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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Around here we show up for one another. We want the same for our health insurance. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City gets that because they're from here too. It's coverage from folks who know these roads and care enough to walk them with you. That's the benefit of blue.
Welcome back here on the program here on Sports Radio 810 WHB. Finishing strong here on a Friday. Talking some soccer with our soccer insider. You know him. You love him. Nate Bucati. You've heard him for years on New Day with SSJ. Of course, play-by-play man. Big deal for Apple TV. Correspondent for CBS Sports. You hear him on the Sirius XM.
Chapter 2: What insights does Nate Bukaty share about Team USA in the World Cup?
And, of course, the author of Perfect Pitch. By the way, if you'd like to meet the great Nate Bucati and what a treat that is, I'm going to tell you. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can go down to the Made in KC store and see our next guest. Nate McKay joins us here in the program. Nate, how are you?
Yeah, we should probably tell him what day that is from 11 to 3. Saturday.
Saturday. Well, I thought I said tomorrow. If I didn't, I meant to. My bad. 11 to 3. Actually, every day.
Yeah. Every day. Anytime. Until we see where he is.
How are you, man? Thanks, man.
Good, good. How are you, Nate? Do you have the World Cup fever?
I think I came down with something last night. Yesterday was a whirlwind. Day one of the World Cup, I was down in the Power and Light District with the Mexico soccer fans having a great time. Went to a couple of different functions. It seems like it's all ramping up. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like... It still hasn't really fully gotten real until we maybe have a match in Kansas City.
And also, I think having the U.S. men's national team play will kick it up a notch as well. But, yeah, I'm having the time of my life right now, man.
What did you think, first of all, of the first day's action? The South Korea and Czechia match was fantastic. Yes. You know, a lot of chances, a lot of oh my gods. South Korea just, you know, seemed like the better team. And then Czechia to strike first and get the first goal. South Korea immediately answers. Looks like Czechia goes back up 2-1. That goal is disallowed.
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Chapter 3: What has been the reaction to the first day's World Cup matches?
That's a tough game. That's not good news. If you're the USA, you can't afford something like that. So something to keep in mind, we're going to see a lot of those in this tournament.
Well, I heard you and Matt Beisler talking and that's one of the things Matt said is like, it is different. Like if you're playing in an MLS match or one of your club matches, you've got 34, you know, different matches. And so you're going to take a day off. If you get a red card, fine, your day off becomes the next match.
It doesn't, it's not really that big a deal, but he's like, you cannot get the red card, which he stressed that, you know, you don't want to get that first yellow because then that puts you in the teams. No, they're going to go right at you and try to do it. I mean, that is, we saw that, you know, I was funny.
I was listening to Matt and then I'm like, wow, that's what I was listening to earlier with Nate and Matt, uh, you know, talking, uh,
Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of examples of a red card ruining a World Cup or a competition like that. And I remember back in 2002, France were the defending champs. They were supposed to be great again. Thierry Henry was coming into his prime.
And there was a little bit of dysfunction in the team, but they got a red card in their first game, which caused them to draw the game instead of winning it. And then they were without Thierry Henry in the next game, and they lost and they were out in the group stages. So teams that are great can have a red card ruin their group stage play. So, yeah, that's something that Paraguay will ā
They will try to see if they can go you into doing something stupid, you know, and you've got to be ready for that.
All right. Let's talk, you know, about what do you think of the U.S. group? And, you know, they're the favorite, but there's no pushovers, right? Is that the best way to put it?
Yeah, that perfectly stated. When the draw came out, I was hosting the reaction show on SiriusXM, and all the reactions that was coming in from former players, U.S. national team players and pundits was, what a great draw for the U.S. Part of the reason was because Australia was, if you looked in that pot, Australia was like the weakest team in that pot. So it was a good team to draw.
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Chapter 4: How does Nate assess the performance of Mexico in the World Cup?
I could see them being underdogs against Turkey, and maybe you guys already have early odds on that. I don't know. But I think the U.S. will be favorites in all three. The flip side to that is, and it was Tony Miola that pointed this out to me, if you're the other groups, other teams in this group, and you got the draw, what are you saying? And they're all saying, this is a good draw for us.
Because instead of drawing in pot one, you could have had France or Spain or England, these powerhouse teams that people think can really win the World Cup. The U.S. is not at that level. You're going, hey... We got a shot against the U.S. And that's the part that I think you got to keep in mind if you're the Americans.
They can't go into this thinking, oh, yeah, we're the best team in this group. We got this. And I don't think that they will because every game is, you know, they've got a game on their hands in all three of these.
Yeah, that is a great point. I like what Tony said there because you turn it around and you're like, oh, boy. When the Royals are not going well and it's like, oh, good, we're going to play the White Sox. The White Sox are like, oh, great, we get a breather. The Royals are coming to town, right? And that is the view of it. So what will it mean to USA Soccer if they don't advance, right?
Like if that, which means they have to, for people who don't know, we've got 48 teams this year for the first time, 32 are going to advance the knockout round. It's usually been 32 teams with 16 advancing. So you had to be top two out of the four. Now you've only got to be three out of the four. So just don't stink.
If let's let's take the worst case scenario first, if out of this group that we agree the U.S. is better than each one of the teams on paper, but they're not. None of these teams are dregs. If they wouldn't advance out of this with the World Cup here, what would it do to USA Soccer?
And I don't want to think about it. It would be it would be catastrophic.
Yeah.
