Prince William on England's World Cup, Travis at Wembley, NFL in the UK & America's 250th | Bonus EP

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2:09Terms apply. Well, let's talk a little bit about the origin story of your football fandom. Our dad was a Cleveland Brown fan growing up. Like we grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and he, I don't want to say he forced us, but he integrated us into being fans of that team. Did your dad get you into Aston Villa or is this your own doing? Absolutely not. My father hates football. Oh no.

2:42Thanks to our presenting sponsor, Xfinity. Welcome back to new heist ladies and gentlemen boys and girls a wondery show we are your hosts I'm Travis Kelsey this is my big brother Jason Kelsey and boy do we have a good one for you again this is a unique one that uh that we've been pretty excited about to maybe get in the books for you guys and uh what a more perfect time than uh talk about a little world cup action with um somebody who's a little bit more familiar with the football version of soccer yeah we're not gonna

3:14Jason Kelce:Don't waste any time. There's no new news. There's no other segments. This one came out of nowhere. Still don't really know how the fuck we're doing this. Yeah. But ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, our guest today is Prince William of Wales. Here you go. All right, Trav, it's the World Cup, and we haven't had any soccer fans on yet. I know, man. Do we know any soccer fans? Well, maybe our guest today, the 6 '3 Prince of London, England, maybe. What? What? That's right. The president of the English Football Association, the vice royal patron of the Welsh Rugby Union, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Cornwall, the Lord of the Isles, Prince of Great, Stuart of Scotland, Earl of Chester, and the Prince of Wales.

3:59Jason Kelce:92 % please welcome His Royal Highness, Prince William! Oh! That is quite an intro, guys. Amazing. Well, we had to do it big for you. You had to do it big. Prince William, I got the chance to see you not too long ago and invited you on the show because we were talking a little Ashton Villa soccer, some excitement about the World Cup. How are we feeling about England's win over Croatia yesterday or a couple days ago? Very good, Travis. I'm so pleased it's gotten away. I've been looking forward to the World Cup for ages. It feels like a long time between the years it comes around again. But it's so good it's back on again.

4:36Jason Kelce:So obviously we're very much knowledgeable in the world of American football. You know your soccer. You've been around the game for a long time. You've been 20 years, I think, the head of the? FA, the Football Association. Yeah. What is it about this team that makes you extra confident? You know, I think there's a good blend of experience and youth and all that. Where do you sit with the team? So, first of all, Jason, I have to correct you. It's football. So, second of all, yeah, I've been, I was president of the FA. Football Association for since about 2010. I'm now patron. And yeah, I've been watching many, many England teams.

5:18And back in the day, you guys may not even heard of Wayne Rooney. Oh my gosh. Come on now.

5:23Jason Kelce:That was, if I would have played soccer, I would have wanted to play like Wayne Rooney. I love the aggression. Just all hard hustle all over the field. You know it. He's a, he's a fast, he's a fast guy. He's aggressive. And when I was growing up, watching him play was really exciting. I always felt like we had a really good chance, but as each World Cup goes on and the results don't quite go your way a little bit of hope gets chipped away each time and so I'm just you know I'm taking it calmly and quietly and like come on we're going to do well and see how we go but I am quietly confident I think Thomas Tuchel who's the manager, the coach he's got them into a really good frame of mind the team are playing with more freedom, more fluidity I think Gareth who was a previous manager his philosophy was very much of defence so if we don't let goals in, we'll win.

6:12Thomas, I think, prefers to go a bit more out there and if we lose, we lose playing the way we want to play and if you're going to score four goals, we'll score five. I think that's a really good attitude. I know it's fun to watch. I love some high-flying action, man. It sounds like when we got old Patty Mahomes, Patrick Mahomes for the Chiefs, when we got him, it was just like, man, we're just going to try and outscore you and just touchdown you to death, man. Do you know what a touchdown is? I know what a touchdown is. I can't say I've ever done one for real, but I've tried to do a couple of touchdowns and nearly put out my shoulder blade.

6:47But apart from that, yeah.

6:48Jason Kelce:We do have a clip of you throwing the ball. You can sling it pretty good. That was a good throw into the net there. Well, we had the NFL over here. Obviously, they're playing quite a few matches. And I went to see them train and play. And I had a couple of Welsh guys who were also training at the time. And I love the American football. It's brilliant. And I used to play on the beach with friends and stuff like that. But how you guys do it as many times as you do and all the tactics it's uh it's really quite intense it is interesting i mean they've been you know the nfl's been playing over in london for a long time now do you feel like the fan base in london is growing for american football definitely it's getting more and more popular and i think the more people that see it the more it's televised i think if we could understand the rules a bit more over here that might help because like i say it is it is quite tactical um and it's those sort of short breaks of play that I think we over here are a bit more used to a match running for 90-odd minutes.

7:41It doesn't really stop. So that bit of it is kind of explaining the tactics behind it makes it a bit more appealing to most people over here.

