90/10 tackles, Danish player ratings & how to board a train like a 30-goal striker

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

Is Gascoigne going to have a crack?

He is, you know.

Oh, I say!

Brilliant!

But jeez!

He's round the goalkeeper!

He does it

David Beckham and the greatest comeback in the history of English football.

The ongoing struggles of the USMNT.

A possible new world record for away fans not realising their team have scored at the opposite end.

What would a 90-10 tackle look like?

Time to talk about the ludicrous player rating systems in Danish media.

Football mannerisms creeping into the London Underground.

Dominic Szaboslai goes niche with his social media riposte and Keese returns to his old stomping ground.

Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

I'm joined by Charlie Eccleshare.

Hello.

Hello.

And David Walker, how are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

Yeah, good, not bad.

Relatively quiet week for football, I think.

But some bits and bobs from the international break to get stuck into anyway.

Yeah, perfect.

With it being quite weak, I can start with some correspondence we've had.

And Dave, actually, someone's picked you up on

an uncharacteristic error.

Yeah, we were in the conversation we were having

about kind of players having footballer fathers and kind of the ideal sort of sweet spot for that.

Someone from Spurs got in touch, and apparently, Elijah Upson is Matt Upson's son.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Okay.

And there's more.

So from that match, Dave, you correctly identified there was a Smith and a Shevschenko with famous footballing fathers.

So on that night as well in the Spurs team, apparently there was Ronnie Monker, who's the grandson of John.

There was Ty Hall, the son of Fitz, and one for you in the heads, Samal Bangura, the son of former Watford midfielder Al Bangura.

Oh, nice.

And Watford's team also had Jail Norville, the son of former Watford player Jason Norville.

So, yeah, described to me as a feast of the footballing gene pool.

That's incredible.

Very reassured as a headline on Upson there.

Yeah.

Just further proving the rule that we were

ideal.

I think my research extended to asking the bloke next to me in the crowd at the time.

So

absolutely corrected on that one.

That's incredible.

What incredible case is great mix, isn't it?

Yeah.

I love the one's a grandson as well.

Gives it another layer.

Churning them out.

Absolutely churning them out in that family.

Fair play.

It's like baldness.

So the son isn't as good, but the grandson gets the jeans.

Maternal grandfather.

Yeah, I'm alright with that.

Fine.

Right, time for the adjudication panel.

Now, as England 2, Albania 0, peacefully drew to a close on Friday night on ITV, there were some final conclusions with Sam Matterface and Lee Dixon.

Well, many believed that England would win and win both matches in this window.

And that most of the lessons that Thomas Tuchall would take would probably have been gleaned from time at St.

George's Park rather than here at Wembley.

But what are the key takeaways going to be, do you think?

Well, I think playing

going to play against opposition like that in this group, there's no doubt about it.

But they've been patient at times.

Yes, move the ball a little bit quicker at times.

Yeah!

The only takeaway that's allowed after a mid-game.

Oh, yes, superb.

There was a lot of move the ball quicker chat, even at half-time, I think.

It was the main talking point.

Yeah, I think it's more of a half-time than a full-time thing.

It's quite unusual seeing it then.

Is it because the proliferation of we have to move the ball quicker because, Charlie, from a purely tactical perspective, because England comes up against so many teams who park the bus and force them to find a way?

I guess so.

I mean, it's one of those things that is going to be correct a large proportion of the time.

You've got to play really well and create a lot of chances for it not to be, you know, for performance not to be improved by moving the ball quicker.

Like, it's kind of self-evident.

Yeah, it's always going to be a good thing, I think.

Although, when you see a team like Man City, who, there's been many pieces that have been written over the years about how they deliberately like to slow things down to like walking pace, you never hear Elon and go, Oh, I think she needs to move it a bit quicker.

It's just an England thing, isn't it?

Only you only ever say it about England.

England's got too much powser in their game, clearly.

Drew writes in, Charlie, and says, During the broadcast, has there ever been a more pointless latest score than the Andorra Nil Latvia one update during England versus Albania?

As if that's going to affect England's qualification route.

No, you've got to do it.

This is it.

It's not about the final day permutations.

I want the whole lot.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a sort of convention.

You've got to abide by it.

But poor Matt.

I mean, like, did Mattface actually have to read that out or did it just appear?

Because if he did, like,

you know, I often find Dixon's sort of just not responding to things a bit difficult.

But what is he going to say to that?

I mean, you're just setting Mattface up for a fool there.

I have to say, I don't know whether it was read out.

It would make it brilliant if it was.

That would be exactly.

Imagine his withering reaction to that.

He will have nodded to it.

There's no doubt.

But I think he you probably would have had a line to just sort of say it, sum it up, and move on.

But then, you know, if you're going to pay respect to the group situation, tonight's a top of the table

clash, isn't it?

Between England and Latvia.

Winner goes top

in the embryonic group table.

But I really hope Matsavase gave it the full one.

There's been a goal.

Yestaddy Nacional could be a huge one.

It's gone to the Andorans.

This, this blew my mind.

It came out on Twitter on Sunday night, tweeted by Katie, and it's from the Wikipedia page for Video Killed the Radio Star.

