World Cup Daily - France Cruise Past Morocco and Await Spain or Belgium

0:00Michael Timbs:Hey, World Cup fans. If you want proper analysis, honest opinions, and plenty of laughs along the way, give The Rest is Football a listen. Gary Lineker is joined by Alan Shearer and Micah Richards throughout the tournament as they break down all the big games, the biggest moments, and everything happening on and off the pitch. They'll also be chatting with some brilliant guests along the way. Whether you've watched soccer your whole life or you're just getting into it, they'll help make sense of the drama, the tactics, the joy, and the heartbreak of the World Cup. Listen to The Rest is Football wherever you get your podcasts.

0:34Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill.

0:40Michael Timbs:It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint's story is better. Every plan,$15 a month. even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tears. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. Hey, Chicagoland, the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

1:10Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

2:00What do France's quarterfinal over Morocco and my learning to drive at 16 have in common? Neither of us got out of third gear. This is the Arsenal Vision World Cup Daily. My name is Ali Smith. I'm a major at Gunner. That's right. Learn to drive on a stick shift car, actually. You'd be impressed. Not a lot of people do that. Never really made it out of third gear though And I would sort of Suggest That France may not have even gotten into Third gear today They eased past, cruised past Morocco And the voice you hear The sultry dulcet tones of one Michael Tim Did you enjoy that? I did

2:35Michael Timbs:I mean the right team won You know what it was Weirdly for me And I don't know if I should want France to get to the final but I kind of do I was a bit I was more relieved not that I'm a France fan but I saw obviously what's happened over the last few days and week or so with all the refereeing and I thought I saw the referee line up all Argentine referee line up and everybody went conspiracy loony this is the state of football now where you look at you look at your team's lineup the opposition team's lineup and then the referee lineup and i saw that they were pretty much all argentinian and i was going oh no oh no cue another controversy this is going to be terrible um but relatively no frills uh game and obviously the right team won france's quality shone through when they needed it to and they didn't even need to play that well um and yeah were the semi-finalists shock horror yeah they they belong there uh kilina bapé scores again this is one of those cases you know the people who don't know football analyze with stats meme like the stats work fine here 3.05 xg for france 0.14 for morocco 22 shots to 5 25 touches in the opposition box to 8 france were basically walking for the last 30 minutes i don't think morocco thought they were getting back in it either and i will ask you what do you make of the scourge of superstar players incapable of scoring penalties in the world cup well i don't know this is this is maybe becoming an actual thing where before maybe just messi isn't amazing at penalties like he's supremely talented at everything else and maybe his one quote-unquote weakness attacking wise anyway is like a dead ball 12 yards from goal and not to say Mbappe has the same sort of affliction because he's I think only missed what is it he's taken 70 whatever five penalties and he scored 67 of them or something like that really good rate and maybe they're just like free throws it's just sometimes you miss the odd one can I throw a theory at you?

4:54yeah and it literally just popped into my head right now so it's probably really stupid like you're better off not to say these things trust your gut it's the year of the gut yeah there's no stupid observations on these stupid podcasters. So I think like in the preparation for a normal game, right? Like just a game.

5:09Michael Timbs:Yes. The keepers are just going through the normal preparation. But in knockout football in particular, the keepers know they may face penalties. So penalty preparation is probably a much bigger part of the routine for preparation. And they will be studying the tendencies of those players more closely and preparing for penalties. So I wonder if they come into these games more attuned to penalty saving and penalty strategy than they may otherwise be? Is that a thing? As a gut call, I feel like that's very accurate. And also, I would say that was a long time for Mbappe to wait for a penalty. The ref screwed him there.

5:45Now, people are saying the ref screwed him there. I don't know if the VAR screwed him there. What should have happened, if it was a long VAR review, I feel like he should not have had to step up to the spot and be in position to take the penalty until the VAR review was concluded.

