The College Football Fan's Guide to the World Cup

Description

In this episode, we step slightly outside our usual college football lane for a 2026 World Cup preview with ESPN’s Bill Connelly. With the tournament kicking off next week in North America, we put the tournament in terms that college football fans can understand and discuss the potential chaos of an expanded field, the "Indiana" of world soccer, and the constant tension between off-field disasters and on-field brilliance.

We dig into the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT), their upside, their flaws, their best college football comp, and what casual American fans should actually watch for when the games begin. Bill also walks us through the broader field, from favorites like France, Spain and England to possible sleepers like Norway, Turkey, and Mexico. Plus, we get into expectations for Canada, the randomness of the new knockout format, why this tournament could produce some truly strange outcomes, and much more.

Transcript

00:18 Ty Hildenbrandt: It is Thursday, June the 4th, and Dan Rubenstein, we are going to do something a little bit different today, are we not?

00:25 Dan Rubenstein: Yeah, this is a French Open deep dive as we head into quarters and semifinals of a wide-open men's side and, I think, a decently open women's side as well, Ty. And I know you were wanting to dive more into the doubles and juniors side of it all. And so I guess... floor. No, we are doing World Cup previewing with Bill Connelly of ESPN, who covers college football, who covers soccer, football sometimes, who covers tennis sometimes, and softball?

00:59 Bill Connelly: Softball.

01:02 Dan Rubenstein: Is that what you said? You do softball? I didn't know that. Like women's college softball World Series?

01:10 Bill Connelly: My Texas versus Texas Tech preview just went up.

01:13 Dan Rubenstein: Is that true?

01:14 Bill Connelly: Yes, I'm not lying, I promise.

01:14 Dan Rubenstein: Is there anything you want to say? Who has the advantage?

01:20 Bill Connelly: Well, that depends. Is Texas Tech going to actually remember how to pitch? Because if so, they have the advantage. But that's been a little bit of a problem in this postseason. So we'll see.

01:32 Dan Rubenstein: What can't he do? Okay.

01:35 Ty Hildenbrandt: Mm-hmm.

01:35 Dan Rubenstein: I assume the softball team is spending too on their roster at Texas Tech.

01:38 Bill Connelly: Yes, oh yes, oh yes.

01:40 Dan Rubenstein: Okay. Good to know. Good to know. So we are approaching the World Cup because it is an event that happens every four years. All of us are interested to various degrees on this show at the moment. And I am going to play the role Ty assigned me, which is not just dumb American, because I think there are quite a few of us when it comes to the World Cup, but especially dumb American that is going to try and relay college football thinking. Not like, who is the Ja’Marr Chase of Senegal? I'm not doing that. What I am going to do is say, this is how I like to think about big college football matchups or teams or situations.

02:18 Ty Hildenbrandt: Right.

02:18 Dan Rubenstein: Is there an analog in the World Cup?

02:20 Ty Hildenbrandt: That's right. That's right. This is The College Football Fan's Guide to the World Cup. Per recent polling, which I think I saw at the end of last week, over half of Americans have zero interest in the World Cup. So if you're one of those folks tuning in right now, you are free to go. No hard feelings. We appreciate your download for what it's worth. We'll start up our preview content about a month from now if you want to stop back in July. No harm, no foul. Totally cool. But if you do want to stick around, I think our goal here, Dan, that's a soccer term, is to meet you where you're at and give you a reason to be interested. That's what we do best here. We can try stuff. Dan, numbers are up 30% this year. We can try all sorts of weird stuff if we really want to.

03:04 Dan Rubenstein: Oh, my God, Ty.

03:08 Ty Hildenbrandt: I will hold back on going super deep in the weeds, but hopefully we can give the Verballerhood just enough to be dangerous here as we enter the 2026 World Cup. So, a couple baseline facts before we dive in a little bit deeper with Bill. The tournament starts next Thursday. It runs through July the 19th. The first game's in Mexico City. The last game is in New York, New Jersey, whatever you want to call it. All the games are on Fox. It is being held in the United States, in Canada, and in Mexico: 11 cities in the U.S., three in Mexico, two in Canada. The last time it was here in North America was 1994, when Dan, I think you were just celebrating your 21st birthday or something like that. This is the first time ever that the World Cup has 48 teams, which maybe we can discuss the ramifications of.

04:00 Dan Rubenstein: Expansion, Ty. Tournament expansion.

04:03 Ty Hildenbrandt: Everybody is dabbling in the fine arts, or dark arts, I should say, of expansion these days. What that translates to in terms of the World Cup is everybody is grouped into a grouping of four teams. If you finish first or second, you are guaranteed to move on to a knockout round. If you finish third, in a bunch of cases you will also progress forward into a knockout round. So with that, I guess, as the backdrop, Bill Connelly, give me, on a scale of one to 10, how excited you are as somebody who I know covers seemingly every sport here, but I know you've got a soft spot for soccer. What is your level of excitement, just bigger picture, for this tournament and the storylines within?

04:53 Bill Connelly: Well, first of all, Ismaïla Sarr, I think, is the Senegal Ja’Marr Chase for the record.

04:58 Dan Rubenstein: Now I see.

04:59 Ty Hildenbrandt: There it is.

04:59 Dan Rubenstein: He's used that opportunity, our preambles, to lock in.

05:01 Bill Connelly: That's right.

05:03 Dan Rubenstein: Yeah.

05:04 Bill Connelly: It is hard because, on one hand, it's a World Cup. It's the once every four years where soccer imprints something onto its history. An era is guaranteed to. We remember the final of '22. We remember stuff from '18. It's always an exciting thing. And I get to cover this one since it's, you know, I don't know if a backyard's two hours away, but one of the venues is in my backyard, so to speak. And we're going to cover some matches, and that's all really cool. Also, it's America in 2026, and FIFA has done as much as possible to politicize everything about this tournament, and that kind of sucks. There are going to be stories about protests and ICE presence and all these other things that go along with just being in this country right now, and I'm not looking forward to that at all. So it's kind of like a 10 and a 1 at the same time. So I guess like a five and a half is what we'll go with.

06:00 Ty Hildenbrandt: Yeah, I should add as an important addendyou may have read some negative press about this World Cup.

06:06 Bill Connelly: Maybe.

06:07 Ty Hildenbrandt: I am here to tell you that it's mostly all true. I realize that corruption in terms of businesses and geopolitics and even college athletics is very much in vogue right now. Whatever your definition of corruption is, air quotes, FIFA clears that bar by about four feet. It's not even close. They are pros at doing this. So I would say, at a minimum, if you are a college football fan and you don't give a rip about any of this, the World Cup is at least worth following ironically in that sense, because a lot of what you're going to read is going to make the eyebrows go up a little bit. And I'm here to tell you, a lot of that is true. They're trying some stuff right now, and it's going to get real weird, certainly the deeper we get into this tournament. But that is almost a separate podcast unto itself.

