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Episode 2. It Is What It Is
33 Plays1 year ago
Matchweek 1 of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign has already brought joy and sorrow for the Gutted crew. City looked like the champions, and Spurs, well, looked like Spurs.
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Transcript
EPL Season Kickoff: Excitement and Concerns
00:00:00
Speaker
It is what it is, Benny. At least your football team won. Yeah. Oh, I have thoughts. Oh, I have thoughts. You know, i there's a part of me that wants to pretend like I don't want to talk about this. Like, I'll act like, oh, do we have to talk about this? But like, I'll talk about it for the whole goddamn episode. I don't care.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's week one. Like it's week one. Bro, EPL is back in my life. I'm waking up that Saturday morning. I look, I know we're going to get to your team, but waking up. It's only been a few hours. I mean, we're recording this on Monday night. It's only been a few hours. I'm trying to pretend like I'm happy that football's back.
00:00:50
Speaker
And I am, I am. I'm very happy that i'm ecstatic that football's back, but let's not pretend like I just, you know, Devin and I didn't have to pull a collective life out of our back. but let's let's let's We're still patching up the wounds. Half full, half full, okay? Half full. Anyway, please continue.
Spurs' Season Start: Expectations vs Reality
00:01:07
Speaker
It's incredible. I woke up in the morning, it was there. I was like trying to get, I'm a school teacher trying to get like ready to go back into it and ready to like to get, you know, I got to wake up early in the morning. There's a game going on and there's multiple games going on later. Devin is reaching out. Should we watch Gold Rush? Should we just watch the actual game? I was like, we need to watch Gold Rush. I want to see them all. And then the anticipation for my team, which would have been Sunday,
00:01:31
Speaker
was was like, oh oh my God, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and there it is. Here I got family family in and i'm and I'm cooking and all of a sudden, guess what? I'm cooking with the game on. And I'm like, this it's back, we're here. And it's not Olympics, it's not Euros, it's it's proper football.
00:01:46
Speaker
Those were good feelings until about like six hours ago. They were great. Me too. Come on. Actually, five, six hours. Yeah, it's a couple hours ago. Yeah, at this point. It's just one game, guys. It's just one game. It's going to happen 30 more times. and like hi That's the thing. This is the nature of trauma, right? It's like 30 times. This is going to happen to you. If we had a different season. It goes so, so, so well for you. And then you have this.
00:02:14
Speaker
We'll get there. We'll talk about Spurs. We'll talk about Spurs. Let's, let's, let's do like a, you know, what's, what are the important things that we need to whip around on, uh, for Premier League for, for this weekend? Everybody, everybody who we expect it to look good, look pretty good. I thought that it was what I expect for week one with a huge European tournament, uh, concluding a couple of weeks ago, people did not look great. There was a lot of people sort of out or, and, or like,
00:02:44
Speaker
You know, you're going to play 60 and that's it. You're not going to play the full 90. And there was a lot of that going around. Like there was just a whole bunch of it, like just sit it in, start a whole bunch of folks. Um, what, what you could go throughout each team where you were, you know, everybody was just sort of not giving their best. So it's not the greatest football. I mean, I'm excited to watch it, but it's not great football right now. It'll be great in about three, four weeks from now, but it's, it's what I expected it to look like.
00:03:14
Speaker
I was s stoked to wake up on Saturday. I was s stoked for Friday for United. Uh, you know, but I was stoked to wake up on Saturday and like watch these games. And I don't know that there were any real bangers this weekend. Like, no, nothing went down to the wire. Really? Maybe like, you know, we had to draw, we had one drawn Saturday or Sunday. Obviously Spurs draw that we'll talk about ad nauseam.
00:03:41
Speaker
at some point on this podcast. I'm already nauseous. Yeah. But Arsenal wins, Liverpool wins, City wins, Villa wins. Newcastle Newcastle won despite the red card.
00:03:59
Speaker
the the absolute
00:04:03
Speaker
just absolute Chinese divers. It's incredible how bad that dive was. How bad that dive was for the guard. It was incredible. Look, you don't touch somebody's head. You don't do that. But the reaction was just Oscar worthy. Oscar worthy. I thought that the initial push, when i was so i mean I saw the red pop up on the bottom of the screen and then they brought us on Go Rush or whatever to the to the highlight.
00:04:32
Speaker
And I thought that the initial push was the red.
The 'Spursiness' Debate: Myth or Reality?
00:04:36
Speaker
I didn't realize that him popping back up off the ground and like doing a little head bump followed by the flop to the ground was the- That's what earned the red. Was the red. Game's gone, Benny. Game's gone.
00:04:58
Speaker
Any other matches that happened this weekend? Did the three of us all watch enough of the same other match to like comment on it at all? I thought the the man the menu full on game was interesting because it was all over the place and it would and it just felt, is that is that a 10 heart? hargen is that is that it Is that how he wins? Is that just how they win now? They just play this crappy little game, it goes back and forth and then all of a sudden they just steal it at the end? Is that that what it is?
00:05:26
Speaker
I mean, the criticism of him last year, really, since he got there, when did he get there? I don't even remember. It feels like it's been forever and it also feels like it was like six months ago. But the criticism since he got there was that no one knows what United is trying to do. Like they always talk about it in the studio. So they're like, they don't know what the identity of United is. They have no idea what they're trying to do offensively or defensively. Are they trying to play a possession game? Are they trying to play counter-attacking style? Like what is their identity? And like we're this far into the 10 hog era and I, you know, we still don't entirely know what it is. And look, I said last week on the podcast that I was a little scared of United and they're the and the same team. They're the same United where, you know, they have all these tools and all these weapons and they didn't even like really sniff the net until the late winter.
00:06:20
Speaker
They identify as Marcus Rashford. Marcus Rashford, that's what they are. like They have these moments where you they're absolutely brilliant. And then somewhere down the line, they absolutely falter.
