Reflecting on Brazil's World Cup Trauma

Welcome to Pablo Tore Finds out. I am Pablo Tore, and today we're going to find out What this sound is You either have to love something together or you have to hate something together And the great thing about the twenty six players sitting in front of me right now is that you all hate your coach. rightight after the ad I remember the first time I was in this studio, I was like I can't believe that an audio podcast has this all this stuff. And then I slowly realized It was just that I'd glimpsed the future. You know, John I like to think that the future of media looks like as what Patrick designed here, which is it's awesome. Psychedelic in ways that Delight me? Yeah. It feels like you're playing laser tag on acid sometimes. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. it does give laser tag vibes So I always want to figure out the appropriate way to call a MacArthur genius. Yeah a genius. Sure. Daniel Aller C, thank you for being here. Yeah, it's good to be here. John Green How would you explain the genius of the guy sitting next to you? Thanks for asking. The most uncomfortable thing in the world for Daniel is having won this award and me calling him a MacArthur genius every chance I get Basically, Daniel is an important novelist a major Peruvian American novelist but also a really important journalist. He writes for the New Yorker. He writes for Radioambilante, the brilliant Spanish language podcast that he helped found. And He is a proper genius, and I've known him since I was fourteen, so I feel qualified to say that Well, Daniel, do you have a way of describing John as you curdle inside of yourself in response to his compliment? Yeah, people listening on audio can't see precisely how uncomfortable that makes me. Yeah, so I've known John for a very long time. John is 's one of the most brilliant observers of human ego and vanity that I've ever met He is kind in every interaction as he is on the page because he extends this incredible generosity to his characters that has always really made me jealous And then he's just a great friend and a huge Liverpool fan point of You know, possibly like to his own detriment, you know? Yeah, probably I'm definitely aFC Wimbledon fan to my ownetriment. You could argue that all sports fandom is kind of to one's detperiment because winning is so rare, you know? If you haven't noticed, this is our World Cup Episode. Heo I don' want to establish that John Gen been a guest the show before. talk about his last book, Everything is tuberculosis whichich is quietly also kind of a soccer story, I dare say because if nothing else, John Green is one of the strangest proprietors of a professional soccer club on the planet. For sure How should we just speed people up on AFC Wimbledon Well, so I'm not an AFC Won fan. I actually I love that, by the way. Yeah It hurts my feelings, but but I take it. I'm not convinced that they're real because John just, you know, keeps talking about this team and there's so much narrative that he builds around this club That it feels almost like one of his novels that he's invented. And I will not believe they're real until he takes me to a game and we get to actually prove it because right now it's just it's just like this magical realist novel that he's created in his head. Well, it's as good as a novel. and thank you for acknowledging that. It is. Hasn't quite made as much money as the fault in our stars. weekend's box office produced the summer surprise, The teen romance, the fault our stars had a forty eight million dollars opening weekend The young women and a few men turned out in droves for the fault in our stars this weekend. Number one of the box office forty eight million dollars for Tom Cruise. They tomorrow A they doing in third place? We're not there yet. Someday we will be. Don't you worry, Bobo. AFC Wimbledon's going to pay off in ways that no one can imagine. I'm going to be the Ryan Reynolds That I'm going to go all the way with them. No they're owned by their fans different model than a club like Wrexham or any other football club in England could have But within the limits of being owned by the fans and everybody getting the same one vote no matter how much money they put in the club, we've been incredibly successful and I'm really proud of it. Yeah. And you guys have known each other. all of your vulnerabilities, all of your idiosyncrasies for how long now thirty five years. Yeah long time. We have u sources close to your high school. Yeah, you do. Indian Springs in Birmingham, Alabama. and thanks to that source who shall remain unnamed We have some photos of you guys. Oh no. our soccer experts here today on publicour. Oh, look at us. L at us, Daniel. Just a couple of teenage dirt bags. Yeah, we changed a bit. Could you describe the photograph for those who are not watching? I am wearing a Jaager Meister t shirt. My posture is about as bad as it is today Daniel is phenomenally handsome He has hair swept over one eye. This makes Daniel so uncomfortable, but it's true. The hair covering the one eye feels so Perfect as to seem deliberate. Oh, it was absolutely deliberate. It worked. It was very effective at the time And backwards cap on. I've got a backwards cap on the neck of your shirt. It's a gaping thrift store portal.. You can see the clavicle there too. Yeah closely. Really showing some clavic. Yeah. ye So John Green ninety five. this is his yep, there he is. Look at me, I'm wearing a beanie that has a propeller on it I mean I can't tell if that's literally true, but it does seem have literally true. I remember that hat Can we go