Hang Up and Listen - The Lionel Messi-Barcelona Breakup
Hang Up and Listen
Joel Meyer
4.6 • 986 Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2021
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin talk about the end of the Tokyo Olympics. They also discuss NFL players who’ve refused to get the COVID vaccine, and what the league should do about it. Finally, author Simon Kuper explains the tearful end of Lionel Messi’s brilliant career at F.C. Barcelona.
Olympics (3:31): The troubled 2020 Olympics could reset how fans view athletes and the games.
NFL (22:32): Kirk Cousins would rather surround himself with Plexiglas than get vaccinated.
Lionel Messi (42:12): Why did it have to end this way? And what’s next for Messi and his longtime club?
Afterball (57:53): Joel on the tiny countries that bagged Olympics hardware for the first time.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Stefan Fatsis and this is Slate's sports podcast, hang up and listen for the week of August 9th, 2021. |
| 0:11.8 | On this week's show, we'll wrap up our coverage of the Tokyo Olympics, which will be remembered for a pandemic, brutal heat, gigantic financial losses, and some sports, too. |
| 0:22.9 | We'll also talk about how the NFL is dealing with coronavirus vaccine holdouts like Buffalo |
| 0:28.2 | Bill's epidemiologist Cole Beasley and Minnesota Vikings public health expert Kirk Cousins. |
| 0:34.6 | Finally, we'll be joined by Simon Cooper, the author of the new book, The Barcelona |
| 0:38.9 | Complex, to discuss the tearful end of Leonel Messi's story career at the Spanish Football Club. |
| 0:46.6 | I'm the author of the book's word freak, a few seconds of panic, and wild and outside. I'm in |
| 0:51.7 | Washington, D.C., and so is Josh Levine. He is Slate's national editor, |
| 0:56.3 | the author of The Queen, the host of Slow Burn Season 4, and also of the new podcast series |
| 1:02.2 | one year about various goings on in the one year of 1977. Subscribe now. It's great. Hi, Josh. |
| 1:10.7 | Thank you for that lovely introduction, Stefan. Although I am |
| 1:14.5 | a little jealous of Cole Beasley that he gets to be a public health expert, and I don't. |
| 1:18.2 | Now, Cole Beasley is an epidemiologist, Josh. Kirk Cousins is a public health expert. Maybe if I |
| 1:23.6 | paid more attention than I would be a public health expert, too. Yeah, it's possible, possible. |
| 1:28.5 | In Palo Alto, California, please welcome Slate staff writer Joel Anderson, the host of Slow Burns |
| 1:34.1 | season three and the upcoming season six, which he's writing now. |
| 1:38.4 | How's it going? |
| 1:40.7 | Terribly, but eventually it'll be over someday, and that's what I look forward to every day. |
| 1:46.5 | I mean, I guess it'd be better if I were a public health expert. Actually, though, I would like to say, |
| 1:51.9 | I'm probably more of a public health scold than anything else. That we can put that in your title |
| 1:56.7 | right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm one of the foremost scolds in American society today. |
| 2:03.1 | Also, real quick, and I know this is not, you know, not the neat way for transition, but I just |
... |
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