Wimbledon tennis players as footballers & the floodgates threshold

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He's round the goal, KB.

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was Iwit without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip.

Oh I say

it's amazing.

He does it tame and same and tame again.

Break up the music.

Charge a glass.

This nation is going to dance all night long.

The return of an allegedly iconic football TV programme, a never before seen method of laying out a starting 11, Wimbledon tennis players as footballers, the floodgate opening threshold, are an England national team overdue, a midsummer major tournament wilting, the most hiking down a Canadian mountain manager in the Premier League, Keith Andrews passes the spoke well I thought test with flying colours and the hypothetical story of the Unconvincibles, a team who win every single game 1-0.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Cliches.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the midweek adjudication panel.

Joining me of course is Charlie Eccleshaire.

How you doing?

Very well, thank you.

How's Wimbledon going so far?

Pretty good.

Yeah.

A few shocks?

Yeah, a lot of shot of the debate yesterday.

Was it a bonfire of seeds?

An Exodus?

There was a sport for choice, really.

Was it enough to give the day a nickname?

You know what?

When Djokovic lost the second set, if he'd gone out, I think it would have...

There are a few days in Wimbledon history.

There was one in 2013, one in 2002, like a sort of Black Tuesday or something like that.

It was teetering right on the brink.

You did then win.

So I don't think you'll merit that, but it wasn't far off.

Doesn't have to be alliterative.

It can just be Black Tuesday.

Okay, that's it.

Yeah,

I think the Wednesday one is the Black Wednesday.

Alongside you, it's David Walker.

How are you doing?

I'm okay.

How are you?

I'm good.

I can officially confirm that the lead show of our October tour is sold out.

We have sold out the wardrobe in Leeds.

No more tickets available for that, but you can go to tickets.football clichés.com to join us in Brighton, Cardiff, Hackney Empire in London, Birmingham, Dublin, Manchester and Glasgow this October for our best ever live show.

I say best ever.

I mean I'm assuming it will be.

It has to be.

I think so.

And also like we've sort of manifested the leads sellout thing.

We've been saying that for weeks I feel so hopefully if we keep saying it'll be the best show then it just kind of will be.

Yeah it will.

Yeah.

Well yeah we are we are seasoned podcast live showmen by now.

Let's kick things off with the big news of the week.

Sky Sports, reports the Daily Mail's Mike Keegan, are to air a Sunday supplement style show after a five-year absence.

Dave Sky are examining a return for a Sunday supplement style programme after the popular show was axed following a 20-year run in 2020.

It is understood they have now decided to do this and that the new arrival will be in place for the new season.

Sky bosses are remaining tight-lipped on what the show will be called, but it will not resurrect the previous name.

I wonder why.

Why?

Interesting that you're a Sunday, not a Sunday man.

I'm glad you picked up on it.

I'm not a Sundayman.

I did it.

I thought we could ride it out.

Should have known better.

But yeah,

interesting.

We were talking about this last night.

I think the fact that they're not going to bring back the previous name suggests that they don't want it to be too sort of obviously newspapery, I guess.

But that said, I mean, they have back pages tonight on Sky Sports News where they get two journals on every at like midnight or something every night.

It's a mini

three-day supplement, isn't it?

Yeah, I know.

And I don't know.

I imagine that there will still be some element of, or will there be some sort of pun on press?

Pressing.

High press.

Surely it will be still clinging on to these sort of legacy media, Charlie.

But fear's growing,

and I'm gleaning this purely from the replies to Mike Keegan's tweet about this news, is that it will be full of YouTubers talking about football.

won't even know what how they won't even know what to do with a newspaper they'll be turning it around going what's this wow what's the suck what's the suck

yeah i mean that they will have a that will be a big uh decision on what the cutoff is i mean it's kind of crazy because even when the you know you talk now about like dwindling attention spans and you know oh they don't make shows like they used to i remember even at the time or certainly when it started it was a bit it felt like a bit of a mad concept to me at the age of i must have been a teenager or something it was like and obviously this is pre-podcasts and everything like this.

It's like, so you're just, so there's no footage, you're just kind of watching some blokes, and it was blokes at that time,

talking about football.

So I don't know if they'll lean into that as like, you know, now in a, because it still amazes me now that, which loads of people do, younger people, watch YouTube, watch podcasts on YouTube.

Like, that's just so alien to me.

I would never do that.

But I guess this is sort of just that.

Like, has the sort of media caught up with what they were doing a long time ago?

Yeah, Dave, in the discourse around this, it didn't take me long to find someone describing Sunday Supplement as iconic.

I mean, nothing about it is iconic, apart from the fact it went on for a long time.

The croissants, the allegedly false,

not actually false croissants.

Even the theme tune is rubbish, like properly rubbish, a completely pointless theme tune.

I think, well, I think there are elements of it that I would consider to maybe be iconic.

