Manchester City out of the Club World Cup and Euro 2025 kicks off - Football Weekly

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Al-Hilal, not Manchester City, out of the club World Cup.

Depending on who you follow, this is either a monumental shift in world football or a knacker team having a a bad day in a competition they're not that fussed about, or probably somewhere in between the two.

Either way, a quarterfinal lineup that isn't dominated by European clubs is a good thing for the global game.

Meanwhile, we've got some stick for complaining about that there foreign weather from the heat of the US to the heat of Switzerland.

Susie Rack is there and joins us ahead of Euro 2025 and the first known TV footage of Barry Glendenning.

All that plus your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Nikki Bandini.

Hello.

Morning.

Nadim Manuha, welcome.

Hello, Max.

Yes, we'll get to your.

I don't know if it was your TV debut, but I was sent it many times, Barry.

Barry Glendenning is here.

Hello, Max.

Let's start with the Club World Cup.

California Canary says, what have Man City done?

They've justified Emperor Infantino's gladiator contest and put Saudi football on the map.

Lord help us.

Yes, Al-Hilal defeating Man City 4-3 after extra time.

I mean, the reaction to this has been interesting, Nadim.

Like this, whether I said in the intro, whether this has turned the world football order upside down, that the Saudi league is now a major force.

How monumental or not is this result?

Listening to people from the region, I think somebody said this is the biggest result that Arabian football's ever had.

And I can see that, you know, it's a FIFA competition.

It's against a Saudi won the Champions League not too long ago.

So yes, of course, it matters from that perspective.

But then I think from our perspective, if we were to zoom out, how many people do we know that have been watching or tracking the tournament in itself?

Because I've had lots of people tell me that the tournament doesn't matter i've had lots of people tell me that saudi arabian football doesn't matter and even on this podcast we were trying to debate what is the value of like a goal in saudi in the saudi pro league maybe a couple of weeks ago so now that they're here and they're competing i think the more interesting thing from my side was seeing how they do sort of match up against other teams from around the world sometimes it's been good sometimes it's been bad indifferent but It was good.

It was entertaining.

And obviously, it doesn't necessarily represent the depth of the league as such, but it's a huge result.

And I think what matters more again is that contrary to what people will be able to believe, City would have wanted to win that game of football because now it does carry the sort of weight of not a waste of time,

but kind of like, well, we got knocked out in the round of 16 and whoever they would have been knocked out to if they did go out, that would have mattered anyway.

So yeah, it's a huge result for Arabian football.

And for City, it's a disappointment.

But again, you know, it's great now because I can be the spin doctor to say, yeah, but the positive is they've got six weeks until the season starts.

That's huge for the blues.

Yeah.

Well, that's what I was going to ask, Nathan, was this, is this, is it good for City in terms of the Premier League in Europe because they're out?

Or is it bad because they haven't got what they wanted, i.e.

winning it, but they've still had the ball ache of doing quite a lot of it?

I think overall for this next season, it's probably going to be deemed to be good.

I think for the teams who are still left in it, especially the English one like Chelsea.

If they, for example, made it to the final and they're playing that game in the second week of July, knowing full well that the season starts in just under a month's time, but the players haven't had a proper break yet.

That's something that will be playing on your mind, I believe, because other teams now, as we've seen, have started preseason this week and the week before.

They're actively getting ready for the next season now.

But if your team is about to have a break when people are almost halfway through their preseasons, it's probably not helpful.

But to give the tournament itself credit, those players, once they get out there and it's this knockout round, everybody's trying to win, whether it is a team from Brazil, whether it's a team from Europe, whether it's a team from Saudi Arabia.

Everybody is trying to win.

And to be the first winner of this competition will matter to them.

The downside is,

in my opinion, as is the case with the general club World Cup, most people don't care because their team's not involved.

And to really care about that is like a real deep love of just watching all types of football available everywhere.

But I don't think that's necessarily going to be the case for this.

But like I say, for those teams involved, they've been out there for, was it two weeks now, maybe longer?

They'll be desperate to win and they know that the three wins away from doing it.

