Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #528: Watke breaks down Pochettino's philosophy (of life)

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

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Hey, everybody. We're pretty much fully back in the swing of things over in Europe. Plus, we have a lot to cover when it comes to Mauricio Pachitino, hopefully the new coach of the U.S. men's national team. Vince, how you doing? Great. I'm just going to keep it there. Good.

Adam Bills. Yeah. Waki, how y'all doing? I'm doing well. I'm trying to keep my POTCH excitement in check, though. Oh, yeah? You know, you don't want to get up for, you don't want to let yourself get all the way to the top of the Potch energy and have it drop down. Too late. I already have.

Yeah. You don't pick too soon. Understood. Yeah. Let's talk about the brass tax of that. So from the athletics reporting via London-based reporters David Ornstein and Adam Kraften, we have a verbal agreement between Potch and the USSF. The contract situation is a bit complicated, but because Pott's relationship with Chelsea is so good, everyone is confident it will not be a real obstinate.

His contract with Chelsea was for two years. He left after the first year, you know, reportedly by mutual consent. The only prohibition in the contract is against coaching for one of the other big six Premier League clubs. So he's getting paid by Chelsea to some extent right now, probably a lot of money. It seems like the question is how much of that will Chelsea continue to pay if he takes the U.S. job? And I think, this is where it gets for me a little bit murky.

Whether the yet-to-be-resolved component of this is Potch wants to make sure he still gets what Chelsea owes him or whether it's USSF's offer to Potch is contingent on Chelsea continuing to pay him to a certain extent. It's not really clear. Is it clear to you? Well, we're going on, I don't think anyone actually knows all the details of the deal, but what we're kind of working with is if Potch doesn't, if he just sits home and does nothing,

he gets 13 million from Chelsea basically. Damn. Is it really that much? That's a lot of money for our manager. And so, but I think it only runs, it doesn't, that's not a long time.

It runs six months or a year or something. Yeah. So, but he, it sounds like he wants to do this job, our job. and so Chelsea wants him off the books we want to hire him

he wants to do it and that's why there's some optimism they would find a deal because everyone benefits if he guys coaches us and now it's just a matter of how I think it sounds like they're figuring out how much well they're negotiating it right now

and we're not really fully involved not yet but you mean the USS F is not fully involved yet? Yeah, they basically had to figure out what the deal is, how much they owe him, and then come up with a creative solution of some kind, possibly branding the manager, you know, USM&T manager, Mauricio Pachino, presented by MasterCard.

We might have to say that every time we say his name. Body armor. So who else did we boycott Mikhailovovotra, Volkswagen? I have an update on Mickelow Ultra. There were a bunch left over from Kansas City, and I drank a few in the last month. And they're not bad, especially on a hot day. I think that would be a good fit with Potch.

Messy loves that brand too. What's weird about it is it sounds like, going on this one athletic article, basically, it sounds like Chelsea's the one who's trying to figure out the third party sponsorship thing. I don't understand that part of it. Yeah, it doesn't make that much sense to me. Why would they...

I mean, it could be true. I just don't see how that makes sense for them to figure out a sponsor for a coach for a national team so that they can, yeah, I don't know. It's because they want to pay him less than... They don't want to pay him. If they can have had this situation fall into their lap. where they cannot pay him this money. So this is good for them.

But now that they have this opportunity, everyone kind of likes it, but there's still a negotiation going on. That's my understanding of the situation. So you have, what will USSF pay, Potch? And how much does that subtract from what Chelsea is paying him to not coach?

And then the third component is like some kind of sponsorship. or maybe there'll be two sponsorships, the Chelsea sponsorship in the U.S. soccer sponsorship, both. Well, the sponsorship thing is, seems to have entered just as part of Chelsea not wanting to pay as much. So I think they're thinking, well, if this guy is there,

we can put a sponsorship on him. And if we arrange it, maybe that can be our contribution toward his pay. So we don't have to pay. six million. Yeah. It seems to me. Potch walked in the office of Todd Bowley.

