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Cam Jordan
When pro defensive end Cam Jordan isn't running after quarterbacks, he's running his own businesses. He sat down with Microsoft's Jessica Hawke to learn how AI can help. As a football player, we're really focused on the X's and Nos. It's fun because it's a strategy game as well, and I think that transitions well into the business world. There's so much data underlying every single thing that you're doing in your business and having a way to unify all that data, this is like electricity. This is a major platform shift, and I think we're all learning together. Ready to raise your AI game? Find your winning edge at Microsoft.com challenge. Challengers, race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results you can. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Let's be real. Cat dads are in their golden era. Temptations, America's number one cat treat brand, is celebrating how seriously irresistible these guys are. They've got sensitivity, snack, timing, precision, and their cats adore them. Add in a handful of Temptations treats and boom, you've got a certified cat dad. Show more love to the cat dad in your life with Temptations, Cat Treats. And tag your fav moments with catdadsighting. Your. You know we're dying to see them. The Athletic FC Podcast Network hi there and welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast. I'm Adam Leventhal and today we're meeting a team that you might not be familiar with. But why? Because the Club World cup kicks off on Saturday, 14 June in the United States. 32 teams split into eight eight groups of four before the knockouts. Lionel Messi, Kylian, Mbappe, Harry Kane will all be there, plus more star names. Just trying to decide the best of the best. Before you ask, and it is slightly complicated. There's no Barcelona, Manchester United or Cristiano Ronaldo in this one. The Club World cup is the brainchild of the FIFA president Gianni Infantino. It's got a gold Tiffany trophy, which is very fancy, and it bears Infantino's name twice. What's in it for the clubs? I hear you are. Well, There is a $1 billion prize fund and the winners will get to wear a special badge on their shirt as well. What's in it for you? Well, you've just got more live football to look forward to this summer and it's all happening in the States ahead of the Real Deal World cup in 2026. It means that there are some new names to get to know or possibly even support in lieu of your own team not being there. And one such team comes from South Africa. They are the Mamelodi Sundowns. And our writer Simon Hu went to find out all about them. Si. Great to have you with us. So just tell us, why are we meeting the Sundowns then? Well, they've won the last eight South African Premiership titles. They've been trying to win the CAF Champions League for the first time since 2016. They see the Club World cup as a huge opportunity, both in sporting and economic terms. So they invited us to South Africa and opened their doors for four days to spend time embedded inside the operation. Okay, so you've teed it up. Let's take you now to South Africa to meet the Sundowns. That roar is the sound of the Mamelodi Sundowns celebrating their eighth domestic title in a row. Fifteen in all. And as you can hear, their fans are delight. This whole match has been a non stop celebration of their team. That drumming you can hear has been relentless, much like the Sundowns. And honestly, it's been like that since we landed in South Africa. We are not just a football club, but we are an institution. That's my bloody Sundowns. And we are unstoppable. When he touch that ball, we know the goal is coming in. We are the 15 times champions. We've been doing this for the last eight times and then no one can match us. We will be singing let's go Divine. You're joining, my friend. This is the Sundowns training center in Clop, just outside of Johannesburg, where the urban sprawl blares northwards all the way up to Pretoria, a half an hour drive away if the traffic is moving. The walls around the facility are high and many are painted in Brazilian yellow. There are two main buildings marked by the same colour. There's a couple of training pitches for the men and the women's teams. The academy is based elsewhere. It's pretty modest. Changing and meeting rooms, a couple of small pools, a gym and an old school cafeteria. The real investment in Sundowns has been on staff, the coaches and the players. They are expected to meet the club's ambitions. Everywhere you go in claw cop, you are confronted by Inspirational messages. And these are really what make up the identity of Sundowns. One is quite literally on the team's shirt. Ubuntu Botu is what the shirt says. Kindness and compassion. We've come to South Africa in winter, but we're sat outside on the pitch talking to the players. The sun is beaming down on us. My producer is worried I'm going to get burned. She's right. But it's here where I really get to know the club. My name is Grant Kekana. I'm a centre back and I joined the team in 2021. I'm like the hype man. I hype everyone up to come out of their comfort zone and just be themselves. Right across the club. There's messaging. You've got the sky's the limit. Does that soak into your consciousness as a footballer? No, definitely. You