The Press Box - Ep. 145: The Ringer Euro Finale Podcast With Chris Ryan, Ryan O'Hanlon, Donnie Kwak, and Kevin Clark

Episode Date: July 8, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon give their big-picture review of Euro 2016. Then, Donnie Kwak joins to discuss the France-Arsenal alignment and designate the final four "most deserving" teams of the tournament. Finally, Kevin Clark chimes in with Euro final predictions and discusses Ronaldo's chance to add to his ever-growing star. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer Soccer podcast is brought to you by Seat Geek, our presenting sponsor on the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling sports and music tickets. Seatgeek makes buying and selling tickets on your phone a total snap. With just two taps, you can instantly buy tickets to an event that same day, have your tickets delivered to you straight to your phone, and enter the event without ever having to print out a ticket. And if you can't go to the game or the show, you can sell your tickets directly from the app in less than 30 seconds.

With Seatgeek, there's no guesswork. exactly where you're sitting, what you will pay, and whether or not you're getting a good deal all right from your phone. So drop your old ticket app and experience buy and selling tickets the way it should be. To start using Seatgeek, download the free app or go to Seatgeek.com. Hello, and welcome to The Ringer's Soccer podcast. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me, as always, is Ryan O'Hanlon, another editor at the ringer.com. It's great to be here. Great to hear that, as always.

Ryan, as I always say around the office, there are a couple things I believe. Ready? I believe that the Mayans invented television, and I believe that this was a little bit of a letdown of a European championship. Do you agree with either of those statements? I think it was the Incas who invented television. I don't even think that's up for dispute, honestly. I think it was disappointing in the sense of there just weren't that many

well-played games. I don't think you would say. I think the game, the France-Germany game, that was well-played. But when you put that many good players on a field, that's sort of a guarantee. But overall, like... Well, also, tactically, I think that there was enough good players in every position

that the managers were able to do things tactically in the France-Germany semi that made it feel like it had some flow. It made it feel like they were running at each other. It sort of felt like a club game with one team that sort of dominates possession and pushes the other team back and the other team tries to counter. But overall, yeah, like beyond that, can you think of any games that really stood out? Yeah, there's no game that I'm

going to tell my kids about. Yeah, but I think I don't have kids. But like if I, if I have something soon, and the first thing I'll do is tell them about soccer matches that I've seen. Yeah. Nothing from this tournament. Yeah, I was planning on telling my kids whenever they, whenever they, whenever I have them about Euro 2016, but I don't know what I'm talking about now. Now you have to cross that off the list of the five things you have to talk about. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, made it easier on me. But yeah, it's,

it's, I think it's still been enjoyable just because it's always fun to see these guys play for different teams. Summer tournament soccer is just great. It's great to have soccer on all day. It's great to watch these guys. It means a lot to the players.

I want to talk to you a little bit about sort of like some wider angle questions about the tournament before we start talking about the final. We were going to be joined by Donnie Kwok from the ringer and Kevin Clark. Take Artist Supreme, Kevin Clark. My arch nemesis. But, I wanted to ask, you said we talked a little bit a couple in the office about this idea

that one of the reasons why these games have been a little bit of a grind, and I don't mean to put you on the spot here or anything, but was, managers can't really execute the visions that they might have if they had players who had either been playing with each other for a long time or were all of like a very similar talent level. And I think the thing we were talking about was this idea of playing a high line, like you can't play a high line if you don't have athletic defenders or if they're not. communicating well, right? Can we talk a little bit about that? Because I think that explains a little bit of why teams were sitting so deep and there was a lot of playing for penalties,

even into the late knockouts. Yeah, I think the idea of pressing a team and being proactive defensively is like a thing that's sort of taking over club soccer. But it requires you to have pressure from your attacking players and to have defenders that can cover a lot of space. If you don't have pressure from your attacking players and your defense is pushed up, the guys in the back can just play a long ball over the top and you're screwed, which is what happened with Belgium against Italy. France did it a bunch of times against Iceland. And it's just a thing that needs to be coordinated team-wide. And the only team that really did it that well this tournament was Italy. And we've talked about how their their manager, Conte, or former manager now,

