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You're listening to Giraffe

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King's Network. Your

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surgery will help make your dreams

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of clear vision and affordable reality.

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Go to revisionize.com to schedule your

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consultation. Fun

0:49

fact I learned this week is gonna

0:52

blow your mind. Can't wait. Did

0:54

you know that an entire regulation

0:56

NBA basketball court fits

0:59

in the penalty box? I

1:02

did know that because I have seen that. That's crazy. I

1:04

didn't know that. That's new to me. That is. The

1:07

whole thing. The whole thing. People talk about how

1:09

athletic of a, you know, when they compare how

1:11

athletic certain sports are. And

1:14

they mention that, yeah, a basketball

1:16

court is incredibly small when it

1:19

comes to that. That's not crazy.

1:21

That's a wacky fact. I

1:24

brought to you by the Cooy. Also

1:27

brings me to my next point. Bro, soccer

1:29

pitch is too big, dude. Maybe

1:31

we should get them a little bit closer. Yeah. You

1:34

know what? Maybe NYCFC and Yankee Stadium

1:36

had it right the whole time. You know what?

1:38

They were trying to get it as tiny as

1:40

possible. That's what I'm saying. If the pitch can

1:42

fit inside a, what's

1:45

his name, in a sun celebration. Yeah.

1:48

You know, I think that's the problem. Don't

1:50

ever bring up a title player on the

1:52

show again. Young men's fun. Anyway, hello, everybody.

1:55

It's A call against Buddy. We

1:57

Are out here in a good mood. The

2:00

both of us I think middle

2:02

looking up for both Ferguson Alexis

2:04

a seizure Exactly. They will tell

2:06

by the not approved by everyone

2:09

on a series of events and

2:11

score over the most of all

2:13

their their system. Hello everybody wanted

2:15

to. The glory of money was

2:17

visible on day. I'm Alexis Go.

2:22

Beyond the movies and will not be

2:24

says this is probably over, you media

2:26

were, as I am aware of that

2:28

about that, I work, try that. Know

2:30

I this I appreciated of Christina

2:32

Hutchinson of ah you know guys

2:35

we asked the a very popular

2:37

show. She. Had ah of

2:39

said this about about.

2:42

Comedy. And Comedians About I Am

2:44

and compared us. To. The

2:46

the the musicians at the band that

2:48

was playing as this as a Titanic

2:50

was thinking. It's like. With

2:53

the entertainment. Has. To go on

2:55

women keep going. we have to keep going

2:57

then as if there was something I don't

3:00

think they've either that band play l a

3:02

z the anyone reading reading and I noticed

3:04

when I think it was other as as

3:06

a good sign That said i know that

3:09

Mazhar. Now

3:11

I'm throwing my child. Under

3:15

your raspberry my wife rinse out of going

3:18

on around for hims ah but there was

3:20

something I did I it's a is looking

3:22

over the age maybe if you're always. The

3:24

movie a lot more ruminant Door the. Excessive.

3:28

I'll let go of Jack. But ah

3:30

yes, as as the comedians in the

3:32

forties base, we try to bring some

3:34

some of that levity. Positive we're trying.

3:36

we're trying our best on. My.

3:38

Hope you're enjoying it Be Ah yes ah willa.

3:41

Okay let's start with we have a big show

3:43

today because we're gonna be joined the lobby later

3:45

by our home He Sean Francis who. always

3:48

the ones we've set of had on the

3:50

show probably years ago how the hell out

3:53

of the front of a better thomas' i

3:55

don't know how this how he evaded as

3:57

so highly you know how he just didn't

4:00

Come up you were but I I was

4:02

texting him recently and I was just like

4:04

bro do the show Why why haven't you

4:06

done the show? Yeah, and so Sean Francis

4:08

is you may recognize him on Twitter as

4:11

the offside rules But it just was an

4:13

OG pod to our pod exactly It's just

4:16

an OG kind of kind of American soccer

4:19

Account and person who has

4:21

been involved in the game and growing the game for

4:24

a really really long time He's one of

4:26

those people that you see around the line. You're like, how you

4:28

make money? You

4:31

know You

4:33

know, it's just Tommy from Martin. Yeah, like

4:35

you ain't got no job. I know job

4:37

He is very much a mover and shaker

4:40

while moving while not moving or shaking. Okay

4:43

No, exactly. So we're gonna be talking to

4:45

him about about some of the history of

4:48

American soccer and and the content creation around American

4:50

soccer and out of you know at a very

4:52

early time so we'll get to that in a

4:55

bit, but We

4:57

have to talk about what's been happening in in

4:59

the Premier League the Premier League title race a

5:01

relegation Right, you call it a

5:03

race a relegation race. No race to the

5:05

bottom race at the bottom really get fight.

5:07

Yeah battle. Okay because

5:10

the both of our

5:12

teams had Very notable results

5:14

in yeah in both the ends of

5:16

the spectrum, right? Yeah, everything battling to

5:19

stay up after having dealing with

5:21

the points reductions Arsenal just

5:23

you know not wanting to deal

5:25

with the bottle job accusations. Yeah,

5:27

we beat the allegations We're

5:30

trying to beat the elegant. So we'll start

5:32

with our son of play Chelsea a five-nil

5:34

victory Wow. What a game I

5:37

Mike how'd you feel about it? Yeah, I was

5:39

afraid you guys are gonna ask me about this.

5:41

Yeah I'm gonna show your Mike if you start

5:43

this business as a positive. No, no, no, no

5:45

Pochino needs to go He's clearly way out of

5:47

his depth. We are Cole Palmer FC. It's become

5:50

clearly evident over the past I

5:52

mean, I don't know what you are called month two

5:54

months. He's our best player and now without him We

5:56

know that he's our only player and Chelsea's

5:58

isn't shambles. I don't I think it's gonna be a quick

6:00

fix. I, again, I don't think Podge is

6:03

the right guy. I think you need to fire him and bring

6:05

in someone who is

6:07

more tactically adept, is a better winner. You know

6:09

what I mean? I don't know, cause he had

6:12

the- First half. First half. First half didn't look

6:14

bad. That was one nail, the first half wasn't

6:16

bad. But here's my, what does Podge say to

6:18

the team when they're going over, what are we

6:21

gonna do? I go, you know, against Arsenal. Okay,

6:23

look, they like to crowd the front, so I'm

6:25

gonna need this back four to, you

6:28

know, to really solidify and fight.

6:31

My front three, I'm gonna need you guys to really

6:33

get out there and spread the pitch and

6:35

try to go after him. Midfield, do whatever

6:38

you want. Have a good time out there.

6:40

Buddy, here's what I suggest you do, run into

6:42

each other a couple times. That's really confusing this

6:44

way. I mean, this is just such a, I

6:47

mean, the player who looked really, really

6:49

bad, even though

6:51

Chelsea were very, very poor, but

6:54

Nicholas Jackson, I mean, I'm sorry,

6:56

Nico Jackson. You ain't

6:58

for real. I

7:01

feel, he's like, at what point do

7:03

we start to feel bad? It's like,

7:05

the criticism is obviously fair.

7:07

He had that one V one with

7:10

Raya and decides to go near post

7:12

for some reason. And then just, it

7:14

goes outside of the net. The entire far post.

7:16

The entire far post. And it's like, why not

7:18

go to the larger part that you have, that

7:20

is more open? He's trying to play chess when

7:22

they're like, bro, we're asking you to play checkers,

7:24

bro. You really

7:26

ain't gotta be doing all that. Listen, connect

7:28

for me. What are you doing? Bam, too

7:30

much strategy is involved. You're playing hungry, hungry.

7:33

Hit the paddle. Just hit the goddamn paddle.

7:36

Really, really hard to battle. Please!

7:40

It works, it doesn't seem like it might work,

7:42

but it works, it's a good strategy. Stop slamming

7:44

the paddle with your forehead. But then- That's

7:47

gotta hurt. It looks bad when this

7:49

man, just a couple days ago, was

7:52

fighting with his teammates to take a penalty. But

7:54

I actually think that's what broke him as a

7:56

human being. Now that I think

7:58

about it. man has him

8:00

and they're gonna get a shot. He's like, bro, I deserve it.

8:03

I'm a baller, bro. Give

8:07

me the rock. Yo, the only way

8:09

I can score is if it's put on

8:11

the spot. And I'm not asked

8:14

to do too much. Genuinely embarrassing, bro. We

8:16

can't score goals. And like that, but this

8:18

has been like a multi-year thing now with

8:20

Chelsea where it's just they create some chances.

8:22

The defense, I mean, they were obviously terrible

8:24

against Arsenal, but the defense overall this season

8:26

hasn't been the worst. We cannot

8:28

find the back of the net no

8:30

matter what. And I don't understand why

8:32

it's different players. We've had the Cacu.

8:34

You humiliated everything the other day. Six

8:36

nothing. So it's not good. Go Palmer

8:38

FC. Go Palmer. Chelsea didn't really do

8:40

we got to talk about

8:44

what that did to everything that match because

8:46

I feel like your juju has was passed. Yeah.

8:49

In the six goal picture of all

8:51

the world leaders at the time, putting

8:53

the hand on the board. Yeah. I

8:55

mean, I think that's what happened when

8:57

the ball was picked out of the net

8:59

for the six goal. It was a passing

9:01

of the torch. But when I look at

9:04

this team, I think I can't imagine how

9:06

anyone on that back line got a five

9:10

of five score. Yeah. Five atrocious. That was a

9:12

guy that had the five. I don't think that

9:14

you should play that much better than Kukareya. You

9:16

know what I mean? I mean, this was just

9:18

bad. He's saucy. I think had some moments, but

9:21

overall, I think Kaiseido at one

9:23

moment gets he's like on the on

9:25

the right, the right half space around

9:27

the box and he sends a horrific cross.

9:29

And even I'm like, well, he doesn't want

9:32

to be up there. How did he end

9:34

up there? You know, what

9:36

this tells you and you mentioned all the

9:38

players, Lukaku and whatnot. It feels

9:40

to me like since what Fernando Torres

9:43

Chelsea hasn't had a real

9:45

deal. Go Costa. Okay. Fair.

9:48

Hasn't had a you're right. Apart from

9:50

him. We've had no one. No, no

9:52

Shrek. That's played to the level that

9:54

expected of them until Cole Palmer. Yeah.

