“It was all a surprise to me, honestly. They just told us that we have to go, and I had no choice but to go, so I showed up. I guess it was a cool experience, obviously. Being in the White House as a first time, it’s always wonderful, but I’m not one for the politics, so it wasn’t that exciting. It was a bit weird. I was caught by surprise when he started about all the politics with Iran and everything. It was kind of like, ‘I just wanna play football, man.'”
— Tim Weah (fourth from left) on his visit to the White House, where a Juventus delegation met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The bulk of the questions during the media availability were not about Juventus or the Club World Cup — the Juventus owner John Elkann, Trump said, is a “friend of mine” — but about whether he will order attacks on Iran. Other topics: the U.S. Civil War — whether it could have been avoided — and travel bans — their impact on the 2026 World Cup. Trump himself brought up the issue of transgender athletes.