Haaland's First World Cup - What Peaking at the Right Time Actually Means

Erling Haaland scored a brace on his World Cup debut. Norway hadn't been to a World Cup in 28 years. And Haaland is 25 — statistically at the exact centre of his athletic prime. That's not a coincidence. That's what building toward something actually looks like.

In this episode of Between Sets, Vic and Matt break down what Haaland's World Cup moment reveals about peaking at the right time — in sport, in the gym, and in life. As a trainer, Vic unpacks the science of athletic peaks, periodisation, and what it actually means to build toward something rather than just show up and grind indefinitely.

In this episode:
✅ What athletic peaking actually means — and why most people never experience it
✅ Haaland at 25 — Premier League goals record, three Golden Boots, now finally a World Cup
✅ The science behind why elite athletes peak when they do
✅ Why training without a peak in mind is just maintenance disguised as progress
✅ The fitness parallel — are you building toward something or just hoping the peak finds you?
✅ What the 28-year wait meant for Norway — and why timing changes everything
✅ What Vic would actually programme for someone training toward a specific peak

💬 Are you training toward something specific right now — or just showing up? Drop it in the comments. 👇

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Between Sets with Vic and Matt is the fitness and lifestyle podcast that goes beyond the gym. Unfiltered conversations about fitness, mindset, money, self-improvement, and real life — recorded between sets, no filter, no fluff.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

We talk about Norway. Is it recording? It is recording. And we definitely gotta add the chant in there. Alright, guys, welcome back. So just everything with a focus on fitness. And we're still keeping that FIFA train going. We got World Cup Fever, dog. Bro, we talking about fucking soccer, fuchiball, it's crazy, dude. Until the the final play game. This is my day, okay? Besides not excluding work. I wake up, I open the six sports betting apps that I have to look at all the odds for the day. Then I check TSN to see what games are playing. Six sporting apps, liar. I have two. Then I look at my schedule and then cancel clients that are happening during any games. And then I go to work. No, I don't, I don't. Then I go to work and then I go home and I watch soccer for eight hours. Impressive. That's I I've watched almost every game. I think I miss like the midnight ones. You know, there was a few of those like midnight games for us. I've seen those. And the random ones like Algeria versus Jordan, Egypt, and like Senegal or whatever, but I've watched almost- I'm trying to beat the FIFA president. That guy's been at every game. How does he do it? Even the midnight ones? He's been to every game. That's like a meme where he's like well, he's obviously a a reptilian. And he's got teleportation technology, obviously. Episode for another time. But anyway, he's at every game. Alright, guys, today we are talking about my favorite player. My boy Erling Braut Holland. Okay. We're talking about Holland and just the incredible machine of a human being that he is. I think it's a little more specific than that. What Holland at his first World Cup tells us about peaking at the right time.

unknown 2:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It's kind of like the overarching thing. But really, we're just gonna glaze Holland for the next 45 minutes or so. We or you? Me. It's gonna be it. Yeah. Alright, I'll do the opening and then we can follow up from here. So Alright, obviously it's World Cup season. We've got some incredible talents. You know, you've got Mbappe, you've got Messi, you've got Ronaldo, you've got give me somebody else. Lamal Yamin. Vinicius Jr. Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of like this World Cup has so much Star Power, more than I can remember in any World Cup I've ever seen. Yeah, but I feel like I feel like right now we have just like so many good players. I think, yeah, you're right. Back in the day, like 2010 was ridiculous. Dude, 2010 Spain. Yeah. Iniesta, Javi Alonso, Raul, Sergio Ramos. This isn't that special, I'm sorry. I think it's more He's just hype. He's just hype. I think it's okay. Let me rephrase that. I think it's more the specifically attacking players. There's so many stars on the attacking players specifically, like goal scorers. Okay. Like, not just teams. Because yeah, you're right. There's been some incredible teams, but the attacking players, like it's head to head, dude. Like in the race for the golden boot, there's like, you know, are you got Messi who's got five goals? Where are you going? Holland's got four. I'm going. Okay. Holland's got four. Ronaldo has got two. He's got two, I think. Two. Yeah. And then Jonathan David, from some dude from Branton, is up there, which is insane, by the way. I'm a Canada jersey. My mom bought it for me. Um, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

What a thing to share.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