Right. He has a great relationship with him, so he's probably very, very genial. Is that a word? Cordial. You know, Todd, baby. You know what I'm saying? On the topic of the money that you owe me, I got a great plan cooked up. I got a great plan cooked up.

Hey, you're American. I know you probably, are you a, aware that you got a national team? You're aware of that? Okay. All right. I'm thinking about coaching it. I'm thinking about coaching it.

But, you know, I need all the money. I wonder what Potch thinks of Bolley's aura. If he's saying he has a good relationship with him, then a good aura is almost a necessity with Pocch. Yeah, I think that's true. That's one thing. If this deal gets across the line, the players are going to learn.

You need to pay a lot of attention to what your aura is. It's how he makes a lot of decisions. I want to get really deep into that in just a minute. But first... You know what? Hold on. I'm glad... Go ahead. Did Chelsea set up this whole thing? Just in general?

You know, well, Waki's talking about Chelsea trying to find the sponsor. And are they the ones that breached the topic with Pultz in the first place? Well, they gave Crockpot a glowing recommendation for him. A glowing recommendation. We know that as a fact. out of nowhere. Maybe they volunteer that, yeah. See?

Now it's all coming. Now it's all making sense. Chelsea's doing some late accounting. They were realizing that they owe like $500 million to like 20 different clubs all come and do over the next, you know, five to six years or whatever. Hey, it all counts. It all counts. Every dollar saved counts.

and so they're looking they're looking out of patch like yo 13 mil how can we get this all the books boom Bowley you're an American yeah JT always on his phone call them up call them up they just want to gold medal call JT boom picks up the phone that's the phone call you saw in the pick oh yeah we did get a good picture of JT on the doing business

we got an action shot of JT beautiful Cindy Parlo-Cone just completely trusting him, not on her phone, just walking ahead of him. JT's got it back there, he's got it. Yeah. Another thing from this article, athletic article we're talking about

that I appreciate, their version of how the coach hunt has gone was immediately they went to Klop and then they went to Pocitino and they've been working on Pocitino this whole time while everyone on the internet has been speculating on a range of seven to ten different candidates. It's encouraging.

It's an encouraging timeline if it's true that we went to Plot-Pachitino and we just were like a dog with a bone. When it comes to the financial part, I'm glad we're not going the Canadian route because that whole situation sounds ridiculous. I don't know if you guys read that part of the article, but when Canada hired Marsh, the deal was only made possible. I'm quoting from the article. The deal was only made possible thanks to significant financial contributions from the country's three major league soccer clubs. Yeah, that's why it's in doubt. That meant that meant Marsh's official title became MLS Canada men's national team head coach. I didn't notice until I read that there.

But they do mention that. Or at least someone reached out to the U.S. MLS teams. They're like, no, we're not interested in that. The option might have been explored. No, bro, that would have been Hiroshima for U.S. Miss National Team fandom.

If we got an MLS endowed head coach after, you know, the whole Burr-Hawter cycle, and I don't know if it would have mattered who it was. Because obviously, like as soon as this person's, because a lot of the appeal with an outside person coming in is, hey, they are free of, you know, the control of control from the fiefdom that is, you know, MLS. And if you come in endowed automatically, you know, they're going to assume that, you know.

Yeah. And probably for good reason. Probably for good reason that Justin Glad will get called up, you know, into the national team or whatever. Yep. Pep Guardiola himself would call up Justin Glad, you know. I think an MLS brand, an MLS branded. USM&T manager position would be just about the funniest thing. It would be so funny, bro.