00:06:37
Speaker
dev will call your eye It's hard to see the rest of the weekend back through the haze of what happened today, truly. Like I was there. I watched some matches. I saw a lot of things happen and now they're those all feel like last weekend and Today feels like the entirety of this weekend. Like there's no more mental space for things that Fell outside that the realm of that single match. It's painful. jesus I Guess you just talked about those are for the second pod. Jesus like there's gonna be more losses and ties like what are we gonna do here
00:07:15
Speaker
It's different when it's today, Lester, and the first half had so much promise. We didn't finish everything we needed to finish. Let's address it now. Why are we drew it. let's Let's stop pulling punches. Let's talk about it right now. Yeah. my white ones and When it's at his rawest, Jay is not even making eye contact at this point. No. The person, right you know the psychiatrist is writing it down on the pad.
00:07:40
Speaker
And Devin, you can't even get past it. Let's just talk about it right now. yeah things started The first half, I even wrote down my notes, like flying. That team looked incredible. That first, well, 29 minutes ish, 20 to 30 minutes flying around. I mean, and just everywhere. There was some bad sort of balls to cross, but I thought you guys looked really good.
00:08:09
Speaker
you know What I loved seeing was Song's confidence up on the left. like I think he hadn't had that confidence since the last time he was regularly playing in that spot. the and He looked sharp, he looked younger than he looked last year by about five years.
00:08:26
Speaker
He looked smart. He he looked like a truly top-flight player. He did. And I don't think we had seen that for 20 straight minutes, let alone 45, from him for a long time. So that was great, right? Poro was great. Poro was amazing. Poro was great. It was great there. Madison was making you know really smart passing passes right there. Obviously, he got the assist on the Poro one. Yep. What do we think of Solanke, at least in the first half?
00:08:56
Speaker
I thought he changed the center of gravity. you know i don't know that like he's He's clearly still figuring out how he fits in this system, but I thought his presence and the fact that he had chances and came close instantly changed the center of gravity. I think lesser would have packed the midfield, kind of the way they did in the second half. They would have done that if we hadn't had a real striker up there and they couldn't do that in the first half and so we kept getting chances.
00:09:23
Speaker
I think that evaporated for some reason, I think because our own our own midfield, you know even Udoge in the second half kind of kind of softened up. And I think that that let Lesser control the midfield a lot better. But I think Solanke's impact was instant and positive.
00:09:41
Speaker
when So, you know, this is this is year two of Ang Ball. And one thing that was like glaring about this team last year is that we couldn't put the ball in the net. We do everything else offensively. We could play out from the back, which even though that was a, you know, high wire act more often than not, we played out from the back.
00:10:05
Speaker
We could pass through the midfield. We finally had midfielders that we could rely on after you know a few a few generations of Spurs players without any like real class in the midfield. ah you know most of our you know Most of the talent on Spurs has always been at the sharp end of the pitch. We finally have some midfielders. We added Johnson to the mix. We added Timo Werner to the mix you know where Charleston had a moment there. um But like the problem is that like you know we can get the ball most of the way into the, we can get all the way to the box, but nobody can put it in the net. And like, so like he was supposed to change that this year. Now, I mean, like, look, it's been one match and he just put on a Jersey for the first time, probably like two and a half hours ago. So like, you know, it's, let's not, let's not judge that just yet. But he had some moments where he probably could have had a goal or two today and instead, you know, either hit it at the keeper or, you know, the ball went somewhere else. But that's the problem that this team is going to have to fix.
00:11:05
Speaker
at some point in the Ang time at Spurs, what, you know, again, however long that lasts, but like, it's clear that like coming out of camp or coming out of the summer, we got Solanke and he kind of disproportionately knows how to put the ball in the net. If you look at his numbers, uh, not quite at like sun levels, but nobody's at sun levels, but I don't know that anybody else on this team, like,
00:11:34
Speaker
necessarily got any better at putting the ball in the net. And we're, we can generate a lot of pretty football. We did that last year before everybody got hurt. The first half looked good. Yep. Like Spurs can like but some breathtaking passing and like the ball goes from end to end in a flash, but somebody's got to put the goddamn ball in that. Like somebody's got to put the ball in the net and we didn't put the ball in the net today. And we got a draw at Leicester that feels like a loss. Because, you know, looking at the first half, we should have been up, what, 3-0 at the half, maybe? You tell me. I was in the car. Well, I knew, you know, I was worried for you guys in terms of, like,
00:12:18
Speaker
the newly promoted team does really well. You saw where they switched down there the first time. And also they're not, I mean, Lester's not just like any newly promoted team. No, I mean, they're not like anything. They're not like Luton Town coming up. Yeah, they're more like an Everton kind of squad, but even still, you get that little bump, right? You get the bump when you come up. Yep. get the bump and I thought, they're at home, they're going, it's going to be harder. And then it wasn't. It was like a pillow smothering, the first half. And then all of a sudden, like right before, I don't know who was doing the game today, but whoever the broadcaster was had said, like right before Lester's goal,
00:12:59
Speaker
like they're trying Like they're trying to be too perfect. I don't know why these these mischances are gonna hurt them. And then all
Player Comparisons: Richarlison and Beyond
00:13:06
Speaker
of a sudden Vardy scores. And then as soon as Vardy scores,
00:13:09
Speaker
the game I mean, everything changed. that that that game That game absolutely changed. And it felt like I was sitting there when they put up whatever it was, nine minutes, eight minutes at the end. And I looked over, I was like, they're going to score. They're going to score again. like It feels like they're going to score. It's not going to be pretty. It's going to be like you you know off of two headers. They they went they they they you know they went a they win a second, third ball.
