Episode 1: The 2026 World Cup Draw

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Away And I'm John Green and I'm Lenielle Aler Gone. How's it going, John, It's going great. I'm really excited for this podcast. So we're going to be talking about football on this podcast. But I think one thing we need to establish right at the outset, Daniel, is that you and I have been friends for thirty years.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: It feels like like just went by like that.

00:00:23
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, it feels like much longer.

00:00:28
Speaker 2: We've been at this talking, sharing ideas, sharing thoughts, sharing observations about soccer in life since approximately nineteen ninety Is that right?

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety two, I would say, But in the it was in the early nineties when we still had to smuggle in VHS tapes to watch football games. That was the only way to do it was to go to the TV room at our little boarding school and watch live from fourteen years ago, videotapes of World Cup games past.

00:00:59
Speaker 2: I remember that. I remember my soccer coach, coach Barrett, gave out after practice one day when I was around ten or twelve. He had a duffel bag of VHS tapes of European games and he made us watch them. As homework, so we would all stop following the ball around wherever it went, which is which was the height of American soccer tactics in the nineteen eighties Deep South.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: To be fair, that is still an important part of youth soccer. I never really got past the follow the ball around. My coach would always try to point out to me that the hypot news of the triangle is actually better than if you run sideways and then down when you're defending, and I never quite got that. I never quite was able to follow along with that. I was just drawn like a magnet towards the ball.

00:01:46
Speaker 2: There's still time done. So we are kicking off our brand show the Away End, as you mentioned, and I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you have in mind for the show. Well.

00:01:57
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a show that helps people understand the World Old Cup and football in general, and why people are so passionate about it. Why, as the old saying goes, of all the unimportant things, football is the most important. But I also want to use it as an excuse to talk to you, someone who's probably the smartest person I've ever known, excepting of course, our producer Sean Titne, who's also been a friend of ours since high school. Talk with two of the smartest people I've ever known about this game that we all love so much.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: Does Sean love this game?

00:02:29
Speaker 1: That's a really good point, Daniel. In fact, Sean, can you come on just for a minute here. I know that you don't like being in front of the camera, but hello Sean.

00:02:36
Speaker 3: Hello John, Hello Daniel.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: Hi Sean, could you explain the offside rule?

00:02:42
Speaker 1: Yeah? Just tell us all the side works. Yeah.

00:02:45
Speaker 3: Offsides is when the striker or the person on offense gets ahead of the defenders and doesn't have another person on his team there or wait, he can't cost there's a line that he cannot cross. Yeah, and if he crosses that line then that's going to be an off side.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. You've you certainly nailed the hockey off side rules.

00:03:14
Speaker 2: Three lines, Sean.

00:03:15
Speaker 1: I was super close to almost being mildly, but in the first half of your comment I was so impressed. It really petered out halfway through. Ye, just on the terrible downward spiral. After that, we appreciate being here, even though football isn't your first or greatest love. By the end of this podcast, our aim will be to get you there.

00:03:40
Speaker 3: Episode two, I'm going to give you, guys, the best description of off sides that you've ever heard.

00:03:45
Speaker 2: I think it could be a recurring segment. I will bring you on to be a recurring segment. As Sean is forced to watch some soccer games, does he ever click with all sides or just any any of the of the arcane rules or maybe we can we can use anyway we.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: Can figure this. This is going to be a great bit.

00:04:04
Speaker 2: It's really gold gold already. But can I build off your description of the show?

00:04:08
Speaker 1: Don Yeah? Please?

00:04:09
Speaker 2: Okay, So for me, the away end is all the things that you mentioned. The World Cup is one of those events that I've used to sort of mark time in my life because it's it's four years. Is you know how long high school is, or how long colleges, how long a relationship might be, you know how long you lived in a place and then moved And each World Cup has sort of been a marker for me, and I think that there's no better way to sort of commemorate this particular marker now that I'm in like late middle aged I suppose, or middle age whatever. This is to sort of look back at the history of the game, the history of my relationship with the game, and no one better to do it with than you, you know, a close friend who also has shares the same passion. So that idea that like, I was just looking back through some photos and I have a photo from the big party that we threw or that I was at with friends in Oakland in twenty ten, And I have two photos that I'll share with you at some point. We didn't even put them up on the screen since this is going to be a video thing. One taken moments before the Enesta scored is the winning goal in the World Cup final, and one taken moments after. And I'm sitting next to my wife Carolina, who was my girlfriend at the time, and a bunch of friends, many of whom I haven't seen in you know, years since I left the Bay Area, but people that I still am in touch with in some cases, people that I really care about. And I just think back to all those places that I've been and shared these really special communal moments that have been built around soccer and built around specifically the World Cup.

00:05:47
Speaker 1: So for me, that exact same day I was at the first ever VidCon this conference my brother organized around online video, and I was in a big room of probably five hundred people watching the World Cup final together, perhaps a third of whom were Spanish or for Spain, a third of whom were Dutch or for the Netherlands, and a third of whom were Neutrals. And again, it's that feeling that you just described of a number of people who I haven't seen in a long time, but whose love for me and my love for them still kind of holds me together and still carries me through. And I feel the same way about the World Cup. I can tell you where I was in each final, but I can also tell you about specific memories I have of two thousand and two when I was really lonely after a big breakup, and I was living alone in a furnished apartment that my parents had helped set me up with because I was so low functioning, And I remember waking up at two am to watch the games and feeling so comforted and so unalone in those moments. I remember twenty eighteen, I was stuck in the in the Ozarks. So you ever been to the Ozarks? I haven't yet, Yeah, but I was stuck there and I was watching. I watched all the games with my kids crawling all over me, and I remember the first time, you know, my kids were old enough to really enjoy the World Cup. It's just for me, it's the same thing. It is the marker of my life. It is the way that I count time.

