The Cape Verdean Dan Burn, Keysey the actor & the Communication XI

Speaker 1 Did my card go through?

Speaker 2 Oh no. Your small business depends on its internet.

Speaker 3 So switch to Verizon Business. And you could get LTE Business Internet starting at $39 a month when paired with Select Business Mobile Plans.
That's unlimited data for unlimited business.

Speaker 4 There we go.

Speaker 3 Get the internet you need at the price you want.

Speaker 5 Verizon Business.

Speaker 2 Starting price for LTE Business Internet: 25 megabits per second, unlimited data plan with Select Verizon Business Smartphone Plan Savings. Terms apply.

Speaker 6 Today we're going to conquer your EV phobia in the all-electric Toyota BZ.

Speaker 5 I can do this.

Speaker 5 I'm doing it.

Speaker 7 One drive can change your mind in the all-electric BZ. Toyota, let's go places.

Speaker 8 New Icy Hot.

Speaker 9 Nighttime Recovery relieves pain at nighttime while your body recovers.

Speaker 10 Icy Hot, you're so back.

Speaker 11 I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Speaker 12 Is Gascoyne going to have a crack? He is, you know. Oh, I see!

Speaker 12 Brilliant!

Speaker 12 He's round the goalkeeper! He's done it!

Speaker 12 Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and kung fu kicked a supporter who was eye without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip. Oh, I say,

Speaker 12 it's amazing. He does it tame and tame, and tame again.
Break up the music! Charge your glass!

Speaker 12 This nation is going to dance all night!

Speaker 11 Gyrating with the Cape Verdeans, the FIFA regulations on pitch invading animals, Thomas Tuchel and the torrent of sarcasm, trying to solve the tougher tests await dilemma, the most in-the-departure lounge England player right now, facing up to the televisual slog of World Cup 2026, ex-Barcclaysman in council recruitment roles if football clichés were films, and a long overdue assessment of Richard Keyes' acting abilities.

Speaker 11 Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

Speaker 7 This is Football Clichés.

Speaker 11 Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry.
This is the mid-week adjudication panel. Joining me first of all is Charlie Eccleshare.
How are you doing? I'm alright, thank you.

Speaker 11 Charlie, the football clichés live tour in World Cup terms. I feel like the group stage is complete.

Speaker 11 We've topped our group and now we're into the early stages of the knockouts, which is now the last 32. I've only just realised.

Speaker 14 Yeah, it works perfectly for the new format of the World Cup because

Speaker 14 there are eight matches total for the whoever goes on to win it. And we're in an eight-show tour.
So yeah, groups are out of the way. Serious business beginning.

Speaker 11 The road to Glasgow. Joining you on the midweek adjudication panel, he is back from quite a trip.
it seems. It's Nick Miller.
How are you doing? Very well.

Speaker 12 Quite tired, but I'm very well.

Speaker 11 I feel enriched. Listener Jackson Keir writes in and says, I've got no particular observations for the pod other than it's always a joy to see Nick Miller make an appearance.

Speaker 11 Please commend him on his Cape Verde travelogue.

Speaker 11 Very much a deluxe version of Football Focus visiting a small Lancashire town whose non-league club has just made it into the third round of the FA Cup. Is that the vibe you got in Cape Verde?

Speaker 12 Yeah, sort of. I suppose so.

Speaker 1 In in in a kind of um, you know, small, non-traditional football or football place elevating themselves to something higher.

Speaker 11 Do you call them Cabo Verde now?

Speaker 16 Long discussion about this and we decided no, we shouldn't, we should just call them Cape Verde, even though that's not actually the name of the country.

Speaker 11 More on Cape Verde very shortly but to return to the cliché's live theme, we're going to be in Birmingham tonight, Thursday night. Doors will open at 6.30, show at 7.30.

Speaker 11 We'll finish about 9.30 and then straight to the Victoria pub just around the corner from the old rep.

Speaker 11 On Friday night we're in Dublin and we have hired out the whole terrace at the Comet, which is a short walk from the Helix.

Speaker 11 Just to reiterate, there's no guest list for this after-show event or anything just come and have a beer with everyone and it would be great god knows what they're expecting to descend on the comet but they seem really nice there so i'm looking forward to it go to ticketst.football clichés.com if you are yet to purchase your ticket for the shows charlie after a um triumphant display of generic football dumb by us with doc brown at the hackney empire and a sofa someone sent me an advert for a casting call for a tv advert for the world cup you need to be between 20 and 49.

Speaker 11 You need to be available for four days of shooting this December in London. 1,600 quid for four days just to pretend to be a football fan.
For an advert, presumably.

Speaker 14 Suitably broad as well. I like that.
Male or female, 20 to 49. I mean, that's quite a range.

Speaker 14 Doesn't suggest they've got, you know, someone particular in mind, just someone who loves footy or can pretend that they love footy.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, do you think advanced ball knowledge, Nick, would work in your favour for this role? Or do you think you need a sort of a clean slate when it comes to the beautiful game?

Speaker 20 There's a real danger of overthinking, isn't there?

Speaker 15 You could really get into your own head and then where are the nachos?

Speaker 19 Where's the dip?

Speaker 15 Yeah. I presume that's provided, but you know.

Speaker 11 Yeah, yeah, I want to know what the end result of this is going to be. But if you have signed up for it and you do get selected, let us know the process.
Right, adjudication panel time.

Speaker 11 Cape Verde have qualified for the World Cup. Nick, you were there.
Was it magical? Did it feel magical? It looked magical.

Speaker 22 It was pretty magical.

Speaker 23 It was absolutely joyous. Well, I say you're joyous.

Speaker 25 When they scored the first goal, from that point on, it was joyous.

Speaker 19 The sort of hour previously, when they were, you know, very much struggling to break down a stubborn Eswatini defence, I was panicking, really, because if they had, if I'd, I mean, I was the main problem with this, obviously, but if I had gone all that way and they'd stuffed it up, then I had no idea what I was going to do.

Speaker 12 What I was going to like to do.

Speaker 11 The sort of scenes after the game, Charlie, that you would expect.

Speaker 11 some you know joyous scenes amongst the the squad as they um boarded a bus to take them from the stadium Players gyrating uh in the windows and then just just a lovely scene as as Nick sort of scanned his phone camera across the bus, witnessing all sorts of um ecstatic moments.

Speaker 11 And then I caught just a glimpse of Nick in the reflection of the window and just thought

Speaker 11 real real juxtaposition of emotions there, just ecstasy and curiosity at the same time.

Speaker 14 Yeah, no facial expression.

Speaker 23 I didn't notice I'd done that.

Speaker 28 The real juxtaposition was the coach who who was is a sort of slightly grizzled old figure who's

Speaker 20 very much a local guy.

Speaker 19 A lot of the players are from the diaspora.

Speaker 29 But while the players are all kind of playing music and, as he says, gyrating the back of the bus, literally making it bounce, he was in the front seat, absolutely livid that someone was blocking them in.

Speaker 1 It was another bus in front of them, and there were a bunch of people.

Speaker 31 And he was like, he was leaning out the window, screaming at them, reaching over, pipping the horn, trying to get these people out of the way.

Speaker 15 It was a real kind of, you know,

Speaker 1 proper juxtaposition. It was great.

Speaker 11 Good to know that Road Rage cannot be usurped by the joy of reaching the World Cup for the first time as a complete underdog.

