France ease past Morocco - is it certain to be Spain in the semis?


0:01Pol Ballus: This episode of the Totally Football Show is sponsored by BOSS, businesswear provider for the U.S. men's national soccer team. Long before kickoff, the performance has already begun. For the players, the crest is not simply worn, it's earned. BOSS understands what it takes to build something worthy of a crest. Constant refinement, precision in every stitch. And as the U.S. MNT steps into the spotlight on home soil, BOSS is outfitting those who wear the badge. empowering them to step forward with confidence express their individuality and be their own boss in relaxed, lightweight and breathable tailoring from Boss Performance and soccer fans Boss has you covered too whether you want to look and feel as sharp as your heroes in Boss Performance or show your pride from the stands in jerseys, polos and jackets in national colours and badges own the moment with confidence discover the Boss Performance Collection as worn by the US Men's National Soccer Team and the fan capsule of jerseys, polos and jackets in national colours.

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1:20Pol Ballus: Hey there. From Los Angeles, it's totally the World Cup. Football in America is a game of four quarters, and it's reached the quarters. So here's the latest from ours. Sports, everyone.

1:38Pol Ballus: French kicking in the USA. France advance past Morocco, but Mbappé exits with eyes on Ankur. Can Killian return for the semi? And who will France be facing there? Spain or the man who took on FIFA, the USA and Belgian public opinion? Rudy Garcia and Belgium. Thursday afternoon in that Los Angeles, Friday morning in many other parts of the globe. And ladies and gentlemen, we've got ourselves a brand new signing. Joining the still so far undefeated Tom Williams is Tim Spears. Ooh, Tim. Tim, that was magnificent. Thanks, Jimbo. Thank you. Tom, you concur? Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're almost running out of things that you can do for your...

2:25I think...

2:26Pol Ballus: Is that new? Have you seen anyone, any player do that? No, that's just... Model's own. Spears brand, yeah. Good for you. Thanks. Tim, lovely to see you, by the way. Great to be here. Well, that's great news. Live in LA. We've been having fun here. What have you been up to? How long have you been out here for? I've been out here for about 10 days in the States. I was in Seattle. We're seeing some pictures here. That's a statue of Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, a very musical and friendly city, which I think is accurately reflected in these two pictures. A real fan festival of football. I didn't think anything could compare to the Euros, but genuinely, Seattle was like being back in Germany for the Euros.

3:04Everybody loves their soccer there. It's the soccer capital, isn't it? Well, you walk into any bar or shop, and you'd hear people say things like Norway or Ismail Assar. You're just not expecting that at all. It's just American people really getting into the block. Plotting which countries to invade. Sorry, Seattle. I know that's not your mind.

3:28Pol Ballus: That's the tone of the live show in LA, is it? Jimi Hendrix. Is there a big Seattle connection with Jimi? So he was born there. Oh, well, that's one. So fairly substantial. So there's lots of Hendrix and there's lots of Kurt Cobain. In fact, I went to the bar that he apparently was the last bar he ever sat in. Oh, yeah. And he was in some booth in the corner of the bar. a legendary sort of story. You wouldn't advertise that if it was your bar, would you? Oh, they do, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because they get all the Cobain superfans coming in. Right. And just around the corner is that Hendrix statue. So it's a great, great musical and cultural sort of city.

4:03Pol Ballus: I loved it. Wow. So the picture on the left, I'm going to call it, with the lion's head, and there's a gentleman with a hat of quite terrifying proportions. and then there's the police on bicycles looking well disposed to all of the environment and they were all very friendly you could chat to any of the police officers about anything really this was Senegal and a US fan and the Belgians were all there loving it it was just a real feast got the official sponsor in as well good work excellent, we had a day off yesterday didn't we? James yeah, had a lovely time we went to Malibu had some beach time before that we went to the Dodgers Yes, the Dodgers.

4:46That was good fun.

