How Do World Cup Players Actually Train? What It Actually Takes To Have Haaland's Body

Everyone watching the World Cup is looking at Mbappé, Haaland, and Messi and wondering the same thing... How do these guys actually build and maintain that physique at the highest level?

In this episode of Between Sets, we break down elite soccer fitness from a trainer's perspective, what it actually takes to perform at a World Cup level, why these athletes are built completely differently from bodybuilders, and what that lean, explosive physique actually requires behind the scenes.
In this episode:

✅ What elite soccer fitness really looks like — strength, VO2 max, sprint conditioning
✅ Training for football performance vs. training for aesthetics
✅ Haaland's 6'5" frame and 160+ goal output — what's actually behind it
✅ Why position changes everything — a goalkeeper trains nothing like a striker
✅ Why soccer players look lean but not "jacked" — and whether that's optimal
✅ Vic's take — what he'd actually programme for someone who wanted to train like a World Cup player

💬 If you trained like a pro footballer for a week, do you think you'd survive it? Drop your honest answer below. 👇
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh first day today's the first day. We're filming this on the um first day of the World Cup. Yes, June 11th. June 11th. Let it be known. Let it be known. Nice. So we're gonna talk about how World Cup players actually train, right? And how it differs from, you know, us regular folk. It's funny because the topic that I was gonna pitch to the table today was how people compare themselves, like the average gym goer, how they compare themselves to other like gym goers. And in reality, it's you know not like that. Because if you're in the gym, that's already like you're in the top like 5% of people. Of the world. Of the world that goes to the gym. But now we're comparing the average person to or like the a regular person training to an athlete, a high-level athlete. So like already a heightened person athletically that goes and trains and is active on a regular basis versus the elite of the elite. Three billion people are expected to watch this World Cup. Isn't that crazy? That's not even half the population, dog. You'd expect at least half to watch it. Three billion is a lot. We're at eight, Doug. Yeah, I know that's true. But the next biggest event that has the viewership is the Super Bowl, and it's like 150 million. Well, this is literally Soccer Unites all. Sorry, it's we're gonna refer to it as its real name for the Futebol. Fujibol. Fuchiball. Fujibol. Play some fucibal. Hey guys, I am from Brazil. I am Brazil DJ. I uh I love a fucibol. Fuchi. That's my Brazilians out there. Brazil's Obrigado, good. I love a fucibol, go Brazil. Alright, so yeah, I'm gonna keep it. Put an accent. I'm gonna shoot through some of the topics. So first we're gonna talk about um what elite soccer or foot fucibol fitness actually demands and like what these players uh go through. Obviously, right off the rip, they have insane cardio and conditioning. Like that that's a huge thing. Um they cover so here's some cool facts a professional player on average covers 10 to 15 kilometers per match of like running, which makes sense. Pretty crazy. Well, you're constantly running, right? You're you're there's no break, there's no time stoppage except for halftime, right? Or if there's like a really, really bad injury, or if there's a free kick. And even in then they add the time anyway. Yeah, it's not like you're really getting a break. So you're like, oh shit, okay, yeah. You know, and it's like they're not just running casually, it's like you were saying, they're sprinting, decelerating, changing directions, jumping, recovering hundreds of times. Lateral movement, lateral movement, yeah. And then it says here it requires extremely high aerobic base anaerobic capacity. So for for in layman's terms, aerobic is with oxygen, anaerobic is without oxygen. Whoa. Sprint speed, agility, strength, and injury resilience simultaneously. What about injury faking? They gotta be good at that, too. They do, they do, they do. Um, yeah, no, there's no real other sport that kind of demands all those things. I mean, I guess all professional sports of some capacity, but specifically Fushibal um demands all those things at once. Rugby. Holy crap, look at these benchmarks, dude. Yeah, rugby, I guess, would be like coming close. VO2 Max. Elite players average 55 to 65 milliliters per kilogram per minute. What are you sitting at right now? Like 43. I think I'm at 47, 48. I think uh 40 and below is below average, 40 to 45 is average, 45 to 50 is like athletic. Okay, relax. Wagwan Jamaica. If you go 50 plus, you're like a you know, high level, high level laugh. And these guys are 55 to 65. I honestly think that's my main goal now. I want to build my VO2 to over 50. Yeah, too. Like, but the crazy thing about VO2, like, you know, on the whoop, it tracks it. To go from like 40 to 41, 41, 40, it's like months of training. It's huge. It's like one point