Speaker 11 The race begins now, Charlie, for the stories amongst the Cape Verde squad and

Speaker 11 some long reads to come, no doubt. The obvious starting point for this is Roberto Pico-Lopez,

Speaker 11 who plays in Ireland and has spent his entire career in Ireland, in fact.

Speaker 11 But he is the...

Speaker 14 He's coming to the live show Friday, isn't he?

Speaker 11 I should certainly hope so. He's the Cape Verdean Dan Byrne, by the way, because not only is

Speaker 11 his nation qualified for the World Cup, he's expecting a baby at the end of this week.

Speaker 12 I mean,

Speaker 12 beat that, Dan Byrne. I mean, that's the ultimate.

Speaker 11 What a week he's had, by the way, isn't it?

Speaker 14 I think so.

Speaker 14 Topped off by the live show.

Speaker 15 And he plays for Shamlock Groves, who could win the league on Friday in Queen Island as well. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 That

Speaker 20 might even top Dan Byrne.

Speaker 11 Okay, sheer ignorance from me. I didn't realise that Friday night in Dublin coincided with a potential title win as well.
God knows what that means. Grim reading for us.

Speaker 12 Yeah, don't think so. Could be good.

Speaker 11 Could be good. Quirkier stories abound in the international break, though, Nick.
Oliver Bailey writes in about the rat that invaded the pitch during Wales versus Belgium.

Speaker 11 With a fascinating question, actually, you know, let's take this seriously.

Speaker 11 He says, We've all seen games paused because there was a dog or cat on the pitch, and the Wales game was paused because there was a pretty big rat.

Speaker 11 But I don't imagine a game would be paused if there was, say, a beetle or a cockroach.

Speaker 11 What do you think the size threshold is?

Speaker 12 How about a shrew or a vole?

Speaker 11 Is it any mammal? Can any insect ever be big enough to pause a game? What about a bird if it stayed on the ground long enough? How long would it be long enough?

Speaker 11 Are there actually any guidelines about this? I mean, the mammal aspect is probably quite crucial here, Nick. Maybe it isn't a size thing.
Maybe it's just about sentience.

Speaker 33 Yeah, possibly.

Speaker 34 I would say it is slightly more about size and it's more about what can what you can sort of pick up from a normal TV angle.

Speaker 26 Because obviously you will, you know, any TV director worth his salt will then zoom in on the,

Speaker 26 whatever the animal is.

Speaker 1 Usually, the goalkeeper trying to chase it off the pitch.

Speaker 4 But yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 31 Would a mouse be is a mouse too small?

Speaker 30 Maybe a mouse is too small. Probably.

Speaker 17 Could you pick up a mouse from distance?

Speaker 12 Yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 11 I mean, that's not going to interfere with the game, Charlie, a mouse. I mean, a ball's not going to deflect off its sort of beach ball at Sunderland style.

Speaker 14 Do you remember there was that really big grasshopper on James Rodriguez at the 2014 World Cup? That caused a stir. And I think there were a few of them knocking around.
And they did look massive.

Speaker 35 Terrifying.

Speaker 14 Yeah, and quite scary.

Speaker 14 But weren't they weren't deep big enough i think he took a penalty scored a penalty um sort of with it very much on his person yeah completely unperturbed so i mean i don't know i don't want other fewer guidelines on this nick you're a man of the football world let us know

Speaker 11 i don't know yeah but would you if you got like a in some parts of the world like a monitor lizard or running onto the pitch maybe that would probably stop it they're some pretty sizable those things yeah big reptiles you know i i'd say the size threshold for a reptile is probably higher than for a mammal, like a, you know, a mere gecko.

Speaker 11 That's just going to blend in anyway, so then no one's going to see it.

Speaker 11 But yeah, if a rat can stop a game, then you know that it's, you know, it's different rules for different species, is what I'm saying, which is bad news, really. I think it's poor.

Speaker 15 One thing I wondered about when I saw this rat on the pitch was whether there is a sort of going back to the kind of glory/slash insufferable days of social media in kind of the early 2010s,

Speaker 22 whether

Speaker 34 a rat would be too unpleasant an animal to inspire a Twitter account, the you know, the Goodison Park rat or whatever it was, or wherever the game was.

Speaker 11 I don't think so. I think it would have comfortably passed the qualifying criteria to get one.
But what an indictment on the just general social media fatigue, Charlie, that there isn't.

Speaker 11 I'm not even going to bother looking, but I guarantee there won't be a parody Twitter account for a rat because no one could be asked to set up parody accounts anymore, can they?

Speaker 11 I want login password.

Speaker 12 Fuck that.

Speaker 14 Dude, the parody account, yeah, it's sort of it's over now.

Speaker 11 Maybe there's one on Blue Sky.

Speaker 14 There's so much misinformation that it would kind of just be like, well, what are you adding here?

Speaker 11 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 14 Expect lies.

Speaker 11 Yeah, there's no taboo anymore. Back to football, though, Nick.
Matthew Robson writes in and says, Wales went 1-0 up against Belgium, and their fans started singing, We Are Top the League.

Speaker 11 Surely not having this for a World Cup qualifying group. I mean, football fans need to figure this out, really.
You could just replace it with group, and that would still...

Speaker 11 I mean, that would be cool. It would be good to see chance tailored for whichever kind of denomination of football you're playing.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I don't really have so much of a problem with the league. It's just

Speaker 1 the chant is familiar.

Speaker 19 Everyone knows kind of the score.

Speaker 28 It can be a little bit tricky to kind of adapt these things permutation-wise on the hoof.

Speaker 21 So I don't know.

Speaker 12 We are second in the league, but we're in a good position to qualify for the playoffs.

Speaker 32 It's a bit unwieldy, isn't it?

Speaker 14 We're in pole position.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 11 You're right with this then, Charlie. You're right with the league in this context.

Speaker 14 Yes, I am having this.

Speaker 12 All right.

Speaker 12 Sort of

Speaker 14 speak around this kind of thing.

Speaker 11 Ah, the old football clichés, having it, not having it, dilemma. Right, England have sealed their passage to the World Cup 2026, the first European nation to do so, Charlie.

Speaker 11 Apparently, though, the crushing win over Latvia to secure that passage was completely overshadowed, completely overshadowed, rendered a mere irrelevance by the abuse that Thomas Tuchel was receiving from the stands in Riga from the travelling England faithful.

Speaker 11 So, egg on his face, Charlie. I bet he really regrets what he said about the eggs at website.

Speaker 14 Aside from anything else, I'm not sure I've really seen the point made that, like, isn't this exactly what he wanted?

Speaker 14 I mean, wouldn't he be delighted that even, you know, that they were singing more loudly, singing more vociferously, and just singing generally. So, you know, he got what he asked for.

Speaker 14 He said he wanted more singing, you know, he wanted all of that. So, wouldn't he just, I think he will be quite happy.
Like, everyone's kind of a winner here.

Speaker 11 That's one way of looking at it, Nick. That's one very rational way of looking at it, isn't it, Nick? That's one very sort of, you know, Occam's razor way of looking at it, isn't it?

Speaker 11 But no, no, there are alternative views on this. The Telegraph, right? Maybe it will all just blow over.

Speaker 11 But there was a point being made time and time again with chants such as Thomas Tuchel, we'll sing when we want and Are We Loud Enough For You? There was also Where Were You When We Were Shit?

Speaker 11 Aimed at the German. It did not feel like it was wholly in jest.
I reckon it bloody was, actually, mate. I mean, how much more in jest could that chant be?

Speaker 22 Exactly wholly in jest.

Speaker 17 Well, what possible part of that could not be in jest?