And what a critical section of this Wikipedia page it is.

In February 2002, while on international duty with England, David Beckham became involved in an argument with journalist Rob Shepard during a press conference after Shepard made a joke about David and Victoria Beckham's habit of finishing second, David finishing second in the recent FIFA World Player of the Year vote and Victoria's inability to have a number one hit.

Beckham sarcastically asked Shepard, Shepard, what do you know about music?

How many people in your family have ever had a number one?

Shepard replied, one.

My sister was in the buggles.

His sister was Linda Jardi Mallon, who sang vocals on the song.

Dane, imagine having this in your locker, just waiting for the opportunity to unleash it.

He sprung the trap so perfectly there.

Brilliant.

That is immaculate banter, Charlie.

Like, just imagine the satisfaction of being able to just say that to someone.

Yeah, this is like when you imagine an argument with someone and you kind of, in your head, they set you up perfectly and you can just absolutely rip into them.

But this is like beyond your wildest dreams in that respect.

Someone actually teeing you up for this.

As much as the kind of satisfaction that oozed out of it, Dave, I looked at it and thought, well, this is Wikipedia.

It could so obviously be wrong.

I did a bit of research.

Shepard has tweeted about his sister's pop career before.

So, I mean, it's too mundane a detail to be made up, but you always fear for these sort of particular anecdotes because, you you know these stories can be somewhat apocryphal sometimes.

I think it is cited as well isn't it on the Wikipedia page

so it's back it's backed up by something and I mean anyone who's seen the Graham Taylor England documentary will be familiar with Rob Shepherd's you know penchant for having

a bit of a set to with England figures and if you see the way that he goes at Taylor there you can just imagine how the the smug satisfaction of him delivering this line to Beckham would have been exquisite

The way it's written is so brilliantly matter of fact.

Well, there was one actually, yeah, my sister's in the buggles.

There's no messing around.

But what did you respond?

Where do you go from there?

It's a fair play.

Yeah.

The first recorded instance.

Now, next up came from Chris Lambert.

This is over in MLS recently.

So Lennon, he gets the cross away.

Latin Latt trying to bring it down.

And Jordi Albert sends it to midfield.

not a musical one though Charlie but how'd you feel about get the cross away I just want to sing it it's weird hearing it just spoken but that would have been a good get the cross away but Dave should crosses be got away in any in any context it sort of feels like if you're just getting a cross away a sort of percentage ball rather than a really accurate well-placed cross do you know what I mean spot on oh definitely yeah yeah Because it implies that you, you know, just get it away, right?

That's it.

Just get it sent.

Just do it.

You're under a lot of pressure.

Yeah.

You're just sort of hoisting one in.

Yeah.

Could have sung it, though.

That would have been the icing on the cake, but we'll see.

So let's stay in America for a moment, Charlie.

And let's talk about the intense averageness of the US MNT.

I mean, it's clearly an ongoing existential crisis for them.

And as England football fans, we are not unaccustomed to that sensation.

But I do find it kind of equally amusing that...

the US are still struggling to become elite at football.

But also quite unsatisfying.

It's similar to when you might tune into a Champions League game or a World Cup game and it's a big nation or a big club and you look at their team and they've got one slug in there.

And it's just, oh, how are you still playing him?

How are you still having to resort to player X?

And it's a little bit like that with the US.

How can you not, how have you not cracked this by now?

It is, but it's also, yeah, it's kind of reassuring in some ways.

I mean, it is mad.

It's more than 30 years since the World Cup in 94, which we were having exactly.

And I remember it was one of the like first sort of curiosities of football.

I can remember being introduced to of like, how is, you know, America are great at every sport, but they're terrible at football.

Yeah, it's because they don't really care.

But, you know, if they do care, they'll, you know, they'll work it out.

Then it was kind of like, yeah, but it's so spread across various different sports and things like that.

And they have just sort of, it's sort of gone nowhere.

I mean, they had that quarterfinal in 2002, didn't they?

But that was a it wasn't like a, they've cracked.

It was more just the drawer opened up and it was a big World Cup of upsets.

Yeah, it's just sort of ongoing, but maybe it would be odd and you wouldn't know what to do if they suddenly did become researchers.

Well, on that point, you know, to pick up also on Charlie's point about sort of infrastructure and culture, Dave, there was this in the years after USA 94, as US became a kind of emerging soccer nation that actually cared about it, there was this chat from sort of general sporting knowledgeables that within 10 years, if they get their act together, they'll be number one because it's just a sheer number of people.

And it was the same we said about China.

So that's it.

The numbers will tell.

I think Pochacino literally said that last week, didn't he?

When he did his press, he said in 10, 15,

we'll be dominating.

But you just look at the team, though.

I mean, they still don't have a very good team.

That's the problem.

Genuine stuff.

They've got some good players, like Bulasic,

Wester McKenney, Timothy Weyer, like good players.

But they haven't got any absolute sort of world-class superstars.

And then they've also got Matt Turner in goal.

Yeah.

Yeah, get Brud Guzan in.

They're not even producing great goalkeepers anymore.

