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Welcome to Kevin's English Room Podcast.
Hello, hello.
Hey guys, how's it going?
So, I'm gonna read some messages.
All right.
This is from Etsuko-san.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Dear Kevin and Yama-chan.
All that football talk over the past several weekswas totally Greek to me.
But here's something that even Yama-chan might notknow.
Messi and Neymar both play the piano.
Take a listen.
And she sent us two links of them playing thepiano, I guess.
What surprised me even more was Harlan's playlist.
I expected it to be full of epic, high-energymusic.
Instead, it's remarkably serene, s-e-r-e-n-e,serene and calm.
Featuring almost entirely composers and musiciansfrom his home country.
And she sent us a link.
Okay.
Thanks a million, as always, for keeping uscompany every day.
Best, Etsuko.
Did you know that they play the piano?
Yes, I know that.
Oh, you knew.
I knew that.
He knew.
I saw the video, yes.
And do you know that Harlan, when he was, I don'tknow, like a teenager,
he made a crew.
He made a hip-hop crew with friends, with hisfriends.
Like a band member?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, a crew member.
Yeah, it was a hip-hop crew.
It was like dancers?
No, they rap.
Oh.
They rap and they sing a bit.
So he's creative.
Yes.
And he released a song with that group.
And even he has a music video.
Really?
I forget the group name.
I think that was like something like Kingsomething.
Like, yeah, Viking something.
Viking guitar or things like that.
Did you listen to it?
Yes, yes.
Was it good?
Honestly, tell me, like honestly.
It's not that good, honestly.
Because they were amateurs.
I mean, yeah, they were just teenagers.
Like they're just, I don't know, middle schoolersor something.
Right.
They were just doing a whole project, I guess.
Yeah, yeah.
You know.
But they were like, it's kind of like a serious.
They released at least, they recorded it.
Which is like a big project.
Yeah, released through the, you know, thoseplatforms.
YouTube and everything.
And yeah, there was like streaming sites.
Yeah, they made a music video.
Holland in the video.
And he performs in front of the camera.
Oh, long hair?
No, I think he was like very short hair when hewas a kid.
Okay.
Yeah, but the face exactly the same.
03:02
Exactly Holland.
Yeah.
Wow, very entrepreneurial.
Yeah, yeah.
It's great.
Yeah.
And I think he loves music.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nice.
Right.
Um, yeah.
Holland is one of the guys who loves like thoselike Zen and like those very calm and
spiritual, like very Zen things.
Okay.
He has great character.
Yeah.
I know that.
He's fun.
Yeah, he's fun.
He's like, his social media account is, you know,kind of popular.
Yeah.
His Snapchat, I guess.
Oh.
No?
I don't know that.
The comments he replies are kind of funny.
Okay.
Yeah.
If that's what I heard.
Yeah.
Can you imagine that?
Yeah.
Like every interviews that, you know, they do, youknow, most of the like football players
are like, they're not that talkative.
First of all, they're tired just after the game.
They don't even want to be there.
Yeah.
Even after winning, they were just like, you know,they're not that.
They just want to get it over with.
Yeah.
You know, celebrate it with the team members andeverything.
Especially after they lost the game, they werelike, come on.
Right.
They don't want to talk at all.
Okay.
But this time after the Norway lost againstEngland,
Haaland was like very gentleman on the interviewafter his loss.
Okay.
Of the country.
And he was like very polite.
Everything.
First of all, he speaks very good English.
Okay.
Because he was born in UK.
Okay.
And he speaks Norway English.
Switch, switching, switching.
And like the answer and reply was very on point.
Quick, but on point.
And even at last, he said, he did like a littlejoke.
Like, I've been fighting for weeks and I'm a bittired and I don't want to talk anymore.
So can I get like a holiday, like a vacation orsomething?
You know, like a very gentleman's way.
Try to have a great time with the interview.
Yeah.
And escape from the interview, but not make itawkward.
Yeah.
And he's such a, such a guy.
He's a gentleman.
Yeah.
That's true.
Compared to all those like, I don't know.
Who's the worst interviewer?
Okay.
Let me think.
I love it, but I would say Honda-san.
Have you ever seen Honda-san's interview after?
06:02
I don't think so.
Yeah.
There are many videos on YouTube.
What is he like?
Is he aggressive?
I mean, you know, after he, his team lost, he wasin AC Milan or something, the club team.
And, you know, they have like a hallway that theplayers has to pass through to the team.
And then Honda-san was coming and an interviewerwas like,
And then I continue walking.
Oh my God.
Oh God.
Just like that.
Yeah.
That's very, very Honda-san.
Yes, yes.
He's Honda-san, very Honda-san.
But it's, it's funny.
I like that.
I love that.
But at the same time, it's.
It just doesn't feel, I mean, it doesn't evenfeel, I feel love from that almost.
I feel, I don't know.
I don't even have, I don't have any negativefeelings from seeing that.
I, I don't know why, but it's just, I respect himeven more at this point.
And, and the interviewer asked,
And he replied,
So that, that makes sense.
Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah.
He, he does those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When he was in Italy, there was an interviewerfrom Italy asking about the club, what's the
Seiseki of the clubs and everything.
And he said,
To the Italian reporters.
What were their reactions?
Like they didn't know what to do?
What to say?
How is, how is that?
Yeah.
He was right.
Then 10 years after, Italy, they're not in theworld cup.
Oh, okay.
They're, they're, they're, they lost their energy.
They, they kind of said, yeah, it's like gettinglower and lower.
And it's like, he was right.
Wow.
And now like, they're like, oh, he was right.
What was their reaction at the moment?
Like the, you know, the, the people of Italy, youknow, Japanese coming into the Italy's team and
they're saying shit about Italy.
And they were laughing.
They're like, oh, they don't know.
He, he doesn't know anything about football andjust Asian guy coming in and just say, yeah,
say it, say it.
But it's true.
Italy wasn't in the world cup.
Yeah.
True.
Yes.
Were they strong several years ago?
Yeah.
One of the best team.
Yeah.
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I mean, still to me, they have one of the bestplayers, but it doesn't work well.
Like the team doesn't function properly.
And also the CDR, domestic league isn't boosting,I would say.
Well, that's unfortunate.
Yeah.
But now it's like getting recover, recovering,like getting better and better these days,
these years.
But a few, like two, three years ago, they werelike very many star players, like going
to the different countries, England or like, Idon't know, many countries.
Is that the problem?
People just leaving?
Yeah.
Italy?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Well, maybe the salary, maybe the quality of thegames, the players and everything.
So they go get out from the Italy, but now theykind of getting back and becoming better
and better.
Oh, that's, that's great.
Yeah.
They structured it well.
That's great.
But that's something Honda-san was predicted.
I mean, respect.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, he's a man.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks for listening, guys.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.