know, I think it just elevates us mentally to always be at the top of our game. I'm called Dennis Masinde Onyango and I'm a goalkeeper. I joined the club in 2011. Can you just tell me a bit about, you know, the nickname of this club, you know, the Brazilians. Whenever you come to Sundown, you must know that you must be up to the task of playing as Brazilian. There's a game that we played and we were just kicking the ball all over and we won, but the president was not happy. That's not the identity of the club, regardless of the results. But we must play as to what the club believes in and that's to entertain the supporters and they must be worth what they've paid for. And their captain, Tembazwane, is perhaps the most loved of all the Sundown squad. For now, Temba's 1mshi is my favorite player. He's my legend. He's been an instrumental member of the team and we've seen when he wasn't around, we struggled a bit. So I'm very happy for Temba to be back. Yeah, no, My name is Temba Zwane. I'm a middle feeder. I joined Mamilo Desantowns 2011. From day one I came to the team. I just wanted to create history and make history with the team and try to win many trophies as I can. Can you tell me a little bit about the place you're from? Thembisa. Thembisa is a place of good people. And for me, honestly, it was not easy. It was very difficult because there are a lot of challenges, you know, at home you may find out some of the things you don't have food, you have to go outside and play. Maybe street football, use money to bet. You bet that you're gonna win those games, 4v4, so that after winning, maybe you can buy a quarter bread, you know, something like that. But all these situations, for me, I don't complain. All these situations, they made me stronger. You've since emerged as a hero, really, for a lot of South Africans. How do you handle that pressure? It's difficult. It's difficult. But, you know. And there is this guy, surprised Mir, he's the legend here. He taught me all these things when I arrived here. He said, things will change, you know, people will see you differently and people will want your time. So you need to be humble enough to give them your time and know how to. To talk to them and try to respect everyone that is around you. So I think all these things, they are helping me to handle all this pressure and be good to people. Can you tell me a bit about the impact of the coach, Miguel Cardozo, since he's been appointed manager? When the coach is closer to you, you're ready to give him all your efforts on the pitch. But we also have the Ubuntu sign that comes up on our jersey that brings us together and that's what the club represents. Yeah, I think it's the brotherhood within the team. Regardless of who goes and plays out, we believe that they'll be able to do the job. That phrase comes up time and time again. Brotherhood. This is a club that so clearly wants to work for each other. And that's something the man in charge of getting the best out of these players really buys into. We are a club of people. We are a club that represents the Mamelod neighborhood in Pretoria. My name is Miguel Cardozo and I'm the head coach of Mamelodi Sundowns senior professional team. Miguel Cardozo arrived at Sundowns in December 2024 after leaving Esperance and Tunisia a few months earlier. He came through the Portuguese coaching system. One of his earliest experiences was at FC Porto's academy when the club won the Champions League under Jose Mourinho in 2004. Jose Mourinho has masterminded this success. His career has since taken him across Europe. He's got the philosophy of Jose. He is focused on the defensive part of the game with the messaging of Mikel Arteta. He said that he's a coach that speaks to the hearts and the minds of the players. But the looks of pep, guardiola When I'm passing these images and these videos to the players, I'm developing them as men. I'm trying to make them better people. I'm trying to make them understand that we can be good people, we are good people. So I'm trying to create connections not with the players, but with the boys, with the men that is there, so that after we can speak about football and when we go to speak about football, they also know that I'm a man that has a way of thinking, that wants to gather everybody that wants to help. He's a big thinker and a big talker. We first meet the morning after Sundowns won the league title with a victory over Chipper United in East London. He's not a smoker, but the players presented him with a cigar and as you'll hear, he celebrated that championship hard. So when I came here, I knew very, very well the team of Sundowns because I played against them. So I had to study them deeply. And the way I prepared the matches that allowed me to win showed me that there was something that this team needed to become more robust. Yeah, I think he's a master tactician, especially for us defenders. I think he's opened our minds a lot more. You know, we're more assertive in the way that we defend the energy that he has ignited into the players when he came and very friendly guy. When it's time to work, it's time to work. When it's time to joke, he makes the jokes and he has fun with the players. But that is very, very important, to have the human side of him as well. One thing this club is known