Episode 14: The Tragedy of Poorly-Timed Injuries, the Corrosive Influence of Sports Gambling, and a Very Special Guest

00:00:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Way, and I'm Danielle Alercon, I'm John Green, and we have special episodes today. But before we get started, I wanted to ask our listeners. You know, John, this is a new podcast. We're trying to grow an audience. Yeah, and I think it's worth asking our loyal listeners. And I know they're out there because you send us so many emails to rate and review our show and to tell your friends about it, and that would be really helpful. So I wanted to say that at the top, John, we're gonna do something a little bit different, different than usual today. We're not going to tell a story, We're not going to do a deep dive into a country, and we have a special guest at the end.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: Really special guests, very.

00:00:44
Speaker 1: Special, I would say. But so you did want to talk about something that I think is unique and.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: Complicated, something that happens once every four years. And I wanted to ask you about this because you are yourself an a lad athlete and so you might have some insight for me. So the Liverpool, the great Liverpool player Ugo Akitik, just tore his achilles and it was a brutal injury. It was awful to watch. It was heartbreaking, But part of what made it so heartbreaking was that Akitik was realizing in the same moment that the rest of us were, that, in addition to facing a very long period of recovery and potentially, you know, struggling to ever be the same player again, he was going to miss the World Cup. And this is something that happens in every World Cup cycle. I remember when Sergio Ramos injured Mohammed Salad in the Champions League final. Salah went off in tears because he knew that he was at least going to be compromised for the World Cup and would at least miss some of the games. And indeed he wasn't a particularly impactful player in that World Cup and it just it just breaks my heart and it makes me wonder, from your perspective.

00:02:10
Speaker 3: As an elite athlete, Yeah, as.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: An elite athlete, do you think players have that in their minds? Like, let's say you're Liverpool and you've basically locked up the Champions League and you're not going to win anything this year, and so your last four games are being played for pride and glory, not for any particular matter of import like Is it in your mind that if you get injured, you're going to miss the World Cup, this thing you've been dreaming about since you were literally two or three years old.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: Yes.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: Or let's say you're Arsenal and your season's over and you're basically not playing for anything anymore. You probably are declan Rice and you've run the equivalent of seven thousand kilometers over the course of the last nine months.

00:02:53
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, if you had eleven Deklan rices, you would win the Premier League.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: That's fair enough, fair enough, but we don't. That will be my only illusion in this episode to what happened this weekend. So uh yeah, I think it's in your mind. I think it's got to be in your mind. And I I'm glad you mentioned the you know, the much beloved and world renowned good guy, Sirghill Ramos, who's probably injured more players and affected more careers negatively than any other player, say for Pepe, his his partner in the midfield. Uh, I mean in the in the defense of Madrid in those days. Look, it's impossible not to feel compassion towards a player like a kit k.

00:03:40
Speaker 3: You know, I I.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: It is one of those really poignant moments, and that it's happening so close to the tournament. Worre just just you know, weeks away literally from the beginning of the tournament at this point, and uh, and to know that this might be it, and also you know you might not get another chance, especially if he played for France, like in four years there will be another crop of incredible young players pounding at the door and possibly you know.

00:04:09
Speaker 3: Keeping you out of the team.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, for Liverpool, I think he's been the best signing of the summer, which was probably surprising to a lot of people, given who else.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Surprising to me. Yeah, but a bit of a low bar to jump over, it must.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: Be said, yes, and now in his injured state he could not jump over it. Indeed, indeed, Jesus, that's a little dark.

00:04:31
Speaker 3: Sorry.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: I pulled up the list John of some of the kind of potential high profile absentees this year and actually should say, my assistant Eliseo pulled up this list. One fourth Argentina out, Christian Romero from Argentina possibly out. Brazil, Rodrigo and Rafina are possible. Well, Rodrigo definitely is out.

00:04:58
Speaker 2: I think the law of Rodrigo I mean, in addition to the personal heartbreak of Rodrigo and his family and his friends and everything. I think that's really damaging for Brazil.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: Yeah I do too.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: I do too, and Rafina if he doesn't make it would be I mean, he's a class player man Croatia Guardiol, one of the best defenders in the last tournament, one of the best defenders in the Premier League.

00:05:23
Speaker 3: He's a doubt England.

00:05:27
Speaker 1: James Madison, I haven't seen him play in eighteen months. This poor guy has Yeah, well he's injury.

00:05:34
Speaker 3: He's been injured. Yeah, yeah, he's been injured.

00:05:37
Speaker 2: I think that he would have probably been a fairly peripheral player to England. I don't think that he's as essential as someone like Raffine is to Brazil. But I think that, you know, you always want to have all. And again, there's there's the there's the part of you that cares about how the team does, and then there's the part of you that cares about the player, and the part of you that cares about the player heartbroken regardless because he would have been in the team and he would have had a chance to play, you know, play in the World Cup. And that's I mean, you and I date our lives by every four years the World Cup. But if you're a professional football player, you really date your life. But I mean it's the defining opportunity of your career.

00:06:20
Speaker 1: No, and you and I as fans have you know, a dozen or more World Cups?

00:06:26
Speaker 3: As players? You know you have two, three if you're lucky, you know.

00:06:32
Speaker 1: Six, if five if you're oh yeah, infinite number if you're a Because Mexico only has one goalkeeper every two per century, apparently you know who could have used James Madison is Tottenham. But that's another story that's very true France. We mentioned I did want to mention and this was a story that happened while I was traveling that apparently, you know, France could could have been without Imbappe. He's had knee problems and one of the reasons they had this problem was because the crack medical team at Real Madrid we did an MRI on the wrong knee of killing Abappe and told him he was fine to play, and in fact he wasn't because they checked the wrong knee and.

00:07:17
Speaker 2: When they checked the right knee it turned out that there were some issues. That is an epic failure, Like, if that happens to me, it's a significant medical failure. To have it happen to literally killing in Bompe is just beyond the pale. I mean, everyone should be fired.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: Everyone should be fired and rehired at Tottenham Mexico. Marcel Ruiz at Snalvarez Netherlands, Mattiste de Licht and Justin Clybert are both doubts. And this is one that I want to mention as an Arsenal fan. Michel Marino, wonderful midfield player, solid, so versatile, he can score, he can play anywhere in the midfield and upfront, and he's a doubt with a weird foot injury that kind of came out of nowhere.