It's such a shame.

Charlie, are we close to this is the United States of America we're talking about here?

Well, I mean, in a sporting sense, I guess, yeah, they've done nothing to merit that in a footballing sense.

But even that, the goalkeeping, it's funny.

All these sort of explanations are very identical, sort of very relatable.

Like, I remember with goalkeepers, it was like, why do they produce so many good goalkeepers?

Well, they've got a lot of their sports are really hand-eye coordination base.

So that's why.

Like, you know, they'll have people who play baseball and basketball.

They didn't quite make it, so they became goalkeepers.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I guess that makes sense.

I just, yeah, it puzzles me that they haven't become more of an annoying presence.

Like, I don't feel anything about the US MNT, Dave.

Maybe you don't, maybe you don't kind of sort of international football doesn't inspire that same level of familiarity, breeds, contempt sort of sensation that you get in club football.

Like, you know, a rival team just annoy you or the media darlings will annoy you in domestic football, but you don't get that international football.

I can't imagine the US getting to a stage like I'm fed up with hearing about them.

Fuck off.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with where they are in the ecosystem, to be honest with you.

I don't want them to be any better.

I don't want them to be any worse.

I think that's absolutely fine to say as well.

Yeah, there should be an element of tradition-embracing attitude towards the USMNT, and I'm all for it.

I think that's true.

I think you be careful what you wish for.

And also, like,

you know, don't want them to become really good, because that might become annoying.

And remember, I think the only time people do sort of vent towards Americans is American managers.

And there is quite a lot still of kind of snobbishness towards that.

Like Jeff C.

Marsh, it was felt a bit like, yeah, shut up, mate.

You know, I think there's still a distrust from a lot of people of American managers.

Well, they're getting no closer on current evidence.

The BBC Match of the Day Twitter account marked Japan's official qualification for the 2026 World Cup, Dave, with the words, with over a year to spare, they'll join host USA, Mexico, and Canada next summer's tournament.

I don't like a year to spare.

That's just,

to a certain extent, that just illustrates the mechanics of the Asian qualifying.

It just finished a little bit earlier.

Admittedly, they've done it ahead of schedule, but I don't like a year to spare.

Even if they've done it ahead of schedule, it's still just them winning all their games.

It's not like they've made an extra effort of like, oh, look at them.

They're getting ahead of themselves, aren't they?

Getting them nice and prepared.

Totally.

It's like, that's all it tells you is it's a quirk of qualification.

It implies as if you could qualify whenever you want if you actually got your arsenal gear.

Like, oh, they're leaving it to the last minute again.

It's two days to go.

They haven't even qualified yet.

Even if they had left it to the last minute packing and scraped through that group phase even though there is a further phase for the for the also rans it still would have been a year to spare that's that's how far in advance the asian qualifying zone does their thing if anything is it too early they're gonna

they're not gonna get into

good shape are they go on they're gonna have a year to choose their training camp

or we can have board games a pinball machine ah the press will be all over it maybe they don't care who knows right let's return to domestic matters now this came from Dave Bath.

Here is former brief source of Southampton excitement, Josh Sims, opening the scoring for Yeoville away to Solihole Moors in the National League, to the eventual delight of the travelling faithful.

Yeoville Town take the lead.

There's a delayed reaction from the Yeuville fans.

That is a goal.

It's deflected off the boot of Alex Whitmore.

Can't celebrate goals anymore.

Presumably they had to travel quite a far distance to get there, Charlie, and they are sat about as far as it is possible to be from that particular goal that Josh Sims' deflected effort went into.

But Dave Baff wonders if this is a new world record for away fans not recognising a goal has been scored.

Yeah, we had another one though, didn't we?

There was one that's sort of comparable.

The only thing I would say on this one is like they do wheel away in quite a, what looks like quite a clear way.

Like, what would you think when someone's running over to take a corner or something like that's the giveaway what are they baffled by well they're all going to like berate the linesman or something i don't because they're still running that direction let me i'm going to show you the clip again i think i know why or potentially why the fans didn't cotton on as you say charlie look at the players that should they should be your guide always in these situations but if you're looking at the ball look what happens to the ball the ball it hits the sort of metal frame that that holds the net at the bottom right and bounces up in a way that makes it look like maybe the balls bounce behind i might look maybe it looks like it bounced off the advertising hoarding behind it yeah it does it kind of doesn't hit the net and it sort of goes up vertically and sort of bounces a few times in the goal mouth which the only thing i can think it's not like i mean that they're at solly hull it's not like they're at the other end of they're you know they're up in the gods at newcastle or something are they

but then you are quite low down as well so yeah that's true yeah the angle might well be prohibitive but um as veterans of measuring the time taken for away fans to realize goals have been scored, Charlie, may well know, it's very hard to pinpoint the moment that those celebrations begin in order for timing purposes.

Let's put it that way.

So I'm not really sure when the audio starts.

Dave Baff is convinced it's a new world record and beating the 5.54 seconds of the Watford away fans away at Plymouth.

Let's hear that again.

Bio is waiting in the middle, and he's forced it home.

Watfords have made their stock champion!