9:56

And to sit there and say, we're

9:58

not cold Palmer FC bro. You're

10:00

known as a club not

10:02

you. You're known for ruining Makes

10:10

no sense. Oh Palmer's uh, he's not a

10:12

nice striker. He's not a goal scorer Yeah,

10:17

it just feels He's

10:20

in Lee's I think he's still in the lead

10:22

or he was tied for

10:24

the ride I'm not gonna I can't hold

10:27

Yeah, look the players effort in in this

10:30

game, especially that second half. I don't exactly

10:32

know what happened I think the

10:34

issues with Chelsea we've been talking about them essentially

10:37

since Todd Boli Took

10:39

over the team and and it really

10:41

does feel like the issues are much

10:43

more systemic and much more top top

10:45

down The the even just again

10:47

the players that they have on the pitch Nico

10:50

Jackson with all due respect to him. I

10:53

don't know. I don't know where he came from I

10:55

don't know what the exact video Okay,

10:57

so the the the but he was last year. This

11:00

was the same thing that people said about him last

11:02

year He doesn't score enough goals. He makes great runs

11:04

He draws the finish to the wrong place But he

11:06

only had I think were like four or five goals

11:08

through the first like 28 games of

11:10

the season and he scored a bunch Of the

11:12

end and his tally ended up being like 15

11:15

so it didn't look so bad, right? Right, but

11:17

it's just like he's not a proficient like a

11:19

prolific goal scorer. No, that's exactly what Chelsea needs

11:21

Yeah, yeah, they look like a team with not

11:23

maybe it is You know,

11:25

maybe it's there all of their issues are final

11:27

third There's other a

11:30

midfield isn't I don't know but they get

11:32

the ball forward. Yeah, we do it can't

11:34

get to the box Yeah, they just and

11:36

they're like, did you know this is what

11:38

best? Maybe

11:42

it's also the injuries, you know not having

11:45

chill well, I mean Chovo played in the

11:47

game late But he's not who and kunku

11:49

is the big one that we've been missing

11:51

exactly. And then I think it's is we're

11:53

getting a row. No, I mean, yeah, yeah,

11:55

but like I think I don't get me

11:58

wrong This is it hurts me I

12:00

love reach I Don't

12:03

think many Chelsea fans would be sad to see him Doesn't

12:06

play Incredible

12:10

yeah, he's huge and he's also really good

12:12

at advancing the ball beyond he's good at

12:14

stopping and he's good at advancing the ball

12:16

forward He's great at crawl space to your

12:19

midfielder something that Enzo desperately needs and then

12:21

they just they just announced that he's getting

12:23

I guess It's he's an end. Yeah, he's

12:25

a dream because of a herniated disc and

12:27

me so it sounds very painful he's

12:29

been playing with an injury for all this

12:31

time and Look,

12:33

and I think it sort of shows

12:35

because the Chelsea midfield Getting

12:38

in alive most of the time. So it

12:40

look there's a paper

12:42

I just like again, I I

12:44

didn't think everything should have lost six mil to

12:47

Chelsea and Definitely Chelsea should not be losing five

12:49

no to Arsenal there was

12:51

just something in that I've seen a bit

12:53

more realistic than everything. Yeah result

12:55

the I think Chelsea and Everton are closer

12:58

together Then Chelsea and Arsenal are closer together

13:03

To not get molly wops six,

13:05

no, right I think Arsenal have

13:07

had issues scoring goals as of late so you

13:09

wouldn't have expected them to go and just

13:12

Absolutely the second Harvard school the one

13:14

that hit the hit the post and

13:16

went in which is a great just

13:18

a great goal and and there

13:20

was a little bit of like all the

13:22

defenders and even Petrovic were like

13:24

frozen of like we don't know what food he's gonna

13:26

hit with Yeah, we don't know when he's gonna actually

13:29

stop the ball, right? You don't even know if he's

13:31

gonna get a shot on target He

13:33

honestly is that that erratic sometimes. Yeah, but this is

13:35

this is one of the this is the game that

13:37

I sort of felt like You know,

13:40

even though Harvard's has had a fairly decent season

13:42

He's had some with 11 goals some bad misses

13:44

this year what we kind of name I think

13:46

he's got 11 goals now I mean, that's huge

13:48

where and this is his former club if you

13:51

click player profile to pop up This is

13:53

his former club. Yeah 11 goals this season. Yeah,

13:55

he's celebrated on Chelsea. Yeah. Yeah, that's a

13:58

nice slide There

14:00

was no love lost. It was just definitely.

14:02

Yeah, he's just like I'm happy to be

14:05

out of there. I don't even remember I

14:09

don't know what my life was like But

14:12

this felt this felt like one of those

14:14

games where you know, he's

14:16

he's rebranding he's changing Why

14:19

every down are the upgrade? Arsenal

14:23

fans just like not like yo,

14:25

I always mess with coverage. Yeah

14:27

one, but we never we never

14:29

question Cuz even when he got signed

14:31

people were like, I don't know why why are we bringing

14:33

you will say I don't know if you Remember I've been

14:35

I've been high on him from the beginning. Okay, I was

14:37

all about it I do think that the way if

14:40

you notice we're on the chart where he sort

14:42

of plays left back a little crazy But I

14:44

know he does that for the national team center

14:46

midfield is what I think he was brought in

14:48

for He's been playing as a

14:50

striker really. I think even Michaela Atenza was surprised

14:53

when they saw how good he was up top

14:55

because The one

14:57

thing about him is since he does like to just

14:59

sort of walk into open space which dangerous if it's

15:01

a dog Like

15:07

to sort of walk into open spaces

15:09

what he's done is he's opened up

15:11

everyone else in particular Martin

15:14

Odegard Martin Odegard has

15:16

the most Passes

15:18

or shot creations in

15:20

the league by a long shot this

15:22

dude is absolutely just like every time

15:25

that Harvard's is playing and the Harvard's

15:27

and and Odegard sort of

15:29

does that move he does where he gets the ball

15:31

from whoever's on the wing and probably being double teamed

15:33

If it's soccer or if in that moment, maybe, you

15:35

know, Ben White ran up and he sort of slides

15:38

over He's like, oh I could shoot

15:40

but then again a little bit said here comes average Making

15:42

a slight movement that draws a defender out. I

15:44

am very subtle He's very subtle but he's so

15:46

subtle and that's why it upsets me sometimes in

15:48

the group chats that I'm in with it Like

15:50

oh, he doesn't get the stats of someone who's

15:52

that and again, I'm like, bro, you're thinking of

15:55

football manager You're not thinking of the game, but

15:57

a guy opens up the space so other people

15:59

can get stats And that is worth so

16:01

much. I think it does. I just think the

16:03

problem with Kai Havertz, and especially at the end

16:05

of his time with Chelsea, is because he, like,

16:07

is just kind of wandering around. It looks effortless.

16:09

And so when it comes- when he does something

16:12

amazing and it looks effortless, you're like, whoa, this

16:14

kid's incredible. But when he's not performing well and

16:16

it looks like he's not even trying, that really

16:18

frustrates fans. But that's the stuff that- But even

16:20

when he's trying really hard, he also looks like

16:22

he's not really trying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

16:24

He also looks like he forgot where he was.

16:27

Right. Oh, I'm in the middle of the game.

16:29

That's kind of the look on his face. Yeah, he's a

16:31

little bit, like, almost indifferent to playing. And I'm

16:33

not comparing the players, but remember they would say

16:35

the same thing about Ozil. They're like, bro, he's

16:37

not even trying. He's not running. Yeah. Messy. He's

16:39

not even running. But when the play is needed,

16:42

you're like, oh, they happen to be standing in

16:44

the right spot. Or send

16:46

the perfect pass. Or, you

16:48

know, when it goes bad, you're

16:50

just like, I told you he wasn't even running

16:52

because- especially in England, they gotta see you put

16:55

in it. Exactly. Oh, if you're not putting in

16:57

a shift. If

16:59

you're not putting in a shift, those fans will

17:02

freak out. So, no,

17:04

but a huge win that now

17:06

puts, you know- What's the goal

17:08

differential at? Oh, I mean-

17:10

For Arsenal? For Arsenal, it is- Because

17:12

that is a point. I'll put up the table in a second,

17:14

but the- You can just click table. Yeah, yeah.

17:17

The- Plus 56. Jeez!

17:20

They have a better goal differential than City

17:22

by 12 right now. Yeah, so they're the

17:24

one all right when it comes to scoring

17:26

goals. It's just also- They've just scored so

17:28

many goals and it's just wild that, you

17:30

know, City has two games in hand and

17:32

still has a very strong opportunity to win

17:34

the title. You know what? I mean, we're

17:37

77 points, Arsenal is 77 points, Manchester City

17:39

at 73, so that's a gap of four.

17:41

With two matches, I honestly believe

17:43

I treat it as

17:46

we're still in second. Like, you know how Luton,

17:48

their table doesn't have the points deductions on it? Because they're

17:50

like, I'm not even focused on it. The

17:53

way I look at it is we're still in second because of

17:55

those games in hand. You

17:57

can't look at it and say, especially with the North London derby

17:59

coming up- On Sunday you can't look at that

18:01

and say it's ours what you can say though

18:03

is that city? They have

18:05

a chance to potentially drop points. Yeah, they are and

18:07

and I'm gonna my group chat put they're gonna drop

18:10

points at least One I know way this man was

18:12

roasted I've

18:15

seen I

18:18

think there was on some game during the commentary

18:20

when like Arsenal Liverpool

18:22

and City all played on the same day. They were

18:24

like You want to play

18:26

first that out of any center you

18:29

want to be the one sort of leading and

18:31

putting depression on the other Team so now there's

18:33

a little bit of pressure on City to to

18:35

win these games They're not a given that they're

18:37

gonna win the games even though they're gonna play

18:39

Brighton Which definitely lost twice at home this season,

18:41

right? You know people I know city is city

18:43

but they they have you know slipped up

18:46

from time to time So it's the early on

18:48

this season. It's tough to feel confident in any

18:50

way shape or form because they want to trouble

18:52

Yeah, yeah So But

18:56

no, but so the opposite the other team

18:58

that is in the title race

19:00

Liverpool was Yeah,

19:04

I hear the chant after the game you

19:07

lost the league and good as in part So

19:12

shout out to everything football club for

19:14

winning For defeating Liverpool

19:16

at Goodison Park for the first time in

19:18

14 years Years, you

19:20

know who scored the last time they won Yes

19:24

Did Matt and Michaela Tessa? Oh wait.

19:26

No. Oh, no. No, I'm the last

19:29

time they won at Anfield No, no,

19:31

the last time they beat Liverpool at

19:33

Goodison Park Tim Cahill and Michaela Reverent

19:39

a pundit Manager

19:44

Everything defeated Liverpool was

19:47

during the Colby lockdown when

19:49

there were no fans and the scores in

19:51

that game Were of course for Charleston and

19:53

you guessed it guilty cigarettes in Anyway

20:00

But no a huge I wonder if he hung out

20:02

with did he? We

20:07

gotta celebrate bro, no

20:10

this victory Little

20:16

hezzy in there out the toffee TV

20:18

for this shirt. I'm rocking the ever

20:20

ever Tony a shirt I'd love

20:23

to see it. Um, but no what

20:25

a tremendous victory I mean, there's a

20:27

lot of people to I

20:29

think that that can be celebrated in this

20:31

game I think Sean

20:33

dice played the game perfectly Can I

20:35

tell you the moment where

20:38

Sean dice changed Everton season? I think

20:40

I think I know what you're gonna

20:42

say There was a six nil loss.

20:44

Yeah horrific next match. Who did you

20:46

guys play? Okay, Burnley you had

20:48

a big win there. Yeah, you know one one nil to

20:50

know some of that. There was a difference There

20:54

was a difference on the sideline and you

20:56

know what it was Sean dice wearing

20:58

a tracksuit. Yeah What it's

21:00

not even a tracksuit. He's wearing

21:02

the training training top. Yeah, but

21:04

he's wearing like workout pants Oh,

21:06

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's not

21:08

wearing the you know,

21:10

angry the angry insurance You

21:14

know, he's relaxed right about

21:16

as relaxed as you can look I was gonna

21:18

say Sean does something look relaxed He never looks

21:21

relaxed, but he's a man who is who is

21:23

who shades his head and is not bald There's

21:26

something you know Sean

21:28

dice Can grow hair?

21:30

No. No, no, look at it. No There's

21:34

no way this man grows hair. Look at his

21:36

hair. He has a hairline We're

21:39

looking at Sean dice. That's a full

21:41

haired man. We need to do Psycho

21:45

analysis on this man. That's Okay,

21:48

maybe he's got the bald spot in the back

21:50

no, bro, I don't think so Maybe it's just

21:52

thin and that's why he shapes it positive doesn't

21:54

look that thin. That's not a bald man. No,

21:56

I know I'm looking He's

21:59

a self balding man, it's

22:01

Jim Norton. Jim Norton also

22:03

a guy who said not bald. He

22:07

has very very thin hair so it looks

22:09

like he's a sick kid when he lets

22:11

his hair grow out. What does he look

22:13

like? A muscle man? The

22:17

guy looks like a sick kid 24-7. Just

22:19

say Sean Dyches, yo, when

22:22

you're optionally bald, it says

22:24

something about you. It's

22:26

not a hairstyle, it's a lifestyle. That's

22:29

the next level commitment. I don't want the

22:31

17 seconds to take it into play. There

22:33

was some player who said that grew

22:35

a beautiful head of hair. I must have seen

22:37

it on Ben Foster's podcast or

22:39

something. I shaved my head to

22:41

intimidate the opponent. Oh, that's the guy from Celtic.