She goes, Machu, you'll need Canada jersey. And I'm like, okay. So she bought it for me. All right. So today we're going to talk about again, very specifically. We've already done this our third kind of like World Cup episode. We talked about how it, you know, it is to be like an athlete. We talked about Messi and his kind of thing. And now we're going to kind of touch on, you know, another player that's really standout. And especially when it comes to like fitness and training and his lifestyle and nutrition and and all and peaking in time for the World Cup is Erling Holland. So Erling Holland is a 25-year-old, uh, Norwegian, English born, but he is Norwegian. His dad uh played in Leeds and he was born in England, but he chose to represent Norway. He has a very interesting accent. It's like it's like Norwegian English. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's he's because he just signed a 10-year deal with Man City. Yep. So it's he's getting like progressively more English. More Brit. Um, but the thing that's really interesting about this guy, and we talked about it during kind of briefly during our first episode when we were covering the World Cup, was in the position of a like a nine, a striker, they're usually very small and very fast, right? This man is like 6'5, 210 pounds. Everything you said in the first episode absolutely bodies people. So he's most physically dominant striker on the planet. The question is um, you know, going off the tagline here, is he ready for this moment completing the World Cup? It's if the moment is ready for him, goddamn. God damn. I'm about to implode on that. So Norway just to get a couple stats here for you guys uh regarding Norway. So Han is on Norway. Norway has just is their first World Cup in 28 years. He has scored twice, two times, both times. The first player to ever do that for Norway. Um, at 25, he's the Premier League's all-time top scorer, which is actually nuts. I didn't know that. Some of these stats I didn't even know. In a single season, he's won the he's won the golden boot three times. He's 25. And um, he's the most lethal striker in the world. He's just really good at scoring goals. Yeah, his interviews are so funny, bro. I don't know. I'm just really scoring goals. It's my job. It's my job. Um, but there's just something very like fascinating about someone like that that he's not the traditional build for like a soccer player. He's just like, you know, he's almost like Zlatan Ibrahemovich, where he's like tall, lanky, but just extremely efficient. Um, but yeah, we're gonna kind of cover like him as a player and his training because he has a very interesting approach to training. I think very similar to us in a way, where it's like very like his diet's very dialed in, very organic. Like he doesn't like uh the kind of a sidebar, but like they to when they you know were hosting the USA is hosting and Canada and thing, segment one. Um, but the Norwegian team imported like 200 kilograms of salmon because they didn't want to eat American food. Yeah, of course, which is honestly smart as well. Which is crazy, right? And like these guys eat like it's it's a very like Mediterranean, almost like Paleolithic diet, where it's just like eggs, meat, milk, and like potatoes, like that's what he eats. And I think he eats something like 6,000 calories a day or something crazy. Uh, but anyway, we're gonna talk about him. Yeah, that's high, that's really high. Yeah, I don't know about that one. I I I read that somewhere, who knows if it's true, but we're gonna talk about a Holland and just him as a player and kind of like how his training and stuff like that is something that as people in the fitness industry or you know, listeners or people who are training or exercising, how you can kind of take from that and apply that into your real life. Yeah, nice. Uh so just to touch on what a couple things that you mentioned, his sprint speed. Normally he's clocked above 36 kilometers an hour, which is honestly really impressive, dude, for especially someone his size. Can you imagine someone that big running at you at 40 kilometers an hour? Yeah, he's a tall, he's a tall lad. Which also translates to aerial dominance, like his height combined with with his leap, his vertical is gonna make him like kind of not unstoppable, but pretty close to when when the cross comes in so he can header the ball, uh, which then correlates to finishing efficiency, his goals per shot ratio is almost statistically impossible. So he's scoring like he's really good at the scoring goal. He's very good at scoring goals. Yeah, so it's kind of like a paradox, though, because for his physical stature and his football intelligence is like what separates him. So he kind of makes all these decisions or plays that most strikers wouldn't normally be able to. So, like, let's look at what the athletic peak actually means for someone his age and his physical. Kind of crazy that he's only like 24 or 25. Well, that's peak peak time right there, right? Yeah, it's funny because we just talked about how messy was old. Yeah. Now we're talking about the flip side, good segues, yeah, of someone who's in their peak and performing at levels that not even these guys have done. Yeah. So peak and power usually falls just before 30. We'll say like 28, 29. Fast twitch muscle fiber, dominance, VO2 max, your explosive power output, and your recovery speed, they're all at an all-time peak within this window. So mid to late time. Him coming into the World Cup at this age, and we're gonna get into probably a little bit of his routine and whatnot. Yeah, but it's just like the perfect timing for him to perform at the level that he