4:47Pol Ballus: I enjoyed the baseball more than I thought I would. Well, you were lucky enough to see a moment of history at Dodger Stadium. That man there on the left, Shohei Otani, striking his career 300th home run. Boom! The second that we arrived, we were kind of queuing up for overpriced beers and sampling the merchandise options. It was, oh, we should probably go and watch some baseball. went around the corner he walks out to bat and second ball second go hits a home run yeah well Tim you also went to the baseball but that's probably enough baseball chat did you enjoy it? well he was terrible oh the goat the greatest of all time you're so lucky to be here Tim this is baseball's messy he was rubbish okay but it was a great night excellent well it's fun isn't it take me out to the ball game and that now football oh yeah not forgetting our little oh I had a nice cream trip to He's just in.

5:42Pol Ballus: Chimbo tackles large ice cream. And being seasoned travellers, of course, we didn't do anything silly like over-order seafood. Oh, yeah, there was that. And then compound the error by eating an enormous ice cream. That would be amateur hour. Very nice. Anyway, if you're in the neighbourhood and fancy a bucket of shrimp, we'll get on to the football. So only one game for you on this Thursday, but it was a big one. The quarterfinal, the first of this round, And saw France take on Morocco and defeat them 2-0, which sees them take up the first of the semi-final places. They will be in Dallas on July the 14th, 14th, taking on either Spain or Belgium.

6:28Pol Ballus: Depends which one of those wins Friday's quarterfinal. We'll be talking much more about that game later on. But before we get on to our incredible analysis of France-Morocco, let's get a moment of the day. Tom, you go first. I'm going to go a bit left field here and go for a little-known player by the name of Kylian Mbappe, scoring the opening goal in France's 2-0 win over Morocco. We were an hour into proceedings. He'd already squandered a first-half penalty, first penalty he'd missed for France in 2021. but then the ball falls to him on the edge of the area and he very skillfully uses his former France youth teammate Issa Diop as a screen shapes a beautiful goal inside the right-hand post from the edge of the area.

7:12France are up and running and Bappe's level with Lionel Messi in the race for the Golden Boots and yeah, they were halfway to the semi-finals.

7:21Pol Ballus: He notched up another assist as well later on when he set up Dembele's got him. That was a moment. What was yours, though? I'm going to come back at you with a stat of the day, something I found on the internet, which I found quite amusing and is relevant on the first day of the quarterfinals. I hope you haven't seen this, but of the eight quarterfinalists at this World Cup, of the top eight of the FIFA World Rankings, five of them are in the quarterfinals. The three of those eight teams that didn't make it... Yes, to the top five. Yeah. This is called the Everton Curse because they're all former Everton managers managing those three top eight teams that didn't make it.

8:03Pol Ballus: So of the top eight FIFA-ranked nations that didn't make the last eight of this World Cup, the only three to not make it... Yes, you've put it more succinctly than me. And yes, they're all former Everton managers, one of whom is on the screen there, Roberto Martinez. So none of the five that did make it are managed, I'm just catching up on this, by former Everton managers. Otherwise they would fall and fall. You've got Roberto Martinez, you've got Carlo Ancelotti and... Ronald Koeman. Ronald Koeman. And helpfully, I had seen this stat and I double-checked it and it's actually the top nine teams.

8:37Because I think the Netherlands... But maybe pre-tournament. Maybe pre-tournament. What am I talking about? But you know what?

8:42Pol Ballus: There's been a lot of talk of David Moyes for Scotland and that's maybe something they want to bear in mind. They might not make the quarter-finals if they make that appointment. Yeah. My moment of the day is this website which you told me about today which kind of qualifies, although it actually dates back to Belgium's 3-2 win in the round of 32 over Senegal. Belgium, you will recall, were 2-0 down with just four minutes to go. And worst of all, Rudy Garcia, the Belgian manager, had taken off two of the team's biggest stars in Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne. However, his intuition proved absolutely correct, even though everyone thought he was an idiot for doing so, because they won the game and made it all the way to the quarterfinals.

9:23Pol Ballus: and we'll see what happens. But how many people, Tim, have apologised to Rudy on this website? More than 10 ,000 so far. So this is a page just for people to apologise? It's a very simple, basic website, sorryrudy.be and all you can do is leave a comment to say sorry. Right. Have you left one, Tom? Not yet. Perhaps I should. Right. Is it not you that said, thank you very much, Mr. Swear Word Coach? That was not me. No, I've not yet. I've not yet. I've not found the words for my apology. How many pages of apologies are there? I think there's something like 230 pages of apologies. It's a lot of things.

