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C-O.... franchises who aren't really trying to win, who aren't doing everything at all costs.

But number three, and this is the biggest one for the Dodgers.

The reason that the Dodgers got Tarik Skubal was because they draft and develop talent better than anybody else.

Now, maybe that's a money thing, but there's other organizations that have that opportunity.

There's other teams that can do a better job.

You know who does a really good job of that? Milwaukee and Tampa Bay, and those two teams do not have massive budgets.

I'd probably more, be more in favor of this, like, the salary floor as opposed to the salary cap, 'cause the salary floor at least would maybe y- less so penalize the Dodgers and just try and get everybody else somewhat up to speed.

Like, can, can Argentina get enough volume forward, enough shots on target, to be able to get through what has just been an unbelievable Spanish defense?

Yeah, I think if you wanted to be critical of Argentina at this tournament, like, they were outplayed for 65 minutes against Switzerland and England, and those are the two best teams they've played, and neither of them are on the level of Spain.

I'm not sure anybody except maybe France is on the level of Spain in terms of talent and, and quality.

But you could make the case that they got a red card against Switzerland, right? They, they got an advantage there and won that match because of it.

And then against England, the d- shocking tactical display to turn off the, the attacking switch and just completely park the bus and defend with numbers and bring on extra defenders and, and give Argentina the ball for free, was kind of, you know, teams being the victims of their own demise.

And the criticism of Argentina would be that they also aren't very good right now at ball winning.

Like, ball-winning is not something this team is nearly as good at now as it was four years ago when it won the World Cup, when it was clearly better than France in the final.

[laughs]

Anthony, break it down.

Yeah, I think they're a little short, honestly.

Uh, I know that Argentina is the new chiefs.

Uh, that's the comp everybody's decided to come up with.

They even played like half their group stage games and knockout games in Kansas City.

But, you know, this team, quite frankly, has been outplayed for most of their knockout games.

Just because they, again, pulled off a miracle at the end and pulled off a- another comeback doesn't necessarily make them a better team.

How do you define this era for them if they win it?

[laughs]

... a, in, in indoors.

Their, their hottest game was in Los Angeles.

So they didn't have to do all of the extreme heat, and I do think that definitely made France look a little leggier, but ultimately it comes down to the same thing that Spain's, Spain's been doing to beat France the last three years.

It's like, when teams keep the ball and are daring to possess the ball against France, Deschamps has never, ever coordinated a press, never, ever coordinated a counter-press.

The sum of the talent has never actually lived up to what they actually are when you watch them play.

Like, this team is way more talented than Spain, if you go down the list.

Yeah

Now Argentina, on the flip side, if you wanted to counter that argument, they haven't had the strength of schedule on their path to the semifinal, but nonetheless, does it surprise you that England's favored in this one?

Uh, no.

Uh, I've had England rated above Argentina at just about every point of this tournament.

Uh, I once very briefly, uh, had them flipped in my numbers, but basically have been pretty steadfast that Spain, France, and England were the three best teams in this field.

Uh, you know, Argentina's lacking width is a real problem, and they still have not played a team, uh, who can adequately take advantage of that.

And I think you saw it a little bit last night, Dan Ndoye's goal, the equalizer being an area where they were able to exploit up Argentina's right.

You saw going back to Cape Verde, right? Lopez Cabral's banging finish, as good as it was, you know, it leads and comes from teams attacking up Argentina's right.

This time next week, who will be hoisting the World Cup trophy in your opinion?

Wow

... uh, on England.

And like, I just can't square that price.

I've had England rated above Brazil at every single moment of this tournament, and even if I thought Brazil was a little high, uh, England's a little low.

And, you know, the match-up is totally different.

We saw Brazil come out and kind of cede possession to Norway, especially that first hour, and they said, "We're gonna play on the break," and it worked.

I mean, Brazil were the better team for the first hour of that match, and then Brazil went to the bench, and it was Endrick, and it was Neymar, and their, their front line just had no pressing left, and it became very easy for Norway to just push Brazil further and further back.

I'm assuming you're going with the Swiss today.

What can Morocco do, in your eyes, to make this match a contest and perhaps even pull what would be one of the biggest upsets here in this World Cup?

