Do Go On - 309 - The FIFA World Cup (with Michael Hing)

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Michael Hing (triple j, Dragon Friends, Celebrity Letters and Numbers) joins us this week to tell us about the FIFA World Cup, and some of the wild stories that have happened in the long history of the Cup.Stream our 300th episode with extra quiz (and 16 other episodes with bonus content): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonFor tickets to Matt's Live Shows: https://www.mattstewartcomedy.com/ Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodBuy tickets for our screening of The Mummy on November 26: https://www.lidocinemas.com.au/mummy Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Check out Matt’s Beer show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej4TUguJL58 Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go One. My name is Dave Warnikey and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins.

Hello, Jess. Hello, Dave. And we are joined by a very special guest. Please welcome to the show, Michael Hing. Hello, Jess. Hello, Dave. Hello, Do Go On listeners. What a thrill.

Wow, we don't usually clap people in. So congratulations. Oh man, I'm thrilled to be here, frankly. Yeah, normally we sit in stony silence for our guest. Yes. As a welcome. Yes. I wasn't sure why Dave had a clipboard

and was sort of mocking me. But now I kind of get the vibe. Yeah. Well, yes, it's so great to have you on. Matt Stewart is not here. So you've got those big beady shoes to fill. How do you feel about that? It's good.

I mean, I would have felt worse about having to fill Matt's boots, but I murdered him, so that's why he's not here. And there are Highlander rules with Matt Stewart, you know? If you kill him, you become him. Yeah. So if I just need to complete the illusion, I like monkeys and he is a craft beer for each of you.

Perfect. That's empty. Yeah, yeah. Good. That's all we know about him too. All you really have to do on this show is every now and then drop a pun and then go, is that a pun? And then you've pretty much, now, but pretend you don't know what a pun is, but nail puns every time. Great, okay, okay. He will be furious listening to you.

back to this. I don't know what they are. God is a part. No one will tell me. Now, Michael, this feels like a bit of a big get that we get you on the show because we feel like you are about to explode into superstardom because you have just been announced as the new host of a fantastic TV show. Yes.

Well, thank you so much. It's so nice of you to say. It could be me about to explode to stardom or it could be this could be the final. thing before it all fucking blows up in a bad way, just so you know. It could honestly be like, oh wow, this is the start of him, you know, having his own TV show, or it could just be like, he was writing a manifesto the whole time. And nobody knew. He just did this one podcast where he talked a lot about his manifesto.

Anyway, guys, that's what my report is on. It's 8,000 words all about the problem with the problem with the... The banks. No, anyway, so I've got this new show on, if you're in Australia, it's on SBS. It's called Celebrity Letters and Numbers. It's, if you're, you might be familiar with an international show known as Countdown. We used to do sort of Letters and Numbers.

In Australia, we call it Letters and Numbers because we're very simple people. And there's like a comedy version of that show that I'm doing. Yeah, and it goes to air October the 2nd, 830 on Saturday nights on SBS. And it's just a lot of fun. I mean, you guys like puzzles, right? Who doesn't love puzzles? Yes, we love them. And can we consider this an invite

to be one of your celebrity guests? Well, hey, if borders were open, you were definitely on the list because we were like, who were the biggest nerds in Australian comedy? What about those freaks who do that, what are those freaks who do that podcast where you've got to write a 5,000 word report,

to be honest? What about that? Yeah, you were definitely considered. It's so sad, Dave, because my first thought was, what level of celebrity are we talking? Because, I mean, if Hing's hosting it and I do a podcast with Hing, that's right.

Surely I'm up there, you know? But unfortunately, borders are closed, and we shot it all in Sydney, so you weren't able to get you guys in. That's such a good excuse for you, mate. Such a good excuse. Yeah, unfortunately, a little thing called coronavirus and the government letting people travel into state.

This feels like the type of show it's going to run for a solid 20 years, though. So I cannot wait to be on season 18 of letters and numbers. It's so funny that like, because I've just been doing a bunch of podcasts and other media, interstate media via the internet to promote the show. And it's been really lovely and everyone's been really great. But I've had this conversation of like, yeah, absolutely. If we do another season and, you know, we're allowed to have people from interstated,

definitely why not? Everybody's doing the same thing. Everybody's going, oh yeah, could you get me in there? Pieces of shit. You invited so many people. It's fucking comedy, you know. Half of Melbourne have to be on the next season. We get it.

We get it. Yeah. But also, don't. I'd be shocking. David would be great. I'd be horrendous. Too much pressure. There is too much pressure.

But I have written a report for today's episode. Now, we love that. Is it? somehow word base. You can do the history of Scrabble or something like this. Actually, it's in many ways the opposite of puzzles. I have a little, I know you guys do a little question at the top. And I was wondering if you can answer this.

Cast your mind's back to 2010. Do you remember the year 2010? What were you doing in 2010? 2010, 2010. I would have been second year. Did you start a comedy event? No. No, no, no.

Didn't start until 2015. What were you studying at uni in 2010? I just, I would have been my second year of studying media and communications, majoring in journalism. Oh, you're a Miko gal. Yes. Classic Miko gal. And Dave, what were you doing in 2010?

Had we met in 2010? I can't remember. I don't think quite. I think we probably met a couple of years after that. But I was just starting out in comedy. I was absolutely peaking in looks. It's the best I've ever looked. I feel like in 2010, maybe I was a fan of your band that you were in back then.

Oh, yeah. I was definitely playing in bands back then, for sure. Yes, there was a band of yours that I played on a radio show I had on FBI. Anyway, that doesn't matter. We don't need to talk about that. But I appreciate it. Anyway, in 2010, that's what the... Sorry.

The report is on Dave's band. With a song, Animal's Hales, that... Anyway, it doesn't matter. Well, remember. In 2010, the country of New Zealand went undefeated at an international sports tournament. Do either of you remember what that was? 2010, the country of New Zealand, undecided.

Very good at rugby. I was going to say they're incredible at rugby. They kick everyone's ass at rugby. They're very good at rugby, aren't they? But is that too obvious an answer? You know, I feel like I think's going to be sneaky about it. Quite good at crickets with Daniel Vitori.

Okay. Do you just know a list of sports people who also have Glasses Day? Yeah, I was going to say, he was my favourite because in my household growing up, we nicknamed him nerd, He does not look like he should be an athlete, but he was the captain of the team and their best bowler.

What a very clever nickname, too. So witty. Look at this nerd. Would you like the answer? Or do you want to guess? Is it an obscure sport? Definitely not an obscure sport. No.

It's not like, I don't know, chess rugby or something. It's not like some fucking whatever. It's a regular sport that you would know. Hmm. Hmm. Dave, go on. Is it? You know, surely.

The people's game. Ooh, the people's game. Yes. So I meant the world game. Fuck. The World game. I was like, what's the people's game? I was trying to make a People's Republic of China joke,

but I didn't get there quick enough. And I was like, what's Dave to? You are correct. It was the 2010 South African World Cup. New Zealand went undefeated, but it's because they got a bunch of drawers. And so, they did.

They didn't make it out of the group stage, but did go undefeated at the tournament. And that's what we're going to be talking about today, the World Cup, the Men's World Cup. Oh, cool. The FIFA World Cup. Now, yeah, I mean, now, look, at this point,

I imagine many of your listeners would be like, I'm going to turn off because I hate sport, but don't worry. I've tailored this report for the non-sports fan and for the, you know, for people who aren't necessarily huge football heads. Look, our listeners have listened to a Don Bradman report and then a follow-up mini report,

which was just explaining the rules of cricket because the Don Bradman report was so confusing for a lot of people. So don't worry, you haven't lost that many people. They'll be on board. And let me just say the follow-up report probably confused people even more, particularly people in North America. Yeah, it was baffling. All right.

Well, shall we get into it? Yes. Okay. I've written a little intro. So we'll get, but I've tried to make it like a little bit of a mystery. I've tried to drag you in somehow, okay? Oh my goodness. In December 2015, a 79-year-old Swiss man was forced out of a job

he had just been re-elected to. Six months earlier, in a victory speech, he had declared himself, president of everybody. But now he was resigning in disgrace in what has become a well-documented scandal encompassing modern slavery, $150 million in bribes to corrupt officials, and a cat with its own apartment.

His name was Set Blatter, and he had been the president of the Federation International de Football Association, football's governing body, FIFA, for around 17 years, despite the fact that his entire tenure was dogged by financial, ethical, and criminal allegations. However, he remained in power

because at FIFA, every member nation gets one vote, and everyone's votes are equal, and he knew how to campaign. Incidentally, FIFA as an organization represents more countries than the United Nations, which is wild. What? Yeah, isn't that wild? And this is often pointed to in order to illustrate just how international and democratic FIFA is.

But I looked into this, and when you actually do a comparison of all the different countries, it turns out that really is just an administrative quirk, because places like the UK count as one place in the UN, but in FIFA, they're like four separate countries. Okay. So it's really a numbers game more than a democratic game. Anyway, Sep Ladder realized that FIFA members were really one-issue voters, and that issue wasn't gun rights or housing prices.

It was basically the only good thing FIFA do, even though it is good in spite of FIFA, not because of it. Blada promised traditionally ignored parts of the football world that he would bring them the biggest sporting event on the planet, watched by over half the world's population. I am, of course, talking about the men's World Cup. The World Cup managed to keep one of the all-time corrupt European sportocrats in power for almost 20 years, and it is the topic of my report today.

Oh, love it. You guys all, you're kind of brought in? You're excited. You've sucked me in. Sep bladder, incredible name, obviously. Amazing. I want to imagine a cat with its own apartment, like, how does it get in? How does it open the door?

Is it just all cat flaps? Lots of logistical questions for me on that one. But I'm guessing we're not going to go into that in too much detail, but I'm going to be Googling that later. Okay, good to know. good to know. I mean, I love the World Cup. Like, I mean, I love the World Cup, but I also hate the World Cup because it basically is bad for most people who are involved with it, right? It bankrupts countries. It's been used by some of the world's most horrible oppressors

to stroke their egos and avoid scrutiny. And the actual games, the actual football games that are played at the World Cup, are usually actually pretty shit. The stakes are so high that the players and the teams routinely crumble under the expectation of the pressure they put on themselves and from their countries, from their fans. And they all have, the teams have relatively little time to train together. So the actual quality of the football isn't all that high. And the earlier rounds often involve completely turgid games between players who've never met or played against each other.

And if it wasn't for the three or four billion people watching it, it'd be fundamentally ignorable. But I also love the World Cup because it's a completely wonderful circus. Roger Bennett, a football podcaster I like, often quotes this saying where he says that two nations, when two nations play each other in football, their nation's histories take the field alongside them. And I think that's kind of interesting

because it means like the politics and the history and the relationships are so much bigger than the game itself. And just on that, the World Cup is a football or soccer tournament held every four years. Everyone knows that. The men's tournament began in 1930 with FIFA creating a women's world cup

very soon after that in 1991. It just took a while to get the best. paperwork through. 60 odd years a talk. Oh dear Lord. 91 is actually early for a lot of sports. That's true, it's true. Is it true that they were waiting for the birth of Jess Perkins?

