PTFO x Cooligans - Pablo Torre chose chicken fingers over watching Messi’s first Inter Miami goal!

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I mean,

the level of guest on this show just continues.

It even surprises me.

Oh my God.

I mean, how low can we go?

No, it continues to rise rise

to such an impressive level we're going at the just the bowels of the internet the dregs the dregs of our own company just go down and see if anyone's begging for change and then

this guy we bumped into this guy at the water cooler and we said is there a water cooler

and we said hey buddy we know you ain't got nothing going on bro fam you bored right come through you guys guilted me

you played to my most uh sympathetic impulses right and I showed up at what feels like a place where sometimes they shoot pornography.

Yeah, yeah.

Or sometimes we be right now.

I don't know.

Ladies and gentlemen, the voice you're hearing is Pablo Torre, everybody.

What's good, Pablo?

It is a pleasure in all the ways to be here.

Oh, it is early.

And speaking of pleasure, back to that point.

I mean, I would say, you know, you said sometimes they film pornography here, but I would say sometimes they do a soccer podcast here, and the majority is pornography.

Also, also, also explicit.

I mean, our podcast is just us

verbally flating ourselves.

Same.

Nobody full disclosure.

Same.

Nice, very nice.

Pablo, just, I just want to make sure.

Nobody turn on a black light in this room.

Yeah, or Pablo Tour will find out.

Okay, we don't need that hard-hitting investigative journalism.

Okay, all we do is hard-hitting in here.

No journalism.

Anyway, speaking of this, for people who are...

Sometimes soft hitting yeah sometimes

tasteful it's everything hard hitting with consent of course um let's let's talk about because this brings up a good topic your podcast pablo tour finds out also here on on the metal act metal arc network um you're always taking people down bro you're always you're always deep diving into stuff does it does it ever weigh on you bro my conscience is just racked with guilt

what does larsa pippen think of you

It keeps me up at night.

How long is Pablo Tor finds out has existed for just a couple months and has already developed so many enemies.

How's it even possible?

He's got a lot of ops.

Yes, the vake Ramaswamy is an enemy.

Marcus Jordan is an enemy.

Larsa Pippen, aforementioned, is an enemy.

I think a lot of people who just aren't here for multi-syllable words also have an enemy.

Wait, is Marcus the one who owns the store in Orlando, the speaker store?

So damn.

Trophy room.

So, you're not getting the trophy room, Jordan, ones, or the numbers.

There's a, by the way, the fact that you are aware of that is funny to me because I left that part out of the episode.

If I can make another enemy out of Marcus Jordan again, are you going to talk about the back dooring for that?

The back dooring.

Speaking of pornographic language.

The back dooring.

I fell into a race.

Marcus is like, they're talking about.

But it's just

the back dooring of like, so.

Do you know this?

I don't know this.

Okay, so you should.

They got a very exclusive sneaker.

Okay.

Trophy Room is a store.

Obviously, the kid of Michael Jordan's kid owns it.

He has a plug, it turns out.

So he gets to do a collab on a Jordan.

Okay.

It becomes one of the most highly sought-after Jordans.

And then, as this sometimes happened, let's say there was a cooligan Jordan that was coming out.

Maybe one or two would find its way out the back door.

Gotcha.

You know what I mean?

Or out of a truck, and then they'd be posted online.

Triple X.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

We're going to keep this going for the whole episode.

But in this case, I don't remember the number, but it was like hundreds of sneakers

that were found out.

So backdooring is when you know someone at the company that can give it to you.

So you circumvent the auction or the

lottery.

Yeah.

So he was a villain in the world of sneaker reselling.

In ways that I did not appreciate.

As a reformed sneaker addict myself,

I was reminded as to what it's like if Michael Jordan's son was also allegedly a scammer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this pissed off so many people, and he still had to answer it to this day.

Yeah, I was shocked you didn't bring it up.

So, so fair to criticize my journalism immediately.

I understand this.

I was just shocked because it seems such like a

topic with so much.

So, there was a lot that I had to leave out of that episode.

And it is funny that, like, the episode in which we, for people who aren't familiar with my journalism, we did an episode about Marcus Jordan and and Lars Pippen falling in love.

Two crazy kids in a mixed-up world.

You know from the names, though, it's two players.

It's the former wife and the son, former wife of Sketty Pippen and the son of Scotty Pippin.

Common meat.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's Romeo and Juliet, if it took place in another unreleased episode of The Last Dance.

And Juliet was a MILF.

But still had it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You guys could have been helpful on this episode.

You need consulting.

We're always here.

I do love the fact that you're like, which way should we go with this?

Let's talk about the mill.

So, so

they agreed to come on the show.

So, we did, they have a podcast.

Shout out to their podcast, Separation Anxiety.

I should plug their show.

We listened to all of it and we did like a deep textual analysis of it, in which we mostly laughed.

at its absurdity.

And then we invited them to come on the show and they agreed.

Yeah.

And which seemed very cordial.

You guys were.

So I thought it was cordial.

I was of the impression that we gave them space and a wide berth to sort of discuss potentially a wide berth.

Do you want to have kids by him at some point?

So all of that, I was like, great.

This feels like a thing where I found out a lot that I didn't expect to know.

Like how there actually is a sincerity to their love.

There is.

I'm not here to say that.

I believe that too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You listen to them and you're like, they are spending so much time together that if they were faking this, they are the greatest method actors on the bus.

100%.

At this point, early on, you're like, wow, come on.

And now you're like, all right.

And so we met them, we got along.

And then

weeks later, I guess, there was a headline in the New York Post in which Larsa Pippen had called me miserable,

which I thought was on some level deep inside, very cunning.

You thought she was spot on?

I was like,

damn.

How are you in my conscience?

But beyond that, I was like, oh,

I thought I was going to be invited to the wedding.

Yeah.

Right, right.

And now it seems clear that I am shadow banned.

Right.

Yeah.

It was, I guess the context of it was that there was conversation after the interview was over that they didn't like.

We did a post-mortem in which we discussed what we learned.