takes like weeks and weeks of cardiovascular training. So the fact that these guys have like 65, that's like Olympic athlete. Oh, I mean, these are professional athletes, obviously. Yeah. Well, their their job is to run, right? Then imagine think about all the matches they're playing in their regular season, all the practices, all the practice matches, all of the training, the training you're doing, you're you're running even more on the treadmill. If not, if you're off the pitch, you're in the gym, you're doing some weights. Of course, you're doing strength training, but you're still challenging your aerobic capacity. I think at the end of the day, that's like the main thing is the aerobic and anaerobic. Um, some more interesting facts. Their average sprint speed for top players, they hit 35 to 37 kilometers an hour at full sprint. When they're going full tilt, that's pretty crazy. That's like those are the top of the top. Yeah, I'm talking about elite, yeah. Body fat percentage typically between six and ten percent lean, but not like stage lean, obviously. Well, they're running they're doing they're they're burnt, yeah. Why would you be stage lean? But they're six percent is fucking shredded, yeah. But they're like, bro, they're probably burning eight thousand calories a day, like training wise. Yeah, 10% is like a really solid number that they're at normally, regularly. Like a lot of these athletes, I mean, a good chunk of them, obviously, like maybe the highest performers, like Ronaldo, for example, they have like a very strict, regimented meal plan, like everything that he eats has a purpose. But I know like a lot of these soccer players as well, because there's they train so much and they're so active, they actually just eat like a normal person. Yeah, like they'll go out and have beer, bro. They'll have McDonald's, they'll eat McDonald's. Yeah, like right now, a big thing that's been trending is all the Europeans that are in America, and they're like all the European players are like, Wow, I've never been to Waffle House before. Like, give me some chicken the waffles. I want the chicken the waffles. So it's like all all these players on like Twitter and stuff are posting their first experiences in America, and they're like, everything's so big, like you know, the proportion sizes, and then they're just like sitting beside like some hood ass people that go there right now. Yeah, or like the Walmart people is like one of the most like not hood, but like gangsters have you been? I've driven by so many wanted to. I went to one when I was in I want to say it was Arizona, maybe. It's good, it's state exactly. It's like it probably like a Denny's. Yeah, iHop, Denny's, that type of shit. Yeah, just uh you get some interesting characters in there. Yes, you do. Especially if you go late night. So here we have the next little segment I have here is like breaking down the position. So yeah, you can read through that. Um Matt's played Fujiball in his life, so have I. I have played many years in my head. I think I know better position specific tactics than he does. He just knew how to run and shoot the ball, shoot the fuji ball. Well, I played keeper, so no, you didn't. I did, yeah. You were a keeper? Yeah, dude. I thought you were a fucking striker. No, no. Or midfield. When I play for fun, I play like midfield, but holy shit. We should go to the pitch and I should we should film a funny bonus video where I just blast balls at you. I'll stop those balls. So there my my uh origin with with Fuji ball because I played a lot growing up. I played in um house league and then I played like um mid-level, but I also played on on my high school team. But basically it was one of those situations where it was one of those situations where no one wanted to play goalie. So I was like, fuck it, I'll just like just for the sake of the people like getting the games going, and then I really enjoyed it because I didn't have to move, so I was pretty sick. Damn dog. And then I also really enjoyed the theatrics of it, just like diving for the ball when you probably didn't need to, but it just looks so much cooler. How far was your kick though? Do you go half field? Yeah, like almost half field. That's pretty dope. Yeah, um, yeah, and then I would play recre when I play recreational, I would never play goalie, but when I played in a league, I would kind of got into the and I got I started it, and then it was kind of like, well, you're the keeper now, which is hilarious because I'm really short for a goalkeeper. Like, yeah, I was gonna say you need to be a lot taller, more lanky, your arms need to reach the freaking corners. Oh yeah. So yeah, specific position-specific training, it does vary. Obviously, goalkeepers have a lot their focus on a lot more explosive, quick power reactions, and you need to have good reaction times. Um, and area, you need to have like a good um vertical, you need to have some aerial dominance, you know, in order to jump to those corners. So their training is a lot different than the rest of the people. So you