22:44

Okay. Because they were shocked because he had a

22:46

shaved hair. His whole career, they were shocked when

22:48

he showed up and he had a full head

22:50

of hair. Right, right. He's like, I've always had

22:52

a hair. It's like Robbie Keane now. Not Robbie

22:55

Keane, Roy Keane. Yeah, Roy Keane is just mean.

22:57

He had beautiful hair, but when you watch the

22:59

play, man looked like a little scary. But

23:02

even in this photo that we have that you pulled up

23:04

with him with hair, which again has completely confused

23:06

me, he's wearing a shirt and tie. He changed

23:08

that. He did. Over the last two matches. And

23:10

what were the results of the last two matches?

23:13

Victories. Two victories. Two clean sheets. Oh, I

23:15

got it correct. You said Burnley. It was

23:18

nodding. It was nodding, but the game previous

23:20

to the Chelsea loss was against Burnley. But

23:22

he was like, he said he specifically said

23:24

he needed to make a change. And the

23:27

players have said they noticed the difference when

23:29

he showed up in a track suit.

23:33

They were like galvanized the team.

23:35

I'm paraphrasing, but they knew something was

23:37

going on. And look at how the

23:39

season has changed. It's

23:43

quite stark. He saved Everton from their

23:45

first ever relegation. We're not there just

23:47

yet, but we're pretty close, right? Everton

23:49

are four games left

23:52

in the Premier League season. They're

23:54

sitting on 33 points after already having

23:56

been deducted eight points, which is again,

23:59

given the. performances ever since don't it

24:01

doesn't look as bad of a season as this

24:03

sort of field you're eight points ahead of Luton

24:06

in 18th. Yes, which is the

24:08

drop zone, right? I would

24:10

have to assume Unless there's

24:12

a complete unless all the players like oh we good now

24:14

We don't have to try anymore that they're

24:17

gonna be able to survive who are

24:20

the next remaining matches the next matches

24:23

Yeah, yeah, look those up right now the

24:25

what the next ones next up

24:27

Renford Luton Sheffield and

24:29

Arsenal. So those are three massive matches in

24:31

a row Brent Pronunciation should be that should

24:33

be a win I mean Sheffield are gonna

24:36

be relegated probably by the next game if

24:38

they're not already But

24:40

but no I wanted everything great. I

24:42

want to talk about this game in

24:45

particular and just Liverpool basically

24:47

getting their their title chances Thrown

24:50

out the winners. It's it. I don't know if

24:52

it's embarrassing No, no, it is It is embarrassing

24:54

because you're the team that comes back after the

24:56

75th minute and you couldn't find any other gear

25:00

This was a game where I'm

25:02

praising Sean Dyson. I thought he

25:04

tactically handled it. Well, I thought

25:06

the Jordan pick something

25:08

they always do. Well, that's the thing even even

25:10

Jurgen Klopp after the game He was like especially

25:12

after the first goal They're like we knew what

25:14

everything was gonna do we know how

25:16

they were gonna play but they couldn't they couldn't

25:19

Figure it out and they took it took

25:21

a lot of like obviously the defending was

25:23

remarkable Jordan Pickford I mean we some

25:26

people also we talked about Nick Nico

25:28

Jackson, but Darwin Nunez another guy I

25:30

had terrible terrible had unbelievable opportunities Don't

25:32

let don't let Virgil van Dyke off

25:34

the hook though, cuz he couldn't get

25:36

his head on anything But

25:39

this was that's what they were high like winning

25:41

all the aerial battles That's what they were highlighting

25:43

that in in the game that Everton especially in

25:45

the in the first Think six or

25:47

seven set pieces that they were getting Every

25:50

first ball and and the goals led that

25:52

that's what led to the goals It was

25:54

just but Jared Brantway who's never he's never

25:56

struck a bullet Wait,

26:00

did he get credit for like all cuz I he

26:02

did he did he did because Well

26:07

the way Brad way went over to celebrate I was like

26:09

dude you saw that didn't go But

26:12

it crossed the line Before

26:15

Dominic over Lewin literally threw

26:17

his entire Riddle

26:20

the rest of his career Boy

26:25

Yo, baby, I want that I

26:27

want that Okay,

26:30

my man was gonna throw every limb at it

26:39

This ball is going in no matter

26:41

what and this was a I thought

26:44

John Brantley in this game

26:46

in particular It is

26:49

making a case for you know I think

26:51

I said this the other day or like

26:53

I don't think job Brantley will be at

26:55

Everton very long because eventually they're gonna sell

26:57

him and they need the money and they

26:59

need the profit but he is is

27:03

arguably getting to You

27:06

know look it sounds a little crazy,

27:08

but Fighting for kind

27:10

of one of the best English

27:12

center backs in in the country I the only reason I

27:14

might disagree is he looked really bad when given the opportunity

27:16

not really bad But he didn't look up

27:18

to the level of expected when he got the opportunity

27:20

with England But if we're talking about simply in the

27:23

league Absolutely incredible.

27:25

He's looking great and he looks like he has a future.

27:27

Obviously. There's a little bit of it's

27:29

tough to It's tough to tell how good

27:31

of a center back you are when you're

27:33

on the back foot so often Like

27:36

the way that Sean Dyche wants to I would

27:38

disagree with that I would say it is best

27:40

to see how good of a center back you

27:42

are when you are on the back foot that

27:44

Often and you have to defend it's what I

27:47

feel like it's like Jordan Pickford It's the number

27:49

one for England because he plays on a team

27:51

where he is constantly getting pelted with us Here's

27:53

the problem though Like can you trust Jordan Pickford

27:55

on the national team when you know they're gonna

27:57

have the majority of possession and they're gonna be

28:00

and you kind of have to sit and wait

28:02

for a large majority of the match. I wouldn't

28:04

be able to spring into attack. And if you're

28:06

Jordan Breathweight, can you hug that halfway line? Can

28:09

you do those things without really being asked? I

28:11

think you can. Look, he's great on the ball.

28:13

He's good with both feet and the

28:15

dude's a unit. Yeah, and he's a big

28:17

boy. He's a big boy. He's a big

28:20

boy. I held his own, you know, fighting

28:22

for, you know, in set pieces against Virgil

28:24

van Dyck, against Conaté. And

28:27

I actually think that I don't want to call it a failed

28:30

debut or a failed opportunity with the national team, but that's

28:32

the best game you could have asked for, that some

28:34

people were suggesting maybe he's out of the

28:36

conversation of the Euros. I'm

28:39

not really sure he was ever in it, but the

28:41

opportunity to show up and show off, he really didn't

28:43

take that. I actually think that's made him better. I

28:45

think that's made him really sort of focused. Yeah, yeah.

28:47

I look and I'm just guessing. He does a

28:49

great game, man. Just look, just

28:52

a solid, solid performance and defense. Let's

28:54

say you're some Everton. Yeah. Let's

28:56

say Everton is saved. Do you

28:58

want Sean Dyche back as your manager next year?

29:00

I think a first Darvie win

29:02

at home in 14 years. But

29:05

you saw the game. Bro, bring Sean Dyche to Chelsea. What are

29:08

we doing? Is it long term?

29:10

Probably not. But look, this is what I'll say.

29:12

I think the- If you didn't have the points

29:14

deduction, where would you be on the table? Like

29:17

14th or 15th? Some of that.

29:19

Still not great. But still, I mean for

29:21

a team with all the financial issues and

29:23

mismanagement that Everton had been through. Three managers

29:26

ago. I think it was three managers ago.

29:28

Who was your manager? Three managers

29:30

ago. Which better than four weeks ago. Was

29:32

it the- Who's the manager at Fulham? Marco

29:35

Silva. Was it Silva? Who was it

29:37

Carlo? I think it's Carlo Ancelotti. Three

29:39

ago? Yeah, baby. I think it's Carlo

29:41

Ancelotti. List of Everton managers. Yeah, think

29:44

about that. Carlo Ancelotti.

29:47

I'm S. Rodriguez, played for our club bro.

29:50

What a wild time. You

29:53

really came in at a really cursed moment. If you

29:55

don't count Big Dunk, then Carlo was three ago. Yeah,

29:57

he was four ago. He was four ago, yeah. So

30:00

think about where you were not no disrespect to

30:02

Sean dice, but I think we would all agree

30:05

It's kind of a it's a

30:07

it's more of a league one style of

30:09

game of game because I think even championship

30:11

is moved Yeah, Lee gum. Yeah, yeah Well

30:14

known I love the French tactic We

30:16

love to see Sean dice ordering food

30:18

and known stuff I would love it

30:22

I love it yeah I

30:24

would pay to be there I watch

30:26

on BN Sports Great league.

30:28

Oh my god Luis Enrique goes

30:30

back to Barca in two years

30:34

PSG will bring in Sean

30:37

dice Okay, he's

30:39

a perfect fit Polyvoo! Rosé

30:45

Bro, my man is fluent Yeah No

30:49

one says romance language Like

30:52

the voice of Sean dice So

30:54

I think the Look

30:57

it is the style of this is what

30:59

he has brought. He has brought a sense

31:02

of weight. Okay Wanted

31:04

to be sick. Yeah, what is stability wanted to

31:06

settle? You got that now if you survive

31:08

you can't open the new stadium before

31:11

too low block I banked

31:13

oh and And

31:16

I running like Bambi's I think

31:18

once ever everything sort out their

31:20

financial issues the new stadium Maybe

31:22

new owners new investment and with new

31:25

owners with the players that ever sin

31:27

has right now I say

31:29

Sean dice you keep them for if this is gonna

31:31

be the situation where you can't really bring in We're

31:34

still fielding Andre Gomez out there, bro. Yeah,

31:36

he's out there His

31:38

fever card has like a 12 pace

31:40

bro And he's and he's

31:42

still doing what he has to do but

31:44

but we cannot replace players. There's no money

31:46

So if this is gonna be the situation

31:48

then Sean dice has to be the manager

31:50

That's that that has been various at least

31:52

some stability some sense of like, okay

31:55

The players believe and to go from

31:57

that To

32:00

win like this is tremendous. She's in a

32:02

row. Do you think she's there? That's huge

32:04

So they the players have some sense of

32:07

belief and I and I loved even the

32:09

decisions of like sitting I'm

32:12

a dual nana, right? He's like been one of the better

32:15

players for Everton But there are some times

32:17

he just doesn't fit he doesn't maybe make

32:19

the right decision defensively He could end

32:21

up coming in this game, but there's something

32:24

to look Let's

32:26

find the right sort of sit even Jack

32:28

Harrison getting bench for like three four games

32:30

because he wasn't doing that well And even

32:32

in this game, he got a point five

32:34

rating on fot mob But Jack Harrison who

32:36

we love in the door is he's up

32:38

the absolute homie But there's there's something even

32:40

to his game that concerns

32:42

me within Everton where it's like

32:45

he's he's Great on

32:47

1v1, but he's losing the ball way too much

32:49

It's almost like like he's not getting

32:51

the help he needs for the type of player

32:53

I'm on that side from Leeds where it was,

32:55

you know past the ball to each other And

32:58

yeah a murder ball and everyone has it and

33:00

it's somewhat direct But it's kind of

33:02

pressing to come to this

33:04

was fully direct. There's no one coming

33:06

to your aid Yeah, you basically have to pass it

33:08

in the spaces. You hope a player can get to

33:10

yeah, it's a very different style And I think his

33:12

instinct isn't for that. Yeah, so bad

33:14

mouthing. No, no, it's not like you look you

33:16

got a point five Right. He didn't play poorly.