Like the sort of, not just the food and the drink, but the whole set when the you know jimmy hill was presenting it it was like as if it was sort of in his kitchen yes sort of thing and you could see the garden through the windows that sort of thing i'd like it if they went down that route bring that back but i think the whole the whole episode its axing and its potential return charlie has been one of the most half-hearted kind of culture war situations i've seen like the the kind of almost reflexive reaction was oh you know just uh this is everything's going down the pan this country's going down the pan when they axe the show and then when it's coming back it's like we're we're so back and it's like for god's sake

was it really that much loved no i don't i think um you can't have a culture war for something on non-terrestrial like if this was a bbc thing then yeah this is going mega and the today program are doing a big thing on it and you know we're writing love letters to sunday supplement and how we watched it with our granddad but like no i don't think people are doing that with this are they like no even the confected culture war fascinate to know what the first lineup will be how how sort of fresh are they going to go with their lineup dave could be anybody.

Well, are the athletic invited?

I'll bet they won't be.

I was going to say, well, I think they won't be.

Could this be the Oliver Brobies?

Yes, six years on.

Maybe we've made it.

Charlie, I mean, if they're going to do a bit of tennis around Wimbledon next year, maybe you'll, and there's also, you know, some perhaps a big Spurs story or something, or just a big football story that you could also get stuck into.

I think you could be right in the mix, mate.

Two birds with one stone.

Yeah.

Yeah,

well, I think they'll go.

Not denying it.

I refuse to rule it out.

He's tight-lipped.

He's coy.

He's remaining coy.

What I'll say is,

there are a lot of good candidates out there.

A lot of great talent in this country.

I think

they'll surely have like a younger person, won't they?

Because they'll be keen, especially Sky.

You know, Sky are very...

you know, they've done a lot for equality and things like that.

You know, they've gone on a big drive post-Keese.

You know, so

I think they'll want it to be.

I think they'll want it to not be the perceptions it was before, which was that it would be four old white blokes.

Like a genuine old boys club, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The old boys club.

Just lean into it.

The MSM.

It would be your alternative.

Maybe it will work.

Right, moving on.

Everybody's eyes were drawn to this.

A Manchester City fan called Nico sketched out his ideal lineup for their Club World Cup tie against Al Hillal, and he used his

phone calendar to lay out the team.

An unprecedented format for laying out a team, Charlie.

But when you think about it, when you've got the seven days laid out,

it means that you have a central role and you can have wingers.

It makes it look nice.

So I'm all for it now.

The only question is, do you want your goalkeeper at the top or the bottom of the month?

Yeah, so how he's done it, the goalkeeper's down at the bottom.

I mean, this is, I'm really curious to know how this sort of came about.

Like, was he just improvising?

Is this something he does all the time?

I mean, it does, the spacing is kind of perfect for it.

It does look really nice, Dave, laid out in a calendar.

I mean, I share Charlie's complete bafflement about how this possibly could have occurred.

But now I've seen it, I think I prefer it to people just sort of typing it out and then trying to sort of space the players out in the formation.

That is always tricky, unless you're doing

unless you're using a specific kind of app or website where it lays it out for you.

Doing it in your phone notes or doing it in a Google Doc or a tweet or whatever it is.

There's never an easy way to get the spacing perfectly right.

It's always a bit of a faff to get the goalkeeper and the striker dead in the middle and everyone perfectly spaced out around it.

I think the thing about the calendar though, what would annoy me is if he doesn't delete all of these, he's going to get like reminders on like the 13th of July that just Roderie just gonna pop up in his calendar.

Either that or he's gonna have the Battle of the Boyne in central midfield.

Trooping the colour.

Fuck off.

I don't care.

Someone's telling on their calendar there.

But the odd thing as well with this, aren't there like countless formation builder apps that people use?

I mean, Dave, maybe you use them for Ribblesdale.

So it seems odd that someone who seems pretty tech literate and very into football that they're writing out their sort of preferred 11 has improvised in this way.

I just, yeah, I don't know.

There's a certain authenticity about it to me.

I've got to get this lineup down somewhere as it's rough and ready.

Where if you go to lineup builder, I think, if anything, that's more Timpot because it's sort of, I don't know, too, too polished, is what I'm saying.

It's just like he's sketching it out somewhere, like Pep might.

Yeah.

I bet Pep uses his calendar to put his lineups up.

Now, the other big sporting event going on at the moment, of course, is Wimbledon.

This came from Anthony Price and Matt Needham.

This is Britain's Katie Bolter pouncing on a Paola Badosa drop shot on the way to knocking out the number nine seed.

That's a nice little nudge.

Charlie, how do you feel about the technological advancement of this cliche?

I don't know.

I think Telegraph still serves a purpose.

And email, I mean, you're kind of not really going the whole hog.

I mean, he's gradually bringing it into the 21st century with emailed.

I mean, you know, eschewing the WhatsApp or, you know, DM'd or something.

WhatsApp is too instant, if anything, Dave.

I mean, emailed, emailed is instant, but you don't check it for a while.

So I I i mean if if you're gonna have a 2025 equivalent of telegraphed i suppose email could work but i don't see why we need to update it yet as much as out of date as some of these clichés tend to be i don't like this this is this is very wimbledon isn't it it's a bit too it's too twee it's too knowing

stick with the telegraph come on emailed um now we have we somehow haven't done this on the pod since 2022 and when we did charlie wasn't even on that episode to join in so it's time for wimbledon players as footballers.

