Count Infantula's Club World Cup, referee kit launches & goal sandwiches

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think golder, because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here.

Made for your chicken favorites at Participate in McDonald's for limited time.

I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gas going on how to crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I think

brilliant.

But jeez!

He's round the goalkeeper!

He's done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was

without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip.

Oh, I say!

It's amazing!

He does it tame and tame and tame again.

Break up the music!

Charge a glass!

This nation is going to dance all night long!

Games that should should never take place in bright sunshine.

Can Nigel Farage do it on a cold wet Tuesday night, etc, etc?

A barely audible Andy Hinchcliffe somehow appearing in the intro for Ukrainian dance track.

Kyle Walker to Fenobace, a double header of football references in audiobooks, goal sandwiches, rare headers, the things subtly nodded to in the new Premier League referee kits, the Lampard and Gerard of Darts, and Richard Keys back in a jiffy.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Cliches.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the Adjudication Panel.

Joining me is Charlie Ekosha.

How you doing?

Very well, thank you.

Alongside you, David Walker, how are you doing after the Leeds quiz on Thursday night?

I thought it went tremendously well, and I'm really looking forward to doing some more of these.

Yeah, it was a great night.

Massive thanks to everyone who came down to the

brilliant Brood and L Social Club in Leeds.

What a venue that is, by the way.

But yeah, really good fun.

A good quiz.

Very closely fought in the end as well.

The winning team, Marginal Brains, running out winners by just two points.

And I was looking back at their scores afterwards, and they were level pegging all the way with the second-place team.

And they were just separated by two right at the end.

So it really, really did go down to the wire.

Yeah, it was great fun.

Charlie, you should have witnessed the live Happy Hunting Grounds while Dave was busy backstage totting up all the scores.

We got some people on stage to play a proper showdown of Happy Hunting Grounds.

It went wild, I can tell you.

Not a high-scoring affair.

Was it not an attritional battle?

Yeah, I can't remember the scores.

I think someone might have got a level six, maybe.

No, maybe not even that.

But yeah, yeah, the caliber doesn't matter.

It's all about the tension at that point.

But yeah, it was.

It was very attritional.

But yeah, the crowd loved it.

So more live Happy Hunting Grounds on stage at our future quizzes.

Maybe even at the future live shows if we run out of ideas.

That would be good, wouldn't it?

Two hours of that.

1,000 people at the Hackney Empire going, Leo Mope, 23, 24.

Anyway, yeah, speaking of clichés live, you can go to tickets.football clichés.com to snap up your ticket for our October tour.

We're going to Brighton.

We're going to Hackney Empire.

We're going to the Old Rep in Birmingham.

We're going to the Helix Theatre in Dublin.

We're going to the Academy 2 in Manchester.

The Wardrobe in Leeds.

Oranmore in Glasgow.

And what's more, we are about to announce a new date for the tour in Cardiff.

So keep your eyes peeled for that this week.

Dreamland members, you'll be able to pick up your ticket for that Cardiff date today, Tuesday the 17th of June.

Tickets will go on sale for you at 10am and it will go on general sale on Thursday at 10am for the rest of you.

So that's the Cardiff date added.

So that's eight dates.

Incredible stuff.

Speaking of Dreamland members, we're recording episode two.

of Dreamland this week.

It feels like ages since episode one.

What a long June it's been, but a wonderful June in many respects.

Yeah, you get two episodes of Dreamland a month with your subscription.

You get pre-sale access to the Football clichés live shows you get free entry to the clichés quiz live events which we're definitely doing more of now and you get all of that for just 5.99 a month go to dreamland.football cliches.com right time for the adjudication panel um where else to start than the biggest show on earth the club world cup charlie how's your cynicism has it eased not really i mean i was thinking the kind of your initial question of like you know why is this different from the world cup felt a little bit like saying how different is the audi Cup from the Champions League semi-finals?

I mean, you know, it's four great teams.

Why is it different?

I guess there are small differences.

I mean, it's just poles apart.

Do you know what?

I think I gave it the shrift it deserved.

Yeah, fair enough.

I mean, do you know what?

There was a point during PSG vs.

Atletico day where I thought, hmm, this does feel a little bit International Champions Cup.

That's some ground I'm willing to concede.

But my curiosity remains.

How about yours?

Yeah, I dipped in here and there across a couple of the games.

The PSG atletico match it just it just didn't look right it was just too sunny and too bright because they were playing at the rose bowl which is where they had the 94 world cup final and it's come you know a completely uncovered stadium very very odd that you would get such a high profile game with two high profile teams in such a stadium in in the in these days we're very used to the identikit sort of uefa fifa uh scene that you see at these tournaments so it was a bit weird from that point of view but it just didn't feel right that gave it immediate it just gave it immediate USA pre-season vibes.

Too sunny, yeah.

Or computer game when you choose a friendly and you can do all the settings, and so you're saying, like, yeah, I'll go day, why not?

Yeah, fuck it, I'll do, I'll do the Pasadena Rose Bowl.

It's just like this, none of this makes any sense.

And then you play and you're like, actually, nah, I want to do it in the evening.

Evening's better.

I mean, you know, with the backdrop of the discourse about player fatigue, it was quite, it was brutal to watch the, you know, the shadows right underneath them.

You really felt their pain.