We don't need conspiracy theories anymore. They are paying for the coach. You would see heads blow up, bro. It's like the Dave Chappelle, Clayton Bigsby Skit, when he takes off the hood and there's a dude's head explodes right there in the front of it. So, but there's not going to be. It's not going to be MLS sponsored. It sounds like that's not going to happen. But now that the idea of having a sponsored,

the head coach being positioned being sponsored by a brand, that's entered the universe, there's no way that doesn't happen now. It's just like a few million dollars that no one's going to become part of how it works, is my guess. Particularly if it's a big name guy. Yeah.

Who's going to turn it? down the money of doing that. Yeah. It'd be fine with some brand sponsor. I do think it gives the lie to this idea that, I mean, I guess Crocker himself said there were no financial constraints or at least something he said was interpreted that way. Bologna, there's financial constraints. If there weren't any, we would just, I mean, I know it would be bad negotiating at this point for us not to take advantage of this situation that Chelsea finds itself in. But if there were no financial constraints. One, we would just pay whatever we need to make potch hole.

And two, we wouldn't need brand sponsors, you know. I think no financial restraints was a term of art he was using. Man, that's a... Yeah. Because we can't go... We probably actually can't pay him $13 million cash from the... No, we really can't. people taking stuff entirely for a couple of different reasons entirely entirely too literal these quotes that these people these public facing people give out you know the amount of times i've seen serial winner bandied about after uh i guess was a crocker that said that too looking for a serial winner i'm like you know i mean there's only a few of those that actually fit the definition to a t and i don't think i don't think any of those are coming

at national team. Because, you know, that's one thing about Potch. I've seen, I've seen, they're like, oh, he's a loser. He's never won anything, which, you know, we all know the history of the Tottenham. But I... To be fair, there's not that many people saying that, right? I mean, there's a few here and there. There's a few here and there, but, you know.

Another thing on the money part, the money part of it before we move on, I think I wouldn't want us to rush out and just pay him $13 million even if we could that would make us look desperate We're desperate I know we're desperate But we don't want to look desperate We don't want to look desperate We got to get

We got to get that down to seven That we're paying Sure That's fine I mean Maybe we just let Clear Lake Capital come over and just take over the Fed They can

Is that bullies Yeah I think so Okay. It can sell all of our assets for parts. I think that's why we sold soccer house, maybe. It might have been the early start of it all, selling off our assets to make ourselves more lean, or more efficiently.

I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of things on the table here. This is very, it is slightly shady what's going on. I don't know. It is a little, it's a little weird. It is, it is very, it is very. but if we need to pawn off our autonomy to get Potch, you know, I'd have to do it.

All right, let's take a break. We'll be back in a minute. If you want to go ad-free, join us on the Patreon. You know the drill. Links in the show notes. Okay, we're back. That's another thing, is Potch is a better manager than any we've ever had. He only increases our chance of winning a Naka came a certain percentage point.

It's not as high as we want it to be. We should still do it. He's not walking us into the quarters automatically or anything like that. No, no, no, that's totally true. But you look at it from like, let's say J.T. Batson's point of view. It's a home run for him. You know, he can, I'm thinking about if I were him, I don't really care what the percentage chance of us winning another knockout round game is

because I'm saying I'm just dusting my hands off, job done. He has done the job that needed to be done. That's all that you can ask from him, you know? And from C, and from C, and from C, and from C, the whole, you know, the whole team. So, yeah, it's true. But also for them, it's like, and for them it's a total home run, regardless of the outcome. And, like I said in that, the patron, the patron only episode, Greg and I did, I think it's a real, it's a real shot in the arm for the entire fan base, you know.

it's wonderful. Yeah. But yeah, we probably still get knocked out in the quarterfinal. That is not what I said. No, he's going to bring belief as well. And that's going to help us. That's right. That's right.

And he's going to bring energy. He would have not liked that energy. You would have been out of the project right there. I'd be out of the project. By the way. At least for the month of July. He has a whole, I don't think we want to get into the energy. philosophy right now, but he has a whole

thing that we're going to have to unwind at some point. We don't want to get into it right now? I kind of do. Well, I think we should talk about maybe the more we can get into it, but is there other specific soccer stuff you want to talk about with him? Hey, man, these dudes play every week.

