John Oliver on England’s Heartbreak, Messi vs. Yamal, and Haaland’s American Love Affair: Men in Blazers 07/16/26

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0:35For experiences like no other, there's nothing like platinum. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum. Terms apply. You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, suboptimal radio. What's haunting me today is it feels like for every team but one in the World Cup, The only thing you can really reasonably try and control is the manner in which you lose. Only one team is going to rise above that. And so what you look for is glorious failure. And I think the problem with that last 20 minutes, everything up to that time felt good and promising. The retreat felt somewhere between depressing and stupid.

1:20My guest today is a truly magical gent. who remains the Leo Messi of empathetic and thoughtful analysis. You may know him as a host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, a show that's had more Emmys in the past decade even than Chelsea's had managers. It is an incredible joy to welcome back the country's foremost feral hog expert, an undisputed star of General Hospital, a show-leading 27th visit for Mr John Oliver. Oh, 27th. Wow. Others might do it better. No one's done it more. There you go. God bless. That's it. It's about quantity, not quality in life, children. Always will be. We've got a lot of World Cup to get into.

2:01First of all, I'm sorry about England, John. It's never coming home, is it? It's not even looking at the property listings. Where did you watch? What was the experience like? Be honest. Did you allow yourself to believe? Regarding the it's coming home, I don't think I think there's a misunderstanding of that race. I think people think it's delivered with confidence and entitlement. And I don't think that's ever what it was. It's coming home is like referring to a dog you lost 30 years ago. You know it's not coming home, but a scratch, a certain sound outside the door makes you think, wouldn't it be wonderful if it was there?

2:40So I do think there's a complete misunderstanding what it means. It's coming home is the idea of it coming home would be nice. But, you know, in reality, dealing with loss is probably the thing that you should actually do. That's what it's always meant to me. Being haunted by ghosts. Yeah, exactly. And that is kind of what it felt like yesterday. I know that pain. I know that pain. I've experienced that pain so many times. My son, eight years old, at the end of the game, is face down in the couch crying. and I think back and think, well, hold on, how old was I when Maradona broke? I remember crying into a sofa.

3:21I was your age. This is the circle of life. You know, if The Lion King was really about the human experience, it would be children at eight to nine years old crying because Argentina has broken their heart. That is kind of what yesterday felt like to me. I have a friend who has a 10-year-old daughter and her daughter said to her this is so haunting she was like devastated and she looked at her and said now I think I get it mom and that felt like yeah that's right I think you do I think you've been forged in the fire of disappointment now now I understand why you're all like that and now you are like it too did you allow yourself to believe in that game I'm not beforehand at all Anthony Gordon scores.

4:06Good finish. There was a period of about 90 seconds after that that I started, like, I think my brain was starting to kind of arrange itself, thinking, should I prepare myself for something incredible happening here? Should I get ready for the thing that I didn't think was possible? Is it, one might say, coming home? And then I watched them drop back into a low block, looked at the clock, thought, you got 20 minutes, lads, and thought, oh, actually, I don't think I need to rearrange my brain chemistry. I think what's always happened is going to happen again. It's so fascinating. It is the children that I ate for.

4:45I'm looking right now in my office on my wall, I have a signed photo by Diego Maradona of his hand of God gold because it scarred me in the way that it did you. That was it. I was done. I understood it. Oh, this is how it is. you know but my children they do believe in england it's the most shocking thing they've embraced i've said do not go there do not go into that that dark maze which will lead you only to madness they are there they sent me a photo they went to the game bunch of them um hugging crying when england's i was like i looked at it i was working i was like oh no it's so familiar oh no what are you doing the pain is so familiar it's like proust madeleine but for disappointment like you know it you see it and you feel it it takes you all the way back through that it takes you took me right back to when Gaza got his red card and Lineker just looking over to the sideline saying have a word with him have a word with him you feel the same pain again and again and again and you recognize it it takes me like slumdog millionaire not just into the goals you just talked about but also like you know the minor strike the darkness the economic impoverishment that just Liverpool being ostracized by all of it.

6:03I mean, it is remarkable. I want to say to Americans to watch this England team stare not into an abyss, but actually into the jaws of victory and retreat and crumble. 60 years of hurt coming back almost to drag the team. And that agony you've described, John, which is so bloody familiar, that noble failure, it's almost rewarding. it's almost validating it's almost you know it's almost oh here we are again this is yes this is our place we used to have an empire we used to have a royal family till prince andrew destroyed that we used to have lots of things but this is who we are cold shamed lying naked on the floor like in bruglet i think that's why i was in that like 90 seconds i was having to prepare my brain because my brain knows what to do with disappointment it doesn't know what to do with the idea of a World Cup final.