00:13:35
Speaker
And they're just going to score again. I just felt like they were scoring and I couldn't believe that I watched the same game. Like it just felt completely different. And then of course they lingered. I don't know if you saw Jay, but they lingered on edge, bent over looking after the, after the Richarlison missed header.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, they they i think I think they were on him for like a good, you know, which feels like there's nothing, it's like eight seconds or nine seconds, but not for TV time. They just sit there and I'm like, what the hell just happened? It's like, oh, watch two different games. I don't know, I don't, that that has to be solved. I don't understand how that's still a thing. One thing we talked about last year, and this is, the thing I don't know whether we talked about it as a group or Devin and I talked about it. It's fascinating to see
00:14:23
Speaker
how each manager of Spurs like manages to be Spursy, manages to find a way to be Spursy. Like Pochettino was his own version of, I mean, I wasn't paying attention pre-Pochettino, that's is you know before my time, but Pochettino was Spursy, maybe the Spursiest in a way? like Did he like set the template for Spursiness in a way? I mean, it it existed before, because obviously we don't have any you know hardware before Pochettino either. We got to see to ah to a Champions League final.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, but, you know, didn't win it. And that's what makes it so spursy. And like, so like, you know, he found a way to do it and Jose found a way to do it and Kante found a way to do it. And now Ang is finding
Manchester City and Haaland's Dominance
00:15:06
Speaker
a way to do it. And don't forget Nuno. Oh my God, Nuno. I was about to say, don't forget about Nuno. Man, if there's one thing that Nuno is, it's forgettable. Oh, don't do that.
00:15:18
Speaker
like So this happens, you know, inch plays a certain kind of offense, it plays a certain kind of ball. And like, you know, this happens in college football, where like, you'll get an offensive coach who's like, let's go, everybody go deep, we're gonna score 65. And that's great when the other team scores like 24. But like, every once in a while and like in you know, English football, most of the time you're going to find yourself in these situations where you're up a goal or you're, it's three, two, it's not six, two.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's one nil and you have to like finish it out. And just like those college football teams that like know how to score a whole but bunch of points, but like don't really know how to play defense and run the ball to like run out the clock and win the game. I'm worried that Ang doesn't know how to run out the clock and win the game or like his style of football is not conducive to holding slim leads for longer than 15 minutes at a time or judging by last year, like 45 seconds at a time.
00:16:23
Speaker
I think a question I ask myself is, like what is spursiness? Is spursiness a story that we tell ourselves when things go wrong? like if you looked If you could somehow omnisciently map out, like how does every team play? Would we find that all other teams have fundamentally the same patterns because it's built into the sport? It's a round, weird ball on a big field. The goals are kind of big. The keepers are kind of awkward. like Is it something that all teams exhibit that exists for us as a pain because we talk about it? Is it something that does exist as a story that then changes the course of play because it's in the player's heads too? You know, they come out in that second half, one thing goes wrong and they feel like, oh, here we go again, just like the fans feel. I don't know.
00:17:15
Speaker
I will never know, but it's there and it sucks. I, okay. It really happens when I watch a Tottenham game. It continually happens. Like I, again, like, like you know, but I don't believe in curses, the whole thing. And like, but like, it's like the whole, like retox thing almost feels like, where like it doesn't matter who's managing. It doesn't matter. The players all of a sudden the same outcome just continues to happen. And.
00:17:42
Speaker
even from from the you know the the me starting to watch. city back in the day with with Carlos Tevez and all that kind of stuff, I still knew that I was like, well, if we at least we got Spurs this week. We're probably going to get a draw. ah like Even back then, I was so i was i was already nearly as good as we were now. like like We weren't even anywhere. We were actually more like Spurs back in the day, but right when that time came, I just always knew that that's what was going to happen. like I just wanted to know how that's always been the case or continues to happen.
00:18:18
Speaker
Devin asked, like, you know, what is spursiness, like fundamentally? And I think that like what it is, or or, you know, and then you ask the question, like, do all, do other teams like exhibit this kind of behavior? And I'm sure that every team exhibits its own sort of,
00:18:33
Speaker
Spurs, I think have been in a lane for a long time. We have been in like one strata of the premier league for, for a long time. And sometimes we climb up to fourth or third or even second. And sometimes we fall down to seventh or eighth, but most of the time we're like fourth, fifth, sixth, something like that. Like forever forever, or at least like long enough to matter. And part of spursiness is being like just good, but not good enough.
00:18:59
Speaker
And that's the part I think that makes teams that are better than us not exhibit that kind of behavior and teams that are worse than us, not necessarily like exhibit that particular slice of like unique, like you're almost there. You're a B plus, but you're not an A. You made it to the conference championship, but you didn't win the, you know, the, the, the whatever. That's I think what Spurs are. And I know for me that I continually choose this team in every sport.
00:19:26
Speaker
I like, it's my team. You're drawn to it. It's the university I went to. It's the F one team I follow. It was the baseball team that I followed for decades. Like, and now it's my English football team is that is the just, you're not elite. You're almost elite. You get really close to elite. And sometimes people include you in the conversation of teams that are elite, but you're not elite and you know, you're not elite and everybody else knows you're not elite, but like you're almost there.
00:19:55
Speaker
What does that say about you, really? Let's just talk about that. What does that say about you? What do you do? Jesus Christ, Benny. You're not a loser. No, no, no, it's not. a you know No, it's not that I'm a loser. It's that I think I like to have a chip on my shoulder and teams that are like great, but not excellent or like great, but not elite. I feel like it gives you something to, it gives you like a hump to get over where you're not choosing a team. that's It's not going to be 30 years until you win.
00:20:24
Speaker
Maybe. But it's like we're almost there. We put a little bit more if it's like the last 10 percent, it's like, you know, it's the steepest part of the climb. You know what I mean? It's like getting from zero to 90 is like not as hard as getting from 90 to 100. And I want to see Spurs like make that leap. I want to see Spurs win hardware. I want to see Spurs like just honestly, man, I don't even want to talk about trophies today. I just want to see Spurs like beat Lester to death.
