Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Copa Was A Gong Show

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

In hour one, Mike & guest host Jamie Dodd look back at the weekend in sports (3:00) as well as wild Copa finale (6:00), plus they talk another BC Lions win! (27:00), they chat the Canucks Penticton training camp announcement (37:00), a big Whitecaps win (40:00) as well as Spain taking the Euro finale over England (43:00). 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.

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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 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. Halford and 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. 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 seven o'clock.

So the first hour, not all soccer, 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 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 Wednesday's match.

The Whitecaps are hosting Sporting KC at BC Place at 7.30. It's 80s night. They're going to have video games, old school stand-up video game, arcade style in the concourse. Galaga, Arknoid. Is that one? That is one.

Qbert. Yep, that's one. 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? 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 a 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. The Uruguayan manager, Marcelo Bielsa, said afterwards, we barely deserve to draw, let alone they want to win the match. 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. 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. And I think at a certain point, the security, it seemed like they just gave up and said, all right, anyone who's out here, go in, run in. But do they not have NFL?

They weren't even. They do. So it's a different level. Are they not prepared for this? I don't know, man. That's kind of nuts. This is like a professional stadium. I think it's got to be more on a common bowl than,

than anyone else here. Right. Because as you said, this is like the stadiums hosted Superbowl. Yeah. Right. It's not as if they're like, what?

There's fans here. So part of this is, uh, there's not a lot of people with the gumption to show up to the Superbowl unticketed and then just try and storm the place. Yeah. Uh, 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 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 that was it caused this massive crush outside the stadium where ticketed and unticketed supporters were basically pushed up against the barricade where you were supposed to be let 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 uh 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 overall experience from a day-to-day perspective. You know, I watched what happened after the match, and certainly I didn't know all the details, but certainly we wouldn't want anyone's families or any player's 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 Moyes, but the entire tournament

from opponents' fan bases and from whether it's live or in social media. 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 nation. 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 the opposing coach before the match as a play to the referees that we crossed the line and that we're overly aggressive. And yet, if you look at the CONCACAF teams and the treatment that they get in games

and the yellow cards per foul rate is way higher for every CONCACAF team. I watched the Uruguay-US game and 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 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, Jamie. Let's go! He went off.

That was from a coach who might have had the most successful Copa America out of any coach there. 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, 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, 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 uh is the pitch quality and this is going to be something that bc plays 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 argent 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 uh 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 Convobull 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 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 And it never fell through 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 commonable, which is the South American federation. There was conca calf. Then there was like us 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, the 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 and confusing. But ultimately, I mean, in this case,

Conmebol 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. Surely 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 would think that this should be a very surmountable problem, right? Like, okay, 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've spent enough time dumping on this tournament. I do want to finish this segment by getting a little patriotic, a little nationalistic here, because what Canada did at this tournament was great. All of 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, Luc de Fougerol.

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 Alphonso 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're not 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 what's going on why is there always soccer on every day now uh what did you think of uh 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 like who he was selecting and 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 Alfonso 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, you know, telling them that they had, they'd 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 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. Sure.

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 as a huge

success and specifically something that's going to have a huge impact on these players going forward uh 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 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? 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 bearhalter and right away a lot of spidey senses went up including mine saying 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 like I reached out to a couple different people and they said it 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? And 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. Lots more to get to on the Halford and Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd this morning.

Everything that happened this weekend that we haven't addressed yet, we'll do it on the other side. Six o'clock hours, all Jamie and I. And then seven o'clock, going to be joined by James Sharman. 7.30, Adnan Virk from the MLB All-Star Game in Texas. And then 8 o'clock, former 86ers legend and Canadian men's national team legend, John Catliff, joins the program. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 631 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough featuring Jamie Dodd here on Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Pacific Honda. Pacific Honda is North Vancouver's premier destination for Honda vehicle sales and service.

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 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.

Jamie suggested we go with a and I laughed, a pallet cleanser. There's been a lot of soccer, Todd. There's a lot of soccer right off the hop. I'm not complaining, but I know our listeners. Who would, though? I am very proud of the 650 listeners who have either decided to tune out entirely or listen and not complain. Either one is great for me.