6:53I didn't know how I was going to handle that. I did know how I was going to handle this because I've handled it before. We're playing chess with death again. Oh, familiar warm. I play you again, my friend. Yeah, it's absolutely... But seeing it fresh in my son, seeing an eight-year-old sobbing into the sofa really felt like... And it's why my friend's daughter, now I think I get it, mum, is that is such a load-bearing sentence. I think you do get it. You're welcome. We're all going to die. Doom, that's a lot, child. That's right. It is either very narrow or extremely broad, and I think it's option two.

7:32By the way, Thomas Tuchel, amazing, meant to turn us into, with his Teutonic brilliance, into winners. He said the only one who changed was him. We made him a big, fat English loser. That is, that's amazing. But Jude Bellingham, still a human phenomenon despite this like his mentality we talked about a lot during the world cup so rare for an englishman he actually has an american mentality sees himself as a winner willing to talk about himself as a winner that is that english people don't talk about sex money or or winning and he does at least two out of those three any one minute in the day yeah and i think the way he was handling that game that was what fed my brain for those that 90 seconds to two minutes was when watching him laugh at the shithousery early on that felt different i think we've not done that in the past we've we've looked irritated by it or diminished by it or you felt like there was going to be a fight of some kind to watch him look in their faces in that first five minutes and genuinely laugh rise above it made you think oh that's a different level of confidence than we've exhibited before could this time be different is it what's that bark outside is it coming home oh no no bark outside it's skippy he's back he's back by the way i do think ultimately the words yippee kaya uh m f in a burmian accent just don't hit as hard but that's essentially what he was doing for the first day he was just walking around agree to disagree i think you'd be coy i'm what the fuck Yippee-ki-yay Yeah, Lionel Messi was like I don't understand your accent I understand the words, I don't understand the tone Then you'll never understand, Leo You'll never understand human truth imperfection, Leo, said Jude Bellingham to Lionel Messi.

9:25Oh my god Why did you pick him? Why have all of them? What's haunting me today is, it feels like for every team but one in the World Cup, the only thing you can really reasonably try and control is the manner in which you lose, right? Only one team is going to rise above that. And so what you look for is glorious failure. And I think the problem with that last 20 minutes, everything up to that time felt good and promising. The retreat felt somewhere between depressing and stupid. Just because you feel like, you know, it is undeniably. You can feel it worked against Mexico. And then you think, with all respect to Mexico, with all respect to the Azteca, which should have all the respect in the world, this isn't Mexico.

10:07Inviting that for 20 minutes from this Argentinian team is literally asking for trouble, and you got that trouble. The last 20 minutes was, I don't like to be hyperbolic, like watching 80-whatever years of British post-war history lived out in fast motion, just complete and utter, just rotting away and disintegration. But I did also think a lot about you while watching it, because when you were last on, we laughed. I don't know why we laugh. We laugh because we didn't want to cry. That's the point in England. It's like watching Charlie Brown run at a football with Lucy Holding. And you actually wondered, thinking, if Charlie Brown, we've got it all wrong, he's the one who invites Lucy to snatch the ball back.

10:52He's like, do that thing you do, Lucy, where I feel agony and trauma, that sting of failure. There is something very validating about a sting of it. It's so familiar. For sure. And just like Charlie Brown, There must be split seconds as he swings his foot back to think, should I get ready? What does it feel like for a foot to hit leather? Should I get ready? And then whoosh. All you feel, all that Charlie is really accustomed to is the hyperextension of the knee. That's it. You can either win the World Cup or you can feel that glorious, reassuring hyperextension. I thought there was, and that's as close as I've ever been to thinking, I should prepare myself for the idea that it might happen.

11:38Because I think in the past, the mountain has felt bigger than this one felt. It really looked to me like England were at least the equal of this Argentina team, if not better. It's just they were going to have to navigate the dark arts that we all know that Argentina deploy so well.