00:08:04
Speaker 3: So it's sad.

00:08:07
Speaker 1: It's sad because also as a fan, you want to see the best players in the best shape of their lives, playing at the very highest level. And I think there's something here that we should mention John, which is that these guys are just getting played into the ground.

00:08:21
Speaker 2: I mean, I was watching the Arsenal versus Manchester City game and thinking about how tired those Arsenal players look. The Manchester City players don't look that tired because they're not actually human, they're automatons. But the Arsenal players looked exhausted, and you know, at the end of a run, you could see them pulling on their shorts, you could see them leaning over. It's interesting. I mean, as a fan of third potentially soon to be fourth tier English soccer, those players play just as many games, run just as far, and you don't see it quite as much. And maybe I don't think it's I think the fitness levels in the Premier League are obviously higher, the fitness levels in the Champions League are obviously higher than they are in the third or fourth tier of you know, some some random countries football league. But that's always been what I've my response to it. When when coaches or players at the top levels say, well, we simply play too much, my response has always been, well, you know, down in the third division, nobody says, like, forty six games is too many. They play forty six games a season, plus an FA Cup run if they're lucky, plus the league Cup games, plus some random cups, and they end up playing fifty five games a season and nobody spares a thought for them and making you know, one hundred thousand bucks a year. But I'm starting to think that there's clearly something wrong with fixture congestion, not just because of the injuries, but because of the quality of the football at the end of the season. It's it's really not there. I mean, yeah, it's not there universally. Like watching Liverpool versus Everton this weekend, I was thinking the quality is different than it was in October.

00:10:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: I mean, top players in Europe haven't had a summer off and.

00:10:19
Speaker 2: That's what's that's a key insight is that they don't get a summer off because they're either traveling with their club or they're in the Euros of the World Cup.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Right and the Club World Cup from last season. Again, you look at a team like Chelsea and they've fallen off. Cole Palmer is a great player and he, you know, hasn't been the same since that tournament.

00:10:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.

00:10:46
Speaker 1: You kind of feel for these guys because their careers are so short they last. You know, if you're lucky, you get seven eight years a decade and that's it. So they want to take advantage of it. But then they get played overplayed and there's a limit I worry about. I'll tell you how I worry about I worry about Lamina Mal. He's yeah, and everyone's like, oh, he's you know, seventeen, he's eighteen.

00:11:11
Speaker 3: He's a phenomenon.

00:11:12
Speaker 1: But then you look at Bukayasaka, who came up at that age, and you know, he's twenty four now and he's had an injury plagued season and is not the same player who was two years ago. If you start at age sixteen, it doesn't mean that you're going to play till age thirty two, and it means that you might be done at age twenty five, right.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: I think a lot about those young phenoms. It's almost like being a child prodigy. Oh you know, you think about the people who bombed out, or the people who didn't live up to their promise, or the wonder kids who didn't, the starboys who didn't become great players, and then you think about the ones who did and a lot of times you're right, they're not great into their thirties, and some of that has to be the way that they've been been utilized or played. I worry about those people because they never got to be kids.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: You know.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: I worry about Lamina Mal because he almost has like a justin Bieber child star phenomenon where he never got to be fifteen, not in a meaningful way, because he was already on the fringes of Barcelona's first team.

00:12:19
Speaker 1: John is someone who did get to be fifteen. Uh, Like, what exactly is there to recommend being fifteen in your estimation? From your own exploi uce I, there were aspects of being fifteen that that I didn't love. As a friend of ours from our high school once told me that place saved my life.

00:12:44
Speaker 2: It also did lots of other things.

00:12:46
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean, okay, So to argue against myself, I would you know, perhaps you could say that the parts the other things are what you wrote, you know, your first novel about Yeah, and maybe you know gave you sort of a jumpstar on your on your on your literary career. Like I don't know that la Mignamal is going to write a great novel about his troubled youth.

00:13:11
Speaker 2: Although he could he could write a great novel about being fifteen and being on the edge of Barcelle in his first team. Are you kidding? I'd read that, but I think that yeah, I mean, certainly it gave me, in particular a lot of gifts that it it, you know that that are particular to my experience. I do think that it's developmentally important to be an adolescent. As hard as it is, I think that it's helpful. It makes it so that you're not an adolescent when you're an adult.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. There's a kid named Julian Hall. I don't know if you hear you're following MLS. I believe he might be top scorer of a New York Red Bull. He's a real one touch in the box poacher. He's super quick, he's got an instinct for goal. He's like sixteen, I think seventeen maybe. But I've been hearing about him for years because my son's. One of my son's friends played with him and they're they're they're close friends, and you know, everyone's always been talking about him, and I just wonder, you know, even for him, the pressure playing in a you know, uh in in MLS, which is not the star league like La Liga or you know, Maxdelman in the Premier League. It just it's it's a lot, you know. Yeah, you're right, he doesn't he's not gonna go to prom. He's not even gonna get to go to like a like a party at someone's house when the parents are out of town, which is like this like normal high school thing to do. You know, Like he's not gonna have those milestones that you were just talking about.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: The other thing he's not going to have. And we it turned out that this was not a segment about injuries so much as it was a segment about trying to psychoanalyze the mind of elite footballers. But the other thing he's not going to have is he's not going to have an experience of being anonymous.

00:14:57
Speaker 3: Like HM.

00:15:00
Speaker 2: One of the things about being fifteen or sixteen years old is that you don't have to worry about anyone but your parents and the police caring about what you do. And that's not the case for the meinam al right, Like if he gets drunk at a party, it's national news, international yeah, international news, Whereas when we got drunk at parties, it was mostly it wasn't news. I never got drunk at any party, correct, especially given our special guests presence Exactly, it's important it's important to note that Daniel was never never involved in any of that. Shenanigan's Sean on the other hand.

