Will Cain Country - BREAKING: More Assault Allegations Rock Platner's Campaign (ft. Emily Austin & Kayce Smith)

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

It’s a brutal day for American soccer. Following a devastating loss to Belgium, the Stars and Stripes are officially out of the World Cup. Will the sport's momentum in the U.S. survive the heartbreak? Emily Austin, host of ‘The Emily Austin Show,’ joins Will & The Crew to break it all down. Plus, they tackle the concerning headlines surrounding Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the urgent need for congressional term limits, and the latest campaign-shaking scandal hitting Graham Platner. Later, Barstool’s Kayce Smith stops by to continue the post-mortem on the USMNT’s annihilation, and debate what it will take for America to finally compete with the world's soccer elite. Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠ Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@WillCainNews) Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sad, disappointed, embarrassed. Just like that, it's over. It's over for the United States. But it's not over. I'm not done. We're not done. It's not over. We're still here for the World Cup in America.

It does look over. for Mitch McConnell, and it certainly looks over for Graham Platner with Emily Austin and Casey Smith. The McCain Country streaming live with the Wilcane Country YouTube channel, the Wilcane Facebook page. Here, please just hit follow at Spotify or on Apple. Today we're hanging out with the host of the Emily Austin show, along with Tenfold Pat and Two a Days, Dan. Hi, Emily. Hey. Glad to have you here today on Wilcane Country.

If you would so indulge us, Emily. We're going to begin this show today with just a little bit of. housekeeping. We need to get some lightsaw and some disinfectant into the room. We need to go ahead and clear the air because we have problems. Thanks, Ed. Go ahead and bring it in. Go ahead and bring it in. We need to literally disinfect the environment. Okay, thank you, Ed. We're going to go ahead and get rid of some things that stink on this show. And all I have to do is turn over to everyone's bastion of charm, X. When you need something to uplift you, might I suggest a healthy dose of X? And if you're looking for something to really lift the spirits, might I suggest the deuce

on X? That would be the X-handle account of the producer of Wilcane Country, one tin foil Pat Patrick Hatton. Bummer last night for Team USA, huge bummer, which are going to be getting into throughout the hour today. We'll talk about it in terms of what it means for the future of U.S. soccer, what it means for this World Cup. But for now, let's just talk about it what it means for Wilcane Country. So as we are all as a country suffering together through what amounted to an embarrassing loss, as described by Alexie Lawless and Carly Lloyd as a disappointing exit from the World Cup, I made the mistake, as I often do, and I want to apologize to my family and my own mental health

of turning over to X. I'm having trouble pulling this up for the audience, but it's of no matter. This is how it went down on X. The way too cool Josh Holmes of ruthless announced to the American public.

Look at it this way. We can all go back to hating soccer tomorrow. To which Tenfold pat replied. Yeah. Finally. Exactly. Exactly, Emily. Speak for yourself, Carmudgeon.

Downer. Speak for yourself, Pat. And then he wasn't done. He actually waited an hour. It wasn't as though he wanted to get it out within about a five-minute period, and he had a couple of hot takes he wanted to fire off. He cooled down, he took an hour, and he came back. Raw Alerts says ICE is reportedly ramping arrest back up under Trump with White House pushing 2,000 detentions a day. To which, again, stinky old Pat says, soccer is over, exclamation point.

And then this son of a bitch has the nerve to jump in and debate one Chris Saliza, who says the problem with U.S. Soccer is we put too much emphasis on size and frame. And he suggests he might engage in a substantive debate about soccer and says, name one good forward under 510. Pat, the question for us here today is at what point in your life did you decide that the effort and time needed to develop a charming personality? could easily be replaced by simply being an asshole. That last one was a really good joke. Who, I mean, who comes to mind?

Messy. Yes. Yeah, he's 5'7. By the way, I was trying to get engagement. Jalen Brunson is one of the shortest NBA players. So size doesn't matter, ladies. Mugsy Bogs. Let's go.

Exactly. Right. Size doesn't matter, ladies, says Emily Austin. Emily, you've been covering the World Cup. You've been, I think, at several devenu's stadiums, perhaps some of the games, some of the fan fests. This is over for America. But this is not over. This World Cup is a overwhelming success, not just for the world for America.

I'm not talking about our performance on the pitch. I'm talking about this has been awesome. This entire month, and it's not over. We got quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final to go. Yeah, we're going to lose some Americans because there's no red, white, and blue. but this has been incredible and is still coming to a city near you. We still have L.A., Dallas, New York, hosting the world and hosting incredible athletic feats. Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's like, y'all can't escape us.

Yeah, we're out of the competition, but you're in my turf, sweetheart. You're not going anywhere until this is over. So that's A. Number two, I think anyone who cared enough to tune into Team USA who hates soccer so much, I think it's people's personality to pretend that they hate soccer. just because it's a conversation to be had that draws attention to them. But if you were watching the men's national team for America, I promise you're going to watch,

you're going to want to watch whoever is going to knock out Belgium, just out of mere curiosity, just out of hate watching. I don't think anyone's actually going to completely tune out. And also now we're out of the knockout rounds. We're going to the quarterfinal, semis, finals. You don't need to watch six games a day anymore. You just need to watch, what is it? Spain, Norway, Brazil got knocked out.

That was crazy. Egypt, Argentina. Who doesn't want to watch Messi? By the way, Will. Next season, we have to go to Miami to watch Messi. This is the most slept-on gem that America has. Like, do you realize we have the greatest soccer player of all time in Miami? And like, we're not capitalizing enough on that.

But regarding last night's performance, here's what I posted on X. Team USA so bad right now, Trump could sign an executive order, deploy the National Guard, call FIFA, rename soccer to football, and we would still screw this up. Because we didn't just lose. First of all, we could have beat Belgium. And we didn't lose by a goal. We lost 4-1. So it was humiliating.

In fact, I saw that self-deportations were at a new time high last night. So I don't know. But I'm joking. But my friends at DHS were like, we're going to self-deport ourselves if USA doesn't win. I think the problem for someone like myself was that I was so cocky. like I walked around with this USA hubris. I'm like, home court advantage, y'all. And then, you know, that was embarrassing.

I think the blowout is very deflating. I think if it was a closer game, it would have, I just think it just took a lot of the air out of the World Cup. You got embarrassed. Oh, and the red card conversation. It's like now we lost and people are perceiving it as like special favors, which I just covered on my podcast, wasn't a special favor, it was merely a review.

But it's like, all right, we went through all of that. to not lose to get annihilated. It's just, it's so, today's a morning day for me. Because it's not just mourning for the United States men's national team, and it's not just morning for America. It is a mourning for our ego, to your point. And all of those storylines are wrapped up in one.

As a long time, well, long time. As well over a decade lover of soccer, well over a decade. My boys have been playing soccer since before 2015, which led me to picking a team in the English Premier League, and following soccer on a weekend-to-weekend basis, whether or not it's in Italy, Spain, or England, but notably, and perhaps for this discussion, not so much in America, not a big follower of the MOS. This was so deflating to our individual egos.

And here's why. First, fair play, Belgium, fair play. I loved, if you guys saw the video this morning, Belgium doing the Trump dance in their locker room. That's good. That's just good trash talk. And that's the way you should handle that. If you feel like you were aggrieved and you were wrong, go ahead. Co-op the Trump dance.

I have no hatred for Belgium. I actually have none in this whole thing. And I may even root for Belgium. There's nothing. What we figured out. Too far. Hey, whoa. No, I don't.

No, it was never personal with Belgium for me. And honestly, Belgium's cool. You can get on to David Marcus for. For anyone else, not the one that beat us. If you're, yeah. No, that's not true. No, that's not true. Here's the problem.

Belgium, by the way, in their complaints over the red card recension, was no different than anybody else. Hell, I'm a huge Holland fan, and I'm going to, Holland, not Dutch, but the early Holland, and I'm going to root for Norway. Their coach was one of the primary instigators on this red card thing. That's fine. That's not rooting for Belgium. Player, pundit, and fan has been complaining about this. And so, so too, did Belgium. Belgium didn't do anything but complain and then proceed to go out and absolutely smoke us.

