PTI - FIFA is Heating Up + Summer League is Among Us!

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Pablo Torre and Frank Isola discuss Mbappe/Messi/Haaland/K, Wimbledon men's semis, Kawhi trade on hold, AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, LeBron James + more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

But I'm Pablo Torre, and there is no one else I'd rather host this show with than you. Tony, I'm Frank Isola. Tony abandoned you. Deal with it, kid. He ain't here. This is... I was a late sub. Tough to discover.

Like Mikhail Marino, I was a late sub. Hopefully I'll come on and score like he did. Oh, geez. A little soccer by player. Remind me of him. Young, athletic. I wish. Yeah, off the bench.

Back Halher's favorite. I was waiting for the word. good looking. You shouldn't include that. Strong jawline. There you go. There you go. Welcome to PTI. Mike and Tony are off on a yoga retreat. So I'm joined by my good friend from the podcast Pablo Tori finds out. Mr. Pablo Tori, everyone. They must be Belgium fans. All right, let's start today with the World Cup. Spain scored in the first half against Belgium, then surrendered a goal for the first time in the tournament, and it stayed 1-1 until the final minutes when Spain scored on a rebound. So Spain advances to semis where they'll face Killian Boppe in France. That is a dream matchup. And we've got Erling

Holland, Harry Kane, and Leo Messi all on the field tomorrow. So Pablo, where do you want to start? I want to start with the fact that this tournament field is the biggest there's ever been, right? 48 teams. And yet at the very end, it's as if this was exactly how you wanted it to go. You have, by the way, in Belgium, I wonder if Christian Polisik just feels a little bit better about any of this because look at what Belgium just did to Spain, right? Took them to the wire. America, hey, you know, maybe straighten up your spine just a little bit. But to me, I'm looking at England, I'm looking at Norway. And I'm looking at the idea that Erling Holland is going to walk out there at 25 years old, was born in England,

and he gets to be, if there's anybody who's going to come out of this with their cue rating in America just jacked all the way up, because Messi's already so up there. And, of course, Holland is himself literally enormous. But I think that likability and that skill and that skull and all these goals he scored, I'm focusing mostly right there for this semifinal. I love when you said this, you know, when 48 teams, but the teams that you would expect, are you saying that's the team that FIFA wanted or the teams you would expect? Because it does seem like that.

A little convenient. All right, first of all, let's give Belgium a lot of credit because Spain hadn't been scored upon. So DeKetler, the guy that scored the two goals against the U.S. on Monday, he got the equalized late in the first half. That was a great showing by Belgium. Their goalkeeper, Thiebaud had to come out of the matches. Replacement gives up the rebound. And then the player, Mikhail Marino, who plays to Arsenal, has a habit of doing this. He scored. So that's heartbreaking for Belgium. But we are getting a dream matchup now between France and Spain, who a lot of people think were the two best teams going into the tournament. Yes. Now, as for the other side of the bracket,

you're so right, though, about Holland and, you know, Norway with Erlin Holland against England, with Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Holland plays over in England in the Premier League from Ann City. He knows a lot of these players. He'll be going up against some of his teammates in the game on Sunday. Tomorrow, I was there over the weekend and watch what he did to Brazil. And this is what you love about Earl and Holland. You know, Gabrielle and Marquinos are two of the best centerbacks in the world.

And he threw them around like they were ragdolls. He has just been the most dominant player in the tournament. He's becoming a bigger star. You see him on social media. It looks like he's having a grand old time. He gets it. He performs on the field, off the field. He's great with kids.

He's having fun with different foods that he's eating, engagement with the fans. So that part, I love. The winner of that will get the winner of Argentina, Switzerland. Nobody's mentioned Switzerland yet. Who knows that they'll spoil the party. But I'll say this about Argentina with Messi. Those players around him, they are as tough as nails. And they were down 2-0 late to Egypt, and they scored three goals.