00:07:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I wanted to say a little bit about the name the away ends. Yeah, and I think I have an explanation. The one has to do with the shirt that I'm wearing. And I don't know if you can see this, but I'm wearing the peruven national team shirt. Because Peru's not in the World Cup. I will always be with the away fans basically. But also there's something that I really admire about away fans, you know, the dedication that they have, the you know, as the United States, Mexico, and Canada are going to be hosting the fans of forty eight nations and hangers on from dozens of other countries and hundreds of other places. You know, in some ways, the World Cup is always about the away fan, you know. It's always people who travel from you know, across an ocean around the world to support their team. It's about the immigrants in the United States who are going to be supporting the teams from the countries they hail from. And I know, you know for a fact how important that is for many people to be able to connect with their countries of origin. I lived in New York for a long time. I mean, I theoretically still live in New York, even though I'm not there right now, and we used to go to watch the New York Red Bulls, who were a totally mediocre, average team of barely competent players. Even that is generous, and I loved going to the games super fun, in part because I could always sort of squint and think, if I only worked a little harder, I could probably handle this level of sport. I wouldn't be out of place on this team. But what I'm getting at is that the stadium is beautiful. It's a just a short train ride right rights out of the city in Harrison, New Jersey, and never full for a New York Red Bulls game. But the one time I saw it full was at a warm up game for the peruven national team who were playing I believe Denmark, but it could have been some other Scandinavian country. Twenty eight thousand Peruvians were there and there was like one away fan. They showed them on screen. But what I remember that I loved about it was that I got off the train in Harrison and it was like being in Lima. It was like being in Peru. To the point that when I was with my son and I bought him a proven jersey so he could wear, the guy gave me the price in proving money. I was like, how much is it. He's like bante Solez, like twenty sols, you know, and I knew he meant dollars, but he was just we were just so surrounded and in the place, you know that he was just like you me, like, you know, let me, let me do the currency converter for you so that we're all in the same page. And what I'm getting to is really this idea of the World Cup two that is very much about bringing people together from all over the world, and in a sense, we all get to be the away end always because we get to bring that passion to it and admire the people who actually did travel thousands of miles to support their team.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing I love more than going to an away game. I took my daughter to an AFC Wimbledon away game, the third tier English soccer team I sponsor and support, and at the end of the game, I said, Alice, did you enjoy it? And she said, it was a lot of drunk adults. And I think that is part of what I love about it, is that it is a lot of drunk adults. There's so much passion in the away end. You know, even though the home fans always outnumber the away fans, the away fans often sing louder. And that's part of what I find so magical about football.

00:10:43
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Can I tell you the sort of my first World Cup game that I saw alive?

00:10:49
Speaker 1: You tell me the story of your first World Cup game, and then I'll tell you the story of your first World Cup game that you saw live.

00:10:56
Speaker 2: Because there's a bit of a discrepancy controversy here, but it was nine twenty four. It was on that we agree that we agree, Yes, Yes, I was in La. I flew to La with my dad because we had an uncle who lived in La and we went to the games at the Rose Bowl, I believe, and the opening game at the Rose Bowl was USA Columbia. Colombia incidentally, where I'm currently living.

00:11:20
Speaker 1: Oh, and we should mention that you're Peruvian for the context of understanding all of the lovely things that you said about being with other Peruvians. I think that was yeah, clear with the jersey I'm wearing. But yes, yes, I'm Peruvian. I was born in Lima.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: I was raised in Alabama, where John did his high school and that's where we met. But yeah, I'm Peruvin and my household was always kind of like little Prugan bubble in the middle of Alabama. Now, I went to see this game with my uncle and my dad, and two things I remember out the game. First of all, that it was packed. It was mostly Latino and it was the first game at the Rose Bowl. So the Governor Pete Wilson of California came out to inaugurate the games. And it was the time when they were proposing this very racist anti immigrant law called Prop Point eighty seven. And you know, when they announced him, they're like, you know, Governor Pete Wilson, everyone he got to say one word. He was like, you know, welcome, and then he was booed and whistled for the entirety of his speech, like I mean, And in the section that I was in, which was all Latino. I could not hear a word that he said. The whole stadium was like really intense, and I remember asking my uncle who this guy was, so we didn't live in California, didn't know anyth about him, and they was like, oh he was this is this okay? So that was one memory. And the second memory, of course, is what actually happened at this famous game, which was that the United States beat Columbia. Right, Columbia was one of the favorite teams to win. There was the famous own goal by Monte.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: Siscobard Andrea Sascabar was later killed was later killed.

00:12:55
Speaker 2: Yes, and there's a wonderful documentary about this that I recommend called The Two Escobars, which I really think captures the kind of pathos and the drama of that moment. But something really interesting happened to me then I think that this is what I wanted to share, which is that I began the game as always rooting for the Latin American team, and I found myself in the middle of the game, like everyone around me because there weren't many Columbias. It was mostly Mexicans or Mexican Americans. Rooting for the US because it was an upset and I wanted to talk about that because I know that you, being a normal human being, often for the underdog, if all things being neutral, you root for the underdog like a regular person. But there was a contradiction of the United States is not usually the underdog in anything, but in this particular moment, it felt very like it came out of my gut, this kind of patriotism, and I found myself doing the kind of like Usa Usa chant, which was totally had never happened to me. And I think that's the other thing that's interest about the World Cup, is like the conflicting loyalties, the strange connections you sometimes build with countries that may or may not be your own, And I was wondering if that had ever happened to you.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the first World Cup game you actually ever attended was in Orlando, Florida. This is a fascinating thing to me because I have such a specific memory, and yet you are making a very compelling case that my memory is wrong. So here's my memory of the first World Cup game I ever attended, which I also remember as the first World Cup game you ever attended. It was in Orlando, Florida, my hometown, and I was with my dad. My dad and I have shared many wonderful football memories over the years, even though he's not a huge football fan, he's just a very supportive father. And we went to see the Netherlands play Morocco and Dennis burg Camp scored a goal, I remember, But what amazed me was not so much the action on the pitch, but what happened in the stands, especially with the Dutch fans. And ever since then, I've had a soft spot for the Dutch national team because I watched them win this game against Moran Go and all the orange hair and the orange shirts and the chanting and singing and Dutch and people being arm in arm. I'd never seen anything like that before in real life. I've never seen people swaying back and forth together, singing a song together. The feeling of what is wonderful to me about football is people's love pouring onto the pitch. It's not actually what happens on the pitch. It's that shared sense of enthusiasm, in trepidation and hope pouring down on these twenty two players that makes it so special for me and that was the first time I felt that in real life. But the kicker to this story is that I'm almost sure you were there, and you're almost sure you weren't there, So you, me and your.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: Father were there and I thought, Sean, Wow, memory is a crazy thing because I'm pretty sure I've never met your dad, and I think we could easily get your dad on.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an idea. Have my dad's a guest guest and have him.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: Adjudicate this whose memory is is more false. Let me ask you a question. How old were you when you just discovered your great surprise that there's no orange on the Dutch flag.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: Oh, I was probably in my thirties when I've discovered there's no orange in the Dutch flag. It's a shocker.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: It's a shocker.