So I'm not, I'm sorry. Maybe different than you guys. I'm not mad at Belgium for doing so. What was on display for us last night is how much better they actually are. Literally, let me just tell you how much better Belgium is than the United States of America. And I'm going to lay this track first. We played like garbage. That's not the best version of the United States of America, but I'm not sure the best version could beat Belgium.

The only thing that could have happened to actually come out with a W last night was us to play our absolute ever-loving best. and for them, which they had been, by the way, to play their worst. They had not been playing well. That was our only hope. Otherwise, let me just explain something to you. Christian Polisic not only would not start for Belgium, but he probably wouldn't even see the field. Hell, he barely sees the field for America. He takes himself out with injury in almost every single game, and that's the flat-out truth.

But Kevin DeBroyna didn't see the field. He's one of the best players of all time, and he didn't even get in the game last night for Belgium. And we would not have a single American, maybe Malik Tillman, because he's now our best player, get on the field if they were playing for Belgium. And that showed the chasm we still have between us and the quote unquote proverbial big boys. This is who we are. We're third tier. We're 14th, 15th, 16th best in the world. And those teams lose in the round of 16, like we do in every single World Cup.

Like I will never understand. Okay. excuse me and please don't like clip me in a manipulative way, not you guys, viewers. Like, okay, say Americans suck at soccer. We have too many immigrants who definitely don't suck at soccer to justify. I can't justify having a national team that looks like this. Because fine, say we're genetically just not great at soccer, which I don't believe, but like, okay, maybe we're not investing enough into Americans playing soccer.

Half of the other teams are full of people that are not from that country, but are citizens of that country. We are a nation of immigrants. Why can't we find a handful of people from soccer cult countries and just like bring them to the national stage? Like every other country did it. Why is it so hard for us?

Like why do we need to? No one knew the names besides maybe will you and I and whoever else is on this panel of three players on the U.S. men's team. Three. Okay. Okay. I want to address that particular point. I'm going to put off more soccer conversation

for just a little bit later, but you bring up an interesting point that I hadn't considered. So first of all, everybody who's a casual today is positing why we can't get over the hump in soccer. And the truth is, every single theory has been mulled over, and for that matter, tried to be resolved. Okay, people have tried to resolve the money issue. It cost too much for youth in America to play soccer. They've tried to resolve the culture issue. They've tried to resolve every single issue, and it hasn't taken. You make an interesting point, the immigrant issue. Not only the immigrants living in America, but the dual citizens.

Look, outside of Pulisic, okay, the names that you saw last night are the people you're describing Emily. Okay, Flo Balligan has lived all of about one month in America, right? When he was born up until his mom got the first flight back to England. He was raised in England. Malik Tillman, not raised in America. These guys have American passports because they have American parents.

Sergenio Dest, who was horrific last night, also not raised in America. So we have access to both immigrants who actually live here and immigrants other words. But then you ask, okay, you're right. Look at France. Those are all, you know, immigrants to France. Look at Belgium. Luca Baccio.

Romolo Lekaku. These are not, you know, multi-generational native Belgians. These are immigrants to Belgium. So where's our Lakaku? Where's our Labakio? And the answer to that is, I believe this. in part, in part. There are Americans, people with American passports,

who are raised somewhere else, come up in a bigger soccer culture and a better soccer players. They don't choose to play for America. Right. Because why would you? Why would you sign up to go play for a team that's going to go out in the round of 16? Where honestly, too many people like Patrick can make fun of soccer. When you can go play in Belgium and be a national hero.

Yeah. Well, we're just talking about for the national team. All those guys play pro, Dest, Tillman, Balagan, Polisik. They all play in Europe professionally. So we're just talking about when you choose to play for your national team. And I saw a tweet this morning, there's some player. Oh, you know who it is? Cristiano Ronaldo's son.

Cristiano Ronaldo's son is about like 13 right now. Okay? He's Ronald's son. He's got some good soccer genetics running through his blood. He has the ability to play for Portugal, where he has never lived. but his dad's from Portugal. He's raised in Spain. He can play for Spain.

But guess what? He has an American passport because he was born actually in the United States of America. Ask yourself, will Cristiano Ronaldo's son choose to play for the United States of America? And the answer, you know,

there's one thing we can do and only one thing we can do and we have a good history of doing it. Money-whippin little Ronaldo. Just from... Dude, his dad's a billionaire. The kid doesn't need money. Open the check, though.

I know, you're right. You're right. And honestly... Where's Cody Campbell? And by the way, Right, but we're not the biggest money whippers on the block anymore. Let me introduce you to the Saudis. Exactly.

We need him, though. That would be unbelievable. Compete with the Saudi money first and get talking. Yeah. Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with the host of Emily Austin show. Emily Austin on Wilcane Country. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FNRadio 20.

20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any of their promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order to order. Please drink responsibly. Back to the World Cup, Emily. This guy, when you sent this Patrick and Dan this morning, I thought you were talking about Pablo Torre, former ESPN. Now, investigative journalist in order to make everything in sports suck. But it isn't.

It's Pablo Maniches. And he posts who, I don't know who it is. And he posts on X. The United States should never get another World Cup. We have Fed this one up at every turn. Yon. In what way? In what way?

This has literally been the best World Cup of all time. This has been, not from the perspective of the performance of the United States Men's National Team, but from the perspective of the world, we should have every other World Cup. It should be like America and a quick tour around the world. Back to America, a quick tour around the world. Exactly. No, what's been really cool is that I'm doing a lot of the culture around the World Cup rather than the like the play-by-play and analytical side of it.

So if like you go to my Instagram and you see my fan interviews, I could talk about the ones that didn't make the cut for Instagram just because I'm posting like the funnierer ones, not like the wholesome ones. But I think at the end of the World Cup, I'll post like my unreleased footage. I was speaking to fans from all around the world. And I asked all of them, what's your favorite part of America? And they actually had an answer that shocked me, maybe because like we're not in the Midwest. Like we're in some major cities here, New York, Atlanta, I mean, L.A., I mean, Dallas is in the Midwest, but, you know, Miami. And all of them were like, wow, you know, the hospitality and the warmth of the American people has been next level. And I was like, do you just say warmth?

Are we talking about the same New York, New Jersey that you are? But I really think that America needed this as much as every other country because, you know, obviously it's a weird time. It's a divisive time. And we just needed kind of a worldly play date. So I think we've been more welcoming than we had even anticipated. So it's like they feel that. And trust me, they will be back. So I don't know what the heck this guy is on.

And I've never been to another World Cup to compare. But I bet you Qatar was not like this. I don't think Morocco was like this. You can't compare anything to the United States. And then the worst thing that breaks my heart is while we have Chang Yugers and Hassan Pikers and Jackson Hinkles in America, these people from other countries would do anything to become an American citizen. They are so grateful that their visa got approved.

They love this country. Meanwhile, we have treasonous Americans who hate this country. And I'm just like, man, we need more people like them. One more quick point on this, and comparing the United States to the rest of the world. I did enjoy this. Well, I have no feelings about Belgium. I mean, I do have a little bit of a feeling because, as I said, I've said many times. My favorite soccer player of all time is Belgian.

It's DeBrena. He didn't get on the field last night. But the lefties, and I saw tweets, and I can only presume these were real. Some people said hand to God, hand on heart, this really happened. And you presume it happened in someplace like New York. They said they were at a bar and these lefties, some blue hairs, were rooting for Belgium over the United States. And their rationale was America's history of racism and oppression. And they're like, do you have any idea of the history of Belgium? Yeah. Like any idea whatsoever, what Belgium did in Africa. Like rank the colonial powers and the

atrocities done, okay? I give you the French, I give you the English, I give you any of them. I think you're going to have a hard time not coming back with, wow, Belgium was awful. And here are the lefties rooting for Belgium on these premises. Incredible. They want to leave this country, but every other country is the same way. Yeah, sorry. Yeah.