00:20:53
Speaker
like in the first game of seasons, come out and be like, you know what guys, it's three nothing. It was a walk, sunscored, the vibes were great, and we're going back to London, but no, but no. Instead, we look great for like 40 minutes, and then it's a heart attack for 40 minutes, and then, any you know, and then Rodrigo Ben-Kurd is down first. That was a snatch draws from the jaws of victory. This is why we don't win. This is why we finished fifth instead of fourth. This is why we finished like, like Cause you're right that this is not the last time the season this is going to happen. And like, so like coming right out of the gates and dropping two points at Lester, you know, like you're telling me now we're like, we have a chance at third or fourth or whatever when like, you're in there. Everybody else came out and won. You guys won. Arsenal wins. Liverpool wins. Yeah. I don't. Villa, Newcastle, United. They're all ahead of us now.
00:21:49
Speaker
but you have something to
Refereeing Challenges with Dominant Players
00:21:51
Speaker
aspire to. You have something to aspire to. That's what it is. You don't want to start at the top, otherwise it makes it. It felt great last season to be at the top. well We were at the top for like, it felt like months. Yeah. That's not going to be the start this year though. Well, we drew our first match last year. We drew the first match with Brentford last year. Brentford too.
00:22:16
Speaker
Honestly, that was worse. I mean, the thing is then it's easier than to say, you know what? Rebuilding your first match. New manager, of course. Yeah. We drew Brentford. Yeah. This year is like, man, we just paid 85 million for a striker. We are fit. You know, where we had spent all last season struggling with our death chart. It's like we're back. We're here. Players are ready. We got these kids. We got kids. Some of our stars weren't in this European tournament. They're like,
00:22:45
Speaker
in shape for this match. And then we were for half of it. Dominated.
00:22:58
Speaker
i want you to be on my um the best game in the world, which is what will Richie do game? I wanna go on record. I do think Rich Ollison is a talented player. Stacy and I play it every week. ah We wait for him to come into the game and we just wonder, how will he amaze us? He never disappoints. When he comes in this games, I get so excited. I even told Stacy, I was like, Richie's in. She's like, she drops everything to come to the screen so we can watch Richie. And of course he did he didn't disappoint. Nice little header at the end of the game. Could have stole the game. And it goes, I mean, completely in the in the other direction. Richie never disappoints. Richarlison, we've talked so much about Richarlison over the years. I love how you started. me i he It's so measured. It's so like, just take a breath. it's just it's I never thought, if you went on the clock four years and said, hey,
00:23:57
Speaker
Hey Jay, Devin, in the year 2024, you're going to have a complicated relationship with Richarlison. Like I would've been like, you're out of your mind because everybody hates Richarlison. Everybody hated Richarlison. And then all of a sudden he's on your team. And like what he's gone through at Spurs with the mental health stuff and scoring a million goals last year, wherever long that run that he had was where it seemed like he scored 10 goals in like five minutes. So there's like turned right back into Richarlison again, basically for the rest of the season
The Role of VAR: A Double-Edged Sword?
00:24:27
Speaker
and now be replaced by your club's most expensive signing ever. I don't know where his head's at, but like he belongs to a class of players.
00:24:35
Speaker
and I mean, Darwin Nunez is really like the most Richarlason player. like he I mean, he used to be Richarlason. I'd be like, Darwin like really like raised the roof, for like like raised the game for a chaos player. I'm about to talk about another member of this team in a second when we start talking about the city game. But go ahead. I feel like Richarlason, a lot of players on Spurs,
00:24:56
Speaker
in the very brief Anj era, he you want him to be more than he is. And when you see a player like that up close and you sort of tell yourself a story about a player, whether it's, you know, in this case of Spurs, whether it's Madison or whether it's Rich Arleson or whether it's Timo Werner or whether it's Brennan Johnson or any one of these dudes who've who've come in in the last year or so.
00:25:17
Speaker
Like you see their potential and you see what Ang sees in them, but almost none of them, except for like, you know, a couple of the, you know, the, the backs like van de Ven and and new doggy really become anything close to what you thought they could be. And Rich Harlison is certainly is no, I mean, he, he, he was Superman for a couple of weeks last year. And other than that, he's been exactly what we thought he was.
00:25:41
Speaker
And that's like not enough for Spurs to get over that hump. And I don't know whether Solanke's enough either, but like Solanke historically looks like a striker, looks like a striker and knows how to put the ball in the net. But, you know, Richarlison is certainly fun at the end of the game. And like, when you need something weird to happen,
00:25:59
Speaker
Who weirder on the bench than Richarlison? Devin, what do you have to say about our dear Richarlison? I was going to note, I agree with the Darwin comparison. I think i think Darwin is like the mold, even though he came later. I think it's like we continually break the the old mold with a new, and I feel like he's the new standard.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think. Chaos forward. I think he redefined the form. Yeah. Right. And I don't think he's beatable for it. I think we're done. He's the final form. I was, it was an aside, like he's gone now, but Brian Hugh, I thought he was like a little chaos agent in training and I appreciated that about him. He was like, if you took the like quickness of Kuleszewski,
00:26:52
Speaker
You stripped away the strength and you gave him the chaos. of i Like the beginning of Captain America where like Chris Evans is like digitally frail and tiny.
00:27:04
Speaker
It's like the Brian Hill version of like what he's like the he's like the digitally frail. Like right wing that we yeah never needed. That's right. What if Ringo played football? Like a wispy, a wispy Spanish winger. Yeah. You know, it's all skill and like no gravity. Yeah. So I miss I miss his presence coming in late because I think in some ways he was a more exciting, less promising version of Richarlison.