00:15:44
Speaker 1: My god, incorrigible, incordibal a miracle he survived that rowdy adolescence. Yeah, I find all this interesting, and I think we have to worry. You know, the connection between what we're discussing now and the injuries is sort of like the concern for player welfare, which I think is something that we don't talk about enough because we assume that all of these guys are super well paid, pampered millionaires whose job all they got to do is kick the ball under the net, and we don't worry so much about their mental health, their physical health, or their their long term health. You know, they're their long term health, you know when they're our age, you know, which which is tough. I do think John, if you go back to writing young adult novels, maybe you could write one about an elite athlete in one of these situations. And I'm happy to, you know, sort of give you the insight as an elite athlete.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say is I think you're almost more qualified to do it because of your incredible skill as a high school athlete. Maybe you can have a little bit of insight into what it's like to be so special that nobody at school treats you normally.

00:16:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was rough. It was rough. Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:58
Speaker 1: Let's take a break and we'll come back with the discussion about another thing that's been bothering me about about elite sports.

00:17:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll be right back.

00:17:21
Speaker 1: All right, we're back on the way, and John, I want to talk about something that is bad. Like many bad American things, this bad thing emerges from New Jersey.

00:17:34
Speaker 3: So the backstory is this.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, then a New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, was tired of Nevada being the only state in the Union allowed to take money from working people, and so he signed a bill legalizing gambling in state license sites. This case naturally wound up with the Supreme Court, and there, in their infinite wisdom, without giving much thought to the kind of social implications, they ruled kind of a narrow regulatory on the narrow regulatory concern and basically said, the states and not the Feds are the ones who have the authority regular gambling. And that was kind of the beginning of where we are today. And what I mean by that that decision came in twenty eighteen. What I mean by that is that gambling now is everywhere. It's everywhere, not just in sports, but kind of in all aspects of our society and culture. And it's spread, you know, not just across the United States, across the world. I've been living in Bogoada. Every ad at halftime, literally every ad is about a different gambling site.

00:18:43
Speaker 2: It's the same in England. I mean it's it's every.

00:18:46
Speaker 3: Ad, every ad.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: Eleven of the twenty Premier League teams have betting sponsors on the front of their shirt. And this is all all come to mind. We've had a number of betting scandals in the uh uh an NBA, in MLB, you know, we.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: Had We should also mention that there's a betting scandal related to oil prices and the closing of this trait of horror moves. I mean there there are betting scandals, not just in sports, but in anything that can be speculated about.

00:19:20
Speaker 1: Yes, that's like a whole different issue because the level of corruption that we have not yet uncovered about, say, insiders betting with inside information on things like we're gonna bomber on today are uh that has yet to be uncovered. Who's making money, but they've made millions and millions and millions of dollars off of inside information of US foreign policy. But I feel like that's that's like kind of a.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: Level of outside the scope of the away end.

00:19:49
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the the away, away end. All of this came to mind because I read this really great piece in The Atlantic called My Year as a Degenerate Gambler by the writer M McKay coppins, and he writes this, practically overnight, we took an ancient vice long regarded as soul rotting and civilizationally ruinous, and put it on everyone's phone and made it as normal and frictionless as checking the weather. What could possibly go wrong? He writes this really brilliant essay kind of a deep dive into sports gambling culture and tracks his own sort of like descent into this world. He begins by saying, like, I'm not the addictive type. You know this won't be a problem, and then you know, tracks about how, over the course of a year researching this gambling takes over his life and you know, ruins I wouldn't say ruined, at least colors a lot of really kind of sacricyanct family interactions, friendships, and crucially the way he enjoys sports. So there's this one scene that I want to mention John because I think understand what I'm talking about. He goes to one of these like sport books where he can watch games, and he's like, oh, finally get to watch games with people who care. And he finds that everyone's watching games for different reasons, because everyone has these little micro bets on things that are might or may or may not happen. And he writes, this gambling has made us all care much more about the games, but it just also atomized us, taking the last and purest expression of American monoculture and turning it into a hyper individualized, every man for himself portfolio of micro bets. I hate gambling. I hate fantasy football. I hate watching a game and instead of just caring about if my team wins or loses, caring if a player on a team that I hate might score a goal, like I'd find out to be just a perversion of fandom. And the stakes are huge. The stakes are huge because look, in twenty seventeen, American's legally bet four point nine billion on sports. Last year, that number was one hundred and sixty billion dollars for a percentage of people who get involved in gambling, they're going.

00:22:04
Speaker 3: To lose big. They're going to lose big.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of sportsbooks revenue comes from less than ten percent of their users. So those people who are like losing their wages, their pensions, their college their kids college funds, you know. And then the impacts of course are downstream are like, you know, their families, their relationships, their jobs, their futures. You know, it's just a tragedy. And I I really sort of like.

00:22:31
Speaker 3: Hate that.

00:22:32
Speaker 1: It dilutes the experience of being a fan, of of of watching a game and knowing what you want from that game, and the simplicity of it. It it just ruins it. I hate it, and I wanted to know what you think.

00:22:49
Speaker 2: Well, we've talked before about that. One of the things that football provides for both of us is a purity of emotion. You know, you're simply sad when Arsenal get beat by Manchester City.

00:23:04
Speaker 3: See it didn't happen.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're simply happy when Arsenal win the Champions League in a month, and you you do dilute that. I think there are people who can play fantasy football responsibly, and you know, like I'll give you an example. So I'm in an IndyCar Fantasy league. I'm in the only IndyCar Fantasy league in the world. There's five of us, and we had to invent the rules because there is no rules for IndyCar Fantasy League and watching IndyCar. I'm going to say this carefully. Outside of the Indianapolis five hundred is a bit of a chore, and it allows me to be invested in watching the sport in a different way. And I think that's okay. I know what you mean about the added I know what the writer means about the atomization of experience, and it is true, like you want everybody to be every Green Bay Packers fan in the stadium to be watching rooting for the green Bay Packers to win, not rooting for a particular number of points or a particular number of yards thrown by the quarterback, and that it does dilute the shared experience of a shared experience, and that concerns me because we have so few shared experiences left. I absolutely know what you're talking about there. I think there is I think that there is a difference between the radical ostracization of a lot of sports scandaling versus the community building potential of a fantasy league. So you and I were in a fantasy league several years ago with a bunch of writer friends. And for me it was incredible because not because I didn't care if I want or lost. In fact, I don't think I ever updated my team, but the email threat was incredible, like, for sure, so cool.

