England Survives, the Jaylen Trade Fallout, and an All-NBA Mailbag With Zach Lowe

**Bill Simmons** (0:00)
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All right, it's The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are recording, it is 8.22 Pacific time. Zach Lowe, kind enough to stay up late. We thought we were going to be on Netflix doing a live, but we had some tech issues, but we're going to get the pod going. I wanted to mention, do re-watch us coming tomorrow. Ali, we're doing From Hell Month is over.
It ended on July 1st with the Jaylen Brown trade.
Zach Lowe has, how many podcasts are you doing this week? At least two? I don't know.

**Zach Lowe** (2:17)
Yeah, two. Two is the floor for this time of year.

**Bill Simmons** (2:20)
Over Under is one and a half? Okay.

**Zach Lowe** (2:22)
Yeah.

**Bill Simmons** (2:23)
We're going to do a bunch of basketball stuff in a second, but we just watched England-Mexico. The World Cup, there's a weightiness. There's just nothing like it. I was trying to think of other games that feel this way, and like the Super Bowl can't feel this way because it's a neutral location. Basketball, we can get like 40% to where we got to tonight, but there's something different about countries. A place like Azteca, which I've been to, which I'll talk to in a second, but there's just nothing else like this. Every four years, the pressure, if you blow it, you don't come back now until 2030
I'm drained after that game and I didn't really care who won.

**Zach Lowe** (3:07)
I'm drained after every game.
There is nothing like it. It's the every four years thing, so any missed opportunity feels like you've missed an opportunity of a lifetime that you'll never get back again. It's that every game is like there's no game. There's no like Mexico can make adjustments for game two against England tomorrow. They're just out. It's over. And even in group play, if you're in a hard group, like it's hard to just get out of your group. They aren't elimination games, but they start to feel like elimination games really, really fast. And it's just, it's too much, man. It's too much. And I don't understand enough of the rules, but that's new to here and over there.

**Bill Simmons** (3:42)
It was one of the most bonkers games ever where we had, England goes up to nothing in five seconds.
Then all of a sudden we get a penalty kick. We get another penalty kick. Then all of a sudden England's playing, playing a man down forever. And Mexico's just doing cross after cross, after cross, after cross, and guy, and every time you're just having a heart attack. I went to Estrella in 2009 I wrote a column about it. I went for a USA Mexico qualifier. And it was one of the great sports experiences I've ever had. The place is, you can't even describe it. You can't feel more unsafe. It's like kind of designed, it's designed to make everybody feel unsafe who isn't on Mexico's side. That's what they do. And it's really close to the field. They're throwing stuff at the players in the corner kicks.
And it's just getting in and out. You're nervous and you're always wondering, what's the mood gonna be if this is a terrible loss for Mexico? How do we get out of here? And I'm sure that's what it was like. You're watching England at the end. They had the one section. They're singing Wonderwall, which was really cool. And then it's like, okay, now you guys have to get out of here. And these fans are mad and you've just ruined the next four years of sports for them.