33:19

It was just the there were just many times

33:21

Well, he's he has two or three defenders on

33:23

him and there's nobody really there to help him

33:25

like give him a passing option Cuz they're so

33:28

focused on defending. So it's always but but also

33:30

the more this defensively He's doing he does the

33:32

job that he needs to that he needs to

33:34

do so I give him credit for that But

33:37

it's just a there's certain things within the team.

33:39

We're just like you see the heart there That's

33:41

that's the thing that makes me most proud. It's

33:43

like they're they're playing for

33:45

the bad They're playing for those fans

33:48

and just and getting this result in

33:50

this moment To look

33:52

with nobody expected it not a one You're

33:56

ruin clubs. Goodbye So

34:00

that's a nice little send off for your

34:02

well as a comedian group chat Exotic

34:05

they couldn't believe it. Somebody said what am I dreaming?

34:07

Is this what dream? So

34:12

so shouts to Those

34:14

you know the blue in Merseyside cuz you

34:16

know, I you saw it yourself I dealt

34:18

with a lot of stick being

34:21

in Liverpool and and being an Everton fan

34:23

just from other Everton fans Yeah, yeah, but

34:25

this is definitely a problem before for the toffees.

34:28

All right Let's get to

34:30

our convo with Sean Francis again.

34:32

Absolute homie We're

34:34

gonna be talking a lot of MLS a lot

34:37

of American soccer with him because he's been around

34:39

for a bit So here goes he's a convo

34:41

with John Francis The

34:43

illustrious guests just continue to

34:46

come on this show. That's it, bro This is and

34:48

this is someone again. We mentioned that up top but

34:50

someone we It feels criminal

34:52

that he hasn't been on the show yet. And

34:55

finally you ain't somebody in American

34:57

soccer until this person knows who you

34:59

are You

35:08

stepped in the door, yeah Because

35:11

for real this is a someone

35:14

when we started out in 2015 Was

35:20

was you know someone we look to

35:22

of like yeah Who's done something even

35:24

close to what what we're doing and

35:26

while the the show that

35:28

predated ours is a show called the offside rules

35:30

I hope I said that correctly the offside rule

35:32

you did. Okay While

35:34

it may not have beget it was a

35:36

direct corollary The vet diagram had a lot

35:39

of in the middle and in the middle

35:41

is this finally this episode We just taken

35:43

too long to do ladies and gentlemen, he's

35:45

done everything in this game He knows all

35:47

the deep dirty secrets, but he's not gonna

35:50

say it on the show I'm not gonna

35:52

baby before we we recorded we got some

35:54

stories ladies. I'm in the one the only

35:56

Sean Francis everybody Our

36:00

studio audience, Joel, was the method of

36:02

exactly. All 17 of them. I

36:04

love how every time they hit the button, they clap

36:06

in unison the exact same way every single time. But

36:09

then it trails off, and you hear more of them, which is great. My

36:12

first question to you is, to see

36:16

what we're doing, and think back to

36:18

your first episode of the All Sides

36:20

Rule, tell me about what that set

36:22

up was like. What was the world like? What year is

36:24

it? Where is the league at the moment?

36:27

Where is Messi at the moment? What's

36:29

going on? Put everything in perspective for

36:32

the audience. Well, I mean, if

36:34

you're referencing the All Sides Rule's podcast, you

36:36

got to back it up because you got to

36:38

go to the blog first. A

36:40

blog, a regency listening.

36:44

That is... These were

36:46

newspapers. It's short for web log.

36:48

Wow. Boomers

36:50

right now are not getting their

36:53

ears in. Basically, it was like

36:55

having your own diarrhea

36:57

journal on a website. Live

36:59

journal. Yeah, live journal. Which I hear is coming

37:01

back. I hear is coming back. I heard Tumblr

37:04

is going to come back. Tumblr is coming back.

37:06

All right. And that's crazy. Wow.

37:09

And what year was this? So when you're... Yeah, the

37:11

year... The blog. Yeah, when we started the blog, man,

37:13

I think that was probably around 2005-06? 2005-06?

37:17

Yeah, we... Five American soccer. That's a big soccer era.

37:19

Yo, that's a big soccer era. Yo, the jerseys were

37:21

big and baggy. Now they're

37:23

too close. The baggy era. Yeah. But

37:26

you said big soccer. That's not a euphemism. No. There

37:29

was a website called Big Soccer. Imagine you took the

37:31

toxicity of Reddit and the anger of a clubhouse, kind

37:33

of, oh, I don't know,

37:39

and never did football. And

37:50

you were testing it. Yeah, with the need

37:53

to be right that American soccer Twitter possesses. Right,

37:55

but right. All those three things in a blender.

37:57

That was a big soccer era. That was a

37:59

big soccer era. An unholy union man.

38:01

It was like but it was weird because big soccer

38:03

was in some ways. That was

38:05

the lifeblood It was a most important American. That's

38:07

how you knew what was going on. It would

38:10

be Financial Times if you will Yeah, it was

38:12

the paper of record. Yeah, you know the absolute

38:14

paper of record. There's so many people that to

38:16

this day I don't know them by the government

38:18

names, but I know them by their big soccer

38:20

handle. You're like, yo, there's dirty P48 Yo,

38:30

I changed my life man! Not

38:32

if I look in! My

38:34

wife, y'all! You don't know

38:36

my pack of being

38:38

the rowdiest Colorado rap like

38:41

the supporter Oh man, that's

38:43

an achievement There's usually

38:45

one or two We're looking at the

38:47

website, BigSci, which really didn't look like this It didn't

38:50

look like this There was a lot

38:52

of Web 2.0 graphics back

38:54

then They were famous for just not liking

38:56

anyone or anything This was like a big

38:59

I remember the big soccer You

39:01

had to pay for it at one point So I

39:03

could never really go through it There was a point where

39:05

it was free though Again, it

39:07

was crucial. It was very necessary But out of

39:10

this world, blogs came and things Everybody started writing

39:12

their own blogs A lot of people

39:14

now who were like Big dogs in American

39:16

soccer journalism People like Ives Glar said Soccer

39:19

by Ives was That

39:22

blog was like Necessary reading Five

39:25

times a day to find out What the

39:27

latest transfer was Whatever was He

39:31

used to be first on like

39:33

Everything Twitter really

39:35

became a thing In 2008-09 That's

39:39

when people started getting on This is

39:41

how you exchange information Especially

39:43

about soccer You didn't have

39:45

a platform where you could go to And share stories and

39:48

stuff like that And there was

39:50

no Golazo network There was nowhere to watch any

39:52

news about soccer There was no,

39:54

there was like Box soccer channels I

39:57

remember the fox soccer network And both the football phone and

39:59

room I remember that. Fuck you.

40:01

Yeah. People were so angry going,

40:04

Hey this is James from Kalamazoo.

40:07

What's your favorite club? I hate you. Goodbye.

40:09

That was a show on TV. I'll

40:12

hang up and listen. First

40:15

time last time. First time I'm calling. Last time

40:17

I'm calling. What was the,

40:19

it was Eric Winalda and who was the other

40:21

guy? Do you remember? We met

40:23

the, it was the Irish guy, right? Or was

40:25

it? I can't remember. We met him. There were

40:27

so many guys that, you know, they're still around

40:29

today that were all part of that Fox soccer

40:31

channel thing. Kyle Martino had a talk show for

40:34

me. Short-lived talk show. Oh my God. Mac Redos

40:36

was there. Christian Sullivan. I

40:38

mean, so many of the guys that are still on the air now

40:41

were there. It was a very, Rob,

40:43

Rob Stone. Yeah. If you

40:45

go back and watch it, it feels so like, you

40:47

know, like public access. It's

40:49

crazy. But that, that was it back.

40:51

That was, that was what you

40:54

could get podcasts. weren't really a thing. Yeah. Like

40:56

I said, Twitter wasn't really a thing yet. So you started as

40:59

a blog. Yeah. And you called it all

41:01

the rules. And was your goal to be funny? Cause that's the

41:03

one thing I remember about you guys is two things. When

41:06

we started the show, I was like, we want to

41:08

be a little bit more hood than the average show.

41:10

Like they don't really talk about the culture. Like we

41:12

know it. Like our side of the tracks, if you

41:14

will. And also there's no, no one's even trying

41:16

to be funny. And if they are, they're not

41:19

hitting that. You guys had that little bit of

41:21

a reverency. Yeah. Everybody was

41:23

trying to be a reporter, right? And some people, if you

41:25

were either as a grant wall or Stephen golf, yeah, you

41:27

were a proper reporter. And that's what he did. But there

41:29

were a lot of guys who were like me in their

41:31

basement, blogging, writing these things that

41:33

I want to be a reporter and that's cool.

41:35

Whatever. My thing was like, what's

41:38

the white space? What are people not doing? And

41:40

if you looked at that blog era, the most

41:42

popular blogs out there were things like TMZ

41:44

and Perez Hilton, right? There

41:47

was no one doing that. Everyone would talk about what

41:49

the latest transfer was. No, I was talking about how ridiculous

41:51

Beckham's latest haircut was. I just ran

41:53

straight into that white space and it worked

41:55

because the whole thing was a white space

41:57

when we got there. Yeah. I

42:00

just had this conversation the other

42:02

day. You and Kevin represented a

42:04

very much of a different, a

42:06

shout out to Ivus as well.

42:08

Yeah, yeah. Like Kevin and I,

42:11

we joke about it, because we

42:13

used to go to games, and it was like, we

42:15

were the only black people that were on the field. He did.

42:17

Yeah, yeah. It really wasn't a lot

42:19

of brothers around. It had a lot of brothers

42:21

around. And I said this recently

42:24

to someone at NMLS. They've

42:26

made a lot of improvements,

42:28

a lot of efforts with their DE and I and issues and stuff.

42:31

And I go in the office now, and again, it used to be

42:33

me, Ollie Curtis, and one other person.

42:35

And that was it. And I walk in there

42:37

now, and I'm like, I'm, you know. Yeah. I'm

42:40

not a head of the body. All right, I'm

42:42

going to be playing. Yeah, I'm going to be

42:44

in the wrong place. Oh, you're not right for

42:46

it. You got to run for it, man. But

42:49

yeah, Kevin and I, and shout out to Kevin

42:51

Brown. Kevin Brown is like a phantom now in

42:53

American society. Yeah, where is he, bro? He

42:55

went to Miami for years. That's

42:58

right. I don't want to say the football guys. Yeah,

43:00

the football guys. The se Look

43:23

at the connection. Bro, who knew? But

43:25

yeah, Kevin went down there to Miami.

43:27

And he got to Miami. Bro, he

43:29

disappeared after that. Yeah, you know what,

43:31

man? Kevin got, and I

43:33

won't judge him. Yeah, of course.

43:35

A little disillusioned with American soccer. Ooh, that

43:38

little disillusioned. Damn he is. A little bit big soccer.

43:40

I think he's the only one. We

43:43

all on board with everything. You'll

43:45

see him at Gotham games. Go to Gotham games. You'll find him

43:47

at a Gotham game. You won't find him at Red Bull games

43:49

anymore, but you'll find him at Gotham games. Bro, we need to

43:51

come. World Cup's about to be here. We need to have him

43:53

on the show just to get the

43:55

whole game back to game. Oh,

43:57

we thought he hated us when we started. No, God.

44:00

He's just Kevin. Yeah. Kevin's

44:02

one of those dudes like, kind

44:04

of like me, but in a different way, that Kevin was born 35

44:07

years old. Yeah. He's like

44:09

a curmudgeon. I totally see that. Like he's a

44:11

contrarian, but he's a beautiful contrarian. Yeah. He's

44:14

like one of those smartest people, most well-read people

44:16

you know, but he always gives it with a

44:18

little bit of Jersey attitude. Yeah. A

44:20

little chip on his shoulder. To give you the difference

44:22

between Kevin, I don't think you've ever met Kevin Brown.