I mean, that was incredibly clear-cut, but in this situation, I can't work out if the first sound we hear is the home fans sort of jeering them sarcastically for not celebrating the goal because it seems to come from a different part of the stadium.

So it's either 5.27 seconds, if that's the first sound we hear, which means it's not a world record.

But if we go with the eventual more natural-sounding eruption of applause and cheering, it's 6.16 seconds, which is a new world record.

McGuckinen's Bernard are lurking.

Here is Sims for Yeovil.

It's deflected.

Yes.

And it's deflected in.

Yeoville Town take the lead there.

Delayed reaction from the Yeovil fans.

Yeah, I think that first one is a sort of wee.

We can't go with the guy who shouts yes.

We're not counting yes.

That could be a staff member for all we know.

A guy from Watford trying to scup up their work record.

That's it.

But yeah,

unofficially, 6.16 seconds is the new world record for a Wayfans not realizing a goal has been scored.

Now, apologies in advance for this.

This came from Firm Designer on Reddit.

Here are some YouTubers discussing Gary Lineke's FIFA Ultimate Team card.

There's nothing you can do to poor Gary Lineke that will ever make his card meta and people will use it.

What is wrong with this card though?

Why would people not want this card?

He's got some insane play styles, great stats, five-star, five-star.

Like,

because his name's not Mbappe.

Like, if he was called Mlineka, would people be like, oh my gosh, this guy?

Did you see that coming?

Where are we going with this phenomenon, Charlie?

Is it absolutely unraveled?

Hopeless.

That's a nuanced.

Yeah,

that is...

Yeah, the suggestion that we would be more favourable to players...

Maybe we would with names that are just similar to other really good player names.

Maybe subconsciously we would think, oh, he must be quite good.

I like it.

I like it as

a modern twist on the phenomenon.

You know, we should be going to someone like Mbappe,

not harking back to when Italian players ruled the roost or Ronardinho.

Oh, I see what you mean.

But okay, well, I think you're both being very charitable here.

I think the art has gone out of this.

The craft of doing it has definitely gone out of it.

But fine.

Maybe there was a hint of irony there.

Sean McGoy writes in next, Charlie, and says, I've just been watching the first half of Ireland vs.

Bulgar on RTE, and Stephen Kelly is on co-commentary.

He's declared that Ryan Manning managed to win a ball that was not 50-50, but 60-40.

Now, that isn't an issue, but how high can this go?

Is 70-30 ball too high?

I feel like I've heard an 80-20, but never a 90-10.

What's the cut-off?

How high would you go, Charlie?

Also, would you not say you're winning sort of 40-60s?

Is that not said?

Because if you're winning one that you're not favourite to get, or is he the favourite here to win this one?

I would always put the higher number first, regardless of the.

Even if you weren't.

But how do you then make clear whether you're the favourite or not?

Because the context of what you're saying is quite obvious.

So you just all, it's just all because you're praising someone, it's clear that...

And if you weren't, you'd be saying like, yeah, you know, we don't want to give him too much credit.

He's won a few 60-40s.

I just don't think you can ever lead with the lower number in this situation, almost regardless of what you're talking about.

70-30.

We're split.

All right, let's split it.

40-60.

70-30, 30, 70.

I mean, you might, because you're talking about how great this player was at kind of, you know, winning balls he shouldn't have won.

I can't remember ever actually hearing that, I don't think.

Dave, if you were going really overboard and trying to exaggerate just how little a chance a player had of winning that tackle, but won it anyway, would you ever go 90-10?

Would you ever do it?

Feels excessive.

I feel like 90-10, just in any percentage scenario, is just you never hear it, do you?

You hear sort of people go upwards from 50-50 to 60-40, 70-30, maybe an 80-20.

You never hear anyone say 90-10.

It just doesn't sound right, does it?

What would a 90-10 tackle be?

I was going to say, you're losing a 90-10 as well.

I mean, literally explain to me what you think a 90-10 tackle would look like.

I guess if someone is just being so, the ball's kind of running to him, he's being so complacent, he's just sort of waiting for it rather than actually go, and someone's hairing after it and just comes flying in almost out of nowhere.

So it's just pure distance at that point, isn't it?

I think so.

Like, because at the start, they've got absolutely no right to to be winning that.

Yeah.

So you've got to be really quick and have a hell of a lot of desire.

I mean, would that Robin and Ledley King one?

Would that be...

That's an interesting one.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, when that started, that's like a 90-10 sort of thing.

That's a great shout.

I never thought of that being classifiable as a 90-10.

Yeah, I mean, it's different, obviously, because he's going through on goal.

It's not just like in the middle of the park, which is where you normally talk about like winning your 50-50s.

But yeah, I'd say maybe that fits that

category.

Interesting logic from Charlie here, Dave, that he's gone for the effort required by the tackler to redress the balance.

In my head, and I think this is a worse example for me, I was thinking Shay Given having the ball at his feet and then Deion Dublin sneaking round.

Because that means, I don't know, it's, I don't know.

Well, because the odds were so stacked against it.

It's the perceived complacency of the person in possession rather than the effort made by the person to get there.

