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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Football Daily at the People World Cup 2026. With Rick Edwards and Lloyd Griffith. Live from L.A.
So, day two in Los Angeles. We're not in our Santa Monica base today. We're actually in Inglewood in a sports bar in the Hollywood Park Casino, which is right next to the SoFi Stadium, which is called the Los Angeles Stadium for the duration of the tournament, where the USA have just beaten Paraguay, thumped them 4-1 in their opening game. Lloyd and I have just come straight from there.
First of all, I feel like I just have to hold my hands up because I was expecting the USA to not be very good, and they were excellent. They were very, very good, weren't they? They really were. I mean, Paraguay weren't. No. But still. Paraguay had a really good, I think, two minutes at the start. Lovely two minutes. And then it didn't really go to plan for them.
And the USA were, I'm going to say, silky. They were, and they were being supported admirably because the place was packed to the rafters. It was. Mark Ogden is alongside us, senior writer at ESPN. It was a good game, wasn't it, Mark? It was a really good game. Were you surprised at how good the... It can't just be me. No, well, I'll tell you how surprised I was.
I was asked to do my tips at the start of the tournament for a big team that will fail to qualify for the group. The US aren't a big team, but they're the hosts, and I said, I think the US will struggle to get out of the group. Do you still maintain that decision? I think I might have to change that. Paraguay might struggle.
It's probably worth me pointing out that when the USA scored their third goal, Lloyd whispered in my ear, Paraguay are still going to win this. You can't deny it because you did. I'm annoyed you brought that up. I do think they might get back into it, but they just weren't at the races. I mean, it just seemed like they didn't have anyone up top at all.
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Chapter 2: What was Rick and Lloyd's first World Cup matchday experience like?
It was completely baffling because the player moved on, for starters, and then in the stadium, you just had this big thing come up that said, VAR, check, mistaken identity. Well, that's not a... What? That's not a... That is not a thing. So, completely confused by that. Then confused by the fact that for a yellow card, they can't go back and change it. Particularly if it's not in the area.
But just... Absolutely, just gobsmacked. Had no idea what was going on. Mark shed some light. I wish I could. I mean, obviously, it was a mistaken decision that she overturned it. Call it a mistaken decision.
Yeah, exactly.
Mistaken identity is the worst name for it.
Chapter 3: How did the USA perform against Paraguay in their opening match?
That is why he said in the stadium, the referee should be giving himself a yellow card for getting it wrong. Obviously, that can't happen. But you'd like to see it. But you'd like to see it. He booked the wrong person for the wrong defence. Yeah, and now we rectified it. It's a mess, but I've never... You've seen that happen before. I've never seen it rectified before.
We were at the game, so we didn't have any commentary. We didn't know what was going on. We just had mistaken identity. Everyone was baffled. We asked our WhatsApp group. Producer Lizzie basically found this, and it's mistaken identity. This is an incredibly niche addition, which Kalina requested.
If a player is booked or sent off, but the foul was actually committed by the opposition team, that decision can be changed. Look, I don't even necessarily mind it, but you've got to give it a different name. And you've got to explain it as well. And you've got to explain it, but isn't that always the case with VAR?
Sorry, if we are throwing each other under the bus early doors, Rick, when Ream went in for that tackle, which wasn't a tackle, you went, you definitely got him there. You said, you definitely got him there. Yes, I did. But we were quite high up, and I couldn't really see. We were very high up. In my defence. Pulisic came off at half-time.
He'd had a really good first half, and I think there was a bit of consternation amongst the US fans that we were sitting by anyway. Do we know what the reason was? I assumed it was just like, well, give him a rest, like the game's won. Yeah, well, that was my thought. But Mauricio Pochettino has said after the game that he took a kick to the calf and it was a precaution.
But Pulisic has also said that he took a kick to the calf and he hopes he'll be OK for the next game. So there seems to be no real concern.
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Chapter 4: What insights did Mark Ogden share about the match and players?
But the fact that he hopes he's OK just adds that little bit of sense. But Christian Pulisic is a huge, huge figure for the U.S. team. He's their golden boy. And the fact he played so well tonight, two assists, and he was really on it. So if he has any element of doubt, that will be a big issue, a big story for the U.S. What did you make of the atmosphere?
Because we've been talking a lot about the fact that it's not felt that World Cup-y. But as we approached the stadium today, you were like, aha, this is more like it. They're shouting about it a bit more. And when you got in that, I mean, it's an unbelievably big stadium. Huge. Like it's a sensationally big stadium. With a spaceship in the middle. with a weird spaceship in the middle.
And it did start to get my juices flowing a bit, I think. It's a strange atmosphere in the US, because it's not like we get in Mexico, where it was crazy in Mexico, but... It was certainly lively, Tane. I think one thing that struck me, though, was that it seemed a very affluent crowd. It probably has to be to be able to afford the tickets.
It didn't strike me that it wasn't a young crowd, it wasn't a crowd of, you know, I guess the people that you would ordinarily see in the UK. People who went to this game are the people that could afford it. Yeah, you could definitely tell by everyone was wearing something that was a USA bit of merch, whether it be a T-shirt, a cap. Everyone had something. And I think you're right.
There's a lot of sponsorship there. Obviously, World Cups, tournaments, you know, is heavily sponsored. But I think you're right. It did seem like an affluent crowd. Almost a corporate crowd. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, you might be right. It didn't particularly occur to me in there. I did think that their support and their chance are quite one note. They've sort of just got USA.