44:24

I, maybe early on when we started, maybe. I

44:27

think we might've met him briefly at the first NYC

44:29

FC match because I think he was doing something for

44:31

him, if I'm not mistaken. But

44:34

when I first met you, I'm like, oh my God, I'm

44:36

Alexis from the Cougars. He goes, no, I know who

44:38

you are. Yo, show seems fun, man. And we had

44:40

a good conversation. When I met Kevin, I'm like, yo,

44:42

you probably don't know who I am. I'm Alexis from

44:44

the Cougars. No, I know who you are. And then

44:46

he walked away. And now, that gives you a good

44:48

idea. That is him, a thousand percent. It

44:53

gives you a good idea of the difference between

44:55

the two of you. And what maybe we've been able

44:57

to do. I've seen what I

44:59

needed to see. I love that guy. I want a

45:01

little bit of information. I

45:03

mean, I'm good. I

45:06

don't think this is going to get good with you. Hilarious.

45:11

Well, it's fascinating to hear that

45:13

start. But then you ended up

45:15

working at MLS at some point. Yeah, at least.

45:17

So, I mean, for us, we

45:19

always, you know, we've taken meetings at MLS. And we

45:21

always, early on, we were trying to

45:23

figure out, like, well, what's going to be, who

45:26

are we in this space? Are we going to be working for a league? Are

45:28

we working for a club or something like that? Who are we in this space?

45:30

We were like, who's going to give us money? Who's going to pay us to

45:32

do this? Who's going to pay us to do this? Yeah. Who's

45:34

going to let me pay rent? That's the ultimate question. If you

45:36

were creating soccer content in America, it's like, can

45:38

someone pay me? There seems to be this weird thing. I'm sure

45:41

you guys have run into that. Where it's like, oh, you guys

45:43

like soccer. You should work for free. Yeah. Exposure.

45:46

Exposure. Yeah. If

45:48

exposure was money, son. This goes

45:50

back to like 2016, maybe 2017-ish. I

45:55

saw you and we were, this was maybe

45:57

when we were drinking the. We were drinking.

46:00

Wayne Griskey's whiskey. And

46:02

we finished the bottle, my dad. We did. At

46:04

what point a couple sips in, Sean looks at

46:06

me and goes, so how's the show

46:09

going? You guys making money yet? I

46:12

was just like, this is perfect. And

46:14

you didn't say it as, are you guys good

46:16

enough to make money? You understood the fight we

46:18

were trying to fight. This is it! Oh my

46:20

god. There it is, Wayne Griskey's whiskey. Number

46:23

99. Yes. Ooh, this is

46:25

the red hat. We're in Toronto, and

46:28

you pulled up. Like 20, oof. I think 14, 15?

46:30

No, no. We started 2015. So this is once we

46:32

started in 2017. Yeah, in 2018. Yeah,

46:34

in 2017, I think. And you were like, oh,

46:36

what are you doing afterwards? I was like, oh, I don't know.

46:38

He's like, you're like, whiskey? I said, yeah, I love it. Yo,

46:41

come back to the room. Bunch of us are

46:43

going to be hanging out. Yes, I remember this.

46:45

Yeah, I got a sweet for no reason. I

46:48

got a sweet for no reason. No reason. For

46:50

no reason. I thought, oh, this kid, bong. Me

46:53

and you were like in an Airbnb that was

46:56

like, an air mattress that we're sharing. And

46:58

you got a sweet. I

47:00

think we had, you know, our cameraman

47:02

sleep on a couch. We couldn't afford

47:04

anything. That's right. Zito, me and Zito.

47:07

Zito, Ariel was there. Yeah. Oh,

47:09

my God. Shout out Zito. Shout

47:11

out Ariel. Okay. Yo, I got

47:13

this special bottle of whiskey. We're popping in, drinking it tonight. Perfect. He

47:16

pulls out the bag. I forgot. We gave it a

47:18

nickname. Like a nickname.

47:21

And I'm like, where the hell did he

47:23

find Wanger? Well, we're in Canada. This makes

47:25

sense. Right. You

47:27

can find a Wanger at anything in Canada. Right. He's

47:29

licensed himself to toilet

47:31

paper. Yeah. Dixie cups. I

47:35

don't know. Get that money, bro. Yeah. So

47:38

the transition from just how did

47:41

you get from doing this blog

47:43

and doing this podcast to then working

47:45

at MLS? Like how was that? How

47:47

are the interviews? Were they even like

47:49

open to what you were like your

47:51

experience or skill in the space?

47:53

Yeah. It was interesting, man, because

47:55

I was my background. I was in the music industry. So

47:58

I had worked at a bunch of. going back to

48:00

like college I had to intern at all these labels

48:02

I was a DJ music soccer game you didn't want

48:04

to make any money I

48:08

wanted to have a good time I owned

48:10

a couple of blockbusters but

48:26

yeah I've done some consulting work for MLS and I

48:28

got laid off at MTV because that's what Viacom

48:31

does very regularly and

48:33

I was coming to the city for an

48:35

interview with Red Bull not

48:38

Red Bull New York with Red Bull drink

48:40

yeah Train

48:42

pulls into or I get on the platform

48:45

at 42nd Street to head downtown Train

48:47

pulls up door opens and it's my

48:50

buddy Chris Slosser who's been at MLS

48:52

forever he looks at me I just go

48:55

he doesn't say hello he's looking at me goes hey

48:57

man I heard you're not working we should talk I'm

49:00

like well hi Chris how are you there he's like

49:02

no no I didn't mean like that but we got

49:04

this new project okay cool I

49:07

came talk to him he said

49:09

we're bringing the website in house we're gonna start this new

49:11

website cool like you should meet me and I'm like commissioner

49:13

why he's like oh he reads your blog I'm

49:15

like oh no dude he reads your blog he

49:18

brings it up in meetings and at that point

49:20

I was like that's crazy cuz I didn't know

49:22

it's like my mom would even go so I go

49:24

and I meet Don Garbert

49:28

I meet Mark Abbott and we just talked about all

49:30

the stuff all the things they want to do and

49:32

at the time the league was you know they're really

49:34

trying to branch out and do something different because believe

49:37

it or not in the early days they didn't run

49:39

their own website fully it was run by

49:41

a company called Sports on Earth which is

49:43

owned by Major League Baseball so think about

49:45

that at its core you got Pepsi

49:48

running Koch's website so I brought

49:50

in house that

49:58

was part of the whole thing wanted to make it

50:00

more personality driven, more, you know,

50:03

just really reflective of like what American soccer

50:05

culture was. And so we brought in,

50:07

you know, myself, Simon Borg,

50:09

Nick Perchow, Matt

50:11

Doyle, Jonah Friedman, and Greg

50:13

Lawless were our managing editor and editor chief. And

50:16

we just kind of brought in like a super

50:18

friends of, you know, American soccer, like writers and

50:20

stuff. And we just kind of the best of

50:22

the best from big soccer. Yeah, yeah, it was

50:24

your big soccer fantasy team. But you know, social

50:26

media was a new thing at that time. And

50:29

there were kind of like, Oh, you have

50:31

some experiences social media, can you just run this, we get

50:33

someone more junior? I was like, Yeah, we never got any

50:35

more junior. I happen to be good at

50:37

it, I guess because you were the intern that ran

50:40

the social Yeah. going to do it. Yeah, I mean,

50:42

for a long time, and I started to

50:46

think of MLS insider, which, you know, at the

50:49

time was, it seemed like it was different. Now everyone does it right

50:51

the behind the scenes stuff, but no one was doing that at the

50:53

time. And it was, I think it

50:55

was pretty crucial for MLS, because we didn't really

50:57

know anything about the players back then. You didn't really

50:59

know anything about no clubs back then you

51:01

saw the league wanted it that way, too. I think it

51:03

was Bobby Boswell, he

51:06

started a YouTube channel, and he was just showing his

51:08

personality how funny and the league was like, you need

51:10

to stop that right now. Right? Yeah. How dare you

51:12

show your personality where you're here to play soccer. Bobby

51:14

Boswell's blog, yo, like low key, man, that was like,

51:18

I think that was the way forward. He worked with that

51:20

with a guy named Kyle Sheldon, who was a

51:22

PR guy DC and he's been a bunch

51:24

of players. Yeah, we follow that. Yeah, he

51:26

has an agency now called name and number.

51:28

Yeah, great work. But him

51:30

and Bobby, that was like something they cooked up. And

51:32

it was great, because he was like the only guy

51:34

that got it at the time that people

51:36

want personalities, they want to see this stuff, they want to know

51:38

all the different things that you're doing. And they were kind of

51:40

ahead of their time on that. But you know,

51:42

those days, it was the wild West, there were

51:44

no rules yet on media, you know, there was

51:46

also back then, I get fired, basically, transfers

51:49

was a website that I used to go on when I

51:51

was trying to learn more about the league. And some of

51:54

the names link with these clubs, you've never heard of people,

51:56

their own team, they were coming from it never heard of

51:58

them. that

52:00

they'd be like, I'm like, bro, you're

52:02

making this up. That's not a real

52:04

person. Yeah, bro, like transfer marketing got

52:06

this guy on it. It was crazy.

52:09

What a wow, wow, wow time. Yeah,

52:11

it's funny, just hearing all those names.

52:13

I see names like Simon Borg and

52:15

Greg Loss, who started Extra Time.

52:17

Were you there when Extra Time started? Him and

52:19

Shep Messing used to do that Extra Time show.

52:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a video show. And

52:24

then we kind of morphed it into the

52:26

Extra Time podcast. Everybody in the office

52:28

kind of drew. I

52:31

was the last person to contribute. I've contributed the

52:33

least to that podcast. Because

52:35

they're all very exes and hoes guys. And

52:37

they can really talk. I've never been able to

52:39

break down the game like that. You're more exes

52:41

and hoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's the weirdy-dandy? That's

52:44

what I wanted out. Straight up. I want

52:47

all that. I want all that. That's

52:49

such a great name for a guy that's like

52:51

everybody says it's not air. You just gave away

52:53

the phone. What a bag. I

52:56

just fumbled a massive bag. You're

52:58

watching Go Start a Podcast that

53:00

focuses on wag. With

53:03

that name. I'm not going to repeat that name. Bro,

53:05

I might do a show with a telestrator called

53:07

Exes and Hoes. And that might be the one

53:09

that makes money. Where they go out to eat.

53:11

Bro, what a good idea. Now it's mine. So

53:15

no, it is a, you know, you look

53:17

at the inception of a lot of these

53:19

shows that a lot of people are, it's

53:21

part of their routine now. But it's interesting

53:23

just to hear. Like, it didn't exist

53:25

just a couple of years ago. This

53:28

is not that long ago. Right. And with

53:30

American Soccer, there is a, you know, even

53:32

for us, we've been doing the show long

53:34

enough that now I sort

53:37

of feel like this weird American soccer

53:39

historian. Like, we have this body of

53:42

work and there's history to it and

53:44

there's stories. And, you know, when Alexis

53:46

almost got arrested at LAFC Stadium for

53:48

taking a shit. Like,

53:51

stuff like that. Where like, it becomes part

53:53

of American Soccer, lord. The

53:57

Electicon. The

53:59

Electicon. Oh,

54:01

I'm like a cock, an accident.

54:04

Who is just giving away Jim today? My

54:07

idea, guys. This is a marketing medium. We didn't

54:09

even plan it, dog. Bro, I think we're just

54:11

trying to impress you. So this has now become

54:14

a press conference. The Cool

54:16

Engine is now an agency because everybody's an

54:18

agency now. We really should have become agency.

54:20

But do you sort of see yourself in

54:22

that way to some degree of this, like,

54:25

wow, after all this body of work, you've

54:27

been a huge contributor to what the American

54:29

soccer looks like nowadays? I'll

54:31

never say huge contributor. I won't say a

54:33

contributor. I won't give it size because I feel like

54:36

I don't want to get you to school about it.