Speaker 11 It continues, Charlie. He might also reflect on the wisdom of his criticism, and he looked a little chastened.
This is how chastened Tuchel was after the game, Charlie.

Speaker 11 They had a reason today for my last comments, and I guess fair enough. I got a bit of stick and I found it quite creative.
It made me smile, and this is how it has to be.

Speaker 11 It's British humour, and I can take it. No harm done.
This is exactly how it's supposed to play out. There's nothing to this.

Speaker 14 But this is, you've spoken about it before, Adam, that this kind of obsession that we journalists have with like transcribing chance, football, you know, football supporters chance.

Speaker 14 So this is just manna from heaven because it means, you know, for a a pretty boring game that the outcome of which was decided very early on and there were very low stakes anyway it then becomes this exercise in listening really carefully to you know fan chance you know and if you think who's the kind of doyenne of writing about the english national football team it's henry winter yeah and who's the man most preoccupied with fan chance i would say it's henry winter so this is just such a kind of perfect storm that you know puts the fans at the forefront of the story.

Speaker 14 We're kind of transcribing what they're saying. We're working out what it means.
Again, it's like an evaluation of how sarcastic was it.

Speaker 11 Well, I'm not sure it was wholly sarcastic.

Speaker 14 So it's just like a perfect story from what would otherwise have been a completely dull game, or was a completely dull game from a kind of Jeopardy perspective.

Speaker 11 God bless Henry Wincer and Nick, who's basically the Hansard of football chants, isn't it?

Speaker 11 If it has been sung at a stadium, you can look back through his tweets and find out exactly what was sung.

Speaker 19 By a distance, the journalist most likely to have all these kind of bound in leather volumes and in a kind of library somewhere as well.

Speaker 1 Response from Tukal was absolutely perfect as well, particularly the,

Speaker 16 oh well I guess it's just English humour because you know I'm I'm a German and obviously we have historically have no sense of humour at all but ha ha ha I get it.

Speaker 18 I'm one of you.

Speaker 11 I mean it seems too tidy a point to make Charlie but this this feels like Sven 2.0 like he's taking not giving a shit what the press say about him to a whole new level.

Speaker 11 Like Sven Sven got to a point where he's just massively irritated by the whole thing and Tuchel will certainly have that moment because he is quite combustible, of course, as we always, always told.

Speaker 11 But for now, just nothing is going to stick. And it's so good.
It's so good to see them getting rattled by it. I have to say, I'm really sorry to say.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I don't think he does really

Speaker 14 enter into it. Yeah, he, I have to say, yeah, he has been.

Speaker 14 I guess as well, because Southgate is so earnest and kind of, you know, he would always enter anything like this, he would entertain in a very serious way of a kind of like, you know, the fans have every right to express themselves.

Speaker 14 You know, they, that's their right. They follow us, you know, over land and sea, et cetera, et etc.

Speaker 14 Whereas, like, which is like noble in some ways, but I really just don't think Tuchel cares in the same way. And because he's not English, he's probably just not aware of how

Speaker 14 he's obviously not aware of these sensitivities, or he wouldn't have waded in in the first place.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I just don't think there's any

Speaker 11 high stakes here whatsoever.

Speaker 11 Um, just to cap off just how tenuous this story was, Nick, from the BBC, their report said the game was only seconds old when loud chants of Thomas Tuchel will sing when we want, as he was then subjected to a torrent of sarcasm from his own fantasy

Speaker 11 that torrent of sarcasm is not a thing and it never will be a thing

Speaker 20 are we gonna get into this about how how what the measurement of sarcasm is yeah we've got better things

Speaker 11 is spot on right um but yeah sterner tests await for England.

Speaker 11 I mean, England qualifying for a major tournament, Charlie, has now become the absolute textbook situation of tougher tests await/slash sterner tests lie ahead.

Speaker 11 And it's got to the point now where we're so used to England cruising through qualifying that we should have found a way to bridge that gap between the cruising through qualifying and the old classic of losing to the first good team we come up against at the tournament.

Speaker 11 How what could we insert between those two things to actually kind of, I don't know, acclimatise everybody to the idea that tougher tests will come?

Speaker 11 I feel like the only way we could do it is like a cheeky little three-team tournament between now and now and June with a Brazilian or something.

Speaker 14 Yeah. We need Le Tournoir, which obviously came just before England had qualified.
But that did it perfectly. It sort of demystified a little bit that, like, oh, you've got to play these big teams.

Speaker 14 But on that, but I mean, what a journey because it wasn't so long ago, if you think like England qualifying for World Cup 98, that it was a kind of, well, how will they fare in France?

Speaker 14 That's a question for another day, which is the kind of... where you are, you know, like Cape Verde would have had that, you know, how will they do? Well, that's not for now sort of thing.

Speaker 14 But we're so far beyond that that, as you say, Adam, now we're at a point where when England qualifies, the, well, it doesn't really mean anything because

Speaker 11 you know what has what's this told us nick you know you know the old kind of mentality of of tailoring your pre pre-tournament friendlies by who you're actually playing at the tournament so picking a geographically adjacent team and assuming that they're going to provide you with a similar test you know they had a they had a little tournament before euro 2004 it was iceland and japan and england in a three-team tournament and um What England should do, you know, to get themselves up to speed is basically at the very last minute, well, probably not even the last minute, because it will all be confirmed well in advance.

Speaker 11 Pick the best two teams who haven't qualified for the World Cup and get them in a little three-team tournament against England. And

Speaker 11 that will be the midway point, surely. Teams who aren't good enough to be at the World Cup but are still strong enough not to be fodder before the tournament begins.
I've solved it. This is it.

Speaker 11 Then we'll be ready for you, Frances.

Speaker 15 I suppose there you have the problem of

Speaker 21 whether these...

Speaker 16 countries will accept it because it will just look like you're lording it over them.

Speaker 23 Come over Italy.

Speaker 12 You'll be have a nice little tournament.

Speaker 33 I know we're going to the World Cup.

Speaker 26 You've got the the rest of the summer off, so you can, you know, you'll probably need a game to keep you ticking over, won't you?

Speaker 1 Have a nice time here while we're in America.

Speaker 16 See you.

Speaker 11 I hope you're invited to the reception of a wedding, but not the wedding itself.

Speaker 12 Actually, maybe the other way around is worse.

Speaker 11 Or neither, of course, truly.

Speaker 11 Right.

Speaker 11 As England now turned their attentions, Charlie, to who will be in the squad for the World Cup, I've got plenty of a kind of affectionate derision for the on-the-plane format.

Speaker 11 We've discussed it many a time on this podcast. But it feels like it's particularly worthwhile as an exercise, as it's ever been this time.

Speaker 11 There's some good competition for places in midfield and attacking areas.

Speaker 11 But to kind of explain why I think it's most relevant this time, who is the most in-the-departure lounge England player right now? So that is not on the plane, but in the departure lounge.

Speaker 14 So that's what the kind of fringe, the players who aren't guaranteed but could but could still make it.

Speaker 11 I admit I've completely forgotten what in the departure lounge means.

Speaker 11 That basically is what it means, isn't it?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think so. In the reckoning, but not on the team.

Speaker 25 Harry Kane's on the plane.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 12 He's flying the plane, mate.

Speaker 11 I mean, would Adam Wharton at Crystal Palace?

Speaker 14 He feels like he, you know, a lot of people feel he should be in that squad and he might make himself... You can't not pick him because he's been so good.