10:00It's rather non-apologies. No, no, no. There's lots of banter on there as well. But he's known for these kind of maverick, crazy decisions, and everybody's been doubting him for some time. So hence why the tide has really turned in.

10:13Pol Ballus: Yeah. After that Senegal comeback. And then, of course, after the win against USA, one that I picked out from the top page was, sorry, Aldi Mark Wahlberg. Is that fair? But you told me about that and I was like, he doesn't look like Mark Wahlberg. But now, all of a sudden, looking at his picture, there's something in the look. Because he's not supposed to look exactly like him. Because he's from Aldi. Didn't know that there was Aldi in Belgium, but now I do. France-Morocco, everybody.

10:46Pol Ballus: Tim, you joined us just in time for an incredibly drama-free quarterfinal Thursday between France and Morocco but they look good don't they France? Yeah they look great they look almost unstoppable I'm struggling to remember a team at a World Cup that has looked like such clear favourites throughout really since their first game against Senegal they've looked like the best team and if they go on to win it as we expect they will then I'm not sure the last time that would have happened really you know where there's been such an obvious best team and favourite throughout the tournament yeah they look unstoppable I was a little disappointed in Morocco today I have to say but as we saw you know they started the game with two banks of well four or five you know trying to stop France fairly successfully and then the one time they started to venture forward is when they gave away the penalty two minutes later because Hakeem was caught out of position so how do you how do you how do you how do you negate against that you know there's the moment they stepped up and went out and tried to attack France I know they didn't score but they got the penalty so well Paraguay had an approach but it's not one you would necessarily want other teams to mirror.

11:51Pol Ballus: Tom, you literally wrote the book about French football, Vavavoom, available now. How would you try and stop them? I think you either go the Paraguay route, you just clog up the pitch and you put someone on all the danger men and you try and spoil the game, or you deprive them of possession. And if France are to play Spain in the semi-finals, for example, that's something that Spain could theoretically try and do. The last two times that France have come up against Spain, they've really struggled. they lost to them in the Euro 2024 semifinals didn't get a kick and then last year in the Nations League semifinals Spain went 4-0 up and then 5-1 up and France rallied at the end scored three late goals ended up finishing 5-4 bit of a madcap game so that shows what can happen when France go up against a team who control possession but this is a different France now and as Tim was saying they've reached the level that I don't think we've seen from them before and under Didier Deschamps I'd be intrigued to see how they'd do if they weren't able to you know control possession in the way that they have so far but you know Morocco tried to disrupt them in the early stages but very quickly realized how dangerous it was to be leaving themselves open to the risk of the counter-attack and I think that's one of the reasons why Morocco produced such a disappointing performance.

13:15They weren't really sure how to engage with France. They ended the game with only one shot on target.

13:18Pol Ballus: They were without Sabahari as well, which meant they adopted perhaps a more defensive approach. For the first half it kind of worked. France produced one excellent save from Bono and also the penalty moment, which you called a Mbappe miss earlier on, and you're correct, but it was also a penalty. Because he squandered a penalty. Ah, right. Which I use my words very carefully. But it was a remarkable save from Bono. Yeah, another bad stutter penalty at the World Cup. There have been quite a few. As of July 1st, I don't have the most updated stat, but as of July 1st, six out of 11 stutter penalties have been missed in this World Cup, including Harry Kane against Croatia, Messi.

13:58And yeah, Bono's got previous for this. Raul Jimenez has only missed one penalty in the whole of his domestic club career, and that was against Bono in the Europa League quarterfinals for wars against Switzerland. Again, a stutter penalty, and again quite similar to today in that he's very good at not blinking first he will just wait he'll sort of motion to go one way or the other but he always leaves himself the sort of flexibility to dive the other way he doesn't fully commit himself one way or the other that's exactly what we saw with with Mbappe I mean he does his bit Bono but sometimes you can't make it on your own

14:30Pol Ballus: it wasn't a beautiful day for him etc and so on uh one amazing stat about the Moroccan keeper he's only been beaten by two of the last nine penalties he's faced at the World Cup including shootouts. Two out of nine. He's certainly got the edge on penalties. It does indeed. Anyway, that kept it goalless but France were not to be denied. Not with Kylian Mbappé in their side. Look, this is the moment when he's bent it past Diop. In magnificent fashion. A glorious goal. He'd obviously won the penalty himself with a trademark run down the inside left channel drew the challenge from Roussa Mazraoui but then squandered the penalty prior to that we hadn't seen that much of him he'd been dropping deep to get on the ball but you know in the way that he does so frequently and that he has done many times at this tournament already you give him half a yard and he punishes you and I think it was Desiree Douai who wins the ball back prods the ball to him and he turns curls it around Diop and in and you kind of felt okay that's that's probably going to be it now and then Dembele makes it 2-0 within, what, five minutes?

