Jon Stewart on USMNT Heartbreak, America’s Summer of Football, and Cape Verde’s Cinderella Run: Men in Blazers 07/17/26

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1:00Rog:You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, Suboptimal Radio.

1:15Rog:My guest today is the longtime host of The Daily Show. And when he's on the desk, it's like the Jesse Marsh team talker political commentary. and he's one of the reasons why the Daily Show itself is America's La Masia for developing comedians. He's won the Mark Twain Prize for American humour and he's also proper football. Perfect man to break down the entire World Cup with because neither the streets nor southeastern Virginia will forget his time on the varsity soccer team in college. It's a joy to welcome Mr. Jon Stewart. My man, so excited to join you at this, really the apex of what has been a magnificent tournament up till now.

1:59Rog:Has there only been 102 games and roughly 17 ,000 David Beckham commercials? We are nearly at the end of this big Gold World Cup. That is. How have you experienced the tournament in person in New York City? It's been magnificent. It is, look, in New York City, an influx of people from other countries roaming the streets is not an unusual sight. So, you know, when you see people wearing team jerseys roaming the streets, that's really not that unusual an occurrence. And the pubs of New York City have been locked into Premier League games. And so you'll see those gatherings all throughout the time.

2:46Where it's really been astonishing has been in Kansas, in Lawrence, when the Algerian team and the people of Kansas, where you're seeing them in areas where it really is unusual to have an influx of other cultures and, you know, large blocks of people that want to share what their lives are like in Europe or South America or Africa. and the people of America who want to share what their lives are like in Kansas and Seattle and all these different places. And that's been the magic. That's been the magic to watch.

3:27Rog:I want to get back to Lawrence, Kansas in just one moment, because we don't know right now as we speak who's going to win the World Cup. I do think Lawrence, Kansas. I talked to Infantino. No, we know. I'm not supposed to say, but I know. Blink twice if it's the United States. So Trump placed a call. Yeah. And it looks like the entire United States team has been reinstated. Totally right. Totally fair. We're so excited. Totally fair. And it's a new rule just passed by FISA. They've sent off anyone who speaks fluent Spanish. So it looks like the United States has a relatively clear path. That's amazing.

4:06Rog:So the Argentinians out, Spain out, Anthony Gordon, you too. I will get back to the World Cup in one moment, but I want to rewind, establish one thing. Jon Stewart being proper football. Everyone knows there's a T. You play club soccer in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. Then the College of William & Mary. Had to. Walk on as a freshman. D1, baby. That's right. Yeah, yeah. D1, that's the bona fide. That's right, baby. You became a starting varsity player for the rest of your college career. That's right. What attracted you to the game originally? Talk about it. This is way before young listeners, way before the Premier League was even a thing.

4:42Rog:But football was below the radar. Football was below the radar, but so was I. When you're a young man who is growing up, who is, I think, a proper 5-1, maybe a proper 5-2, there's not a lot in terms of athletic possibilities. Now, even back in the day now, you're talking about the 70s. So athletes did not have the types of sculpted physiques and bio lab metrics that occur today. So you could look at yourself and say, I might project to five, seven, one 50. I could play baseball, but soccer was, I grew up in a very, let's say immigrant rich central Jersey area. A lot of Italian, a lot of Polish, a lot of Irish, and football was that legacy.

5:34And it was, you know, at my high school, there were pro soccer players that came out of there in our area. Mucci Mejernik and Tim Snyder and later on, you know, a little bit north of Jersey, the Reynas and Harks. And all those guys are Jersey guys. And so Jersey had a real football legacy, a real love of the game brought in by all the people who had loved it so much in Europe.

6:07Rog:Can you describe what kind of a player young John Stewart was? Oh, he was. it took us to imagine uh i guess stevie hunt let's go all the way back a fierce winger uh but without the really uh i guess you would call them ball skills so in other words i was what they called a runner i they would here's here's how my football days would go uh coach albert who who you know well great al the legend legend of williamsburg 33 years at william and The game was always this. He would just say to our wingbacks, just play it over his head and let's see what happens. So they would just, so it was still back when football in America was still kick and run.

6:52If you could play it to somebody's feet, clearly that person was from Canada or England. So, but for the American guys, you just played over our heads.