First of all, on the winning thing, I believe Marion's saying this is the first time Pip Guardiola has ever lost in the Club World Cup, 11 wins with Barcelona by Munich and Man City, whether you consider those the same competition.

And I could see Nedim putting a bit of face to that, which I get, but at the same time.

No, no, I wasn't.

I wasn't.

It's valid.

It's a valid point.

It's a good start.

That speaks to something, right, doesn't it?

Which is like, if you're Pip Guardiella, you like winning.

Like all these people, all these players and coaches who are at these clubs are used to winning and like winning and consider that to be enough motivation on its own a lot of the time, right?

That's the sort of people who are wired to be playing football and coaching football at this level.

So I think that absolutely there's disappointment at going out for the teams that go out.

I think it would be completely false to say that the teams that are the European clubs that answered in this competition didn't care.

I think they did care.

But I also think it's unrealistic to say that end of season fatigue is not part of the picture as well for clubs that have played 60 plus games where players are knackered, where the heat is really high, and where even though there is always that impulse to win, I don't think still that in terms of the player mindset, and Nedin probably can speak better to this than I can, but I still think it's still too new to say that players are looking at this and going, this matters as much to me as winning the Champions League would, for instance.

I would agree with that, to be fair.

And I think the fact that it's every four years also adds an interest in Wrinkle because in four years' time, which will be the teams that will qualify for some of the players, will they...

Like if you're safe, you're in your late 20s now, early 30s, will you still be playing in four years' time?

So it's almost like that whole aspect, as is the case with the World Cup, it's not really something that happens very often.

And to sort of jump on something that you said, Nikki, which this is from experience, because maybe at times I've been guilty of this.

Everybody wants to win, but some people, they hate losing.

And that hate of losing is the thing that sort of drives them to win all the time.

Because say the teams who are up near the top of the leagues around the world and so on, if you notice, they don't really celebrate their wins, but you always see a reaction in their losses.

And that's the thing I believe, because you say for some of us who've been down in the pits of hell in the in the Premier League and the championship at times it's very easy to get used to losing whereas for some of these teams they'll never allow it because that feeling once they taste it once you could always back them to win the next game because you know it's just not going to happen again it feels unlikely Barry that some of the some of the Al Hillal players will still be playing in the next Cub World Cup given the age of some of the sort of more high profile players that they have but they put on a good show in this game the immediately recognizable names they had in the lineup that that i knew anyway were surg Sergei Milenkovich Savage, Ruben Neves, Renan Lodi, Kaladu Kulibale, Huau Cancelo.

So, you know, they're all household names.

On another day, City could have been out of sight by half-time.

Ruben Diaz, Savino, Ilke Gundigan, Josco Garliol, Bernardo Silva all missed very presentable chances in the first half.

Erling Hallen missed one towards the end of normal time.

I think it was hooked off the line quite acrobatically by Ali Lajami.

It was a good win for Al-Halal.

It was, I suppose, a statement win for them.

It's a win Gianna Infantino will be delighted with

because they're a Saudi Pro League side and we're now going to have a Saudi Pro League side or a Brazilian side in the semi-final which is good for the competition I suppose.

And I think fans of both teams can view it whatever way they want, really, because I've seen some city fans saying oh it doesn't matter it's a post-season friendly or it's a pre-season friendly there still seems to be some confusion over whether it's this season or last season or just not a season at all just just this thing that's clonked in the middle and so Manchester City fans can say

losing doesn't matter and I suppose in a way it doesn't and while I agree with Nadam that It's good they're out in that they now have six weeks to prepare so that players can have a holiday and a bit of a preseason.

I think it's bad just in terms of their performance, particularly in the second half and in extra time, that a lot of Premier League sides have been looking at that, or maybe they won't have been, I don't know.

They might be ignoring it like loads of other people.

They'll have looked at them and gone, woo, there's a lot of frailties there.

The familiar frailties in defence, Ederson looked a bit ropey,

Ruben Diaz didn't have a good game.

And obviously, that injury to Roderie.

So it's an injury setback.

That's what we've been told.

We don't know if it's the same injury, a different injury.