00:16:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real disappointment, and I think an opportunity for growth in the Netherlands. I think they could there's nothing special about that flag that couldn't be redesigned.

00:16:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: No, I'm sure you're going to get lots of New Dutch fans with uh yeah, by claiming they should they should change up their flag. Yeah. Yeah, Well we'll be talking about the Netherlands National team some I'm sure on this podcast, but I do think they have a reasonable chance this year to go pretty far in the tournament, whereas I do not think the US men's national team does. So I will be probably end up rooting for the Netherlands.

00:16:58
Speaker 2: We'll do later on in the season. Our hierarchy of affiliations and loyalties great because I definitely have thought a great deal about this. Yeah, I'm happy to rank them one to forty eight. Like, I'm sure for you number one will be well, that's interesting what will number one be for you? But for me, it's got to be the US men's national team, even though it's a love hate relationship. Like my wife is always like, why do you watch these people play?

00:17:20
Speaker 1: You hate it? Yeah, I have a lot of built up anger and disappointment at the US team from over the years.

00:17:27
Speaker 2: Well, so I grew up watching the proven team. And the thing about being a fan of the of Peru that I've noticed with my cousins and my dad and my uncles we watched the game, usually many fans after the striker misses the open goal, sitter, everyone curses at the striker in Peru. I noticed this with my dad that he started cursing the striker before he missed.

00:17:51
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, there's a little bit of that. There's a little bit of that, Like I know this is going to disappoint me. I'm just not sure how yet.

00:18:00
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Look, I think for sure my number one affiliation this time will be Columbia. My wife is Colombian. I'm living in Bota currently. Just for my own safety, I think probably it's the best thing. Sure, you know, I mean within my family. Got to do what's good for the marriage. Yeah, no, for sure. But also this is a player I'm sure you have a soft spot for. Luis DS is an absolute monster of a player and a very likable, hard working, tenacious, worship of the team kind of player who you have the feeling can always sort of, you know, let terrible phrase grab the game by the scruff of his neck and just make things happen. And I have a great admission for players like that. I really like players who are super super technically skilled but still work hard on defense and track back and do all this kind of dirty work that a player like LUSDS does. He also does not seem to have any chill whatsoever.

00:18:52
Speaker 1: No, No, we missed him in Liverpool a lot. Yeah, he's one of those players who's underappreciated by fans a lot of times because he does so much work off the ball.

00:19:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I love him and he's an absolute hero here. So let me tell you something. We moved here to Bota. We had this funny moment where my youngest son is slightly indifferent to soccer. He loves the World Cup, he loves he loves like, you know, the spectacle of this kind of term, but every between World Cups, he's pretty much indifferent to soccer. But he's going to school in Boulata, you know, and he's in seventh grade. And so one night there was a game a morning, you know, before school, after a World Cup qualifier, and he was panicking because we'd missed the game because we'd forgotten about it or whatever. And he's like, Poppy, we have to watch the goals. I have to watch the goals before the bus comes to go to school because I can't go to school without having seen these these goals because everyone's gonna talking about it and I'm gon look like an idiot, you know. And so we were literally like we watched the goals and we like named the players, like who was involved? So you know the social anxiety of being ignoran of soccer, you know. And there's a little billboards around town and we go around both the time and I'm like, you know, quick, who's that? And he's like, comis.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, good, who's That's mega progress, Whereas in the US you can absolutely get away with only knowing Christian Polistic. I feel like in Colombia you have to know the players selected for the national team top to bottom.

00:20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's helped me in many A, you know, taxikab conversation around town for sure.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, Daniel. Before we break down the twenty twenty six World Cup draw, which I'm excited to do with you, I just want to ask you if you have one football moment that you can share with us that stands out as the greatest game you've ever seen, or the greatest game you've ever watched, or the greatest game you've ever been a part of, one way or another. I can go first, if that's helpful.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, I have absolutely have the game. So the curtain jersey that I'm wearing right now I bought in November of twenty seventeen in Lima. I was there for the game we played against New Zealand, which was to qualify for the World Cup finals. Can I tell you I texted you that day. I had really bad a disease called the labyrinthitis, and so I could not open my eyes for two weeks, and Sarah, my lovely wife whom you know, brought a radio to my bedside so that I could listen to that game. And then at the end of it, I texted you and it was the first time I had opened my eyes in two weeks. I mean, it felt to me it was the first time I'd opened my eyes in thirty six years. Because I've never seen Peru in a World Cup before. And let me just explain this, because I think this is this is just so that people will understand the level of emotion that I'm working with when I come to the World Cup. The first World Cup I remembers eighty six, Peru wasn't there. Peru made the two World Cup in Spain, but all I grew up hearing was rumors about Peru having been good. But in the current iteration, Peru was bad. Pru never you know, occasionally got close to qualifying but never actually made it. In twenty eighteen, we made the what Cold Spanish Left I Jack had the playoff. We had to play New Zealand. We went to Auckland, tie zero zero, came back to Lima. I flew to Lima. And this is a very small anecdoe, but I was on the long list that year for the National Book Award and I really hoped that. I so it's basically ten books and they bring it down to five that the five finalists have to go to the ceremony, and the ceremony was the weekend of the game, and so I was like, I was like, I really hope I'm not a finalist for the National Book Award.

00:22:35
Speaker 1: Like, don't ruin my life making me a National Book Award.

00:22:40
Speaker 2: So thank god I was. I was long listed but not short listed, you know.

00:22:45
Speaker 1: So I was.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: I was in the top ten, but not in the top five. Huge relief because like that would have been awful. And I flew to Lima and I got a press pass because I'd convinced the Proven Federation that I was the New Yorkers South American Soccer correspondent.