12:02which bears talking about because i am i am serious as i say this to you one i use the word loosely grown up to to a very well-known soap opera actor grown up argentina are awful for periods how do you understand them because they seem like a tactical mess they're bereft of any coherent idea of football but then in moments late moments they turn into like berserkers 11 goals after the 75th minute five of them against Egypt and against England I honestly think John I'm saying this seriously the only rational explanation is we are witnessing divine magic if I believed in divine magic I would really question the application of it to help this Argentinian team to be honest if I was looking for divine magic I'd be saying hey Po Verde would like a word yeah I'm not really interested in divine magic dusting on people already dusted in it I don't think they needed it for a repeat World Cup I think that for me that the moment in that where I felt like I wanted to be more like Argentina and it was not often in that game was right towards the end when England were trying to hoof it up to Big Dan Burn and Argentina was still pressing them in the English half.

13:21That's what I wanted. I wanted that kind of attack, attack, attack. You're ahead, but still attack, still press. Press, don't retreat. That's what I wanted. They didn't know how to not do it because they'd already pulled the homemade shivs out of their cavities and had them between their teeth. That was all they could do. That was such... That was the problem, right? When that equaliser went in and you realise, uh-oh, we're going to try and get through the next five minutes with oops all defenders. And I don't know how that is going to work. And it worked exactly how it was going to, which was not at all.

13:56But the amazing thing about this Argentinian team, I was at the Egypt game. The fans were stressing out massively, as they should do. They were 2-0 down. But as soon as they got that first goal, 2-1 down, still going out, still Lionel Messi's last game. Egypt still ahead, minutes to go. There was just a complete and utter vibe shift. As soon as they scored that first one, they knew they'd won the game already. It was over in their mind. They knew what it was. And the same in this England game. As soon as they got that first goal, there was no doubt. And a lot of it is to do with Lionel Messi, 39 years of age.

14:31Piece of banning recently that revealed he walks, John, for 63 % of the game. stands still for 25 % of the game. But it is in that 12%, that magical, ineffable 12%, that I believe, again, I may be being hyperbolic, but I think people will talk about Lionel Messi for the next two or three centuries like we do about Mozart or Michelangelo. Yeah, but he's incredible. Like, so walks for 60 % of the game, rotates his head like an owl for 100 % of the game. It is just incredible, his watching him look around, like the triple takes everywhere. He's just constantly looking. It's amazing just to watch his head spin.

15:18Yeah, he's very good. He's a very, very good footballer. That's what you've got. That's what you've got. He's a very, very good footballer. Dominic Soberslay is a very, very good footballer. we're uh we're less than 24 hours away from breaking my heart you're not giving you're not giving him this right now oh no i think i mean he's an he's an incredible footballer i will root for him over ronaldo any day what he's done the shift that he's put in my side coming from that hand in that shirt is just it's gonna take a while he made my son cry Messi singly that's right before yesterday should be ashamed of yourself shamed I felt euphoric when I thought about Messi but he made my son cry so he can go fuck himself Messi if you're watching care to respond should be ashamed of yourself can you believe this final this Messi you're a male fan of the bathtub classico prophesied in this photograph now famous from 2007 that that this photo is not ai first met yamal as a six-month-old baby he won a competition so they say to meet a barcelona player this world cup final will be their next meeting it's almost like a biblical anointment like abraham taking isaac to a mountaintop and and sacrificing him it's like the levels yeah and that is that is what i hope for i hope that Laminya Mal puts Argentina away.

16:50I hope like in that photo, he just grabs him and just shoves his head under the water.

16:57I had to say to my wife last night, she saw that for the first time and said, is this real? And then I said yeah. She just couldn't understand it. Couldn't comprehend how perfect that is. And there's somebody, somebody had an idea yesterday. What we don't know about this photograph is that Lionel Messi may have spent early on in his career just found that bathing babies was a really relaxing way to get away from the stress of being a professional footballer. Yeah, there's a simplicity to it, isn't it? Randomly bathed thousands of them. Goes in dirty, comes out clean. There's an innocence and a simplicity.

17:29You can see. You can see why he would like it. But yeah, it doesn't even, even like, even the fact that he's washing him. It is like, like a marble Greek statue. Something that didn't happen, but would have been incredible if it did. It's mythical. It is like, you know, Abraham in the desert, strangers come, wash their feet, first thing you do. And in Greek underneath it's the goat watches the bambino, you know. And there's John Oliver, just imagining baby Lamine, just dragging him down by the hair, hold him under the water line till the bubbles stop. Get him, baby. He made my son cry. Get him, baby.