The biggest catastrophe that the U.S. have had since I've become a diehard soccer fan was when they failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2018, right? And I think that was disastrous. I mean, it really set MLS back. It set American soccer back. Now, MLS has still progressed. You know, it's still grown as a league since then. It's brought in Lionel Messi.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does the U.S. men's national team face in their group?
He likes soccer. He did all the trappings that come with it necessarily. Like and I'm not talking about the getting paid, but I'm talking about everything that comes with the the what you have to do around the game. He's not good at that. That's okay if he wins, right? Kawhi Leonard is catatonic at a mic, but he's a two-time NBA Finals MVP for two different franchises, right?
When he plays and wins, nobody minds that he's an odd duck at the mic.
Lionel Messi is painfully shy. He... Always has been. To this day, he doesn't feel comfortable talking on a microphone. And he doesn't hardly ever do it. He's Lionel Messi, so nobody cares. Early in his career, for a long time, until they won this last World Cup, the narrative from the Argentina fans was he doesn't have it as a leader the way that Diego Maradona did.
He's a great player, but he's not a leader. You know, it can't be his team. And now... I don't know if you saw the footage of this. It's pretty crazy. He was going out to a training session the other day and the entire Argentina team stands there and waits until he walks to the front of the line and leads them out on the field. You know, I mean, they revere him the way they do Maradona now.
So yeah. And that's, Polsic is not an extrovert and that's one of the things that came out in the documentary. He likes to keep to himself. He doesn't love doing this stuff. He usually gives honest answers. Um, He usually sounds a little annoyed, you know, with the questions.
But if he goes out and plays and plays well and scores some ā and he scored the biggest goal in the last World Cup by sacrificing his most sensitive region and had to go to the hospital. You know, so he gives what he's got for the team when he plays for the U.S. And so I hope that all that stuff doesn't sound like it's like me dragging him. It's just like when you saw that answer ā
You're going, oh man, at least I'm like, why isn't there some excitement and optimism? Like, why do we have to already have negativity for this national team before we've even kicked a ball in our own home country for the World Cup? So hopefully the positivity starts. We talked about this before. You get one big moment, and then all of a sudden, everybody's on board.
You know, and that's what you're hoping for in this game tonight. A couple guys score big goals. They have a big moment, and the team gels, and the country gets behind them, and then off we go. And that's, I mean, tonight's massive in that regard.
The familiar voice of Nate Bucati is with us. We'll take a break. One more with Nate. Of course, you can check out Nate coming up tomorrow. Made in KC from 11A to 3P. He'll be signing his book. Perfect pitch. You see him on the Apple TV. You hear him on the Sirius XM, correspondent for CBS Sports as well. And, of course, you hear him on New Day with SSJ. We'll take a break, talk more soccer.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications if the U.S. does not advance in the World Cup?
If you're the underdog, sometimes then you score early in a match, You're like, oh, there's a lot of time for them to try to defend that lead. And the other team's going to really be going for it now. But when you're the favorite and the other team's sitting back and you score early, it changes the game. You know, it changes the way they have to approach the game. So I'd like to see the U.S.
come after them. I'd like to see them be really on the front foot when it comes to. And here's one thing I'll give people to watch for, Seren, if you got time. The counterpress in soccer can be really important. So when you've got your numbers forward, the other team's defending, and once you try that final pass, that's a low percentage pass. You lose the ball a lot.
Once you've lost the ball and you're in the attacking zone, you go win it back right away. You swarm the other team, you counter press, you know, you, you, you, you, you take it back in their territory. And the reason that's big is when the other team wins the ball back, the first thing they do is spread out, right? They go try to find space to get it open for you to pass them the ball.
If you win the ball back in that moment, now all of a sudden they're not organized defensively. They're not as tight. They're not bunkered in. And you get a chance quickly to score. I would like to see the U.S. do that really well in this game. You lose the ball and boom, you win it right back and now you've got a chance at a goal.
I think that's how they get their first goal and I think they win the game.
The odds are basically in soccer, if you're betting soccer, you bet three outcomes, either team winning, also a draw. U.S. plus 105, a draw plus 220, Paraguay plus 290. I mean, that to me, I'm looking at an American book here. That to me is probably not quite accurate. That's probably because everybody wants to pound the U.S. Am I looking at that the right way?
I mean, this would say that it's, well, a draw is in the bag, but a win should happen. The heavy odds are that the U.S. is going to get at least one point out of this, but I think that's probably influenced by people want to go bet the local team.
I think that's right. I think you're right about that. And we see that all the time, right? Like when you're in a fantasy draft in Kansas City, the chief players always get overdrafted, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just, it's an emotional thing. So I think the U.S. should be favorites in this game. I'm not a good odds maker, so I couldn't tell you exactly the odds.
I think they should be favorites to win. I think that, yeah. But Paraguay, they beat Argentina, you know, like in this cycle. So they can beat anybody. You know, they can beat anybody in the world. I will also point out that one of their best players, one of their best attackers got injured during a friendly last week leading up to this and won't be playing in this game.
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Chapter 7: What does Nate predict about the U.S. vs. Paraguay match?
Who wins it?
I'm going to say Spain.
Okay.
It's hard to repeat, you know.
I agree. I've got Spain winning it as well. And then tell me, what is your favorite soccer memory? What is Nate on the pitch? What's your best soccer memory?
Oh, like actually playing the game?
Yep. Your goal in the media game? That's what I was waiting to hear, but, you know.
Man, well.
I was hoping it would come organically and not be given to you by Curtis.
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