Speaker 11 That's exactly who I had in mind. Exactly who I had in mind.
I think he's dominating the departure lounge now, Nick. Adam Wharton.
Who else is in there?

Speaker 30 I don't know whether Warton's in the departure lounge because the departure lounge...

Speaker 15 I don't know whether this is just a people are getting too kind of worked up about it, but there's this sense that, well, he's not going to pick him.

Speaker 33 He's not going to pick him for, he can't, if he's not picked him now for the squad, he's not going to pick him for

Speaker 12 the tournament. Well, no, I don't think so.

Speaker 33 But I would have thought

Speaker 24 someone like Morgan Rogers would probably be more

Speaker 31 because, you know, he obviously he's been in the team last few games.

Speaker 12 He played last night, but is he playing in a position where there are other, like, more high-profile players who are you know, currently unavailable. Cole Palmer, Drew Bellingham, of course.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 22 So

Speaker 17 he's probably, you know, he's one of those players that has a pretty good chance of getting picked, but isn't a kind of, you know, isn't a lock.

Speaker 11 It's a good show, actually.

Speaker 14 Yeah, in Dave's honour with him not being here, just to get a bit literally Dave about it. I mean, it doesn't quite work as an analogy, does it?

Speaker 14 Just because you don't go to a departure lounge unless you're sure you're getting on a plane. You're not just sort of speculatively, I'm just going to hit the lounge and just see what flights come up.

Speaker 14 Maybe there'll be some cancellations. I mean, maybe some people do that.

Speaker 11 Pre-9-11, you could go and wave someone off in the departure lounge, couldn't you? You could go all the way there and say, Right, have a great trip. Look after yourself.
Don't do anything else.

Speaker 14 I don't even imagine Adam Wharton will be doing it.

Speaker 35 All right, best of luck, boys.

Speaker 12 Sorry not to be there.

Speaker 14 If any of you don't fancy it, I'll come on, but got my passport in case

Speaker 12 you do. You do have standby.

Speaker 12 Well, yes, I think standby would be more.

Speaker 11 Yeah, standby's a thing. On the bus that takes you from a plane to the airport, or vice versa.
What a place that would would be. Who's on that? The second choice goalkeeper, I guess.
Yeah, love this.

Speaker 11 Right. Now, I'm willing to place some trust in Stan Collymore here, Nick.

Speaker 11 I can't be asked to look at the potential permutations for the World Cup draw, but he says it's unlikely, but this could happen next summer.

Speaker 11 England could be drawn in a group with Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Speaker 12 We can't have that at a football tournament.

Speaker 11 I don't know what I would do with that. I don't know.
Would I watch it? I think I'd be massively befuddled.

Speaker 29 No, I can't.

Speaker 20 That simply will not do.

Speaker 15 is it's uh even though I am primarily a cricketman, that would just feel too rugby.

Speaker 14 It would, although you yeah, you'd never obviously get that in a group in a rugby World Cup because of the how the seedings work.

Speaker 12 But yes, it could.

Speaker 1 They have like tri-tournaments or whatever.

Speaker 14 Well, there's the tri-nations, yeah. And well, now it's four-team, but you've we've replaced England replacing Argentina.
But yes, it it obviously does feel overwhelmingly rugby.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, there's there's no there's essentially no football baggage there at all, Charlie, let alone World Cup heritage in that that group.

Speaker 11 I don't know how the pre-tournament previewers would even approach a group like that.

Speaker 12 What would you do? Well, there'd be a lot to go and sit in Clapham for a bit, and that's it.

Speaker 14 There would be a lot to go at just because... I don't know.
There are going to be so many links to England amongst those three nations, aren't there? So it would be a bit of an open goal in many ways.

Speaker 11 Clive Woodward's player ratings.

Speaker 27 And Postakoglu's next summer

Speaker 19 is wrapped up as a pundit in the studio because it doesn't feel like he's going to be busy elsewhere at the moment.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, this is just one of many, it's a very extreme example, but it's one of many reasons why this World Cup needs a recalibration of what people expect their World Cup experience is going to be like.

Speaker 11 Donnie and Mui writes in, Nick, and says, The World Cup next year is going to have 27 consecutive days of football before the first rest day. That is absurd.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's the sort of conversation we like having on this podcast before tournaments about, you know, the televisual experience.

Speaker 11 And as you get older, your appetite for taking 100% of it in seems to wane for all sorts of reasons. I don't know if I've got twenty-seven consecutive days in me, mate.

Speaker 15 I'm I don't know, I I don't know either.

Speaker 27 Last the last World Cup, I

Speaker 19 very poorly planned was on holiday for uh and and on holiday in somewhere where it was quite difficult to watch the games.

Speaker 27 So I kind of it was a it was a very odd experience, it kind of broke it all up.

Speaker 30 But yeah, twenty seven, that's that's too many, isn't it?

Speaker 15 I mean the I know people there's always a bit of an arms race for peop for people to post the there is no football on today thing on the first kind of rest day of a tournament. But you do kind of

Speaker 19 you need those days a little bit, don't you?

Speaker 11 This might be the first World Cup rest day that I'll actually enjoy, Charlie, and not feel bereft. Like, I think we're all going to have a big sight of relief here, I think.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, in total, the World Cup goes on for like a month and then June 11th to July 19th. So it's a good,

Speaker 14 it's quite a lot longer than a month. That is a lot.
That is a real endurance test.

Speaker 11 Robert Warren speculates, Charlie, that the first Saturday of the World Cup is going to be someday. 3pm Iran versus Scotland.
6pm Cape Verde versus Bolivia. 9pm Uzbekistan versus Burkina Faso.

Speaker 11 Midnight Jordan versus Jamaica. 3am New Zealand versus Saudi Arabia.
Jordan versus Jamaica sounds like something that would have been on Channel 5 in 1999.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Yeah. What a day that will be.

Speaker 11 Not in a bunny blue kind of way.

Speaker 12 That won't make it in. Probably.
I mean,

Speaker 11 just take those games and those time slots as a speculative whole. There's bucket loads of intrigue there, but in a footballing sense, how invested could you be?

Speaker 1 You're dampling my enthusiasm for the World Cup already.

Speaker 1 It's painting this as a sort of endurance test.

Speaker 11 I'm just a very tired man right now.

Speaker 12 That's it.

Speaker 11 I think that's coming through quite loud and clear.

Speaker 15 I don't think we've kind of fully. We kind of complain about the number of teams in the World Cup for like competitive reasons or the balance of the tournament and all this stuff.

Speaker 15 But yeah, I don't think we really have yet computed about what a...

Speaker 12 I don't know.

Speaker 26 I don't want to use the word slog.

Speaker 25 But, you know, that amount of 12 hours of games, that's a lot.

Speaker 11 Yeah, on that note, Charlie, a bellwether for international football enthusiasm is Rob Fielder on Twitter, who massively knowledgeable football, international football historian.

Speaker 11 I trust his opinion on many things. He says, great for Cape Verde, but I won't be staying up till 3am to watch them play Uzbekistan in Kansas.

Speaker 11 And I think it made me think about how I really am going to sort of pinpoint my enthusiasm for all of this football in 2026.

Speaker 11 And I think I'll watch Cape Verde's first game, and then I will gently lose interest in their World Cup fortunes as it goes along on the assumption that they will go out in the group stage.

Speaker 14 Yeah, Yeah, I think that's fair. I also think the time differences are going to, you do become aware of how much you really want to watch something.

Speaker 14 Like, it's very different to something just being presented to you at a convenient time. You're like, yeah, I'll put that on.
To stay up, you know, to kind of ruin your next day,

Speaker 14 that's a big call that people are going to have to make.