is and being able to score all these goals against these teams um on the global stage. So, yeah, back to the post-28, 29, 30 age range, there's a gradual but measurable decline in like explosive raw explosive capacity, like it's gonna decrease no matter how much you train it, uh, and the body's gonna compensate with like technique and experience after that. Uh, so he's essentially at the biological apex of what a power striker could be, which is biological apex great timing with the World Cup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um peaks more than just physical. We've touched on this before. Mental maturity, technical refinement. So, for mental maturity, you need to know how to perform under pressure, manage expectations, and understand that you're gonna fail as well, things like that, and being able to handle those things. Um, technical refinement, repeating movements. This is just consistency, like just being at the highest level, you have to just keep building those motor skills and motor patterns day in and day out so that it doesn't decline as you age. Um, and then he also has the physical window and this like technical context at the same time, which is kind of what's giving him the edge, uh, which is a lot rarer than it sounds. Like you're you have like the physical aspect, which is kind of a gift, and you're maintaining it and honing it and all that shit, but you also have the technical skill of the game itself. Yeah, bringing both together is uh, you know, I think a lot of times, like when you're a young player, the technical skill you're still like mastering and learning, but the physical is there because you're young, you're agile, you're hungry, you're at the peak physical, like you're right where you should be. But in his case, both are very high, yeah, which is why he's uh as good as he is. Yeah, and we can give an interesting contrast, like all those things will get you so far. But if we go back to Messi, who's 38, more than like 13 years older than him, is still leading the goals, the expected goals chart in the tournament. So physical peak performance aren't clearly the only things that are required for experience as well. Exactly. Uh so cool. Next segment. Yeah, so um we'll kind of touch base on again Norway. Like this is the this is it's a very cool story because like Norway hasn't been in the World Cup in 28 years. They've always been like a decent team, but it's kind of like I'm gonna harp on my own country here. It's like Poland, right? Like, always a team that's like very close to qualifying, and they needed a one-star player. And for us, it was Lewandowski who like carried us for the last like 16 years. But unfortunately, Poland didn't make it RIP, and he is 38, so he will not be coming back. And he's not messy, and he's not messy, um, although he played with messy for a long time. Truly did. But um, you know, their last World Cup was in 1998, and really interesting fact is Holland's dad, um, I think his name's Arlo, or yeah, he was the striker, so he's like his son is now filling that role, which is really, really cool. Right. Um, five of Norway's starting players weren't even born the last time Norway played in the world. It's crazy. Um, he's been Norway's captain for the last couple years, and you know, like it's really cool. They're like, I'm I'm sure we were just doing it as a joke earlier, but like the Norwegians, like they got like that rowing, like it's a very like they've only have a population of five million people. Viking mentality. It's they have that Viking mentality, which is really, really cool. And like we're filming this the day of not even an hour before, France versus Norway, which is like a game that I'm extremely excited for. Oh, yeah. Obviously, I think France are the heavy favorites, but there is a good chance that Norway sneaks in. It's very much a Mbappe versus Norway. 3-3 tie. Yeah, I I think it's gonna be like a 2-2 or a 3-3, like 3-2, sorry. Um, but yeah, like we're gonna talk kind of about like the psychological aspect of it and the expectations he has, but yeah, Holland's spent years um, you know, training and getting to this position. Now that he's finally at the World Cup at 25, so this is his debut at the World Cup. He scored four goals already, which is nuts. You know what's crazy? A little sidebar. He Matt's favorite sentence on the sidebar. He's had four goals, and I was looking at the tickets, and he's only had 12 touches. So what he's extremely good at, and what a lot of sl strikers like Zlatan Ibrahimovich and like a lot of these big guys like Tyrion Reed when they talk about him, is he does only what needs to be done. Like he doesn't exert energy, like he doesn't go back and try to run the ball. He doesn't like to dribble. He just like when he knows he's there and he needs the opportunity, he touches the ball and it's either gonna go into the back of the net, it's gonna hit the net, or it's an assist. Yeah, like he's extremely efficient at picking the right moment to strike, and he's extremely good at it. Like you said, it's very good that's correct. Yeah, well goes back to what we said earlier about his statistics, right? Like his his goal to to opportunity or chances of attack. The ratio is like not normal. It's actually really which extremely low. Yeah, so he has like I think he has like or higher. So high, yeah. He's got 57 goals in 52 games internally. Stop glazing this