06:58 Bill Connelly: The sport is just too good, and the quality of the actual matches overcomes everything.

07:04 Ty Hildenbrandt: Well, yeah, and so let me pause you there. I don't mean to interrupt, but you wrote about this in your book, Forward Progress, because that was very much a book focused on the future state of college football and where it could go. And ultimately, your conclusion, not to give too much of the game away, one of the conclusions you drew, was that at the end of the day, the product on Saturdays is just so good that you can only really do so much to kill college football. You can kill parts of it, but ultimately it's kind of unkillable. And there is a parallel there between what I think we see in college football, which is the gameday product is awesome. Off the field, it's a disaster. We see the same thing with FIFA and the World Cup. Off-the-field, stories like the ones you and I just sort of referenced, but on-field, when it comes to gameday, the product is going to be immaculate. The product will be wonderful. Which leads me to my first question. And this is something I tipped you off on. I have thought a lot about, for the uninitiated out there, people just looking for a reference point, which college football team is the best comp for the U.S. men's national team right now?

08:13 Bill Connelly: So you already showed me your answer, and it's really good and probably the best answer for a reason I'll explain once you give the answer. But I can describe basically 80% of the U.S.'s soccer history with one team, with a little bit of a gap that doesn't quite fit. So, okay, we've got a lot of old money in this country from the early 20th century, which I guess worldwide isn't all that old money, but it's old for us. Very competitive. We were one of the best in 1930, very competitive overall in the 1920s and 30s, the U.S. was. They took about 40 years off after World War II. Didn't really acknowledge the sport as a whole. And in the 2020s, one of our most fun players is an absolute psycho, chip-on-shoulder guy named Diego. So I can cover about 80% of the last century by going with Vanderbilt. Now, the U.S. actually tried in the 90s and 2000s a little bit, and Vanderbilt didn't, so the comparison falls off there. But I can go pretty far away with Vanderbilt.

09:21 Ty Hildenbrandt: So here's my answer, Dan. The U.S. plays in an easier conference CONCACAF. The schedule most of the time works to their favor. If they were a football team, a college football team, we'd have them down for like nine and three, but those three losses would be against like non-conference teams, better teams that are on the schedule. They have pulled some upsets over the years, but they haven't won anything of real merit on the international stage. Recruiting's been strong, so there's upside. But still, nobody talks about this team to win the whole thing right now. Their odds are 60 to 1.

09:58 Dan Rubenstein: Or you would go super deep, yeah.

09:59 Ty Hildenbrandt: And I would say an important caveat here is that the fan base is definitely more interested in other sports. Like, if this were a college football team, this would be a basketball school. So I think my answer is Louisville.

10:13 Dan Rubenstein: Oh, I thought you were going to North Carolina. Okay.

10:15 Ty Hildenbrandt: No, North Carolina, maybe, but Louisville, I think, is the one. You could also sell me on them being a very good G6 team, but that's a separate conversation. I think the answer for me is Louisville.

10:26 Bill Connelly: I like Louisville because it also implies the future existence of a Lamar Jackson of soccer, which I just endorse.

10:32 Dan Rubenstein: That's true.

10:35 Bill Connelly: I could not possibly endorse that anymore.

10:37 Dan Rubenstein: It also means that there's going to be an infusion of pizza money to the U.S. program. I don't know. I'm willing to follow this parallel as long as we see fit. But yeah, no, I think that's right. I think both of you are sort of on the money. I mean, look, from afar, I see this U.S. team, the men's national team, as interesting with upside and clear fatal flaws from what I can tell, and just not having upper, upper-level talent, but on its best days competitive with most everyone. Doesn't mean they're beating or have a significant chance of beating everybody, but yeah, I think they would be maybe a modern-day USC, something like that, where you're just like, there are high expectations, but you can clearly see why they're not going to win big in the way that they're built right now. I don't know. Somewhere in there.

11:34 Ty Hildenbrandt: Bill, to that point, and to quote the wise prophet Jeremy Gray from Wedding Crashers, this is very much a U.S. team built for speed. There is definitely an all-gas, no-brakes quality to how they're going to play, which I think, to Dan's point, does make them interesting. Again, this is the difference between something like a World Cup and the Premier League. You can maybe get away with a roster built like this that's going to play like this if, maximum, you're going to play eight games versus something like the PL, where you're playing, depending on how good you are, a 50-game season. To what end can this roster, can the tactics that the United States are going to deploy, make some real actual noise in the World Cup, get them out of the group, make them at least an interesting case for a deeper, say, quarterfinal or semifinal run in the knockout stage?

12:22 Bill Connelly: Well, I mean, first of all, and I know we talked about this briefly when we were talking about football a few weeks ago on here, but what we've seen from the United States even this year, even back in March during their super discouraging friendly losses, even in those matches, starter versus starter, they had a good plan. They were super proactive. They created some good chances. They forgot how to finish any of them, and therefore that was part of the disappointment. They've come out of these matches playing pretty decent front-foot football and creating opportunities. And if you convert those opportunities, I've been going back through the history of the U.S. and the World Cup going back to '90, and so much of a team's fate is, did you score on your first shot of the game? Sometimes the U.S. has done it and has overachieved. Sometimes they've let the other team do it and they've underachieved. But really, it's just about converting the opportunities you create. And they've been creating some pretty good ones. Against Senegal the other day, they did too. That was a brilliant first 20, 30 minutes and a couple of defensive breakdowns. They couldn't really settle back in. But maybe at least one of those doesn't happen if Chris Richards is playing. That's probably the most important player on this team at this point, and we'll see if he's healthy enough to go. But the group they're in is really super weird. Paraguay, Australia, Turkey, any of those teams could win the group. Any of those teams could finish fourth. There's not a hierarchy that you come into where, like, okay, well, England will probably lose that one, but as long as we handle the other matches, we'll be okay. This one is an absolute free-for-all, and I think if they can beat Paraguay out of the gate, and I kind of think they will, first of all, you're set, because eight of 12 third-place teams make it through. If you get blown out in the other matches, then you might be in trouble, but I think three points is probably good. So beat Paraguay, relax and play well against Australia, and you're going to be fine in terms of advancing. The most fun part about this tournament to me is going to be the absolute randomness of the Round of 32.

14:22 Ty Hildenbrandt: Right, right.

14:22 Bill Connelly: Because, I mean, number one, eight of 12 third-place teams get in. And if you go to the Wikipedia page, it has all the different combinations of if...

14:30 Ty Hildenbrandt: It's impossible. I tried to figure it out. It's impossible.