Emily, I want to go through a little bit of stuff in the world of politics here. first. So let's start with something that I think is bipartisan. And hopefully, I would hope that most average Americans can rally behind the idea that we are high past time for term limits. And that is currently illustrated by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. So the reports are out that Senator McConnell has been hospitalized for three weeks and AIDS won't say why. The New York Times subhead reads. Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital on June 14th in his office. provided few updates about his condition. Here's what we know.

We do have a few details of what people have said. It has been said that he appreciates the outpouring of support. A's the McConnell have not disclosed. He's 84. What prompted his hospitalization? Shortly after McConnell was hospitalized, his spokesman released a short statement saying Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning is receiving excellent care. There's conflicting reports on the seriousness of his condition.

But whatever the case may be. be and we send our condolences to Mitch McConnell and his family, and it's not to pursue insensitivity. We cannot have this in our United States government. We can't have Diane Feinstein. We can't have Mitch McConnell. This is building a massive temple to your ego to never leave, to stay until you are compromised in being an elected representative. In this case, a hugely important senator, we have to do something. We cannot let people stay this long. You know, it's such a good conversation.

And honestly, I've never had it. I don't even know if I've put thought into this before. So I'm happy you brought it up. I was recently in Panama. And I interviewed the mayor of Panama City, who will likely run for president. And I asked him, so what does the next like 15 years of your life look like? And he said, Panama, you can't serve back-to-back terms as president, which on one hand, I feel like in America, that would be a shame because I feel like you can only do so.

much in four years. But it also gives politicians an opportunity to touch grass. Realize that there's a world outside of being the almighty powerful of the country and that there's a different way to live your life, which is a very good thing, I guess. But also, like, I think about Trump. Trump is old. He's really old, actually. I didn't even know how old he was until, like, I think when he won the election, I'm like, is Trump 70? And my dad's like, no, because he's so young at heart and he's like doing things and he's traveling and he's hustling and then you have Biden. And it's like, I don't know if there should be an age limit or if it's a term limit problem. I think we need to be more honest about evaluating people and their mental health and their physical

health because like, yeah, Mitch is disgraceful. The fact that this guy's tripping and falling and hospitalized is like, why are you even, why are you in politics? You should be with your family. Like, you're going to die soon. Yes. That's the reality. And like Joe Biden, poor guy, he was a victim.

But then Trump. So, you know, I think it should be case by case. Obviously, the older you are, the more experience you have. And I know men in their late 70s that are sharp as attack. But like, we need real and honest medical evaluations. But I don't trust any institution anymore. That's the problem. I don't think that my analysis is age versus youth.

Because you're right. Right. While you're right that this is individualized, we should, for the sake of action, say, we do actually have actuarial tables as well. We do know that the older you are, the more likely you are to have lost your faculties than, say, a 39-year-old. But we still need to allow for individuals.

Trump is 80 and obviously more energetic than several 39-year-olds on the screen right now. Hey, what the hell? Literally right now. Like, one of them might have fallen asleep. Like, how do you speak? One might be asleep. Oh, he spoke.

And yet here's Trump, who is 80, right? And so I don't think you can say, well, you can't serve past the age of 74, whatever we're going to set it at. But I do think this is why term limits work. Okay. Trump would not be term limited out. You know, he will be at the age of what will he be, 83 when he's term limited out. You're talking about Senate, though. Well, okay, six-year terms.

Two terms is 12 years. Why is that not enough? Will, what, okay. To get done what you're going to get done. Well, what if I'm 25 and then I run for, well, I can't run for Senate right now. Well, then I guess I don't have that problem. Okay, say I win a Senate seat when I'm 30. Why should I retire at 40 when I could keep going until I'm 50?

You know, if I'm doing a great job. I think the answer to that is because, yes, and many people point that out. There are good senators who you shouldn't be terming out. They've been done good things and they just hit their limit. But while what we have to face at the end of that point, which is a legitimate point, is there is no perfect answer. That's true. But if we're picking on what is going to create the most good, I think that senators that stay longer become, the argument is they become more effective because they know what to do within the system. They know how it works.

They know how to, they get more power and influence. But on the flip side, they all seem to not all, because I don't want to be. I don't like being a cynic, but it becomes something that gratifies the individual instead of the country. No, you're right. We need new ideas. We need somebody else with fresh ideas. And you need to go back to being a citizen. Go back to being a citizen.

It's not a job. A politician, being a politician should not be a career choice. I firmly believe that. It's not a career choice. It is service. That's a good point. I think a lot of politicians forget. Like, you work for the people.

We don't work for you. Exactly. it. Yeah. All right, Emily, and then there's this because this man's not going to be a United States Senator, it appears, and that is Graham Platner of Maine. New allegations came out yesterday. These revolve around sexual assault. There's a couple of angles on this story.

Graham Platner put out a statement, and the statement seems to suggest that he's going to be dropping out soon. I mean, when you read political statements, that's... Oh, I saw the opposite. They sound the... Oh, no. When they say, I'm going to reevaluate my campaign. that usually means something not good.

I mean, that means it's probably coming to an end. But that, okay, there's two stories. That not being one of them, I feel like. One is the New York Times. Apparently this person, who is alleging sexual assault, went to the New York Times, they slow-played it.

They did the same thing that they did to Lindsay Fifeield, who alleged, you know, rough manhandling and toxic relationship with him. And she read what they did with Fivefield. I was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not going to them. They killed a story, basically. So she went to Politico.

It's reported out at Politico. So the first angle is the New York Times. So that's one, Emily. Oh, okay. I thought you were continuing. Well, at this point, I, man, when did I unsubscribe to the New York Times? In college, they forced me to subscribe. I had a student discount or whatever.

And then I just, like, innocently had left it. And then I don't remember if it was a story of them sympathizing with, like, Hezbollah or Hamas. But there was something that was so out of pocket, or was it the fact that they were like glorifying Hassan Piker? I mean, there were so many things that the New York Times had done that crossed the line for me. But for me to go in and unsubscribe, that takes effort. But there was something recently where I was like, wow, thank God I unsubscribe because this is already next level. Basically put it this way. Whatever we deem as moral and fit, the New York Times will defend the exact opposite.

So for me to hear that they turned away this story because it didn't benefit. their political agenda, this should be a way bigger problem than I hate the New York Times. This is like people do not trust the media anymore because of situations like this. And it's like, it's a shame because growing up, the New York Times were very reputable and very credible and it was like prestigious almost, you know, to write for the New York Times. Like when I wanted to become a journalist, I was like, maybe I could end up writing for one of these big outlets. But now it would actually be a disgrace because you're not even reporting out of good faith.

You're reporting out of only political ideology. and that defeats the entire purpose of bipartisan media. So it's just, this isn't shocking to me at all. Second angle, it's the Democrats that stood by Graham Platner for a long time when this was not coming as a surprise. Everyone knew some of the stuff. And so I think today their credibility is the second biggest story, or maybe the biggest story in this entire thing. So let's just take a stroll down memory lane. This is way, way, way, way, way back in April, April 30th, John Favro, Obama, Bro, Pod Save America.

Graham Platiner isn't just our best and only chance to beat Susan Collins. He's a good and decent man who's struggled and grown and is always trying to do better. He's a good and decent man, says John Favre. There are... Pocahont has said the same thing. Elizabeth Warren called him my kind of man. My kind of man. Bernie Sanders championed this guy.

Bernie Sanders endorsement at this point should absolutely. be a sign that you should not vote for someone. Exactly. I'm going to do it today. I'm going to go through the list. Who is Bernie Sanders? Who else is he championing? Because this is enough shrapnel on it.