guy. Let's get into the freaking gritty. Guys, I love gritty. Guys just talking about goals and hair and he is. Yeah, oh, we didn't even talk about his hair as well. Bro, come on, get into the real shit. If you guys can't tell, I'm a big Holland guy. Big Holland fan. But I've only discovered him like in the last like six weeks, and I'm like, who is this guy? Who is this majestic Viking? Um, anyways, so here we are, we're at the World Cup. Um, we're gonna talk about as well. Uh, we're gonna go here because this this segment's kind of that's fine. Um, the big question that we're kind of building towards is in professional sports, how his like kind of like diligent training routine has led him to be this good. Like his periodization, his peaking, he's very good at peaking, his nutrition, uh, his kind of like daily life. And I think it kind of goes in theme with everything we've talked about, the last two episodes being very World Cup related. I'm sure you guys have noticed. All these athletes have a very regimented, very scientifically backed training supplement thing. So it kind of makes you wonder like if all these people have this highest level of you know quality of uh support, then it really does come down to like just pure talent at that point, right? Like all these guys have top nutritionists, top yeah, yeah, yes, but also like their routines all vary, right? Like they're the top at the top, but their routines I guarantee are not identical by the case. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So it's like one person kind of trains maybe one thing more specifically, and one person will like no a Frenchman will have croissants for breakfast, and fucking Norwegian will have salmon. Salmon, yeah, that's true. Like it depends on how you're brought up, it depends on your culture, it depends on your lifestyle. There's so many things that go into play on how you can like effectively manage your performance, right? Like, right if everyone was given the same food, the same training protocol, the same time frame, then yes, but all their shit varies, all different like approaches, I think it's also cultural to like everyone's got their own like for sure styles of training, like the Latin Americans train very specifically, the Europeans they wake up at 5 a.m. every day. I wake up at 5 a.m. He's the best, he's the best. So Holland specifically, I know one of the big things he's really big on is his training, periodization, like a style. So for those of you who don't know, periodization is just kind of like how, as trainers, how we would approach programming. We're talking about leave athletes, of course, but this applies to everybody. How you would kind of approach your training. So, you know, these guys plan like training loads, recovery phases, different intensity cycles, specifically to arrive at this moment in time. Like to oh, I'm arriving! Yeah, arriving at the world. So the concept being is like you can't be 100% year-round, but you build and you peak towards this. And that this is not just Holland, this is all the athletes at this tournament. Like that's kind of what it's been leading into. Um, and yeah, and like these guys do like high volume, lower intensity, then do higher intensity, lower volume. They build anaerobic, they build strength. Like, again, kind of touching back to what we talked about in our first episode where covering the World Cup. It's and like you said, it's very different depending on the people. And one of the interesting things, it's not in the notes here, but I'll is what I in my deep dive on Holland in the last 48 hours. Just in bed at a late in bed, I'm just like giggling. Yeah, I'm just like, oh I love him. Um, but really cool thing about him is he actually like so these because we talked about how he's so physically dominant and he just bodies people, like defenders don't stand a chance. Yeah, yeah. He actually went, I think it was to Miami and trained in the NFL, like with Miami football players. That's pretty cool in his offseason to learn how to like run through people. Because he's got the build for it, like you can't send Messi to an NFL combine. Hello, guy. How are you doing? Hey everybody, hello, I scored a goal. Um, but yeah, I think that's really cool how like he him specifically but trained went outside to a different sport. Yeah, expand your hurricane. To learn, and I think that's so important, right? Because like I'm sure with football, fushibal, and soccer, there's very specific drills and dribbling and training techniques. Yeah, not many people branch outside of that. You're learning within your capacity, but I think not just in soccer, but in some of the best athletes in the world. Like, I'm gonna use uh Arnold uh Schwarzenegger as an example, like he would go to ballet to learn like posing, right? Like the fluidity of posing, right? So when at it's it's really cool when athletes branch out and go to other things, and you take the best from other sports and then you apply it to your sport, and that's how you become the best in the world. You just reminded me of when I was training for my rep hockey. I went to figure skating classes to learn how to if more efficiently push off of the skate edges and shit. So similar idea. Yeah, yeah. You just you gotta not get locked into one specific mindset. Tunnel vision, tunnel vision, yeah. Yeah, you need to try everything to be an overall well-rounded athlete. And