14:33 Bill Connelly: It's great. I love it. It's like, if these eight teams qualify, have the most points out of the 12, then this third-place team will play over here. And yeah, anybody could play anybody, especially when you think about how this is eight matches. It's going to be 90-whatever degrees. Teams are going to, especially if you win that first game, rotate pretty heavily in those next two games, especially if you're a favorite and you think you can get away with it. So we're probably going to have a couple weird third-place teams. And so we'll get, like, Germany-Portugal in one Round of 32 match and Ecuador versus, you know, DR Congo in another. So the paths are going to be really strange and could absolutely break any way, good or bad. And that's going to... so you're talking about making a run to the X round. Who knows? With the right breaks, you can make the semis, but you also might draw Spain or something in the Round of 32.

15:25 Ty Hildenbrandt: Yeah, I've done a little bit of digging, trying to figure out ways that the U.S. could end up playing in Boston and then, if they win, in Philly on July 4th, which I think is still mathematically possible. I don't know how likely that is. The quirk that I was telling Dan about earlier, and I'm sure we'll get at least a little bit into Mexico and Canada since I know we have listeners from both those areas. But the fun quirk that I told Dan I'm rooting for is if both Mexico and England win their groups, they should have a smooth ride through to the Round of 16, in which they would play each other on the night of July 5th in Azteca at elevation. I'm not sure. I know England's got the third-shortest odds to win the tournament, and clearly a loaded roster, even if you don't like the roster that they put out there. But England going to elevation in Azteca at night to play Mexico would be a hell of a scene.

16:20 Bill Connelly: Yeah, no, absolutely. I've been trying to talk myself... Like, six months ago, I was convinced this England team has everything it needs and it's really, really good. This is their chance. They're ready for a major, major run. But every single... I don't... the attacking, I wish, was a little more stable. They're going to be hilariously relying on Harry Kane for pretty much everything. Saka a little bit. But yeah, the draw is not great. They have Croatia there in group play, and Croatia loves to screw you up and make your tournament harder. And then, like you said, I don't expect anything to go as planned at all. And I would say that Korea Republic or Czechia could easily win Group A instead of Mexico, but you're right. That's a really tricky game, and they only get one group-stage match indoors, whereas Spain gets two. So that could be another factor as well.

17:13 Ty Hildenbrandt: Speaking of the U.S. team, again, this is sort of framed up as The College Football Fan's Guide to the World Cup. Something our audience might find interesting: the best player, the name-brand guy that if you are watching U.S. soccer, you will undoubtedly hear about is a winger named Christian Pulisic. He is our best player. Interestingly, though, the best player in our case is not the quarterback. If I want to dumb this down for a football audience, he's very good in the red zone. I've heard it mentioned on a couple of other podcasts now that the best version of our team is when they play to him and not through him. So he is definitely a piece. He is creative. He can score. He can assist. He can do a lot of really fun things in the attacking third. Who is the quarterback of this team, and how would you profile the other players? I know you mentioned Chris Richards, a defenseman, a center back who might be the most important player on the team. How would you, I guess, give our audience a hierarchy of the other most interesting guys on this roster?

18:18 Bill Connelly: Well, most of the teams that are really, really good have a great defensive midfielder who is basically kind of last line of defense before the back line, and also the first guy in attack, the guy who's pivoting the ball out to wherever it needs to go. That kind of general pivot point in both directions. The U.S. has had a very good one named Tyler Adams, who is always hurt. Just always hurt. And four years ago, if you were thinking about how this team might take shape for 2026, he was one of the first guys you mentioned, along with Pulisic and Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, who's a completely different situation right now.

18:58 Ty Hildenbrandt: That's Dan's guy. Dan loves Gio, yeah.

19:00 Dan Rubenstein: I do like Gio, the pure talent of it all. Yeah.

19:02 Bill Connelly: So does Mauricio Pochettino, apparently.

19:04 Dan Rubenstein: Yeah.

19:05 Bill Connelly: Chris Richards has developed into a guy pretty much as important. He really is absolutely dynamite now, and he's frequently hurt as well. But Adams really is kind of the enforcer. He's the tactical fouler to make sure that if a team, if you're in attack and the team starts to spring a counterattack, he's going to rough somebody up and get a yellow card and stop that from happening.

19:28 Dan Rubenstein: A smart PI, if you will, in the end zone. Yeah.

19:32 Bill Connelly: Okay, yeah, we'll go with that.

19:32 Dan Rubenstein: Sure.

19:33 Bill Connelly: Yeah, yeah.

19:34 Dan Rubenstein: Continue.

19:35 Bill Connelly: But no, I think he's vital, and he's just barely played for the United States over the last couple of years. And we'll see exactly: can he go 90 minutes? Can he play well for 90 minutes? That's going to be a huge piece. Because the thing about the U.S. is that it has a lot of really talented attackers now, and they're not quite as reliant on Pulisic as they have been at other times. During 2018 qualification, when he's 18 years old or whatever and by far the most reliable player on the pitch, that was bad. That was a really bad situation. Now there's a lot more depth in attack. McKennie can be in an attacking role. Tim Weah can be in an attacking role. Malik Tillman's awesome, really good off the ball and hustles a lot. So I don't think Pulisic is as important. I say all that, if he had been able to convert all chances against Portugal and Belgium, you have a completely different impression of those games. But still, it starts with Adams for me. And that makes it hard to evaluate the U.S. as a whole because he's barely played.

20:31 Dan Rubenstein: One of the things that I think is important when watching college football, following the sport, is the word intent. Are you building your team around a defense and controlling the ball? Are you going for tempo? The styles-make-fights thing. People I know watch the men's national team. They watch friendlies. They watch them in tournaments. Now, as we've seen a number of matches under a new regime, what is the intent of this squad tactically? And I guess sort of the sub-question of that is, what kind of match favors how the U.S. intends to play at its best, and what type of match would be troublesome?

21:16 Bill Connelly: It is funny because I think the team's best traits kind of feed its worst ones as well, in that the more open a game is, the more the U.S. can kind of use its athleticism. Pulisic is fast, and you've got Tillman, again, off the ball especially, he's great, just runs constantly. Really nice player. Antonee Robinson and Sergiño Dest out at the fullback, kind of the wingback positions, two more guys who have been hurt for most of the last four years, it seems like, especially Dest.

21:42 Ty Hildenbrandt: Right. They're fresh.

21:44 Dan Rubenstein: Right.

21:44 Ty Hildenbrandt: They're fresh, Bill.

21:44 Bill Connelly: They're fresh. That's right. They don't have a lot of miles on their legs. We just don't know if they can run 90 minutes. A lot of those guys are good attacking defenders, and the more pressure and athleticism that you can deploy, I think the better you are. It's just in those situations, you're leaving yourself exposed dramatically at the back, and you're still going to be potentially relying on a 62-year-old Tim Ream, or however old he is now. He was old four years ago, and he's still one of the two best center backs in the pool, or very close to it. And by the way, I did a piece a few months ago about... months, weeks, days, I don't know, at some point previously, about kind of the player pool and how it might be taking shape moving forward.

