00:00Jamie, you know, a lot of people saw yesterday as kind of an upset,
00:03but I don't think that's accurate for folks that really know the game.
00:07Hey, you know, first of all, sorry, fellas.
00:08I think that's the reminder.
00:09I've got to pay my cell phone bill here today.
00:12Secondly, you're right.
00:13What a treat we were treated to yesterday.
00:17That was incredible watching France and Spain.
00:19And, you know, when you look at the rankings, I guess it was two versus three.
00:23Today's one versus four.
00:24First of all, the final four is the top four.
00:26What a turn of events that is to get that in the World Cup semifinals.
00:31But you know what?
00:32Spain put a master class on, and it was the one way in which you can really frustrate France
00:36is to not let them have the ball.
00:38And Spain just passed the ball to death yesterday.
00:41It was a clinic on how important professional sports is to have a good game plan,
00:46to get a good buy-in from everybody,
00:48and then tactically be able to approach the game where you execute the coach's game plan.
00:52And when you do that, all the things aligned for Spain yesterday.
00:56They got an early goal, threw a penalty kick, and then from there,
01:00they stifled what I feel was the best offense within the World Cup,
01:05maybe within the last several World Cups that we've seen.
01:08And now Spain get a ticket to the final of what I like to call the best World Cup of
01:13my lifetime.
01:14In the 40 years I've been alive, this one has been the absolute best from start to finish.
01:20And, man, today's going to be an incredible semifinal with so much history between England and Argentina as well.
01:26But the thing about Spain, does anybody else play defense like they do?
01:32Man, the fact that they have gone through this entire tournament
01:36and only conceding one goal is insane.
01:41It's absolutely crazy.
01:42That was the last match against Belgium in the quarterfinals.
01:45So to get that far without conceding, it's spectacular.
01:48No, they're the best defense in the tournament.
01:52And, you know, defense wins championships.
01:54In this case, it might help Spain win a World Cup for the second time,
01:57the first time since 2010.
01:59But they've been so good.
02:00And it's crazy to think the only team that has gotten a result that was able to tie them
02:04is that small set of islands off of West Africa, Cape Verde.
02:09They were the only ones to be able to tie against European champions
02:13and potential World Cup champions.
02:15How wild is that, fellas?
02:16It is.
02:16Wow.
02:17It really is.
02:18You know, this may sound stupid, because I am stupid,
02:22but I think it's possible, as impressive as Spain's run prior to the France game
02:30of only giving up one goal was,
02:32whatever that body of work is, five games, I'm guessing, maybe six,
02:36I think I'm more impressed that they didn't give up a goal to France.
02:40I mean, between Mbappe and all of the offensive talent
02:44and how France has looked throughout this tournament,
02:47to stifle that attack is so incredible.
02:52So France, for me, was the pick that I had coming into this tournament
02:56because I didn't think there was any team that was capable of stopping
03:00being Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele,
03:03the reigning Ballon d'Or World Player of the Year,
03:05Michael Alise, who might be overall the best player on that team.
03:08And you can pick Barclay or Due.
03:10Barclay got the start yesterday.
03:11But I felt as though there was nobody that was going to be able to stop this team.
03:15It was France and France alone that were going to be lifting the trophy on July 19th.
03:20Spain proved me completely wrong in the way they did it.
03:23It just was a combination, first of all, of saying at times
03:27when you need to have this skillfulness to keep the ball away from your opponent.
03:31That was one.
03:32But also Spain had this grit about them as well, too.
03:34When they needed to defend, they did it when they went with a group of players
03:38to go win the ball back.
03:39We call that the repress.
03:40Like they lose the ball and they just quickly repressure the opponent to win it back.
03:45I mean, it stifled France.
03:47It looked like you had some of the most attacking, skillful,
03:52creative players in the world guessing as to how in the world do we get away
03:58from this suffocating Spanish defense.
04:00It was so entertaining to watch from a purist standpoint.
04:03And Spain did what they needed to to win.
04:05I don't know if Spain would beat France in a best-of-seven series,
04:09but they didn't need to, fellas.
04:10It's one and done, and that's the beauty of this knockout face.
04:13Yeah, absolutely.
04:14So as we get ready for this game today, how do you see this going?
04:18Will it be history being made because it's been, what, 60 years,
04:22or are we going to see Messi keep moving?
04:25Such a good point, right?
04:2660 years since England last won the World Cup.
04:29And when you look at this matchup here between Argentina and England,
04:34it's very, very history-rich.
04:37It's one of these matchups that in 98, David Beckham,
04:41who had just started getting his hype of world adoration,
04:46he's dating a Spice Girl.
04:47It's all the amazing things that are coming with his startup career.
04:51He gets a red card against Argentina,
04:53and he ends up getting sent off,
04:56becomes the most hated man in England.
04:59And it just fuels this rivalry,
05:01which goes back all the way even to the war that happened even before that.
05:06And then four years later, England and Argentina play again in 2002.
05:10Beckham scores the winning penalty kick.
05:12It's this sort of full-circle moment.
05:14And there's no love lost between these two.
05:16So when you come to modern day,
05:18all these players will have grown up with this history of just flat-out not liking each other
05:22from an international soccer standpoint.
05:24They're all ingrained with that.
05:26So there's history to it.
05:28There's weight to it.
05:29And now you've got Messi, as you mentioned, the greatest of all time.
05:32Is it fate that he goes and wins a World Cup back-to-back
05:36to sort of cap off this illustrious second-to-none career that he has had?
05:41Or is it the new guard of Jude Bellingham, who has been the talk of the tournament?
05:46Incredible, man.
05:47He's a stud on the field.
05:48I mean, guys want to be him.
05:51Women want to look at him.