00:23:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you are in a way. They don't have another one.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: They don't have another one. I've used this fake position before to get into games in Buenos Aire's. I told David Remick, the editor of New Yorker, about this, and he found it very funny. But I've used this to get into games all over and occasionally I do write about soccer for the New Yorker. But basically I was in the stands. The vibe in Lima that day was so crazy and so tense and so excited. I bought this jersey with my friend Julio. He had a friend who was making replicas and this was a replica of the seventy eight jersey. And the guy who brought it over to our house was like, is so emotional. He was like basically crying in our arms as he was selling us this jersey. When the first, you know, within minutes, we'd hit the bar. We scored the first goal in the first half, put the game away in like the seventy eighth minute. The New Zealand team was just completely awed by, you know, the fans who were singing an hour and a half before the game and sang for an hour and a half after. And it was so emotional because I went out and people were just crying in the streets. I walked from the style of nas United the National Stadium to the to Mita Flories and in the park there people were just so happy, smashed, you know, thrilled. There was a kind of police paddy wagon with its doors open, and there were fans on top of the paddy wagon and the police van was going like you know, truck for arresting drunk people, was covered in drunk people who were climbing all over it and chanting, and the policeman who was driving this van was like honking the horn like d Someone had climbed on top of one of these statues in these old kind of colonial parks in Lima, and you know, some random you know, Martyr of the Republic is like on a horse and they'd like put a jersey over him, you know, this kind of thing. And I talked to my cousin the next day, and my cousin like we met in the I'm trying my shirt now and my memory, as we'll see in this podcast, is going. He went out to celebrate, came home, watched the game again, woke up the next day and watched the game again, you know, and one of my cousins told me, who had only ever cried, He's not a crier. He cried at his wedding, he cried when he watched Diego Manadona's tribute game like his farewell match, right, and then he cried when peru Qual fled for the work up. And those are like the three times that he's cried in his life, two of which are related to soccer. Yeah, I mean a lot of my tears have been shed over soccer, happy and sad tears. But yeah, for me, it was a club game. It was seeing AFC Wimbledon get promoted to the third tier of English football at Wembley. You know, this little club owned by its fans, that had started out in the ninth division of English soccer and had been told by the powers that be that it shouldn't exist and wasn't in the wider interests of football in England, making it all the way up to the you know, to Wembley, playing in front of sixty thousand people, having my dad there, thinking about how I was with my dad in nineteen ninety four and here I am in twenty sixteen with my dad still and not knowing how many more times I'm going to get to be with my dad looking at a football game together.

00:26:04
Speaker 4: And did your dad ask about me? Because he was like, yeah, yeah, he wears Daniels that we went. I remember that the Morocco game, yeah, And I was.

00:26:16
Speaker 1: I was crying even before the game because it's just such an accomplishment to be there, you know, and and and it took so many thousands of people working together to make it possible for a fan owned club to be there in the first place. But I remember looking at my dad right before the game started and saying, in two hours, I'm going to feel so differently. I just don't know how that. You know your life is going to be very different, but you don't know how. And we scored in the first maybe like sixty minutes in, and after that it was very tense, very very tense, until the ninety fourth minute when we got a penalty and the largest man ever to play professional football, autobiolock in Fenwa, who probably weighed two hundred and seventy two hundred eighty pounds, took the penalty smashed at home. We were up to nil, and then it was just the purest joy I've ever felt. Tears from I looked over at my dad. My dad was crying, even though he doesn't care about football, Like everyone in the stadium was crying, everyone was singing together. It just felt like it felt like I was in some space where all hope gets rewarded, you know, and you don't get that very often. So that's one that I hold on to.

00:27:21
Speaker 2: I treasure.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: I think about it whenever I'm sad, whenever something feels impossible, I think about that day and think about how there are more days like that coming one way or another.

00:27:30
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. We should take a quick break and come back and talk about the World Cup.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're back on the away end.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: I'm Daniella Larcnne.

00:27:50
Speaker 1: I'm John Green. Sorry, I didn't know we're still doing that bit.

00:27:54
Speaker 2: I think we should at least, you know, people know who we are. Okay. So I don't think we need to say much about the absurd spectacle of the draw itself, but I do want to talk about the teams. Yeah, and I was wondering what your first impressions were of these groups.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: Well, I felt bad for Scotland getting stuck in the same group as Brazil and Morocco. That's going to be pretty rough, although I still think they could actually go through. I was happy for the United States. If the United States can't beat Paraguay in Australia doesn't deserve to move forward in the World Cup. You actually texted me this, and so it feels like your observation. But my first observation was that I think Germany might be in trouble. I could see Germany finishing third or fourth in its group because I think Ecuador is a perennially underrated team. I think they're really well organized and just the kind of team you don't want to play, and they had a really good qualifying run. And then the last thing I'd say is that I always have a little bit of a soft spot for a first time World Cup entrant, and I don't hate the situation that Cape Verde is in. Yeah.

00:29:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think they could beat.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and maybe make their way into one of those third place knockout round spots.

00:29:08
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, so that I agree with all of that.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: I think.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: I think the groupie thing Ivery Coast is no pushover Ecuador. I think is going to surprise a lot of people. Have so many good players, and they really were super steady in South American qualifying. Of course, is probably just happy to be there.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: I would be.

00:29:29
Speaker 2: I mean, it's I think the smallest country ever to make the World Cup, and so it's a huge accomplishment.

00:29:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the size of an Indianapolis suburb. Yeah, it's not even the size of Indianapolis. That's how much most curse Allen's described themselves. Actually, I know my experience as well. We should add that I'm from Indianapolis.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: Yes, of course, the Indianapolis suburb of Caribbean. Yes, okay, So I'm interested in your take on the US because I I mean, first of all, we should mention that there's still four countries playing for that last spot in Group D in the United States, and I think that changes things quite a bit. I mean, I'm guessing it's going to be Turkey. It'll probably be Turkey. But if it isn't Turkey, it's a much easier group. Yeah, for sure. If it's Turkey, that's a super difficult group. But here's the thing. Forty eight teams, thirty two of them go to the next round, is that correct, That's right. So that means that the top two in each group, and then the third place team.

00:30:38
Speaker 1: All the best third place teams, which will probably be the third place teams that have won at least one game at least one game.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: A friend of mine made a joke. You said, the new World Cup rule was that all the teams advance.

00:30:53
Speaker 1: Everybody qualifies, and then everybody advances to the knockout rats.

00:30:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:30:57
Speaker 1: Well, actually we should talk about that, Daniel, because we both have a belief about this that the World Cup, instead of being too big, is in fact too small.