5:58Michael Timbs:But then this is the ridiculous thing, right? Okay, so one, I think VAR and waiting that long before taking a penalty has an effect, for sure. Like, I don't know if anyone's done a study on length of time waiting to take a penalty versus success rate. I'm sure there is some sort of correlation because how would it not affect you? Well, you mentioned free throws. You have your routine, right? You place the ball, you step back a certain amount, you breathe out you run up like when you're standing there three minutes i think they said he was there three minutes or something which is which is ridiculous for for waiting for anything you know london buses anything it's crazy and i think that especially for these guys where they're so highly tuned and they they play so much on on instinct and it's so reactive that when it comes to that's why there are specialists when it comes to like dead balls or corners or what l3 kicks right is that it's such a it is a different skill to to be able to actually take your time think about how you're going to hit a ball versus when you're just in the in the midst of it all and you're playing it's just it's it's instinctive and it's reactive and they're just going to go and and they don't need to think about it and it's just that's why it's amazing um and like even just the way he hits that penalty which is infinitely easier than the chance he did finish which was a ridiculous goal and the technique on it to get that weird dip swerve thing on it to just creep it inside the post like such a harder opportunity and yet he probably thought about that a thousand times less than he did the the penalty so um it wasn't an insignificant uh break and i think you're probably going to find this more now with maybe penalty success rate versus because VAR is playing such a larger part of the game now we're probably going to see the success rate start to trickle down because there's just naturally going to be more of a break between the giving of a decision how far back do you go to the last phase or whatever it is where there might be an infraction and then suddenly you're waiting two three minutes again for a penalty and it's it's just a lot harder to to execute I think that's right yeah I think that's that's absolutely a possibility let's not it I appreciated Mbappe blaming the ref and the because I would have done I'm saying I would have gone well if I didn't have to wait three minutes I would have easily scored that and I appreciate the best striker in the world or one of the best strikers in the world also blaming something that silly I love it and and uh there was there was someone recently gosh I'm not gonna remember which game it was there's been so many but he had a a pretty clear chance near the top of the box and he skied it and then he pointed to the grass to be like it bobbled or something and the replay showed it was like laying there like laying there like on a pool table these people especially at the very top level of the game they are so good and they're so secure in their ability of like i know i'm unbelievable and so they it's almost like they're there maybe not their ego but like their self-belief gets in the way of any sort of you know it can't be me it can't be it has to be the pitch it has to be it has to be the ref it has to be you know and i did think for a split second there the argentinian vr i'm not this is again this is i'm just i'm putting it out there as a possibility i'm not saying it's actually a thing the vr refs were going like we'll just wait another minute i can't quite decide if that has you know i'm sure there are people that would like to lean into that theory but yes uh okay we we gotta hit we gotta hit the format which means you gotta hit a headline uh from this game uh headline morocco go out without us really knowing how good they are perfect i still don't know i still don't know because and i think they said it in commentary on itv uh i think it was guy mowbray said it's like there's still a bit of a uh an unknown quantity like you don't quite know you know they're good of course they're good they wouldn't get to the quarterfinals if they weren't good and beating the teams that they've beaten but you still kind of canada was canada and then beyond that okay the group stage whatever but like it just they're still i don't i don't know how good an outfit they are they have great players but we saw zero today from them like zero they did it's almost like they were resigned to the fact that this France lot are miles better than us we know how we've played against the lesser teams and have set up but it was like if if we try to play football we're going to get torn to shreds so they kind of just sat back and even with the way they kind of sat back there didn't seem to be it wasn't like a paraguay or a cape verde where there was structure and you kind of you knew within the first 15 minutes you're like ah this is how they're playing okay they sit back here then they're trying to break with this winger or by playing these balls there was it was it was like you just make it up as you go along she's We'll sit back and hope and then see what happens.

10:53And then once we're behind, no ability to turn around. I think it's a good headline from the Morocco standpoint. So I'll give you a headline from the France standpoint, which is... Please. Ominous France win in second gear. This French team is basically complete. I mean, I don't know if I'm sold on Rabiot. I think Kone is actually a good player. Zaire Emery is an excellent midfielder who's just not getting in. They have other options, obviously, that they can go with. but like the the attacking players are all superstars defensively they're very sound even though upa meccano look a little bit loose in some moments but they have the rolls royce that is william saliba and by the way like if there's even a hint of an issue back there saliba's just cleaning it up he's he's imperious but what i will say that this reminds me of and it gives me