The text box is not. It's definitely not the latter. Yeah. That's not happening. But you know what? At least they're listening at that point. Because I've said, like, if you don't... You warned them in the beginning, though. You're like, listen, everybody. This is what's not happening. But you know what? At least they're listening at that point. Because I've said, like, if you don't... You warned them in the beginning, though.

You're like, listen, everybody. This is what's going down. You have ground them into submission over the last month of soccer talk, Albert. It's a real source of pride for me as a soccer lover and a broadcaster is to tune out that many people all at once. Anyway, the palate cleanser is... In this instance, we'll do some CFL, and we'll do a little bit of Canucks news over the weekend as well.

We'll start with the BC Lions. What a run the BC Lions are on. Vernon Adams throwing for 451 yards in a kind of erratic performance because he did throw a pair of interceptions. Lions win 35-20, and I feel like I'm burying the lead here. The real star of the show, of course, friend of the show or frenemy of the show. Kicker Sean White, seven field goals, tying a team record,

tying Louis Pesaglia for team record for most in a game. Because 35 is a nice round football score. So they got a bunch of five touchdowns. Nope. Sean White just managed to score the equivalent of three touchdowns on his own. Basketball. Ben was at the game. Ben, your takeaways from a 35-20 win for the Lions

over the Rough Riders at BC Place. This offense is dominant. Yeah. Yet they don't run the football. Nope. It's a one-show offense. It's a one-trick pony offense. And anytime they do a play action,

I'm like, defense of the other team, why are you biting on this? Get it together, guys. William Stanbeck ran for 14 yards on 12 carries. Vernon Adams threw the ball 42 times for 450 yards. The other unsung hero not getting enough attention, Justin McInnes had 243 yards. I saw that.

He was a beast all night. He's 6'5", slim, fast, great hands. This team's dangerous. A lot of weapons. Hollins dropped four or five balls that easily could have been caught, including a deep one that would have ended up with a touchdown. Vernon Adams only had one touchdown throw. He ran for one as well. Two picks. All I heard going into this game was how good Saskatchewan's defense is. They were the only remaining undefeated team in the CFL and BC kind of picked them apart. I get that the game was in Vancouver, but still very impressive performance. I know that Trevor Harris is injured

for Saskatchewan, their quarterback. And so maybe that played into the role of why they only put up 20 points, but still BC never really felt like they were going to lose this game from the get-go they got off to a 9 10 nothing lead i think and it was just like okay well this game's kind of done now they had to grasp on it the whole time it was impressive uh this the run pass ratio is interesting we had stand back on the show i want to say three weeks ago and obviously he was teammates he was teammates with Vernon Adams Jr. in Montreal and he said one of the big reasons that he came to BC was he talked to Adams and they he saw a need there that they wanted to have more of a pass run balance we talked to Rick Campbell about it too I understand it's the CFL and it's like a pass happy league and everything but you bring up a

good point like part of it is also not getting your quarterback killed being able to run the ball effectively Moj talks about it all the time. Totally. It's like the best teams are the ones that are able to like chew five, six, seven yards on first down and just kind of keep things rolling and give the impression that you're not going to drop back to pass like 85% of the time. And that's the thing I just don't understand why defenses can't adjust.

And maybe it's just a testament to how talented and superb the Lions passing offense is, but it is no secret that on 85% of the time, it seems like 80% of the time, they're going to throw the football somewhere. They just have so many weapons all over the field. And, you know, Stan Beck can be a threat out of the backfield as well as a catching option.

Also, Sean White, as you mentioned. The secret weapon. Okay, so we had White on the show two weeks ago, and Brough, right before going on vacation, decided to throw a little spice out there, and he asked Sean White, I'd say about three consecutive questions regarding his consecutive field goal streak.

Consecutive questions, consecutive field goals. It didn't work. I don't think White loved the line of questioning. He played along because he's a good guy, and he's got a lot of confidence. He's like, I don't think these two jackals on morning radio are going to ruin my vibe. But he's since gone on and I think Brough might

have actually inspired Sean White because he's somehow been better. I think he's dedicated these field goals now to spiting Jason Brough. Every time he goes out, he says, this one's for you, Brough. Sean White scored more points than the Riders did. Yeah. He had 23. It was really, really great.