Are you talking about, oh, you're talking about a pot specifically? Okay, okay. That's how about getting to the players. I'm like, hey, hey. Let me plan next week. Oh, no, no, yeah. No, we're not going to be talking about Utrecht right now. Yeah.

Stop the presses. We got to talk about Utrecht. No. Vince, do you have any, like, soccer thoughts when it comes to Pach? I mean, you've watched, well, I guess you became a real serious Arsenal. You became a real serious Arsenal fan after Pottch had left, I guess, didn't you? Yeah, I think. Okay.

Maybe caught one year. I don't know. I don't have any. You know what? I think maybe we should lead with his theories on universal energy because it is, I think, the most important thing. It informs everything he does. Good, yeah. So if anyone doesn't know, maybe people have heard about his keeping lemons in his office. I heard about it from you.

I mentioned it very glancingly last week with Greg, but we need to talk about it. And this is basically the one thing that the English press latched on to. and I think they ultimately failed by being incurious about his larger philosophy on energy that I hope we don't fall into that trap. But basically the lemons absorb bad energy. So he kept them in his office at Tottenham and they did it at Chelsea and he needed a much bigger box. He had a whole box of them at Chelsea. The bad oras were so bad.

Is that really true? That's true. He had a few at Tottenham, but he had like a barrel. him at Chelsea. He had to keep bringing in more and more. There's so many damn players, man. That's a... I mean, you know, you're bringing in a lot of players, first off.

That's a lot of wild cards, a lot of free radicals, and then top it off with the fact that there just are a lot of players. There's going to be a lot of bad vibes festering, man. Yeah. And it's the bad vibes of players coming into his office to complain. So it could have just been off the rails You know speaking of that They have so many highly paid players that

And you know what? The lemons weren't enough in the end No Yo, there was a video going around On Twitter this week of Chelsea Working out like the entire Extended Squad It was like 40 dudes

It was like 40 dudes man It was crazy Never seen such And they just can't put it together on the field, too. It's crazy. All right. Let me just run quickly through what his philosophy of universal energy is. Yeah, I would love that.

Okay, so he believes in a universal energy. This universal energy is a force that goes throughout the world that involves people, events, and oras. And he says that people can learn to control this universal energy by believing it, and practicing it. And he is one of those people who has learned how to do that. So what does he mean, as best as you can tell, what does he mean by controlling the energy? This isn't just a matter of reading the energy

and then making decisions based on it. It's like he can... Yes, okay, so this is the key point, actually. This is not a vague idea he has that a positive mental attitude will help you to be successful. he very specifically believes that he can use his thoughts in such a way that the thoughts themselves have a physical impact on the universe and that's very important we we getting straight that

that is what he can do now okay so maybe he does say he quarterfinal well here's the thing he says it cannot be used to win soccer games and i think our question and the question of the fed should be, Potch, what do you need from us to help you to get this to the point that it can? Voltweig? Mikkelow vulture?

Nike Gear, which... So, he doesn't believe it can win you soccer games, but he probably believes it can create the conditions where you are more likely to win soccer games, right? If he can use that energy to I mean, it's not like he's talking about mind control,

but he's talking about positive thoughts toward a person will what, build that person up and strengthen them? It's a difficult, this is the problem, the difficulty of understanding exactly what he believes. You can't win soccer games with it. You can't directly impact specific events, with it because it's the universal energy. He doesn't believe in causality, is what he said.

Okay, okay. So it is the energy itself that has to impact the events. Right. And you can impact the energy that is meant for that event. You can only impact the energy that is meant for yourself. And. Yeah, it's very close. Yes.

And we have, that is my thing, my guess about what it is. He hasn't, that's the problem. The English press didn't ask him. enough follow-up questions. Right. So we're having to kind of fill in the gaps now. But I think he impacts the universal energy. Everyone impacts it.

