Matchday Live: The latest from the World Cup, soccer in the city, and a taste of the tournament.

All right, welcome on into Match Day Live. We just had an ice cream party, so I'm hoping everyone can switch gears and get into soccer because we have so much to talk about this morning. A big match as we are in the semis. France and Spain, two absolute powerhouses, so I'm excited to see what's going to happen with this, but I wanted to show you a couple of things first. Actually, let's go ahead and bring on Nate for this because I think he'll enjoy it too. Welcome on in, Nate Wengler. I wanted to start with some of these teams who are getting welcomed back home. We have some video right now from Norway fans welcoming the team back home. Erling Haaland, I don't have video of it, but he brought home something from Texas. It was this raccoon thing, but once again endearing himself to the Americans. It's been fun. I don't know if you've been seeing anything of some of these teams getting welcomed home. Yeah, he brought home a cowboy hat and that's one of his more proud possessions now, so you've seen him wearing that around, which for whatever reason, it looks like it fits when he has the cowboy boots and the hat going on, but it's ironic that you're saying that, Kelly, because I'm actually looking at it right now. He got two squirrel statues and a raccoon statue, and with those statues, American branded beers that they're holding on to. Crushed empty American branded beers. So in one way or another, Erling Haaland's coming back. Maybe give him another decade. Maybe he'll join the MLS or something, but he clearly got a lot out of his experience, but a proud country nonetheless for a country that hasn't been there since 1998. They made everyone proud in so many different ways. Now, did they finish the way they wanted to? No, but they'll be back, rest assured. And I think we've talked about how Mbappe was the face of the other World Cup. Now, I do think Haaland might end up being, I mean, I don't know if it's because I engaged with one meme about him and his hair or in Viking culture there, and now it's all I'm seeing because algorithms, or are Americans, are fans just that taken with him now? They are infatuated. We love superstars. That's what makes America great, at least to the sporting scene, is we love bona fide superstars. That's what dominates the conversation every single day. That's why when you hear people go, well, why do they talk about LeBron every single day? Well, because LeBron's a superstar, and we love that here in the United States. That was, again, I said this on the sports office, and I'll say it now because I think it's important, introducing the United States to new superstars that maybe we knew a little bit about, but we didn't know about them to this extent. That, in so many ways, will continue to grow the game, not because they are American or they're playing for the U.S. men's national team, and of course, we want to see those players succeed, but when you introduce the world to these superstars and you find that they're a lot more relatable than maybe what you give them credit simply because they play over there, that is going to do a lot to inspire it, and specifically the young generation to continue to consume this sport. So yes, it's great for the picture all around. I just got a little bit more for you. We've also got fans celebrating in Egypt as those players come home, and also I saw Mo Salah. This might be it for him. I'm not sure about that one, but that would make me very upset, but also a nice welcome home, which I think is so special to see. You didn't win, but here, we're still proud of your run. Absolutely, and for Egypt, they haven't done anything like this before, and so again, it was the same conversation we had about any other team. All you want to see, there have only been eight nations in the history of the World Cup that have ever won a World Cup, so for some of these countries going into it, the expectation isn't necessarily to win. It's let's put on a performance something the likes we've never seen in our country's history, and to Mo Salah's credit and to Egypt's credit, that's exactly what they did, and they were that close, that close to beating the reigning World Cup champions and moving one step closer. This is a sign of progress. It's a mark of growing up and continuing to get better. All of those things is very inspiring for Egypt, and it probably will be the last go-around for Mo Salah. The difficult part is, and I had the same feeling with the Olympics, and I was like, are we ever going to see Steph and KD in a USA jersey again? You don't know. He is 34, but hopefully, it's not. Hopefully, it's not. I saw Virgil van Dijk on the list as well, my favorite player, so that would stink, but all right, we got to get right into it. Spain and France today, three o'clock right here on Fox 2. This is a huge matchup where I, you know, I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen for the folks at home. Spain won their last title in 2010. France won 1998 and 2018. What should we be watching for in this matchup? One thing to watch for on the French side is the individual brilliance of Dembele and Mbappe. Can Olise set them up? Can this midfield, can they make runs in behind the back line of Spain? Because the only time we've ever seen a level of vulnerability defensively for the Spanish team was in their last matchup against Belgium, but that's it and that's all. Again, outside of that, they have been the best defensive team in the world and they've proven that time and time again, so aggressive early runs from the French to try and get Spain on their back foot because if you can put them in a position where they're down 