00:31:05
Speaker 2: Well I say that, you know, somewhat in jest, but I think that, you know, a World Cup that was the size of the United Nations would be interesting. Okay, here's the thing. I don't like the best third place team thing.

00:31:19
Speaker 1: I don't either, because it creates all kinds of situations where like Scotland potentially will qualify because they beat Haiti even though they're going to probably get absolutely slammed by Brazil and Morocco exactly exactly.

00:31:31
Speaker 2: I find those permutations become like sort of really weird math, like when you're yeah, you know, trying to like, you know, watching like Steve Kornaki on election night, you know, wondering You're like, if he gets this many votes, can he still pull up Florida? You know, like that kind of stuff, right, Like, I don't like when math interferes with joy. So I find you frustrating, and I often feel like it rewards conservatism, you know, and like not going for the win because you want to get that one point as a to getting the three fests you need. So I find that frustrating. So a sixty four team World Cup where the top thirty, you know, the top two in each group go ahead would probably be better for me.

00:32:11
Speaker 1: It's just enough World Cup. It's more World Cup, but it's not an infinite amount of World Cup.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that way, you have sixty four games to watch, and then Peru would definitely make it.

00:32:22
Speaker 2: Probably, I'm not going to say definitely, but I would say probably.

00:32:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Peru's it's currently Peru's best path for FEA to make a last second amendment to the number of teams that qualify for the World.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: Cup, yeah, I mean, as it is, I still think that Latin America or South America I'm sorry, gets six and a half spots, so that basically like Bolivia has the chance still chance to make the World Cup. The teams that were eliminated basically were Peru and Chile. Yeah, which was a surprise. Chile was a surprise to me. It wasn't a surprise to me. And it's a great consolation to many Peruvians that if we didn't make it, at least Chile didn't make it, so that we even feel a little bit better about ourselves or at least you know, have you know, misery loves company situation.

00:33:07
Speaker 1: Right, But we were going to talk about the USA, Yeah, and I.

00:33:10
Speaker 2: Guess I'm gonna it dovetails with this question that I'm gonna ask which of the North American host teams you think we'll go farthest.

00:33:16
Speaker 1: So I think the team that's going to surprise people is Canada. I think Mexico has a really a pretty straightforward group, but I think Mexico's been underperforming for years and I don't see a lot of indications that they're turning it around. I think Canada could really surprise people. I think they're well coached, I think they have good players. I could see them getting to the round of sixteen a little easier than I could necessarily see the USA. I mean, the USA is a better players on average. I think, like if you line them up eleven versus eleven, I would favor the US on talent, but I wouldn't necessarily favor the US on coaching and strategy. And so I think that Canada could go further in the tournament than the US does. What do you think? I think that's a bold take, Daniel, Have you not walked watched all these podcasts? You've got to have a take. Okay, Well, then Caley Smith got where he got by being neutral.

00:34:08
Speaker 2: You mean future president Steven Aismith. Look my bull take then is the Columbia is going to win it all as long as we're you know, saying speaking nonsense?

00:34:21
Speaker 1: You think the US will go further than Canada?

00:34:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean quietly. Look, I think, first of all, I'm not as convinced the quality of Jesse Marsh as a coach. And I say that as someone who, like I mentioned, I spent many weekend afternoon at Red Bull Arena watching Jesse Marsh's teams, right, And so I will say this, like I remember seeing Tyler Adams at age seventeen, bossing the midfield, and I remember thinking that guys like but already the best player on the pitch, and so I've liked you know there there weren't It wasn't all bad at the Red Bull Arena, but jesse Marsh had a tendency to run his teams into the ground and then they would just phissilz out. In the playoffs, it seemed were hard workers. But I remember the comment about when jesse Marsh was at Leads that he had a raffina on long throw and you know, and then Raffenia moves to Barcelona becomes like a blonde or candidate, you know. I mean, so, I'm not sure that jesse Marsh that I hold him the same as team that you hold him in. But they have some great players, no doubt, and they could surprise us. But I think the US is a more solid team player for player. Like you said, I think they have quality.

00:35:27
Speaker 1: I just don't want to hope, Daniel. I don't want to hope.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear you.

00:35:31
Speaker 1: You know, it's the hope that kills you. It is, it's also the hope that saves you, and you don't know which is going to happen. It's the problem with hope.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I remember once looking for ticket prices from New York to Baku to watch Arsenal in a Europa League final and then deciding that no, I'm not going to spend that money to go to to Baku for that. And then Arsenal got absolutely stomped by Chelsea.

00:35:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you would have been in Baku.

00:36:01
Speaker 2: Imagine, you know, It's one thing to be in your living room upset because you lost your team lost to soccer gam and then but being in Baku and having spent you know, however, many thousands of dollars to get there. I saw Liverpool, who was a Champions League final in Paris. I remember the feeling. Yes, but you're in Paris, that's sure. It wasn't that no dis respect to Baku?

00:36:21
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I did get to spend a weekend in Paris with friends, which isn't the worst outcome. Yeah, okay, so yeah, I little Liverpool that you'll be fine. Your hot take is that Colombia is going to win the World Cup. My hot take is that Canada is going to make the last sixteen. I feel much better about my hot take. Well that's the thing about hot takes. That's the thing about hot takes.

00:36:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just gotta I mean, look, I think everyone here is looking forward to uh Columbia Portugal. I think that's gonna be a great game, yep. And I think Columbia's Pakistan is an absolute you know black box. No one knows what Uzbekistan will bring to the table. And then there's still three more are teams buying for the last spot to make a dr Congo And is that New Caledonia. I'm not sure, but anyway, I think the R Congo is probably the strongest team there. And you know, I think AFCON is the hardest confederation to get out of to get into the World Cup. And I think and I mentioned I mentioned this because the other argument for making the World Cup bigger is not so that Peru can make it, but it's just the democratization of the game. I mean, yeah, it's so it is pretty unfair how few spots there are for African teams compared to European teams. I realized that European teams are incredibly strong, and they're excellent. They have like you know, footballing pedigree and history, and you know, it would be bizarre for Italy not to make it for another World Cup. But African teams have every right to come to the party too, you know.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only that. Part of the way you get pedigree. Part of the way you get that experience is by being at the World Cup, right, So, like France has been at the World Cup. I think since nineteen thirty, England was always invited to the World Cup. But to climb the invitation, but you know, has always been part of the World Cup, like Italy, except for the couple times when they didn't qualify, always a World Cup team. Part of how you get there is by being there, and so I think that more spots for African teams would be great. I also think more spots for South American teams would be great because there is a like I would worry about a Peru or a Chile if they were in my group, and in a way, I frankly wouldn't worry about Curasow.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, right, So we mentioned Cursaw. We mentioned with Bekistan cape Verdi's the other debutante this year. I mean, until at least we finished the elimination the last the plastic teams that are joining, do you have a sense of which one might do the best?

