Episode 5: The White Wolves of Uzbekistan and The Wild Story of Carlos Kaiser

00:00:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Away End. I'm Danielle Alergone and I'm John Green. Hey. John, Hey. If you're listening to this on your podcast feed and not watching it on YouTube, you can't tell how youthful and alive John looks compared to the cadaverous uh you know, husk of a man we've been dealing with in previous episodes. You look amazing, John.

00:00:28
Speaker 2: Thanks. I shaved because you look so good, clean shaven. I figure that I'm just going to create my inner Daniel.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: That's that's what that's what's that's lovely. I'm glad we're too, uh you know, palatable, handsome middle aged men talking about soccer. I have a question for you. Well, I have rather a theory, and my theory is this, and I have a little bit of evidence on it, but I want to throw to you. I will posit that national team coaches should be changed every four years, no matter what, no matter what, especially actually especially if you win.

00:01:06
Speaker 2: So if you win the World Cup, you should immediately be fired. Yes, we call this the Tottenham rule. I just don't think that, and I'll explain my logic and I'm interested to hear you what you think about this and I bring this up actually because Thomas Tookele and Carlo Sancelotti, Carlo Ancelotti, respectively, the coaches of the England national team and the Brazilian national team, have both been offered new contracts to continue past the World Cup. I would say that England is a candidate, Brazil is always a candidate just because of who they are. So let's say one of them were to win this World Cup. My argument is that they should not necessarily fired that seems a little harsh, but that they should resign that it's very difficult to have the continuity after you've climbed the mountain. It's very difficult to then do the necessary changes to renew.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: The team for the next World Cup, right because you've already climbed the mountain with these guys, you trust them. But part of understanding the cycle, the life cycle of a team, is that four years is a really long time. If you don't change, you know, forty percent of the team, let's say, then you're gonna you're not gonna make it. And my example as proof, I have two France two thousand and two and Spain twenty fourteen, two teams they win and then they crash out of the of the next in the group stages of the next World Cup.

00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are both two good examples. I would say that it is really hard for a coach who climbed the mountain with one set of players to say, now I shall say goodbye to fifty percent of you. Those of you who are over the age of twenty nine don't work for me anymore. That's hard. I think, however, that you're maybe underestimating the extent to which people like a contract and people like the sense of continuity. There's a benefit to the sense of continuity sometimes, right like then, as a player, you know that's going to be your coach even after the World Cup. I do agree that giving two coaches who should be vying for the World Cup contract extensions before they've performed in the World Cup feels a little ludicrous. Like the World Cup is overwhelmingly the most important tournament, right, Like the Nation's League means essentially nothing compared to the World Cup, and so I think you do have to see how somebody does in the World Cup. I don't think you should fire everybody or force everybody to resign after the World Cup, no matter what. I just think that's I mean, it's a take. It's one of those takes that would get a lot of attention online because people are like, well, that's a take.

00:03:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'm expecting this to be clipped and uh and have those those little videos where someone's talking underneath me and like making facial expressions of like what an idiot this guy is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. I'm just saying that. I was about to say this is not a game, but it just literally is a game. But this child's playing is something that children do for fun. It is it is uh Carlo Ancelotti, Uh, you know, lifestyle influencer for glamorous old men. Uh, a real sort of players manager. He knows how to work a locker room, that managed Ego's brilliant coach, not necessarily a brilliant tactician, but a winner obviously. But he hasn't done anything with Brazil yet, like right, like he he lost to Bolivia or something like like. That's it that that that's a the extent of it, and so I think it's it's super premature to say this is our guy for the next cycle.

00:05:08
Speaker 2: In general, I find it a little ludicrous that they give out so many of these contracts, because in what other field do you get like a five year contract for having beaten Peru twice or whatever? Nothing personal, Daniel.

00:05:20
Speaker 1: Nothing, No, no, none taken. Well, I mean I was going to say in writing you, It's true. It's true.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: We do live in a contract based business where you are given you are given a lot of a lot of benefit if you showed past success, yeah, which is no guarantee of future successes, certainly, but publishers. Publishers are a little myopic about that stuff sometimes. So you're right there, there is another field where people are rewarded for past success.

00:05:51
Speaker 1: I want to I want to ask the two of you because we have our ep here Sean with us. Actually we're actually in the same room, which is a weird things on. Hey, what's up, Daniel, So this question for both of you. Have either of you had any experience coaching your children?

00:06:07
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:06:09
Speaker 3: Uh, not in any formal setting.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: No uh.