1-0, that's a completely different ball game, especially against the French, than what you're used to dealing with. On the other side for Spain, again, they are deep in all of the different positions, but can they stay on schedule despite the pressure they're going to face from a very deep midfield and a deep striking core with this French team? It's easier to play that possession-based European beautiful ball when you're playing against a side that doesn't necessarily match up against you stride for stride. France can and France has and right now they're flirting with the opportunity of going back to yet another World Cup final, but in terms of the superstars, again, we introduced this conversation of the superstars, look out for Mbappe, look out for Dembele, you know what? While we're at it, look out for Laminien Ball because this could be a legacy moment for the 18-year-old. Well, 19 as of Monday, so still just so young. I mean, it's just crazy, right? So I've seen a lot of pundits talking about, well, we haven't seen the explosiveness yet from him. Could he be unlocked? However, in their last two meetups, Spain has taken France out. Is that in their head a little bit as they enter this matchup? And I was just about to say that. I mean, you go back two years and we've already seen them play. So from a matchup perspective, yes, it is a bit concerning for the French and I can certainly see that. And again, it's because of the way they play and even look at that last matchup. There are a lot of lessons to be taken away from the way they've been able to dictate tempo and control terms in those matches against France. Not many countries in the world that have the capability of doing that, but it only takes one match for a superstar like Lamine Yamal to see the floodgates open. And this could be one of those, if they can get him going early, it really could be that case. By the way, if we're talking about entertainment value, just to kind of go off the beaten path for a moment here, Lamine Yamal's little brother is about as good as it gets in terms of the entertainment in this World Cup. That guy, I love that kid. He's been awesome. Oh, you're right. They're totally cracking me up. His reactions are so funny and great points. You know, we'll be keyed in on that one. If you had to guess, who takes the win today? I'm going to go with France. I'm going to go probably a 2-1 finish, I'm guessing, in the depth. Now, I know there's so much, they could score a lot more than that. I just think Spain is so, again, defensively stout that it's going to take a lot, but I think both Dembele and Mbappe get involved in the scoring and I think 2-1 in the depth. It's going to go down to the wire. I think both matchups will, but that's the way I'm kind of leaning on this one right now. I'm completely agreeing with you there. I think France's depth right there and just goal scoring right there. I mean, you got a number of guys who can take a shot and Spain has only conceded one goal, but I don't think that's going to matter today. All right. All right. I'm putting it on the books. So, our only match of the day, which is now, it's still getting hard to get used to that. We don't have 400 to go over, but it does give us time for my favorite segment, World Cup Nuggets with Nate. What do you got for us today? Well, Callie, the main reason why soccer being more affordable matters in the United States has to do with participation. Yes, I do think athletics and participating in athletics for young kids does more to teach the way of life than necessarily other things. You know, you learn how to work on a team. You learn how to work around other people and physically push yourself, but from a national and competing on a national team perspective, the reason why it matters so much is because oftentimes the best players available and the storyline that we always love as sports fans oftentimes exists in places that you would least expect them to be, you know, the rags to riches stories. And there's one player in this semi-final matchup, the set of two games that I'm reminded of that comes from a background that in other worlds or maybe in other countries would not have even allowed him the opportunity to start this journey to world stardom. Because those players that play in those communities, they play for a different reason than just, I enjoy the sport. They play for survival. That's why they get up and play the game that they do, so that they can get their family out of where they are. The one player that I'm reminded of in this same vein that got an opportunity early and has taken advantage of that just being 19 years old now is Luminia Mall. His father, who was an immigrant from Mexico, his mother, who was also an immigrant, were living in a very rough neighborhood in Spain, the Rocafonda neighborhood. Now, that is north of Barcelona, and this is an area that, again, it is not very nice in terms of it is high crime, it is very poverty-ridden, not a middle-class area of the country at all. And his parents were, essentially, his mom worked at a restaurant, and his dad just kind of... Oh, we might be losing him a little bit. Do you mind pulling? Let's see if we can pull up a different shot and maybe that'll help us there. Let's see if we can get him back real quick. Oh, man. Can you believe this? In a month and a half of talking to Nate every day, that is the first time we've had a bit of a connection issue. So, hopefully, we can get the second half of that tomorrow, and we'll check back in with him a little bit later. So, we do have some important stuff to talk about coming up. Detroit City FC, completely just a big topic right now, and all they're doing for youth development of soccer, including Occupy the