despite what the prime minister says with Man City.

[sighs] It's only the greatest scandal in English sporting history.

Manchester City, Premier League giant, they've risen from relative obscurity to global football powerhouse in two decades.

How do they do it? Well, Abu Dhabi group run by Sheikh Mansour, just happens to be the deputy prime minister of the UAE, took over.

Uh, and they've just been found by a commission to be guilty of 114 out of 115 charges of, well, industrial-level breaches of financial rules, sham contracts, wholesale cover-ups.

It was to build a super team.

They've won everything.

[laughs]

How have you found that? How quickly, I guess, did you see the uptake on that content when you did launch? Was it a eureka moment from kind of day one or did you have to grind it out in those first early stages to get momentum with it?

I wrote a book about this that dropped before the World Cup.

We are the World Cup 94, as I say.

The World Cup was like a circus until this one, the best attended of all time.

But it was like a circus that came and left.

It was in Chicago.

We were in the FA Cup semifinal.

I remember

A 40-year-old goalie? Like, can you, can you help us make sense of this?

Yeah, I, I...

Look, there's some alchemy to all of it.

Um, so Cape Verde, for those of you listeners who don't know, uh, qualified for the World Cup for the first time, um, tiny, uh, like archipelago of islands.

We all know this now because they participated.

Trust me, I did not know any of this before they kicked off.

And this is the joy of the World Cup.

What do you make of it?

Is that as good a defensive performance as we have ever seen on the world stage?

I don't like to be hyperbolic.

It's the 1985 Chicago Bears winning the Super Bowl.

It is, uh, not just one goal the entire odyssey, uh, just 10 shots on goal they allowed.

It wasn't always pretty for the fan base.

But yesterday, going up against Argentina, the Argentina of Lionel Messi, and j- it was like watching a giant, uh, anaconda just take down some kind of turtle and squeeze it slowly to death with the world watching.

Yeah.

But again, what is football? It makes you feel things.

Yeah.

America now knows the giant Viking, Shaquille O'Neal-esque Norwegian, Erling Haaland.

Um, it, uh, uh, the World Cup was ultimately won by the single greatest team, uh, in the tournament.

These guys have grown up together.

They played the same style of football since they were kids.

It was cohesive.

There was a deep philosophy to it.

Because it starts today

Defense wins championships

... wins championships.

They conceded one goal across the whole tournament, just 10 shots on goal.

In this game, uh, you know, against a, a tournament of stars, Messi, Mbappé, the big Viking, Shaquille O'Neal, Erling Haaland.

Mm.

Well, he's 39.

Um, and I think it's a question that, um, no one knows the answer to.

He's a man of very few words, but you just saw his tears at the final whistle.

When you're talking about soccer being supreme on a World Cup stage, it's Spain and it's everybody else, plain and simple.

That was electric.

And let historians study that because I do believe that was the moment in which football became a standard part of the American sporting, uh, firmament.

That was absolutely exquisite.

Look, you are right.

The France game, that was like...

That front four of France, they were meant to blow all comers away.

Yes, sir

Was that more about Spain or was it more about Argentina?

I mean, what Spain do is quite remarkable.

They knew they were the best team.

Argentina knew Spain were the best team.

And so what did Argentina do this week? defending champion with Lionel Messi, the best to ever do it.

They took a leaf out of 15th century warfare and went scorched earth on the game.

It'd be like trying to play someone at chess and they just decide to smash the board and eat the pieces.

But what parts of this can stay with us? How does what we've all just experienced over the last six weeks, how does that translate into the growth of the sport here? I love that

What did you think of that?

Yeah, the end of two ways.

Look, it's what will finally turn America onto this sport of football at long last is to see 11 Argentinians running around slapping their victorious opponents.

It's what America wants, some Russian slap fights.

The other thing is they play this game in a way nobody else does.

It is with a prison shift pulled out of a cavity, stuck between their teeth.

And this is ultimately proper football.