Let's start with some from our listeners.

Listener Sam says the name Riley Opelka alone is pure USMNT.

Rinky Hikata is a Brighton squad player.

And to switch it around to footballers as tennis players, big serving Mickey Van Der Venn is easy to imagine.

Odegaard looks tennisy.

Bruno Fernandez reeks of classy single-handed backhand.

Charlie, how do you feel about some of this?

Yeah,

I think they're good.

I think it's harder for me in a way to actually know these people.

They're not just names.

So in a way, I'm sort of less suited to it, but Rinky Hijikata is a good one.

Mickey Van Deven, we've debated as well, me and Jack Pitt Brooke.

We were debating what sport he is, and I actually think he's very rowing, his look and his vibe.

He looks like he could be sort of wearing uni rowing stash, like incredibly sculpted man.

Pure swimmer for me, Olympic swimmer.

He's got that frame, that really tall, big shoulders, Dutch.

Like I I could see him in the pool.

Odegaard is too small, isn't he, for to be a tennis, proper tennis man?

Odegaard is Tennessee.

Yeah,

I don't think of him as particularly Tennessee.

Yeah, Bruno Fernandes could be a sort of quite gritty Clay Court player.

Not highly ranked, though, fairly Germany sort of.

Yeah, yeah,

around 50.

Yeah.

The American ones, some of the American players, just because they're kind of sporty-sounding American names are quite USMNT.

Taylor Fritz,

kind of imagine him as a squad player for them.

Francis Tiafo.

He's actually French in football and he plays for PSG and everyone raves about him after seeing him play once in the Champions League.

On their stable of amazing wingers.

Yeah, yeah.

Carlos Alcaraz, of course, is the name of an actual footballer, so he is exempt from this.

Simon writes in, Dave, and says, Yannick Sinna is a Swiss goalkeeper you only see at tournaments.

Lorenzo Massetti definitely played for Inter in the Champions League final.

Caspar Roode is quite brightened, yes.

And lastly, Cameron Norrie just feels very championship, maybe a Preston or Bristol.

Not only that, but Cameron Norrie feels very soccer Saturday vide printer.

Cameron Norrie's seventh of the season.

He's on fire at the moment, Cameron Norrie.

Yeah, I can see Cameron Norrie getting that, like, because he's really industrious and getting that move to a sort of lower, like a relegation battling Premier League club after being sort of really highly rated in the championship for ages.

A lot of love for Cameron Norrie in our correspondence.

Aleister Campbell says, I think Cameron Norrie plays for Norwich after a 6 million transfer from the MLS.

Mark Ridley says, energetic midfielder currently plying his trade at hearts, joined them in 2023 from Wraith Rovers.

So yes, pure Vinny printer there.

What else?

Nick Elliott says, Dennis Shapovalov, Shakta Donek Stalwart, scored memorable volley for Ukraine at the Euros.

Only man sent off in two Europa League finals.

Nuno Borge, Porto to Wolves, Wolves to Braga, memorably good hairline, smallest shin pads in the game.

I mean, this is all very easy.

The names just translate, don't they, Charlie?

Yeah, and on Nuno Borge, I remember Coxie, for some reason, asking me about whether there were Portuguese tennis players back in the day.

And there aren't many, but those that are kind of have satisfied, you know, there was a Jao Soza way back when, which is like, you know, sounds like it's been made up by a, you know, Portugal sport generator.

A year ago on this podcast, Charlie, you said that Novak Djokovic would be a sort of all-action central midfielder.

Has your opinion changed on him in the last year?

I think he would, he's such like a main character kind of guy.

I think he would want to be doing everything.

He'd want to be right in the mix, making tackles, but also sort of getting forward.

He'd still be a bit of a Roy Keene

kind of in his pump.

I think that's how he kind of identifies.

Two more from me.

I think Mattio Beratini is a reserve goalkeeper for one of the big clubs in the community.

And one I think I saw the other day and sent to you two, and this is actually a female player, but I think it works perfectly for like a championship midfielder.

Soné Cartal, I think, is a great name for a sort of championship midfielder, quite industrious, but actually a little, you know, quite handy as well.

Bristol City, QPR, Reading.

England under 20, specifically.

Yeah, but also eligible for Turkey.

With the women's Euros coming up as well, I mean, you mentioned Paola Badossa earlier.

I could sort of see her a part of the, you know, very tough Spain squad who won the World Cup.

Yeah, there's always one more superstar that you hadn't thought of.

Yeah.

Daring Milk 69 says Heather Watson was centre-back and England captain from 2008 to 2011.

Never got the recognition of later players, but your Williamsons and Bronzes cite her as a big influence and is now on football focus.

The best one so far.

Absolutely tremendous.

Right, that's enough, Wimbledon.

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Zach Guna has the first big question for us this week, Dave.

What are the rules for the floodgates being opened?

How big a gap between goals is floodgate territory?

Does it have to be two goals straight after a first or just one?

Lots of floodgatey factors.

I checked listenfairplay.com.

We haven't discussed floodgates before or the mechanics of floodgates, which really surprises me.

Okay.