11:41Michael Timbs:no pleasure to make this analogy timsey okay no dude do it when city were in their absolute pomp under pep right when city were in their absolute best the mediocre teams of the league like wouldn't even really try they'd like rotate for the city games and city would be up two nil before you could blink the game would be boring as hell they'd complete 900 passes and the game never felt like a game and they would cruise past those teams and france are winning the way peak city did where like you know they could go up another gear they just don't need to and the opposition in this case Morocco Morocco went hell for leather to get back in their last game they they looked like they knew they had no shot they had no idea and this is France playing in blistering heat their semifinals going to be indoors and I'll tell you something if Spain beats Belgium France Spain could be a 7-1 7-0 kind of game and I could look really dumb saying that but because Spain can keep the ball a bit and if you have the ball against France that's when you're really susceptible to Barcola's pace Mbappe's pace Dwey's pace Olise's creativity Dembele's pace like if Spain try to keep the ball against France they're absolutely dead so look out Spain if they get past Belgium I think I think France have that ability I just would think Spain going into it have more of an idea of how are we going to play if we dominate the ball how are we going to play if we're not going to like they're just going to have more of an idea they're used to playing in these sorts of games like and they have beaten them recently i realized spain spain had beaten france yeah and and also like you look back to the euros as well and like for the most part they didn't even really seem to be in absolute full flow like obviously lemme was was on fire but they just they cruise they almost cruise their way to euros by just like knowing how they want to play they didn't even have to play that incredibly well um and france seem to be doing it at the moment but spain i think can always rely on that look they might they might end up going out they might get thrashed three one and you know they never really had a chance but they'll at least i think have an idea of how to combat france and if that's with the ball great and if not that they'll i think they'll find a way there's enough organization and know how they're that they'll be able to make it a proper game i think it'll be obviously a great affair if spank again which they should well let me just say i mean when spain beat france in the semi-final of the euro they rolled out colomani at striker mbappe and dembele off either side fine you know decent yeah i can argue with that not the colomani is that great their midfield was too many rabio and conte okay so a functional sort of defensive midfield two flying wide players and a you know a middling striker i think in kolomwani yeah and now you turn that into olise and dembele and douay and mbappe yeah they're different beasts now for sure they're a completely different beast in the way they can hurt you and and i think you drop olise in and take a conte out and you put mbappe up front instead of kolomwani and you you know you're just you're adding speed you're adding creativity could spain beat france like of course i can wind up looking really dumb and spain could be france they're not idiots they're not just going to be like let's go up the pitch and have the ball in the attacking third and get countered on but i understand where you're coming from though there is no way i think that you can control possession the way spain want to and survive what france can do to you and by the way they have to beat belgium first just to even get there right of course yeah and also you kind of think like this is a different france now where mbappe through the middle he's maybe obviously a different sort of threat center backs are going to hate playing against him and then you've got a Ballon d 'Or winner in Dembele you've got Alise who's probably the top two three best players in the world this season I'd say behind maybe Kane and Lamine when he's fit but even then like he's he's top three for me and then you've got Douai and Barcola who kind of have that freedom because the others attract so much attention they're still so dangerous and they have a bit more freedom so yeah they are like a different a different animal this time around so uh i i think they will go into that game as well being favorites but i just think we'll see more of spain if it is to be france and spain we'll see more of spain than we than we did of morocco because morocco basically it's almost like as you say like the the the poor teams did the average teams did against city for all those years was like they basically started the game rolled over in this kind of animalistic analogy and just was like kill me quickly I don't want to just don't let me suffer you know rather than like they're gonna fight back and then eventually the lion is just gonna kill them but if I just go just just go for the jugglers straight away I'm out you know I think that's the i don't know why i was doing it i watched lion king earlier today so i don't know okay um look the one thing i will say is spain have laminya mall and france seem committed to using luka dean like luka dean against laminya mall is no contest so no that could be interesting this is the weird thing he's still they still play luka steen and i don't know why hernandez isn't playing if he's the injury or like maybe he's just not a solid defensively i don't know but like yeah that's not a world-class left back no that that's like their biggest hole in the hole in the i think the whole lineup great and solid and obviously salibra and apumakana are great i think their midfield is good enough for what they need it to be i think it's it's it's almost like it wouldn't be fair if they had a truly elite level midfield i think their their their midfield is perfectly good for what it needs to be which is like keep the ball right about make it hard for them and then just give it to the good guys like that that's yeah that's perfectly fine like and uh that's that's what they've done really well i think like rabio is obviously like just this a really solid play for them and then um the what's it is kone manu kone and i have to say i i apologize manu kone i was not familiar with your game he's a real good player and we are linked by the way yeah yeah the the non-ball knowers i'm sure phil is sitting there punching he's no he's no bruno gimarais am i right well you are right because we're we're gonna win the league again let me tell you okay um time for stocks i'll do the first stock rising myself the easy one uh and my first stock rising is the nord mvp of the day yeah nord remember them yeah yeah yeah yeah vpn you put it on your device and why do you put it on your device because when i send you a link and i say this video is incredible and you click that link and it goes not available in your area.

