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0:35

Hey there. Welcome to the football with

0:37

Grant Wall. Thanks so much for joining

0:39

me. Our interview guest today is

0:41

the athletics, Adam Craft on

0:43

his new podcast series away

0:45

from home following Ukraine's shocked

0:48

hard to nets through Champions League while

0:50

Russia's invasion of Ukraine rages on.

0:53

before we get going, subscribe to my

0:55

writing site at grantwall dot com.

0:57

We are less than two weeks away

0:59

from the start of World Cup twenty twenty

1:01

two. And we have a one time

1:03

deal ending tomorrow, Tuesday.

1:06

For one more day, you can subscribe for

1:08

just four dollars and seventeen cents a

1:10

month then the price goes up for

1:12

the World Cup. That's grantwall dot

1:15

com. Let's bring in Chris Whittingham.

1:17

How are you, my friend? Doing alright. We've

1:19

got three podcast episodes for the world

1:21

cup starts. Oh my god. It's

1:24

it's a ear. It's happening. It

1:27

is happening, and I've got

1:29

so much going on, I made a list

1:31

today of things to

1:33

not forget when I'm packing, which I don't

1:35

usually make lists and this has caused me problems

1:38

before. I don't know if you're like fanatically

1:41

packer with you. Mhmm. But

1:44

I in for Europe twenty twelve

1:46

forgot to pack pants.

1:51

That seems like a material thing to forget.

1:54

Mine, I I always forget two things.

1:56

One is a belt I I well,

1:59

one hundred percent

1:59

of the time forget to travel with the

2:02

belt, and the other is deodorant, which

2:04

is so no problematic. But I

2:06

have made about a dozen trips

2:08

to a seven eleven or similar convenience

2:10

store within twelve hours of arrival

2:12

because I've forgotten to pack that. So, yeah, I'm

2:15

I'm well familiar with this. Although, I I usually

2:17

don't make a list. I sort of

2:18

most if you're going to a developed country,

2:21

there's always like a CBS or seven eleven

2:23

or a Walgreens or in your case,

2:25

I don't a gap. Here's

2:27

the problem. In Poland and

2:30

Ukraine, for Euro twenty twelve, I was

2:32

so busy doing work for Fox

2:34

and for Sports Illustrated, I

2:36

never bought pants.

2:39

So did you wear shorts the whole time?

2:41

No. I wore pants. One of my the

2:43

the pair of pants that I wore on the plane

2:45

for the entire tournament. Grant.

2:47

Really? Why

2:48

wouldn't you why wouldn't it be embarrassed to

2:51

I probably should be embarrassed to I mean,

2:53

if you like this. I I presume

2:55

you you took him to a laundromat

2:57

on several occasions. Your Did

2:59

you Can I take the sis? Wow.

3:03

I could I couldn't imagine being so busy

3:06

that I couldn't buy a pair of pants.

3:08

like that, you know, it's it's twenty

3:10

minutes. Although I although, is it

3:12

no? I guess if you're in a foreign country and

3:15

maybe do they have different sizes there? Is

3:17

you know, thirty four, thirty two, a common

3:19

thing around the world. Are you buying

3:21

a large or medium? I mean, I guess, buying

3:23

pants is somewhat involved, but I just

3:25

figured, like, there's gotta be an equivalent

3:27

of marshals somewhere in Ukraine. Isn't

3:29

there? I would like I would

3:32

like to give credit to my Fox Sports

3:34

crew that I traveled with for that entire month

3:36

for Euro twenty twelve. Keith

3:38

Castigan and crew,

3:42

they did not disown

3:44

me. They didn't banish me. I

3:46

think they were aware I wore one pair of pants

3:48

the entire time. Here's the other thing.

3:51

You're working on a television crew.

3:53

Presumably a well staffed television

3:55

crew. You could have sent like a runner

3:58

or APA or a low level

4:00

producer to go run out and get you pants.

4:03

So it you you are not the only

4:05

person who could have gotten you pants. What

4:08

kind of person do you think I am that I would

4:10

delegate that type of

4:12

something to to someone else. And by

4:14

the way, we are not that staffed

4:17

in the old days of the Fox

4:19

Soccer channel and the Fox Soccer

4:21

World when they were coming out

4:23

of Winnipeg with the nightly

4:25

show. Okay.

4:28

But you travel with the producer. Right?

4:31

I wouldn't ask someone to do that. I just

4:33

should've done it myself. And I didn't and I'm

4:35

embarrassed now, and I probably shouldn't have

4:37

brought this I

4:39

have so many more questions. Well, let's get to the

4:41

soccer. There wasn't a whack going

4:43

on soccer wise this weekend. So let's start

4:45

with the MLS cup final. And

4:47

I

4:48

mean, for me, best MLS game I've

4:50

ever seen, and you may have a different opinion.

4:52

I'd like to hear it. LAFC wins on

4:54

penalties after a wild

4:57

three three game

4:59

in which Gareth

5:01

Bail for ten man LAFC

5:04

scores the equalizer in the hundred

5:06

and twenty eighth minute. Just

5:09

saying just saying hundred and twenty eight

5:11

minute seems so bizarre and otherworldly.

5:14

but he did this and that came after

5:17

Philadelphia had gone ahead in

5:19

the hundred and twenty third minute.

5:21

And it looked like Philadelphia was gonna win

5:23

it after things

5:25

were crazy at the end of regulation just

5:28

to send it into extra time.

5:30

And

5:30

I mean, the the for me, the only

5:33

other possible

5:33

games that could qualify his best MLS

5:36

game of all time, are the one where slot on

5:38

made his debut with Ellie Galaxy

5:40

and scored multiple

5:42

times to beat LAFC in his debut

5:44

coming off the bench, which was amazing.

5:47

And then there's a very famous playoff

5:50

game in which the San Jose

5:52

earthquakes made up a huge deficit

5:55

with the LA Galaxy in the old

5:57

two legged format. Landon

6:01

Donovan with the Quakes at that point.

6:03

Mhmm. Which I wrote a

6:05

column about at the time of, that's the best game

6:07

in MLS history. And then maybe even

6:09

the ninety six final. The first year

6:11

final was amazing. Three two. What

6:13

do you think? Yeah. I I

6:15

don't have the historical perspective that you

6:17

do, presumably having seen the first ten

6:20

to fifteen years, but in

6:22

terms of recent MLS Cup finals, I know

6:24

last year was incredibly dramatic. static,

6:26

but it didn't have the same back

6:28

and forth that this one had, the same

6:30

sort of level of chaos. I I will never

6:32

forget the noise that came out of

6:34

Providence Park when Portland scored that equalizer.

6:36

It's one of the coolest things I've ever experienced.

6:39

But from a game standpoint, you're

6:41

right. I I definitely go back that LAFC,

6:43

LA Galaxy game that's a lot of time made

6:45

his debut in. It's just sort of one of those

6:47

build up the hype, live up to the hype.

6:49

You remember sort of where you were

6:51

when you watch that game. But this is

6:54

absolutely staggering because as you mentioned,

6:56

there there are so many talking

6:58

points that come out of this. when you think

7:00

of what LAFC have done in their first five

7:02

years in the league, it's one of the best

7:04

starts to a club in MLS

7:06

history. I know that I mean, when the

7:08

league was first founded, someone was going to get off

7:10

to a good start a good start in DC United

7:12

was probably the the team that carried the high

7:14

watermark then. But in this MLS,

7:16

when it's this hard to compete at a high level

7:18

year after year, it's remarkable what they've

7:20

done. Gareth

7:21

Bail, as a storyline, is

7:23

staggering when you consider how little he

7:25

did in his time in LA for the

7:27

first few months of it. was really

7:29

more of an albatross on the team in

7:31

terms of you wanna pick Garith Bayl

7:33

as a world superstar, but he didn't

7:35

really add very much so you in the end start

7:37

picking Danny Booga and,

7:40

you

7:40

know, Quadua Poku and all these players

7:42

that don't have nearly the pedigree that

7:44

Gareth Bail does. And then he provides the very

7:47

reason why you bring him into the team in the

7:49

first place. You have a goalkeeper,

7:51

which, you know, in my view,

7:53

hazus Morillo, not that you wanna

7:55

make him feel that guilty, but he cost Maxine

7:57

Crapo his chance to go to the World Cup, which

8:00

is pretty unfortunate. when you consider

8:02

how bad that injury was. In all

8:04

likelihood, he's not starting for Canada,

8:06

but, you know, Milan Börjeon probably would have

8:08

started for Canada, but Crayco would have been one

8:10

of the three that went.

8:11

And then

8:13

the backup, John McCarthy, who

8:15

former Philadelphia Union player, bounced

8:18

around in in clubs like Rochester Rhinos,

8:20

and I saw Thomas Floyd on

8:22

Twitter, journalist at the Washington Post at

8:24

this great tweet. says

8:25

only an MLS can a team with a title

8:28

or can a team win a title with an extra time

8:30

equalizer from a former one hundred and eleven

8:32

million dollar real Madrid star and shoot

8:34

a heroics from an ex member of the Rochester

8:36

Rhinos and Ocean City nor'easters

8:39

long live MLS cup with

8:41

Thomas Boyd's tweet and that was absolutely sensational

8:43

and true. But it's if

8:45

you have all these things come together, the

8:47

k the the chaos of the game, it went

8:49

to penalties, Philadelphia had truly

8:51

terrible penalties, and it

8:53

it's just riddled with the kind of storylines

8:56

that MLS, in in my view,

8:58

needs more of. so that you can tell the

9:00

full story of the game after it ends. There's

9:02

just so much you could talk about. For

9:04

me, Jose Martinez,

9:07

is such a chaotic player. He's such

9:09

a, like, a, an MLS player, and

9:11

he did everything positive and negative,

9:13

you could imagine him one day.

9:15

It is so incredible. Yeah.

9:18

You know, like, I so

9:20

he had the foul that led to the free

9:23

kick for the first goal.

9:25

for LAFC. Totally

9:27

unnecessary on his part

9:29

reckless. And then

9:31

he gets the equalizer,

9:33

creates the equal laser with a

9:35

wild shot that ends up on the foot of

9:37

gas tag, who finishes.

9:41

And then it seemed like Jose

9:43

Martinez was just everywhere in

9:45

the middle of things.

9:47

And chicken with his head

9:49

cut off, like, over

9:51

pursuing a lot of times but

9:53

just also you cannot doubt

9:56

his his energy,

9:58

his enthusiasm, the way

10:00

he goes about his job. He's like

10:02

the opposite of Shabbi alonzo.

10:05

So Shabbi alonzo was a guy

10:07

I remember interviewing from my book about being

10:09

a defensive midfielder, and he was always

10:11

like, I don't think you should ever have to

10:13

slide tackle. because

10:15

if you're positioned well, you shouldn't

10:17

ever have to do that. And

10:19

Jose Martinez is like the

10:21

opposite. just

10:24

perpetually slide tackling people.

10:26

Yes. And he carries the Philadelphia

10:28

ETHOs. He's sort of is the player that sort

10:30

of embodies what they wanted to do. You can tell in the

10:32

production meeting with Fox that Jim Kurten

10:34

told the commentators we wanna ugly

10:36

this one up early on. And

10:38

Jose Martinez is sent out with those

10:40

instructions and they were delivered upon.