No, I actually. The chosen one has not been born yet. Well, just on that to bring back our friend Seth Blatter, who I mentioned before, to really paint a picture of who he is as a person. I want to read a quote from something he said about how to popularize women's football. So he was asked, you know, what should we do to popularise the women's game around the world? And he said, let the women play in more feminine clothes like they're doing volleyball. Oh dear God.

They could, for example, have tight as shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so. And they already have some different rules to men, such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic. So why not do it in the fashion? That's set flat to talking about women's football. And everyone, and I mean everyone, is on board with volleyball players in bikinis. Even the volleyball players are like, this is a great idea, and it makes a lot of sense.

And we all love it. We love it. Yeah. And our male counterparts are like, yeah, I wish I could play in a bikini, but this short and singlet I'm wearing are just so in the way. And I don't mean to fact check SEPAla-Ber the whole time, but I did a little research. And I don't think women actually do play with a lighter ball. Like it's just the same football that it's just a, he's a very confused old man.

That's so funny. Yeah. Anyway, the World Cup, like I said, about half the world's population is said to tune into the men's World Cup every four years. It is the most watch sporting event on the planet. And people love it. It brings a lot of joy. For example, in Germany, after they host of the World Cup in 2006, birth rates spiked 10%.

People are horny for football. The World Cup's really getting people sexy. But I'm sure you're asking how did it begin? Well, in the 19th century, the Football World Championship was a club competition that was played between the best British teams. So it didn't really actually involve the world's teams. But by the 20th century, football had gained popularity around the world, including in South America. And in 1900, football was played at the Olympics for the very first time. By 1906, recognizing the popularity of international competition, FIFA tried to organize their own

competition away from the Olympics. But in FIFA's own official history that I read, they described this as a complete failure. There were no other details, but they said it was a failure. I don't know what happened there. We don't want to talk about it. Yeah, exactly. Stop asking.

The formulation of FIFA in these early years is documented in the wonderful 2014 film United Passions. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It stars Tim Roth, Sam Neal, and the now-canceled French-Human parade float, Gerard Debadou. And that film has something to do with set bladder, right? Is that his vehicle?

Yeah, he sort of funded it. And he kind of is involved as well towards the end. It was produced, this film, United Passion was produced and funded by FIFA, the story of the formation of FIFA. It cost about $30 million to make. Do you guys want to have a guess how much it took in the box office? I'll let you have it. I'll give you some context, though.

It was released in 2014, 2015. It was made in 2014, released in 2015. like in the midst of the FBI corruption inquiry where a lot of FIFA people were being arrested. So a lot of people being arrested when it comes out, big release day, it costs $30 million to make. How much do you think it took at the box office? Well, obviously Tim Roth, a great actor.

I'm going to say $3 billion. Is that right? I mean, it's the world game. It's a world game, God say. Very popular. Poco, thoughts? I can't tell if the FBI and corruption is going to make it.

more appealing? Or people are going to turn on them? Sure, sure. I want to say it made like, I'm going to say they didn't even break even even break even and it made like 15 million. $15 million? It cost $30 million to make.

Perkins says $15 million. It took in 186,000 at the box office. So, I mean, that's... You were closest. You were closest. Thank you. That's what I wanted, yes.

Cross is right rules. Closest with that going over. It's a draw here. It's classic New Zealand all over again. Yeah, it's a monumental failure, right? It's on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a score of 0% alongside films like Jim Carrey's crime thriller, Dark Crimes and Police Academy 4.

But let's... Sorry, I'll leave that. If you want to find out about the formation of FIFA, go and watch United Passions, some European sport-o-crap propaganda. Have you seen the film? I have, I have. Is it terrible?

Yeah, it's incomprehensible in parts. and the bits you can understand are such ego-stroking maniacal bullshit made by people who are so out of touch with reality that it's like, yeah, it's truly wonderful.

It's just a bunch of people suck in their own dicks for 90 minutes. Metaphorically, metaphorically. It'd be impressive if it was literal. Yeah, I was going to say, that sounds at least impressive, yeah. Let's head back to the past, though,

to the 1930s. So there's this swell an interest in football at the Olympics. But at the 1932 Olympics, which are being held in Los Angeles, football or soccer, was barely played in the US. So the organisers didn't include it in the program. And I want to date with one side here to say, incidentally, America's failure to fall in love with football remains to this day. The Major League Soccer, the American League, MLS, is mostly seen as a place for aging plays who can no longer cut it in Europe to do a victory lap around North American relative comfort. This is for a lot of different reasons. You know,

there is competition from other more traditionally American sports. There's a racist media market that has previously seen soccer as a South American game that white people would never enjoy. And also, this is the best thing, the incredible corruption in competence throughout America's soccer infrastructure, which is best epitomized by a man called Chuck Blazer, an American sports administrator who was on the FIFA executive committee from 1996 to 2013.

He had the nickname Mr. 10%, because he, as an individual, negotiated a contract with Concaf, which is sort of the sports administration body of North Central America and the Caribbean. So like that area's soccer administrator, he negotiated a contract with them where he, an individual person, would take 10% of everything they brought in.

What? 10% of, yeah, because it was just a fucking corrupt nightmare. That's what we're talking here. This guy took 10% of every dollar, 10 cents in every dollar that Concaf took brought in. He was so rich, right, that he lived in Trump Tower. Conquer Calf's officers took up the entire 17th floor of Trump Tower. But he would often work from home where he had two apartments in the tower on the 49th floor,

including a $6,000 a month apartment just for his cat. It's the cat guy. Here we go. I don't know how much monthly rank you guys are paying your apartments, but what do you reckon you can get for $6,000 a month in Melbourne? A bit, I reckon. Six grand a month. It's heaps.

It's so much. It's so much. I mean... I've got city views right now, and I'm paying a fraction of that. It's definitely something you get for a cat. Like a cat would be quite comfortable, you'd think. Yeah. Now I'm thinking about, like, how much of this apartment

I actually kind of allocate to the dog. Oh, sure. What do you reckon you're paying... What do you reckon you're paying every month to keep your dog house in your apartment? Just for housing. I mean, if we're looking at, like, like vet bills, food and everything.

He's a handful. But if we're looking at like how much of the house he takes up. Is it quite a bit? He has a bed in nearly every room. Who doesn't? Yeah. I mean, anything's a bed if you try hard enough. It's true. It's true. Anyway, that's just how corrupt you want.

But let's go back to the 1932 Olympics, right? There was to be no soccer at the Los Angeles Olympics. But the organisers did see fit to hold an exhibition match of American football between two all-American teams. So no soccer, but we will do American football. in keeping with America's inflated sense of how much the rest of the world cares

about their terrible bullshit game that I still haven't learned the rules to, even though I watched all five seasons of Friday night lights. Tim Riggins. Anyway, so in the lead-up to the 1932 Olympic Games, I'm sorry, the 1930s Olympic Games, FIFA decided to put on their own international tournament

to replace what would have been the football of the Olympics. So in 1930, in the home of the then-current best team in the world, Uruguay, that won the previous two gold medals in football, they decided to put on a World Cup. 13 countries attended, mostly from South America, taking part in the World Cup,

held in Montevideo in the capital of Uruguay. Now, if you don't know your geography, I don't know, Dave, I know you're a bit of a geography nerd. Do you remember where Uruguay is? Yeah, sort of on the southeast coast of South America, below Paraguay. Yeah, it's sort of nestled between Argentina and Brazil. and Montevideo, Perko, obviously you're also a geography nerd.

Do you know where Montevideo is? Real strength of me, yes. Is it, no, no. No, Montevideo is at the mouth of this giant river called the Rio de la Plata, or in English, the river plate. And it's sort of opposite the Argentinian border on that river. And there was a small European contingent travelling by boat over about two weeks to Uruguay for the World Cup,

including a Romanian team that was personally selected by the then king of Romania, King Carol the second. Like he literally the king went around and picked the players to the team, which is kind of interesting. Did they even play soccer?

Well, here's the thing. When he picked them and sent them to the World Cup, he also had to talk to all their employees to guarantee that they would have jobs when they came back from the World Cup. So I'm imagining they weren't full-time soccer players back in 1930. They were like plumbers or whatever as well, you know?

Wow. imagine him walking down the street just being like you, you know, you look tall, great, we need a tall line of goals. How about you? You look fast, great. Thank you. And you like, and he walks by, he walks by like a bakery and sees a baker like kicking a bread roll into a bin.

He's like you on the team. It's got a real Disney feel about it. Anyway, but so only about, only a handful of European teams made the trek. Most of them just looked at it were like, nah, it's too far to go to the World Cup, so they just didn't go, right? One fun story from the

very first World Cup was that America went, the US, even though they weren't playing soccer at the Olympics, they did fill the team for the 1930 World Cup. An American player went down with an injury and the team physio ran onto the pitch, to help him out. And while he was running on, the physio accidentally dropped his bag. And when he picked up his bag, he immediately fainted in the middle of the pitch. And apparently what had happened was he'd had a bottle of chloroform in his medical bag. And when he tripped, it had fallen and smashed.

And when he let down to pick up the bag, he just had a huge whiff of chloroform and it just fatted in the middle of the pitch. Oh, no. Why did he have chloroform? What do they use it for? Yeah, I actually don't know what the medical use of chloroform is, aside from making people pass out. Maybe if someone's in a lot of pain, you use it to, like, put them out of their misery.

Yeah. Not put them out of misery. Put them to sleep. No, not put them to sleep. How do you say? Sedate. Sedate. The way I said it.

Sorry, okay. While you're sitting there killing people. Is it euthanise? Is that the word of youthful? To murder them. No. Anyway, the tournament was won

by the home nation of Uruguay who defeated Argentina in the final 4 to 2 and that was the very first World Cup. The next World Cup was held in Italy and I think you'll enjoy this. Defending champions Uruguay refused to go to the 1934 World Cup

because not enough European teams made the effort to go to South America for their World Cup. Oh, okay. Classic politics, you know what I mean? Okay, you want me to come to you? All right. It sounds like my family navigating who's hosting Christmas. Where were you last year?

Huh? Yeah. Yeah, we're not going out to Ballarat again, okay? That's literally the conversation. I love that you remembered Ballarat, thank you. I think I knew that because you had two grandmas growing. I don't know if you talked about it, this on the podcast before, but Perko had two grandmothers growing up, Perko,

and how did you refer to them? Not by name, but by location. So we had Hawthon Grandma and Ballarat Grandma. Pretty cute stuff. Neither of them wanted to be called anything other than Grandma, so that's how we had to... Yeah, so you had to... And where do they live?