00:27:34
Speaker
It was fun to watch. He knew nothing good was going to happen. He'd just get himself into these little whirlpools off to the side of the river and just the boat would go down. But it was a good time. It was a good time to watch. So I missed that. I think he has cleaned up his outlook, his disposition a little bit.
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00:27:53
Speaker
But if he gets rattled, he's right back to taking dives and throwing up his arms and scowling at everybody. And it's just unpleasant to watch.
00:27:59
Speaker
I feel like if a Charleston is like, you know, the the NBA, like if a Charleston was an NBA player, he would be like a rebounds and defense guy, like, like like a floorburns guy, like, do you know, diving on the ground for, for stuff and like, you know, getting in people's faces and like, I don't know how that guy was a striker.
00:28:20
Speaker
But to continue that analogy, yeah it's he's he's that guy, but he's getting paid to be this leading scorer of the second unit. That's the problem. he's he's He's getting paid to to come in off the bench and score 17 in the second half. Can you drop 15 right now? right Can you give us a goal? No. I mean, sometimes, but usually not.
00:28:47
Speaker
I think we need to move on from the funeral. and we wouldn need to We need to move on. Let's let's celebrate let's celebrate City. ah we have I mean, not only did you win. Best team in the world. You played a ah real team, at least a big team.
00:29:03
Speaker
I wonder what the possible lineups, what, what are like, what possible, how many possible lineups could they have put up? That's not, not, not like putting, you know, strikers as defenders, but like actual legit position. How many teams could they, could they probably could have put together a solid lineup out of the guys who weren't even in the squad because they were about to get traded. Guys like D sassy and Gallagher and except for, from Lukaku's technically. so would have been healthylsea Anyway, Chelsea, Chelsea, man city, man city to Chelsea. No.
00:29:32
Speaker
The, as we saw on the internet, 115 players versus 115 charges. It will beat whoever else you want to put out there. We got pretty goals in this game. We got a nice goal from Holler. We got an incredible goal by, by, you know, Erling. Erling is the is the best striker in the world. He's incredible. When we saw that goal live, I, so I turned to, to my lady and I said, that's where he's like
Personal Touch: Sports and Tech Anecdotes
00:29:57
Speaker
Shaq. We're just like.
00:29:59
Speaker
And I'm going to roll that point up in a second, but. yeah You're like, you're just, you're just not going to, in that moment, you're not going to stop him. And it was all, I mean, it looked easier in real time than it did on the replay, but like to chop it back and get it between Kukareya and the keeper. And that's just a physical goal where like you'd, I don't care who you are. You're not going to stop him from, from it was just the physicality though.
00:30:21
Speaker
It'd be one thing. Real scale. We've seen other players like this. Sometimes I think of like oh watching more highlights of like Peter Crouch. But he was just so much taller than everybody else. It didn't matter what you did. it' like if If the ball was in the right position, you were done. He's just 6' 7", or whatever he was. But it's not just that. like He put himself in the right position. He put his body in the right position because he's such a beast. And then he finishes with with grace and touch. like Just absolute touch. like Class. Elevated a little bit.
00:30:51
Speaker
the Yeah, and then like, you know, there was a little sliver and and you know that like, you know, 85% of the time it's right there. It's going in. It's going in and he just puts himself in a position, I feel like the first two years, today was almost the first day where like it felt like he didn't know where he was, he'd be rushing, he'd be trying to get the ball going back and forth, going through lines, you know going going back to the midfield. and And now he's just like, it's okay if I don't touch the ball for like 20 minutes. Like if I don't go touch the ball for like 15, 20 minutes, I'm okay with it. he It looked like he was at peace with that way of playing because he knows at some point I'm gonna get like two, three chances here and I'm gonna put one of them away.
00:31:33
Speaker
And that he almost for the second one away, which what was just as good, but he's just so machine-like and he's perfect. He's the perfect sort of finisher for what we were, we're doing possession, possession, possession, all of a sudden the dive.
00:31:48
Speaker
down one of the lines, a cross comes in or a ball, you know, a ball sort of is meant to go to someone else, but gets deflected and gets to him. And then all of a sudden you're done. You're just, you're you're not going to stop him. He's going to get himself in a good shooting position and he's going to put something on, on the net. And he scored a great one. And then the COVID test goal was incredible. He passes by two of the most expensive midfielders in the premier league.
00:32:17
Speaker
They're two of the most expensive players. They might be the two most expensive players in the Premier League. Right? Enzo and Kiseido. Yeah. Yeah. and I mean, they sold, and Chelsea sold Kovacic for whatever. 25 million pounds or something like that. Any, any, you know, any does, you know, his best, uh, diet, rogerie, you know, uh, impersonation. That was not the diet about that. That was, I mean, he was dribbling. There was possession.
00:32:42
Speaker
but it just looks like it does. like like And he just finished to something there. And he does my favorite thing, which I told you guys in the text, my favorite. I just i played here. I'm not going to celebrate my hands or I'm going to put them down or i just put them out. So I push everybody where, cause I'm not going to celebrate. I love that. And he, and you know, he finishes us off a game.