got center backs, full backs, or wing, um, midfield, and strikers, they all are running and stuff, but at the same time, their training would vary slightly because you they have different kinds of jobs to do. So center backs would probably focus more on strength, yeah. Also aerial ability because you have to you have to block the header to the incoming header, and usually left back, center back, and right back, they're all quite large. Yes, like they're all quite muscular, you need to be a big person. They're more, you know, they have the of course the high, all you always have to have that high cardiovascular abilities, but they're like more keen on like lifting and and just being really strong. And like, yeah, goalkeepers, like you said, it's yeah, you still have to have cardio, probably not as much as the other players, but yeah, you have to work more on like explosiveness and a lot of like lateral movements, reflex training, they do a lot of reflex training, like stuff with the lights. Yeah, you know, I have Dave and Busters with that light reaction stuff. They do that. Or tennis ball, catching tennis balls. I feel like, and then midfielders, I feel like they're the best all around. Like they gotta be strong, but they also have to they probably have to have the most endurance because they're constantly running, they're expanding the entire field whole field, and then you know, your forwards, strikers, and wingers, they're more like about that sprint speed. Yeah, like they have to be able to get through balls and like react and on a dime just go from zero to like top speed. Those are gonna be the ones that are running, like you said, 35 kilometers an hour. Yeah, they'll like the fastest full-on sprinting. Yeah, whereas like your midfielders, you'll see when you watch a game, midfielders are kind of always jogging, yawing something, some people call it. I believe that is the correct print. Yogging, ya this new thing, yeah. Then then that at any minute they might have to like go into a sprint to like make a play, right? It's so funny if you think about it, the goalie is the biggest person, and then it just gradually gets smaller and smaller, like your strikers technically not really these days, like they're they're kind of built different these days, but they used to be your small one of your smaller guys. Sometimes like you get a good tall striker because they're good with headers. Yeah, right. I feel like midfielders also usually are pretty tall as well. If you think about Messi, he's short as fuck. But then if you think about Ronaldo, or if you think about what's his name from Norway, he's a striker as well. Hollander? Yeah, he's a striker. Oh my god, that guy's like huge. Yeah, he's like six four, like 240 pounds. Yeah, he's jacked. So the the striker position has kind of changed changed these days. Yeah. Okay, moving on. Yeah, so this is next up. We have kind of like what their weekly training might look like, like walking through a standard elite training block. Um, so match day plus one. So like they do like recovery, light movement, working in the pool. That's interesting. Um, massage, nutrition, low intensity. Then they go through like the muscles, loose, right? Yeah, this is all this is all leading up to a match. So this is like, you know, six days out. Then the next day they would do like low volume training, mobility, very light load. And it seems like it gets prog as you get closer to the match, it gets progressively harder. Then like three days out, they have like a heavy gym day, squats, deadlifts, a lot of sinks, has a lot of single leg work, which makes sense. Um unilateral movement. Yeah, then like two or three days out, that's when they do like their sprint training, tet technical work, peak output day. So like four three days from the match is like their hardest training day. Then they do like tactical and team training set pieces. So then they start doing like I guess the specific drills. So they get like their their like fitness stuff done in the early week leading up to the match, and then it seems like it tapers down and they do more like tactic team set pieces, and then the last day before the match is like mobility and priming the nervous system, and then finally it's match day. So, in like a if the match is you know a week out, they train every day leading up to it. Yeah, even like the rest days is like they're still doing light movement, recovery. Does it say what rest days like, or like the day post-match? It doesn't say post-match. Post-match, probably rest day. I feel like after yeah, yeah, they just like relax for a day. Yeah, sauna, cold plunge, that type of stuff. Um, but you know what it sounds like? Based on like let's say you have a match each week, which I don't think is the case, like you'd probably have a few in in a week, right? But like based on the frequency of one match a week, you'd essentially be training for like a peak week every single day. Every week, yeah kind of thing. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you're prepping everything you're doing is intentional to the match, say, yeah. Oh, and that's pretty much continuous. I guess when they like they have their off season is when they put in like work, when they're like building muscle and maybe even focusing more on rest, right? Because you're go, go, go, go, go, yeah, the entire season. But the thing about fuchibol, fuch, is like there really isn't a break because when the season's over, then you have like other tournaments and whatnot happening. I feel like it's one of the longer things that yeah, it's it's ongoing, yeah, constantly. So the key to take away from that training thing is that these guys lift heavy, like they lift heavy, they strength training is not optional. I guess it for them it's also, yeah, you want to be strong, but it's more for like injury prevention. Oh, dude, it's your body's armor. We've been over this before. Like, if you don't strength train, you're doing yourself a disservice, right? Like you need to make sure that the muscle is always primed to be activated and to help you kind of remove that negative consequence. Like, if you don't allow your whole body to be primed for that exertive effort you're about to put it through, then you have more chance for something to go wrong. Yeah, exactly. Um, why they look the way they look. That's an interesting one because a lot of people, I think. I've had experiences training clients like in the past, like men, when I asked like what their ideal physique is, and a lot of them Oh, I want to look like a soccer. Yeah, I want to look like a football blade. Exactly, right? Because they do have aesthetic physiques, they're obviously quite athletic. Pause, pause. Where are they lacking the most? You gotta be on point with this mind meld. Three, two, what we say it at the same time. Wait, like physique-wise, muscle-wise, which muscle group are they lacking the most? Done. Ready? Three, two, one, chest. Boom. I knew it was gonna be. It's always a chest. They're always like flat. Yeah, exactly. I guess because maybe with the exception of maybe goalkeepers, because they're doing I feel like they do some kind of pressure. Yeah, their arms, bro, they're like they look like alien. Yeah, you have to be. So soccer players are lean, but not necessarily aesthetic in like the traditional bodybuilding sense, because it's not like their muscles are all proportioned. Like they usually have obviously extremely powerful legs, their backs are always like super lean, their cores are shredded, but then like arms, chest, shoulders are like usually pretty lean, but not like bodybuilding. I think that the most of the power in when it comes from for a Fujibol player is from the core. That's why they have that like fucking defined ab rectus abdominis, but not just in the front, like every kind of even in the back. Yeah, and then the second is the leg. You got big legs, you had a huge like middle trunk, yeah, and then it kind of tapers off from the yeah, it's like they're very like like quads up, just like to up to the chest. Delts are pretty defined because they're so low body. The shoulders look solid too. Same with the arms, just no chest. They don't bench. There's no point to bench. Yeah, it's like not for them, it makes no sense. There's literally no use of the arms, right? So you don't need chestles. Throw your hands up. Oh, that wasn't a good call. That's the only time you'll use the arms is when you throw the ball from the side line. But then you would train that specifically with like a mid ball. And that's more core than exactly. Exactly. They changed the rules on that too now, apparently. You can now it's like uh sorry, it's random sidebar, but before you could there's no time limit. Now it's if you have five seconds, and the ball goes out of bounds, you have five seconds to throw it. Yeah, yeah, they used to be waist time and players run up the field and all that shit. So it's saying they don't optimize for muscle size. This is cool. They're optimizing for power to weight ratios. So every unnecessary kilogram of body mass costs them speed, sprint speed, and endurance. Yeah, loss of stamina for sure. Yeah, their goal is maximum useful muscle with minimum excess weight. So they're like min-maxing their muscle mass to like performance ratio. It's like, why why add weight if it doesn't like serve the overall performance or makes your performance worse because you're heavier, right? And they probably have crazy statistics in the sports lab about that, like with they have a bunch of sports scientists. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, they're like they're like optimized to the highest degree possible. So they're saying like, yo, you need to taper it back on, let's say, ink. I don't even know how would they do it, intaking certain calories or just the type of rep ranges they'd work on. Maybe they would do more volume-based training. Yeah, it says no. It says here the training, no, it's explosive. Yeah, it says the training split is usually like strength work, sprint conditioning, aerobic volume, not bodybuilding. Because volume would increase muscle size. Yeah, I don't think they do like bodybuilding ranges, like that eight to fifteen. I think they do like four to six, like yeah, hard, heavy, explosive, like trap bar deadlifts, big squats, like big deadlifts. Like the trap bar deadlift where you jump. Jump at the top, exactly. This is cool. There, there's a point here on uh Holland. We were just talking about him, the Norwegian guy, and he's an exception because he's six five and he's built like a bodybuilder, he's built like a center back, he's unusually large for a striker, yeah. But his strength gives him the ability to hold off defenders and get onto crosses with power just because he's so large, like no one's beating him to a header, like that guy's an absolute unit, and he's got a good forehead for it too. But he yeah, he does have a huge forehead, but he compensates with his size with exceptional sprint speed. Um, and it's like his body works because his strength is like his weapon, like he's so large that bro, if you got a 6'5, 240-pound Viking charging you as a center back to flash, right? Like, I'm yeah, like I'm you're getting bodied. Um, anyway, I'm gonna move on here. But here's some cool uh things. You can read this if you'd like. This is like how to how we can as as trainers, but also as people training, how you can kind of take some of the stuff that they do and apply it to your yeah, how you can kind of steal some of these tactics or methodologies, yes, exactly. Um and make it actionable for yourself. So we're we talked about a lot of sprinting work, right? So you could kind of incorporate sprinting intervals into your routine. Uh a lot of Jim Gores probably do steady state cardio. We see it all the time. It's like low intensity, yeah, to incline walk, whatever. Yeah, which again is great. Like I re we recommend it to all our clients all the time. Well, most people's goal is to get lean and look lean and you know look good without a shirt on or with shorts on or whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But adding these sprint intervals kind of improves that aerobic capacity in your system. This is if you want to get athletic. Yeah, so the things like your VO2 max will increase and improve, and we've talked about it in previous episodes. We could probably we should get more on it and link previous previous episodes that we refer to. And it's gonna be right up here. Where we talk about VO2 Max and how it improves your longevity. Yeah, that's one of their earlier episodes. That's that's something to always think about. Just the thing about doing it is it sucks, you know? Sprint intervals, it's hard, you're jogging, and then you're sprinting for 30 seconds super hard almost to your maximum capacity, like 85-90% sprint, and then you're going tapering it back down to like a 40% jog, right? So you're never really stopping. I feel like to really increase your VO2 max, I think that's why it's so hard for people to get into that like 50s, 60s, because you have to train like an athlete, you have to like push your cardio to like zone four or zone five, where like it's it's painful. Yeah, like your lungs hurt, but that's how you build the capacity. And I think for a lot of people, when they get to that point where it's like my lungs are hurting from the cardio, they that's when they stop. Yeah, which is again, yeah, obviously like listen to your body, but that's kind of if you push that for two to three to five minutes where you're like in on like pain in a way, that's how you're gonna build your aerobic capacity, right? Because it's just telling your body that you can intake more oxygen. It's reminded me of the classic Muhammad Ali quote. He doesn't start counting until it hurts. Is that was that him who said that? Yeah. I don't stop counting. I don't stop counting until it hurts. It was the crunches. Yeah, it was the crunches. I was gonna say it. I remember a video of him saying that where he's like doing crunches, and he's like, Did like how many reps do you do or something? He's like, I don't count until it hurts. Then he starts counting on my same idea, like obviously it's very uncomfortable. Muhammad Ali, pretty average athlete, I would say. Next one, single leg strength work. So, or if you want to kind of generalize it to like un iso isolating the side or unilateral work. Um, soccer players do a lot of unilateral training, split squats. Everyone hates split squats. I feel like Bulgarians have single leg RDLs, very functional to train each muscle group separately. I think a lot, I think almost all sports do probably do unilateral or bilateral, right? You have to. I think almost all sports. I I can't think of a sport where it would be more beneficial to do both versus one. Because almost every sport, like hockey, soccer, football, you're running, you're you're moving laterally, everything's one load, one loaded to one side at all times. Not just that, but it also helps you kind of move better physically, like as a as a human, because if you're just constantly working in that down and up yeah uh movement with both legs