00:06:13
Speaker 3: And in fact, when I have tried to just coach any of my children, I've found that they do not seem to take well to take any coaching advice from me. I don't know what that means about me as a parent. But if they they will listen to their actual coaches for you know, soccer or basketball or tennis or like whatever. But if I'm trying to give constructive.

00:06:39
Speaker 1: Coaching advice about soccer, could it be that you don't know anything about soccer.

00:06:43
Speaker 3: Soccer specifically, Yeah, soccer specifically, yes.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Okay, tennis, I remember you played tennis. That was the one sport.

00:06:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was semi decent.

00:06:53
Speaker 2: John, I have coached co coached along with my wife, Henry's my son Henry's soccer team. The only real memory I have of it.

00:07:04
Speaker 1: It was fun.

00:07:04
Speaker 2: We had a good time. Sarah did most of the coaching. She's a pretty good soccer player, and so she did most of the training and the drills and teaching kids to try to get in front of the ball occasionally, that kind of thing. The biggest memory I have was having a huge fight with the coach of the other team where we almost went to shoving because the coach of the other team was like, that was clearly off sides, and I was like, the linesman is fourteen.

00:07:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so the consultant bar here.

00:07:36
Speaker 2: I don't mean like, I don't mean like the linesman is maybe fourteen I mean, like, on the way into the game, the linesman took me aside and said, hey, be nice to me. I'm only fourteen.

00:07:46
Speaker 1: Oh as you were defending the linesman from an irate parent coaching.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, from a coach who was also a parent, and he was irate because he thought that this off side's call was wrong, which it was, but like who cares? Yeah, right, if you try to say that, if you try to diffuse it by saying like who cares? This isn't very important and that kid's fourteen, let's not be hard on him, you only make the person more irate.

00:08:09
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, parents doing best, way too much energy in their kid's success. I remember a British parent of a kid who I played like pee wee soccer with back in the day, chewing out his son at halftime because his son was had gotten called offside like six times in the half, you know. And this was not a sophisticated offside trap we're talking about. This was like, you know, he was.

00:08:38
Speaker 2: Just too he had a shon ty tone level understanding of the offside.

00:08:41
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like icing or something and he uh yeah, And I just remember thinking like that seems so mean, it seems like, you know, just let the kids have fun kind of thing, you know, like why are we doing this? I remember coaching my son any sales team and about you know, he must have been six years old, and about maybe two thirds of the way through the season he was we were walking back to catch the bus home and he was like, Bubby, He's like, I don't think it's fair that we have to wear the same jersey every week and the other team gets to change colors. And then I was like and I was like, I was like, you realize we're playing different kids every week, you know, and he was like mind blown.

00:09:27
Speaker 2: Pool. He saw the primary benefit of playing soccer that you get to change, you get to change jerseys every week, and that's the only thing he liked about the game was being denied him.

00:09:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, you know, costume change, uh, and we you know, it was like west Side Soccer here in Manhattan, and you get you know, you get assigned to color and it can be you know, cool color. If you don't like the color, you're stuck with it for forever. I believe it was purple that we had and he just wasn't a fan, you know, Yeah, He did score a wonderful goal that season, which was tremendous, and I was very proud.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: I the only time Alice ever scored a goal in her legendary youth soccer career which rivaled my own. I almost rushed the pitch. Yeah, it tore down the goalposts, cut the net and it was like to go up like seven to one.

00:10:21
Speaker 1: You know, that's the one that put it away, to put it out of reach. They say six to one is the most dangerous scoreline. So my older son played like my younger son doesn't love soccer. He likes he likes the World Cup a lot. He doesn't love playing, even though I think he's he's pretty decent, and he doesn't like watching any any any soccer. But my older son is a big, big, big soccer head, and so I was. I was coached his team here in west Side Soccer one year and I was a co coach, same as you, except my The other coach wasn't my wife, but it was a guy named Howard, Coach Howard and Coach Howard would arrive in an suv uh that would park at the top of Riverside Park and his driver would keep the suv on for the whole game and then would go down. He's some kind of finance guy. I didn't really know who he was. And uh, my oldest son is my step son, and his dad is Italian and Carolina and my wife didn't come to all the games. Uh, and so the coach Howard just assumed that we were like this intercontinental, very sophisticated gay couple. Uh, me and my wife's six husband, who we like, you know, he's Italian and I'm Peruvian, and we like knew more about soccer and him. So we were kind of were like unofficial coaches and you know, explaining the off side rule and whatnot. And I remember he would he was always trying to get us some run plays like this was football, and then uh, you know, we did okay, and uh we never corrected him because I thought it was really funny that he thought we were a couple. We did all right that season, and then I kind of forgot about him. And then I was starting on the TV other day and I was like, coach Howard is Howard Lutnik. Oh wow, secretary of the guy who's like currently trying to destroy the world economy, coach of my kid's soccer team and uh, and I was kind of I was just like, oh, wow, uh okay, I like, it's just one of these very New York stories where I was like, you know, you're you're you never know who's going to be in your kids pee wee soccer team and it might be the future Secretary of the Treasury and Epstein Island visitor and Epstein Island visitor post. Uh. I knew that man was discussing, uh interview. Uh these people, man, what a bunch of hypocrites. Sean.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: Have you ever been to Epstein's Island?