for is their style of play. The Brazilians is not just a colour scheme or a nickname. It's about a tactical identity. And the best person to tell me about this is the club legends Trot mulatto. I joined Mamilori Sundowns the first time as a player. Subsequent to that, I became assistant coach to certain Brazilian chap Walter da Silva. If you look up the Sundowns, you'll see the phrase shoeshine and piano. I asked Troth to explain what this means, and I did note he does have very shiny shoes. Normally, what we mean by that playing the shoe shine and piano, is because you are relaxed, you are composed on possession. Having met the team, we needed to see Mamelodi to understand the impact Cardozo and his players were having on the township on the eastern fringes of Pretoria on a Friday afternoon. The club had arranged a supporter engagement Event in the car park of a shopping mall. Admittedly, we were late arriving, but they put on a show. Mamelodi is poor. It has all the problems associated with townships in Africa. High unemployment, crime and low life expectancy. Yes, on a Friday night, it has high energy. The main road is a continuation of barbecues, she beans and tuck shops. In the cold, groups of men and women gather around fire pits. Kids are everywhere. It's crawling with people having a good time. But you've got to be careful. Come alone and you might have a problem. That's what everyone is told about South Africa, especially after dark. You can sense eyes following the car as we drive through Mamelodi. But our guide, Zume, who lives in the township, insists we are safe with him. And we were. My original name is Lebakang. Nkosi is my surname, but they call me Zuma012, the drum master behind the Yellow Nation. Zuma is the Shun Downs capo, leader of the Shongan dance. Like any capo, he has a permanent look of disappointment that his troops aren't louder. He's the one banging the big bass drum that you heard at the start of this show. We're having this conversation in front of a mural dedicated to the Sundowns, where the most prominent and identifiable figure is that of its owner, Patrice Motsepe. More on him shortly. The community in Mamilada are welcoming, even though we have those. Those ones who are negative who do nasty stuff, marking. I mean, everywhere there's those office people who try and mark the next one because he wants to get money or mark that person to get whatever he wants. You so. But except that one. I mean, we want big family here or a beautiful community to be around appropriately. We head to a nearby viewing point near a farm and watch the sun go down. I used to play soccer as well. I used to be a very good striker. In the distance, there's a cricket pitch. Kids are playing football. You can see the site of the club's old grounds. Before Sundowns moved into Pretoria, some of the fans would love to see the club return to its roots. But there are challenges around finances. Football clubs in South Africa can't own their grounds. That's on the local authorities. And Mamelodi is not a wealthy place. We used to have informal settlements. There's one part of the Sundowns story we haven't touched on yet. The owner and the chairman. Sundowns were taken over by Patrice Motsepe in 2003. He's also the president of the Confederation of African Football CAF. He's a billionaire, Africa's 10th richest person, according to Forbes. Having made his money and mining since he became the president of caf, he's had to hand over the control of Sons Islands to his son Telopi, who's since become the chairman. Outside Loftus Stadium, the fans we spoke to were exuberant in their praise for what the Motepi family have done for the club and the region. We really showed up after Peter Motepe took over. We made sure that we win everything. Remember, the goal of Petrus Musepe was to conquer the Africa money. Let us not talk about money to sundown. Money is our middle name. And I'd like to thank the Musepe foundation again. It's a shame with the players too. The Musepe family has been very influential, very supportive, not only to the club, but to the country. The COVID 19 pandemic, the support he gave to the country was massive. The leagues, the nft, the league is sponsored by Mtsepe family. There's African football that is sponsored also by the foundation. So you can see the impact that he has done into football and changing people's lives. We cherish him every time we meet him. The incentives on the bonus structure, for example, for the players and for the technical, it's based on if you don't win, you don't get anything. You don't get anything for becoming number two. And that comes from the ownership. That comes from the ownership and from the board, because they are. They are putting the direction when it comes to that. So my name is Tropani, but everybody calls me Chlopi Tropi Motepe. I'm the chairman of the football club. And goodness me, it has been an exciting but a very daunting ride for a while, but it's. It's been good. We met at the Loftus Stadium, home of the Sundowns. And I began asking him about the vision he has for the club. You know, our motto is the sky is the limit. Our slogan and the hand signal that we have on our badge is a hand pointed to the sky. We were formed as a football club to inspire the people of the townships at the time because of, you