Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking worst sports cities, Germany, deceptive cooking shows, and more.
I'm back from vacation! I'm still technically at the beach, but there's no reason I can't knock out some work in the morning while everyone else in the family sleeps in. I'm always up at 7:00 a.m., whether I have the day off or not. Tis a blessing and a curse.
Now let's all give it up for Brandy Jensen, who took the helm last week and guided the SS Funbag through the summer weather with a steady, calming hand. She's the best Brandy I know. The only Brandy I know, but that's neither here nor there.
Your letters:
Noe:
What country has the coolest colors for their World Cup kits? Not who has the best uniforms, because those change, but who has the best template of colors and patterns to work with? Lots of countries have the generic red/white/blue, but Croatia has the dope checkerboard pattern. Ivory Coast has that neat orange and Netherlands has the construction worker orange. South America has a lot of yellow. I like Argentina, personally.
Yeah, I have a hard time disagreeing with you on Argentina. That color scheme is both attractive and instantly recognizable. Iconic, in the genuine sense. I also like England in their red jerseys, but I'm a shameless Anglophile, so your mileage may vary.
But if I'm being honest and also boring, I love ALL of the World Cup kits. Every game, I'm treated to a whole new wash of colors that I almost never get watching domestic sports. That's because the fans in attendance all match their respective teams. Most important, they dress in those team colors organically, not because the host team left a free, Papa John's–branded T-shirt in every seat to celebrate White Thunder Night or for some other played-out gimmick. Think about all of the bullshit these World Cup fans had to endure just to get to every match. The expense are eye-watering, the travel is a nightmare, and the main host country is a fucking joke. These fans came anyway, and they're all happy to be here! It's not just the players who help redeem the sins of the fuckers running the show, but the fans too. I love seeing all of these different people together.
And the action on the field, as it did in Qatar, has also served as a balm. I don't watch enough soccer to qualify as knowledgeable about the sport, but I have enjoyed the journey (I may as well keep leaning into the corniness) to becoming a better soccer fan. That's why I've been peppering my fellow Defector staffers with weird questions like, "How do scouts measure a soccer player's burst?" and "Which player has the fastest kicking release?" If these sound like NFL-y questions to you, that's not a coincidence. I'm trying to zero in on the details that separate one elite team from another, same as I do with American football. Same as I would with any other sport I watch, really. It's the little things that make the games beautiful.
Now, with all of that ponderousness out of the way, lemme tell you some of my favorite things about watching World Cup gameplay:
- When defenders have to play keeper in a pinch. This happened on Sunday night when Canada was stuck at 0-0 against South Africa in the elimination round. There was a sequence where Canada had multiple chances right in front of the net, and Elonistan's keeper was caught out of position. I counted at least three South African defenders who rushed into the goal to help stave off the onslaught. Imagine playing keeper but you can't use your hands! You might only be able to stop the ball with your face or genitals! NOW THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT.
- Players who have soft feet. I only respect a forward who can field a pass cleanly, rather than needing an extra second to corral the ball like a fucking idiot. When I texted our own Luis Paez-Pumar about how scouts determine which players have soft feet, he told me to watch those players dribble. If they can keep the ball close to them while taking it downfield, that usually means they have great control. So now I'm always looking for that. If I see you kicking the ball five feet away from yourself as you're making your way toward the net, I already know you suck ass.
- When the ball ricochets off someone near the net, dribbles back toward the top of the goal box, and a dude just comes in and fucking blasts a goal. I asked my son, a soccer addict, if there was a formal soccer term for this kind of goal. He said no. Then I said, "What if I call it a dribbler?" Then he laughed at me. I deserved that. Anyway, I love dribblers. When I see a loose ball just sitting there, ready to be booted into oblivion, that's when I get super hyped up.
- A player overtaking another player in a frantic race to an open ball. I have spent a lot of time this tournament thinking "Speed kills" to myself, as if I'm trying to assemble the 1993 Dallas Cowboys roster. It works for me.
Jared:
What is a better vacation type? A trip where you see a bunch of big stops but change places nightly, or you stay in one place where you can really dig into the local attractions without changing beds?