What heralds the opening of the floodgates?

I was on a Man City podcast, a Blue Moon podcast the other day, talking about Man City 8, Watford 0.

Yeah.

And in that game, we talked about this on our live show up in Manchester on the last tour.

We said that it was the earliest time that anyone has ever got in on the act when Nicholas Ontamendi scored the fifth goal in the 18th minute.

When did the floodgates open in that one?

Because they were, I think they were, yeah, I think it was 4-0 in like under 15 minutes.

Well, that's an important aspect of it.

It's not just the number of goals in total.

It isn't just the regularity, it's not just the frequency of the goals, Charlie.

But if you score too many goals too early, then the floodgates weren't actually closed in the first place.

So

there has to be an element of resistance before the floodgates open.

Yeah, completely agree.

I remember Ron Atkinson with one of his sort of characteristic flourishes talking, I think it was a maybe a United Champions League game and him describing it as a floodgates job.

And you kind of knew exactly what he meant, even though no one had ever kind of talked about it in those terms.

And yeah, it's one you need to,

work hard, but it's like, oh, okay, now we've got it.

It's just going to flow.

Like, we've worked really hard.

They're deflated because their whole game plan was, you know, can we frustrate them?

Can we not concede?

Now we have conceded, or maybe a couple.

We're kind of fucked now because we're knackered.

We haven't had the ball all game and we've got nothing else.

We've got all we came here to do is defend, really.

Okay, so we've got the spirit of this day, but we need to quantify it.

At what scoreline can you discernibly say that the floodgates are opening or have opened?

Surely 3-0 minimum.

Maybe even - 3-4 together really quickly

after the resolve

had been broken earlier on.

So then it's 3-4, and then the floodgates have finally opened.

No, no, the floodgates are open now.

Yeah.

So yes, yeah, you're holding out maybe for an hour or so.

But then if his team's piling on late on, relentlessly.

5-0 would be too late, Charlie, as well, wouldn't it?

I would say.

I'm trying to think, do we hear it less now than we used to?

Possibly you don't hear it that often.

Yeah, I d I think at that point they've already they've they've opened too much because you're kind of saying it that isn't often said in a kind of one and you just wonder now if the floodgates are gonna open are gonna open.

Do you speculate on the floodgates opening in the future?

Does that happen a lot?

I feel like it's it's it's a real-time thing and or maybe a retrospective thing and then the floodgates opened.

But I don't think you start you wouldn't say go, I think the floodgates are going to open here.

I think you might just in the way of like it's been a it's been a tough old game but or you know for like a lower league side or you slightly fear the floodgates are going to open now for Paul Lincoln.

You know, they've been in this game, but you know, now

it's 3-0 after 70, and you know,

Man City are chucking on loads of their good players.

I can sort of imagine on Super Sunday, like in one of those big high-profile defeats for Man United in recent years, that just Carragher could be just sort of like the four could go in.

I could just picture him just going, oh, floodgates and just nothing else.

It's an incredible shout.

Yeah, Yeah, it deserves, I think, floodgates to be given sort of single word status now.

I really want to see this happen.

I hope it hasn't died out in that case.

Anyway, speaking of water flowing in in disastrous circumstances, this came from Oscar Lynch.

It's from the 99% Invisible podcast.

And while the lifeboats were glitching their way down to the water, the Titanic was doing its job.

It was sinking well.

Maybe, if anything, too well.

Her design had been that she would sink evenly and slowly, and that's exactly what Titanic does.

Anything Titanic sank too well.

A construct I will never tire of, Charlie, I don't think.

Yeah, I mean, that's...

I'd like to kind of hear more.

It's quite a subtle sentiment to express.

In any circumstances, if anything, X did Y almost too well.

And I think to a proper, someone who's never been exposed to that phrase before, I think they must think...

What does it mean?

And then slowly they realise, what an incredibly effective way of saying what you're saying.

In reality, it would have been better if the Titanic had sort of just bobbed around a bit

and not just plummeted straight to the deepest depths of the ocean.

Yes.

But yeah, impressive deployment of that.

Now, as we record, Dave Walker, Euro 2025 is beginning.

In earnest?

In anger?

Well,

that's actually an interesting point because the...

So we're recording this on Wednesday morning.

The tournament starts today.

And it's one of those curious situations where the first game at 5pm today is Iceland against Finland, but the opening ceremony and their sort of proper curtain raiser is at 8pm, which is host nation Switzerland against Norway.

So there's like sort of this weird game that's kind of

be, it's not really, but they're not going to do any sort of pomp and ceremony around it.

Self-launch.

Yeah, exactly.

It seems a bit of a muddle, Charlie, but so often we see the opening ceremony take place before a game of little consequence, or it might not involve the hosts or something.

So this arrangement, I think, feels alright.

Get a low-key start for administrative purposes, but the hosts should really kick things off properly, no matter if they're the first game or not.

So they, yeah, so it's because they're in the group of the hosts, aren't they?

So they need to just even out the groups.

Yeah.

I'm not crazy about it.

Like, I do, it's like sometimes at some Euros, they'll do just the one game on the open, which leaves you kind of like desperate for more.