Sending. Yeah. So the second World Cup was won by Italy. Again, home ground advantage. It was in Italy. They won it. And it was considered something of a controversial victory, because Italy, it's 1934, who's in power, none other than Benito Mussolini, the littlest dictator.

I don't know if that's actually true, but that's just my little nickname for him. So this is 1934, so this is 11 years before he was shot and strung up at a petrol station as he deserved. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini also organized a World Cup, right? And he saw it as a real opportunity to bring a bit of national pride to Italy, to Belpaise, the beautiful place. And, you know, he used the world game to promote his fascist ideology.

So in 1934, the Italian team, more than considered pretty good, right? They would go on to win a few other tournaments. But there is no getting around the fact that Benito Mussolini personally selected all the referees for the Italian games, including Swedish referee Ivan Eklund, who refereed Italy semifinal and final. and also met with Mussolini before those games, you know, and we're seen walking out with a large bag of cash. Just like, imagine the local dictator being like, hey, you're going to referee these games.

You know, it's just, you know, yeah, scummy. Yeah, let's have lunch. Yeah, exactly. In the 1940s, the World Cup gets cancelled because of the World War II. And so Italy got to keep the trophy from 1934 until the next World Cup in 1950, which is the longest anyone's ever held on to it.

you know, was because of a war. But do they claim that, but then just don't say the second half of that sentence? Honestly, if you've, on some football websites I was reading, yes. Longest ever holders of the World Cup, so we're pretty good. So, you know, back off everyone. There was this Italian Football Federation guy, Otorino Berisi, who was worried that Italy's Nazi allies, if they found the trophy, they would want to keep it for themselves

because of a falling out that Germany had had over the World Cup previously. So he went to the bank where they kept the trophy and just took it out like he withdrew it. And he just kept the trophy. He took it home and he hit it so that no one would ever find it. And he hit it in a shoebox under his bed. The last place you'd look for the World Cup trophy, surely. Exactly.

So like the most famous trophy in sporting history He just lived under a guy's bed for 16 years or whatever it was. Fast forward to 1950. It's a World Cup. And this time, England, they haven't had a World Cup in ages. But England, this is the first country to professionalize football. They're going to take part in the World Cup for the very first time. They had previously not taken part in the first three World Cups

because they didn't want to play countries like Austrian, Hungary, who they'd previously been at war with. And they also had like a pay dispute going on. But when England turned up, everyone's like, oh, shit, England's here. England's here. it's the first time they've participated in the World Cup, huge anticipation. They're going to be so good. And then they went out in the group stage losing to America

because England, the only thing they love more than football, is their own indignity. Italy, who had won the last two World Cups, were invited to Brazil to take part of the 950 World Cup, so now we're in Brazil. But a year earlier in 1949, a plane carrying an Italian football team had crashed into the side of a church

and had killed everyone on board. when it came time for the Italian squad to travel to Brazil for the 1950 World Cup they didn't want to go by air because everyone was a bit afraid of planes and whatnot. So they elected to travel by sea. Of course, this made travelling in preparation

extremely difficult because they were on a boat for two weeks and they arrived incredibly unfit and went out in the group stage as well. Oh, no! Back on the boat. Another few weeks at sea. Back on the boat, another two weeks. The 1950 World Cup was also the only

only World Cup that India has ever qualified for, because all the other teams qualifying from that region withdrew. So India kind of got in by default. But then the Indian team themselves withdrew. Actually, at this point, heaps of teams didn't want to go to Brazil for the World Cup. So Brazil offered to pay for India's travel, but the team didn't go because they were like, oh, by this point, we haven't had enough time to practice and prepare. But that was their only opportunity. Since then, India has never even come close to qualify for the World Cup. So they really should have... They said next time. Next time. No worries. Thank you. We'll see you next year.

70 years later, still haven't made a World Cup. One of the theories, the interesting theories about the Indian team, why they withdrew, was that FIFA had just implemented a ban on playing soccer barefoot. And the Indian team had taken to the field in the 1948 Olympics with several of the plays playing in bare feet. And when they were asked about this at the Olympics, the Indian captain said, apparently said, well, you see, we play football in India, whereas you play bootball.

And you can't fault his logic. Yeah, he can't fault his logic. He fucking got him. I bet he went back to their change room and just high-fived everyone. They were like, yeah, got him, got him. That was so good. He's like, did you hear that?

Like, what did you say? It's like, I was like, you guys play, we play football, you play baseball, you play bootball and they're like what! Yeah, fucking got on these stupid shoes!

Anyway, sorry, members of the 1950 Indian World Cup squad have denied that the barefoot thing had anything do with their withdrawal but, you know, that's just a rumor going around.

There have been 21 World Cups and in that time only Brazil has participated in every single one of those World Cups. They've only been seven winners of the World Cup, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, France, Uruguay, England and Spain.

Australia, our beautiful cup, country has qualified for the very first time for the World Cup in 1974, where we did not score a single goal and went out in the group stage. Yes. Australia would not qualify for another World Cup until 2006. So we went 32 years without going to the World Cup. Whoa. That's 30 years of bad luck, the story.

And that is down to, the story goes, a witch's curse. Have you heard about this witch's curse? No. But we love a curse here. We love a curse. Okay. We love a curse. So in 1969,

Australia had gone to Mozambique to play in a World Cup qualifier for the 1970 World Cup, right? So before you go to the World Cup, you've got to play qualifiers to get in. In 1969, they went to Mozambique to play against Zimbabwe, which was then known as Rhodesia.

It was the first, it was a best of two series because it's football, both games were a draw. So they planned a third match, right? in order to give themselves the best chance they could, a local journalist told the Australian team to visit a local witch doctor or Nyanga

who would put a curse on the Rhodesian team. And that night, so the story goes, the Nyunga went with the team to the stadium and buried a bunch of bones underneath the opposition's goal to curse the Australia's opposition. And Australia went on to win that match 3-1. But the Australian team

left without paying the Nyonga, the witch doctor. Oh, come on. Yeah, I don't know, fucking Australians. Like, Australians are great in Australia, and once they travel, aren't they fucking a nightmare? Oh, God. Oh, the worst. You hear the voice coming and you go, oh, no.

Oh, no. Yeah, good-day! And you're like, oh, boy. Oh, boy. I don't know them. I don't know them. It's a big country. Yeah, so this younger wanted a thousand dollars,

and the Australians just left without paying, and so he said that he put a curse on the Australian team. And that curse lasted for 30 years, right? like Australia, there's like lots of, I won't go through them all, but there's lots of very clear failure, moments where Australia should have won football matches and just lost, right? But the curse was lifted in the early 2000s. And do either of you guys, you've never heard this story before?

You don't know how the, because it's an intersection of the football world and also kind of broadly speaking, the Melbourne comedy world. Oh, I'm so intrigued. So do you remember the comedian John Saffron? Yes. Okay, so as part of his SBS TV series, John Saffron versus God.

John Saffron flew to Mozambique in the mid-2000s and got a different witch doctor, a different younger, to kill a chicken and smear John Saffron with chicken blood to override the curse. He did it for TV, right?

And then like two years later, Australia qualified for the 2006 World Cup. That's incredible. John Saffron having nothing to do with the Australian and suck a team. Yeah. And then, yeah, anyway.

He really took one for the team there, didn't he? He was, like, I just watched the video for that, for, for this report. And he's, like, really upset and covered in chicken, like, they slit the chicken's neck and they have, like, a little laundry bucket, and they're just, like, flicking blood and rubbing it all over and rubbing it all. And he's really upset as you would be. It's awful. Yeah, that's fair, yeah.

That's the same series where he got a fat, white, put on Rove. Yes, yes, it is. Isn't it just? Yeah, it's all bit spooky, but people do take the World Cup very seriously. During the 1994 World Cup in the US, Colombia were playing the US,

and the Colombian centreback, Andres Escobar, scored an own goal. Colombia went on to lose the match and were eliminated from the World Cup in the group stages. And upon returning to Colombia, Escobar was murdered by thugs, who allegedly shouted,

goal six times as they shot him six times. Murdered for an own goal. The man who was convicted for the murder had ties to a Colombian drug cartel and one of the members of which had apparently lost a lot of money gambling on the World Cup.

Oh my God. Yeah. But it's not just fans, players as well. In the lead up to the 1990 World Cup, Chile were playing Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Chile were down 1-0 and were not going to qualify for the World Cup. It was not looking good for Chile. About 70 minutes into the match,

the Chile and goalkeeper Roberto Rojas fell to the pitch holding his forehead as a firework had been thrown onto the pitch by a Brazilian fan and Rojas was bleeding from the head stretched it off the pitch and the whole game was abandoned as the Chilean team declared they weren't safe, right? So football officials then went and reviewed the video evidence

and saw that the firework which was thrown onto the pitch that he claimed it hit him landed like 30 feet away like didn't go anywhere near him right and they were like, hang on, that couldn't possibly hit the goal What's going on here? They asked a few people about it, and it turned out that the goalkeeper had cut himself

along his forehead with a razor blade that he concealed in his own football glove, in his own goalkeeping glove, right? And that he'd been instructed to do this by the Chilean coach, who was like, hey, if I're losing, get the game cancelled

by cutting yourself in the forehead with a razor blade. Sorry, you're both looking really shocked right now. I mean, we were just told that a man was murdered for an own goal, but we're more distressed. by this news. Oh my, but that is so outrageous.

Yeah. Yeah. So did the team get disqualified for that? Like, that's obviously not on. Yes, they were disqualified. And, yeah, that was suspended from international football for two years. And Rojas was given a lifetime ban by FIFA, which was, he was pardoned from that in 2001. But he was banned for many years.

How many years later was that? He's like, well, you're now 69 years old. All right, well, lifting the ban. Speaking of which, though, what happened to the Brazilian fan? Their name was Rosenry Mejo or Mello. I don't I pronounce that. A 24-year-old Brazilian woman, she's the one who threw the firework onto the pitch. And she would go on to pose on the cover of Brazilian Playboy by the end of the year.

She became like a sort of fun sensation around Brazil, then posed for Playboy. And then one article I read suggested that she then went on to own her own firework shop. But honestly, I was translating it from the Brazilian Portuguese, and it's unclear as to whether or not that was a joke in the magazine or a real thing. It would be good, actually. If you're going to get your fireworks from anyone, you kind of want it to be. You want to bring from the lady you threw the firework onto the famous football incident. She knows her fireworks.

I mean, pressure doesn't just come from the players and the fans. Sometimes pressure also comes from political powers. In 1974, the World Cup in Germany, Zaire, the country that is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zaya was playing Brazil, and Zaire had had a really rough tournament, a really, really, really rough tournament. It was their first World Cup. They had lost to Scotland in their opening match to O'Neil.