that kind of kind of leads into where we were going with this, where how this applies to like the regular person, like the regular gym goer. I think most people kind of like just do the same thing week to week, like year on year, like you know, Monday chest day, Tuesday legs, Wednesday arms, you know, Thursday, chest, Friday, chest, Sunday chest. I'm just right here going over the periodization. But it's like kind of talking about we're kind of talking about how like expanding your horizons and learning from different things is gonna benefit your overall uh training. Are you saying that we should go bouldering? I don't know how that would benefit us in any way, but what do you mean? Body weight management? Do you know what bouldering is? Bouldering? Yeah, is that like rock climate? Yeah. Oh, is that what it's called? It's called bouldering. Yeah, it's the one it's the one where you don't get on the rope. Uh on the bullet, belay. Yeah. Okay, so you know what belay is, but not bouldering. What the hell? Okay. So random. Bouldering is the one where you just like climb up a little bit to a certain point and then you jump down and the ground is bouncy so you don't get hurt. Oh, okay. You're not going to free climbing. I guess, yeah, because you're not hard to belay, right? I'm not belayed. But then you have like the actual rock climbing where you're going high as fuck and you need to be safe. Have you been you've been rock climbing? I've been rock climbing, but I I want to try it to go bouldering, get those special shoes. That I feel like that's gonna give us like all sorts of crazy physical, they're also like so strong, dude. Mind muscle connection with places you don't even know. Yeah, it's a complete yeah, and again, it's like, yeah, you to do some like. That and just get better at what you're already doing, right? Better control. And like you, you and me are pretty big, I think, proponents and advocates of like doing multiple things, it's not just I'm only gonna bodybuild, like that's all I'm gonna do. Matt circa 2018. Yeah, that was and then I did powerlifting and then high rocks, but um, but yeah, let's uh move on. So that was kind of just saying, like, you know, expand the reason this guy's so good at what he does is because he doesn't just do football training, like he expands, he'll go and see something in American football and be like, okay, these guys are tackling people and like doing these runs. How can I apply this to my sport? Uh, segment four. Actually, six. Is it actually six? We're moving fast on this one. Uh, okay. Next up, the Holland limitations debate. Okay. So we know, like we I we should probably go into a little bit more of his protocols. Like, I know a lot about his diet. Same, yeah. I we can go over that. We want to touch on that quite a bit. And also a little bit on the type of training styles and everything, periodization work. But the diet and nutrition aspect he's actually super dialed in with uh the cleanest, like it it probably connects more so with animal-based or yeah, very much so. You know, like the new vibe. It's not carnivore, it's animal-based, like a lot of eggs, sourdough bread, a lot of salmon, a lot of grass-fed beef, bison, that type of stuff. Yeah. Um, and then like stays away from anything processed or refined. So it's just like whatever you can find from a farm or from the earth, fruits, vegetables. It's literally going back to how his ancestors used to eat. Like a damn Viking. Straight up. Yeah. He he trains and eats like a Viking. Straight up, which is why he's a Viking. That's why you love him. Yeah, I do. He is a Viking. But like, yeah, I remember watching uh recently like a uh like a day in the he did like a vlog where it's like come day in the life with me. Yes. Hello guys, this is what hello guys. Uh we're going to go train today. Yeah, mate. Yes, yeah, yeah, and he says mate too, which is weird because he's got that weird mixed accent. But yeah, he like, I know he like first thing in the morning he gets up, it's like meditation, then he goes outside and gets exposure to the sun for like Huberman techniques. Very huberman, yeah. He like goes, yeah, you know, with the all those like alphabros, which the red light therapy. Yeah, so he does all that, he does his recovery, cold plunge stuff. Then he like eats, I think he drinks like a gallon of milk or something through the day. Raw milk, raw milk, yeah, like raw milk. He does the milk, so it's like milk, eggs, you know, lots of uh fish, like salmon and stuff like that. It's like ground beef, and then obviously they go train, they do their training, and then his post-workout meal is also just like veggies, meat, and potatoes, like no refined sugars, no refined carbs, like it's just like yeah, that old school, like not old school, but just like more like that Paleolithic animal-based Mediterranean, even in a way, like that kind of diet. So very, very clean, and then it's crazy because you know, I said it earlier, but uh from what I've read, he consumes like five or six thousand calories a day, quite a bit, which is a lot. But those guys, like, you know, let's say you're on training for two to three hours, full capacity, you're probably burning like two, two to three thousand calories, maybe just from training, yeah. And then let alone your regular regular lifestyle. I'm assuming these guys, you know, don't train and then just go home and sit all day, like they're