July 7, 2026
We Didn’t Believe In A Trump Curse… Until Last Night
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RSS Feed It was a devastating, and yes, embarrassing loss for the U.S. Men last night as they faced off against Belgium in the round of 16 at the World Cup. We were the talk of the world for all the wrong reasons for most of the day and certainly in the hours leading up to the match. Many are now pointing to the added pressure from Trump, who placed a call to the FIFA president , which ultimately led to our star striker being allowed to play despite receiving a red card in the previous game. While having Flo Balogun on the field seemed like an advantage, turns out it wasn’t, and perhaps even shifted the team’s energy knowing the world was outraged by it. Some are pointing out several recent sporting events Trump has attended, that have resulted in losses, including Game 3 of the NBA Finals, where the Knicks lost their only game of the series.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, July seventh, and the US men's national team is out of the World Cup. After all that and all that controversy, their World Cup ended and humiliating fashion. So what happened? The curse of Trump strikes again. And with that, I welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Do you think that's a real thing, the curse, the Trump cursed that when he endorses a team or goes to a game, that team is gonna lose.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I do think it's the thing that people consider. I've actually even considered myself a curse at times. Every time I showed up to a Georgia game for years, they lost, and my brother told me I wasn't allowed to come to a Georgia game again.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: I broke the curse eventually. So are they real? No? Do they feel real? Yes? It feels real in the moment.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: And yes, he's an easy target at this point given some recent activity and results.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was a really terrible result, bros. This was not just that they lost. We could take a tough loss, a heartbreaking loss. This was a fairly devastating one, humiliating. You could go as far as saying, and plenty are even going as far as using the word embarrassing.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, Look, we sat there and watched the entire game and never once for one second was it competitive, not even close. And I think we look, could it have been we say the Trump curse? But could it have been the pressure? The unbelievable pressure that was put on this team, given it was all anybody was talking about yesterday and Trump had everything to do with you.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Talking about addic pressure.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: Correct, right, already they've got pressure, But now think about the scrutiny and the fact that you know the world is seemingly against.
00:01:54
Speaker 3: You in that moment.
00:01:55
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess you could say that would ignite something in you or rally you.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: But it can also cripple you.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: And the mental aspect of any competition we know is real. These guys are on a certain athletic level that we can't even understand. But we look at the Olympics, we look at pressure cookers of games that we sit there and watch and we see people crumble under pressure, and that actually looks like what happened. It says if they didn't even like they were paralyzed by the moment, by the moment and maybe by the pressure that was added beyond just being on the world stage.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: This was hard on home. This was hard to watch. This was really hard to watch. You can done the second guessing and the people take examination of the program and what USA Soccer should do moving forward. That ain't us, but just watching Robes, there was there was a there was a maybe a two minute stretch that there was hope because the US tied it up at one point two minutes. You got all we got and they scored again almost immediately and rose. There was just no point of that game where we looked like we were in the same league necessarily as Belgium. And the score at the end certainly suggests that Ropes four to one is a humiliating result on that stage.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: Yes, and the one that we got was only because of a foul of a deflection, right Oh, I.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Was gonna say, we got the kick and then it was deflected off the head of a Belgium fla.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: Player, so that one wasn't a pure score necessarily. But it was tough to watch and we for how early did you make that reservation a week?
00:03:34
Speaker 2: I think as soon as we knew when they were playing at least four or five days in advance, because you know, obviously it's fun to communally watch something like this, Team USA.
00:03:46
Speaker 3: It's rare that you.
00:03:47
Speaker 2: Can have an entire restaurant or an entire bar rooting for the same team. And here's our chance, Team USA, let's do it. We found our neighborhood joint right around the corner. It's a kind of like a German beer haul, and it's a sports pub, and it's a blast. It's all neighborhood folks, and it was the perfect place to watch the very difficult game.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: So it was a great setting. And what I'm saying you and I like so many people, but you could say this about the country collectively. There had been a build up to this moment, Babe, this was it. There were articles that think it might have been. The Athletic said this was leading up the biggest week in US men's soccer ever for this country, because not only are we about to get possibly farther than we ever gotten before, you're doing it on US soil.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the ratings have been huge for this World Cup, more so than ever before, correct here in this country, at least getting people excited about this game that the world has loved for so long that we've been slow to warm up to. And look, there was a dilemma because in this household, it was a house whole divided. What do you watch the men's soccer, us men playing Belgium or Love Island. Some of the folks in our family went one way, we went the other.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: I thought that was odd that anybody could go the other direction. On this night.