Yeah, France has not really played a team, outside of maybe Senegal in the first half, first hour, that is gonna look to settle possession and keep the ball against them.

Most teams are afraid to attack France.

They wanna concede, uh, the ball, but not concede space, because if you get France in transition, they are the most deadly team in this tournament by far.

So what can Morocco do? I think when they win possession back, and they did this a little bit against Brazil, they can kind of just keep the ball, and in a lot of ways, like, play keep away and just burn clock and stall it out and drag it out.

Because France is not like Spain, they're not like England, they're not like Argentina, that when they lose possession of the ball, their immediate, immediate belief is like, "We need to go win this back as soon as possible." That is not France.

France will sit there.

How do we handicap Spain and Belgium tomorrow afternoon?

What kind of a match you expect out of, uh, Pulisic tonight?

This is the opportunity for him that he really hasn't had.

You know, he had such a great game in the first half against Paraguay, but it's very easy to realize, like we haven't seen much Christian Pulisic in this tournament.

He wasn't really a huge factor against Bosnia.

He didn't play against Australia.

But I think this match is much more similar to Turkey where you saw Pulisic's ability to get in behind to make those, uh, those darting runs to time it up with the, uh, the center backs who are playing balls and Robinson who plays balls in behind.

There's just gonna be more space for him and Pulisic is at his best when he has freedom, when he can come short to the mid- to the halfway line, pick up the ball, be an outlet and bring it forward.

Ooh

Okay, Anthony, do we like number one, the United States to win this match? And number two, have they already met your expectations for what you wanted out of them in this World Cup?

I'll do the second question first.

Yes.

Uh, I think what we have seen from the United States in this tournament in terms of domination, in terms of tilting the field on your opponents, in terms of playing like the best teams play.

You know, when the US has won matches at World Cups, it's often come via grit and grind, via scrappiness, via finding the right goal at the right moment.

It has very rarely been an experience for us at World Cups, uh, and, you know, even like a Copa America, where they show up and they just smother teams, and that has been the case in their three wins.

They have completely smothered their opponents.

Anything you like here?

Any chance here we are talking about some sort of crazy upset, or do you just not see a path to that getting there?

Yeah, I still feel like Germany's loss to Paraguay in penalties said more about Germany's squad issues than it did Paraguay's defensive resilience.

I mean, credit to the Paraguayans for getting here, for pulling off that win.

It was very impressive.

But the main issue for Germany in that match was that they just didn't have any width.

And Leroy Sané, their winger, really had a poor game.

Florian Wirtz, the guy they play off the left, uh, he isn't really a winger.

What do you make of this Mexico-England game tomorrow night?

Right now, they can be had as low as $1.40, $1.45.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is the calculus has changed for Uruguay.

You know, coming into this match, Uruguay would have felt coming into the match day that a draw might have been enough for them.

However, the way this has played out with South Africa pulling off an upset, Ecuador getting a huge win, Senegal winning by five goals today, the margin, the calculus has changed for Uruguay.

A draw is probably not going to be enough for them Because if there's a winner in that other match, they're going to be the third place team.

And now third place with an even goal differential looks a lot dicier, especially if Algeria and Austria play for a tie tomorrow.

Congo is a favorite to win tomorrow.

Did we play things the right way last night? What did you think of the USA's performance and then getting ready for Bosnia Wednesday?

... uh, uh, have they already accomplished a, a fair enough goal for people to say it's been a successful World Cup, or what do we think they'd have to achieve for America to say we've arrived on the biggest stage here in the world of soccer?

Yeah, that's the thing that I always said about this tournament, is that I set round of 16 as the par.

However, I do think the opponents matter, right? And I think that what the United States and what the, the American people want to see is the US going up against one of these big teams and looking competitive, and I think that is what people really admired about the team.

And a lot of people idolized the 2009 and 2014 era, the Donovan and Dempsey and Altidore era, the Michael Bradley era of US men's soccer because in 2009 they played the Confederations Cup, right, and they had a two-nil lead on Brazil and lost.

They had, they beat Spain in the semifinals.

At the 2010 World Cup they went toe-to-toe with England and tied them.

The 2014 World Cup, they got put in the group of death, which people said they weren't gonna advance and they were the fourth favorite.

Any actionable angles, uh, that might be profitable for people that wanna get involved later today?

