Gab and Juls: Spain Strike Gold!

0:00As soccer takes center stage this summer, Comcast helps bring the experience home to America. As the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the U.S., Telemundo is set to present its most expansive coverage ever. 700 hours of programming, live on-site presence at all 104 matches, and with multi-view and real-time 4K, Xfinity will deliver the most innovative and immersive sports viewing experience for fans watching on Telemundo, Peacock, Fox, and FS1. Learn more at ComcastCorporation.com. The Gab and Jules show is presented by Gusto.

0:49I'm Gab, he's Jules. Jules, we will soon need to familiarize ourselves with the weather in London, but we're still in New York. and we have new world champions. We're coming to you. We're just a few miles away from exit 16W of the New Jersey Turnpike, where Spain became world champions for the second time, beating Argentina 1-0. I'm just going to sit this straight at the top, Jules. Fair result. I suspect we'll agree on this one.

1:16Julien Laurens:Yeah, absolutely. The best team on the day and probably of the whole tournament won this final, deservedly so. The team that played football, the only team of the two that played football, will get to Argentina and the disgraceful performance later on. But for Spain, it's the victory of trying to play, trying to play the right way, finding a way of breaking down quite a resilient defensive team, team down to 10 men as well, and finally finding it on quite a nice move from Pedro Porro to Nico Williams to then Ferran Torres, the super sub and the depth of that Spanish squad winning them the World Cup.

1:51So you're right. I think we need to, in these situations where it's natural for us in the media to say, oh, what did Argentina do wrong? And I think they did a lot wrong. But I think we need to start by honoring Spain. Because this is a tournament in which they played eight games. They conceded one goal throughout the tournament.

2:13And what strikes me is when I look at the raw material, when I look at the personnel that Luis de la Fuente has, two things spring to mind. One is that you can say, all right, but they're the European champions. They won. Yes, but at the Euros, they played differently. At the Euros, they had two wingers in top form, Nico Williams and Lamin-Germain. They could play possession, but then they would switch it up quickly, and they were absolutely devastating. Here, in some ways, it almost reminded me like a throwback to the early Barcelona teams, where they did such a good job in possession, but also they would attack you very quickly when they lost the ball, they created turnovers they were calm, they were disciplined they were smarter than the opposition throughout the tournament and that's down to the players of course but De La Fuente as well

3:02Julien Laurens:Yeah, he's done a really good job to be fair in the last four years or so building this team, this collective strength that they have they're the team that plays the best football that plays the most together as well the togetherness I think is very important both in position and off position So they've been, without really having been tested that much, because their toughest game was probably Portugal, where they won it late. And even that, that was not a great Portugal team. They also lost Nuno Mendes before the hour mark anyway. But yeah, it's been pretty comfortable for them throughout the whole tournament, including in this final where they were never tested.

3:36Yeah, we talk about the testing, but it's also like a lot is a credit to them. Because you say that, and I hate to bring this up again, but they did beat France, who I think are not just the most talented team in the tournament, but should have been the best team in the tournament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't show up on the day. They didn't show up, but I think also Spain had a lot to do with them. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, they were good, but... When I look at this, what strikes me, too, is the calm throughout this team. And I think about it against Cape Verde, when they take a billion shots and they just can't score, and they're like, oh my God, what's going to happen?

4:10You know, other teams would have panicked. What's the reaction going to be like against Uruguay when it turns into a goon fest? Against Portugal, where it still took the late, late goal. And it's Portugal. You have individual match winners. Against France, where they thoroughly outplayed France. We say France didn't show up. But you know, one slip, one mistake. Dembele to Mbappe, and you're toast. And then France could have turned it on at any time. It didn't. And then in this final, where Argentina decided to go physical, early on, you could have rattled them, but they didn't allow themselves to get rattled.

4:49And to me this is tremendous. I can't speak enough about Luis de la Fuente, but also about these players. Because we were talking off air before, you compare this to the 2010 team, you do the combined 11, I think you might get two guys in. Yamal for Pedro, maybe Cucurea for Cap de Villa. I mean, that team, you have Sergio Ramos, you have Pique at the back, you've got Puyol, you've got Casillas in goal, you have Xavi, Xavi Alonso, Iniesta, Busquets, David Villa. I mean, that was a team of superstars.