22:23 Dan Rubenstein: Time is a flat circle.

22:30 Bill Connelly: Pretty solid and encouraging depth just about everywhere except center back. Need some new center backs badly. And the fact that Ream is still this important probably re-emphasizes that a little bit. So basically, yeah, the more you're using your strengths, the more you're exposing your defense in the back, and the more that might backfire on you. And honestly, what we've absolutely learned through the years at a World Cup or really any kind of tournament is the really ugly, annoying style to watch is very, very effective. Just defend, defend, defend, defend. Maybe score on a counter. Draws are okay in the group stage. The Italy way, the kind of underdog defend-and-counter way. There's a reason teams do that, and I'm not sure this team is going to be very effective doing that. So it's almost like you got to roll the dice and just take your chances and attack and see what happens.

23:24 Dan Rubenstein: So that sort of brings me to my time-of-possession question. I wrote down service academy question, right? The teams that want to bleed clock and that want to control and slow down the identity of a match. When I've watched this team, whatever squads of the past few years, one of the things that stands out to me is they are not electric at possession and maintaining possession in the way that top squads are across the world. And when they need to get the ball, the skill isn't there to pressure in intelligent ways or effective ways. Would you feel better about this year's team maintaining possession to pick its spots, or having an ability athletically or with skill, whatever, to turn another team over when need be?

24:19 Bill Connelly: The thing with when Gregg Berhalter was the coach is he really wanted those possession principles and did a pretty good job of establishing them. It was just once you tilted the pitch, you've got everything where you want it, the other defense is bunkered in, and they didn't have the individual playmakers to actually do anything with the field tilted and all that. But look at some of the underdogs that I'm semi-confident in. A lot of them are going to play exactly that kind of defense, caution, counterattack, et cetera, kind of thing. Iraq is in the World Cup because they played that way really well. Morocco made the semis having that style of play, but then also having amazing talent at fullback and being able to attack when necessary. The U.S. is not one of those teams, I don't think. They do have speed, obviously, but I just, yeah, they have the pieces to be able to possess the ball. It's just whether they can actually score once they've got the pieces arranged like they wanted to, and they really couldn't do that under Berhalter.

25:23 Ty Hildenbrandt: We got a question on our Discord that I was going to ask anyway. And there are probably like seven different ways that I could frame this one up. We mentioned at the top the expansion of the field, and the knock-on effect from that is that there is more time in between games now.

25:40 Bill Connelly: Yes.

25:41 Ty Hildenbrandt: And so I'm wondering to what end that very subtle shift informed the way that this US team is built. Like, do we think there will be more potential for upsets or blowouts or maybe just different tactical approaches, given the fact that there is more time in between games now, at least in the group stage?

26:02 Bill Connelly: Yeah, I mean, it's a really good point because, among other things, we've been talking so much about the heat and the role that that's going to play. Well, obviously, when you have more rest time afterwards, you don't have to just basically not run for 90 minutes in the group stage just so you can survive. You can exert yourself a good amount knowing that you've got recovery time, you're not going to be playing again in three days, so you have to heavily rotate your squad or whatever. I still expect to see some of that because this is such a long tournament, but yeah, I do think whether it... basically, it means if you think you're best at pressing and exerting yourself at a high level, you can probably get away with it. And I do think the U.S., with their speed up front, that's something that I think they're probably best doing and not just bunkering in and trying not to run. So I don't know if it really affects your roster construction, but I guess it is one way to offset the heat at the end of the day.

26:58 Ty Hildenbrandt: Our coach this time around is a guy by the name of Mauricio Pochettino, an Argentinian guy who is well known in world football circles, has coached at a bunch of big clubs. It has been interesting to chart the online fandom's reaction to Pochettino. Part of the reason why I love soccer coverage in general, I would say just among the people on social media, is that there's never any perspective ever. Never, right? It's always through the lens of the here and now.

27:26 Bill Connelly: Yeah.

27:27 Ty Hildenbrandt: There's never any longer view of things. That said, we're going into the World Cup. The time for perspective is probably past us at this point. It's about results until at least the other side of this tournament. What has Pochettino brought to this club that is inherently different from what we saw from the previous regime or previous regimes?

27:50 Bill Connelly: Yeah, I mean, I think he has more of a historic perspective, a world perspective, I should say. One of the things I was really curious about was last fall, he kind of worked around a three-at-the-back structure, and it worked really well. And then you come out in those friendlies in March, and it's a four-man defensive line again against good opponents. That was very confusing to me. But I also know that history is littered, like England '66, I think a couple of Argentina teams, where basically the manager kind of found something interesting a year or two out and then just put it in his pocket for the World Cup, didn't show it again on film for the rest of the matches. So I was wondering if Poch was doing something like that too. And sure enough, they come out three at the back against Senegal, which honestly, save it for another couple matches, really. I think he's realized that that's the best approach, and then he kind of intentionally didn't use it for a little while. I think he's just seen a lot of things. A lot of the U.S. soccer fandom knows soccer through the U.S.'s results. And if you grew up in Argentina and played in Argentina and Europe and you've coached in Europe a long time, you know the history of the world of soccer, and it's going to alter things a little bit in that sense. It cannot be a bad thing. He is, by all accounts, a good motivator, good man manager, guys run a lot. I wish in the two years that he was in charge he had the actual first-choice 11 guys available to him ever. And that's been really discouraging. But he'll basically, if Richards can go, and I guess we won't know until it's time if he can...

29:28 Ty Hildenbrandt: I think they're sandbagging that. I think they're sandbagging.

29:32 Bill Connelly: I think Oliver Glasner using the word torn when he was talking about his

29:37 Ty Hildenbrandt: But every twisted ankle is a torn ankle.

29:39 Bill Connelly: Right.

29:40 Ty Hildenbrandt: You know, it's a matter of speech.

29:40 Bill Connelly: Like, that's... I think that was a very European description of a torn ankle, and it's not what we think of as torn. So, yeah, I think he'll certainly try to play. And if he's good enough to be a reasonably approximate Chris Richards, then really this is the first time that Poch will have had all of his guys right as the World Cup starts, which I guess is all that matters at the end. But I'd love for a little more chemistry there.

30:04 Ty Hildenbrandt: They should play it up. They should make it sound like he's got to get his ankle chopped off. Like, what's the point right now?

30:09 Bill Connelly: That's right. There's just no way. I just don't see it happening at all. And then the Rocky music starts.

30:13 Ty Hildenbrandt: Yeah, yeah.

30:15 Dan Rubenstein: He limps out and then plays.

30:17 Bill Connelly: That's right.