And I guess

at least this has two and gets rid of that problem.

Yeah.

Can we just take a moment to look at this tournament on paper, though?

I was reading some of the previews and stuff last week, and

it was a really nice sort of throwback to the days when the men's Euros had 16 teams.

And

we're so used to now, having these tournaments sort of becoming ever bigger and more teams being added, and third-place teams, and all that, and whatever.

Whereas 16 teams is just that really perfect amount.

And the groups, like, the draw is like quite ridiculous, really.

So you've got Group A, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Group B, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Group C, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Group D, France, England, Netherlands, Wales.

Like, every group has got some sort of national rivalry.

There are like big nations in there, and only two get through from each group.

So there's no, you know, there's jeopardy everywhere you look.

Yeah, it's perfect.

Blame your paymasters at FIFA and UEFA for the expansion that you, you know, you're loving with the Club World Cup.

This is what football used to be like.

Well, yeah, as a sort of, you know, subconscious expansionist at heart, I'm all right with football getting bigger and bigger.

But then you look at this laid out in a newspaper supplement, Dave, these four groups of four, and then you can still fit the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and final on the same page and with space to spare.

I find it quite refreshing to look at.

It's the first time I've ever hankered after a 16-team tournament in my life because this is great.

It's green perfection.

Yeah.

Like it really is.

I was trying to work out, I don't watch international women's football regularly, but even then, no matter what tournament you're presented with four groups of countries, Dave, I'm looking at the fixtures thinking, inevitably, inevitably, which game am I least interested in out of all of those?

You're trying to find the combination of countries that you think, okay, I wouldn't tune into that one.

You know, I would feel least compelled to tune into.

And given that the groups are so perfectly formed, I'm guessing Poland, Denmark, maybe?

Because that's the, do they play in red or white as their home shirt derby?

That's the only intrigue I can find from that game.

Otherwise, I feel like there's just inherent intrigue in all the other matchups, whether I know who's playing in those games or not.

Yeah, I think normally, it were were in a different country, Switzerland against Iceland or Finland, I wouldn't be that bothered about that.

But because they're the home nation, that always adds something to the games, doesn't it?

And see what the atmosphere is like or whatever.

And they might, I don't think they're particularly good historically, but they might be a bit better this time out.

But on the subject of Switzerland, I was listening to one of the previews on the Five Live Football Daily podcast, and they had former Swiss goalkeeper Christina Lehmann on the pod.

And as soon as I heard this, I was like sending it to YouTube straight away.

A turn of phrase of which I've never heard the like of before.

But we have a problem.

We really have a lack of good players at the age between 23 and 30.

So we have the very old ones like Valdi, Bachmann, and Jordanogorciewicz, which is also known, but we have nothing in between.

So, and since Bachmann broke away, it's kind of Leo Valdi, the only Matterhorn we have.

And the young ones kind of

try to build their own little mountains.

Matterhorn.

That's so good.

We don't have anything like that.

No.

So, Matterhorn, they're talking about as being in the kind of sweet spot.

Doesn't it mean like a big player, like a talismanic titan of a player?

Well, that's what I'd think, but then, but that's not an a like, because when I initially were thinking about matter, you think like, oh, that just means like the kind of giant, they're kind of big, influential, but that's not really what she's saying, isn't she?

Like, because it sounds like they do have, I would have thought Matterhorn, some of those kind of veteran, really experienced, respected players would be more matterhorn around for ages yeah exactly

immovable so i'm intrigued how that's come about yeah i do like it i mean i mean also could you extrapolate it to other countries and got no benevices in the squad yeah we've got no snowdens

we can't really do it for in them we've got we got no we haven't got any you know for me we we haven't got any scarf or pikes in

the lake districts

we have got the peaks we just don't have it in this country we haven't been we're not producing mountains like we used to.

Now, I assume the temperatures in Switzerland will ease.

But if they don't, Dave, I think this has England wilt in the heat written all over it.

I think every England team has a kind of cyclical sort of vulnerability to this sort of thing.

And I think this could be the lioness's turn to wilt in the heat.

Yeah,

but it's not something you immediately think of when you think of Switzerland.

You think of sort of alpine, sort of fresh air, nice kind of temperate environment.

But yeah, more altitude being the issue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Such as the the blowing up the matter horn.

Welcome here to the matter horn arena.

On that note, character word 2478 on Reddit says, What is the ultimate wilted in the heat game?

For me, it's a very distant World Cuppy.

Maybe England versus Brazil, 2002.

Chile, I can't think of an advance on this.

Because

England wilting in the heat has to involve them losing, so they can toil in the heat.

They toiled against Paraguay in the heat in 2006 in Frankfurt.

I was there.

It says it's 32 degrees.

It felt more, but they still won the game.

They toured against Ecuador in the last 16, and that was hot, but they still won.

So can you advance me a wilted in the heat game other than meeting Brazil?

That's a really good chat, and I do think the wilted should be not just a loss, but a loss with which you go out of the tournament.

I mean, like Manaus in 2014 against Italy was built uploads, wasn't it?

It was more the humidity, wasn't it?

But it was the humidity, yeah, the wilted and the humidity.

