- 8 minutes ago
Adam Clery meets American YouTuber and Broadcaster Zealand to discuss if the United States actually have a reasonable shot at winning a shock World Cup, and how Football Manager is taking one player to Curaçao
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome back to the pod. I am Adam Cleary, absolutely slick with sun cream, and all you
00:06weird little freaks got your wish.
00:08We actually went and got Zealand for all of you. I don't mean, I don't mean to come on too
00:12strong, but we asked everybody before we came out here,
00:14who would you like to see us get up on the roof terrace to speak to, and your name came
00:19up more than every other name combined.
00:22You got over 50% of the comments.
00:25Wow, okay. I like how you called all of them freaks.
00:28Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they know, they know, they know, they know.
00:31Now, we're here to talk about a number of things, one of which being the World Cup that we are
00:35currently missing the first half of Brazil versus Japan for,
00:39so if we get any sort of notifications and hurry downstairs, you know why that is.
00:42But the main one, the most interesting thing, I think it sparked this off, is you're currently doing a little
00:47collaboration,
00:47not even a little collaboration, a very ambitious collaboration, I would say, with the good folks at Football Manager,
00:52to fly somebody to Curacao to have a holiday there, but only the best Curacao player on Football Manager.
01:00Do you want to give a better explanation of this than I will?
01:02It's a very fun idea. It's with Football Manager and the gaming side of FIFA,
01:07who are the guys that put on the Football Manager World Cup, so I kind of met them and hung
01:11out with them before I promised they're cool.
01:13And they basically went, you know, I do this documentary series called Hidden Grounds on YouTube,
01:19and they'd seen those and they were like, what if we combined your Football Manager stuff and your documentary stuff?
01:27And they're like, you probably want to make a documentary about Curacao anyways.
01:31Did you?
01:32We're going to.
01:33And so they're going to send us to make that documentary with the best person at playing Football Manager with
01:42Curacao.
01:42And when we say the best, because obviously they brought out the World Cup mode, the idea is, if you
01:47play as Curacao,
01:48is it whoever wins the World Cup, is whoever does the best?
01:51So, the original idea is whoever does the best.
01:54Obviously, there's enough sickos and freaks or whatever you call them.
01:57Right.
01:57That's you guys.
01:58Right over there.
01:59There's going to be multiple people that win it.
02:02It would be my guess.
02:03With Curacao.
02:03With Curacao.
02:04See, that's the kind of Football Manager achievement that if someone I knew jumped into some sort of group chat
02:08with,
02:09like, oh, you actually won the World Cup with Curacao?
02:10I'm like, no, you didn't.
02:11No, you didn't.
02:12Honestly, going to the Football Manager World Cup, which they put on, really opened my eyes to,
02:17these people will rip it 10,000 times.
02:19And they'll test their tactics with these different teams.
02:22And they'll have, oh, if I play this person, this is the tactic I'm going to use.
02:26And then they're going to submit all those save files.
02:28And the way I understand it, we're literally, like, there's going to be a certain number that they kind of
02:32filter out.
02:33And we're going to sit down and go through them.
02:34And I might even, like, interview multiple people.
02:36And then one person is going to come with us to film this documentary about Curacao and football.
02:42I should say that, considering company, in December.
02:45So your Football Manager skills could win you a free trip to the Caribbean.
02:49It's probably the first time that's ever been a sentence.
02:51First and only, I would suggest.
02:53Have you had a go at doing this?
02:54I did.
02:55And?
02:55No.
02:57No, it was, it's very, I back myself, obviously.
03:01I've played Football Manager far too much for any grown man.
03:04And I spent hours and hours and came up with a tactic that I thought was good.
03:09But for the authenticity of the YouTube video, I wanted to just, like, one try.
03:13Yeah, yeah.
03:13But I wasn't going to do 50 and see if I could pull.
03:16So I did it in one try.
03:17In the first 65 minutes, I was nil-nil with Germany.
03:20Great.
03:21That's better than Curacao did.
03:22Exactly.
03:22I thought I was king of the world.
03:24I was like, we're going to do it.
03:25You know, I've even had one shot in this game.
03:27And we ended up losing that match 4-0.
03:30And could never quite get the wheels back on the wagon after that.
03:33Because the morale, the morale took a bit of a hit.
03:36Really?
03:37From that one.
03:37I ended up with zero points.
03:39The goal difference was respectable.
03:40And we were, like, close for a while.
03:44But I got destroyed.
03:46Which means whoever goes on this trip, I have to admit, is better than me.
03:49So, I mean, obviously the third place ability to get out of the group is obviously very advantageous for a
03:53lot of teams.
03:54But unless I've misread that third place table, nobody got out on zero points.
03:58So that's obviously the same challenge.
04:00I know you haven't gone into the minutiae of the tactic you used.
04:03I cannot stress enough that the audience on this channel will want to know how you did that.
04:07Oh, right.
04:07Okay.
04:08You haven't got to worry about speaking to normal people.
04:10They will want to know how you set this team up.
04:12There wasn't a lot of attacking talent on this team.
04:14Okay.
04:14But you had the Bakunias.
04:16You had, I thought, a couple of competent defenders.
04:19The problem is they lacked height.
04:20So I'm thinking the way that I compensate for the fact that they lack height is gang defending.
