Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/15/24

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Mike & guest host Jamie Dodd look back at the weekend in sports, they talk the Copa and Euro finals with soccer analyst James Sharman, plus they speak with Canadian soccer great John Catliff. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to Halford & Brough. Spain, champions of Europe yet again And the best team won it Once more, this zestful football nation Has come to the party And danced the most beautiful dance And Vladi just gave one a ride out to the deepest part of the park and gone. A monster shot from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

as the Blue Jays have taken an 8-7 lead. It's over. Triple crown secured. Legacy cemented. Argentina win the Copa America again. Good morning, Vancouver 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It's Halford.

It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. As it's been the last couple weeks, it is the Halford and Brough Show. But there's no Brough. Jamie Dodd is in the chair yet again. Back for another week. Good morning, Jamie. Good morning. You just rolled in with it is Halford, it is the Halford & Brough Show. But there's no Brough. Jamie Dodd is in the chair yet again. Back for another week. Good morning, Jamie.

Good morning. You just rolled in with, it is Halford, it is Brough. Yeah. I'm not going to change it. I don't care. You know what? I've given up on amending things. I'm just head down, nose to the grindstone.

Let's go. A-Dawg, good morning to you. Good morning. And not Laddie because he's out ill. So Basketball Ben is in. Good morning, Basketball Ben. Good morning to you. Good morning. And not Laddie because he's out ill. So Basketball Ben is in. Good morning, Basketball Ben. Good morning. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling. They recycle.

You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet. What are you waiting for? Kintec, that is what you're waiting for. All right, we got a big show ahead.

Early apologies to Andrew and Victoria. We got a lot of soccer to cram down your collective throats. The guest list today begins at 7 o'clock. So the first hour, not only is it a lot of soccer, it's uninterrupted Halford and Dodd talking soccer because we don't have a guest in the first hour. James Sharman to talk some soccer at 7 o'clock. We'll discuss Spain defeating England at the European Championships.

We will discuss Argentina defeating Colombia in extra time at the Copa America final. We'll talk about Canada. What an interesting performance over the weekend from the Canadian men, both on the pitch and off. We can even talk whitecaps if we want. We've got a lot to get into with James Sharman at 7 o'clock, 7.30. Adnan Virk, our regular guest from MLB Network.

Adnan usually joins us on a Thursday, but we're moving that up in the week because Adnan is on location in Arlington for the 2024 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. We'll talk home run derby. We'll talk the game later in the week. MLB is off until Friday. So we thought, hey, let's talk to Adnan early in the week. So that'll be at 7.30. 8 o'clock, a Vancouver sporting legend,

John Catliff, is going to join the program. Florida 86ers, great. Former Canadian national team, great. We'll talk to him about what Canada soccer did at the Copa America. We'll also talk to him about what Canada soccer did at the Copa America. We'll also talk to him about Wednesday's match. The Whitecaps are hosting Sporting KC at BC Place at 730. It's 80s night.

All right. 80s night. They're going to have video games, old school stand-up video game, arcade style. Wait, what? In the concourse. Yeah, Galaga. Wow.

Arknoid. Is that one? That is one. Qbert. Yep, that's one. Yep, all of them. Pac-Man? Yes. Wow. Arknoid. Is that one? That is one. Qbert. Yep, that's one. Yep, all of them. Pac-Man? Yes.

Mrs. Pac-Man? What was the one that was way ahead of the curve, the cartoon ones, like Dragon's Lair or Dragon's Quest? Dragon's Lair. It was Dragon's Lair. Yeah, I don't know if they'll have that one. Space Invaders? I didn't get the entire lineup, the full starting 11.

Why did you not get on that? Yeah. Hey, dog, reach out to the Whitecaps. Yeah, why is this not the thing we started with? Call some of the Whitecaps. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to answer their phones at 6.04 in the morning to discuss what video games they'll have on the concourse for 80s night. Anyway, working in reverse, 8 o'clock, John Califf, 7.30, Adnan Virk, 7 o'clock, James

Sharman. That's what's happening on the program today. Ben, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be.

What happened? You missed that? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. So very quickly, because we're kind of going to circular fashion here,

I'll mention that the most recent soccer game that we need to get you caught up with was Argentina winning its second straight Copa America championship late last night. If you turn on the television at 9 o'clock and you're like, why are these guys still playing? Well, there's a lot of reasons for that. We'll get into them later. But they win 1-0 over Colombia on Sunday night, despite a Lionel Messi injury, despite some major drama ahead of the match,

which we will get to in a moment. Argentina wins its second straight Copa America. Prior to that I think it's where the story really kicked off because prior to the third place match between Canada and Uruguay we got a real inside look at what went wrong at this tournament

so the match itself Canada puts forth a brilliant performance against a very talented uruguayan squad probably full value for the win uh the uruguayan manager marcella bielsa said afterwards we barely deserve to draw let alone they went on to win matches and penalties yeah but there were some really interesting remarks from bielsa the uruguayan manager jesse marsh the canadian manager about how poorly this tournament was run, Jamie. And I think that that's probably where we should start today because as it pertains to Vancouver, I will remind you that in two years' time,

Vancouver is going to play a pretty integral role in hosting the World Cup. Well, and Jesse Marsh especially looked prophetic after his comments after what happened before the final last night and the reason it got so delayed, him talking about how poorly run, how unprofessional things have been at the Copa. I mean, I think a lot of people believed him anyways, but then we got instant proof of what he was talking about last night. So last night ahead of the Argentina-Colombia match, people kind of started noticing that the crowd wasn't filling out.