30:18 Dan Rubenstein: I want to pull on the tactical adjustment string a little bit more because it seems that that's the conversation with how many guys are you playing back on defense, three or four. So this is, I guess, more broadly speaking and about, I guess, the U.S. team. What levers can be pulled besides that? Obviously, you can mess with rosters. Obviously, you can mess with in-game when you're substituting or when you're not substituting. What are the levers at this point? Because everybody's sort of familiar with the styles of each other, and it seems like there are a limited number. Again, I'm very silly and dumb with this sport. How much can teams adjust on the fly? How many dramatic changes can be made either in-game or from match to match as you see it in a tournament like this?

31:08 Bill Connelly: Well, and it is funny too. Anytime we even talk about tactics and formations, number one, there are two formations. It's what you are in attack and then what you are in defense. And pretty much everybody, like a vast majority of teams, are just old-school 4-4-2 in defense, one way or the other, no matter what guys you start with. But yeah, a lot of it comes down to just how high is your back line. Barcelona plays with just a hilariously high defensive line, where basically every time they lose the ball, they're either pulling the other team offside because the line's so high, or they're getting absolutely torched and giving up a breakaway. So just the compactness of your formation probably makes as much of a difference as the formation itself. And just how many guys are you committing to attack versus defense? Are you basically keeping four guys back in defense plus two safety midfielders? Is it 6-4, 4-6, 5-5? Those things, on a more macro level, are kind of the things you need to be counting when each team has the ball, not simply how many guys are in the back line versus the midfield or whatever. It really is how much you're committing to attack or defense. It makes a really, really big difference.

32:22 Dan Rubenstein: Does the U.S. have a roster to be as versatile as they'd like to be?

32:27 Bill Connelly: Well, one of the interesting things about Pochettino's roster selection was it was kind of midfield-light and defender-heavy compared to what people expected. And maybe part of that was Chris Richards being hurt and him not knowing for sure that Richards was going to play and needing to have backup options. But it does feel kind of light in midfield. Which, number one, the whole three-at-the-back thing where Dest and Robinson aren't really fullbacks, but they're more wingbacks, they're a little bit more in attack. I think we'll absolutely see that moving forward, which again, it might be the best version of the United States because both of those guys are good in attack. So I do think maybe that hints at things. You're going to have three center backs, three more sturdy defenders who don't commit numbers up top, but the guys on the edge are running a lot and really trying to commit to attack on the other end.

33:21 Dan Rubenstein: I don't know what's going to be done for you.

33:22 Bill Connelly: So maybe that's what we've seen here, but if there were any surprises in the roster selection, picking Zendejas up front was a little surprising, although he's had a great, you know, he's been great in Mexico. Picking Gio Reyna was a surprise to me, even though it shouldn't have been, because he clearly likes Reyna more than I do. And then picking more defenders and less midfielders was a surprise too.

33:44 Dan Rubenstein: I want to stick with group talk, not group stage, but something that's interesting to me is, and everybody's looking for reasons to watch all sorts of different matches around this tournament, when you look at various groups of players that are playing similar positions, so either groups of guys playing defense or in the midfield or groups of attackers, which countries stand out to you as having especially robust groupings of players? I was thinking about, like, LSU receivers, or Ohio State defensive linemen, or Georgia front seven. Who are, even if the team itself isn't incredible, you're like, wow, that group of dudes in this country or that group of dudes doing this for this country, that's something special?

34:30 Bill Connelly: The funniest roster by far to me is Portugal's because they have the best set of creative talent in the world. They've got Vitinha in midfield. Vitinha, love Vitinha. He's like four feet tall and just absolutely the boss of Paris Saint-Germain. You've got Nuno Mendes, who is maybe the best left back in the world, very good on both sides. You've got Bruno Fernandes, the new all-time season assists leader in the Premier League after this last season. So many guys. Rafael Leão is very creative. Pedro Neto on the wing is creative. You have all these amazingly creative guys, really interesting possibilities in that regard. You also have 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo at forward, who can do one thing, just call for the ball in the middle of the pitch, and all these creative guys just have to lob the ball towards his head in the box. And that's all they do. They are a worse team when he's on the pitch. They have been for five years. They continue to play him.

35:33 Dan Rubenstein: Wow.

35:34 Bill Connelly: He continues to be Cristiano Ronaldo. And therefore, they have to play him, and he destroys their creativity and doesn't press because he's 41 years old and hasn't pressed in 10 years.

35:43 Dan Rubenstein: Right, I was gonna say worse, why? Because he's old and does not offer a complete game like he could have when he was twenty-eight.

35:47 Bill Connelly: Yeah. So they are absolutely capable of winning this whole thing, but the biggest star that they have negates their biggest strength entirely and just makes them fascinating in all ways, good and bad.

35:59 Dan Rubenstein: Wow. Who else? Any other groupings either in the midfield, like who has a robust defense that's just going to be a wall back there? Who are those groupings?

36:12 Bill Connelly: Well, I think Spain, their ability to possess the ball is still kind of unmatched. Just by playing their natural game, they're going to have 70% possession in any given game. And that means against underdogs, they're going to be facing parked buses the entire tournament for the most part, until the knockout rounds, but they're just really good, and they have Lamine Yamal on the outside eventually, whenever he's healthy enough to play. So they're always going to be interesting from a possession standpoint. Let's see. Brazil is always really interesting just in terms of they always have attacking talent, although some of it's hurt this year, so I don't know how much they have. They haven't had a good fullback in ages, which makes them just this really fragile squad. And maybe their midfield isn't as good, but that's still really fun. I love the way Argentina won the last tournament by basically having a bunch of young guys run interference for Messi, do all the legwork so Messi could just be Messi. And now all those young guys are more experienced, and a lot of them are better. You assume they're not going to repeat because teams don't repeat, but they're going to have all those same components, and that's going to be pretty fun.

37:24 Ty Hildenbrandt: Well, let me ask you about England. Because England went perfect in qualifying. They didn't concede a goal. And so I guess to Dan's point, you could probably make a defense argument, maybe. But I'm just wondering, is that like a real sign that they will be a defensive juggernaut? And with the firepower they already have on offense? they have a real shot to win this thing? Or do you view that as something of an aberration given who they played in qualifying? And now maybe that complexion has changed a little bit with the final roster that Thomas Tuchel put out?

38:00 Bill Connelly: Well, I think previously they were a team that had a lot of attacking talent and a very defensive mindset, which, I mean, that's France to a T, and France won the World Cup and almost won another one. So you can absolutely... And England obviously almost won Euros a while back. So that approach that Southgate brought to the table is really good. And Tuchel is the ultimate paranoid control guy who basically uses heavy possession to just make sure that his team doesn't give up goals. So they're going to be that sturdy, cautious kind of England that we've seen in recent tournaments. And honestly, Tuchel is a great coach on an individual-game basis. Every time he coaches a club team, within two years he has a poisonous relationship with the front office because of all the things he doesn't have. But with the national team, he doesn't have a choice. He has who he has, and he accepts it, and he puts together a really... I mean, with England, I think he's put together a really good team, even though obviously there are some confusing roster selections, I guess.