Summer. That might sound familiar. We're going to talk about it on the other side of the break. We'll see you then. All right. Welcome on in. This is Match Day Live, Fox 2's very own World Cup show. So, a lot of the conversation recently has been about the development of soccer in America, especially in youth sports, and this conversation about if it needs to be more accessible and more affordable. Well, there's so many Detroit-specific groups that are working to get this fixed, and one of them is Detroit City FC, and they have partnered with the city of Detroit for Occupy the Summer. Now, you might have heard of this. It involves giving kids, teens, things to do throughout the later hours of the night. So, you know, we've heard of team takeovers and things like that to kind of give them something to do and something constructive, like learning how to play soccer. So, without further ado, let's bring on Dwayne Daniels and this is Maxwell, both working on this project. So, let's start with you, Maxwell. Can you tell us a little bit about this program with Occupy the Streets in Detroit and how that came to be with Detroit City FC? Yeah, most definitely. Really, the initiative, well, first off, introducing myself, I'm Maxwell Murray. I'm the manager of our youth and community programs at Detroit City Football Club. Dwayne is my right hand, a close friend of mine, a brother now at this point in time, but it's really an initiative that's been led by him in terms of his experiences growing up here in the city, as you mentioned, kind of the current moment and understanding the need for youth, specifically teens, to have things that engage them in months outside of the summer. And Dwayne, you know, being a part of the club, being a part of our youth and community team, he set forth and put in a lot of hard work to ensure that this initiative of Midnight Street Soccer could take place, especially during the time of the World Cup, to just kind of open up the eyes of the Detroit public and the Detroit community to see what soccer can look like in all its facets. And Dwayne, you have shown me soccer-specific moves and so far, some of these kids who show up to this event and the dates, I'll get the dates for you, but coming up here soon, do some of them not even know how to play soccer? Have you found that so far since you've already had one of these events so far? Yeah, I would say that some of them, very few of them, rarely don't know how to play soccer. As I mentioned in my rollout video when we announced Occupy the Summit, that court in southwest Detroit, right throughout West Garner, is a, if you will, a staple of football in that community. It's like a mecca of football. So a lot of those kids, a lot of those people in that community, they already know how to play soccer. They're even better than myself from all ages, from five to twelve. They're brilliant, most of them. And some of the youth in the city of Detroit, I've been in soccer, I've been in this world as Maxwell Contestant, I've been in this world of football for about, going on two and a half years now. Some of these youth in our city are some of the most incredible footballers that I've ever seen in my life, and I'm their number one fan. So very rarely will I see someone who doesn't know how to use a football. It's more so that they're like way better with a football than I could ever dream of being. I just absolutely love that, Dwayne. It makes me so happy to hear. This one's for you, Maxwell. Why do you think that it's important to work with the city and give teens, I guess, organized events to go to to play, especially maybe during the night hours, evening, I should say? Yeah, I mean, for me, the reason why I personally believe in street soccer or street football as a language to connect people is because that's the way the game is played, mostly across the entirety of the globe. We think about this current moment right now with the World Cup, and so many eyes are seeing on these huge stadiums and this idea of grass being needed. But in reality, if you go to the countries where these countries are competing, or if you go to these actual places, you'll find kids of all these various cultures speaking different languages, but they all play the same game in the nooks and crannies of their communities that exist. So I think, you know, in terms of us trying to utilize the city support and all those resources that they can provide to us, it's just really focused on how can we try to create a space for that language to also exist for Detroit youth. As mentioned, I think, you know, the main aspect of it, you know, obviously, you know, we spoke of the teen takeovers and all these other things before, but, you know, our role here at DCFC in terms of focusing on youth and community programs, we've met, as Duane mentioned, so many tremendous kids who look like the rainbow of what Detroit is. And I think that that's really the underlying theme is that football is a sport for all. It's a sport that connects people from all over the world. And you just have to see yourself in it to know that you can exist in that space as well. So that's the main goal is to offer a space for people to see themselves reflected. And I think Detroit City FC especially has done such a good job of this. And Duane, can you give us a bit more information about the, I have them pulled up, but about Occupy the Summer, the late night street soccer, and where folks can find some more information about the dates for that and times? Yeah, absolutely. So the late night street soccer takes place in southwest Detroit, right off of West Burner, at Clark Park. The first one was back in June, I want to say June 25th. And our next one is coming up this month, July 