7:47Jason Kelce:That's good. Good to know. Good to know. We're going to be over there this year. Eagles are playing in the new Tottenham Stadium. We've played in Wembley before. You've played in Wembley. I've played, yeah. I've had the fortune of playing at Wembley, and it was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had in my life. I remember I scored a touchdown there, and I was like, where's that football? I need to put that thing in a glass case. I need to get it painted and everything, man. It was an unbelievable experience, but the London crowd is so... It's like in American football, typically the excitement isn't every single play.

8:23When we played at Wembley, it was every single play was exciting for the crowd. You could feel the passion and the desire for it over there. We love playing overseas, that's for sure.

8:37Jason Kelce:You think the U.S. is doing pretty good as a host city so far? Yeah, it's fantastic. I think it's been a brilliant World Cup. It's been really well sort of started, and I think the tournament's been well balanced logistically for everyone, being in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Yeah. Makes it really hard for the teams moving around. It does feel like this is the most spread out a World Cup has ever been, which is one of the downs. I mean, it's really nice that all of North America is getting highlighted. but I went to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014 and one of the things that was just incredible was how many different countries are all, you know, brought together to unite over the game and obviously everybody's trying to win but there's so many people all over the place from different nationalities.

9:22Jason Kelce:It's one of the great joys of watching the World Cup and why it really takes over you. It's just, there's something special about that event in particular and how much it means to the entire world well let me ask you this prince william we uh for all the english fans that have come over or are coming over for the world cup what do you think the biggest culture shock is over here in america forum oh good question i think is it the the light beer is it the yeah the beer definitely is going to taste different I think for all of them. I think you haven't met your match so you've seen a lot of beer drinkers from the UK.

10:02There we go. We can hand our own beer to anyone. But I think the scale of your stadiums I think the size of them is really going to be quite a cold shock for a lot of fans. I mean we really know our football so to see stadiums that are bigger and kind of an amazing atmosphere that we can also emulate here that's quite a big deal.

10:20Jason Kelce:Yeah. Do you think one of the things that stands out to me I've talked about this a lot the United States we lack the veracity of soccer chants, like the tenacity and passion. And one thing that the U.K. has down is soccer chants. I mean, I love watching those clips. The Man United chant for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. All that stuff is just incredible. But it points out the difference in the culture between how England views soccer and how the United States views it. how do we get that in the U.S.? What do we need to do to build a foundation of just such passion? It's a good point. I think you guys have so much passion already in terms of your American football, your baseball, basketball, those are massive parts of your cultural heritage.

11:09And I think trying to create that same tribalness around football would be really useful. So over here, the tribality of your club team and it's like a second family for a lot of fans, really means it plays very importantly in your emotions and you know my weekend goes from being either the best weekend in the world when we win or to frankly i don't want to see anyone on monday morning because i'm really down yeah um and that lasts for quite a few days so you know you guys get that in other ways but i think if you can attach that to football as well then you or soccer

11:41Jason Kelce:then you get it yeah and it does feel like the pub is a central like part of just english sports We mentioned rugby as well. It feels like there's that communal aspect where everybody comes together. And those are all the videos I see online, right? Or when everybody's going crazy at the pub watching the games. Is that a part of it? Just like coming together and bonding over the sport and enjoying the wins and relishing the losses? Yeah. Definitely. I think those rowdy evenings, those long afternoons, a few drinks, the social elements of it. there's plenty of chants you guys don't want to hear.

12:22They're pretty spicy. They're quite rude to broadcast. Those are the ones we want. I will say this. So England is back to a little bit of the English coming to America. England's home base is Kansas City. And I got a lot of pride for Kansas City. it's kind of slowly become like one of uh american soccer football's uh u.s hubs like we love our soccer in kansas city and uh i think it's doing a great job right now of hosting but coming to kansas city have you had have you had barbecue before prince probably not one of your barbecues no do you know what a burnt end is no no oh we got to get you some end of that brisket big guy Come on down, man.

13:12It doesn't sound great, Travis. No. I promise you, you'd love it.

13:18Jason Kelce:Let me ask you this. You've been the president of English of the FA for 20 years. You might say, what do you view is the role? What is your role within that? Just don't mess up. That's fair. Just win. That's good. But do you? Winning cures all. Yeah, I think the role I've wanted to play with the FA has been very much kind of cheerleader, supporter of all things England team, supporting the FA, who are the governing body, and making sure that they feel they've got the backing of sort of the country and getting on with what they need to do around football. I think trying to support our World Cup or European bids, you know, this country particularly is mad about soccer and football.

14:03So So trying to get a World Cup to be hosted here or a Euros here is fantastic. And I've been trying to do a bit of work on that. But also I think I've been trying to help reform the system a bit as well. So some of our football legislation and the way we do football sort of regulatory stuff goes back a long way and trying to update it at times and make sure it's more relevant. Bear in mind the women's game particularly has come out of a smaller world to now being massive. and I'm not sure we quite reflect that in how we look after the football game.

