Aikshrees Kanduraja

Messi walks out, immediately, of course, forgets the entire interaction that I have never forgotten.

Yep.

Needless to say, I wrote my draft and then got a very efficient, carefully worded email from my editor saying that the article was not going to be published and that I could kindly take my kill fee and go away.

Brutal.

Yeah.

And in retrospect, there is something charming about the fact that you thought you were going to get the real Lionel Messi.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he batted me aside like I was, you know, a third tier defender and went on with his life.

And so here I am thinking, man, we're going to vibe on this because we are both, you know, have this like deep emotional and deep intellectual understanding of the game.

And what basically what he was telling me was like, no, you're down here and I'm up here.

Danielle and John's show is called The Away End, which is a soccer podcast about the run-up to the World Cup made by two people who really like books.

Our program was produced today by me and edited by David Gestenbaum.

The people who put together today's show are Our managing editor is And our executive editor is

Special thanks today to Sam McInnes.

Thanks also to all our This American Life partners.

When you join, you'll get regular exclusive bonus episodes, listen ad-free, and most importantly, help us continue making this show.

Join at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners.

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange.

Thanks, as always, to our boss, Ira Glass.

You know, at his own wedding recently, he decided it would be funny to start his vows by saying, it's this American wife.

Nobody laughed.