A set pieces to soccer what water is to life. You need it to survive, but it can kill you.

So far, this has been the World Cup of set pieces.

So yes, set pieces are a big deal, and teams ignore them at their own peril.

Hello Sunshine. Welcome. The State of the Union podcast where we look at the beautiful game through the lens of red, white, and blue, colored glasses.

This is an abbreviated version of the State of the Union coming to you once again from Russia.

Greetings from Moscow.

A good friend David Mossy, can you hear me?

Are you there?

I can hear you.

I am here. I'm doing well you know I was ready to come on today and talk about how the

weather had really trended in the right direction the last few days but then we had a bit of

a setback yesterday Alexi as, as you know, all too well.

Rain.

Rain in Moscow and are set at Red Square, the men and women that work to set it up each and every day or running around going

crazy because not only was it rain, but it was this incredible wind. And it was very quick and followed by sunshine.

So it was all over the map,

but I guess that's kind of

par for the course when it comes to this World Cup Massey. We are all over the place in terms of what we were seeing.

This World Cup so far has something for everybody on and off the field. All the things that we are seeing.

There are stories coming out each and every moment.

We are seeing great goals.

We are seeing controversy.

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