11 and 12 minutes, whatever it was to win it. And they'll be a tough out. I feel like they're hanging on by a thread, Pablo. So I do think they're vulnerable. I think the winner of Norway, England gets to the final. Yeah, the Argentina story is so interesting, too, because it reminds me a bit of when you saw the dream team in the 92 Olympics, because all these guys, they play Michael Jordan.

And then, of course, you have Instagram now. They're taking photos and posting it with Messi, like the shot that they're in together. That's the kind of historical. figure that they're dealing with. But I want to move on to the present here at Wimbledon, in England, because the men's semis over in the tennis had dramatic storylines heading into today's matches. He had a second-seated Goliath and Alexander Zaverov facing the wildcard David and Arthur Ferry, and you had top-ranked in defending championic Center facing a man 15 years his senior, the seven-time champ Novak Djokovic. But the action was pretty anticlimactic in the

end, as Varev and Sinner both won in straight sets. And so, Frank, your takeaway from who won and how these matches actually played out. Yeah, we didn't get a day like we had yesterday with Mohova and the Cocoa Golf. That's semifinal. Straight sets for both winners today. Zaverav it's interesting. If you go back to 2022 when he lost in the doll in the semifinals, remember he broke his ankle in the semifinals,

and, you know, he was out for a while. And then going into the French Open this year, he held the title of the best player on tour to never win a major. Well, he wins the French. Now he's one match away from winning Wimbledon as well. And we haven't seen a German win it. Boris Becker, I think, won it three times in the 80s, then Michael Scheeke, who I used to love when Bud Collins would call him a scheeke figure because of his long, long lean frame. But Novak Djokovic against Sinner.

You know, Sinner since fallen behind 2-1 in the first round, his won 17 straight set, so he's been dominant. But I'll say this about Novak Djokovic. You know, if you go all the way back to 91 when Pablo was a little kid, Jimmy Connors made an unbelievable run to the semifinals of the U.S. Open, and he was 39. was treated like the greatest thing we've ever seen. Jokovic does it, and nobody thinks that it's that big of a deal. I mean, it's still impressive that he can perform at a high level. The problem is, after playing

five sets in his previous match in the quarterfinals, three of the sets went to a tiebreaker. He's just not good enough anymore to get past that and win a semis and win a final of a major. I was six years old when Jimmy Connors was doing that. I am 40 years old watching Novak Djokovic.

look every piece of his 39 years. You're right. He played five hours of 15 minutes before, and in this one, he said after the match, he was more explosive, he was more reactive, he was better than me, and that is both, I think, the exhaustion you allude to and also just the age difference.

And this is the opportunity in front of Yonik's Center now, right? Alcaraz isn't here. Alcaraz is hurt. Novak Djokovic just described. And so he is 10 and 4 against Verif. He's won nine in a row. This feels like it's all there. for Sinner to claim. And if he doesn't, that's a real squandered opportunity for a guy who is clearly

right now the number one in a, I don't know, maybe a four-man race as we put Docovic right there at the fourth spot in Zverev at the three. But it's right there for him to win. That's a great stat. So Sinner 10 and four against Zaverib, and he's won the last nine. That's pretty impressive. And Sinner's Italian, if you didn't know. All right. And now to the NBA. The NBA's cap circumvention investigation into the Clippers and Kauai Leonard. The Raptors, said yesterday, they want to know what NBA punishment might be before finalizing their trade for Kauai after the league told them they'd be on the hook for it. Pablo, you broke the original story way back when and want to pull a surprise for it. What questions does all this raise in your

mind? One question is how differently the Clippers and the Raptors feel about this frozen trade. Because the Clippers come out here with five paragraphs and they are saying, basically, we're in a sin. This is a story about Joe Sandberg, the co-founder of Asperors. This is a deal that we were informed later. The Raptor needs to be on the hook for in terms of any punishments, the Kauai's contract. They're trying to get this thing done ASAP because they would bear none of the penalties. Yep. Once Kawhi is out of their actual financial cap situation.