00:25:03
Speaker 3: It made me feel so cool.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: To be on that email thread. And I would participate in it very sparingly, and when I did very carefully, like I would reread my emails thirty times before I sent them to make sure that they were as funny as possible.

00:25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're in an email thread with like Robbie a Lamadine National Book Award winner and Sasha m On mac MacArthur genius, Uh, you're.

00:25:26
Speaker 2: Kemuel Alarcon MacArthur genius. I mean, why don't you ever talk about the fact that you're a MacArthur genius. I would talk about it non stop.

00:25:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, it was. It was a beautiful community of writers.

00:25:37
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: So that's what I'm talking about. When it builds community, I'm all for it. And when it ostracizes you from your community by making you by by garnishing your wages, by ruining your relationships by you know that, then then it's devastating and there's no question that the harm is greater than the good, right, Like we could have had an email thread where everybody rooting for Arsenal is rooting for Arsenal and everybody rooting for Liverpool is rooting for Liverpool, and it's a great email thread, you know, and it doesn't involve whether or not Airlin Holland scores a goal or whatever. And that's that to me is the central question when it comes to sports is does this deepen the community ties that people feel toward each other and with each other. Does it make them want to work with and for each other in pursuit of a greater good or greater human connection, or does it make them feel further apart from each other. And when it makes them feel further apart from each other, we've lost the whole point of sports. There is no reason to do it.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what worries me. It worries me that that we're not able to focus on like that it's not enough, Like why isn't it Why isn't it enough just to watch the game and see who wins, as opposed to like, why do you have to add all these other things when the game itself should be enough.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, the game itself should be enough, and the game itself is enough if you let yourself get invested. Yet I've really been experimenting with the Danielle Alercone theory of don't let myself get negatively invested in emotional football experiences. And the team that I sponsor, AFC Wimbledon, have lost six straight games and are on the edge of relegation. They need to win one of their last two games, but there's no indication that they can because they have an injury crisis and lots of other and the lowest budget in the league and everything else. And they lost on Saturday, And I was like, I'm going to channel my inner Alercone and not get emotionally invested in this and not let it ruin myself Saturday in Richmond, Virginia speaking to all these people and having a lovely opportunity to speak to lots of students and adults, and I'm not gonna let it ruin that. I'm not gonna let it ruin time with my family. But it did Daniel, it did, it did. I was negatively impacted. I didn't want to be, but I was. I was like, I can't.

00:28:20
Speaker 3: It's so hard to get promoted. It's so hard to get promoted. After you get relegated, it's so hard to get back up there.

00:28:29
Speaker 2: Tottenham are going to experience this. It's harder than you think it's going to be.

00:28:33
Speaker 1: We have a question about this in the mailback section. I'm gonna give you my experience because, as you know, on Sunday, I'm told that Arsenal lost to man City.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were only going to reference it once, but I took the over. I actually just made a hundred bucks off DraftKings, the polymarket or whatever. I'll tell you what, man, I didn't watch the game.

00:28:57
Speaker 3: I knew no.

00:28:57
Speaker 1: I did not watch the game. I added a cafe. I read a sci fi novel set in space.

00:29:04
Speaker 3: Wow, was it a good book? Do you want to mention it?

00:29:06
Speaker 1: It's an Orbital Men Booker Prize winner from twenty twenty four. Halfway through, it's quite good. And the reason that I did that is just because I knew it was going to ruin my day and soon I had just thrived in New York and we wanted to. I wanted to have a day, you know. I didn't want Yeah on me, and I just knew that I wouldn't be able to handle it, you know. It was too anxiety inducing. And I turned my phone off, read this book and it didn't ruin my day. It didn't ruin my day.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: I almost texted you and Sean a joke, and then I was like, no, it's probably not the right vibe.

00:29:47
Speaker 1: I will say that it hurt very badly. I care very deeply about this team, and I have been, you know, like I have to put up with all the nonsense of other fans being petty, and it's fine. I like Arsenal deserve it. I think that's totally fine. I don't take offense to it. I think it's we've earned it.

00:30:05
Speaker 2: You know.

00:30:06
Speaker 1: But I just didn't want to go through the two hours of hoping and wondering what was going to happen in the anxiety. I felt it was going to be too much for my middle aged heart. And I didn't watch it, and I feel okay about it, and as a result, it didn't ruin my day. It ruined my day a little bit, A little bit A tiny little bit, a tiny little bit. I was very I was sad, but you know I was functional, you know, right, right, I functioned throughout the day. I just kept thinking, Yeah, I functioned. I functioned on Saturday. I got through the day, and I had a lot of joy in the day. Actually, it was just they're working in the background. Was always this sadness. But you're right, the game should be enough. The game is enough. Yeah, and I think that. Look, the reason these companies are able to advertise the way that they do is precisely because they make, you know, if there's one hundred and eighty billion dollars of legal gambling a year, they make you know, twenty billion dollars, and you know that's a pretty good return on your investment.

00:31:18
Speaker 3: Well, look, here's a couple other facts. Men.

00:31:20
Speaker 1: You have to win fifty two point five percent of your bets just to break even. That's right, and that's before taxes.

00:31:27
Speaker 3: Right.

00:31:28
Speaker 1: Here's here's a shocking statistic, again from the Mickay Coppins article, which I highly recommend. More than a third of men's Division I college basketball players say they've received abusive messages from gamblers. Twenty one percent of gamblers themselves admit to lashing out at athletes in person or online. There's even a I mean, you know, imagine you're like a nineteen year old player at like Wichita State, and you miss a free throw that someone had a parlay on, and then you're getting abusive emails from randoms like people who would never you know, who are probably normal, decent people in their real life, but their entire expectation of the enjoyment of sport has been distorted and mutated into this kind of vile, you know, lecherous greed, and you're and you're find yourself writing a hateful email to a nineteen year old like what's wrong with you?