7:02Rog:That's what we can now call John, play him in from behind. We've got a sophisticated name for that. That's exactly how we would go. You got this great quote your first season when you watch on from the JV squad at William & Mary. Yeah. And it earned its first spot in the NCAA tournament. You wrote that at the time you only wanted one thing in life, to earn an NCAA regional champs hooded sweatshirt. That's what I wanted, the great sweatshirt, man. And to lose my virginity. You know, listen, they go hand. Number two, right priorities. If I may say this, Roger, they go hand in hand. The sweatshirt was...

7:40First the sweatshirt. You have to understand where I was coming from. I was a lowly scrub landscaper, a bartender at the drinking age back then was 18. I worked in a bar underneath a liquor store, a windowless bar called The Bottom Half. I drove a 1976 off-brown Gremlin. Don't mean to brag, but... I'm just saying. The Gremlin was basically created for two reasons. uh one as contraception for young males who would drive it and never get laid and two so that the pinto wouldn't feel so bad about itself those are the only reasons that it existed so you needed that sweatshirt oh the sweatshirt was the kid nobody would talk to me until i got the sweatshirt nobody wanted to get in the car my my cat had pissed in it in 1978 and the thing still reeked so uh you have to understand where i was at in those moments these were low times if i may to put it in your own parlance i had been relegated and this was my chance you get that ncaa regional champ sweatshirt promotion that was promotion that was to me uh my chance to get to

8:52Rog:the premier league context is everything i think i'll be clear you are selling yourself a little bit short john stewart because there is an incredible photograph of you tight as short yes you know that's the style back in the day i feel like i need to mention your thighs for our listeners that there are don't like to be hyperbolic but there's monster trucks that don't have wheels like you they were listen at the time like i say i could run all day they were it was the only part of my body that had any bone density whatsoever if you saw the upper part i had uh the trunk of a rhino and then the upper body of a sparrow it was a very unusual combination for the day most opposing teams did not know how to deal with it they would have to they tried to know how to deal with american grealish that's right because the legs are so thick but if you try and and and and bump me there's nothing to grab onto there's nowhere to go you can't even grab the shirt you made it work i don't like to throw stats in but you finished college career 10 goals 12 assists um i do need to mention october 16th 1983 do you know what happened that day so we're playing the the national champions the previous year's national champions we're playing them at their home fields university of connecticut and the big dogs the big dogs legendary joe moroney's the coach uh these guys load up for bear every year this is pre-NIL.

10:14This is pre-so-dynasties existed back then. And a young scrappy team from Southern Virginia made up of a mix of miscreants from Long Island, New Jersey, England, and Canada show up on the store's pitch in an intimidating place to play. This is, there must have been.

10:33Rog:This is Connecticut Azteca. Thank, can I tell you something? Thank you. Not the same altitude, but certainly the same intimidation. Minute nine, Roger, if I may. Let me set it up for you. Minute nine. We have controlled the flow of play for a good minute and a half. A young man named Michael Flood, who was drafted by the Chicago Fire right after leaving in the first round, played a bit, blew out his knee, fires a shot from outside the box, a screamer off the keeper. He can't even, this is an all American kid. He doesn't know what to do, which hand to play it off of. It drops directly in front of the goal.

11:20Who is the opportunistic mosquito of a player? Jude Bellingham before Jude Bellingham. That's exactly what we said at the time. It was very similar to the messy Yamal. It was a prophecy, Roger. It was a prophecy. I clean up the mess, deposit it in the lower left corner a one nil lead for the titans of william and mary go tribe on stores and then we did the thomas tuckle my friend then we parked we parked the buses with 81 minutes to play and withstood testudo siege the the siege this was troy before the trojan horse my friend and we held off what was the i think historians call it the siege at stores as it's now known biblically i don't want to talk about the disparity in corners but it may have been somewhere around 38 to 1 but that one goal stood my friend and that day david did beat goliath and we did stand tall and unfortunately two days later went to uri and got our asses kicked two to But still, the important part is this.

12:35We won the ECAC that year and went to the NCAAs, earned our sweatshirts, got me laid, and free drinks from a Fredericksburg sizzler where you were allowed to get refills because our coach had cut a deal. That was the glamour of those days. America.

12:55Rog:I was going to ask you, like, do you remember the gold? Do you replay at a moment? You've clearly answered all of that. And I got to tell you, I am like genuinely tingling. Where does that rank for you, Jon Stewart? Seriously, when you sell your life achievement? Let's see. It's that. And then I guess the birth of the children. But that, you know, that's obviously the... You're asking my... Oh, there's no question. No, I don't remember it. I just was... I have it on a loop in my office. I was just watching it. I mean, I don't even think we recorded games back then. By the way, I have no idea if any of those details are correct, other than it was very early in the game.