The kickoff looked like it might be delayed. And then we started to figure out why. There were massive, massive crowd control issues at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. People were climbing through pipes. People were climbing. I don't think I've ever seen that before. People were climbing over the barricades. People were climbing through the ventilation system about an hour prior to kickoff

to try and infiltrate the stadium and largely being unstopped. Well, yeah, I think at a certain point the security, it seemed like they just gave up. Anyone who's out here, go in. Run in. But do they not have NFL? They do. It's a different level, though. Are they not prepared for this?

I don't know, man. That's kind of nuts. I think it's like a professional stadium. I think it's got to be more on a common bowl than anyone else here. Right? Because as you said, this stadium's hosted Super Bowls. Yeah. You'd think they'd be ready for something like this. There's fans here?

So part of this is there's not a lot of people with the gumption to show up to the Super Bowl unticketed and then just try and storm the place. Yeah. They were unprepared for, let's choose my words carefully here. with the gumption to show up to the Super Bowl unticketed and then just try and storm the place. They were unprepared for, let's choose my words carefully here, the zest and zeal of some of the South American supporters. Also, the passion that would somewhat override logical thinking, which is don't enter the stadium without a ticket. So a lot of the people and a lot of the pundits that were covering this tournament

said shame on everyone involved. They should have been prepped and been anticipating this because this happens at a lot of matches, especially ones of this magnitude. And to be fair, I want to make this clear.

This isn't me projecting on South America because the exact same thing happened at Wembley ahead of the 2020 Euro final. There were football fanatics that stormed the stadium, unticketed, and managed to get in. So it's a footballing issue.

In this instance, I'm talking about the South American audience because it was a South American tournament and Argentina and Colombia were in the final. So what ended up happening was the security thought the best way to deal with this was to put a pause on letting anyone enter the stadium. Now the issue with that was, is it causes a massive crush outside the stadium where ticketed and

unticketed supporters were basically pushed up against the barricade where you were supposed to be led into the stadium. And suddenly you had something which looked very scary and very terrifying for people out front because it was a massive humanity with no movement forward. And there was a lot of finger pointing going on. Miami-Dade law officials were pointing the finger at tournament organizers. Tournament organizers were pointing the finger at fans.

Fans were pointing the fingers at everyone saying that this was really, really disorganized and a really big mess. So that was sort of the crappy icing on the cake of this entire tournament. And I say it like that because this tournament came under a lot of scrutiny throughout. I want to play here the comments from Canadian manager Jesse Marsh ahead of the third place match on Saturday. Now, pay attention to this. It's about a two and a half minute clip.

But there's a lot of issues here which tie directly to Canada the U.S. and Mexico hosting a much bigger event in two years time the 2026 World Cup and specifically and we'll get into this on the other side what BC Place is going to have to accomplish and how high the bar is being raised and how much more scrutiny there's going to be now on a venue like BC Place in light of what happened. Here is Canadian manager Jesse Marsh on the fiasco that was Copa America 2024. Yeah, I saw, I didn't watch the whole press conference, but I saw some of Marcelo's comments. You know, I agree with certain things and then I disagree with certain things. For me, this tournament has not been professional for me.

There's too many gaps in the way in the treatment in the the the overall experience from a day-to-day perspective you know I watched what happened after the match and and certainly I didn't know all the details but you know certainly we wouldn't want anyone's families or any players' families to be put in harm's way. But I know if Team Canada, if our team would have responded like this, that there would be heavy sanctions because of the treatment that we received in this tournament the whole time. We've had our players be headbutted. We've had racial slurs thrown at our players live and through social media and not just the situation with boys, but the entire tournament from opponents, fan bases, and from, from, uh, uh,

whether it's live or in social media, um, we've been treated like second-class citizens. And in the entire time I've challenged our team to stay disciplined and stay focused on our task at hand and to make sure that we represent ourselves and our country because in the end that's what this is this is about representing your national your nation you're you're on the national team and our players have held themselves to the highest level of integrity we've played hard we've played aggressive we've often been accused by uh the opposing coach before the match as a play to the referees that that were we crossed the line and that were overly aggressive and yet if you look at the CONCACAF teams and the treatment that they get in games and they're the the yellow cards per foul rate is way higher for every CONCACAF team

I watched the Uruguay U.S. game and it it was for me one of the most biased ref games against the United States that I've ever seen on their home soil there's so many things i could say but what i will again say is a big compliment to our team and to our focus and our discipline and our concentration to control what we can control they've never crossed the line they've never berated referees they've never rolled around on the ground like children looking for calls and yellows from referees they've never rolled around on the ground like children looking for calls and yellows from referees they've held themselves with professional integrity and been an incredible representation of what it means to be a canadian high level athlete so i just want to throw this out there let's go that was he went off that was from a coach who might have had the most successful

copa america out of any. Like no one had their stock rise and had a better tournament in terms of profile than Jesse Marsh. And that's the tact that, that's how bad the tournament was from his perspective, that despite all the positive things that happened for Canada, that was his sort of lasting memory of it.

