00:00Mike DiCorsi of the Sporting News joins us every week.
00:03You can catch him on Coast to Coast during the basketball season.
00:06He's on Fox Sports doing College Rack and the Big Ten Network.
00:09He's on the take for the Indiana Hoosiers.
00:11And he's a fine Pittsburgh boy, which makes him top-shelf status in my book.
00:18So I want to go back to the USA losing to Mexico over the weekend in the Gold Cup final.
00:26Really good game.
00:27They lose 2-1.
00:28Your thoughts coming off of that.
00:30And then bleed it into this Chelsea game today with Fluminense at Snoopy here in New York.
00:37Tomorrow's the big one, though.
00:38I talked about this Chelsea game already, and no one was excited at all about it except the sellout crowd.
00:44But tomorrow, PSG and Real Madrid, as juicy as it gets.
00:50It's hard to imagine a bigger club game.
00:52I think the only thing that could have made this Final Four better was if Liverpool happened to be the team that got the necessary points.
01:02I still don't understand how Chelsea got here.
01:05Liverpool has been the second-best team in England over the course of the last half-decade easily.
01:11Chelsea did win the Champions League.
01:13That was all the way back in 2021.
01:14It still doesn't make any sense how the math worked out on that.
01:19It's why math can be tricky when you add it to sports, Scott.
01:23Liverpool should have been here.
01:26So the only thing that could have made this Final Four better would be that.
01:29Because having Fluminense in there, it may not be a big brand, but it's really cool to have South America represented in this.
01:37And then the heavyweight showdown on Wednesday between Real Madrid, the team with the most Champions League titles of anyone,
01:47and then Paris Saint-Germain, the one that has it now.
01:50That's an awesome showdown.
01:52And there are some players that have crossed paths between the two teams.
01:57They're two of the biggest brands in Europe.
02:00It's going to be phenomenal.
02:02Not to bum out everyone on the show, but I know people are talking about it, including my wife,
02:09stunned at the death of that Diego guy on Liverpool who crashed his car with his brother, his little brother in the car.
02:19And he was a star player, no, that just had gotten married three weeks prior.
02:26And has three kids, three little baby kids, I guess.
02:32I don't know the story that much about it.
02:36I just know that it happened.
02:38What is the fallout from that?
02:40He was a star player on that Liverpool team, no?
02:43He was an excellent player.
02:45I mean, not a superstar for them, but an excellent player and one of Portugal's primary players on their team that would have been coming.
02:54They will be coming, but he would have been coming to the United States next summer with their World Cup team.
03:03They had just won the UEFA Nations League, not the biggest tournament in Europe, but one that was really emotional for them because it required beating their arch rival Spain.
03:13So he's coming off all this glory.
03:15Liverpool winning the Premier League and then the Nations League title, getting married, all so much to celebrate and to live for.
03:23And then that horrific accident in Spain, just one of the sad stories, similar to what happened a year ago in some ways, at least in terms of outcome, with what happened with Johnny Hockey a year ago.
03:36Just heartbreaking when you see such a young person with so much to live for lose their lives.
03:42Yeah, it's an awful story.
03:45I didn't mean to bum people out, but it's a big factor in what's going on right now in the soccer world.
03:52And certainly, as we're doing the dry run here with this tournament right now at East Rutherford, that's where the World Cup will be.
04:01And Portugal certainly is a player in that.
04:03And he's not going to be there.
04:05And it's unbelievable.
04:05And I just saw them win that Nations Cup with Ronaldo on the team as well, hoisting another trophy.
04:13Horrible.
04:14The sad passing of it.
04:15What's his name again?
04:16Diego what?
04:18Diego Jota is his name.
04:20And he was a center forward for Liverpool.
04:24Had many fine years.
04:26This coming off not his greatest year, but a championship year.
04:30Had some terrific years.
04:31An excellent goal scorer.
04:33Really smart player.
04:34He will be sorely missed with everything from his family to his wife to Liverpool fans who've laid thousands of tributes in his memory at Anfield, the home field of Liverpool FC.