kept a select group of players within that team and always called up the same guys, not the most talented guys, but had them playing together enough that they sort of had a cohesive system. And you saw it against Germany, Germany, rather than trying to play like Germany, they just mirrored Italy system. Yeah, they went to a three at the back, right? And made it, you know, they probably dominated, they didn't dominate, but they probably shaded the run of play in that game but you know the fact that the defending world champs had to just sort of give in and be reactive against Italy sort of tells you everything about yeah maybe that's the way to look at it is that there weren't enough proactive teams you know even Germany like unless the the competition

was really far below them and that was it was so cool about that semi-final is that even though it was only a two-nothing score line I felt like France blew them off the ball and I actually felt like they were so aggressive that it allowed them to deal with any German attacks like pretty easily. I was really, really impressed with how composed France was in the last 10, 15 minutes of that game. Yeah, like we were said, like I said earlier, you know, Germany was pushing them so deep into their territory, but they didn't really get that many great chances. And I think that might even sort of fall into what you're saying about just these teams not being able to really prepare and be too complex tactically. Because at the club level, you know, you're working on all these.

intricate movements within the final third. And you know that you're going to have to play teams that pack it in and you figure out ways to get through it. And, you know, France is a bunch of big bodies that can jump higher than all the guys on Germany, can outrun them, can knock them off the ball. And Germany kind of just felt like they were lumping the ball into the box and didn't really have any ideas. And they didn't have Gomez to lump it to.

Yeah, exactly. Before we move forward into talking about the final with Portugal and France, let's talk a little bit about some of the games that we saw, albeit they were not games that we would tell our children about. What was a team that didn't make it to the final that you were excited by? And what was a team that you were disappointed by? Team I was excited by. I mean, Italy is very exciting. We've sort of talked about them already. I'd say Wells. I think they... That dude, Paul Baker disagrees with you.

Paul Parker, is that his name? I think Paul Parker. Paul Parker was this British pundit, English pundit, who was just like Wales bottled it. Yeah. He compared Christiana Rinaloa to Andy Carroll. But you know what? He had a point in the sense that whales will probably never have as good a chance as that. Yeah, I think so. But it's the thing for Wells is what made them so exciting is that they had Bell sort of just running around with his head cut off essentially, but still finding goals.

And then they had Aaron Ramsey playing in like a very central number 10 position, which he doesn't get to do for Arsenal because he's not really good enough to do that for a team that good. And doing it against Wells, you realize how awesome this guy actually is. is. Yeah. And they didn't have him against Portugal. And Wales is just... Did he play that way? Was that where he played for Arsenal in his breakout season?

No, he was a little farther back. Like the Gerard kind of number eight. And when you try to be Gerard, you fail. Yeah. That's the moral of that story. But not having him against Portugal, it's, you know, Wells is such a fun story because we got to see a couple of these super star level players playing with, you know, James Collins, who just the fact that he was in.

Or Robson, you know. Yeah. Robson was still not on a team. But they're not, once they lose one of those guys, they're screwed. Not having Ramsey. It was sort of, I didn't see any way of them winning unless Bail had a couple free gigs. The tournament was definitely not helped by the yellow card suspensions in the last couple of, especially the semi-final round. What was a team that you were sort of let down by?

England, for sure. I mean, I wanted to talk about this too. I mean, we sort of always expect England to implode, but we had a lot of real. reasons to not to think this team wouldn't because it's so many young players that play this very energetic style that doesn't seem very England-like. And the first game against Russia was sort of same old thing. They dominated the game and then give up a goal at the end. But I thought they played well.

Then against Wells, they beat Wells, which is like something that seems to be forgotten in the British press because it's all talking about how Wells have the heart and mentality to succeed in England. The Dragons. England are a bunch of babies, I think, Jamie. character described them as. But the thing about thing, like, in international soccer, you can get unlucky and you can get upset by an underdog. But against Iceland, England legitimately got outplayed.

Yeah. Iceland had the better chances. And that's just like... And the great, the best thing that came out of that match was the post-mortems about how Iceland just has, like, more coaches per capita than England does. I mean, something like one to every, one UEFA licensed coach for every, like, 100 people in Iceland or something insane stuff like that. I think that the rumors that England's looking at Roberto Mancini or even Klinsman for that matter.

I mean, they said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again when you know the result. It's like, no, or that's the definition of insanity is just being English. You know what I mean? I can't, I don't think that they should hire. I don't know necessarily Eddie Howe or any of these guys, younger British managers or whoever would be able to ring better results out of this team. But I've never seen a team crying out to just say, fuck it. and have a bunch of 20-year-olds playing, then England.