13:34It was a cleanup goal, and it did hold.

13:37Rog:John's not doing cleanup in case any of the teammates get into it. But I don't care. I don't think it was flawed. It might have been Scott Bell. This is the joy of all of this stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like everything we've lived over the past 39 days, every time you do anything, the telling gets wilder with each kind of recollection. I do need to quickly acknowledge just how central a presence your reality was on this team your nickname of william and mary was libe short version of you yeah your surname libe of it yeah over two decades there's been a libe award that is given to a player at william and mary's men's soccer team every year can you just tell us what that is about uh it's about somebody who's really not that good a player but is very pleasant to be around

14:19so you know a lot of teams will reward excellence a lot of teams will reward skill a lot of teams will report game impact and then there are those teams that understand that to get to those games is a nine-hour van ride somebody's got to be cool in the van keep everybody occupied back then obviously also be able to buy beer for everybody so that's how we that's how we

14:46Rog:rolled on these road trips every team every team needs to leave every team it's the glue you gotta have the glue guy if you don't have the not everybody's ronaldo not everybody's tolerated because of how great they are some people a lot of ronaldo's agony in the sun is his realization that he never, for all he's done, conquered world, never won the Libra. Oh, and he never, by the way, he never will. Because if you've ever been in a van with him for nine hours, no, my friend, there's only so much look at my abs you can take as you're driving. Look again, guys. Look, guys, look again. Look again.

15:26Can you believe this? Look, I think there might be 12 of them. How remarkable. Let's do the laundry.

15:33Rog:I need to know Camu also non Libro winner but he played as a goalkeeper quite seriously in Algeria he said something beautiful or is said to have said something beautiful and I like to believe it's true that everything I know about humanity I owe to football what lessons did this game teach you that you wouldn't have learned if you wouldn't have had those experiences anywhere else Oh, I think it taught you the idea that people from wildly disparate backgrounds and wildly disparate goals and aims could come together for a singular purpose, could put aside whatever sort of trials and tribulations might be facing them personally at that day and come together with purpose and with purpose achieve beyond who they were as individuals.

16:38We were not individually the most talented team. And I don't want to, we were not national champions. We were not, but we held our own against far more talented squads. And, but we did it with, I think, a camaraderie and a belief. And it, it taught me possibility. And the other thing it taught me was nothing replaces the grind. that whatever you want to excel at, there is work to be done singularly, maybe even, you know, kicking a ball off the back of a church and dislodging their altar for hours and hours on end in Central Jersey. But achievement is a process and nothing good happens without grind.

17:29Rog:All true. And remember that, hold that listeners. as we move into this World Cup. And as the world arrives in the United States for the biggest spectacle in sports, we're going coast to coast, host city to host city to meet the world with the Men in Blazers Matchday Live Tour. These are free college game day style live events taking place just before kickoff at some of the biggest games of the summer where we'll be taking the stage with celebrity guests in front of thousands of fans. It's going to be amazing. Come and be with us in person or from afar on YouTube. And let's celebrate this some other way.

18:08Rog:It's meant to be celebrated. Just head to the events tab on meninblazers.com for all the details. To the football. To more together. Courage. I met you on your show. We talked about this in depth when I came on with Tariq Panja. Fabulous journalist. Amazing man. Really lovely, lovely human being. There was a lot of dark rumination in the month leading into this. The ticket prices, the worry about travel bans, more and more and more. But almost the second a ball was kicked, the moment Lionel Messi took the field, felt like the darkness turned into a footballing light. Almost the rational is replaced by the emotional.

18:51Rog:It's like cognitive dissonance. Did you experience that? Is that a bad thing? No. And listen, we live in an era where the smallest of, and that is not to minimize what those issues were, but we obviously live in an era where the economy of outrage is the economy of note. That's, you know, money is driven by how angry and how upset you can get people to continue to engage them. And so prior to it, and there were real outrages, by the way, that went along there. I think the way that the team from Iran was treated was an outrage. I thought they handled it with remarkable grace and strength, but that was a real outrage.

19:34The pricing of the tickets, that's a real outrage. But in the moment, and I thought it was interesting that the big dogs ate first, and I think that that made a big difference. Messi, Mbappe, you know, when you had those players stand up, Even Ronaldo coming back from what I think he would probably even admit was a bit of a disaster in a first game where, you know, everyone thought his abs are washboard, but his talent is washed. And everybody thought that. And he came back and showed himself in game.