10:43

Absolutely incredible. And,

10:46

I mean, just I I

10:48

like the fact that MLS has

10:51

the final in one of the team's

10:53

stadiums because the atmosphere looked

10:55

incredible on TV. Sounded

10:57

incredible. I had friends texting me

10:59

from the stadium saying, this

11:01

is the best sporting event I've ever been

11:03

to. Wow. These are people who go to soccer

11:05

games. and other sports

11:07

games fairly frequently. And

11:10

so that type of thing, it

11:12

it just So many

11:14

things came together in this to make

11:16

it special. The fact you had the

11:19

two number one seeds meeting

11:21

in the final, the two best teams in the

11:23

legal, season. The fact that they both

11:25

went toe to toe in

11:27

this game and it looked like at

11:29

one point LA was gonna win in

11:31

regulation and then Philly equalized, and

11:33

then it looked like Philly was gonna win

11:35

it. And then LAFC somehow

11:37

equalized down a man. By the way,

11:39

what was what's Crapo's injury? By

11:41

the way, it a broken leg?

11:43

I I heard and read on

11:45

Twitter that it was, you know, to be a

11:48

Phobia in that realm, but I I haven't seen an

11:50

official diagnosis. But you'd have to

11:52

imagine keeping him out of the world cup at least.

11:54

I wanna give Fox some credit

11:56

here for not showing it because I

11:58

think it's they made it sound

11:59

like it was gruesome. and that they were they

12:02

made the very quick decision sort of the

12:04

anti Christian Ericsson decision

12:06

to not show us

12:08

what I

12:08

think might have been a compound fracture. And I

12:10

hate I don't I wanna speculate about stuff. So

12:12

maybe he has doesn't have a compound fracture.

12:15

Maybe but, like, it sounded gruesome and

12:17

they made a very quick decision to

12:19

not show it. And I remember growing up watching

12:21

the Super Bowl when, like, Tim

12:24

Crumrock had a compound fracture

12:26

of his leg, and they showed the replay over

12:28

and over again, or when Joe Feizman -- Mhmm.

12:30

-- had his leg broken by

12:32

Lawrence Taylor. Kevin Ware at the

12:34

final four. Yeah.

12:36

And, like, I don't want I

12:37

I don't wanna see that. Yeah.

12:39

I I don't. We don't need to see that. Yeah.

12:41

I I'm I'm it's sort of of two minds there

12:44

because I do think that sort of, like, if you're telling

12:46

the story, like, almost journalistically, like,

12:48

you

12:48

you have to sort you have to sort

12:50

of here's why this happened. Like, as I imagine,

12:52

a lot of people at their television's going, well, why

12:55

is why is he down for nine minutes? Why is he

12:57

being stretchered off? And someone is making that

12:59

decision and maybe they I I wasn't actually listening to

13:01

the broadcast, but maybe they communicated that to

13:03

the audience, hey, we've seen this. It's gross. We don't have to

13:05

tell you this. We don't need to see it over and over

13:07

again. Correct. But by the way, I

13:09

just looked it up on Twitter. Elias, he put out a

13:11

statement actually about an hour before we recorded

13:13

this that he underwent successful surgery to

13:15

repair a fracture of his right leg.

13:17

So they didn't go into the into the

13:19

gruesome details. But yeah. I mean, that that was a

13:21

that was a hideous watch, and it actually

13:23

set up that

13:25

nine minutes of extra time where you

13:27

see the two latest goals scored in

13:29

MLS history because you wouldn't sort

13:31

of see that at any other context and

13:33

it it added to the drama, albeit it is

13:35

massively unfortunate for Craypo. Yeah.

13:37

I I by the way, it was kinda cool that

13:39

they had Craypo on the phone

13:41

Yeah. With Garrett Bail on the field after

13:43

the game and some people about his press conference

13:46

as well was was FaceTiming with

13:48

him.

13:49

So, yeah, thoughts

13:51

out to Maxine Creipro.

13:54

That's that's a awful thing to go through.

13:57

and and miss a World Cup.

13:59

But just

14:02

an incredible game. And

14:04

I I was bummed out not to be there. It was

14:06

fun to be with you on-site important

14:08

last year. Lots of reasons why we weren't

14:10

able to go this time. But,

14:14

yeah, very well deserved LAFC

14:16

Porteshale Champions,

14:18

MLS Cup Champions. This is

14:20

their season. And I'm curious to see how they

14:22

do in Champions League. You know, they've gotten to a

14:24

final before under Bob Bradley. Now

14:27

Seattle has broken the door down for MLS

14:29

teams. I don't see any reason why this

14:31

LAFC team couldn't win

14:33

Champions League. I don't see any reason why

14:35

they can't continue because they're they're well

14:37

set up for the future. Yeah.

14:39

And I'll be curious how much they regime

14:42

change because have Carlos Vela

14:44

who will enter the last year of his contract. We

14:46

don't know what Gareth Bail's status is going

14:48

into next year in terms of, you

14:50

know, going to the World Cup and sort

14:52

of did what he needed to do in LA. Like,

14:54

if he goes to the World Cup and sort of says,

14:56

alright, I'm good, then maybe he just

14:58

retires after the season because he won a couple

15:00

trophies. He could. But when he came, he talked

15:02

about, I'm not just here for

15:04

pre World Cup. Like, I I plan on coming

15:06

back. But I

15:08

I think Steve changed. Bro, I think he

15:10

presumed that this would be pretty easy. I think

15:12

he presumed that he would come into the team,

15:14

he'd be first choice in the team, and that,

15:16

you know, he could, you know, just walk in and

15:19

score seven goals and five assists in the second half of the

15:21

season, and it didn't prove to be that. So,

15:23

you know, if he wants to take it out and try and,

15:25

you know, earned for a place in the team. By the way,

15:27

they have Boingo, they're trying to speak.

15:29

They really didn't play Christian Tayo that

15:31

much, a player who's got some real pedigree.

15:33

that could potentially play on the wing positions for them.

15:35

They have Opoku. They have so many

15:37

players in those forward positions. So I'll

15:39

be curious how how much they make changes. But the

15:41

the last one I wanted to make on this game was for

15:43

me how much this game, I guess, pierced

15:46

my soccer bubble. So

15:48

normally, for for a

15:50

game like this, you know, the soccer fans that

15:52

I know in my life care about big champions league

15:54

games or big premier league games,

15:56

but this is one where even the non

15:58

soccer fan of my life is like, but the hell is going

16:00

on here, a a friend of mine who works

16:02

in LA was super bummed that he couldn't get two

16:04

tickets, like, for under a thousand dollars

16:06

because they were that expensive to

16:08

go Also, I was kinda glad that

16:10

everyone was in their seats on time for kickoff because there

16:12

was a situation that no

16:14

one could park by the stadium. Because

16:16

because there is a USC game

16:18

at night. which is, I guess, one of the perils

16:20

of trying to plan a a

16:22

massive sporting event on six days notice

16:24

because if LAIC had lost, then they they

16:26

wouldn't have had to plan that. But

16:28

It was one of the it it's cool that when

16:30

MLS has a big event like that. And they're gonna

16:32

come out of the box next year reportedly and

16:34

do LAFC,

16:36

LA Galaxy, at is it sulfide

16:38

stadium or at the rose bowl? Or is it yeah. At

16:40

the rose bowl, they're gonna like, I think Apple

16:42

and MLS are gonna try and create these

16:44

big events and more and more. So

16:46

whenever MLS can sort of get that

16:48

out of the sports world or out of the

16:50

soccer world headlines, that's great. And

16:52

you know, couple that in in terms of heartbreak

16:55

with the Philadelphia franchise losing the

16:57

world series the same night and

16:59

going through six straight hours of

17:01

pure sporting heartbreak. You

17:03

feel for the people of Philadelphia

17:05

because according to Elias, they are

17:07

the first sport city to

17:10

have lost two champ two major championships on the same

17:12

day in the history of sports. So -- Oh,

17:14

wow. -- can can only imagine how difficult

17:16

that might must have been in the city of

17:18

brotherly love

17:19

Wow. Yeah.

17:21

I mean, just such a memorable

17:24

event. So congratulations, MLS

17:26

on that great way to end the season.

17:28

On a beautiful run through the park, on

17:30

a pleasant day, you can easily get

17:32

lost. No. No. No. She

17:34

didn't kill him. in

17:37

your true crime podcast.

17:39

It was the pool guy. So

17:41

obvious. Whatever motivates you works for us.

17:43

It's all about letting your run be

17:46

your run. And Brooks

17:48

is here for every runner.

17:50

Doing the research and sweating the

17:52

details to create gear that works for you.

17:54

It's your run. Brooks,

17:56

run

17:57

happy. Let's talk about another

17:59

crazy game.

17:59

Leeds United. from

18:02

being down three one

18:04

against Bournemouth at home

18:07

to winning for three

18:09

in a crazy second half

18:11

Jesse Marsh has gotten two or six points out

18:13

of the last two games at Liverpool and

18:15

out of this Warner Wolf game.

18:17

And they were basically the opposite

18:20

of simple. Like,

18:23

every game I I tweet

18:25

it as every game with Lee's United is a

18:27

journey. And I I don't know if

18:29

it's sustainable. but

18:31

it's it's pretty incredible to

18:33

watch.

18:33

Yeah. And I I stole a joke

18:36

format from Kevin Clark of

18:38

the ringer. who every time the Seattle seahawks play in the

18:40

NFL, he retweets himself

18:42

saying that the Seattle seahawks have literally

18:44

never played a normal game. And it's

18:46

usually in the mid of some

18:48

chaotic thing that they're doing. And I think leads have

18:51

frankly been in that territory for a

18:53

very long time. I remember when they

18:55

first came up with Bealls in charge, it was like, oh,

18:57

I need to I may got pulling out of watching this

18:59

because, you know, they're gonna get hammered six

19:01

one by Memphis to United or they're gonna

19:03

pull off some crazy upset or

19:05

they're just running all over the field, like, the the chaos and

19:07

the energy of it. I guess, in some ways,

19:09

while moving away from

19:11

the BLC model, this was sort of

19:14

the next level of chaos

19:16

down from Bialsa.

19:19

And it's

19:19

sort of, I think, unsustainable what's

19:22

happened in these last two weeks. This like,

19:24

This can't be a model for how Jesse

19:27

Marsh is going about trying to win games

19:29

that leads. There has to be a more

19:31

normal way to do this. And I actually think in a

19:33

on a in a serious point, I was in I

19:35

was interested so I watched online

19:37

last night the BBC match

19:39

of the day where they sort of

19:41

like run the highlights. And those are the games that actually

19:44

don't get seen by the country on TV because

19:46

they're blacked out. And so they run

19:48

the highlights and Gary Linicker does an

19:50

in studio interview with with Jesse

19:52

Marsh. And he said, your

19:54

critics are saying

19:57

that your team is too aggressive, that this is

19:59

why you're

19:59

defensively exposed, and this is why

20:02

you're you're conceding too many goals. What do you say

20:04

to that? And Jesse Martin said,

20:06

I don't think our problem is that we are too aggressive.

20:08

I think our problem is that we are not aggressive

20:11

enough and that we don't actually go out and

20:13

press to win the bow high enough

20:15

and win second balls and be in positions

20:17

to to go and and and take advantage

20:19

of moment. So I think that Jesse act

20:21

I think would feel that

20:23

he has to coach better and get his team playing

20:25

forward better so that they can win the ball

20:27

back, keep it, and then do their thing. But

20:30

he you know, the the chaos, I think, it

20:32

gets solved by furthering

20:34

their development as a pressing team rather than

20:37

alright. these games have been a little crazy. Let's

20:39

back off a little bit. I kind of admire that

20:41

even in the face of English pragmatism,

20:43

which is sort of like their calling card as a

20:45

culture, as a soccer culture, as pragmatism,

20:48

he said, no, I'm not backing down.

20:50

I wanna double down on my methods.