Yeah.

I love the idea that of using that complete freak as an example.

We've got to win our 9010s, boys.

We just lost too many 9010s out there today.

I think you've only got to win one 9010 to win a match.

But yeah, thanks, Sean McCoy.

What about a block?

Like, you know, Lawrence against England, Albania the other night, where Harry Kane had that chance and that defender made that amazing block.

It looked like Kane's...

Kane does score.

I think Kane does score 90 out of 100, I think, in that situation.

Maybe more.

Could be a 95-5.

Actually, now, if we're going to treat this seriously, Charlie, we should have the XG equivalent, but for tackles.

How is that not a thing yet?

Surely it's measurable.

It's because it's gone out of the game.

It's not fashionable anymore.

We've compared it to 10.

We've simulated 10,000 tackles and we've decided the possible success rate.

I would read it.

And I would be a metric I would trust.

He's won a 65x tier there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good way of, yeah, when you're, you know, when you've just signed a defensive midfielder and they're in the top 90th centile for expected tackles or whatever.

He tends to win tackles.

He shouldn't.

That'd be great.

Must be measurable.

Convinced it is.

Right.

Speaking of metrics, this is insane.

We're all familiar, Dave, with Lekeep's brutal scoring system for players, and it's quite hard for English media to get our heads around it.

Sam Chedzoy says, I was astonished to discover that in Denmark, player ratings aren't given us marks out of 10 or even out of 5, but they're given a star rating out of 6.

So this is Danish outlet BT.

They have a six-star system.

Now, admittedly, this is quite easy for us to get our heads around, but it just seems unnecessary to go to six.

Yeah, I don't...

Why?

Yeah.

It's five or ten.

Those are the rules.

Absolutely.

But some sports, though, have it, don't they?

Like ice skating is you get rating out of six.

What's the appeal of it?

If you thought that was mildly unacceptable, rival outlet DR have this scoring system for player ratings, Charlie.

Minus three, zero, two, four, seven, ten or twelve.

Wow.

What is the point?

Yeah, that is extraordinary.

I mean, I guess you, for just like headline grabbing purposes, a minus thing is quite impactful.

Yeah.

To suggest they've kind of had a negative impact on the game for their team.

But it also means a zero isn't as bad as you think.

So this was for Denmark's 5-2 defeat against Portugal.

So most of their players got...

a seven or a 10 out of well i can't say it's out of 12 because it starts at minus three

so

i don't know what what you're aiming for as a player is it 10 is that good and And then 12 is like absolute star player.

But where does the minus three come in?

Is that from an absolute ricket, do you reckon?

Yeah, I mean, I wonder if they, how often if that's ever given or if they're sort of holding that out for like the absolute worst performance.

I mean, like a Jonathan Woodgate debut or something.

What would that score?

Yeah, so it's quite famous if you get a minus three from DR.

It can only be designed to emphasise, yeah, absolute shockers.

Otherwise, you would just do zero to 15.

Have a range of that, of 15 if you want to, rather than, but having the minus, it's just like hammers the point home.

How many people, how many people have got minuses in the Danish history of this ranking system?

I would love to find out.

Get in touch if you do know, but it feels like it's designed to be rare.

But yeah, when yeah, just ludicrous, ludicrous scoring system.

And we'll be back very shortly.

That's the sound of the fully electric Audi Q6 e-tron and the quiet confidence of ultra-smooth handling.

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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.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

This is the adjudication panel.

I remind you that you can get in touch at football clichés at gmail.com.

You can DM me on Twitter or Instagram or Blue Sky or get in touch on our Reddit page, which has hit 24,000 users.

That has us level pegging with Teesside, Florence, Clowns, Megan Markle, and Kate Middleton, Mexican Mexican outfit, Shivas Guadalajara, Marilyn Manson, Emily Blunt, Pencils, and A.S.

Romer.

Is that Megan Markle and Kate Middleton?

Is that the same page?

They don't have a shared page, just to be clear.

They're both individual pages, yes.

But which of that clutch are you most proud of, Charlie?

From a purely numbers perspective, I would say probably the Markle or Middleton one.

They're pretty big hitters, but maybe their sort of online presence doesn't skew so much towards Reddit.

I mean, for context, I should say that both of those pages, whilst the most popular pages

designated for both of them, are more sort of fan-obsessive pages

rather than discussions about their actual merits as functioning human beings or whatever they do for jobs.

So, yeah, a little bit creepy than you might think.

Sure.

Okay.

Well, I don't want to be compared to that then.

Clowns?

AS Roma.

Okay, fine.

Yeah, a great selection.

And long may our Reddit community continue to grow.

Now, international breaks ripe for football-adjacent activity.

Mostly Legends games, Dave.

How do you feel about Legends games?

By extension, how do you feel about Legends games being covered in a sort of serious way, like a live blog?

Definitely seems to have become more and more a thing, doesn't it, over the last few years?

I suppose, like, the soccer aidification of the international breaks, I suppose, with these sorts of games, with like, you know, the sidemen games, soccer aid, all that sort of thing.

