Episode 13: Daniel Goes to an Arsenal Game, Germany Deep Dive and a Messy Messi Interview

00:00:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to the way, and I'm John Green, I'm Danielle Alercon, and today we're gonna be talking football, specifically, we're gonna be talking about Arsenal because Daniel just got back from a trip to London to see his beloved Arsenal football club. Can we put it in a idiom shit the bed? Yeah? Yeah, it was.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: And how are you, John, I'm doing great, Thanks for asking. It was terrible. It was absolutely miserable, miserable weekend of football, wonderful weekend of seeing friends and of going to that, going to the Emirates and all this stuff. And I have a lot to say about it, but I just want to get out of the way that that it was. It was possibly the worst I've ever seen Arsenal play ever.

00:00:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty directionless and in fact, I think they were kind of lucky to get back to one to one and then they ended up losing two to one. Now, this is a World Cup podcast, we mostly talk about national football, but in this case we need to be talking about Arsenal because they are in pursuit of their first league title in twenty two years. It would be a huge deal if it happened, but Daniel insists that he would not be disappointed if it didn't happen. He would be just fine.

00:01:17
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be just fine because I have a very philosophical take on this and I don't expect.

00:01:21
Speaker 1: To win, so I'm Peruvian.

00:01:24
Speaker 2: And I really think I'll be okay. However, I want to say a couple of things. Well, I want to say, even when you watch a terrible game of football, if you're there, it's incredible, Oh my god, it's so good because you really see how athletic these guys are. Not the Arsenal players because they were barely moving, but the Bournemouth players in this case, how technically gifted they are, the way they move on the pitch to the extent that they are moving at all. And also you really sort of see the symbiotic relationship between the fans and the team. And and honestly, I I'm not sure where the panic came from, if it came from the manager, from the players, from the fans, but together this triumvirate of anxiety was really able to create a sense of anxiety. I heard things said John that you made me blush, and that Shakespeare would not have recognized Leo Trossar touches the ball and this very nice looking lady behind me says, go on, then do something, you fucking taught he He hasn't even done anything yet, he hasn't even messed up. And it was there was just so much vitriol and anger. A woman told me that if she had a gun, she would shoot the referee. Uh the he wore laughing, yeah, and she said it laughing, and I was like, that is really not okay, And I think that she either to the level.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: I didn't even think the referee had a bad game.

00:03:02
Speaker 2: He didn't, he didn't know he was. He was definitely not the problem. The problem was the Arsenal players weren't moving. And I say this because all teams have despicable fans. Some teams have great fans, you know, the proportion of them changes, and I think you can be a great fan and a dispicable fan on the same day. But it was It was both a lovely experience and a sobering experience, and I really did learn a lot about that relationship of anxiety between groups of fans and the team.

00:03:30
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, especially when a team is down in the relegation zone like what's happening to Tottenham right now or what's happening to my club Wimbledon is really interesting because the panic starts before kickoff and the tension and the pressure is just ratcheted up. And that especially when you're when when when like Arsenal, you play these incredibly precise passes and the speed of the game, you know, is such that the movement is so important and and opening up space is so important, and you just start to mishit those passes a little bit because of tension, and it just becomes impossible. Everything becomes impossible.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: One of the ways I know you're a good friend is that you brought up Tottenham to try to make me feel better, and I appreciate that.

00:04:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really kind of you.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you who wasn't trying to cheer me up everyone else, because it was my friend Juan Diego and Ernando and we went we went on a long walk to Hackney like sort of to like sort of to process the game, and we're all wearing our Arsenal gear and stuff. And I got so much shit from so many people, strangers and cars, like people hanging out of the bus y'all was shipped today, mate, you know, like all this stuff and it was so hilarious.

00:04:54
Speaker 1: It was so funny.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: I mean, just like when we finally got to this Turkish restaurant. We none of my friend Nano lives in London and he's been going to this Turkish restaurant for like thirty years, and he was like, oh, we got to go to this place.

00:05:05
Speaker 1: It's you know, we.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: Walked all the way over there and even though the guy we walked in and like everyone was like whoa, just like man man don. I don't know if you heard the news on Friday that the former mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, had obtained Albanian citizenship.

00:05:26
Speaker 1: I did, and congratulations to him.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to be dramatic, but if there's one thing that could have made my weekend worse, it's if Eric Adams had also become Peruvian. Like in terms of football, like everything went wrong, everything.

00:05:41
Speaker 1: Went wrong, and everything went wrong. Manchester City one going away, Arsenal lost at home. Liverpool looked pretty good, which I know is neutral for you, but still notice I.

00:05:54
Speaker 2: Guess the only thing went well was that Tottenham lost. But it's of little comfort That's how despondent I was that I didn't even get much joy out of time I'm losing.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: Well, you've gone from a potential quadruple, you know, winning four different titles in one season, to a potential none upple.

00:06:11
Speaker 2: Then upple is our specialty. So, like I said, I'll be fine. I can handle it. The abuse that I'm getting on my five BOROUGHFC group chat is epic, and you know what, I just have to take it. I just have to take it because they're right. They're totally right. We should be we should have won that game.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: I still think Arsenal will win the league. I think they have to win against Manchester City absolutely, not for the number of points involved necessarily, just for the mental part of it. I think they have to have a mental reset. And I think playing, you know, sometimes playing a really great football club brings out the best in you because they want to be on the front foot more, they're less counter attacking, da YadA YadA, and I think that might happen for Arsenal. I think that they're going to beat City and I think that they're going to win the league, and I think that you're going to have joy at the end of this. I don't want you to deny yourself the joy Daniel in trying to protect yourself from potential pain. I think that's a mistake that many adults and teenagers make that young children don't make. And I think that young children have that one right.