15:41Pol Ballus: Yeah, OK. Well, he's now got eight goals, level with Leo Messi, one behind Messi in the all-time World Cup goal stakes. Here's another stat with Dembele getting the second. He's now on five, which means that France are only the second side in the last half century to have two players with at least five goals in a World Cup. And that's obviously part of their greatness. If you can stop one, but then you've got Dembele or you've got Alise who's got the most assists in the tournament and it's probably been the difference maker for me I think just about it's hard to believe Tom you'll correct me I think they scored four goals from six matches at Euro 2024 and two of those were own goals and one of them at least one of them was a penalty they made it to the semi-finals at Euro 2024 without any of their players having scored a goal in open play incredible they'd got one or two penalties two own goals Randall Colomani scored the opener against Spain in the semifinals, and that was the only other goal they scored.

16:42Look at them now.

16:43Pol Ballus: Look at them now, whether it's because Deschamps has de-mobbed happy or the blossoming of Olysee, or just generally being a... The combination of all those things. All those things. However, Mbappé then left the field in this game after a robust challenge and was seen sporting an ice pack on his right ankle later on. Yeah, so he was clattered on halfway quite early in the second half by Issa Diop and got up quite gingerly. I think it was before his goal, so he was able to carry on playing without too many problems. But then he kind of went down just on his own in the centre circle, kind of signal that he wanted to come off.

17:21And we saw him on the bench, ice pack on his ankle. But he said afterwards, nothing to worry about. I just took a bit of a kick.

17:28Pol Ballus: He seemed pretty happy at the end in the celebrations and that. Even when he was sobbed off, he was high-fiving and smiling. It didn't look that serious to me. All right. Just looking for something. Morocco didn't turn up today, but it is a shame to lose them. They have still made history, the only African team to reach successive World Cup quarterfinals. And I think the future is still pretty bright for them. They've shown a different side to their game than they did four years ago. They're more of an adventurous team. They're more of a complete team. Obviously, a new generation is still coming through.

18:01they won the under 20 world cup didn't they so i think um i think there's more to come still for morocco in the coming years and they dealt with the expectations really well i don't think there have been greater expectations on an african team perhaps in world cup history from from back home you know with with winning afcon and what they did at the world cup last time um and you know fifa rankings in the top eight as we discussed earlier so yeah there were there were expectations for them to get to the quarterfinals yes they've lost to france but they probably lost the eventual winners. I don't think they could have done much better in this tournament.

18:33Pol Ballus: Excellent. Very good. France go through. Will they be facing Spain or Belgium? We'll discuss that a little bit later on. Next up, Tim's thoughts on England.

18:48Pol Ballus: England chat, everybody. Tim's turned up and he's demanded some talk about our boys, and rightly so. Jarrah Concer has been given a two-match suspension. Compare and contrast leave space for joke about picking up the phone and that but anyway that challenge which earned in the red against mexico means he won't be featuring for the next two games which may or may not be both at this world cup for england and that's not the only bit of defensive bad news for tommy tucall's team is it no mark gay is uh out of the game i think i think has it been confirmed Hamstring, I'm hearing Which is probably pretty much the one player they didn't want to lose for this match up against Haaland, obviously his teammate at club level and England's defence is very clearly their weakest area and nothing I've seen in this tournament has convinced me otherwise they haven't really come up against a good team yet and I feel like when the first time that they do that their defence is going to be exposed for what it is which is a brittle back four that's never played together before.