00:05:14
Speaker 2: We couldn't even get Analyse to come a block away to go. I got the reservation with a seat for her, and she was like, yeah, I'm gonna stay home.
00:05:22
Speaker 3: And watch Love Island instead. She made the better choice.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: It turns out well how we had to support. But we were so excited. Folks like us were making reservations days in advance. People were just we were into this, and because everybody was into it, and then you throw in the whole controversy, all eyes were on this moment and history possibly being made on our home turf. Gropes, this was it and this game was everything. Fine, got out of the group stage, but now you're playing a world class opponent. This is the one you gotta get by and Robes. With that setup, a loss would have sucked. But you can't even look at the game and think that US soccer is in a good place. No, we looked off. And again this is not an insult to those guys. They're all world class players. We get that. But what was presented at a time when you needed to put your best product forward ropes was a dud. No.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: And it's true because and from the beginning, how soon before Belgium scored within the first I think of six six, seven minutes, That's what I was thinking too. And more importantly, we just couldn't keep the ball they We just kept handing it right to them every single play. It seemed like I was like, well, let's just give them to a Let's just give the ball to a Belgium player.
00:06:41
Speaker 1: It was simple passes, and wrote you're right, and again you don't have to be. We watched the major tournaments, but the soccer, the analysts and the just gave the same commentary you gave because it was easy to see, like, what you mean, you can't simple passes to each other, We're going awry. It was inexplicable and so the only explanation some point two robes like you suggested at the top. The stage, the lights, the pressure. Was it something about that moment that we see these people doing superhuman things. We can't believe that they show very human traits when it comes to just falling victim to a big moment.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: Yes, and again the added pressure could not have helped. And certainly yeah the goalkeeper.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was the worst moment.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: Not Freeze.
00:07:35
Speaker 1: It was a bad moment. Yeah, what do you say? Everybody saw and it doesn't matter who you are. You were yelling at the screen, what are you doing? Matt Freeze. This is his first World Cup, but rolled he comes out of the box to try to get to a ball, a pass that was coming his direction that the Belgian one player was trying to pass to another. He gets there kind of in time, but kind of miss times it, plays it down to the ground, but then tries to kick it and whifts and now the Belgian players have a chance at the ball, get it going the other direction and there's no goalie.
00:08:13
Speaker 3: You saw it happen in slow most when he left the box. I think I screamed, no, what are you doing? And I'm curious.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: I don't again, not a soccer savan here, but once the goalie because I know the goalie can pick the ball up with his.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: Hands within his area.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: But it has to be within the box after.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: He comes out ros he's just a regular player. He can't run up and down the field just hitting the ball with his hands. So yes, once he came out, why did he could do that?
00:08:38
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody was just like, why.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: He misjudged it, mistimed it, and it was a ugh.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: That was a low moment.
00:08:46
Speaker 2: And I really think that was the moment in which you kind of felt like, we're not gonna win this.
00:08:50
Speaker 3: We don't have a shot at winning this.
00:08:52
Speaker 2: It's just all of the momentum was completely on the Belgium side and we had nothing and.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Our biggest star off rogue, Christian Holistic Robes. He had a ropes. He didn't score goal this entire World Cup, and he looked he was a non factor. Baligan was a non factor. You didn't know they were on the.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: Field, You didn't, You really didn't. No one stood out.
00:09:19
Speaker 1: I mean, and it just they're human beings. The human beings was too bad. But something that is being talked about a lot, and how the president inserted himself into this robes. So now that this was the result, and I said previously that this is probably the right result to make everybody feel better.
00:09:39
Speaker 2: It's it was the right result if you wanted peace in the world when it came to the World Cup, because if we had won, this would have been a story that wasn't going to end. It was going to follow us and dog us all the way as far as we got.