Yeah.

And we, well,

it was an epilogue.

It was.

Yeah, but it was also like, and in the run-up to it, like what we did was we said, here's how we authentically feel about about this.

It feels like Marcus Jordan to us, based on my own reporting and listening to

their podcast, was somebody who was always trying to get the attention of his dad.

Yeah.

And this is not a surprise to anybody who's ever

heard Michael Jordan say anything, right?

That that guy is not exactly somebody who is.

deeply invested maybe in the interior lives of his children.

He went into the Hall of Fame and on the dais famously said that he didn't want to be his own kids because that seems hard.

Yeah.

He also cooked the guy who beat him in high school.

Yes,

he invited the guy and cooked him.

I mean, this is a vicious human being.

Yes, so he kind of roasted his own kids, roasted his enemies who are, you know, specs relative to him.

And then he also flew them in to cook them.

He flew them in to

the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

And then he also complained.

He didn't get worse.

It was in Massachusetts.

Correct.

And he also complained about how they raised the ticket prices on him because he's Michael Jordan.

And now he has to pay even more to get these people he hates

in the audience for this thing.

So anyhow, we sort of next level hater dude connected the psychoanalysis of like what it must be like to be Michael Jordan's kid and like why.

Look, and we're not Dr.

Freud, but we did attempt some amateur psychoanalysis of like, okay, so what's here for Marcus?

What's here for Larsa?

And certainly beyond attention, there's also just this notion of.

How can they be the main characters in a story that they never got to be anything more than a sort of like fleeting sidekick in?

And this was their way.

And they called me miserable because I pointed this out.

Exactly.

You've done the work.

You've been to therapy a couple of times.

And so they're like, oh, okay, no, we don't have to.

Don't make us go to therapy by virtue of you having to therapy.

I'm told parents are important in therapy.

I mean,

you're weaponizing therapy speech.

That's what you're doing.

I am absolutely guilty of that.

That is totally fair.

Stolen valor.

Stolen valor.

So look,

you know, like we said up top, we are,

I can speak for myself.

I don't even know.

I don't know your age.

I think we're fairly similar in age.

We both have very smooth

brown skin.

We're both just very young Asian people.

People think I'm Asian.

People think I'm fine.

I know all the time.

I was going to say, I have Asian in me, right?

Right now.

You can see me on me going, no, this is the guy.

Get off the pumps out.

For those who are just listening to this,

I'm using his microphone.

The problem is that you started the show with making a porn joke, and now that's the game.

The next 45 minutes, that will be weakened.

This is your own.

I lubricate it all.

Larso was 100% right about it.

I have some Asian heritage.

What do you got?

He does it.

What do you got?

It turns out my great-grandfather found this out when my grandmother was going through dementia.

My great-grandfather, Chinese.

Whoa.

A lot of Chinese people in Cuba.

Love to find a secret about my ancestry through dementia.

I found out my grandfather had a dog, and we're like, oh, we didn't know that.

And he goes, yeah, we had to go to the doctor and take care of it.

And we were like, oh, because he got sick.

And my mom's like, no, no, he went to the doctor and got poisoned to kill the dog.

We were like, what?

This is what you did in Cuba.

When the dog got older,

this is why you don't know.

It's a different time.

Right.

But take care of it.

Like, it's mafia style.

Take care of it.

If I put a hand on your own dog, you take care of it.

That's how I was raised.

No loyalty, only money.

I remember my grandfather in his deathbed saying, fuck bitches, got money.

Yeah, I said, wow, I'm waiting.

I didn't even know you knew English.

No, I have, I'm part Chinese, a very small part,

he's not.

Everyone thinks this dude Chinese is a lot of people.

He's

Hawaiian, Filipino, Polynesian.

I get it all the time.

It usually always depends what part of the country I'm in, which where people guess sort of like what Asian their type of used to see or whatever.

Yes.

But no, I've been such a huge fan of you.

And it feels like weird because we're kind of similar in age that where I feel like I grew up watching you.

That I know it makes people feel old when you say it.

Oh, man.

He said it like it was accusatory.

How dare you make me watch it?

But I grew up with Around the Horn and PTI and just watching you on ESPN for so long that you feel like just having you at this table with us is just like, oh, it's one of my cousins.

I wish they might mute you.

Yes, um, I have long been, um, so I started doing TV on ESPN.

Um, I got hired at ESPN in 2012.

Yeah, and it is 2020.

Yeah, 2024.

Um, so for a dozen years, I have been ethnically confused as well for other things on television.

And what I've learned is people are like, why does this, why does this Chinese guy have a Mexican name?

And vice versa on Twitter and in the street sometimes.

What I've learned is that I think this table, all three of us, are just going to be what like all of planet Earth looks like in like 500 years.

Yeah, 100%.

Gonna get all mixed up together and it'll come out looking like this.

Yeah.

For people who are I know I confuse people.

Like if I go to a Spanish bodega, they're like, if I go to a Yemeni bodega, there's a lot of Yemeni bodegas by me, they'll be like, habibi?

when I walk in.

And if I go to the Dominican spot, they're like, it's a habibi.

You know what I mean?

Like, they're not going to be sure.

they're always certain that it's habibi.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, good times.

They're like, hey, man,

and they try to give me shots from behind the button from behind the counter.

It's a lot of fun.

But there it is.

But yeah, we're all kind of like ambiguous.

No one knows what we are.

But a lot of people must just assume you're Latino.

Of course, all the time.

Yeah.

And it doesn't help.

I mean, my name is fucking Pablo Torre.

Like, it's really hard for me to be indignant.

Yeah, you should just carry like a panda sal with you everywhere you go.

So here's the trick.

Yeah, exactly.

It doesn't help when panda is Filipino bred and like, and it literally is Spanish.

Yeah.

So like Spanish nouns are all over Tagalog, which is the main dialect.

The days of the week are the same as in Spanish.

Yeah, forced, tenador, like all of this shit.

Yeah.

And it doesn't help also that I took Spanish in high school and college.