00:33:08
Speaker
I like to introduce another one of my favorite players. of the Premier League, Nicholas Jackson, I've never felt more comfortable with a player in a dangerous position about to score against my team than I do with him on the field. He is incredibly bad when when it comes to finishing. Now, I saw Alan Shearer, he was talking about him and he's like, oh, he needs some time, he needs some time. I don't see it. I don't see any of it. I just see a guy who just puts himself in good positions and just continually
00:33:40
Speaker
misses and continually makes bad decisions and continually has horrible execution at the end. In the realm of chaos players, like Richarlison and Nicholas Jackson and Darwin are three very like uniquely different players in ways. Like Richarlison is not the forward or the threat that either Darwin or Nicholas Jackson is. Both of those guys find themselves in positions where it's like,
00:34:09
Speaker
like, oh, this is going in the net. Like more often than not, this is going in the net, not 100%. You know, they're not always like bunnies, but like, this is somebody's gonna score here. And the way that they find to not score, like jackson Nicholas Jackson has so much more, there's like delicacy in his game where like he sort of like softly misses, like he'll miss like literally standing three yards in front of the net or something fancy or whatever. Whereas like noon there's like Nunez is trying to like,
00:34:38
Speaker
blasted as hard as he can every time he's there. And so like his misses are like spectacular. Or right at the keeper. Yeah, right at the keeper or they just like, you know, that time he hit the post like four or five times in the same game last year. Like no one had ever done that, Benny. No one had ever hit the bar four times in the same game until Darwin. But his he's got more like, he's like the Michael Bay of disaster, like chaos players. Whereas like Nicholas Jackson, there's a little bit more finesse to how he manages to not put the ball in the net. Right. I don't think he counts as a chaos player, right? I think, I think he just can't finish.
00:35:25
Speaker
Can we talk about Marco Guerrero? Like this guy, he had a great summer. He had a great summer. And this, like, people, you know, not sure about Marc Ucaraya for the last couple of years, but he had a pretty good year last year. And then he had a good summer, uh, with Spain and everybody was real hot on Marc Ucaraya. And then he had to talk about early Holland.
00:35:51
Speaker
We keep receipts. And Arlen Holland, like ragged all of them a few times in this game. And then at the end, have we all seen Kooka Ray on the ground with the cramp? He's cramping up. He's like leaning back, he's cramping up. And he's like asking Alan for like the, you know, for the little cramp stretch. And Holland just like, like looks at him and like walks by.
00:36:12
Speaker
And then as you as he walked by, when he when he got taken off, did you see the the ah the shots? He walked by the city side. I mean, just everything being yelled at him. Just everything being yelled at him. Like, cause like, as soon as he did it, as soon as he did it, every city fan was like, oh. Like he- Here we go. Everybody was hot at Cucurea coming into this year. And it took one weekend for him to just like get totally cooked. And his,
00:36:42
Speaker
And for whatever reason, the Doku and him were battling, but then when they moved Savinha over there, that boy was cooking him. He was cooking him. But then Savinha got hurt, whatever. whatever something Something was up with him. And then when Foden came in on his side, like he was like photo wasn't, he was just in there to close the game. But yeah, I don't i don't i don't know. but what I don't know why he chose to do that or what he was doing. I mean, he's going to go. Why would you talk? you Like, why would you say that art? Yeah. Like that with him, of all people. he around He's ready for the smoke at all, all times.
00:37:20
Speaker
He's ready for the smoke. Right. He's he's there for the game, right? He's going to respond. You know he's going to respond that way. You know you're going to talk and he's going to come at you twice as hard and he's going to beat you. He's like not just some striker. And then also like your kukureya, like You got too nice a face for trash talk. you got You look like a nice guy. And if you talk shit, you're going to get beat. Like, I just think that's how it works. You know, Holland is twice the size of him. Like, Kukare is like a, he's like a small guy. So he's not even like a average size guy. It looks like a tiny dude.
00:38:01
Speaker
One last point with Holland. We're getting to the point right now. And I know I'm going to be talking as a city fan here. and maybe maybe it's home or biased, whatever, I don't care, I'll take it. But like this is getting like shack level in terms of him with the files. but Sometimes City will play willll play out of the back and then you know they'll get stifled out of the back. The Edison goes right over the top. And because he knows everybody's pushed up so much, there's only two guys back there. One is on Holland. At that point, Derek,
00:38:35
Speaker
pulling him, pushing him, doing everything, anything to get him off his base. And there's no files being called. Getting held, pushed, shoved, everything. No calls. And like, whatever. The dude's big. It's just like like watching Shaq back in the day when he was getting mauled. And every time he would look over to the referee, he's like, I can't call everyone. ah can't I can't call them all. Like, what do you want me to do?
00:38:57
Speaker
I want to draw a thread to politics, but I'm not going to do it. But it's like the flood the zone with shit our good argument, which is like, if you, yeah, if you foul somebody constantly in the game, they can't call every foul, like they won't, or they won't call every foul. And yeah, certain players get the benefit and certain players are just like, well, you're six four, dude, sorry.
00:39:20
Speaker
this is the chris This is what Chris Paul used to do. Chris Paul used to do this at the beginning of a playoff games, especially like when he when he was dealing with that young Curry. He would foul almost on every play at the beginning and then dare them to call him because they call the first one quick, but they almost would never call the second one really quickly. And then he just started to get away with anything after that point.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we deal with that at Spurs with Vicario on the corners is like, you know, so someone realized last year that Spurs were soft on corners and that you could get to Vicario and like get in his head and like nudge him around a little bit and like, or like mess around it when when the ball was in the air.
00:39:57
Speaker
And the officials never called it, like never really called it, like maybe not even once. And once that happens, then the floodgates open and now every now it's like the book on Vicario is that he's soft on corners. And, you know, I mean, it's a little bit of a different situation, but it's like teams will take any advantage they can get. And they know that if like your offensive player is like a, a Hulk, like We got to play physical with him because he's going to shrug it off most of the time. And he's going to make it look like less contact than it actually is just by nature of how big he is. Right. We used to see this with Kane actually, where it was not the same effect. Like I think folks are more actively going after Holland, but Kane would get into a lot of physical situations and he's just not falling over, right? He's big, he's sturdy. And in you know, in you that can't be the solution to just fall over all the time.