39:02 Ty Hildenbrandt: I was going to say, did you like that roster? Because a lot of what I read was very negative. I mean, maybe that's just the state of soccer fandom at the moment. But

39:11 Bill Connelly: Right, right

39:12 Ty Hildenbrandt: A lot of what I read was viewing it curiously.

39:16 Bill Connelly: Yeah, I mean, I think they have so much talent that somebody was going to get left off regardless. But then, you know, when you leave off some good creative guys, but you bring in center forward Ivan Toney, who has been in Saudi Arabia for a little while now, and you can question the levels of competition or form or whatever, but he's also an amazing penalty taker and just a big body in the box. So I kind of get it. 26-man rosters do allow you to take some weird choices, like make a 23-man selection and then just pick three guys that you think could be interesting. So I didn't really have a problem with Toney being selected. He didn't select Harry Maguire, old Slabhead at the back, but he did bring in Dan Burn, who's the same player, a giant center back who can head in corners. So I think they are going to be pretty similar to how they were in previous seasons in that, with their attacking talent, even though it's maybe not as deep as I kind of thought it would be at one point, they're still going to make sure they don't give up any goals first, and they're probably going to be there standing there in the quarterfinals or semifinals unless the Mexico thing...

40:25 Ty Hildenbrandt: The Mexico thing, man.

40:26 Bill Connelly: backfires on them.

40:26 Ty Hildenbrandt: Telling you, watch out. Mexico three to one to make the quarterfinals. FYI.

40:31 Bill Connelly: I don't trust that talent on that team enough to make that call at all.

40:33 Ty Hildenbrandt: No, no, no.

40:35 Bill Connelly: But no, I think it made sense for a Thomas Tuchel team, who he selected, even if he made some kind of boring choices as opposed to fun, creative choices.

40:48 Ty Hildenbrandt: So I checked this morning. We're recording this on Wednesday the third. At the time of recording, France and Spain are your co-favorites at plus 475. And there's a little bit of a gap before you get to England, who's right now at 7-1. But there's a group of five teams. England, Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, and Germany, they range from seven to one all the way up to 14 to 1. After that, there's a pretty big gap. And just across the whole 48-team field, there are only 12 teams that have a 50-to-one shot or better. So is the implication and I guess is your assumption that if you're picking a team to win, it's going to be one of those seven teams? Or are you viewing it a little bit more broadly and saying, well, there are other teams outside of that initial seven, maybe outside of those 12 that realistically have a shot to win this thing.

41:46 Bill Connelly: Yeah, I mean, at this point, the ruling class for world soccer is the countries that have the best leagues and therefore get their guys the most competition on a year-to-year basis and have the money to develop guys really well, and then Argentina and Brazil. That's your ruling class. And Brazil has been pretty dicey. This doesn't feel like their most talented team by any means, and they have some injuries that they've been dealing with. I feel like I've said the word injury four million times over the last 40 minutes. It's kind of how soccer is at the moment. So yeah, that makes sense. I can certainly express a preference within that group, and I can tell you some underdogs who are most likely to make runs. But yeah, you give me five teams probably, and I would take them against the field. Definitely seven, but maybe even just five.

42:35 Ty Hildenbrandt: All right, so who are your preferences and who are your sleeper teams? Because this is a college football show at the end of the day, and college football fans love sleepers and underdogs.

42:42 Bill Connelly: Yeah. That's right, Cinderella. Well, first of all, France is the most talented team. They're kind of due. I'm hoping that history really lives up to... becomes a thing here. We've had it. It's been a while since we had a good France crash out, and so I'm hoping history asserts itself and they bomb because most of the other major favorites have bombed at some point recently. France is usually a little more dramatic in that regard. So that'd be fun. But I love, for all the problems I have with Kylian Mbappé not pressing like a 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, and he always has and it drives me crazy, in a tournament where you're going to be playing solid defense and trying to counter a little bit, he's perfect. And obviously they made the finals with him two straight years. So I do think they're probably the best overall team and a smart pick as favorite, especially with Lamine Yamal still being injured for Spain. But we'll see. Anybody can crash out. And if they aren't dominant and they don't make the finals again, I think of that favorite group, it bears mention, and this is me living up to type, but Germany was, in terms of xG, which, you know, stats are for losers, I realize...

44:00 Ty Hildenbrandt: Explain what that means to the college football audience.

44:01 Bill Connelly: Expected goals is basically every shot you take, depending on the distance and the angle and the positioning of the defenders, there's enough data to where you can say that shot has an X percent chance of becoming a goal. If it's a 5% chance, that's 0.05 xG, or expected goals. And then you just add up the totals for each shot, and then you have an xG total at the end of the game. Over the course of a 38-game Premier League season, it's going to be more predictive than just pure goals or goal differential is.

44:31 Dan Rubenstein: So you trust it. You trust this metric.

44:34 Bill Connelly: It's a good metric. It has its limitations. Teams can pile up, if you're trailing, a whole bunch of shot attempts from range, like 0.03, 0.03, 0.04, et cetera. You end up with a pretty decent total, but it was a low-percentage kind of deal. So nothing's perfect, obviously, but it is a telling stat to keep track of. Four years ago in Qatar, one of the big stories was Germany bombing out in the group stage. They had the best xG goal differential, or xG differential, in the group stage. The ball just didn't go in net. They had, like, five bad minutes against Japan, and their finishing left them and they fell short, but the components were there. Two years ago at the Euros, the components were there again. They got screwed on a bad call against Spain. They got knocked out of the tournament. They don't have a great center forward, but they have a lot to like. And so the fact that they're the number seven favorite behind Portugal, behind Brazil, I kind of think I might trust them more than Portugal or Brazil, at least. So they are something where there might be a little value there.

45:42 Ty Hildenbrandt: We should say, full disclaimer, he is wearing a Borussia Dortmund shirt, which I don't think was by design.

45:48 Dan Rubenstein: Yeah, there's the disclosure.

45:49 Ty Hildenbrandt: It might have just been sort of a random wardrobe selection, but thematic.

45:50 Bill Connelly: Oh, it was totally. I just grabbed a shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Grabbed a shirt last night.

45:55 Ty Hildenbrandt: All right. So you're all in Germany. Who are your sleepers?

46:00 Bill Connelly: Outside of that top seven, I do think the next two favorites are Netherlands and Belgium. They have a lot of depth and talent, and the Netherlands can... Like, I don't love their coach, but it makes sense that they're next. I thought I was onto a pretty good sleeper with Norway, but then it turned out everybody was on Norway.

46:19 Ty Hildenbrandt: Everyone's on Norway, yeah.

46:20 Bill Connelly: So, yeah, so that doesn't really count.

46:21 Dan Rubenstein: Because they have one of the three best players in the world?