They'd then lost to Yugoslavia 9-Nil, and their final match was against the most successful nation in football history, Brazil, right? So this is Zaya versus Brazil. 78 minutes into the third game. Brazil are awarded a free kick just outside of the box. And Zaire line up defensively. You know how they make the little war?

in football. Zaire did that. But when the referee blew for Brazil to take the kick, Ilungam Weppo, a Zairean defender, he sprinted forward and kicked the ball, which is, like, before the Brazilians had even restarted play, right? So he's just taken their free kick

and booted it down the other end of the match, right? And just, for anyone who's a bit confused about the rules, that's definitely against the rules. It's never happened to a well... He still hasn't found a loophole that no one else has just ever thought of before. Yeah, exactly. He hasn't just discovered something. Show me where in the rule book it says I can't do that.

Football, I've got a foot, there's a ball. Let's go. What's the problem? Yeah, go. So that definitely gets the rules. And it's never happened to the World Cup before or since. And this Zaya team became an object of ridicule, right? For this, for this moment of the taking the wrong free kick,

more than for that 9-0 defeat against Yugoslavia. People call them clowns. And whenever you watch one of these World Cup highlight shows, you know, history of the World Cup, They always play this thing as like a way, ah, it's wacky. One of the commentators referred to it as, quote, African naivism, which was a bit, you know, it's a bit crook. So there was sort of an objective ridicule for this.

But the reason Wepu had taken the illegal free kick wasn't because he didn't understand the rules, wasn't because he was trying something new or discovered something new. He did it because he was a desperate man. At the time, Zaya was controlled by the dictator of Babuto Sisi Soko. and he had sent his own personal attach days and dignitaries to the World Cup with the team, right? So he'd sent the team, he sent his friends along with the team. And these tag-longs had spent their way

through the stipend that they'd been given, and it had also then begun helping themselves to the players, wages and bonuses. And so the players had gone on strike. And that is what had led to the 9-0 dropping by Yugoslavia. So when Zaya lost 9-0 to Yugoslavia, it wasn't because they were necessarily terrible at football, it was because most of the players were like,

well, I'm not going to fucking play if the fucking, if these guys are going to steal all our money. but after that 9-0-0-dubbing the dictator sent his security forces from Salaida to visit the team and told them that if they lost another match like that, they would not be allowed to return home.

Oh. Like he'd threatened them with becoming stateless people if they lost another match that badly. So his free kick was, when he took that free kick, it was a moment of protest for him. And if he was trying to explain to the wall this awful thing that was happening,

but because everyone just looked at it was like, ah, this, this weirdo African team's doing something crazy. Anyway, as it turned out, Zaire only lost 3-0 in that game to Brazil and they were allowed back into the country. But the dictator soon enough that lost interest in football and turned his attention to boxing instead. He stopped being interested.

We've talked about him before. Yeah. He died in 1997 after looting the National Treasury so much that his regime popularized the term kleptocracy. So anyway, he was a bad dude. people spend a lot of time arguing who the best play to ever play at the World Cup is. Obviously there are modern players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. They're considered greats, but they have never won a World Cup. So if you talk about the best player at the World Cup,

you're looking at the classic greats, two familiar famous football names. Pele from Brazil, who you guys might know from the erectile dysfunction ads. He fronted for many years. Do you remember those at all? No. Sort of a weird nasal spray thing where he, like, Pele, one of the greatest sports people of all time would be like, and sometimes my dick doesn't work.

Can I use this? He's like, I'm the best ever, but we didn't get paid that well back in the day, so I've really got to cash in now. So Pele is one of them, and the other person who's also considered the best is a guy called Maradonna, whose soccer skills were only away by his ability

to cheat and do drugs in the most charming way possible. I'm sorry, where's David Beckham in that list? He never won the World Cup, you know? Yes, but who else could bend it like him? I think there was like a man in a film about that. Anyway, Jess Minder. I've seen the film a lot of times. I was like, I don't remember any of the character's names,

but Dave's like, oh, yeah. Oh, I remember Jisminder. Is that your, when I should have asked you before this, you guys, When you said, Dave, you had a passing interest in football, is your passing interest in football that you've seen the film Bend it like Beckham about 80 times? Is that it? That's part of it.

No, when I... So that film, it's actually... It came out the same year. Which is 2002 when the World Cup was on and I was in grade 6 in primary school. And our school became obsessed with it. And I wanted... And Australia wasn't there.

I wanted England to win. Back then, for some reason, this is also the year when David Becker. was huge. Oh. So I was into it for about four and a half weeks. Right, okay. Bender like Beckham.

Yeah. But I have seen that movie many times, which is a movie that goes for about 90 minutes and is about 50 minutes of musical montage. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. Bender like Beckham is the closest I've ever become to understanding the offside rule.

Great, okay, good. And even then, I'm sketchy on it. I'm watching Ted Lassow now and I'm like, I still don't get it. As a young woman, did you find David Beckham like a heartthrob at all perker? No. No, did nothing for you.

Nah. But I love him. I love Posh and Bex. Good on him, I say. All right, well, here's a couple of little interesting facts about Pele. I'll do a little comparison, and then you guys can decide which one you like better, Pele or Marodona.

It's a classic sort of impoverished childhood to global sports stardom story. Pelle was so poor when he was young but he couldn't afford a soccer ball, so he'd play with a sock that was stuffed with rags. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah, it's kind of similar to the Don Bradman's sorry I know you guys are a fan of

of the cricket stump and the golf club and the water tank. Hitting around the soccer rags. What a guy. Exactly. But he became so beloved in his home of Brazil that in the 1960s, when rich European clubs were trying to sign Pelle,

the Brazilian government, in order to stop him from going to Europe, they declared him a literal national treasure. They just were like, oh, Pelle's a national treasure. He's like, okay, I'll see him. state in. He was so beloved that in the 90s, in the 1990s,

Pele actually became a minister in the Brazilian government. He was sort of made, the government made him like a special sports minister, which is, I guess, I was like, what is the Australian equivalent of that? And I'm like, I guess that'd be like if we made like Warnie a special advisor. Like, can you imagine Minister Warnie? Like, he's in the government? I don't know. What do we call him if he's a minister? Shane?

Politics, Shane. That's a little cricket joke for anyone who's interested in cricket. Anyway, and just to give you a fun insight to how beloved Pele was globally, in 1967 during Nigeria's brutal civil war, the government, both sides, called a 48-hour ceasefire in the country so that Pele could play a football match in Lagos.

They were in a civil war, and they stopped civil war to watch Pele play. Wow. Amazing. No one, David and I mean no one is stopping a civil war to watch us podcast. Oh, come on. Yet. I hear you guys are big in England and that honestly is on the verge of being a failed state. So it could be civil war any day of the UK if it does. Maybe they'll stop it for the do-go-on live show tour. We do a podcast live from Greg's on the border of Scotland. in England and we'll stop that. Stop that.

The referendum for 48 hours. In fact, speaking of England, Queen Elizabeth II has knighted Pelle. Wow. Yeah, he's not even English. He's definitely Brazilian. He's not English. But in 1997, the Queen made him

a Knight Commander of the British Empire. Yeah, he played from the 1950s through until the 1970s. His first World Cup was in 1958. It was in Sweden. He was 17 years old. And Brazil won the World Cup. He scored two goals in the final, and it's kind of because like it's like the 1950s and suddenly there's this like this young kid is one of the most famous sports people in the world and it's like a genuine world superstar and it's also

the 1950s and he's black and it's the first time that a black player is like the most famous football player in the world and it's kind of it kind of is the I don't know like you read reports at the time and it's like people commenting on that in a way that is weird and gross but also very patronizing and yeah I think it was bad at the time became a very positive thing because obviously times get better. Brazil returns to the World Cup in 1962. They win again. Brazil lose the World Cup in 1966

but Brazil win the World Cup again in 1970 with Pele, right? So he's the only person to ever win the World Cup three times and he's the youngest player to ever win the World Cup. So that's Pele. He's one of the, maybe one of the greatest players ever to play the World Cup. Huge. On the other side of the debate

is Diego Maradonna from Argentina. I'm sure you've heard this name as well. So Maradonna was born in 1960. You've probably seen videos of him partying and, you know, just being Maradonna. If for whatever reason you don't know anything about Maradonna, here's just one anecdote about him that sort of gives the vibe of Maradonna. In 1986, he was seen doing lines of cocaine on the field during a match. That is for luck.

What is he doing? Oh, he's doing, he like had a little train. He's like doing lines of coke and then threw the tray away. That's incredible. Imagine just giving so few fucks about consequences. Does not care about anything. Who cares? So Maradonna played in four World Cups, 82, 60, 90 and 94.

He only won the one World Cup in 1986, but basically he's thought to have basically won it by himself. Like, do you know what I mean? There's obviously 10 other players on his team, but, you know, he was, it's sort of an incredible mix of skill and determination and cheating. And cocaine. Yes, and cocaine. Obviously playing against England in the 986 quarterfinal,

he scored what is considered the goal of the century, which is thought of as the greatest individual goal ever scored in football. In it, he dribbles past four separate England players. He covers about 60 yards in 10 seconds. He finally gets to the keeper, and then he kind of fakes out the keeper, tricking the English goal, he dies one way and he slots the ball in. And it's just, if you ever see it,

it's completely mesmerizing. beautiful. It happened about four minutes before Maradonna's other famous goal, which is often referred to as the hand of God, where he basically jumps and punches the ball into the back of the net. But he does so,

holding his hand close enough to his head so that it looks like he's heading the ball, but he's actually just hitting it with his fist. It's very funny to watch, right? And remember what I said about football, not just being about the match, but itself, but being about the political context of the national teams? So in 1986, it is four years after the Falklands War,

where the English had basically humiliated Argentina, right? So in 1986, when Maradona scores these two incredible goals against England and knocks them out of the World Cup, it's like, you know, Maradona is now running rings around the English team at the national sport in front of the world's largest audience. Like, I'm trying to think of a modern equivalent. Imagine Iraq beating the US at baseball in 2009.

Like, do you know what I mean? Like, that's the kind of vibe, right? I could talk about Maradonna forever. I love Maradonna. Later World Cups, again, this is how little he gave a shit about anything. He tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and was suspended, and he just burnt out by partying too much and stuff, though he did claim that the positive drug test

was because his trainer gave him an energy drink called Rip Fuel, which is a wild name. Rip Fuel. And he usually drank the clean, what he said was the clean Argentinian version of it, because he was in the US at the time, he drank the US version, he said it was filthy and had drugs in it.