I don't know how I feel about it really i think you know i think they're they're fine they're fun and it is sort of nice to see i don't know piro pop a free kick in the top corner but nice to see they actually did go in the top corner because it annoys me when you see the clips and it's like oh wayne rooney scores an amazing free kick it's like she's down the middle of the goal yeah the keeper's natural

can't get there but um but also i don't know how i feel about it is it nice to see is it Is it nice or is it sad to see Robbie Keene do his sort of half-speed forward role?

Oh, did he do it?

Oh, no.

I suppose he's got to do it, hasn't he, really?

Yeah, I suppose so.

A bit.

Charlie, it didn't feel that long ago that these sorts of games were really unofficial.

Like it was just like a bunch of players playing in a very sort of knock-off shirt, loosely representing the club that they all used to play for with a couple of ringers who might have played for the youth team or whatever.

And

it almost got to the point now where they're really official.

It's almost like they're the part of the club structure.

You've got the under 18s, the under 21s, the first team, the women's team, and the legends team.

And they travel around the world.

It's like keeping them busy.

The DNA runs all the way through the vets the legends play like the first team do it's amazing um yeah i think that it's funny as well we've talked about it before but you it is amazing how slow it looks like you um you know it you know you drop football from elite level and it's it looks like they're playing at a walking pace, which maybe a lot of them are.

But I saw one, it wasn't even from this one, but it was like, you know, a year ago today, CVG showed he still had it with a goal in a Legends game.

And he is like ambling past a few players and then hitting a shot.

Even the shot doesn't look as powerful.

And it's always a bit disappointing when, especially foreign teams, when their kind of legends are littered with players you've not really heard of, you're like, oh, I want to some actual legends.

I mean, the approach to it is all fantastic.

Yet, as Charlie says, Dave, just the picking of the more obscure players is always quite curious to me.

But Liverpool played Chelsea at Anfield in the Legends game.

They picked three goalkeepers.

Imagine being the third choice goalkeeper for the Legends team.

You never know.

He's ready if he's needed.

Because you never know.

It was David James, wasn't it?

So he could have got the nod up front again.

Yeah.

We know he's versatile.

Yeah, in this game, Peter Crouch bagged a brace, one of which was a tremendous header.

I think it was to open the scoring.

And it instantly got Dave the he's still got it treatment.

Now, as great a header as it is, Yally writes in and says, can you apply still got it to headed goals?

Although it ticks the box of X-Pro doing, exerting themselves at around 70% and making it look easy, I'm not sure it passes the sniff test.

Can you have still got it for a header?

Because it is Peter Crouch.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean,

he's got the most headed goals in the Premier League, isn't he?

It's very much one of his trademarks.

And looking at the still that I can see here, I'd say it's quite a high XG as well.

It's just quite far out.

It's a penalty spot and he's under a bit of pressure from the defender.

So

I think it's fair enough.

With Crouch as well, I saw a couple of images of him celebrating this goal or the the other goal that he scored.

And he's amazing, really, because most of the players in these sorts of games, particularly the English ones or the British ones, they put on a bit of weight and you're sort of like, oh,

it looks a bit weird, doesn't it, to see a previously felt physical specimen looking like Rudy.

Like he's put on a lot of weight really quickly.

Crouch has gone the other way.

She's getting skinnier.

He's losing muscle mass, that's what.

In the same way that you sometimes, I don't know, to an extreme example of like, I don't know, Alan Brazil, you look at Alan Brazil and think, how did you ever play football?

You played in the World Cup against Brazil.

I sort of look at Crouch and go, how did you play top-level football?

You're so, you look so brittle.

I never really considered the other extreme, I have to say.

But yeah, it just goes to show just how low body fat actual footballers have, Charlie, that when they let themselves go, it becomes instantly noticeable and that they look like normal human beings.

So maybe that's just purely the function of a Legends game is for people to watch it and go, fair play.

Yeah, and that you know, they're wearing pretty like tight-fitting kit.

Like, it's pretty brutal.

Yeah, they do take it seriously, though, so Legends games do seem to be a serious proposition.

Joey Durso writes in next and says, a friend of mine lost his job, but got to keep his work MacBook.

A few months later, with a new job and a new laptop, he sold the old one for a thousand pounds.

He described this windfall as pure profit, as if he had sold a promising Academy prospect to a lower league outfit to stay on the right side of PSR.

What a great use of pure profit that is.

That is gaming the system somewhat, I think.

Yeah, we don't like to see it, but, you know,

just exploiting the rules of the issue here.

Yeah.

It's like winning if you won one of those houses in those drawers, in those mad drawers, and you just flog it immediately.

Why not?

That's what you think about, isn't it?

If you win one of those things, would you just sell it straight away?

I think I'd do it with a car because, yeah, fuck that.

Take the money, but the house?

I think I'd use the house.

Fair play.

If it was an air fryer, I'm keeping it.

You would, actually.

I can see you, and you'd be really annoyed as well.

All of a sudden, you're living on like a cliff top in Devon

at the mercy of erosion.

But you wouldn't move.

Let's enjoy some other football mannerisms creeping into wider life.

Will Hardy has sent this in in voice note form, in fact.