I presume City fans will be hoping it's a different injury.

He hasn't had a recurrence of that knee problem.

And I hope for his sake, he hasn't.

But

they look...

pretty bad in that second half and in in extra time.

I'll just pick up on what has been saying there.

I mean, there was was this quote from Bernardo Silver after the game, wasn't there?

Saying, most teams that beat us play this way.

And I think that was maybe like the most damning line to come out of it from City's point of view: is, well, you're saying that there is a way that people are playing against you now and it keeps working and

hasn't been figured out, right?

I think it's no secret after last season that City have these defensive vulnerabilities.

I think if there was

one person who definitely came out of that game feeling like a winner, by the way, it's Simone and Zagi, who, of course, is coming from a really humiliating end to what could have been a brilliant season in Terran and has been written as an awful one because they got thumped in the Champions League final, reminding everyone that he does know how to scheme

an individual game and how to unpick

the weaknesses of certain opponents.

So I think

there was a definite bit of vindication in there for him.

Interesting to see how his career goes over the next few years, frankly, and whether he comes back from Saudi as still a highly considered asset in European football management or not, but moments like this certainly will mean a lot to him, I'm certain.

I mean, just to say

on the Al-Hilal side, quickly, because we obviously focus on it a lot from the city side,

it is an interesting in abstract team to look at because it has got all these names you look at and think of familiar players we know been successful in European football, like Milinkovic Savic, like Kula Bali, like Neves Peirs, we know all about, Cancelo.

It has also got, I think there were at least three Saudi nationals starting in the team.

And it also has, I think it was interesting when you look at someone like Marcos Leonardo starting up front, who is very much one of those categories of players.

Because we think about the mid-career, late-career players that have gone to Saudi to play.

He's someone who'd had a promising time at Benfica, and I think in a previous generation, he would have been snapped up by one of the big European clubs and would now be playing at one of the

in one of the big five European leagues for a club that was trying to do things in Europe.

And so

it's definitely a snapshot, I think, this team of

this, I suppose,

uncertain era of football in the world and how things have changed.

And again, what does that mean in terms of the Club, World Cup, in terms of significance, in terms of how this affects perceptions?

I don't have the answers to all of that, but I do think this team is quite an interesting...

grab of that moment in how football's changed.

Yeah, and actually, I mean, sort of the ultimate example of that is

Ronaldo, I guess.

And Johnny Lou wrote quite an interesting piece about his new contract, which is worth £488,000 a day,

which is reasonable if you can get it.

And just sort of saying, look, in an age when power itself is being reimagined along the lines of social media clout, when the attention economy and the actual economy are rapidly converging into one and the same thing, the fact that Ronaldo is the most followed person on Instagram, the third most followed on X behind Elon Musk and Barack Obama matters in a way.

Ronaldo's fame renders him a kind of one-man city-state, an influencer first and an athlete second.

His goals and assists entirely tangential to the eyeballs he can garner in the process.

I mean,

it is that it's so fascinating to watch this thing be a thing, right?

And some of these football teams have great heritage and great history, and then suddenly there's money sort of plonked into it in an in a

it feels artificial, Nada.

I guess, you know, lots of people have thrown money in before.

I don't know.

I don't know if there's even a question there.

It's just an interesting thing to observe.

How would you compare that to, say, into Miami and MLS with Leonor Messi?

Would you consider it to be the same, similar, or completely different?

That's a good question.

I mean, I suppose because it's funded by the state, I think it is different.

I think that is the difference, isn't it?

Yeah, but the funding still remains the same, doesn't it?

That's the interesting piece for me, because as well, we talk about Ronaldo and his influence and all that stuff.

Like, as I, you know, go to football with my kids and so on, and walk around,

the two shirts, there's a yellow Al Naso one and there's a pink Intermiami one.

At no point has a name on the back of those shirts said any other player apart from Ronaldo or Messi.

You know, so it feels like it's the same sort of thing, but across two different places.

And, you know, we can have the bigger talk about the geopolitics of stuff in the Middle East and so on.

But then, I don't know, some of these conversations are a million miles away about what's going on in America right now, in my opinion.