18:07Fuck that guy. Come on, baby. Come on. Come on, baby. Reach up, reach up, reach up. And then press. And then hold. The hold is key. Press then hold.

18:22This game, the World Cup final. By the way, we laughed at Spain. This is what I said. When they were held nil-nil, I'm old enough to remember this, Cape Verde played Spain in that first game of the group stage. We'll talk about Cape Verde in just one moment. But man, watching Spain batter France in that semi-final. Yeah, it was amazing. Potent, beautiful France. Just assuming that front four of Mbappe, Douai, Dembele, Alisse. I mean, just watching them become smothered and covered by that human prophylactic rogerie. It's proof that sometimes prose is better than poetry. It was amazing, wasn't it?

19:01Because it did feel like for so much of that tournament, everyone was competing to be on the other end of a French buzzsaw in the final. It really felt like that. And yeah, I don't think Spain got the respect that they clearly deserved in terms of being able to put out the brightest of fires. That midfield is just incredible. You didn't think you would see the likes of the Xavi and Iniesta-style smothering midfield again, and it's back. They're absolutely astonishing. and if anyone can put out the, as you would put it, divinely touched Argentinian flame, I do think it's going to be that Spanish midfield saying, OK, it stops here though.

19:49I mean, it is, but that France-Spain game was reminded of the thing I love most about football. It reminds us that we all know nothing, that we're all idiots, that ultimately everything we behold as truth is just utterly mockable at the final whistle and we don't know who will win the World Cup, but one of the men who might just have won this tournament, the undisputed vibe Max and King Erling Haaland seven goals five games seems to have really connected with both ways he loved it we loved him the American audience just breaking through unlike any other player why have we all attached ourselves in this nation to this raw milk drinking kind of Brout Summer loving Viking meme generator because I think he's a deeply weird man I think he always has been and I think he's like finally found comfort in that I think the stay humble Harland, I think, is attached to that oddity.

20:42It's just I think it presented as a kind of very reductive arrogance, whereas he's a really odd guy. When you look at videos of him training, that is a strange individual. That's one of his many, many great characteristics. And yet to watch him kind of take ownership of his eccentricities this year was genuinely inspiring. And having had that kind of love affair and had this moment where he kind of flowers into this absolute Norwegian maniac. It's very hard, you know, after a story like that to end it well. But holy shit, walking off the plane with a stuffed raccoon is absolutely sticking the landing.

21:26That is like a gymnast flipping over five times and then just not moving. No step, both arms in the air, raccoon in your hand. Stick the landing with a raccoon in the hand. What did you see? Because that was so conscious. That raccoon could have been in the luggage. Why would it be in the luggage, Rog? You can't make it do voices on the flight then. That's a carry-on in the most literal sense. Items of clothing and bags behind so that you can carry the raccoon on. If you put a stuffed raccoon in a bag on a plane, you didn't deserve that raccoon in the first place. No one puts Whiskey Raccoon in the corner.

22:02That's exactly what I'm saying. What does he say to Whiskey Raccoon on the plane early in Harlem? I think the Whiskey Raccoon probably does a few roos. Dum, dum, roo. Thank you, Whiskey Raccoon. His little paw, dum, dum, roo. I love what you say. He is self-aware. That's the quality, ultimately, that draws us to it. He's definitely a post-fame footballer. Like he's in on the joke and becomes all the more famous because he laughs at it with his like the Katz's pastrami run. Yes. The taxidermy, which I thought was a brilliant optical signal back to America. Look, I'm back in Norway, but I'm bringing you with me, Texas.

22:43I love you. I think with footballers, they've so often, especially throughout our childhood, right, being quite, being very able to express themselves physically, but not as a human being. They get quite inhibited. You know, you'll see them play an incredible game and then not be able to talk afterwards. Not just because they're media trained, but all of a sudden they're self-conscious. And any kind of oddity in their character, they want to kind of smother as much as they can. So it is very nice to see a guy have no kind of media curation as well. Because I don't think there is an image publicist in the world who would advise Erling Haaland for what he did.

23:24watch that little kid that he smashed him on the back of the back of the head in the tunnel just whack him on the show on the toe to turn around and his face light up like smacking him like they go to school together both faces lit up though man that was what was beautiful both faces that was like he has that self-awareness in that moment and it's not an affectation you can't bullshit that it's completely real so yeah i think people have fallen for him in all the appropriate ways. You mentioned the row. How great was that one Norwegian fan who refused to take part in the Viking row because it wasn't historically accurate.