My son,

his best friend from school, is leaving the country today.

This is his last day.

He'd been fine with it, and then he got to school and realised, I think, when he got to school, it kind of hit home.

And he got a bit sad.

So when I saw his teacher, she was in the class, I was outside, I looked through the window, got eye contact with her, and gave her a real lineker to Robson, have a word with him, keep an eye on him, signal through the window, just realise that these things seep in.

That is such a great gesture through a window, Charlie.

Like, it's the go-to in this situation, surely.

Yeah, and when I do that as well, I will mouth have a word as well.

You sort of feel compelled to do it.

You just know he nailed it as well, Dave.

It would have been absolutely inch perfect.

Is it universal?

Like, if he's done the actual Lineke gesture and mirrored it, do you think without having any knowledge of that iconic moment, do you think people are going to get it?

I think they probably would, wouldn't they?

Yeah, yeah.

I think so.

It's quite lip-readable, Dave.

I think that's the crucial part of it.

I mean, the hand gesture is probably optional.

I don't know.

Yeah.

How much does it add the fingers of ears to person?

I don't know.

Well, that's a great thing, thing, too.

I mean, Adam, you may not be aware of this, but often before a live show, I'll do it to Dave when you're having one of your sort of pre-show meltdowns.

We'll look at each other.

But yes, mine, yes.

We'll just share a moment.

I'll tell you what, you can write the entire show next time if you like.

The hand gesture does play an important part because it does emphasise the fact that Gazzo, in this, you know, he was on the edge.

Obviously,

he was in tears and it was just all in danger of bubbling over.

Whereas, I don't know, the example here from Will sounds like he's a bit, the kid in question was a bit sadder.

Yeah, he's

put an arm round him situation, if anything.

Either way, nipping the nipping the problem in the bud.

Right, this other one comes from singers.

Now bear with me on this one.

Um, it really creeps up out of nowhere.

I was coming down the escalators to the tube platform as the train pulled in.

As usual, there's that mini rush of people trying to make it in time, but alas, the doors closed before I and a handful of others were able to get there.

Whilst all the others gave up as soon as they realised the doors were about to shut, either slowing down or playing with their phones, I, as a seasoned commute man, continued my run on the off chance that the occasional thing happened where the doors briefly reopened for a second because of something trapped in one of the doors.

And wouldn't you know it, that exactly happened, and I was able to quickly hop on.

None of these other commuters that switched off were able to react quickly enough to the brief reopening doors, meaning I felt exactly like a natural-born goal scorer following in on a long-range strike on the off chance that the keeper spills and I can pick up the bits and pieces.

That is so good.

I just hope in his head, yeah, he does it tame and tame and time again.

Dave, you've got a steer switched on.

Gambling on the doors reopening and comparing it to a striker picking up the pieces from a spilled shot is absolutely genius.

It's so true.

It's so true as well.

So easy to be on your heels in those situations.

I don't know if it's my lack of anticipation in these circumstances, but I would never, I would never make that gamble.

I'm happy to just wait and style it out because I don't want to be seen from the people on the train as a person who tried to make it on and didn't get there.

Well, recently, me and you had that situation, didn't you?

I got on the tube and you were left on the platform.

It never happened to me.

So we did the, we did the have a word with him style desk.

I motioned, oh, you get off at the next stop and wait for me there.

He texted me at the next stop saying, oh, fuck it.

Don't worry about it.

See you soon.

What a colleague.

On the other extreme of that, a friend of mine, like, he's sometimes really relaxed.

And we're like, oh, we'll just wait for the next one.

It's a bit busy.

And I was like, why would we do that?

If we can get on, you get on.

It's like,

I don't get that.

It's like passing, like, with this, it's like passing up a really good chance.

You just got to take what you can get.

Yeah, if you're going to go for it, then absolutely.

But yeah, fine.

Now, this has also happened to me in wider life.

This came up on Reddit the other day.

Someone left their shopping list in a basket at Tesco.

Now, you always see this.

You pick up a basket, it's got someone's old shopping list in, and you're instantly drawn to it, Charlie.

You want to know what this random person was buying.

And

there will always be one random thing on the air thing.

I wonder why someone might want that.

But yeah, what a strange selection of things.

And on the reverse side of this piece of paper, in this instance, someone had written their all-time Liverpool 11.

I was inspired by Keesy the other day.

Yeah, it must have been.

So

what a thing to find in your shopping basket.

That would distract me completely from my shop, Dave.

I'd be sitting there analysing it for minutes.

That's amazing.

Oh, it's PL.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry, yeah, no, I was like, wow, there's some high-profile absences there.

Got the formation written at the top.

It's got the formation written at the top, which is a real classy touch, Charlie.

Yeah, this is amazing.

But also, some are in some nickname for it.

Like V V D, obviously.

Yeah, V V D, you'd expect.

But then there's another one with initials.

Oh, it's Moe.

Sorry, I read that as

two letters.

The formation is written 4, 2, 3, 1, but with commas in between the numbers, which is...

I'm not sure I like that.

It's not unconventional.