00:32:23
Speaker 3: You know what?

00:32:24
Speaker 2: This takes us back, though, to the question of the well being of people and the ways that which I think, especially with the professionalization of college basketball college football, now that those players are paid, and sometimes paid very well, there is a feeling not just among gamblers, I don't think, but among lots of people that if you are paid well, then part of the and this may be getting into some personal territory, Daniel, but part of the social benefit that the public gets to experience from you being paid well is the right to abuse you. It is the right to you know, yell at you and tell you that you're a terrible person. And it's it's punching up to do that because they're rich, right, Like it's punching up to tell Lebron James's son that he's a nepo baby because he's wealthy. It's punching up to tell some nineteen year old who plays for Wichita State that he's an you know, a piece of crap because he missed a free throw. And that's just not true. I mean, it's it's true. You're absolutely punching up if you punch up at me or Daniel, Like, you know, we're in our forties and have stable, functional relationships and you know a sense of self and everything. But you're not punching up when you say that to a professional athlete who's twenty two years old. I'm sorry, You're you're you're making the world worse.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think about this, and you've seen this phenomenon, right, So in the real world, you have a bad day at work, it was a terrible meeting, you had a presentation, you blew it, and then afterwards you're like, oh, and you go out and get a drink with some friends and to commiserate, right, normal, No one thinks bat's an eye, right because you're, like, you had a rough day. So let's say you're an Arsenal player and you lost to Man City and you you know, missed a golden chance to tie the game. You know, minute, I've been told.

00:34:22
Speaker 2: This is now three times. Yeah, but yeah, go on.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this happened, but like, what if after that game you go out to get a drink with some friends to talk about your feelings, and then someone takes a picture of you, and then it's a scandal. It's like right, you know, and you know, twenty six year old, you know, highly paid Arsenal players celebrating their loss to whatever. This isn't This didn't happen necessarily, but you've seen it before where players, young men athletes get vilified for doing something that's absolutely normal, which is like going out with friends after a disappointment, not to celebrate, but just to like let steam because it's hard, you're under pressure all the time. And they get criticized as if they didn't care about the team, as if you know, going out to a bar, whether you're you know, getting hammered or not is incompatible with winning, you know, when we know.

00:35:16
Speaker 3: From history it's not. I don't know.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: It just seems to me that that athletes are both incredibly privileged and also help to these impossible standards that they aren't allowed to be human.

00:35:26
Speaker 3: You know.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they're really not allowed to be human in some fundamental way, which is that we don't think of them as people. This is one of the great benefits of lower league football is that you do think of them as people, because they're in the bar afterwards with you, they're on the train home from the away game with you sometimes, and so you have to think of them as people. But still the lower league athletes receive all kinds of abuse. And you know, the other thing about it is that sometimes people will say, like, oh, I should be allowed to say whatever I want on Twitter and tag this person, you know, tag Sokka or whatever and say whatever I want, because like, he shouldn't be looking, you know, he shouldn't look. Well you try, You tried being twenty four years old and not looking at your replies? Like you try that? Yeah, show me how easy it is. Because I remember when I was in middle school, I was. This is going to surprise you, But I was a pretty big nerd. It was really really unpopular, and I was bullied heavily bullied physically, emotionally. It was really really difficult for me before I got to our school where I became immensely popular and beloved. But I remember I had I had these two popular kids who would carpool with me, and I remember wanting to put a recording device in there in the car so that I could hear what they were saying about me, so that I could understand what was wrong with me. I really wanted to understand what was wrong with me, why I was getting bullied so much, because it just I just couldn't figure out how to make it not happen. And Twitter and read It and Facebook are recording devices where everyone will tell any famous person exactly what they think of them all the time. And the idea that it's easy to resist that is just ludicrous. It is really hard to resist it.

00:37:28
Speaker 3: That's very well said.

00:37:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:37:31
Speaker 3: Do you read your reviews my reviews?

00:37:35
Speaker 1: Well, I don't write books anymore, Uh, John.

00:37:37
Speaker 2: No, but you know what I mean, Like, do you read reviews of the away ND? Do you read reviews of radio and Viulante.

00:37:44
Speaker 1: Yeah occasionally, No, occasionally I do.

00:37:46
Speaker 2: But it also I just want to stop you for a second because you just said something that I strongly disagree with.

00:37:53
Speaker 3: Oh go for you.

00:37:54
Speaker 2: Yeah what that you don't write books anymore? You better write at least one more book?

00:37:59
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, And that's actually a nice place to land, because there is one kind of wager, one kind of gambling that is okay, which is if you, as a novelist, bet against your friend who has also written novels in the past, about who will better predict the outcome of the World Cup, and on the line is a mention in an forthcoming novel. I think we can all agree that kind of gambling is allowed and.

00:38:25
Speaker 2: Probably beneficial to the world, precisely because it brings a community together. To go back to my point earlier, yeah, so you have to write at least one more book.

00:38:35
Speaker 3: I will, okay.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: I mean I'm going to be personally devastated just because I love your writing, but also because you will have flagrantly failed the wager. Well, we're assuming you're assuming you're going to win, which no, I think Sean's going to win because he knows the least about football.

00:38:54
Speaker 3: That's true. That's true.

00:38:56
Speaker 1: Maybe we can bring him our special guests in on the wager and we can all wager, and then we'll have even more novels to dissect and to find our mentions in.

00:39:05
Speaker 2: I love that, and I love the idea of him participating. And I also just want to say, for the record, I remember you told me like years ago that you were going to be a journalist and that you weren't going to write novels for a while.

00:39:20
Speaker 3: And I remember.