Jacob murray agrees with you dave psg vs athletico should never be played in the sunshine he says spot on should be fletch on a tuesday night yeah where's fletch

i mean maybe i went over i didn't think i went overboard it i didn't think i was too effusive about the concept of the club world cup but tuval on reddit says i found it really strange when adam and dave were discussing on the last pod like it was something other than a deeply cynical money spinner i was very glad to hear charlie come in as the voice of reason sorry tour says i thought the same and adam's tweeting about it kind of inspired this it made me wonder if he was being paid to do it or something.

Ah, a FIFA shill.

I never thought I'd see the day.

I'm quite honoured by this.

I'm not beyond shilling for the right people, so don't worry.

You'll find out if we do.

But trust me, we are not.

No money is changing hands here.

Wow, just wait and see.

I reckon I might go full infantino by the knockouts, Charlie.

What a wonderful festival of football.

I said like Dracula.

Accidental Dracula.

I suppose it fits in many ways.

The blood-sucking fee.

Yeah, exactly.

Can you wait till we do iShow Speeds MHD in a few weeks?

I'm really annoyed.

My Infantino impression before we started recording was so good.

I did it to myself as I was going up the stairs and it completely disintegrated when you go live.

That's it.

The podcast weighs heavy on your vocal cords.

But I mean, Charlie, there are elements of this Club World Cup that I thought you'd buy into.

How do you feel about Man of the Match being rebranded as Superior Player of the Match?

That's cool, isn't it?

It's a nice little twist.

No, no, no issues with that.

I was thinking though, even when I was doing going through like the backlash, the post-backlash and all of that with hipsters, I was like, the big thing as well that they would have that even for the like you try telling them that it's good for the so-called smaller clubs in this, but then it's ruining their leagues, isn't it?

Because it's giving some of these teams loads of money, which is then going to distort competition.

So it's all kinds of wrong.

But yeah, superior player of the match.

Great.

Keep that.

Nice trepidate by Nikolob Ultra.

But I mean, on Sunday, Dave, we had a multiple game day.

I mean, I realized the kickoff times were massively unsuitable for UK viewers, but what I was faced with ultimately was a Sunday evening doubleheader of James Richardson politely coaxing some opinions out of Mabadou Sacco on Channel 5.

A very strange setup.

Jonas Olson, formerly of West Brom, was doing co-comms for Palmaris vs.

Porto.

This is absolutely bizarre.

What is going on?

So I watched a bit of that game and the Zone had in the studio, I think it was Olivia Bizaglo hosting Leanne Sanderson and Cleberson were the two pundits which itself you know a fairly unusual lineup but it was really weird what hearing them watching and hearing them talk both Olivia and Leanne were sort of throwing over to Cleberson saying Cleberson as if it was like his first name so like of course as you said earlier Cleberson you know Palmyra's really been pushing forward

as if he's got a second name or something it just didn't sound right i guess yeah what else what else would you go yeah jose cleberson is apparently his name.

Jose Cleverson Pereira.

So you could say Jose, but the viewers would be confused.

Yeah, that would sound weirder, I think.

And then people would accuse you of being overly familiar, like me and Greg.

With Palmiris v Porto, funny you mentioned Charlie earlier about the changing the settings on FIFA.

Because I was thinking that Palmiris v Porto is just so perfect for the sort of

random game that you might end up having on FIFA.

You know, like we used to do where

you play each other.

We do random selection.

Yeah.

Give each other like two stick or twists.

So if you get like a, you know, crew versus Blackburn, you're not bothered about that.

You go, oh, let's go again.

There's an international team there.

I don't want to play them.

Oh, Palmer Shi Porter.

Yeah, you'd be really pleased with that.

You'd be like, I'm really curious to see what they're like.

Nice mix of kits.

Green versus blue and white stripes.

It could easily have been a kind of Intercontinental Cup game in Tokyo in 1988 or something like that.

So it's got a lot of intrigue for me, but yeah, it was 0-0.

So there we are.

I'm not saying I'm trying to persuade you of anything here, Charlie.

It's not my job.

But just to try and world cuppify it, I was trying to map the competing clubs in this tournament to the FIFA World Rankings.

Now, unfortunately, there are, according to Optas power rankings, there are 10,000 clubs in their power rankings.

So to map that to the 200 or so clubs in FIFA meant that Al-Akhley is still technically in the top 1%

in the world.

So they're basically France.

So it kind of ruined it, I have to say.

But yeah, Auckland are about 5,000 in the rankings.

So they'd be ranked about 100.

But even a 100th ranked team probably doesn't quite sort of reflect Auckland's kind of hopelessness in this context.

How did you feel about Bayern Munich 10, Auckland 0?

It was patently absurd.

Yeah, I mean, not great.

Sort of, what are we doing here kind of vibes?

I mean, it reminded me, Bayer Munich play that friendly each year, don't they, against a kind of semi-pro team, and they win by a similar scoreline.

So it kind of just felt like like they were getting that friendly and early.

Maybe they won't need that

again this year.

I think nice that they got 10, though.

They fulfilled the brief.

It's the sort of game that you go, oh, Bayern really should be getting 10 here.

You'd be disappointed if they just win 4-0.

But no, they did it.

They actually got 10.

Yeah, I did think that no one ever gets 10.

So at least they have that.

Yeah, and you know, given my low-stakes kind of investment in this tournament, not literally, just to be clear.

This episode is 4-0.

This is my little shop.

I just wanted it to be 10-0.

I wanted to see a 10.

I got one.

I went home happy.

I stayed home happy.

So there we are.

But yeah, the more to come with this Club World Cup.

Good and bad.

This isn't going anywhere.