up and over. He goes home and plays PlayStation, he does play PlayStation, yeah. Well, who knows? Could be four, it could be five. But I think there's a lot more to it. I think just like being like, hey, just like eat vegetables and meat and train, you're gonna become like Holland. That's not how it works. It comes back to that messy and Ronaldo conversation where these people just have the sauce, yeah. Like they have the given talent, the game knowledge. Well, he has the god-given talent of being like a tall as fuck striker, right? So like he also has an edge in a lot in some regard, too. Um, I wonder if he takes like some form of protein powder, like a beef protein, like a grass-fed beef you know what? That's a good question. I wonder I haven't seen that in if he did, it would be definitely like the most raw form of like the least amount of what's the word I'm looking for, like diluted, you know what I mean? Like just the rawest form of protein powder you can get. Yeah, which like brings me to that beef protein that I'm drinking right now, which is don't get me wrong, amazing. Yeah, but how the hell did they get it to taste like juice and to be the consistency of water? I know it's so as a grass-fed beef protein. It's so good. You would think it'd be like grainy and gross, but no, it's delicious. There's something up, like it's not possible, bro. Anyways, back to his limitations. He has none. Zero. Okay, moving on. There's a criticism about him. He's a goal scorer, but he requires the team to be built around him, so like he's he's there, but like that's the only thing that you can expect from him, right? He's not gonna play defense, he's not really gonna, yeah, he'll pass the ball, but he's not really gonna make those crazy dribbles and whatnot. He's there to finish, he's there to score goals. Exactly. He's there to drive his freaking axe through the opposing Viking army's head. Yeah, exactly. It's almost like Ronaldo, right? Ronaldo's the same. Like when Portugal plays, it's like their objective is get the ball to Ronaldo. So it's almost like you're kind of sacrificing something in order to have him on the team because you know he's not gonna ever come back to play any defense. Yeah, but at the end of the day, the score line is what matters. Scoring goals counts the most. It's yeah. I mean, you could be the best player in the world and have the highest possession, the most touches, and there's no goals and you don't win the game. Why does it doesn't matter? Yeah, so he just waits for the moment rather than like being continuously active, continuously like chipping away. He's just like, show me the ball, I'm ready. That's also why he's able to be so consistent with his goals, because is he has the ability to from go from zero to a hundred? Like when the opportunity presents itself, he can turn on and do flip output because he hasn't been wasting energy on the pitch, yeah, like running back, you know, he's able to like at a moment's notice just absolutely destroy what he needs like do what he needs to do. So, like this brings up a question is a player who does one thing at an almost supernatural level level more valuable than a player who does everything well? That's a good question. I think in relation to Foucheyball or soccer, it's I think it's more important to be extremely good at your one role. Because it's the same thing. Especially as a striker, especially as a striker. Because you have 10 other people that are gonna do it. Support you, right? Yeah, yeah. I think in in soccer, everyone, if you're an extremely good midfielder, defender, left back, right back, wing, whatever, and you're extremely good at it, that's all that matters because if you have other players who are good to decent to average, above average, and they can feed you the ball, then you're in a good spot. Yeah, so it kind of you can kind of expand this into the general term, like a specialist versus a a generalist in just like a jack of all trades, yeah, fitness, or not even just fitness, anything. Um, you know, better to be extraordinary at one thing or excellent at many. I honestly lean towards the excellent at many, but because I resonate with that, yeah, but not even excellent, just like good, good at multiple things, yeah. Yeah, it's it's handy to be like that, but obviously. I think there's like a super duper niche, and like in this sense, it makes the most sense. But I agree. I think if you're just like an like uh just an all-around athletic person, you want to be good at multiple things, yeah. The average person, like if you want to be have good cardio, be fairly strong, be able to run, you know, a 30-minute 5k, whatever. I think for the average person that's really good to aim for. But in the context of being a position in a specific sport, you just want to like dial in on that one. That's your job, bro. You have to produce the way that you and that's why all these players, like um, you know, Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe, Holland, the reason they're so well known and so famous is because they're just extremely good at what they do, they get the goals, they get the numbers, and that's all that matters. Yep. Because the team is there to support them. Yep. True. Uh, okay, so is there a version of this in your own life, like an area where specialization is the play, even if it if it means accepting limitations elsewhere? Yeah, I'm usually like a