And also, they got pretty good value from the Raptors. But the Raptors, on the other hand, Frank, keep in mind this. The Raptors are the ones who went to the league in 2019, and they said, hey, you should know what this guy, Uncle Dennis Robertson was requesting of us that we wouldn't give, which is all to say. say that what I can tell you, according to my reporting, is that the Raptors are acutely aware of all of the fire backstage, and we're only seeing the smoke right now around Kauai Leonard. And so for them, they are the ones who don't want to finalize this trade because they are saying it is plausible that something might happen. Something might happen in that risk alone, because they know it's

grounded in a real, again, over 10 months, my reporting and 2019, their own report. They know it's grounded in a real problem. And so the rafters are good to wait. The clippers, it's very interesting that they are not quite so patient. And they came out public with this with real force. Yeah, I think I interviewed you, interviewed you the day after you broke the story. And I think we both thought maybe within six weeks, the whole thing would be wrapped up. We ended up we ended up being wrong about that. All right, just to recap here. Kauai was traded to Toronto. It was Brandon Ingram, Grady Dick, two first round picks, a pick swap, and two second round picks. I think the Clippers made out in the deal. And I think what Toronto was saying, here's

what could happen. Here's a plausible scenario. You tell me if I'm wrong. The league determines that Kauai Leonard, you know what? You're going to be suspended. Throw it out of number. 20, 30, 41 games. Deep down, the Raptors are going to say, well, this is great. He's only going to play probably 60 games anyway. And now we don't have to pay him for those 20 or 30 games he's going to be out, but out. But hold on a second. We're not giving you all those first round picks. Exactly. So I think for Toronto, I think the Clippers have won the trade. That sounds like a home run for them.

But don't you think Toronto right now is in the driver's seat? Because Toronto, the Clippers want the trade to happen. Toronto's saying, all right, it'll happen, but we may amend this trade a little bit. How about that? I saw in the Raptor statement three sentences to the Clippers five paragraphs in their complaining about this, basically. You're totally right. Bobby Webster, the GM of the Raptors, he can say to himself, hey, I'm going to get a better deal if there's a punishment.

That's right. And we haven't agreed to it yet. So they're going to have to come back to the table with us. And I think that is the untold story about what might happen next. And the statement, I think, I don't know if it was from the League or from the Raptors talked about weeks. Like, this is going to drag on. Oh, yeah, the League. So we could be talking.

So what are we talking now? September, right at the end of September is when training camp starts. They're really going to let it drag on that long. Take the over, yeah. Well, you wouldn't know you've been all over it. All right, let's take a break. But coming up, the top two picks from this year's NBA draft, dueled last night.

Who had the better performance? And will LeBron James choose his next team soon, or will he keep the NBA world in suspense? I think that means that toss-up is next. He's going to decide within five minutes, so we can go live with it. How about that? It's time to do some AB testing and toss-up.

What's first? Toss up more notable performance last night, AJ DeBanza or Darren Peterson? All right, this is a good tradition that they have in Las Vegas. The number of overall pick, AJ DeBanza of the Washington Wizards, the number two overall pick, Darren Peterson. They met last night. First night of the Vegas Summer League for those keeping score at home,

27 points in 26 minutes for AJ DeBonza. Did leave the game late with cramping. Darren Peterson, 24 points, eight turnovers, nine foul. They allow you to have 10. He used nine of them, Pablo. I'll give this one to AJ DeVonso, because when you're the number and overall pick, all eyes are on you.

It was the first time that he played. Darren Peterson already played a couple of games. His new teammates, Trey Young, Anthony Davis, how about that? Where is Anthony Davis? He's sitting courtside in Las Vegas. It wasn't as notable. I still remember going to see Greg Oden

and Kevin Durant a million years ago. And then a couple of years ago, Victor Wen Benjamin. Remember the night before? That little thing with Britney Spears when she went up to him in the hotel. and that caused a bit of a stir. And Victor was not great, his first game.

Everybody thought, oh, what's all the hype about? AJ was pretty impressive. He's a young kid, but that is a legit player that the Wizards got. I'll give it to him last night. First time out, I thought he played well. I like how you went Brittany Spears instead of where I was going, which was Anthony Randolph. Remember when Anthony Randolph dropped 42 in Summer League?