19:54Pol Ballus: To be fair, a lot of people said that before the Mexico game and England maybe made Mexico look smaller than they had previously seemed. Well, Mexico still scored two goals. Jordan Pickford still made two very, very good saves in that first half. And the way that England defended in the last 20 minutes, well, anyone can do that to an extent. You put nine or 10 men behind the ball, completely narrow. Say again, sorry. You send big Dan Burnham. Yeah, exactly. And just head and knock everything away. Non-league teams can do that against Premier League. So I'm not going to read too much into that and say England now got a good defence.

20:28I think they look pretty porous at times against Mexico. And not even against Haaland, against Noosa and Sheldroup. They'll be tested. And Odegaard, they'll be tested like they haven't been tested so far in this tournament. Without Gay, without probably Rhys James. Or Rhys James back in training. So I think there's a possibility he might be fit, which would obviously be very timely. but yeah coming into an unsettled back four which is never ideal which would solve a little problem because at the moment you've got to have concert right back so if you've got concert and stones with with james and o'reilly that's not so bad it's it's not so good but it's not it's not so bad okay game is on saturday evening yeah great time for the nation back home because yeah i know a lot of people who didn't watch the mexico game uh with it being 2 a.m monday morning probably the worst possible time for a match to be held in England because you know let's start the working week and lots of people I know missed it and that's part of the reason why the tournament hasn't really

21:24Pol Ballus: caught on back home is that right because you you watch the group stages back in yeah I was back in the UK for the group stage and now out here for the knockouts and yeah a marked contrast in interest obviously we're here in the home in the home nation so you're going to expect everyone to be engaged but back home it really hasn't caught on and purely for the fact that games are in the middle of the night and you're waking up to big moments and you haven't really got time to catch up on them before you start the day etc i now have much more sort of sympathy and respect for people who live in this very country or other parts of the world who have to get up at six in the morning to watch premier league matches or champions league games or whatever you know i get it now it's annoying but that makes a wing the game was the most watched british tv show at two o 'clock in the morning on a monday ever what was the second most tom i don't know i'm assuming probably something qvc the tele shopping channel or something so they've they've lost that they've lost that little this time around it will be on in the evening uk time i should stress that it's a an early afternoon over here the mexico the england game though which was shown at a normal hour here of course there was a weather delay actually became the most watched soccer game in US television history, combining the audience figures for Fox and Telemundo, the Spanish language service.

22:47Pol Ballus: That's an absolutely extraordinary figure of 44 million people tuned in. Right, I mean a lot of Mexico supporters I would imagine in there but also it was just such a huge story. So much build up to it and what an enormous game it was. Will Saturday be equally epic? We will be finding out. That, though, is perhaps more of a subject for tomorrow's show, and we'll be looking forward to it. Next up, though, we're going to check in on what awaits on Friday and the quarterfinal between Spain and Belgium.

23:22Pol Ballus: It's Spain-Belgium, everybody. Tom and Tim are heading down to the sofa to watch that one. Paul Belus isn't. He's back in Spain, but he's already making plans for the final. Paul, you're back home already and Spain could be too this time on Friday if it all goes wrong with Belgium it was very close with Portugal uncomfortably so it was, it was do you reckon though that they're going to go out this week? do you think so really? I mean, stranger things have happened yeah, no, no that's true, that's true Spain are still yet to concede but also still yet to really put in a big performance like some of the other sides when are we going to see that?

24:02That's a good question because I think Spain have a difficult setup to have their tools at their best, to put it in some way. Because we all know that, for example, Lamin-Yemal came into the competition with an injury, so he's basically not getting started, but getting this match rhythm. And then if you look back at the best that Spain have looked, which we probably have to go two years back to the Euros, the top three performers in there were Lamin Jamal, that of course we've already mentioned that he comes from an injury Nico Williams, who comes from an injury as well and he suffered a new injury in the World Cup by the way, he trained with the team today and he's going to be available for the game not expected to start maybe just to play in the second half some minutes and then if we talk about Rodri Rodri was great against Portugal I have to say that possibly the best game that he's had in a while for Spain but there's the feeling that he's not the same Rodri that we saw in 2024 when he basically won the Ballon d 'Or and was the best player in Europe so Spain has a team and if you put into that mix, Mikel Merino who scored the winner but comes from an injury with Arsenal Pedri trying to find his role in the team so there's a lot of elements that I think that make it a bit difficult to see Spain at their best but still I think that they are clever enough to be pragmatic and to know how they have to operate to hide their weaknesses and just to keep being dominating, which is basically what they have been doing in all games that they've played so far.