18:28I hate when you do that to me. I do. In fact, and most of it is malware too. So not only am I sending you malware that you can't access the video without your VPN, but you're getting malware. But if you had NordVPN, you could watch the video and you wouldn't get malware because they have threat protection. Watch the subscription services you already pay for. That's why you pay for them. Watch them. Watch them where you go. Watch the videos all the time. Keep your device protected. It's simple. You click an app and say, I want to browse in California. I want to browse in London. I want to browse in Japan, Tokyo.

18:58Your choice, okay? And you do it with a great discount because if you get it from us, nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision, you get four bonus months on top of an exclusive discount on your Nord deal and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Four bonus months, great discount, 30-day money-back guarantee. It's nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision. nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision. Do it now. So my stock rising MVP of the day is Kylian Mbappe um nice Kylian Mbappe is still the best player in the world and the fact that he plays for a dysfunctional Real Madrid does not mean he's not the best player in the world and he is the best player in the world and when he wants to be he is I know he missed the penalty but like he won the penalty beautifully he had other very dangerous nearly moments he had the early shot that was saved but the goal he scores gosh he's the closest thing we've got to getting Thierry Henry back the speed the elegance the technical level he's not quite as elegant but he's pretty elegant and that shot the to be able to get that kind of top spin that whip and that accuracy from just basically standing still is so so so good and as much as i think only say is the oil in their engine sort of goals are still how you win games and right now mbappe seems like he's gonna score a goal every game and he does by the way that's 20 goals in 20 world cup appearances yeah bananas kudos killing a bop it you're good yeah i i i