At my age, the latter. We actually did a hopscotch vacation this past Christmas. We stayed a few nights at a hotel in Munich, then we stayed with my wife's cousin just outside Munich for a few nights, and then we hopped on the high-speed rail to Berlin and checked into one hotel before realizing that hotel was shit before booking another hotel to move over to in a pinch. We also took day trips to the Neuschwanstein Castle and to Salzburg, Austria (I missed the latter because I came down with the barfing flu). Oh, and then we spent a surprise two days in Frankfurt due to airline cancellations. If you think it was tiring to read all of that, just imagine living it.
Yes, that was a LOT of traveling for Big Daddy Drew. When I was in college, bumming around Europe and staying at a different pension every night wasn't that big of a deal. But now? Shit, I get tired just waiting at a baggage claim. This is why old people go on cruises. They get to go to different places without having to re-pack all of their shit. Is that worth contracting hantavirus? If you're Aunt Millie, it is. There are vacations where you do a lot of shit, and vacations where you do fuck-all. I am now more inclined toward the latter.
Germany was worth it, though. Not only did we get to spend quality time with my wife's extended family, but I got to wander around bitchin' churches, eat fresh apple fritters at the Christmas market, gaze out at the countryside while sitting aboard a train going 300 kmh, and almost get my ass kicked by a Berlin sandwich vendor. I'll never forget any of that, especially the train. I rode that same high-speed rail back in 1997, when I was on semester abroad. Now I was back on it, only 30 years older and with my wife and three kids. It was a nice full-circle moment.
Then I went to go throw up in the toilet.
Brian:
What are your thoughts on the band Angine de Poitrine? No fan of snooty math rock here, but these guys seem to be able to wail, have fun, and obviously aren't taking themselves too seriously, what with being dressed like rejects from the Muppet Show.
I have never heard of this band. Lemme take a listen right now.
[listens]
Yeah, they seem fun. I'm also not much of a prog rock guy, but these French Canucks are clearly doing more than just noodling on synths for hours on end while tripping balls. I appreciate that. Plus their singer doesn't annoy me like the Geese guy does.
Joe:
What is your take on Brendan Sorsby? Should we all just be prepared to witness an athlete(s) get busted for gambling either annually or semi-annually?
I actually wrote about the Sorsby mess a few weeks ago, but that was before the QB bailed on Texas Tech and then tried to enter the supplemental draft before Roger Goodell gave him the stiffarm. The Ginger Hammer was atypically stern, even by his humorless standards, in denying Sorsby entry into the Oopsie Daisy draft. The league doesn't want known repeat offenders in its ranks, even if its affiliation with Big Gambling is spawning more such offenders than it'll ever be able to contain.
But really, I think Goodell told Sorsby to fuck off because he didn't want to ruin everyone’s vacation. This is the deadest portion of the NFL calendar, a rare moment when every coach and team exec can chill out for a bit before training camp arrives and they have to spend the next six months living inside a cave. Now here's Brendan Sorsby ambling onto the scene and being like, Actually, can all of you stay home and conduct a second pre-draft grind for my sake? I guarantee you that GMs from coast to coast saw the news and were like, Oh fuck you, buddy. Maintaining the integrity of the game is important, but not as important as that fly-fishing trip in Montana.
By the way, my team was one of the handful mentioned as a possible destination for Sorsby. So I became Sorsby-curious for like 10 minutes, because my team has needed a long-term answer at QB for half a century. But the second Goodell closed the door on Sorsby, even I breathed a sigh of relief. No one, anywhere, wants to think about this dipshit if they don't have to.
Scott:
I'm to the point now as a certified old where I'm physically delighted when a delicious restaurant I'd like to patronize has maybe a table or two of people in it when I arrive. I look at fantastic eateries with lines out the door and hours long wait times, and just feel exhausted by it all. I live in an area where good places to eat are abundant and I'm sure there's a place without a wait. Help me out: Am I being stupid by not waiting to be seated somewhere with a wait time over 15ish min?
Of course not. No one likes waiting for a table unless they already know there'll be one going in. If I'm visiting Sally's Apizza in New Haven or Cantler's outside of Annapolis, I know that seats will be at a premium. I can plan for waiting. But if I'm hungry right now, and the host/hostess tells me that they won't have a table open until 8:00 p.m., I'm gone. I can't handle surprise wait times, because I am a soft little baby.
This just happened to us at the beach last week, and the host was kind of a dick, to boot. So we crossed the street to a different restaurant and hey presto! They had homemade pasta and a gorgeous patio table set to go. Sometimes it's more fun to discover a restaurant that way than by trying to plot out a whole destination meal. That's especially true if you're in a big metro area. The best meals I've eaten in Paris, New York, L.A., and other cities were at restaurants I just happened upon. Impatience is a virtue when you're in your 40s.