know, the history that we've had as South Africans during apartheid. So football was always used as a means for people to escape, you know, whatever challenges they had, but also as a way to inspire. And when we win games now, we go to our supporters to celebrate one with them. We have a very strong presence in our communities, we have a foundation that we've established that actually does things from food gardens to donating footballs, to going to Uganda to have football clinics. So it's really about being now a club that goes beyond just winning. So we're talking ahead to the Club World Cup. How much is this an opportunity for Sundowns? It's a brilliant opportunity for, for us to test ourselves against some of the best teams in the world and on the pitch. Obviously our players are going to experience a different level of football. We're hoping to bring in a few youngsters as well, just to gain that type of experience, to learn a little bit more about what it takes to compete at that higher level. Because as a South African football club, we have so many players that dream of playing abroad and for them to get a taste of that now is a brilliant way for them to get a measure and come back more motivated to actually make sure that they can take the steps. So from a sporting perspective, it's definitely about us measuring ourselves. There's obviously the financial benefits that are being given to the club from FIFA. It's important for us to be able to receive that type of financial incentivization and that financial push so that we can reinvest in our academies, reinvest in our communities. It's definitely going to be something that we can use to, to build on what we're trying to achieve here. Sundowns had hoped to be heading to the Club World Cup. Confirmed as the best team in Africa, they reach the CAF Champions League final and face Pyramids, a team bought by the chairman of the Saudi Sports Authority, Turkey al Sheikh, in 2018. He'd since sold them to a consortium from the UAE. Unfortunately for Sundowns, they lost 3, 2 in the two legged final. That second star they so desperately want will have to wait for another season. Our ambition is not the South African league. Our ambition is the continent. One thing I've been struck by is the elite structure of the club. It's not just about having good players, but you have to find them in the first place. Heading that up is. My name is Flemming Bell. I'm from Denmark. I'm sporting director of Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club. I joined the club in the beginning of the 2022. My responsibilities are overall everything that have to do with the football side. When it comes to recruitment and scouting, I have a lot of demands. It takes two, three months, basically. We don't have a scouting network on the senior side. It's run by the head of data, who is also assistant sporting director. That's also a structure we put in. So I actually have not found it too complicated to convince the players to. To come here. We had one situation with a player we would like to bring and he would also like to come. But. But where? His national coach said he is a South American player, that if he went to South Africa, he would not play for the national team because he would not go there to scout him, you know, and. And then the player decided not to come. And. Okay, that's. But it was not the player who didn't want to come. We will never go to a tournament without the ambition of going through the group stage. We know it's going to be difficult because you can look at the club ranking, you know, the FIFA club ranking, which is based on results over many years, you know, so we know where we are in the hierarchy. When you're on the other side of the group stage, you never know what's going to happen and you never know who you're going to play. And then we will see, you know, how far it can take us. But we don't go there just to add numbers. Of course, it's a big, big thing for the club. It really is a big thing for the club and it's an honour for us to be there and to represent Africa. But we will come there with the ambition to take as much control of the games as we can, and then we will see how good we are. While European clubs and fans might not be taking the Club World cup quite so seriously, that's not the case here in Pretoria. Here's the players, Denis and Grant, one last time. It's going to be a huge stage for players to try and get opportunities to play in Europe or anywhere else. It's also impacting on youngsters to let them know that it's possible because not everyone has a chance to play in such a huge tournament. I think it's competitions like the Club World cup, like now the AFCON last year, that can help us, you know, sort of sell the football that we have here in South Africa and the talent. So that's why we want to go there, to the Club World cup with the right mentality, express and show, you know, what South Africa is capable of, you know, so that, you know, when people come to scout African players, they don't forget the South. The Club World cup is an achievement to us. It's a very achievement. We achieved it. We're gonna go there and play. Let's hope we're gonna win it. For now we're just asking everyone and the players to just raise the flag. Let's go to the second round. Let's try to go to the semi