No, of course, of course, but the U.S.

government don't own Intermiami, is what I'm saying, is where the

line is probably a good thing to be honest.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, I know what you're trying to say.

I know what you're saying.

And in some ways,

it's like completely valid.

But again, like the way that MLS has completely changed how it's worked to bring Leonard Messi over is a big statement in itself.

And I think the value that he's brought to that league, I think the viewership last year was as high as it's ever been.

And most of that viewership features wherever Leonor Messi is going to be playing football.

So the impact is there.

And yeah, you could definitely make the case that those two are influencers.

But what I would say from a footballing standpoint is I'm okay with that because they changed the game of football in my eyes and in my generation.

Because for the way that they did things from when they were younger has led to how so many thousands of players across the world now try and play football today.

Whenever we I look at like deals for people and so on and so forth, having spoken to people in the past, you can have all these deals for like really good players, like average players, whatever.

Then there's the Messi and Ronaldo type things where you know their influence is bigger than anyone else we've seen probably in our lifetimes.

So Ronaldo getting paid that, whoever pays it will obviously believe it's worth every single penny, as is the case in America as well for Leno Messi, because without him, like, what is the league?

I don't think it's any different to what the Premier League did when it started.

When I was growing up, when I was a kid, foreigners in English football were quite rare.

Did the A6 at the French World Cup winner, actually, at Aston Villa.

Very exotic.

Johnny Method at Manchester United, Dutch Thunderbolt of a free cake on him.

Quite rare.

You know, you didn't have

English players, Scottish players, Irish players, and Northern Irish players.

And then, as soon as the Premier League started, whoomph, all these foreigners came over because they're all following the money.

And now,

more often than not,

Premier League sides have more foreigners than English players.

We have Premier League sides fielding teams without any English players.

It's not uncommon, but it's not unheard of.

So I don't see much of a difference.

And I get, you know, we taught disapprovingly that

nation states shouldn't own Premier League football clubs.

But I think nation states are perfectly entitled to have their own leagues.

This is a mildly controversial point.

If anyone wants to get me in trouble, fine, whatever.

So the Premier League itself is obviously this huge entity, and some of the football that gets played is great and how it's perceived to be one of the best leagues in the world, if not the best league in the world.

But through the years, especially players from abroad, they come here because of the earning potential, because they're trying to have a career.

I think sometimes because we're so caught up in it, we think, oh, you're coming for the prestige of the league.

But some of these people haven't watched the league for 30 years.

They don't have the feel of what it is to see like a Merseyside derby or like the, say, the Tyne Weir Derby and all this stuff.

That's something that's very, very specific to us and our love for it.

And so when some people come over, like say a few years ago, when say like Kulibali or someone else was leaving to go to Saudi Arabia, or say, for example, I always find this with, say, people from South America.

Like it's almost like we expect them to fall in love with the Premier League, but realistically, one of the reasons they came was because this is an earning potential for them and for them to be able to at some point go back home because most of them will still call Brazil home after their careers, but come back home and have affected the lives of not just themselves, but everybody around them.

You know, and what's at times, what's the difference between that and say earning money over in, say, Saudi Arabia or say going to MLS and earning that big money?

It's like a tough thing to accept, but at the end of the day, it's a profession.

And for lots of those people, the profession will lead them to a place where they can make the biggest sort of financial change to affect their lives.

So say, if you could earn a hundred thousand pounds a week at Bournemouth,

someone might think, oh, you signed for Bournemouth because they play in the Premier League, but maybe it's because it's an opportunity to earn as much money as they potentially can doing the job that they love.

And maybe they will fall in love with Bournemouth itself.

But if the Premier League, say, salaries were maybe half the size and the Premier League from a paying perspective was lower down relatively in terms of the big five leagues, you've got to ask yourself, would all these players still be here?

And would they have been here for the last 20 years?

Oh, of course.

You say, of course, but I don't think many people think about it from that standpoint because they point and say, oh, that league bad,

this league good, because this league has history.

You know what I mean?

And it's a bit more to it than that.