to the next photo The intensity on your face in the middle frame. I hate losing this triptick of Daniel Allercone's youth. I mean, Daniel was such a good soccer player And I love these pictures because you can see that he was very balanced You're just dying on the inside. No I can tellful. Yeah. You were not a good guitar player. So in the other photo, you're playing the guitar and I will say you were not a great guitar player. you were a very good soccer player. Thank you. What position did you play? I was a midfielder, attacking midfielder. I just played a lot of tenens because I hated losing. Um I still hate losing Well, how does it manifest in adulthood I just think I work too hard. I work a lot You do. That said, one thing that you don't have on your resume is something that John does, which is the second most banned book Yeah in America from the years twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four.'s amazing dude, which isks. L lookingoo for Alaska. This is your first novel, right? Yeah set at a small boarding school in Alabama, not completely dissimilar from the small boarding school in Alabama that we attended. and There is one scene that causes the book to be banned. It's an exceptionally unerotic oral sex scene that is meant to be contrasted with the next scene, which is much less like physically intimate, but much more emotionally rich But of course, nobody reads the second scene. They only read the first scene out of context and they say, this is completely inappropriate for high school students and we must remove it from all libraries and schools. Yeah It's a bummer, man. I mean, I want to be good spirited about it and treat it like it's not a bummer, but it's a bummer. I live in Indianapolis It just got banned in the town directly north of me It's a bummer to think that like people see me in the grocery store and they're like, Oh, that guy's a pornrapher. Like I promise I'm not I'm just not. You know me? Yeah, no. I mean I haven't checked your browser history, but but I do know you. and now I don't think you're a pornographer. Thanks, Buddy.an. Let's get that headline aggregated. John Green Colen, not a pornographerash friend of thirty years. Yeah, there you go. Do you get notified when your book has been banned from yet another school and or library? Sometimes like the whole state of Iowa banned looking for Alaska and then I got notified. And we ended up suing them and winning by it A lot of times I'll just hear from somebody, you know concerned teacach or a teacher who's been affected by it. authors get all the attention for this stuff, but the people who are most affected by it are teachers and librarians because their ability to do their job on a daily basis is so profoundly affected by these book bans. Right. And so wait, so Daniel, when this is all happening to John's book, a book that is allegedly bearing some resemblance to your high school experience.ure I guess I'm really asking, is there a Daniel character in this book? There's not No That was a very immediate no. No, we've had this conversation before in great detail. There's a notable absence of Peruvians in the book. Hold on. We're going to aggregate that headline. Yeah. John Greene hates Peruvians. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, there's no there's no, you know Young man with curly brown hair over one eye, who plays guitar badly and plays soccer well Well, you know what it was, man? I couldn't write about you because I like to write about flawed characters. and you're just too perfect. Wow. Oh man. yeah. no, I can see that. I can see that The end of June and July can be a really rough period for sports fans with football still a few months away and basketball and hockey. This year, we're pretty lucky Because not only is there a worldorld Cup, there iss a World Cup in our backyard And so make sure to check out the Athletic Podcast Network to stay up to date on all things related to the World Cup You can wake up with the Ttally football show from LA, then dive deep into the biggest talking point of the day with the athletic FC podcast. And you can watch the TFO podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon All shows are free to watch or listen on your favorite podcast platform I want to give the origin story of Daniel though, because he grew up in Peru. No, so I was born in Peru. I lived in Peru until I was three and a half. We moved the United States to Birmingham Lens specifically in nineteen eighty and grew up in Birmingham until I came to New York to go to college And your dad himself did what My dad, his first job was a soccer announcer in Peru. And then he became a physician No, I know, but this we're in the World Cup podcast. Oh I forgot we were on a Wor Cup podast. we're talking about Yeah He was a socer annoucer Pru. that's legit. That's legit. That's real. Akupa? In Akipa. Yeahah. was Basically choosing between being a journalist and a sports journalist or being a physician And I I think it was a small town back then. It was like ten blocks past the plaza. It was like the countryside, you know So when we're saying that he was on the radio, you know, it was not like the studio we're in now You know, he was pretty much a child doing this like at age fifteen um, because he took over from the announcer that had the job moved to Lima And and my dad was like one of those hangers on who was always like hanging out at the booth because he loved it And they were like, Okay, kid, do you want to do it? H's your shot. And he did it And that was his job like through the first years of college, and then he moved to Lima to go to medical school. Do