finals on the world stage. It will test the character of the players is what I like the most. It will also infuse the players when they come back, when they go for a F. Leaving South Africa and reflecting on these five days with the Sun Z, it's clear that this is ambitious. An club with wealth but also a spirit of togetherness. They're clearly going to dominate South African football for the years to come, but it's a real eye opener as to why the club World cup is valued by clubs outside of Europe. They are realizing the chance to showcase themselves on the world stage. Whether the world notices them remains to be seen. When pro defensive end Cam Jordan isn't running after quarterbacks, he's running his own businesses. He sat down with Microsoft's Jessica Hawk to learn how AI can help. As a football player. We're really focused on the X's and nos. It's fun because it's a strategy game as well, and I think that transitions well into the business world. There's so much data underlying every single thing that you're doing in your business and having a way to unify all that data. This is like electricity. This is a major platform shift and I think we're all learning together. Ready to raise your AI game? Find your winning edge at Microsoft.com challengers, race the rudders. Race the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger, Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution? REITs. Sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply. Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Let's talk about an elite green flag being a cat dad. Temptations, America's number one cat treat brand, is making 2025 the year of the Cat Dad. And honestly, about time. Whether he's coordinating snack time with the meow schedule or just vibing with his tabby, Temptation treats make cat dads even more irresistible to their cats and to us. For more information about Temptations Brand cat dads or to learn more about the brand, visit temptationtreats.com and don't forget to share your own catdad sightings on social we'll be scrolling foreign so you've Heard Simon Hughes's report from South Africa embedded with the Mamelodi Sundowns. Let's just dig into what we've been hearing then. Si. It was a great trip. What was the biggest difference between what you expected and then what you experienced? They were very, very open. The players, the manager, everyone we spoke to at the club. Just very clear to me that they see the next couple of weeks, the next year really, as a huge opportunity for themselves and for South African football, I've got to say, you know, very accommodating people, very humble. And it was a fascinating trip which took me, you know, inside a football club, which I didn't know too much about before. Hopefully, you know, the people listening to the audio, documentary and written material that's being published on the Athletic sort of glean quite a lot of insight in the reporting. Yeah. And it gave a great background to not only the club, club successes, but also the people supporting the club. And I suppose that's the priority for the fans, isn't it, seeing your side being successful? We'll come onto the ownership in a moment, but they seem to be happy to be riding this wave. They are. Well, it's a really interesting time at the moment because as we've explored in the documentary, there has very clear identity, Mamelodi Sundowns about what they're expected to win, but not only that, how they're expected to play. And everywhere we went, the conversation was, was about the style of football, really. They were sort of viewed as the Manchester City of South Africa, not just because of the money that they've got, but because of the way they play football. But it wasn't really yielding the results that they expected in the CAF Champions League. But subsequently, after he left, after we left South Africa, they unfortunately lost the CAF Champions League final to another well financed from Egypt called Pyramids, which has invited another conversation about identity. So the identity is very important there. I know it's important at every football club. Every club football club sort of talks about, well, this is who we are. But certainly at Sundowns there's a real sense of who they are and what they expect to see from their players and the manager. I suspect if they have a good run in the Club World cup, maybe the frustrations around the result in the CAF Champions League final might be, might be forgotten pretty quickly. You mentioned it there, them being described as the Manchester City of South Africa. And that can mean two things, being technically a very, very good side, but also being supercharged financially. And as you discuss in the. In the piece, they are owned by Patrice Motsepe, who is the president of Caf, The African Federation. So his son is running it, and we heard from him as well. How do you sort of square that off in your. In your mind? Is. Is. Is this a good thing? You can look at it both sides. Obviously, Sundowns have dominated South African football for quite a long time now. They've won eight in a row. They've won 15 titles overall, which by comparison to the. To the two. The two biggest clubs in South Africa are Kaiser Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. They've won four South African Premiersh. But I think there is a