00:09:54
Speaker 1: If we'd won, Belgians would have had an argument. If we'd lost without Ballet, we would have been screaming and had an argument. This was the only way to kind of Robes has our bets here. But I do think Robes that Trump to a certain degree can be blamed because going into the game, even if we didn't have Baligan, it was us against the world. Look at what they did to us. That was an unfair red card. We had the edge, We had a reason the game.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: We were angry, we had something to prove. We had something to prove.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: But then what Trump did was flip the script and he gave the Belgians, what do they call it, robes bulletin board material. Now they're fired up. Now we got it.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: Who's got the edge? Now? Now we're all timid and oh.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: God, we're pissing off the world. Oh no, now everyone's upset that Baligan's on the field. And it does create this energy. That's a shift. And now the Belgians are like, are you kidding me? Watch us whoop your butts. Anyway, with Baligant on the field, they were incentivized to kick our ass and they came out with a high energy.
00:11:07
Speaker 3: They were all the attack. You even said, like, man, they're beating up our guys.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: And they did have something to prove in that moment, and they proved it.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: Man, but they did. There was an incentive, there was a reason. Now the Belgians could just flip it and roes it does. Motivation has a lot to do with.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: The mental part of this type of competition is absolutely real.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: All right, well stay here, folks. Well remind you of some recent incidents of the so called Trump curse, and we'll tell you why the US men have not been stacking up to the US women.
00:11:43
Speaker 2: Stay here, Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are discussing the devast stating some would call him there seeing lost to Belgium last night, and a lot of fingers yes are pointed squarely at the men's team, the coach.
00:12:06
Speaker 3: The players, the goalie, but also at.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: President Trump himself, because yes, this isn't the first time he has been accused of stealing a team's mojo, so to speak.
00:12:19
Speaker 3: Does anyone remember the Knicks?
00:12:21
Speaker 1: You know what? The same similar in that by announcing he was coming, everybody was on such a high. It was going to be the first game in New York, right in twenty something years and in a final.
00:12:33
Speaker 3: Game, oh yeah, exactly.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: And it kind of changed everybody's moves.
00:12:37
Speaker 2: Well, the watch parties got canceled, all of these street closures happened, and suddenly something that was for the fans, because of the fans, just became about him and literally stole that energy and that excitement and that moment from the people who have been to those games, or at least have been showing up around MSG to support the team they love. All of a sudden, now are closed off, shutout, and anyone who actually was lucky enough to have tickets had to go through the arduous process of this lengthy screening, all because he wanted to be there.
00:13:09
Speaker 3: What happens that night?
00:13:11
Speaker 1: They lose and they were on a what thirteen to fourteen game winning streak and the playoffs.
00:13:16
Speaker 3: At the time only game they lost.
00:13:19
Speaker 1: It was the only game they lost, and then they went on and won the finals in the next couple of games. But it was what do you call them energy vampires?
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Yes, energy vampire.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: But in these two instances where there was an energy or a vibe or a thing that was going well, and even for the US men with the red card coming back and knowing they were getting fired up with us against the world, the energy gets sucked out when he inserts himself. And people were comparing these two incidents. But Roves, he has a little bit of a track record at times of showing up to very big events and supporting some teams and the very next game those teams lose.
00:13:56
Speaker 2: Ah.
00:13:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker 2: So June eleventh was, of course Game three of the NBA Finals at MSG the Nicks lost one fifteen to one eleven. Then, just a few months earlier, in November, November ninth, Trump attends the Commanders versus Lions game in DC. Commanders lose handily forty four to twenty two.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: That was embarrassing.
00:14:15
Speaker 3: Oooh.
