WORLD CUP DIGEST: Ordinary Brazil, Aussie Joy & Water Break Drama

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2:03All right, good morning one and all. Welcome back to the World Cup Digest. You join me as I walk to the train station. I'm working on site today, so yeah, you have to put up with my stomping feet and thinly veiled attempts not to show you that I'm out of breath on a brisk walk um i'm carrying a heavy bag all right in in my defense okay um i'm trying all right right so let me get my uh you know the the drill on this well unless this is the first time you've listened 15 minute timer i'll try and wrap up all the sort of biggest talking points and stuff as i see them at the World Cup so let me just navigate through my phone whilst I'm recording and walking makes for great great listening right 15 minute timer getting it ready let's go so starting with brazil versus morocco morocco really good side one of those teams that and i'm going to get onto this later that classically probably haven't been seen as a big team or a favorite team you know with all due respect and everything but as times change um as you know anything just changes in life i think there's sort of a realignment in uh expectation as to quite how good they are um a really brilliant side and i want to say that up front before i start talking about brazil because big pardon reflecting on brazil is a strange one um you know you're talking about a team that i did a tweet to the effect saying that you know i've sort of arrived at the age now where i feel the need to try and explain to younger people quite how incredible both brazil and man united were when i was growing up impossibly good is the way i put it um and that is that is the way that I would see it you know Brazil without wanting to like fetishize human beings too much were almost like you know gods among men they were seen as like this mythical kind of force if you like and it's hard to know if that's a result of say oversaturation of the sport now coverage from across the world available much more easily it could be partly to do with the strength and the financial pull of the Premier League so more and more top players you know a lot of the a lot of the kind of points that people were making in a sort of churlish fashion was they used to have Ronaldo and now they've got a Brentford striker up top which you know I get it I know it's kind of a joke, but I don't think it's fair to Igor Thiago or to Brentford really.

5:15And again, ignores the financial might of the Premier League. But with that said, there was something about watching Brazil back in the day that I know it's sort of, it's a lame thing to say. And it all seems quite twee, but they were like everybody's team because they just made football feel great. like you would watch brazil in the 90s noughties and think that's that's it that's that's the game i love and they do it and i can't hate them for it even when they're knocking england out of world cups and stuff you know it just i don't know it was just different maybe the internet's exacerbated kind of rivalries and all that type of thing as well this sort of forced sense of having to hate everybody that's not on your team i don't know i like that's probably a whole other podcast but brazil to see them look this ordinary really is strange it's bizarre um because you know just is when things change it's weird you know it's very easy to sit back and say well you know it's just change is what happens but when you really acutely witness it with your own eyes it's yeah sometimes hard to swallow you know and so seeing Brazil just kind of quite meek quite average really doesn't say a lot but also it's the first game of the World Cup you know it's the first game of the World Cup they got a draw against as I said at the top and actually really accomplished really good Morocco side so what's to say they can't kind of rally from here Argentina lost the first game against Saudi Arabia in the last World Cup and went on to win it so who knows Scotland well done brilliant I know the last thing the Scotsman wants to hear is an Englishman say well done pat them on the head but it is brilliant it's brilliant to see them rally I think they've got a really good side it's the best Scotland side I've probably seen in my entire lifetime so it'd be nice to see them kind of do quite well obviously the big thing that's going viral at the moment is the Flower of Scotland anthem at the top which again kind of shifts into sharp focus the dreary I think I've seen it called funereal nature of God Save the King yeah I think England does need a need a new anthem to be honest something a bit more something a bit more rousing do you know I mean the French thing about like killing invaders and watering the fields with their blood and all that stuff you know I know it all sounds all very nice and da-da-da-da-da-da, very pomp and whatever, but it's dark.

