Sunday is the highly-anticipated finals of the FIFA World Cup between Spain and the defending World Cup champions, Argentina. Ahead of the big game, The Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden (Victor Newman) sat down on the Rich Eisen Show for a guest appearance on Friday, July 17.

Braeden, who has played competitive soccer, weighed-in on who he thinks will be taking home the FIFA World Cup when all is said and done. Will it be Spain with their young star Lamine Yamal, or Argentina with the GOAT, Lionel Messi, who at 39, this will mark his final game in World Cup competition.

Earlier this week, Braeden received the news he received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor at the upcoming 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards. Eric had previously won once in the category back in 1998.

Photo: FIFA

Here’s what the Y&R icon shared below as his prediction for the Word Cup Finals, what he thought of the U.S. Men’s Soccer team’s loss to Belgium after the controversy surrounding the red card given to U.S. star Folarin Balogun where instead of Balogun sitting out the Belgium game, he was reinstated seemingly after United States President, Donald Trump asked FIFA president Gianni Infantino to look into the referee’s call.

FIFA WORLD CUP FINALS PREDICTION

Braeden made his bold prediction in the hotly-contested finals: “I respect both teams enormously, and part of me wishes that Messi will win it one more time, because it’s the last time we see him in a World Cup. On the other hand, Spain is a fantastic team. Spain is the most disciplined team I’ve seen play. The point is that Spain is a team. They attack as a team. They defend as a team. When one of their players lose the ball, three or four, come right away. I think Spain will win. But with Messi, you don’t know.”

Clarifying the threat Lionel Messi can be to the opposing team, Braeden shared how England lost in the semi-finals to Argentina: “You don’t leave a guy like Messi alone ever. When I coached and played, you always made sure that the best player on the other team, you covered him with one of your worst players, but who was well-conditioned. You stay with him for the entire 90 minutes or 115 minutes or whatever. But you stay with him and nothing but that. It drives those players nuts. The brilliant players, even Messi, doesn’t like it at all. You stay with him. Wherever he goes, stay with him. They didn’t do that.  I must say for the first time, I kind of felt for the Brits and I’m from Germany. We have a known, not very warm feelings for each other. But, in this case, I felt for them.”

Courtesy/Disney

ERIC BRAEDEN’S SOCCER PLAYING PAST

Eisen pulled out a photo of Braeden with the soccer championship, where Eric explained, “I’ve been here in the United States for over 60 years and have been involved in soccer, and won the U.S. National Soccer Championship (the National Challenge Cup Open) in 1973. I played for a team called the Maccabees and I was the token German on a Jewish team. I was a right fullback. ”

Sadly, Eric explained that he no longer had the soccer trophy in his possession, due to the January 2025 Pacific Palisades fire. Braeden explained, “I only have it in the picture, everything burned down in the Palisades Fire when I lost home.”

Photo: USMST

U.S. SOCCER TEAM AND FOLARIN BALOGUN CONTROVERSIAL RED CARD

Eric gave his thoughts on how well the United States Men’s National Soccer team played in the FIFA World Cup tournament until the Folorin Balogun red card controversy took hold and they eventually faced Belgium in the knockout round and lost and were out of the competition.

“I thought they were very good this year. I thought they had a chance. And I personally will tell you, as a player, they’re all very bright. They knew when that call came in from a certain gentleman to another gentleman to reverse the red card for Folarin Balogun. The players knew had they won that game, they would have forever been attached to the moniker of having rigged the game. The leader of the country rigged the game for them.  I swear to you, they may not have said anything, but that influenced them very negatively.”

Braeden continued that the referee’s call on Balogun was wrong in the first place. “It would have been a different result, by the way, that was not a red card. Under no circumstances was that a red card,” insisted the Y&R star to Rich Eisen.

“Any player knows that immediately. There was no intentionality. It happened. But then the call (referring to President Trump) afterwards, I mean, obviously that smacks of interference on the highest level. Every player knows that. So you go into the game and say, ‘Oh, man, why am I doing this?’ As far as I’m concerned that is the reason that the American team lost as they lost.”

HOW TO WATCH THE FIFA WORLD CUP FINALS

The FIFA World Cup Finals air Sunday, July 19 on FOX beginning at 3pm ET/noon PT. EGOT winner and daytime talk show host, Jennifer Hudson is set to sing the U.S. National Anthem, with Justin Bieber, Madonna, Sharika and BTS performing at the halftime show. The finals will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

You can tune-in to the Emmy-nominated Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from Noon to 3PM ET on Disney+, ESPN+, ESPN Radio, and streaming on SiriusXM channel 80.

So, do you agree with Eric Braeden’s prediction? Will Spain win the FIFA World Cup, or will Argentina repeat as the champions? Make your picks and let us know via the comment section below. For the full enlightening conversation with Eric on the Rich Eisen Show, you can check it out his segment in full below.