20:53

I

20:53

mean, We've said this before though.

20:55

Right? Yeah. Marsh has has

20:57

not just drank the Kool Aid

21:00

on this. He he has an IV

21:02

of the Kool Aid Well, constantly going

21:04

into We should we should call it the Red

21:06

Bull. Yeah. It's

21:09

more red Bull than Red Bull. Yes. At

21:11

this point. And and that's Why is no

21:13

longer a writable? But, like, he is

21:15

all in

21:16

or whatever beyond

21:17

all in is on the

21:19

way he wants to play. And

21:21

a lot of coaches disagree with that by the way. I've

21:23

had plenty of coaches say to me, you

21:26

know, how can Jesse Marsh

21:29

be so much about what you do when you don't have the

21:31

ball. That's like,

21:33

that's totally messed up. But whether

21:35

you think it's messed up or not, he is all

21:37

in on he has gone down that

21:39

path. He has taken it to the

21:41

fullest extent. The

21:43

defensive lapses, like,

21:46

were were pretty awful in this game

21:48

for leads that got them into the Both teams,

21:50

really. Yeah. I mean,

21:53

like, it was a it was a

21:55

chaotic game in an MLS sense,

21:57

but, like,

21:58

it was

21:59

just some pretty shambolic defending

22:02

that led to some of these goals

22:04

that were scored against leads,

22:06

and yet it's so obvious

22:08

week after week that the leads players

22:11

have not quit on Jesse Marsh and

22:13

actually it's the opposite. They

22:15

are always fighting and they

22:17

got back into this game you felt

22:19

like they could win it. They won

22:21

it.

22:21

And

22:22

it's if you're a leads fan, I can

22:24

only imagine what this is like. I'm a Jesse Mars fan.

22:27

So, like, it's crazy for me to

22:29

watch. Let's talk about

22:31

Tyler Adams and Brendan Aaron's in the two

22:33

Americans because I feel like Tyler

22:35

Adams is in the form of his

22:37

career Right now, I think he is leads his best player.

22:39

I thought he was

22:40

fantastic again on

22:42

Saturday. And I think

22:44

for the US, that's a great sign heading

22:47

into the World Cup. Brendan

22:50

Aronson, I think, is doing

22:52

pretty well. he's he's

22:54

playing a ton, which

22:55

is great.

22:57

the I also

22:59

think And this is something he's talked about

23:01

wanting to get more goals and assists

23:03

on the

23:04

scoreboard for him

23:06

to be that type of contributor, and

23:09

I don't think he's doing that.

23:10

Yeah. I I think in these last couple games

23:13

in particular, he hasn't been terribly

23:15

gold dangerous. I will go back to I think it was

23:17

their game away at Palace, which they eventually

23:19

lost. He hit the post, and it resulted in a

23:21

chance for Leeds. So I I

23:23

think he has had his

23:25

moments, but I think even, you know, going back to his

23:27

time in Philadelphia, it wasn't

23:29

always lighting up the box score. He's not

23:31

always been a huge box score guy. He's an off the

23:33

ball guy. at Red Bull, Salisbury,

23:35

it was the same thing. So III

23:37

do think that it's another level for him to jump.

23:39

We also have to remember he is very young, and

23:41

he will and he will continue to develop

23:43

but you're right. I think if he Jesse

23:46

March clearly trusts him implicitly. But

23:48

in order to retain that the the place in that

23:50

team considering, you know, Luis and Astero

23:52

eventually is going to get healthy Jack

23:54

Harrison. Eventually, you'd

23:56

think that he'd wanna play both Patrick Bannford

23:58

and Rodrigo at the same time. And

24:00

Rodrigo has been occasionally played as a

24:02

winger. I mean, we'll see you know, if Banford

24:04

ever gets to sort of fully his his form again. But

24:07

Crescendo Somerville is playing well.

24:09

Wilfried In Yolte, I think is how he say his name

24:11

In Yolte? Don't do. Yeah.

24:13

So so he's he's playing all of a

24:15

sudden now and and Jesse likes to bring through

24:17

young players as well. Sam Greenwood scored

24:20

Joe Gellhart can play. So there's a lot of attacking options. I

24:22

think if Ericsson is gonna lock down that position in the

24:24

middle of the field, you're right. He he has

24:26

to he has to bring more goals and more assists to

24:29

his game. Yeah. I also notice, I mean, whether

24:31

it's Banford or Rodrigo,

24:34

they're not good finishers. And

24:40

that's harsh. Right? For for to say that about

24:42

a forward. But, like, we talk

24:44

about how The underlying

24:46

data shows even when they were not

24:48

getting results that

24:49

leads has been creating chances.

24:53

and

24:53

they need better finishers because

24:55

how many times now have we seen

24:58

Rodrigo? Who merely scored some goals

25:00

this season? But how many times have we him

25:02

get into a position for a great scoring chance

25:04

and just have a terrible

25:06

shot? Or Banford have

25:08

a terrible first touch? and

25:10

they just gotta get better.

25:13

And so we'll see if those guys

25:15

can in particular. We'll see if they

25:17

get into the market at all.

25:19

In January, everyone knew the leads wanted to

25:21

get it buy a striker last summer that they

25:24

wanted to buy a left back. They didn't

25:26

do it. I think they've

25:28

suffered because of that. Somerville

25:30

has been a a real

25:33

scoring surprise in a

25:35

positive way. I think he scored in four straight

25:37

games now. Nonto

25:40

is making you wonder his

25:42

performance is the last two games, why he hasn't been playing

25:44

more earlier in the season. This is a guy who plays for

25:46

the Italian national team. I think he's

25:49

nineteen. It's

25:52

plus minus. It's crazy good over these

25:54

two days. Plus minus per ninety. Is that

25:56

a stat? And

25:59

so, like, I think there's pieces for Jesse Marsh

26:01

to work with here, and I think he's gonna

26:03

keep his job, which we weren't sure about

26:05

a couple weeks ago, at least for the next

26:07

couple of months. through the

26:10

through the the World Cup break. But, like,

26:12

even yesterday in this game when they

26:14

went down three one and they were getting booed by their own

26:16

fans at halftime, your

26:19

back there's just too much chaos.

26:21

Like, they're you're back thinking, oh, maybe he

26:23

will get fired. Yeah. That's tough.

26:25

That's gotta be tough. Right. And we

26:27

we talked about it before, but he just looks like

26:29

he wears it. And

26:31

it it you know, the the celebrations

26:34

again were tremendous he

26:36

he sort of is a very

26:38

magnetic character. I think the

26:40

English cameras have taken to to to

26:42

Jesse March. I think directors like

26:44

to go to his reactions. They know

26:46

that they're getting some gold when they cut to Jesse

26:48

Marsh on the touch line. He's become I

26:50

I don't know. Maybe this is my my my epic American

26:52

prison. But I think he's actually become, like, kind

26:54

of a big deal over there that,

26:56

like, in some ways, leads us through the

26:58

prison of Jesse Marsh at the moment. It's sort of

27:00

his team. I on on

27:02

your point, Ree Banford and and Rodrigo. I

27:04

do think that now, Rodrigo certainly

27:07

scored more under Marsh than they did under BLS.

27:09

But Banford, has taken a significant a

27:11

significant drop off. And Banford has

27:13

only ever really scored under

27:15

Biegelsen. And I wonder if

27:16

For as chaotic as BIOZ's teams were

27:19

defensively, they had a very

27:21

coordinated plan of attack. And I don't know

27:22

if you can say the same thing for Jesse

27:24

Marsha's team. It's a lot of get the ball through

27:26

balls, look forward, crosses, like, the high

27:29

energy, all all the way through is

27:31

the Bialysis teams had a measure of

27:33

composure when they had the ball. And I

27:35

wonder if Banford is still adjusting to the

27:37

chaos and not really having a cool

27:39

head once he gets it to finishing positions.

27:41

But look, the the Red

27:43

Bull teams do pretty well on

27:45

XG. And I don't mean Red Bull in terms of,

27:47

like, you know, actual Red Bull teams, but that

27:49

style. That style always kind of

27:51

looks good. against the numbers, but

27:53

sometimes they don't always deliver because

27:55

for whatever reason. Right? Players don't

27:57

have enough composure in front of goal. you get

27:59

like, the one big chance that you give up is one where

28:01

your presses failed and the the, you know,

28:03

a long ball has beaten you in

28:06

behind and the chance is very easy to go

28:08

in score. They're not very good. Sort

28:10

of defending in a low block or defending in their

28:12

own area, which I think is leaves his biggest problem right

28:14

now is they don't defend very well in their

28:16

own box. when when they have to bunk her in and defend. And I

28:18

know that Jesse Marsh's answer would be,

28:20

I don't want my team to defend in their own

28:22

area. But at a certain point,

28:24

you have to address defending in your own area because

28:26

you're just not good enough as a team.

28:28

Right? Leads do not have good enough

28:31

players to sort of dictate that that the other team is not playing

28:33

in their own box. It's the Premier League. It's

28:35

going to happen. So I I just think that there's

28:37

things for them to figure out. Couple

28:38

other big games in the Premier

28:41

League this weekend, Chelsea nil

28:43

Arsenal won. And

28:45

I'm gonna say this right now. For

28:47

me, this is the game

28:49

that that has

28:51

pushed me farther along to

28:53

think Arsenal can win the title. because

28:55

their schedule has been very easy and they

28:58

performed well, they've gotten great

29:00

results, but they haven't played

29:02

that many decent

29:04

to good teams on the

29:06

road, and they lost at Man United.

29:09

And so Chelsea's

29:11

gone through a rough patch here. Right? They've gone, I

29:13

think, four games now without a win,

29:15

two straight losses in the league.

29:17

And that was after Grand Potter had gotten off to

29:19

a really good start. Right? He didn't lose

29:21

for a long time in

29:23

Champions League or Premier League.

29:26

But Chelsea's struggling losing

29:28

it home to Arsenal, and Arsenal remains

29:30

top of the league. And and this

29:32

was a performance I thought that

29:35

Arsenal

29:35

deserve to win?

29:36

Completely agree. And I think it's really

29:39

important that, as you

29:41

said, Arsenal played their style,

29:43

like one in their way

29:45

against high level opposition on the

29:47

road because we've seen Arsenal

29:49

win games. I I was really impressed by their

29:52

back to back home wins against Spurs and

29:54

Liverpool. And I I think at

29:56

that point, I sort of believed in the

29:58

credibility of Arsenal's title challenge.

29:59

Yeah. But I think

30:01

you're right. It's sort of further development.

30:03

I know a few Arsenal fans in my life

30:05

sort of used today as that benchmark of,

30:07

oh, I actually do believe in at that time. And

30:09

I and I believe in in Arsenal now because

30:12

I didn't believe in them before. That

30:14

being said, I do think

30:16

you can see what Chelsea's

30:19

future will eventually be. And what

30:21

ultimately like, you see all

30:23

these clubs pay lip service to the notion of, quote,

30:25

projects where

30:26

we are

30:27

starting from a beginning point, and we will

30:29

eventually reach an end point

30:31

And I think you have to give Arsenal as a

30:34

club huge credit for backing this

30:36

project because it's with the first time

30:38

manager. There were several moments

30:40

where they could have said This isn't

30:41

going great. And he's having

30:44

personality issues with players like Pierre mck

30:46

Obama Young, and they backed Artheta and got

30:48

rid of Obama Young rather

30:50

than backing the player that they're paying a ton

30:52

of money to. And so

30:54

I think you

30:55

have to give Arsenal as a club a huge amount

30:57

of credit for basically say, like,

30:59

I I've heard a cliche, I forget

31:01

from who, that a bad plan

31:04

that stuck to is better than

31:06

a good plan that isn't stuck to. And

31:08

I think like Arsenal, it might not

31:10

have always been the best plan that could have backed

31:12

maybe a different coach. But Dan Lee

31:14

said, we're sticking it out with this guy. We believe

31:16

in this guy who's gonna turn things around.