The universal energy then does what it's going to do. Hmm. Okay. And the universal energy is not God. This is a force that exists in addition to God and separate from God. What, so how does he, how does Paj think that this affects people? People that aren't him, I guess. players,

etc. You get anything else? So what we know, he mostly works on the end and where he, he's believed this since he was a boy, but it was refined a lot when he was playing for PSG.

Their athletic trainer was big time into reading players or us. And that's where he formalized his thought around this. Okay. It seems to me the farthest he's gotten

is refining his ability to read oras and maybe does not know yet how absolutely to affect things by being the protagonist. All right. Now, what's the... Go ahead, Vince. This takes me to a place because I think me and Podge might be Kendrick Spirits in this, in this particular realm, in this particular area. What you just described to me, Waki, that is what I would call Jib theory. That's what I'll call jib theory.

I don't talk about reading somebody's aura. That word has been bastardized by the United States social media community. Sports watching social media community. But when I'm analyzing a jib, I'm basically reading their aura of what they put off into the world. What they put off into the world. And because we have a society and we have social norms, we have people of all different types of jibs coexisting together trying to live within that society. But the ability to read is crucial.

And I think it's something, I mean, the one true blessing I might have been blessed with in my life is that supernatural ability. because like I said we live in this we have our social norms and everything people are mostly the same but you can't escape you can't escape your aura or your jib you just can't you just can't escape it so it's going to come out in moments and and you and potter are going to get on well here he believes pretty much that's what I was actually thinking about I was as I was reading about this like this is basically Vince's theory of the world. The only difference is, Potts says, there's nothing supernatural.

There's nothing magic involved in this. This is a hard science. He said that this is a science. It opens the question of whether he's done experiments on this or not or what exactly he means by science. I think he might be talking about, go ahead. Well, I think I would agree with them. because, you know, like I called it a blessing,

but it came from years of me just being a very silent kid and just watching people, observing people all the time. Whether I'm at church, sports, anywhere. Like, you know, I just, not real talkative God, naturally. I'm an observer. I'm an observer. And so through years of practice, through 32 years of practice now, I'm able to easily assess Jibs.

But yeah, you got to put it into practice to be able to get the results from it. That is true. There is a procedure you got to go through. And Potch, in his, most of this comes from his autobiography called Brave New World, which I recommend everyone read. He named his autobiography, Brave New World. Yeah. And that's figuring out what was going on with what was going on with this title.

Is it going to be a whole other probably a series of episodes? But in this book, he says this started when he was a kid. He would visualize whatever he wanted to happen the next day. And found over time he was able to make it happen by having thought about it. And then he meant. The PSG trainer. And then he met a Spanish water polo coach, who he now has come out to the team.

That's why they walk on hot coals or they break arrows on their necks. And then the final and most important piece, he's been developing this theory with Karina, his wife. I think she might be pretty important in this. I think it might actually be her theory that he has taken as his own. This is a man's on a, he's on a different. Plaint of existence. Yeah, he is.

Hiring him is not just getting a soccer coach. We're talking about potential spiritual revolution happening in America. This is big. What is the connection between the oras, the jib theory, if you will, and the universal energy? Oh. It's best you can do. Because the universal energy just affects people in different ways, right? This isn't, just because it says it's called universal energy doesn't mean it's just one energy affecting everybody equally and in the same way, right?

We're all individuals. We're all different people. We were all born under different planetary and moon alignments. You know what I'm saying? Not that I'm a huge astrology guy. I'm really not at all. But I'm saying, like I was thinking about this as I was walking around the Kentucky State Fair this week. just looking at everybody, different people.

And usually, I'll go ahead and say it. I had this, it's, it's, you know what, I'm not going to say it. But I was sober when I was doing this, okay? But I'm walking around, I'm just like, man, every person in this world is an individual, is their own person. And it's a beautiful thing. But anyway, that's what I think about the universal energy, right? It affects everyone looks different. You know, the universal energy, of course, is going to affect different.