And so I can speak shitty Spanish.

And so I can begin to hold a conversation that I then find myself feeling like, you know, Wiley Coyote during, where I'm just like, I got, okay.

Now we've reached the point where I'm about to fall into this canyon.

Yeah.

You're like, like, I got nothing.

I just feel like at some point, you just got to tell.

If someone says, Are you Mexican?

You just be like, see,

and just own it for the rest of the day.

We all,

we all have the same colonizer, so it bothers us, that's right, or whatever.

But this is the thing that I think why it always resonated just watching you on TV.

There's a little bit of like, you know, I don't see many people in this space that look like that and are also not only, you know, not only just doing a great job at their job, but the nature of like around the horn, which is like inherently competitive.

Yeah.

Taking sports journalism and saying, all right, battle it out, folks.

And look, we're not nerds only.

We also can compete.

We can also ruin democracy by inspiring.

Some competitive talk shows.

I have a couple questions, just the nature of like around the horn, because I love the

point aspect.

And who knows what points matter and

the value of anything, but there must be some joy in winning, right?

And I don't know.

Look, I'm not accusing anything.

I don't think it's predetermined.

I think it's all wrong.

What are you calling them WWE?

I'm just saying.

WWE-S-P-N.

I'm just saying.

Is that

the final segment when the winner gets there and gets to the podium and gets to speak,

it feels,

I'm like, how do they nail it so perfectly all the time?

You know, so that's my, in my mind, I'm like, is it, did they rehearse that?

Is there there a teleprompter?

Or there are like three people with ending monologues that they don't get to use.

Right, right.

So, so you don't even, you don't have to give the game away if that's the case.

No, no, no.

It's, it's something that we all take pride in, I think, because the thing we hate the most as people who do that show is when we got to re-tape something because somebody fucked up.

Okay.

Because it is tape, but it's live to tape.

And so the premise of like what we're really, as much as it is, and to be clear, I am winning for me.

I'm winning for the ability to have 30 seconds unencumbered that I can just say whatever, I mean, within reason,

whatever I want.

Thank God you didn't become a comedian.

I get to talk by myself.

Every show would be an hour whether you were in front of me.

Straight up.

Straight up.

Tony giving you the reality, giving you the light.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just deeply masturbatory.

In all of those ways.

But in this case, it's also just the pressure of

we have, we've had,

we have a clean sheet.

You know, we're we're like oh we're like no mistakes we're rolling like don't mess this up for everybody else right and so i think there is the pressure comes from that gosh like i don't want to be the guy who's forcing everybody to stay late today because he could not articulate his take on why japanese toilets are superior in the allotted 30 seconds they really are they really are i went to japan a couple years ago in 2019 and uh i mean

just the everything about the experience of going into a lot of buttons a lot of buttons you don't think there's gonna be buttons.

There's buttons.

There are so many buttons.

It sings to you.

Yeah.

Some of them.

And the plastic cladding is like, am I allowed to sit on this?

Is he going to eat me if I sit on this thing?

And it's warm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got it.

So this is a real FaceTime I gave, but it was, I got a Japanese toilet seat.

Like a day attachment at home.

Shout out to Toto.

I am still holding on for a sponsorship.

I do want that Asian in my, in that area.

And it's, it's, look, I have a couple of basic theories about how I spend my own hard-earned money from sports gas bagging.

Right.

The things that I use the most, my couch that I sit on every day.

I got a nice couch.

This toilet, man, it just makes my life easier and better.

And I just want to appeal directly with cameras.

All the cameras.

Get a stream of water shot into your butt

and thank me later.

I think that's the clue.

That's the cocoa guy.

Yeah, with zero context.

Everything else.

Stand by it.

By the way, Taku Sando, an incredible sandwich shop in Greenpoint, has a Japanese toilet in that.

So the restaurants that have this,

I could not be more impressed.

It's a Japanese spot.

They make the milk bread themselves.

It's absolutely incredible.

I walk in the bathroom.

I said, oh, they did the whole thing.

They went the extra mile.

They cut off the crust.

Yeah.

And they put those different pressures.

Yes.

Just as you like them.

I can't understand

any of the buttons on there.

I got to use Google Translate.

It is dangerous.

Sometimes you sort of like press the wrong button and it's like, oh, this is the ladies' button.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's like...

I'm being sprayed in the wrong area.

And yeah, I'm enjoying it.

But you know what?

Could have also used a little cleaner.

Okay?

So

swing us.

I don't know what to do with this.

Tampa just shot at me.

But the rest of it, I'm okay with it.

You use it

in

the middle.

this.

Someone who graduated from Harvard?

This is squarely inside of my interests, honestly.

Perfect.

You use the word gas bagging.

Yeah.

And with the Levitarians just speaking there, it's obviously a Lebatar on brand for the Lebatar and Friends Network.

So we've done Levatar and chastise, as a well,

I remember as a listener and I think a fill-in host when you guys joined the show, Dan's show, and when I was listening to it,

how has that been?

Okay, this is good.

Let's air it out.

All right,

please.

This has been a topic of conversation with a couple people at Metalot because some people listened to it, some people were in the room when it happened.

Some people were complicit.

So, we've done Levatar Show twice: one when you were guest hosting, and one when Dan was there.

And we were talking about the Women's World Cup and all the kind of controversy with the U.S.

Women's National team.

And when

to give some background, I think we were both very excited to be on the show.

Finally, we did it.

It is an honor for multiple reasons.

I think just career-wise, it was important for Christian and I, but also Cuban-American, Cuban-American.

Christian was very excited.

When Christian gets excited, you could see it, you could feel it.

He's also kind of our boss.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Yeah, a little bit.

So, a little bit.

I didn't realize I was walking into a performance review.

I thought I was in there to talk about soccer and stuff.

But the term gas back came up.

