# World Cup final preview with Ken Early in New York Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york.md Podcast: [America 2026: A World Cup podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210) Published: 2026-07-18T04:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/irish-times-sport/episodes/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/69ab015a6ffdcd8188961ba6/e/6a5acd7c78e0412bc6495b05/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210/episodes/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york Duration seconds: 2888 ## Resource Lionel Messi’s international football career wasn’t always a litany of heroic victories and dressing room anthems. For most of his time in sky blue and white he looked more likely to go down as a busted flush. An iconic club player who left his home too young and therefore severed the connection he could have had to his national team.  The wheel has well and truly turned and he now finds himself just one game away from back to back World Cup titles in what will be his last tournament at international level, if the song is to be believed.  Standing in his way is the ruthless professionalism of Spain and the man he once washed in a bathtub as a baby, Lamine Yamal.  Ken Early is in on the ground in New York and gives us his thoughts going into the game, how likely it is that we get a finale anywhere close to 2022 for drama and why Spain should win but he’s reluctant to go against Argentina. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210/episodes/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/america-2026-a-world-cup-podcast-7773210/world-cup-final-preview-with-ken-early-in-new-york.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.