23rd, from 7pm to 11pm. I want to invite the entire city if you love footy, catch us out there this month, July 23rd, 7pm to 11pm. I want to thank our beloved Madam Mayor Sheffield for giving us the opportunity to put this beautiful thing of ours on showcase for the entire city. And then our grand finale will be in August on August 13th, where I'm hoping to pop off and activate the entire space of Clark Park and have more than one street soccer court being activated simultaneously. My right hand Maxwell Murray does this every Sunday through his league, the Urban Football League. So you can catch us out there on Jefferson Holcomb every Sunday for Sunday service from 11 to 1pm as well. So it doesn't just end here with Occupy the Summer. We have a I want to say a right there has social status that Maxwell has built out with a great community. So yeah, the dates are posted on my Instagram on Detroit City FC's Instagram and then you can find everything else for the Summer Fridays and the Midnight Basketball as well on occupythesummer.com and seardetroit.gov as well. And Maxwell, just one more for you. As someone who continues to do this, you do this every week. What do you hope with the World Cup spotlight on everything? Do you hope people see everything going on here and say, oh, I didn't realize we were doing this. This is amazing. Let's get involved. Do you hope things start to expand more and more now that the focus is here? Yeah, no, I mean, so I'm a Detroit native somewhere, you know, same as Dwayne. The beautiful thing about our friendship is football actually brought us back together. We were born blocks away from each other, played actually American football. And then years later, we end up working together in the World's Game, which I think is a testament to what the game can provide even outside of a sporting experience itself. And I think that's, again, more so the message that I hope specifically people from the United States can take away from this moment, like the World Cup. As Dwayne mentioned, I have my own organization that I started up when I was living in Chicago called the Urban Football League, and we utilize the sport as a tool for mutual aid, feeding the community, showing, again, young black kids that, you know, you can reimagine a corner on the east side of Detroit for the purpose of the beautiful game. When we play out there, I don't bring goals. We utilize traffic cones as goals to, again, try to exhibit or illustrate, again, the reimagination process that has to take place in order to kind of understand how the language of football is much bigger than just grass and corner flags and bit nets. And, again, as you were kind of talking about the pay-to-play system, you can create this world for yourself. So that is really the main goal of what I do every Sunday. Again, it's called Sunday Service because it's through this idea of bringing people together through the sport, bringing community together, and hopefully using the sport to then serve that same community. We buy fruits, we buy vegetables, we feed the community. It's an intergenerational experience. So people my age, Dwayne's age, kids coming out to play with adults, moms and dads sitting on the side and support, people who are houseless coming by and stopping by to get food and water. And I think that's, again, the message that I want people to take away from this moment at the World Cup, which is that football is much more than just a sport. It's an actual language to connect you to people around the world. So. Gentlemen, you guys are doing fantastic work for Detroit City FC. Thank you so much for joining the show. We appreciate you a ton. Thank you. We appreciate you as well. All right. We'll check in a little bit later. So, again, you are watching Match Day Live, Fox News' very own World Cup show. And, as you know, we talk about food and France is playing today. So I've got a little treat coming up for you. We'll see you after the break. And welcome back to Match Day Live. This is Fox News' World Cup show. And I hope you've enjoyed it these last couple of weeks. We've done so many incredible things. One of the major things we do is we talk about food. That was part of it. We are celebrating different foods from different countries competing in the World Cup. So without further ado, let's take a look. I went to Gâteau Patisserie. So if you are French, you can make fun of my pronunciations. Just rip me because they are bad. But this was a gorgeous bakery over in Dearborn. And so we decided to try some of the macarons, which I realized I've been saying wrong all along. And I learned a lot about the history of this because while we know it as a French specific type of food, specific type of dessert, it actually came from Italy, where Catherine de' Medici married Henry II of France. So here's some fun facts for you. It's made with almond flour, typically in the 19th century. That's when Paris took it over and we're redoing this. We are putting in buttercream jam in the middle. So you can see this space in Dearborn is just so beautiful. And I think they give such great attention to Parisian foods, bakers. You can get croissants. You can get anything you want here. So I definitely advise checking it out. That's probably the first macaron I've had, oh, maybe in 10 years. So I'm definitely in on this. Go check it out. Again, that is Gâteau Patisserie. And again, make fun of my pronunciations. They're so bad. But again, here on Match Day Live, we have learned so much about different cultures. Go check it out over in Dearborn. And with that, that's the show. We've got a huge match coming up in just in half an hour. France, Spain, huge one. We'll see you tomorrow to see how it all went. Thanks for watching.