00:40:49
Speaker
Right. I mean, the thing that the rest of soccer works. It's like i know the thing is they could call it every time they could call every foul. Right. And then, you know what? The fouls would stop because the players don't want to get into that situation. Calling a bunch of fouls is sending a message about the tone of the match. It's saying, hey, you keep going, you get yellows. But I don't know what it's like to be a ref. I don't know why they feel like they can't call this the stuff that we're seeing on Holland, because I agree with you, Benny. But um i I do think if you don't start calling it at some point in the match, right because you know sometimes we see refs tighten up in the second half right and say, like okay, let this has begun to spiral, let's pull it back.
00:41:31
Speaker
If you don't do that, then you just set this precedent, you paint yourself into a corner, and then you you can't call a lot of stuff. And then the games get really intensely physical, not just with Holland. I mean, in this case, I think it's a season opener. People are holding back a little bit. But if that match happens you know in week 36, I think you end up with a lot of yellows by the end of the match.
00:42:01
Speaker
VAR culture has changed. Do we want to talk about that this week or save it for next week? I really like what they're transitioning to. it We take a quick look and if it's not egregious, we just move on. Right. and Take a look more often, undermine the on-field call less. you know Should have been like this the entire time. like I like it. Yeah. It feels good. I'm interested in what happens when there's a clearly incorrect call that is allowed to stand I think, you know, the the three of us, you know, we're all, we're all the same age. We've been watching a lot of different sports for a long time and we've seen replay in a lot of places. We sort of, we grew up with it in the NFL. It's been introduced in other sports like this one and like the NFL and baseball and NBA and things like that, or the NBA and baseball. I kind of feel there's something about football, like European football, where
00:43:00
Speaker
It's, it's so ambiguous sometimes, or it's so unclear sometimes that like trying to make it clear is really, it's like a, it's like theater and in a lot of ways. Like I remember when, when replay was introduced in baseball and there's a lot of like vibes based on hiring in baseball that everyone had just sort of like, they just accepted as like part of the game where, you know, if the throw beats you to the bag, you're out. If, you know, the ump decides to call strikes a little bit outside today, as long as he's consistent, like that's a strike. And, but what's, what's happened with baseball is that there's this like microscopic attention on things that never even used to have like normal attention on them before.
00:43:49
Speaker
Um, like when someone tries to seal second and they slide into the bag and they slide and like in the process of sliding their body like pops up off the bag and because the shortstop has the tag on their body and they came off the bag for a split second.
00:44:03
Speaker
They're out. And that was never an out before. And I don't even think it should be an out because like the throw didn't, you know, the tag didn't beat the runner, but like, because he just came off the bag for a split second, it's it's an out. And like, I kind of feel, even though I didn't grow up with soccer, like this is sort of what's happening in the Premier League is that like, they're taking these moments that used to be a sport that's pretty devoid of like big moments. But when they do happen, they're these like massive explosions of emotion.
00:44:31
Speaker
They're kind of like really tamping those moments down because anytime anything happens, anytime there's a big pass, anytime there's a, you know, there's a, there's a run down the left side. Obviously anytime there's a goal, it's like, okay, well, you know, let's let's celebrate, but like, let's stand around for like three minutes while we look at it and like confirm it. And I don't know that that's what I want in this sport. I think I would rather have the imperfection, but with the big moments,
00:45:00
Speaker
then have to stop 20 times a game, even now that we're shortening it, but stop like 20 times a game for three minutes to confirm that what just what we thought just happened happened. And especially when we're like, again, doing this like theatrical nonsense of like drawing lines on the screen when somebody's like offside because like, oh, I'm going to draw the line where their shoelaces instead of where their toe is or whatever.
00:45:22
Speaker
i I think I'm starting to become like, just give me the game. And like, I don't know. I don't need it to be a hundred percent correct because it's never going to be a hundred percent correct. Yeah. Yeah. theres i I don't know where the pressure came from to like hair split.
00:45:36
Speaker
every possible interaction between player ball and space and like find this absolute truth of what happened. And it's like, you know, I'm picturing Jack Nicholson in the corner like, oh, you want the truth? Like you can't handle the truth. know You just want the game. You just want the story to continue. You don't want to deal with whatever reality might be. The player came off the bag for, you know, four millimeters for half a second. Right. It's like, well,
00:46:03
Speaker
so Should we care? right should that like should it be in out you know Should this be offside? like Should this goal be offside? and I don't know what should means. i mean should brings a lot of like All should means is like here's what I think needs to happen in reality. ah Here's my problem. I don't want to be England losing to Maradona because of a handball. I don't want that. I'm just sorry. If it takes, if it takes me watching you draw the stupid fucking line, the stupid little line for the offside so that I never have that happen to me.
00:46:40
Speaker
I listen sometimes to Gary Laker. Like never. He said never. Like I don't. Does that mean that they're drawing the lines on the screen mean that that never happens again? I don't think it does. Like I think there's still moments where like there's going to be a handball and it's going to decide a game and it is obvious. Even with all the technology and even with all of the the the supposed mechanisms in place to make sure that that never happens again, but it's not never going to happen again.
00:47:05
Speaker
but it But it greatly reduces that. like like I think we're there used to be a a time when there wasn't sort of cameras and anything would just go. like like like If somebody wasn't looking, it was just just didn't happen. It just never happened. And people were getting away with craziness. They were lighting each other on the field. Yeah, like biting, punching, all this kind of stuff. I'm sorry. like if it I understand your point. Trust me, I do understand. The whole waiting to see if to to confirm a goal sucks.
00:47:39
Speaker
But again, like you literally talk to these players and they they they talk about these experiences where they were literally robbed, just absolutely robbed. And there's no way to do it because either this person wasn't looking or, let's be honest, on the other part where people just are throwing games. but like i think i think you you can't You can't do that right now. like The whole punch of a ball, you're like, you like ye but that's done. Okay, we'll move on.