25:34True. What's the mood in Spain then? Are they concerned at all about the Belgium match

25:38Pol Ballus: or are they already looking forward to a France semi-final? The mood is that Spain are big favourites for the tie against Belgium and that there's been a lot of talk of all the interviews to players, more like what team would you like to face in the final rather than are you confident against Belgium? Is that right? I remember when we spoke before the first game of the tournament, you were saying that there was nothing really for Spanish journalists to write about, and it had become about which players were going to get tattoos of Luis de la Fuente. Yeah. Yeah, no, there's been stuff to talk about now with the injuries of Nico Williams.

26:11With the selection of de la Fuente, there's been a lot of spotlight in the selection of de la Fuente because he selected, out of the four wingers that he selected for the World Cup, three were injured, and there were criticism on de la Fuente for having this sort of choice. But I think that as long as they keep winning and they did that against Portugal, there was a bit of an ego boost as well for the nation, as in, we have retired Cristiano Ronaldo from the World Cups. So I think that this has helped Spain into forgetting that they are possibly not at their best, but they are still one of the most dangerous sides in Europe, for sure.

26:46Pol Ballus: And still yet to concede a goal. You've retired Cristiano Ronaldo. You could do that to the vestiges of Belgium's golden generation. Is there anything about this game that concerns you, though, Paul? I think that it's one of these cliches that the biggest enemy is Spain themselves. So they have in their own self their biggest enemies. What is that? Basically, that overconfidence can make them pay a price, I would say. Yeah, I think that, and I go back to the Cape Verde game, I think that this was a warning sign for them, a wake-up call, and that this should help them into not facing those games with the sort of relaxation that you would expect.

27:29I have a shout to make as well, because you have mentioned the fact that they have not considered a goal yet. I'm not forgetting that when we started the Totally Football pod this season in the Euro edition, two members of the pod, just think that it was in a chat that we had off-cameras. They sort of told me, ah, Pau Kubarci for the Golden Boy, I think that I'm not going to vote him. I think that I'm possibly going to vote for Dean Housen ahead of him. And a year later, we have Dean Housen out of the World Cup squad. And Pau Kubarci, he's been hailed as one of the best performers of the Spain team.

28:08I think that his profile in Spain has rocketed after this World Cup because his sort of performances have been really, really good. And yeah, I want to make him and shout his name because I think that he deserves, we speak a lot and deservedly so about Laminia Mala and what he's doing at this age, at this big stage. But Paco Barri is just the same age and playing in a more cerebral position, but being really good at it. I think that he deserves some praise as well. Paul Belus you can understand the confidence

28:40Pol Ballus: but does that ever work out well thinking about who you might be playing in two, three matches time? I mean traditionally no but Spain are the reigning European champions so they've got tournament winning know-how and they haven't really looked at their best at this tournament so far I mean they were impressive against Austria in the round of 32 they were impressive against Saudi Arabia in the group phase but we've not really seen them tested apart from in the game against Portugal where a bit of a snooze-a-thon and then substitutes make the difference in stoppage time. And could have gone either way.

29:15I think Spain were probably worthy winners but they weren't massively convincing, let's say. Yeah, are you convinced by Spain, Tim? No, not from what we've seen yet. I don't know if it's a good thing that Jamal hasn't really turned up or a bad thing. A bit like Saka with England, he's sort of warming up. Obviously, both came into the tournament with injury issues. So I think he's only got one goal and no assist so far from his five appearances, which is well below his sort of standard. So does that mean we're expecting him to arrive at the tournament in this game? Do you mean you nodding your head?

29:44Or is it a sign that he's just not, this isn't his tournament, you know, and he's coming into it carrying an injury and he's not at his best? Because I do feel like their hopes rely purely on him. If they were to play France in the semi-final, there's no way they'd beat France without Lamin-Yamal on top form, I don't think. kind of again like England we're not quite sure fully what to make of them yet and they haven't faced a very good team but they're about to they certainly are they're about to take on the team

30:09Pol Ballus: that on Monday defeated the entire might of FIFA and the US government and 11 players on the field as well the remarkable Belgium to find out a little bit more about how they're feeling after that victory in Seattle and the extraordinary comeback win over Senegal before that We are joined now by Axel Brissard of Head Latzer News. Hi there. Axel, thank you so much for joining us. You're at the SoFi here in Los Angeles ahead of Friday's game. Exactly. We're getting ready now for the press conference of our head coach and Romelu Lukaku as well. So that's going to be an interesting one. It certainly will.