HALFTIME!
Todd:
Given they haven't "brought it home" since their one World Cup in 1966, is England the Knicks in this scenario? Soccer-obsessed country (big-market team), with a devoted but constantly disappointed following, that should be good but never seems to win it all, until perhaps now?
I made that comparison early in the tourney. But I did so half-ironically because I knew that it was a take that would prove tiresome the second it was uttered. I wasn't the first to say the Three Lions are the next Knicks and I won't be the last, so I'm gonna refrain from diving too deep into the idea. Like the Knicks, the English haven't won it all in 50-plus years, while fucking it all up every time they've come close to the mountaintop in the interim. But that's where our story ends. The two entities have little in common otherwise.
[waits for all of the England haters to click out of the post]
Are they all gone? Yes? OK good because ISS COMIN' 'OME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 'ARRY KANE IS THE LIMEY JALEN BRUNSON, 'E IS! And Jude Bellingham is the secret weapon that will ensure the Three Lions roar yet again! OASIS IS THE GREATEST BAND IN ALL THE WORLD!
Rick:
I believe that all sports should adopt the NCAA tournament names for each round. Tell me what is better: regional quarterfinals or Sweet Sixteen; semi-finals or Final Four. The NCAA/ESPN/suits already own those terms, but that will not deter me in my campaign.
Those terms work best for college basketball because they give schools a banner to raise if they don't win the whole thing, kind of like how a bowl win can make a college football team's season feel more like a success than a failure. My only exception here is "Elite Eight," because there's not enough time between the Sweet 16 games and Elite Eight games for me to give a crap.
Anyway, part of me would like the NFL etc. to adopt catchier names for their playoff stages, but I just know that the brands would swoop in to fuck it all up anyway. Also, these are the pros. You don't get to hang a banner for making the divisionals. That's jayvee shit.
Pete:
My daughter and I were driving by the house we all call the Darth Vader House, because it looks like Darth Vader, and listening to the Beatles Channel, when my daughter asked me which Beatle would be Darth's favorite. 48 hours of thinking, and I'm not sure. Who ya got?
John, because he was an absentee dad and a domestic abuser.
Ethan:
I just had a milestone birthday and came to the realization that I'm older than my oldest sibling was when she died, and not much younger than my mom was when she passed. It occurs to me that, since COVID and for a good chunk of the years following, I've been way too occupied with house-related matters and feel like those four corners dominate way too much of my life, and I don't want to spend the rest of it worrying about carpet, paint, drywall, window treatments, landscaping, etc. You've written that you spent Christmas in Germany recently, and Berlin and Munich are on my bucket list of places to visit. Please let me know if you'd recommend Europe during the holidays, because it sounds awesome, and damned if I'm going someplace without widespread AC adoption during summer. Would it be easy to navigate for someone without a native German speaker in the family? Would I, a doughy Midwesterner, be treated kindly by the local populace?
P.S.: Please do not accuse me of being a lawyer.
That's just how a lawyer would end an email, Ethan. Or should I say counselor, hmm?
Yes, I recommend Europe during the holidays. You've probably done Christmas in America enough times to know the whole deal: crowded malls, dirty Santa laps, fighting with your loved ones while stringing lights on the tree, blah blah blah. It's OK to opt out of that for a year and head someplace that does the holidays a little different, if they do the holidays at all. My family has gone to Europe twice in the past few years. The first time around, we went to Paris. We landed on Christmas morning and then, at 7:00 a.m., tried to enter the wrong Airbnb flat before a tired, confused, and irritated Frenchman told us we were looking for the apartment two floors up. Then we napped for like five hours before grabbing Christmas dinner, where I had the best steak tartare I've ever had. I didn't feel the slightest bit of FOMO for Christmas back home, and I'm a big-ass Christmas pervert.
Meanwhile, Germany goes hard for Christmas, but in a much more tasteful manner than the U.S. I should specify Munich here, because that's where my family and I spent Xmas '25. Munich has the Christmas markets, the hand-crafted decorations, and the crowds chugging Glühwein out in the freezing cold. Everyone is very chill and kind, even to us lowly Americans. And don't worry if you only speak English. Most Bavarians think they speak better English than you anyway.