I was in Philadelphia last year for the Club World Cup and I was at a Chelsea game. Chelsea got quite a big following in the US. And this chant was going round and round that you'd never hear at Stamford Bridge. It was, let's go Chelsea, let's go, let's go. And you'd never, ever hear that at Stamford Bridge. I thought, they're not local fans.
I would have bitten your hand off for a let's go USA, let's go. There was anything. Yeah, I mean, look, there were... They were giving it their all. They obviously wanted to win. When those goals went in, they were obviously over the moon. The stadium was electric. And it was a proper archetypal, I'd say, American crowd with an American atmosphere. It was very Hollywood, wasn't it?
Very Hollywood. Very glitzy, very glamoury.
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Chapter 5: What was the most bizarre incident during the USA vs Paraguay match?
More selfies than a nightclub bathroom. My favourite bit of the pre-match was when the camera found Paris Hilton and it was on her for ages and she either didn't realise or just doesn't care and was just busy taking a selfie. It was sort of perfect in a way. Classic Paris. The opening ceremony...
thought I don't know it was a it was it was fine but I thought they'd I thought it'd be really spectacular and it was just sort of functional yeah but I think the opening game was yesterday so it's like okay I know there's three how many how many ceremonies you're gonna do and then you got the national anthems with everybody on the pitch and my cynical view of that is that the time it takes the players and the subs to get off the pitch enables somebody to have an ad break
Katy Perry was fine with a little kid. They did some half-hearted dancing with golden balls. David Beckham was obviously there. David Beckham, we noticed, is in. I don't think this is an exaggeration. Every other advert I've seen that is World Cup related, David Beckham is in. I mean, he's obviously already absolutely rolling in money, but he is coining it in here. Oh, my days. Fair play to him.
He was like some sort of architectural software. There was an advert for architectural software where he's building a chicken shed. I mean, we're talking about it, so it's obviously worked.
It's done the job.
Do you think he was a bit warm in that suit? It was very buttoned up, wasn't it? I think, I know that him and Tom Cruise are friends, but I feel like 90 minutes, 100 minutes of just making small talk with Tom Cruise watching the football, I think that's probably our work. Is it small talk now, though? Because they do hang out a lot. I don't... Do you think they're actually friends?
Look, I don't know. I haven't spoken to David for years. Well, any years, actually. But I think they are actually friends. Okay, fine. And also, Hollywood... What's it called? He's got the star on Hollywood Boulevard now. Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame? Is that what it's called? Walk of Fame. Walk of Fame? Star Walk? He had his star on the Walk of Fame today. We'll edit that. We won't.
We'll keep all of that in actually. It's the first time I've been in a stadium where you have the scheduled hydration break. And it was peculiar because it definitely wasn't required. It was quite a pleasant evening. Right, so a temperature to play football in. I've got to say, walking over here after the game, it was quite chilly, actually.
It was.
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Chapter 6: How does the atmosphere at the World Cup in the USA compare to other countries?
I thought, how has it done that? Because it's got cameras everywhere, but the fact that it... Obviously, if that was me, I'd be looking in the rearview mirror, looking over my shoulder, and it just did it without even, well, without even a driver. It's blowing your mind, isn't it? It really has, yeah. You're very LA already. Have you been to a Pilates yet? No, I did a spin class last night.
There we go, there we go. It's pathetic how us, a load of middle-aged men, when we get to LA are like, I'm going to, yeah, I think I will do one of these classes. It's time to beat the jet low, in all honesty. Me and Lloyd were walking up and down the stairs in the stadium. My hamstrings giving me absolute grief after the lattes. His quads giving him grief after his boot camp.
I mean, it was an absolute embarrassment. There's obviously been a lot of chat about whether stadiums are going to be full or not. And it was the funny thing, and we've seen FIFA do this before, where everyone watched the South Korea-Croatia game.
You could see masses of empty seats, and then FIFA come out and say, you couldn't actually, because there was nearly 45,000 people in that 46,000 capacity stadium. It was like, well, you're... I feel like I'm being gaslit here because... Who's running the... No, no, no. They're all in the concourse. Like, that's a packed concourse.
Who's running the cons here?
The North Korea propaganda machine? Well, I mean, during the game, I was looking at the resale prices of soldiers for kick-off. Yeah. If you're happy to pay $8,050 for Category 1, you could have got a ticket today. And the cheapest resale ticket at that time was $580.75 for an obstructed view category. And it wasn't full. It was nearly full. On the spaceship, it said full house.
It said full house, which again... A little bit gaslit, because you're literally looking at some empty seats, but it was pretty much full. With that one, you'd say, OK, I can believe that there are some people in here, but they're in the toilet, or they're getting food or getting drinks or whatever. With the previous one, absolute nonsense.
I've got to say, Saturday, it's Katarvy, Switzerland, in the 49ers stadium in San Jose, which is a very big stadium. Qatar v. Switzerland in San Francisco. I mean, I'm taking bets on it. That stadium's also got Jordan v. Austria. I'll tell you what FIFA will say about it. It was absolutely rammed. Lots of people dressed as red seats. Also, producer Lizzie was like...
do you think I'll be able to get a ticket to New Zealand Iran? I was like, yeah, I think, yeah. Oh, I would think so. Actually, actually, I've got to say, this is my status of fact, that LA's got the biggest Iranian population outside of Tehran. So it's actually nicknamed Tehranjali's. So it'll be full on. It will be full on Monday. Okay, New Zealand then, Lizzie. New Zealand then.
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