​Throughout the World Cup, comedian Adam Friedland has been hosting The Beautiful Pod with Chris Ryan for The Ringer and Spotify.With the event wrapping up, he spoke to Front Office Sports about how the show came together, his first interaction with Bill Simmons, his envy of Freddy the German tourist, and if he buys into the conspiracy theories that FIFA gave Argentina a favorable draw.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFront Office Sports: How did this podcast with Spotify and The Ringer come together? Adam Friedland: We were talking to Bill [Simmons] and it was floated that they didn’t have a World Cup podcast. So we kind of came up with a loose idea. I’m not sure if it was theirs or ours. It’s all kind of a blur now. But, it’s been so fun—I got to be honest with you.FOS: What’s a funny interaction you’ve had with Bill that would make sports fans laugh?AF: The first time I met him, at the Netflix comedy brunch, we were still negotiating the deal. And I was thinking, really, for the first time in my life, I need the Celtics to win. I think this is the difference for the show to get done.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo, yeah, they just lost. And so I was like, “Oh, Bill, are you like, are you sitting shiva for the Celtics?” And he’s like [in Simmons’ voice], “Yeah, just still processing things, still talking to my dad. Played Tatum too much. There’s got to be a trade around the horizon.” But I was like, wow, he’s really just like he is in the podcast.FOS: On your podcast a few weeks ago, I remember you were talking with Pablo Torre about how you were jealous about all of the attention and engagement [viral German fan] Freddy was getting. Can you believe he threw it all away? [note: this was recorded before Freddy returned to Twitter/X.]AF: His star, it shone so bright. You know, he’ll be back. I think the deep state has a lot more Freddys where that comes from … it was pretty clear that there was something nefarious going on, but in reality I just wanted to do numbers like Freddy by taking pictures of like a diarrhea sandwich or whatever the fuck he was doing.FOS: Now that you’ve gotten a taste of being in the mix with sports, do you think that you’re going to continue to pursue this avenue after the World Cup, which is over at the end of this week? AF: Yeah, I can’t say anything for sure right now, but definitely.FOS: What other sports are you into besides soccer? AF: I don’t know. I like the NBA. At this point, I kind of watch soccer the most, though, which is surprising.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt’s a lame American thing to be, right? I think in England, I’ve been told that there are English guys that are like that, where the NFL guys are just like thought of as the biggest losers on Earth. But yeah, you don’t want to be like one that’s like, “Actually [Switzerland’s] Breel Embolo was on a yellow card, you know, and he was risking a second…” You don’t wan