you ever get to listen to any of his They're not recorded, but I have had him he for the family and you know, in public, we've done Bents andenta where he's done it and you know he hasn' done this in fifty years and he'll grab a mic and go up and narrate a goal from memory. The goal he always does is a Peru versus Brazil goal in like the nineteen fifty Cope America. And he does the goal with the names of all the players and you know, exactly how it happens. It bounnce off the crossbar and then, you know, back in and it was like yeah, so he can still do it I mean, one of the theories I have about like as we chart Obviously the growth of soccer in America If American children were exposed to Spanish language, Oh for sh announcers We would be winning World Cups already. We would have inspired generations based entirely on the sort of poetic enthusiasm The unapologetic Dlight and energy. Yeah of A Spanish language broadcaster. Yeah, and just how much damage has Alexei Lales done to the game?ust say I was gonna say, sayay it with your chest. Yeah. I'm putting it out there. But true. uninspiring young American would be Leonel Mess' and Nymars, you know? Yes. I mean, I do want to explain, John, partart of what you do is also like talking to A lot of people on YouTube who I don't consider me wr Soccer die hearks. No, they're not soccer nerds. They're nerd nerds Uh, as am I Daniel and I talk a lot about how we you know, he grew up playing playing soccer and I grew up loving soccer and loving sports. but We also grew up reading nonstop and talking about books and talking about big ideas and like that's ninety nine percent of the conversations I've had with you over the years have been of that variety. Even when we're talking about football, we're talking about it as like a nation building exercise or whatever as much as we're talking about the game But I think if you see sports through that lens, you can see sports through a nerdy lens, right? You can see it as in fact, that's what you do here in a lot of cases is you look at sports not just as something that happens on a field where players are trying to get a ball past a line as a cultural social experience and one that has a profound impact on the world we end up sharing Yes. And I think one key difference between what I do here on this show and what you do in your capacity as sponsor of AFC Wimbled then is literally give pep talks. Yeah I'm not afraid to give a little pep talk here and there. When they let me in the locker room I give a pep talk one hundred percent of the time. I've said this to Daniel before. I was never a good soccer player, but I feel like I would have been a good locker room guy. Yeah Well, I want to play it and we can sort of share with our audience Oh no. I thought we were talking about this abstractly. Now, we're talking about a very specific Oh yeah ye instance I'm John Green, I sponsor the back of your shorts. I hope you know that there are people around the world watching you every Saturday living and dying with every kick of the ball. We love you guys. I don't know what it's like to be a professional football, but I do know what it's like to sell thirty million books and you have to believe in yourself. At this point in the season, I have seen how much you can believe in yourselves and it is so inspirational. It fires me up every Saturday. I don't mean to curse so much, but like that's how much it fires me up And I'm so excited to be here in person and see you play today. I know this is a massive game for you. I'm just really f grateful that I get to be with you in person. So thank you so much and Get them. Not my best work. Again, for people who are watching, John was looking like Daniel was looking when John was calling him a genius. I felt like I just my whole body turned into a series of increasingly small polygons that folded in on themselves until I ceased to exist during that I love thirty seconds. I'm so grateful that you played that so that John can feel what I feel. I'd never seen a person become an inie, just like an actual belly gone inward But a couple things that I relate to is if you're to put me in front of a room in front of a bunch of athletes that I need to sort of impact in any way, I am gonna curse Yeah one hundred times more than I would normally Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found myself. unable to stop saying the F word. Yeah, it was anti Ted Lasso, which I do. Ted Lasso could never know. I should say that your passion, you come by it honestly AC Wimbledon has had a rough season. Oh yeah Yeah. I mean, most of the seasons are rough Pablo, to be fair. Is nineteenth in the league about what You're used to nineteenth of the league felt a million dollars. So we had one game that we had to win to stay up. It was basically our last chance to win a game to stay in the third division of English football and not get relegated down to the fourth division. And I was in a bus in Sierra Leone learning about the health carere system there with a few friends of mine who also are co owners of AFC Wimbledon And we watched this game on very spotty interternet on the bus And in the eighty ninth minute, AFC Wimbledon scored to secure their status in League one in the third division. And it felt as good as anything in football has ever felt for me. And the power is way forward 's the ground, it'selson in theidle of Ts. happen I think sometimes just staying up feels as good as winning a championship And that's what it felt like to me in that moment. Look, the spectrum of relationships you can have with soccer players as the guy sponsoring again, the back of the