I go on this long, long winded speech or diatribe you were yipping on that episode to be honest but because because Dan threw out the question about you know you know essentially like the US women's national team kind of riling up people and getting people upset to give some context he you he asked the question you started talking Dan walked offset and then came back and you were still answering

but this but it was a serious issue because you know Rapino was getting uh criticized

layers to that and then his response after he walked back in from while you're talking from the bidet that he just used

the jeopardy swinging kicks jumps off camera you would think it would be calmer

god bless that specific bidet just holding a tampon like what am i supposed to do with these i gotta figure out these buttons and and then he said oh christian you're kind of a gas no he goes alexis what's it like working with this gas bag i mean which is even more disrespectful to aim it at me

we're just i'm just on the zoom call trying to have a good time and pablo you may remember this

I stood on business, bro.

I stood 10 toes in defending my home.

Let's go.

How'd that go?

I don't care if it's your boss or not.

Nobody disrespects my podcast.

But you, as someone who is also called the gas bat.

Yes.

I guess, you know,

how do you handle it?

That is a show.

We can say this now.

And, you know, enough time has passed.

We can be truthful about what it's really like to go on dance show.

They're bullies.

There it is.

So, no, but in a way that, like, part of it, it's just weird.

So, I see it all through the lens of like me explaining to my mom: like, okay, so

I'm going to give up Disney healthcare to work for the man who made fun of the fact that my wedding had a black tie dress coat

before it happened that he was invited to it.

It was like, this asshole.

Like, I remember the first time.

So, was he upset that you didn't write flat brims optional?

What was he upset about?

Of all people judging how people dress.

Good God.

He said, do not serve this man.

It was a generic picture of a guy dressed like a skateboarder.

Dan was very offended.

There's just someone dropping an Amex black card at a Miami

Kitchki store.

Wearing the finest bowling shirt.

Yeah.

A v-neck bowling shirt.

Where'd you find it, Dan?

Dan is dressing better lately because I think he has now been bullied sufficiently, by the way, as a result of finding who he is.

But I remember the first time I ever went on, I think it was, yeah, I was doing, I was working at ESPN the magazine, Dan was at ESPN hosting the show still at the mothership, and I was doing a profile of Canelo Alvarez for ESPN the magazine, and it was the Floyd Canelo fight.

And so another writer had Floyd Mayweather and I had Canelo.

And we were going to do for the magazine, like these two sort of like alternate covers.

And so we were on an assignment together, covering two different camps.

And Dan decided to have us both on simultaneously.

And he was alternating between us, me and Tim Q and who's a great writer, really good writer for ESPN the magazine.

And Tim,

his question for both of us was like, give me the five most interesting things in your story.

Same.

And Tim, I'll remind you, is covering Floyd Mayweather.

Yeah.

I'm covering Canelo.

Yeah.

We've established I don't really speak Spanish.

He doesn't really like speaking in general.

And so Tim is coming at, he's coming at the show with all of these great stories and nuggets.

And i got nothing and i realized oh my gosh he's a redhead yeah did you know that they're a redhead in mexico

next question i said that five times um but i was there to be put in the dunk tank and i was just like oh that's what this show is yeah yeah i'm not being set up to succeed he's testing we're fodder yeah yes we are merely toys for him.

And so I decided to work for that guy.

It was the spoiler alert.

Now you can never be asked a question like that again.

You're on the show as opposed to a guest.

Yeah, it was look I wasn't after we were done recording we chatted about it and we kind of kind of laughed it off.

It's a rite of I mean in all seriousness it is a rite of passage.

I would say that everybody that I am friends with who does that show or has ever done that show, we all have a story in which we sound like the worst version of ourselves because we are trying to impress Dan and a show that is mostly there to just fuck with us.

You never realize how imposing it is to have, what, I think, 35 guest hosts or co-hosts

until they flip the camera there and each of them have something they want to make.

What is this scenario?

It's the exact opposite of a pep rally.

Whatever the exact opposite of a pep rally is, is that.

I was like, good God, there's so many people waiting.

It is shit on me.

It is weird because you go into it being like, you know, man, I've watched Dan,

you know, for the last 15, 20 years.

And I'm like, bro, this guy's also from up here.

I'm like, oh, this is, there's not that many Cuban Americans.

I'm like, oh, this is going to be a cake walk.

And it was known for no cake.

It was no cake.

There was no cake, sir.

No.

There was no cake wall.

Here's some jelly deal.

And this is the main thing.

Look, it's an honor, obviously, getting to be a part of Metal Arc Media and work in this space.

And look, it dreams come true for us, right?

The fascinating thing is that we are comedians who love soccer.

You walk into, you say the word soccer in that room, everybody's like, okay, what's all right, no, I don't know.

Stu Gats is just going to be,

he puts, he shuts up.

Mike Brian Ruiz pretends he doesn't know the sport.

I don't want to be the only one.

I don't know.

And Micro Ruiz is a diehard soccer supporter.

So

I do want to talk about soccer a little bit and your connection to the sport.

Obviously, you know, working at ESPN, I imagine you've been coerced into having to cover this

from time to time.

Absolutely.

And, you know, it must be difficult and challenging.

You can see the pain in your eyes when we bring up the word soccer.

It was a really hard time.

So, what, in general, what you have to do?

For real.

No.

No connection to the sport.

So, okay, so it starts when, so I played like, you know, soccer on the weekends at like a little Manhattan Kickers.

So I was, I was there.

I was there playing terribly.

I remember having braces and getting a ball kicked into my mouth and having my lips and my mouth fuse with my braces.

And I was like, this sport.

When you said braces, I'm like, oh, he scored two goals in a game.

No, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had braces that

psychologically damaged me.

So there is that as my most my most vivid visceral.

Did you ever ask, like, are there any Filipino legends in the game?

And realize, no.

It seemed pretty clear.

I didn't even need to look it up.

It seemed pretty clear that there weren't.

But when I was at ESPN, and by the way, so I should say, my favorite video game of all time is FIFA.

Right, right.

And I say that not because I like nerd out on like, oh, man, like, I love.

I love using my favorite player.

Like,

I love inhabiting his body.

It's not bad.

It's just that I find

It's the best.

It's really the best video game to get like lightly stoned and play It's meditative.