46:23 Bill Connelly: Right, three best. And then also, they still don't have defenders, which is going to backfire on them eventually. But not only do they have Erling Haaland, they also have Martin Ødegaard, a really nice creative midfielder for Arsenal, who is hurt a lot, but anytime he's in there, Arsenal's a much more creative and interesting team. They have Antonio Nusa, who plays for RB Leipzig. They have a lot of really interesting attackers and very little in terms of defense. So that's going to make them a fun wild card. They're in France's group. So if you believe in my France crash out theory, they could be the main cause of that, along with Senegal. Really, really tough group considering how thin everything could have been with 48 teams overall. Poor Iraq is in that group too, and they're toast. But yeah.

47:10 Ty Hildenbrandt: Just got to play that defense, man. Bleed teams out.

47:13 Bill Connelly: And they were really, like I said, that's how they made it. They were really fun to watch because they fought their guts out, so they have that going for them at least. But no, I think they are positioned to be kind of a dangerous thing, even if they don't make a huge run. They could prevent France from making a huge run or something like that. So they're really interesting. Going down the line, Turkey's another team that has a lot of creative talent with Arda Güler and Hakan Çalhanoğlu, who's played for a couple different Milan teams at this point. They've got a lot of really creative pieces. Watching them in qualification was pretty maddening because they just played paranoid defensive ball and hoped that one of their creatives could do something. And they almost didn't make the tournament because of it. So they're a big wild card in terms of range of outcomes, but anytime they score twice, they're going to be in really good shape. So it's just going to take a little bit of magic. And if we're going further down the line, I wish Japan... I was all in on Japan. I think Japan is a really, really fun team. They've been hit hard by injuries too, so they're not going to be as good as they could. But wherever their odds are at, they're somewhere in the middle. There's decent value there as well.

48:29 Dan Rubenstein: Is there a manager or a country's system in which you are just entranced with what they're going to try to do, right? That you don't think they're going to go super deep, but, like, hey, this guy is really smart, or this way they deal with a press, or this way that they deal with wings is really interesting. They're going to get more out of their talent than they should because this is how they choose to play.

48:55 Bill Connelly: Well, Morocco plays exactly how its talent dictates they play, and that's how they made the semis. So you can't really call them a sleeper. They made the semis four years ago, but they are really matched up well in terms of tactics and roster.

49:04 Dan Rubenstein: Sure.

49:09 Bill Connelly: And it's hard because the best coaches are coaching club ball for the most part. And so with national team ball, you don't get the same amount of practice. You can't get as intricate, basically. You have to keep things a lot more basic.

49:21 Dan Rubenstein: Right.

49:23 Bill Connelly: But it is noteworthy, the way Morocco plays. Honestly, one of my favorite managers ever, Marcelo Bielsa, is in this tournament with Uruguay. It seems like half his team hates him at this point.

49:36 Dan Rubenstein: I was going to ask who the best manager is in this tournament, if the best managers are coaching club teams.

49:36 Bill Connelly: And right.

49:40 Dan Rubenstein: Yeah.

49:40 Bill Connelly: And so, yeah, Bielsa is his own thing. He's fascinating to watch in interviews. He's just the weirdest dude. But if Uruguay's players decide they'll listen to him, then he's had success at the national team level, he's had some success at the club level, even though usually his guys wear themselves out. But they could be a really interesting team in that regard too. So I don't know. When we get down to the bottom, we know all the teams at the bottom are going to be playing just defend your hearts out and hope you get some lucky break on the other side. But the other thing I will say, it could make things interesting at least, is 48 teams. We're going to stretch this player pool out massively, and there are going to be some overwhelmed teams. But even Curaçao, most of their team plays in the Netherlands, like in the top division in the Netherlands. A lot of their team does, at least. And so I think for most of the teams, not every single one, like Jordan, Iraq, some of those teams I don't think have a lot of players that are playing at a high level or a reasonably high level in Europe, but a lot of these teams do. And I think just the way the talent is discovered in this world now, a lot of the minnows still have a lot of players who have had a lot of good training and can do a lot of technical things well.

50:52 Dan Rubenstein: I like to work on that.

50:58 Bill Connelly: So I do think that one of the benefits to 48... One of the drawbacks is this thing's going to last a year and a half. But one of the pluses of 48 is we're pretty much guaranteed to have a fun Cinderella. Don't ask me which one, but there are a lot of technically sound minnows who could make runs with the right breaks.

51:17 Ty Hildenbrandt: Could we make a case for Austria?

51:20 Bill Connelly: Yes. Oh, I...

51:21 Ty Hildenbrandt: Austria is really interesting to me, if for no other reason than the fact that they're going to press like crazy. Like they're going to play the 40 minutes of hell.

51:29 Bill Connelly: Right, Ralf Rangnick is one of the authors of the gegenpressing style, counter-pressing and attacking. His team's pretty old to play that style. David Alaba is 33. Ten years ago, he was one of the best players ever. Pep Guardiola said he was their most important player when he was at Bayern. But he's old. You look at it, Marcel Sabitzer is still really important. He's 32. A lot of their guys are old, so I don't know exactly if he's going to be able to do what he wants to. But in terms of having a lot of guys who have played for a lot of good clubs, they're very talented and they'll need some help. But I think they're absolutely a team that gets a couple of bounces and suddenly they're in the quarterfinals.

52:14 Ty Hildenbrandt: How does this tournament go for a team like Canada? Canada is dealing with some injuries now, notably Alphonso Davies. They just had another guy go down, who's going to be out for the duration of the World Cup. But we talk often in the United States about events like this potentially, quote, moving the sport forward. But what does this mean for Canada, to be on this world stage? They were in the last World Cup, but this one's obviously going to be on home soil. As you look at sort of their prospects now over the course of the next month or so, what does this tournament have in store for the Canadians?

52:50 Bill Connelly: Well, it's kind of like the U.S. in that their group has a lot of talent in it but no obvious favorite. They're in with Qatar. Qatar is obviously not very good. But then Bosnia and Herzegovina, I love that Edin Džeko, 40-year-old Edin Džeko, is playing in this tournament. He has one... he's big and can head a ball in. And they are built around defense and just a couple of good crosses into the box. But they're really good at those things, and that's going to be a really tricky opponent because of that. Switzerland probably got a huge break landing in this group, if we're being honest, because they, like Austria, are a team that just has major club talent everywhere. Although I think it was Breel Embolo, I saw that he's having visa issues. I guess that's another thing that we get to look forward to in the coming days, is who's stuck outside the country and can't get in. Love it. But regardless, Switzerland's another team that has a lot of talent. I would put them as a favorite, unless I'm underestimating Canada's home-field advantage there in Toronto and Vancouver. I would give Switzerland a pretty good chance. But when you're in a group with Qatar, as long as you draw one of the other matches, you're probably advancing at the very least. And I would assume, especially as long as Davies is good enough to do something, which we'll see, they have enough talent to at least advance.