00:39:21
Speaker 2: Thinking like, and I may have even said this to you, like that's the wrong decision, Like you're a brilliant fiction writer, and you should write fiction. But actually I was wrong, Like you're also a brilliant journalist, and you should continue to do what you do and what you love to do and what you want to do. But you do have to write one more book.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: I will, I will, And I just want to say that recording this podcast has been just being bullied with praise episode after episode, and it's doing wonders for my ego. And I want to thank you for always being so kind and generous with your compliments.

00:39:53
Speaker 2: I mean it, I mean I've admired both of you, both you and Shawn since I was fifteen. I've only admired Kurt for the last like eight weeks or so, but I admire everybody who makes this podcast.

00:40:07
Speaker 1: That's great, and I'm glad you never were able to slip the recording device into the carpool and here, which I'm.

00:40:12
Speaker 3: Sting man, it would not have been good news.

00:40:15
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with the mail bag and our special guests. We're back at the Away and we have a special guest, Eddisel.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: Hello.

00:40:38
Speaker 3: Hello, how you doing? Man? Good? Who are you?

00:40:41
Speaker 4: I'm your son?

00:40:42
Speaker 3: There you go, There you go?

00:40:43
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:40:44
Speaker 1: So Eddie Sale has been in charge of curating this week's mail bag, and we have six very spicy questions lined up. Great and so and so, who's your favorite team?

00:40:58
Speaker 4: Like national team or both? The Columbia national team okay, or the Arsenal.

00:41:06
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, that's the right answer. That's great.

00:41:08
Speaker 2: At least you're gonna win the Premier League. Don't listen to your dad.

00:41:11
Speaker 4: No, I'm confident.

00:41:13
Speaker 2: I love the confidence.

00:41:14
Speaker 3: He's confident.

00:41:15
Speaker 4: They have to play against Villa, our toughest opponent's Newcastle.

00:41:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, Newcastle's tough, not Villa.

00:41:23
Speaker 1: Newcastle's in fourteenth Daniel, Yeah, but yeah, okay. Alisal speaks with the confidence of a young man whose heart has not been broken, and I I I'm here for it. I love it, and you know, I will be very happy if we win the Premier League. I'll be very happy if we win anything. Uh Anyway, but that's not what we're here to discuss, because that now it's been since I said that will be my only mention of Arsenal, it's been five mentions now. Yeah.

00:41:55
Speaker 3: So someone on poly market is setting up over under right now on how how many? Yeah?

00:42:01
Speaker 1: Okay, just a director's note. And so don't look behind you at John. Okay, resist the urg resist the urg to look behind you at the giant screen of John Green's face hovering over you, as if he say about John, lift your hands up like this. Okay, hold that, hold that, and he said it looks scared.

00:42:21
Speaker 3: There we go.

00:42:23
Speaker 1: Okay, God, that's a terrifying feature. Okay, okay, So just look at us. The camera's there, John's not there, just John is that voice in your head?

00:42:34
Speaker 3: Okay? So what's the first question? Hit us?

00:42:36
Speaker 4: Dear John and Daniel I am a longtime John Green reader, fairly new rad listener, and as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm realizing how much Daniel inspired the character Chip Martin and Looking for Alaska. So whether or not John or Daniel wins the World Cup bet one could argue Daniel is already in one of Joan's novels, and so it's automatically Daniel's turn. Please discuss best Jasmine.

00:42:59
Speaker 3: Wow wow, I think you got to explain this. It's funny.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: It's funny that person says that because when my best friend from high school, Todd Carti, was in the audience once for a book event, somebody said, who's your favorite character in Looking for Alaska? And I said, I don't know, Todd, who's your favorite character? And Todd said, I can't remember what you called me?

00:43:25
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

00:43:29
Speaker 1: I was told once in writing that if you wanted to write about somebody without them knowing, just name another character after them, right, so you wanted.

00:43:39
Speaker 2: To You could also make the case that I was writing about our friend Chip, since we actually have a friend named Chip and Chip Martin, you know, I mean I was writing about all of us. I was writing about me. I was writing about Sean. I was writing about you, I was writing about all of us.

00:43:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a there was a noticeable absence of provings in the novel by Reforc.

00:44:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:44:01
Speaker 1: It was egregious. It was noted. It was definitely noted by the critics, by the the you know people on Reddit.

00:44:09
Speaker 3: I noticed it. Uh yeah, but I've forgiven you for that, and.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to my mention in your upcoming book.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that in the upcoming book, I will definitely mention that you are Peruvian. It will be the Peruvian movie director Danielle Aller.

00:44:29
Speaker 3: Can I just say the only umbrince? Is that the right word? Umbrince? Yeah? Sure? Did I take with Jasmine's umbradge? Umbridge? Umbridge? Okay? Is umbrnts offense? Why don't you say offence? You don't sound literate here in front of my son. The only offense, yes, thank you, that I will take with this wonderful note from our listener Jasmine, is that it does not uh you know, speculate that I could win uh you know, the World Cup back. It's just taking me completely or elliots a if he's participating in it. But like you know, so I just I should acknowledge that I think that.

00:45:11
Speaker 1: You're the favorite. I agree, I think will be encumbered by our knowledge and you will be free to pick Corusaw over Germany in the semi final.

00:45:27
Speaker 3: And who knows. I mean, I'm not an idiot either, you know. So it's not like I'm you know, making these predictions just completely throwing all caution to the wind. Yeah, Sean's not like a nineteen eighty six algorithm, like he's able to make some choices. Reason in logic do apply? Yeah? Sure, all right. So wait, so just to nail this down, I'm not Chick Martin.

00:45:55
Speaker 2: None of us is.

00:45:56
Speaker 3: Oh Man.

00:45:57
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, Well I hope that answers are our listeners questions. Okay, ady, say what's next?

00:46:05
Speaker 4: This is a long one.

00:46:06
Speaker 3: Okay, is this the Bulgarian question? Yes, okay to our listeners. Kolia, Kolia, Coolio, Colio.

00:46:15
Speaker 1: Colio, so to Kolio, Atlissa and I worked hard on the pronunciations of these Bulgarian names in preparation for this recording session, and we're doing our best. I also edited lightly to to sort of cut out some of the names because it was it was a challenge Stutchkov is the one you.