It should not only take down Bernie Sanders. It should take down Abdul al-Sayed, who he's championing in Michigan. And then you got Rudy and Diego. He's on a real hot one. He's the worst. I'm embarrassed. He's the same religion. Oh, my God.

I'm humiliated. A Jew endorsed the dude with the Nazi Totenkov on his chest. That's really something. I'm on Bernie Sanders. Really something.com right now. Grand Platner is on his endorsement list right now on his website. I don't think he's withdrawn it yet. Uh-uh.

Yeah. All those people that came out, do you know, Patrick, there's a whole list of people in the past 12, 18 hours who have withdrawn their endorsement. Did Bernie? Yeah. Nope. I mean, it's still on his website right now. Rashida just did, Rokahana did. These people endorsing him was the biggest red flag to me.

The fact that they're actually unendorsing him made me sad. I was like, no, no, no, ride with it. Stick by your man. All of that list was enough. Suddenly the Me Too allegation, which isn't even the first one that came out, he told a rape victim to deal with it. He disrespected our veterans. He hates America. He has praised communism.

He's flirting with Nazism. He bragged about masturbating in a porta potty. I mean, how. How much more did it take? And then the Democrats are like, no, we have morals. We can't dare endorse him, but flirting with underage girls allegedly on kick was okay. Like, I'm just shocked that the Democrats even pretend that they care about America anymore. Because if that's the person you were propping up to represent a state, like, you should be ashamed

of yourself. And it's like, I just love that they're playing on this high horse right now. We're like, no, no, no, in good faith, we need to take away our endorsement. But all of that was okay. I'm mind-boggled. You know, our boy, Smug says it's not even over. This might not even be the one that takes them out. I saw that.

Who said that? Who said that? Who said that? Comfortably smug over at Ruthless, the podcast where Patrick's going to start working very soon. It is saying there's another, there's another Platner story coming. By the way, this is a statement. AOC, listen, she didn't. endorsed Platner. And that really, like, she's one of the few. Here, let me walk through. Here's Chris Coons,

who was just not long ago defending Plattner. And, you know, frankly, Mr. Platner is a four-term, excuse me, four-tour combat veteran and someone whose conduct as he came home from war. Many have questioned. I don't know him and don't know him at all well, but I'm going to give him a measure of grace and wait until I get a chance to hear more about the details of all these different allegations. In my view, the folks who we have here in the Senate and who we might have here in the Senate, we should hold a high standards. And there's Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who's on a hot run, because if you'll forget, don't forget, he was Eric Swalwell's boy.

They did a lot of trips, right? Like, I think they rode some camels together. And here's Gallego on Platner. This guy is an authentic man. You know, he's not anti-Semitic, you know, and more importantly, you know, not more importantly, but just as important, is that he's going to win this election. And we need to win elections. We cannot go another four, five, six years, you know, trying to get the Senate back. Like, we need to consistently win because whoever's going to be president in 2020, eight, we need to hand them the House and the Senate.

It's always more important. Why does Pearl Neckless Boy always look like he's about to vomit? Why is he always putting his chin into his neck and look like he's about to hurl into a toilet? Ew, that description just made me know. Just an observation. Just because he doesn't really believe what he's saying, so it just comes up it that way, you know what I'm saying? Can I say something that we're totally going to take the wrong way and sound like Megan Kelly defending pedophiles? I actually, this was not the straw that broke the camel's back in my opinion when it came to platinum.

because listen, like, I've been in rooms where I've heard girls plotting to ruin a guy's life over a false allegation. I'm not believe all women. Like, we need to actually do a thorough investigation. My problem is quite literally in addition to this allegation, the prior 16 allegations, the list that I mentioned earlier, it's like all of that already shattered the camel's back. So it's like the fact that this is what they're taking seriously. And we haven't even proven it. And by the way, don't take this thorough. wrong way. As a female, if I was assaulted, I'm not waiting years to report it. And now I'm not

going to start victim blaming because I know it's a sensitive topic and I don't ever blame the victims and everyone should speak out when they're comfortable. But I'm not going to wait until the person that assaulted me starts getting traction to file a complaint about it. That's for certain. So I don't like that. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give him an ounce of grace. He's still a horrible, despicable human being aside from this allegation. coming up bar stools kasy smith joins us here on will kane country i actually think it's a pretty fair take i don't know about the part i mean obviously you're going to handle it one way but that means that doesn't mean to me that another woman might not handle it a different way right what i will say is i think

we all lived through enough me too and we've had enough rearview mirror to say not all of those things were cracked up to be what they were sold to us as being that you shouldn't just take allegations as fact, and I think that's 100% fair. That room you've been in where women are plotting to take down dudes, that's a scary room to be in. Crazy. It's crazy. I mean, I work in sports, like these girls, they want to, you know, obviously, like, you know, get a

baby daddy in the NBA or from the MLS. Like, they plan these things, and then what it doesn't go their way, let me get attention, let me throw out an allegation, and guess what? They get exactly what they want. They get that attention, and it's their most biggest claim to fame that they'll have in their career because their career is trying to, like, baby pop people.

So, yeah, It's pathetic, but that's why I'm just kind of like, don't wait until they get a tempting. So what that means is it needs to be proven. It needs to be proven. That being said, that's for a court of law. For politics, that's not the standard. That's not the burden. Burden of proof. Now, I will say, and I have a long history of this, defending people against horrible allegations, because I think we hang people in the public square way too often based upon very little evidence. But with Platner, A, there's a lot of smoke. And there's a lot of smoke. and there is something to the when there's smoke there's fire.

I mean, now we have multiple women, multiple different types of things and all that. But even setting aside the smoke, B, this dude is objectively an awful dude even without this stuff. Exactly. Even without this stuff. He's objectively an awful dude that everyone said, look, it's just simple sometimes. You got a Nazi tattoo. You can't just go, oh, well. You know, like, it's like not, that's not a small thing.

No, but Will, don't worry. Marjorie Taylor Green said it's Israel. Echank said it's Israel's fault that Graham raped a girl, allegedly. It's Israel. It wasn't Graham. It was A-PAC and it was the Jews. I just got my disinfectant handed back to me. It looks like Lysol has rebranded. You want to see what it says now? Zoom in if you can, Dan. This is the new branding of Lysol. Will Kane Country, BS cleaner, 100% bullshit eliminator. leaves facts, no residue, just truth, cuts through the crap.

And then when you turn around the other side, Patrick, this is for you, okay? It says, Will Kane Country spraying the bullshit out of the studio. Cleaner studio, cleaner head, better show. This is incredible. You guys printed this off in the past. Hey, hey, Patrick, that's how you produce. Wow. Yeah.

You got me. done in 10, 15 minutes. Didn't know I was going to be doing this. No one knew. That's awesome. Ellie? Ellie? Ellie?

Ellie? Ellie and Ed? The E's got it done. We appreciate. We appreciate our other E with us today, Emily Austin. Make sure you check her out at the Emily Austin show. Emily, it's great to have you. Look forward to having you again.

Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye. All right, by the way, and from Chevron, since 1879, there are people who have been more than a source of energy. They've been a source of progress, helping deliver record U.S. energy production and fueling the breakthroughs that move America forward. Learn more at Chevron.com slash 250. We appreciate the support of Chevron, moving America. Joining us now, by the way, here at Will King Country is the host at the Barstool College Football Show, the Pro Football Show, and unnecessary roughness.

It's Casey Smith. What's up, Casey? Hi, Will. I like the disinfectant. I'm going to be in Texas with you multiple times in studio, so please keep that because you never know. Are you? Yeah. I'm coming to Texas for the whole month of July, so you're never going to get rid of me.

Part of me wants to give them a ton of credit because, like, the good stuff. Look at it really quickly again. Look at the branding. And then, and look at the little sayings. Like, you know how Lysol has the different things it does at the bottom? It says cuts through the crap, leaves fast. and no residue, just truth, right? Like, that's artistry.

That's like on-the-fly thinking. That is, like, creativity. And then I realized that's AI. Yeah. That's AI. Oh, yeah. That's what was done. A little bit.

