What I Wrote This Week (6/11)

The World Cup starts in a couple hours, so we’re coming to you a day early this week:

-At the beginning of the week, I ranked who I think are the 50 best players at the World Cup. An angry USMNT fan told me I was either ignorant, blind, or both because I had Declan Rice and Jamal Musiala above Christian Pulisic. We love this time of year.

-Joke’s on him. I found 13 different stats that prove the USMNT is actually going to win the World Cup.

-I was on NPR’s Science Friday, which actually airs tomorrow, to talk about how annoying AI is going to be during the World Cup.

-I was on Wharton Moneyball — my favorite sports-nerd pod, hosted by four people I respect more than anyone else in whatever “field” this is — to chat about the World Cup’s new format, how favored the favorites are, and the specter of the set piece.

And one thing I watched:

-The first 40 minutes of the Knicks–Spurs game last night. I fell asleep — in bed, with my laptop open — right after the Mikal Bridges layup that cut the lead to 15. I don’t check my phone for at least an hour after I wake up, and I just started repeating the phrase “Wait, are you fucking kidding me?” at progressively louder octaves when I opened it this morning.

The last text I sent before I closed my eyes was telling my brothers that “MSG is washed” and that all the bozo lawyers and i-bankers and mediocre late-night hosts who only have a show because they kept laughing during live skits on SNL who could actually afford Finals tickets had given that gigantic French dilettante a red carpet to a 2-2 series. And, I mean …

Sports are the best. FIFA stole this from me. Never sleep. Go Knicks.