And it's really, the thing he brings up specifically there is it's not just Canada. He said it was all of the CONCACAF teams. And he brought up the U.S. versus Uruguay match. And it is an interesting dynamic with this tournament, right, which traditionally has just been a CONMEBOL South America tournament. And then they have expanded it to involve CONCACAF. They're playing it in the United States, but it's still the South American Federation running it. And there's this kind of sense of, well, we want the extra attention and the extra money from inviting the U.S. and Mexico and now Canada.

But don't get any ideas, guys. We're going to win this tournament at the end of the day. Like that kind of feels like the dynamic here. That is OK. So absolutely. From a competitive standpoint, that was the feeling. This is nice that we invited you to our party and you get to hang out and have some hors d'oeuvres and there's an open bar. But at the end of the day, the birthday cake is going to us, that sort of thing.

Now, the other very interesting dynamic, and this is where it really relates to Vancouver, the 2026 World Cup, BC place, is that hosting has just become a front burner issue on about four different levels. One is the pitch quality. And this is going to be something that BC Place is probably going to be scrutinized for right up until the first ball is kicked at 2026. The complaints about the pitches at this tournament

started on night one, which is when Canada played Argentina at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, where, I'll remind you, they had a temporary grass field laid over top of turf, which is very possibly what you're going to see at BC Place in 2026. The complaints continued. Of the 14 Copa venues that they had in this tournament. Six had artificial turf and required laying the sod down over top of it.

Many of those same 14 venues are the ones that are going to be used in 2026. And they're going to either have to learn from this or they're going to have to completely rejig what they're doing, because the complaints started with Scaloni, who is the head coach of Argentina. Marsh mentioned it. Bielsa mentioned it. The players mentioned it. And it just wasn't up to the standard of and cope is one of the top three international tournaments in the world. The World Cup is number one on those power rankings.

So there is a lot at stake if they don't get it right i'm very curious i feel like we should have had like a turf expert on the show or something because is this just a case of common ball cheaping out or is there no good way to do this you know what i mean is like is this a situation where they were incompetent and they easily could have done things and spent a little bit more money and it would have been fine or is it just a really is it it's such a thorny problem to solve that you're always kind of at risk of having substandard not as good turf right when you end up there right i don't know the answer to that but like bielsa specifically blamed and it was a very sort of catch-all umbrella he said the americans they said the americans promised us this they promised that with regard to pitches yeah and it never fell through the the issue and this is another thing that

they're going to have to deal with at the world cup is that you have so many different parties involved all of which are high stakeholders so in this particular instance there was commonball which is the south american federation there was CONCACAF. Then there was like U.S. soccer had a very prominent role in all of this because they were part of the hosting thing. And then you had all the individual venues themselves. And then it kind of became this weird, you know, almost like the Spider-Man meme, just everyone pointing at one another, trying to lay blame,

saying you were responsible for this. No, you were responsible for this. And you're going to get that same thing at the World Cup because you've got three host countries. You've got three different national federations. It could be very, very complex. But ultimately, I mean, in this case, Convo Bowl is the organizer of the tournament. This is their tournament. This is their trophy.

Yes, it's complicated. Yes, there's all these different stakeholders and all these different parties, but it's your job at the end of the day. Now, maybe if you were given certain assurances and guarantees by other parties and they let you down. All right. But at the end of the day, you have to find a way to make it happen. You have to find a way to make sure the conditions are right. And in the World Cup situation, that's going to be FIFA. And a part of me would love to sit here and say, well, FIFA, they're the world umbrella organization. They have all the resources in the world cup situation that's going to be fifa and a part of me would love to sit here and say well fifa you know they're the world umbrella organization they have all the resources

in the world surely they'll nothing will go wrong on their watch but we all know what fifa is and where their priorities are and their priorities are not pitch quality and player safety their priorities are money so you you would think that this should be a very surmountable problem right like okay hey it's difficult but we're fifa we'll spend the money we'll do the planning to make sure it's not an issue but again it's fifa we're talking about so i have no confidence that that's going to be the case yeah i'm with that okay so we spent enough time dumping on this tournament i do want to finish this segment by uh getting a little a little patriotic a little nationalistic here because what canada did at this tournament was great.