00:07:27
Speaker 2: So I should be more childlike approach it with the unfettered, unhinged devotion.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: There's the phrase that you learn as an adult. It's the hope that gets you, you know, it's the hope that really hurts. And if you just don't have hope, then you can't be hurt. And I've been hurt a lot. I've been hurt a lot in my life, in my footballing life and my fandom, and I do think that there is a measure of protection. But I also think it's not just a measure of self protection here, John, it's kind of a big picture thing. Like I'm confident that in my lifetime I will see Arsenal win something.

00:08:06
Speaker 1: I'm also very.

00:08:08
Speaker 2: Much of the mind the awareness that I, in my immense privilege and good fortune, was able to take a little junket weekend to London to see the game with friends, and.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty correcial. Even when you lose, it's still special. Yeah.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: And I went to the Barbicane and I saw this Bettis Gonzalez, this famous Columbian artist, had a retrospective that was incredible, ate good food. I stayed up till like four in the morning, drinking wine, my friend there and doing his wife Atlanta. I mean, it was like it was great, you know. So it was like, you know, I'm gonna be fine. And the other thing is this Arsenal is a team as all of anyone who's a fan of anything. You know, I have been given moments of immense joy by this team that are you know, Obviously winning a trophy is a greater joy which you've experienced as a Liverpool fan. I have not in recent years. Having said that, those special moments are also important, those moments when I've jumped up to celebraty goal and hugged my uncle Edgut or you know, hugged a stranger in a bar, or you know. I mean, so it's all a journey. It's all a journey, John, And this year that journey maned in a trophy. It mayned in none, and either way I will be a fan next year and we go on and on and on and on.

00:09:29
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what, if they win the Nune up all, I will give you a hard time. I promise, I'm not gonna not gonna lay off you out of friendship. I'm gonna go ahead and treat you like a regular person and say that it is truly incredible the forces that restrict Arsenal from achievement. And I think you're right to say that it's the players, it's the manager, it's the fans. And I remember this with Liverpool. I mean Liverpool hadn't won an English Premier League title ever and hadn't won you know, league in thirty years, and I remember as as it got closer, the pressure would build and build and build. And the only way Liverpool finally got over that hump and won a title was because they had like a seventeen point lead going into April and there was no way they weren't going to win the league, because otherwise the pressure would have inevitably gotten to the players. You forget that people are human, You forget that, like these elite athletes are just people who feel the same thing we feel, who like go to bed at night, like right now I'm trying to finish the edits for my book. Not to compare myself to Hector Bellerin, but like I'm trying to finish the edits of my book, and I lay awake at night staring at the ceiling. I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about is the book. The last thing I think about at night is the book. The stress is overwhelming. I know that I have these deadlines I have to meet, and I know that, like, once I'm done with this edit, I will never be able to rework this book, and it'll be in print for however many years, and for those years, I'm gonna have to live with these fine decisions as I'm making them right now. And that is real pressure. It is nothing like the pressure of millions and millions of people, tens of millions, maybe one hundred million people around the world, from Colombia to Sierra Leone to North London, caring about what you do on a football field, when you have to be so precise in your movements and you have to somehow get all that stuff out of your head, like you've got to be d vaka RIGHI. You know who didn't know it was the ninety fifth minute when he scored the ninety fifth minute winners, right, Like, you have to be that kind of person in order to handle that kind of pressure totally.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say that you could tell there was the guys were feeling pressure on Saturday because they we'd get the ball for throwing and it was often males Luis Kelly who would be standing on the touch line for like forty five seconds to a minute because he couldn't find someone to pass to because everyone was paralyzed with and they just won't.

00:12:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: There these are people who know how to play the game, they know how to do the movement, so there's some kind of anxiety induced disconnect between their mind and their body that is causing them to just freeze. And they just stood there and the crowd is get getting more and more anxious because we you know, we just want to get an early goal so we could you know, enjoy the afternoon, and it just never came. Yeah, it's all a journey. We're gonna be okay.

00:12:25
Speaker 1: I will say that that Victor Yokerez takes a good penalty.

00:12:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, he puts his boot through. He doesn't think too much. He's you're not going to see him attempt a panenka. I'll tell you that we.

00:12:34
Speaker 1: Need to talk about this, not in this episode, but before the World Cup begins. We need to talk about the John and Daniel guide to taking a penalty, because you and I have the same worldview when it comes to penalties. There's sort of, too broadly speaking, two ways of thinking about it. The pananka is on one extreme, but there's there's team plays it well and team kick it hard. Yeah, And I'm team kick it hard. I mean kick kick, kick the stuffing out of the ball.

00:12:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because then even if it if you get it on target, it'll go in most more often than not. I did want to say one thing, but it does relate.

00:13:07
Speaker 1: To the World Cup.

00:13:09
Speaker 2: Actually, John, that I noticed and almost like an asterisk to add to your deep dive on England. Uh Man, these players are totally knackered.

00:13:19
Speaker 1: Oh they are. They are Declan.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: Rice like, I don't know where he gets the energy. But his partner in the midfield, Martin Zubamendi, was one of the best players in the league. I think in one of the signings of the summer through like November, and then since then he's just it's been a steady drop off, and he just doesn't have the legs. And you know, he's like a you know, one of those first names on the team sheet kind of guys at his club and for country, for Spain, and Spain is as a side known for its you know, historically it's incredible midfielders, of which he is won. But if you play them into the ground, they then then the there's nothing that you can do. You can't you can't overcome the limitations of the human body, and these guys all look just wrecked.

00:14:05
Speaker 1: What I'm hearing is that the US men's national team is going to win the World Cup with a bunch of MLS ers because they're going to have fresher legs. That's what I'm hearing. And I love what you're saying. I love your take.