Speaker 11 Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN. For those who don't know, VPN stands for virtual private network.

Speaker 11 It secures your connection, protecting your personal information and online activity, especially on public Wi-Fi.

Speaker 11 A VPN can also make your phone or laptop appear as if it's in another country, which is great for accessing content while traveling.

Speaker 11 If you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com/slash cliches, and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. It's the best discount available.

Speaker 11 There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee, and the link is also in our podcast description if you need it.

Speaker 12 We'll be back very shortly.

Speaker 8 Running a business comes with a lot of what-ifs, But luckily, there's a simple answer to them: Shopify.

Speaker 8 It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, including Thrive Cosmetics and Momofuku, and it'll help you with everything you need.

Speaker 8 From website design and marketing to boosting sales and expanding operations, Shopify can get the job done and make your dream a reality. Turn those what-ifs into

Speaker 8 sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/slash special offer.

Speaker 37 It's the Smuckers Uncrustables podcast with your host, Uncrustables.

Speaker 12 Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges.

Speaker 13 Please welcome Crust.

Speaker 11 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 13 Today's topic, he's round with soft pillowy bread. Hey, filled with delicious PBJ.
Are you talking about yourself? And you can take him anywhere. Why do you invite him? And we are out of time.

Speaker 13 Are you really cutting me off?

Speaker 35 Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich.

Speaker 12 Sorry, Crust.

Speaker 10 This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

Speaker 10 It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 10 Also, that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 10 Oh,

Speaker 11 Welcome back to Football Clichés. A reminder for $5.99 a month, you can sign up for Dreamland for that money.

Speaker 11 You'll get ad-free listening, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show, and all sorts of other things as well, including discounts on our upcoming merch, which will be available as soon as the tour is finished.

Speaker 11 Charlie, the caps seem to be flying off the merch shelves at the live shows. I had my cap-related doubts, but I've been silenced.

Speaker 14 Oh, that's great. I'm not a capman myself, so

Speaker 12 hats off.

Speaker 12 Lovely.

Speaker 14 Didn't even set myself up for that to all of those who are and who have been buying them. I guess cap's quite good.

Speaker 11 It's a sort of,

Speaker 14 I don't know, people probably feel it's like an appropriate level of clothing item to be wearing. You know, it's not too obsessive, but it's like a nice little nod to the subtle nod, a loved podcast.

Speaker 11 Incredible cap-wearing, incredible cap-wearing ratio in the front row at the Hackney Empire show, Nick. Reassuring in some senses.

Speaker 28 And were these all official football cliches TM caps?

Speaker 11 No, no, no, these are caps of all, you know, all flavours, all various cultural references. But yeah, it's to be expected.
Let's return to, well, domestic football, actually, now, Nick.

Speaker 11 Rangers still scrabbling about to find a successor to Russell Martin. Stephen Gerard pulled out of the process.

Speaker 11 And the rumoured next favourite for the job is Kevin Muscat. And I thought to myself, briefly, I had a quick consultation of his Wikipedia page to make sure.

Speaker 11 And it turns out the Rangers are hiring an Australian bloke who played for South Melbourne in the 1990s, then won the A-League as a coach, and then the J-League with Yokohama F. Maranos.

Speaker 11 They're basically just copying somebody else's homework.

Speaker 12 This is mad. You can't do this.

Speaker 15 Quite different personalities, though.

Speaker 19 I think

Speaker 20 it's fair to say.

Speaker 12 I mean, Neil Warnock's phone must be kind of buzzing.

Speaker 12 The prospect of Muscat being back in.

Speaker 11 Seems a strange choice to me, Charlie.

Speaker 14 He also succeeded Ange, I believe, at Melbourne Victory. So

Speaker 14 there is quite a lot of crossover between the two. And then, yeah, succeeded him at Yokohama.
So he has been on that trajectory for some time.

Speaker 14 So I guess it would make sense that as he's done well, he's just continued to kind of follow the path.

Speaker 11 that Ange did. I'm not suggesting, Nick, that Rangers, you know,

Speaker 11 decision-making at the highest level might be slightly askew. But

Speaker 11 I do love these outbreaks of football logic where people just copy other things that have happened at other clubs.

Speaker 11 And it happens all the time, you know, with various innovations like set-piece coaches and things like that.

Speaker 11 And, you know, Chelsea selling their hotel to themselves, and then Villa going, oh, maybe we can do something like that as well.

Speaker 11 It blows my mind that at the top level of football clubs, I just go, oh, yeah, I didn't realise we could do that. Let's do that.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, I think we've all done similar things at some point.

Speaker 31 It's like a kind of deluxe version of that thing in the 90s when Premier League teams signed to a Scandinavian and he turned out to be quite good.

Speaker 19 So I think we probably need to get one of those in.

Speaker 16 But it does make sense.

Speaker 14 I mean, because you can think to yourself, well, have we just, is there like this massive untapped market that we've been overlooking? You saw it as well.

Speaker 14 I'm sure after like Matoma was so good at Brighton, there was then a lot of like, oh, why aren't we tapping? You know, that's that, there must be loads of talent over there.

Speaker 14 And ditto with Ange, there probably are people saying like, oh, are we are we a bit too insular in the types of managers we appoint?

Speaker 14 You know, know, Australians, Americans, they tend to be kind of derided in European football. And, you know, that's probably wrong.
Let's go and let's go and see what's out there.

Speaker 11 Oh, fair enough. We can't all be innovators, I guess.

Speaker 11 Little Footballers names and things for you now. Steve writes in, Nick, and says, I was searching for part-time jobs near me in Southwark and came across one for a crossing guard.

Speaker 11 outside of school on a council website. To discuss the role, you had to email Emerson Boyce.

Speaker 11 It must be the same one.

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's not a particularly popular name. I once spoke to him for a piece on Spurs 9 Wigan 1

Speaker 12 at gov.co.

Speaker 14 We got a bit to his crossing guard stuff. No, he's very, very nice, man.

Speaker 11 Yeah, he must have a new job because he's not the technical director of Barbados anymore. So maybe he's in charge of hiring lollipop ladies, which you probably can't call them anymore.

Speaker 11 What it is well,

Speaker 11 we used to call them lollipop ladies.

Speaker 11 Swallowed a traffic cone.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 11 Fascinating Reddit thread from a while ago, Charlie.

Speaker 11 People took it upon themselves to reframe football cliches, or classic football clichés, or even newfangled ones as framed by this podcast, as films.

Speaker 11 So, A Bit of Both, a classic Richard Curtis rom-com from 2008, says Sand Hannotizer, starring Hugh Grant and Kira Knightley as the unlikely couple from two hilariously mismatched families.

Speaker 11 Critically panned, but had a reasonable successful run in theatres.

Speaker 11 I mean, this is where it's going. This is the direction it's going.
Solid? Would you watch a film called A Bit of Both?

Speaker 14 I can imagine sort of vaguely having it, you know, one of those like, oh, it's on, I'll watch it. This is probably just like quite pleasant.
Washover me.

Speaker 14 But this is an amazing thread or sort of original post by Zan Annetizer with various film options.

Speaker 11 Very creative stuff, Nick.

Speaker 11 Whisper It Quietly, a 2012 mystery/slash horror period piece starring Killian Murphy as a troubled writer who returned to his old countryside village following the mysterious death of his mother, played by Vanessa Redgrave.