We came away. But that was Ellie's doing? Look, we came up with the saints. Ellie and I came up with the saints, and then she threw it on AI. There was some creative thinking. It's good. It's good. AI or no AI?

It's, even if it's AI will. It's still the creative thinking. So you have to give them credit. The issue is, is that if somebody can do that that quickly without AI, that's now in the minority. Everybody has to use AI to be things done that quickly now. Unfortunately, one could say, like, what's the point in doing it without AI? Like, I guess I would think you're smarter, but what's that work, right? Who cares about being smarter? Who cares that Will thinks you're smart? That is like walking around 10% on the world. 80% is I got it done. That's it. Yeah, the other 10% is I don't care what Will thinks of me. Let's go, let's go Casey together back to the uplifting X-feed of one tin foil pack.

I saw this one today too. I don't normally see his tweets, but today I just had a desire. Most people don't. Self-deprecate. I agree. This one got my attention, Patrick. You responded to one Bobby Burrack at Outkick, delete your account. Now, why did you want Bobby to delete his account? Because he said the following. The official best sports to watch ranking are as follows. And he said this even after the United States lost in the World Cup.

Number one, NFL. Number two, college football. Number three, World Cup. Number four, Major League Baseball. number five UFC, six golf, seven, NHL, eight college basketball. Now, I saw that, and I thought, that's kind of fun. Is that true? Is that right?

And I thought I'd talk about that with you, Casey. Like, we can agree that one and two are the top two in some order, NFL or college football. Yeah, I mean, I would switch college football, but I also understand why a lot of people would have NFL one. I would have college football one and then the NFL. And then after that is where I'll start. hearing arguments. But anybody who doesn't have college football or NFL 1, 2, they're just wrong. Here's the test.

I think this is the test. Let me think. Okay. Yeah, I think I might put college football number one as well based upon this test right here. It's wild card weekend in the NFL. So it's the playoffs. It's early on.

There are two teams playing and you have no vested interest in either team. Or it's now we have the college football playoff. It's the first round in the college football playoff, and you don't care about the two teams that are playing. Which game are you more likely to watch? That first round of the college football playoff or

Wildcar weekend in the NFL? I think that's the best comparison, best test. Because you can't say, like if the Aggies are playing, Casey, you know, you're going to root for the Aggies, plus you're a sellout, so I'd only have to compare that to the Patriots. And you're probably going to watch the Aggies over the Patriots. I watch the Aggies over quite literally anything. Anything? Anything? Anything? Anything? In sports? Cheesecake? I don't even like cheesecake. That's sacrilegious. I don't even... You're New York. You have to like cheese. Cheesecake is New York. I'm Boston. Even though I live in New York. Cheesecake is New York. Give me some dumb. I didn't... First of all, I did not say that. You're lashing out. You're lashing out at Patrick. Not me. I did not say I've never liked cheesecake, okay? But as far as sports go, and I have said this, every of...

sport could fall off the planet and I would still rather be sad about A&M losing a college football game like that like I would take the pain of losing college football over the field of the rest of sports like that but you know you know how college football is down especially in Texas in the south like if you're born into that that is all you care about but for me um it ebbs and flows if I'm being honest sometimes it's the longhorn sometimes it's the cowboys you know those two will ebb and flow So I don't think the best, my point, though, is the best test is not to use the teams you're invested in. I think it probably depends on where you live. It's just a vibe check, Patrick.

It's just a vibe check. The vibes around the Cowboys are bad. You're really into baseball. So it's a vibe check. Casey, do you know when he was in the baseball? Do you know when that was? When the Rangers won the World Series. Yeah, I'd also assume that he was.

Well, yeah. Well, yeah, but that, listen, listen, Will always talks about me being a sellout. Guess where I was in 2010 and 2011? at the ballpark in Arlington, watching the World Series. So I understand that feeling. It's the same thing with hockey growing up. Like I cared when the stars won the Stanley Cup. I probably didn't care for the rest of the time.

But I do think that the overarching population of America, now I know we can talk about everything else. But the NFL or college football has to be one and two. I will say, and Patrick, I will say this, that the way that I felt yesterday leading up to that, game last night, I truly cannot remember being that, like, emotionally invested and hyped up for a sporting event outside of college football in a very long time. Like, I actually tried to think about that. I've been to Super Bowls. I've been to all these. The way that I felt about that game yesterday was right underneath the way I feel about college football games. And that's what was so disappointing about it because I was so excited to feel that. And then we got embarrassed.

Well, you're making, it's hard. I hear you addressing that to Patrick. And I'm sorry to intervene. I'm just saying you're missing. Jackson Hinkle. He's basically Jackson Hinkle. Like, Jackson Hinkle's last night cheering for the Iranians down with USA. And you're, you're like, you're not that, but you're three steps away. Your black pilling has gotten you almost there. No, I just think that, I just think that, uh, you go back to the limit. You can play Freebird all day long and Patrick's emotional needle won't move. I felt that. I felt that when the men's national team was playing the fair goal in hockey. Like that was, you know, think I just think hockey is a superior sport.

Which is fine, but there is, so I've said this throughout theirs. And of course, you know, we're seeing it, Will. I know your son's played soccer. You know all about soccer. It's like whether it's the Olympics, whether it's the World Cup, when it's your country playing, I'm feeding into it because I know he's not a casual. The word casual, by the way. Well, now I don't have to say it.

Don't get me. Don't get started. He's not a casual. You said it enough, well. Give the man his flowers. He's not a casual. Okay. Thank you.

Every four years, get very invested in whatever sport of America is playing. The difference with this year is I've actually watched like 90% of the World Cup matches in the knockout round because they're all so awesome. I'm not going to quit watching the World Cup now. I don't have the emotional investment that I had, but I'm going to keep watching. Correct. Like I'm watching. And I'm watching the scores right now. Now you're a sports free agent.

Now you're a sports free agent. This is kind of fun. this is what I talked about yesterday. You get to be a free agent a little bit now, and it's fun to be a free agent. It's a limited window free agency. It's a caveat to will sports rules. Now, this is a temporary exemption limited window sports free agency card.

You get to pick somebody. Now, who are you going to pick? And that's going to be tough. I'm not mad at the Belgians for beating us. Well, I'm not mad at that. I'm not. I don't know how to explain that to you. But, okay, so you are.

I'm American. Good for you. I honestly, and this is, so, I mean, you know, messy, watching messy is always very cool. I go back and forth with this. Like you want to talk about college football. Like last year when A&M lost to Miami, I had the conversation in my head, do I want Miami to win the national championship so then I can say, well, my team lost to the

eventual national champions. So I could make the argument. Yeah, I have that debate too. That Belgium winning the World Cup would then make it easier as a United States fan, although we played like hot garbage. Yeah, what if they just stormed through? What if they stormed through and we could say, see, we weren't that bad? Our goalie didn't kick the dirt and accidentally score on himself.

Well, can I ask you a question about that? Belgium had us running that scared. Outside of kicking the dirt, which is one of the worst things I've seen on an international scale in professional sports ever, I would make that argument. Besides that, again, I'm a casual. Why was he so far outside the box? Why did he do that? Like what was the thought process? Because I can't.

I didn't hate that. You didn't? I didn't hate that. See, that's why I need you to explain it to me. So that was a long ball. I can't remember who the Belgian player was. But the first thing that sticks out on that is, holy shit, he's a lot faster than our centerback, Chris Richards. He just smoked Richards and got in front of him.

Okay, that's the first thing. And I'm like, oh, my God. And then when those long balls come, your brain immediately goes, okay, did he kick it too far? The weight on that pass has to be just right because it'll go to the goalie. But that one, you're like, uh-oh. like he's going to get to that ball before the goalie, before it gets to the box or the goalie can get to it. So the goalie has to make a choice.