31:18

and it's so impressive watching their manner of

31:21

performance that Grand Potter has not had

31:23

the chance to coordinate this

31:25

Chelsea build up and his Chelsea attack. And

31:27

Arsenal took advantage of every weak

31:29

point and every pressure point in

31:31

this team that is clearly massively

31:33

struggling without Rees James in

31:35

the side. that is clearly struggling to figure out

31:37

who they are and Arsenal can

31:39

prey upon that. And it's been a

31:41

long time since you can say, arsenal

31:43

can prey upon opposition of this quality

31:45

with as many good players as Chelsea can throw in

31:47

the pitch because they just know where their

31:50

weaknesses are and they have the

31:52

ability with their players and with their system and with tactics

31:54

to take advantage of a team that's struggling.

31:56

And even though the game only finished one

31:59

nil, Arsenal, I thought

31:59

we're soundly

32:02

above Chelsea on this

32:04

day. Yeah. No. I think I think you're

32:06

right with all of that. And

32:09

just you know, more pieces of evidence as

32:11

the season goes on that arsenal

32:14

is is good enough. you

32:16

know,

32:16

let's see how they do head to head against Man

32:19

City. I'd love to see that. Yeah.

32:21

And But it's it's the only opponent

32:23

that they haven't I mean, they they did lose to

32:25

Manchester United away, but it's the

32:27

only major opponent in England that they haven't

32:29

really test themselves against and they

32:31

pass most every test that they've taken

32:33

so far. Yeah.

32:33

No. Just a huge credit to

32:35

Mikael Artertega and and that team right now.

32:37

They're doing what they need to

32:40

be doing. Spurs

32:42

won Liverpool II, another big game. On

32:45

Sunday, midweek, spurs got

32:47

the result they needed to advance and

32:50

champions league. at Marseille,

32:52

this is a

32:52

discouraging loss and

32:55

an encouraging win for

32:57

Liverpool, which needs the points

32:59

by the way, to have any shot. And maybe we've talked

33:01

about this. Maybe they don't even have a shot

33:03

to for the title at this

33:06

point. But three big

33:08

points, Mosai gets two gold, very

33:11

clinical in the best of

33:13

Mohammed Salaz. sort

33:14

of tradition came with

33:16

a nice goal to get back

33:18

in it late after the Subs were made

33:20

Kooshevsky coming back on

33:22

for first time in a while post injury makes a

33:25

difference with the assist. But

33:29

disappointing for spurs

33:31

here because if you're going

33:33

to think you have a shot to win the

33:35

league, you need to win games like this.

33:37

Yeah. Well, and it's also

33:37

I mean, not even just about winning the league. I think at

33:39

this point, you have to start looking down

33:42

And this was a sixth pointer

33:44

that could have really defined Liverpool's

33:46

ability to qualify for the Champions League. I

33:48

know it's a bit early to start thinking about

33:51

that, but they entered the game ten points off the pace.

33:53

If they lose their thirteen points off the

33:55

pace, and also if they

33:57

lost, they would have been something yeah. They would

33:59

have been eighteen

34:00

points off Arsenal and sixteen off of

34:02

Manchester City. That's Yeah. It seems like it's like

34:04

league season over and you're sort of

34:07

prioritizing the Champions League at that point. But

34:10

I

34:10

I wanted to talk about spurs because if you

34:12

look at their recent history in terms

34:14

of the games that they've played, again, entered

34:17

half time, two miled down today. They entered half

34:19

time against Marseille, one miled down -- Right.

34:21

-- and very near the end of the first half

34:23

had yet to register a single

34:26

shot on Target. Against Bournemouth, they entered half time, one milled down,

34:28

and eventually gave up another goal just

34:30

after half time. Against sporting in the Champions

34:32

League, they entered half time, one

34:34

milled down. against Newcastle,

34:36

they entered half time to mill

34:38

down.

34:38

They don't start Gainesville,

34:40

and I think it's because of Antonio

34:42

Conte's negative tactics. I think Mhmm. -- the the

34:45

way that he sets his teams up to

34:47

play and and win titles I was talking

34:49

to Andres Cordero who does Syria for

34:51

CBS, and III

34:53

asked him when he was winning when he won the league

34:55

title at Inter, was it was it this

34:57

negative? Was it this

34:58

bad? It's like it's always

35:01

been this way. was like this, and Interoute was like this. I

35:03

don't remember as Chelsea teams as that negative.

35:05

I I remember them as a little

35:07

bit more enterprising. I could be wrong,

35:09

and I I go back and rewatch, but

35:11

I remember when there was winning those games that very least had, you know, Diego cost up

35:14

top and the the wingbacks love to

35:16

get forward. And and I

35:18

I remember sort of an attacking

35:20

formula. It made sense to me. But it seems as

35:22

though spurs only come out to play when

35:24

they're being when they're behind.

35:26

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they demonstrate the flare

35:28

that we know that they're capable of. And the thing

35:30

that's frustrating to me is

35:32

that

35:33

Todenham hotspur played such

35:35

joyous football under Marie under Mauricio Pochettino,

35:37

and it's sort of sad that to watch

35:39

this group of players

35:42

over the course of Moreno and Nuno and Conte

35:45

sort of be completely sapped of their

35:47

ability to play creatively and

35:49

play with flair and it's

35:51

been several years of this. I know that there are there's a

35:54

better team lying inside of there, and it

35:56

kinda makes me sad to watch them

35:58

play. And I I don't

35:59

know if Giant is gonna have the

36:02

sort of success that has that sort of has to be there in order

36:04

to justify the process. The process is

36:06

ugly. The fans don't really like it.

36:10

but you deal with it if you win something. But to now all

36:12

of a sudden be eight points off the pace to,

36:14

you know, constantly be going behind

36:18

in games, I don't I it's starting

36:20

to get to the point where it's not really justified. You know, they topped the Champions League group

36:22

and they're in the top four.

36:25

Yeah. But it was it was very

36:28

transactional pragmatic even in

36:30

Champions League. It was frustrating to watch

36:32

the midweek against

36:34

Marseille where At halftime, they were down. They were out

36:36

of the Champions League. And

36:38

they came out in the second half and

36:40

performed a heck of a lot better.

36:42

And and talking

36:44

about here. If you're capable of

36:46

doing that, do it from the start. You

36:48

know? Like your fans want that, your

36:51

players probably want that, What

36:53

are you doing? And and that that method doesn't work?

36:55

It clearly doesn't work. Yeah. It's I'm

36:59

I'm gonna be curious to see if, like, Conte gets under

37:02

enough pressure with results

37:04

like this one to

37:06

cause him

37:06

to change things up

37:08

a little bit. from the start.

37:10

But

37:11

maybe that's not him, you know.

37:14

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, this is a

37:16

guy who with Inter,

37:18

you know, he's, you know, with Chelsea,

37:20

he's won league titles. He's

37:22

he's done

37:24

it. So Yeah. I

37:26

I Spurs is a weird team. IIII

37:28

think they could be more than they are. They're dealing with

37:30

injuries now, son. I maybe out of

37:32

the World Cup, with the injury he got against Marseille, which

37:35

is if that's the case, would be

37:37

a huge frustration.

37:39

But finally got Koolisvsky back today. Richard listened is out as

37:42

well. Yeah. I I yeah.

37:44

But, you know, Liverpool is being it's

37:46

starting to look like Liverpool again.

37:48

at times. And,

37:51

you know, we get a bigger sample

37:53

size and they start performing like more

37:55

like what we've expected. from

37:57

them. I think Virgil van Dijk has been better in recent

37:59

weeks than he was earlier in the

38:02

season. Mohammed Sala is

38:04

performing,

38:04

getting goals.

38:07

the So I

38:08

I'm still not totally body in on Darwin Unions,

38:10

but he'll get there maybe.

38:12

Yeah. I mean, not every

38:14

player hits the ground running in his

38:17

as brilliant as we see

38:19

other signings, including VentaiQ, including Louise Diaz,

38:21

who is great in in the second half of

38:23

last season. It's not always that simple. I

38:25

I think Nunez, if you look, he's another underlying

38:27

numbers player, where his process doesn't

38:29

always look great. But then at the end of the game, you

38:31

go, man, he should have scarred way more than

38:33

than he did. So it it's good for Sala. And also, they

38:35

get the fortune of, I think, being apart from each other for

38:37

a month. And also, I

38:40

think, a lot of like, they're

38:42

probably the team, the best team that is dealing with the fewest

38:44

World Cup absences. Mhmm. When you

38:46

think of, like, particularly up top in the in

38:48

in the

38:50

attacking areas, no Diaz,

38:52

no Joltak, because he's out injured,

38:54

no no sala. So they have some

38:56

players that thankfully will not be going to the World

38:58

Cup from their standpoint. Let's talk

39:00

about the US men's national team. Wednesday

39:02

is the World Cup roster release

39:04

here in New York City. I will

39:06

be at Brooklyn Steel for that event.

39:09

ESPN will be broadcasting that

39:12

event. Curious to see which players come. I

39:14

assume some of the MLS

39:16

guys will

39:18

be there The question for me is, are there going to be any

39:20

surprises in your mind?

39:22

And what would a

39:24

surprise be? So

39:25

I think if you sort of

39:27

go position by position, you would

39:30

I think ask yourself, well,

39:32

what what are the areas that that would con so, like, for me, let's say,

39:34

in in in in goalkeeper. Like, you

39:37

pick GagasLomina instead of maybe an experienced stand

39:39

to be your third goalkeeper.

39:42

It would be maybe there's a player that's off the board

39:44

other than Joe Skyley that would go as the

39:46

backup left back, which is a

39:50

possibility Sam Vines is not going because he's out to an injury

39:52

that he picked up in Belgium. Anthony

39:54

Robinson is obviously your number your

39:57

number one, but does Greg Buralta say,

39:59

I'm not taking a backup left back. Sergino desk in my backup left back, and

40:02

I take, you know, Reggie Ken and Deandre

40:04

Edlin, and those are my

40:06

full backs. Is Tim Ream

40:08

his backup left back? I don't

40:10

know. You have Tim Ream there as

40:12

maybe a possibility. And then there are sort

40:14

of the the injury question of Is it Luca de La

40:16

Toire, or is it Christian Rolland

40:18

who who who goes in plays in in the

40:20

center midfield? But I think, really,

40:22

the question questions I think will

40:24

produce a surprise is ultimately the the

40:26

Stryker position. Now if you may

40:28

be project, I'm

40:30

gonna say, It's Peppy, it's sergeant, and it's Jesus

40:32

Ferrera. But there are several other

40:34

options that could potentially constitute

40:36

well. Wow. you know, Peppy is

40:38

playing well in Holland. Maybe he didn't make it.