00:12:49
Speaker 3: Have not? Have not not been there? Not in the files?

00:12:55
Speaker 2: I am actually for myself, I'm not I'm not me. What did you had a lot of conversations with weird rich people trying to raise money for hospitals in Siri Leo and over the years. Yeah, I was in there because Michael Wolf forwarded Epstein an email of the best selling authors of twenty fourteen just with the message, Eh.

00:13:20
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I guess he didn't like the vault in our Stars.

00:13:23
Speaker 4: Huh.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: I guess he wasn't a fan.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: Wow, gosh, that was there any response? No, Michael Wolf.

00:13:31
Speaker 2: God, he really covered himself in glory. Oh all right, we're gonna have a deep dive into the Uzbekistan national team, which I'm very excited about, and we're also gonna hear a story from me about the greatest footballer who never was. But first, let's take a break.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: Okay, we're back. This is the way and I'm Danielle Larcone and John I'm going to tell you about the Uzbekistani national team. The uzbek national team great. They are known as the White Wolves, and because I am a novelist and love literature, I'm gonna first talk about how they were have been known as Asia's cursed team, and there's a couple of examples, but I want to dive into one which I think is pretty remarkable, but a little bit of background. This year they're going to be in Group K, which as you know, is Portugal, Colombia and either New Caledonia, Jamaica or the Dr Congo. My money's on Congo for this one. And so we sort of you touched on this John last week, when you sort of give us your deep dive into the national team of called di'voir. But there's a lot of new countries and I guess like pretty much in the newest are the post Soviet republics. I think there's something super interesting here because the Soviet Union collapses and now there's suddenly a bunch of new teams. And think a month, you can either especially the Central Asian republics, you can kind of go with Asia, or you can go with YUEFA. Right, you can go to the Asian Federation, or you can go to YUEFA. And so a bunch of the former Soviet republics joined YUEFA the European Federation, right, So I'm talking about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan Kyrgystan to Tajikistan. Ministan kind of could have gone either way, and they joined the Asian Federation, which I think is pretty interesting. Kazakhstan eventually switched back, but Usbek's stayed with Asia for this most recent campaign. They won six of their ten matches, three draws and a loss, and they were second in their group behind Iran, which means they qualified. But why were they the cursed team? And I think this is a fun little story. They only started playing as an independent nation in nineteen ninety two. They had their first game in ninety two, and they've been kind of on the cusp of getting to the World Cup twice before this time. When they actually made it in two thousand and six, they had this playoff game against Bahrain and there was a really controversial decision that ended up sort of making them lose their opportunity to qualify. And what happened was this, they had a first leg game. It was Bekistan in Bahrain and Uzbekistan one nothing, but the game was annulled because the Japanese ref made an error. He basically incorrectly awarded a free kick to Bahrain instead of ordering a retake for penalty infringement that had been scored right. So that game, a player named server dejh Perov scored the penalty for Uzbekistan, but the referee disallowed it because of encroachment by a newsback player, but instead of ordering it to be retaken as per the rules, he gives this free kick to Bachrain and so instead of going up to nothing, they stay at one nothing, and then Uzbekistan wanted basically to be given the game as a three nothing victory if you've rejected it. They had the whole game played again and uh that replay ended up one to one no. And then the second legend Bakrain ended up zero zero, which meant it meant that Bahrain advanced to the next round of playoffs on the away goals rule. The away goals.

00:17:43
Speaker 2: Rule might be the worst rule in all of football. It's given us some really incredible moments.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: I have to say.

00:17:50
Speaker 2: It's it. It creates a kind of drama, but it it. If you're Sean, can the game?

00:17:56
Speaker 3: Can you tell me? Yeah? I was going to jump in.

00:17:59
Speaker 2: Actually, let's have JN because if you try, if you try to pitch this idea to Sean, Sean's going to be like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

00:18:06
Speaker 1: Well wait, but first, Sewn, would you explain the away goals rule? Yeah?