I saw a lot of that out there yesterday, Roger.

Because it starts today

...

I think have you run the game in the United States.

Everything you've said is really, really beautiful and really, really true.

Look, football ultimately is an idea.

Football makes you feel things.

Football makes you feel alive.

That was nice

What is the most intriguing storyline to you as we get ready for Sunday?

We are blessed.

I don't like to be hyperbolic, but this is the end of civilization.

Spain are order.

They're an idea of football.

They are disciplined.

Argentina are chaos.

Can Argentina afford a slow start in this final on Sunday?

[laughs]

They're inexplicable.

They lose.

It's like wa- they, it's like watching the Red Sox love to be three-nil down to the Yankees before they come alive.

They're the ultimate fourth quarter team, throwing up the fours constantly behind.

They look out, and then Lionel Messi, this 39-year-old, he's a quasi, uh, kinda mystical figure at this point, just comes alive and turns from a tiny, little, slumbering Ewok.

It's like he just suddenly sticks a knife between his teeth and becomes a man possessed, a berserker.

[laughs]

What was it like watching football as a fan when you first arrived in 1994 compared to now?

It's impossible.

In, uh, 1995, Everton, my team, were in the FA Cup semifinal, and I had to call my dad to hold the phone a, uh, to Radio City so that I could follow along.

It just was not on the 365 cable channels I had.

So there was a long time where football did live in the shadows.

We joke on our show that soccer is America's sport of the future, as it has been since 1972.

It's perpetually the next big thing.

[laughs]

What do you think this World Cup has taught you that you didn't know about football and also the world?

Yeah, I mean, the, the, the premise is really true, Charlie.

Like, the, the World Cup is the world's last global billboard.

It's like a global as- eclipse that sweeps the nation for, for 39, uh, straight days, holds everybody, uh, in its sway.

It's like watching a, an enormous telenovela acted out live by 22 dudes at a time wearing polyester, sweating away, uh, under the crucible of extreme human pressure.

That's what really makes it fascinating, uh, on the surface.

You know, th- they're making these decisions in real time.

It's felt like the actual America 250 celebration, right? What lessons can we take away from this? How can we harness that national pride on days when we're not putting on the American flag jersey and going down to the bar to sing the national anthem with people and root on the team? How do we keep this type of positive patriotism going in our everyday lives?

What is your advice for the p- casual fan who wants to keep this going in this moment?

Look, the 1994 Men's World Cup was meant to turn America, which was like space to Captain Kirk, the final frontier, immune to the global game, uh, into a football-loving nation, a soccer-loving nation.

And it was, um, you know, a, a rapture for a month, and then it did largely fade.

But the world's changed, Scott.

You know, the internet now connects young Americans to the giant clubs of Arsenal, Liverpool.

And there are so many forms of football.

Find the one you like.

To the World Cup, are Spain and Argentina the two teams you expected to see on Sunday?

What happened to the team? But did we experience his greatness? Go ahead.

This is a tiny man.

He is now old.

He looks like he's strolled out.

Last time I came, I told you, it looks like he's strolled out of a local super cuts, but there's something that happens to him when the world is watching, when the pressures at his highest, what he can do with a football, how he can destroy souls, how he thinks, how he works, how he plays.

The athletic did a study where they found out he actually walks on the field.

63% of the time stands still.

It's right there in front of our eyes.

Roger, despite what the odds say, is the 19-year-old Yamal correct?

Sometimes you're too young to know that you should be afraid, and France are truly terrifying.

They're the Late Show Lakers.

They're the Peyton Manning Denver Broncos offense.

Six games played, six games won, 16 goals scored, just two leaked.

And Lamine Yamal was meant to own this World Cup.

He was just 19 yesterday.

What's the key to slowing down this two-headed monster of Mbappé and Dembélé?

[laughs]

His team are more stacked than the Late Show.

It's like the cast of Christopher Nolan's, uh, The Odyssey.