00:38:50
Speaker 1: I'm interested in how Uzbekistan does, but I think they're going to be in a really difficult group. I think Cape Verdi could beat Saudi Arabia and if they do, they could qualify. Isn't it Jordan's first time as well? It might be Hold on, I'll check real quick.

00:39:04
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I go ahead and check. I will say, since you mentioned Cape Perdy in Group H, we have Spain Jordan. Is this what Jordan is as well? Jordan as well. I don't know much about the Jordanian team, but I imagine they're not bad.

00:39:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you got to be pretty good to get out of that group.

00:39:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, but I do want to say this about Spain, Cape Verdi, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay. Two things well, One, Saudi Arabia, we know, beat Argentina last time around. They were the only team to do so, only team to beat them, only team to beat them. But also Uruguay, that doesn't mean they're a particularly strong team because they didn't so much the rest of the tournament. Juraguay is somewhat in crisis, not just because the US beat them in a friendly and the last international break, but also just because Marcelo Bielza. You know, there's there's the sense that he doesn't have control of the team, that the players haven't bought into his system, and that they made the World Cup but didn't really inspire much conf And it's I watched part of Cape Verdie's campaigns. I have a close friend who's Cape Verdian, and she had me rooting for the team. And the jersey's beautiful and uh, you know, it's not necessarily pretty, but it's effective. And I think that they could they could surprise some people, So we'll see.

00:40:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see how Pekistan does because I've seen very little of them. I saw a couple of Jordan's games because Jordan's sometimes play against Lebanon and one of the Lebanese players plays for AFC Wimbledon, but I haven't seen whose Pakistan play at all. So it'll be fun to watch them. Is there a game, Daniel, that you think will be the worst game of the twenty twenty six World Cup? My god, the worst game, because I'm going to watch all of them, so I want you to prepare me. Yeah, that's a really tough one because okay, I mean, you know, Paraguay is not known for its you know, beautiful, fluid at time fucking football. Neither is the United States of America and.

00:41:03
Speaker 2: Neither is Australia, right, No, so I could see that one being a real dreary match. I'm very curious about Haiti Scotland because in that group, that's the game. You know, if you're the Haitian team or if you're the Scottish team, you're basically thinking, Okay, Brazil's gonna, you know, absolutely crush us. Morocco will beat us, and that's the game where we can get the three points. So neither team is what we need. Yeah, neither team is going to want to go for the draw there because the draw won't won't suit them, so they need the three points.

00:41:35
Speaker 1: So that game could be I think that that could be an explosive game. I think that could be a really fun game. I think Guitar Switzerland could be pretty dull.

00:41:44
Speaker 2: I do not.

00:41:44
Speaker 1: I've never liked the way Switzerland set up, even though I admire their success in the World Cup, I've never particularly appreciated the beauty of their play, and I feel similarly about Qatar. Very function over form.

00:41:57
Speaker 2: Hmmm. I have a soft spot for Switzerland's because of granted, Shaka.

00:42:01
Speaker 1: I know you love granted Shaka. He's a lovely man. He seems like a lovely man.

00:42:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, his narrative arc at Arsenal was really something to behold.

00:42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was hated for a while.

00:42:12
Speaker 2: He was hated, He almost left and came back, and then he became captain. Yeah, wasn't he captain for a while he was captain, he was stripped of the captain c and then he became He didn't become captain again, but he wore the armband again in situations where Odegard wasn't playing or something, you know. But yeah, no, I think he's shown himself to be a man of real character and a player of great resilience. And I have great admiration for him for that reason, because it would have been really easy to give up anyway. This is other thing that people should know. John of course is an AFC wimbleded fan. And you know you're a Liverpool fan who also writes books, and and I'm an Arsenal fan. I have other affiliations, but none quite as strong as Arsenal.

00:42:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you also write books.

00:42:56
Speaker 3: I do.

00:42:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did you become a Liverpool fan?

00:42:58
Speaker 1: By the way, So When I was twelve, I was on my middle school soccer team and there was only one of us who was any good. His name was James and he was from England. And James told us that in England the games were attended by tens of thousands of people who would sing and dance, and that it was just an environment we couldn't even imagine in middle school, that it was nothing like American sports, that it was way better, and that there was only one really great team in England and that team was called Liverpool Football Club and that was it. We were all all school fans. Wow, that's what it took. So we were all Liverpool fans. I suspect if you go back to that middle school soccer team, they're all still Liverpool fans, because why wouldn't you be.

00:43:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well there's only one truly.

00:43:42
Speaker 1: Great team in England, Daniel.

00:43:45
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you the dumb story about how I became a Narsenal fan. I mean for a long time, as you know. Yeah, and for our younger listeners and viewers, this will sound like you know, the Stone Ages, but you couldn't really easily watch European soccer or Latin American soccer or anything, you know, Right, So when it started to become available to me or like, you know, I wasn't the kind who was going to you know, bars to watch games at seven in the morning. But I started watching clips on YouTube. And there was there was thing for a while called foot YouTube that was like YouTube just for soccer highlights that someone put me onto and I would just like, you know, watch the games and catch up to stuff. And I really liked the Premier League. I liked it a lot, but I was looking for a team to support, and I didn't want to support one of the teams that always won, because that seems like terrible. Again, you know, normal people like underdogs, so.

00:44:34
Speaker 1: You picked the most underdog team of all with only seventeen overall titles.