Now I leave my box, can't use my hands anymore, I'm going to have to kick it. And I think if you can get to it first, fine, you've neutralized the threat. And he did. Matt Freez got to it first. But then his brain froze. And he's like, what do I do? And, you know, the reputation of the United States and bad soccer is kickball.

Like, if you just kick it, then it's like, you had no ideas. And I think he thought, I want to be smarter. I've got a couple of blue jerseys around me that maybe I could pass it to. So he wound up like he was going to either kick it or pass it to one of them. And then he thought, no, I'm going to pass it to this guy. At the last minute, he switched his brain. See, Casey, I had this conversation this morning. When I play Paddle, paddle, paddle. My worst shots are when my worst shots are when I switch my, I switch my, I switch my, I switched my decision at the last minute. Like, I'm going to hit this shot, but I'm like, no, last minute, I want to do this, and then it's bad news.

That's what he did. You know, I, listen. He switched his idea at the last minute. I didn't. It was a brain fart. It was a hezy. I didn't anticipate this turning into your Pidel career mistakes. That is not something I anticipate.

It's taking off a little bit. Yeah. I do understand the, like the, as I would call, like a blonde moment. I understand that. I guess in the moment watching it. Now, first of all, I haven't even said this. I know that Dan knows this because I told him this morning. I watched that game with my friends who live in my building that are from Belgium.

So as you can, like they are over here on a work visa. Like they are from Belgium. It was, they kept looking at me throughout the game like, should we leave? Like the kids are running around. My son at one point was saying go Belgium because his friends were so happy. It was a disaster for me. Deported. Disaster.

Talk to that kid. But they're actually Belgium. They're not American. Like they're again here on, but beside the point. When he... Just talking about your son. Oh, no, I please don't. He's three.

He doesn't understand. Okay, this goes along, which I know months ago, you said potty training was like potty training a dog, which I still... See if they can do a better job in Belgium. That's one of the worst... He is potty trained now, by the way. We did it. I did it.

He's potty trained. But when he ran out of the box like that, my first thought, thought was this is going to be a disaster and not even knowing he was going to kick the dirt. And I just, again, I'm not a soccer person. So I just didn't understand the thought process behind going so far out where you cannot use your hands. That seemed like a poor decision in that moment. That dude was going to have a one on nobody, one versus the goalie if he didn't go get it.

You know, in the end, I think that, okay, this is a worthy discussion really quickly. They don't want to get back to something we were talking about a minute ago. But the United States look scared. Thank you. The U.S. looks scared. Like, from jump. They didn't look emotionally right. It just didn't.

It was embarrassing on that front. And then you wonder why. And there's a lot of reasons why, including the fact that we've never beaten a top 10 European team, all these things. We always go out in the round of 16. I did see something. Do you think at all, like going into this game,

the vibes were great around America. The vibes were awesome. Do you think the red card fiasco put bad vibes on the team, like in their own heads? I'm just talking about in their own heads, the juju in their heads. Like, do you think, you'd like to think a team can box all that out? But I'm willing to consider that like the whole thing just kind of now everybody hates us, now they're going to give us their extra juice, whatever it is. I just wonder if it affected them psychologically.

I think that the expectations got, they were already high. Because, you know, when we win the first round and it's with 10 guys and all that. So then it's like, okay, well, Baligan's going to be out. It's fine. We're still going to win anyways. And then we get flow back. The expectations from a fan standpoint, I mean, I can only speak for myself. And then obviously everything you see on social media, there was just no world where I thought we were going to lose that game last night.

That has to psychologically affect a team. I mean, I just, because again, there is, I can admit it. Like, I am a casual when it comes to that, but I am, I was so proud to be an American yesterday rooting for the United States men's national team in the World Cup. They're like, there's just no way we lose now. We've got flowback. And if I'm feeling that way, as somebody who very clearly knows what losing feels like, they had to know.

Let's take a quick break. But continue this breakdown of the breakdown of America in the World Cup with Barstles, Casey Smith. Everybody forgot this, including the Belgians. Flo is one of the three best players on the U.S. team. I think on the current FIFA rankings, he's the 135th best strikers in the world. This is like, it was so stupid that the Belgians were like freaking out about it, right? And that we all thought this. Like, we just don't have the talent. We just don't. And we, I started this with Emily and I thought, I'm going to save some of this with Casey. I don't know anymore. why we can't, you know, there's the cultural argument, which I do find the most compelling.

However, and I hate the LeBron argument, I hate it. I hate the, if our best athletes played this sport argument. No, it's a terrible argument. The reason I hate it is there's different types of athletes. Like, just because you're good at one sport doesn't mean you're going to be, I'm sure you're going to be going to be above average at anything you give time to. That doesn't mean you're going to be one of the world's best at something. So I don't know.

I hate that. Soccer is a marathon sport. It's a much different sport than basketball or football or whatever. I asked Dan this trivia question, Patrick, see if you can answer it. I asked him on Saturday at the France Paraguay game. Do you know what, on average, how much they run during a game? It is like six or seven miles, I want to say. It's close.

I think it's nine. I think it's nine miles. I think it's closer to 10, but that's still insane. Yeah. Well, here's my, this is a question. A football player. Well, real quick, Casey, we have three. Yeah, I know.

In 10-yard bursts, 15-yard bursts. We have 300 million people. And so that's the one that confounds me the most. Like, we have enough people that we're pretty much capable of being good at everything. Like, look at the Olympics. We're pretty much, we're not the best at every single event in the Olympics, but we're up there on almost all of them. There are isolated ones where we're not even in the contention whatsoever. But with 300 million people, and you could make the same argument for China, by the way, China's not even in the World Cup.

Why don't we have, and I'm part of it, we do have a subculture that is very into soccer, participation. It's a bigger culture that's into it as a spectator. I don't know. At this point, I'm a little, I'm a little confounded on why it's not, why it's not. why this is our ceiling. I agree because it's confusing from a, and Dan just said it, from a math standpoint, I do think that there's an element when you talk about the Olympics, you talk about gymnastics. It's like for a, you know, especially like the girls that I grew up with that wanted to be

gymnast. That is all they focus on because that is their only option if you want to be a gymnast, right? If you're a young kid and you want to get into sports in America, soccer, I mean, I feel like, again, I know I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. Like my three-year-old took his first soccer camp lessons because it's the easiest thing to put toddlers into. But then at some point they have basketball, baseball, football. They have all these other options. And for whatever reason it may be, it seems like a lot of those younger kids that would maybe go focus on one thing have too many options and they don't pick soccer.

That's at least the way I see it. I mean, I know your son's did. And that's legit. So I no, no, no. My sons did. But I'll tell you like socially. I mean, and there are good soccer players who chose, I can speak to the high. school my kids go to. I saw at least two or three really good soccer players, like could have been

some of the best on the high school team, were at really high club levels, quit to be good at lacrosse, because they were good at lacrosse, right? And so they're like, I'm going to go do lacrosse. There's also football. I don't see much crossover between basketball and soccer in terms of who plays it. But even like early on, like early on when you get a choice. And I mean, again, I don't know. I know for me, I mean, I couldn't play football. So I just watched it and learned to love it. For me, I was better at volleyball than basketball, but I liked basketball more. So I chose to play basketball because I had that choice. Like maybe we wouldn't know.

But there's other elements, Casey. There's social status. And social status is like when you walk around the school, are you BMOC, big man on campus? Or do people show up to your games and cheer? Are you on TV? And soccer doesn't. By the way, soccer doesn't have that. My youngest son, there's a really big tournament in Dallas called the Dallas Cup and teams come from all over the world.

and my son's team made the semifinals and played a team from Mexico and it was at night and it was awesome because there was a crowd like a pretty big crowd watching the game no stands no bleachers everybody's standing or on lawn chairs but it stood out in my head and all of our heads because like you don't get that very often with soccer it's parents in the stands you know it's not like and so kids gravitate towards sports where their their other classmates or they're cheering right or you get credit socially for being good at it. And soccer's not one of those sports, which is going to siphon some guys away. But, and I don't know. I see Patrick, just one second. In hockey, for example, if you live in Minnesota or you live in the Northeast, I'll bet you hockey has a little more BMOC angle to it. Do you know what I mean?