04:52That's horrible.
04:53So what do you think of the U.S. performance against Mexico?
04:59I was a little disappointed that they didn't play better.
05:02They didn't have much of the ball.
05:05They didn't seem to have a good idea how to keep it.
05:07There weren't enough players willing to take on defenders.
05:11Too much reliance on back passes.
05:13And then ultimately when they weren't able to possess the ball, way too much reliance on long balls forward, either from outside backs or from the goalkeeper.
05:22Which isn't necessarily a bad strategy in certain circumstances.
05:25But you got to know what you're doing to hang on to the ball after you kick it long.
05:30And they were horrific at it.
05:31It was as if they hadn't practiced it at all.
05:34And maybe they didn't.
05:35Maybe they were dependent on moving the ball upfield pass to pass.
05:38But they couldn't get it through Mexico and possess it.
05:42And so they kicked it long.
05:43And no one knew how to head the ball down to a teammate.
05:46It was that part of it was really poor.
05:48I also thought, however, that they did get the early goal and they could have hung in there, maybe squeezed out a goal.
05:57There was a possible penalty kick that wasn't called.
06:00The foul that set up, the alleged foul, I should say, that set up Mexico's winning free kick goal was a joke in that game, Scott.
06:08With the way players were being hammered physically on both sides, but particularly on the U.S. side from the Mexico defense.
06:15And then to call that as a foul what Diego Luna did, a very gentle brush and a player flopped.
06:24And they call it a free kick opportunity that Mexico turns into the winning goal.
06:27Not a very strong officiating performance in the end.
06:31Mexico was the better team.
06:32So you can't argue with the winner, but you can't argue with how the result was gained.
06:38So let me ask you, did you watch Ace Bailey at all play last night?
06:43And are you looking forward at all to Cooper flag against Bronny James in Vegas?
06:49That's Thursday.
06:50And the tickets are actually going for like 2,500 court side and, you know, 600 bucks in the upper deck at the Thomas and Hack to watch him play.
07:00I know you don't get into the NBA that much.
07:04Oh, no, but I'm interested in this juxtaposition here.
07:06Cooper flag against Bronny James feels like Mike DeCourcy against Mike Tyson.
07:11I'm sorry.
07:11I mean, let's be real about this.
07:13We're talking about a generational prospect in Cooper flag and LeBron's kid who averaged five and a half points in his one year at division one basketball.
07:22I'm not saying LeBron is a poor player, but I don't see him as an equal attraction or an equal athlete in that in that confrontation there.
07:33It just feels a little off balance to me, but I am interested to see how Cooper does.
07:39I think he's going to be a terrific player.
07:41I'm excited that Ace is working out for him.
07:45I still don't know what happened prior to the draft, and I don't know that it's been fully addressed, why he didn't go to Philadelphia and how he ultimately ended up in Utah.
07:56It's going to be a really tough year in Utah because they seem pretty determined to wind up back in the lottery again next year.
08:03So he's going to have a, just as he did at Rutgers this past season, he's going to have a rough ride in terms of wins and losses.
08:09But I think he's a talent, and everybody that I've spoken to that knows him well says he's a wonderful young man.
08:16So I hope he's happy with how his career develops because I have not heard a bad word about him.
08:23He got a bad shake for a guy that everybody loves, all the coaches, all the trainers, all the players.
08:29Everyone in the Big Ten loved him.
08:30They think he's just a great kid.
08:32And then overnight, he was suddenly a problem.
08:34Yeah, it's just the way sometimes things work out with the media narratives, and he did not, and his representation, his group did not do him any favors.
08:47He should have gone to Philly.
08:48Why would you not want to be the third pick in the draft, Scott?
08:51It's multiple millions of dollars depending on how many spots you drop from there.
08:56But you've got to go give yourself the best chance to be the highest pick you can possibly be.
09:00And by not going to Philadelphia for the workout in the interview, which he would have aced, excuse the pun, in both cases, made a huge mistake.