But yeah, just great to show that people are probably using the same piece of paper for two very important decisions.

I think people will want to know what was on the shopping list as well.

And it's not a massive list.

It's just sausage, eggs, hash browns.

You can see where they're going with this one.

Beans, mushrooms, spinach, snack, just a vague snack, and then multi-surface polish.

Well, you can see the chronology of what's happening there.

I've got to get breakfast.

Oh, he's fucking vegetarian as well.

Spinach, I don't know.

And clean up after yourself as well.

Get a snack, won't you?

Yeah, yeah.

Right, let's return to the international break briefly and Turkey's 3-0 win.

over Hungary, during which Arda Gula was seen shushing Dominic Sobozlai.

Which is a fairly textbook piece of sort of aggro in a game, Charlie.

You might also see players holding up their fingers to denote the score line as well, just to really rub something something in.

But it's always very visual so that everyone else can enjoy it at the same time.

But an interesting twist to this.

Shabozlai replied on social media with

the response of 1,088, which is the number of minutes Ardegula has played this year for Rawal Trift.

Like a massively niche thing to reply to in the wind-up.

Oh my God, that is incredible levels of pettiness.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, did he think that was a more damning

rather than just putting out his list of appearances?

Maybe if there were a lot of sub-appearances, he was, he probably got it.

He probably thought, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to fucking show this guy.

I'm going to put how many appearances he's at for Real Madrid.

Then he saw the list and was like, oh, that's annoying.

It's actually not as few as I thought it was.

Yeah, he's had a lot of quite short sub-stitch appearances.

Yeah, I know what I'll do.

Put it in minutes.

That'll show him.

And I love the fact that he's taking the time to put the little apostrophe as well to denote that he's talking about a unit of time.

I know.

Because if he hadn't done it, it could have been left open to interpretation.

Maybe he was teasing R.

De Goulea about when the University of Bologna was established in the year 1088.

Or, oh, I suspect it's more likely, he was teasing him with the entire running time of the Norman Wisdom 12 film DVD boxing.

Fair play, you could watch all 12 Norman Wisdom films in the DVD collection and it would be the exact amount of time that Ardegoula has played for Real Madrid this season.

Which would you rather do, Charlie?

I was just thinking that, yeah,

in that scenario, it's a kind of player cam version, though.

So you're just watching Ardagula, you're not just watching Real Madrid, you're just watching him specifically.

Yeah, I know what's happening in Albania, that's for sure.

Okay, well, speaking of ancient comedy characters, it's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

Just Keesy today on International Break and as International Break kicks in, he decides, quite understandably, he doesn't want to be part of it on B in Sports, leaves it to his number two, and goes off on his travels.

And he posted a picture, Charlie, from Camden Lock, I assume.

From the picture?

It's hard to say exactly.

It's somewhere on the canal.

I had to go full geo-guesser on it and figure out where it was.

And that's what he came up with?

Yeah, it's

Camden Lock or nearabouts, which is where TVAM was once filmed.

So he's listening.

Was this yesterday?

Yeah.

I was really close.

I was in Primrose Hill, really not far from that.

Well.

Around this time.

Well, that raises my next point.

If you had been wandering around Camden of a Sunday afternoon and you'd just seen Keesy just standing there staring across the canal at

his old stomping ground, what would you have done?

What would you have done?

I don't know.

Taken a surreptitious picture, clearly, and then sent it to us.

But other than that.

Yeah, would I have spoken to him?

I don't know.

I don't know what I would have said or what's the opening gambit.

Yeah, I oh, you're right, Keese.

Um, I mean, you're kind of hoping you're what's the best case scenario that he's like a complete arsehole to you, and then that's quite funny.

But realistically, you know, I'm not going to go and like start giving him shit.

So I would say, you're right, Keith, I'd be like, You're right, and then walk off.

Dave, do you think he had anybody approach him?

I think somewhere like Camden.

I mean, it's so busy, particularly on like, yeah, on like a Sunday afternoon.

There's so many tourists around.

Probably quite easy for Keesy to blend in, I would say.

But you never know.

But I mean, so the picture here, so he's standing on the canal side, looking across at the buildings, which

I assume from your description with the old studios.

And the caption is, a thousand memories.

Where am I?

And then the emojis he's gone for is an egg and a TV emoji.

The egg confused me.

What's the egg got to do with anything?

Breakfast AM?

That's what.

Yeah.

We should have gone with a fried egg emoji if you're going for breakfast, Keesy.

Sunrise or something like that?

I don't know.

Make it clearer.

Get them the right way around for a start as well.

But if you did see Keesy in that moment, in a sort of wistful moment,

I think you could just sidle up to him and just sort of start talking and just

you missing Andy, Richard?

What's that?

Wait, looking so upset.

I think what I would have done is, yes, sidled up to him and then gone through his World Cup Diaries intro, which is life is full of twists and turns.

Or the older legends in the building.

Put your arm around him, legends looking at a building, right?

Yeah, that's Keesy on his travels.

Welcome, welcome back to your homeland, Keesy.

Thanks to you, Charlie Equisher.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Thursday with your Mezza Harlan Dicks.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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