It's not going anywhere.

Love it or hate it.

You cannot ignore it.

Yeah, well, you could.

You can.

Yeah, true.

Right.

Next up, this came from Alex Aikhurst.

This is the news agents podcast and Zia Yousaf of Reform UK.

Here he is talking about Nigel Farage in terms I don't think anyone could ever have predicted.

I will say this, though, the analogy I use when people say oh, reforms are one-man band, etc.

When that attack is made, I like to use the comparison of Prime Barcelona.

I'm not sure if you're a football person.

Not entirely.

Not entirely.

No, not entirely.

Okay, I'm sure a lot of people will recognise this analogy.

There's Leonel Messi.

I'm sure you've heard of him.

Right.

I've heard of Lionel.

Right, Leonel.

And he was by far and away the best player that they had, by far and away.

And there was no Prime Barcelona without him.

But there was Xavi and there was Iniesta and there were Vales, all these other incredible players who were not Messi.

They were not Messi.

But without them, there was no Prime Barcelona.

And when Messi went to other clubs, he couldn't repeat that same kind of collective success.

So, yes, Nigel is the brightest star in our galaxy.

No doubt about that.

But we do have amazing people around him.

Without which, by the way,

I would say there's a reason why Reform is scaling heights and no other previous Farage project.

I mean, I don't think he's ever been compared to Messi, has he, Dave?

Not in most circles, I wouldn't have thought.

I don't know if Reform's got that strength in attacking depth, quite frankly.

Barcelona, what?

What a pedestal to put them on.

Bloody hell.

Has Messi distanced himself from these comments?

Come out of the Club World Cup.

Imagine him being approached with this.

Did you know?

Yeah.

Just your thoughts.

How much of an honour is that?

Listen, you know.

Always nice to be mentioned, but you know, listen.

Anyway.

Who's Pep then in that analogy?

The party chairman, I guess.

Richard Tep.

T.

Pep, the guy that was speaking.

Yeah, he is the chairman, isn't he?

He's here, USF.

No, he resigned, has come back in a different role, but I haven't actually ascertained what that role is.

Dunno is the answer.

Moved upstairs.

Okay.

Right, this came to my attention at the weekend.

This is Ukrainian dance merchant Henson with his track Galaxy, which I am led to believe, and I have received no evidence to the contrary, contains some very faint Andy Hinchcliffe co-commentary at the start.

Let's hear it very carefully.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, before we even get on, Dave, to the reason why Andy Hitchcliffe might appear at the start of a Ukrainian dance track,

here is what I can glean as the transcript of that exchange.

He basically says, silly one from him, the position of chasing the ball, trying to win it back, get them into this match.

It's got that urgency that you'd expect from Hinchcliffe if you can make out the audio, but

it's not Goodman.

It's not Don Goodman.

I'm a piece of it.

I was just going to say

inevitable first class.

It might be Don Goodman.

We've had Don Goodman on a track before, haven't we?

Him and Bill Leslie's commentary from the playoff final QPR against Derby was on some song that we had

a while back.

So it's nice to get Hinchcliffe in there as well.

Yeah, I mean,

you can barely make out any words there, but you can hear that distinctive co-commentary cadence.

But what, yeah, what's going on?

I've DM'd Henson on Instagram, Charlie.

No response as yet.

I did it in Ukrainian as well.

Laugh from me.

Just mention, was that Hinchcliffe or Goodman?

We just can't work it out.

I do like the idea that Henson could appear on one of those podcasts or YouTube shows where an artist breaks down their songs in great detail and plays all the individual parts and just says, you know, I just had this clip of co-commentary that I just want to play in there subtly just to really add something to the intro that they play andy hinchcliffe like completely isolated audio with a bit of reverb yeah

um

i mean this serves no function for the song the song is called galaxy that it doesn't have any particular theme but there it is seemingly andy hinchcliffe at the start some with some earnest analysis of a player seemingly sort of running back trying to help out trying to get his team into the game and giving away really clumsy foul on the retreat charlie

you can sense the irritation from him, so at least it's there.

Yeah, I mean,

it's definitely plausible that it's him.

And you're right, the cadence was a co-com, not a main.

At first, I thought, oh, is that actually a main commentator?

But I think as he goes on, it is slightly different.

Spot on.

We need to get to the bottom of this.

Everyone, mobilise.

We have to get this.

It's the new Jarzinho Galazzo.

Right.

Time for a quick footballers' names in things.

This came from Jignesh.

It's from the BBC's Hidden Treasures of the National Trust.

70 miles away, in the rolling hills of Warwickshire, a wealthy art collector was on his own radical mission, making high art available to all.

Here we have a photograph of, well, the man behind Upson really, this is Walter Samuel, second Viscount Bursted.

It was his kind of vision for Upson really to create this lovely balance between an art gallery and a country house.

Walter Samuel, there you are.

I mean, very, very plausible World War I figure and Argentina captain.

So I'm all right.

We were talking about that.

We weren't of the kind of

British sounding things in Argentinian football.

And Walter Samuel is a really good one.

This really rang a bell with me, Dave.

I thought, as a part of me, I thought, I'm sure we've had Walter Samuel on Football's Names and Things before.

I searched listenfairplay.com and it wasn't there.

So one can only deduce that we haven't had it before.

I had a weird Footballers Names and Things, by the way.

Not sound very broad, but we were talking about Kelvin Davis the other day, weren't we?

Not too

sort of significant.