00:14:16
Speaker 2: That was the subtext. I'm glad you can read between the lines for that optimistic message of jingoism that was embedded in my analysis.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's only why it's only jingoism when we're talking about America apparently.

00:14:35
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, last thing, I appreciate you not condescending to me, and I expect and accept all abuse that I get. If Arsenal doesn't win anything, it shall be deserved. I will take it and I will accept it, and it will fuel me next year.

00:14:52
Speaker 1: God speed, Daniel. We're going to come back with a deep dive into the German national team, speaking of not the freshest legs on. We're going to deep dive into the German national team and what I think could be a tricky World Cup for them despite their strong history as a world cupping nation. So we'll be right back. So Sean, if you could come on the screen real quick, because I believe Daniel did not go to Italy with us.

00:15:32
Speaker 3: That is correct. Daniel was not in Italy with us, but.

00:15:36
Speaker 1: We went to Italy together in nineteen ninety four. And I don't want to say who was the trip of a lifetime, but it was the trip of a lifetime. We also, as you might remember, went to Switzerland.

00:15:48
Speaker 3: I do remember going to Switzerland. I'm very curious, very very curious where this.

00:15:53
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not talking about that, Sean. That's not their business, that's not the listener's business. But you and I both know what we're thinking about.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: What happens in Basil. In Basil as they say, I believe.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: In this case it was los enn but yes, but look I am.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: I just want to say from Jump that I'm impressed that you did not place me in this memory as you you know, famously placed me inside memories of yours.

00:16:19
Speaker 1: Uh. Yeah, No. If there had been like a glowing light of joy in the memory, then I would have known that you were there. But there isn't. There's just the glowing light of Sean, and so he loves quite large in the memory. Anyway, Sean. When we went to Italy, which was not that long ago, I mean, admittedly we were we were younger than we are now, but like we were old enough to be conscious and like friends and we're still friends. Like you know, we had a consciousness. Yes, Germany was one year old. We forget this. I forgot this until I was doing the research and they kept prattling on about West Germany and East Germany and I was like, oh, right, there was a Berlin wall up for my entire childhood.

00:17:06
Speaker 3: We arrived on the heels of history to Europe.

00:17:09
Speaker 1: We did. And remember that everything costs like thirty five thousand lira because of all the inflation in Italy at the time. But yeah, we arrived on the heels of history. That's beautifully put, Sean. I'm going to put that in my new novel quick while I still have a chance to. And I've been thinking about it because since nineteen ninety three or nineteen ninety two, or whenever Germany became Germany again, it has been an astonishingly successful side. You might remember that guy Joachim Lowe who scratched his balls during the World Cup and then sniffed his hand. He was the manager for.

00:17:54
Speaker 2: A while, wasn't he the guy who maybe you don't remember that, Oh I remember that. I remember vividly he picked his nose and eat it as well.

00:18:02
Speaker 1: Or is that a different manager I think he might have. He is fascinated by the products of his own body, which is a legitimate fascination.

00:18:10
Speaker 3: Is so great, Like my stomach is turning right now due to the scatological nature of this part of the deep.

00:18:21
Speaker 1: But he does it all. He does it all like on on the bench, Sewan, so like people can see, like the camera panned to him and he stuck his hand in his pants and then went wow. This is giving a new meetings to the phrase deep dive. John he also, while we're talking about Yochim Low has the single worst haircut among wealthy individuals on Earth. So like, obviously not everybody can afford a great haircut that's not on them, but he can. And his haircut looks exactly like like my eight nineteen eighty seven bowl cut, when my mom literally put a bowl on my head and cut around it, like that's what it looks like. He is no longer the manager. I'm not sure why I've devoted so much to the Deep Dive to him. The current manager is Julian Naglesman, which is surreal for me because I remember Julian Naglesman as a player, and he has a much better haircut and better personal hygiene so far as I've observed thus far. But in twenty fourteen, this guy, Joachim Low led Germany to the World Cup, and then in twenty eighteen they kind of bombed out in the group round, and then now they're very good. But there's two problems. Problem Number one is the problem that Daniel has identified, which is the legs problem. They have a lot of older players, right, so they've got Joshua Kimmick as their captain. I mean, basically it's Bayern Munich starting eleven plus Antonio Rudiger. They have a stunning number of players who play for Bayern Munich or else for Barusha Dortmund. And they've gone through a really long season. Jonathan Toaz thirty, Antonio Rudiger is thirty three three, you know, I mean, these are not young players and they've gone through a very long season, and they're gonna then. The second problem this time around is that they're in an exceptionally hard group. And I I worry that this team that has won, depending on your worldview, either four or one World Cups, I worry that they're gonna be in trouble.

00:20:28
Speaker 3: John jumping in, can you will you tell us who else is in their group?

00:20:32
Speaker 1: So they've got curis L not the hardest opponent, but then they have Ivory Coast and Ecuador. Now, probably the top three are gonna get through to the knockout rounds because probably everybody's gonna beat Curs out. Everybody's gonna have at least three points. Probably teams with three points will make it to the knockout rounds, like the third place team with three points will make it to the knockout rounds. But I genuinely worry about Germany against both Ecuador and Ivory Coast. Especially against Ecuador. I think Ecuador is like my sleeper team of the World Cup. I think that they could go to like the semifinals and assuming like my so, I I think it's very possible that, like by the quarterfinals or even by the round of sixteen, Germany's up against somebody they they're going to struggle to beat, whether that's Brazil or Spain or France, could be a South American nation. I think they could be in for it. I think that this could be the year that we're talking about Germany as one of the early teams to go out. Even though they're like I think, third favorites to win the tournament, I think they're fourteen to one to win the tournament, there's still I think they're going to struggle. So I have a few things to say. John.