40:40

Josh Sergeant played well in the championship. His run

40:42

at the end wasn't enough. All he all of a

40:44

sudden changed his mind about

40:46

p fuck. but I think it would be pretty

40:48

surprising to me if we haven't

40:50

figured out Greg Berelter by now. If we haven't

40:52

figured out who are the players that

40:54

he likes how does he wanna

40:56

play them? And,

40:57

like,

40:57

I actually will in the end be more surprised

41:00

if on opening day, it's

41:02

it's

41:02

Matt Turner and GOL instead of

41:04

Zach and I will be surprised if Matt Turner starts because he very clearly

41:06

has picked his way of playing. And I'm not even

41:08

necessarily saying that that's wrong, but

41:11

I think this surprise to me will be if Greg Berhalter

41:13

isn't entirely predictable about how he handles

41:16

all this because he signaled for two years how he

41:18

wants to handle this. when in

41:20

doubt go with Greg Berholholholholholholt

41:22

going with his guys. Yes. I mean,

41:24

absolutely. A pretty a pretty

41:26

stable way to approach

41:28

all this. And so for me, it would be a surprise if Tim

41:30

Ream gets called in. I would like to

41:32

see Tim Ream get called in, in

41:34

particular, because Chris Richards isn't even

41:36

training yet.

41:38

But it sounds like there's a thinking

41:40

that Chris Richards has,

41:42

even in this state, a

41:44

higher likelihood of being on the roster

41:48

then Tim Ring. Which is kind of wild. I

41:50

mean, I watched Tim Ring this weekend

41:52

captain Fulham against man's They

41:56

sort of unlucky, lose two to

41:58

one. He admittedly did get

42:00

beat by Julio and Alvaro. First

42:02

goal. Yeah. got mean by

42:04

Alvarez and and by the way, Jedi

42:06

Robinson with the penalty on the evening.

42:08

Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't a great

42:10

day for for American

42:12

fulham players. but they're playing against Man City. They're starting against Man

42:14

City. They're competing in almost getting a

42:16

result against Man City.

42:18

Most importantly, starting together.

42:20

Like, if you wanna like, you're looking for

42:22

associations combinations that have

42:24

been together, why wouldn't

42:26

you pick a left and a left center back that

42:28

play together every week. Wouldn't that help you

42:30

at least develop some sort of cohesion when you

42:32

really only have a week to get together before your

42:34

first game? And if and if Greg Berholta is concerned

42:36

about Tim Rame is he's not fast enough that

42:39

Aaron Long is faster than Tim

42:41

Rame, Fulham played

42:44

Man City In

42:44

the Premier League this weekend, and Tim

42:46

Ream was

42:47

the captain who they

42:48

chose to play and

42:51

we've talked about this before that this Tim Ring in

42:53

the Premier League has been better than the previous

42:55

Tim Rinks we've seen in the Premier League. There's

42:57

a reason

42:58

he's getting There's a reason Hurling

43:00

Holland several goals including one

43:02

where against Hurling Holland. Yeah. There

43:04

was a great cross in from the left side. I forget who

43:06

put it in. I wanna say it was folding. but

43:10

it's sort of the way that the ball was flighted. It

43:12

just looked like man, Erlinkalan is gonna

43:14

attack the shit out of this ball and headed in

43:16

for a goal And Rheem was in the way. I

43:18

was like, whoa. Tim Rheem, my god. Where did that come from? But that's

43:20

the thing here. It it's funny

43:22

because maybe about a month ago when

43:26

FIFA with scoring goals, and he's on a bad run of form, by the

43:28

way. Mhmm. And and and the Amberlands busy

43:30

losing five now, don't ever use

43:32

it. So they're coming back

43:34

down to

43:36

Earth. But like a month ago, peacock was the guy where you're like, I

43:38

can't believe this guy's not on the team. He's

43:40

on the first place team in

43:42

the Bundest League.

43:44

Now

43:45

the the one you're like, I can't believe he's not on the team. Is Tim

43:47

Ream? Which is wild considering

43:49

I remember in during the nation's

43:51

league in Denver,

43:54

I was like, I would be totally fine if he never played US ever

43:56

again because he put in a couple of

43:58

shockers in that tournament. And it

44:01

would like you I I listened to Guardian Football

44:03

Weekly, and as recently as, like, six

44:05

months ago for them, having a shocker as

44:07

a defender was called a Tim Ream because he had

44:09

done it for so many times to follow him. So this has not

44:11

always been a universally popular player. I I

44:14

was talking to a few friends of

44:16

mine who are not Tim Ring

44:18

fans and they're like, I I like they're

44:19

they're like whispering in the chat

44:22

going, I think I want Tim Ring to go to the

44:24

World Cup. And like he and

44:26

to be fair, this first half of the Premier League season has completely changed the perception of

44:28

him. He's playing in the English top flight

44:32

and giving a good account of himself for a team that's in the top half.

44:34

That those are incredible credentials

44:36

for a US center back considering that

44:39

the other US center backed credentials are

44:41

not that great. Right.

44:43

Right. So it's still

44:46

most likely walkers there a minute airlock are gonna be your stars. Mhmm.

44:50

And my cups will be Cameron Carter Vickers,

44:52

and Chris Richards, who would be

44:54

my guess.

44:56

if it's hobbling on your butt. Yeah. Like and

44:58

and, like, I'm gonna make a prediction, I

45:00

think, out of one of the first two games, one

45:03

of those two center

45:04

one of those who centre backs backs probably long

45:06

is going to not start and then

45:08

not start for the remainder of the tournament because he

45:11

won't had a game bad enough. I

45:13

mean, I I just I don't know. There's just something that

45:15

doesn't give me much confidence about

45:17

that position. Oh

45:18

goodness. III do

45:20

look at the center forward position and I'm

45:23

kind of like I

45:25

I think Pepe, who's had a a

45:27

pretty good run-in the Netherlands

45:30

recently, will be there. I think

45:32

Beralthers wanted him all along and and now

45:34

has ammo to to

45:36

bring him in. Ferrero was not good

45:38

down the stretch in MLS. I still

45:42

think he's gonna be on the

45:44

team. And sergeant is back, so he's not hurt.

45:46

And if I had to

45:48

pick someone there, it would

45:51

probably be him at

45:53

this point. You know, like, we do

45:55

have some injury issues. So

45:58

Luca Delatorre, they had announced Seltabiggo that

45:59

he was gonna be out for a couple of weeks, but

46:02

he's already back training.

46:04

If he's able to train, I I do expect

46:06

him to at least be on a twenty six

46:09

man roster. You

46:12

know, Weston McKenney is a

46:14

concern, obviously. You've just said

46:16

he'd be out for about

46:18

two weeks. but that's not a question mark there. If

46:20

he if, like, if there's any chance that he'll be

46:22

healthy for the for any part

46:24

of the World Cup. Western McKenney will

46:26

be on the

46:28

team. Matt Turner was

46:30

back in uniform, at

46:32

least on the weekend for Arsenal. So

46:34

that's a good sign

46:36

for him. even though I do agree with you, I

46:38

think that Berrehalter would

46:39

prefer to start

46:42

Saks seven.

46:42

that Mhmm. And I

46:44

think it'll be a good sign for

46:46

Turner's candidacy if he can play

46:48

in the care about cup on Wednesday night arsenal

46:51

of playing Brighton. I imagine, like, a

46:54

played against Chelsea yesterday,

46:56

but III imagine

46:59

that Matt Turner is I I just I just think

47:01

he's the underdog to be the starter. And Stefan is

47:04

at least getting a run of

47:06

starts. I not exactly been

47:08

following Middlesburg's Forum in a

47:10

championship. Occasionally, there are low lights

47:12

of his where he tries to play a sweeper keeper and it

47:14

doesn't always work out. doesn't seem to be

47:16

the best from crosses or from set

47:18

pieces. But I I will not

47:20

confess to have seen a ton of Zach Stefan so far this

47:22

year. But I think he has the confidence of the

47:24

coach and that has clearly been the way

47:26

that he's gone about managing this

47:28

team. So I will

47:29

imagine that it's going to be

47:32

Saxefan and GOL

47:34

against Wales. on Monday, November the twenty first? We'll have

47:36

all sorts of discussion about this for

47:38

our Thursday podcast

47:40

this week because we'll

47:42

record on Wednesday night after

47:44

that roster is released here in New

47:46

York, so that should be an

47:48

interesting one. Let's wrap up our discussion here with

47:50

Gerard PK retiring from

47:52

the sport mid season

47:54

at Barcelona. And this is a

47:56

guy who I've

47:58

spent a lot of time with over the years and gotten to know, I

48:00

think he is one of the

48:02

defining center backs of this era.

48:06

and you look at how many trophies he's

48:08

won, both with the Spanish national team,

48:10

with the World Cup, the European championship.

48:14

Champions league with Barcelona, Club

48:16

World Cup with Barcelona.

48:20

And I've had this discussion

48:22

with interviewees like Company

48:25

or Palomoldini, and they all

48:27

basically agree there are fewer world class

48:29

center backs today than there were

48:31

twenty, thirty years ago. but

48:34

your RPK is one of them.

48:36

And, yeah, he'll probably

48:38

be, like, president of

48:40

FC Barcelona

48:42

before long. So we're gonna continue to see him. But what do

48:44

you make of his career and also just

48:46

like this kind of weird

48:48

timing of

48:50

this decision? Yeah. I I'm

48:52

I'm kind of surprised that his career sort of died at the doorstep

48:54

of Chavy. Right? Considering

48:56

their their arc together It

48:59

was sort of determined at a certain

49:02

point that he was not going to be a

49:04

regular part of the team. If you read

49:06

Sid Lowe's piece

49:08

for ESPN, you

49:08

do sort of wonder how much the Barcelona desire

49:10

to get salary off their books

49:12

was part of this. It

49:15

was never specifically mentioned that,

49:17

you know, Barcelona ordered the code red or they

49:20

said the PK, please get off our salary

49:22

books. But you you wonder how

49:24

much that that pressure played a role. It was sort of

49:26

alluded to in that story.

49:28

You know, Pique has said, I don't wanna

49:30

end my career on the bench. And so

49:32

he was

49:33

he's been on the bench a

49:35

lot. at

49:35

times, hold him in fielders have been picked ahead of

49:37

him at center back. And so you wonder

49:39

if it was sort of mentioned to

49:42

PK that he's he's not going to be

49:44

a starter for this Barcelona team anymore. This is a boyhood fan of the club. This is one

49:46

of the cool stories in

49:49

World Soccer because you don't often

49:52

see that boyhood fan of the

49:54

club stick around for the whole career

49:56

or have, you know, sort of a positive reputation with the club

49:58

for the whole of his career. and PK was starting to

50:00

get a few whistles from the

50:02

Barcelona fans, and I can't imagine he wanted

50:04

to go out like that. But I I am

50:06

surprised he was. I believe named

50:08

it to Spain's provisional list for the World

50:10

Cup, which I think is their forty

50:12

man squad. So I I'm

50:14

surprised that it happens

50:16

given that context. I'm I'm

50:18

surprised that he didn't wanna

50:20

try something else, whether it was a move to

50:22

MLS or a move to the Premier League

50:24

or a move to Italy even.

50:26

I feel like he's someone who could've maybe thrived

50:28

in an Italian setting, but he just decided

50:30

to call it quits right in the middle of the season. It

50:32

sort of makes me wonder if know, there's a lot

50:34

going on right now with his divorce, with Shakida. There's

50:36

a lot of He never got married.

50:38

Oh, right. I guess, break up.

50:41

Excuse me. Sorry. The yeah. The the the

50:43

breakup with Shakida is being sung at him. You

50:45

just got off like, he might have just reached

50:47

a breaking point of I'm miserable.

50:49

I'm not playing and fans are making fun

50:52

of me and this is not how I wanna go out.

50:54

Let's go out in some kind of cool triumphant

50:56

way where all of a sudden, I'm the subject

50:58

of new stores for three days, and I get to play in front of the fans for the last time. And that's the end of

51:00

that. But it would it really

51:03

caught me by price. And you're right. This

51:05

is defining this because he was in the middle of so many big things

51:08

at club and international

51:10

level.