So the guys that are good at hockey aren't drawn away from it to go play football. Yeah, but in the Northeast, that's it. I mean, we don't care about football up there. Connecticut, Massachusetts, it's all hockey. It's all across. You're the big guy. That's it. So, I mean, it's definitely pointed.

I also, and I don't know if it's still this way. I know when I was in high school in Texas, like the girls soccer team had, like, we all would go to that. Like, the guys football team would come watch the girls play soccer. But we didn't even have like a competitive soccer team for men. They all played football. And I know that was, you know, in 2006 and seven. But it was like, it was just such a different culture in Texas where, It was like if a guy wanted...

I think we beat her high school 10 to nothing. What? To nothing. You did what? Yeah. Yeah, we beat your high school 10 to nothing this season. In football? Soft soccer.

I was just saying you still don't have a men's soccer team that's competitive. Wow. I didn't even know we could field a men's soccer team. I had no idea. By the way, 10, like, you scored 10 goals on us. We shouldn't have a high school soccer team. Like, that's crazy. What do you mean they scored 10 goals?

But like I remember like the I had some girlfriends that played at Nolan that went on to play soccer at TCU and had scholarships at TCU. Like for whatever reason it was like more, you know, big man on campus vibes for the girls to play. Then I don't like that maybe just be regional. I don't know. But I do feel like when, you know, like Christian Polisic, for example. No, that's true. Like he's like he's supposed to be the it kid, right? He looked for whatever reason like he didn't even believe he should be under the same bright lights as Belgium last night.

Like that's not the way that football players or basketball players or baseball players are raised in the sport to feel. And I'm not saying he's the only example of that. But it just didn't feel like the same like we've been raised to believe that we're the badasses that are on the posters all over our country. Like he didn't even look like he believed that about himself yesterday. Well, he's had a lot of reason not to, to be honest. I mean, I saw what Polisik said after the game and I think it's pretty terrible. And this has been a huge ding on Polisix's legacy this tournament. but Polis exhaled as an it kid here

and he had a good season for half a season in Italy he's had in Germany at a good moments but first of all over there they are going to treat Americans like they're garbage and he lives in that environment he lives over there professionally over there I mean I think this was a

the first half of the season was really good for his psyche but he had a bad second half of the season but he's still American and those Americans are treated like JV everywhere they go, no matter how good they get. I honestly think to change American soccer, we're going to have to get an Erling Holland.

That's like, we got to have an unstoppable brute. Well, but they all do. Really? Fulcic does. He left when he was 16. Yeah, that's true. He left when he was 16. We got to have a brute in mind and in body. Like, that's the, we're going to have to have a superhears.

Grab a tight end from somewhere. Patrick, go ahead. I think Clay Travis and other people were talking about this, But, like, Casey puts her son in soccer at three. And I think that there's this divide between, like, developing players because you either are coached at a very low level and, like, by people who really don't know what they're doing, or you're paying a lot of money for travel and all these different things to go to a higher level. And I think that creates a divide where you're not, like, developing people in the middle.

We've talked about this, right? That story is how my son's got into soccer. So the theory is that soccer is the sport of the streets. It's a poverty-based sport. It needs very little equipment. And everybody else in the world plays it at every recess, everything. Like, they just constantly have a ball at their feet. Well, in America, it's A, too organized.

It's like practice. Like, if you ever listen to high-quality players, like, Zlatan last night, who basically says nothing at all times, actually said something last night. He said, he said, just go have fun. just go have fun. And that's what any high-level player will say. You should constantly just be playing, playing with the ball, playing at recess, play all the time. And in America, it's like too coached, too overseen, too organized, all that. And this is down the road, I told you, like, one of the things that I tried to do to help my younger son is,

we just got a little size one ball and walked the streets of New York. I walked him to school every morning, and I had him dribble the ball on the way to school. And it was just fun for him as like a, whatever it was, it was preschool. four or five-year-old. And that was big, I think, actually. That's giving me a lot of credit for any success that he has. Naturally, of course. The school my kids went to in New York was a charter school, Success Academy.

So it's 75% free and reduced lunch, 90% black and Latino. And they hired a Serbian dude to come over with the theory that we just talked about. And he's like, well, we're going to make soccer accessible to kids that normally don't get exposure to soccer. And my sons were in this school system, and they said, okay, everybody play soccer in first grade. Everybody. And from there, they were kind of hardcore. Like, if you're good, then you make the grade team. If you're better, then you make what's called the network team. I don't know if you know success in New York, Casey, but it's all over the city, right? They have branches all over the city. And once you make the, that's like pulling from all the schools. And then at middle

school, they have an academy that you get invited to, which was in Harlem. And my son's just kept progressing. I was just like Patrick. I made fun of soccer, zero, zero, all the that stuff. And my sons, I didn't put them in it. The school did. And they just kept progressing. But here's what the experiment has shown me. It has produced players. It did not expose soccer to African Americans. I mean, it did a little bit. But it became a cultural divide. Yes. Black kids played soccer at Success Academy. They were almost always, I would say 90% of them, the children of African immigrants, not African Americans. Do you see what I'm saying? It's So culturally, basketball dominated the black American.

Culturally, the African immigrant cared about soccer and their kids played soccer. So, yes, there's some money thing there, but there's a cultural thing there as well. And that does take me back to the cultural thing. But again, I think with 300 million people, there should be enough Mexicans and African immigrants and white kids that are into it culturally that we should be better than who we are. There's 300 million people. It feels like both things could be true. They always go out in the knockout round. There's a lot.

What is the population of Mexico? 150 million, 200 million? I don't know what it is. China's jack. But also going back to going to the money, like I saw, I don't know, I don't know soccer that well, but like the academy systems over in Europe and across the world are different than here. And so like our parents are paying for development here, whereas like over, you know, they'll bring in a messy. Like I think Messi, you know, got brought in by Barcelona, right? And he went through their system.

That's true. And then Argentina gets money back for him, right? Right. Isn't that how it works? Right. We don't have that. That's correct. It's very different.

And I also, I mean, at the very, like, core of the argument, though, it comes down to, as a whole of an American culture, soccer just isn't on the radar like other sports are from an early age. in order to be as good as you are at the World Cup stage, you have to be doing this. Like, from, you know, like you said pre-K, like that really is a thing. Like, you talk about the Olympics and you look at all of the athletes that we can feel. Because it's a skill sport. Right.

In the Olympics, they're doing it from such a young age. And it goes back to because I agree. I hate the argument of, like, put LeBron James on the field. I do think, and I've had this argument as well, well, I want your opinion. If you're going to take any athlete that we have of any sport, like I, most of my friends, who played basketball in college or in the NBA, I would say that they are probably the overall best athlete at other sports. Just because you're good at football does not mean you're good at basketball,

just because you're, you know, but if I was going to take an athlete in a professional sport, for whatever reason, I would say basketball. That doesn't mean LeBron James is going to go out there and be one of the best soccer players in not even the world in our own country. Like that's a crazy thought process. No, I think I've made that argument, and I think we've had that argument.

Didn't we have it on this show with, With the, no, baseball players swear that they are. That's crazy. They are the most skilled guys that can adapt to any sport. To be honest, a lot of hockey players love to play soccer in the corridors. And they're great golfers. I've seen that. I've seen that, Patrick.

There is some crossover there. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. I guess it also depends on if you make the argument with football. it depends on the position. Like a very high level wide receiver is probably also going to be very good at other sports like basketball. But it's just the, for whatever reason, soccer and as skilled as you have to be, it just doesn't connect with kids as young as a lot of these other sports do. And I don't know how you change that.