00:21:42
Speaker 2: One is I think that there's going to be a lot of teams that are going to go out early because there's that extra round of thirty two. So there's going to be, yeah, you know, sixteen teams that are going to go out.

00:21:51
Speaker 1: Sixteen teams are going to go out in the round of thirty two, and they're all going to look like failures. But that's just the nature of knockout rounds, right. I Mean, some of them are going to be up against teams that are easily beatable, But if you finish second in a group you could get there. Especially if you finish third, you're going to have a really hard knockout round game. Yeah, So that's one thing.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: The other thing that I want to know is that I that I just build off your analogy of this. It's basically the Byron eleven Bayern Munich starting eleven plus Rudiger. It's also the Bayern Munich starting eleven minus Harry Kane. Yes, which actually I think is a huge problem that I see with Germany who's scoring the goals? Like who's there? Who's there starting number nine? If you don't have Harry Kane up there because he happens to be English. I mean, Kai Havertz is not really you know, you know, tearing up any trees this this season. He's coming back from injury. He's an odd duck as a as a as a nine. I mean, I love.

00:22:54
Speaker 1: I don't think he is a nine. I mean I was he a nine for Arsenal, like I feel like he's much more of a midfielder than he is a pure out and out striker.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: I would point you to the evidence of the Bournemouth game to the contrary on that.

00:23:10
Speaker 1: No, I don't.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the best game that he played for Arsenal last season, when he was you know, when he played quite well, was as a nine, for sure, you know, okay, yeah, no, for sure.

00:23:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:23:24
Speaker 2: I mean I think back to these incredible opportunistic strikers that Germany has had, like merciv Close or Muller.

00:23:33
Speaker 1: Thomas Thomas, Robert Mueller, but he was the the special count. No Robert, special counsel for.

00:23:44
Speaker 2: The the Yes rest in Peace. Uh yeah, no, so not Robert Mueller, Thomas Mueller. But these kind of like you know, engineers of space that could find little holes and all their goals were scored were one touches. And I'm just wondering who among the current crop of German players can do that.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: So let me offer up a few names. There's Nicholas Folkrug who's now thirty three years old, plays for AC Milan. He may not even get called up because he's a I think a great striker. But he's not a young man. There's Nick Woltemadi who plays for Newcastle, who scores goals occasionally. He scores goals occasionally. I believe he has scored four goals for Germany. And then there's Dennis Undov who plays for Stuttgart, who also scores goals occasionally, Like he scores a fair number of goals in the Bundesliga, but he doesn't. And I think he may be the guy. But I think you're going to see a lot of You're going to see Leroy Sana play, You're going to see serge Ganabri play like You're going to see a lot of goals come from midfield and out on the wing if Germany have a successful World Cup. And sometimes you don't need an out and out striker, right, I mean, think about like the role that Roberto Fermino played in Liverpool's starting eleven for so along. He didn't score a ton of goals, but he didn't need to because he created a ton of goals.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: Or think about Olivia Jerux winning the World Cup for France as the starting number nine without scoring a goal in the tournament. That's also it's still very important player for very important tournament. Yeah, yeah, target man distributor, et cetera. Yeah, I'm interested to see what Germany does if they if they I remember that when they went out in the group stage. I'm trying to think what year that was. Was that twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen they went in a group stage. Yeah, so I mean it can happen, and you know they don't. It's been a while since that phrase of like, you know, twenty two men kick a ball around for ninety minutes in the Germans win. Since that phrase was like kind of inviolable truths, I think it's a little bit more flexible now. But I'm interested to see what they do. They have a lot of players that I like. Lucilla for example, it's one of them. Yeah, they have some fine players. We'll see, we'll see. Thank you for that, Yeah, we'll see.

00:26:01
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see how the World Cup pans out for Germany, but also for everyone. I'm finally letting myself get really excited, Daniel. It turns out I am going to one game. I just got tickets to a game. I'm starting to get fired up. When we come back, we will talk about the most important photograph ever taken, and until then, just imagine what it might be a photograph of. And when we come.

00:26:24
Speaker 4: Back, I will I will paint you a picture.

00:26:41
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm going to describe a photograph to you. Imagine a photograph of two men arm in arm, similar heights, one of them wearing a chain like a necklace, a cool, cool guy chain that looks kind of expensive, excellent postures. And then one of them is a beautiful man with a stunning, stunning head of hair, the perfect hairline, a wonderful jaw line, a strong chin. I just as attractive as a person can be in a really tight T shirt, arguably a little too tight, except that he can pull it off, because of course he can. And that man is Daniel, and an arm in arm with him is Lionel Messi, who has a terrible haircut, it must be noted, and for some reason, it's wearing a Brian Fairy T shirt. Yes, yeah, so we're talking about we're talking about one of the greatest physical specimens of all time and Lionel Messi exactly exactly.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell the story of how this photo came to be, John, and maybe along the way I want to give our listeners a little relationship advice. You'll be able to see for yourself this photograph. I think that as usual, John has described it in a way which you know, what made him famous as a fiction writer. But you'll be able to judge for yourself, So John, Once upon a time there were many, many magazines that were published the United States around the world. As you know, I've written for many of them. And magazines for our younger listeners are like very thin little books that were published on a regular.

00:28:24
Speaker 1: Say, they're more sort of like printed out websites.

00:28:30
Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, printed out websites. Yeah, but now the kids don't even go to websites, so it's.

00:28:37
Speaker 1: Like Instagram, but text based and printed.