5:24Julien Laurens:This is a team where one superstar, Yamal, followed instructions, played like a cog in a machine. The other superstar, Pedri, was benched in the last couple of games, came on, contributed. and we had so many of these players who were coming off really difficult seasons. I know I said it before, but I think it's worth repeating myself. Other than Paulo Coberti, I don't think you can find one player on the Spain team whose club had a successful club season this past season or who wasn't injured. Right? Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if that gives you an extra motivation. It means that just mental energy, you're more prepared for this World Cup, this is what you have to look forward to, it gives you more focus, which maybe other players wouldn't have had.

6:14But the way Luis de la Fuente channeled that, I thought was tremendous.

6:18Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, if you look at Rodri's season, and I think Guardiola said in April, that because of the kind of up and down season he had with City domestically, then he was probably going to be fresher and more ready for the World Cup. There might be others in that, you know, in that situation, like Laporte, maybe but there's also some players who had a good season domestically with their club too. So I don't know. I think they just don't panic because they know what they're good at. They do what they're good at. They know also that on the day, nobody can match certainly their possession and the way they move the ball.

6:53Julien Laurens:And if they move the ball, you can try to be physical like Argentina were today. And you don't get close to them. You don't get near them. You can't rattle them because I think they are, again, very good at what they do. So it's very difficult to play against them. All right, let's talk about Argentina. Throughout this tournament, Scaloni made a decision. It was very obvious. They're saying we're going to... This is Messi's last World Cup. He delivered two Copa Americas. He delivered the World Cup before. We're just going to cater to him, and we're going to have everything functioning around him.

7:28Messi's 39 years old. Age is not just a number when it comes to football. This means that when you're not in possession, Messi's going to start walking around the pitch. like he did in the last World Cup. Everybody has to work that much harder. They played narrower. I mean, it changed a little bit in the last two games because we saw Giuliano Simeone. And then this time around, we saw, for some reason, Nico Gonzalez. Again, if you're going to bring in, make an allowance for a quicker player who's going to do something, why not choose the guy with quality instead of Nico Gonzalez? But whatever.

7:59The upshot of it is that this is a terrible strategy against a team like Spain because you're never going to see the ball.

8:05Julien Laurens:Yeah, I mean, this is the only game plan they have. They can't have another game plan. They don't know any other ways of playing. So in this tournament, we've said it from the beginning, they were very underwhelming in every game that they've played, certainly in the knockout phase of it, against Cap Verde, against Egypt, against England. It's a team that, outside of Messi's moment of magics, and by the way, he had those moments, but they were not consistent through the whole game because he can't play 90 minutes at that kind of level anyway. That's the nature of magic. It's not consistent. Exactly.

8:38Julien Laurens:So especially at his age and especially with the team around him. So I think England should have beaten them anywhere. For me, as you know, I think France would have beaten them in the final. I think there's many other teams in this World Cup. Had they played Argentina in a World Cup final, probably would have won two or in another semifinal. So they show their limits today because the game plan, again, even if they try to change a little bit at halftime, And it just gets to a point where when you play against that kind of opposition in Spain or another top team, it just can't happen for you. So they tried to do, they tried to turn the game physical.

9:14They tried to rattle them. We saw, it's not just the, you know, we saw some heavy tackles. But also kind of like a lot of little shoves off the ball, a lot of head-to-head. And I was just surprised. Spain was not responding. Well, I don't, why were you surprised? They've never responded to things like that.

9:33Julien Laurens:Because they're humans. Because they're humans. Because there's a competitive nature to it. And Argentina, I think, have been very good at making people play that game. They certainly were able to against England. You ask me why I'm not surprised. Well, I'm not surprised because I am a little surprised. And it's a credit to Spain. England fell into that trap. Egypt certainly fell into that trap. Yeah, I mean, England got it completely wrong. Thomas Tuchel, our friend, we're not going to go back there. But England should have avoided that in the second half after they took the lead and they could easily have done that if Tuchel had done his basics much better and his coaching much better.

10:11Julien Laurens:And that's what Spain did as well. You know, if you have the ball, where you're so dominant, you can play physical, but Argentina never got the ball. 35 % of the ball. You can be as physical as you want. You don't see the ball anywhere. So what you do is you keep making fouls, you get yellow cards, and Spain keep the ball. So from a Spain point of view, there was no reason to be rattled at all. Just keep playing your game. And at some point, it was pretty obvious that they were going to find a solution to break down this team. And they were very close before. Marino should have scored. Even the goal disallowed.