at the same time, it would kind of make you a bit more rigid, more stiff. That's why it's good to kind of keep the body guessing. Yeah, and then you compensate like when you do like you know, like a leg press or something, you can compensate one side more than the other without realizing it, right? Because you're you don't have that sensibility. Yeah. And another thing that most of us, most people, uh just like you know, average gym goers or people that regularly train and they stay active, they don't really think about periodization. So like to split your training up into different phases. Like you'll have a heavy week, a light week, a week where you it's called a delo, where you barely lift like challenging weight. It's more so kind of a rest week for you. You're still active, but you're not really pushing yourself to the to those upper limits. Yeah, most gym goers would kind of you know stay in the same rhythm, rhythm forever and uh think about these things. Um, and then you this kind of goes into like recovery as training. So elite players will also treat recovery um as seriously as a training session. Yes. And this is you can we can both attest to this, like no one takes care of their recovery. Yeah, I think a lot of people put that in the back burner, which is more important than the training itself. I've talked about like mobility, um, rehab, any type of, you know, going back to sauna, sauna plunges, massages. People don't take the time to actually keep themselves limber and ready to move. They only care about the actual moving portion when you're probably doing yourself a disservice to not do the recovery because you're yeah, you can still perform well, but you're you could perform better and you can also feel better outside. Yeah. I think with like a lot of people, they it just comes down to like time. If time, it's like I'm already committing time to work out. I also now have to commit more time to stretch and do mobility and find out. 10, 15 minutes, dog. Yeah, it's not that bad. Or incorporate it into your time already, cut out a set or two and then just do some mobility. Um or just do it when you're watching TV, freaking bring out the the foam. Farragon foam roller. Just it's true, it's not that hard. Like, we can do it. I think also when people get into that, they get into training, they become of the mind that if I miss a day of like lifting, my gains are gone, or like I didn't work out today, I'm fat. And that's actually opposite. Yeah, detrimental. Yeah, you you need the time, you need to rest. Yeah, you don't grow. Your body doesn't grow when you're training, it grows outside the gym. Well, if you're in a constant state of stress, you know, there's gonna be a breaking point. Cortisol maxing. A lot of people do that. Yeah, what's that called? There's min maxing, court maxing, quart maxing, yeah. Last one that the pros would focus on is power development. So we mentioned like explosiveness, jumps, medicine ball work, plyometric stuff. It's gonna help you build that athleticism and help you, you know, even towards your later years. That's something that I think gonna focus on a little more, like bring in more kettlebell work, dynamic work, uh functional, even jumping stuff. Like, I'm down. Try to just be Spider-Man, be more of yeah, be more athletic. Yeah, you already got the size, buddy. You just gotta you're pretty athletic already, but you can be even more athletic. You can always be more man. Oh, okay, perfect. We could do a yeah, it's a little agree or disagree. Let's do that, yeah. Or agree or agree or agree, yeah. Um, okay, let's do that, and then yeah, let's do let's do our World Cup predictions. Okay, so agree or disagree, we'll go quick here. Soccer players are the most well-rounded athletes on earth. I'm kind of leaning towards agree on that one. We finally have a disagree. I think so. What do you think? I don't think so. Okay. Well-rounded? Yeah. I don't know. It's hard for me. It's a tough one. There's a lot of sports out there. They're up there. I don't know if they're the most well-rounded. Like if you think about uh a rugby player will do the same thing, but I think they're a lot more stiff. It's a tough one. Hockey players are also. Hockey players, there's a lot more room for them to be overweight because you're skating. It's a different way to maneuver to manipulate your your body weight, and it's a lot shorter shifts, right? You actually get to rest. Yeah, with like two-minute shifts usually. I really want to lean towards the disagree on this one. Do it. The more I think about it, the more I want to kind of agree with you. I still I don't know. Some there's there's a few in here I think that we're gonna agree or disagree. Okay, let's go to the next one. Let's leave it at that just so we have file one final. We might disagree on this one too. Holland is the most physically impressive player at this World Cup. Who else would you think other than him? Cristiano Ronaldo, bro. Physically impressive? Like physically impressive, meaning just looks well? If it's we're talking just looks, I agree. He is an absolute monster. No, I'm talking like overall. I thought you were talking just looks-wise. I mean the entire package. Like 42. Uh Ronaldo? Yeah, so his biological markers are that of like a 20. 