bit of context that gets lost in the conversation, because after the South African Premiership began in 1996, between that year and 2003, when Patrice Mazepe first bought the club, he's a mining billionaire. Sundowns have four league titles then, so they were already ahead of Chiefs and Sundowns in a sporting sense, but they're not as big a club in terms of the popularity. The other clubs are. Are much bigger. The two Soweto clubs from a much bigger township where so much of South Africa's sport and interests are focused. Obviously, you know, a lot of rival fans resent the amount of money that's been spent on Sundowns, but it has taken time. You know, they've invested a lot, not just on players, but the infrastructure and people and ensuring that it's. It's a European model, really. I mean, that was the one thing that I must say sort of surprised me just how. How closely connected it was to what I see when I, you know, meet people and speak to people at the biggest European clubs. Very similar model of sport and director all the departments that you'd expect to see through medical and recruitment that you see in Europe. So they've got it right off the pitch. A lot of Sundowns people would argue, with good reason, you know, that the finances helped increase the level of professionalism in South African football. It's kept South African players in South Africa for longer than maybe they would have done in the past. And there's a conversation to be had as well, about why should there not be investments in Africa generally. Why should there not be investments in a South African football club? If they're going to be able to compete with European clubs and improve the standing of South African football, there needs to be investment generally. I get the feeling that they would welcome investments at other clubs as well to increase that level of competition, and then that will be good for everybody. What is the expectation of the Mamelodi Sundowns fans? Because obviously this is a step into the unknown for all fans of all teams in this tournament. We don't even know how busy the stadiums are going to be in the States. FIFA are frantically trying to sell tickets for this thing. But what do the Sundowns fans feel about it? Well, first of all, there's a curiosity are they very rarely get the opportunity to play against clubs from other continents. The last time they did was in 2016, you know, in a competitive match. And I think certainly from a European perspective, we see African football through the national teams. This is an opportunity to see it through the prism of the club teams for the first time in a long time, which I think is a good thing. You know, they're not their only African club at the Club World cup, but there's a real determination there to go and make the mark. And we interviewed the club sporting director who's a Danish guy called Fleming Berg and he said, you know, the ambition is, is to have an impact on the tournaments. They're not there just to make up the numbers. They're in a quite a favorable group, I would say, because they're playing Ulsan of South Korea, who are a very good side, I believe. Flumerense, Ambrosia Dortmund, Borussia Dortmund have come off the back of an indifferent season. But I sense speaking to the players and the staff, there's a level of fatigue there because their season's been really long as well. The players in a lot of competitions, they've been all across Africa trying to win the CAF Champions League. It's going to take its toll, but you know, they see it as an opportunity. Whereas I think a lot of European clubs and opposite players at the moment and coaches are sort of seen as an extra responsibility they could probably do without. So that probably gives them an advantage that they're going into it with a bit more enthusiasm. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on the unequal distribution of wealth for the teams playing in the Club World cup, but then also the knock on effect that that has back at home in creating a disparity with other South African clubs. That is a concern. You know, there's an argument that the Club World cup just ensures that the richest teams just get richer and reinforce their dominance in whichever league that they're competing in. But Sundowns are getting less money than the equivalent dominant teams in Europe. I suppose there will be an argument, a counter argument then to say, well, if the South African teams got paid the same amount of money as Manchester City and the European teams. That would increase the wealth gap between Sundowns and their rivals in South Africa. So there's a balance to be had here. But that's the reality in every football league at the moment, if we're being honest. The Premier League rewards rewards the richest. That's the way the system works. It's not like an American system, really, which is a slightly more. Has curiously, quite a lot of socialist values when it comes to the sort of the economic distribution of finance. But, you know, people at Sundowns tell me that the money earned from the Club World cup will be going into the club, but also into reinforcing sort of the bottom levels of the club into its community work and the things that sorta connect local fans and make it easier for people to attend matches. But again, that would only reinforce the