It's like ping-pong weirdly just constant motion.

You get into a flow state.

It's the best and multiplayer with friends is the best.

So that was my pretext for the assignment I got.

It was the Brazil World Cup.

And I went to Brazil for five weeks and covered the World Cup.

And I wrote columns and I was there for

a long time.

Solo in the era when I could just tell my then-girlfriend, now wife, like, I'm going to be in Brazil for a long time.

And she was like, this is a weird job.

No, it's the World Cup, I swear.

You can Google it this time.

This time you could Google it.

Definitely.

Were you based in Rio?

I covered, I mean, they had me flying literally every two to three days.

So I went to Manaus, went to the Amazon.

That was like the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

That's a bus depot now.

Did you know that?

That tracks.

I went to, and I was booking hotels myself, which I think I was not supposed to do, but I was like on like Expedia or whatever, like booking Brazilian hotels in Manaus and Brasilia and Rio and all these places.

But Manaus, I remember I booked a hotel and I was like, let me see what's on the grounds of this hotel.

And I walk behind the hotel and there's just a cage with a jaguar in it.

And like no one else is around.

And I'm like,

I should probably just not be the only person here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You sure you weren't at the Qatar World Cup?

You sure you weren't in a Saudi prince's estate?

It was, it was an amazing time, though.

It really was.

It really, it was one of the, I mean,

I had never been on assignment like that.

And my main mandate was not to like provide soccer analysis.

It was to like write columns about the scene and the characters.

And so in that way, like, as it was for like, clearly, like, it was, my columns were meant to be for like the American audience.

And so, there were like 20-something columns and just churned-out shit.

And it was, I, I embedded with like a bunch of like England fans as they were.

Um, I, I, so these are all people, these characters that you guys know intuitively.

It's like, oh, they're like this.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I did not realize, like, oh, you guys, like, this whole singing thing is real.

Oh, yeah, this whole dressing up as a knight and just like celebrating the sado-masochism of what it's like to be the place where uh football is never coming home.

I'm just like, yes, now I get this.

This is a great story.

So just finding stuff like that.

I mean, it was, it was a total delight.

And I retained zero soccer knowledge on the back end.

I was going to say, it seemed like you really kind of got a chance to understand the story.

I was immersed.

I was immersed.

And

I wish I could say that

I had more like analytical expertise as a result of watching that much soccer.

But no.

See hanging out with drunk Brits.

Absolutely.

And like trying to figure out, is that Rihanna?

And it was at the final.

I was like, no.

Yeah.

I sat next to a guy.

I sat next to a guy.

This is speaking of the Hispanic Latino diaspora.

I sat next to a dude

at the World Cup final who worked for ESPN Brazil.

Okay.

His name was Pablo Torres.

Whoa.

And we only realized this like maybe like, a quarter of the way in.

Yeah.

And it was just like, what are the odds?

Yeah, man.

Statistically, it turns out a lot higher than I realized.

Yeah, I was going to say, there's like a billion of both of you guys.

There's a player in that book.

His name was also John Smith.

Believe that?

Yeah, who plays for Hidona.

Now, I mean, Pablo Torre.

Pablo Torrey.

That's an episode that I am working on.

Okay.

To be a little coy about it.

Because I don't know how I feel about him.

Okay.

I guess we're going to find out.

I can't wait to see this, right?

So

doing that job, you know, look, us as, you know, I guess experts in the game, even though, you know, some people may not consider us.

I consider you guys experts.

Thanks.

And in a very unironic, sincere way.

No, we are deeply embedded in the game.

And it is, you know, just like some journalists are watching a couple different sports a day, high certain games, like the NFL playoffs.

I'm like, if I might catch six, seven minutes of it, I'm like, oh, I I see Jason Kelsey taking off his shirt.

I'm like, okay, let me tune in.

I guess something's going on over there.

But with soccer, it is always on.

I'm always looking.

The Fop Mob app is always open.

I'm like, what game is going on?

Always paying attention to it.

My wife is like, another game?

It's just constantly.

Yeah,

the sport does not stop.

It's always being played somewhere in the world.

So

the way I think a lot of American soccer fans...

get frustrated.

I mean, maybe the people who are like the

experts, I guess, I'm sure there's another word for experts, but the people who are deeply embedded in the game, when they see

journalism from the perspective of like,

let's show Americans what's happening here, we get a little bit like, we feel it's like,

aren't we above this?

Can we move forward in treating us with like kid gloves and let's talk about the sport in a very,

maybe it doesn't have to be exactly the way it is in Europe, but

I think that's the, I guess that's my question.

It's like, is it fun to do that kind of work of like to talk to the American audience like they're children to so to speak?

Yeah, no, it's, it's, I feel you.

I mean, there's a, I think there's probably a parallel to like, uh, to, you know, to music in that way, where it's like, ah, this thing I love, which I feel like is successful, respective of, irrespective of whether you mainstream, whether the MSM, whether the elite media cares that I, uh, that this band is super popular globally, you know, like the fact that

you're describing the conflict:

I want people to treat us as legitimate on our own.

We don't want to be condescended to, but you also want to be included.

Right.

And I think that is,

that's, that's hard.

That's hard.

I mean, look, the reality of like general sports talk television is it's a mile wide and an inch deep, right?

So you're covering a million things, and it's meant to sort of see

it's meant to,

it's, it's, it's a weird fetish, man.

It's specific.

And there's dozens.

But yeah, but there is, there's a certain

like unavoidable shallowness to it.

And then what you just hope in general is that you don't embarrass yourself.

And it turns out that is harder than it seems sometimes.

Don't I know that from this week?

Yes.

I mean, so this is a, I wanted to bring this up and just get your response.

I'm sure you've addressed this.

Yes, just this.

But this is this is a very out-of-context clip that I'm going to play of

pardon the interruption on ESCNU and I mean the legendary Tony Kornheiser

discussing Messi, Leono Messi playing in Major League Soccer.

When I think soccer, I don't think Tony Kornheiser.