And so that ties the club record, as you mentioned, by Louis Piseglie. I thought that he would be closing in on the CFL record, but the CFL record is 69, which is nice. Consecutive field goals. Nice. Yeah, very nice. That's incredible. Yeah.

I was amazed when Moj brought it up on Friday, so White still has a ways to go there. But it's great for the Lions, and we talked about the game a lot going into it, about how it was going to be a measuring stick and litmus test and all these things. Because quite honestly, after losing to the Argos in the opening week,

where you're like, well, not really sure what to make of this team yet. It could be like opening game jitters, whatever. They rattled off four straight victories, but they were all against... It wasn't the greatest opposition on the planet planet and a lot of close games in there too right yeah like squeaking went out against the elks yeah that was at the edmonton game as well and i was this wasn't very inspiring yeah so you're kind of wondering well what are they going

to do with their first big test i mean they passed it exceptionally well and it gives you a lot of confidence for a year of course in which we're going to keep saying the quiet part out loud, but it's like Grey Cup, Grey Cup, Grey Cup. Hosting it, everything is based on that Grey Cup. Yeah, and that's a big game, not just in terms of a test for the Lions, but potentially when it comes to hosting the Western Conference Finals. I mean, these are clearly the top two teams in the West right now. Now you've gotten that win against them.

So if there's any tiebreak situation, you're putting yourself in a good position. You're also 4-0 against the West Division so far, right? So setting yourself up really well to control your path to the Grey Cup, although lots of games still to be played. This is your home of the Canucks, Sportsnet 650. So we should mention that over the weekend, there was a tiny smidgen of Canucks news. The Canucks announced that they're heading back

to Penticton for training camp. Actually, Penticton is going to be a real hotspot for the Canucks this. The Canucks announced that they're heading back to Penticton for training camp. Actually, Penticton is going to be a real hot spot for the Canucks this year because they're doing Young Stars at the South Okanagan Events Center and they're also going to

hold training camp at Penticton as well. Jim Rutherford, in a statement release, just said, it just makes more sense. We're already going to be up there. Yeah.

Jim Rutherford is a hockey man through and through. He's like, where's our stuff going to be? Well, it's going to be in Penticton. Why don't we just keep... Why go to two places? Just stick where all our stuff is. So having through and through. He's like, where's our stuff going to be? Well, it's going to be in Penticton. Why don't we just keep... Why go to two places?

Just stick where all our stuff is. So having been there before, I will say, very cool event center arena there. And it's perfect for the summer. There's golf. There's wineries. Hockey people love it. I remember talking to Lawrence Gilman about it

back when he was with the Canucks. And he's like, you know, it's just such a no-brainer. Oh, man, Penticton's awesome in the summer. Yeah. The barking parrots there. Yeah, the parrots, great. What more do you need? That's my one memory.

I was a younger man at the time, and there's a couple of media members who can attest to this. You can do that raft thing. What's that, float raft thing? I may have had. I know, I know. I may have had one too many adult beverages that evening, but this was so long ago that they had a cigarette machine at the Barking Parrot.

Yes. They still have one. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess apparently I kept going and buying them and then sticking them in a back pocket that didn't exist and then losing them. So someone told me, he's's like you were treating that thing like it was a slot machine you must have put 90 into that cigarette machine that night just trying

to get like one and i was like uh don't worry eventually i'll get it and then i turn out like they're gone i have to go buy another pack that's my one lasting memory of penticton as a matter of fact so that was a problem let's hope we can repeat that yeah training let's hope the cucks aren't doing that yeah now that i'm, I really hope that I can go up there and replicate that moment. But in all seriousness, it's a fun event. They get great crowds out there.

And to have young stars and then go right back to training camp up there, I think it'll be pretty good. No word yet on what Sportsnet 650 personalities will be making the trek up. We'll see. Well, Batch will be there. Yeah.

For sure. Will anyone else? We'll see. They're sending me. They're probably not going to. They might. They're sending both of us. Yeah.

Not going to be doing work. The dynamic duo known as A-Dog and Basketball Ben are going to be. So you and Drance did in Whistler two years ago? We were there in Whistler a couple years ago. Last year, Reach and Sat were in Victoria. I would love to go. Cambera, if you're listening, send me to training camp in Penticton's official on-air request. Okay, now we dive right back into the footy.