All the off-field nonsense aside, and it's hard. You know, it's like separating the art from the artist sometime. It's hard to separate the performance from the stage in which it was played on. But Canada was tremendous in this tournament. What they did on Saturday deserves real special mention because Jesse Marsh confidently and boldly turned that starting 11 over. Not entirely, but I think it was seven new starters from the traditional lineup that he went through throughout the tournament. Starting a 19-year-old center back, Luke DeFugiro. I had to work on the

pronunciation on that one. And then giving a lot of guys, Ali Ahmed, the white caps outside midfielder. They played tremendously well. They should have won that match. It was a Luis Suarez equalizer in the 93rd minute. They got it to penalty kicks. And then unfortunately the Canadians lost on penalty kicks. I'll gloss over Alfonso Davies missing another pivotal kick because I just don't really want to dump on the guy right now. Jesse Marsh.

I'm curious to get your thoughts on the gaffer from, you know, the most diehard soccer fan on the planet, but you've been paying attention. Yeah, of course. Your wife's noticed that there's a lot more soccer. She's like, what's going on? Why is there always soccer on? Every day now.

What did you think of, just the, I don't know how much you knew about him before, but just seeing him take this job, get the results, and then the way that he presented himself publicly and defiantly for Canada. I'm curious to get your thoughts.

Well, that's the key, right? Like, I'm not necessarily equipped to judge his tactics and his formation, right? And who he was selecting in which positions. It seems like he did a really good job of getting the most out of the guys, right? And getting them to buy in. But in terms of the face, he was like him almost becoming the face of the program is really what it felt like instead of Alphonso Davies, instead of Jonathan David, right? We had somebody text

in after playing that clip, I'm ready to run through a wall for that man after hearing that clip, right? And you saw the video of him talking to the team after the result against Uruguay and how fired up he was and telling them that they had done so much to be proud of their performance at that tournament and I think that's a huge part of international soccer right is having somebody

who can in a relatively short period of time get the players to buy in and with canada there's a recruiting element too of course right like convincing people to get uh to to be a part of the program and really commit to it so it seems like he's going to do a fantastic job of that. You know, it's interesting because we have this moral victory debate with Canada soccer. And it's like, okay,

now we're doing a moral victory after you lost in the third place game. And a part of me is kind of like, whoa, that's a bridge too far, but I get it. You look at what they did and how they performed. And as you said, with a lot of the young talent and as much as it's easy to sit here and kind

of scoff at moral victories and look, you finished four. If you won one game of the tournament, I also can't like you look at what they went through, the type of games they played, the talent they went up against, how well they played. I think it's impossible to look at this.

Anything is a huge success and specifically something that's going to have a huge impact on these players going forward. I'm so fired up right now that I want to hear more Jesse Marsh. So let's play the clip of him talking about how he learned that his team is so much smarter than he initially thought. And at first I was like, that feels like a backhanded compliment. How stupid did you think they were before this? But after hearing the clip, I understood exactly what Marsh was talking about.

Marsh on what he learned about his team following a fourth place finish at the Copa America. You learned about your team and as you prepare for the next window, what are you focusing on? Well, I learned that they're much smarter than I could have hoped. And, you know, if you look

at the last three games specifically, I think the way we played, the way we played the way we challenged the opponents we played against I thought we set the tone for the pace of the game and you know now for us if we can finish chances right we were in the top I think three or four for expected goals in the tournament per match right so but then we only have four goals in the tournament per match, right? So, but then we only have four goals in the tournament.

So we've got to find a way to, when we have such quality chances to put them away. But this is part of the experience. I think, you know, having the quality of the pitch, having the ability to finish off plays, having the ability to manage the game toward the end, so that as we're pushing the game and as we're dictating the way it's played, that we not just have control of the match,

but that we make sure that we win it, right? So, you know, for me, we didn't win enough, right, for how we played. We have to figure that out, but we will. We will. It's pretty great, right? I think he's got such a good handle on, like, the thing you were talking about,

balancing between we're proud, it's a moral victory, but it's not a real victory. And we need to get more of those real victories. I appreciate that. What else I appreciate about this guy is that he has no interest in taking the American job. For those of you that missed it last week, the U.S. fired their manager, Greg Berhalter,

and right away a lot of spidey senses went up, including mine, saying, uh-oh. I do wonder if their U.S. soccer is going to make a play for Jesse Marsh for two reasons. One, he's American. He's a very informed coach right now. But two, you could also send a death blow

to one of your CONCACAF rivals if you take their manager away. So I'm thinking, I wonder if U.S. soccer will go that route. I reached out to a couple different people and they said, it's unlikely. Don't expect it to happen. But I was waiting to hear something definitive from the man himself. Now, I know that coaches, much like politicians, will get up there and say whatever they need to say to get through the moment.

But Jesse Marsh was asked about this, if he was going to leave. The question was actually, next time you play the U.S., are you going to be on the Canadian sideline or the U.S. sideline? Good on Marsh for being definitive in his response. He already had to say about his future coaching the Canadian national team. I'm not leaving this job. I have no interest in the U.S. job.

And to be fair, unless there's a big shift in the organization, I don't think that I'll ever have interest in that job in the future. So I'm really happy here. I couldn't be happier actually in terms of what it's like to work

with the leaders in this organization and what it's like to work with this team. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. bruh. 701 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. You really had to wait for the payoff on this song, but when it came, what a payoff.