00:48:09
Speaker
well you You do. there are There are problems with it, for sure. But what it does solve for me, like it just takes away that. like you know But it put a chip in the ball, and now all of a sudden we know you know if it goes over the line or if it doesn't. And then that's it. That's all that's all that I care about. If we if we get to the point to where the you know it's a hairline thing and you don't know it's whatever, I'll live with that nuance. I'll live with that like, OK, we can't really decide because the technology isn't isn't good enough at this point where we don't know how to manage the technology. I'm fine with it.
00:48:40
Speaker
But for me, this is just for me personally, I'm okay with, I just don't want to lose on those big bad ones. I think, you know, the question is, can we have our cake and eat it too? And I think to your point, week one, it feels better now than it felt last season. And this year we're still not going to have the hand of God. That's good. But we're also not going to have like,
00:49:01
Speaker
two minutes for every possible offside check. but We're gonna have semi-automated offside at some point this year, right? It's not there yet, but I guess it's a couple months of months. After the international break? Something like that, something yeah like that, yeah. So it's like we're still gonna keep, you have this this distribution of events by weirdness, right? Some things are not at all weird, they're like insanely predictable. On the other end is the hand of God, and in the middle is everything else. And it's like, if we can just cut off the ends,
00:49:29
Speaker
and not have to deal with those extremes anymore, right? So we we don't have to do checks for the stuff that's not at all weird, and we will never have the hand of God or never have the hand of God again. Then we're great, and everything in the middle can just be cool. It's fine. We'll let it play. We'll see it happen. If it's ah something that needs a quick check, it'll get a quick check and it'll be an obvious resolution.
00:49:53
Speaker
But keeping the ends of that spectrum out of our lives I think is is a good goal. I think I'm interested in the sort of but the hypothetical future that we discuss kind of in this in this in the in the context of all sports where it's like there are sensors everywhere. There's this this sort of hypothetical future where We don't need to spot the ball in football. you know the The ball knows where it was supposed to go. you know and And you can place it exactly. you know We don't need to know if a basketball player's foot is on the line when he shoots a three. We don't need to know if a ball went over the fence or went you know around the foul pole in baseball. we just we We have the data. But until we get there,
00:50:39
Speaker
I think we have to like understand the limits of, of this technology. And right now it feels like in all sports we're trying to do, we're trying to make the tech do more than it was, than the, than its capabilities allow it to do. And we're trying to define these things as objective when it's like, why are we even looking at this? You know? And I think you're, I think we're right that like those moments now where it's like, okay, this is ambiguous. You called it this way on the field. but Let's go.
00:51:06
Speaker
That's not just sports either. I mean, that's part of something bigger. We're trying to make tech do more than it it is ready to do. like Obviously, Jay, our professional bra backgrounds, points to the world of like how software is adopting AI sort of prematurely. we could If I still lived in my apartment from last year, we'd be talking about how I had this stove that had like a whole LED panel, and the stove would crash every time you cleaned the panel, and I had to get it replaced twice because it it can't withstand Windex, right? Even though it's a glass panel that you need to clean.
00:51:36
Speaker
like There are so many things that we're doing where we're trying to jam a lot of tech that exists into use cases that just aren't great for it until the tech is way, way, way better. And I think that's what happened with VAR over the last few years is they took like five steps forward only to realize, like okay, we do need to take like at least three steps back to find that that happy medium.
00:52:00
Speaker
So I hope we stick with it now for a while because I don't and don't think the tech is changing you know every six months. i think I think to get closer to the state you're talking about is going to be like three year leaps, right? Yeah. And it'll happen in America before it happens in Europe. you know It'll happen in the NFL or in the NBA before it ever, ever, it'll be decades before it gets to Premier League.
00:52:26
Speaker
I'm a bachelor this week, at least for the next, you know, couple of days. The first thing I did was I made, uh, rice and beans and some like cabbage for dinner. So I have like leftovers. So I'm like, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. I'm really smiling. Don't do it. Somebody said cabbage. I got happy. You told me to bring the energy. You just got to talk about it. Can we just talk about cabbage once a week? Yeah.
00:52:50
Speaker
what What vegetable did you eat on your chest? why haven I saved that for like closer to the end of the night, but tonight it's going to be a bowl of frozen corn and frozen peas together.
00:53:00
Speaker
Please. Let's close with that. Let's close with that. Please. Yeah. All right. You say peas in what? Corn. Frozen corn. Frozen beans. Well, I mean, Benny is like vegetables, but Benny is out on just corn. I'm in on popcorn.
00:53:17
Speaker
Popcorn is great. But all corn is great. But when we have corn on the cob. When you say it like that, that's when I get angry. All corn is great. Get out of here. All corn is great. No, it's not all. No, it's not all great. All forms of corn. It's horrible. It's like dog food. I grew up on canned corn. And I'm not looking at it. And we grew up on canned corn. Yeah, cream corn is amazing. I mean, canned corn. I'm not saying.
00:53:43
Speaker
I'm not saying it's the best form of corn, but I'm saying like compared to other vegetables in a can, canned corn is pretty good. yeah Yeah, it's true. Anyways, Benny's out on like like corn on the cob and corn on the cob. I don't think Benny culturally understands corn on the cob, at least. i I will eat once in a while. like ah will I'll partake. It's fine. Or somebody lote, I'm like good. Yeah, lote is such a pure. I mean, lote is great, but lote is like the Chicago hot dogs of of like corn on the cob. like Corn is such a pure flavor.
00:54:16
Speaker
and experience. And look, I love elotes, but, you know, you don't need to put 19 things on a ear of corn for it to taste amazing. Now it feels like, you know, the white guy telling the brown guy what to do. That's what that was. Now, now you're telling us how to eat our corn. Don't try to claim elotes as your food. It's my it's not my people, but it's my people. You know what I mean? You know what I mean.