30:51Pol Ballus: We're so excited to see this game. And I think a lot of people are. after what Belgium did to the US men's national team last Monday. That was such a huge performance for the team, but what did it mean back home in Belgium? A huge performance and a huge game indeed. I mean, let's say especially after the Foller and Balogun situation, this meant extra fuel, an extra big game, a lot of tension. and yeah just for for Belgium in general it was a really really big win and also some kind of confirmation that we still have a team that that can really dominate the game on this on this stage it's what the third quarter finally reached in the last four world cups but we saw Belgian newspapers with headlines like hello Donald and various trolling of the US president not least from the Belgian players themselves out on the pitch and then in the locker room with their Donald dance?

31:53I mean, they loved it, didn't they?

31:56Pol Ballus: Especially Romelu Lukaku, who likes the banter. Yeah, I mean, that's just part of the game, right? And I'm actually happy that they did such a game. And also, the way they won, it was very strong. I mean, also, we were just a bit surprised about the level of the United States, to be honest. We expected them to be more aggressive with more intensity. So, but I mean, yeah, it was just great to win this game, especially. The bigger match in terms of Belgium's unity and confidence in this tournament, though was the previous one, which saw that incredible comeback against Senegal, 2-0 down with four minutes to go.

32:50Pol Ballus: What was your reaction when you were watching that game? Because we talked earlier on about the website, sorryRudyBE, where everyone's apologising to the manager. I mean, crazy game. And to be honest, in the 80th minute, we were just ready to book our tickets home. especially when we saw Ridi Garcia substituting Jeremy Ducu and Kevin De Bruyne everybody was looking like what's he doing now but in the end it worked out but you also have to say that I mean Belgian team was also just a little bit lucky the goalkeeper of Senegal making a mistake for example so yeah but I mean in the end it worked out and it really gave the team a huge boost in terms of confidence.

33:41I mean, I have to say during the whole tournament already, the atmosphere in the team is really good. Every player emphasizes that, but I mean, they needed such a big victory to really get a huge boost. And then, I mean, then came the ballgame case, the big victory against the United States. So, I mean, going into the quarterfinal against Spain, you could really say that the Belgian team has a lot of confidence.

34:08Pol Ballus: Right. Tell us why you think Belgium can beat Spain on Friday. Obviously, it's going to be very hard. I mean, they are still the European champions and they've got a lot of quality. I think just in general, more quality than our team. We have to admit that. But I would say we still have weapons to hurt them. Talking about Jeremy Doku, who hopefully will play a good game. Kevin De Bruyne, obviously Romelu Lukaku will come off the bench again so, I mean if our defence can resist Lamin-Yamal and Urzabal then I think we have a big chance to win next game Excellent. Axel, listen, enjoy the game on Friday and thank you so much for joining us today.

34:57Pol Ballus: Thanks for having me Not at all Axel Brissard of Het Latze News Tom, of course, Belgian are your tip for the world title? Well, you kind of forced me into it. Not really. I asked you who you thought was going to win it. You said Belgium. I was deliberately being vague and you made me pick a name and I panicked and Belgium... Belgium was the first name that came to mind. But teams grow into tournaments and Belgium are growing into this and they're growing into it more than some teams are. Is three more rounds enough for Belgium to grow into this tournament? Growing into it is a perfect way of putting it because we thought that their golden generation would die at the end of this tournament, but it's actually happening during the tournament.

35:38De Bruyne didn't even get off the bench in the last match. No fitness issues, by the way. So since he was subbed off with their comeback in Senegal, they've scored seven goals basically in about 120 minutes or something like that. And Garcia put it really well the other day. He basically was asked why De Bruyne didn't play. He said, well, we didn't need him, but we will need him. We have a team of starters and then we have a team of finishers. and he talked about how, in his mind, football management has changed so much with going to five subs. He said before you'd have one tactical sub, you'd leave one for a potential injury and then you'd leave one for the end of the match.