20 or 28 or whatever. Remember, I was looking at stats. I think Holland is like just on paper, look like just physically looking at him. He is the most physically impressive, I think. I would even be in that discussion, other than those two. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's the only thing. They're all they're all small and fast. Isn't that physically impressive? Yeah, I think it means more like a physical, like you look at them and you're like, oh my god. Yeah, that's all I know for sure. Yeah, okay. Um, most gym goers would benefit in some way from training more like a football player, soccer player. If you're not doing it already, I think so. Maybe if you're doing like no conditioning work whatsoever and you take some conditioning from from what we talked about, I think it's probably beneficial. Yes. But well we everything we just talked about is just like in theory, it would be good for you to incorporate it. Yeah, but you're not gonna get up there about it. If you think about it in reality, most people are gonna be like, okay, yeah, I can do more mobility, but do I really need to do the intervals, the sprints, and whatnot? Probably not. Yeah. So like it's really if you just want to level up your game, if you want to keep doing what you're doing and maybe improve a little bit, then probab this probably not. I don't know if you heard the story, there's a guy I follow on Instagram. He he's like a he was like a 34-year-old dad with five kids, never played soccer. Five kids. Oh, he made it pro, right? Yeah, he made it pro, never played soccer, just woke up one day and said, I want to be a professional soccer player, and he just started training and he got signed, bro. And he's like an actual, like he's on uh I think he's in major league soccer, which is like MLS, but still like bro. Impressive 34 years old, no fitness background, like he's always been active, but yeah. Not like that, he just decided I want to be a professional soccer player, and he got signed. It's crazy. I'm gonna be a professional cricket player, and at 34, bro, like that's like the end cycle of a soccer player. Yeah, like you what have a few more years? Maybe 36, like maybe. And it's like if keeper goalies can go until the early 40s, yeah. But an uh like a player on the pitch, like like the two oldest players, I mean Messi Ronaldo. Yeah, Messi Ronaldo, 38 and 42, I think. Like they're already, and they're like the best players in the world. That's why they're still playing, right? Um I think another good topic would be the comparison of Messi's protocols versus Ronaldo's players. I would love to like that. Messi is a lot more chill. So yeah, I feel like this guy's probably I wake up every day, I have a cerveza. It's very nice. Ronaldo's like, I wake up and I stare at the sun for 40 straight minutes. I wait, I wake up in the morning, I drink my hydrolyzed water. Look at the sun for 30 straight minutes. I do not itchy for one hour half. Yeah, that's a very good impression. Um, almost done here. Uh Premier League fullback, so defender in the Premier League, which is the English league, has better fitness than 99% of gym goers. Yeah, that's an easy agree. Probably I'm gonna agree on that. Yeah, I think any position and any sport of that capacity are probably better if it could be full. You could get into like specifics and be and say maybe you're strong. Maybe the person the gym goer has a bigger bench. Yeah, actually. Maybe maybe that's the only thing I can see different. This is a weird one. You feel like the soccer players do have a decent bench though. They probably do, just not like I don't know how many of them. I think in relation to their like athleticism. How many do you think can bench over two plates? I think most of like the defenders probably can. I don't think that like some of the smaller forwards, probably not. Like, what's that Spanish kid, Lamin Yamal? That guy's not benching. Yamal ain't benching two plates. He ain't even benching one. That guy's gotta do homework later. Um, last one here, and then we'll do our predictions. Um, you could train like a World Cup player for six months and get your best results, agree or disagree. I I disagree with that because it's so specific on the person. I think you can just tell us results how. Like uh let's say physics. Looks wise, looks wise, yeah. I mean, you'll definitely get leaner. Yeah, you would you would definitely change physiologically. I don't know. I think you would make some big gains. Yeah, for you if you just said today I'm gonna do with that split I said earlier where it's like the six days of conditioning and strength training and mobility, yeah. If you do that for fucking six months, you're gonna look good. Like you're gonna get stronger. I'm gonna I'm gonna agree on that. Yeah. I disagreed. I I'm still gonna disagree because I think