10:41Julien Laurens:It's the right goal, but it's, you know, they were not far from it. Tell me about it, because I was in the stadium. I had no idea why the goal was disallowed. I know, Marino. I was disallowed. Marino steps onto Otamendi's foot. He doesn't see him. He's behind him. It's the right goal. The referee made the right goal with the help of VAR. It's very unfortunate that Marino is turning. Botamini's behind him. He steps on his foot. So he's the right goal. But they were lucky there, Argentina. They were lucky on the Merino header. They were lucky on the Nico header too. So it's a game that I think Spain was to dominate.

11:13Julien Laurens:It was just about keep doing what they've been doing and be patient. And at some point, it will open up for them. And that's exactly what he did. I mean, I think he stuck with the game plan for the reasons that we did. He felt this necessity for Messi, about having Messi's friends out there and stuff because we can also have a conversation about who didn't get to play in this game. Nico Paz, like others. And we've hardly played in this World Cup, by the way.

11:40Through the game, Spain had a lot of shots, but not that many high-quality chances, and their finishing wasn't good. If you look at, I mean, at some point, our stats people were saying, oh, look, Debu already has made eight saves. But none of them stood out. The first one that really stood out for me was the one off the Yamaha free kick just before, just at the end. I thought that was like the first difficult save. And then he debuts some of his saves. He didn't look super short. He would like save and spill and whatever. And then obviously he makes the one off Nico Williams. You said he was lucky.

12:12I think, you know, necessarily there's got to be a bit of that. But so I think at that point Scaloni thought, all right, maybe we'll get away with it. Maybe somebody falls over. Maybe somebody falls messy. Maybe they say something. and then Inzo gets himself sent off.

12:31Julien Laurens:And could you have avoided that? Yeah, yeah, the second yellow. I mean, the first yellow is because of his temperament, and I think it's a yellow card too. The second one, when you're on the yellow 10 minutes before you took a yellow, be smarter than that. I have to seriously. On the halfway line as well. I have to seriously question your temperament as a professional footballer. It's injury time. So, you know you've taken the game into extra time. I thought it could have been a straight red, incidentally. Yeah, the stats are not showing, but yeah, I see what you mean. The guy does a 180 in the air.

13:06Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, you know, you look at your teammates. Leandro Paredes cannot run. I don't even remember who was there. Alexis McAllister just got worse and worse as the game went on. You have to step up and be a leader in this team. You're 25 years old. when Messi retires you will be expected to lead this team and this is the leadership you show? Yeah. He's for a guy who supposedly wants a move and he's like Real Madrid this and that Real Madrid what? Real Madrid what? What are you thinking? You think Real Madrid

13:36Julien Laurens:needs a guy like that? No no no I mean that's who he is anyway this is not the first time we see it it's not the last time this was disappointing for him then to try to get Kukurela sent off because he put his hand over his mouth at some point and for Messi to do it as well I thought that was so disappointing for Enzo maybe because of the frustration that he's red card and he knew it was a red card straight away he could appeal as much as he wanted but then for Messi to try to get Kukurela sent off I thought was really poor and petty but that's another issue but for Enzo he let his team down his country down massively I still think that Argentina would have lost even with 11 men the way they played for me is such a disgrace the way that they refused to play football the way they insulted football in a way by accepting this game plan and the fact that they had zero shot until the 117th minute.

14:28I was saving that stat for you.

14:30Julien Laurens:It's an embarrassment, Gabi. And I don't know, this is a team that can play so much better football. This is a team that has the greatest player of all time in their team. Whether it's 39 or not, it doesn't matter. Give me something different than what we saw, which was so negative. From start to finish, apart from the end when they had to go for something and just keep lumping the ball in, the box. I thought it was absolutely stressful. Because, you know, we can, obviously the coach, Scaloni, will get the blame. Scaloni's going to say, well, what do you want? It's Messi's last game. Do we put it on the players?

15:03Should the players, again, because we gave England a hard time, some of the England players, right? When Tuchel's telling you, you know, everybody back, and then, you know, it's a stupid explanation like, oh, no, they're back, but they weren't active enough, whatever nonsense he came up with, right? We said, do we turn to the leaders on the pitch? Do we ask them to change it? There's certainly enough veteran leaders on the Argentina team to say no. Even after Enzo was sent off. So they line up, and this is not a thing I don't understand. They line up in a 4-4-1. Fine, that's what you do. Messi is the one.

15:38And Messi is walking around the center circle. And I'm just thinking to myself, if you're in this situation, even if in the unlikely event that you get the ball to Messi, Messi is going to be in the middle of the pitch. 40 minutes. At least have Messi go wide so that somebody has to go with him. And if you get the out to Messi, he can look up. Then you can get a runner on the opposite flank. You can do the switch. He's got the other winger to play with.