51:11

Yeah. I mean, pretty

51:14

precipitous drop off because he was still playing

51:16

a lot last season. And this season

51:18

playing very little, not

51:20

even really the backup. and

51:22

in Barcelona was paying him a lot of money. He

51:24

had taken a a cut to some extent, but they're

51:26

still paying him a lot. He's

51:29

always had other stuff going on.

51:31

You know, he literally when Rakuten

51:34

was

51:34

their shirt sponsor, he brought that

51:38

company to the

51:39

club. So, you know, he's he was literally

51:42

part of the business deal. This is kind of,

51:44

like, borderline shady making

51:46

money off of the Spanish

51:48

super cup taking place in

51:50

Saudi Arabia. When he was

51:52

playing it, which is

51:54

crazy, you know, he's been

51:56

involved in the Davis cup. in that whole

51:58

financial operation. So

52:00

this

52:00

is a guy who's already an active

52:02

businessman in the sports world,

52:04

video games, all sorts of

52:07

stuff making millions and

52:08

millions of dollars doing all of that,

52:10

and that has that's not income

52:13

from his playing. you

52:15

know, was literally a member of

52:18

Etsy Barcelona from the day he was

52:20

born because his family is well

52:22

connected in in

52:24

in Barcelona. And in

52:26

my experiences over the years interviewing

52:28

him, there are a few I did. And I

52:30

visited him in Barcelona in twenty fourteen

52:32

before that World

52:34

Cup and I just, you

52:35

know, always enjoyed speaking to him because he

52:38

had AAA really thoughtful

52:40

approach to the way he played the position, but

52:42

also a real respect for

52:44

the game. You

52:45

know, I I remember

52:46

I posted a picture on my

52:48

Instagram today about that I I

52:50

tracked down from twenty fourteen when I visited

52:52

him and he had a framed those two jerseys,

52:54

the Spain jersey, and a Netherlands jersey from

52:57

the World Cup final. And

52:59

he had cut like

53:02

they do in basketball when you -- Really?

53:04

-- a championship. And so he it's

53:06

funny because in the framed part, it

53:08

was like a a small

53:10

section of the net from

53:12

the final in Johannesburg. And

53:15

But actually,

53:16

in the

53:17

moment, I remember

53:20

this, he cut down the entire net. And so

53:22

he was, like, literally walking off the field,

53:24

looking like a fisherman with

53:26

this a giant fishing net.

53:30

And he's also a basketball fan. So, like, I guarantee you that was

53:33

connected to that. Mhmm. And

53:36

just a really really

53:38

interesting guy,

53:40

So I will miss your RPK. I'm sure

53:42

the the player, I I think

53:44

we will see him a fair amount

53:48

in the years to come with with Etsy Barcelona. He couldn't

53:50

be a worse president than the way

53:52

that they've acted over the past summer.

53:56

So you

53:57

know, he may even come at a at a time to help

53:59

rescue, s e Barcelona, if their

53:59

reckless behavior over the past

54:02

summer comes to

54:04

haunt them. Yeah.

54:06

And and

54:06

you sort of wonder what his

54:08

sort of level of celebrity will continue to

54:10

be because this was probably despite

54:13

the fact that he I

54:15

mean, he's a center back playing it one of, you

54:18

know, World Cup champion, European

54:20

champion at

54:22

Barcelona. But I mean, center backs are usually not ones that draw the

54:24

headlines. And he was always a

54:26

massive figure in in the

54:28

world of celebrity by being in a famous

54:30

celebrity couple

54:32

and he sort of is an outsized figure considering,

54:34

you know, what the position

54:36

is and generally what the the star

54:38

level is. So in in my sort

54:42

of

54:42

thinking about this,

54:42

I'm sort of wondering, like, will he sort

54:45

of continue to be, like, one of

54:47

the word association you know, center backs, names you think of in

54:49

the world game. How will he continue to, I guess, sort

54:51

of, stay relevant in his in his post

54:54

playing career? Good

54:56

stuff, Chris. Thank

54:56

you very much. Thanks, Grant.

54:59

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56:08

has a new podcast series being released

56:10

on Monday, November seventh,

56:12

called away from home in

56:15

which he embedded with Ukrainian team, Shankar

56:18

Dannette, as it played in the men's

56:20

UEFA Champions League, while

56:22

Russia's invasion of Ukraine

56:24

has continued. I'd listen to the

56:26

first two episodes which are extremely well done, Adam. Congratulations

56:28

on this and thanks for coming on the

56:30

show. thank

56:32

you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. I think the

56:34

best way to start would be to

56:36

ask you to explain to our listeners what

56:39

is this podcast series? Yeah.

56:41

So I mean, as as everyone will

56:44

know earlier this year, late

56:46

February this year, Russia

56:47

launches a full scale invasion of

56:49

Ukraine. And for,

56:52

you know, for several months, Ukrainian football,

56:54

I suppose, becomes the least of

56:56

everyone's priorities. In in Ukraine, the

56:59

football league is suspended. as as

57:01

Ukraine attempts to kind of keep

57:04

itself alive during those months. And

57:06

then

57:07

in the summer, The

57:09

decision was taken that Ukraine the Ukrainian

57:11

and Premier League should

57:13

return. I think this this actually came from

57:15

the government itself who was who

57:18

were saying, you know, we need to show that we go on, we need to show

57:20

that resilience, that the sporting

57:22

cultural aspect will remain

57:24

will remain

57:26

intact It's a state kind of a statement to the world. And

57:28

it also meant that the team that was placed

57:30

top of the Ukrainian league

57:33

when it suspended in February, Schachter

57:35

dot net, would go automatically into the

57:37

Champions League Group stage.

57:40

And we approach Schachter probably

57:42

kind

57:42

of mid to late August saying,

57:44

you know, we think the idea of

57:46

sort of following how do you run

57:49

a football club when your country

57:51

is being invaded, how do you

57:54

run a football club when in the

57:56

situation of Shaq Taq uniquely? They've not been able

57:58

to go home since two

58:00

thousand fourteen. since the invasion of well, the annexation of

58:02

Crimea, but also the kind

58:04

of pro Russian separatists movement

58:06

in Donetsk

58:08

and Luhan. at the time. So those those were

58:10

kind of the fascinations about it. And then

58:12

also on top of that, they lose their head coach in the

58:14

summer, Roberto Desirby, who ends

58:16

up now Brighton

58:18

and Hoboken in the Premier League. They lost, I think, fourteen players.

58:20

Many of whom were foreign players,

58:23

you know, who understandably didn't want to

58:25

go back to a war torn

58:28

country. to play football, but that's also been

58:30

a fascinating aspect of it. It's something that

58:32

we cover. I think in the third episode,

58:35

this idea of Shacks are actually

58:37

in a fifty million euro battle with FIFA over

58:40

the the regulations that allowed these foreign players

58:42

to leave and not just leave but to

58:45

for So there was all these different aspects which

58:48

we found really interesting and we were very lucky that

58:50

Shacksaw said to us that, you know, they'd be

58:52

happy for us to follow them. really

58:54

did in bed with the team. I

58:56

mean, you've got audio from inside the

58:58

locker room before a Champions League

59:00

game. You've got a lot of one on

59:02

one interviews with people

59:04

throughout the club, players, coaches,

59:07

directors, journalists from

59:10

Ukraine. It's really hard to get

59:12

access like typically in European football. How did you make that

59:14

happen? You're absolutely right. It's,

59:16

you know, in many cases, it's it's

59:18

borderline impossible to to get

59:20

that kind

59:22

of access. where where we were where we were very fortunate

59:24

and I suppose where where Shacto are

59:26

very unfortunate is they are in a position

59:28

at the

59:30

moment where they really, really want the world to know happening

59:32

to them and the challenges

59:34

that they face. And I think they

59:38

I think they recognize their role that the role that can

59:40

sport can play in accessing different audiences,

59:43

you know, for for people that

59:45

maybe have been watching the news over the last few months

59:48

where for February and March, they're looking at Ukraine

59:50

and they're like, oh my god, this is the

59:52

worst thing that I've seen for

59:54

years and this is all appalling. And then it's like anything. People get war fatigue.

59:56

Right? You turn on the news

59:58

right you turn on the news

59:59

six months down the line, you're like, oh, it's that thing happening in

1:00:02

Ukraine still. And people stop talking about

1:00:04

an invasion and

1:00:04

they talk about a war, then you talk about

1:00:06

a conflict, then you talk about

1:00:09

batt, you know, battles and kind of both

1:00:11

sides participating in battles and things like

1:00:13

that. And I I think Shatzel recognized

1:00:16

the the role that they can

1:00:18

play in if you take something

1:00:20

that's very, very relatable to sports

1:00:22

fans, the the UEFA

1:00:24

Champions League major sporting

1:00:26

tournament and show just what the challenge

1:00:28

has been. for them just

1:00:30

to compete in this tournament. Never mind actually

1:00:32

do as well as they they turned out to

1:00:34

do during the group stages. You have obviously

1:00:36

a lot of people speaking English in this. Was

1:00:38

that hard defined people? Or or was it not? Yeah.

1:00:40

There's a lot there was actually a lot of times

1:00:42

where before the interview, a player, a board

1:00:44

member would say, oh,

1:00:46

I'm not sure, you know, if my English will be good enough and then you sit down

1:00:48

and, you know, you warm them up a bit. And

1:00:50

actually, I mean, you'll be able to tell better than

1:00:52

me, but I think most of

1:00:54

it is is pretty followable for those who have spoken -- Yeah. -- in

1:00:56

English, a couple of you know, some of them are a bit

1:00:58

more broken. There were a few

1:01:00

interviews where

1:01:02

we've what

1:01:04

we've used, for example, we interviewed the

1:01:08

mother of a former

1:01:10

Schachter trialist, someone who

1:01:14

tried out to play for Schachter as a as a young teenager and

1:01:16

then became a soldier when

1:01:18

he was sixteen and seventeen.

1:01:20

He was part of the the

1:01:22

tanks unit early in the war,

1:01:24

and sadly he was

1:01:25

killed. And we

1:01:26

spoke to to his mother,

1:01:30

Marianna, Mariana Sapilo, her son was called Vitali Sapilo.

1:01:32

And she she only spoke

1:01:34

Ukrainian. So on the call,

1:01:38

we had a translator so that meant I could follow at least what was being

1:01:40

said during the call. And then

1:01:42

after that,

1:01:44

we used Ukraine,

1:01:46

Ukrainians living in in the

1:01:48

United Kingdom as boilers.

1:01:50

So as far as much

1:01:52

as possible, we've always tried to kind of give the give the voice at

1:01:54

least to a Ukrainian to speak

1:01:56

English. When doing those

1:01:58

voiceovers, which I think

1:02:00

is quite powerful thing. So so yeah. I mean, the English

1:02:02

speaking. I I think I would say like the key

1:02:04

voices from the club

1:02:06

throughout throughout the

1:02:08

episodes are English

1:02:10

speaking Ukrainian or Croatian

1:02:12

in the in the case of the head coach,

1:02:14

Igor Yovitch or Director of Football,

1:02:16

Darius Serna, who if you

1:02:18

followed for alongside, you'll probably remember him as

1:02:20

a as a player at Shaqiao as well.