00:28:41
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was they were printed on a like on our schedule, right, So they are often known as periodicals. And there was a specific niche among these that were called glossies. And glossies were kind of the high end fashion magazines. So you know, there was the regular magazines or print on sort of regular paper, and the glossies got their name from the glossy paper that they were printed on, nice shiny paper, the kind you'd want to you know, wrap a gift for your mom for Christmas in you know, because it was kind of nice and uh and they were kind of lucrative, right, yeah, And just out of curiosity, Daniel, real quick, did you write for these glossies or did you model for them? I have a very funny story about not modeling for them, but uh, no, I've never written. I had never written for a glossy magazine. I should say until the year that I was engaged to be married. Now Godline and I were engaged for about two weeks, and it just so happened that in that period a glossy magazine finally called me up. And these were these magazines that had they had so much advertisement that they were like thick with advertisement. They had to just sort of come up with articles to fit in so they could have all this advertisements that they had to print. So Vanity Fair, Gqvogue, those are the glossies, and they paid I played so much money. Yes, one of these editors who worked at one of these magazines called me up and asked me if I was interested in writing a profile of Lionel Messi, and of course I was interested. Huge soccer fan, blah blah blah. The problem is that I was about to be married and the reporting trip would be then the week after my wedding, so terrible timing. But I talked it over Carolina and I was promised full access. So basically, I was told I would get to spend three days with the world's greatest player. I'd get to see a training session, I get to go to a game at the camp. No, I'd get to see what made him tick. I'd get to talk to all his friends. I'd have full access. And I spoke with Carolina and she said, you gotta go, you gotta do this, and we would do the honeymoon later.

00:30:54
Speaker 1: And yeah.

00:30:55
Speaker 2: So basically, thirty six hours after my wedding, I'm on a plane to Barcelona. This was in the olden days when you didn't have Wi Fi on airplanes and everything was better. I rid in New York, so I flew from San Francisco to New York. I checked my email and that's when I got the first blow, which was that I would no longer have three days with Lionel Messi. I would have a single day.

00:31:17
Speaker 4: Now.

00:31:17
Speaker 2: I still thought a single day is good, you know. I was imagining us, like, you know, hanging out of his house. Like playing Xbox or you know, FIFA or something, and then like going to eat some Argentine barbecue somewhere, the grill and Barcelona somewhere, and then you know, riding riding in his car to the practice. I don't know what I was imagining, but you know, I was like, a day, that's still pretty good.

00:31:40
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the night, he'd be like, you know what, man, you're so cool. I'd like to spend three days with you, like, cancel your flight back, like we're hanging out. Yeah.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: I mean I figured he'd probably you know, tuck me in, you know, give me the guest room in his gigantic house south of Barcelona.

00:31:55
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, to be lovely, and you'd get to know her as well, and then you and Carolina and Lionel Messi and his wife would become fast friends.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, spend Christmas together, vacation together, that kind of thing. Normal stuff, normal stuff. So this is what I was imagining, right anyway, So I was like, well, I probably can't, can't. I might be able accomplish that in a day, you know, it's fine.

00:32:18
Speaker 1: I checked my mail.

00:32:19
Speaker 2: Again when I got to Barcelona, and now it was no longer a day. It was an hour.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:32:25
Speaker 2: So at this point, just to be clear for any husbands or wives out there that are sort of or newlyweds who are trying to start up a marriage and you're going to build a life together, I just want to be clear that I had given up my honeymoon to spend an hour with a soccer player. Yeah, it was just beginning to dawn on me that this was the wrong way to start my marriage.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: Right. Well, but you weren't just spending an hour with a soccer player. You were also getting paid an obscene amount of money to write about that hour. Sure, but wait, okay, so here's what happened.

00:33:04
Speaker 2: I got to Barcelona and and I, you know, I was like, well, I've got you know, I had planned four days in town. Now I've got two extra days to report, So I'm just gonna report the ship out of this story, which is what I do. So I talked to everybody. I found the guy who took Messi's first photo. I d he has his little shop across from from Lamasia back when Messi was a teenager with like long hair, and he needed his his ID cards so we could enter the grounds. Of the stadium. I found the owners of the Argentine restaurant in the suburb where Messi had his has his gigantic home, and uh, and I got to sit in the booth where Messi sometimes goes to eat. He surrounds himselves with Argentines. Because if you've got to think about this, it's remarkable. Actually Messi arrived as a pre adolescent to Barcelona. He never stopped talking like an Argentine, like he he just was militant about keeping his accent forever. Yeah, and it's just And I should note because I spoke with learning out of the Faccio who wrote this great book about about Leo Messi and is an Argentine journalist living in Barcelona, that he's thrown us up with Argentine's and also specifically with Argentines of Italian descent. And there was a player actually I can't remember his name now, but he had a ponytail and he was on Barcelona that year and they were like, the only reason he plays is because Messi likes him having him around, like his only reason he's on the team because he's Italian Argentine like from the same area, speaks the same language, and so it makes Messi happy, so we gave him a contract and so he could just be Messi's buddy on the team. So I learned all kinds of really fun stuff like that. Also heard some really remarkable anecdotes that are not suitable for a family podcast about Ronaldinho and his time in Barcelona. The long and short of it is that when the club realized that Leo Messi was hanging out too much with Ronaldinho, basically sold Dnio, who was, I gotta say, is like the most electric player of his generation. But they were like, we cannot let this man influence our golden boy. And Ronaldino of course went on to fame and fortune playing in a Paraguay.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: In prison with his brother.