I can't vouch for Berlin at Christmas, because we were only there around New Year's. But I can safely guess that Berlin isn't quite as magical the week prior. Munich feels like a quaint little town. Berlin feels like a city. A REAL big one. Berlin doesn't have time for your bullshit, so keep that in mind when plotting out an itinerary. Also the train system in Berlin was, in a way that is very much unlike Germany, damn near impossible to figure out.
By the way, my son is a huge German men's national team fan. Last night was, by far, the most animated I’ve ever seen him while watching a sporting event. When the refs yoinked his team's winning goal in the extra time, he knew they were doomed. Didn't make the end result any less painful for him.
Steve:
What's the current worst sports city right now? Not the fans or anything like that, but just the city with the most overall number of shit teams?
I wanna say Cleveland, especially now that the Cavs are reportedly going to re-sign James Harden. Apparently team brass watched that guy disappear in the playoffs for the 56th time and said to themselves, We can't lose this fella. Buffalo also springs to mind, because the Bills and Sabres are twin Sysyphi.
But the real answer is Phoenix. Phoenix is home to an NBA team that can never get over the hump, and an NFL team that can't even find the fucking hump. The baseball team has a World Series title to its name but still feels like an expansion team, and the hockey team was the West Sacramento A's of the NHL for all 28 years of its existence. All of that losing, with none of Buffalo's or Cleveland's morbid charm. Besides Diana Moskovitz's husband, who out there is invested in Phoenix sports lore? How many Phoenicians themselves even care? Every Arizona resident is either a snowbird, a deranged sheriff, or someone who has to hide from ICE every waking second. There's little culture in that place, which means there's no sports culture either. SAD!
Andy:
I know Drew is a close personal friend of Guy Fieri but there has been a new deep dive documenting that he never swallows any of the food on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Every time he takes a bite there is a quick cut away with no evidence he ever eats the food. Does this change your opinion of the show or of Guy? Have you ever seen him swallow food?
In person? Yes. When I was with Guy Fieri for GQ, I did see him complete the process of eating. But the cameras were off during those meals. Televised eating is a much trickier affair. If Fieri swallowed every bite of food he ate on camera, he'd be 500 pounds by now. So the filmmakers have to cheat a little on that end.
This is true for nearly every cooking show on the air. Take Chopped, for example. When you see the judges tasting the food on that show, they've already tasted it (and judged it) off camera well beforehand. The plate in front of them on camera is ice cold, so the judges have to make motions like they're trying it for the first time even though it's a ruse. A necessary one, since you want them tasting the meal when it's fresh on the plate and not after it's been sitting around for an hour while the cameramen get their beauty shots. The photography always comes first, which means that sometimes you need Guy Fieri to fake the occasional food orgasm in post.
Randy:
What is your opinion of the Los Angeles Dodgers? Seems like they've got some pretty classic villain attributes (huge payroll, signed a lot of their main guys as big-money free agents, Los Angeles, still employ Blake Treinen, etc), but there's been kind of an online backlash TO that narrative, arguing that they're one of the few teams left in the sport who actually try to win every year with their "cost is no object" mindset and are willing to pay players what they deserve to be making. Plus they've got Ohtani, who rules (and almost definitely didn't do any of that gambling or even know about it).
You sure about the gambling thing with Ohtani? Because I can truther that part will relative ease. I also don't really care if Ohtani gambled, because he's just that cool. Between him and the fact that L.A. is one of my favorite cities, I can't hate the Dodgers. My East Coast remove plays a role here, because I've never been close enough to Dodgers fans to cultivate a proper hatred of them. But it is what it is. If you're gonna have an evil empire in baseball, I'd rather it be those guys than the Yankees. The Yankees are annoying.
Email of the week!
Mike:
You folks on The Distraction got a Funbag question about pet peeves and Drew was disappointed that none of them were petty enough. Well, I got one. I absolutely fucking hate it when people say the entirety of the current year, twenty twenty-six, as "two thousand twenty-six". It's super fucking irritating. What year was I born, you ask? I sure as fuck wouldn't say "one thousand nine hundred eighty-six". I'd say "nineteen eighty-six" because I'm not a fucking moron. Now this is because everyone was super horny about the year two thousand and it's just spread like a fucking disease for the last twenty-six years.
However, I will concede that saying "twenty oh four" feels a lot weirder than "two thousand four", but then "nineteen oh four" sounds perfectly fine. I don't know. Figure it out.
I will do no such thing.