05:52He's everything you can possibly go for in the face of a country and plays for Real Madrid.
05:57Harry Kane's been incredible.
05:58Guys, I genuinely, I wouldn't tell you, I'll put a penny one way or the other.
06:03It's that close of a matchup, and it could go either way.
06:06We could have this conversation tomorrow being like, of course Messi won.
06:08And then we could have the same conversation and say, of course Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham
06:12couldn't be stopped this tournament.
06:14It's really that close.
06:16Talking with Jamie Watson, Odyssey's soccer insider.
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06:29So you said it's a coin flip in this.
06:31Is there a player that maybe isn't Kane or Messi or Bellingham that this one will come
06:37down to?
06:38Because watching the England goalie, I mean, he's kind of all over the place in good and
06:45maybe bad ways.
06:46Like, it was really interesting watching him in that last game.
06:50He was, I think he got, he took a ball off the face at one point.
06:54Like, he's everywhere.
06:55Yeah, yeah.
06:56You know what?
06:57You make such a astute point there that it was, it will really come down to the goalkeepers
07:01because the goalkeepers are going to have to help you at some point today to make a save
07:06that maybe you don't expect them to make or to come up with a moment of brilliance that
07:11you sit there and go, how in the world has he gotten to that or save that he shouldn't
07:15make that he somehow does.
07:17Right.
07:17And, and ultimately this game is going to come down to individual moments of brilliance.
07:23And then also when your opponent makes a mistake, can you then punish them?
07:27Because this is not like watching a Sunday league game where it's going to be six to five and
07:32there's going to be a ton of mistakes and it may not be the best soccer, but it's going
07:35to be entertaining.
07:36At times, this is going to be clinical, methodical.
07:41You're going to have to be patient.
07:42You're going to have to fall in love with the almost.
07:44At times when you're watching this game, almost got behind, almost got the clear cut
07:48chance.
07:49And then it's going to sort of build to this crescendo of one of the teams breaking through.
07:53And when they do, there'll be an appreciation to it because it's, it's not going to be a
07:57gift of, well, this team just was not good in their positioning and they just made a simple
08:02mistake and a silly air.
08:04I don't anticipate that to happen today, guys.
08:06I anticipate this being one of the most high level games of soccer.
08:09We've seen it quite some time.
08:10And you're going to need your goalkeepers apart from your, you know, messy and, and
08:14Harry Kane, who have been leading the goal scoring charts, the whole tournament, you're
08:17going to need your goalkeepers to come up big.
08:19And who knows, maybe this conversation we're having again before the final is about somebody
08:23else that we didn't even mention today in this conversation.
08:25Maybe there's a new hero on the block after today.
08:29How, I mean, so how are you picking it in this game coming up?
08:34Man.
08:34Man.
08:35So what do I want?
08:36What do I want?
08:37Or what do I feel?
08:38Right.
08:38Like I'll, I'll get you sitting in both of those.
08:40Yeah.
08:40Yeah.
08:41So I, well, then you guys got to put a, put a prediction on it as well too.
08:44What I would like to see, I'd love to see Lionel Messi being able to lift another World
08:48Cup trophy.
08:48The guy's brought to my life, to millions of other soccer fans.
08:53This guy is simply incredible.
08:55And then there's the element of, well, yeah, I'd love to see England be able to do it 60
09:01years on and to be able to see the English fans that they look, the English Premier League
09:06is something that a lot of people just flat out fall in love with and watch every weekend.
09:10And, you know, a lot of these players and a lot of people would love to be able to see
09:14England have some success at the world stage as well and pull off this upset.
09:18So look, what do I want to happen?
09:20I think Argentina, I want Messi to lift the trophy again.
09:25I want England to win today though.
09:27That would be, that would be my prediction.
09:28England beats Argentina today because I think they're just a little bit more athletic.
09:31So what about you guys?
09:32How do you see this going?
09:34We've both been talking about this for a while.
09:35I think it's the same thing.
09:36If you see Messi goes on, you see a guy who's been doing it so long, but if England wins,
09:42they finally got over the hump.
09:43But hell, I'm going to be excited about the third place game.
09:47Yeah.
09:48That'd be a good one too, man.
09:50Yeah.
09:51That might be as good as the damn finals.
09:53Jamie, we're going to run out of time.
09:55I did want to ask you, now that we have a week or eight, 10 days or so since the
09:59disappointment
10:00with the U.S. team, can you look at the totality of their run in this World Cup and be
10:05happy
10:05with it?
10:05Or is it disappointment?
10:07Yeah.
10:08Two things can be true, right?
10:09It can be the most successful tournament for the U.S.
10:11men's national team off the field as far as getting people to fall in love with the
10:13game, to want to go see D.C.
10:15United, to want to go see Washington Spirit play loud and go support your local.
10:18So you want to be able to go see that.
10:20And the second thing can be true at the same time, that they just missed the moment.
10:23There was a big opportunity and they just didn't step up flat across the board.
10:26Everybody was bad that day against Belgium.
10:28Nobody had a good game.
10:29And when you need it the most, they didn't step up.
10:32But man, it's been a successful World Cup.
10:34And I love that it just brought people together, man.
10:36Like this conversation, we're having it now because of it.
10:38It's one of the beautiful things about the World Cup.
10:39All right, man.
10:40I appreciate your time.
10:41Maybe we get you next week to just wrap up everything.
10:44And it's going to be a wild game today and Sunday.
10:47Thank you, bro.
10:48All right, bro.
10:48Appreciate it.
10:49Looking forward to it.
10:49Thanks, guys.
10:50Jamie Watson, Odyssey Soccer Insider.
10:53You can follow him at JamieWatson77.
10:56All insider calls are brought to us by Lowe's.
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