00:35:17
Speaker 2: And uh, anyway, that's a whole nother story. So you know, I kind of got this tour of Messi's Barcelona with Leonardo Faccho, who I mentioned before, and I learned this incredible fact which I love from from Leonardo's book, is that even when when Messi was a boy, he wouldn't speak in class, so he would actually they had to, you know, this kind of shared double desks, and he would whisper to the girl next to him and she would speak for him, so he's kind of always always had a spokesperson. So anyway back to the scene at hand, I finally do have my day where I get to I'm gonna go meet uh Luna and Messi and I get I'm told to get to the Portiva, which also known as Lamasia, around ten am, and I did punctually there and I get there and I'm like, hey, so you know I'm a journalist for this fancy glossy magazine. This has all been scheduled. Publicist editors have been negotiating my arrival. Can I walk around Lamasia? No, no, well you can't. I'm like okay, and they take me to this kind of press room and they tell me Messi will be there in a few minutes. It's super hot. This is like September. I was not given so much as a glass of water. And I waited and I waited and I waited, and then someone came in and told me that I'd be meeting Messi. Actually not then, but like before afternoon training. And I was like, okay, so can I watch the training And They're like, no, absolutely not, you cannot watch the training. So right outside the press room where I have there's like a little tiny balcony and I just kind of mentioned to this guy that from the balcony I could see one of the fields where the younger like you know, like you sixteen teams of Barcelona are practicing. And I just kind of mentioned it because I was just desperate to talk to someone because I've basically have been locked in a room at La Masia. And the guy was like, oh, no, no, no, no no, you can't watch the kids train. You have to stay in this room. You can't look out the window. And I'm just like what the hell.

00:37:17
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this?

00:37:19
Speaker 2: So kind of like I kind of like am peeking out the window and I see Messi and the other players arrive. They have super fancy cars, you know, Messi, these players, John, You've heard all the names Messi, Piquet, Carlis Puyol, Cesc, Fabergas, Esta, Chavier Nandez. I mean, these guys are like living legends. And I'm talking about the Barcelona with Pep. The Barcelona. That's like winning the league the Barcelona, it's like winning the Champions League. The Barcelona that is like the height of that kind of like amazing psychodrama of like Pep versus Mourinho. I mean, it's just like these are the guys right, and naturally Messi did not come up to speak to me before training, and a little totem was sent up to tell me that he would come after training. So at this point training started like three. I've been there remever since ten, I've resorted to go into the bathroom and just like lapping water into my mouth out of the sink because I have not been given anything. It me's nothing, you know, I'm like eating like wadded up paper towels, just chewing on paper just to trick myself like I'm starving. And then I didn't know what had happened at training that day. I found out later, but I could tell because I am an astude judge of character. John As you know that something bad had happened at training, and I'll tell you what happened. I kind of saw the players trudging off with this look of there but for the grace of God, go I you know, this kind of like you know, they had seen something. I found it later that the something they had seen was a young player named iberhem Fli had torn his acl m and so I had of course, was not allowed to watch training, so I didn't see any of this, but I could sense something was wrong. And that is one of those things that I think really affects players' moods because they know that all of them are one bad turn, one injury like that away from sitting out for a year, you know. Yeah, and maybe, like in the case, we were here, maybe never quite being the same, never quite being the same exactly, which is precisely what happened to Fla.

00:39:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:39:25
Speaker 2: Anyway, at this point, it's past six pm, so I've been there for a full working day, nothing to eat, super hot, and I'm not one to be dramatic, John, but I was basically being held prisoner at the Barcelona training ground by that point. That's how it felt.

00:39:44
Speaker 1: It does seem like you were actually more of a prisoner than when you played in a Peruvie in prison.

00:39:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, there you go. Yes, And I'm glad you're bringing it full circle because you see, you're seeing what I'm seeing.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: Man.

00:39:56
Speaker 2: So finally it's just before seven pm when the World's Greatest Player Final.

00:40:00
Speaker 1: He walks in.

00:40:00
Speaker 2: We sit down at this table. It's this little silver table. There's three chairs. It's me across from Messi and his publicist is kind of in the middle, and so begins the world's worst interview. He batted me away like I can't remember what I asked him, but you know, he's like he gave me his look like he'd rather be at the dentist, I mean, and just looking at me, and I'm like disheveled and sweaty. And the tightness of my shirt that you mentioned, John, My shirt was a normal size at the beginning of the day, but after like you know, eight hours of being held hostage at the barnbers Blown training ground in like a hot September day, the shirt was just stuck to me, which is what you so kindly pointed out.

00:40:47
Speaker 1: And I asked my first question.

00:40:49
Speaker 2: He said this thing, and I'm going to imitate an artistein accent he said, Jay, which is basically like, dude, I've been asked this so many times, like you could like he's rolling his eyes in like oh god. And it got worse from there. It just got worse, Like every single question was worse. And I had I had prepared three days worth of questions John, and then I have you know, I realized that something bad has happened at training. I realize that that he's not interested in speaking with me. He doesn't know what a GQ is, or what a you know, Vogue is, or what a New York He doesn't give a shit.

00:41:31
Speaker 1: He doesn't care. He's just like this weird guy who's all sweaty, is sitting here.

00:41:36
Speaker 2: You know, he's like been waiting for me for eight hours, like a freaking stalker, and now he's asking me dumb questions that I've been asked before, and you know, so he's just being monosyllabic, and at the end of it, it's just like it's just devastating, you know. He basically the publicist just kind of calls time on it and it's done before he walks out. We take this photograph, I asked the publicsers, Okay, we take a photograph, and he said this thing to me. He's like, of course, I know we all have feelings, uh and and uh you know I I I it was. It was a very very humiliating thing to hear. So I took my photo. Messy walks out immediately, of course, forgets the entire interaction that I have never forgotten, and the publicists can sense my humiliation, which is actually manifesting as physical pain. Like at this point, it's just like like, this is the worst reporting experience of my life, possibly one of the most humiliating experiences of my life at all, you know, the whole of it. And then keep in mind I skipped my honeymoon for this, right and uh and and the publicist says to me, says, uh, you know, I know, I know Leo really well. If you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer for him in his voice, you know, which is.