00:18:10
Speaker 3: Wow, this one might have me have me stumped. It's something that happens within the game itself, like during gameplay.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: I'll give you a hint. It has to do with two legged playoffs. Two legged meaning we play at home and we play away.

00:18:26
Speaker 2: And then the combined score is what decides who wins.

00:18:31
Speaker 3: If you score a goal while your team is away, it's it's awarded extra more points than that nailed.

00:18:41
Speaker 1: That's it. It's a type. So if it's one to one in uh tash Kent and then zero zero in Bahrain, it's aggregate scorer is one to one. But because Bahrainy national team scored a goal in Tashkent, then they advance. Right.

00:19:00
Speaker 3: Is this a rule that only happened for temporary like or is this still a rule that is happening today.

00:19:06
Speaker 1: So the the goal of that rule, like the purpose of it was to encourage the visiting team to attack more, to create more exciting football, because usually teams would if the would be a visitor, they would just sit back and defend for ninety minutes. Right, So the goal was to create incentives to play more attacking football because your away goals would be more interesting. It had the effect actually of making the home team way more conservative than they should be. So I'm not sure it actually resulted in more attacking football. And it's a little bit of a holdover from the days when travel was you know, an exhausting journey like by steamship and like hike, you know, whereas they don't use it. For example, anymore in the Champions League, because like you know, it's just like jumping on your private plane from Paris to Barcelona is not like an arduous journey anymore.

00:19:59
Speaker 2: So they've mostly gotten rid of it because it mostly didn't do what they expected it to do.

00:20:05
Speaker 1: Right. There was that famous game where there was that Icelandic volcano that blew up, disrupting travel all over Europe and making the Barcelona team go by bus to Milan like and where they ended up losing, even though they were by far the better team. So there are sort of situations where travel is arduous but no longer. Yeah, I didn't. It didn't have the sporting impacts that they had hoped it would have.

00:20:33
Speaker 2: But back to the USBAC national team, they do not qualify for that World Cup on account of a bad referees mistake and thereby having to replay a game and giving up in a wig.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: Yes, I just want to give a shout out to the referee till she meets so Yoshida.

00:20:48
Speaker 2: Just brutal you named him.

00:20:50
Speaker 1: I just want to name and shame because it was a it was a big mistake and I'm sorry, mister Yoshida, but you know you no one will buy you a beer in Tashkent. But this year they won. Their coach, Timour Capazze resigned afterwards, and you'll never guess who their current manager is.

00:21:12
Speaker 2: I won't.

00:21:12
Speaker 1: You're right, Okay, do you want to hints or no? Yeah? Okay? Former Juventus player, former Madrid player, defender, captain of the Italian national team in two thousand and six World Cup winner Ballon d'Or winner, Fabio Cannavaro.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: Fabio Cannavarro is a manager.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a manager. He's a okay man. You know, I You're gonna be shocked to know this, but I did not know much about these Becastanni national team until last night.

00:21:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:21:47
Speaker 1: Uh so I was looking into kind of arrow because I'd sort of lost track of him since he retired. Uh he's had a really undistinguished manager career, like managing in China, you know, managing around Asia, like not really doing much. But he got this job. I mean, look, he brings arguably the experience of having been in a World Cup, being a World Cup winner. That World Cup two thousand and six, Italy kept five clean sheets, incredible defense, which if you're going to be you know, a debutant, a World Cup debutant, you probably want a defensive genius mastermind like Kinnavaro to sort of be training you. I don't expect them to be much in terms of an attacking side. They're probably the highest profile player is this kid Kuzanov who plays for n City, so therefore I hate him. He's a really good player. I mean, he's young. He had a nightmare first game. He come out of thrown in the deep end. He gave away a penalty, or he didn't give away a penal, he gifted a goal to Nanny Medwiki, he got a a yellow card, like in the first three minutes. He was like crying at halftime almost But to his credit, balls of steel on this kid, because he kept playing and he played really well, and he's in the team, and you know, he's a twenty year old kid making his debut at Man City, has a rough game but sort of bounces back. So I have great admiration for him, although I still hate him. And the guy known as Uzbek Messi, which I say with the largest air quotes you could imagine. I just feel like that that that's the kind of name that is like a shows a real lack of imagination because I watched clips of elder Scholmrudov, and I can say, unless something is really lost in translation, this is no Nael Messi at all. He's good, he's fine. You know, he's scored a bunch of goals for the national team, forty three goals in eighty eight appearances, so he's a good striker, good finisher. I watched about twenty minutes of highlights, maybe two dozen goals. All but two of them were one touch finishes, just like Messi exactly. So this is not you know, I mean, he's more like the from my humble sort of like viewing of things. He's not the Uzbek Messi. He's more like the Uzbek Chicharito. You know, this is not a world class player, enough respect, and I say this with all due respect to our Uzbek listeners or our Ruzbek listener. Yeah, he plays in the Turkish super League, and not even for one of the teams you've heard of, John, one of the teams that you have not heard of.