54:38

But I feel like I've put in

54:40

my time. You've not lived in New Jersey long enough.

54:43

If you were born there, you'd be like, of course not here. Because

54:46

you're a whole n' plug. No,

54:49

man, I feel like there's a lot of folks, man,

54:51

that just put in. It's time, man. To me, that's

54:53

the thing. I met this kid the other

54:55

day, super smart kid, really enthusiastic about

54:57

soccer. He's trying to get in the game, in

55:00

the business side of it. And he's like throwing all these ideas at

55:02

me. And I'm like, those are pretty

55:04

good ideas. And he's like, which one do you think

55:06

is the best? And I'm like, the one that lasts the longest. Because

55:10

time is the ultimate weapon, right? There

55:13

are people out there who have... Dime's been

55:15

dropped here. I

55:17

stole that from Amazon's hit series, Fallout. But that's

55:19

not fair. Bro,

55:21

stop saying that. But it's true. I work

55:23

in pop culture, man. That's

55:26

what I work for. But it's true, man. You

55:28

don't have to be the first sometimes, you don't have to be the

55:30

best sometimes. But if you're the one that lasts the longest, I'm

55:33

sure there's colas out there probably better than Coke.

55:36

Coke has just been there for forever. That's just a great advice

55:38

from someone trying to get in a pool. A

55:40

male, I'm gonna pick one. You just gotta last

55:42

the longest. Right, okay, yeah, Cinder and Spark. Not

55:46

bad, right? I'll tell you where

55:48

I got that from. Hi,

55:51

kids. They

55:53

know what they got into when they quick

55:55

play. Are there any moments or... or

56:00

pieces of work that you have

56:02

made that make you the most,

56:04

give you the most pride in

56:06

those contributions. Yeah, yeah, I mean

56:08

there's, I think

56:10

the thing I'm most proud of is recently, I

56:13

got to do the creative direction on the asset

56:15

to announce that the World Cup Final was coming

56:17

to New Jersey. New Jersey,

56:20

not New York. New York, New Jersey, New

56:22

York. New York, New Jersey, New York. New

56:24

grams, did you know that, you

56:26

already knew that the final was gonna be there and

56:28

you had to- No, that was the thing,

56:31

man. I didn't know it was the final, but I knew

56:33

that the host committee, they were like, whether we

56:35

get the final or not, we wanna create

56:37

something, because we're in New York. Of course. We

56:40

ain't just gonna go out the door with whatever we

56:42

get given. We want something special, whatever. So

56:45

I kind of made a couple of versions. Yeah, yeah,

56:47

yeah. But

56:50

all that's inside baseball. The fact that

56:53

I'm not from Jersey, but I've been there 20 years at

56:56

home. That's where I raised my kids. New Jersey's been very good

56:58

to me. I'm not

57:00

a native, but I've lived amongst the

57:02

people long enough to adopt their folkways

57:04

and things like that. There is a

57:06

specific culture to it. Yeah, yeah. You're

57:08

wearing the Asbury Park Football

57:10

Club, which you are the creator of

57:13

the Tilly's. Yeah, yeah. The biggest team you've never

57:15

heard of. Exactly, a lot of people know about

57:19

Asbury Park Football Club. And I

57:21

think a lot of people, you know, a lot

57:23

of people did what you did, right?

57:25

A lot of people created sort of

57:27

football clubs afterwards. Yeah, I mean, that's

57:30

something, okay, this is, here we go,

57:32

ego. What a guy I'm proud of.

57:34

Go ahead. Go ahead, Zohikish.

57:37

Yo, but I'm going to create a

57:39

Ben Hooper. My boy Ben Hooper, talk

57:41

about an OG of American soccer culture,

57:43

original winger, bumpy pitch. He

57:45

said, Asbury Park Football Club invented a genre,

57:48

and not many people can say that. And I feel

57:50

like it did invent a genre. Whether you hate the

57:52

fake football club thing or not, the

57:55

Asbury Park Football Club is the first blueprint

57:57

for that. Yeah, it's going to, the God.

58:00

a thousand other people like like like

58:02

do it. But there is a there

58:04

is a that era in which you

58:06

started that there was this hope

58:09

for a big future in the sport.

58:11

Probably not even as big as what it is

58:13

right now. But there was a certain level of

58:17

what's the word I'm looking for? A

58:20

sort of groundswell of creativity.

58:22

Yeah. And you

58:25

I don't think I see that anymore. I

58:27

think the creativity now there's like actual money behind

58:30

it. So the creativity is more

58:32

creative, if you will, like

58:34

brand creative. Yeah. And there's a there's a lot

58:36

of it out there, right? I mean, I can

58:38

rattle off 10 different

58:41

amazing photographers right now that put out

58:43

photography that 10 years ago you

58:45

did not see anywhere. Right. And every

58:48

kit released now, I don't say all of

58:50

them look the same, but boy, they got 10. There's

58:52

a lot of a melee on door. Yeah,

58:55

yeah, maybe. Or it's like the

58:57

I don't know, like they probably

58:59

have no idea, right? But they have created

59:01

this whole sort of genre

59:04

of soccer kit release. Yeah. That just that

59:06

just ape what they do. There's

59:09

a lot of that out there. But I don't

59:12

know, man, it's one of those things where like

59:14

that era. There

59:16

was some creativity out there. But what I think was

59:18

really key is like there was so much in America,

59:20

at least there was so much hope

59:23

and enthusiasm behind the national team. The

59:26

US national team in that moment

59:28

was that was a golden era

59:30

of talent. You know, and I

59:32

think about Michael

59:34

Bradley, Quinn Dempsey, Leonard Donovan, Tim Howard,

59:37

Jermaine Jones, Fabian,

59:40

who I just I'm sorry, never gets his

59:42

due. Yeah, I love him. Josie. But there

59:44

was there was such a good feeling before

59:46

the tragic events of 2018. Yeah. Right. But

59:49

there was such a positivity that we were just on the

59:51

way up that there was a cultural

59:54

trickle down in soccer. And you talk

59:57

about things I enjoyed that day. Well,

59:59

yeah, like. When

1:00:01

I went to the agency world, my first

1:00:03

thing was working on Nike soccer. And this was wild

1:00:05

because AGL's worked for it. It was their first social

1:00:08

media client. You think about that. Your first social

1:00:10

media client is Nike. Crazy.

1:00:12

But it was the wild west of social media

1:00:14

back then. Hey guys, we got a new client.

1:00:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the biggest brand you've ever

1:00:18

heard of. Yeah, you could kind of

1:00:21

do anything, right? And Nike's one of those companies that

1:00:23

like, they just want to do different. You know, they

1:00:25

just want to do different. They just want to do

1:00:27

better. But we sold them on this thing of like,

1:00:29

it was the lead up to the 2014 World Cup. And

1:00:32

we're like, let's embed with the team for

1:00:34

the hex, for the whole year of qualifying.

1:00:37

I think they played something like 18 games

1:00:39

between the qualifiers and the friendlies.

1:00:42

18 games. And me and like cameraman and

1:00:44

a couple of guys, we rode with them for 13 of

1:00:46

those 18 games. Wow. Like police, of

1:00:48

course, through Mexico City, riding the team,

1:00:50

playing into Jamaica, the

1:00:53

snow game in Colorado. Wow.

1:00:56

And that was a high, like not

1:00:58

only a career high, but just as

1:01:00

the soccer lover in me. Like

1:01:02

that was incredible. Like, I mean,

1:01:06

remember when there was that the article came out,

1:01:08

Brian Strauss wrote that article in Sporting News after

1:01:10

they lost the first qualifier down in Honduras,

1:01:12

I believe it was, that Jurgen

1:01:14

had lost the team. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:01:17

Boy, big soccer was like melting down that

1:01:19

day, right? Right, right. Because

1:01:21

this was their guy. They all wanted the

1:01:23

Europeans. Yeah. But I got him and like

1:01:25

this article comes out about, you know, it's

1:01:27

a disaster and he's lost the team. The

1:01:30

German guys aren't talking to the American guys.

1:01:32

And that article

1:01:34

comes out while they're at practice in

1:01:37

Denver the day before that snow

1:01:39

game against Costa Rica. I'm

1:01:42

flying in, get my bag at baggage

1:01:44

plane, turn my phone on. I

1:01:47

got like 50 message, yo, Jurgen, Jurgen, Jurgen,

1:01:49

Jurgen, Jurgen. I'm like, what is this article? So I start

1:01:51

reading this article, I'm waiting for a rental car and I'm

1:01:53

like, oh, God, this is crazy. This is buck wild. Get

1:01:56

to practice. The benefit of being

1:01:58

with Nike, close to our practices. Yeah, we got

1:02:00

in we had access and we were documenting

1:02:03

everything They're doing the practice

1:02:05

and when they're coming off the field. It's

1:02:07

like a morgue It was a weird

1:02:09

thing like the guys would come off the field

1:02:11

Yeah, they're joking with each other like hitting each

1:02:13

other with a boot or making little jokes my

1:02:16

escort water We're none of that. It was like

1:02:18

you ever get a bad grade on your report card And

1:02:21

you know, you're in trouble when you get home, of course I

1:02:26

kind of remember getting a good Don't like that

1:02:29

It felt like that like everybody was like, you

1:02:31

know, whatever there Whatever that's

1:02:34

not, you know, it's not my business Yeah,

1:02:36

but it definitely you could feel Paul in the air go

1:02:38

back to the hotel We're like the Ritz Carlton Denver

1:02:40

nice hotel. I've never stayed in my life at

1:02:43

this point. I'm like, why am I here? But

1:02:45

Nike that night was presenting to the team their

1:02:47

team apparel that they make just for the

1:02:49

team for welcome We're all in this like

1:02:51

meeting room in the hotel and they're presenting it or whatever. That's cool

1:02:54

All right, you're gonna stand up. So guys, thank you guys

1:02:56

go through everybody could leave that that's

1:02:58

not what team need to have a team meeting

1:03:01

So we're like we're out and

1:03:03

they just know everybody players and coaches

1:03:05

only so even like the marketing people and

1:03:07

PR people Everybody else who's with you a soccer like

1:03:09

leave the room and they have

1:03:12

like all right this article came out We

1:03:14

read it. Let's talk about y'all all

1:03:16

married man. Sometimes you just got like yes,

1:03:18

let's just do this We've

1:03:20

got to rip the bandit off and they go in this room and

1:03:22

they're in there for I don't know hour hour and a half And

1:03:24

they have a everybody says what needs

1:03:26

to be said or whatever next

1:03:28

day go the game snow

1:03:31

comes down They be

1:03:33

coaster. It goes. Yeah Great.

1:03:35

Yeah No,

1:03:38

they went there they aired it out. Everybody talked their

1:03:40

shit Yeah, and we said and they

1:03:42

went on a tear they went on a tear qualifying and that was

1:03:44

funny cuz we were snowed in now, yeah, we're supposed to go

1:03:46

to Mexico see the next day, so we have to hang an extra

1:03:49

day in Denver and Chris

1:03:52

Tucker was doing stand-up around the

1:03:54

corner No,

1:04:00

no, no, no. So they used to do

1:04:02

these pep rallies before the qualifier games. They

1:04:04

get like, I say pep rally,

1:04:06

but it's like a fan rally. All the AO guys,

1:04:09

sometimes they have music. They have some of

1:04:11

the players on stage talking, get everybody fired up. Alan

1:04:13

Hopkins would host. They were great. So

1:04:15

the theater, they had that pregame

1:04:17

pep rally in, like two days later, was having

1:04:20

Chris Tucker. So we're

1:04:22

hanging out after the game, and

1:04:24

Hopkins is like, I'm gonna call

1:04:27

this theater and see if I can

1:04:29

get his tickets for Chris Tucker. And he

1:04:31

does. So me, Hopkins, I

1:04:34

did, somebody else would go, and we go see Chris Tucker,

1:04:36

and it's hilarious, but we're up in the balcony. To

1:04:39

paint the picture for you, this is March. In

1:04:41

January, Colorado has just legalized weed. And

1:04:45

you got the star of Friday.