Called the St. Warriors. Remember when Josh Selby looked like he was going to be a star? I mean, Summer League is full of these characters. of course these two guys are not, you know, mirages in the desert. They're the actual stars were there to see the future stars, at least. I'm going to say Darren Peterson, and I say it for this reason. I just like the idea that Darren Peterson, when he talks, he's still kind of talking to Bill's self. He's still sending messages.

He's talking about how he didn't have fun at Kansas after the game. And I'm like, this is messy in ways that we don't need anymore. You're in the NBA, dude. We're not really thinking about Kansas. Jayhawks and yet he keeps on bringing them back, which gives me as a guy who's in favor of content, gives me great hope, Frank, that someone who's going to keep making a mountain out of a thing that is so in the rear view is going to give us gifts as we cover him as a pro. Did you like that they were experimenting with the one free throw if you got fouled shooting

instead of going, listen, for Summer League, it's great. Because they bring in new refs and every, you know, they're trying to make their mark the games take forever. I liked it. Did you like it? I like, like in the honor of soccer. I, I like a quicker game. Yes. Back. All right. All right. What's next? Toss up, what do you expect LeBron to do with his free agency decision? Decide soon or drag it out? Wait, wait. I think it's being dragged out already. I guess there was a quote where they said it could be a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks. I mean, what are we doing here? All right, so few things about

LeBron. Shams reported, and this is an actual real report, that team executives are recording voice messages to send the LeBron. The idea that the great, the godfather himself, Pat Riley, first of all, someone's going to have to do it for him, and he's going to record a message. How many takes will it be to convince LeBron? It's absurd. LeBron's a great player, but why are we going down this road? If you have a question, just call the teams up. So that part of his absurd. But Pablo, I still say because the World Cup is here in the States, he loves the idea that all the great players, it was Ronaldo until he went home. Messi and Boppe de.

They turn on the TV and what's everybody talking about, including this show, the future of 41-year-old LeBron James. He's dragging this thing out, definitely until next week when the World Cup gets to the semifinals and the finals. You see what's happening at the World Cup final with Johnny Infantino. What happened is Roger Clemens in George's Box? Remember Susan Waldman? Yeah.

The Rock? He's in George's Box. John Brennan's Box. Oh, my God. So I love that. I love the idea of that. Of course, take the over on all of this. And you know to take the over, not just because you're hearing it from the guy

who's made 11 episodes out of one single NBA investigation. You know it because LeBron is already having us subscribe to his agent's podcast, which cannot stop talking about this every day. There's more. We had a whiteboard. We got the voice notes. We had Bob Myers in studio with Max Calibon and Rich Paul.

Look, he's very good at generating coverage. I don't know if he's as good at generating mystery, at least around how long this is going to take. I would take the over on all of this because you get more. You get more of LeBron that way, and that's kind of the ultimate goal. He was photographed golfing with Draymond Green in Puerto Rico. I'm surprised that you weren't invited on that trip. I still think Warriors, but I've got to be honest with you,

the more and more you hear it sounds like Cleveland is a legitimate suitor for LeBron. I still say he's going to join Steph Curry and Drummond. We'll see what happens. All right, that's it. We all know who won that round. Let's take one last break before we come back. Scotty Sheppler does something. He hasn't done in nearly four years.

And Wembe posts a cryptic tweet of his own. Talk about what it might mean. Was the tweet, Leave Me Alone, Britney Spears? I cannot believe that I forgot about that. His security guard had to say, what are you doing? She tapped them in the back. Not quite a boy, not quite a full-grown center. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement,

and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca.ca.

Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility, Canadian new vehicle total registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply.

Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. It's a Friday happy time. Happy earliest, 28th. birthday, Shea Gildes Alexander. SGA is still 27 until Sunday. And then he's already a four-time all-star, a two-time MVP, a one-time NBA champ, and a finals MVP. Many assume the title he and the Thunder won in 2025 was the first of many, but they got knocked out in this year's

Western Conference Finals by Victor Wenbenyama and the Spurs. Afterward, SGA said he failed, adding, quote, there's a reason for that. Now I have to look at that reason and try to make sure it never happens again. This summer with Team Canada, he's reportedly been working on his off ball game. I hate to make everything about the Kauai Leonard trade and that original free agent signing, actually. But that's the guy that Kauai wanted out of the clippers to get Paul George. Just pointing that out here, that's how that one even happened in the first place. Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Happy anniversary, Brandy Chastain. On this day, 27 years ago, Chastain made the game-winning penalty kick to beat China in the World Cup final, then celebrated by throwing off her jersey and one of the most iconic moments in American sports.

Chastain recently told Mike Tarrico, quote, nobody had ever dreamed or believed or invested in a women's event that would be so big like this one before. And to be honest, we crushed it. While the U.S. men regularly go out in the round of 16, the women's team has won four World Cup since the tournament began in 1991. They'll have a chance at a fifth in Brazil next summer. And of course, you remember that iconic. Sports Illustrated cover, Brandy Chastain, ripping off her shirt with Grant Wall,

the late great Grant Wall, Frank, the guy, of course, with the byline on that story. Yeah, big moment in that game, Christine Lilly heading a certain goal off the goal line in the 100th minute, so give her a little credit as well. Happy trails to making the cut for Scotty Sheffler and Nellie Quarter.

Sheffler went 6872 in his first two rounds at the Scottish Open to finish at even par, two strokes below the cut line. It's the first weekend. He'll miss since August of 2022, a streak of 78 straight tournaments. Wow. That's 51 more than the next closest golfer, Matt Fitzpatrick. The missed cut comes one week before the British Open, where Sheffler is a defending champ.

On the women's side, Nellie Korda missed the cut at the Avion Championship. The fourth of the women's five majors, quarter won the first two majors of the year and hadn't missed a cut in two years. The consistency of Scottie Schaeffler is remarkable. The psychological fortitude of Scottie Schaffler is remarkable. The introspection of that guy. I'd like to know what he thinks about what just happened, actually, now that he's broken that streak. All right, and on to the big finish.

We've mentioned his name a bunch today. Rick and Wenbinoa tweeted Spurs fans, I'm here to stay, whatever it takes. What are you reading to that? I'm reading into a sub-max contract, Frank. Looking at the crystal ball, see, and he might not sign for the max, which would be quite helpful, Tim Duncan style, actually. I thought it was nice.

Harper and Kyle Schwarber. They're both in Monday's home run derby in Philly. Does that excite you? Well, of course it excites me. It's in Philadelphia. They're the two hometown players. You always want the hometown guys to be the stars. They're the big hitters.

Absolutely, they should be part of the home run derby. The Marlins swept the Mariners. The Tigers swept the A's and the Red Sox swept the White Sox. What to you is the biggest deal? It's the travel scenario. It's a sports writer in me. I can tell you the Red Sox were stuck in Chicago. left at 3 p.m. They might be late for tonight's game, which is a 715 first pitch, which would be a problem.

Michigan, meanwhile, lifted the interim tag off of head coach Mike Boynton Jr. Does that make sense? Yes, it makes a lot of sense. But think about the job that he's walking into. You're replacing Dusty May, who just took the Dallas Maverick job, and all those great players all went in the first round of the NBA draft. It's not going to be easy to repeat, but it's Michigan. And something tells me they have enough NIL money to maybe go. out and get some players, but that's a tough act to follow. No question about it. All right. Last one. Shohei will not pitch as expected tonight and will miss the All-Star game because of continued left-kney irritation. Are you irritated by that? I am. Shohei Otani on the mound is something that medically he doesn't need to risk, but the fact that he wants to is one of the great gifts we've got

a sports fans. I'm sad to miss him. That's a bummer. That's a bummer that he's out of the game. All right, we're out of time. Thanks for watching. I'm Frank Isola. And I am Pablo Torre. The host, Pablo Torre finds out. I hope you guys have a great weekend.