Messi Takes England Out of the World Cup, Plus Preparing for Christopher Nolan’s 'The Odyssey' With Ian Wright, Anthony Dabbundo, and Sean Fennessey

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Chris Ryan** (0:59)
The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by PayPal and is hosted today by Chris Ryan.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:04)
What's up?

**Chris Ryan** (1:06)
I am filling in for Bill while he is away. And today on the podcast, we're talking the two things that matter most in the world to me, the World Cup and the Odyssey. For the World Cup, I talked to Ian Wright, former Arsenal legend, current UK media pundit for Stick to Football and our own podcast Crossways over here at the Ringer Podcast Network. Ian is a legend of the English game and was nice enough to join me to talk about England's loss to Argentina in that incredibly thrilling semifinal. We talked a little bit about Spain and France and the final that's coming up on Sunday between Spain and Argentina. But I talked more in depth about the final with Anthony Dabbundo, join me after Ian. Then I wrapped things up with a long chat with Sean Fennessey about The Odyssey. There's no spoilers in that. It's mostly a Christopher Nolan conversation. But since that is the movie event of the year, I thought what better time to talk about it and who better to talk about it with than the co-host of The Big Picture.
You can also listen to me on The Watch on Mondays and Thursdays.
I'm going to be doing one more podcast with Adam Friedland on The Beautiful Pod on Friday. We're going to be talking about the tournament as a whole and previewing Sunday's action. Bill will be back on Sunday. I think Anthony Dabbundo and I are going to join him after the World Cup final. So we'll be coming to you probably live after that match. I hope everybody has a great weekend, enjoys The Odyssey, enjoys the World Cup final. Let's get into the show.

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**Chris Ryan** (3:51)
All right, guys, this is a really huge honor for me. I'm joined by Ian Wright, my friend Ian Wright, one of the greatest strikers to ever play English football. Capped over 30 times for England, an Arsenal legend, and now a pundit. You can see him and hear him on Stick to Football with Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Roy Keane, Jill Scott. You can hear him with Steph Hewton on Crossways here at Ringer Spotify. He's also one of the best dudes out there. Ian, thank you so much for taking time on what must be a heartbreaking late afternoon for you in New York. I guess I'll start here.
Tuchel tries to turn Atlanta into Azteca, right?
He brings on Konza, he brings on I. Riley, he brings on Byrne, he takes off Gordon, Rice, Reese James. Rice and Reese James looked a little banged up. Then was it the right strategy, but the wrong time? Or how did you feel about this decision of his to defend that lead, that one goal lead?

**Ian Wright** (4:52)
It was, when you consider that Tuchel somebody, Chris, that we brought in for his bravery, and we've given him a lot of plaudits on the fact that he's left a lot of people at home that people wanted to see in this squad that maybe now, in this game, in a game where you look to us and we look like we were struggling, we were defending deep, we couldn't get out, we didn't have no ballplayers to get us out and maybe get to the wings or we could have hurt Argentina. I think to see us once we scored the goal, to only have 12% possession after that, until I think Lattaro Martinez scored, says that it was kind of a negative play from my point of view, from what I saw. And I think that, Chris, you have to go back to, I'll go back to our final in the Euros at Wembley against Italy. We were in the game, Luke Shaw, you know, then we, we start defending. You know, the same with, you know, even the Spain final in the game. You know, we're doing well, Spain come, then we start defending and it's happened again today.