be popular. They don't want to get into business because of the music. They want to get the women. They want to—

Yeah, yeah, I saw that tweet like, well, growing up in this country, the soccer players don't get the girls. I don't know if you know about the reputation of soccer players abroad, but once you get to a certain level, trust me, you get the girls. And you have to keep in mind, soccer has as big a leg up, no pun intended, on the competition as anybody. It's the number one one youth sport. Why does participation in this youth sport die down? It craters at a certain age. Yeah, it could be because there are other sports, but Lord knows we have enough people in this country that they can share the wealth. I think it's a combination, Mike, of culture and money. It's the money. Both. People cannot afford in this country to play the world's most accessible game. They come out and find you in other places. They come out and pay you If you're, if you are worth your salt, you, they come out and find you and they fund your education. It is, it is something, it is a way, much like in, in parts of this country where you groom a kid in Pop Warner football, you're going to get to the league one day.

That is not the way that we view soccer. That's a cultural difference. But also, since it is, we need to incentivize it. The rest of the, the rest of the world does.

I've seen a couple of faces being made during these segments that I want to check in on. Chris, what were you and Zazz laughing laughing about while, uh, we were laughing.

Matter, Dan.

Well, what were you— but what were you laughing? It was a laughing matter, uh, but what was the matter? What was happening? Do you know?

You know, when you're in the middle of doing a show, you know, do you need bodily noises, you know, intervening?

His breathing's on one today. Was it the breathing? I mean, I've heard some breathing, I've heard some noises. There's speculation here that it could be Dan or, or Greg with the noises from the throat, but I let that shitplay on, but whenever that stuff comes out of the van. There's definitely heavy breathing going on from you. I had to turn your mic down. Yeah, like in the middle of a take it's— What?

What? When you slow it down like that, it's for emphasis. You are the champion.

Everyone who comes at you with this, you're undefeated. Everyone— I'm like Zazz's kid.

I'm trying to like get him and he's like, ah, he pins me down.

So while Mike was telling his story about meeting show fans and, uh, meeting Adam22's producer at the Atlanta airport, Tony, I saw a flash of something on your face that I wanted to go back to. What were you thinking of while Mike was talking about that?

Slight embarrassment on my part. I love July 4th, and I'm a big July 4th guy. It's my favorite holiday that we have on the calendar. And me and my family, we go down to the Keys, we stay at a nice little resort that's has a pool and has a couple barbecues and a jacuzzi. The marina—

Cubans love doing that. I'm telling you, I love July 4th. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it, right? Cuban Keys family stuff is so good.

So good. Hit Rodriguez Cay for a little bit. You park the boat out into the sand. It's great. So July 4th happens, we do the parade. They have a beautiful, nice little parade in Key Largo. So we're there at the parade, we get back, we're like, all right, we're gonna hit the pool, we're gonna do burgers and dogs. I'm the guy that hits the grill, so go bring all the stuff down from the condo. I've got, you know, the, the Costco, like, uh, cardboard box that they give you to, like, carry all your stuff. So I've got burgers frozen, I've got dogs, I've got this, I've got that. You throw the frozen burgers right on the grill. It's got a Blackstone, everything's fired up, everything's greased up, ready to go. Guy's using it before me, obviously community situation. Um, he's roasting some corn, looks pretty good. I'm looking over, I'm like, all right, this guy knows what he's doing, he's handled the Blackstone before. Turns around, he looks at me, goes, Tony, big fan of the show, man. I'm like, dude, thank you so much, I really appreciate it, appreciate the support. In the meantime, I've got the spatula from upstairs, I've got the burgers that I got to separate because they're frozen.

As I'm separating the burgers, he's kind of finished. He's like, hey, do you need a little bit more like oil on the grill? I'm like, yeah, throw me a little bit of oil. So I'm separating them, boom, my, my brother-in-law's helping me put them on the grill. All of a sudden I look over, there's one that's a little bit harder to get with the spatula. Be careful separating the burgers. As I separate the burger with the spatula, it slips and the end of the spatula goes right into the center of my hand.