Where this is going, but I listened to an interview with Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and then I went on her Wikipedia page.

Her deputy prime minister, Mr.

Kelvin Davis.

It was just after we've been talking about it, so I was like, yeah, interesting to see him popping up again.

Knows a thing or two about sort of a backup role, doesn't he?

Yeah, exactly.

When called upon.

Yeah, exactly.

Got to be ready.

Fair enough.

That's a niche one.

I like that one.

Incumbent upon us at this time of year, Dave, to analyse some mooted transfers to see whether they work or not.

Fabrizio Romano, no less, says Fenobace have made a serious approach to sign Kyle Walker from Man City, who is now back from AC Milan after his loan spell.

Kyle Walker to Fenobace, I like the sound of it.

I think it works.

I think he could have a good season out there.

I think that combined with something of a nightmare against Senegal for England last week really does signal the final knockings.

He's moving into another phase phase here.

He must be coming to terms with his position in the game now.

He's very much in that.

What's Carrigan saying about top flight football leaving you?

I think it's left him.

The Turkish Super League are rather immune from that sentiment, I sense.

Interesting, though, I mean, not much could be gleaned from that Senegal defeat, Dave, but the idea that Karl Walker has lost that yard of pace finally, even his kind of reserve pace, his recovery pace.

Are we equipped to detect that really?

And

unless you're actually measuring it, like, is a yard of pace more of a figurative thing?

Like, he's putting more effort into running.

Like, it's more of a struggle rather than actually running slower.

Yeah, I mean, because you could still be really quick, but even at his prime, maybe Ishmael Assault would still have been quicker than him.

Yeah.

The other player can just still be quicker.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost it, but I think that,

you know, generally, though,

when you get to the mid-30s, it is natural to think that you will be a bit slower, but then I don't know.

Yeah.

You just know it when you see it, don't you?

And I think he's in that space where it's not because it's not just Sarah Wingers are kind of beating him in a way that, you know, that that was, I mean, that was his cheat, he was a cheat code, that recovery pace.

It meant City could play that way.

So rather than a yard of pace has gone, it's more

sort of a yard per second of acceleration has gone.

So yeah, he's lost that yard of acceleration.

Yard per second.

Yeah.

It's gone.

Yeah, maybe.

But yeah, Fendibarce sounds good too.

I think his one season in Turkey, Charlie, would be characterised by him doing something slightly soon-esque and flaggy.

So, you know, he, I don't know, like taking it up, because I think he sees himself as a main character in pretty much every team.

He was, he was a big part of the dressing room at

Milan, by all accounts.

So

he's got main character syndrome.

I can see him doing some flag planting or equivalent at Fennebar.

Yeah, and they'll probably play an English team, won't they?

I don't know if they'll be in the Champions League or Europa or what competition, but there's a fairly decent chance.

And then...

you know, you can imagine some sort of confrontation because he'll really have a point to prove.

The interesting thing then is what will his next move be after that?

You know, is he Saudi?

Is he MLS?

Is he Wrexham?

You know, what's his...

Wrexham, wow.

What's the kind of the next move here?

Back to Sheffield United.

Yeah.

Or yeah, the Romantic's choice.

Yeah, after they got promoted.

What will be interesting as well is the airport reaction to his signing because as we've discussed previously, some of the airport fanfare does seem to have died down a little bit.

There's been some signings turned up and there's sort of barely, you know, anyone there.

But I think for Kyle Walker, I still think he's got enough of a big reputation that this is a big move.

There could well be a big welcoming party.

Yeah, and I think he would relish that, Kyle Walker.

He would, yeah.

Yeah, he would.

Right, we'll be back very shortly with part two.

See you then.

Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

This is the adjudication adjudication panel.

Next up, essentially great stuff here.

John Myers has been listening to the audiobook of Sarah Winman's Still Life.

And he says, there is this moment in this otherwise excellent audiobook where there is some abominable football chanting.

It was from this vantage point that Chris, Massimo and Ulysses calmly saw England win the World Cup and more importantly, Jeff Hearst get his hat-trick.

They celebrated quietly and modestly on the terrace that night.

A slightly better glass of wine was had.

There's only one Jeff erst sang an aging and topless overweight man in a pub somewhere in East London.

Only one Jeff Erst.

There's only one

It started so promisingly, Dave.

It was on the right track.

Oh, no.

One Jeff Erst.

Yeah, the really pronounced dropping of the age.

That which was very absent, wasn't it?

That's a very primary school kid doing my fair lady.

I actually heard Danny Dyer was on Desert Island Disc recently complaining about people dropping H's in print and in books and in magazine articles and stuff and taking the piss out of Cockney.

So there you go.

Another prime example of it.

But yeah, rubbish.

He's going to hate that one then.

Because he's a West Hand man as well.

Wow.

I mean, maybe that's how the chant went back

in 1966.

Very strong since then.

How silly we'd look.

Yeah.

That's actually, yeah, they had a whole news.

Well, actually.

Yeah, they had a whole new verse back in the 60s.

You need to realise that.

They also said he was topless, which

I don't think that's happening in the 60s at Wembley.

Or

in the pub afterwards.

I can't see it.

I can't see someone taking their top off and singing, there's only one Jeff Herbert.

But the swinging 60s?

Latino.

That's impossible.

I don't know.

I think he's in a shirt and tie and blazer, this guy.

Fair enough.

On a similar note, here comes Johnny Collins.

He says, I'm reading Richard Osman's fourth book in his Crime Thriller series and found a rather humorous piece of football chatter.