20:13Rog:It was Uzbekistan, John. It was Uzbekistan. Settle down. It still counts. Listen to this man. He's just like all goals. Still remembering the one against Connecticut. I'm just remembering that. You're like, Ronaldo and I understand what it's like to score big goals in big games. Just back off, Roger, is what you're saying. By the way, mine, I thought, slightly more meaningful, if I may say so myself. Did you also look into the camera and shout, I'm back? I don't know. It suits you, man. It suits you. But this has been very much a World Cup of love. It really has. I mean, you mentioned Iran. There have been dark moments, but so many moments of shared wonder on display.

20:50Rog:watching Scotland's Tartan Army occupy every open space in Boston. Just that beautiful combination of lager, SPF 1000. Can I tell you, thank God, though, they're gone. Do you know how much Boston needs to drink just to stay alive up there? I mean, they really suffered. They rationed. That was for them, their World War II. That was for them. Yeah, but the Scots found their little acorns that they buried in the trees. They found where they'd hidden those beers. They got it out. They drained it in a way. We needed it. We needed what they did in America. Oh, I think there's open-minded joy and love.

21:25It really was. But it goes to show you that the narratives that are portrayed are never the narratives of reality. They're just slices out of context meant to evoke negative emotion. That's how papers get sold. That's how people stay online. Trolls are trolls. But in real life, people are people. And they love the same things. And they love to celebrate the same things. And they love to share their families and their cultures and their rituals and customs and flags and scarves and hats with everybody. But there's also, you know, as we saw in England and Argentina, the real world does intervene at times.

22:15and there are real differences that take place, but generally they come after the whistle blows.

22:22Rog:Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think America did realize the true beauty of football watching, which is to stand with strangers. We say that every time. Throw beers in the air. No, we say it every time. Share our ranch dressing with the world. Here's the tragedy of the World Cup in the United States. Please. Every time the World Cup occurs, every four years, the United States goes through the cycle of this was the year. This was the year America finally embraced the world game and stood on the world stage and competed as an equal. Then we go through the cycle. It's become a great participation sport in America, but we do not have the infrastructure or the pipeline to compete at that level.

23:08And we've seen it every four years and every four years. I'm a Mets fan. I know delusion. Every four years we go through this same psychotic delusion. This is it, guys. We finally figured it out. We made it. Pachi's going to take us over the top. And you'll hear the same discussion. America finally realized the world is a beautiful place and soccer is a beautiful game and we will rise up. 350 million people, the greatest athletes in the world how can we not compete and we won't we won't because we have no finishers that's just the truth this is lebo speaking we need people to clean up the goal in stores as a young man once fighting for his place on a team to get a sweatshirt that could get him laid that had the tenacity and the temerity to bury a loose ball that's what we need god but this time

24:01Rog:around john we're talking about the u.s we started so well we were like we were the best football i have seen in this world cup in those first two games outside of a timothy chalamet commercial look at our did you not surrender did you let yourself believe or did you know from the outset all of it was too good to be true and it would be hello darkness my old friend my wife said to me after the game with australia she saw you know these were two teams they play a very similar style of football they saw dominating attacking football from the united states and she turned to me and she said could we win the world cup this year and i said to her what i've said to her every time no fucking no fucking stop just stop and what happened we came up against you what happened was you ruined it for everyone you ruined it for everyone your wife you're lifting us oh she knew we have i mean look it did turn into the worst episode of veep ever our world cup campaign look i'm a mets fan i'm a knicks fan i know from droughts i know from belief but there is something fundamental about our approach that makes it that we cannot compete at that level there is a the distance between top 12 and everybody else is too vast.

25:25It's just too fast.

25:26Rog:This one was a particular agony, John. We were footballing darlings one minute. The next, the rest of the world was cheering for those waffle peddlers of Belgium with all their hearts. And what I will say, watching them run rampant, 4-1, the Belgian FA tweeting overturned this. Belgium's doing jokes in the middle of the game. The sight of 72-year-old Romelu Lukaku in the fourth goal and doing the Trump dance. I mean, they didn't just batter us. They taunted us and humiliated us. We were reduced to tweeting pictures of aircraft carriers. Okay, you beat us 4-1, but look, we could bomb you? I don't know what we were doing.