And look,

I'm not going to play it, but before this moment, Tony Kornheiser is very adamantly saying he is not a soccer guy.

He is not interested.

He's also annoyed by people

who really love the sport.

Kornheiser is extraordinary, and I respect this, and we should all do this.

I should do more of it.

He is just very transparent about what he likes and dislikes and what he knows and doesn't know.

And me in this clip, which is, I can see in the runtime, way too short to do me justice.

And that's why we're chose it.

Why we chose it.

Very good.

It's revenge.

Your executive revenge on Lebatard on me, I get it.

Well, listen to this, you gas man.

So here's this is just a five-second moment, but everybody will understand what's going on when you hear it.

Because Leo Messi has done this everywhere.

He did this in the Premier League.

And there it is.

We didn't need to play the whole clip.

So here is what happens after this is that I wily coyote myself and I realize, oh, not true.

And so what I said was of course like

in the Champions League I mentioned the champions league explicitly yes he's gone to these buildings and beaten these teams he's definitely humiliated Premier League club and so and so and again when I say that I like fucking saw uh messy play at the world cup final and I when I say that I've like of course when I

I realize now that like the other time I saw Messi, I was eating chicken fingers.

So not the greatest offense of me.

But the point is, before you you write that shit, you missed a pretty famous goal.

The point is, I knew what I was doing.

I play FIFA.

It's not like.

So if we can just get into this.

Yes.

This is when Messi finally arrived.

So I went to go see Leo Messi.

So I was like, I was in Miami, Mike Ryan.

Of course, like

inter-Miami booster

allows me to sit with him field level.

And just for people who don't understand what it's like to, I've never been to this to this building it feels like a temporary almost like

temporary world cup in brazil kind of building where it's like this is someone was apologetic on the way and they're like this is not what it's gonna be like

when are we taking the scaffolding down no that is the building yeah yeah yeah so i walk in and i am surprised given this uh description on the front end that they have an excellent spread food-wise okay i'm starving I had just gotten off work.

And so I guess what you'll play here is what happens after I decide to which I'm sure all of our fans listeners and viewers know but I mean what an absolute movie I mean this is this was this is the game against Kudusa right just to confirm

this game this was I believe the it was the home open

or he's like

you think to yourself imagine Messi scores a goal in his home debut and he just so happens to do it.

We're going to show this.

So then we'll see what you were doing and then there's the combination of the

free game.

It was unbelievable.

It was a great moment.

And it was an incredible start to Beckham.

Beckham cried.

MLS Korea.

The whole Beckham family was in tears.

Everybody couldn't believe what they saw.

And this is the moment after the goal was scored.

So you can see the smoke and stuff.

Yeah.

Everyone's celebrating.

Pablo.

You can see, there are like clips in which you see me burst out from that like eating area because it's like a sweet thing.

And so a sweet, sweet, both terms valid here.

I throw the door open because I was watching this happen, literally holding a plate of chicken fingers, watching this through the glass.

Now, you'll forgive me because while I'm not a soccer expert, my math, and again, I'm not great at statistics as the Pablo Torres example shows, maybe, but I was like, the safest time to get some chicken fingers is at the very beginning of the game.

Like, what are the odds?

What are the odds that the very first thing he does in his home debut is this tremendous goal that turns out to be, I guess, historic in this sense.

I do want to correct you, though.

There are no stoppages in soccer.

So I would say there's one halftime, obviously.

I would say the safest time is before the game.

Not when Messi is lining up.

He's made one of the most satellite configs.

Listen, what you don't know is how good those chicken fingers are.

And the good news for me was that there were more goals that day.

Yes.

And I saw those.

And

I also had more chicken fingers.

There were also more chicken fingers.

There we go.

So it is a, I mean, it's a great moment captured and Chris Cody captured.

I was, I was, yeah, it was ironic to be captured by Chris Cody as I was being the most like Chris Cody I had ever been.

Yeah, that's true.

It's like, truly like that meme of a dad like carrying a bunch of like plates and and stuff and like a vacuum cleaner.

That was me with chicken fingers.

Also, just to say, like when I found out, when I saw this clip, I was like, no, I get it.

Chicken fingers over a goal.

You can see goals any day of the week.

I mean, they must have been good.

Cause I mean, I'm trying to think of when it comes to stadium food.

We've been to a lot of stadiums and some of the soccer stadiums have some pretty good spots.

Spontaneously.

I mean, the first one that comes to mind, I've never been there for an NFL game, but Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Oh, Atlanta

matches.

I mean, the best I think I've been around, I think.

They got got a Chick-fil-A in there, too.

They do.

They're not open during NFL games because they're outside.

Because of the bigotry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

They could just get past that little part.

Are you at least willing to meet us halfway?

So the

custom.

Does that make it okay?

Yeah, I mean, what was it?

Minnesota United had a pretty good spread.

Minnesota had a pretty good spread.

We've seen LAFC's suite.

Pretty good.

Okay.

All right.

I want a couple other things.

Yeah, let's talk about the world of sports television.

Sure.

You still do work with ESPN.

Yes, I do around the horn and PTI still on a freelance basis.

I show up every week and put myself at risk of being memed by asshole soccer fans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

You're talking to two of them right here.

We run those accounts.

Anything but clicks.

Follow us at Pablo Tori Sucks.

Oh, God.

People still getting my mentions about that, by the way.

Really?

About the Premier League thing?

Yeah.

And I'm like, look, I get it.

Of course.

What's saddest to me is that my only move is to be the sad person who's responding like, there's more context.

There's more to it.

I mentioned the Champions League.

You know, I think for us, soccer brings a level of

joy and community that I, you know, that's why I love basketball.

I'm a big Knicks fan, but it never provided the community that I think, you know, I'm an NYCFC.

We're both NYCFC fans.

That provided that.

It's just something that's very, very different.

Is there any, like, if we can't make you a die-hard soccer fan, what is the thing that brings out that die-hard soccer fandom in you?

Yeah, in what's going on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When Asian people do stuff.

Let's go.

Just any Asian doing anything.