Speaker 11 Disappointment on opening, but it's become seen as something of a cult classic. Whisper It Quietly is a very plausible

Speaker 11 mystery horror film, right? That's perfect.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that is absolutely perfect.

Speaker 19 He's nailed the casting there as well.

Speaker 12 That's superb.

Speaker 11 I won't do all of these, Charlie, but I'm going to do all the good ones. For My Sins, originally Pour Me Pesche.

Speaker 11 This brooding French legal drama stars Juliette Binoche as a young criminal lawyer taking on what she believes to be a routine case that spirals into nearly destroying her career.

Speaker 11 Three hours long and has a huge audience/slash critics discrepancy on Rotten Tomatoes. The translation of the title here, Charlie, is elite.
Well done.

Speaker 14 This is superb.

Speaker 14 I mean, I do think the person who put this together must have a very good knowledge of film, maybe even works in the film industry, but I would definitely recommend seeking this out on Reddit because it is superb.

Speaker 11 For more details, the better. I'm going to do two more.

Speaker 11 Listen, Fair Play, Nick, a 2018 drama about a major doping cover-up in Irish rugby union, starring Sausia Ronan as the soft-spoken team doctor and whistleblower, and Brendan Gleason as the assertive coach trying to keep the scandal from breaking.

Speaker 11 Nominated for several BAFTAs, including a directing win for Stephen Frears.

Speaker 1 That's nice. I did think

Speaker 15 on the spot I was trying to think of my own, I did think, listen, exclamation mark, fair play, is like a sort of 1950s screwball comedy starring Doris Dane Rock Hudson.

Speaker 32 Love it.

Speaker 11 Let's stick to the 1950s because Gets the Shot Away, a 1950s Western about a legendary marksman on the run from the law in rural New Mexico in the Reconstruction era, stars Gregory Peck as a morally conflicted officer of the law, and is sometimes credited with reviving the genre as a whole before Sergio Leone came along.

Speaker 11 This is great, who is this person?

Speaker 15 To really fit with that, would it have like an unexpected musical number in the middle of it or something like that?

Speaker 11 I really hope so. Finally, Silly Machines.

Speaker 11 Aardman Animation's attempt to branch into sci-fi in 2015, starring Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry, who provide their voices to a group of obsolete robots cast aside in a dystopian future who band together to take down a super AI and prove that all machines have a purpose, no matter how silly.

Speaker 11 This should have been made, regardless of its football cliché's connection.

Speaker 35 Yeah, just incredible work.

Speaker 33 Is this all from the same person, dude?

Speaker 15 Yeah, this is actually Jesus.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I didn't bother with the comments. The original post did all the job for us.
I mean, if there's anything more mid-week adjudication panel than that, I can't think of it right now.

Speaker 14 In an international break. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11 The perfect storm.

Speaker 11 But after the, frankly, rampant success of of the movement 11 from last week, which, you know, before we did it, I thought was, you know, somewhere towards the bottom of the barrel, but turned out to be an absolute triumph.

Speaker 11 I want to move on to the communication 11. These are various methods of

Speaker 11 expressing yourself in and around a football pitch for a team of 11 players. I want to start with a goalkeeper, Nick.
I want my goalkeeper to be barking, barking instructions.

Speaker 11 And who's the biggest barker of instructions in goalkeeping history? Peach Michael. Big time.
The Great Dane.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Goalkeepers are are the primary barkers in football, right, Charlie?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, I also have bellowing instructions, which I was thinking might be more of a manager thing. But either way, clearly, you know, that kind of Schmeichel paradigm is really important here.

Speaker 11 Yeah, hardline assistant managers could definitely bark or bellow, no question. But yeah,

Speaker 11 let's give precedence to the people on the pitch. So barking, goalkeeper is the first one.

Speaker 11 Right back, I'm going to go slightly more figurative here, Nick. Letting him know you're there.
Which, not a literal form of communication, but I suppose, you know, it still counts.

Speaker 11 Yeah, yeah, yeah so this is the early reducer rather than the kind of um like you know you you're covering the winger or something like that well this is an interesting point charlie um when i was thinking about this what you know what is this you know classic scenario for letting a player know you're there is it as violent as a reducer or is it more like you know just you know kick at the heels really sort of tight oh yeah little ankle tap or treading on their toes or something like that or is it just close quarters i think it can be any of those things right there there are many ways to let a winger know you're there letting them know you're there because that it feels too subtle to be

Speaker 14 letting him know you're absolute reducer to me so maybe it's just the early sort of pleasantries before yeah over to left back we go now charlie now the wide positions lend themselves more to communication with the linesman so i'm going to go with haranguing for left back yeah that's a good one i mean it's hard with left back there's and right back there's general just like being described as mouthy but that you know that can manifest in various different ways and like as nick says there's the the winger and fullback there is that thing of like this is maybe more of a standard league theme but it's like look when i go forward you know i'm going to to overlap a bit.

Speaker 14 I'll let you know I'm doing it. You need to sort of cover in for me.
So it's kind of like the, I don't know, that having that dialogue with the other person on your side.

Speaker 15 This is like the

Speaker 15 Stephen Manman line where he said when he moved to Real Madrid playing with Michelle Salgado, the first words in Spanish he learnt were cover me.

Speaker 12 There you go.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 11 Yeah, there you are. Into the centre of our defense we go.
I mean, really basic stuff here. This is where talking happens, isn't it? Lots of talking back there.
Lots of talking.

Speaker 11 And that's primarily the responsibility of the centre half. Over the goalkeeper, I would say.

Speaker 29 The organising alpha centre half, I think.

Speaker 15 That has to be you're virgin for Van Dijk's kind of thing.

Speaker 1 I wondered about.

Speaker 12 I had bawling out for one of these things, which feels goalkeepery.

Speaker 15 Again, it feels Peter Schmeichel kind of screaming at his players, screaming his defence for not dealing with the corner or whatever it was.

Speaker 16 But I suppose you could have that as you sort of marshalling central defender as well.

Speaker 11 Oh, definitely. I think Van Dyke's often a good proponent of this, Charlie, which is when he has to essentially do all the defending by himself and wonders where everybody is.

Speaker 11 And then concedes a corner and has at least about seven or eight seconds to ball out his retreating midfielders for not getting back in time.

Speaker 14 Yeah, berating.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Berating them as well. And yeah, the specific acts of things like putting a name on it, the instructions of things like, don't let the ball bounce.

Speaker 11 I think centre-backs, you know, the big things in their intra-Nick is putting their name on it. for a header.
So yeah. Talking of putting your head on.

Speaker 14 That's also quite a central midfielder thing, though, as well.

Speaker 12 Yeah, from a guy.

Speaker 14 Like got the kind of mouthy centre mid whose name you don't stop hearing all game because they're just like they're so obsessed with putting a name on everything.

Speaker 14 You've played Sunday League with some really annoying people, but it sounds like I think that's like a Sunday League staple, that kind of scrappy centre mid who loves putting a name on it.

Speaker 15 I do, I feel we do feel a disadvantage in these things given at these moments, given that I haven't played Sunday League since I think I was 15.

Speaker 12 Very much affected.

Speaker 14 I don't imagine it's changed much, the level of communication.

Speaker 11 I was going to use berate for my right winger because they could berate a linesman for a poor off-cycle. So berating, what's I mean, is berating worse than haranguing? I mean, they're pretty level.

Speaker 1 It feels slightly more aggressive.

Speaker 16 Like, haranguing is like more of a constant thing, but berating is a sort of short-sharp burst of abuse.

Speaker 11 Love it. Yeah.