00:24:42
Speaker 2: Ok, okay, and he's fine when he's when he wins the Golden Boot. Daniel, you're really going to be eating your words. I'm going to be.

00:24:49
Speaker 1: I will I will happily eat my words, you know, probably for my punishment for this will be the he scores like a you know, a hat trick against Columbia really be awful, and I apologize to our Columbian listeners in advance for that. Anyway, I think it's going to be an interesting team. My take from the research that I did in preparation for this. They're going to be a defensive team. They have Fibyo Knavado as their manager who's going to set them up to not lose. And they have a very talented young defender and Khusuinov and then and he'll be there kind of stalwart in the back despite his youth. They will not do very well I think against Portugal. I hope they won't do very well against Columbia. And then you know, like a lot of these groups third places up up in the air. You know, they could surprise the our Congo or Jamaica or New Caledonia and you never know, you never know.

00:25:47
Speaker 2: And I think that's exactly what makes this World Cup so interesting, is the fact that a lot of the third place teams, if they can snatch a win, will go through.

00:25:55
Speaker 1: I agree with that, I agree.

00:25:57
Speaker 2: I think three points will probably be enough to see you through. And so you know, if you're Haiti, you know you've still got a chance if you win one game.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've got We actually got an email about that, which we'll read in the next section, but about sure of questioning whether that's actually true, but we'll see. I think it's going to be interesting to see Uzbekistan play in this World Cup. And I also just want to congratulate them, as a Peruvian who is not in the World Cup for making it. It's a huge accomplishment and I think that they are probably no longer is just cursed team, and so congratulations to all the Uzbeks out there. We should take a.

00:26:37
Speaker 4: Break, John, and we'll be right back with your story.

00:26:55
Speaker 1: All right, we're back on the way, and John, I have an email for you. This is from Adejandro and Daniel a Columbian here mios fan live in the United States, and I'm loving your podcast. Thank you very much. In episode four, while discussing Ivory Coast chances of coming out of the group stage, you said, I think this would be you, John, that a win and a close loss in either of the two games should be enough. Looking back at the ninety four World Cup, which is in my view, the best reference twenty four teams three points per win, Russia missed around of sixteen with three points plus and a plus one goal difference. Assuming this World Cup is like ninety four, duplicated, three points and zero goal difference might not be enough, especially considering there should be more groups where one team will lose all of their games and the team team quality seems to be more unequal than in previous World Cups. He signs off saying, keep up the good work and thank you for sharing middle aged dad thoughts about football. I feel seen a great use of the youthful lingo there by being seen Alejandro H. I appreciate that contemporary Yeah. Okay, so this seems like a lot of math, John, But do you have any response to ade handle. Yeah.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: My response is that I think eight of the twelve third place teams are going to go through, So like, how bad? So if four teams, you know, say draw one one in their last game in their game against say there's two bad teams in each group, if you tie with the other bad team, you don't go through because you finish in third place with one point and somebody else finishes in fourth place with one point, and I think that might be the case for at least three or four of the of the team. So I think if I think a win is enough, win with some close losses are enough. That's my math. My math is notoriously bad.

00:28:47
Speaker 1: Though.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: You can ask Daniel, you can ask Sean, you can ask anyone who went to high.

00:28:51
Speaker 1: School with Yeah, yeah, same. Well, I'm going to trust your math on that, and I guess we'll you know, I remember being in algebra class and the question was something like, if you, you know, have a bicycle and the radius of attire is this much, and you pedal six times, how far will you go? And I just remember being floored that one could actually know that without moving the bicycle six times. So all of like, for me, I'm just going to wait for the games to happen and then someone will tell me who made it because I get into that prediction mode and I just can't do it. So but Alejandro, we appreciate your question. Should we do emails and then you want to do your story or vice versa.

00:29:38
Speaker 2: Let's do one more email and then we'll do the stories.