00:43:00
Speaker 1: Way worse than if you just said nothing. Yeah.

00:43:03
Speaker 2: It just shatters all all you know, norms of reporting and ethics. I teach journalism. You can't do it, you know. I was like, I so needless say. I wrote my draft in which I included that moment, and I sort of created this kind of like, you know, Frank Sinatra has a cold situation where you're writing around the limitations of the celebrity, right, And then got a very kind she wasn't that kind, a very efficient, carefully worded email from editor saying that the article was not going to be published, and then I could kindly take my kilfee and go away.

00:43:42
Speaker 1: Uh, and so rude.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: I have never written for a glossy magazine, John, and that was as close as I got.

00:43:51
Speaker 1: I also have never written for a glossy magazine. But I didn't have to fly to Barcelona, did not have that experience.

00:43:58
Speaker 2: I did go to get to go to a game at the cap Noll, and I did get to go to a press conference with Pep, which was pretty cool. It wasn't It wasn't all bad.

00:44:08
Speaker 1: The emotional distance though between I'm going to spend three days with Lionel Messi and I'm going to spend fifteen incredibly bad minutes with Lionel Messi. Yea is. It's quite a delta. It is, and it's it's very.

00:44:26
Speaker 2: Instructive, and I think it really you learn a lot about humility. And also I think it has shaped in some ways the kind of journalism that I do, Like I don't do any journalism with famous people.

00:44:38
Speaker 1: You know, you interviewed me once. I remember for an article you were writing, and when you interviewed me, you were great. I was very impressed. I thought you did a very thorough job. At no point did I did I feel like saying I've been asked this question a million times before, so to police, please know that you've got fans. It's just a messy, isn't one of them.

00:45:00
Speaker 2: That's fine, that's fine because I still have the photograph which proves we're best friends.

00:45:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting to like, it is a really interesting conundrum. What do you do with that fifteen minutes when you have to write the article, right, like you have to write the article. You don't want to. You do want to assume, like, hey, Messi has bad days just like everyone. Frank's not sure a cold style, and also this was an unusually bad day. But you also kind of want to write about the machine that's trying to make you know, Messi into a global international superstar and trying to make him into an American celebrity as well as a global celebrity. And it's just so hard, like when you have so little to work with, it's so hard, it is.

00:45:49
Speaker 2: And actually, John, there's something really interesting that you I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminds me that it wasn't just that the publicist said, let me give you Messy quotes and you run them as if they were quotes from him. They also wanted me to say that we had spoken at an Argentine training camp, because the club has certain rules about what when the players can speak and when they can't, which is why you get these situations where players leave their clubs, go to their national teams and then give some incendiary quote to like a local you know, local journalists, like you know, another Argentine Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea goes away on international duty mentions that he likes Madrid and then like all Hell's breaks loose because it's interpreted as this kind of slight to the city of London and Chelsea and whatever. So they wanted me to lie not only with like quotes that were made up, they wanted me to say that the quotes that were made up had happened in a place that they hadn't happened, where I would not be right. All of that went into my draft, which might be why my peer, that might be why they killed it.

00:46:58
Speaker 1: Man. Yeah, yeah, I've been on the other side of that coin. Not on a messy scale obviously, but on you know, the complicated relationship between publicists and the reporters they work with scale. And that's what my novel is about, because it is a really strange complex exchange of access and information, and you know, on some level you're trading your private life for public praise. And it's messed up, man, it's really messed up. And good on you for having the proper journalistic ethics in that moment.

00:47:44
Speaker 2: Or the lack of journalistic tops to be unable to elicit an interesting question or interesting response out of Lianel Messi. But I did feel like I felt like a defender, you know, like a hapless defender going up against you know, against a Messi, you know, in the game incidentally that I saw, he played against the Athletico Madrid when Falcao was on Madrid, and so it was bill they were both. It was relatively in the season. They were both at the point like point like the joint top scorers in the league. Messi scored a hat trick and also scored a fourth goal that was an own goal just because he ran out of player and the player panicked and shot it into his own net.

00:48:26
Speaker 1: Uh one f.

00:48:31
Speaker 2: And Falcao did not have a touch like in the bottom he didn't have a dangerous touch the whole game.

00:48:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's life, that's life.

00:48:57
Speaker 1: Let's just some mail.

00:48:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's do it now. Okay, hey guys, I'm loving your podcast. I always had this take, and I'm not sure if it's a hot one. I think all of America, North and South should play for the World Cup spots. For all the spots, not separate CONCA, CAF and South America. I think quote unquote powerhouses like Mexico and the US would struggle to qualify, and more South American teams may go to the World Cup. Curious to hear your thoughts. Keep up the good work, Randy thoughts.

00:49:23
Speaker 1: John Well, I'm opposed to it because it would make it so much harder for the US and Mexico to qualify, But I'm in favor of it in the sense that it would lead to there being better teams in the World Cup. I genuinely think the US, like if South America had four and a half more spots, I think the US would qualify. I think it would be really hard for Honduras, for Costa Rica, for Jamaica to qualify. I mean, certainly Cursou would struggle, but I think, you know, even with more spots, it would be hard for those smaller countries in North America and I but I see the argument because isn't the World Cup supposed to be the best forty eight teams coming together to play a tournament, or is it ultimately supposed to be the world's teams coming together to play a tournament. I guess that's the question.

00:50:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm gonna say that it's already difficult for Costa.

00:50:23
Speaker 1: Rica and al Duas and Guatemala.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: Then to make it a qualify for a little cust that isn't a huge change. And I just think that you could go if you push the logic of this question, then you basically end up having a you know, a two hundred team World Cup, and which we have a World Cup. We have a World Cup the last two years just to qualify for the World Cup with forty eight teams, And that seems to me.

