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Paul Carr joins us, ladies gentlemen, from True Media Networks.

You can follow them on Twitter at Paul Carr, C-A-R-R.

There are 12, 12, count them 12 groups in the world cup of 2026 and we really before we talk about

anything else Paul because we Paul has a we're going to do the first six of these groups today

ABC D E and F we're going to do the next six on Friday before we get to each of your picks in groups A through F, Paul, let us discuss, first of all, good morning to you, sir. How are you? Hello, I'm well. Good morning. Paul quipped off air. He goes, why did you read all those halftime scores from those of basketball games? Yeah. In 1999, 80 to 67, 78 to 77. Unbelievable.

Give us a sense of the format, which is just bananas this year,

where we're not mistaken, eight of 12 third place teams advance?

Correct. Yeah, this is a bad format from a competitive standpoint.

48 teams, 12 groups of four, top two in each group

advance, plus eight of 12 third place teams. So we're playing, now I got a math, 72 group

games to eliminate a third of the field, 72 group games to give it a 16 teams. It's not

great. And those third place teams advance, you're comparing them to each other. So if you play in group A, you don't know what you have to do to be one of the best third place teams. You have a general sense. But if you're in group K, you're playing the last day, you know exactly what you have to do. So that's unfair just from a competitive standpoint.

And there's a decent chance we see a team or two settle for a draw in one of those later groups because they know that's all they have to do to get through.

That is, that is an even extra layer that I hadn't thought of.

That makes it just, it's really bad.

And it makes for, as we go go through these now let's start with

group a it's so you have i guess this the translation of this is do you have any like team to

advance bets or you steered clear of all those i think i have one i think i gave out panama yeah

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