But he's just an incredible character. He went out to be the manager of the Argentinian football team in the 2000s. And in 2009, when Argentina beat Uruguay and a World Cup qualifier, he was the coach of the team. And he took the opportunity to respond to some of his critics in the press conference. I thought I might read a couple of quotes from him during this. Now, and I will say, this is not the kind of language that I approve of. But I'm just, I'm using it to illustrate how much he did not give a fuck

and was, what a, just, this is an official World Cup Qualifier press conference that he's saying this, okay? Incredible. So he points to the journalists, and he starts it off by saying, you lot take it up the ass. That's his opening. That's his opening to the press conference, right? Everyone's like, oh boy, this is not good.

What are you doing, Marik, don't know, please? What's happening? He goes, I want to dedicate this to the whole of Argentina, to my family too. But there's one group who do not deserve this win because they have treated me like rubbish. I don't usually read the newspapers or listen to sports programs, and my daughters do. And they told me what had been said about me. And I repeat, to all those that said anything against me, keep eating your words. But certain people who have not supported me, you know who you are, you can suck it and keep on sucking it.

This is for everyone in Argentina, except the journalist. Just, just in many ways the worst guy But also like a wonderful A spirited character Yeah, he essentially He kicked down the door into that press conference He was already flipping them off Fuck you, fuck you

Fuck you That's big fuck you Yeah But his opulent corrupt yet popular spirit Lives on in theatre on the World Cup The World Cup The World Cup is just a constant source of greed and largesse and wasteful, corrupt spending. It gets more and more expensive to hold every year.

The thing is, FIFA takes most of the profits of the World Cup every year. So there's been this trend of countries like Russia using the World Cup as a bit of a PR boost, you know, losing huge amounts of money to launder the public image. But how much money? Well, for example, in Brazil spent about about 14, between 11 and 14 billion dollars to run the World Cup in 2014. Again, FIFA takes all the profits of this. so they just put the money to build the stadium and stuff. Russia spent a bit more than that, $20 to $25 billion for 2018.

Qatar, who, it must be said, have been accused of using slave labor to organize their World Cup in 2022. They are spending around $200 billion. No, no. $200 billion. And to be clear, they're not even paying people properly. The Katari World Cup is one of the most different. definitively, one of the most corrupt decisions FIFA has ever made.

Qatar has never qualified for a World Cup before. Their country is ranked 139th in the world in football. They don't even have enough stadiums to do a World Cup. There's this huge amount of building going on for the World Cup because they don't have the necessary sports infrastructure. They're building, in one instance, they're building an entire new city for the World Cup, right? But all this construction is mostly done by migrant labour, mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal.

And the workers are often held in captivity. Their passports are confiscated. They're unable to get home or afford exit fees. At one point, there was one point during construction where a Nepalese worker was dying on a construction site in Qatar every day. Unable to leave, passports taken. It's probably fucked. There is evidence that millions of dollars has been paid by Qatar officials

to fee for officials to ensure that Qatar got the World Cup. One estimate is that about $150 million worth of bribes has been paid. This is, yeah, just to buy votes. And people are going to prison for this. The decision to hold the World Cup in Qatar is, it's so bad. Like, it's such a poorly suited venue for a World Cup. The country often reaches temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius, right? And so they're going to be playing football matches, you know.

So they can't even do it during the summer when they usually, they've got to do it during the winter. And when is this supposed to be? 2020. So this is next year. Oh, my goodness. Next year. Yeah.

And even then, they're going to do it in the winter. But even then it's so hot, than all the stadiums, they're going to have these huge giant solar-powered fans installed to cool it down. But many players are now worried that these giant fans

will cause wind that will affect the gameplay because they're just going to be blowing wind everywhere. Even Set Blatter, the head honcho of corruption in the world game, has said awarding

the World Cup to Qatar was a mistake. Wow. And he's going to go to prison if he lives long enough to go to prison, you know? All right, anyway, we're getting towards the end of this,

but I want to tell you a couple, one other little anecdote. That's all right. Burko, this is the one you might enjoy. Okay, so when you said this is one you're going to enjoy, I knew it was going to be piss or shit related. And for context for people who don't know why, that is because Michael and I do another podcast together.

It's a segment on Triple J called Simpa the Jest, and we get people's stories about all sorts of different topics. And I personally tend to love people's stories, stories about them pissing or shitting themselves. And it's, look, did it start as a genuine love of piss and shit? No. But it was more in Lewis's discomfort for those stories that he and I really jumped on board and were like, these are the best stories in the world.

So when you say now, Perka, you're going to like this one, is it piss or shit related? It is shit related. I didn't know that you only turned that on for us. I assume that you lived your life as a little shit monster. is a little cutie pie. Oh, how interesting. Why won you guys to see the real Jess Perkins? Subscribe to Simbaugh the Jess.

Really see what a monster she can become. It's 1990. England are playing the Republic of Ireland in their first match. This World Cup is in Italy. And there's quite a famous sports broadcaster now called Gary Lenica. But at the time, he was the striker for the England team.

And he'd been suffering with a stomachache before the match. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And he said, this is quoting from him, I had a bit of a dicky stomach egg. I don't know where it came from. I managed to get through the first half despite terrible, terrible stomach cramps.

And, you know, it's the World Cup. You can't say, excuse me, ref. Is it all right if I pop off to the Lou for five minutes? I was not very well. I was poorly at halftime, but I carried on. The ball went down the left-hand side. I did try to tackle someone. And as I stretched out and then relaxed...

Oh. Yeah, that's what it's. Oh no, something went down his left-hand side of his shorts. I was very fortunate it rained that night and I could do something about it, but it was messy. It just came out. It happened. How much detail do you want?

You can see me rubbing the ground like a dog. It was the most horrendous experience of my life, but I tell you, I never found so much space in a game that I did after that. Oh, no. I remember Gary Stevens coming up to me and he's looking over me and he said, you're all right? And I said, I've just shit myself.

What do you do? What do you want me to do? Anyway. Matt's going to be so glad he's not here for this. Anyway, look, I hate the World Cup, obviously. But it is the only global football tournament we have. And football is, in my opinion, the most important, least important thing.

And the World Cup is just the worst possible version of the best possible thing. And that is my report. Great work, Michael. Thank you so much. Do you guys have any questions? I feel like, sorry, I got a bit nervous and I just kind of barreled through

and I didn't leave enough time for questions during the report. I'm sorry. No. You've got any questions or any other things you want to revisit. I've heard, is this true? You're quite good at the video game FIFA. Is this correct?

Yeah, so I'm, um... I don't even like soccer that much, if I'm honest. Come on. Do you have, like, do you follow club teams and that sort of stuff? I peripherally follow. This is so silly. So I grew up a little bit of my life in the UK. And my parents would always have the radio on.

And they weren't really into football. But if you live in the UK, just you have the radio on. There's just football on all the time, right? And so when we came back to Australia, I remember trying to find football just because it sounded. familiar and it was just the thing I knew. But obviously it's how it's on it to weird times. You can't just get to little bits of football media.

And so when I was in like year nine and year 10, I used to seek out like internet streams of British football call-in shows. And I'd never watch the games. I just love listening to the shows because I liked it. When I was a kid, I liked to do the voices along with the different callers. People were just like calling in and complaining about the England manager or like certain strikers a lady. or certain defenders that get overpaid or whatever.

And I would just sit at, I would sit, this is real sad. I would sit sometimes in the computer rooms at lunch and listen to the podcast, I mean, listen to the streams of the radio shows and do the voices along with them. Very popular kid, very, very popular. Wait, so you're going to sit in the computer and go, hello? No, honestly, yes. If Roy Odson wants to tell me, but like just me.

Wow. Little like 14-year-old hanging in the country. computer labs. And my friend at the time, this is when I was in year eight, he said to, he noticed I was doing it and he became friends with me because he actually genuinely liked football as opposed to me. I just like listening to the radio shows about football. He then introduced me to FIFA, which is the computer football game.

And the first time I sat down and watched like a proper football match, it was in year nine when I'd been playing FIFA for about a year and kept getting beaten by my friends. and I thought that if I started watching proper football, it might make me better at FIFA. And so that's when I started watching football. And did it work? Yeah, I got pretty good after a while, but now I just watched YouTube videos

of people playing FIFA instead of actual football. And I listen to heaps of football podcast now because I know, because the problem is... It seems like you do like it. I love football media. This is so stupid, but I love football media more than I love football. I love how it makes everyone crazy, like and everyone lose their minds over something that absolutely doesn't matter.

I love how it's a metaphor for the horrors of capitalism. I love how it's everything bad about the world, but also it's just this thing that people feel pure joy over. Yeah, and I also love that it's like, I think for a lot of, for a certain kind of man, it's the only time that they allow themselves to feel emotion. And there are a lot of football commentators who I love watching because they are, clearly going through very severe midlife crises, but the only way they express their emotions

are when like Liverpool lose 3-0 to Manchester United or whatever. And like it's, that to me is always very fun to observe. But yeah, I watch a lot of, I listen to a lot of football radio on a, yeah, but I don't actually watch a lot of actual soccer. That's really interesting. I'm also not even really a fan of footballers because footballers are usually like, mostly, oh, not mostly. There's a lot of terrible people

You know There's a lot of terrible people in any industry And also it's professional sports But I really love I'm more of a fan of football managers Like I don't even have a favourite team I have favourite managers That I follow around from club to club

Because I'm like Oh wow they're implementing a Like he's using a false nine That's an interesting strategy Like it's just really cerebral But then There are So I'm like

I'm like probably what people consider like a fake football fan, but kind of a nerdy cerebral football fan. There's people who I think are even nerdyer than me. And those are people who don't even enjoy managers. Those people who follow certain tactical formations. And so they'll be like, oh man, I'm a big fan of team X or team Y because they are implementing this style of play that I quite like, devoid of any human interaction.

But if that team gives it up, will they find a new team that does their formation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so weird. That's amazing. I love it. Yeah, that's kind of where I spied it eventually. That should be on the test for serial killers or psychopaths or something, I think. Just watch some football and tell me what appeals to you.

What's interesting about this? You tell me. See what they say. If they're like, I like the color of their uniforms or that was a fun game. Okay, yeah, you're right. I like the technical play. Okay. All right.

You're a psycho. Most of this was taken from the official FIFA history and then a series of Guardian articles by Philippe O'Clair and Barney Rone. Fantastic names. Those were the main sources. Now, can I just ask Michael, now set bladder is out of the picture.

You said possibly going to jail. Is the hope that FIFA will be less corrupt or is there no chance of that? Is that not going to happen? Oh, naive, Dave. Naive Dave, Monarchy. So, when Set Blatter stepped down slash was booted out in 2015. Now, I remember that specifically because I was out that night with my friend Josh

and we went to a trivia night. And we thought it would be funny to have a trivia name that panned on Sep ladder. And then... The trivia host proceeded to read out 10 of 12 names, all who had fun names on septic bladder. Everyone did it, everyone. Okay, so when he was booted out, a bunch of people went for the job again

because he'd been in for 17 years, so there was quite a few people waiting in the wings to go. One of the guys was Michelle Platini, who was also at UEFA, which is the European one. He has since been arrested and has been caught up in scandals. But the person who won the election was Gianni Infantino, who's a Swiss Italian football administrator.