00:29:41
Speaker 1: Okay, this is from Diego question. You both talked about playing football yourselves in leagues or pickup games. I live in Mexico and have played for many years in an amateur Sunday leagues, although it's not ever actually played on Sunday. The problem is that games tend to get violent alarmingly frequently. I've lost count of the number of name games that have come to blows. It's utterly ridiculous, maddening. Any advice. Have either of you had similar experiences. I wonder how frequentness is in the United States.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: I've never gotten to blows in the United States playing football, but I've also never played at a high level.

00:30:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember actually one one I played actually in the league out in Oakland, and I remember a fight broke out. It was this league where I remember there was a security guard. They were checking for weapons when you walked into the area the field that was out by the airport in Oakland. What I do remember we wore red jerseys and there was a fight that happened in the game just before hours between a team that wore blue and another team that wore red. And I remember that when the fight broke out and the fans because everyone wanted their families, and you know, it was like a legitimate fight. I remember we all looked aroun because were getting ready for our game, and we realized we were wearing red jerseys as well, and everyone on my team just quickly took their jerseys off because we were like, we're not involved here. When we just held our hands up and we let Blue and Red fight it out, and they broke up and no one was injured, and then we played our game.

00:31:10
Speaker 2: I will say the most fun I've ever had at pickup soccer was in a co ed league where it felt like violence was really off the menu. Yeah, not to make it entirely about sex and gender identity, but like boy, I do think that there's something about there's something about men, there's something wrong with them.

00:31:28
Speaker 1: Daniel, Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. I've played on plenty of co ed teams, and I agree that does take the edge off in a way that is useful for everybody and for the sport. I want to highlight one more thing before we go to your story again. From another listener from Luciano, who's an Argentine who doesn't really enjoy football, but he wanted to do a recommendation, and I just want to second this. There's a really great Argentine author named Roberto Fontanaros who wrote a book called put Football, and Luciano recommended it to us. And I just want to say I was gifted this book by an Argentine friend named Leandro many years ago, and it's hilarious and wonderful, and so I just want to echo what Luciano said. It's a great book for those of you who read in Spanish. He says, best wishes from the current champions. However, if we go back to what I said in segment one, Skyloni is still the coach of Argentina and I am officially worried about Argentina. Okay, all right, I'm saying it going on the record.

00:32:28
Speaker 2: Man, all right, I'm not worried about Argentina bobbing out in the group phase. But I guess I've been wrong before.

00:32:34
Speaker 3: You have.

00:32:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't say the group phase, but they might lose to Uruguay, as our friend Bruno told us.

00:32:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that is possible.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: All right.

00:32:42
Speaker 2: My story for you, Daniel is about the great Brazilian footballer Carlos Kaiser. Now I think that you know part of this story because you're part of the reason I know about it. But I just had to tell this story on the podcast. Carlos Kaiser was a footballer whose career spanned His professional career spanned twelve years, during which he made zero appearances. Now this story is meaningful to me because I have always suspected myself. We all suspect ourselves, suspect of ourselves that we could be great at something we never got to be great at. And the thing that I suspect I could have been great at is I think I could have been a great locker room member. I think I could have been great in the locker room of a football team. Like when I first got my first job at Booklist magazine. I remember, maybe six months in, my manager had my performance review and she basically said, you've been a great personality hire. Wow, you don't do the job as such, but you're great to have around.

00:33:56
Speaker 1: And how did you feel about that?

00:33:58
Speaker 2: Oh, that's kind of been my thing the time. Well, okay, I mean, nobody labors under the delusion that I was, in fact the best novelist of twenty fourteen, but I was a personality higher.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: Okay, So This is now two weeks in a row we've had these kind of Remember last week he told the story of your coach that put you in just to teach the players the importance of trying hard, right, And now you're saying you were the personality higher in your first job. So there does seem to be this theme of these kind of of of self deprecating stories that I just I don't I don't buy it.

00:34:36
Speaker 2: I feel like you were pretty good at Booklist. I'm not being self deprecating at all. I am absolutely celebrating my incredible, my incredible qualities as a personality higher. I was a good reviewer, but my job wasn't reviewing. My job was putting numbers into a database at which I was completely mediocre. Oh I think anybody could do that job. Okay, Well, I'm not saying I wasn't a good writer. I'm saying saying that I wasn't a good publishing assistant.

00:35:03
Speaker 1: Okay, got it. But you were wonderful to have in the locker room at book.