00:44:39
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know again, And as an American fan who brings a certain whimsical, ahistorical view to the game, you know, I like Red and White because I'm proving. I liked Arsen Den because he reminded me of a college professor I liked. And I liked Cess Babergas because he was uh oh yeah, he was just a wonderful play And then at a Christmas party for my soccer team in Oakland, which is called Left Wing Football Club. And at left Wing Football Club we had a sort of white elephant Christmas party and my friend Fatiko actually got the present that he got was an Arsenal jersey. But Fediko's like one of my only tall friends basically, and he didn't fit him. But it hit me, and so he gave me this long sleeve Arsenal jersey that was like clearly had been bought at a thrift store and was like, you know, almost threadbare. But that was it. I was like, okay, well, you know, th red and white arsen Wegner feels like a buncular professor Cesscabergas, And now I have a jersey. So I guess I'm an Arsenal fan. And the amount of time, emotion and worry that that decision has caused me since that day that Christmas has been It's just astounding how much of my time I spend worrying about these players and these these games and these people that I'll never meet. It's madness. It's not logical.

00:46:00
Speaker 1: It is a form of madness. My wife said to me a few years ago. I got particularly frustrated after a Liverpool loss, and Sarah said, you just can't have your overall well being determined by the exploits of eleven twenty four year olds who live five thousand miles away from you. And I was like, I mean, I agree with you in principle. You're right, it's just that I can't help it. And did you say it's not just eleven there's also the bench and the coach. Just so you know, Sarah, there's also like a coach who I care about a lot. Well, I mean, I had this is similar you're in. Sarah's absolutely right, of course, I think I'm it's not just Arsenal's better this year, but I have gotten better at sort of compartmentalizing. Yeah. I no longer let it ruin a weekend, and I do often say after AFC Wimbledon loses or Liverpool loses, I'll say it's a good thing. I no longer get emotionally invested in negative football out comes.

00:47:01
Speaker 2: That's good, that's good.

00:47:02
Speaker 1: And I just say that to myself even though it's not true, and then it becomes true by virtue of saying it.

00:47:07
Speaker 2: Enough. Yeah, right, right, right, Well, I remember going to the doctor once and my my an American doctor, and I told him when I play soccer, my knee hurts, you know, and I sort of showed him where hurt, and he said, well, then you shouldn't play soccer.

00:47:22
Speaker 1: And I was like, man, you don't get it. Man, I like changed doctors. You're trying to take away the only thing I like about being alive.

00:47:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, come on, man, I remember playing. We used to play in bush Rod Park in Oakland every afternoon, back when I was a young writer with no responsibilities, and the old guys that would play, I just admired them so much. It was this Ethiopian dude who was quite older. I'm forty eight now. He must have been, you know, late fifties, early sixties. He never moved from you know, like a ten square area on the pitch. It never took more than three touches. You know. He would get the ball, kill it dead, and make the pass. And I just remember thinking like, man, I want to be like that guy, you know, I want to be able to keep playing and sort of still, you know, not do what I do. You know, you know it's not show offye, it's just being part of that collective on the pitch. Of trying to do something. You know, even adding one pass to a nice team move is enough. You know, are you still there? Are are you able to still play? I hurt myself in June in Lima. I have played with my cousins every time I go, and we play. Now we're old enough that we play adults versus kids. So it's a you know, a team of seven cousins against a team of seven kids. And my oldest son, Leon was in Lima, so we you know, it was like Leon was on the team. And we played two weekends in a row and I injured my achilles and I knew I was injured the first Sunday and we won, and I knew we had there was no chance I couldn't play the next Sunday, So I played again the next Sunday and then I haven't been able to play since. So I'm in recovery now, but I'll be back. I'll be just in time for the expanded World Cup. Yeah, two thousand, two thousand and thirty, you'll be there. I have a doctor story for you. I after my daughter was born, I went to get a vasectomy and I noticed on the wall of the visectomy doctor a diploma from the University of Manchester. And I said, did you go to the University of Manchester? He said I did. I said do you like football? He said I do.

00:49:40
Speaker 1: I said who's your team? He said Manchester United? And I got a vasectomy from someone else.

00:49:51
Speaker 2: That's great, That's absolutely great. I mean, you know, probably smart, probabably the right choice.

00:49:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a risk worth taking. It would be one thing if we were talking about like a mole removal or something, but we're talking about something sensitive. So yeah, I wasn't having that done.

00:50:05
Speaker 2: Years ago, I was traveling in the Peruvian jungle and were in his little town and uh, they had they had all the bulls because they was small, they'd sort of they had a few cows, and they had bulls whose job was to impregnant all the cows. And all the bulls had names of Argentine goal scorers, so like strikers, because their job was to score, you know. So I just remember there was one giangle and this guy was strung around and he's like and this is Martin Palermo and this is Battistuta.

00:50:39
Speaker 1: It was great.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: It was a great So anyway, no, no mencunion. Uh, the seconds for those bulls.

00:51:00
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, Daniel. Are you planning to attend any actual games at this twenty twenty six World Cup? Where is FIFA too odious for you to give them your money?

00:51:11
Speaker 2: The latter. First of all, the games are too expensive. I mean, I think I could have used my New Yorker South American soircer correspondent tech to get in. But first of all, if I go to the game and can't be with the people I love, but I have to be in a press box with a bunch of dorks, I don't want to do that.

00:51:29
Speaker 1: It's fun.

00:51:30
Speaker 2: No.

00:51:30
Speaker 1: And second of all, like Daniel Alercon coming out hard against the press, I have fake moose press a bunch of dorks.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: No. I say that lovingly as a member of the press. But also I want to be in a soccer mad country when the World Cup is happening, and I happen to be living in one right now, so I think I'll stay here. I do want to watch a Cape Birdie game with my friend who's from Cape Birdie, with her family and people who are mostly in the Boston area. One thing I do love about being, you know, having been lived World Cups in different American cities, in New York or in the Bay Area, you can always sort of like watch the Korea game at the with the Koreans, and you know, watch the Egyptian game with the Egyptians, and and that's pretty special. I don't think we're going to get that here in Colombia, but we will get the Colombian experience of watching a Colombian game in Colombia will be really incredible. I watched the Morocco game in Morocco once Morocco Sweden in the ninety eight World Cup won one, and it was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I think, I, you know, got secondhand smoke inhalation, you know, nearly passed out from all distressed out Moroccan men smoking around me in this closed cafe. But it was I think that that's that's pretty incredible, and that's why I want to be there. And also, man, DIVA is the worst, just the absolute worst, and they don't deserve to be running the most beautiful global sporting spectacle, but that's what we.