20:24Michael Timbs:second that as well he you look at those big players as well and like after any sort of setback you still look at them with like right how are you gonna how are you gonna bounce back and how are you gonna prove no you know what i am the man and a lot of the times that they would kind of it maybe get a bit of a knock of confidence it's still a bit 50 50 whether they're gonna score but then for him to do that and just still like with that a bit of arrogance and swagger it's just like okay you you fully you fully know how good you are and you are really really good um and and by the way i don't think he was injured when he went down i think he was hot and he was done and he was ready to have the rest of the day off and he went bye bye yeah he sure did yeah um i need a stock rising from you my friend a stock rising i'm gonna go with didier deschamps I don't know if I've given him a stock rising already because I like my unsung heroes I I I owe Didier Duchamp an apology I've said not nice things about him but he's picking lineups I like and so he gets he gets a thumbs up and I think I actually think I did give him this was when I was in New York and maybe the the group stages but I think I gave him a stock rising as well because fair dues to the guy he's got them to another semi-final regardless like that okay their team is incredible they should get to the semis at least in every tournament they're so talented right but as you say you have to pick the right squad you have to get them playing in a way that gets them to the final and I think it was something it was someone like I think it might have been Guillem-Baleguet who tweeted basically about how he spoken to a few like head coaches and they spoke about how difficult it was to actually get an international team together the ready for international tournament football because you have especially in somewhere like France where all their players play all over the world you've got Spain England they're everywhere and to then get them together they've got 10 days two weeks to like have some sort of idea of this is how we want to set up and this is how we want to play next to impossible because they all have they spend 10 months learning precise roles and drills and stuff for their teams so then to be able to come in and it's all about just like unity and singing off the same hymn sheet and not in like a uh a very kind of complex way but it's actually simplified and it's just like make it as simple as possible and for him i think we a lot of us could do it but he's done it very well it's simplify it all play your basic stuff give it to the good people i'm sure those are his exact words and that's what he's given as instructions but still you've got to give them the instructions and he's doing it really well and his his record is ridiculous like he's yeah and he's basically odds on now to be the first or the second manager ever to win two world cups um and yeah it would be well well deserved as well so and look a bit of flack over the years but i think he's obviously a very very good manager and i think he's the sort of manager that is needed at international level when you have talent when you have dembele and mbappe people want to be entertained and if you look at the last euros this is what France did one nil against Austria nil nil against the Netherlands one one against Poland one nil against Belgium nil nil against Portugal 2-1 loss to Spain they scored nil or one in every one of their games okay so he he brought that reputation for me a little bit having not been a close watcher thinking they have the talent to do so much more and the team that they've put out and his willingness to play that you know to get Dembele wide and put only say in the 10 after the first game and just throw Mbappe up there they they play with the freedom they they let their talent at the top end of the pitch dominate for them and it's the right way to go and kudos to him you got it done and and they should be there but they are there let's uh let's hit the stocks falling and then we'll do a super super quick preview of tomorrow and yeah I'm I mean there's an easy choice here yeah go for it no I was I'm guessing you were gonna go morocco well so i i feel like just stock falling the losing team is is like cheating but go for it because i i'm gonna pick on a player and it's a player i picked on before so you go first okay before you pick on a whole player i'm gonna pick on a whole team and country and that that is morocco don't pick on the country just pick on the team so sorry no morocco i love you i want to go to marrakesh it's on my list um uh i basically if you get to a quarterfinal it doesn't matter who you're playing against you want to see more uh from your from your team and especially with that i have to stop you you look the most martinelli you've ever looked today i don't know what it is i don't know if it's the facial hair pop in the way but you look the most martinelli you've you've ever looked today okay carry on sorry it's like uh yeah yeah yeah you do my wrist strapping to get get your a a podcast game going okay go for it sorry um so it's uh obrigado um so yeah i just think like for how especially how passionate their fans are and like they will travel anywhere for their team like they're obviously so so passionate and just loyal even they right and they will blindly believe like we're the best in the world and just like just support their team to the ends of the earth even they surely are going to be a bit disappointed with their showing tonight because they're like we didn't even you can't even leave that game and obviously you're going to be proud we got this far great but for the just the game alone you've got to be leaving that game going come on guys like you've got to give us a little bit more than that um because even i as a neutral we all like want a good game we want to yeah it was it was a good game for france but as an actual spectacle is like it was just a bit too easy so um i'm i'm obviously it's not stock falling it's more like i'm disappointed for morocco that they didn't bring more to the table and i think they deserved to as a better representation of themselves that's a nice way of saying your stock has dramatically fallen yeah so i'm gonna go with a player as i said and look that's mean it is mean i want to be clear about how i approach the world cup as a non-ball knower a lot of times there are these hipster trendy names players we're linked with players are linked with moves to the premier league players i don't know very well i said manu kone for example and my eye is on them because i want to learn about them and i want to be clear you really learn about players in international football at your peril because a lot of players look good at international level are not good enough at the club level and vice versa and i get that but for me my stock falling gently because he's 18 is iuboadi i just i first of all he lost the ball terribly a number of times this game he wasn't clean on it he's a carrier he's not a passer the passing range i think was exposed in this tournament when he was pressed he was not as press resistant as he needed to be and like we've seen that player we've had that player at arsenal that player who can get caught on the ball and wants to try to carry it through danger and cannot survive carrying through danger like yeah and look at 18 he's he's impressed the right people smart people he's probably a very good player he's probably going to go on to be very good but in terms of is he ready now if the world cup is any indication and it isn't to be clear it probably isn't he he still looks like a work in progress and this this was a day i think anyway he will well he won't want to forget it because it'll be a day he played in a quarterfinal at the world cup which is wonderful for him but it'll be a a performance where i i don't think we saw a hell of a lot he won't look back on it fondly and i think the the coverage in the uk did the the dreaded thing of highlighting him before the game and actually giving him his own segment of analysis going he's really going to be key to the to how morocco do today yeah and then proceeds to drop a a little bit of a stick i would say because i'm not a cream uh because i'm not a cruel cruel and and uh mean spiteful man like me yes uh i won't i won't blame him i'll i will say that his performance was the byproduct of the system not working because they all they didn't even have a system is basically what i'm saying like they didn't there was no there was no semblance of any sort of game plan and so for him in the middle as a kid to just go boss what am i so so what's my role today?