But phases like this with the World Cup, maybe they do. Because again, I think I put my son in soccer because it's the easiest thing to put, like I said, toddlers into because they can just. kind of, I don't want to say stand around, but they can stand around. He can stand, he doesn't have to know all the rules and whatever else. Like, he can just, like, you know, just there's, I have a photo of him laying face down on the turf because he was just over it. Like, you can't do that on a baseball diamond at a certain age. But I do think that.

You might be able to start at center back. You ever seen T-ball? Yeah, no, I mean, he, he's, I don't even know if you start T-ball at three. Like, we're, he's a very big basketball guy. He wants to dribble a basketball all the time. But I do think that the World Cup. as exciting as it was. Maybe you do see more kids, because my son

is running around, doesn't even know what he's saying, that he wants to play in the World Cup now, because that's all we've been watching because it's also in America. So maybe that helps down the line, but these kids then get distracted with other sports. La Crosse is on the rise, and a lot of kids play lacrosse now, right? And I did think about that when I'm like, these Europeans say, or everybody in the world

says, Americans are so good at sports that nobody else plays. Like, our newest hot sport is one that was literally invented by the American Indians, and they've never heard of lacrosse we're going to dominate that and by the way it's coming to the olympics i think i think lacrosse is coming to olympics oh yeah we're going to we're and not only are we going to dominate it we're going to brag about dominating it and i am not above talking about how you know england has zero super bowls i i jump into that shit talking all the time i'm in but it is interesting

that we that we do you know that that reminds me of where i want to end this in this episode you're a sports free agent now okay we got nor way, love Holland, want to root for Holland, but they're going up against England. I'm always tempted to root for England because I know all the players. And they're still the cousin thing, like they are our cousins in some way, you know, culturally, historically, and all that. Boo. They're so condescending to us. They're just the worst. They're just the worst. They're just condescending to us. They're the worst. Well, I feel like they were the worst. On the red card deal, they were the worst of everybody. The amount of, of fans from the UK, and I try not to

read DMs because, as you can imagine, they are an absolute trash fire, especially on my Instagram. The amount of England fans that are in there saying just heinous things to me, it's like, don't you have something better to do. Go drink your tea. Leave us alone. That's the thing. I know. Like, just leave us alone. Like, I don't, I'm sorry. Like, I will be that person. I care far more about American football than soccer. So get, be gone. Kick rocks. Yeah. Yeah. I hate the comments. Like, you Americans know nothing about football. Like, I'm like, get out of here. They're the ones who coined

soccer. I know. You're why we call it soccer. I've always thought there's something about Spain that's as a country has always been attractive to me. I don't know what it is. Like I'm a little more just

attracted to the Iberian Peninsula than I am Italy. No offense, Italians. None. I don't know what it is. But the Spanish, they're so lefty you know they're so lefty they didn't even let's land our planes

while we were wanting to bomb Iran and I saw I'm attempted to root for Spain a little bit but then not I can't do Argentina because it feels like that's so front running to pick Argentina in France would be front running huge

so and I'm never going to root for the French but well the French were here for us in the revolution and yet we can't stand them today You know, but you know what front running is not necessarily, I mean, I understand why you say that you can't. But it's like when somebody gets into college football in the Nick Saban era, the easiest thing to do was to root for Alabama. The easiest thing to do for a while in the 90s was root for the Cowboys and then the Patriots. So maybe it's just because you want to feel like a winner.

So maybe if you jump on Argentina, it's like, well, I know what it's going to feel like for my team to win something. I always feels cheaply earned to me. I agree. I'm always tempted to depict. That's why I'm always tempted to depict somebody like Norway. like odds are Norway's not going to beat England much less go all the way. But if they do,

that will be awesome and I'll be I've gotten on it early. I think that I want. I think that I want Belgium for that reason because I think that I will, again, not, I'd like to make this very clear. I don't care after yesterday, I mean today it's it sucks, they lost, but I'm fine. I'm

emotionally fine. If this was A&M right now I probably wouldn't even be here. I'd be crying, you'd be making fun of me. It's a whole thing. I do think if Belgium makes it further, It can be like, well, they did. You must cry a lot. Well, it was so bad when I was a kid because I would always make bets with my friends that have parents that went to Texas, which why I did that, I don't know. And I always had to sing your dumb fight song.

What a life of misery. Misery. But I'm born into it. That's like what you have to do. The amount of times I had to see the eyes of Texas. I saw a comparison of all the World Cup teams to their college football equivalence. And it did say U.S. men's national team, A&M. I saw that and I didn't hate that at all.

No, I actually, and I saw that a few weeks ago before we knew what the embarrassment of last night was going to look like. And I agreed with it even then. All the money in the world, everything, and we just can't win anything. It's self-awareness. Look it up. Okay. I know this. And that's what it is.

And I do think that if Belgium can make a run, that it would make it easier to digest how much of clowns we looked yesterday. And I'm not talking about the team. I'm talking about the fans as a whole. because we were, there was a lot of shit talking yesterday, all over everything. And I stand by that because that's what we do. But maybe if Belgium keeps winning, it's like, well, they're actually really good. See, it's fine. I think I'm not opposed to Belzer.

You break through. You break through. You want Norway or Argentina. You want Mess. I'm going down the road, Switzerland all the way. Let's go. Just because people will tune in for the stars, Patrick. Yeah. Yeah, you're tuned in for the stars.

I think. That's what I want. I think I do want soccer. I do want soccer to break through. But Messi's already broken through. But, like, that Messi... But he's right. But you don't stop watching LeBron win championships.

And so if Messi's there, more eyeballs. If Holland's there, more buzz and interest, I will put England in that category too, Patrick. People will watch England. The comp on England, by the way, is Texas. That's the comp on England. Yeah, because you guys also just want to drink tea and be quiet and all that stuff.

That's right. Wine and cheese crowd over there. Be quiet, she said. Drink tea and be quiet? The tea was cute. Printed on a T-shirts. I got that. No, but also, like, when you,

okay, you're never going to agree with me on this, but it is the amount of people that can get into your football stadium and the noise does not match. Oh, oh, I got it. Yeah, that's fair. The noise level does not match. No, like to have over 100,000 people and be as quiet as, Royal is is crazy.

Gentlemanly. That's, but my point, the tea part, okay? That's my point. Wine crackers, tea, the whole thing. All right, I'm going to say this. One of the saddest things about the men's team going out of the World Cup is I have come to love. Is that a disco remix version of Freebird? I love that.

Would they bring in the freaking beats on top of it? It's like a house version of Freebird. I love it. I love it. I want to hear it a million times. You got amped up when they played it in the stadium. on Saturday. Will's like,

awesome. It's everything about just the songs, the way that the Europeans have loved being over here. Everything is so great and it stinks that we lost the way that we did. But I do think that this will continue to carry on. The problem is that in

seven Saturdays, the real football of America starts and then we'll all forget how awesome this summer was. But at least we had it this summer. At least we had it. And that's right. And it's the perfect time of year for it. There's nothing else going on. This is our sports, and we have it. Right now, we'd be talking about NBA free agency, which didn't make

the list of most watchable sports. It was the perfect way to galvanize all of the big time sports fans, Americans, all of that. And I do think that there will still be a lot of people in America that continue to follow it. But now we're just looking at what. It's like SEC Media Days is coming up, and that's really it. You know, it's time to start counting down the days until week one. Can't wait until next year's World Cup. 2030 baby we'll be back we'll see you there we'll see you there patrick be there

get the tickets and wait for us please exciting check her out at barstool college football show and a pro football football football show over at barstool an unnecessary roughness always love having kacey smith on thank you kacey thank you will see you in texas soon and you can't take my texas card away when i'm in texas i would like that on record you can't do it okay all right we'll see how you behave all right for over two decades the tunnel the towers foundation has been there for our fallen and catastrophically injured first responders, military, and Gold Star families. Born from the tragedy of 9-11, Tunnel the Towers provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first-responder families with young children and build specially

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