shorts. Yeah no was not familiar. The liminal space between left thigh and buttock is where I like to have my logo. So it is. and As a journalist again, I should clarify that. we're bring it together in part because the away end is the World Cup podcast., you guys are hosting together which is Of course it makes all sense in the world now that we're know, how many minutes into this conversation, off course, you guys want to do that with each other But there's also a version of being a sports journalist, being a magazine writer, where you get what feels like this dream assignment I think I know what you're talking about, right? And ends up not quite being that. Yeah, so basically I was asked to write a profile of BNL Messi, and I was promised three days with the greatest soccer player of all time Although is was, you know, maybe ten tenain eleven years ago. So he wasn't quite where he is now But he was, you know, in his prime, wonderful player, and I jumped at the chance. It was right after my wedding poned my honeymoon to go do this. So just that conversation How did it go? She was into it. She was into it. She was like, we'll both go. and I was like, That was a harder conversation because I don't like reporting with other people likeike it's like, no, it's like, you got to go report alone. Yeah On the way there, it was dropped from three days to one day. And when I arrived in Barcelon, I checked my email and it was like an hour Messy at this point is playing for Barso. Yeah, ye yeah yeah And what happened basically is I showed up at the appointed time for like a ten AM interview And, um, Messi wasn't there and they put me in a room And they didn't let me walk around training ground they didn't let me talk to anybody, they didn't let me watch a practice and they kept me in there to like Maybe like six PM. And it was just like, And you know, by that point, I was a mess. It was super hot. I'd been like literally drinking water out of the bathroom, you know, like laapping it into my mouth Um, because I didn't they didn't give me anything And at this point, are you feeling like you are being hazed? Are you feeling like this is a deliberate No No, I'm just feeling like there are just there's systems around superstars, you know, that are designed to keep people like me away from them And this was the system working at its finest. And I guess at any point I could have just walked out and left, but I was on assignment and I thought I can still save this, which was which ended up being false And eventually when Messi finally is brought to me after, it was going to be in the morning, then it was going to be, you know, after morning training, then it was going to be before afternoon training, then it was finally end up being after long after Um, He came in and just you know, it was the worst interview that is probably in the history of journalism. I mean, it was like monosyllabic answers. He was super bored with every question that I'd asked him. I was sweating. I was so nervous It was utterly humiliating and it was also a good reminder of just like these people live in this world and you're on the very periphery of it. And and whatever you think of the relationship that you've invented in your head between you and this person and their work because that's their job It's false. It's made up You know, they give us they, the athletes, give us joy, they give us despair, they give us moments of great drama They allow us to connect with our community, with our nation, with people all over the world They don't care about us. and when you're in the presence of them, They might be having a bad day. They might just not be the right time. You might be the imperfect messenger for these set of stupid questions that you'd written That's it. It was A real learning moment, I gotta say Did it affect your relationship with the sport at all No, but it affected my relationship with journalism. Like I never again have attempted write about anyone famous, Like I'm just not interested, ye. Well, there's something wrong like fundamentally wrong with the celebrity profile, right? whichich is that they're exchanging pieces of their private life for public attention, and they want to be very careful about how much of their private lives they exchange because Once you give that up, it's not yours anymore Right? Like once you share X or Y about yourself, it doesn't belong to you anymore. It doesn't belong to your family. You have to call your friends and say, I'm sorry that you found out about that from a magazine. Yeah. And so you have to be super protected I understand why it's miserable from a journalism perspective, but I also understand why Leon O' Messi would want to would want to give him on a celebic answ as somebody who spent more than a decade writing about famous athletes you begin to realize, okay Bxers who are incentivized to be interesting as a matter of their own like capitalistic incentive structure.ure. They are very different from the most famous soccer player on the planet for whom popularity is not an issue is so not an issue that they exist behind walls that are protected by other walls. R Like it's just they have no incentive to give you a second of their time always staggered buy the numbers on these soccer players' social media accounts. Y wow. Cristiano Ronaldo has six hundred sixty six million Instagram followers. That's the market of the beast for a reason, Pablo Im just reading numbers, but I think it's up for the interpretation you provided. six hundred sixty six million. Yeah. amazing. Messi has five hundred seven million. Yeah. Which is all to say that if you are a writer