Could I just sorry, briefly apologise to Wales, who I left out of my list of countries?

Sorry, Barry Horn.

Sorry, Big Neve.

Yeah, the only thing I would say is, you know, of course, every country should have a league.

You know, I'm not sitting here saying there shouldn't be football.

Every country should be, everybody should be able to play like everybody should be able to play it's just whether you know the premier league was owned by the government that would feel weird or by owned by the king i guess would be a bit odd wouldn't it anyway uh alhillal will play fliminesi in the quarter finals they knocked out inter who were already we talked about fatigue absolutely knackered from the champions league final they've obviously lost their manager haven't they um you know tiago silver starting in the fliminesi side uh making a cherby look like a youngster but what did you make of that uh defeat for inter and that win for fliminesi Fliminese?

Yeah, it was a bit of a

not inspiring game of football to watch.

I mean, I think that's, I'm speaking to that very much from the inter point of view.

I'm certain from the Fliminese point of view, it probably felt more enjoyable.

I think it's probably slightly, there's a fatigue on Inter and how they're playing.

There's a fatigue for me of watching this Inter team look more and more tired week by week.

So every time you watch them, you think, okay, this team, you can see it's out of steam and it's not,

it's just, it just felt like watching as it has for through the last part of the season, as it has through this tournament, because they weren't impressive at any point in this tournament.

I think they

needed a injury time goal against Uara

in the first round.

They

only won the last game against River Play of the group stage when River were down to nine men as well.

So like, well, I think the first going team when they won 10 men, but still,

they haven't been great.

in this tournament and they weren't great against Fomenze and they might look at it and say, oh, we hit the woodwork a couple of times.

Yeah, you hit the woodwork a couple of times when it was late in the second half and you hadn't played very well for most of the game.

So I think it was definitely fully deserved from

the Fluminenze point of view.

Was quite something to see a 44-year-old goalkeeper, as you just mentioned, Fabio in goal, pulling off a few saves.

But when you end

the main season, I suppose, with a result as absolutely emphatic and what felt

era ending as that 5-0 defeat to PSG in the final, you really kind of need that moment to take a step back and go, okay, well, where do we go from here?

And Inta haven't had that moment.

They've had Kiva come in, they've gone straight into this tournament, they've just had to keep going.

And it feels like at the end of it, you've really seen the underlying tensions come out because you've got Lautaro Martinez at the end of the game basically saying, we need to work out who wants to be here and who doesn't want to be here because if you don't want to be here, get out of here because we've got a project here and we're trying to do something.

That has been widely interpreted as a go at Hakan Chalanoglu, who's missed this with injury.

He has responded with this huge long Instagram post, which now Marcus Turam has liked.

And so there's all this internal politics being drawn out in

the press about, oh, is this a go at this person?

Is this who's on whose side?

So the whole thing feels,

I don't know, I don't know if toxic is the right word, but it's the word I have in my head right now.

It feels like the whole atmosphere is a bit poisoned by the way the the champions league campaign ended probably everyone needs to go and have a lie down for a week and stop and reflect but the new manager does now need to work out which way he wants to take this and which players are part of the project and which aren't so i do think obviously they prefer to just all come together and have an amazing beautiful moment and win the whole competition but that never looked at all likely um from the way they played so probably there's a bit of relief for some people just to be like okay okay, now we can finally stop and look at the current mess and work out what needs fixing.

They'll all get the flu, won't they?

They'll all get the flu when you've worked so hard and finally get a break, and they'll all get the flu.

Elsewhere on Real Madrid beat Juventus, an assist for Trent Alexander Arnold.

First appearance for Mbappe came on in the second half.

A crowd very excited whenever he got the ball.

They'll play Dortmund, two goals for Garassi, both set out by Adiyami, which means Sergio Ramos's Club World Cup is over, Barry, just for your records.

Joe Bellingham got a yellow card.

Sergio had a chance to equalise for Monterey

towards the end of that game and put the ball wide.

In a header, you'd expect him to score.

Really?

Okay.

Oh, well.