00:50:48
Speaker 1: Don't tempt me with a good times. I just don't.

00:50:54
Speaker 2: I I think that there's you know, look, I don't think of that help Peru qualify. I do think we would make it hard of the United States to qualify. I think there's something about also these long international rivalries that last generations, like uh yeah, Peruchile, you know, pu Parauay, Peru, Columbia, pre Epidoor, all the you know, all the countries we play, we have the major major rivalries and global football. Yeah, exactly, exactly, that's precisely what I mean.

00:51:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got another question from Fletcher, who writes hig Guys. Thanks for the pot. I think John has used the word ultra to refer to himself a couple of times. I'm from Scotland, where that term has a specific and not positive definition. I was wondering what that word means to both of you and how you think the current ultra phenomenon FIST and the wider super fan culture. Fletcher. Fletcher, first off, thank you for listening. Secondly, I was my high school team's ultra that that is like a specific kind of ultra. I'm not I'm not saying that I like, uh, break glass bottles and grind them into heads of opposing players. I'm saying that when I was fourteen, I went to the away games. That's my definition of ultrum. Yeah.

00:52:09
Speaker 2: I think that there's a certain tongue in cheek quality the way you were using the word, which I admire.

00:52:14
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to communicate is a level of a level of tongue in cheakness to it. I will say that the part of football culture, like there's that great Bill Buford book among the thugs about traveling with Manchester United supporters, and the part of football culture that would act violently or you know, in any way that isn't in good fun toward other fans and their fan communities is reprehensible. Anytime you take it outside the world of we're here to have a good time, it's it misses the point of sport. To me, the point of sport is to have those rivalries and those conflicts in a completely peaceful, peaceable way. And if you start to treat your football club identity like like a reason to go to war, you missed the point of football to me.

00:53:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I I think I've said this before, but I feel like the World Cup is one of the few places where I love and celebrate nationalism. And I think that that the kind of jingoism, which is sort of the fiercer, less palatable cousin of nationalism is uh is kind of the distortion of that kind of fandom, which I don't like. But I'm with you. I think it's all in good fun. And and and John was a great ultra, a great fan, but certainly we use the words in tongue in cheek to describe what it was like to have a single fan away at a high school game. Magical, magical, drawn.

00:53:58
Speaker 1: You mean they can't put me on the under the bench, but they didn't.

00:54:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So Lily asks the following, what is the best way to score or tally your World Cup brackets to declare a winner? I have a bet established, but we haven't figured out the numbers yet. I have added a golden goal type rule where, regardless of brackets, whoever calls the winner of the World Cup automatically wins. My boyfriend I happy they've selected two different winners, and whoever correctly predicted will feel like a winner regardless. He happily agreed to this auto win given that he picked Spain and I picked Norway. But he's an Arsenal fan and they manage to find a way to lose all the time. Thank you for that, Lily. That really stings, given today's content of today's show. I think that's a I think, Lily, not to side with your Arsenal loving boyfriend, but I do think that he has a greater chance of being right here than you do. Spain is definitely one of the candidates to take it all. I don't know if I can say the same about Norway.

00:55:02
Speaker 1: Depends how erly Holland fares, but yeah, I would have to be a hell of a tournament for him. Yeah. Yeah, I've been thinking about this, Daniel, because you and Sean and I are going to do this and there is a small chance. And the deal is that whoever wins gets their name in the other person's book, unless Sewn wins, in which case he gets his name in both of our next books. Yeah, and so I've actually asked the printer of my new book, Hollywood Ending, what the last date possible is for me to make one change, And that change would be to insert one of your names into the book. I even know where it would go, like I know what page it's on, and you would be a movie director. And I am excited about this possibility. But if it goes all the way to the final, I'm not sure that I'll be able to do it, just timing wise, because the book will get oppressed too quickly. But if someone's got a really really big lead going into the final, then I think I can, like a week before be like well it's going to be Daniel.

00:56:08
Speaker 2: I mean, you could just insert it just now because you just just becuz, you know, just just in case to cover yourself.

00:56:15
Speaker 1: I could. It's not a bad idea. Actually, why not? I mean you have you have the name of a movie director, Sean has the name of an actor. I could. I could squeeze them both in. Yeah, squeeze them in. Why not? But no, no, no, let's not. Let's not. Let's not. No. No.

00:56:30
Speaker 2: I think I like this kind of golden goal situation, but I don't think that's what we need to do. We need to do sort of accumulation of points game by game.

00:56:38
Speaker 1: Do you get one point for every game you get right? Or do you get more points if you get I think you get one point for every game you get right, and then do you recede it after the first round. Let's not forget let's you have to make a role. Let's not figure it out on the airth I mean, Daniel, you've always got such good ideas.

00:56:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, A key one being not to you know, sort of like start elaborating, you know, spitfire ideas that are half formed on tape in front of our millions of fans.

00:57:07
Speaker 1: We don't want to.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: We will spare you guys all of that. Those are the questions we have. We have a special guest next week, John Yeah, and that's gonna be very exciting. He's gonna join us for the mail bag section. I also want to mention about Arsenal. This comes out Wednesday morning. We're recording on a Monday Wednesday afternoon. Arsenal has a chance to reset their season and make make it to the Champions League semifinals. So I will either be by the time you hear this, you know, once more sort of inhabiting in a fancy land of hope, or I will be even more despondent. And you in the future already know and I currently do not, So that's exciting. I don't know emails at away ndpod at gmail dot com, anything else done.

00:57:51
Speaker 1: No, just thanks for all your emails away in pod at gmail dot com. It's great to hear from you. Thanks to Sean and Kurt for making the podcast happen, and we'll see you next week.

00:58:00
Speaker 2: Take care,