Just go for it. Just go for it with kids. Nobody wants to see Rooney in midfield. Nobody wants to watch Cahill get roasted anymore. Just do us all a favor. Tell me about a player that you saw during this tournament that you can't wait to watch in club football this fall. This guy sort of went out on a very low note

after hitting one of the worst penalties, non-Germany-Italy edition I've ever seen but it's Granite Jaka of Switzerland he just signed for Arsenal and the guy is just a passing machine can hit the 70-R diagonal ball can make a quick pass out of pressure

and you know Switzerland are not a possession dominant team necessarily on the level of Spain or Germany but this guy's passing stats are at he he's passing it as high of a rate as Tony Cruz or any of the Spanish midfielder's in the Euros and he just looks like a guy who's so comfortable with the ball at his feet. This is way too early to say,

and a lot of it's going to depend on what they do with Sanchez and whether he gets sold to Juventus. But what do you see Arsenal's three in midfield as? Is it El Neni, Zaka, and one of Wilshire, Cazorlo, Ozel, like, what are they going to do? If they play 433 or if they play 4, 2, 3, 1, is that a double pivot that they're going to play with Jacques and El Neni?

El Neni looked good towards the end of last season. And I guess Cocholine will be coming back, won't he? He will. I think it's going to depend on the game, which is maybe an unsatisfying answer. I think Jacques will always be in there because you can use that type of passing against anyone. And with a guy like that,

maybe you want to be able to free him up by playing a more defensive sort of destroyer next to him. And I think it'll be Cochlan or El Nenei with, I don't know, it'll be interesting because, because Zorla sort of got moved back from the attacking midfield position to... More of a playmaker. But Jacques is just better at that. And then you've got a lot of guys who probably should be playing up the middle one. Yeah, like we saw with Ramsey.

Yeah, and Wilshire and, yeah. Yeah. That'll be interesting. Okay, let's call Donny Kwok, speaking of Arsenal. Let's call Donnie and talk a little bit about this France team. Ryan, let's talk a little bit with Donnie Kwok about, you know, a noted Arsenal fan. in our midst. Too many.

Let's talk a little bit about France here, actually. Donnie, thanks for joining us, ma'am. Thanks for having me. I'm excited and honor to be here. So we were just talking about France and Arsenal, of which there's always like a, there's a long-lasting connection through Arsendvinger. And I was wondering, you guys already,

Arsenal already has a couple of players who are on the France national team playing with them lining up for them. It's got Kishelny and Drew, obviously, and Sanya, who is on the team. team used to be on Arsenal, is cliche on France? No. No.

He isn't. He didn't make it. That's too bad. That's right. That's because he was in that video with PEP learning how to play soccer game. Yeah, where he couldn't pass. But I wanted to ask you, if you could buy any one player, one player that you would break the Arsenal bank, which is pretty big already, on this France squad.

Who would you want to buy? Is Griesman the player of the tournament? He is. I mean, he's on route for the golden boot. He scored the biggest goals. He has the most viral dance. It's all coming together for him. He's a week late, because I think if he had done this right at the round of 16 or the quarters,

if he really exploded then, I think we would have had like a real sensation on our hands. Well, I mean, let's be honest, the dance is like eight months late. But I see what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, Griesman, the cool thing is the Deschamps let Griesman be Griesman. Am I right, Ryan? Yeah. I think so. We all sort of, when he benched Grisman and Pagba in the second game, quote unquote,

Managing. Against Albania, by saying we all, I think, I mean me personally, lost our minds and were like, what the hell is this dude doing? But since Grisman's come back in, he's just been on fire, and they've let him sort of run around off of Arsenal's own Olivier Jureu, and it's when this guy gets ahead of steam, I don't think there's anyone that can really do anything about it. I don't think so either. I mean, he's doing the things that he did on Atlago these last couple.

It was he on, it's like two seasons for Athletico at this point, right? Right. Yeah. Right. And he's, he has a lot of, as you mentioned, some arsenal-like qualities, two-footed, technically sound, first touch and all of that. But he's also very opportunistic and clinical, I would say, which is un-Arsonal-like. And I think that's part of his athletic bloodline, you might say. I mean, he's in passion.