What was, I mean, what about in Russia?

I know it was an evening game, but Russia 2018, Wenningham lost to Croatia.

Was that really

wilt?

Was it not?

They just played like they were wilting.

But it wasn't a wilting situation.

In Russia.

No, wilting doesn't really work in the evening, does it?

It needs to be visibly sunny.

I mean,

I seem to remember the game...

I mean, we'd already done our wilting by this point, but the game against Costa Rica in the third group game in 2014 was in the middle of the day and really,

just really sunny.

And just the whole thing was like, what are we doing?

We had

spread all day.

That was more pre-rending.

Would, I mean, going back 1970 in Mexico and the comeback against Germany, I mean, that was famously like a sweltering World Cup, wasn't it?

I mean, it's less wilting, I guess, because it's more spectacular, but that might have been a bit what happened.

They ran out of energy.

I mean, yeah, textbook, you know, in a football sense, textbook wilting.

England, Argentina, 86 looks like a wilting.

Peter Reid sort of jogging after Maradona.

You go look back at the historical weather records.

Apparently, the temperature of that day was just 20 degrees.

So who are we to believe?

England finished quite strongly, didn't they?

They got a goal back, nearly got an equalizer.

Yeah, so yeah, if anything, wasn't it?

Patradina nearly wilted.

Maybe one of the biggest shames about not qualifying for USA 94 is it denied us of one of surely what would have been one of the great wiltings of all time.

A Graham Taylor England team in 100-degree heat in Pasadena would have been spectacular.

Roofless stadiums in 1994 players just shugging around Matt Letissier going, Oh, I can't do this.

This is Taylor just shouting at the sun.

Matt is just saying, This is perfectly natural.

This is just cyclical, and it happens every few thousand years.

Let's move on.

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On Reddit, MSR FSM writes in with a picture of two trophies in his hand and he says, my friend recently won his Sunday League Teams Unsung Hero Award, but also the Manager's Player Award, which begs the question, does winning the Manager's Award cancel out the Unsung Hero Award by making him a sung hero, as the manager is literally singing his praises.

This is a mad combination of events, Dave.

Winning Manager's Player and Unsung Hero.

I mean, it does imply that they're not very good and that they do a lot of sort of peripheral tasks.

The unsungness of it is interesting because at Ribblesdale, we've got the Clubman award,

which is a sort of, in spirit, the same thing as the unsung hero.

It's rewarding non-football activities.

But you could still be a really good, one of the better players and do loads of stuff for the club and do loads of stuff.

So rarely does that overlap exist, though, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's rare.

But it's possible.

It's definitely possible.

Without giving anything away to people who might listen to this podcast, there might be a few contenders in that bracket this season for our awards.

But yeah,

the manager's player is a funny award, though, sometimes as well, because sometimes you're not quite sure how to pitch it.

You don't really want to give it to the same player that gets the player's player, do you?

No.

Is it a good around the dressing room situation with the manager's player more so than being a genuine star of the team?

It's sort of, I mean, it must be implied, isn't it, that they are, that they've got a great attitude and

they're a good lad.

I mean, is there a bit of a kind of teacher's pet element that you don't, you know,

almost literally, yeah.

Yeah, so how much, I mean, you do want that award, but

yeah, I guess like Dave says, it's not, you don't just want to give it to whoever's going to get the player's player and who's the top scorer.

Yeah, which in a way, I think, actually kind of in spirit makes it an unsung hero award.

Like, you're the manager's picking out a player that the plaudits aren't obviously going to, but they've watched every game in a, you know, from a distance and have thought, actually, you know, this player was really important for us this season for whatever reason.

So I think they need to sort their categories out.

You've basically got your unsung player, which is the manager's player, and do something else for one of the other smaller ones.

Overland to someone.

Someone like Kalele being an unsung hero or something.

It's like everyone bangs on about it.

Share the awards out.

I mean, this isn't going on Wikipedia.

No one's going to look back and go, oh, God, he dominated these categories.

Share the awards out.

Everyone goes home happy.

And then, God knows what's going on at Goring Forest FC.

Next up, here's a little quiz for you both.

This came from Vincent.

He says, Last week I went on a hike in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.

Whilst walking up the Johnston Canyon Trail, which Premier League manager did I see walking down?

It was Manager X, of course.

He could not have looked more Manager X.

Full tracksuit, black, and Manager X tight.

The tracksuit was not club-wide branded, but it may as well have been.

Honestly, he looked like he was taking a quick hike between training sessions.

I was thrilled.

An EPL manager in the wild.

Who do you most picture hiking in Canada?

A current, this is a current Premier League manager.

Wow.

Oh,

Scott Parker?

I can kind of see Scott Scott Parker.

Charlie's going to Scott Parker.

Dave, what's your guess?

Graham Potter.

Graham Potter.

I see both the logic.

The close.

Pretty close, actually.

You couldn't be more close without getting it.

The answer is actually Eddie Howe.

Yeah.

In his little black tracksuit, hiking down the Johnston Canyon Trail.

Was Tyndall there?

Yeah.

The obvious question.

His attack dog to get people out of the way as Howe meandered down.

We're definitely going to hear about this.