28:36Michael Timbs:And the boss goes, mate, I don't even know what the team's role is. I don't know. Bits me. I've got to play your game. So just do your thing. Keep running around and stuff. And I think he's probably just, he was, yeah, one of the unlucky ones where people look to him to maybe get them going in midfield and just like, there was no midfield because they were banked on their 18-yard line and they barely even, when they did get the ball, they couldn't do anything with it because there was just no one really turned up like honestly none of their players turned up in any way even even as a it's a diop got like a silly yellow card which would have ruled him out the next game anyway but like there wasn't even any of that where just ah nothing's going for us let's make it difficult in some way let's get into them let's be a bit more power don't go full paraguay no one ever wants to go never do that a little bit more paraguay where you just make it uncomfortable and no one even did that so uh i would say he didn't have a great game obviously but I feel like it's because Morocco didn't have a good game.

29:36I'd flip it. Yeah, and that's fair. Look, I thought about picking Masraoui, but Mbappe missed the penalty. It's the dumbest challenge possible. Don't go to ground in the box like that.

29:47Michael Timbs:More appropriate stock falling, I think, because he's not a child. And he's just kind of a funny thing to laugh at anyway. So, okay, let's quickly wrap this up with a look ahead to Spain-Belgium. We've done a whole preview of Spain-France, so now Belgium will obviously beat Spain after I talked all about how France are going to beat Spain. One of two things are going to happen. Either Belgium are going to win or Spain are going to win and then pound France into the ground because of what I said previously. But setting that aside, no Onana. Unfortunately for Amadou Onana, he did suffer a cruciate ligament injury in the U.S.

30:18game. It seemed pretty clear at the time. And I feel for him because I also think starting him was a really smart move. I have to believe that De Bruyne will start on the bench again. I mean, I thought Belgium looked so much sturdier, so much more confident. you know out of possession um without de Bruyne and and frankly he wasn't adding anything in possession at this point anyway so I would expect the same lineup that started against the U.S. except just Vinakian for um for Onana so and then the usual for Spain what are you expecting tomorrow

30:51Michael Timbs:um yeah as you say more of the same I would say it would be interesting if Ojasabao doesn't score again whether Mikel and Spang go through whether Mikel Marino starts against France because as all Bulls knowers know he is unfazed by anything and of all the players that you would look to who can actually create something and be able to score against this France team it's there's two players it's Lamine and it's and it's Marino um so that would be interesting but that's also feel like marino's the kind of player that can profit from jamal's in swinging and he knows and he knows for example how saliba like he seems like a very smart man like he'll know how saliba defends and him saliba playing on the left side for example might be a little bit different and so he might be able to exploit that but obviously it's yeah it's a big ask but uh spain belgium yeah i think spain will go through and i think they shouldn't really have a problem but obviously with Belgium's last game, it was a big boost for them.

31:55Michael Timbs:I think also it's good to just score that many goals, like to just even prove into yourself, it's like, okay, look, we haven't been great, but at least we can like score goals. They might be a terrible side, not a terrible side, USA. Well, let's put it this way. They scored, some of the goals they scored, you know, were terrible goals to concede. We're given to them, of course, yeah. But even then, I just think like, You look back and it's like we literally scored four goals in regulation time. I think you can use that at least because they can't use anything else because they've been abysmal.

32:30Michael Timbs:So, yeah, I don't see anything else other than like a Spain win, but obviously it wouldn't be uncommon for us two ball knowers to get it completely wrong and Belgium to pull off like the upset of the tournament. But yeah, I think it's going to be Spain. and I think they'll set up as as they did before as well like Lamine his Lamine's um fitness is still a question mark I feel like he's maybe like two games ahead of Bukayo in terms of being ready to to actually play um because Bukayo keeps getting interviewed saying like no I'm getting more minutes and I'm feeling more comfortable but everyone can see he's just not in any way Matt Sharp yeah um and Lamine has at least shown glimpses not that Bukayo hasn't showing glimpses but lamine's shown more consistent glimpses of of getting on the ball and actually being like a threat and looking physically sorry like his old self um so i i expect it to be more of a lamine show this i'll make a prediction i think lamine will score one and he'll assist one as well yeah i mean this is what this is when he finally goes i have arrived uh yeah that's my prediction i have no idea what to make this game but my instinct says that spain will control it and find a way through in a game that will maybe look a little like this one today in the sense that Spain just have a lot of the ball and Belgium aren't able to provoke enough you know going aren't able to to provoke enough counter opportunities to make it feel like a really intense game but we'll see yeah um I mean look the one thing I'll say is I think it's in Los Angeles so it should be the weather shouldn't be a factor this game was at a slower pace again today because you had another 100 near 100 degree feel you know temperature feels like 100 degrees in Boston for this game, much like it did when France played Paraguay.