A couple other matches which we need to get to. Someone has already texted in and said, hey, can you guys talk about what Brian White is doing recently? I sure can. The Vancouver Whitecaps with another big win, of course, this time once again against St. Louis. They rack up another four goals. So I believe it was roughly a week and a half ago they had a match at BC Place where they hosted St. Louis. They went down 2-0 and they went on to win 4-3. This time is a little bit more comfortable.

4-1 over St. Louis in St. Louis over the weekend. Brian White scored two more goals. He is on fire recently. So we had him on the show after he became the Whitecaps all-time leading scorer. And again, putting a nod to our show, I said, Hey, Brian White, keep scoring goals. Guess what? Wow.

He listened. Good advice. He's now scored in four consecutive games. It started with a hat trick over St. Louis at the end of June. Vancouver, the Whitecaps are now undefeated in four, the 3-0-1, and White has just been tearing up the score sheet. It's a very nice thing to see because they did go through a real scoring lull at the end of May and then large stretches of June.

They're also playing in complete anonymity right now because with all the soccer that's going on, some people have found it hard to find the bandwidth to follow MLS who just kind of, and a very weird thing about the MLS schedule. They just kind of chug along and keep playing matches while all these major international tournaments are going on.

The white caps have benefited by having almost the entirety of their roster there. Ali Ahmed's really the only one that's gone on international duty, so I think that's been a boon for them, that they've had all these guys available for selection. And they've racked up points. They're now comfortably in a playoff spot. There's a real top three in the West that's going to be hard to crack,

but I think they've got one game in hand on most, two games in hand on the Galaxy. The Whitecaps are in pretty good shape and are scoring goals with regularity, so it's a good thing to see. I don't imagine you caught a lot of the Whitecaps match on Saturday. Can't say that I did. Yeah, fair enough. How much did you watch of England's loss?

That's how I'm framing it. England's loss to Spain yesterday at the Eurofinal. I watched pretty much the whole thing from start to finish. I mean, exciting in the second half, but there was never really a moment where you felt like England was winning. Right. There was that brief moment where I felt,

okay, good, we've locked in, at the very least, extra time. Yeah. Not knowing if the Spaniards were going to be able to take it in the extra frame. But it was an early goal in the second half from the Spaniards, and then a late one, a 2-1 victory. Drama-filled second half after a very boring first half

at the Euro 2024 final in Berlin. So it's Spain's fourth European title, most recent one coming in 2012. And then, of course, for England, it's more heartbreak. And I was with a room full of English people on Sunday. And it was funny because a lot of them having, you know, grown up in the country and then watched the national team, they had a very, very impressive sense of resignment

that this was how it was going to go. They leaned into the bit. Jason Brough would have been proud as the sad club commissioner, but they knew the disappointment was lurking around that corner. Lo and behold, there it was at the end of 90 Minutes. England crashes out to Spain. Well, and in this instance in particular, it feels a little different than the loss to Italy

because one, that was in front of their home fans at Wembley, obviously went to penalty kicks as well, but it felt like they had a much more real chance in that game. This one, okay, they're in the final. They didn't play well for the whole tournament. Spain played really, really well, won every game. This one, okay, they're in the final. They didn't play well for the whole tournament. Spain played really, really well, won every game, were the clear favorites going into this one. So there was this kind of sense of the inevitable,

especially with England playing as they were, which was what they'd done through the whole tournament, just kind of uninspiring football. As I said, okay, they get the goal from Cole Palmer, and that was exciting. It's tied up. It's late. Maybe you think, okay, maybe is there one last kind of magic robbery

of a win here for England. But again, Spain was just so much better than them throughout the tournament. It's ultimately not that much of a surprise that they lost. Jamie, you bring up a very good point because the loss to Italy at Wembley was definitely more devastating than this. Spain was the best. You're right. They were the class of the tournament.

Are England the Toronto Moops Leafs of international soccer? Is that fair to call them that? I've been seeing that a lot on social media. It's an easy pull. It's an easy comparison. Yeah, but it's an easy one to take.