I know those are cliches, but that seem to be missing a little bit from the Arsenal side. So it's interesting to see that sort of rub off a little bit on Giroud. I think they have this really interesting symbiotic relationship that makes me excited, you know, to see. It would be making me excited to see at the Emirates, you know, but it's not going to happen, of course. I feel like he is destined to go to a place like Bancid or even, not Barsa, but is Ray Allen for him. I mean, who are the teams that are in for? for a Griseman.

I think basically everyone will be in from, I mean, Barsa's probably the one team that he can't fit in. He's,

yeah, a lot of teams have taken a fire on him over the last, you know, since he was in associated out, I think like five

or six years, it seems, and yeah, he's definitely destined for the biggest stage possible, and I don't even know what his value

with Ryan, how much do you think he would be worth? I mean, if he went now. If Pagba is 100, you think, 75?

75. I don't know, like just looking at some of the prices that are mooted for these like decidedly average strikers. It's like, it wouldn't be totally shocking if he like went for the world record fee, especially after this tournament. He does seem like a loyal type of guy. And I mean, I know that they're all like that, I guess, in the beginning before they. I think he just re-uped not too long ago. Yeah. I mean, I've been, I've said a couple of times this.

this spring already that I'm really, really, really liking the way that Chelsea is putting their team together. I'm a piccante believer. I think if he can figure out how to drive that team without driving them over the cliff without a winter break with some of the things they're going to be facing them. There is a very funny picture of Greisman playing football manager as Chelsea. So if that was any signal, if Roman was able to open up the money submarine and send it over to him.

I think Griseman on Chelsea would be incredible. It would be, but him and his art are a little redundant, though. Yeah, they both run at dudes a lot. Like, I think it's, but I, you know, to me, it's like you just, if you're Chelsea, you want as much talent on the field as possible right now. But I don't know if Grisman is like. I could totally see it. I could totally see him in blue, sadly.

352, Grisman and Hazard. It's not very tall. Or him and Mishi up top together. Donnie, what do you think there's like a parallel? don't you think between the way Griseman kind of grew into the tournament and the way France did, right? Like, they were definitely playing their best football against Germany. Yeah, I mean, as Ryan mentioned, after that shit show of the opening match, you know, Descham changed the lineup for the second game.

And, yeah, throughout the group stage, it was a little bit of sleepwalking, as Arson would say, you know, a handbrake-on type of playing. But, yeah, they have seemed to have gotten better every game. and obviously the Iceland game was where they really exploded. I mean, against Germany, to be fair, the first half, they weren't that good. They were being overrun in midfield, and had that penalty not occurred, Germany may very well have won that game. So you can't really say after watching the semifinal that France was demonstrably better than Germany,

I don't think. Is there in a perfect world where the brackets hadn't fallen the way they did, and there wasn't this sort of disproportionate amount of, I mean, we could make the argument whether big countries or more traditionally powerful countries should equal better countries in soccer, but obviously the brackets were a little bit out of whack. Who would you have liked to have seen in the Final Four?

Who do you think after watching the tournament were the deserving Final Four teams? The deserving Final Four? I think France, Germany, I'd say Italy too. Yeah. Yeah, I would say Italy. And I'm going to say Portugal Yeah, well we'll get on to that

What do you Before we go, Donnie What do you think of Of how Portugal has been playing? Well, you know, they've been getting a lot of shit I mean, to be fair, a lot of shit performances I mean, I think Portugal is always watchable Just because of Ronaldo

And even his, you know, it's like they say for baseball players Even like a swing and a miss For some batters is exciting I mean, that's what Ronaldo, even his gesticulations are worth watching I think, you know, Portugal's interest because it's a villain team.

I don't think you're a troll. You're the pepe in this podcast. I'm not a troll, a devil's advocate, maybe is a nice way to say it. I think you're more of like, if you're a Portugal troll, you're more like Luis Figo, like a classy,

older, well-dressed troll. I'd throw a pig head at you. Okay, Donnie, well, let me get a final prediction from you before you take off. Okay, in troll fashion,

I will say, Portugal, Ronaldo, both goals. Nice. I like it. All right, man. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the final. Okay, talk to you guys later. Peace. Bye. Sometimes this segues right themselves, Ryan. So to talk about a team of trolls, let's bring this podcast troll on. Kevin Clark, what's up, man?