8:01It's a weird anthem. Maybe England needs a bit more of that, a bit more of a rallying, you know? Oomph, Gertrude. Don't know. But, yeah, well done, Scotland. Good to see them win. Good to see the emotions from all the Scottish fans, a lot of travelling support there. And also they've got one of the biggest football bangers in uh we'll be coming we'll be coming we'll be coming down the road when you hear the noise of the tartan army boys we'll be coming down the road huge tune look it up um australia turkey huge result for the aussies massive really turkey often a much favored it's kind of a bit of a meme dark horse team um but yeah brilliant brilliant brilliant um result for the aussies decent performance obviously an added element that I hadn't uh taken into consideration before my Greek Aussie mate Jonathan floated that yes you know a large Greek population in Australia as well and by all accounts certain parts of Sydney were popping off the other night so um yeah good result love a good shock in the World Cup um let's see let's see what the Aussies can do you know very sporting nation right right they've uh they've beaten england before in the past so you know they know i don't know they can they turn up on these big occasions don't they the jock bastards um germany curacao 7-1 does that tell the whole story does that tell the the full tale of the tape if you like um i don't know a lot of people are talking about the water breaks The water breaks at this World Cup.

9:45Did Germany's water break break the flow of play? Guraçao had just equalised against Germany. And we were essentially looking at them maybe, maybe going 2-1 ahead. I think they had a couple of breaks. Germany looked quite shaky. They looked quite shell-shocked that they'd actually conceded a goal. then suddenly the water break goes and what happens happens the germans rally and things kind of kick on i've seen a lot of people talking about the fact that infantino um has essentially changed the very makeup of the sport um introducing these like compulsory water breaks as opposed to one that is you know adjudged at the time and place given the conditions some people are saying why do you need a water break when it's an enclosed roof with air conditioning at night, all that type of thing, right?

10:46I think there's lots of different considerations floating about. I don't deny that there is probably a cynical element from FIFA in introducing these water breaks, that it allows broadcasters to put more advertisements, so on and so forth, into the ordinary sort of running of everything. fine I do get that I take that on board I get that it completely changes the very nature of the sport but this you know I think look on the surface level right on the surface level where I can understand it in the respect that like if if Germany Curacao right has a water break and because it's a judge that it's the heat of the day they need to have one then in the evening game a similar circumstance happens and there isn't a water break people are always going to look and say well look what happens when there is a water break versus when there isn't we have these conversations already when you have a cup competition that part of it is covered by VAR other games aren't because grounds can't support it and everything and you're talking about the game not being on an even playing field if we are going to have water breaks at certain points then I understand that in the want of fairness and the want of equality to have a water break in every single game.

12:06I think, personally speaking, I think that does just seem cleaner. What this does do is shift into focus for me, a larger conversation about climate change, about the nature of summer tournaments, about the fact that we are now subjecting fans and athletes to these conditions whereby a water break has felt necessary. This does give me a chance to plug a little series I've been working on. It's called Route 26, Losing Sight of Goal. Have a look. We've got Lawrence McKenna, who used to be on True Geordie, all that type of thing. Lawrence McKenna and a guy called Alex Moneypenny. They're travelling around the States on a road trip.

12:52And they are essentially just looking at the conditions, what the conditions realistically look like in a lot of the host cities. For people that live there, for people that play football in these places and people that watch football in these places. And it really is, it's quite stark in places. It's not trying to sort of bum everybody out about the sport and everything like that. It still maintains that football is fun. Football is the reason why we're all there. We love the game. But it's just trying to put into sharp focus the fact that organisers, governing bodies, governments need to do more about the direction of travel, need to do more in terms of safeguarding, better, more comprehensive plans to protect fans, to protect players and what have you.

13:37So I do think there's a much wider conversation about the nature of summer tournaments, about a summer tournament this huge that spans three gigantic countries. You know, it's a cross-continental tournament, Central America and North America. Thousands of miles that fans are going to be expected to travel, to fork out for, to have to endure in the heat and all this type of thing, right? it's it's accumulative and it's oppressive and i'm sure for anybody from america or a sunnier climb listening to this they're probably thinking well shut up get on with it but you know i think it's a realistic conversation things are only getting hotter and uh yeah you know it's it's gonna it was always going to be shifted into focus by this world cup you know we were talking about the fact that the qatar world cup was moved to winter when a lot of the average temperatures or the, yeah, basically not too dissimilar from what a lot of them are in the States.