00:14:16
Speaker 2: September of twenty twenty five, just a couple months earlier, he attends the Ryder Cup at Betpage. Europe beat the United States WAH. February ninth, twenty twenty five, President Trump remember this one. Attends the Super Bowl in Nola and predicts the Kansas.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: City Chiefs are going to win.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: They lose forty to twenty two to the Eagles, and then yes, January nineteenth, he attends the National Championship in Miami and Indiana beats Miami.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Miami. It was supposed to be a home game for them, playing in the National Championship, and they lose. Look, he's gone to some games before, yes, and people have won. But roads the big wins and the big high profile wins and the championships. It's just funny. People think there is a legit curse. And he did play in this game for a moment. I don't know if you can say it was anything other than but there's a shot of the Belgian players celebrating robes and doing the Trump.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: Dance just to rub it in.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: You know what, why wouldn't they That's that's fun, rubbing it in. They can say make a political statement or do anything. They just danced a little and madump dance. That's I didn't mind.
00:15:28
Speaker 2: I don't mind it either. And then what did they have overruled this? Yeah?
00:15:32
Speaker 1: No, that one was again, Belgia's a nice people where they put this out, they tweeted that out.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: You know what, I'll give that to them too.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: They earned it, they did, robes, and this was nice stuff. This wasn't mean spirited stuff.
00:15:48
Speaker 3: It was just kind of like a how about them apples kind of a thing.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: We didn't mention as well. This is going to be talked about robes. Maricio Patchettino. Yes, oh yes, yes.
00:15:59
Speaker 3: The very well paid, compensated coach.
00:16:02
Speaker 1: Don't know what they're going to do with him, but a lot was made of them recruiting him, and they had to have some benefactors ropes like billionaires, had to contribute money to pay his salary, highest pay coach in US soccer history by.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Far, six million dollars annual salary, and he couldn't get out of sixteen sixteen.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Alexi Lawless. We heard Alexi Lawless say this several times in some of his commentary before the game. This coach was hired to win this game in particular, Wow, he said, this is everything, this is the type of matchup, this moment is why he was hired.
00:16:38
Speaker 2: This that's not good for job security.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: It's not. So this is the US men's We'll leave you with this and rope to go through these is pretty remarkable. But we're just going to quickly tell you the US men's World Cup results in their history versus the women. So this is why this was such a big moment and such a big deal. So this was a round of sixteen, right, just lost in the round of sixteen here in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty two, us men lost to Netherlands, round of sixteen, twenty eighteen, did not qualify, twenty fourteen, lost to Belgium, Round of sixteen, twenty ten, teen lost to Ghana. Round of sixteen twenty six, didn't make it out of the group stage. Two thousand and two lost to Germany in the quarterfinal. That was the farthest they'd ever gotten. Ninety eight didn't make it out of the group stage, ninety four lost in round of sixteen, ninety didn't make it out of the group stage, and then roads between nineteen fifty and nineteen ninety they didn't qualify.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: For the World Cup for forty years. We didn't qualify. Now Compare that to the US women's national team. Yeah, quite a different story. Twenty twenty three. We lost in the round of sixteen, twenty nineteen Champions, twenty fifteen, Champions, twenty eleven runners up, not bad, two thousand and seven, third place, two thousand and three, third place.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety nine. We all remember that one.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Champions, nineteen ninety five, third place, nineteen ninety one Champions. Can we get maybe the whoever's coaching the women to go over to the bed, because clearly they're doing something right ropes.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: This last World Cup. Before this last one, they had never placed lower than third in a World Cup.
00:18:21
Speaker 2: And let me guess, the men probably make significantly more money than the women. Oh yes, we forgot to mention that little fun nugget.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Okay, see why you have to muddy the waters, well, just.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Because I think it should be noted when we're talking about performance and compensation for said performance.
00:18:36
Speaker 1: You know, what what we need is more fandom for the athletes, because we need to keep getting eyeballs and dollars up in those Now. Caitlyn Clark has done wonders for that, but that's what it is. And I think a lot of companies, a lot of brands and a lot of networks don't do enough to put these games. You know, we don't promote these athletes individually sometimes like we do with male athletes, you know, Kobe and Lebron, we don't know enough women by their names. And oh man, I didn't know we were going to go off on this for a second. But yes, I just always think we don't do enough. You know, I love women's athletics. I love watching women's athletics. We don't do enough to promote those athletes and get them to the type of stardom that will get two bigger dollars. But yes, our women's team, I mean the results they have gotten robes are phenomenal.
