Name: John Oliver Explains English Soccer To Dave | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-09-05T22:00:34.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Oliver Explains English Soccer To Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Oliver Explains English Soccer To Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-05. Transcript available.

our first guest stars on the popular hbo series last week tonight with john oliver
it airs sunday nights at 11 p.m here he is the very funny john oliver
good night do me a favor yeah anything thank you by the way thank you for being
here do me a favor
and and if you can uh in bullet points explain to us uh your career here in the
united states
you started in uh london i started in england i've failed right through i've
failed unremittingly
for 10 years failed at what failed at you know success no i i was trying to uh
get a professional
career as a comedian and i just about got one in that i could maintain a very
low level of lifestyle
and then i kind of failed upwards to america so it's the so it's the dream it's
the dream of every
immigrant doing stand-up comedy and yeah i was doing comedy i was doing stand-up
there i see and
then you came to the united states what brought you here the daily show john
stewart brought me here
how did they how did they know about you i'm not entirely sure it's one of
those questions you never
want to really ask because might have been a mix-up it's always the classic imposter
syndrome going if
i if i put too much of a magnifying glass on this thing they're going to
realize there's been a huge
error so yeah i i don't really know what happened but i came here and i've not
really left good for
you yeah done very well and and uh now have your own very successful show on hbo
and look at this
uh-oh how about that ladies and gentlemen on the cover of the rolling stone
yeah on the cover of the
rolling stone yeah it's a it's um that's very nice congratulations on that
buddy it's a it's
amazing for me and it's a sad day for rolling stone wow i feel i feel sorry for
jimi hendrix
in this because he must be looking back oh i guess i'll be less excited about
the memory of when that
happened now you're right there part of american culture chronicled in the
rolling stone i know
nice job i know i love you know and i i like having my photo taken as you can
see
are you um how many shows do you do a year it's on once a week it's once a week
once a week and uh i
guess i think we're doing like 25 shows this year and that must make you raging
mad a number that low
no but do you find that uh a weekly show do you have free time do you do stuff
no i do nothing
you do nothing no i've taken the the opportunity to basically put all my
efforts into this one show
so i'm driving myself slightly crazy with it at the moment but it's been it's
been an amazing
fun and a huge privilege and i'm not fired yet and every day that that is the
case is a huge victory
as far as i'm concerned well you do a great job and people are very fond of you
and the show oh thanks
now this is the typically the time in your visit when i inquire about your wife
who makes all of us
look like ninnies yeah ninnies is literally the nicest possible way you could
say it yeah she was uh
she was in the army in the u.s army in first cav so i wear this for her
whenever i come here and
she was uh yeah she was a combat medic in iraq and uh so she is yeah she's
awesome and uh yeah she has
she's she has married down in an almost ben's inducing manner it was i was half
expecting a
nosebleed during as we're exchanging vows just oh wow yeah yeah it's uh i've
never met the woman i would
like to meet the woman because uh i have nothing but the highest regard for her
and others like her and
and and and here is a woman who dropped into combat zones and takes care of the
wounded nearly lethally
mortally wounded men and women who are serving our country you and i put on
makeup and have a little
a little tv show we do that's what we do we do and uh and uh and we call that
still huh hardest job in
the world huh hardest job in the world exactly uh now we were talking about uh
uh baseball you know
the world series is just around the corner yeah and what do you probably still
like uh soccer i don't
i love it i'm obsessed with it answer this question for me in in england alone
yeah how many soccer
teams of consequence are there of consequence yes every every one is a soccer
team every there are
soccer teams everywhere of consequence it's you know there's probably about
five or six that could
actually win something the rest are trying their hardest and we respect that
right now you have two
two two separate leagues you have people who get bumped out of the number one
no we have four
separate leagues if you fail you get because you want to injure it's a classic
british thing you
want to make failure really hurt so you are relegated and you can we've managed
to get the class system
in sport yeah so the the highest class of achievement in soccer that's right is
what that is the premier
league premier league that's right and then you want to stay in the premier you
want to stay there how many
teams in there i think there's about 19 19 and then if you if you if you uh in
the bottom you are like
down abbey you are relegated downstairs to the servants quarters of sports
right but the the lesser teams
can struggle their way up and make it to the premier league that's the idea of
course we all know how
that works and and has has it happened that the premier league lineup changes
year to year or no it
doesn't change that much anymore because we don't have any wage cap in in uh
british sport exactly so
money talks and it's bigger the team the bigger the paycheck that's right so
man united yeah manchester
city chelsea yeah yeah so those guys are the premier league now who who would
be in the lesser league
what do we call the lesser league well we call them peasants basically the peasant
league we don't
call them no it goes premier league championship first division second division
and then uh the
conference and the conference is basically amateur so you're doing that just
because you love the game
so those guys in the conference are not eligible to work their way up they're
eligible to do it it
just doesn't happen sure but they might like me have physical restraints that
prevent them from doing
that all i wanted all i wanted was to be a professional football player this is
a distant plan b yeah
plan b now now let me i appreciate your patience on this topic oh i'm fine
there's nothing i like talking
about more um so what does a team in in the lesser division two is that what
you said it was yeah
before the conference players yeah what does that team have to do to replace a
premier league team
well they might need an extremely rich uh maybe oil baron to come in and help
them otherwise they'll
need to improve their ground there are many steps in the way is it all
determined on one loss is it
percentage is it goal scored no it's no it's cumulative over the season you get
you get three
points for a win one point for a draw and shame for a loss and so that if you
get the most points
at the end of the season then you can move up a class all right and the points
are equal for every
level yeah they're equivalent yeah so so we just keep track of all of these
cumulative points that's
right and if manchester united scores lesser points than the uh uh you know
downton abbey team that's
right they're replaced by downton abbey then downton abbey would be eligible to
come up yeah but that
will never happen because manchester united have yankee money right but but
theoretically yes manchester
united with with all of their money what what if the theoretically if we lived
in a world where life
was fair yes and that there were consequences uh to sports failure then yes
they would they they could
plummet they could plummet into becoming an amateur team but that's unlikely
has that ever happened to
a premier league sure it happened in not in the premier league no it's not no
because you couldn't you
can't there's too much money in it now but it did happen in the 20s yeah but
but so so what's the point
now of uh of getting your hopes up that of working your way to the premier
league this is this is you
are literally embodying why soccer will never take off in the united states
because you can talk about
it as long as you want you eventually get to a point of an american going but
what so what's the
point yeah what's the point in all of this but so it would be like in the
united states if if the
mets who have become the second team over decades and decades and decades they've
become the second
team in new york city it's like they could work their way down to triple a like
next year the
rights will be playing they could do that triple a they literally they could
have to take part-time
work as hot dog salesman and then if things again don't go that way their way
in triple a they go down
to double a that's right you can keep and then finally they might be down to
single a and then
instructional league that's right that's right and then playing against six-year-olds
yeah so this
i mean things really are on the line but you say money takes care of the whole
mess yeah money
money takes care of everything capitalism will always work okay let's take a
look at the clip
huh what a clip of what oh i'm not in any we don't have a clip i've got nothing
i've got nothing
don't worry about it i can see a clip of your wife
the show john oliver last week tonight look at there buddy don't take it from
me show the clip
rolling stone everybody we'll be right back with maggie q