it's so dependent on the person. It says your best results, everyone's results are so different. But if we're talking on like a very basic level, then yes, agree. Okay. All right. Last thing we're gonna do for today's episode is do our predictions for the World Cup. Um, who do you have? Uh let's do a couple. Who do you have winning the World Cup? Who's your best Spain? Spain, yeah. I'm Espan. Yeah. That was hilarious. That was crazy. That was a clip that's that was not planned at all. That was crazy. Down at my logo, too. I went like this, and I went and I said Espanna. We literally did the exact same thing. That's a clippable. That's a clippable moment. That was crazy. Ian, that one's for you. Yo, shout out. Shout out, Ian. Um, that's so funny, dude. Okay, alright, alright, alright, all right. And then a couple other ones. Um, do you think Canada's gonna make it out of the group sage? They got Canada, Bosnia, Switzerland, and what's the other team? I just looked at it on my bet slip. No, Switzerland's not in it. No, it's not Switzerland, it's in a different um stupid. Is it Sweden? No, no, no, no. Canada. You can't have that group. I each group only has two like heavy hitters. Uh it's Switzerland, sorry. Canada, Qatar, Switzerland, Bosnia, and oh, so Switzerland is in it. Yeah, it is Switzerland, yeah. Switzerland, Canada play on Wednesday. Well, it's probably gonna be Canada and Switzerland getting out of there. Yeah, I think I think Canada will make it out. Um, I think Switzerland will be the first one. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be on their side and be like, you know what? Let's see. Let's see them make it out of the first round. Should we just rip through all these real quick and give our predictions? We'll be fast. Okay, that was group one. No, sorry, group A, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Chechnya. Let's go first and second. Mexico first. Mexico first, I think South Korea second. It's gonna be close. South Africa. I think South Africa. Yeah, South Africa is uh pretty good. Canada, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Qatar, and Switzerland. I think it's gonna be Switzerland. I think it's gonna be Switzerland first, Canada second. Okay. Uh group C, we got Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, Scotland. Brazil and Scotland. Brazil, Scotland. I have Brazil and Morocco, I think. Uh Morocco is surprisingly decent. Group D, USA, Paraguay, Australia, Turkey. USA, Turkey. You're USA, Turkey? Yeah. The Aussies, no? You don't think so? Well, Australia is also a potential upset team as well. Then we got Germany, Curaçao, Ivory Coast. Germany and Ivory Coast. I'm gonna go Germany and Ecuador. But Ivory Coast is uh it's gonna be tight, yeah. Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, and Tunisia. I think Netherlands and Sweden, but I want to say Japan. I would love Japan. Have you seen Japan's World Cup and anime? It's an anime, it's so good. Imagine if they make it out of the first. I would love Japan or South Korea to make it out of the rounds. Yes. I would love one of those things. We love them. Yeah. Uh group G, we got Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand. Iran where? Iran out of the World Cup. You know what I'm saying? Belgium for sure. Belgium, New Zealand, probably. Yeah, that's a weird group. The other three are all potential like Egypt, Iran, New Zealand are all pretty low-ranking teams. Iran. It can be Iran, Matsu. It's Iran play futebol. Group H, we got Spain, Cabo Verde, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay. Probably Spain and Uruguay. Uruguay. Yeah. France, Senegal, Iraq, Norway. France for sure. Yeah. I think it's good to be France, Norway. I even think Norway has the potential of winning that group. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Senegal's a good team, but Norway is really, really good, and France is France. Now may pull down your underpants. Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan. Michael Jordan? I think I think Argentina and Austria. Yeah, that's a very sensible pick. Um, Portugal, the Republic of Congo. That's wild. Uzbekistan and Colombia. Those two teams you just said it was Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, what the fuck? Uh, I think Portugal, Colombia, obviously. You've got to go those two. Those other guys shouldn't even be in the and last but not least, England, Croatia, Ghana, and Panama. England and Croatia. Croatia, yeah. Interesting. So we got some pretty good picks. We'll see what happens. I'm gonna put those all through. Let's put those all on a parlay. 11 leg parlay. Let's see what happens. How many? It's two. How many groups are there? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve groups, bro. Times two, twenty four picks. Put it in the bed slip rank. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do a 12 leg parlay. Isn't it a 24 leg? Oh, I probably do we're doing A N B D. Let's do it. All right, we'll get we'll we're gonna do it right now. All right, guys, we'll see you in the next one.