Eddie Howe's summer.

Oh, yeah, this is a long read.

Go and see how they do things up on the Johnson Canyon Trail.

It's great to see a different perspective.

We saw, you know, saw all sorts of people who.

It was when he was walking down the Johnson Canyon Trail that he just had something daunting.

Joe Linton.

Could Joe Linton play as an eight?

Yeah, different perspective.

Nice to have a break, but yeah, good to be back.

Speaking of earnest managers, this is a snippet from Keith Andrews' first press conference in charge of Brentford.

Something of a clinic, I think, in modern-day rookie manager Unveil Linguistics.

I think the way of the

footballing world, you always have to expect the interest in good players.

I think that's just natural.

The way this football club has worked, it's never really been a problem.

Players come and players go, that's just the nature of it.

Ultimately, I want the best possible players in the building.

And we've got phenomenal players in the building that we will continue to improve and develop.

And what we'll be will be on that front.

Charlie, I think we're firmly now in the he spoke very well, I thought, era of Premier League managers.

Very difficult not to speak well at your opening press conference, but I think this one has all the hallmarks of a young manager in first press conference.

First of all, talking about football as a whole and being demonstratively very calm, I think is one of the big things to do in your first press conference, just show sort of worldly wisdom, but also that you're not overawed by the challenge.

Yeah, a bit unflappable.

Yes.

You know,

this is football.

We've all been around it for a long time.

We know how it works.

Yes.

The nature of it.

But no, listen, you know, it's great.

Great squad.

I'm just excited to get going.

He missed the trick here.

I thought he was going to give us a really nice hat trick where he said, you know, we want fantastic players in the building.

We've got fantastic players in the building and we're going to keep the players in the building.

He missed out on the third chance for a building in quick succession.

The rise of in the building is mad to me.

It's twinned with the rise of Out on the Grass.

And, you know, Keith Andrews will have Out on the Grass to come, I think, when he has players coming back from injury and he sort of rides his first injury crisis.

But In the Building is such a bizarre introduction to the manager sort of phrase book.

Like it's

what where did you come from and why?

Well, yeah, I know from having been in the building, you know, for when you go to the training ground or whatever for press conferences, there is quite a,

I don't know, that really becomes the world of

the players and the managers.

And it's this sort of like holy, sanctified place.

And, you know,

it's, I don't know.

And everything's very well organized over the course of a day.

And people are constantly very busy and scuttling around and doing meetings.

Yeah, we've heard more in the last five years about where managers' offices are located in training complexes than we'd ever heard before.

Like, their office sits right next to the director of football's office, would you believe?

So that's they're in constant communication.

And their windows oversee the training grounds.

They've got a good view of it, which is fantastic.

Andrew's allowing himself a little joke at the end, Charlie, just so that he to show he's got a bit of levity as well.

So he's got it all already.

He spoke pretty well, I thought.

He gets it.

Also, he said about how

he kind of hinted that they've sold lots of players previously.

I actually don't think of them as massively that club.

And that's why this summer's been quite striking that suddenly they're all going because obviously Tony went to Saudi, but that was a very different.

Sorry, Keith, I think you're getting yourself confused with Brighton there, aren't you?

I'm actually in the building.

You've been in the building a lot more than me, but I think you're kind of just an autopilot there a bit.

There haven't been loads of high-profile sales.

There you go.

Let's stick with Keith Andrews.

On the Premier League website, a little background on him, Dave, headlined, Andrew's journey from Set Peace Guru to Brentford head coach.

It got me thinking, what are the gurus?

The possible gurus in football.

Set Peace Guru is definitely now the number one guru.

You can have a transfer guru, but I also think transfer gurus gurus are more about I've seen David Ornstein described as transfer guru.

Journalism.

But I feel like, yeah, I mean, should it be?

Should he be a guru of that?

I mean, he just, he knows what transfers are happening sometimes, but that doesn't make him a transfer guru.

He's not Mong Chi, is he?

Yeah.

He's a kind of scoop guru.

Yeah.

I mean, we're getting a little bit away from what guru means, Charlie, which is essentially like mentor.

sort of you know sort of is it is that what it actually means does it not mean that i think well it's like an it's sort of i thought it was sort of like a

almost like a somebody with sort of mythical powers but i could be completely wrong but that was my idea yeah it's a hindu spiritual teacher spiritual teacher yeah yeah i think in in spirit though it does that there is that idea that yeah you're an expert but you yeah you have so much knowledge and you are good at kind of sharing it and you know giving your wisdom to other people

in its purest sense there's tactics guru which i've seen applied to michael cox and i suspect he doesn't like tactics guru coaching guru someone who's sort of is seen as the godfather of coaching perhaps like i don't know don't know goose hidden or something is he a coaching guru bielsa would be bielsa could be a guru i think he's quite yeah guru like could it be used in a sort of pejorative sense and somebody could sort of sneerily label someone as sort of oh we've got all these laptop gurus now

that could definitely be said yeah definitely um yes sexy version of merchant isn't it perhaps but yeah um set piece guru uh is definitely a thing let's stick with the coaching world keith leith pointed this out on twitter the other day uh at Blackpool, managed by Steve Bruce.