I'm also a well-dressed troll. Yeah. You are. Yeah. Great hair. Yeah, I want to say something about what Donnie said about Greisman being very Arsenal-like. So, Griesman turned down Arsenal two years ago. so he is very Arsenal-like and that he doesn't want to play for Arsenal which is pretty clearly the pattern of any good player

for Arsenal. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad to be back. Let's talk a little bit about Portugal. I think that they have gotten the benefit of the draw for sure, but another team like France who's maybe playing,

I think it's fair to say, is playing their best soccer at the end of the tournament that have figured out how to play. Ryan wrote a really good piece about Cristiano Ronaldo on the ringer today that talks about how Ronaldo's

late period is increasingly he is the end point. He is becoming more and more of a striker, less and less picking the ball up early in the play and driving at teams and more a goal mouth or outside of goal mechanism for scoring. What do you think of how Portugal has been playing in these last couple games? If you were to draw up and no one's going to accuse them

of playing beautifully this last month basically, but if you were to draw up a plan, if you were to say fix Portugal, wouldn't you say don't take any risks and just let rinaldo do what he does and then basically keep everybody else back that's what they're doing um i mean i i just i feel like rinaldo what seven and a half shots per game leading the tournament uh in shots outside the box second behind graceman in shots inside the box like that is volume shooting yeah okay he is just he's like the ultimate he's swaggy p okay um that's where rinaldo's at right now

And I just think that's the style you have to do. This is not 2004 Portugal. There is not a backbone of a Champions League defending team like the 2004 team had with Porto. It's just kind of 10 dudes plus Ronaldo. The golden generation is gone and they're making the best of it. I hear what he's saying. But sometimes when teams come to the tournament and that's their plan is 10 guys in Ronaldo or England, let's just not fuck up. what is qualifying for?

What are you doing? Like that's what you came up with? Like you see what Conte did with Italy. He did not have superior talent. He probably could have even picked superior talent within his country. I mean, he probably could have had more goals out there. And he could have used it against Germany. But he had a plan that was inventive that took the game to other teams that forced their will on other teams.

He had a cycle that he went through with his country. I don't understand what other countries. are doing here. I think the thing that's important to point out with Conte, though, is that Italy were the oldest team at this tournament, and he knew he was done after this. So he has no interest in sort of developing Italy. Everybody else is coaching these teams are basically losers. Yeah, but he has, that is generally true.

But he has no reason to, like, care about how Italy does after this tournament. You know what I mean? Sure. Santos for Portugal, he's playing a lot of the guys from the team, the team. that did so well in the under 21 European championships. Renato Sanchez. So he's developing these guys giving them game time, which is important. And I think the thing that's important to point out with Portugal is that they didn't

necessarily play this packed in way in the group stage. Like against Hungary, they opened the game up and they had way more shots than Hungary, but they gave up a bunch of shots to Hungary too. And when you do that, Hungary had a couple deflections and sort of one in 30 shots that went in. And they tied 3-3. It sort of opens you up to. to a lot of randomness. But isn't that, is that kind of like when Arsenal gets a, a Swansea who try to play

a little bit with them and they just blow them away? Like, I, you're making a face because I think, I'm probably sure that Arsenal's lost to Swansea like three times in a row or something, but it feels like that was, I would love it if that was like the norm, but yeah. Yeah. What I would say is like, if you play that style throughout a Premier League season, you have 38 games and you're going to create the more chances and it's going to even out. but you do occasionally get that Arsenal 4-4 Newcastle game or 4-3, whatever it was.

Which is great for everybody except. In international tournament, do you want to open yourself up to that possibility happening in the round of 16? If the alternative penalties, I would rather take 4-4. Or 5-4. Sure. If I was Italy, I would never enter a penalty shootout ever again. Ever again. Yeah, exactly.

I would leave the field after 125. Is Zaza still at the penalty spot? shuffling his feet. Saza is somewhere like a guy's wearing a Manwell Neuer mask at a bar somewhere and he's like he's trying to talk trash to him. Kevin, one of the things that Ryan wrote about in his piece was this idea of winning the Euros and whether or not it would be a feather in Ronaldo's cap, which. Yeah. He said he had used it towels. He said these tournaments happen so infrequently that it doesn't really impact the legacy. Yeah. of a player like Ronaldo. To which I'll just throw this question at you, Ryan. When did you stop liking soccer?

When I started working for the ringer. But the point that I think you're making is that when you're Ronaldo and you're putting, you've got a cupboard full of trophies of Real Madrid anyway. Nobody's going to go back in time and be like, well, he never won it with Portugal because everybody will be smart enough to know he didn't have the right players around him or the right manager with him. If Ronaldo, this is why I was kind of hoping that Marina didn't get one of these good jobs is that he would manage Portugal in the World Cup.