36:15Whereas now, you get three tactical subs, basically, if you count one injury and one later in the match. So he's very much been using those to his advantage.

36:23Pol Ballus: Excellent. On the subject of your bold prediction of Belgium, Bobble Trouble writes, Belgian Tom are you on crack or been on that skunk the little skunk see what he's done there nicely done you've seen Belgian's last two games since their transformation yeah well I saw the transformation unfold there were like two different teams against Senegal they were absolutely done and yeah another interesting aspect with the scoring sort of late goals they've scored six goals past the 86th minute in their last three games combined now one possible reason for why their sort of fitness and freshness levels are pretty good, is that they've travelled fewer, less distance than anyone else in the whole tournament.

37:04Pol Ballus: This is literally the pool guy turning up in the middle of our show. This is fantastic. Or is it? A podcast of Beverly Hills. Here we are. I know, hard to take your eyes off him. Sorry, yeah. So they've travelled the same route that I've taken, actually. Seattle, Vancouver and LA are the only cities they've been in. And I'm not that tired, personally. It's not been that arduous a journey. they've had by far the fewest miles to travel. Are you mimicking Belgium's journey in a kind of larger version of people jogging around the Azteca Stadium to test the altitude? I am now, yes. So go on then, Tim and Tom, make the case for why they can beat Spain.

37:43Well, they are going into the tournament. They do have momentum. They are playing some really nice football. You know, the States did let them, but they're attacking and defending very well together as a team. there's a nice little aspect in that Mr Garcia the Belgian manager is very clearly of Spanish descent his grandparents from Spain I think his dad from Spain as well and he kind of has a bit of a Spanish philosophy in his coaching knows the Spanish game very well so maybe that's something that will help Belgium wow Tom what do you think I mean I think one interesting thing about Belgium is that they are a more direct team than I think we perhaps thought they would be they're a team who put an awful lot of crosses into the box.

38:22We saw that in the early stages against Belgium. Juri Tielemann should have put them ahead. Charles de Cattellera scores both of his goals from crosses. That's been consistent throughout the tournament. And I think that's one of the reasons why Rudy Garcia has decided that he'd rather have players like Luque Bacchio and de Cattellera in his starting 11 than the old guard of De Bruyne and Lukaku. And we know how Spain play. They leave so much space in behind. Belgium have got informed players in attacking areas, Leandro Trossar has been superb, practically since the start of the tournament. Dodi Lukabacchio, since he came off the bench against Senegal, has been excellent.

38:58Charles de Cattellera is starting to score goals. Lukaku is looking more like himself, got that lovely goal off the bench against the US. So, yeah, I genuinely think they can cause them problems.

39:07Pol Ballus: All right. I'm thinking about the pool guy news. No, because you were saying it caused them problems. He's struggling to get that Rolls Royce out of the pool there. But anyway, we'll come back to that. Well, there you go. I mean, that's going to be the game. and it's unexpectedly exciting and Belgium won so many hearts with that performance. It was extraordinary against Senegal but with that performance in Seattle not just because of the backstory but they looked absolutely brilliant. One of the finest team performances I think. Yeah and Garcia has proved himself to be a manager who will take risks.

39:37You know he's the exact opposite to his predecessor Roberto Martinez. You know on the day that Portugal got knocked out playing Plan A again and again and again which wasn't working you know here's Garcia doing things that nobody's expecting him. Even people at the Belgian FA don't have a clue what he's doing when he's dropping De Bruyne or when he's leaving Jeremy Doku out. It doesn't make much sense really that one. You can see why De Bruyne has sort of had his day but Doku? So yeah, it's a bit of a crazy ideas machine but it's working.

40:05Pol Ballus: Sorry Rudy BE. Very good. We will be returning then post that game on Friday, possibly Saturday morning for you, with the latest on that match and of course a big look forward to England, Norway and whatever the other match is on Saturday. It's Argentina against Switzerland. Oof. Anyway, do join us for that. For now, it's many thanks to Tim and to Tom and to Axel earlier on and Paul Belusa and to the production crew. Hope you have a great evening and we'll be back with you again soon.