00:19:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, well twenty twenty seven, right is that when the women when the World Cup is for them. So let's make sure we give them some love and we tune in and.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: We get those salaries up because they.
00:19:37
Speaker 2: Deserve it a lot more than perhaps oh their counterparts. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:19:44
Speaker 3: I am roboch alongside DJ Holmes.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, July seventh, and the US men's national team is out of the World Cup. After all that and all that controversy, their World Cup ended and humiliating fashion. So what happened? The curse of Trump strikes again. And with that, I welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Do you think that's a real thing, the curse, the Trump cursed that when he endorses a team or goes to a game, that team is gonna lose.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I do think it's the thing that people consider. I've actually even considered myself a curse at times. Every time I showed up to a Georgia game for years, they lost, and my brother told me I wasn't allowed to come to a Georgia game again.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: I broke the curse eventually. So are they real? No? Do they feel real? Yes? It feels real in the moment.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: And yes, he's an easy target at this point given some recent activity and results.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was a really terrible result, bros. This was not just that they lost. We could take a tough loss, a heartbreaking loss. This was a fairly devastating one, humiliating. You could go as far as saying, and plenty are even going as far as using the word embarrassing.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, Look, we sat there and watched the entire game and never once for one second was it competitive, not even close. And I think we look, could it have been we say the Trump curse? But could it have been the pressure? The unbelievable pressure that was put on this team, given it was all anybody was talking about yesterday and Trump had everything to do with you.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Talking about addic pressure.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: Correct, right, already they've got pressure, But now think about the scrutiny and the fact that you know the world is seemingly against.
00:01:54
Speaker 3: You in that moment.
00:01:55
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess you could say that would ignite something in you or rally you.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: But it can also cripple you.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: And the mental aspect of any competition we know is real. These guys are on a certain athletic level that we can't even understand. But we look at the Olympics, we look at pressure cookers of games that we sit there and watch and we see people crumble under pressure, and that actually looks like what happened. It says if they didn't even like they were paralyzed by the moment, by the moment and maybe by the pressure that was added beyond just being on the world stage.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: This was hard on home. This was hard to watch. This was really hard to watch. You can done the second guessing and the people take examination of the program and what USA Soccer should do moving forward. That ain't us, but just watching Robes, there was there was a there was a maybe a two minute stretch that there was hope because the US tied it up at one point two minutes. You got all we got and they scored again almost immediately and rose. There was just no point of that game where we looked like we were in the same league necessarily as Belgium. And the score at the end certainly suggests that Ropes four to one is a humiliating result on that stage.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: Yes, and the one that we got was only because of a foul of a deflection, right Oh, I.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Was gonna say, we got the kick and then it was deflected off the head of a Belgium fla.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: Player, so that one wasn't a pure score necessarily. But it was tough to watch and we for how early did you make that reservation a week?
00:03:34
Speaker 2: I think as soon as we knew when they were playing at least four or five days in advance, because you know, obviously it's fun to communally watch something like this, Team USA.
00:03:46
Speaker 3: It's rare that you.
00:03:47
Speaker 2: Can have an entire restaurant or an entire bar rooting for the same team. And here's our chance, Team USA, let's do it. We found our neighborhood joint right around the corner. It's a kind of like a German beer haul, and it's a sports pub, and it's a blast. It's all neighborhood folks, and it was the perfect place to watch the very difficult game.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: So it was a great setting. And what I'm saying you and I like so many people, but you could say this about the country collectively. There had been a build up to this moment, Babe, this was it. There were articles that think it might have been. The Athletic said this was leading up the biggest week in US men's soccer ever for this country, because not only are we about to get possibly farther than we ever gotten before, you're doing it on US soil.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the ratings have been huge for this World Cup, more so than ever before, correct here in this country, at least getting people excited about this game that the world has loved for so long that we've been slow to warm up to. And look, there was a dilemma because in this household, it was a house whole divided. What do you watch the men's soccer, us men playing Belgium or Love Island. Some of the folks in our family went one way, we went the other.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: I thought that was odd that anybody could go the other direction. On this night.