There was not a dry eye in the house when in June of 2025, Paul Narita (Christopher Sean) gets up to eulogize his father, John Black (Drake Hogestyn), after the iconic character passed away and his funeral brought Salem together for one last goodbye.

In real life, Drake Hogestyn had passed away of pancreatic cancer at the age of 70 back on September 28, 2024. When DAYS taped the funeral episode, Drake was still alive and had given his blessing to the series longtime executive producer, Ken Corday, that it was OK with him to kill off his character and to have a memorial. Sadly, shortly after the cast filmed the scenes, Drake died leaving a lasting legacy on DAYS that will never be matched.

Earlier this week on Tuesday, Christopher Sean received the bittersweet news that he had received a Daytime Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Guest Performer category for the upcoming 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards for his performances. Christopher appeared shortly after the news of his nomination on the Michael Fairman Channel’s Daytime Emmy Nominations Special 2026 were he shared his emotional reaction. Here’s part of what he expressed below.

Photo: JPI

WHAT DID CHRISTOPHER SEAN SUBMIT?

“I submitted Paul’s lowest moments in his life, and Paul’s highest moments, meaning the eulogy with John Black, his father, and for my hero, Drake Hogestyn, and Paul getting married to Andrew (Colton Little). So it was two very opposite ends of his life. But what a great culmination of 12 years of being on Days of Our Lives it was.”

ALWAYS BEING GRATEFUL TO DRAKE HOGESTYN

“Even talking about it now, I have so much love for Drake. I’ve got him here on my wall and wake up every day and I try to make him proud. It’s hard to talk about it, but I feel that my life is on the path that I am because of him, because of him being my role model, because of him loving and guiding me, because of everything that he is taught me on and off the set.”

Photo: JPI

THE EARLY STRUGGLES WITH PAUL’S EULOGY AND HEARTFELT ADDITIONS TO THE DIALOG

“I had been texting back and forth with Drake and I was actually pretty angry, because I felt that we shouldn’t exploit this, but Drake was so attached to the fan base that when Ken Corday spoke with him and gave him the permission to allow the fans to grieve with us, that’s when I said, ‘OK, if that’s what he wants, then I’m going to go full throttle with it.’ In Paul’s eulogy and monologue I’d read it and without asking the writers, I added a few lines and they allowed me to keep them.”

Christopher continued, “One of the lines was, ‘anytime I see a rainbow in the sky’ and I said, ‘and a baseball up high, or a rainbow in the sky,’ because I wanted to attribute it to baseball and to Drake. It was already perfect the way it was written, but that was my nod to Drake. We all loved him and there’s not a person I know who didn’t love him. Drake lit up any room he was a part of. I would not be here, again, without Drake.”

You can catch Christopher’s conversation on the Daytime Emmy Nominations Special at the 2:14:25 mark below.

The 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be handed in a ceremony on October 30 from the Hollywood Palladium in Hollywood California. Current plans are for the event to stream live on the National Academy Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), watch.theemmys.tv and associated apps.

So, will you be rooting for Christopher to take home the gold for his heartbreaking performance of Paul’s grief over losing John and then marrying Andrew? Were you touched by how much Drake Hogestyn had meant to his life and career? Let us know via the comment section below.

The Friday, July 17 episode of General Hospital brought with it a cliffhanger that many viewers were forecasting was on its way to happening. Yup, Brennan (Chris McKenna) and Nina (Cynthia Watros) have a thing for each other and their relationship took a turn when Jack kissed Nina while at the Brown Dog bar while they were having drinks and she certainly did not pull away.

How did we get here? After being unable to find his black box at Wyndemere, Jack raised concerns that his WSB higher-ups would consider transferring him out of Port Charles because Cullum’ machinations happened in the town where he was the bureau chief.

Then, Jack asks Nina what motivates her to go to such extremes to help her daughter Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) with her nefarious crimes. Nina begins to explain to Jack that her children were taken from her and she was unable to protect Nelle or Willow and that Willow has suffered unspeakable trauma in her life that she had never totally dealt with. As a mother, she will do anything to protect her daughter and to stay in her life.

Courtesy/ABC

JACK MAKES HIS MOVE

After downing more drinks, Jack apologized for having blackmailed Nina to get intel from Charlotte (Bluesy Burke) in exchange for the traffic cam footage of Willow. He wished instead of that maneuver he would have asked the editor in chief of Crimson out on a date. He feel like then he would have gotten to know Nina before she had to save his life.

When Nina shared that is sounds like Jack is holding it against her, his comeback response is that he doesn’t do gratitude well. So in an effort to show Nina how gratefully he truly is to her, Jack gets up from his barstool and plants a major kiss on her! We fade to black.

You can check out the scenes between Jack and Nina from today’s GH below in the video entitled, “Before You Saved My Life” below.

Now weigh-in: are you all for Jack and Nina as a couple? Do you find it interesting that for the most part, Nina ends up with men that used to be involved with her nemesis Carly (Laura Wright)? Share your thoughts on this new romantic pairing via the comment section.