He's a little late for Ronaldo, but this is probably with him, like this 2018 World Cup will be the last his last tournament significantly, I bet. His last tournament that he'll contribute to significantly. Yeah, I mean, if there's one guy that's going to keep playing until he's like 57, it's Ronaldo, but I think you're probably right. Captaining L-A-F-C. Yeah, the best team in the world at that point.

looking up with lamps somewhere. I know. What do you think about this idea? So I just think that what we're seeing right now is awesome. Anyone who likes watching Ronaldo play and likes his, I kind of like his selfish streak. I mean, I liked it at Manu when he was just like, yeah, when Mandy started to dip down in quality a little bit,

and he was like, I'm just going to play up front and try to score 30 goals a year. That was awesome to me, okay? I enjoy that. I like when LeBron tries to take over a game. I like when Ronaldo tries to take over a tournament. So I think that, yes, these individual flashes of brilliance do help the legacy. If someone, look, no one says, okay, George Best, what, never qualified for an international tournament?

No one sits there and says, well, George Best was a choke artist. But it does help the legacy if you have a month like this where the entire world is watching you. I think that we now, because there's so much soccer on TV, because we're all obsessed with soccer in one way or the other, we overrate how much people pay attention to the club season. Because I think that the casual fan, a lot of these people are just watching, you know, they'll watch the Champions League Final, the Champions League Semi Final, watch when Lester clenches. If their Twitter fight gets like overwhelming about holy shit a game that's happening on Monday afternoon. A lot of people still judge players based on international tournaments.

Look at Messi. Messy rage quit after losing in Giant Stadium. Yeah, that's just because he knew he was going to go to prison for a year and a half. It was back. I know. And so I just, I feel like, yes, it is awesome to take over. international tournament, it helps your legacy. I don't know.

I think what Messi is so good that it does ding his legacy a little bit that he couldn't do it with Argentina. I think it's also because that Argentina team should be really good. Yeah. A team with Maserato and Di Maria and Missy and Iguyen should be really good. Just really quickly, can someone please give me the best explanation to why Messi can't do it for Argentina? Because I saw him in Seattle, and we talked to this a little bit about this when I wrote

that piece. He doesn't play the same way. He removes himself all the time from offensive possessions. He looks extremely uncomfortable when he doesn't have the ball at his feet, which I imagine is not the case when he's at the new camp. Okay. And so I just, do you have a good explanation for why some superstar players just don't jive when they're outside their club? I mean, part of it is because it's just harder to. Like, Messi, you know, he's the vocal point of Barcelona, but the team is very, like, sophisticatedly built around him.

And in Argentina, it's like, you do your thing. and we're going to win because of you. I mean, the thing that I would say with Argentina, it's like before the final of the 2010 World Cup, Anhele DiMaria, second best player in Argentina gets injured. In the Copa America final, DeMaria pulls his hamstring in the first 30 minutes. D'Amara barely played against Chile

in this past Copa America final. And Iguyen, who's one of the best finishers in the world, has had like multiple. very clear-cut finishing chances that if you finish any of them, Messi would have at least one trophy. So I think it's important to make a distinction between, you know, if Ronaldo was just playing like garbage in the Euros,

I think that that's something we would remember. Sure. But like he's in the final now and it's one game. And I don't think one game should have such a big effect on how we view a player. I agree with you. I also think that another reason aside from the, like these moments in a vacuum that

Ryan's talking about is that if Bessi's God, he needs his angels. And his angels were Shavi and Iniesta and Bousquet's and this machine that just generated not chances but the chance for chances for him. Where it's like you never had to worry

about the transition from defense to midfield to the final third with Barcelona whereas I don't know that I mean who's the best central midfielder that Argentina has? Mascherano's the best one. But he plays central defense. does me?

Yeah. Your man, Ever Benegga. I mean, Vanega is a king, but I would, I mean, it's pastoree, I guess. I don't know, but they don't have that kind of fluidity and dependability in central midfield of Barcelona. I get that. My overarching point, though, you know, Bill Simmons loves to talk about moments. And after the LeBron Block, he talked about how that was a signature moment, how Kobe didn't

really have a moment. That's a bill take, not me. But just if Renaulton. delivers this weekend and he scores a late goal, those moments add up. And I think that, I think sometimes we lose, we lose sight of what the point of sports is and it's to have, like, have a great time and have fun. And seeing Ronaldo score a late winner in a huge tournament for a shit team would be fucking awesome.