1:02:23

And there's lots of

1:02:26

emotional stories just in the first two

1:02:28

episodes I've listened to,

1:02:30

what are some of the most emotional

1:02:32

stories in this series in your opinion? I I think there's a lot

1:02:34

and you and you you can kind of lose track because

1:02:36

everybody that you what I realized very

1:02:38

quickly was if you sit down with

1:02:40

anyone who has been in Ukraine over

1:02:42

the last over the last

1:02:45

year, everyone will either know someone

1:02:47

who's been who is fighting in

1:02:49

the army or who has had

1:02:51

to leave their home or who has had to

1:02:53

leave their country. And and there

1:02:55

was that that very clear sense

1:02:57

of of trauma, but also an

1:02:59

amazing willingness to

1:03:02

to speak about and explain it. So, yeah, I'll give you an example. In the first

1:03:04

episode, we speak to

1:03:06

a midfielder called Ivan Petriak, and

1:03:10

he a

1:03:12

Ukrainian guy and were about fifteen minutes into this

1:03:14

interview. This was in the lobby of the hotel

1:03:16

before their first match against Red

1:03:20

Bull Leipzig. just said to him, you know, obviously, there's been a dramatic

1:03:22

impact on your country because of this

1:03:24

war, but is there anything on a

1:03:26

very personal level that that you've

1:03:28

been affected by.

1:03:30

And he just said, yeah, they killed

1:03:32

him. They killed my father-in-law.

1:03:35

And we still we still never found the body. We've not been able

1:03:37

to have a funeral. And, you

1:03:40

know, but I think that was the first night. I was

1:03:42

actually embedded with the with the team back

1:03:44

in September. And

1:03:46

I'm just thinking after that, God, like, there's I mean,

1:03:48

it's hard to remember. But from a journalistic point

1:03:50

of view, the potential of every

1:03:53

single time you sit down with someone

1:03:55

is that they may have something in

1:03:58

incredibly moving to share with

1:04:00

you. And equally,

1:04:02

you know, The very first conversation that you hear in series

1:04:04

is actually with the Chateau CAPTAIN Tara Stepanenco.

1:04:06

And that was from a previous

1:04:08

interview that we did back

1:04:11

when the war started, when the war broke out, or the

1:04:14

invasion started in in the late

1:04:16

February. And you can hear in the

1:04:18

background his kids in in in the, like, kind of,

1:04:20

the living room of of his house

1:04:22

as they are around three or four

1:04:24

days into the invasion and they're sleeping

1:04:26

underground in a shelter and he is

1:04:28

just going going While his

1:04:30

wife and kids sleep in the

1:04:32

shelter, he, basically, every so

1:04:34

often, goes up to a vantage

1:04:36

point where he can

1:04:38

check to see if any Russians are coming from the sort of the forest that are

1:04:40

nearby. And he has a baseball bat.

1:04:42

That's all he had ready in case

1:04:44

something was to happen to protect

1:04:46

his family. and his

1:04:48

neighbor had a gun, which they

1:04:50

never which they never used, they never really know

1:04:52

how to use. But he's like, that's all we had,

1:04:54

you know, to protect ourselves and

1:04:56

you're like, six months later, this guy had been playing in the Bernabeo

1:04:58

against real Madrid in the Champions League, and it and it

1:05:00

is we've really tried to to capture

1:05:02

that surrealism,

1:05:04

right, of those two

1:05:06

things going on at the same time because also

1:05:08

between all these Champions League games,

1:05:10

Chateau gained back

1:05:12

into Ukraine. to

1:05:13

play in the Ukrainian premier league. So it's it's

1:05:15

really remarkable. Just from a pure sporting perspective, how

1:05:17

impressive was Shockstar's

1:05:20

performance in the Champions League

1:05:22

Group stage not having all

1:05:24

of the players that had been

1:05:26

allowed to leave on free transfers.

1:05:29

Yeah. Totally. So it was actually one

1:05:31

of the things that Shacksaw raised to me

1:05:33

before they agreed to

1:05:34

I suppose to provide the access

1:05:36

for this project was they've kind of seen,

1:05:38

like, fly on the wall documentaries before

1:05:40

things like the Sunderland documentary,

1:05:43

which are very popular. and

1:05:45

the Arsenal one. And I think what they were a little bit fearful of was

1:05:47

what if we lose every game five nil

1:05:49

because we've lost all we've lost

1:05:51

all these players and you

1:05:54

know, the team that started against Red Bull Lightning in the first game,

1:05:56

I think there were ten Ukrainian

1:05:58

players in that starting lineup. I

1:06:02

think seven of the players were aged twenty three or below. Eight of

1:06:04

the players came through the Shacto youth system

1:06:06

in some way. So when you see

1:06:08

that starting line up, you're like, this

1:06:11

could get really messy. Right?

1:06:14

And this could get, you know, a little bit

1:06:16

uncomfortable, a little bit

1:06:18

uncomfortable to cover them. Will they still wanna speak to

1:06:20

me by episodes by episode three, episode

1:06:22

four. And then, like, the most amazing thing

1:06:24

happened because they went and won that

1:06:26

first game four one

1:06:28

away from home against Red Bull

1:06:30

Leipzig, which was just it

1:06:32

was one of the most uplifting sporting

1:06:34

performances I've ever seen to be

1:06:36

honest because the expectation

1:06:38

was so low

1:06:40

before the game. And then what they delivered was

1:06:42

fantastic. And, you know, as it went along,

1:06:44

they drew home and away against Celtic. They

1:06:47

they came within about ten seconds of

1:06:49

beating Real Madrid. There were one, they

1:06:51

left against Real Madrid in their home

1:06:53

game. And then the ninety fifth minute

1:06:55

veilmedrid equalized. But again, I mean, when you bear in

1:06:58

mind all the context, all the

1:07:00

traveling, remember you can't fly in and out of Ukraine

1:07:02

at the moment. So to every camp Champions

1:07:04

League game, they're driving for sort

1:07:06

of eight to ten hours being held at the

1:07:08

Polish Ukrainian border for

1:07:11

several hours on hand. and then delivering

1:07:13

these incredible performances. And I remember before that

1:07:15

Vail Madrid home game, which they drew

1:07:17

one one. The day before

1:07:20

that game, you remember a

1:07:22

few weeks ago in October, the Crimea Bridge was was

1:07:24

there was an explosion there,

1:07:28

which clearly went down very, very

1:07:30

badly in Russia with Vladimir Putin and kind of

1:07:32

retaliatory strikes landed on

1:07:36

Kyiv. and that was really the first

1:07:38

time for around five or six months that Kia had come under fire.

1:07:40

And I remember going to the hotel

1:07:44

the hotel where

1:07:46

Chacta was staying in Warsaw before that match against Real

1:07:48

Madrid in the morning before the game. And

1:07:50

you walk into this hotel into the

1:07:52

hotel and

1:07:53

you just

1:07:54

see all these players basically just looking

1:07:56

down on their phone, messaging their parents, their

1:07:59

grandparents, siblings, girlfriend

1:08:03

in

1:08:03

some cases waiting for a message to check they're

1:08:05

okay, to check they're, you know,

1:08:07

they're still alive. and,

1:08:11

you know, speaking to they're speaking to their friends who are similar ages, who

1:08:13

are fighting, and and things like that, and you're just like,

1:08:15

and what, in twenty four hours, you're

1:08:18

gonna play real Madrid. And

1:08:20

I remember at the head coach, Eagle, you're a bitching. It's just

1:08:22

walking down the corridor saying to me, have you seen the news this morning? I

1:08:25

was like, yeah. Right.

1:08:27

Really bad. And he's just

1:08:30

like, and now I meant to get these guys ready to play against the European champions.

1:08:33

And somehow they

1:08:36

did it. Yeah. The one detail

1:08:38

there's so many, but one detail that really stood out to me was something very basic is that

1:08:43

they would check their WhatsApp and see if loved

1:08:45

ones like, when the last time

1:08:48

they were on WhatsApp was and

1:08:50

and be able to get some

1:08:52

info animation a little

1:08:54

bit from that on whether they were okay or not. Totally. Totally. I think that was something

1:08:57

I explained even

1:09:00

Petruk who who

1:09:02

lost his fur who lost his father-in-law, he was saying

1:09:04

particularly for him early in the war he

1:09:06

was actually playing in Hungary last season. So

1:09:09

he wasn't in Ukraine at the start of the

1:09:11

war. but obviously all his family were. So he was saying

1:09:13

how he'd wake up in the morning and

1:09:15

obviously the first thing I suppose like

1:09:17

all of us. First thing we all

1:09:19

do is check off a check of phones and

1:09:21

he'd go on WhatsApp and he'd see, you know,

1:09:23

last seen at, I don't know, if

1:09:25

it hit seven o'clock where he hit

1:09:27

last seen at fifty eight. You know

1:09:29

everyone's okay. If it's last seen at nine PM the previous day, then you're a

1:09:31

bit worried and you're calling and you're

1:09:34

checking. So that was very powerful. I

1:09:36

think the

1:09:38

other thing I did mention, which I think I I

1:09:41

mean, I wasn't actually there because

1:09:43

my colleague, Joey Durso, went to see

1:09:45

the clubs Academy. So Shacto, like like many

1:09:47

major European football clubs, have an

1:09:49

academy system where they are

1:09:51

developing young talent and

1:09:55

then trying to sell it on to make profit, but also producing talent

1:09:57

for themselves. And obviously, they had

1:10:00

to find a new

1:10:02

home for these young players.

1:10:05

So they've managed to move around around fifty to a hundred

1:10:07

of these boys out of Ukraine and into Croatia where where

1:10:09

has been the academy for the

1:10:11

last few months. And

1:10:15

I mean, some of the some

1:10:17

of the stuff that Joey Joey did

1:10:19

so my colleague got just

1:10:22

incredibly simple statements from these from these young

1:10:24

kids about, you know, the fact

1:10:26

that they're they're happy to be safe,

1:10:28

but they just really wanna go

1:10:30

home They really wanna be with their family and speaking to some

1:10:33

of the people whose job it was to

1:10:35

look after them during during that

1:10:37

period in Croatia was was

1:10:39

incredibly powerful as well. I've

1:10:41

done a couple of

1:10:43

narrative podcast series, and they're pretty

1:10:46

intense experiences just from a reporting

1:10:48

perspective. writing,

1:10:52

recording,

1:10:52

editing, all of it.

1:10:54

You feel great

1:10:55

when you're done. And

1:10:58

I do think

1:11:00

the the format of a

1:11:02

podcast you can

1:11:03

emotion

1:11:06

comes through. which is

1:11:07

one really nice thing about the platform

1:11:09

and and all of that. But

1:11:11

how many people put this

1:11:13

together?

1:11:13

How many, you know, from

1:11:16

just a staff perspective. Yeah.

1:11:18

So there's two reporters, myself and Joey Durso, producers

1:11:22

producers Abbie

1:11:24

Patterson has been lead producing here.

1:11:26

She's unbelievable. Jesse, Jesse Howard, Mike Stavru.

1:11:29

So I'm counting in my head

1:11:31

as I go along. I'd

1:11:34

probably say, yeah, two two

1:11:37

reporters probably four to

1:11:39

five producers that that have

1:11:41

worked on this. over

1:11:44

time. But I mean, the hardest thing about it

1:11:46

has been it's been a very constricted Champions

1:11:48

League Group stage because of the World

1:11:50

Cup this year. So that maybe normally be between

1:11:53

the start of September and December

1:11:55

has been between September and

1:11:58

the start

1:11:59

of November. And our

1:12:00

view was that we wanted to get this out

1:12:02

this week before the World Cup so that, you know, particularly in

1:12:07

that slot between kind of New York game football

1:12:09

finishing and the World Cup coming coming ground. So, yeah, it's be the

1:12:12

deadlines have

1:12:14

been really strict, have been really tight around it because got episodes coming

1:12:16

out Monday the seventh and then

1:12:18

the final three will come out

1:12:20

on the on the fourteenth. So, yeah,

1:12:23

as I speak to you, you.