Yes. It's all affecting people in. It's affecting people putting stuff out as well. And I think basically it's all one, the universe is all one single substance. I think is what he believes we'll have to drill down more on this. We'll have to ask him some questions. So that's how it connects with the oras. the aura is a way that the universal energy emanates out from people that he is then able to read.

Okay. I see. Exactly. Exactly. Everyone. Yeah. And the philosopher, philosophers, he seems to have been influenced by Spinoza and Leibniz. This relates to his ideas about causality.

Yeah. Now, I haven't read all of those. I haven't read it. I basically just read their Wikipedia pages on a suggestion from Velasquez. Yeah, Velasquez's been going on in a Hohnabots, but that was that. He said, maybe check these guys out. There seems like there could be some connection here. I don't think we're ready to say there is.

Because the lemon stuff is more of an Eastern influence that started in India. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It's a strong man with it. Fascinating. It's a strong man we're dealing with. And this is why. maybe we're in this holding pattern.

He's been visualized in Chelsea dropping a life-sized, you know, Maricio Pocitino-sized check. It just says $13 million at his door. And until he receives it, he will not be the all-state insurance U.S. Minnesota team head coach. Presented by Visa. Right.

There are a couple other things I learned from his book that are not, they don't seem to be completely related to the energy, but it would be useful to know for the players heading in. They should definitely all read this book. We can always come back to the energy, and we will. There was one time him and one of his assistants was sitting in the team cafeteria. It was a day before a game, they were about to have a practice. they were deciding right then between two players.

One of them was going to be in the starting 11. And it was kind of a toss-up. One of those players came in and got lasagna. And Potts said, well, he's not starting. It's the other guy. He thought getting lasagna an hour before training was unsurious. Told him everything he needed to know about that player's mindset. Lazzania is a little crazy.

It was like four sheets of noodles and cheese and immediate between each sheet. You're going to go out there and train. So that's why I was thinking through this. The issue is how much cheese there is, right? Because it is pasta with just a bunch of cheese, pretty much. Ricotta specifically, babe. Yo, you are, this is not going to be easily converted in the energy. to to Pachito's point, right?

The universal energy is not easily extracted from lasagna, I don't think. I think it was a combination of the, it's a physical problem, but also just doing it, put some bad orders into the world. Another thing he does is he will do tests of his players. He'll just go, after a loss, they're coming back in the next day. He'll go sit in some corner and he'll see which player comes up and sits with him. He also films everything. He's got cameras everywhere, and he has people reviewing the tapes.

Like even non-socker situations? I don't think he does non-socer. I think it's on the facilities. But yes, non-socker on the facilities. Okay. Like how people interact on the sidelines. But he's not like filming the locker room. Not the locker room.

He actually doesn't go in the locker room. Him and his coaches do not go in the player's locker room at the training facility. But they have cameras on the exits. And one time, he recorded them going out to draining and coming back. And he noticed they were smiling coming back, but were not smiling on their way out. And then he did a big speech for them about how they should have joy to go out to practice. You sure remember when you were boys. That's a tough one.

You play this game for love. I'm inspired right now by that. One time at Southampton, they were at the airport to go to somewhere. And the chairman was in their travel party. He was in their group. One of the players asked the chairman how his holiday was. And Potch got angry. He said, a player does not ask casual questions to the chairman.

That goes through me. He's very serious about hierarchy. That's why I got a good relationship with Chelsea. He was filtering all 50 of those players. all of their all of their complaints never never never never never never never reach boldly once interesting how does a how does a how does a um an emphasis on hierarchy strike you too as um you know americans it is a little bit of i think this was the most extreme case of it there's other cases throughout the book like he whenever an assistant from another team would say something to

him, one of his assistants would run up, get in their face, and tell them that they're never to speak to the manager. Interesting. Yeah, because one man's hierarchy is another man, or one person's hierarchy is another person's cooth, you know? It's, for him, it's, uh, this might just be good manners, you know? Right. Yeah.