They will be aggressive, as you're saying, but B, that they can actually fill enough of these holes that it would make a difference down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs.

Yeah, right.

I think the two glaring ones to me, one of which has been glaring for a while, is the right-handed power bat situation, the right-handed power and patience bat.

And there's a few different ways you can go about it.

And I think a lot of names are going to get thrown around between now and the end of July.

But I see Taylor Ward.

I see Joe Adele.

Just give a couple of quick takeaways on how USA has played this far and give an outlook, because I know you and I were texting about this earlier, how this bracket of 32 will be set up and the current position USA finds them in.

It looks like, uh, the Ivory Coast is someone you're gonna be backing in a multitude of ways against the Germans.

Germans.Yes, and really, like you said, y- I have multiple bets.

They're all correlated on the same thing, which is that the Ivory Coast attack is underrated against the German defense, which we have not seen a ton be tested at this point.

Germany won seven to one.

Everybody's like, "Kumbaya, Germany's amazing.

Best team at the World Cup performance-wise in the first round of matches," and that, that is largely true.

Germany was very impressive going forward.

This game will get started at midnight Eastern, so you're gonna be up late with a bet here.

three to one for that to end in a draw yet it did whereas the iranians were minus 20 125 to grab a win over new zealand and plus 240 for their draw and it was a spirited contest you can pull a lot of positives out for the iranians in that one yet here we are with more outsized expectations for belgium i know this is a pass for you anthony but anything that our casual listeners and watchers on the pitch should be focused in on in this match

Yeah, I think the biggest concern that I would have if I were Belgium is just how little they were able to get Jeremy Doku involved in the first match.

And they got a little bit predictable in attack in the sense that I liked Belgium's attack against weaker teams because De Bruyne and Tielemans are so good at playing forward balls.

They get the ball to Doku.

Doku brings the ball to the penalty area.

It seems like a very functioning attack.

But what they saw in the first match against Egypt was that Egypt was able to kind of just double Doku.

Is this the right spot to grab a 2-2 draw, maybe an exact score draw, given what we saw in the first go-around for these two squads?

What, what have you seen from Portugal so far, especially as such a big favorite, the way that they've struggled early?

Yeah, I think a lot of people got very excited about the Portuguese midfield coming into the tournament, and for good reason.

I mean, you could make a case they're the best midfield at this tournament with Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha, and João Neves.

Neves scoring the goal.

Uh, their ability to do both defending and sc- and creating chances is impressive.

But I think people also, seeing Portugal come into the tournament, you know, favorite potential dark horse, one of the five, six teams, I think people vastly overrated the quality of their attackers.

Uh, and, and, you know, I've called it the Ronaldo problem.

What's your expectations for this match?

Anthony?

Spain's my pick, too.

Uh, you know, like, uh, ultimately there, there isn't a huge gap in the odds between Spain, France, and, and, like, England's kind of there, and, like, I know Portugal's gotten a lot of helium lately.

I'll, I'll separate the top six, four contenders, two pretenders.

So my contenders are Spain, France, England, and then I'll throw Argentina in there at the back end of that.

Uh, Argentina are the defending champs, but they essentially have the same team they did four years ago, which can be good or bad.

You could say, "Hey, like, they've done it.

[laughs]

H- how are you right now pre-tournament looking to attack it, uh, from a futures standpoint, from a game-to-game standpoint? Is there a method you're thinking about going into this World Cup compared to previous World Cups?

Yeah, I mean, I think first of all, the, the top tier of teams are more vulnerable than they've been in the past.

Uh, and I think that is something that is definitely borne out in some of the numbers, but also just borne out in just kind of watching these teams go at it, and kind of understanding that there hasn't been that much change over the last few years, and I think as a result, at the top at least, and as a result of that-It's very easy to just assume that the things will stay the same, right? Argentina's lineup right now is very similar to the one that they rolled out at the World Cup four years ago.

So it's very easy to say, "Ah, Argentina was very good at the World Cup.

They'll probably be the best team at this." But, you know, players age, teams age, and I think France is another example of this, where we all look at the attacking group, we say France is incredible.

We look at Didier Deschamps.

In 2018 at the World Cup they were, they dazzled.

Mm-hmm