For context, this chapter is where a policewoman and her boyfriend are undercover at a Brighton game, sitting in a corporate box of a man they're investigating.

The boyfriend, who doesn't know anything about football, has done some research on the game and has the following football chat with this potential criminal, who is supposedly a big football fan.

Here we go.

What do you reckon to the score, Baza?

Dave asked Bogdan.

Oh, Bogdan is an expert in many things, but football is not one of them.

I think 3-1, says Bogdan.

This Everton defence, too shaky.

Letting in too many goals, too many old legs now.

Welbeck and Mitoma, too much for them.

And if Estupinen starts, then game over.

Purvis Estupinan being the key man.

That's it.

That's deep tactical knowledge.

I think they can get him down the left.

I really do.

Seamus Coleman, who presumably is playing in this fictional game, Charlie, to add to the tired legs.

I mean, I had to hurriedly research this, Charlie, but I don't think this game actually took place.

The book goes on to say that Brighton score a third goal against this aging defence.

Alex Iwobi is playing for Everton and Mitoma and Welbeck for Brighton.

None of those things have come together all in one game at the Amex, crucially.

Well, let's get, you know, use this as another attempt to draw Richard Osman out.

Get him on the pod to explain.

Is that maybe Richard Osman, noted Fulham fan, just getting in one of his favourite current players, Alex Awobi, into his former club, just so he can mention him, perhaps?

But yeah, interesting choice of a stooping down, because you've mentioned two of

the main players already, so why don't you just sort of swap one of them in as the final piece?

But yeah, fair play.

I don't think you could ever say that about any left back, could you, Charlie?

Like, if that left back plays, that's it.

It's game over.

Roberto Carlos, Pika Roberto Carlos, they get a free kick in and around the area yeah i mean i get we talked about like zinchenko for that brief period where he was kind of the main man to how arsenal played oh yeah tactically yeah but it's yeah very rare like extra man in midfield could be crucial exactly yeah

jareth bale but yeah no don't mind yeah but he wasn't by the time he was that key he'd sort of been moved he'd been moved forward another mystery to one pick um some material from the england under 21s as they start their euros campaign over in slovakia um from the guardian dave it says goals from Harvey Elliott and Charlie Cresswell sandwiched by another from Jonathan Rowe were enough to allow England to take a commanding position in Group B.

Finley says, I've just read this article and I always assume sandwich is when a player scores either side of another goal.

But as I say it out loud, now I'm confused.

Is it the bread or the filling?

There's a lot of confusion about sandwiching, isn't there?

Yes, but this the way this is written is not right.

You can't have two goals sandwiched by one goal, can you?

The idea that the filling, Charlie, is doing the sandwiching is mad.

I'm trying to think now what the, when you,

when you hear sandwiching.

Oh, I'm sandwiched.

I'm blocked in.

You hear it when a player essentially gets challenged by two opponents from either side.

Yeah.

And then

they say player X has been caught in a player Y and player Z sandwich.

Well, no, that's the opposite.

You're the filling, so you define the sandwich.

You're not doing the sandwiching, but you are the filling, and therefore you become the sandwich.

So two alternate ways of getting sandwiching wrong here.

Yeah, the bread does the sandwiching, but the the filling takes on the the mantle of the sandwich.

As well as this, Dave, I don't like the idea of two goals sandwiching another goal.

I want bookending.

Bookending is what we like, don't we?

Yeah.

Bookending would have worked.

Can two goals bookend any goal, Charlie, or do i does does time play a significance here?

Does it have to be an you know an early goal and a late goal and then anything in between?

I think that's the most satisfying.

A goal either side of half-time.

We do.

We enjoy that one.

The goal times were Harvey Elliott was 39 minutes, Jonathan Rowe 48 minutes, Charlie Cresswell 76 minutes.

The sandwiching works better because the proximity is closer, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, it needs to be fairly squashed together, doesn't it?

Okay.

Elsewhere, Johnny G, Charlie says, in the England under 21s game, an England player just got robbed because he was showing too much of the ball to his opponent, according to the commentator.

How much is too much of the ball, and how does a player hide it?

So give me a classic example of showing too much of the ball to an opponent.

Yeah, he's just showing a little bit too much for him there.

I think if you're trying to drift, if you've got your one-on-one with a fullback as a winger and you're kind of trying to tempt them into a tackle, but actually in so doing, you give them too much and they actually just can make the tackle and they nip it away from you.

So you're not protecting the ball well enough.

As a keen one-on-one defender, Dave, I always enjoyed the split second when you knew they'd showed you too much of the ball so you can just stick it a toe.

It's a masterpiece of football timing for a defender to know when that is the moment to nick it away.

But there's a definite mental threshold that it gets past where you think, that's it.

That's too much of the ball.

You show me too much.

That's it.

Nick it away.

So it could be a heavy touch.

Yeah, if the winger's running at you.

But if the player has got his back to you and they are trying to shield the ball with their body, I always like, as a defender, that moment where you just stick the toe through their legs and you just get it away.

Should have some more.

Definitely.

It's quite effective.

Yeah.

Yeah, there you go.

Showing too much of the ball.

I just can't think if I'd heard it recently, but yeah, it has to be a one-on-one situation out wide, surely.

There's not many other uses for it, but not sure on the threshold for that.

It'd be very, very difficult for us to decide.

Now, listener Michael Cox gets in touch, reading a match report from Milan versus PSV in 2003, which says Milan were not to be denied and went ahead on the half-hour thanks to a rare Inzagi header.