I'm in my bag right now. Basketball Ben in for the ailing Greg Ballack this morning. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Jamie Dodd's also here. What up, Jamie? Not too much, man. You're saying what's up as if we're starting the show. Hey, nice to see you this morning.

Let's introduce everyone. We've been on for an hour. You're here. Sir. It was because we talked. We talked about 45 minutes of uninterrupted footy this morning. It was quite impressive. I'd say we held our own.

Yeah. Did a pretty good job. James Sharma is going to join us in just a moment here for some more talk. I give him a lot of credit that he wants to do this today because I think he was ready to pack it in after England lost yesterday. And to be fair, a lot of people were. We'll get to James in just a moment here. You are listening to the Halford & Brough show

on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. Hour 2 is brought to you

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Sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. To the phone lines we go. The host of the Footy Prime podcast, James Sharman, joins us now on the Half and Breath show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, James. How are you? Oh, I'm great. I'm well used to the emotional turmoil

that comes with being an England fan, so no problem. You decided not to pack it in, which I appreciate, because I saw on Twitter yesterday, you were thinking, I'm going to quit soccer. I forgot about the Copa. I forgot about the Copa final when I wrote that. Let's start with England, because we've got you on the line.

We kind of positioned it as disappointing, obviously, any time you get to a final. It's an incredible disappointment when you don't win. Probably not as disappointing as losing on penalties to Italy at Wembley a few years ago, if only because Spain really were the class of this tournament. They showed it in the first match. They showed it throughout. And even though I was pulling hard for England to win yesterday, I

did, it's not solace isn't the right word, but I was okay with the fact that the best team in a tournament actually won the tournament. There was something fitting about that. Yeah, I agree 100%. I mean, listen, had England have beaten Spain somehow yesterday, I would have taken it, of course.

Would it have been truly fair? No, because Spain was by far not just the best team in the tournament, but played the best style of football in the tournament, brought the best storylines to the tournament. They were just a joy to watch, right? And they're not perfect. They've got some flaws too. But overall, throughout the seven games,

they won every game that's never happened before they were the best team and yesterday um it wasn't a classic final by any stretch but they were the best team right they had the chances the best chances despite you know england coming close late in the game there so um i'm listening am i happy they won of course not i want to see my team finally win but uh this is a very likable Spain team, and they're only going to get better. And they're only going to be competing for World Cups and European Championships for the next decade with some of the youth on that team. From England's perspective, James, you know, they have a lot of young talent as well. And as frustrating as their tournament was for a lot of the time,

you know, they still did make it to the final. But I'm very curious about what happens with this England side going going forward and in particular with gareth southgate and harry kane do you think this could be the last we see of them for england in a major for both of those uh individuals at an england a major tournament for england yeah i think there's two separate issues there um i think it's the last time we'll see gareth southgate as a coach for England at a big tournament. Listen, overall, he's done a really good job. He's redefined the team. He's rebuilt the culture.

When he took over, that was a team that just bowed out to the Euros to Iceland, don't forget, and went through the whole Sam Allardyce scandal when he was found out by a tabloid newspaper. He planted some, it was a nasty sort of affair, put it that way. He got fired in comes Gareth Southgate as an interim manager and did a great job, right? Two finals, three semifinals and four tournaments as bad as I've ever seen in my life. So he did a good job, but he's taken this team that seems as far as they can go. He's still quite an old fashioned manager in his tactics and strategy.

And I think with his young team they need a more attacking progressive manager. As for Harry Kane, it's interesting. He clearly wasn't fit for this tournament. There was a back injury late in the campaign for Bayern Munich, but Gareth Southgate should have realized this

and probably dropped him at some point during this tournament. You had Oli Watkins there, who looked very good on form, healthy, or Ivan Toney. So I still look at Harry Kane as someone that, if he can stay healthy, he's just 30, right? He's not over the hill just yet. World Cup is in two years' time. A 32-year-old striker is still not a guy that's over the hill just yet, if he can stay healthy and maybe load manage perhaps

the next couple of years to a certain degree. Because to me, he looked not just injured but exhausted, as did many of the players for England. So I've got more hope that Harry Kane can return. We shouldn't forget what a great player he is. He's maybe England's greatest striker of all time, if not player of all time. He still dominates European football.

So he's still very much one of the top number nines in world football, just not for this tournament for some reason. We're speaking to James Sharman from the Footy Prime podcast here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Now that we've had a chance to look back on the tournament in its entirety, and we did this with Copa America, and there's some criticisms, there's some curious your thoughts on how this tournament played out big picture

because there were some very compelling matches, a very worthy winner at the end of it. You can't ask for a more ballyhooed final than England-Spain in a lot of different ways, but it wasn't without its flaws. I'm curious to get your thoughts on what you thought of the entirety of the tournament now that it's wrapped.

Yeah, it wasn't great. It was no classic. I think our memories go back to Qatar and the World Cup, which was a brilliant tournament. But it was also mid-season, right? The players were fresher. To me, it looked like a tournament where certainly the older campaigners, they looked tired.