54:15 Ty Hildenbrandt: All right, let's close this out with a few rapid-fire questions. First off, again, for the uninitiated, the college football fans watching who may have a rooting interest in the United States because the game is on in passing or because they have dorks like me talking about it. What is the thing to watch for? Not necessarily the result. The result of the game is most important. But if you are watching a game and if you are not necessarily a soccer dork, what is it that these fans should be watching for? And they could say, ah, I heard that on the podcast. That appears to be working. So that is good. What are the one or two things, if you're watching a U.S. game, to look for as a tell that yes, what they are trying to do is actually working?

55:00 Bill Connelly: Well, I think one of the things that you start to pick up on after a while, and I know a lot of stat carriers have tried to measure this. I don't think anybody does an amazing job of it. Breaking lines. That is one thing. Because basically, when you are in possession or you're trying to build up possession, you're trying to pass through three lines of defense. So obviously, the last one is the hardest by far. But just seeing which teams seem to be creating little numbers advantages and breaking those lines pretty easily. When the U.S. is at its best, they make that first line, when their attackers are pressing, pretty hard to pass. But then that opens you up to being kind of sliced in the midfield. Little things like that, just seeing how dangerous teams are as they advance the ball towards the attacking third. One of the things I've always kind of looked at, I think when I started watching more and more soccer 15, 20 years ago as a football fan, one of the things that really helped me quite a bit is, obviously, this isn't an American football possession kind of game. Every possession ends in a turnover, basically. But the way teams choose to attack, whether it's through more cluttered areas in the middle with more technical skill and a little more physicality, whether it's just trying to beat teams on the outside with speed, whether it's going deep or playing longer or shorter passes, those kinds of things, it's a flavor of football possession. And if you're really just trying to look for an in, if you just don't get why people love soccer, and maybe you never will, just kind of looking at it in that regard, understanding, yeah, there aren't going to be many goals, and therefore it's a completely different sport. But the way teams choose to attack, it really is like football in open play and then basketball inbounds plays on free kicks and corners and long throws and stuff like that. As long as you kind of know what you're looking at, you do see things that are familiar to you. It does take a lot to overcome the fact that maybe you're going to see three goals in a game, and that's going to determine who wins. But all the little intricate details are pretty fun to follow. And the more you watch, the more you see those things and you kind of understand what you're looking for.

57:15 Ty Hildenbrandt: I think it was Christian Pulisic who said, Yeah, just multiply the goals by seven, and it'll feel a little bit more like football.

57:21 Bill Connelly: It's like 10, I think, or 13 or something.

57:21 Ty Hildenbrandt: Ten. Multiply it by ten.

57:23 Bill Connelly: But yeah, that's basically it.

57:23 Ty Hildenbrandt: Yeah, let's do that instead. All right. Next question: Is there an Indiana in this group? And by that, I mean a team that suddenly is better than most people realize and should probably be taken more seriously than casual fans are accustomed to.

57:41 Bill Connelly: Well, I guess with the cynicism that we've developed in this country, you could almost say the United States is better than the United States thinks it is

57:46 Ty Hildenbrandt: Okay. Okay. I mean, we will take Indiana, who went 16-0, won a title in a Heisman Trophy last year.

57:52 Bill Connelly: Yeah, that's right.

57:52 Ty Hildenbrandt: That'd be cool.

57:55 Bill Connelly: Yeah, I don't know. I think a team like Ecuador probably has a lot more talent than people have really caught on to. Uruguay is another one, although they have been less than the sum of their parts over the last couple of years. Sweden has been less than the sum of its parts the last couple of years. But if any of those teams suddenly, you know, a player gets hot and they take the lead, guys like Valverde at Uruguay are ridiculously talented. So I do think, like I said, the Round of 32 is going to be a giant random number generator here. And we're going to have some really weird pairings, and we're going to have some really interesting paths for those teams in the middle. And like I said, everybody's got stars in Europe. So I do think that's the most interesting part. I don't really know a specific team, but there could be a Senegal, a Turkey, Colombia is a really interesting one, I think. Just a lot of teams that are going to make runs, and you're going to realize, oh, that guy's playing for Madrid. This guy's playing for a really good team in the Premier League. This team has a lot of talent, so of course they're making a run.

59:00 Ty Hildenbrandt: Final question, two-parter. A, what is your most boring prediction?

59:08 Bill Connelly: France.

59:09 Ty Hildenbrandt: France to win.

59:10 Bill Connelly: Yeah. I hope otherwise, like I said, but they are most talented.

59:15 Ty Hildenbrandt: And then B, what is your spiciest prediction?

59:18 Bill Connelly: France.

59:21 Ty Hildenbrandt: Crashing out? That could go both ways, right?

59:30 Bill Connelly: I saw Ryan O'Hanlon had them as the top in terms of the favorites most likely to crash. O'Hanlon had Portugal as his number one candidate for the same reason I do. And they are in a weird little group that could at the very least result in them finishing third in the group and ending up playing a really good team in the Round of 32. So they're kind of a wild card in that regard. No, I do think we are going to have at least one weird semifinalist, in part because those first couple rounds in the knockouts are going to be wild.

01:00:01 Ty Hildenbrandt: All righty. Well, I'm excited. Again, the tournament starts on Thursday, June the 11th. It is Mexico against South Africa to kick things off. The United States kicks off against Paraguay on Friday evening Eastern Time. Bill, you said you're going to be covering some games, yeah?

01:00:18 Bill Connelly: Absolutely. I'm going to be in Houston for a couple and then in my backyard over in Kansas City for a few as well.

01:00:26 Ty Hildenbrandt: And for those who are interested, I am going to be at the U.S. game against Australia in Seattle on June the 19th. So hit me up, solidverbal@gmail.com if you're going to be in town. Certainly, if you are a sponsor who would want to host a co-host of an enterprising college football podcast, you can hit us up, solidverbal@gmail.com. Bill, thank you for doing this. We appreciate your insight. Of course, we cherish your college football work. I saw just before we hit go on this, you posted the ACC, which means that you're through the G6 now.

01:01:01 Bill Connelly: Oh, yeah.

01:01:04 Ty Hildenbrandt: Yeah, you've got just the power conferences left.

01:01:06 Bill Connelly: Just power conferences left. Somebody tried to make a G7 joke, including the ACC in that. I didn't acknowledge that. It's a perfectly worthwhile conference.

01:01:17 Dan Rubenstein: It's fine, guys.

01:01:19 Ty Hildenbrandt: Bill Connelly, our friend from ESPN.com. Make sure you subscribe and follow and check out all of his fine work. Greatly appreciate his time. We will be back next week talking about all things college football. As I said at the top, we're about a month out from rolling our own previews out onto the feed. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, for myself, Ty, for that guy over there in Chicago, Dan, and for our good friend Bill Connelly, who graciously gave us so much of his time today, we will catch you all next time. In the meantime, stay solid.