00:46:31
Speaker 4: Need to know too, Stoutchekov and my Mi Mihailov.

00:46:37
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, hi, John Daniel.

00:46:40
Speaker 4: In the nineteen nineties, we Bulgarians were fortunate to have an exceptionally talented Generation one superstar Stuchekov, four to five top players, and we finished fourth at the nineteen ninety four feet for World Cup. Since then, things have gone steadily downhill. In the early two thousands, the narrative was that the remnants of the communist era leadership were holding Bulgarian football back. In two thousand and five, Borislav Mihaalyov, the captain of the nineteen ninety four team, was elected president of the Football Union and held the position for seventeen years, alongside other members of that same golden generation. Seventeen years is a long time, and the trajectory of Bulgarian football during that period was very consistent downward year after year. And here's my question, how should I feel about Borislav Mikhalyov, especially now after his passing. How should I interpret the public condolences from his peers, even critics who describe him as a great president, when all evidence would seem to imply the contrary, I'd really value your perspective on these philosophical questions, knowing they are not simple.

00:47:41
Speaker 3: All the best koil.

00:47:44
Speaker 2: Interesting or not simple. That's a great point. It's really hard because there used to be an impulse Koyo to not say bad things about people after they died, and on Twitter at least that impulse has gone away. And I don't know if that's good or bad. Like, I think it's good to have a reckoning with who someone really was, right, Like I remember when the poet Derek Walcott passed. You know, it's a brilliant poet who also caused a lot of harm to a lot of people, And the tension there was profound and explored, not always in nuanced ways, but at least explored. And I think it's important to explore that. I think it's important to acknowledge that. So I don't think that it's I don't think you can simply say like, there goes the passing of a great man. If you feel like it was more complicated than that.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: What do you think, Daniel, Yeah, I think first of all, there's no indication in the letter. I don't know much about Bulgarian football, Beyonnest. Although Stitchkoff was incredible player, incredible player, but I don't know enough about this the captain of that team who became the president of the federation to say what exactly what. There's no occation that he was a kind of Derek Walcott, you know, kind of predator preditor, right, It's more like he was incompetent at his job. And I think there's probably a lot of reasons one could not have the results that one wants, and they may or may not be moral failings, you know. Like I always think about this when I'm if I'm asked to review a book and I don't like it, and sometimes you feel like angry that I had to read this book, that it wasn't good, And then before I write my review, so I don't come off like a complete asshole, I have to remind myself that writing a bad novel is not a moral failure. It's very difficult to write a good novel. Yeah, it's arguably one of the hardest things to do. Same Like, similarly, I think it's hard to run a football federation, or you know, to be a metronomic midfielder, you know, making an offense tick I think all these things are hard, and you could be trying your damnedest and not pull it off, and it's not a moral failure, So don't I don't think we're in a situation. There's no indication from Coldia's letter that we're in a situation where this guy was a bad person. He just might have been bad at his job despite his best efforts.

00:50:11
Speaker 2: But seventeen years, so you could say, I think I think when someone like when someone dies in that situation, I think you have to say this person tried their best at a hard job.

00:50:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess the only critique there that I think would be fair is if you're bad at your job despite your best efforts and you stay for seventeen years.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe there.

00:50:32
Speaker 1: Was a the a kind of diabolical lack of self awareness that might have been addressed earlier.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: Right, But it's so hard to stop doing a job that you're bad at. It's so hard because it's so hard to have that self awareness. Anyway, I feel bad for everyone in this situation. But I but I if I were a Bulgarian football fan, I would be I would be very resentful. I mean I am very resentful as an American of the US Soccer Federation, so it's not hard for me to imagine being angry at the federation and it's it's president.

00:51:07
Speaker 1: I saw the third place game of the nineteen ninety four World Cup at a bar in Annapolis, Maryland, and watched Bulgary get absolutely destroyed, hammered, hammered for nothing.

00:51:22
Speaker 3: Against two I think it was sweet. Is that right?

00:51:26
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but I just remember them getting destroyed and being like, they shouldn't have a third place game. You already did so great. You got to the semi finals, and then for the last two games of your tournament to be two losses seem super cruel after everything you did to get there. It was Sweden, by the way, it was okay, yeah, good memory. Despite my advanced age aty so I still have a good time. I don't know that that's that's maybe a question for another day. But like it is the third place game an act of cruelty by FIFA, I would argue, yes, yeah, yeah, okay, next question.

00:52:10
Speaker 4: Hello, John and Daniel. I'm interested in what you think are unacceptable reasons for supporting a national team. Obviously, nationality ancestry. Friends' nationalities are good reasons for support. Is a memorable vacation to a place enough to support a team? What about a killer national anthem? As an example, I've always been a fan of the Dutch. There are several interlocking reasons, but honestly, the most significant is just because Dutch orange is so beautifully audacious. Still, I'm not so confident in any of these good these are good reasons to consign myself to a life of heartbreak. Please discuss best, Ryan.

00:52:45
Speaker 2: I think liking the color is adequate. Actually, it's a really good color. It's an exceptional orange. It's a great color. I agree, is it enough? I also think the national anthem is adequate. You know, the Greek national anthem has one hundred and seventeen verses. That's a good enough reason.

00:53:00
Speaker 1: Do you know the Spanish national anthem doesn't have lyrics?

00:53:03
Speaker 3: Yes, it's nice, so they can't sing along?

00:53:05
Speaker 1: No, they just kind of hum it's yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that to be surreal.

00:53:10
Speaker 2: God, I wish we had a better national anthem. This is one of my fundamental disagreements with most Americans. I think our national anthem is catastrophically bad, and I think there are so many good songs about America that we could be singing. Instead. We could be singing America the Beautiful. We could be singing God Bless America. We could be singing this this land is your land. We could be singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I mean there, it's endless. Yeah, and yet we choose somehow to sing this song that Francis scott Key wrote that is not good. The best thing Francis Scott Key ever did was give Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald his name.

00:53:49
Speaker 1: Oh huh, I didn't realize that's where the name came from. I think that's a controversial take. I actually like it.