00:35:07
Speaker 2: I was great to have in the locker room. And I suspect, and I mean you guys might be the two people who've seen me in a locker room setting. Locker room like setting the most. I think I get along with people. I think I'm I think I'm a I think I'm a I think I'm a joiner. I think I can I think I can bring people together. I think I can resolve arguments. I think that like like like money and Sola needed Roberta for me. Now I would be a Roberta for me, you know, like character in the locker room without the goals or the obviously with none of the skills, which brings us back to Carlos Geyser go On go On, who was the ultimate personality higher he became friends with many professional footballers. He did have a youth career. Okay, so he played for Flamengo in his youth career, but he was not good enough to be a professional footballer. And so what he would do is he would go to a new team and he would be like, oh, I gotta get in match shape. You know, it's gonna take me a minute to get in match shape. And then he'd do all the workouts, the non footballing stuff, you know, the lifting weights, the running, all that stuff, which he was brilliant at because he was a you know, he was a fit guy, and he would do all that stuff, and then when it came time for him to sort of approach the maybe being on the bench, he would tear his hamstring. He tore his hamstring like nine or ten times in his eleven year career, never once actually tearing his hamstring. But back then there was no like ultra sound to look for a torn hamstring. And then eventually he would move on. After a short stint at one club, he would move on to another. And he played at some of the biggest clubs in all of Brazil. I mean, he played for Flamengo twice, he played for Independiente, he played for Flumenes, he played for Vasco da Gama.

00:36:54
Speaker 1: I mean he play.

00:36:55
Speaker 2: He put an incredible career in which he made zero appearances because he was a complete con artist. I love it.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: My memory of the Carlos Kaiser story that the part that I love. And I think he actually played in Europe too, maybe in Portugal or something.

00:37:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he did.

00:37:11
Speaker 1: Is that one of the things that this all started because he looked like a footballer.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had the look.

00:37:17
Speaker 1: He had the look, which is probably why you or I could never sort of like, you know, fulfill the Carlos Kaiser role even though we're you know, locker room dynamite. But he was just like incredibly fit, handsome, and also he was the other play I mean, this is the whole thing. The other players loved him because he was a big party guy. So he was like he was like getting the booze, getting the girls, like making life in the locker room for the players who actually played like a lot of fun, which is why he was able to stay at certain teams. There's also another anecdote of his, which I don't know if you came across in your in your research, that the one time he did get into a game, he like got a red card like immediately, like within ninety seconds, and then and then dedicated it to the owner of the team because he's the other the other away fans have been chanting something derogatory to the team owner. So he went out, he got thrown in the game, got a red card, was suspended for three games, and then you know torres Hamstring.

00:38:23
Speaker 2: My favorite story about him is that at the end of his career, he would use a toy cell phone to pretend to be taking calls from other clubs like, oh, I might have to might have to make a move here. I'm good, I've got flumines on the phone. Oh god, but it was a toy.

00:38:39
Speaker 1: What do you think that is? Is that is this just like a guy who's really creative and was looking for a way to make a living that was like a soccer adjacent or is this a con artist who could have been like, you know, a Ponzi scheme guy in another life, Like, what is it?

00:38:56
Speaker 2: Well, I think it goes back to something you've observed, which is that professional football have an extraordinary amount of confidence. And to be a con artist, you are essentially a confidence artist. You are selling people on your confidence. And it seems like he had all of the skills necessary to be a professional footballer, except for the footballing skills. He had that self belief, he had that you know, ability to convey to you with confidence that he was going to be an asset to your team. And then by the end, he had a list of clubs that had actually hired him. You know, he'd never made an appearance for any of them. But this was the pre video being everywhere era, the pre you know, Internet era, and so it was still doable. Yeah, I imagine that Carlos Kaiser wasn't the only Carlos Kaiser in the history of football. He's just the only one we've heard about because eventually, you know, it all came crashing down for him a little bit.

00:39:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's still living off of the twelve years that he didn't play. Like. He made a documentary Oh yeah, you know, like we covered history around Bulante and interviewed a lot of who you know, quote unquote played with him. Yeah. I also think in the age of powerful agents that there are now there must be a number of unscrupulous agents who are selling players who can't actually play but look like they can play. Yeah, all over.

00:40:18
Speaker 2: Well, the whole reason he got the name Carlos Kaiser was because he looked like Franz Beckenbauer. And it is still the case in football that like, if you look like you can play, they take you seriously in a way that they don't if you don't look like you can play.