16:03Julien Laurens:But you can't do that against Pedro Porro or Cucuraya. That's the problem because of the two Spanish footballers who are so attacking. So Messi would not have been any help. They didn't have the ball. He wouldn't have helped off the ball, but maybe he would have pinned somebody back. Yeah, still. But I saw so much of this, and I thought to myself, where are all these leaders on the pitch? Yeah, I mean, I think Scaloni's coaching was poor, I have to say, to keep some of those kind of leaders or main players for too long when they were clearly not good enough anymore, even towards the end of normal time.

16:35Julien Laurens:And then, obviously, in extra time, I mean, he was clearly not happy after the first half because he changed at halftime and took Nico Gonzalez off for Paredes. But when you take one attacking player to put another defensive man in play already, what kind of signal does that send to your team? I think for me, a bad one. And maybe you were trying to regain control. But in the end, you just kept sitting deeper and deeper. And Paredes being a loose cannon like he is. And again, we know that could easily have been sent off. And by the way, what we saw from Paredes post-match, straight after kicking Eric Garcia, kicking Gavi, is unacceptable.

17:10Julien Laurens:I want him banned for a long time. And I like Paredes. Yeah, describe it for those who hadn't necessarily seen it. This is well after the final whistle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand the tension. You've just lost the World Cup final. But if you're Argentina and you haven't been the best team, I think you should know that you have to lose gracefully in a way. They were better than us today. It's not like if you feel bitter because you had loads of chances and it was a smash and grab and Spain beat you like that. Spain were better than you. You know that. You're frustrated. You lost the World Cup final.

17:40Julien Laurens:It's not easy. Sure, but you were poor. You play terrible football. Be graceful and just say, well done to you guys. Instead, some are shaking hands. Some words are exchanged. And then Paredes arrives, grabs Garcia, kick him onto the floor. Then Gavi arrives, smash Gavi as well and gets a red card. Paredes got a red card after the final whistle. I'm really hoping he gets a decent ban because that's unacceptable. Yeah, it's a sad way to go out. But I think, obviously, we need to recognize Messi's greatness. Enough people have done that. And obviously, this does not reflect on his career. It's kind of sad to see him go out like this because if we have to judge his game technically, I think he offered nothing in this game.

18:27He had one shot, which was blocked in the whole game.

18:31Julien Laurens:And then that cross, you know, from the corner, short corner. Two, and then he had another cross earlier, which nobody got to. but if I'm going to build my whole team around you, I need more. We can talk about this stuff off the ball, but I have to know that I can get you the ball. But then if the rest of the team is so passive, Gabi, and so negative, the ball never gets to Messi, certainly not in the right area. And that's why I think Scaloni messed it up completely in this final. And maybe they would have played a bit more and Spain were still too strong, sure, but at least you have given it a go and you would have given Messi a chance to actually impact the game.

19:07Julien Laurens:in this setup and in his game plan, Messi, Messi, you know, Messi the greatest had zero chance to impact this game. And I think from an Argentine point of view, he was the only one capable of winning you the game. The only one. And yet, you took him out of the game with your game plan. First half, second half. And I just thought it was mind-blowing for Scaloni to think, yeah, this is going to work. It might have worked against Egypt and England and teams like that, but this is another level. And by the way, again, England should have beaten this Argentina team anyway. every day. In terms of legacy, this Argentina team, they were on the brink of doing something which has never been done before.

19:46Four major trophies in the row, obviously having won the Copa America in 2021 and 2024, World Cup in 2022, the Finalissima in 2022. Yeah. They stopped just short of it comprehensively. Look, we can look at, I mean, the record books will record that, that they stopped just short. They would have matched Germany. Was it 72, 74, I think yeah, and obviously in Spain and I think Brazil also

20:13Julien Laurens:Is it back-to-back World Cup? Yeah, and then I did the day of America I think in between right? I mean I can we include Italy because 1936 there was no euros, but they did win the Olympics They didn't win the Olympics and in 34 and 38, right? Yeah But it seems like three is kind of that hurdle that you can't get past I Look at it. I look back to the last World Cup and I kind of think, I don't know that Argentina belongs in that company. I don't know. Am I too hard to... No, no, no. And we've said all along, Gabi, that Argentina 2022 is by far better than Argentina 2026. And you can look at Di Maria, who was there in 2022, who they don't have anymore and haven't replaced because there's just nobody of that kind of pedigree, qualities, etc.