Coxie says, Dave, leaving aside the fact he scored six headers that season, what's the criteria for rare header?

Can't have it for pure number nines, surely.

How about

on this final point?

Should a number nine be expected to get in on the headers in a single season?

Yeah, surely being being decent in the air is part of being a traditional number nine.

But isn't that doesn't that make it even more likely that you would hear it for a number nine?

Because it's more expected.

As in it's more noteworthy if a number nine's not doing it.

Oh, yeah.

Do you see what I mean?

Like, it's it should be sort of part of their arsenal.

And that's why, like, the example I gave in response to this was Henri.

Andy Gray would always go on about how...

And you can debate whether he was a pure number nine up, but he was certainly a priori.

Coxie dismissed this as not being a pure number nine, but he scored so many goals, I think it's fine.

Like, yeah, he's scored so many.

Gray was always talking about it, and you know, he's big and athletic, and why isn't he scoring more headers?

So

we're edging closer here to what the which players could qualify to be labelled for this if the threshold applies, Dave.

But what should the threshold be?

Because Deggie replies saying Messi versus Manchester United in the 2009 Champions League final is a genuine one.

Coxie says, agree, certainly at that point, but then one season he scored six headers.

Would that count?

And then Deggie says, Definitely not, but I still think any header from Messi would be a rare header.

Yeah, yeah.

And he was probably getting proportionately, yeah.

If he's scoring 40-odd goals, or maybe even way more than that, six is still fairly small percentage.

So I don't know how many headers Messi scored.

I bet it.

If you can't Google this, then what can you?

He'd scored 28 headers in his career as of 2024.

So that's about half as many goals as he's dinked over a goalkeeper, according to my calculations.

So pretty rare.

Someone else mentioned Charlie Jermaine Defoe, who didn't score many headers at all.

Yeah, I can't think of him scoring them.

Obviously, he was pretty small.

Would it go the other way if you had

Duncan Ferguson with a rare side?

Non-headed goal.

I mean, certainly for a centre-back, you could say that there are some centre-backs who only score headed goals pretty much.

A rare goal with his feet.

I mean, there are some players who just don't seem like they should be good in the air, but are deceptively quite good.

You know players who seem like they're a bit soft somehow.

I think of headering, whereas actually heading is kind of a technical skill, but

it's often equated with how much you want it, your desire, and that's...

Gio Go Jotter.

He's really good, isn't he?

Yeah.

I mean, I remember there was a season where Wayne Rooney suddenly started scoring loads of goals with his head.

0910, he became incredible at headers, yeah.

Valencia just pinging crosses and him scoring.

This reminds me of something that's always maybe slightly curious.

I mean, it's a bit of a rambling thought but bear with me.

When an elite player, I'm going to say Neymar or something, not that I can remember any of his headers, but

when a player like Neymar scores a really good header, like he'll glance one in from a cross that's been bent in and I think to myself, he's never practiced that.

Like, he's practiced all his other stuff that he's incredibly good at.

So he's basically just insanely good at football generally, that he just knows how to head a ball.

And I think that blows my mind.

Like, it's just like, that's it.

He's elite at that as well.

Fair play because there's no way he's practicing glancing headers.

He's not dropping.

So here you go.

I haven't really articulated that curiosity very well.

I know what you mean.

No, I do know what you mean.

Maybe they do a bit.

He's probably not staying behind after training to practice his glancing headers, but he probably does do a bit in the, you know, probably is made to do the odd drill where you have to do it.

Someone's told him he's got 14 for headers on football manager.

He says, I'll better live up to that then.

Well, I remember as well, like, Meza Erzil, who's probably the archetype for soft foreign player, he was actually decent at heading, which again feels odd.

He's, I mean, just looking at it here, and this may be wrong, but it says he scored four headed goals in the Premier League of 33, which is 12% of his headed goals.

Wow.

Of his goals were headers, which feels kind of mad for some.

Because I remember,

I think it was Ronald Komen, who was the evidence manager.

It was the last game, and Erzel scored a header.

And a punter was like, well, you know, when Meza Erzil is out, headed, out, out, header, something is seriously wrong with their desire.

He's not even the smallest player on the pitch, is he?

Yeah, and I was like, he's actually quite good in the air.

You've sort of just assumed that he's soft, so like, wouldn't like to head the ball.

But maybe it is, like, I think that, like, the Neymar thing, it's probably he's just an unbelievably good technical footballer.

Yeah.

And so can head a ball as well.

Yeah, there you go.

Deep, deep stuff.

Now, let's do some rugby bashing now.

Um, the premiership, the top flight of English rugby union, Dave, will become the Gallagher Prem next season as it rebrands to emphasise the physicality and intensity of the league.

It is hoped that shortening the league's name will help it talk how fans talk and give it a less corporate, more informal feel.

The prem.

You can't have that as the official name.

You should let it become the thing that people call it.

Like some people call the Premier League the Prem.

I don't, but I'm all for it.

Yeah, yeah, spot on.

Yeah, you can't engineer these things.

It's classic sort of corporate overreach.

And they've admitted it.

And they've admitted it.

They've admitted the transparency motivation behind it.

It's terrible.

Don't do that.

I wonder if this will contribute, though, to a reduction in the premiership football misnomer, because I think quite a lot of that comes from rugby men who know the premiership is the thing in rugby and so they think it's a sort of blankety thing and maybe they'll start calling the Premier League the Prem rather than the Premiership.