Now, just looking at his Wikipedia page, just to give you a vibe of who he is, one of the segments is on the Panama Papers. So he's that kind of guy. And so he got the job in 2015. By mid-2016, he was suspected to have broken the FIFA Code of Ethics. Incredible. Like, he's basically had his hand in all kinds of corruption.

And just as an idea, there was, there was like this document that revealed all of his personal expenses that he charged a FIFA or whatever. One of them was, I think, for a 9,000 pound or so that's like a, what, a $20,000 mattress that he charged FIFA for. He'd also charged them, I think, for, basically he's one of those guys who would, like, charge it to the work account, but it was like, it was something like a, treadmill, a $20,000 mattress and a tuxedo, I think. And I'm always like, well, these are not work expenses.

Like, this is not good. Anyway, so he's in a lot of trouble now as well. Oh, I'm sorry. Do I not need to be well rested in order to do my job? Can you imagine, Jess Perkins, if you charge a $1,000 tuxedo to the do-go-one account, how would Dave and Matt react? They'd say, um, put on that tux, girl, give us a spin. They'd be like, finally, she's getting dressed appropriately for the podcast.

Finally, we've been wearing tuxes for nearly six years, and she turns up in anything she wants. So no, Dave, unfortunately, it is unlikely that FIFA is going to be cleaned up anytime soon. It remains... Tragic. One of the worst sports organisations on the planet. Unfortunately, it just happened to be in charge of the best sport. So, yeah, it's not good.

Incredible. Well, it's an amazing story, Michael, and we appreciate so much. you're coming on, do go on, and telling us all about the FIFA World Cup. It's not long now, obviously, then, until the next one. Yeah, which, you know, I guess you're allowed to watch, but you have to do so sort of fully aware of how fucked and awful the World Cup and FIFA is. Unfortunately, they have something of a monopoly on the World Cup. So if you want to watch the World Cup, you have to watch their World Cup.

But, you know, it's bad. Wow. I don't think we should start around. It's genuinely an ethical quandary. Because if you're someone who loves football, and this is sort of the most exciting time for football, you have to kind of decide whether or not, I guess people make up their own minds about these kinds of things. But yeah, I came pretty close to not watching the Russian World Cup,

so there's a chance I won't watch the Qatar World Cup. I love that. Love the ethics of, I almost didn't watch this, so that's how to do it. I did turn down a job. I was offered a job. This is how I, this was the, I think, and to be clear, this is like how everyone makes their own moral negotiations in there, head. I was working somewhere at the time that offered to send me to the World Cup.

And I said to myself, Michael, you can't go to the World Cup? Because that's a step too far. But, and then when I was in Australia, I was like, well, I didn't, I was telling myself, like, I didn't go to the World Cup. So maybe I couldn't watch a couple of games. And that was how I justified it to myself, which is not good. I know, I know it's not good. But, you know, we all make our own, um, hypocritical deals with the devil. That's right. You and three billion other people. It seems all right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You're not the problem. It's okay. Actually, I don't know. I really, my friend's Sep Ladder. You seem to think that I am. Well, fantastic report. If we want to hear more of Michael Hing and Jess Perkins, Hing and Perko, together.

You've got your own podcast that we've talked about a bit there. Simply the jest. Mm-hmm. That's where we have callers call in from, people call in from all over Australia to tell story. on a topic and Jess Perkins judges them to find the best story on a topic and it's a lot of fun. It's a real fun podcast. The stories are wild.

It's people like sitting fight of themselves and shitting themselves. We had a guy who died once call in because he came back to life. It's like really wild stories because we work for a radio station called Triple J and the people who listen to that station are loose fucking units who have no fear. Or control of their bowels. Yeah, so we tapped into that for our own podcast and broadcast games. But like every comedian, I have a million podcasts. I do another one called Free to a Good Home with comedian Bed Jenkins where we go through the week's internet classifieds

and find really good ones to hang out and chat about. Perko's been a guest on it before. It is very filthy. It is a podcast exclusively for perverts. So unless you're a real, you know, a little internet pervert, don't subscribe to it. But if you're a nerd, you might also enjoy my Dungeons Dragons podcast, Dragon Friends, that is the most popular thing I do, despite the fact that, you know,

it's just us playing Dungeons and Dragons. Which makes no sense to me that it's as big as it is, but, you know, people seem to enjoy it. Nerds seem to enjoy it. And also, yeah, like I said, at the top of the show, my TV show, Letters and Numbers. if you're in Australia, you want to watch it, October 2nd on SBS. We are looking forward to it. We can't wait. I'm serious.

It's a great show. It's a lot of fun. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Hing, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me. I'm such a fan of what you guys do, even though, as I said, I don't know if I said this on mic or off mic. I've listened to a lot of episodes of this podcast, but they are longer than any drive I ever do. so I often don't hear the ends of them. Yeah. Yeah, no one's listening to us to talk right now, so it's fine.

Exactly. We see the stats on the podcast. Starts real high and then drops off around 45 minutes in, but we'll still do it to our eight. Why not? The first 30 minutes, we've got to put all the fun stuff in. Yeah. Yeah.

The last 45, that's for us. That's what we do a little thing called personal therapy between all of us. No, thank you for having me. It's been a real fun. And I'm sorry Matt wasn't here tonight. I'm sorry for murdering Matt. Well, we will try and resuscitate him. In fact, we might hear from him very soon.

But anyway, Hingh, thanks so much. See you next time. See you, mates. Well, now it's time for everybody's favorite section of the show. A little thing that we like to call the fact, quote, or question, which I believe has a little jingle that goes like this. Fact quote or question. Ding.

Oh! Oh, who's beeners the ding. Somehow we've brought him back to life. Welcome back, Matt Stewart. How do you feel? Always remembers the ding. And always is the one that just killed Hing. I heard that Hing killed me to get on the show,

so I had to come back from the dead and killed him to get back on to everyone's favorite part of the show. Yeah. So it is so good to be here. What an honor to have Michael Hing on the show. It's a shame that he contractually only would agree if I wasn't here, but still nice to know that he's been involved.

So I'm looking forward to listening to that. But this last little bit of the show is us making great supporters. They help keep the show running. They have done so for quite a few years now. We appreciate them very much. The first ones we like to shout out to, and I should say if you want to get involved in this, you can go to patreon.com slash do go on pod or do go onpod.

And if you sign up on the Sydney Shineberg level, Memorial Rest in Peace edition, You get to give us a fact of quote or a question, and I'll read a few of those out each week. This week, the first one comes from Sam Cross, who's given themselves the title of the one true saint's supporter of the podcast. I bow down to you there, Sam. That's cool.

I don't mind. I'm so nice to have another saint or involved. Kind of seems like you do mind. I mean, I mind a little bit. I think that maybe there's two true. supporters. No, it seems like we can be only one. Sam's offered us a question this week, and it is,

what is your favourite song from your childhood or teenage years that you still rock out to when nobody else is listening? Hey now, you're an all-star, get-to-gat-gat-com. Jess, I'm going to need an answer. I mean, genuinely, it's probably the darkness. Their first album, Pushing to Land is a fantastic album. I believe in a thing called love. Incredible.

So yeah, that's probably, I discovered them. My friend Sophie, who I thought was very cool, and it still is very cool. But I was just like, wow, she's friends with me and she's very cool. She introduced me to the band in Year 9 and have been a fan ever since. That's mine.

That's a good one. Yeah, I guess when no one else is listening sort of suggests it's maybe like a slightly guilty pleasure. sort of selection and you should be guilty about that selection. You've also seen the darkness. I love, no, I like the darkness. We're pretty sure we were at the same gig one time. Yeah, I love those things.

I wish there was like, sometimes I wish big brother was around. Yeah. So you could just go to the tape and see, well, look, we brushed past each other at that gig. That'd be so cool. Or whatever it was. Yeah. Amazing. Dave, how about you?

I mean, you're always cool. You probably don't have any guilt, guilty ones. But is there anything you still rock out to from those days? Yeah, totally, Matt. I think for me it is my, I wouldn't say it's a guilty pleasure. I would say, but I still absolutely rock out to Breathe by The Prodigy. Love that song. Big fan of that.

That was like a childhood band. I absolutely loved. Come play my game. I'll test you. Yeah. Nah, that's so good. That's one of those songs that I used to sing along. to and I still would know very few of the lyrics.

Psychosomatic got a good fame. Yeah. And then that sound effect, whatch, what, whatch. Yeah, so good. Yeah, some sort of... That's a great suggestion. Yeah, I love that.

When I was in the Greek Islands, it was this bar, it wasn't that song, it was Fire Starter, but every hour or something, they'd play Fire Starter, and then all the bartenders would get up on the bar and start doing like alighting their cocktails and fire, serving like fiery cocktails.

Every hour. It gets to 9.59. They're like, oh, no, it's happening again. It's happening. That's a fire hazard every hour on the hour. Yeah, that's great. I think one that I hadn't thought about in a long time, Dave, but I sent you a clip of recently. What was that song?

That really took me back to like year seven or I don't know when it was. Oh, the Atari's. Yeah, it was real pop punk, San Dimas High. High School Football Rules, yeah, great track. Yeah, that sort of genre of music really reminds me of like a certain summer and maybe in like year 10 or something, somewhere around then. And it was just, you know, those songs are so summery sounding, just happy. Even though you listen to lyrics and it's always sad boys wishing someone else's

girlfriend was their girlfriend. And it's nearly all of those songs. And you listen back, yeah, oh, they're actually like, man, you need to stop trying to break up your friend's relationship and just go live your life. But yeah, that song is kind of fun. I think, you know, Pennywise, a lot of Pennywise tracks from back then. If I catch one of them, they get me going.

Great question. Thanks, Sam Cross, letting us get a bit nostalgic for a second. Next one comes from Kate Mallory, aka Big Boss Lady, who can now afford to go up a Patreon tier. Wow. Love that. Hell yeah. Welcome aboard.

Kate says, asking the important questions here, do you like your Milo cold or hot? Ooh, that is an important question. Controversial question, though, it is. Yeah, is it a divisive one? I'm nervous to answer. Because I would say, instinctively, I say cold, but I also quite like it hot.

So, I mean, that's a bit of a cop-out. But I, yeah, generally would, you know, I can't have it in the house, have 80, 90% of my mug would be full of Milo. And then just like a screed of milk on top. And then I just like sort of just dunk the spoon underneath. So little bits pop up and I'd scoop them out and eat them. That milk is just for show.