00:40:32
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm nodding my head in agreement because I feel like I usually don't get picked first, if you know what I mean. Yeah, but yeah, I have a friend Sina, who looks like a retired soccer player, like a recently retired soccer player. He's my age, he's our age. He's incredibly fit because he he like lives in Bodaba to like go on his bike to Khali, you know, like a or a bike ride like wow, down to you know, the low lens of Columbia is and so you know, like I hadn't seen him in a while, I got to go with that, you know, I gave him hugger was like hugging a tree, like he's so fit, you know. And uh, I feel like if you walked into a bar and was wearing like a soccer jersey or some you know, there'll be people who'd be like, oh, what team did he play for? You know, like yep, he just has that look. But he's actually, by his own admission, and absolute terrible soccer player. Like the only he doesn't even care about soccer, like the only thing he does is his bike. But the look, it matters. The look matters for sure.

00:41:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also how you care yourself, Like I mean, I remember, there's a measure of just like the confidence in your body, the understanding of your body in space that you communicate in subtle ways when you're moving about the world, and Carlos Kaiser obviously had that even if he didn't have the footballing.

00:41:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, God bless him.

00:42:01
Speaker 3: You guys mentioned there's a documentary, Like I'm shocked that, Hollywood. This feels like ripe for like a narrative film of like telling his story.

00:42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Like but to me, it's like one of those films that you could make in a number of ways. It could be like a Boogie Knights, or it could be like a you know, twenty one Jump Street, you know, like comedy, like it could be like.

00:42:20
Speaker 3: There's a darkness undertone potentially, or it could just be more slap sticky.

00:42:25
Speaker 1: Yeah like that. Like they I feel like every five years they make a movie about an adult going back to high school who's like pretending. And I think this could be that, you.

00:42:33
Speaker 3: Know, I'm trying to I know, John, you are notoriously not somebody who casts people in movies, indeed, but I don't know I'm putting it if we want to put on our casting hats, who should play Carlos Kaiser in the Hollywood make I'm I'm looking at a picture of him right now, and I'm a little torn but is Bill Hayter? Is that is that too off? Like Bill Hayter's like really long hair or something like that. I don't know.

00:43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could do that. I mean I feel like if you, uh, if you you know, if you want to actually sort of sell this movie, you'd probably want to do the more a guy from Secret Agent, you know, m oh yeah, yeah, that guy would be good. He'd be good. Yeah, keep it Brazilian yep. But you know, the older guy could also be like a you know, if you do like a retrospective or Kaiser is old and he's telling his story in retrospect. There's kind of a Dustin Hoffman h thing to it. You know.

00:43:33
Speaker 2: I was thinking, the guy who plays h Football is life guy from ted Lasso, brilliant.

00:43:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's him. That's it. That's it sold. All right. We're gonna go soon and John and I will write the script for the Kaiser film. Yeah, yeah, we'll just write on text. That's a great that's a great new project. Yeah.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: I don't have enough to be a good movie. There's nothing against it as a movie. It's very hard to get movies made about football. I've tried for years.

00:43:59
Speaker 1: Well, well, I don't know, I feel like other sports translate better on the like like the one of the things that's terrible about Ted Lasso. It's a fun show. I liked it. I enjoyed it a lot, actually, but the actual football is terrible. It doesn't look believable. It doesn't look real. It doesn't look like it looks like it's in slow motion. Yeah, and it and whereas I feel like if you watch Hoosier's the basketball looks pretty.

00:44:25
Speaker 2: Real, well, you're they're also high school basketball players, which helps.

00:44:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, exact, I mean fair. But even in that that really wonderful comedy. Uh, next Goal Wins, which I really enjoyed and recommend as a soccer movie, I didn't think the soccer there, you know, and they're supposed to be terrible. Even there, it didn't look real enough to sort of pass the smell tups. Yeah.

00:44:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's hard. It's not easy to make a good soccer movie. But that said, like, it is the world's game, and so if you could crack it, you could you could have a movie with a huge audience. So I'll keep trying. I'm not giving up on it. It's my only remaining dream really is to make a great soccer movie.

00:45:05
Speaker 1: Sometimes dreams do come true. What is it your line? Hope is never justified, but it's always rewarded. No, the opposite, the opposite. Yeah, that would be great. Hope is always rewarded.

00:45:15
Speaker 2: If the world we're sort of a wish granted factory where you like, close your eyes and be like, I'd like to win the World Cup.

00:45:21
Speaker 1: There you go, all right? That could be the premise of our soccer movie, which we'll start writing immediately on text, John, I think that's all the time we have for the way, and man, I'll see you next week.

00:45:33
Speaker 2: I'll see you next week. Thanks to our producer Kurt and Sean Taitone and everybody who works on the show if making it.

00:45:38
Speaker 1: Possible, Yeah, keep sending us emails at away ndpod at gmail dot com. Thanks so much, guys, Take care,