And I think it's fine if without going too far down like oh there's so many differences on the surface level yes um there's a lot of loathing towards england in the same way there's a lot of loathing towards the toronto maple leaves there's a sense that let's just i can't believe it's been that long since they've won i mean yeah it's england well yeah by now well and craz enough, this was the first final that they've ever competed on like non-domestic soil, because when they won the 66 World Cup, it was at Wembley. Right. When they lost to Italy in the final, that was at Wembley. So this was totally new territory for them going all the way to Berlin to lose. Right. It was like, oh, you get to do it somewhere different now.

That's fine. But Spain, the the relative youth of the teams i've never felt more old oh man watching uh a young man who turned 17 the day before the final turned the final on its head and with you know the braces shining as he smiled and then setting up a 22 year old in nico williams who who scored the first of the opening goal of the match, the youngest ever scorer in a Euro final. So it's kind of, it was twofold. It was Spain was the best team at the tournament and also sent a shot across the footballing world that we're going to be here for a long time.

Because I don't think that those two players have scratched the surface of what they're going to be yet, which is kind of crazy. People already kind of marking Spain as probably the favorite going into the World Cup when it's here in North America in a couple of years. I am, you know, not to, this is, speaking of England being the Leafs, right? Like, they lost, and yet we're going to spend

probably most of our time talking about the England perspective here. How does this affect England? How does this affect England? How does this affect England, yeah. It is interesting because on the one hand, you look at it, and under Gareth Southgate, they've had far and away their most successful stretch of international soccer in terms of their finishes at major tournaments under him.

And yet, is he coaching them in the next World Cup? It feels like this could be the, I don't want to say the end of an era because they do still have so much young talent. But between Southgate and all the frustration with Southgate from English supporters, and then Harry Kane getting subbed off in the 60th minute, and him just not looking good, it feels like they have been kind of the two faces of English soccer over the last, what, five years? And I don't know how involved either of them are going to be going forward into the 2026 World Cup. Yeah, I think you're right. I think this could very well be the last major international tournament for both of them.

The amount of scrutiny that Southgate has faced, he seems like he's worn out. It's been a decade with a very high profile, very demanding, and very, very scrutiny-filled and scrutiny-laden job. There's not many more positions in sport that come with the amount of scrutiny than being the manager of the English national team. And, as you mentioned, this scrutiny coming for a guy that has gotten them to heights that they haven't seen in decades and decades, and quite honestly, going to back-to-back Euro finals, almost never done.

Almost never done. It's such a rarity. It is an accomplishment, but it's also an accomplishment, the footnote as well, but you failed in the end. I can't see him coming back. It is an accomplishment, but it's also an accomplishment that the footnote as well. But you failed. Yeah. Yeah. I can't see him coming back. I know he was asked in his pitch side post-match interview if he was going to come back. And he said, now is not the time to think about this.

The emotions are still too raw. But both Brough and I kind of said win or lose. It would be a fitting time for him to go. It's also not up to him. You know what I mean? It's like one thing for him to be like well i'm not thinking about it it's like well your bosses might be thinking about it like they might make a decision here yeah i think i think william and harry have a say in it at the end of the day i think everyone gets gets a little vote at the end of it megan markle yeah she gets to she'll announce it on her podcast probably if she gets

the choice so there's a lot that goes into it, but I think at the end of the day, it's the right time to go away. And it would have been the right time to go away if he had won or if he had lost. The blind loyalty to Harry Kane, as you alluded to as well. Yeah. That was, it was funny because his last sort of salvo, if it is his last, as England manager,

was the same criticism and the same Achilles heel that everyone said that he had. Throughout his time as England manager was the same criticism and the same Achilles heel that everyone said that he had. Throughout his time as England manager, he was too loyal and too patient and too slow to change because he had so much respect for these players, which is a good thing to have. But there were people that were saying Harry Kane had no business starting that final, the way that he had played. If you're going to go out and win a final as opposed to not lose it,

and that was a big complaint with England, is that they played not to lose as opposed to win. You sit Harry Kane and you say, Ollie Watkins, Cole Palmer, the very energetic substitutes that we've put into matches. We start you in this moment. And we, you know, all the soccer cliches we get on the front foot. We try and take the match to Spain.