Yeah, really. It's just cover. No, mum, there's milk in here. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm wondering what Jess is controversial answer is going to be. But I will say that I am on Team Cold 110%. Not a big fan of really any. hot drinks, but cold Milo, I love it. My only problem is that I, like any milk drink,

I love flavoured milks. I drink it too quick and then instantly feel sick and then feel sick for about two hours. But how do you do it, Dave? Do you stir it all up and have a chocolate milk? Great, great question. So that's also, you know, a divisive thing. But what I do is I get my cup. I put three heaped teaspoons of Milo in. I fill the milk up about a quarter of the way, whizz it up till it's sort of semi-paste alike, top it up to the top, and then spin it round again. And that way you've got a chocolatey drink, but you've also got the crumbly bits over the top.

Interesting. And then you drink it down and at the end, you spoon out at the bottom and it's like a dessert. Oh, I love it. Okay. That's an interesting way to go. Also on Team Cold, growing up, we had specific cups that my brother

and I would always use as Milo cups. They were plastic mugs that he had. when he was a kid that once upon a time had the ninja turtles on them. But by the time I was around, we only had orange and purple left. They might have been red for a while, but there was only two for a while. They had no stickers left on them. They were just these crappy little plastic mugs. And yet it would be a heaped thing of Milo.

You say three teaspoons, ours were tablespoons and thin milk. And then you leave it and then you put the spoon in, you stick. stab the bottom and it comes up in like bubbles of Milo and then you eat those. Oh, that sounds good too actually. Oh, so good. Both of the ways you have it is in the same ballpark as me and it's making me real hungry and thirsty. I know.

I'm not Milo. I'm not. But I was just thinking I'm like, is Milo a universal thing? I just looked it up. Apparently it's an Australian invention. Yeah. So it's possible that a lot of people don't know what we're talking about right now. And I refuse to explain it.

I think there's a bonus episode in this. It was launched at the Sydney Royal Easter show in 1934. Wow. It's like a malt. It's a chocolate malt. Yeah, made from malted barley. Oh, it's delicious. Oh, that's so good.

They do a plant-based one now. I haven't had Milo. I mean, definitely not since I've moved out of home. But even then, we hadn't had it for a really long time. And I'm so tempted to go get a tin of Milo. Maybe a small one, but that would get demolished in a day. I had a tin on. my desk at work.

Oh, that's a good call. Because in the afternoon, you know, you want a little snack. And like you said, Matt, you can be hungry and thirsty at the same time. And it takes it down. So that was good. But I was having it every day. And I had to finish it and go, that's it. No more.

That's enough. Don't replace that tin. No, I didn't. I've just found, actually, it's sort of taken over the world a little bit. It's also apparently popular in New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, Jamaica, Jamaica, Colombia and countries in southern Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and West Africa. Wow, popular in those places.

Get vague once they go to Africa. How interesting. Yeah. Huh. I think we've got an answer from Kate because I like to get an answer. If someone asks a question, I love it when they answer it as well. Kate says, I'm a cold mile of person personally and also war. Water has no business being near Milo.

Agree with that. Disgusting. Yeah, no. Get it out of there. It's got to be milk. I don't care what kind of milk you drink. It can be any kind of milk, but it can't be water. Yeah. That's where you draw the line.

I draw the line. I know, I should say Sam Cross also had an answer for the song that they still rock out to when no one else is listening. And their one is Stand Out from the Goofy Movie soundtrack. Oh. I watched that film in the last few years, I reckon. I think it held up all right because it was always like one of the ones that, I think it was like, you know, the critics thought it was pretty good. It was sort of an underrated Disney film and, yeah, I was a bit nervous going back to it,

but I thought it was held up all right. You're a bit nervous? Yeah, and I think I've probably first watched it when I was an adult. A little bit nervous, here we go. Oh, please, goofy. I don't want to be let down by the goof. Thanks for that question, Kate, and also Sam. The next one comes from James Cox.

It's got the title of The Master of Matching Outfits 2, Electric Bugaloo. And they're offering us a fact, which is, howdy guys? Hope you're all coping with the current apocalypse. I thought I'd treat you with a funky, pending Jess's approval, of course, animal fact. Yeah, I don't really dabble in funky facts. Do you think they've been mishearing it all this time? Fun facts, they're hearing funky facts. I love it.

I think between us, we can determine whether or not is funky. Matt, you love monkeys and I love fun. So between us, we're funky. Funky is definitely somewhere between fun and grim, I think. So anyway, the fact from James is, did you know that ours are not balls like you would expect, but are actually elongated tubes? Because of this strange eye structure, they can't roll their eyes like humans.

They can only look straight ahead. Because of this, these feathered friends had to evolve to be able to turn their heads almost entirely around. I learnt this fact a little while ago and it blew my mind. I just had to share it. Thanks again for all the wonderful entertainment in these less than ideal times. And I hope one day in the future we can see you live again up in Sydney. Oh, thanks, James.

that is a funky fact as far as I'm concerned. And what a shame for owls that they can never sort of sarcastically roll their eyes in conversation. They can't give sass to their mum who won't let them have a roll up or go to a sleepover. Which is a real amount. What a tease that is. They can't have a roll up and they can't roll their eyes at it. Brutal for them. Awful.

Such a kick in the teeth. Do they have teeth? Our teeth. Specific our teeth. They're not like normal teeth. They're more like their gums. They do they have gums. Our gums.

Yeah. Which are more like a beak. Now, have they got a beak? No. The last one this week comes from Heather Carey, who's given herself the title of Most Committed Vegemite Pusher in Portland, Oregon. Oh. Important roll over there.

Well, next you've got to start pushing. the Milo as well. Oh, get on the Milo's. I think Milo would go down very well over in Portland, Oregon. Heather has a question as well. Did you have nicknames as kids? If so, what and where did they come from? Well, we know Dave's, Cobra.

Cobra, thank you. And where did it come from? And they came from himself? Straight from the top of my dome. Thank you so much. Well, what kind of age group are we talking when you say kids? Yeah, I guess anything that comes to mine. I was called Rowdy by uncles who still call me that today

because I was, there's an ironic nickname as I just would sit quietly at big family function. I was like, oh wow, I didn't realize that you were so out of control. I'm just like, you know, when you're in your teens and you sort of have to kind of go to the family things and you're kind of wanting to be other places and you, you know, you've been a bit of a dickhead probably. just quietly waiting it out.

I think that's kind of our remember it. Or maybe I was, I don't know, I was just a bit laid back for whatever. Yeah, right, Rowdy. Because now I love going on those things. I'll talk to anyone. But yeah, back then it'd just be a bit way back. All right, hey, rowdy, settle down, rowdy, that sort of stuff.

And yeah, it's funny. There's still a bunch of uncles will call me, and they're mates. So there's a whole heap of people who call me that without knowing the origin of it. And they probably... Think you're rowdy. Yeah, like a lot of them are.

I only ever see it at music festivals and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, that fits as a nickname. But little do they know of its humble beginnings. Is that it done, Rowdy? Yeah, all right, Rowdy. Dave, did you have any nicknames as a kid other than the ones you gave yourself? Yes, before I rebranded as Cobra. In primary school, I was known as Mr. Chips.

Mr. Chips Goes to Hollywood. Yeah, it's your favorite movie. The one that you didn't watch it, you nans. house. Yeah, which isn't real. Is that right? I merged two together, didn't I? That's right.

Good night, Mr. Chip or goodbye, Mr. Chips, and Mr. Smith goes to Hollywood. That's right. That's so funny that in my memory, I'd made up your nickname. Yeah. It was because I just ate chips every day. That's honestly why. Mr. Chips. Mr. Chips.

There's no twist on it at all. There's no irony in it. Yeah, I'm sorry that mine weren't ironic. It was like the Danish kid, the Danish kid, exchange student from our school's nickname was Denmark. Similar to that. Maybe that's even worse, but Mr. Chips I quite like. The Canadian girl at my school was called Canada.

Yeah. No one learnt their names. Great culture over here, don't we? Nickname and culture. We're very strong at it. I have a bit of a fun story with one of my nicknames. I'm being generous when I call it a nickname. My brother would often call me dopey

because he thought I was a bit dumb. And when I started uni, like we had to go around the room in one of my English classes and, you know, say three interesting things about yourself. And I panicked one time and I said a couple of things. And then I was like, and my brother calls me dopey. And it got a laugh. And this guy in my class called Jim was spent the whole semester calling me dopey after that. Cut to a few years later, Jim turns up to like family Christmas because he's dating my cousin Chauvonne.

and they're getting married next year. What? Jim? Yeah. Is he shocked to see you? What are you doing here dopy? I don't even know if he actually remember, but I was like, I remember you because you called me dopey for a whole semester.

Isn't that crazy? We had a class together. Now he's in the fam. Welcome to the fam. Don't ever call me dopey again. I'll fucking kill you out. If Big Brother was real, you could go back and watch those tapes. Amazing.

Amazing. Love that. Thank you so much. for those facts and questions from Sam, Kate, James and Heather. Now we like to thank a few of our other patron supporters. Jess simply comes up with a little game to do with the topic from today. Bit of a tough one. Could you help me out here, Dave, with this one?

So the topic was World Cup. Yeah. And I don't know, like maybe... What about a different world receptacle? World mug. Jesus Christ. Matt Stewart. I don't say this enough, but I love you so much.

Let's give him a different world receptacle. Let's go. I love those ones. You're like, I don't know which way she's going here. And I don't reckon she knows. I actually love the energy in the room when you guys don't know which way I'm going to go. It makes me happy. I thought Matt was about to get kicked off the podcast.

I thought I might have been too. No, I love it. Let's do it. All right, well, if I can kick us off, I would love to thank from address unknown, Kyle Williams. Oh, can we only assume it's deep within the fortress? Can I only assume deep within the fortress of the moles. Well, down within the fortress of the malls.

You know what they need. The World Salad Bowl. Oh, that's good. That is good stuff. That's a fantastic receptacle. They eat a lot of salad down in the fortress, I imagine. Oh, yeah, you think? Salad would be such a tough thing to keep underground.

Yeah, I just assumed that they're like rabbits or something needed a bit of roughage. Oh, that's true. And, yeah, I guess, wait, is that where salad grows? No, it's just above the ground. Is that where salad grows? I think of salad as being just lettuce, I think. Is salad? Near the core of the earth?

Is that where salad's from? Where's salad come from? Kyle. Ingo me dopey. Carl, enjoy that bowl. That salad bowl. Yeah, great. Salad bowls are actually so versatile for other things as well.

You don't have to just use them for salad. Like you having a movie night, chuck some popcorn in there. Oh, my goodness, a popcorn salad. They're just a big bowl. No, Dave, it could just be popcorn. It's just a bowl. Yeah, full salad.