A disproportionate number of people in Westminster call the Premier League still call it the Premiership.

So that that could you could well be onto something here.

But it gets worse, Charlie.

The second tier championship announced in May that it would similarly change its name for the start of next season, opting for champ rugby.

Champo.

Champo.

Champ.

Champo.

Rubbish.

Oh my god.

There's nothing more to say.

Astonishingly shit.

Champ.

Champ rugby stuff.

There you go.

But you know, football is not immune from this sort of thing.

PGMOL have unveiled their new referee kits for the Premier League next season,

manufactured now by Puma in a new deal.

I never thought I'd see the day that Football Kit Marketing Speak would hit the refereeing well, but here it is.

The contemporary design is fresh and dynamic, featuring bold colourways and reflects the evolving landscape of the modern game.

With a forward-thinking, creative approach that recognises the important role of match officials, the new kit subtly incorporates a design that emphasizes sport is in their DNA, underpinned by their integrity, judgment, and courage.

Wow.

I mean, every time we do this, Dave, we talk about how it's barrel scraping.

That's astonishing.

I mean, there's nothing on the kit that they can even attach it to.

They've just said it is.

Well, fair enough.

Yeah, I love those little checkered marks.

They've got little check sort of squares on the shirts.

It's supposed to signify integrity, judgment, and courage.

I mean, how?

It's got a slight resemblance to a DNA helix, I suppose, if you squinted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, they must have known.

Maybe they don't, that they were going to get an absolute ham ring for doing this.

Definitely.

Like, you must be leaving yourself.

You know that you're leaving yourself open to this mild ridicule, but to do a referee kid.

So don't do it.

Like,

I suppose this is maybe part of the deal with Puma that they want it to be publicised.

It's not that you can buy these things, can you?

You can't buy a referee's shirt.

I'm starting to wonder if you can or can't.

Why do this if you can't buy it?

Yeah.

Who's buying one?

Would you get something printed on the back?

It's only for stack dudes.

It's only for silly stack dudes, isn't it?

I remember years, about close to 20 years ago, going to Vietnam and they had all the fake football shirts and you're filling your boots with that.

And me and my friend also, they also had a referee's one.

We were like, that's just such a weird novelty.

We've got to get that.

That will come in handy.

And sure enough, it did on a stag equivalent

type laugh.

I speak as a man who bought an Italian 90 referees kit during lockdown, and it survived my latest round of clothes throwing out as well.

So it didn't go in the charity bin.

So it's still there.

Wow.

Don't know when I'm going to use it.

Certainly not on Father's Side.

But yeah, if you buy one of those shirts, let us know why and how and how much it was.

Right, we'll take a short break.

We'll be back in a moment.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Right, next up, this came from Lamppost Walker.

It's from a Financial Times feature on London's Turkish barbers.

Here's a lovely passage.

Koran was cutting a man's hair when I entered the family's flagship outlet in Spitalfields.

Unlike his father, he's skinny and has short hair and sharp features, but he has his dad's sense of grandeur.

At 29, he claims to be London's only third-generation Turkish barber, having trained at the shop after school under his grandfather, father, and uncles.

Barbering is in my blood.

If you cut me, he said, nodding to the ubiquitous azure jars of disinfectant liquid on every countertop, I will bleed blue.

Now, the problem here.

I thought you said I'd bleed scissors or something.

I know, but this is tantalizing because I don't know.

If you cut this man open away from his shop or any sort of signifier and he just started bleeding blue, I'd have no idea he was a Turkish barber.

Big Chelsea fan or something.

Well, it's kind of like a sort of turquoise-y kind of bright blue, isn't it?

So, I don't know, Man City, I don't know, PGMOL.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's more like a referee's colour, isn't it?

Yeah, that's not gonna be, that's gonna be no use, mate, when I cut you open.

Absolutely no use.

Not even close to being the most noticeable feature of a barbershop.

Like, I bleed red and white, like, you know, that, like the little, the little pole they have outside, or yeah, like you say, I bleed razor blades.

Yeah.

I bleed the mirror they hold up at the end.

Thank God it's got, thank God it's got that clarification before he continues.

But in that sense, I'd really like it.

Like, written down, it's brilliant.

But yeah, as a thing to to say out loud, absolutely.

You cut me open.

Just loads of cut hair just come spilling out.

All those bits you find on the floor.

Right.

Too much cutting open there.

Next up,

this came from Overhyped Unamazing on Reddit.

Here is Danny Mills' son, George, trying to hold on in the Diamond League 5,000 meters in Oslo.

George Mills still looks calm out there, doesn't it?

Yo, moving up onto his shoulder.

Can you believe this?

A European and an American are are ahead of the best of Africa.

The crowd loving of this one.

They know their distance running here.

150 to go.

And Nico Young hits the front.

The American is a 350.

Not just an obscure, they know their ex here, Charlie, but in the heat of battle as well, just chucked in in the middle there.

A real kind of, you know, heated moment of the race.

Bold move all round, I think.

The famous knowledgeable crowd.

Yeah.

I mean, I suppose Oslo is big on their distance running, I guess.

Yeah, they've got the Inger Britsons.

So I guess it is a bit of a hotbed.

Now, one of the kind of clinching factors of being a knowledgeable crowd, Dave, isn't just, you know, having been there and seen it before and enjoyed it at an elite level.

It's knowing when to clap certain aspects of it that laymen might not understand.

What can you really appreciate during a 5,000-metre race that sort of other people will go, oh, what?