strength of Sundown. So, yeah, I mean, it's sort of an unfair world, which I'm not entirely sure that the organizers of this tournament have got quite right in terms of who's getting what. Maybe with time. You know, I don't see this being a perfect tournament in any way, in terms of the way it's being organized. I suppose the tickets and We've mentioned that briefly. You know, I think that this tournament could get better with time. I think it's not very often we get to see club teams from other continents competing against one another. And that for me is quite interesting. I think, you know, just in a purely sporting level, I remember watching quite a lot of the club World cup finals over the years between the South American clubs and the European clubs. And those games have been really keenly contested. You know, it's about an opportunity to express yourself right, isn't it? You know, a lot of the African clubs just don't get that opportunity very often. They only get to do it through the. The national side. So I on that in a sport and sense that intrigues me, I think it could be a good thing. I just. What concerns me is sort of the economic distribution and I guess the organization around it and the timing of it. Are we going to see the best? Are we going to see the best of all these teams? Because, as I say, the focus has been so much on how the Europeans might react given the long seasons they've had. It's not exactly fair on, you know, the African players as well. You know, that they've had massive burden over the course of the last 12 months. Are they going to be able to perform as well as they ordinarily would if this tournament was given a bit more. Given a bit more of a sense of priority in terms of the scheduling. Now, obviously you're an impartial journalist, but you've been to South Africa, you've been embedded with this Mamelodi Sundown's. Are you going to be looking out for them, especially because you've spent time with them? Are you intrigued to see how they, how they do and are you hopeful that they could, for example, get out of their group? I mean, my impression is everything really hinges on that first game. They're playing Ulsan of South Korea. If they get a good result there, you know, it could just give them the confidence to go into the next game, which could go either way between Fluminency and Dortmund. So if they win the first game, I think I'm quietly, I don't want to say confident, but I would think it would give him a very good chance of at least getting to the knockout stages, which is what the target is of the club, really. Well, it's going to be intriguing to see how the Sundowns get on. Simon, thank you very much indeed. Really enjoyed the trip. Thank you very much for listening as well. We'll be back with you on Friday with a very special episode all about the man who has devised the tournament, Gianni Infantino. The podcast is called the Most Powerful man in World Football and it is out tomorrow. Here's a taster. Today I feel I told you I went through a journey. Qatari, an exceptional journey. Arab, A journey which made me meet disabled, Many fantastic people, Gay, Many people who love football, who live football, who breathe football. African American, a migrant worker. You want to criticize someone, come to me. Criticize me. Here I am. You can crucify me. I'm here for that. FIFA president, world football's most powerful man. He runs an organization that a decade ago was the byword for corruption. This is for the North Korea 2026 welcome. When he took over from his disgraced predecessor, Sepp Blatter, he promised to clean things up and we will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA. And everyone in the world will applaud us. For some, his election came out of the blue. It was a chance for a fresh start. But I'd always liked him. I thought he was straight. Others were more suspicious of his swift rise. I'm pretty sure he had a very smart clan. He played like chess. He now rubs shoulders with controversial global leaders who will host both the World cup and his new supercharged Club World Cup. Infantino is following Trump is following the Saudis and the money. So who is Gianni Infantino? Where did he come from? Where is he taking the game? And has he fulfilled his promises? I'm Adam Levanthal. This is a special episode of the Athletic FC Podcast, the Most Powerful man in World Football. Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Let's talk about an elite green Flag being a cat dad. Temptations, America's number one cat treat brand, is making 2025 the year of the Cat dad. And honestly, about time. Whether he's coordinating snack time with the meow schedule or just vibing with his tabby, Temptation treats make cat dads even more irresistible to their cats and to us. For more information about Temptations brand Cat Dads or to learn more about the brand, visit temptationtreats.com and don't forget to share your own catdad sightings on social we'll be scrolling. Skin care experts and dermatologists have often touted the benefits of indoor humidity as essential for healthy, glowing skin. But did you know dry air can start to harm your skin in as little as 30 minutes? For years, many people have relied on humidifiers for better skin sleep and overall wellness. 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