00:05:14
Speaker 2: We couldn't even get Analyse to come a block away to go. I got the reservation with a seat for her, and she was like, yeah, I'm gonna stay home.
00:05:22
Speaker 3: And watch Love Island instead. She made the better choice.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: It turns out well how we had to support. But we were so excited. Folks like us were making reservations days in advance. People were just we were into this, and because everybody was into it, and then you throw in the whole controversy, all eyes were on this moment and history possibly being made on our home turf. Gropes, this was it and this game was everything. Fine, got out of the group stage, but now you're playing a world class opponent. This is the one you gotta get by and Robes. With that setup, a loss would have sucked. But you can't even look at the game and think that US soccer is in a good place. No, we looked off. And again this is not an insult to those guys. They're all world class players. We get that. But what was presented at a time when you needed to put your best product forward ropes was a dud. No.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: And it's true because and from the beginning, how soon before Belgium scored within the first I think of six six, seven minutes, That's what I was thinking too. And more importantly, we just couldn't keep the ball they We just kept handing it right to them every single play. It seemed like I was like, well, let's just give them to a Let's just give the ball to a Belgium player.
00:06:41
Speaker 1: It was simple passes, and wrote you're right, and again you don't have to be. We watched the major tournaments, but the soccer, the analysts and the just gave the same commentary you gave because it was easy to see, like, what you mean, you can't simple passes to each other, We're going awry. It was inexplicable and so the only explanation some point two robes like you suggested at the top. The stage, the lights, the pressure. Was it something about that moment that we see these people doing superhuman things. We can't believe that they show very human traits when it comes to just falling victim to a big moment.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: Yes, and again the added pressure could not have helped. And certainly yeah the goalkeeper.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was the worst moment.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: Not Freeze.
00:07:35
Speaker 1: It was a bad moment. Yeah, what do you say? Everybody saw and it doesn't matter who you are. You were yelling at the screen, what are you doing? Matt Freeze. This is his first World Cup, but rolled he comes out of the box to try to get to a ball, a pass that was coming his direction that the Belgian one player was trying to pass to another. He gets there kind of in time, but kind of miss times it, plays it down to the ground, but then tries to kick it and whifts and now the Belgian players have a chance at the ball, get it going the other direction and there's no goalie.
00:08:13
Speaker 3: You saw it happen in slow most when he left the box. I think I screamed, no, what are you doing? And I'm curious.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: I don't again, not a soccer savan here, but once the goalie because I know the goalie can pick the ball up with his.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: Hands within his area.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: But it has to be within the box after.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: He comes out ros he's just a regular player. He can't run up and down the field just hitting the ball with his hands. So yes, once he came out, why did he could do that?
00:08:38
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody was just like, why.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: He misjudged it, mistimed it, and it was a ugh.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: That was a low moment.
00:08:46
Speaker 2: And I really think that was the moment in which you kind of felt like, we're not gonna win this.
00:08:50
Speaker 3: We don't have a shot at winning this.
00:08:52
Speaker 2: It's just all of the momentum was completely on the Belgium side and we had nothing and.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Our biggest star off rogue, Christian Holistic Robes. He had a ropes. He didn't score goal this entire World Cup, and he looked he was a non factor. Baligan was a non factor. You didn't know they were on the.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: Field, You didn't, You really didn't. No one stood out.
00:09:19
Speaker 1: I mean, and it just they're human beings. The human beings was too bad. But something that is being talked about a lot, and how the president inserted himself into this robes. So now that this was the result, and I said previously that this is probably the right result to make everybody feel better.
00:09:39
Speaker 2: It's it was the right result if you wanted peace in the world when it came to the World Cup, because if we had won, this would have been a story that wasn't going to end. It was going to follow us and dog us all the way as far as we got.