00:53:58
Speaker 3: Well, I hate to say this, but you're wrong and you're rarely wrong.

00:54:05
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, that's fair to answer Ryan's question, I think, I mean, it depends how deep your arbitrary love for the color orange, Like how far you've taken that. I don't know if, like you know, I went on vacation, you know, once to a country, and now I have the emblem of the Federation like tattooed on my lower back. Like I think that might be weird, but I think all like if all things are neutral and you've went you know, you're watching a group stage game, and you're like, you know this country that I've that I went to once in that country that I've never been to, and you're like, you know, if I want to create a sporting interest in order to make this game more intriguing to me, you know, I often will pick a team and just sort of see what happens. I usually pick the underdog if I don't know anything. I think that's just more interesting and more ethically defensible.

00:55:00
Speaker 2: All right, let me say I only have time for one more question because I have to go to Sierra Leon.

00:55:05
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Okay, pick one, pick a good one?

00:55:08
Speaker 4: Difficult, Okay, Dear John and Daniel. During your discussion of the German team in the recent episode, John mentioned that it feels surreal seeing Julian Nagel's been coaching because he still remembers him as a player. That indeed would be surreal as he never played professional football.

00:55:31
Speaker 3: Good choice, So that's a perfect question. At least sale you could have picked any question. We got so many this week. He's mad at you for having to cut it short straight to the juggular on this one. Keep going, Keep.

00:55:46
Speaker 4: Going, John, probably remembers him from his first Bundesliga head coach job at Hoffenheim, which Naglesman started when he was twenty nine and therefore younger than many players. So here's my question what makes a good coach and the fact that many of the best coaches were not old class players themselves. Keep up the good work, best, Mattias.

00:56:03
Speaker 1: Before you answer, can I just say something? Because the setup was like, John, why are you hallucinating? Like to at GBT, But the question was very respectful, so respectful after having slapped you around for once again making shit up, much like the game that I allegedly attended with you at the World Cup. You're you just make shit up like a fiction writer.

00:56:27
Speaker 3: I do, and I married.

00:56:28
Speaker 2: I married blessedly to an absolutely committed fact checker. And so I'll give you an example. I recently told a friend. I was like, you know, I had meningitis, which is true. I got meningitis on a trip with Bill Gates. I got meningitis in Ethiopia, and I was traveling with the folks from the Gates Foundation, including Bill Gates. And when I got meningitis, Bill Gates sent me an orchid to say he was sorry. And I was like, and look at this beautiful orkid that Bill Gates sennas And Sarah was like, that's not Bill Gates's orchid. That's a completely different orchids from years later. Ah, you don't know how orkids.

00:57:13
Speaker 3: Work, Sarah. Just let me have this, just let me know.

00:57:16
Speaker 2: But I actually appreciate the fact checking because I am such a wild fabulouist. I need someone in my life who grounds me a little bit. So thank you for that incredibly generous correction. Like if i'd been I would have dunked on me so much harder than that.

00:57:35
Speaker 3: In the times, I love it. I love it.

00:57:39
Speaker 1: So it's now the respectful question that came out of that kind of swipe at you, respectful swipe. Yeah, what makes a great coach, especially, you know, if they haven't come out of the game as players themselves.

00:57:54
Speaker 2: I've only observed up close coaches in the third tier of English soccer, and not sure that that that I can answer the question with any any clarity. But I think there is a mix of tactics and and and being able to understand human nature. I think that there are a wide variety of ways you can understand human nature, like the way you're gonna clop coaches is very different from the way that say, Poachattino coaches or Jose Mourinho coaches. But Jose Mourinho, Sorry, I know, I know Daniel's going to correct me anyway, So I'm just going to get out in front of it.

00:58:33
Speaker 1: I feel like, but Ti has already corrected you so brilliantly. I don't want to It's redundant at this point to correct you.

00:58:41
Speaker 2: But I think you do have to understand people, and then I think you have to have a good tactical understanding of your level of football.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: What do you think, Daniel, Yeah, I think a good coach protects as players. I think a good coach, you know, builds them up when they're suffering, and also takes the blame, you know, and doesn't throw them under the bus. And in addition, having the you know, the tactile acumen and understanding who's peaking at the right moments. So yeah, I think all of those things are are true. The emotional, I think psychological side is probably under rated. Yeah, because all of these guys at that level are elite.

00:59:24
Speaker 3: They're incredible athletes.

00:59:25
Speaker 1: They have they have the skills, they're technically gifted, but the psychological aspect of and here's my sixth mention of Arsenal is for example, what I think separates Pep from uh from Arteta who hasn't been able to rouse his players in the last six games when a title was in their grasp.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: But I think there's also the pressure that comes with that that can bring you down that two percent, right, Like I've I've been thinking about that a lot with AFC Wimbledon, that like, what's what's really where they're really struggling is they've been pushed down that two percent by the pressure of the prospect of relegation. And that's the two percent that's the difference between a two to one win and two one loss.

01:00:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:00:05
Speaker 1: Absolutely, uh, thank you Eliseo for curating these questions for us. Yeah, welcome and John have safe travels to Sierra Leone.

01:00:14
Speaker 2: Thank you. People call it Africa's Peru because they've also never qualified for the World Cup.

01:00:22
Speaker 3: We have qualified for the World Cup. Yeah, I'm a fabulous Daniel. I'm having a good time over here.

01:00:30
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say, because we also have tuberculosis, you do, We certainly.

01:00:35
Speaker 3: Do lots of it. Yes, Yes, okay, safe travels.

01:00:38
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week. Thank everyone for listening. Remember to rate and review us. Thank you Sean and Kurt and behieb and we'll see you next week.

01:00:46
Speaker 3: And most importantly, thank you Elise.

01:00:48
Speaker 4: You're welcome.

01:00:49
Speaker 3: Thank you.

01:00:49
Speaker 2: Oh it's a great joy to be with you.

01:00:51
Speaker 3: Yes, wonderful, wonderful. All right, see you next week.

01:00:54
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody,