Second show of two today. It would be odd to not have Tannenwald on the show after the World Cup announcement, given how much time he and I talked about this day for the last six months.

Alas, it’s Qatar. We talk about the bid, what this means for the growth of soccer in America and what it might mean for the head of US Soccer, Sunil Gulati. Tannenwald is, to understate, mild-mannered. This is as heated as he gets.

But first, we discuss the passing of Ron Santo before talking about LeBron’s return to Cleveland. Is it just me, or my Philly sensibilities, or did nothing really happen? There was booing, there was a blowout and that’s about it. I actually expected worse, and while it’s good that most Clevelanders handled themselves calmly (there were tweets of inappropriate slurs thrown his way during the game and the TNT online cameras caught at least one fan in the stands trying to goad LeBron into a war of words (or more).

But it all seemed rather…predictable. We do wonder if this game will be the catalyst for the Heat’s season. If they rattle off a series of huge wins, someone will point back to this game (Wade, Bosh) and it’s going to burn Cleveland up even more.

We talk a little about the Thursday Night Football game on NFL Network and wonder if the NFL has so much cache that a game on NFLN could do better than the LeBronathon on TNT.

SPECULATION STATION:

All that soccer nonsense. Qatar? Really? This begs the question: if everyone else is lining pockets, should the US (and England for 2018) have done the same? If you’re playing poker with a bunch of cheaters and you aren’t cheating, is it enough to hold your head high and say you lost your money but kept your dignity, or is the goal to win money however you can win it?

Are we okay if the US had won the World Cup by any means necessary? Of course, if you believe reports, that didn’t exactly work for Spain, so being dirty doesn’t always mean winning.

So, do we even get our hopes up for 2026?

Thanks for listening.