1:04:49

Yo, this whole, yo, there was no, you

1:04:51

couldn't see shit. Of course not. It was

1:04:53

so, I'm sorry. It was like a protest

1:04:55

league. Oh my God. Oh my God. He

1:04:58

fell off the ground like, what is going

1:05:00

on here? And

1:05:02

everybody was just like a whole theater. It's

1:05:04

just like 1,500 to high people

1:05:06

just yelling lines. Yeah, yeah,

1:05:09

yeah. Okay! Yeah. He

1:05:11

was trying to do his act. Yeah, like literally,

1:05:13

yeah, he says, can I just do my act?

1:05:15

Yeah. Oh my God. It was

1:05:17

like, oh, it was Chappelle, you know, when he

1:05:19

was Rick James. I'm Rick James, bitch. Oh yeah.

1:05:22

He couldn't do a stand-up for like three years

1:05:24

because of him. Oh my God. We

1:05:26

saw Mickey Free in the

1:05:28

Fort Lauderdale airport. No. Leaving

1:05:31

the MLS Combine. Wait,

1:05:33

I don't know who Mickey Free is. Who's Mickey Free?

1:05:35

Y'all know who Mickey Free is? Wasn't he the musician?

1:05:37

Yeah, he was one of the, the Rick James, well,

1:05:39

in one of those reasons. Oh, probably Murphy's. Oh,

1:05:42

okay, okay, okay. He's talking about Shalomar, I had a new

1:05:44

girl. Where that girl was a girl,

1:05:46

that was a dude. It was Mickey Free. Yeah. He

1:05:48

was talking about LA, like, whoever looked the most swimming

1:05:50

in the head, the most blouse, he got the most.

1:05:53

Yeah. Like, we saw that dude going. Why was he

1:05:55

coming out of MLS Combine? Well, we were

1:05:57

leaving Fort Lauderdale for the Combine, it was me

1:05:59

and. but it's mroz.com people. And

1:06:02

he is like, so

1:06:05

he's Seminole Indian. He's

1:06:07

black Seminole, we have now in Florida. And

1:06:10

so he's like the president of like the

1:06:12

tribes gaming commission. They have a huge hard rock

1:06:15

casino. That's right. He's like the guy,

1:06:17

but he's also a musician. What a

1:06:19

range of job. Yeah.

1:06:22

Random. Random. I wanna know,

1:06:24

because you've had this career for so long, give us,

1:06:26

because I think everyone has a moment. What's one moment where

1:06:29

you thought, nah, I don't think there's gonna be a MLS

1:06:31

or an American soccer moving forward.

1:06:33

I know there's probably a couple, but is there a

1:06:36

moment in your career where you're like, I don't know

1:06:38

if we can recover from this as an industry. In

1:06:42

my career, no, but before, absolutely. When I

1:06:44

think of like the early 2000s, like

1:06:47

I started going to MLS back in

1:06:49

Dallas in college. I would go see the Dallas

1:06:51

burn back at the old cotton bowl. It was

1:06:53

a horse whose legs were lightning. But he breathed

1:06:55

fire. He breathed fire.

1:06:58

The most mythical little picture. Who

1:07:01

drew this? It was a horse. That's who

1:07:03

you should get on the show, man. The

1:07:05

people who came in with the O.V. What

1:07:07

are we, Pablo Mars? Pause. Yeah.

1:07:10

Look at it. It is a fire

1:07:13

breathing lightning legged horse. And it's bad,

1:07:15

the legs, the front legs are just

1:07:17

not that well done. The lightning bolt's

1:07:19

like a peg leg. Is this like

1:07:21

a? Yeah, maybe. Maybe an able fractured

1:07:23

peg. But yeah, lightning

1:07:25

bolt legs. Yeah. And

1:07:28

a fire breathing. But yeah, so if you go to go

1:07:30

see. Yeah. And it looks like an indoor team. Yeah.

1:07:33

I mean, it was so 90s. All those original logos

1:07:35

were just so 90s, man. But

1:07:38

if you went to any games back then, like you go

1:07:40

to the cotton bowl in July,

1:07:42

Dallas, Texas. It's hot.

1:07:44

I mean, it's 100 degrees. Burn is because

1:07:46

you got some burn. Yeah, exactly. They

1:07:49

should have been sponsored by like, you know,

1:07:51

an anti-boater. Or local

1:07:53

dermatologist. Yeah. But

1:07:57

if you went to any of those games, you would be concerned.

1:07:59

Yeah. because this is an 80,000-seat stadium

1:08:01

and there are five,

1:08:04

six thousand people there rattling around. There's

1:08:06

nobody there. So where were you when you found out,

1:08:08

Lee, and how messy is going to play in this

1:08:10

league? Oh man, where was I? I

1:08:12

was at home. I remember, actually I do remember,

1:08:15

because I was on a call with somebody and I

1:08:17

desperately wanted to get off the Zoom I was on,

1:08:19

because like my phone was like blowing up. Like, did

1:08:21

you see messy? Did you see messy? And I'm like,

1:08:24

talk about this. I want to be on Twitter

1:08:26

right now. But I'm like, uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:08:28

We can do this for you, Nike. And meanwhile,

1:08:31

the world is opening up. But the messy one, I feel like we

1:08:34

kind of saw it coming. Like there was

1:08:36

a little bit of, there was some smoke

1:08:38

before that in the couple of days before.

1:08:40

The Beckham one I thought was bigger. That

1:08:42

was like a left field because again, we

1:08:44

didn't have Twitter. We didn't have all these

1:08:46

podcasts. There weren't all these different outlets

1:08:48

to talk about soccer. So when

1:08:50

Beckham came out in a full page, I

1:08:52

still have it in my basement in like

1:08:54

a Ziploc full page ad in the New

1:08:56

York Times that Beckham is coming to America.

1:08:58

That was like a holy shit.

1:09:02

Like a holy, like this is actually

1:09:04

having that came out of left field, I think

1:09:07

for everybody. You know?

1:09:09

Yeah. And no one had to scoop on

1:09:11

that at all. Right? All right.

1:09:14

I'm gonna tell you something. I knew about it

1:09:17

allegedly. I

1:09:19

knew it. Nick Sakovich, the much maligned

1:09:21

former GM of Metro stars, every once

1:09:23

in a while he would take some

1:09:25

of the supporters out to

1:09:28

lunch before the game. And

1:09:31

I went one of me and like five or six other

1:09:33

guys. And he told us, and

1:09:37

he had a reputation for saying a lot of things

1:09:39

that never came to pass. So we were all very

1:09:41

jaded fans, but he said, you know, Ronaldo,

1:09:43

OG Ronaldo is going to go to New

1:09:46

York and Beckham's going to go to LA.

1:09:48

And we're like, okay, this is maybe him

1:09:50

just talking behind the sky, whatever. Nine, 10

1:09:52

months later, it came to pass. And

1:09:55

I was like, wow, okay, maybe I should

1:09:57

give him a pass. I

1:10:00

can't wait till R9 shows up in

1:10:02

a Metro star. You never happened because

1:10:04

as is Metro, you know. Also as is

1:10:07

his knee. Can

1:10:09

you imagine that guy on turf? That would have been nice.

1:10:11

I should say it, but I mean, look at Suarez, man.

1:10:13

I mean, Suarez like. Hey, I stopped saying that after Keilini.

1:10:15

I'm like, ain't no way he going to be able to

1:10:17

keep up with his league. Keilini was

1:10:19

good. He held his own. Keilini was

1:10:21

good. You're the one that disappointed me, though.

1:10:25

Your man's Pirlo. Oh.

1:10:27

And I'm going to say this, don't worry. I love him. I

1:10:30

love, loved Andrea Pirlo. You

1:10:33

know, like I loved watching that

1:10:35

man play. And then he

1:10:37

came over here and I was like. And then you get the

1:10:40

chance to see him play. Yeah, yeah. It was like, when are

1:10:42

you going to really start? Like, when are you going to really

1:10:44

start? You know, but. Look, we were all

1:10:46

we were disappointed as well. I mean, it was

1:10:48

a I think

1:10:50

the moment that when he

1:10:52

scored his first free kick, his only goal, his

1:10:55

only goal, his only goal was his only goal.

1:10:58

When he scored it like two years after

1:11:00

he signed or something like that, I was

1:11:02

just like, why is he here?

1:11:04

Like, why is he so crazy? But it didn't hit

1:11:06

me until I went. Because I was just like, yo,

1:11:09

we have Pirlo on our team. What a this is

1:11:11

incredible. And then he scored that goal. And I

1:11:13

was like, are we serious? Are we

1:11:15

a serious team? Like, are we serious about trying

1:11:17

to do this? Because it was remarkable. But again,

1:11:19

it was like the strategy back then,

1:11:22

you know, was just to get butts in seats for

1:11:25

NYC FC. But now that they have the

1:11:27

stadium announcement, I mean,

1:11:29

it's another big milestone for American soccer.

1:11:34

New York has been a thing, right? Let's say there's no

1:11:36

secret New York like should be the

1:11:38

biggest market in MLS, but it's probably the toughest

1:11:40

market to crack. Right. And it's

1:11:42

always weird, right? Because people in New York, we kind

1:11:44

of think that we're the center of the universe. Like,

1:11:46

how the hell are the 30,000 people in Nashville going

1:11:49

to the soccer game, but we don't have the same thing here.

1:11:51

And it's hard to kind of rectify and make sense of that.

1:11:53

But I think that stadium is going to be a bit

1:11:57

of a game changer. Like, if you think of Red Bull. in

1:12:00

Giant Stadium versus Red Bull Arena. It's

1:12:03

not sold out every week, but it's

1:12:05

definitely a markedly different experience. A much

1:12:07

more enjoyable experience. I think this

1:12:10

thing out in Queens, though, I think that I

1:12:12

see that. Yeah, that's going to be packed

1:12:14

every week. I think that raises the profile

1:12:16

of the league and the city. Obviously, the question

1:12:19

is, will it be enough to raise the profile

1:12:21

of the league nationally? Not that they

1:12:23

should have to bear that burden. But

1:12:25

that's always the burden on New York being the epic guy.

1:12:27

And that's the thing, if you're in New York, you've got

1:12:29

to be the standard bearer for whatever your organization is nationally,

1:12:31

globally. So I think one of the things that I love

1:12:34

about this podcast now is that we get to bring people

1:12:36

in and give them their flowers. And what

1:12:38

we said in the beginning is I think it's absolutely true

1:12:40

about you. You are someone who carried the torch for the

1:12:42

sport, at least in the world that we liked, you know

1:12:44

what I mean? In the demographic that

1:12:47

we cared about and from the

1:12:49

viewpoint that we cared about when we started. And to

1:12:51

see you still being in the game and being on

1:12:53

the agency side and the media side is absolutely incredible.

1:12:55

But because you have seen the league for so long,

1:12:57

I need a hot take. What

1:13:00

is, what do you see for the future of the

1:13:02

sport in America? Honestly,

1:13:05

man. Like a big hot... Okay,

1:13:08

I'll give you two things. One,

1:13:10

I think the women's game right now is on a rocket ship, man. Like

1:13:12

100%. You

1:13:15

go to Gotham games, man, it feels... I'm not

1:13:17

saying it's better or worse, but there's a different

1:13:19

vibe at a Gotham game than at

1:13:21

a Red Bulls game. There's something that feels... The

1:13:25

obvious thing, right? It feels more feminine, it

1:13:27

feels like less a bunch of dudes doing

1:13:29

dude things. It feels

1:13:31

very stylish. Like I'm always like seeing

1:13:34

people, I'm like, I mess with your outfit. Like,

1:13:36

you know... People

1:13:39

come fit it out. It's funny, it's not like, yeah, you go

1:13:41

to like men's sports game and everyone's like, right, I'm just wearing

1:13:43

the jersey and the hat. I'm putting

1:13:45

as many pieces of... I want this logo

1:13:47

on my body as many places you need.