really, really good tank or healer in video games. Yeah. Yeah, because no one else wants to play. So that's the role I'll take. I'll just become really good at tanking or healing. Um that's all I can see you later. That's so funny. No, but like it it kind of it really plays into the Holland doing this one thing better than anyone else, right? With his stature and all of the recovery protocols and everything that he does, doesn't do too much else, at least from statistically speaking, like yeah, he just really hones his skill. Yeah, like so that I guess the main debate is whether that is kind of a train off trade-off. Like, is the trade-off good or does it will it be a limitation to him moving forward? Right now, in his peak, it's good, but like later down the line. Will it still be just as effective later down? I don't know. That's a good question. I think it also depends on like what teams are outside the World Cup, what teams are looking at him. Like if you got a team like Barcelona, for example, where they have an optimized position in every role, they're not gonna care that he's not running back and like they need, hey, I need someone to score goals. Let's get him in. If you're looking at more of like a, you know, a a kind of like a mid-table team where each player does a little bit of everything, they have their specialty, but they play at like more through the field, he's probably not gonna be in the right spot at one of those teams. But then again, that being said, it's the best teams in the world that are gonna look at someone like him. Yeah, they want someone specifically to get the ball. And if you keep eating salmon and sourdough and eggs, like you're pretty set. Yeah, facts. That's just that's just straight facts. Straight facts and training like that, he's good till he's like 35. He's also a Viking. Oh, 45 then. Yeah, okay. Physical peak and performance, let me ask this first. Most people never reach their peak because they don't train toward one. Damn. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns. Um yeah, I like is it like an agree or disagree kind of thing? Like, I I mean just questions this time. Yeah. Okay, do you are you asking if like uh the average person never reaches that because like maybe they even miss their peak or in whatever it was because they didn't really focus on it? Yeah, I think most people don't train to the capacity to that they could, yeah. I think every like the average person, even just everybody, I think there's a very small percentage of people that actually train to that level. Like where they're like, oh, I'm good at this, and I'm gonna train to the highest possible caliber. Let's see how far I can push. I think some people, like kind of what you said, they're like, oh, maybe I'll keep training this, but I'm also gonna try this because I can be better defensively, or I could be better on the runs, or I could be better here. Whereas someone like him or again, Mbappe or Renaldo or whatever, they just say, Fuck it, we're just gonna dial in on this one thing and become extremely good at this one thing. Yeah. And it seems to me that those are the best athletes in the world. Not just soccer, but the people who are the ones that really niche down to one specific, two specific roles, and they just get extremely good at it. And those are the guys that you know make the most money and they play the best of their sport. Seems to be the like main topic of just life in general. Like, if you get super duper, super duper good at something, it could be like the weirdest thing, but you're like the best at it. Yeah, you're set. I think that's true. Like when it comes to like I don't like that. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, as someone who, you know, you and me are the same in the sense that we like to try new things, and then it's like, well, I now need to be the best at this thing for the next little while. Like, try to be really good at it, but then you spread yourself thin because then you get pretty good at a lot of things, but never incredible at one thing, right? And in I think in business and in life, but in business, like you know, a lot of times people say like this is not financial advice. Yeah, you just find find one thing that you're ex good at and become extremely good at it, yeah, and that's gonna bring you you know wealth and success instead of being trying to constantly try new things or branch out and and whatever. And maybe you're doing that because you're trying to figure out what you're gonna be really good at, but you're right, there's like a peak, like at some point, you know, you're gonna miss that opportunity to have been the quindo. Yeah, the quindo to be the very best at at whatever it is. Um, but yeah, it's it's I get it because it's like I I like to try new things and always be good at multiple things. Um and this guy had it figured out, he's really good at scoring goals. That's it. And I don't know, so I just score goals. I don't know what to want to say. Here's a question for you Norway winning this World Cup, is it possible? Is it possible? Yes, is it like like likely? No. Uh I don't think it's possible this year. Well, it's their first year back in 30 years, so like they'll be back. Colin's gonna be 28, so he's gonna be even more like experienced and trained, and they'll probably have another, you know, a kind of a bit a better roster. I do think that they'll go quite