00:09:54
Speaker 1: If we'd won, Belgians would have had an argument. If we'd lost without Ballet, we would have been screaming and had an argument. This was the only way to kind of Robes has our bets here. But I do think Robes that Trump to a certain degree can be blamed because going into the game, even if we didn't have Baligan, it was us against the world. Look at what they did to us. That was an unfair red card. We had the edge, We had a reason the game.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: We were angry, we had something to prove. We had something to prove.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: But then what Trump did was flip the script and he gave the Belgians, what do they call it, robes bulletin board material. Now they're fired up. Now we got it.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: Who's got the edge? Now? Now we're all timid and oh.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: God, we're pissing off the world. Oh no, now everyone's upset that Baligan's on the field. And it does create this energy. That's a shift. And now the Belgians are like, are you kidding me? Watch us whoop your butts. Anyway, with Baligant on the field, they were incentivized to kick our ass and they came out with a high energy.
00:11:07
Speaker 3: They were all the attack. You even said, like, man, they're beating up our guys.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: And they did have something to prove in that moment, and they proved it.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: Man, but they did. There was an incentive, there was a reason. Now the Belgians could just flip it and roes it does. Motivation has a lot to do with.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: The mental part of this type of competition is absolutely real.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: All right, well stay here, folks. Well remind you of some recent incidents of the so called Trump curse, and we'll tell you why the US men have not been stacking up to the US women.
00:11:43
Speaker 2: Stay here, Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are discussing the devast stating some would call him there seeing lost to Belgium last night, and a lot of fingers yes are pointed squarely at the men's team, the coach.
00:12:06
Speaker 3: The players, the goalie, but also at.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: President Trump himself, because yes, this isn't the first time he has been accused of stealing a team's mojo, so to speak.
00:12:19
Speaker 3: Does anyone remember the Knicks?
00:12:21
Speaker 1: You know what? The same similar in that by announcing he was coming, everybody was on such a high. It was going to be the first game in New York, right in twenty something years and in a final.
00:12:33
Speaker 3: Game, oh yeah, exactly.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: And it kind of changed everybody's moves.
00:12:37
Speaker 2: Well, the watch parties got canceled, all of these street closures happened, and suddenly something that was for the fans, because of the fans, just became about him and literally stole that energy and that excitement and that moment from the people who have been to those games, or at least have been showing up around MSG to support the team they love. All of a sudden, now are closed off, shutout, and anyone who actually was lucky enough to have tickets had to go through the arduous process of this lengthy screening, all because he wanted to be there.
00:13:09
Speaker 3: What happens that night?
00:13:11
Speaker 1: They lose and they were on a what thirteen to fourteen game winning streak and the playoffs.
00:13:16
Speaker 3: At the time only game they lost.
00:13:19
Speaker 1: It was the only game they lost, and then they went on and won the finals in the next couple of games. But it was what do you call them energy vampires?
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Yes, energy vampire.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: But in these two instances where there was an energy or a vibe or a thing that was going well, and even for the US men with the red card coming back and knowing they were getting fired up with us against the world, the energy gets sucked out when he inserts himself. And people were comparing these two incidents. But Roves, he has a little bit of a track record at times of showing up to very big events and supporting some teams and the very next game those teams lose.
00:13:56
Speaker 2: Ah.
00:13:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker 2: So June eleventh was, of course Game three of the NBA Finals at MSG the Nicks lost one fifteen to one eleven. Then, just a few months earlier, in November, November ninth, Trump attends the Commanders versus Lions game in DC. Commanders lose handily forty four to twenty two.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: That was embarrassing.
00:14:15
Speaker 3: Oooh.
00:14:16
Speaker 2: September of twenty twenty five, just a couple months earlier, he attends the Ryder Cup at Betpage. Europe beat the United States WAH. February ninth, twenty twenty five, President Trump remember this one. Attends the Super Bowl in Nola and predicts the Kansas.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: City Chiefs are going to win.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: They lose forty to twenty two to the Eagles, and then yes, January nineteenth, he attends the National Championship in Miami and Indiana beats Miami.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Miami. It was supposed to be a home game for them, playing in the National Championship, and they lose. Look, he's gone to some games before, yes, and people have won. But roads the big wins and the big high profile wins and the championships. It's just funny. People think there is a legit curse. And he did play in this game for a moment. I don't know if you can say it was anything other than but there's a shot of the Belgian players celebrating robes and doing the Trump.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: Dance just to rub it in.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: You know what, why wouldn't they That's that's fun, rubbing it in. They can say make a political statement or do anything. They just danced a little and madump dance. That's I didn't mind.