00:52:55
Speaker 1: Make they are, and they don't. And yet I am still going to go to a game, and I have mixed feelings about it. But I can't miss the opportunity to take my dad to a football game and go there with my friends and have that feeling that I had in nineteen ninety four, apparently without you, that that is such a special feeling for me. And so I'm torn between. I don't want to give these people my money and I do want to share this thing with my dad, and in the end that wins.

00:53:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair for me.

00:53:32
Speaker 1: That's fair.

00:53:32
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't hold it against you at all, you know, speaking of fathers. I don't know if've ever told you this, John, but my dad's first job as a kid growing up in Atiquipa, Peru was a soccer announcer.

00:53:44
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know that.

00:53:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he would go to the games the club team there is called Meligat and go and my grandfather was a member of the club and he would go with my dad and my dad my uncle's to the game every Sunday or Saturday. And my dad was drawn of the game, of course, but also really loved the announcers and would sort of like hang out by the booth as the announcers were calling the game for the radio.

00:54:08
Speaker 1: And he just loved it.

00:54:10
Speaker 2: He loved the wordplay, he loved the drama, the narrative tension, he loved it all and he would copy them in the sense that for the little neighborhood games where the kids in his neighborhood would play. He wasn't very good athlete, he would go out with the microphone and a little speaker they would plug into the lamp and then he would narrate the local soccer games that his friends were playing in the neighborhood and he got really good at it. He got so good at it that he tells me that on Sunday afternoon dinners or at Sunday afternoon, you know, after lunch, you know, there was no TV, and the entertainment was often my dad. They'd be like Tito, narrate a goal for us. And that was how people lived soccer back then, because if you didn't see it in the stadium, you didn't see it on TV. But people would follow the games on the radios. People were used to sort of creating the film and their heads that accompanied the words that were being said, and my dad got very good at it. So he would always narrate a goal, which was Peru's goal against Brazil in nineteen fifty something Copa America. He can still do it, by the way, he's in his eighties and he can still narrate that goal. And he got so good and he hung out around the booth so much that eventually, when the announcer got a job in Lima, the kind of head announcer they hired my dad. Wow, he was like sixteen and he became the voice of Meligad from the stadium in Atiquepa. And so it's funny because when I've watched the games and this is, you know, more when I was younger. But he would always he would talk a lot about the soccer, obviously, but he would also talk about the announcers. You know, he had he had criticism of the announcers. He's like, you know, he's like, you know they because narrating for for radio is different from narrating for TV. Narrating for radio you really have to be much more precise. And for TV, the images are doing a lot of works. You don't have to really sort of say, do the play by play of what's going on.

00:56:04
Speaker 1: You know, right, you don't have to say where the ball is, you don't have to say you don't have to imply with your voice the level of danger as much as you do. And when you're on the radio and you can often say often you'll find TV announcers just saying who has the ball. They'll be like Lucas Piketta, pause, pause, pause, then the next guy, pause, pause, pause, then the next guy. It is a very different skill than narrating for the radio.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe we'll be if your dad's going to come on, maybe you should bring my dad on also to narrate a goal.

00:56:33
Speaker 1: We should we should have him narrate that goal.

00:56:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: So we're going to end every episode of the Away End with a story about the World Cup or our particular love of football, and Daniel's provided us with a beautiful first story, so thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:56:48
Speaker 1: Now we have to get to the important bit, which is what's at stake. Something has to be at stake in this podcast, and that is going to be we haven't decided yet, but we are going to each do a World Cup Brad like they do for March Madness. Daniel and whoever gets more of the teams correct as we go. I think maybe we will have to work out the exact mechanics.

00:57:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there needs to be some science to this, but for sure, Yeah.

00:57:14
Speaker 1: There needs to be science where maybe if you get a finalist that's weighted more than one point. But at any rate, we'll figure it out. I've got it. I've got a strategy, and whoever wins the bracket will win the bet, and then the winner of the bet will get something wonderful.

00:57:29
Speaker 2: Yes, that we haven't determined. That we haven't determined. I was thinking about that really poor young man who's been growing his hair out until Manchester United wins five games in a row.

00:57:41
Speaker 1: That poor guy, that poor guy is really you know.

00:57:45
Speaker 2: I mean, he's not gonna be able to get in and out of the door of his home, but you know that this happens.

00:57:52
Speaker 1: We should note, by the way, while we're talking about hair, that we are a couple of forty eight year olds with exceptional heads of hair. I mean, you have a really exceptional head of hair. You don't have a gray hair on your on your head, but we both have, as hair goes, relatively good heads of hair.

00:58:06
Speaker 2: For our age. Yeah that's true, that's true, And I'm currently growing my hair back out I cut it short earlier this year, so you will be able to watch that progress as the tournament nears. But I don't think that those steaks should be hair related necessarily, Like I'm not going to vault here to shave my head if if you win.

00:58:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my spouse would prefer if my hair decisions were made largely between me and my barber.

00:58:31
Speaker 2: Hmmm, good, good, good good, same, Okay, I promise to keep thinking. I think that that you know, we're going to be posting this episode and sort of clips from this episode, and of course.

00:58:43
Speaker 1: If you have ideas, leave them in comments, to leave them in the comments. Send us, send us messages on Instagram or threads or wherever you can find us. Yes, Daniel, where can people find you on the internet? I am theoretically on Instagram, Daniel g Alarcon. I don't post much, but I'm there. Same and same, Yeah, watch soccer clips. Same.

00:59:04
Speaker 2: I missed Twitter honestly before it was a sewer of racist Nazis.

00:59:08
Speaker 1: I miss being with you on Twitter and talking to you. I don't miss Twitter. I miss talking about soccer with people who loved soccer with me. I don't miss Twitter. There's something wrong with the structure of the social Internet that we're not going to get to the bottom of in this soccer podcast. But I was very serious.

00:59:26
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I agree, and maybe should talk about that offline. Man. So this has been a really fun first episode of The Away and we'll be back next week thanks to Kurt, our producer, and Sean who will be re regaling us with his knowledge of the sport throughout the season as we approach the woke Up anything.

00:59:45
Speaker 1: Else you want to add, Thanks for listening and thanks for being here with us.

00:59:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks, We'll see you next week on New Wind.