They looked leggy, exhausted. That's why I think some of the youth really shone in this tournament. And that's one thing I take from this Euros is that it was a tournament for the youngsters, for the kids to really make a name for themselves. But overall, there were some great goals. How many great games were there? Not many, I don't think.

Very few classics. So it's a bit disappointing, but I think it's just something we must get used to, that they keep adding more and more matches to the calendar. UEFA and FIFA don't seem to care about that. So by the time June comes around, these players are there, they're knackered. They've got nothing left in the tank.

And every summer there's something going on. So it's a big concern for international football. It's been a big concern for a long time. But yeah, it wasn't a classic tournament. Thankfully, the team that did win it won it the right way, right? They played the attacking football. They brought some real swagger to the party. So that was positive.

However, had England won it, we could have said, yeah, well, they won it despite themselves, which would have been kind of fitting for the way this tournament unfolded, perhaps. But in the end, the right team won. But yeah, I went back with too fondly on the quality of football we saw this year's Euros. Speaking of big concerns, how big a concern is what happened at Copa America in terms of lack of security, poor organization, scathing remarks from a few of the managers? How big a concern was that for you? Well, you know, at Copa America, it's always a circus, right?

I know a lot of people discovered it for the first time this time around. It's always a circus. It's crazy on and off the pitch. That's kind of what brings some of the passion to the party. But last night was a major concern with the World Cup two years away. It's got to be a wake-up call for organizers. Now, we should remember that Conme Mabal organised most of this tournament, but they do work with local police and security forces

who clearly dropped the ball in that match yesterday. Thankfully, you know, we didn't see a tragedy, but at times there was some real concern for people on the ground there that we might just see that. It was terrifying. And we shouldn't also, you know, condone the fans who tried to get in and got in without tickets as well. That is unacceptable too.

But it's a big concern. Now, generally speaking, when FIFA organize events, they know what to expect. They take control and it's well run. We can criticize FIFA all we want, but they know how to put on a show. So that's obviously positive. But from the U.S. standpoint, it's got to be a wake-up call. They've got to take some measures here because that could have gone awry

very, very quickly, and it almost did. So very scary scenes yesterday. From an on-the-pitch perspective, James, Canada makes it all the way to the semifinals, ultimately finishes fourth at their first Copa America and lots of positives to take away. In particular, what did you think of the job

that Jesse Marsh did in his first major tournament as manager? Yeah, we couldn't ask any more, could we? We're all a little bit, okay, what will he bring? We know he's a star of football. Jesse Marsh brings a club level. He's reputable. He's got a good CV.

I liked the hire to begin with, but how would that translate to this team that had really struggled since qualifying for the World Cup? They'd been a shadow of the team we saw, you know, become kings of CONCACAF. But he reignited that wherever it was in that team. They played really good football. They did not look overwhelmed at all

against Argentina twice, against Uruguay. He brought more young faces into the team for that last match, and that was maybe the best performance I've seen for a Canadian team for a very long time. They were outstanding with some young players who have barely even dipped their toes into international football. So, yeah, we shouldn't be any happier. I mean, it was an incredible performance.

It really was, and it bodes really well for the build-up now to the World Cup. We've got a couple of games coming up later in the year against Mexico and the States, and then we've got the Gold Cup next year, and then, of course, the World Cup. So things are looking really good after, you know, a bit of a decline and some issues off the pitch the last year or so.

I think right now we should be pretty happy about where we stand right now under Jesse Marsh. We played the audio earlier and someone texted like, I'll run through a wall for this man. And it was the audio of Marsh talking about how proud he was of his Canadian team. And then we also played the audio of a very short but definitive statement that he had no interest in the American job and was fully on board. What did you make of the way that he answered that question? Because he didn't mince words at all and was very critical of the U.S. and was very complimentary of Canada

and what he's seen so far from his team. Yeah, you know, Jesse Morris is a straight talker, right? He'll tell you how it is. He doesn't care who you might upset. He does not like the U.S. Federation at this point. No, I mean, he was essentially off of the job when they were trying to figure out

the whole Greg Berhalter situation. After the World Cup, he was given, essentially, I believe, a handshake agreement on that. And they, in the end, went against him. New president comes in and they go back to Berhalter.

So he's got no love lost for that federation. I'm sure he'd love to coach his home team one day. But he is all in it seems at Canada the new leadership here have done a great job giving him what he needs, what he wants both financially and potentially resources wise

we'll see about that but yeah I think as a Canadian fan we should be really happy and just seeing his antics on the sidelines the passion he shows he's very very animated he likes to scream. He took on, he didn't care.

You know, the way Canada's been treated at tournaments for forever has been disgusting. You ask any player, he's not going to take it. He explains how, you know, they treat like second-class citizens. I love it.