Speaker 35 Interesting.

Speaker 11 Okay. Charlie, more figurative again.
I want my left winger to ask questions of a fullback.

Speaker 11 I'm not struggling for ideas, are you?

Speaker 14 No, that's a great. I mean, yeah, I like the more sort of abstract ones.

Speaker 14 I just like the idea of that being taken literally, just like constantly asking him information, like, do you know what pitch this is?

Speaker 12 Like, no, I'm just a bit confused. Hey, getting on this is left.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 How are you not getting off this is?

Speaker 11 I've got more bigger picture with my central midfield, Nick. I want my totemic central midfielder to issue rallying cries.

Speaker 11 I mean, especially if they're the captain. So, yeah.

Speaker 11 Or a war cry.

Speaker 12 Yeah, it's roaring or sort of sort of

Speaker 15 maybe that's kind of tabloides, but it's kind of.

Speaker 13 I don't mind it.

Speaker 12 Yeah, it's a very much a subset of that.

Speaker 11 What is the textbook roar? What do players roar about in the tabloids?

Speaker 29 England can win the World Cup, roars Harry Cannon.

Speaker 12 Yeah,

Speaker 11 he's gonna roar, isn't he?

Speaker 14 It's a manager or a player saying something that's

Speaker 14 kind of vaguely confident or geeing are.

Speaker 11 It can only be a sort of semi-committal prediction of striving to do something, can't it? I mean, could, say, for example, a Cape Verde Nick roar that they're not there to make up up the numbers?

Speaker 11 That's not enough of a roar, is it?

Speaker 30 That's an insist, I think.

Speaker 32 Oh, right. That's more of an insist.

Speaker 25 They insist that they're not just there for the holiday.

Speaker 26 Yeah, it's not enough of a roar.

Speaker 11 We're not just here to make up the numbers.

Speaker 14 It's not good enough. Sentiments lift the team as well, I feel like, with their, you know, both with their gestures, but also with their talking and sometimes with their actions as well.

Speaker 15 Passionate team, I love this.

Speaker 25 For your sort of playmaker, midfield playmaker, I had demanding, like that you're demanding the balls for defenses or whatever.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 14 Well, I had a similar thing for forwards. That thing of like, you know, kind of screaming at players to find them.

Speaker 14 You know, this thing of like, you know, and that poor striker is not getting the service. He's been screaming all game.
He's making the runs in behind and they're just not finding him.

Speaker 4 I had for

Speaker 30 we were jumping ahead in the team here, but I had for that kind of situation, quite specific, like when a striker is waiting for a cross or a through ball, imploring.

Speaker 12 Imploring. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 The ball be played through or crossed to them that has to be accompanied with the cheery honored pointy down hands of why haven't you found me in this situation that's an implore yeah yeah let's move on to our forward line um charlie big fan of uh telepathic understanding between two forwards and that that is a form of communication yeah it might not be proven but i'm

Speaker 11 i'm all right with it they don't need to communicate verbally that's the level of understanding yeah telepathic um and i want my other striker nick to let his football do the talking actually um you know the purest form of communication in football i would say.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 17 What to do with remonstrating?

Speaker 33 Because that is a...

Speaker 15 You can bundle that in with the referee thing, remonstrating with the referee of decision.

Speaker 15 But I had, very specifically, I had Morgan Gibbs White in my head remonstrating with his, because he's quite a, he looks like a real pain in the ass to be on the same team was because he's having a go at his teammates all the time.

Speaker 15 So he's sort of remonstrating with them for not feeding him the ball, for not kind of playing the right passes and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 11 He's got a really remonstrative face, actually. Now I think about it, yeah.

Speaker 26 From from what I understand, like people don't people like him, but he is, you know, people say, well, yeah, he demands high standards of, we've got to live up to those.

Speaker 14 Well, that's, yeah, because remonstrating obviously you often think of about a player remonstrating towards a referee or something. But Adam, you mentioned Henri, he was also a great remonstrator.

Speaker 14 to his teammates in the same way as Gibbs White of a kind of like, I've got extremely high standards. How are you not matching up to them?

Speaker 11 And related to letting his football do the talking, for some players, strikers, their numbers speak for themselves yeah so that the numbers are doing their talking they don't need to do like any talking sorry to go basically quite episode seven of football cliches back in 2020 but you never hear remonstrate outside of football can't be the last time i ever heard the word remonstrate remonstrate where you could possibly use it but

Speaker 17 it's like you remonstrate against like a parking attendant or something like that

Speaker 14 i've only been here five minutes i just nipped into it it's a very similar energy complaining like complaining about a parking ticket to complaining about a booking you know It's like, oh, first, you know, first offence, you know, come on.

Speaker 11 Speaking of which, the Football Cliche's live talk was overshadowed by me receiving a penalty notice for driving through a bus gate in Brighton. I don't know the city.
I just don't know it.

Speaker 11 I'm also a shit driver, which doesn't help. On remonstrating, though, I really need to make this point.
Berating haranguing seems very one-way, Nick.

Speaker 11 Like, you're basically just pouring out all your vitriol towards a kind of a... poor kind of recipient.
Remonstrating has an element of debate about it. Like,

Speaker 11 there should be a back and forth in a remonstration. You're looking for feedback.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's it it's it's w it's kind of one dominated by one side.

Speaker 20 It feels like a sort of 70-30 thing, where the the player is doing most of the remonstrating, but the the the referee or or whoever else it is has has kind of tried to justify whatever it is being remonstrated against.

Speaker 19 But yeah, you're right. There is a there is a an element of debate about it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, very chatty, very mouthy team, this as a whole. Um, I think might be one of the most annoying teams ever constructed.

Speaker 7 Hey welders, ready to upgrade your gear and save some serious dough in the process? The Miller Build with Blue Savings and Rebate Program has you covered.

Speaker 7 Find amazing deals and cashback rebates on a wide range of Miller products, from welders to plasma cutters and everything in between, all backed by our three-year warranty.

Speaker 7 Don't let this opportunity pass you by. Take advantage of the Miller Build with Blue program now.
Visit us online or stop by your nearest Miller distributor today to start saving.

Speaker 37 Sport Social Podcast Network, the biggest voices in sport. Let's take a look at some of the lineup.

Speaker 11 Tops and tails.

Speaker 38 And he goes, all right, mate, do you want the darts? And thing? And I'm like, what darts?

Speaker 5 The Anfield rap.

Speaker 38 Off the field, Liverpool have done everything they possibly could to achieve dominance now.

Speaker 37 The analyst inside cricket.

Speaker 38 It was announced over the pay A system that I was out of the test for injury. A massive cheer went up around the ground.
Probably the biggest cheer I've got in the UK.

Speaker 37 All on Europe's biggest sport podcast network find your next favorite sport podcast search sport social podcast network and listen wherever you get your podcast sport social podcast network verified comparison at content dot sport dash social dot co dot uk forward slash comparison

Speaker 11 and speaking of people who just won't ever shut up it's time for keys and grey corner

Speaker 11 On Super Sunday.

Speaker 11 A rare midweek Keys and Grey Corner. What a treat for absolutely everyone.
But

Speaker 11 I had to address this straight away. Anyone who's trying to access Richard Keys' blog this week will be disappointed by one.
There is no blog this week.

Speaker 11 He's in Mallorca, as is his want for the International Breaks.

Speaker 11 Little caption on his Instagram post the other day, Nick, you know, as he surveyed yet another Mallorken sunset, glass of wine in hand, and he said, Real men drink rose.

Speaker 12 Lovely.