Instead of sitting back for 45 minutes and really letting it fritter away, just holding on and holding on. And then you saw it and you pointed it out. You're basically playing catch-up after that. You're trying to get back into a match where you've been outclassed. That's a lot of soccer talk here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. So I do want to introduce one thing that we'll try and do throughout the show. We did this last week with Jamie and then when, sorry, two weeks ago when Jamie hosted.

Then last week when Josh Elliott-Wolf came aboard from Wednesday to Friday, I threw out, hey, I know it's a slow time Canucks fans. I know there's not a ton of talking points outside of, you know, me buying darts in Penticton at Canucks training camp. It's slow. There's not a lot of Canucks related questions out there. So at Canucks training camp. It's slow. There's not a lot of Canucks-related questions out there. So I threw it out to the listeners on Twitter. Send us Canucks-related Mount Rushmores,

the kind of debates you and your buddies have at the bar, hypotheticals, what-if scenarios, reversing the course of time, superlatives, all these sorts of things, power rankings. I don't care. We can go through them, and you know take a stab at whatever so uh we managed to procure some if you want to get some in dunbar lumber text line is 650 650 uh way in throughout the day we'll probably bookend them on the end of some of these segments that we have coming up um there was an interesting one here from CSWC Andy on Twitter, and he had a what if. And the what if was the Canucks win in 94.

Not necessarily that, but as it pertains to one particular individual, Trevor Linden. If the Canucks win in 1994, how does the league view Trevor Linden? If he's a champion, he has the ring. And I guess I kind of extrapolate is to beyond how does the league view Trevor Linden if he's a champion he has the ring and I guess I kind of extrapolate is to beyond how does the league view Trevor Linden how does his career arc change in Vancouver if they win in 94 if they win one extra game in 1994 and they're Stanley Cup champions how does it forever change him so um obviously the first one is that he's a Stanley Cup champion let's get the obvious one out of the way.

And he brings all that, that, you know, includes to Vancouver. The interesting thing, if you go back and look at it historically, I keep forgetting that Lyndon debuted at such a young age that by the time they got to the Stanley cup final in 94, he was only 23 years old, but had the career resume of an NHL vet had played close to 500 games and spent six years in the league already. At that young of an age, he was kind of entering like, ooh, how good could he be territory? Now, there was obviously some damage inflicted with getting that close

to a cup and then losing. And then I kind of look back at it in 95, 96 when he was, so he'd be 25 at that point. You could make the argument that he was reaching peak Linden status. He had a career high 80 points and I think a lot of people forget how good his two-way game was. He finished fifth in Selke voting that year.

If he's doing that on the heels of having won a Stanley Cup, I think a few things don't happen. He doesn't. Mike Keenan never happens. That chasing of the ring and the sort of dysfunctional crisis that the

organization goes into to get over and hire the guy to beat them in the 94 Cup Final never happens. Ergo, I don't think Linden ever leaves Vancouver as a player. I don't think the trade to New York ever happens because obviously the

Keenan fraction and the Messier thing never happens. I don't think his career goes into the sort of tailspin that it went into when he went to New York and then later to Montreal. You can see a very noticeable drop off in terms of point production, role, all that kind of stuff. Where he ends up at the

end of it, I'm not ready to say he's a Hall of famer. He turns into that. But I think that it is a pivotal moment where he never leaves Vancouver and maybe he turns into a much more a more dynamic first line center in Vancouver for a much longer time than he would have had he not won that. Yeah, I think the key thing is in terms of how he'd be viewed by the rest of the league is sometimes you still get people outside of the market

who are not necessarily dismissive of the love that Trevor Linden gets here, but are curious. They're like, what's going on there? And I think if they had won the Stanley Cup, that would not exist. He would be acknowledged like, oh yeah, of course, Trevor Linden's a folk hero in Vancouver for very good reason.

We all understand that. As it currently is, I think sometimes people are like, what's going on there? What exactly is happening there? They don't understand why there is the love, but obviously if he wins the cup, that's not the case. Okay, we've got a lot more to get to on the program. On the other side, guests. Yes, actual guests on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd. James Sharman, footy prime podcast and Sportsnet soccer analyst

is going to join us. 730 Adnan Virk from MLB Network. He's down in Arlington for the MLB All-Star Game and Home Run Derby. So there's a lot more to get into. Don't go anywhere. Keep it on the dial. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.