Adam Friedland will gladly admit that he doesn’t quite have the résumé of your typical sports commentator. Or, as he puts it, “I have absolutely no qualifications whatsoever.” But as fans of the host of The Adam Friedland Show know, the comedian is a longtime sports fan, and well-versed in the ancient art of cracking jokes while watching the game.

So after announcing last month that he was bringing his podcast to Spotify, Adam also teamed up with The Ringer on a new podcast miniseries, The Adam Friedland Show Presents: The Beautiful Pod, covering an enormous summer of soccer, including the world’s biggest tournament. 

He’s meeting a clear need: soccer podcast listening in the U.S. is up nearly 400% since the tournament kicked off in June. And while The Adam Friedland Show has regularly appeared on Spotify’s U.S. Comedy podcast chart throughout 2026, it climbed as high as No. 14 on that ranking this summer.

Ahead of the tournament semifinals, For the Record caught up with Adam to talk about his unexpected second career as a sports analyst, the perils of instant replay, and the magic of Lionel Messi.

People who know you know that you’re a sports fan, but hosting a soccer podcast may not have been the most obvious thing to folks who haven’t followed your career.

I’ve always been interested in doing something like this. Like, what do you do when you watch sports? You make jokes. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me. This is kind of a facsimile of what I’ve been doing my whole life.

So how have you found being a sports pundit?

Great. I mean, I’m the only one who has the right opinions, obviously.

You’ve been doing this for about a month now. Do you have more, less, or the same amount of respect for, like, sports talking heads?

I’ve always had the most respect for them, out of anyone in the media. So now that I’ve been in their ranks, I have even more. How daft could I be to think I could be Colin Cowherd? To think I could just waltz in there and be Stephen A. Smith. It’s been an utter failure and a disaster. It’s a lesson in humility, mostly.  

What do you learn from getting into the ring with somebody like [sports talk host] Nick Wright? That guy’s a machine.

Nah, it’s not the ring. For him, it’s serious. For me, it’s like I’m cosplaying, so it’s funny. And I think that’s been my advantage in doing the talk show forever. When I talk to people about themselves, their interests, et cetera, for them, they’re defining something that’s incredibly real. For me, I’m approaching things as an outsider. I think I have an inherent advantage seeing things from another perspective.

Has the fact that you’re doing the podcast changed how you’re watching the games at all?

Well, now I have an excuse—now my fiancée can’t tell me that I can’t watch eight hours a day of sports.

Practically, how are you watching? Are you out at a bar with friends? Are you at home? Do you need to lock in to go pundit mode?

No, no, it’s not like that. It’s not that serious. I mean, I’m a fraud. I don’t know if you’ve put that together yet, but I have absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. I’m kind of just lying my way into jobs. It’s like when you apply for a job and then you just figure it out on YouTube. Like, “Yeah, of course I know how to code.”

Can I get your thoughts on the use of instant replay in soccer—and, really, anywhere else?

Americans maybe need to stop watching soccer. The rules are being applied! We’re seeing Messi have perhaps his historic best individual run, and people are trying to make it into some sort of James Bond conspiracy theory. It’s like, No, no, just enjoy the game. Yeah, if someone’s offside, it shouldn’t be a goal. And obviously they should make it faster. But I’ve seen a lot of casuals expressing contempt and outrage for this, and I’m like, do you watch the NFL? It’s the same thing!

Similarly, where are we on the hydration break as a concept?

Oh, I mean, it’s a scam. They’ve done it to sell some ads. But one of the cool things about it is—yeah, you obviously need a hydration break if you’re playing in Miami in July, but it’s also given the smaller teams a little bit of an edge, especially in the earlier rounds. Instead of surviving 45 minutes in hell, you have to survive about 20 minutes, and then you can regroup. 

They certainly don’t need it if they’re playing indoors at 72 degrees. But I’ve accepted it. What matters is that it’s been fun and the games have been good, and the stars have been playing really well. We have four really good teams in the semifinals. I’m having a blast.

We do have these four world-beating teams left in the semis. Is that satisfying to you, or do you wish there was like a little bit more underdog energy left in the tournament?

No, it’s very satisfying to me. You want to see the best players! Like, I’m sorry—you want to see the best teams. You’re still getting drama. The Cape Verde match [against Argentina], like, was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

This has really been a superstar’s tournament. Who has captured that for you?

Well, I’ve watched Messi for, like—it’s been 22 years now. And it’s pretty cool. This is the culmination of his story, and he’s still so good. It’s awesome. 

Seeing how deliberate he is—the way he spends so much of the match walking around—is incredible. In your life and career, what will be your equivalent of Messi just sort of strolling around?

My career is pretty much that, with the exception of the 15 seconds of chaos that he causes and then the ball being in the back of the net. I’ve got the strolling part down to an art, I would say.

Stream The Adam Friedland Show on Spotify, and catch new episodes of The Beautiful Pod throughout the tournament.