00:15:28
Speaker 2: I don't mind it either. And then what did they have overruled this? Yeah?
00:15:32
Speaker 1: No, that one was again, Belgia's a nice people where they put this out, they tweeted that out.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: You know what, I'll give that to them too.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: They earned it, they did, robes, and this was nice stuff. This wasn't mean spirited stuff.
00:15:48
Speaker 3: It was just kind of like a how about them apples kind of a thing.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: We didn't mention as well. This is going to be talked about robes. Maricio Patchettino. Yes, oh yes, yes.
00:15:59
Speaker 3: The very well paid, compensated coach.
00:16:02
Speaker 1: Don't know what they're going to do with him, but a lot was made of them recruiting him, and they had to have some benefactors ropes like billionaires, had to contribute money to pay his salary, highest pay coach in US soccer history by.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Far, six million dollars annual salary, and he couldn't get out of sixteen sixteen.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Alexi Lawless. We heard Alexi Lawless say this several times in some of his commentary before the game. This coach was hired to win this game in particular, Wow, he said, this is everything, this is the type of matchup, this moment is why he was hired.
00:16:38
Speaker 2: This that's not good for job security.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: It's not. So this is the US men's We'll leave you with this and rope to go through these is pretty remarkable. But we're just going to quickly tell you the US men's World Cup results in their history versus the women. So this is why this was such a big moment and such a big deal. So this was a round of sixteen, right, just lost in the round of sixteen here in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty two, us men lost to Netherlands, round of sixteen, twenty eighteen, did not qualify, twenty fourteen, lost to Belgium, Round of sixteen, twenty ten, teen lost to Ghana. Round of sixteen twenty six, didn't make it out of the group stage. Two thousand and two lost to Germany in the quarterfinal. That was the farthest they'd ever gotten. Ninety eight didn't make it out of the group stage, ninety four lost in round of sixteen, ninety didn't make it out of the group stage, and then roads between nineteen fifty and nineteen ninety they didn't qualify.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: For the World Cup for forty years. We didn't qualify. Now Compare that to the US women's national team. Yeah, quite a different story. Twenty twenty three. We lost in the round of sixteen, twenty nineteen Champions, twenty fifteen, Champions, twenty eleven runners up, not bad, two thousand and seven, third place, two thousand and three, third place.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety nine. We all remember that one.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Champions, nineteen ninety five, third place, nineteen ninety one Champions. Can we get maybe the whoever's coaching the women to go over to the bed, because clearly they're doing something right ropes.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: This last World Cup. Before this last one, they had never placed lower than third in a World Cup.
00:18:21
Speaker 2: And let me guess, the men probably make significantly more money than the women. Oh yes, we forgot to mention that little fun nugget.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Okay, see why you have to muddy the waters, well, just.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Because I think it should be noted when we're talking about performance and compensation for said performance.
00:18:36
Speaker 1: You know, what what we need is more fandom for the athletes, because we need to keep getting eyeballs and dollars up in those Now. Caitlyn Clark has done wonders for that, but that's what it is. And I think a lot of companies, a lot of brands and a lot of networks don't do enough to put these games. You know, we don't promote these athletes individually sometimes like we do with male athletes, you know, Kobe and Lebron, we don't know enough women by their names. And oh man, I didn't know we were going to go off on this for a second. But yes, I just always think we don't do enough. You know, I love women's athletics. I love watching women's athletics. We don't do enough to promote those athletes and get them to the type of stardom that will get two bigger dollars. But yes, our women's team, I mean the results they have gotten robes are phenomenal.
00:19:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, well twenty twenty seven, right is that when the women when the World Cup is for them. So let's make sure we give them some love and we tune in and.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: We get those salaries up because they.
00:19:37
Speaker 2: Deserve it a lot more than perhaps oh their counterparts. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:19:44
Speaker 3: I am roboch alongside DJ Holmes.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you soon.