Speaker 15 I actually haven't seen the, not really, for some reason, not really familiar with the construction of these pictures.

Speaker 25 Is he a picture of himself with the wine or a picture of the glass of wine with scene in the background?

Speaker 29 Blatter.

Speaker 12 Blatter.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it doesn't take pictures of himself.

Speaker 11 It's all scenery. And, you you know, I respect his privacy.

Speaker 11 But speaking of privacy, Charlie, anybody trying to, you know, peruse old versions of his blog were met with a dramatic message on his website. Your connection is not private.

Speaker 11 Attackers might be trying to steal your information from richardajkeys.com. For example, passwords, messages, or credit cards.
Learn more about this warning. Oh, God.
Has he been? What's going on?

Speaker 11 Has he forgot to, I don't know, renew his subscription to his redirection? I don't know.

Speaker 14 Worrying times. Yeah.
You need to to get it back. I mean, it needs to come back soon.
Yeah. Maybe when he goes to write his next blog, he'll become aware of it.

Speaker 11 Speaking of Keesy in sunnier climes,

Speaker 11 it is astonishing that we've never really confronted this. But I'm, you know, having said that, I never really watched this program in the first place.
But here is Richard Keese's cameo in Dream Team.

Speaker 11 And I think it's genuinely good acting, all things considered.

Speaker 40 Linda Block,

Speaker 41 you're nicked.

Speaker 40 Richard,

Speaker 40 What are you doing here?

Speaker 41 Same as you. I'm here for the Champions League game.

Speaker 40 I'm not.

Speaker 33 Oh, come on. Of all the pools in all the world, I find you lying by this one.

Speaker 40 No, seriously, I'm not. I'm on holiday.
Permanent holiday. No more football, no more Hochester.

Speaker 41 Which is why you're staying at Jeff Stein's villa?

Speaker 40 How do you know I was here?

Speaker 41 Well, actually, it's my job to know things, isn't it?

Speaker 41 I also know where you and I can get a decent view of the sunset and some first-class champagne. A mate of mine has got a boat in the port, and me and and you are invited for drinks.

Speaker 40 It's very sweet of you, but I don't really see people at the moment. I'm not the best of company.

Speaker 41 Oh, come on, Linda, don't make me beg. It's not a pretty sight.

Speaker 40 No.

Speaker 41 Okay, well, I'll just stay here in your sun until you say yes.

Speaker 11 It takes a little moment to warm up here, Charlie, but I'm really impressed with Keezy in this scene.

Speaker 11 I mean, I mean, cameos from known figures playing themselves in films and TV can be a very stilted affair. It can be very wooden.
I think my favourite bit is... Oh, come on, Linda.
Don't make me beg.

Speaker 12 Don't make me beg.

Speaker 11 I thought this was really well done. I spent money.

Speaker 14 A couple of bits are a bit less central. A mate of mine.

Speaker 22 Yeah, that was...

Speaker 15 I did hear it.

Speaker 14 Jeff Steinsvilla, who was an a... Jeff Stein was an notorious agent for many of the Harchester players.
Also, bringing it full circle, I believe that was in Majorca.

Speaker 14 I believe the Champions League tie where Harchester were. And we know Keesy IRL is a big

Speaker 14 Mallorca fan.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, he, it's also just a testament to how kind of towering a figure at Sky Keesy was in kind of the late 90s, early noughties that, you know, I don't know exactly whether he would have asked.

Speaker 14 to do it or have been asked, but either way, you know, it was like, yeah, Keese's just everywhere. You know, that was a Sky one program.

Speaker 14 But yeah, a pretty accomplished

Speaker 14 cameo.

Speaker 11 I mean, it is, there's a bit of the early keys.

Speaker 14 The T's are very pronounced, and I think he'd largely drop that in broadcasting, but I think he's acting, so he thinks, right, you know, diction has to be very clear here, Richard.

Speaker 14 But other than that, it's pretty natural.

Speaker 11 Yeah, he needs to come across as

Speaker 11 a rather sophisticated figure here, despite playing himself in this Nick. I don't want to go overboard about his acting ability.

Speaker 11 You know, I've got no notion of that.

Speaker 15 You are nominating from Oscar here.

Speaker 11 But yeah, you know, if we were to pinpoint his level here, he'd be a really compelling soap opera baddie. Like, there's a real kind of Richard Hillman vibe about him from Corrie.

Speaker 11 Like, there's definitely, he could, you know, dark forces could be within here, definitely. He could, yeah, he could murder an entire family in a, in a

Speaker 22 soap opera.

Speaker 28 I've confessed my knowledge of the history of soap operas is a little bit hazy.

Speaker 15 Richard, is he one of the kind of sweeps into town, charms someone, they get married, and then it turns out he's, you know, killed someone or is embezzling or whatever?

Speaker 11 He married Gail Platt and then eventually drove them both into a lake.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 11 But yeah, I think he might have killed several other people along the way with some, you know, some gloves and a glare in his eye.

Speaker 11 This isn't the direction he was supposed to go, but yeah,

Speaker 11 imagine a parallel Keesy career, Charlie, of soap opera stardom. I mean, very plausible.

Speaker 14 Yeah, well, around this time in Dream Team, there was a character called Prashant Datani played by an actor called Ramon Takaram, who I saw recently pop up in the Netflix show Chaos, which was really good.

Speaker 14 And he was really good. But he was playing that kind of suave out-of-towner who came in and kind of took the club over and you weren't sure, you know, what's this guy's motivations?

Speaker 14 And yeah, I don't think Keese would have been a million miles away from being able to play, being able to play that role.

Speaker 14 There's a funny thing as well here that he talks, you know how Gray often says things like, well, you know, you're the journalist sort of thing.

Speaker 14 And he obviously, Keys obviously pushes that really hard.

Speaker 11 His line about, well, it's my job to know things.

Speaker 14 Like he, I'm sure, was pushing that line very hard at Sky at the time that he wasn't a presenter. He was a journalist and he was a you know a getter of stories and that sort of thing.

Speaker 11 And an extra layer of self-referencing as well Nick which I think he probably pushed for as well. Could you just talk about me a little bit more?

Speaker 12 Yeah. I did.

Speaker 31 The last clip was about a minute long and I think for about 50 seconds it was as you say surprisingly good acting,

Speaker 17 quite a sort of fitting character, the character of Richard Keyes kind of thing.

Speaker 18 Trying to be a suave and you know trying his luck with the the boat and the rota and the the champagne.

Speaker 24 And then the the bit at the end where he says well I'm just I'm just going to stand in your sun and you'll have to come with me.

Speaker 34 That just took me out of it completely.

Speaker 12 That's the kind of actions of a petulant child rather than the sophisticate that I'm sure he wants to think of himself as.

Speaker 11 Richard Keyes Eclipse.

Speaker 11 On that mental image. Thanks to you, Charlie Ecclesia.
Thank you. Thanks to you, Nick Miller.
Thank you. And thanks to everyone for listening.
Birmingham, we'll see you tonight.

Speaker 11 Dublin, we'll see you tomorrow.

Speaker 39 This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

Speaker 9 I earned my degree online at Arizona State University.

Speaker 9 I chose to get my degree at ASU because I knew that I'd get a quality education, they were recognized for excellence, and that I would be prepared for the workforce upon graduating.

Speaker 9 To be associated with ASU,

Speaker 9 both as a student and alum, it makes me extremely proud. And having experienced the program, I know now that I'm set up for success.
Learn more at ASUonline.asu.edu.