Us against the world, right? And that's what he's doing right now. And I think it's going to really help with this group of players. So with Marsh in charge now and this experience under their belts two years until they're one of the host nations for the world cup what are you looking for this team to kind of accomplish and do to prepare over the next two years to put their best foot forward at the world cup well i think what this tournament has shown the world is that they're a relevant team and that big teams will

want to play Canada now in friendlies and I think as we've seen in this tournament Canada needs to play top teams to develop you know enough of the with respect to the Panamars and the Costa Ricas Honduras who are all good teams we see them so often so often it's time to play you know big European teams big South American teams on a regular basis. Wherever that is, it might not be in Canada. It might not be, but that's OK. That's the biggest takeaway for me is that now we can book those dates with those teams because they'll want to play Canada heading into a North American World Cup. So that's the next step.

Organize meaningful friendlies and start building that way because these kids, they're young players, there's a young team Jonathan Nazario I believe will be the oldest player by the World Cup 34 around there but apart from that there's kids just cutting their teeth into national football, they need to play more of these types of games in those environments so that's going to be key

I know you're up against it for time, we're up against it for time so I gotta let you go but I did just want to ask you real quick about the job that Ismail Kone did against Uruguay on Saturday. I've seen a lot of people talk about that in the most glowing of terms, like one of the best performances they've ever seen from a Canadian player on international soil. And I don't think that's hyperbole.

I think it might be legitimate. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on what you saw on Saturday from Kone. Yeah, to me, he's arrived now, right? That was it. That was the game where he said, listen, guys, I can carry this team a little bit on my back. He took that Atiba Hutchinson role just with a better team around him. He was absolutely brilliant.

He just bossed that midfield. He scored the goal, which was incredible. I wish he'd thrown himself to the ground when he did it because that would have made even more highlights. It was kind of a half bicyclebicycle kick type thing. Incredible athleticism, but what a goal it was. He was absolutely brilliant. He took control.

And Uruguay didn't want any piece of him whatsoever. He's now moved to Marseille for this year. He actually moved to that club during Copa America. That's a great move for him. It's a big club, a famous club in a very, very high-level league. He'll just get better. He might be, you know, I think Fonzie will still be the best player by, you know, 2026, but Coney could well be, you know,

the next best player on that team and maybe the most important player given where he plays in that midfield. So he was brilliant. Ali Ahmed was brilliant as well, by the way. I really enjoyed his play. Big fan of Ali. And he was outstanding too. outstanding, too. The future is very bright. James, I want

to thank you, not just for today, but all the hits you've done over the last few weeks. It's been a lot of fun this hot footy summer that we've had here. We've loved having you aboard. Enjoy a little bit of downtime, and then the Premier League starts up real soon. It does. Thanks, guys. I really enjoyed it. Give me a bell anytime. Great. Thank you, James. We appreciate enjoyed it. Give me a bell anytime. Great.

Thank you, James. We appreciate this. James Sharman, the host of the Footy Prime podcast here on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd

on Sportsnet 650. Our next guest, a former Vancouver 86ers legend, one of the all-time leading scorers for your Canadian men's national

soccer team. Local legend John Califf joins the program now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, John. How are you?

Good, thanks, Mike and Jamie. Thanks for having me. I'm doing well. I'm actually I think I'm a little hungover from soccer. I don't know what I'm going to do with my time anymore. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, thanks for coming on. We were talking about it earlier. We did about 45

uninterrupted minutes of soccer talk, a new record at Sportsnet 650. But how could you not after the weekend that we had? And I want to go all the way back to Saturday and what Canada did against Uruguay in that third, fourth place match. Not just getting a really good performance against a very talented Uruguayan squad, but doing it after Jesse Marsh turned over like half of the starting 11 to the youngsters

and the guys that didn't get that much shine during the tournament. Before we get into the entirety of the tournament, just your thoughts on what Canada was able to accomplish Saturday against Uruguay. Well, I think it was massive, massive for our program and massive for the build-up to the World Cup

in a couple years so um i think it's a it's another large step forward for our program we're going to need to make a couple more if we're going to compete uh not just play at our world cup but uh i was very very impressed john i think a lot of canadians who maybe don't follow international soccer that closely probably maybe didn't know a lot about jesse marsh but they sure do know about him now and we're really impressed with what what he accomplished and just how he presented himself and i mean we saw how fired up he was uh you know how proud he was of the team how important is it in international soccer to have a manager who's able to get that buy-in really quickly in these short windows for international tournaments? I think it's really important.

But let's be honest, with all due respect to Jesse Marsh, the performances of this Canadian national team were born years ago, not in the few weeks that he's come in and taken charge. I have all the respect for Jesse, and I think he's doing great things, but a soccer team doesn't galvanize itself to produce those types of performances over such a short period of time. It just doesn't happen. What we're seeing now is the continued success and performance, high performance of a group of players that got us to the World Cup and continue to excel, albeit only scraping into this Copa.