This is Obviously, you know, because I had the smallest cut I've ever seen. Wait, that's not a—

that's not a cut, it's swelling.

Like, you're looking at the cut, but how about the—

the— you'd have to drag me away from that grill. That's what they had to do.

They had to drag me away from the grill, but it was much deeper. Awasala, Dan, you know how it is. Sanato, you have a cut, you have a scrape, you have some sort of sickness, you put your body in the— in the— in the ocean and it— and it heals it. I don't know what happens. Z, did you know That's true. You don't know that's assault? Yeah, Greg, you knew that, right?

You embarrassed yourself in front of a listener.

So I don't know if he saw me stab my own hand with a spatula or not, so I'm gonna call— I'm not gonna reveal his real name. I'm gonna call him Ray. Ray, the one guy you saw me— if you did see me, please write to the, to the Levitard Show. Hey, I saw him stab his hand or not, but Dan, it hurt. My, my hand was bleeding. I had to wrap it up, finish the hot dogs, finish the burgers. I had to go upstairs. In the meantime, my brother-in-law overcooked the burgers a little bit. I'm not gonna say that too loud. You just said it.

You just said it.

I mean, it's frozen burgers. Now you get to go home and roast.

I expect more than that from you, Tony.

You get that blood on the burger?

No, no, I didn't get the blood. That one I had to throw away because it fell in the sand after I stabbed my hand.

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Have you ever heard of someone cutting themselves with a spatula? It's the edge of it. Also, I've just never heard of that happening. Also put on the poll, do you have to be careful separating the frozen burgers? Yes or no? And while we're at it, And just cleaning some things up around here. Chris Cody, have you heard from Scott McCullough, the family friend, Marlins manager? No, that's, that's a mistake Greg made yesterday where he was talking about Clayton McCullough pulling Uri Perez out of a game, perfect game with 7 innings. And he mentioned Scott McCullough. We tried to reach Scott McCullough, a family friend for many years. Chris Cody had not tried to reach him in 15 years and suddenly called him yesterday.

Did you hear back? Are you going to—

I got a text back yesterday saying, hey, I didn't know what I was receiving today. Oh, good to hear from you. I was really busy and I was like, hey, we'd love to hear from you. And he's like, I got my more— my 10 o'clock hour should be free tomorrow, so I'll try to call in. So there's— I'm hopeful that we will hear from Scott McCullough on the Marlins' family perfect game situation.

Can we also ask him about Eriberto Hernandez?

That was a big home run last night.

Oh my God, that guy, you know, he has the 4th best OPS of right-handed hitters in the last 2 months. It's like Junior Caminero and he's He's like 30 points behind him. It's unbelievable.

I don't know that. Um, well, now you do. Did you guys know that Wimbledon's going on? I just learned that today.

I heard that. How about that coco golf, huh?

I got one for you, Mike. Do you know that the Big Dumper now stinks?

Yeah, I, I'm gonna have Mariners group chat. I haven't been able to watch a game all summer because, you know, the World Cup, but he's bad now.

Yeah, he's been awful. Just dreadful.

This is our first non-World Cup day since June 11th, and you know what that means?

I am like, What is— so much has changed. You know what that means? Guess who has the news cycle all to themselves today if they want it? Oh boy, it's happening today. You think LeBron's gonna be today? It's got to be today.

16-year anniversary. It's gotta be today. I feel like I've just been in a FIFA coma and I don't like know anything that's happened since June 11th.

Marlins have been the best team in baseball.

Pablo met Oprah. Is that going to happen today, uh, Zaslo?

Are you willing to predict or guess or hypothesize whether LeBron will make his decision today?

I mean, it is 16 years to the day, so that would be funny if if he then went and once again announced he's going to take his talents to South Beach. That would be really funny, but I think he's effing with everyone. I think we're still weeks away.

Really? Weeks away?

Well, he's in Akron though, right? Like, he's spending time right now. I know it's his hometown, but wouldn't that indicate that that's probably what's going to happen there?

There was a Shams report that many on the internet have cited saying, "Wow, Shams is now reporting on playdates." He and Draymond Green are planning to, quote, hang out.

The Knicks won a championship?