But I do think it's, it is going to be a cultural difference because in the U.S., it would make perfect sense for Weston McKinney if J.T. Batson is sitting next to him. They're getting on a plane together to ask him how his vacation was. Yeah, I mean, Jerry Jones wants... It might make sense everywhere, yeah. Wanted Michael Irvin to ask him how his vacation was. You know, whatever you think about Jerry Jones,

like, that's... Yeah. At least people want to pretend that it's a flat society, you know? Well, specifically for them, right? That's part of the reason why they're in it. Yeah. The benefactors? I mean, it would be the same in soccer here, too, right?

Yeah. College football boosters, all different, you know. Yeah. I want to be part of the club, maybe. Another thing I've been thinking about with Potches, it sounds like part of the reason he was so successful at Southampton and then Tottenham was he got the players to buy into this. He worked them really, really hard all the time. They would do two a days during the season on Wednesdays when they didn't have a game. And you can't really do that with this national team. What is he going to do to create that effect without having intense trainings?

Rema's being seen? I think you can do it. I mean, you technically could do two a days on these trips to Dallas or Kansas City, Guadalajara. It'd be a little weird, but it's going to be fascinating. wasn't there something about him really liking House of Cards that you mentioned?

He's a big fan of the show is basically what it is and he would just mention it throughout the book. He recommends it to everyone and he admires the leadership qualities of

Kevin Spacey. Basically Kevin Spacey and the most venal political operatives in the show he loves well doesn't he say it shows you a lot about good leadership and bad leadership yes yes man how's the cards he loves them for their lessons i should i should say yeah was that the first prestige Netflix show yeah might have been might have been it might have been the first well might have been the first well might have been the first

For me, the first, like, serial TV show that was really, that really hit. Yeah. Because I think I watched The Wire after I watched, I started House of Cards. That could be wrong about that. He also loves this one song by, I believe the artist is Robbie Williams. Is that an artist's name? Tell me. In any case, he kept playing the song for the players.

It's about, it's called something like, Life is Love. He would play this for them all the time, and they would make fun of him, and he would be unhappy about it. I'll have to find that song and put it in the break here. What's going on, man? Are we hiring a shaman? This is a... Yeah, we are. Yeah, we thought Burrhalter was idiosyncratic

with his, you know, Starbucks cups and sneakers and stuff. You know that? Tim Howard article where he's kind of complaining about some of Urigan's more, you know, fru-frew non-socker stuff. then he was saying Potch is good this is an entirely different level

we're about to get here sounds like Tim needs to read the autobiography yeah because Yergan did some stuff like made the players all watch somebody tear a phone book in half I mean it's one of the most famous episodes

which I think actually Potch would not have liked that he would want he would want more of a meeting of the minds where the players are doing something where all their minds are connected and their oras are team building. Exactly.

Yeah. Rather than bringing a circus performer into the locker room. Exactly. You don't need, this is where me and Pots are locked up right here. Outward, ridiculous, pointless expressions of machismo that mean nothing. Like tearing a phone book and a half. Like, what are we getting out of that, baby?

We got to connect on a deeper level and figure out why. You punch that dude in the head to him well. Yeah. And to your point, he's not a machismo guy. One thing he complains about is part of the culture he was working in. There's such a, it's so bad to show weakness that even once, one time he said he was feeling sick. And the English people are like, why are you saying that? Keep that to yourself.