What's happening?

Tom Cruise is going, wow.

Wow.

But it just seems here like they're just cheering someone kicking in from gearing up for a big finish, which surely is one of the most obvious things that you would cheer if you're watching from a distance running.

The bell ringing.

Yeah, we all know that, right?

Yeah.

Why are they running faster?

That's the one thing we all know.

The greater marker of knowing your distance running would be early on going, oh, he's gone out too early.

Yes.

That's it.

You're not getting carried away.

Very slow start, which means this won't work.

This will play into the hands of the Ethiopians at the back, you suspect.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think that's the only thing you can really glean from a 5,000-metre race, Charlie.

That's it.

The tactics at the start, right?

The tactics at the start, yeah.

And then, I mean, it's a classic thing, isn't it?

I'm sure we talked about this before, but like with the Olympics, how everyone becomes an expert on every sport very briefly.

And that's exactly what I mean.

We're like, oh, yeah, but wait until the kick, like that, that,

then you'll really know.

Can he just stay on their coattails and be close enough for that last lap?

You get that a lot of horse racing.

I was at the races recently down in Brighton, and you get so much sort of amateur kind of punditry of like, no, no, it's fine, actually.

Look, I know he's last, but you just wait.

When you come down that hill, he's going to finish.

Jockey's relaxed here.

The going's good.

Let's stay clear of football for one more item.

England's Luke Humphreys and Luke Littler are out of the World Cup of Darts after suffering a shock defeat by host Germany in the last 16.

Over to Twitter, I went and simply searched for Littler Lampard.

And just a slew of tweets saying Littler and Humphreys playing together are like Gerard and Lampard.

It doesn't work.

I mean, this is an absolute tap in, isn't it?

It works really well, I think.

I mean, admittedly, they don't really have to dovetail too much in darts, but Dave, I like this, and it was, and I'm glad a lot of people shared the sentiment.

Yeah, yeah, they've just faced each other in the final of the

Premier.

I don't know if it's the Premiership or the Premier League of Darts.

The Dart Premier.

The Dart Prem.

How has Darts not gone prem yet?

Have you seen the shirts that they wear at the World Cup of Darts?

They've got like a little St.

George's flag on the

dark blue collar.

It kind of really does it like a real sort of England-adjacent leisure wear that you might find in like Tesco's or something during a World Cup.

But some of the details on that shirt, Charlie, that's very sort of England's kit at World Cup 98, isn't it?

Yeah,

there's a lawsuit coming here.

That's exactly what jumped out to me.

The red and the blue, they're not striped, the bits at the side that kind of line it.

Yeah, very World Cup 98.

By all accounts, Listener and Humphreys, Dave, get on fairly well.

There's obviously a healthy rivalry and there's a professional distance between them at various points.

But they do have a genuine respect for each other.

But you can see, I mean, maybe it runs a bit deeper because there's always the discourse about how the Chelsea players and the Liverpool players and the Man United players all sort of sat separately on England duty in the golden generation.

And perhaps they just don't sort of, you know, they don't socialize together.

They're not chatting like the Germans do.

It also should work perfectly, really, because if you think about the Lampard and Gerrard thing, I go, you stay.

That is dust.

And they can't both go to the hockey at the same time, can they?

It works perfectly.

So that is absolutely tremendous, by the way.

Anyway, speaking of two British Titans working together for the greater good, it's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

Just Keysy for this one.

He's still on his blog hiatus and very much on a be-in hiatus as well.

They're not doing the Club World Cup together as far as I can see.

They're on holidays.

But as we trailed, Charlie, Richard Keys has tweeted about Dave Brailsford.

Here it goes.

I can't imagine Dave Brailsford will be missed by football people at OT.

His time at the club has been a disaster.

With so many questions still to answer about jiffy bags, why was he ever involved in the first place?

All roads lead back to the Jim Reaper.

I mean, obviously.

Yeah, tweet again.

Of course, thank you.

Would have thought that was the link, yeah.

Hang on a minute.

So, the only disappointment here, Dave, is that Sir Dave Breylesford hasn't earned himself a nickname at Keys Towers.

Baleric Priest on Reddit says, surely it was Dave Failsford.

Is that sort of cheap for Keysy?

Is that not inventive enough?

I think it's almost too millennial with like daily fail and that sort of thing.

I don't know if he'd be so into the kind of ubiquity of fail as well.

Oh, I think he could use it in the original context and still make it work.

Maybe, yeah.

Dave, Dave Failsford.

Sir, Jiffy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, Cosmos Crumb follows that up, Dave, by saying Keesey managed to spell Jiffy wrong in the tweet.

The man is on another level.

With an I rather than a Y.

I had to do it.

it.

Is it wrong?

Or is that how it was spelt back in the.

I don't know.

No, no, I think it's all right.

Oh, no.

Jiffy Condoms was with an I, wasn't it?

No, Jiffy Condoms.

Was Jiffy Condoms with an I?

Yeah.

No, Jiffy Bags are with a Y.

Jiffy Condoms is I.

And that's what Kiz is referring back to.

And that's why his is capitalized as well.

Having googled this, I've just googled Jiffy Condoms, and about the fifth result says Jiffy contraceptive sheaths.

Which is incredibly crazy.

I've run out of control.

Not tonight.

Really sorry.

I just should never have got to this stage.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eckles.

433 episodes, Dave, and we've done it.

Thanks to everyone for listening, especially if you made it this far.

We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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