And then you put popcorn on the top. I love it. Great idea. Just fucking go. Always thinking. Always thinking. This fucking God. And the next person I would also like to thank is from, again, the fortress of the Moles, I believe. Sven Arendtz.

Sven Arendtz. Sven World Bucket. The World Bucket. Past the World Bucket, Sven. Well, I'm feeling a bit sickly, Ben. I'm the best fan. Feeling a bit sickly. Can you pass the world bucket?

Pass the world bucket, would you? That's a very good one. I like the world bucket. Yes. No, I was just double checking on the Patreon because I've seen with two in a row and with the next one, three in a row address unknown. But yeah, it seems to be right.

My third one in a row today from the fortress of the mole, I'd love to thank Hayden Liddell. Actually, Hayden Ladel, the world ladle. Oh, beautiful. Love a ladle. This is one of the dumbest ones I've ever done, but it's really fun.

The world ladle, I mean, can I go? That's good stuff. Yes. Do you want to thank some people, Dave? Please. I would like to thank someone who, from location unknown. Fortress of the Moles. Can I only assume deep within the fortress.

And that is Justin. Holshire, Justin Holshire, who is, of course, possessor of. The world Ramechan. Oh, yeah, love a ramekin. You know what, you like ramekins, Dave? I often hold pies. Yes, pies. Is that what a ramekin is?

And I like to bake eggs in them, too. Oh, yeah. The world ramekin. Have you pulled that out of your head or have you Googled some sort of a receptacle listicle? Let me come clean. I tried to Google it. And would you believe that one doesn't exist? And then I remembered that I love having eggs out of my ramekin.

Oh, yeah. I don't know what a ramekin is, but I love the sound of it. Oh, it's beautiful. It's fun to say. The world ramekine. I would like to thank now from Hopkins in Minnesota. I would like to thank Jacob Smith. On your Jacob.

Jacob Smith, from the world vase. That's good. Does that help you? That's good. You looked at me blank when I said vase. What the hell is that? Oh, a vase. Vaze.

I say bars. Yeah, I say Vars too, don't worry. Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, that's a good one. I mean, anything can be a vase. I just googled receptacle. Oh. So confusing.

I was wondering why all this 9 volt stuff is coming up, and I was like, piss off. Give me the list. What's the Illuminati lock me out? Come on. What about Vessel, Dave? If you search for liquid vessels or something. It's really confusing.

List of liquid. Am I misusing receptacle? No. No, no, no. It is, the first definition is a hollow object used to contain something. Okay. But then number two is North American an electrical socket. Oh, I've got the list, guys.

I've got the list. I've got one ready to go, Dave. Hit me with someone. Finally for me, I would like to thank from Edmund in Oklahoma. It's Jason Wales. The world hollowed out skull of the slain. Oh, that's good. That's good.

It's not on my list. Very good. I'm thinking like, you know, a Viking. You know, a Viking, one of those Viking mugs. Yeah. Brilliant. Love that. Good stuff.

Who was that for? Was that for Jacob? That was for Jason Wells. Only Jason. Have you noticed who we've just gone Justin Jacob, Jason? What does it mean? Triple J. Jess, that's who you work for.

Aluminati. Confirm. Confirm. Believe it or not. When at the end of the episodes Dean came would just say, believe it, and then walk away slowly.

God, that was great. Great show. Good stuff. Was that in Lois and Clark? Yeah, yeah. And Lois would be like, what? What? Every time.

What do you say every time? Believe it, baby. Who are you talking to? Can I thank some people? Yes, please. I would love to thank from Brighton in Minnesota. I'm guessing, am I? Is that correct?

Oh, no, we just had Minnesota, which was MN. Could be Missouri or it could be... Or Michigan. Michigan. It's probably Michigan, I reckon. So that'd be the first one alphabetically. It's Michigan. Brighton, Michigan.

Glenn J. Sims. Glenn J. Sims. The World Barrel. Oh, that's good. You can store heaps in a barrel. Yeah, that's fun to say. Yeah. Wow.

So, and are these all different soccer tournaments? Yeah. Yes. They're all these off-brand soccer tournaments. They're like, oh yeah, FIFA, you've got your little World Cup over there. Well, over here, we're playing for the World Barrel. Which I think we can all agree. Bigger than a cup.

Yep. So you'll keep your little cup. But we're playing for a basketball. barrel. Okay. We have emailed Pelle. He hasn't replied yet, but we're hopeful. All right. Okay.

I would also love to thank from Smythstale in Victoria. I've never heard of Smythstale. Smithsdale. I would love to thank Nicola Loder. Nicola Loder. Do you want me to read one from the list? Yeah. What are you loading?

What kind of vessel are you loading up? The world measuring jug. Ooh. How big? One metric cup? Oh, no, three cups in there at least, man. Come on. Oh, it's a jug, sorry.

It's a jug. It's not a fucking measuring cup. I can't have a jug smaller than a cup. You fit about four and a half pots of beer in there. What's it how annoying that little extra bit of beer. Surely you'd figure it out to be exactly four or five pots. I mean, freaking hell. Come on.

Freaking hell. Freaking hell, I always say. Yeah, this goes all the way up to the top of a reckon. Oh, freaking hell. Freckin' hell you dogs. And finally, for me, I would love to thank from London in London. Rachel Hunt. Rachel Hunt.

I'm Rachel Hunt from London town. Okay, yes, getting into character. What kind of receptacle have you got? I've just won a rat barrel. Oh no. I've done used barrel again. But I had a rat to the top. Is that enough?

The world slightly larger barrel. Rat barrel. I'm coming in cold. You guys have had a whole run-up of an episode. I'm just warming up. Honestly, it's not worse than what I had from the list. What did you have? The world sedimentation tank.

I had sack. Oh, sacks good. Yeah, world sack. Is it or is rat barrel, oh no, better? Oh, no. Oh, no. Rat barrel. Oh no. My brain said a thing I just heard.

So the only thing we got to do now is to thank our long-term Triptage Club inductees. The way where this normally goes is people who've been on the shout-out level for three years straight, shout-out level or above, they get entered into the Triptich Club. So normally I'm standing at the door. I've got the guest list. I'm going to welcome them in. Dave hipes them up somehow basing a pun on their place or name. And then Jess pumps him up a little bit as well.

Yeah. Jess, you normally have a cocktail ready? I do. Yes, I have a pretty exclusive and a really extensive menu of cocktails, hors d'oeuvre, food and services available. but you do have to bribe me in order to have access to them today. In fitting with the theme of the episode, a lot of corruption. If you want access to this exclusive list of hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, services,

I'm going to need some big old bribes. And this is the first week that I haven't bribed Jess, and that's why she's not able to normally cost me quite a pretty penny. For me to come up with these hypothetical snacks. Yes, Dave, you normally have a band? Yes, we have. We've got Ricky Martin singing the Cup of Life on repeat. Okay, can I tell you that it was a career highlight of mine

that I played that on Triple J only a few weeks ago? What, how? So this is, of course, the 1998 World Cup song by Ricky Martin. How is it on the Australian National Youth Broadcaster? Oh, you mean the one that's focused on Australian and new music? Yeah. On Fridays, almost anything goes on a Friday. I was doing drive.

And at the start of the drive show on a Friday, they do what's called the Tree of Dips. And it's like three just like really fun songs back to back. And I ended on, it was like Olympics. I was like, we need sports themed songs. So I ended on that. And it was like, oh, it was so fun. Well played.

Yeah, it felt real good. Very well played. All right. So should I start reading out the names? I should just quickly go back. for the other ones we brought in, we shared out before, Rachel Nicola, Glenn, Jason, Jacob,

Justin, Hayden, Sven and Kyle. But I'm going to read out the names now of the new Triptitch Club inductees. There's a few today, Dave. So you got those pipes warmed up. You're ready to go. Oh, let me have a bit of water. Here we go.

I've been stretching all episode. Here we go. I'm ready to hype you up, Dave. You've got this. I believe in you. Let's pump through them. These all deserve all the energy you've got. Here we go.

Firstly, from Rochester and New York in the United States, it's Christopher J. Ford. Let's go Ford. Not backwards. Yeah, it's like forward, but slightly different. Yes. From Long Beach and California, United States, it's Vanessa Hackett. Oh, not everyone can hack it in here, but Vanessa can. It's right there for you. Perfect.

From Hopetown in Victoria, Australia, it's Emily Teesdale. You know, I was feeling a bit off tonight, but now with you here, Emily, this place feels like Hope Town, to me. Yes. From Be liar in Western Australia, it's Callum Neville. Oh, this guy ain't been no liar? He's a truther, yeah. But in the positive sense.

A truther. From Sutherland in New South Wales, Australia, it's Halberth, Hayward. Oh, hellbeth no fury like Helbeth Hayward, yeah. Oh, my God, incredible stuff. Are you kidding me? From Abbotsford in British Columbia in Canada, it's Matt Peters. Oh, Matt Peters, great to meet you. Oh, my God.

Okay, you lost it a little, but still so good. From Columbus in Georgia in the United States, it's Detective Herbert Covington. I'd like to report a murder. Hang on. On the dance floor or something. Hold on, let's try that again. I'd like to book a murder on the...

On the dance floor, Detective Herbert Comington coming in hot. You're booking a bit. Hello, I like to book a murder for 9pm. Yes, a murder for two, please. I was going to say book him and I fucked it. No, you didn't. It was great. Good job.

And finally from New York, New York, the city so nice. They named it twice. In the United States, it's Camilla Jones. Oh, we've been Jones in for Camilla. Yeah. Yes. We did it. Thank you so much to Camilla, Detective Herbert, Matt, Halberth, Callum, Emily, Vanessa, and Christopher. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club, one and all. Thank you so much for your support over the years. Much appreciated now.

Get in there and start singing along to Ricky Martin. If you don't know the lyrics, you will after he sings it on repeat for four or five hours. Here we go. Et cetera. That's right. We can't afford the rights here, but in the club we can. So, yeah, thanks to everyone that supports us. on do go onpod.com or patreon.com slash do go on pod. It is much appreciated. You get a bunch of bonus stuff, including three bonus episodes a month if you would like to hear more of us talking. But I guess until next week, that is the end of us talking. You can hit up that website if you want to get links to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which is at do go on pod or do go onpod at gmail.com. But I guess until next time, is there anything left to say?

Yeah, well, block's coming up so quick now. It's only one. Yeah. Next week, I don't think next week's going to be Block or might be. Maybe we will. We don't know. The voting might still be open. We're not sure. But Block is happening starting next week or the week after. We're not sure if we're annexing the end of September or not this year.

It is the most wonderful time of year. Happy Block, everyone. Happy Block. Beautiful time. Well, until next time, we'll say thank you so much for listening and goodbye. Later. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing.

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