It was the core of players that qualified us at the top of Count Conca Cap for the World Cup that have created the basis for these players, or for these performances, sorry, in my opinion. So the last time we had you on the show, John, it was at the Hollywood Theatre, and we did the pre-game show before Canada-Belgium, the opening match for Canada at the World Cup. And, you know, the optimism was high,

and we were all very excited, and the Canadians responded with a great outing against Belgium. And then things have been rocky since. Obviously, the tournament didn't finish the way a lot of people wanted it to in Qatar. And then Canada soccer went through some difficult times with this men's program. Having played for, you know, this organization and having represented your country, were there ever any doubts that you were in a, oh, here we go again scenario? Were you confident that they were going to be able to get this on the right track

and get to where they were with a very impressive performance at Copa America in 2024? No, quite frankly, I'm still waiting for the wheels to fall off this latest version of Canadian locomotive. It's been a recurring theme for the past 40 years. Quite frankly, we take one step forward and almost two steps back. It seems now that we're able to put some consistent forward steps together, and that's very positive. The money that we got from our performances at COPA is going to go some way

to help our financial situation with the association, but let's still remember we needed the mls clubs to hire our coach we you know we're still on a shoestring budget and we're still requiring our players to pull rabbits out of a hat we're speaking to uh john calif here on the halford and breath show on sportsnet 650 uh john a vancouver 86ers legend canadian national team soccer legend as well. Let's turn our attention to the two matches from yesterday. We'll start with the European Championships. Spain defeats England 2-1 in the final.

Spain, the class of the tournament, wins all seven matches. They did it with style. They did it with youth. And we were talking to James Sharman earlier in the program, and I said even though I was pulling for England in the final, I did begrudgingly admit that it was nice and maybe even fitting that the best and most stylistic team in the tournament won the tournament. Curious to get your thoughts on that. I think you hit it bang on there. I as well wanted England to win, but there's no question the better team won,

in my opinion. And I don't think England ever really played up to its potential as pre-tournament favorites. And in the Copa America, you know, the tournament, it was almost a tale of two tournaments because you had what was happening on the pitch and this Argentinian team that's just racking up titles and accolades as they go along into the twilight of Messi's career. And then you also had all the chaos and confusion and craziness that is kind of inherent in every Copa America tournament, but played out, I guess, on a much different stage this year because the U.S. was hosting it.

Your enjoyment level of Copa America this year, the non-Canadian division, I suppose, and then Argentina capturing the title. I think the Copa America tournament, in large respect, put the Euros to shame as far as compelling soccer. It seemed like there was too much respect in the games against the superpowers, as you were in Europe. And there was a lot of games that were watches. Not so in the Copa America. The desire to pass the ball forward seemed to be uh much higher the desire to to uh block horns with the opponent uh was there for the entirety of the game

and not just for portions so um i think the the copa america uh this last version was was arguably the most successful at least it was for the North American audience. And I also think that what we saw last night in Miami has given the North American soccer community a good taste of what they're going to expect. The attendance and the fans and the violence in the stands, the Uruguay families, all of that stuff, that's only going to be escalated and magnified at a World Cup. And I think we kind of failed in a few key areas there hosting this tournament.

So we need to look at our performance, or the Americans do, need to look at their performance. And I hope that the Canadians take some lessons as well on how to host major soccer tournaments. So looking forward to a Wednesday night BC Place 730 kickoff it's the Vancouver Whitecaps hosting Sporting KC on 80s night and it'll be a night where they remember among other teams uh the Vancouver 86ers teams that you start on during that decade uh how does it feel now a couple decades on to be appreciated and understood as

one of the forefathers in the Trailblazers, the Canadian Soccer League, what you guys did as the Whitecaps, the incredible winning streak that you have that still stands as one of the greatest marks of any team in Vancouver sports history. Now, a couple decades on, that you see the fruits of that with the Canadian

national team and how the Whitecaps have grown to have 20-plus thousand attendants on a nightly basis. Your feelings going into Wednesday night for 80s night. It's great. It's such a great time to come back and see all your mates who really you haven't seen in decades. And,

and to remember the times that we had together and there was some great times and some successes. It's nice. And the Whitecaps are doing a great job in this 50th anniversary year to bring all the alumni together to create a sense of the club's history and use that as a foundation to spring forward. And I think they're doing that exceptionally. So I'm excited to be a part of it.

It's always fun. And I just want to thank the Whitecaps organization for their efforts in this regard as relates to their alumni. Well, I'm really excited for Wednesday as well. I'll be going to the match, and I'm happy that you'll be there. And I wanted to thank you, John, for taking the time to do this this morning. It's always great getting caught up with you. Love talking soccer with you.

Well-deserved honor on Wednesday night. Enjoy it, and let's do this again further on down the road. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jamie, and good luck. I hope you break your record for the longest soccer program coming up

as we gear up for the World Cup. We're going to go a full hour, John. I promise you that. Thank you for doing this. Thanks, guys. John Califf,

Canadian soccer legend here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 featuring Jimmy Dodd. 45 minutes of soccer talk, just you and me, which the market has been clamoring for.

You're hearing it more and more. And then two soccer guests. Yeah. You know, when they said Brough was going to go away and I was going to turn this into a soccer show, they thought they were joking. No,

no. I take that job very seriously. Dead serious. Dead seriously. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.