1:13:50

Right? And you don't get that vibe there. But I think

1:13:52

the women's game is on a rocket ship and it's like,

1:13:55

I think our society, hopefully,

1:13:57

thankfully, is kind of in this place

1:13:59

where we're... realize, oh, I can have more

1:14:01

soccer. If I get over my ingrained

1:14:03

sexism and all these things, I can

1:14:05

have more soccer. Yes, please. Yeah. That

1:14:08

thing I think is interesting. My

1:14:10

hot take though, my

1:14:13

hot take, hot

1:14:16

take, I think the US team right now

1:14:18

has actually has a potential to be better

1:14:20

than the team I said is like the

1:14:24

golden era. It is a hot team. I know.

1:14:26

Cause a lot of people, I know. I know.

1:14:28

If you look at it, man, like on

1:14:31

a real superficial level,

1:14:34

you can pick a starting 11 right now that, you

1:14:37

know, almost every all

1:14:39

11 are playing it. You can do this. Our level,

1:14:41

level playing in Europe and they're not playing at some

1:14:43

team in the Netherlands and not playing at some

1:14:47

15th ranked team in the bosom. You've

1:14:49

got guys at UVA, you've

1:14:51

got guys that enter, you've got guys

1:14:53

at like guys who are playing and

1:14:56

can maintain at a top level team

1:14:58

in Europe are turning out

1:15:00

for this national team and not just two

1:15:03

or three. There's like a

1:15:05

solid eight or nine. You know, I

1:15:08

think we're going to see, you know, in this couple

1:15:10

America, I hope is a real preview. I know we've got a

1:15:12

couple of injury things like deaths and the goal.

1:15:15

Yeah, that's a huge loss.

1:15:18

The thing I really worry about though is the goalkeeping situation.

1:15:21

And we've never been this weird thing, right?

1:15:23

That's always been our like, our strength. Don't

1:15:25

even question it. Like that ain't even been

1:15:27

a thing. Like we always had, we

1:15:30

had, we have goalkeeper controversies like an NFL, you

1:15:32

have quarterback. I

1:15:35

mean, going back to days of like Brad Friedel and Casey

1:15:37

Keller, you know what I mean? Like both

1:15:40

of those guys were dope. Oh, and you still got

1:15:42

Marcus Hanigan as a third, like great, you know, but

1:15:45

now it's like, Oh, yeah.

1:15:47

Let's get that 18 year old. Yeah.

1:15:49

Yeah. I'm going to do this. All

1:15:52

right. I like it. I like it. Um,

1:15:54

yeah, but yeah, you know, as far as,

1:15:56

yeah, giving your flowers, bro. It's just, uh,

1:15:58

you, you, even if for us

1:16:00

laid down at least somewhat of

1:16:02

a path, just some of a guideline of

1:16:04

like how to operate this space, especially, you

1:16:06

know, as minorities, as people even also coming

1:16:08

from the comedy world, it's just like, we

1:16:10

didn't know anything, we didn't know anybody. And

1:16:12

you know, just like, I like this assumes

1:16:15

like, you know, Kevin Brown just doesn't like

1:16:17

him. That's for the first few years, we're

1:16:19

just like, nobody likes us. Nobody likes us.

1:16:21

Nobody's talking. Nobody's talking to us. I don't

1:16:23

know who Kevin Brown likes. No

1:16:25

way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, man, you

1:16:27

guys seriously like, what

1:16:29

you guys are doing, I think is vital. And I'll give you

1:16:31

all your thoughts back. Because it's like, nothing

1:16:34

gets popular unless it's enjoyable. Right?

1:16:37

People want to enjoy something. And what you guys do is you

1:16:39

provide some levity and some laughter that's a counter to that sort

1:16:41

of, I'm right, you're wrong. This

1:16:43

is how American soccer should be that you see on

1:16:45

Twitter. We come into it as we're both wrong. Yeah.

1:16:48

We are so wrong. So

1:16:51

we're more enjoyable. People are different, man. People are different.

1:16:53

You know, I think of players, I'll

1:16:56

go into one last story. I

1:16:59

think of players, man. I think of personalities

1:17:01

of players. I think of Clint Dempsey.

1:17:04

And like, you know, Clint Dempsey

1:17:06

in his era. You don't know where I'm

1:17:08

from, dog. Exactly. Yeah, that's Clint. My Texas

1:17:11

brethren. Put out

1:17:13

a rap record. By a Nike. Yeah.

1:17:16

And that's the thing, right? That was different. We

1:17:18

didn't know anything about American soccer

1:17:20

players and who they are and their personalities. I feel

1:17:22

we didn't really know what's right. But him, it was

1:17:24

like, not only did we get to know him, and

1:17:26

then what we got to know was so different than

1:17:28

what people expect. We're

1:17:31

down in Jamaica one time.

1:17:33

National team practice in

1:17:36

Trenchtown. It's like, it's

1:17:38

hectic. It's hectic. The guy ain't gonna lie, right?

1:17:40

It's hectic. We got a police escort.

1:17:42

I tell you, the police is like four brothers

1:17:44

that look like they just came out the

1:17:46

pele pele sword. Yeah. With a

1:17:48

penne on that says police, but like two

1:17:50

letters have peeled off. Yeah. And

1:17:52

they got like an M16 and they're rolling. The

1:17:54

gun is how you know. Yeah. It's

1:17:57

the only real big giveaway. They do it like

1:17:59

a Yankees. Yeah, some

1:18:01

Thames jeans Apollo Just

1:18:04

pennies his police and a machine gun. There's like four of these guys.

1:18:06

I'll show a picture when we get off the air That's

1:18:09

like our police court escort and we're playing

1:18:11

we were practicing at the stadium for Arnett

1:18:13

Gardens One of the club teams in Jamaica

1:18:16

middle of trench town. It's like hood, bro Locals

1:18:18

are just like walking into the stadium

1:18:21

just climbing over Coming in

1:18:23

like whatever bus we roll up

1:18:25

in the bus the players have their

1:18:27

own bus and then all us hangers on

1:18:29

or kind of their other bus and Got

1:18:32

police there, but they're not keeping anybody away from buses people

1:18:34

just stand in there It's like waiting to

1:18:36

watch people come off the bus at the time Clint

1:18:39

is playing at Tottenham. Uh-huh For

1:18:41

reasons. I don't know Tottenham is one of the

1:18:43

more popular Clubs in

1:18:45

Jamaica, I think because it's North London. Yeah

1:18:50

The back of Tottenham is like one of the clubs

1:18:53

Clint comes off the bus and Everybody

1:18:56

thought about snow. I think Michael Bradley. He said I think

1:18:58

I spend all the time No, I see him. Tim Howard's

1:19:00

ever turn time. No, I says anything Clint

1:19:03

Dempsey walks off the bus But

1:19:17

like like they were just big Lab

1:19:26

or like, okay Yeah,

1:19:32

it was it was just so but again like

1:19:34

when you have a unique personality

1:19:36

like you and crucially when your your

1:19:38

personality Off the field and on the

1:19:41

field they match. Yeah that guy You know what I

1:19:43

mean? Like he's got a little bit of a chick

1:19:45

on chip on his shoulder. He is confident He

1:19:47

is unafraid to say what's what, you know,

1:19:50

his show on Galah so with Mo and

1:19:52

everybody else Kicking it man.

1:19:54

Like, you know like people love that, you know,

1:19:56

and I think the more players

1:19:58

and American soccer whether that's clubs,

1:20:01

leagues, whatever, embrace that. That

1:20:03

like people want to see the personality, they want to see who

1:20:05

these people are. The more

1:20:07

we do that, the more success there's gonna be. And the

1:20:09

more there's people like you who do things that are authentic

1:20:11

and genuine, where it's like, this is y'all just being y'all's

1:20:14

funny. Thank you. I love it. Yeah, I

1:20:16

mean. Dumb selves. So I mean, the cool against

1:20:18

all the Clint Dempsey of American. Yeah, I love

1:20:20

that. You all know where we're from. I know.

1:20:23

Yeah, you're from Newark. Yeah, I know you do know

1:20:25

where I'm from. Yeah. Which is

1:20:27

scarier. Yeah. It's the

1:20:29

Nagadosha. The Nagadosha of Newark,

1:20:32

Jersey. Of Jersey, yeah, yeah. Sean

1:20:34

Francis, bro. Thank you so much for coming through and

1:20:36

taking the time. I can only say, I am. Thanks

1:20:38

for having me. We are all sorry for it taking

1:20:40

this long for you to finally have joined us on

1:20:43

the show. The shame on me. But you're welcome anytime.

1:20:45

Obviously full of incredible stories. I know a

1:20:47

lot of. We could talk to him for

1:20:49

like another four hours. Yeah, yeah. Let's do

1:20:51

a Christmas special. Oh, let's go. Let's do

1:20:54

a Wayne Gretzky, you know, a whiskey special.

1:20:56

Oh, we should do a whiskey special. A

1:20:59

little dark liquor, a dark liquor episode. Okay, well I'm

1:21:01

gonna last six minutes on that episode. That's when the

1:21:03

fun starts. For the

1:21:05

guy who keeps time going to bed. But

1:21:09

Sean, thank you so much. Everybody

1:21:11

go follow Sean Francis on

1:21:13

Twitter or on Instagram,

1:21:15

at the Offside Rules.

1:21:18

Check out his Tumblr. I

1:21:22

ain't got a Tumblr. I never had

1:21:24

one when they were in. No? My

1:21:26

man is still doing a bunch of great work in

1:21:28

American soccer. So go out and support,

1:21:31

man. Sean Francis, thank you so much

1:21:33

for joining us. As always, make sure you follow us

1:21:35

at Soccer Cooligans on all socials. Instagram,

1:21:38

TikTok, everywhere. Before it's

1:21:40

banned completely. So do

1:21:42

what you gotta do. And subscribe

1:21:45

to the Patreon. patreon.com, Soccer Cooligans. We got

1:21:47

a dope community on there. And shout out

1:21:49

to everybody watching on DraftKings Network as well.

1:21:52

All right, everybody. Oh, just one more thing.

1:21:55

Our producer, Miguelito, today's

1:21:57

his last day in studio.

1:22:00

He's not leaving. He's not leaving.

1:22:02

No, I'm not leaving. I'm staying here. Do

1:22:04

you like it or not? But he will

1:22:06

be like AI he will be here virtually

1:22:08

AI Mike. He is going to he's moving

1:22:11

to Miami To take

1:22:13

a sounds without me. Yeah How

1:22:15

about with the big show a little more exactly the

1:22:17

Levatar show he's gonna go watch that he wants to

1:22:19

watch the heat lose at home So,

1:22:27

so this is his last episode in studio, I'll

1:22:29

be back New

1:22:32

Yorker tried and true. It's all good. I'll be back

1:22:34

and forth. You won't be here. We see so they

1:22:36

drive down there He'll be back Pizza

1:22:39

I'll be back. But we you'll hear him

1:22:41

on the show. He'll be producing remotely But

1:22:43

yeah, we're obviously gonna miss seeing his face

1:22:45

and him sitting in that seat But

1:22:48

obviously Happy that we still

1:22:50

get to work together. Yeah, absolutely. All right

1:22:52

everybody. So we'll see you next week on

1:22:55

Monday another fun episode Again,

1:22:57

shout out to strong Francis. See ya. See

1:22:59

you in a couple days everybody. Peace. Love you guys