04:25So we went with a five at the back, which, like, probably what you got to do anyways.
04:30And two more screening defensive midfielders.
04:35Okay.
04:36And then it was basically, to Heath Chong, do whatever the hell you want.
04:39Yep.
04:40And then they had a couple of wingers who, bless them, at least in football manager, not a lot of
04:45skill to go around.
04:46But they could run around.
04:47So you'd just kind of sub a new one in every 45 minutes and just have them run opposite to
04:51Heath Chong.
04:52And then you'd stick Juergen Licatia up at the nine and just hope he'd run into something.
04:56And for 65 minutes against Germany, it's actually working.
04:59It worked magnificently.
05:00We possessed well.
05:02Like I said, had a shot.
05:03I did score, I think, two goals in the Ecuador and Ivory Coast games combined.
05:07But the problem was that football managers clearly underestimated the ability of Curacao's players relative to what they could actually
05:18do.
05:18One would argue running this competition, then having undervalued several of these players, does make it extremely difficult for those
05:24entering.
05:24It does.
05:25It's a super difficult challenge.
05:26And there's a lot of steps taken, obviously, with you have to download the save file from the website.
05:30There's a lot of ways to finagle football manager to your advantage.
05:34We've all met them.
05:35Yes.
05:35We've met those guys.
05:37Look at you, Lelujo.
05:38We had a lot of meetings to curtail that.
05:41Because they would literally sit me down and be like, how would you cheat?
05:45And I would be like, well, I don't cheat.
05:47Great stress test.
05:48What if I was going to?
05:50If I was going to cheat, you know, if I was going to try to do this.
05:53So they designed it to be able to prevent as much of that as possible.
05:56So it should be a really fun experience.
05:58And I'm looking forward to just going on vacation with some random person.
06:01There is the possibility you've raised here that you end up going on this vacation with this person who has
06:06done unbelievable with Curacao.
06:08Devised the most genius tactic.
06:10Shocked the Germans.
06:11Held firm against Ecuador on the Ivory Coast.
06:13Then somehow rode through the most dramatic games in the history of football to win the World Cup with Curacao.
06:20And then halfway through this trip, breaks down in tears in front of you.
06:23Because actually he can't live the lie anymore and he cheated the whole thing.
06:27I can't do it.
06:28I can't do it anymore.
06:30If they somehow managed to get around all of the things that we put in the way and then cheated
06:33anyways, I think the video would be even funnier.
06:36I just wanted to meet you and I really needed a holiday.
06:39But I can't do it.
06:40This is like the start of some really dramatic horror movie where like a Zewin superfan who's rigged this whole
06:46thing to get me alone in Curacao.
06:48I had one million goes at this safe file knowing that the law of averages meant that eventually I would
06:53win the World Cup.
06:54I'm going to end up just, they're going to like ferry me away onto a boat and you'll never see
06:58me again.
06:58I'm going to be in the Bermuda Triangle with this person forever.
07:00There is a possibility, and I don't know why I'm letting my imagination wander this far.
07:03There's also the possibility that this person gets to Curacao and is immediately hailed as a national hero.
07:07It's the possibility, yeah.
07:08This is the dream of every football manager player is that you are eventually respected in the real world for
07:12your achievements on the game.
07:13Yes, and I've had this experience before and it's quite bizarre because I did a save with a team called
07:18Taunton Town.
07:19You're probably not familiar.
07:20Sixth division, now in the seventh division.
07:22And there was a guy on that team named Nick McCutty.
07:24Scored 50 goals for me in one.
07:27That's the most Bart Simpson ass name I've ever heard in my life.
07:28Great guy, classic non-league striker.
07:32Scored nearly 100 goals for me over two seasons.
07:34So just legendary performance.
07:36We get promoted, we get promoted.
07:37I go to Taunton Town, and I meet Nick McCutty.
07:41Are you sorry, he was at Taunton?
07:43You didn't bring him in, he was already at Taunton.
07:44He was already there.
07:45And so I go and I'm talking to the other players, and they go like, oh, who was the best
07:50player on the save?
07:51I was like, oh, Nick.
07:52Like, oh, yeah, what'd he do?
07:53I was like, he scored 100 goals.
07:54And the players looked at me, and they're like, I don't think he's scored 100 goals in his entire life.
07:59Including training.
08:00Including training.
08:01But Nick McCutty, who was great about it.
08:03Nick McCutty.
08:04He's great about it.
08:05He loved it.
08:06Like, there's something about being able to see yourself in a virtual world and seeing how amazing you were in
08:14that virtual world.
08:14Like, can you imagine what that would do for you if somebody came to you and you were like, hey,
08:17you scored 100 goals for me in my save.
08:19You're a legend.
08:20I'd be like, yeah.
08:22So the whole country, I guess, would have that experience.
08:25And the guys on the team, like Tahith or whatever, who's also involved in the challenge, would probably look at
08:29that and go, like, there's just a natural camaraderie.
08:33I think you're right.
08:33They've become a natural hero.
08:34I think when they get them back to Carissao, they're going to have to at least take one photo with
08:38him in some kind of official manager's jacket.
08:40I think he or she will have earned that.
08:42I lost my nerve when I was about to tell a player in real life what they'd done for me
08:46on Football Manager.
08:47I was at an Arbroath game and I'd managed to break the Celtic Rangers old firm dominance in Scotland with
08:54an Arbroath save.
08:54One of the greatest achievements going.
08:56And the current captain of Arbroath, he'd been somebody I'd eventually moved out.
09:01But in our first season in the top flight, I told him I wouldn't be renewing his contract.
09:05Right.
09:06But then later in the season, as we're trying to avoid relegation in this first time, he ends up coming
09:10in and doing a job out of position for me at right back.
09:13Puts his lack of morale aside and keeps us up with some of these performances.
09:16And I went up to him and I was just like, oh, it's a very, very, I think McKenna was
09:20in there.
09:20It's very nice to meet you.
09:21I just wanted to say thank you.
09:22And as I'm shaking his hand, he goes, for what?
09:25And I just sort of, you know, because a digital version of you put aside the ill feeling between us.
09:32Yeah.
09:32Because you value this club so much.
09:34You did a job while winding your contract down out of position and kept us in the division and gave
09:38us the platform to then springboard on and win the league.
09:39I spent just for being great, just for being, just for being such a great, just a great guy.
09:44Anyway, bye.
09:45And I really, I immediately regretted it.
09:48I have never had an experience.
09:49Actually, I've had one.
09:50Sorry.
09:51Where they, where they didn't, where they didn't enjoy it.
09:53And that experience is actually the guy on Curso.
09:55Jurgen Licatia.
09:56Awkward.
09:56I signed.
09:57And so the save I'm doing this year is a team called Malia, which is, and is Spanish exclave.
10:02So it's on the continent of Africa, but plays in the Spanish league.
10:05It's very interesting.
10:06Love that.
10:06Yeah, no, it's, so we're trying to win the Champions League from Africa.
10:09And I signed Jurgen Licatia when I was in the third division.
10:12And so when I met him at Curacao training, I thought I've only had good experiences.
10:16I got, oh, I signed you with this club called Malia and you were fantastic, like in the Spanish third
10:20division.
10:20And he goes, third division.
10:21He's like, how much do you pay?
10:22Am I a joke to you?
10:23Yeah, I know.
10:24He goes, how much do you pay me?
10:26And I was like, oh, no, it was like 120,000 a year.
10:29And he just went, I'm not signing that.
10:34I'm actually a really famous international at the World Cup now.
10:36Thank you very much.
10:37I actually, weirdly, I didn't know his history that he was like a real wonder kid in the Prem at
10:42one point.
10:42And he's had a very circuitous route to ending up at the World Cup with Curacao.
10:46But basically every word, by the way, that's the one and only time this will get used on any piece
10:51of content I recall.
10:52That's right.
10:53I do a word of the day.
10:54Sorry, I'm getting derailed here.
10:55Go back.
10:56Circuitous.
10:57Circuitous.
10:57Circuitous.
10:58Yeah.
10:58What does that mean?
10:59Like interesting?
11:00Not a straight, whatever the opposite of a straight route.
11:03A very like route.
11:05I'm going to write that down.
11:06So the current international mode on Fulton Manager, I've seen getting a lot of love, which
11:11I think is a very interesting thing I want to talk about because the new version of the
11:15game itself, divisive, I think is probably the word.
11:18I know some people who really loved it.
11:19I know some people who were immediately put off by it.
11:21You obviously are somebody who's really involved.
11:24For your own content, you play through the game.
11:25You do a lot of work with them.
11:26I've been in the building.
11:27I've spoke to the guys.
11:28For me, it's not just a product you can just dump on.
11:31It's real people who make this stuff.
11:33And I'm always very at odds to be like, you can't just outright say something terrible
11:38or bad because it's making video games is impossible now.
11:43It's so difficult.
11:44But I know a lot of people have gone away from the franchise.
11:48They'll come back on the next one.
11:49A lot of people felt the year-long wait wasn't great.
11:51But the international mode, I've seen getting so much.
11:53A lot of people have been like, actually, I'm kind of back in with this now.
11:57What's different about it?
11:58Well, I think it kind of fell in their lap.
12:00They got lucky.
12:01EAFC losing the FIFA license opened up the fact that they could get the World Cup and everything.
12:05But I think I've been begging for this for years.
12:08Football Manager, the barrier to entry is like an Olympic high jump.
12:11It's so hard to get into the game.
12:13To enter the game, you get into that database screen that's just emotionally, mentally, physically overwhelming.
12:19You're looking at this whole database screen and you're like,
12:21for somebody like me that I only want to start one save ever in any game.
12:25So I'm Googling for hours before I start a new game in any game.
12:29I'm Googling the perfect settings and whatever.
12:31And in Football Manager, there is no right answer to that.
12:33So I would open that screen a dozen times and leave.
12:36But what the international mode does is it skips that for you.
12:39It goes, we're going to drop you into the World Cup.
12:42I've been begging for them to do that for a long time because the best good games,
12:47and Football Manager is a good game, but it has a huge issue in that it's the barrier to entry.
12:51Good games drop you off at the most fun part of the game instantly.
12:56When you start FIFA, or EAFC, sorry.
13:02When you start playing EAFC, what's the first thing that happens?
13:06You get dropped into the Champions League final.
13:08That's the first game before you even go into anything.
13:12They show you what's possible.
13:12They show you what's possible.
13:13You then get under the hood and see everything you can do and you find the stuff that you like.
13:17Yeah, they don't drop you into manager creation.
13:21I'm trying to think of an example of something in EAFC that sucks.
13:24Or like, you know, selecting 15 cards for your ultimate team or something.
13:29They drop you into the most fun part of the game.
13:31And I think the international mode drops you more directly into,
13:35oh, I'm watching the World Cup.
13:36I'm really into the World Cup.
13:37What if I was doing the World Cup?
13:39Yeah, what if I was doing the World Cup?
13:42With something like soccer to me, football to you, sometimes you get the itch.
13:48The World Cup, the Euros, Copa America, the later stages of the Champions League,
13:53the title run in the Prem, you get the itch.
13:56You watch a team make a run in the FA Cup, you're like, oh, I really want to do that.
14:00Now football managers finally provided like a, I'm watching the World Cup.
14:04I have the itch.
14:05Let me go play the World Cup.
14:06And there's no frills about it.
14:07You can just jump right in.
14:09It's awesome.
14:09Other than Curacao, have you done any saves with it?
14:11I have done, I did U.S.
14:13The U.S. save at the World Cup feels almost out of nowhere like a really, really fun one to
14:19do.
14:20I'll tell you.
14:21I mean, we'll get onto the U.S. team's chances at the World Cup in a bit,
14:23but I know there's a lot of people sort of being a bit sniffy and saying,
14:26yeah, but who have they played?
14:27Yeah, they're not really impressed.
14:28Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're getting carried away here.
14:31But I think some of their play, like in both phases,
14:34has been genuinely way, way better than a lot of people appreciate.
14:37And I think that's showing that the talent in the squad is actually better than a lot of people expected.
14:42So it's a really appealing save to do.
14:44Yeah, I mean, if you said we're going to talk about it later, I'll stick to my football manager stuff.
14:48But I think the reason a lot of that success is happening is because Potch is using a very similar
14:52tactic to the one I deployed in my save.
14:55Had you told him?
14:55Yeah, I wrote a letter.
14:57I mean, I know a guy who knows a guy.
15:01And the janitor.
15:02I set my tactic up very similarly to the way that they're setting it up.
15:05Unfortunately, that ended against Belgium in the last 16.
15:08So I'm hoping that in that sense, I was wrong.
15:11I don't think that tactic ending against Belgium in the last 16 would be seen as an absolute disaster by
15:16this country.
15:17That'll be five games in.
15:19Belgium, that would disappoint me to go out to Belgium if I was the US.
15:22I think from what I've seen from both of those teams, they are more than capable of beating Belgium.
15:27Belgium look all over the place.
15:29But a last 16 run, I don't think it's where this is supposed to end.
15:32But that's five games you'd have played at this point.
15:35It's tricky because I think the US for a long time was, Australia is the new US to me, where
15:41the United States was this team that overachieved relative to its talent level.
15:44I mean, we were rolling out Matt Beisler and like third division Julian Green and Kyle Beckerman.
15:49And we were getting to the last 16.
15:51I mean, with those guys in a roster, we finished ahead of Portugal at the 2014 World Cup and got
15:57to the knockouts.
15:57So unfortunately, because we continued to overachieve with under-talented teams, the expectation really is like, we've been to the
16:06round of 16 a lot.
16:08We've been in 2014, we went in 2022, we went in 2010.
16:12Like three of the last four World Cups the United States has been in the last 16.
16:15The hurdle that gets us every time is big stage, all the lights, really good European team.
16:21Yeah, the thing about the US is I think their achievements at the World Cup are undervalued.
16:27But other than the nil-nil with England, there's very little sort of moments to hold up and be like,
16:33look what we did.
16:34Yeah.
16:35Look when we did, look at that.
16:36You can't show people that one game.
16:38You can just sort of show them, well, these are reasonable achievements relative to the squad.
16:42And that's not going to get people's imagination going.
16:44I think what's gotten people's imagination going at this World Cup, a lot of my group techs, even the guys
16:50that aren't into soccer,
16:51what's really got them going, is we're not just winning where it's, oh, we're kind of winning in spite of
16:58ourselves.
16:59Or, you know, we look like the worst team.
17:012014, we look like the worst team in every game we played.
17:03But we grinded it out.
17:05Yeah, you're not going to win people over by grinding stuff out.
17:08Exactly.
17:08In 2022, we got to the knockouts, but it was like Christian Pulisic scoring one goal against Iran with his
17:14pelvis.
17:15Like, and that was it, right?
17:17It wasn't like this, it wasn't a sexy game.
17:21And Paraguay captured a lot of the U.S. imagination because it was a sexy game.
17:26Oh, they were brilliant.
17:26They were so, so good.
17:27Yeah.
17:28So good.
17:28And then against Australia, it was like, it was another sexy game, at least in the first half, where they
17:34just kind of dominated it.
17:36We did a video sort of analyzing it, and I was like, yeah, they were great in the first half
17:39again.
17:39They were really, really good without their most attacking player.
17:43And then in the second half, they did the part that actually wins your games at a World Cup.
17:47And they were like, yeah, look, if we keep pushing forward here, there's every chance we sort of let Australia
17:51win.
17:51So let's not.
17:52Yeah.
17:52They suffered, as people like to say.
17:54And Australia then dominate large parts of the second half and create nothing.
17:59Like, they literally just shut the game down.
18:01And then, obviously, the Turkey game, they rotate lots of players.
18:03It's a great game to watch.
18:04And after they brought Pulisic on, they could have ran away with that very comfortably.
18:08So the result's sort of irrespective to me.
18:10I think they've been so, so good to watch.
18:12And that's the kind of thing you write that's going to get people who don't really give the sport a
18:16chance.
18:16Like, oh, wow, that's actually really good.
18:18Look how fast he ran.
18:19And he ran past all these people.
18:21That's really exciting.
18:22If you know NFL, the team, the Oakland Raiders, who've since moved to Las Vegas, they had an owner named
18:28Al Davis.
18:28And his famous quote was, just win, baby.
18:31Because there would always be a ton of controversy around his team.
18:34You know, somebody would get arrested for robbing a liquor store or something.
18:39And that would be, you know, it was just win.
18:41And the whole, I think, U.S. sporting infrastructure, like when you look at the Olympics,
18:45anytime we're competing against other countries, you either win or we don't care.
18:49Right?
18:49And people, like I talk about this with English people particularly.
18:52And it's always an interesting conversation because there's this, like, English ethos of, like, fandom is pain.
18:58And that you have to suffer.
19:00Or, like, there's no...
19:01You earn your position in a club history by going through all the bad times.
19:05Where, in your version, then, is motivating the team by, like, you're always there.
19:10Yep.
19:11Motivating that.
19:11The way that Americans motivate competitors is, you either win or we don't care.
19:16Yep.
19:17Bad NFL teams, stadiums, they leave at halftime.
19:21They go to the game with bags on their heads and then leave at halftime after booing the team.
19:24Right?
19:25Like, the way that you bully your team.
19:27It doesn't mean you care less.
19:28The way you bully your team into winning is, like, oh, you know, screw you guys.
19:32You suck.
19:33We're not even gonna...
19:34So, the U.S. team on the men's side, because the women have already kind of cleared this hurdle.
19:38And for a very long time, I don't know if it's still the case, the most watched soccer match,
19:43men's or women's, in U.S. history, was women's World Cup final against Japan when the U.S. won.
19:48The men's team has yet to produce a moment where they can really be embraced as winners.
19:53The Gold Cup and Nations League don't really count, because most people don't know what those are.
19:57Copa America might, if they could beat a Messi or Brazil.
19:59Yeah, if they beat a Brazil or an Argentina, that would help.
20:01But that's what I said coming into this tournament, is I'm like, I don't care if it's the round of
20:0432 or the round of 16 or the freaking final.
20:07The U.S. has to show up and beat a team that Americans will look at and go, that's a
20:13soccer country.
20:14Like, that's a team we shouldn't beat.
20:16And if America can show up and beat one of those teams, that's when that final switch flips.
20:20I'm trying to think about their side of the draw.
20:22I'm not going to go, you know, ABC7 reporter and disrespect Bosnia, because it's a bad idea.
20:27That felt like a bit of a step backwards, giving her positive.
20:31I actually have a degree in broadcast journalism, so I went to school with a lot of those people that
20:35work in local news.
20:36And that's the most local news thing I've ever seen, where, like, they're just so focused on trying to get,
20:40like, a few more eyeballs on their report
20:43that they end up saying something that the entire country of Bosnia can, like, grab onto.
20:47And they're already so fired up, you don't need to give them anything else.
20:50Oh, the Bosnian official Instagram account is really going after that poor woman.
20:53Yeah, they went after me, actually.
20:55The Bosnians?
20:56The Bosnians, yeah.
20:57Well, they, I made these silly videos on Instagram where I would, like, pretend to be different teams reacting to
21:04their group stage draw.
21:05Yes, they're very good.
21:06They are very good.
21:08I'm not Bosnian, obviously.
21:10I did one with Switzerland where I made fun of the rest of the group that Switzerland was in.
21:14You know, like, Switzerland was pretending.
21:16And I called the name Bosnian Herzegovina made up.
21:20And it is part of, like, the joke.
21:22And the Bosnian account replied, stay humble.
21:25And I was like, ah, all right.
21:27And so it's fitting now that the U.S. is playing Bosnia.
21:29So the U.S. has to handle that.
21:31And we don't have a good record against European nations, no matter where they're from.
21:35And they have a sleeper agent on their team.
21:37Bayrak Tarevic was born and raised in Wisconsin.
21:38Yes, they keep doing news reports on him.
21:41No, the U.S., oh, we should have.
21:44I thought we were going to get him, but I don't think he was ever going to play for anybody
21:47but Bosnia.
21:48He played for the U.S. youth teams.
21:49And I remember watching and going, wow, this kid's good.
21:51And then all of a sudden, next time I see him, he's scoring against Italy in a penalty shootout.
21:55They're going to be pinning up little videos of you and that news reporter on the dressing room door.
21:58Yeah, apparently.
21:59They've got someone who should be playing.
22:00I mean, the narrative's quite strong here.
22:01It is.
22:02But what we need is, no matter how much motivation we accidentally give them, we need to be able to
22:07win that game.
22:08If we want to be who we think we should be, yeah, we need to be able to win that
22:13game.
22:13I said ahead of the Australia game that, like, it almost feels like that's the biggest game in the history
22:17of soccer in this country.
22:19Because everybody who cares about the World Cup and cares about the football watched the Paraguay game.
22:24They were already in.
22:25And they've gone and dismantled this other team from South America.
22:28Played really good.
22:29All of a sudden, the vibes are high.
22:30And you've got every friendship group in America, where some of them care about this and some of them don't.
22:34They're going, we're really, you've got to watch this next game.
22:37We've got a real chance to top in this group.
22:39Like, Australia, there's this quote-unquote sporting rivalry with.
22:41There's something there.
22:42And they'll have brought all these extra people over and be like, this is the game where you give it
22:46a chance.
22:47And they started really well.
22:48Yeah, probably dragged on a bit.
22:49But by that point, everyone's in the bars.
22:51They're four or five drinks in.
22:52They were great at the start.
22:53You've got people hooked.
22:54And then I think they did a good job of lowering the expectations of the Turkey game.
22:59All the new sports are like, they're going to make changes.
23:00They've already topped the group.
23:01They've done the job.
23:02Yada, yada.
23:03We're going to rest these.
23:04Great thing I heard.
23:05I can't remember what TV channel it was.
23:06It was like, well, we should rest these guys because they're on yellow cards.
23:09And somebody was like, well, you know, maybe they get to the day of the game and they're not on
23:12yellow cards.
23:13You know, it might be.
23:13I was like, no, it's not.
23:14It's not an injury.
23:15It's not something you wake up with.
23:16That's a formal thing.
23:18But I think this Bosnia game now, that's now the biggest game because it's like, these are the stakes.
23:24We're in the knockouts.
23:25We conceivably can go further than we've ever gone before.
23:28And Bosnia are a team where they, the US should be favorites.
23:32Yeah.
23:33If they play well, they beat them.
23:34But if they end up tripping up here, then it almost feels like all the positivity and the goodwill and
23:40the momentum that built up with the rest of the country, that maybe just goes on.
23:44What's the point in any of this?
23:46And yeah, I think you're right.
23:48I don't want to put a bunch of pressure on the players.
23:49I don't think they're going to watch this, but I think we can get over saying it.
23:52Or put just pressure on it in general.
23:54But I think if you lose this game, I think it undoes all the work that's done over the course
23:57of this tournament.
23:57I think if you're just looking at it from a branding perspective and you think about the fact that 51
24:03% of Americans won't really know anything about Bosnia and Herzegovina's national team, like losing to a team with an
24:12unrecognizable brand.
24:13That's it.
24:14As silly as it sounds, because Bosnia and Herzegovina is a very capable team.
24:17They play the way they play.
24:18Like, we were going to have most of the ball.
24:20They're going to look for their set pieces.
24:21We're going to have to be really brave and aggressive and like all hopped up on Mountain Dew to handle
24:26it.
24:26Absolutely not a game, you know.
24:27No, no, no, no.
24:28I think they've proved that in all the games that they've played.
24:31Switzerland only got away from them in the last 10 minutes or whatever.
24:33But I think that it's just an absolute must win.
24:36Where the Belgium won, presumably it would be Belgium coming after it.
24:39The way they've played in this tournament, I guess I can't assume anything.
24:42That game would not necessarily be like you have to win for this tournament to have a positive impact.
24:47But I think if we want it to have the impact that it could have, quarterfinals.
24:54The U.S. made the quarterfinals in 2002.
24:57Germany put them out with it?
24:59Yeah.
24:59And that's still some controversy about, like, the U.S. thinks that there should have been a goal.
25:03There was a goal that was not given.
25:05But you've got to at least equal the farthest run in the modern era.
25:09I don't want to get carried away with this, but almost Belgium is the best thing that could conceivably happen
25:15to football in this country.
25:16Because they've got the brand name.
25:18A lot of people know that there's lots of Premier League players come from Belgium.
25:21There's recognisable.
25:22De Bruyne is there.
25:23Lukaku is there.
25:24People heard of.
25:24But they are not good.
25:26They have got a lot.
25:28Well, I didn't say that.
25:29I didn't say that.
25:30Honestly, I would be, if I was the U.S., I would, I'd be more confident playing Belgium than I
25:35would be playing Bosnia.
25:37I just, I think that Belgium team's almost a perfect team for this U.S. side to exploit because there's
25:42not a lot of pace.
25:43They don't really control the ball very well.
25:45They've got a lot of big name stars, but they're all at the very sort of end of their careers.
25:48And in a really high energy game, they'd struggle against a team like the U.S.
25:52But the thing is, most people in this country don't know that.
25:55They just know that Belgium is, as you say, that's a proper, soft nation.
26:00And if they beat them, it doesn't matter to them that this is a nation that feels like it's on
26:04the decline a bit.
26:06If they beat them, all of a sudden it's like, we can beat anybody.
26:09I think the vibe in this country, if they beat Belgium, would be like, all of a sudden everyone would
26:14just decide they cared.
26:16It's like, for a lot of Americans, the World Cup is exactly like the Olympics for, I've been searching for
26:21a way to compare this for a long time.
26:23It's like the Olympics for most other countries, where you don't know the best British shot putter coming in.
26:28But the moment it's on, you're emotionally invested.
26:32Oh, yeah, yeah.
26:32Like, who the best, you know, oh, like the announcers all of a sudden go, yeah, there's this, like, there's
26:36this lad from Scotland.
26:37He throws a rock real far.
26:39Like, you go, oh, wait, hold on.
26:41I would die for this, man.
26:42I've been in a pub beer garden, shearing equestrian.
26:46Like, you're the horse with a little trot to the side.
26:48I've been in a pub beer garden where everyone's like, yes!
26:51No, and that's, like, if you're, you know, a lot of Americans are into soccer.
26:54Obviously, I'm one of them.
26:56But for the large amount that aren't, it's like the Olympics, where they've now watched three matches,
27:03and they think Weston McKinney is the greatest thing since sliced bread, right?
27:06They're like, this guy is amazing.
27:08I would die for Weston McKinney, right?
27:10And I think you're right.
27:11If they beat Belgium, then the mainstream sports media in the country,
27:18which is usually made up of older dudes that don't know soccer as much,
27:21would be forced to pay attention to it.
27:24Not to write off Bosnia, but I think it's such a really good...
27:27Like, go into your head.
27:28What do you think they're going to do in this tournament?
27:30Bosnia's challenged.
27:31We don't even know if it is Belgium in the next round.
27:32And what does your instinct tell you that is going to happen here?
27:36Look, the U.S. has, at least for the last four years, I think, been a really, really talented team.
27:42Just, if you look at the players objectively, and you, like, remove the fact that it's the U.S.
27:46and we're, like, the easiest thing to make fun of, of all time.
27:49That talent is now playing better than its talent level.
27:53Yeah.
27:54Like, for the first time in a while, we are more than the sum of our parts in terms of
27:58the way we're playing
27:58and the way it's flowing and Pochettino's aura that he's put together.
28:02The tactic you sent him as well.
28:04Yeah, exactly.
28:04Well, I mean, look, I'm trying not to take too much credit, but if I have to.
28:08The, for me, I will be disappointed very if we don't make the quarterfinal.
28:14And that might be unrealistic, but that's where I'll be at.
28:16But I legitimately think that if we get help, and what I mean by that is I think our run
28:23would be, like, Spain, France, Argentina.
28:25If you're talking, we can't, we're not, no, no, we're not going to beat all three of those.
28:30I know that.
28:31Okay?
28:32We won't beat all three of those.
28:33Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:34But what I'm saying is if we get help, if Spain four years ago lost to Morocco on penalties, right?
28:40If, assuming we don't get the best case scenario in terms of, like, world ranking at each level,
28:48I do think there's a chance that we can win this tournament.
28:51It's non-zero.
28:52And I think for the, that's, if I'm looking even at 2022,
28:56I would have said that we basically have a 0% chance of winning this tournament.
28:59I can't even smirk.
29:01I can't even pull a face because I'm in the middle of doing, by popular demand,
29:05a video on what realistically are the chances of them winning it.
29:08And as much as the answer is none, the answer is also not none.
29:12Yeah.
29:13It would be, it would probably, it would be the biggest sporting upset of all time.
29:17I, the interesting thing is I don't, I don't think it would be that because I think the
29:23World Cup has actually been held hostage by a consistency of the top teams in a way that
29:29no other tournament in international football or really anywhere, only eight teams have ever
29:34won.
29:34That's a fluke.
29:35It's a fluke.
29:36It's a fluke, the fact that there hasn't been a team that just has a good tournament
29:43that goes and wins the thing.
29:45So it's similar with the Champions League because there's very, very rarely do you get an outsider.
29:50Like Porto's the example everybody goes back to, rank outsiders to win it.
29:53You very rarely get a team winning the Champions League that aren't considered good enough
29:58to win the Champions League in advance.
29:59The difference with the World Cup is that Spain had never been considered as being anywhere
30:03near the level required to go, good players, good club sides.
30:07But the way, the four-year cycle means that you know when a team is going to be good enough
30:11to win a World Cup years before the World Cup actually comes around.
30:14Like that Spain side was considered the most talented team in the world well before the
30:17World Cup came around.
30:18They didn't shock anybody.
30:19No.
30:19And that's the difference here with something like the US is, well, that would be the shock
30:23though.
30:23I think this is the most talented side the US have ever had on this stage, but they're
30:26not considered at the level where it's like, hey, do you know what?
30:30They could be real, real dark horses.
30:32And this is where I think the difference we were talking about earlier between like the
30:37English sporting mindset and the US sporting mindset really comes in handy because I think
30:41the football world is dominated by this English sporting mindset in a lot of areas where you
30:47don't, if you say that you want to win something, you're presumptive, you're arrogant.
30:55If I can provide my very American perspective on this, because I learned this sport naturally.
31:00I didn't, my parents weren't into it.
31:01My grandparents weren't into it.
31:03They still don't know the offside rule.
31:04I'm trying.
31:04But when I came into it at first and I would watch these teams in the FA Cup go like,
31:09oh yeah,
31:09we're probably going to lose.
31:10This is going to be a really tough game.
31:12Like there is, you would be fired in five minutes if you were an NFL coach talking like
31:17that.
31:17Like you can't in American sports culture, even if it's obvious that you're disadvantaged,
31:23you're like bullied out of talking like that because you have to believe you can win.
31:29That's just like the, you know, like there's no point in the chat.
31:32Yeah, exactly.
31:33We have to believe that we can win.
31:35And what I've really loved is the American team.
31:37I'm, and I've come full circle on this too, because initially when I got into soccer,
31:41I wanted to be like, I wanted to just be a part of a European crowd of like, I wanted
31:47the European fan experience.
31:49And my growth as a fan has been being comfortable being a fan of soccer, but also being American
31:55about it.
31:55And I think the team has gotten more comfortable with that as well because Chris Richards sat
32:00down and he was like, we want to win.
32:02The foreign press will be like, well, how far do you think you can get in this tournament?
32:05He's like, obviously we want to like, we want to win the whole thing.
32:08And I think the whole team, like Pochettino saying, why not us, which is a famous American
32:13sports ism from the 2004 Boston Red Sox that came back from down 3-0, which is a niche reference
32:18for I'm sure most of the people watching this, but they, they said, why not us?
32:22And they did something that had never happened before.
32:24So I think the greatest advantage the U S can have from this point on is leaning into that
32:29American, like reckless optimism that is usually unfounded entirely, but just believing that
32:34it's possible to do it.
32:35It's a terrible analogy to use given the temperature and how badly I'm cooking here.
32:39But this, it does feel like the potential of this to snowball is like with every passing
32:44round.
32:44The advert, I think it's the best advert I've seen during the world cup.
32:48I think it's the Budweiser one where they're literally just like, they're about to score
32:51a goal against Brazil in the last minute and win the world cup.
32:53Right.
32:53And all the players are in this advert.
32:55And it's what happens in the country when the U S have won the world cup.
33:00And it's so unashamedly just front loads it with, this is what it'll be like when we win.
33:05And then it cuts at the end of the two guys in the bar.
33:07And he's like, we don't actually think they can, they can win it though.
33:09Do you?
33:10And it's lost on me.
33:10Old guy at the bars.
33:11Don't, well, you don't believe miracles.
33:13I don't know who that is.
33:14That's lost on me, but I gather it must be somebody.
33:16Oh, it's the best part of the commercial because the American mindset is founded on this random
33:21stuff that's happened in history, right?
33:22And that guy at the end of that Budweiser commercial is the captain of the 1980 men's
33:27hockey team that upset the Soviet union after 20 years of the Soviets winning.
33:33I'm aware of that happening.
33:33Is that him?
33:34So he's the captain.
33:35His name's Mike Arruzzioni.
33:36And just like when I got, you know, my American birth certificate, I had to memorize his name,
33:41you know, like, um, he's a legend and he's a legend of this moment where it was a bunch
33:46of college kids playing all these grown professional, you know, but they weren't professional.
33:51So they could play at the Olympics, like Soviet hockey players.
33:54And they lost, uh, I think they lost like nine, one, two, three months before the tournament,
33:59but then they showed up in the Olympics and they beat him.
34:01So it's one of those examples of like, everybody always talks about it.
34:04Half the battle is believing you can do it.
34:06And if there's one thing that Americans have figured out how to do, it's believing that
34:10you can do it.
34:11And, uh, so him being at the end of that commercial is like an homage to, this might
34:17seem impossible, but we've done it before.
34:19Do you know what?
34:20I don't mind, I don't mind saying it.
34:21That Budweiser advert from the first day I was here, that, that won me over, man.
34:27I was like, God, maybe that then, cause I watched that and thought it would be really
34:30cool if it actually did do really well in this.
34:31And then watch the Paraguay game.
34:32I left the bar for the Paraguay game going, oh my God, they're going to win the World
34:35Cup.
34:36Oh my God, they're actually going to win the World Cup.
34:39Um, Zealand, I could sit out here talking about this for another six or seven hours, but I've
34:43just felt an entire bead of sweat run down a part of my body.
34:45I didn't know I had glands in, so I'm going to wrap it up there.
34:48Thank you so much for joining us about this.
34:50I cannot wait to hear who wins the Curacao competition.
34:53I cannot wait for your face when you turn up at the airport.
34:56And it's me, by the way, this is all an elaborate ruse.
34:58I've had, I've had multiple friends text me threatening, like, I'm going to try this.
35:02Yeah, what if it was me, bro?
35:02Yeah, exactly.
35:03And yeah, we'll be in touch when the US have won and we'll talk about doing.
35:06Hopefully.
35:07We can sit here smuggling and be like, yeah, remember how we said when they beat Belgium?
35:10It's all to play for.
35:11Is there anything you would like to plug to the audience?
35:13Anywhere that you'd like them to find you?
35:14On YouTube, Zealand, uh, Zealandism, who copies me doing stuff sometimes, um, stream some
35:20Football Manager on, on Zealand on Twitch.
35:22But look, there's 31 teams left.
35:23There's a recording that can win the World Cup.
35:25We're one of them.
35:26So are you, probably.
35:27So enjoy it.
35:28And as I'm sure you're wearing, get me across all the socials at Adam KBC, L-E-R-Y.
35:32Tom, you all right back there?
35:33I really have worried about it.
35:34You've got a hat on, which is good, but are you okay?
35:37I've got a hat on something.
35:38Oh, brilliant.
35:39Right.
35:39Well, thank you so much for joining us.
35:40And again, thanks to Zealand for being the one guest you all wanted.
35:43And you can never ask me for anything again because you got this.
35:46Uh, goodbye.
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