1:12:26

I'm currently still writing the the the fifth episode.

1:12:28

And before we get that

1:12:30

all recorded and produced this week,

1:12:35

So, yeah, it's it's still a pretty demanding week, but it's but

1:12:38

but you're right. It's a very intense thing

1:12:40

to work on. I

1:12:43

think once

1:12:43

you have you

1:12:46

know, the first couple done, you know

1:12:48

in your head the

1:12:48

general format, you know the kind of voices that you want

1:12:50

to

1:12:50

keep continuity to, you know the music, that

1:12:54

you wanna try and use throughout it to

1:12:56

a certain extent, you start to get

1:12:58

a sense of who sound, which

1:13:01

voices sound good and which are maybe a

1:13:03

little bit difficult, which are a little bit

1:13:05

more difficult for an audience to take

1:13:07

in. So so yeah. It's pretty

1:13:09

incredible because you I consume

1:13:11

your work, even doing other stuff during this process of putting this podcast series

1:13:14

together some terrific columns in

1:13:18

reviews. And what's really stood out

1:13:21

to me about your work is,

1:13:23

as we mentioned earlier, access is

1:13:25

hard to come by in

1:13:27

European football and, like, for example, just one

1:13:29

example, your Bruno Fernandez interview was absolutely terrific recently.

1:13:31

But rare, you know, you don't see

1:13:34

those types of one on one interviews

1:13:36

very And how

1:13:38

do you do this? It's very nice of you. I mean, it's something like I mean, for example, I

1:13:40

interviewed Bruno Fernandez

1:13:43

recently, but that took probably

1:13:47

about ten months between fur, you know, first speaking

1:13:49

to the people that were working

1:13:51

with with Bruno about the

1:13:53

idea of getting to

1:13:55

a point where you you have to

1:13:57

quite a lot of luck with this

1:13:59

stuff,

1:13:59

you know, getting to a point

1:14:02

where

1:14:02

Manchester United are sufficiently not imploding. for

1:14:04

for him to be able to sit down and speak in in

1:14:06

that level of depth. So I think, you know, it's something that we first wanted

1:14:10

to do probably preseason or even, you know, the

1:14:13

first couple of weeks of the season. But then they

1:14:15

went and lost against Brighton and

1:14:18

Brentford quite heavily. So you know, he wanted to try and he he wanted to do that

1:14:20

interview at a point where, you know, there wouldn't

1:14:22

be sort of a backlash against him for

1:14:26

daring to speak. Right? which sounds but that's of the world that

1:14:29

we live in now. So now, I mean,

1:14:31

I I don't know.

1:14:32

I mean, I

1:14:34

don't I

1:14:35

don't cover a specific club, so I don't I'm

1:14:38

not that dependent on access

1:14:40

generally. I mean, there's there's

1:14:42

certain projects that you do where

1:14:44

you clearly need a level of access, you know, something

1:14:46

like this. You know, I was actually saying to the guy the guy's, yes, that was like, if we do

1:14:48

future narrative podcasts, do we want it

1:14:50

to be one where we're so dependent?

1:14:54

on kind of other people in

1:14:56

terms of, you know, this is when you can speak to

1:14:58

that person. This is how you can speak to that

1:15:00

person. You know, that's That's a difficult thing.

1:15:02

Shacks are being absolutely brilliant that point of I think other clubs be far more controlling. Right?

1:15:07

in my experience, yes.

1:15:09

I mean, like and I I do think more than ever you you run into

1:15:11

the interview itself. It's hard to

1:15:14

get if you get the interview

1:15:16

sometimes PR

1:15:18

people wanna have control

1:15:20

over it and and that can

1:15:22

be frustrating to deal with and

1:15:24

and all of that. And to be

1:15:26

fair, we really try not to do not

1:15:28

to get into that you know, if you

1:15:30

set the terms out before you go

1:15:32

in of, you know, if

1:15:34

we're going to do this this is the

1:15:37

way we're doing it. And that control

1:15:39

is simply not happening, then then

1:15:42

everyone knows where they

1:15:44

stand. obviously, I think there's certain

1:15:46

moments where, you know, sometimes I think I have to be quite understanding that,

1:15:48

you know, we're talking to, like,

1:15:50

pretty young footballers in most cases.

1:15:54

and sometimes people mess up slightly the way that

1:15:57

they explain something or things like that. So I think

1:15:59

there's a degree of

1:15:59

like common sense

1:16:02

about

1:16:02

certain things. But if I don't know, for

1:16:04

example, I interviewed there at Cantonau recently

1:16:06

-- Yeah. -- and he it was

1:16:08

actually a really funny moment about halfway through

1:16:10

the interview where there was a PR person in

1:16:12

the room and not be office, someone who was working

1:16:14

with him on a travel company. And Eric

1:16:17

Eric was kind

1:16:19

of being Eric. right, and

1:16:21

saying things that would properly upset certain people. That

1:16:24

halfway through this guy is the same,

1:16:26

but I don't want to sort of

1:16:28

get I don't

1:16:30

want to sort of cause trouble, but can just that's clearly you meant to you're saying it.

1:16:33

And Eric was

1:16:36

just like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

1:16:38

can't sit here and say all this stuff and then ask the changes to be made and things like that. And the guy

1:16:40

was saying, oh, maybe we have a look before it

1:16:42

goes out. And and it was actually Eric himself

1:16:47

was like, I don't be stupid kind of thing.

1:16:49

So there's very few people

1:16:51

like that that

1:16:53

that are you know, so keen for things not to

1:16:56

be controlled and to be unfiltered. You're

1:16:58

absolutely right that, like, the sports world

1:17:00

now much like the kind of political

1:17:02

world. There are just so many gatekeepers and

1:17:04

press officers. And it it it reached the point where,

1:17:06

like, I think probably the vast majority of work

1:17:08

that maybe both of us do, we just try

1:17:10

not to depend on it anymore. Right? We just we just and report

1:17:12

things that we find interesting that tell

1:17:14

people the truth about stuff rather

1:17:17

than a version

1:17:19

of the truth. Yeah. I mean, I

1:17:21

I you know, maybe it's also because I own my own writing site

1:17:23

now and I and I

1:17:24

don't work

1:17:27

for sports. It'll straight and have an audience of three million people like I used to, so

1:17:29

I'm not getting sit downs with Leo and

1:17:31

Omeci anymore, but I'm also doing

1:17:33

a lot more I

1:17:35

don't know. Like, first

1:17:37

person reporting travel, and I went to Moldova last year to

1:17:39

do a thing on Sheriff

1:17:41

when they were

1:17:44

doing well champions league and

1:17:46

going to Qatar before this World Cup. Just to wrap up, you're are you

1:17:48

gonna be in Qatar? because you've you've done a

1:17:50

fair amount of writing and reporting on that too.

1:17:55

Yeah. I'll be there from the eighteenth when did

1:17:57

I go? Eighteenth of November through to the

1:17:59

end of the of the

1:18:03

tournament. Yeah. I'm kind kind

1:18:05

of despite everything, I'm I'm excited for it. Alright?

1:18:07

I've never I've never covered a World Cup before. That's

1:18:11

an exciting thing. you

1:18:14

know, I have done a lot of reporting on

1:18:17

it in terms of

1:18:19

some of the workers rights, elements

1:18:21

of it, some of the political side

1:18:23

of it, some of the LGBT rights. I think

1:18:25

it will probably be a

1:18:27

better experience than a lot of

1:18:29

us expected to be. Once you're actually there

1:18:31

and the football starts, I know people are probably screaming

1:18:34

at this podcast now saying that sounds a lot

1:18:36

like sports washing.

1:18:38

I don't think it someone saying to me today, like, oh, if you

1:18:40

even go to this tournament, then

1:18:42

you are in some ways endorsing

1:18:45

the tournament. And that's

1:18:47

a really interesting debate and

1:18:49

conversation. Right? Because my view, for example, as a as a gauge

1:18:52

analyst is, actually,

1:18:54

if I if I take

1:18:58

the view that I I I then

1:19:00

I'm basically saying

1:19:03

that

1:19:03

I'm at

1:19:04

accepting that the

1:19:06

World Cup is not a place for a

1:19:09

gay sports journalist. And I think

1:19:11

there's something more powerful in saying I'm

1:19:13

gonna go and I'm gonna be myself and

1:19:15

I'm gonna write about what I wanted to write

1:19:17

about. I'm gonna report on the

1:19:19

things that I care about that I want to report about. And

1:19:23

I'd kind of you know, without I

1:19:25

don't want this sound arrogant, but I'd I'd rather kind of

1:19:27

gay abortionist go that

1:19:28

really know what they're talking about

1:19:31

in relation to those issues then

1:19:34

rely on other people necessarily to to do that. I'm not saying other people shouldn't write about it if they care about it.

1:19:36

But I I do think

1:19:38

that perspective is is is incredibly

1:19:43

valuable and not not that common across

1:19:45

the industry. I agree with you

1:19:47

and and, you know, I've

1:19:49

had plenty of people ask

1:19:51

me about boycott and and whether

1:19:54

that's boycotts from teams, players, journalists,

1:19:56

fans.

1:19:59

If

1:19:59

everyone who has concerns

1:20:01

or reservations about this tournament, boy concert, as in from

1:20:03

a journalistic point of view.

1:20:06

I'm sorry, yeah, if if a

1:20:08

team was to decide to boycott it, players would decide to

1:20:10

boycott it, right, that's a hugely powerful thing. That's a different conversation. If you basically

1:20:13

just take a view, the journalists who have

1:20:15

reservations about this just don't go. Right?

1:20:18

Then you basically just leave those

1:20:21

who think it's all cool and

1:20:23

fine and just wanna go about football

1:20:25

to crack on with it. So what's the

1:20:27

point of that? I also think there's like something

1:20:29

very, very important about, you know, you

1:20:31

have to differentiate between,

1:20:33

you know, maybe a government and the

1:20:36

people. Right? I wanna go and I

1:20:38

wanna meet Qatari people. I wanna have

1:20:40

that conversation, that

1:20:42

engagement, that get to know this culture. Right? I think

1:20:44

that's that's a really important thing. And

1:20:46

I also think it's important. Anything

1:20:49

that we're reporting is informed by experiences

1:20:51

that we're having there, that we're not just kind of

1:20:53

chucking stones from thousands of miles away

1:20:55

about a place that we've not

1:20:58

been to and don't fully yet

1:21:00

understand. agreed on all of that. I I

1:21:02

respect anyone who's decided not to watch this World Cup or or what have you.

1:21:04

I mean, but I also

1:21:06

have no issues if if people

1:21:09

are going to watch it

1:21:11

or cover it. It should

1:21:13

be an

1:21:14

interesting five weeks there in Qatar.

1:21:17

Adam Kraftin has a new podcast

1:21:19

series being released on Monday, November seventh, called Away From Home in which he

1:21:21

embedded with Ukrainian team,

1:21:23

ShockCard, and Nets. as

1:21:26

it played in the Men's Way for Champions League. Adam,

1:21:28

thanks for coming on the show. Badger, thank

1:21:30

you for having me. Thanks for listening

1:21:33

to Food Bar with Grant Wall. I'd like to

1:21:35

thank Adam Crafton as well as producer and pundit Chris

1:21:37

Whittingham. You can now sign up for a

1:21:39

free or paid subscription on

1:21:41

my newsletter at grantwold dot com. The best way

1:21:43

to support my work is by taking

1:21:45

out a paid subscription. See

1:21:47

you

1:21:48

next time.