34:17So the semifinals should be interesting. They're both non-weather games. They should be played at tempo and they should be exciting. Then New York, New Jersey gets to ruin it all with what will inevitably be a humid, sweaty, miserable day for the final. Yeah, I've just found out I'm actually going to the final. You did. Okay, congratulations. I was really worried about that. So that's awesome, great news. I do want to tell you, all of the worst sports watching experience of my life have involved trying to get out to that stadium and spend time in that stadium but it's a world

34:46Michael Timbs:cup final so yeah i don't know how that's gonna gonna play out because even my experience in boston as i've said before was not fun like it was getting there okay and the journey was kind of yeah it's not in town but but this is the problem i feel like with this is the problem with your country actually elliot please tell me was i feel like all the stadiums that aren't soccer stadiums I've been to quite a lot of soccer stadiums in the US, like Atlanta or Orlando or LAFC, any of those. They're fine. They're actually kind of relatively simple to get to. I feel like with the football stadiums, because of just that sport and the experience of going to the games, they're not built around ease of being there, of you go there, you go to the game, you go home.

35:36Michael Timbs:It's really simple. You drive. And you spend the whole day there and nothing's quick because like, well, you've got to go there before and you've got a tailgate. And then after that, it's just like, it took so long in like outside of the 90 minutes. It took so long in and out of the stadium. If you think about it, in major cities, where are you going to get the room to put an 80 ,000-seater stadium that also can accommodate cars because we're a car-driven society, unfortunately. So you need a parking lot to accommodate that many cars. You need space to accommodate that much. the idea that you can build that inside city centers especially if you want to build a new stadium is virtually nil so they put those things outside i think minneapolis where i live actually we're very fortunate we have a wonderful modern nfl stadium that is stunningly beautiful that seats almost 80 000 and it is in the city and you can walk to it why don't we go there and by the way target field the baseball field in the city you can walk to it target center the basketball arena in the city like minneapolis for whatever you want to say about it boy oh boy does it have a great layout for sports watching if you want to walk around the city and go see the sports.

36:40The only downside is seven months of the year, you are likely to die of frostbite. Come on. What's the big deal? Who cares? Okay. Score prediction for tomorrow.

36:52Michael Timbs:Score prediction, I'm going 3-0. Oh, you stole mine. Oh, okay. 3-0 Belgium. Yeah, both of us. The fact that both of us have guessed that, it definitely means it's not happening. Lump all your money on anything but that. Yeah. Here you go. Okay. I don't know if you can do like a lay bet on 3-0 where it's... Any score live but 3-0. And then you win one down. 10 million to one, but you get one if it's not 3-0. And then knowing our luck, it would be 3-0. It will be 3-0 and your 10 million is gone. But hey, congratulations that you had 10 million to blow. Isn't that really the news there? You said that.

37:29Michael Timbs:You're doing well. I said 1 ,000. I'm going to lump 10 million on it. Okay, look, we got to get out of here. Probably going to have a Friday night Clive tomorrow, which is exciting. Then we're going to have a World Cup daily with Timsey, and then we're going to also preview tomorrow the exciting games on Saturday. DOS games on Saturday, including England, which is going to be incredible. So, cannot wait for that. Timsey, thank you for being you and for being here. Obrigada. I appreciate the compliments about me looking like Martinelli. Yep. We'll have to see if you play like Martinelli at some point.

38:01Okay, everybody. That's gonna do it we should have news on the Dublin event soon by the way so stay tuned for that okay enough Elliot stop talking we love you and we will talk to you after World Cup 10 for even though

38:32Thank you.