I'm rooting for France, but to your point, if he wins it, I'm cheering for him. It's like, if he wins it, I want him to win it for him. because I have, there's like two hours of a YouTube mixtape of Ronaldo moments that I'm gonna remember for the rest of my life because he's done things

in a game that I've never seen anybody do before. I just want it for him because it clearly means a lot to him as it should and it's something that's probably you know, he has so little control over

whether or not his national side is up to his level. Yeah. I would love to see him get it just for him. You know, he deserves something. Yeah. Would you,

The thing, part of it is, I think, just as I've matured as a human being, if I have matured as a human being or if I'm imagining it, I've come to respect and really like Ronaldo a lot. Would you, you know, four years ago, you wouldn't have probably said what you just said, right? Maybe, maybe you've. I think when Marino and Guardiola were managing Barcelona and Madrid, respectively, it was so much, it was just so easy to fall into good guy, bad guy,

Luke Skywalker, Darth stuff with Bessie and Ronaldo. And I think I was just as much a victim to that. But that being said, you know, I've never, especially in the Madrid years, he's just been one of the world's four or five best athletes. Yeah. One of the things, so I've become less mature as a person as time goes on, but one of the things with me, with people like Ronaldo, and you learn more as you go on in sports. And we've obviously worked in sports now, all of us for at least five years.

and we understand how hard it is to get to that level. I think when you're outside of the sports realm or you're young or you're just starting out, you think that there are people who can float through life and become, oh, Ronaldo is so athletic, of course, it's going to be like that. And then you get within 100,000 miles of sports and you realize how hard. Even Ronaldo, oh, Mr. Abbs, Mr. Oh, he's taking his shirt off. All that's all he cares about. That's like one, one millionth of what he cares about.

Like you cannot become that dominant of a force unless you have a supernatural work ethic. Yeah. Every NFL quarterback is a supernatural work ethic. I mean, that's the Ronaldo thing. And you can tell he's obsessed with Greatless, not unlike the way LeBron is. Yes, exactly. He is, we will be telling our grandchildren we sell Ronaldo play. All right, let's wrap things up.

Ryan, who do you want to win and who's going to win? I want France to win just because the way I've been deciding who I want to win these games is which team will be more devastated if they lose, I want that team to win. And if France loses at home, all of these young guys that I love, Pagba, Griesman, all of them that's just going to be really upsetting to see them crying on the field. So I want them to win. But I think Portugal's going to win. I think they just have that.

They've shown a way of, like, France, the way they played against Germany or the lineup they played is a very attacking lineup. And Portugal's just shown the ability to sort of suck the attacking life out of any team. and, you know, is Kishelny going to be able to handle Ronaldo one-on-one on a counterattack? If you haven't seen Arsenal in the championship. Yeah. So I think Portugal is going to win it. I agree with you.

My take, my historic take was that France was too talented to win. It turned out that Germany was too talented to win. Too much talent in Germany is a huge problem. Twelve years ago, I believe the first Euro I ever watched is a fan. Portugal went into a home final and everyone thought this was going to be a cinch and they lost 1-0 to the Greeks. I see a very similar thing happening

right now this weekend. I feel like France is going to get shut down by Portugal. They're not going to know what to do. And Ronaldo, if he's taking eight shots a game, one of those is going to go in. And I just feel like it's going to be 1-0 to the Portuguese. I was going to say Portugal on Penns, but I'm saying 3-0-0 France based on what you guys are saying.

I know. I thought about that too. I thought it was being counterintuitive. Pogba Hattrick? Yeah. I think Antoine and Olivia go off. I think Pepe is the only really good defender on Portugal right now, and I just think they're going to boss it. Let's say that.

I'll be happy for them. We're not going to have enough trophies. All right, we'll be back a couple of times over the course of the summer to do some transfer pods, and we'll, I mean, before we know it, Premier League's back August 15th. So we'll do some European preview stuff. I'll call from Vikings training camp. Please do.

Please do call up with Teddy Bridgewater and see how he's feeling about Southampton this year. For Ryan O'Hanlon and Kevin Clark, I'm Chris Ryan. Thanks for listening.