14:39So we've just got a question, what we're doing, how we're doing it. We are live from Fetty's house. Guests are gathering around the TV, even with a big storm outside. Are we worried about the feet? Nope, they have Xfinity Wi-Fi. Get reliable fiber-powered gig Wi-Fi with Peacock included to stream the beautiful game this summer. Xfinity, imagine that. Restrictions apply, new gig internet customers only. Actual speeds vary. Offer for Peacock Premium with ads currently at$10.99 a month value and limited to Xfinity internet members with newer upgraded gig speed or faster service activation required to access content.

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16:10See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. Back to the game. Germany, you know, 7-1. I mean, incredible. Obviously, you know, they put in sort of the team that you would expect them to, with all due respect, to the sword. They've done that. I think some people I've seen on Twitter trying to carve out some idea that it's problematic for Germany to do that, but I think it would be more problematic to not treat a World Cup qualifying nation with the respect that it deserves by playing to the best of your ability. You know, I don't think there's an air of it being an embarrassment or anything like that.

16:52Germany are an incredible World Cup nation. They always have been, don't write off the Germans, as people always say. They've won the competition four times. They've done that to Brazil in the past. It's no shame for that to happen. They're not going out their way to embarrass anybody. They're just playing to the best of their ability, and that's what the World Cup is. And also, as was pointed out, Germany actually didn't make it out of the groups in the last World Cup because Spain won 7-0. They won on a huge goal difference. So Germany didn't qualify from the groups due to goal difference. So that will probably be in the back of their minds.

17:27As in, get as many goals as you can when you can. It's a bit different this time. Top three qualifying and all that type of thing. But still, every single point, every single goal really, really matters in the World Cup group stages. So fair play to them. Be interesting to see how they do against, say, one of the higher ranked nations. Germany still one of those teams where you're never quite sure quite how good or not that they are but Nagelsmann is a great coach and they obviously have a plethora of very very good players so as I say never write off the Germans. Netherlands-Japan underwhelming game Japan massively overly defensive I thought look you know they probably won't be complaining they've got a out of the Netherlands but still for all the sort of talk about Japan being this technical expansive brilliant exciting team I didn't see any of that to be honest I saw Arsenal you know I saw a team that was dogged sitting back not really giving much away not really sort of entering the competition in the spirit that is supposedly intended in the World Cup look every point matters so whatever maybe that's the spirit of it and everything and maybe this is just wishy-washy kind of ideals but still disappointing I thought anyway.

18:47Netherlands obviously a good side lots of very talented players struggled to find that killer ball again I think there's just something just something missing a bit from Netherlands to really consider them a serious contender but again it's the first game of the tournament Japan for the slander I've just given them are a talented side are an accomplished side are a seasoned World Cup team now so you know let's just wait and see you can't draw too many big conclusions from the first game of a World Cup group stage but you know Netherlands will be disappointed with that and again I think there is one eye on Mickey van der Ven and his defensive capabilities as well as how comfortable or not he looks at left back there's been a lot of talk from Spurs fans So the timer actually went just then.

19:42A lot of talk about how well or not he'd be able to play left-back for Spurs, but we'll save that for another day. Ecuador-Cote d 'Ivoire, great three points to Cote d 'Ivoire. Probably a slightly bigger team on the international stage than Ecuador, but still you'd probably put them as peers. Great to get three points against when he appears. Sweden, smash Genizia 5-1. Well done Sweden. and you look through their team and you see a lot of talent there. Really, really good side. A side that probably haven't been talked about that much, but you also look at them, think of some of the players available to them.

20:14They could cause problems for anybody on their day. So, yeah, great side, good team. Try to wrap it up within the 15 minutes. Thanks very much for listening. Hope you're enjoying this format. Had a bit of feedback from a few people saying that they really like it. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. If you do enjoy it, please like, please share. Even with non-Spurs fans, you know, they might like it. Please, please share it. Oh, go on, please, I beg you. It's pathetic, isn't it? Bye-bye.

20:57Bye.

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