14:36Jason Kelce:What do you view as football's role within society or just sports in general? Like its ability to unite people, to bring people together. I love it. I think the more sport we can do, not only is it good for health, particularly mental health, mental fitness. Yes. It's a way to let out some steam. I think you guys won't know it yet because you're still younger than me and Travis, you're still playing as well. But when you stop playing any sport, you really pine for it. And it's that competitive sort of spirit and that camaraderie, particularly around teammates and having that. You miss it a bit.

15:12And for me, sport has been that bit that's filled a hole that's been missing in my life since I've not been able to carry on playing sport. I hear you. Well, let's talk a little bit about the origin story of your football fandom. Our dad was a Cleveland Brown fan growing up. Like we grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and he, I don't want to say he forced us, but he integrated us into being fans of that team. Did your dad get you into Aston Villa or is this your own doing? Absolutely not. My father hates football. Oh, no. My family haven't got a particularly long history with football. There are a few of us who support teams.

15:56My football love came from friends taking me to my first match. Nice. And at school growing up, you can't avoid the football chat. It's everywhere. Yeah. And some school friends, sort of charter friends of mine, took me to my first game. And actually, I saw Gareth Southgate the other day, just this week. And he reminded me that the first match I saw was he was playing in it. Nice. The previous England manager used to play for Aston Villa at club level. That's cool. And the first game, he was a defender playing in the match that I watched in 2000, which was Aston Villa versus Bolton. God, time flies, man.

16:32That's a cool story. Yeah, it does.

16:33Jason Kelce:We got to ask. We're going to go to this last section here. All right, Prince? Cool. America is turning 250 years this year. Be honest, are you surprised we made it? There were times. There were times, yeah. But I'd like to think the UK and the US have been together for those 250 years. Oh, yeah. It's a good brotherhood. It has been. It has been a really good brotherhood. All righty. this one's a very obvious one, I feel like, but what is the more iconic moment at Wembley Stadium? Travis scoring a touchdown in 2015 against the Lions, or Travis is a backup dancer to the one and only Taylor Swift?

17:10Travis is a backup dancer. Definitely a very proud moment of my life, for sure. I think you should do it again. Exactly. Listen, if Hayes is going to sign up for a tour, I'll happily make sure that we bring her back to life. no that was honestly one of the coolest moments ever was meeting you and the little ones that day me and Jason joke about it all the time we were so nervous to meet you guys and the royal family and Jason has this running joke where he didn't know what to do with his beer

17:41Jason Kelce:yeah it wasn't a joke it was reality I don't know what well you want to be respectful and know what the protocols of course but no it was awesome and you were fantastic. The kids were great. Princess Charlotte was still the highlight for me. I have four daughters as well. She was great. Congratulations, having four daughters. I don't know how you do that. That is definitely a difficult task. The hardest job. We're going to ask you a Mount Rushmore. We do this with a lot of our guests. It's a carving on the side of a mountain of four of our greatest presidents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln.

18:26Jason Kelce:We do this to say who are the four greatest in whatever field. So we're going to ask you, Prince William, who is on your Mount Rushmore of English soccer players? Or football players? Yes, English footballers. Yes. Yeah, football players. Okay, that's really hard. So they've got to be English, yeah? Yes, yes, that is the one required. Let's say, yeah, we can throw the England team, the English teams. Okay, so best of all time English players is what we're saying. Yes. so for that um david beckham's got to be in there yes love that probably that probably the best crosser of the ball i've ever seen and probably ever will see um he's up there i would say well it's difficult because gary lineker would be in there somewhere with his uh goals but then harry kane's just about to overtake him yeah so you know those two are very tied together um harry could end up being one of the greatest english strikers we've ever seen yes um i think who else i grew up watching uh trying to think of some different positions so steven gerrard yeah an amazing midfielder as well absolutely fantastic player uh frank lampard him as well lampard and and wayne's wayne rooney's got to be in there too that generation i i was really hopeful for and I absolutely love them.

19:43But if you're going a long way back, it's Bobby Charlton as well. One of the greatest of all time English players. The selection there. Different genres.

19:51Jason Kelce:You know, you bring up, first of all, outstanding lists. Did you just knight everybody you just said? I tried to, yeah.

20:01Jason Kelce:What is one of the things that you brought up Wayne Rooney earlier. One of the things I always loved about his game is that he didn't – I mean, maybe he has, and I just don't remember this clip. I don't remember him ever taking a dive. I always remember him fighting through contact and continually going hard. One of the things that happened in the USA game against Paraguay, Ream was given a yellow card and they looked at the official review and they found that the player had taken a dive from Paraguay and they reversed the yellow card. Do you think this is good for the game of soccer to get that kind of aspect out of it and that replay is now getting rid of something that I think a lot of fans have been frustrated about?