Not just him.

They have an attacking lineup, which is, uh, kind of like Peyton Manning Denver Broncos offense-esque.

Dembélé, Doué, uh, Olise.

Um, they have scored for fun.

Switching to the other semifinal matchup, is Argentina putting too much pressure on Messi to perform at his age?

So what should we trust more? Ball technology or VAR?

Oh, [laughs] that's like asking me, Joe, the hard-hitting question, do you believe more in astrology or do you believe more in karma? And I don't know how to answer that.

But I will say there is a tinge on one of the storylines of this World Cup when it's relived through history, and not just with the VAR decisions and this Snikometer, which is meant to be able to, uh, identify whether breath or hair has touched the ball, and didn't seem to do a very good job over the weekend.

Uh, also the US having their striker just reinserted in an unfathomable way following Balogun.

There is a storyline that there is slightly home cooking for the refereeing.

But again, Argentina, England, Spain, France, these are days of great glory, and we're in for a blessed final four, the like of which the World Cup has never seen before.

Vince, most impressive player of the Summer League far has been who?

I think it's hard to argue about.

What are you looking for?

Yeah, this is a blessing.

The, there's one semifinal, Argentina-England, that is all about the off the pitch, the ju- true hate.

That game makes, like, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry look like a love-in.

And Spain-France is the good semifinal.

It's almost the best game come too early.

It's kind of like Oklahoma, uh, City Thunder versus San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals in the NBA.

Talk about it.

It, it looks like the, the ball's glued to his foot

footYeah, there's a famous Uruguayan poet, uh, Eduardo Galeano, who said that the greatest, Maradona, it looked like the ball was glued to his foot.

With Lionel Messi, it looks like the ball is actually jammed inside his sock.

He moves with...

This is a 39-year-old.

He should be fading into obscurity.

Instead, he seems to be peaking with every game, and it, he's like a little man who's wandered out of Supercuts.

Yeah.

With the understanding that this year's story hasn't been completely told to a soccer novice like me, can you explain what the main differences between this year's squad are and some of those best teams from the Landon Donovan era? Because I felt like we were sold some of these names and it never quite came to fruition where this year's team does seem like they are, for whatever reason, at a different level than the past versions of the men's national team.

I couldn't agree more.

It is beautifully framed.

What is different about this team to past generations? Not just what is different about this team.

This team were not very good even three months ago.

They've had some lovely moments in the past two years.

They've had some pretty dark ones.

How do you find yourself watching last night when you have Mexico and England on? How is that a viewing experience for you? As

There was something about not just that maybe Bel- Belgium was better, but the way the US played that was disappointing as well.

They're a ghost team, Willie.

I, I, I was in Seattle for the last game against Australia.

We faced Paraguay in the first game.

We destroyed this team.

This is a Paraguay that ended up being quite, you know, showing they were a middleweight, uh, team that could beat, eliminated Germany, could play with a true ferocity.

We annihilated them.

[laughs]

What's the deal with this organization?

To understand the core of football, to understand the core of the World Cup, to understand why politicians are so fascinated by what we're watching, probably the most joyous World Cup in terms of the outcomes of world football falling in love with America and America falling in love with world football.

That's been what has been the kind of theme through the first couple of weeks.

But 200 million people watch the Super Bowl.

It's giant by American perspective.

Five billion people watch the World Cup.

It is a global eclipse that sweeps the entire planet for 39 straight days.

So how are we being seen right now, Roger?

What did you make of that decision?

Um, so Flo Balogun.

I'd say it's fairly unprecedented.

Well, it is unprecedented.

It's a shock.

When I first found out about it, I thought it was kind of manufactured, an internet meme.

Um, it has never happened, since 1962 is the only example where the Brazilian government put pressure on, uh, the organization FIFA to, um, to have one of their players who'd been dismissed in a semifinal allowed to play in a final.

Yeah, although the Panthers just did it, but yeah, it's pretty tough.