24:01The Vikings sailed, they didn't row and it's just lovely that every nation has a pedant. Absolutely fantastic and your eye just drawn to him and the fact that he wasn't being showy about it, it was just no I'm going to sit here because you're not doing this right. Just absolutely immune to peer pressure. Frankl Nenad tweeted that he was Norway's Larry David. I mean, that does feel right, doesn't it? I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I think there's a meme of Noel Gallagher. Yes! Do the Poznan. Noel, don't do the Poznan. He ain't doing it. He ain't doing it. I'm going to stand here and sulk. And because, I will be drawn to me.

24:46There you are. We're still talking about him. Let's talk about more joyful things. There were other unexpected winners. True moments of wonder in this tournament. Tiny Curacao, drummer of Ecuador. DR Congo made England sweat for 75 minutes. Their gathering of their diaspora from across America I found very moving. Cape Verde, first ever tournament, making the entire world dream. Drew with Spain in their debut. Talk Argentina to extra time after just an extraordinary performance. That equaliser from Cabral deserves to win, I think, the next 10 Puskas Awards. You told me that when that goal went in, you screamed so loudly, you woke your kids up.

25:28Yeah. And then you were delighted you had so that they could take it in. What did you want them to learn from this beautiful moment, that magic? It is amazing watching kids go through it for the first time, right? Because you realise this will become like, it'll be something every four years now, hopefully for the rest of their lives that they can enjoy and look back on and start to build those memories. So it's a different memory for me. It's not, like, I think I can remember my dad screaming at a TV. Now I'm on the other end of that, I'm the screamer. And then you bring this kid in. When we scored against Norway, I remember I was at home with him and I was just running, yelling louder than he's probably heard me yell.

26:11I was just running across the living room and then I turned around and he was right behind me. He'd run as well and he was already jumping up in the air and I kind of grabbed him and held him. And, you know, that for me is kind of, I just, like he was squeezing really hard and he was kind of laugh crying and he was like saying, you're so loud, you're so loud. Yeah, but he'd been yelling too, so I don't think, it wouldn't have irritated him as much as it used to when I scream when they score. But yeah, it was an amazing moment. And I think that was why he was so devastated. And it's simply for me.

26:47I know how he feels. I know exactly how he feels. He'll remember. They all will. All of you watching. All of your kids. I mean, I said to every time I met a parent who was going to a game with a kid, you will remember whatever happens forever. And in that game, Cape Verde's remarkable goalkeeper, 40-year-old Vizinha, 25 saves across four games, are forever remembered. I think when the 2026 World Cup narrative is recounted and there's always four or five stories, remember this journeyman, last club was in the Portuguese second tier, began the tournament with 50 ,000 Instagram followers and now has just under 30 million, more than Tom Brady, more than Travis Kelsey, more than Patrick Mahomes.

27:33He actually has mad media clout that could destabilise nations. There could be a future fairly dystopian Vizinha that's just toppling his nation. But right now, where it all feels joyous, there's no greater testament to the power of the World Cup. I'm always a little bit hesitant. Like when people go straight to look how many more Instagram followers he got, you think, well, that's not the metric. You're like, was he on General Hospital? I don't remember that. But I do think he will be a key memory now. His face will be attached to this World Cup. He will be one of the, I would imagine, like if there's 10 things I remember from this World Cup, that will be one of them.

28:16His face will be there forever. So yeah, to me, it's much more than the fact he's got a boost of Instagram followers, that his face is tattooed on the memory of this World Cup forever now. He will be synonymous with it. And that's incredible. And putting Keith Verd in the world's map, put Curacao and all of these things, you know, their identity being reshaped by 90 minutes of football is deeply powerful. But I want to talk about two slightly more challenging narratives. First, the United States. Didn't we almost have it all? Sang Whitney Houston. We first played swaggy football. We made a nation believe.

28:59Why not us? We belted out country roads. and then we had the White House intercede to reinstate a red carded player and I don't know if karma exists, I really really don't but watching the unks of Belgium, watching those waffle peddlers just come out and kick the crap out of us was as close as we may ever come to witnessing Icarus strap on those wax wings and just head towards the sun Yeah, I mean, it felt like in a moment it was a very effective way to turn the entire world against the American team, justifiably. Like, I think it is absolutely impossible to defend what happened there. FIFA stepping in, waving Article 27 around like a magic wand.