who wants access to these athletes, you literally need to sponsor the liminal area that John described. if I had a million or six million or any number of Like anything remotely I would just never tweet or post again It would just be so much pressure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how have a a million or so Fllowers I love that you have no idea how many Instagram followers I have Well, it's beautiful. I'm of them. I just so Stay gooldlden pony, boy. Thank you Doesn't that feel like too much pressure? twoo point two million. That's a lot. It is a lot of pressure, but I just tell myself they're all bots Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a butt. I follow you. I appreciate that follow you probably. I don'tllow Danel man I don't think Dani loves it enough. is Yeah, doesn't love he doesn't love the Instagram game on like featream man We're posting. We're true poster. That's right, yeah, That's right. Internet native. I post, I post. You post occasionally. I get the vibe that Daniel just mostly flopping his hair in front of is one of his eyes question of what should the World Cup feel like as soccer is, as we've now described it, potentially a liberal arts education for someone If you wanted to treat it like that It is also though, outside of the United States somethingomet that is I think worthy of explanation. How would you explain the World Cup countries that are not this one. Yeah. I mean, I'm currently living in Bolta in Colombia And I can say the World Cup is U a national obsession. Every bar, every restaurant, people are getting together to watch games U peopleeople talking about games, peopleople for the last two months you know, all over the city, people have been trading Panini, you know, the stickers. Yeah and trading cards. Trading cards. Yeah, the kids talk about it, you know, When we moved to Bolta, my son liked soccer but didn't love it. and over the course of This one year in Babatha now he's like has opinions about you know, the defensive frailties of New Zealand, you know, like, I mean, he's just like gotten obsessed because it's just osmosis in the culture And um Like I'm flying back tonight in part because Columbia plays tomorrow night U, and I don't want to be here when I can be there I mean, it is how we mark time in Latin America. and I know that that's how, you know, people in Europe and African Asia mark time as well. Every four years, it's like, okay We're going to pause celebrate This beautiful spectacle and and then go on with our lives. And, you know, people were saying like, you know, Even if you play three games and you're out It's three moments of communion for a nation Three moments when you're visible. You know, I was watching the Cape Ferdy game. withith a good friend of mine who's Virian. You know, when they played the National anthem, she she gave me a hug and she was like, we did it Before the ball had even been kicked. And then they went on and did something extraordinary. That is it. Coday. result of a lifetime and this will be remembered for a long long time. just the visibility, just being there, especially from a small country. It's like no one ever thinks about Cape Vertdity. No one ever thinks about Peru where I'm from And usually they think about Peru when something bad happens, you know, or we get another president or whatever happens And so Just to be visible and just to be see yourself. You know, people talk a lot about, you, sort of this idea of like, you know what it means to be seen. And I think the World Cup for a lot of people from small countries, from obscure countries or countries that people don't think about much the United States when when we appear on the world stage, you know, on this particular world stage It's so emotional And that's the one thing that I think Americans take for granted The excess of attention paid upon America has left us numb to the idea that being in a tournament like this in which the world is paying attention. There's one other thing that I think that Americans don't get because we don't have a diaspora Pers come to us National teams for diasporic peeoples are so important because they are The simplest way to express your love for a country, even if that love can be very complicated, E if your parents left because they had to You still love that place and it could be a complicated love The national teeam for ninety minutes allows you to simplify. You throw on the jersey You forget about the politics, you forget about your crazy family, you forget about the reasons why you emigrated and you just Eress this very simple love for the place that you come from Yeah, there's that great line in Ulysses where U Someone asks Bloom what a nation is and he says a nation is the same people in the same place And then he pauses and says or in other places. And how do you understand yourself as part of the same people if you're in other places? And I think football is one of those ways Yeah. I mean, you just got back from Norway, right? Yeah, it was great. I had a great trip to Norway and noted World Cup participant Norway.ly. Everybody was talking about Erling Holland and how many goals he's going to score and There was an it's an absolute obsession. It is it is the only thing that's happening That's the only way I can describe it. It's the conversation that everyone has. And so instead of talking about the weather, you talk about the World Cup There's so little that human beings can pay attention to together That is even moderately positive. and I don't want to minimize the corruption of FIFA, which is horrific. of course. It's a g. It's a given. the corruption