His assistant is Steve Agnew.

His first team coaches are Stephen Clements and Stephen Dobby, and his goalkeeping coach is Steve Banks.

Five Steves.

Steve is such.

Steve has definitely moved into the realm of being one of the most popular English coaching names now.

You don't get many Steve footballers because they're all very 80s, 90s, but you get loads of coaching Steves.

Maybe that's just how time works.

I mean, yes,

Steve's a bit of a Gary type name, isn't it?

It's really dying out, but there's a real sweet spot, clearly.

You've got a couple of Stevens with the PHs there with Clements and Dobby.

But Google.

I imagine they still will have been called Steve plenty of times throughout their career by their teammates and stuff.

But I wonder what the...

So the nickname situation, like how they Steve-o each other.

There's got to be scope for Steve-O.

Aggers, Clem, Dobby, Dobbo, and Banksy.

Banksy, yeah.

One of them might get Steve.

One of them just might get Steve.

It's the Steve.

I don't know.

Great stuff.

Here is the hypothetical question for this classic midweek adjudication panel.

James McCann writes in, Charlie, says, after the hat-trick debates that kicked all this off, if a club won all its matches 1-0, no more, no less, how long would it take for fans to become bored of the game slash success?

You know they would win and when that goal went in, but you know there'd be no more.

I mean, it's not an outlandish suggestion.

I mean, let's take Manchester City.

They were accused of sort of being a little bit boring in the way that they went about their success in the last couple of years.

Obviously, they weren't winning 1-0 every time, but that sort of discourse was starting to be generated.

But in this very extreme circumstance, how would it go?

Winning every game 1-0?

I mean, Spain at the 2010 World Cup won all their knockout games 1-0.

You obviously, in this hypothetical, you can't know it's going to happen, obviously, but you get the sense it probably will if it keeps happening.

I mean, it depends on the club as well.

I mean, like Real Madrid famously do the thing of, you know, sacking managers when they won the league or the Champions League because it's about style.

I'm pretty convinced that for

I think for pretty much every team, let's say in the Premier League,

apart from maybe Chelsea City, first season, I think you'd be like, I mean, you're winning every game, this is hilarious.

Going into a second season, if it happens, I mean, the

probably the quadruple.

So, yeah, so I think the first season, no one's complaining.

I think once you're into a second season, I mean, it's more the weirdness.

I think you'd be kind of like, what the fuck is going on?

Like, this is some sort of like dystopian nightmare where everything's been fixed because this isn't real.

So, yeah, I think once you got into a second season, it was because that's a lot of games.

I think you'd just be getting weirded out and a bit freaked out by it.

Fans would just be, they'd be demanding or calling for the floodgates to be opened.

Mourinho's Chelsea probably came closest to this, Dave.

They were two nil merchants.

They're basically two nil merchants.

If he'd had his way and they'd they'd just won 1-0 and he could sort of take his players off after 70 minutes and keep the legs fresh, he might well have done it.

So that's probably the closest we've really seen.

I mean, 1-0 to the Arsenal.

Or 1-0 to the Arsenal, yeah.

Yeah.

I think

in this scenario, though, so if they've won every game 1-0, so you've won the Carabao Cup as well, 1-0, and you're probably winning the title in April,

I guess.

So you've got less than 10 games left before the end of the season.

You'll go, well, we've won the title now.

We're still only winning these games 1-0.

Can't we just have a bit of fun?

That would actually, that would really ram it home, wouldn't it?

But then there'd still be the can we go unbeaten all season

aspect.

So I think that would keep you interested throughout the first season.

It's when you've done that and you've won the quadruple.

In the knockouts, no one's going to care, right?

FA Cups, Champions League, if you're winning those tense games 1-0 all the time, that keeps Simon up.

What about

if this team,

if a team did this, what would they be called?

Because it's a level above from the Invincibles.

It's not just being unbeaten, it's winning every single game.

The Invincibles.

The Untouchables.

The Immortals?

James McCann, crucially here, Charlie, hasn't given any sort of speculation about the style of play.

Maybe they are gallivanting freestyle, all-out attack merchants, but they still only win 1-0.

Just keep missing loads of chances.

They get back in numbers really quickly.

So they are actually end-to-end, but they still only win 1-0.

How would you feel about that?

I think inertia would set in, you know, yeah,

I don't think you'd go much longer than a season.

Or me, I mean, yeah, it's a tricky one because it is just so weird.

And I, and I think, like,

I think, even, I mean, maybe, maybe a smaller club you could go on for longer,

but the repetitiveness of it would kick in.

Do you think it would become a sort of existential problem in like the fourth season of this club winning every game one nil?

Basically, no one's turning up anymore.

There's barely anyone in the stadium.

Um, you know, it's like when the, I think it was the Sun offered £10,000 to the first player to score against Chelsea in 05, 06, and then Villa finally scored.

I think it was

one of the Moors, Lucor Stefan.

And he got 10 grand for presumably either for himself or for charity.

God knows what bounty would be placed on the head of that team.

Okay, on that thought-provoking note, that brings us to the end of the midweek adjudication panel.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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