And then he went on and did a few paragraphs about how, you know, expressing weakness isn't always a bad thing. You see? Me and Potch locked in. Me and Pots locked in. I think we see the world very similar ways. Very similar ways. I have not. I'm very much a go with the flow guy. So I just let the universal energy affect me as it may. I haven't used my powers to affect events or, you know, visualization and all that, whatnot. I did have a dream one time that my car got. got stolen and the very next day my car got stolen. So maybe that was just, it manifesting, just coming out because it was like, use me, please. But, man, yeah. Well, maybe you could, maybe during this pot stretch focus on trying to actively affect stuff.

We could be learning from him as much as the players are out to. Okay. There is one unusual anecdote, another one from the book. He was recruited to play for Newell old boys by Bielsa. He had never met Bielsa before. Bielsa came and knocked on his family's door at 1 o'clock in the morning on a winter night. His mom came to the door. Didn't know who these strangers were.

You can't come in. She went and got his dad who had heard of this team. He believed who they were, let them in. and then they said, can we see the boy? Like, well, he's asleep. It's like, okay, let's go up and just look at him. They go upstairs, they're in his bedroom, sleeping potch. Boy sleeping potch is like 10 in the bed.

And then they say, can we... 10? Something like that, yeah. I don't know the exact... It doesn't say the exact age. And then they say, can we see his legs? Oh. So then his mom pulls back the blanket.

And they're just looking at his legs. Bielsa says, looks like a footballer. And then they leave. And they brought him into Newell's old boys, right? Yeah. And that was a process as well. Boy Mauricio gets on a bus, takes a three-hour bus ride to the training. He goes in, Bielsa puts him into the training,

pulls him out after five minutes, and says, okay, I've seen enough, you can go home. takes another three-hour bus ride back. He decided to sign him on this five minutes of watching this training. And made him travel six hours to play five minutes. This is something almost medieval about all that, you know? Bro. Sounds like something from the 1300s,

but it really happened in like the early 1980s. This is Argentina special sauce that everyone keeps talking about. Right? What was it? The streets. The streets and the pastures. There it goes. Mom and dad were proud to pull the bed's bread back and show off his legs at 1 o'clock in the morning, you know?

I mean, I don't know when we're ever going to be able to compete with that. It's truly crazy, isn't it? Not next year. Yeah, it's a different level. We're not. Reading that is when you're like that. we're not really all that close, unfortunately. But this could be a huge step forward.

We really need this. We really need it. It's going to be pretty devastating if he's not our manager at this point. Yeah. I love the, what I'm interpreting as just sort of a reverence for choices and life

that he seems to espouse. I don't live that way, unfortunately, but I aspire to one day. Some other national team coaches don't live that way either. Yeah. That's right. I was thinking about how many 11s I would have been dropped from based on the ridiculousness

of my food choices in the middle of the day. Oh man. Come on. Depressing. Speaking of food choices, he pairs, one interesting thing about him is he pairs this sort of new age spiritual thing, which you think would be if you have that, you're eating healthy all the time. He doesn't do that.

He goes through periods where he eats bad food and drinks a lot of wine and his weight goes up and down. And I like that. I can relate to that. So what is it? He fails for a while and then brings himself back or he allows himself to...

He kind of lits him... Like his natural thing is to kind of go a little bit. Like just not eat that well. He likes Argentina wine. Tienan wine. wine and then he'll go on a really focused diet thing. Okay. Okay.

Maybe that seems somewhat attainable. Should we take a break? I mean, that was a tour to force, Waki. Thank you. Sick. Well, there's a lot more. This book is an incredible resource, and I really do recommend everyone read it. It's written as kind of a diary.

It's not entirely his words. I think he had to, like, someone help him. as a coach does. But it's in the form of a diary, so it's like you're hearing from him talking about all of his beliefs and insecurities. Incredible.

It sounds like it's better than a lot of autobiographies. It is. It's good. All right, let's take a break. If you would like to hear the rest of the episode, which is a kind of more traditional

rundown of the weekend's action, join us on the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. That half of the... the episode will be posted on there and go right into your private feed if you're a patron. If not, thanks for listening. We'll see you.