is contingent on the power that you guys are describing? Absolutely. And so this is all inseparable, right? So that's a great point that you can't have that corruption unless you have this incredibly powerful thing that in some ways, I mean most people onn this earth are at some point going to pay attention to this World Cup And that's not true for any other thing FIFA doesn't own the World Cup we You know, They might own the branding and you know, they make all the money, and they might have successfully weaponized our love of the game against us. For me, you know, the reason that I'm flying back to Bolota to watch, I'm not a Colombian. my wife is, our family is, our friends are flying back to Bolaot to see the game with that community is because it means something that FIFA can't touch. Yes And I don't know what you guys talk about when you talk about nation building But the thing I think about all the time here domestically is how an understanding of sports and soccer at the most extreme end of the spectrum in terms of its ability to galvanize you know millions upon millions nine figures worth of people all the time the ability to understand sports so that you are not blindsided by its power is also really important. Yeah. becausecause it is in this areera in which everything is siloed and broken apart, it's the thing that resembles the big tent, as I often say on this show. And so being surprised and naive to its power is also at this point just a massive liability. if you're trying to Do anything resembling organizing? Right. One of the things I love about AFC Wimbledon as opposed to Liverpool, which I love, I've loved since I was a kid As opposed to any, you know modern football club or modern sports team is that You know The Kicks, That's an incredible story. It's amazing what they accomplish, what those players accomplish. But ultimately, like that's a billionaire's asset that's being used by that billionaire. And It's true for almost every soccer team in England, even the like lower league teams. I was in a meeting once Um with a guy and I was like, so who owns your football club? He was like the managing director and And he was like, Ohh, the Saudis And I was like, you're in the fourth division. You guys are terrible at this And so I think like We have to find ways build different structures and different systems where the fans actually do have the power And the New York Kicks can't become the Los Angeles Knicks next year if somebody decides that they want to. The city would burn to the ground. No, I know that Yeah see, that wouldn't happen because there is power in the people. there is power in the fandom And so I think that's important for everyone to understand. like you have more power as a fan than you maybe think you do. And I think about that whenever I watch European football. Yeah you know, I talk about this on the show, but like the Super League as this eye opening thing of like That was a populist, that was occupy Wall Street. Yeah But somehow more effective. They just rejected it out of hand and and the football clubs had to say like, okay, I guess we're going to back off. Within like seventy two hours. Yes. It was amazing. Yes. withithin three days, everyone was like, I guess the fans decided that we can't do this. And they couldn't. U I think about we've done episodes about the Bundesliga. I mean, in German football, there's a fifty plus one rule. Yeah Yeah. Could you explain justing All German football clubs are ultimately owned by their fans. fifty plus one percent of the club has to belong to the members. and the members are with very rare exceptions, a pretty large community. And so it's very difficult for a corporation to come in. Now it has happened occasionally Red Bull has done it successfully where they come in and kind of flood the membership of a small club and then build it up to become Redburg, Salzburg or whatever In general, those clubs are owned by their communities. and that's the way it's always been. And they're very they're very successful. I mean You could argue that maybe German football hasn't been as successful in the last twenty years as English football or Spanish football, but Brn Munich is still a huge club And they're owned by their fans. Yeah We did an episode about Shelulkazer four, which is within the fifty plus one model in which it's, you know, fifty one percent, just a majority. That's the concept of fifty plus one Yeah, they They finish first in their division. Yeah And they're getting promoted. They're going up to the B Laga. Yeah I guess my point is The large American sporting machine is not the only way that this has to be. Yeah And that's what soccer always reminds me of. I was like, oh, wait a minute. you guys have lots of money. You guys have all of these competing oligarchs and interests and incentives and you figured out that there's a different way. againg, FIFA being the apex predator of corruption. Yes, but at the team level, there are different ways you could own and operate these things. Yeah, absolutely I will say, I had the experience of covering the World Cup in Brazil for five weeks in twenty fourteen I was there for Brazil playing Germany. O, onene of the great catastrophes of human history. This is his arm, bzs ring around the studo Mineru in Balo Horizonti. The only word you can think of is total disbelief right now. Germany blew out Brazil seven to one And at no point in that entire game was it even cllose to uncertain know what was happening. It could have been worse than seven one and it could have really been worse. I just remember feeling like, oh, yeah, this is this is like