Maddie Pacquiao was that for me.

Like, talk about, I mentioned before, like, speaking of problematic people in terms of just like their beliefs about homophobia, who I'm just like, never mind that.

This chicken sandwich is awesome.

Yeah.

Manny Pacquiao.

Bro, this dude's taking a lot of punches in the head.

Can we just.

It's unfortunate that he wasn't literally elected senator.

Yeah.

And so it became even more.

I was like, come on.

Didn't he also release like a ballads album?

Oh, yeah.

So I covered him.

So the first story I ever did for Sports Illustrated was a Manny Pacquiao profile.

It was the first real magazine feature I ever wrote because I was like, yo,

I think this this guy is good.

And I know that because I feel my body

electrify.

I cry when they sing the national anthem before his fights, and he goes and beats up a Mexican dude.

The Mexicaner, by the way, it's not a random, like, right, right.

Literally, he's a racist.

It wasn't racist.

He was concussing those Mexican things consensually.

You're like, I cried.

I felt it.

I felt so passionate when he beat up Mexican dudes.

He meant because he had to fight so many Mexican guys in the ring, not at the border.

Just clarify.

Although, Marquez.

Although, if you've heard some of his thoughts, I don't think you'd be opposed to going to the border doing it again.

Oh, my God.

And likewise, by the way, when he got knocked out by Marquez and he became a meme, I was like, hmm.

This doesn't feel good.

But so that was, though, as I mentioned before, like what I didn't feel in soccer playing FIFA.

I did feel like, oh, this is my avatar.

You know, like I felt like he represented me.

It was emotional.

And he did in all the genetic and ancestral ways.

But that has just blossomed into pretty much anybody I can find trace amounts of Asian in.

Okay.

Are you just watching the Jabbawakis dance?

Filipinos.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Beneath those masks is this face.

Just like all of them.

All of them.

Bro, growing up, I used to go to a lot of Filipino parties and I'm like, y'all sure, you're not Jamaican, bro.

This is dancing.

It was basement parties.

We sweating.

Yes.

It was crazy.

Every dad would rip the door off their daughter's bedroom.

This was a common thing.

Every woman, every young woman in a Filipino house I grew up going to had beads or a curtain for a door because the dad was pissed off they had a boyfriend and would rip the door off the hinges.

My daughter's four, but that door is getting unbearable.

You're practicing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But so, but to your point about like the Filipino rituals at a party, like when I profiled Manny Pacquiao, I was embedded in his entourage.

Truly, I was like blended in as a Filipino dude among literally 40 Filipino dudes.

And covering boxing, by the way, is the best because you just, because they don't care.

You'll go to like a party at their hotel room and it's just like, oh, the journalist is here.

Whatever.

I get punched in the head professionally.

Don't hide the drugs, dude.

It was for real.

Like, just like,

there's a bar.

We're going to set up a bar at the...

It was, it was, it felt like almost famous to me.

I was like, oh, this is the, this is how I got hooked into sports writing as like this, as this calling was I get to do this and I get to like be in these rooms.

And so anyway, so part of what happened was Manny Pacquiao would just sing karaoke all of the time.

That's not what you expect.

And so he has a terrible voice,

but he is Filipino.

And so he loves it.

He has a number one album, though.

Yeah, he has, he has so much success as a recording artist.

That has nothing to do with his actual ability to sing.

And so the other thing I did, because Filipinos love several things, unhinging the doors of their daughters,

taraoke,

and basketball.

Basketball, I mean, in Filipinos, we love basketball, despite the fact that basketball does not love us.

Right.

So it does not compliment the it's it's so so as a matter of fact, like in the Filipino basketball, the Philippine Basketball Association,

there are rules around like number of imports.

And I believe there used to be, I have to check if it still is in place of like a height requirement almost of like, because we're not, again, statistically speaking, it's not friendly to us this game.

However, Manny Pacquiao loves it.

And I recommend that all of us at some point just revisit footage that's on YouTube of Manny Pacquiao shooting a jumper.

Cause it's.

a catapult.

It's incredible.

He's just punching the ball.

But I say this because in the course of doing this reporting, and I covered him, and I covered his later Mayweather Pacquiao fight for ESPN as well.

As part of an Entourage embedded member, I played pickup with Manny and, again, upwards of 40 other Filipino dudes.

And

these games,

wait, did you play in the Filipino Basketball Association?

I can't tell if this is an exhibition.

Or

we could just look at the highlights.

As a side note, like one of the teams is Blackwater.

And I'm like, I don't know if that's the military contractor.

The Derby Scale or

very weird sponsor to have, but that's Manny Pacquiao shooting at three.

Which way, just like it looks like if your four-year-old daughter threw something, yes.

Your four-year-old daughter, whose door is now beads.

If she was asked to shoot at three, it would look like Manny Pacquiao shooting at three.

It went in, but this is like basically Obama playing basketball.

So it's worse than that.

No, but his shot kind of went.

No, no, no.

But I think as far as how people defend against him, so that was my point, actually, was that when I played pickup with him, it was actually like playing hockey with Vladimir Putin.

It was like, he's going to score a million goals and all of us are going to nod like it's actually

being in an uncle killing contest with Kim Jong-un.

You're just going to let him win, you know?

Okay.

I mean, My man, he got moves.

He has, but in, yeah, he's, by the way, one of the greatest athletes of all time.

Um, the greatest calves, I would argue, in sports history.

Oh, I mean, Matt, Pacquiao, that's high praise coming from someone like you, absolutely, absolutely.

Um, but this dude, um,

is also uh a dictator at times, ideologically, and in terms of uh how he is defended, right?

Right, yeah, I mean, he lost the ball there, and uh, yeah, that guy's never been seen again,

he's not seen his family,

okay.

Okay, shout out to him.

So, I don't know why I started talking about, oh, it's who I root for.

Right.

Right, right.

It was Pacquiao was, I think, the most,

I haven't had a, to sound like a eugenicist, I haven't had a full-blooded Filipino really capture my heart in that way since.