far. I'm looking, I think I think they'll do round of 16 for sure. That'll be cool, maybe in round of eight. There are a lot of people get like saying they're like a dark horse, but also a lot of people said Turkey were a dark horse and Turkey won 0 and 3. Well, actually, they just won't beat the states, exactly, and they beat the states for like a you know game that didn't participation trip. Literally, so they were selling hard, good for them. Yeah, I think Nora will be really entertaining to watch, it'll be a fun story. I think there's probably one or two more rounds that they get through, but I you can't rely only on one player. Like Norway has a good team, but there's way better teams. I I couldn't tell you half the people on that team. You know what I mean? Whereas on France or Spain or you know, Germany or whatever, I can name five or six players, even as someone who doesn't watch club level football regularly. I'm just like a World Cup, Euro Cup kind of guy. Um don't get it twisted. Yeah, you can learn I can know the players just from their notoriety. Whereas Norway, it's like hey, we know Holland and then like who else? And then Norway's entire job is get the ball to Holland. Yeah, you know what I mean? Whereas the other teams, if they don't get the ball to Mbappe or Ronaldo or Messi, they still have the ability to perform. Yeah, they have other people. So I think Norway will do well, but no, they're not World Cup winners, I don't think. Nah. Okay. Do you think that he's gonna be able to break every World Cup goal record before he retires? Maybe we'll leave it at that. Yeah, maybe. Uh and last thing scores goals. Can you engineer a peak, or does it just happen to you? Well, can you engineer it like through programming? Through programming, your lifestyle and everything, or does it just find you? Kind of going back to like that messy. I think uh I think it's both X combinate. Like you still, even if you've got the raw talent, you still need the most efficient training, nutrition, and recovery protocol there is, and then the talent just takes you from you know, if everybody's at the same level, everybody trains the same way. Let's assume they all get to the peak at about the same point, but it's the ones who have the natural God-given talent that are taken to the GOAT status and like the history books, right? Hashtag goat, hashtag goat. Yeah, so in this in that case for Holland at 25, first World Cup, it's one of those moments where like everything just seems to be lining up like perfectly, yeah. Readiness, the experience, all the context, that the proper team that knows how to support. Um, that shit doesn't happen by accident, and uh you know, going back to the years of prep, this all kind of combining and meeting at the right moment. Uh, most people wait for their moment without doing the prep, or they do the prep without ever finding the moment. Crazy. Was not ready for that. Crazy, but yeah, that's but Harlan did both. He did both, he did both just know what you're building toward, build specifically toward it, and uh, I guess gotta be ready for when that door opens and when the timing arrives because it usually only comes once, and you gotta go in for force. Whereas, you know, the last two, three episodes we're talking about the top 0.00001% of humans on the planet, let alone professional athletes, let alone professional soccer players. But there's a lesson to be learned for the average person or an average gym goer from all of this is like always be ready. Yeah, you put in the work, you be consistent, you train, you get better, you get stronger, and then up and if that opportunity, you know, if someone if you're someone who's listening and you're someone who's training for a specific sport, like it can't happen. There was just before we finished, there was a guy, he was like a 28 or 29-year-old like dad with like five kids. You already said this, yeah. Okay, I'm bringing it up again, but like you said this in the first FIFA episode. The guy just the guy just decided to become a soccer player and he did it, bro. Like, but that's the relative. I know I brought it up again. This is like a bunch of topics rehashed from the first episode. I know, but just like, you know what I mean? Like, that's an example of just someone who was just a regular dude. Determination. Determined, he put in the work, maybe didn't have any maybe he was already a little bit talented and he got lucky there, but like it's just that comes down to athletically gifted, but it just came down to like training, consistency, and you know saying what you're gonna do, you're gonna do what you're doing following through. Yeah, I think it's a lot of follow-through and stuff like that. But I think what we got to talk about next, and we'll touch back on this next episode, is the race for the golden boot because we got some big ones. We got Mbappe, we got Holland, Vinicius Jr. is up there. Um, who's the guy from Argentina? He's not really well known. Uh Leonel Messi. Oh yeah, he's the the new guy. The new guy. Uh Ronaldo, we'll see. He's how are we gonna connect that to, or are we just gonna we're not connecting it, we're just gonna be fitness related. This is gonna be like who's gonna win, who's gonna win? Right. I'm sure you can go on and on for about an hour, so that's yeah. I love uh futebol. Fucheball. It's a very nice sport. You see you in the next fucheball pace. Next fucheball.