This is a ninety minute funeral Yeah, and people are not leaving because it's the World Cup in Brazil. And of course, like you're not going to Get up and go I just don't know of a feeling that's quite like, what's the analogy for that There is something That's really hard to define about the mixture of pride in your team despite an unbelievably embarrassing showing. Pride in being the host country. This thing that you've been waiting for your whole life. And just knowing that you're being dunked on over and over again It's a particular kind of like, there should be a German word for that, I guess. Probably is and it has like fourteen syllables I mean I think you could argue that Brazilian soccer hasn't recovered Yeah, that And they won't recover until they win another World Cup because D There's just kind of no way to overstate the trauma of Yeah, Brazilians go into any tournament thinking that they can win. They think that there's this magical power associated with that jersey And it's the the team Pelle, it's the team of Romario it's the team of Ronaldino and Ronaldo It's a team of like Joy. It's a team of joy I was talking about this with a Brazilian friend. It's like a sad Irishman, we can get that and like a sad German Y. evenven like a sad Mexican like But like a sad Brazilian, there's something really like It's traumatic as an outsider to even view Brazilian sadness because becausecause we associate the country, the music, the culture with a kind of joy that has always been expressed on the pitch with the way they play. Right. stylistically in every way, culturally. Kind of it was like watching It was like watching this person you knew be lobotomized. Oh God, it was brutal Just like this isn't what you're like You could tell that they felt that on the pitch. Like they were looking at each other like what is happening? Who are we? what has occurred? And I think what people sometimes forget about that game is that Namar was really badly injured. like in a Within amm I wrong, Daniel? that he was within a couple centimeters of being paralyzed? Yeah in the previous game by a Colombian defender, ye. Yeah. And so he was really badly injured in a scary way And he was there Talisman and their expression The vast majority of them are there to like be in the right place at the right time and kick the ball to the right place. But then you need someone like Nymar or Limin Y Mal or Messy who who does have that genius, that understanding of space, that understanding of passes, and U And without that, they were just hopeless. Right. I will say this, I was in a cab yesterday going to the fan zone in Philly. And our Uber driver was Haitian And we were talking about the World Cup Um And he guaranteed me that Haiti would beat Brazil. Wow. Yeah. So When you talk about the long tail of that seven one, can you imagine U, like Here we are. you know, three World Cups later, four World Cups later. and there's a Haitian fan who is telling me with one hundred percent confidence that Haiti can be Brazil. imagine that before the seven one. it's unthinkable. Right Okay, look, we're this is a sports show Allegedly Who's winning the World Cup, John Greene I have no idea. and all predictions are stupid and they' they feed the ting machine that terrifies me Um, Spain Why are you laughing so hardartily? I'm laughing because I think I put Spain too and then after seeing them sort of flounder around and get bossed by Cape Bertdie, I'm doubting myself going to go with my heart. I'm going to say Colombia, even though that's very unlikely. It's very unlikely fine. I'll say the US. the U.S. They is going to win the worldld C. Colombia going to be a U. Canada final after the U.S. beats Colombia in the semis and we're going to beat Canada This a lot of pressure put on Jo Can you give the US men's national team a pep talk? Wow I want to see this. You've stepped in for those who are just listening. John Gan. Yeah. Okay. bestest selling, young adult, author, novelist. R G in the zone You either have to love something together or you have to hate something together. And the great thing about the twenty six players sitting in front of me right now is that you all hate your coach. And you're going to use that, you're going to use that hatred to bring yourselves together And you're going to express an American football identity that we've never seen before. that shifts the world so profoundly. that they will no longer call Both In America football, they'll call it American football. D that make sense? That wass great. I could see the eagle like appear. We're gonna to put music underneath there. The flag wave. That's great Yeah, I was hoping you would go with u And then she wrapped her hand around it and put it into her mouth. Oh my God are you And wa. We were both very still. She did not move a muscle in her body. I gota go. And I did not move a muscle in mine. I knew that at this point, something else was supposed to happen Yeah But I wasn't quite sure what. Pablo, I'm just gonna stop you right there and tell you that there are no adjectives in that entire scene. That's how unerotic it is. It's literally an adjectiveeless scene. I think the only adjective on that entire page is nervous. I could go on, but I think one of the worst things that ever happened to I could go on, but I think the US Med's national team gets the drift Wow That reads like a medical textbook. Thank you.. No, no, no, no, no. no, no no What that sounds like is freedom That' right an essential American value Thank you USA. Yeah, USA. This has been Pablo Torere findinds outut, a Meadalark media production And I'll talk to you next time