And I'm hope, I'm hopeful.

Okay.

Did you see, by any chance, did you watch or get a chance to see the Filipino women's national team during the Women's World Cup?

Yes.

They had

a historic run.

A historic run in terms of accomplishment and also an amazing story in terms of how that team was assembled.

Right, right.

A lot lot of American college to this.

Yeah.

And some, again, and this is the trick of like, I mentioned the diaspora and all that stuff, but like, what do you do when you're the Philippines and you're starving?

Like, the Philippines love sports, obviously.

So what do you do when you're starving for athletic success?

But also,

in order to get that success, you need to be creative in terms of who's on your roster.

So like the Philippine basketball national team, like Andre Blatch was on the team, former Washington Wizard Center, who is a very sad

person person to elevate your national program.

He's not Filipino at all, but they passed legislation to make him a naturalized citizen.

So anyway, in the world of soccer, I was like, oh, I know how this works.

But what was my, there's a great story, I think, on Yahoo, Yahoo Sports, about how it was assembled.

I was jealous of this story.

I didn't know about it.

It's a couple of dudes just like literally posting on message boards, like combing the bios of like, to your points, college soccer teams in America, and truly being like, I see a trace amount of Filipino in that person.

And then reaching out and finding out that, oh, some of them, they are containing those trace amounts and they would love to play in the Olympics.

And that's how that team came together.

And it's fucking wild for the World Cup.

Oh, yeah.

Sounds awesome.

Yeah, look, similar to the Premier League gaff.

You know what I mean?

This guy.

But

I recommend, I don't know if you have heard Between Two Worlds.

It's the podcast from Meg Reyes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And so if people.

Yeah, she also covered this.

It's a really it's an amazing

podcast series about it.

So

I like hearing that.

I mean, I think the you know, everybody gets into the sport in their own way.

And a lot of times, you know, it's why we have World Cups to begin with.

It is, it is the display of the sport.

It's how you get new fans.

Most, especially American fans, are always like, oh, I got into soccer because of the 2008 World Cup, 2012.

And there was a player they liked.

And then they ended up getting,

you know, hooked.

So.

Yeah, Kyle Beckerman radicalized me.

Right, right.

People often say that.

Those dreads.

Yeah.

I wrote a story about Kyle Beckerman's dreads if you couldn't tell.

I was like, that guy, man.

They really put you on some wild assignments.

Go to Minus.

Talk about a white guy with dreads.

Well.

You're really going to get a lot of soccer bands this way.

Pablo, we have to wrap up.

But I mean, we have so much to this guy.

Hopefully, we might have one time for a game of FIFA.

I don't know.

Oh, man.

You beat me as Street Fighter at the holiday party.

Yeah, which is why I wore this shirt.

I noticed.

Sonic boomed my ass.

You got it.

Unfortunately.

I got this shirt of a guile.

I would like to exact my revenge at some point.

Okay.

When I don't have to go to work

for our oppressive.

We'll invite you back and we'll get a game of FIFA in

so you can try to get your revenge so I can play as Leo Messi and not make that mistake ever again.

Dude, Pablo, everybody, just go check out Pablo Torrey Finds Out.

Imagine your team scores a goal while you're getting chicken fingers.

Wouldn't that be hilarious?

I'm going to bring chicken fingers.

I'm going to hold them behind you the whole time.

Come on, dude.

That is my fetish.

All right.

Personally.

Well, you know what this show is about.

Pleasing our guests.

Go follow at Pablo Finds Out on all socials.

On X, Twitter,

and Instagram.

And go do that.

Follow Pablo Torres

everywhere as well.

Inhale my gas.

It's great work.

Especially, I mean,

we had Dave Sampson in

recently, and it was great.

And it was, and that was, we, Skipper, we got to get Skipper on here as well.

Because I love John Skipper authentically loved.

Like, so my, on my team at work, like Ryan Cortez is now in Tottenham.

He's been radicalized over the pandemic.

My brother, by the way, also, like, I'm surrounded by people who just like like love Tottenham now.

John Skipper is one of those people, but he goes way back.

And so, like, he

is a he is, he's a very busy man, former most powerful person in the world of sports.

Um, ran the most profitable media business in history of media.

He will walk by a screen playing a Tottenham game and just stop and watch.

That's how we get him in here.

Keeps on.

So, awesome.

We got a set of series on a laptop.

Yeah, no, we got a TV on a fishing pole just

playing Tottenham highlights in the 80s.

That's right.

We got, we did get to meet Skipper with Grant Wall.

Grant Wall.

Yeah.

He invited us to,

what's the bar?

Smithfield.

And we would watch games, and that's where we met Skipper.

But watching the episodes

with Skipper and Samson are literally one of the most informative shows about sports.

I can't get it.

No sporting class.

It's absolutely remarkable.

I love doing that with them.

They are both deeply, like, actually, intimately knowledgeable about things.

Like it's to me, as I said on the show once before, it's like rich guy-only fans.

I'm like, tell me what it's like when you're buying a billion-dollar contract.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's a little

yin and yang between them.

Yeah, and you know, and then you have to be the

one knows how to say it in public and the other one could care less.

And I love them both.

Yeah, but it's a great dynamic.

I'm sporting class.

But no, thank you guys.

This has been legitimately like

super fun for me.

And I'm glad to, you know, exercise some demons that may or may not still be in my mentions.

Well, it's about to go up.

Maybe there'll be some kind ones, too.

Everybody, be nice to the Pablo.

Love a kind demon.

The soccer, the soccer community.

Pablo Torrey, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Everybody, follow us at Soccer Cooligans on all social channels.

You know, be kind to us as well.

Subscribe to us.

Hit the subscribe button.

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Tell your friends.

We all love Pablo.

So let people know: hey, Pablo was on the cool against

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So

definitely.

We'll see what happens.

Also, Marcus, if you see us in your store in Orlando, don't hold it against us.

Okay.

Join the Patreon for the exclusive Pablo content that you really want to see.

All right.

We'll be back soon, everybody.

Cheers.