Joe Bellingham got booked, so he is suspended for the quarterfinal against Real Madrid, unless, you know, I'm sure Gianni can find a way of the Bellinghams playing against each other.

We did get yelled at for our discussions of the Chelsea delay and the weather.

Peter and Dallas said, what you're observing regarding delays is a matter of how lightning is managed.

Since the 94 World Cup, the US has become extremely diligent in handling lightning as a cause of death.

They've taken measures to mitigate insurance and legal risks.

These measures apply to both professional and amateur sports, from golf to the NFL to youth soccer.

The general rule that a game is stopped for 30 minutes if a lightning strike occurs within 10 miles.

Even if just one more lightning strike happens in that zone, the clock is restarted to 30 minutes.

It is not as if the US is plagued by Frankenstein's castle-style lightning storms.

While we we do experience our fair share of those more often than not, like the recent Chelsea-Benfica delay, it's just a minor thunderstorm or two with minimal lightning.

While Doug says, I'm disappointed that Max, now living across the globe, cannot see how narrow the perception of, quote, acceptable weather is in Britain.

In my experience, Brits seem to feel that any weather outside the incredibly tiny range that is normal in their home islands is outrageous and possibly immoral.

People from the UK just cannot seem to grasp that theirs is a very rare weather situation.

Temperatures vary by a few degrees from winter to summer.

I'd say a bit more than a few, but I take the point.

This is not the norm around the planet.

The Club World Cup game certainly could kick off later in the day for cooler temperatures.

But 8pm in LA puts the TV in London at 4am.

I'm willing to do 4.45 for those lunchtime games for Fulham.

But I imagine that would garner even more complaints from the Football Weekly crew than having to watch overheated players.

If the only acceptable temperatures are the ones you're used to, is a World Cup in a different season, okay?

That wasn't popular in 2022.

It almost sounds like all international tournaments must be in your backyard backyard or you're grumpy about it.

Perhaps this is what football coming home really, really means.

I'm sorry, Doug.

Does anybody want to

spring to my defence?

I mean, none of you were here on Mondays.

That's all my fault.

Yeah, it is all your fault.

I can jump in a little bit just because I think there's a couple of sides to this.

I think the point that was made about the lightning strikes and the 30 minutes and all that stuff, like, I've played in America where that's been a thing.

I understand that.

I think FIFA and Infantino seemed a bit surprised by that when the tournament started, which is a bit weird.

playing in mls

you very rarely play during the day especially in the summertime you very very rarely play during the day you will play in the evenings because in the summer sometimes it's just too hot get yourself over to texas get yourself over to florida in the summer and try and play football and anything other than the evenings i wish you well you know it's we're talking end of days type stuff so the domestic leagues know how to do it But then, oh, but we need the European audience.

We need that.

We need that.

So let's just do it during the day.

But then there's a greater likelihood of things like this happening.

And that's the bit that's disappointing for me because

I get everything about this.

Obviously, for the way football goes, it's fine.

Everything about this just feels like a money grab.

You know what I mean?

It's money and it's attention.

But in reality, it's not the best way to deliver the product itself.

Because if you want to deliver a better product, you would do it when it's cooler during the day, or at night time, rather.

That's the whole point.

You would sort of maybe put it in places where, for example, again, this is me.

Maybe I'm being toxic.

I don't know.

But I thought MLS had probably 30 plus teams with dedicated football stadia of which most of the pitches have normal grass but instead we're playing in some of these bigger stadiums which are designed for nfl teams and have had grass laid over the top of it and sometimes you watch the ball doesn't even really bounce that's pretty weird you know i'll be honest that's pretty weird uh and oh the average attendance only don't let it bounce they found they found the fear don't let it bounce don't let it bounce it's just going to drop from the sky and just roll of course sorry i'm sort of rambling a bit here but my issue is that they found a way to functionally make football work in the usa outside of these tournaments but now the tournament's here they're trying to do it a different way and as a consequence we get to see some of the flaws which they've sort of moved push to the side by having their own dedicated league and I think that kind of sums it up because I think sometimes when we have a conversation about can we grow football in North in North America let's say in the USA they say yeah we can do it but there's so many different sides to it and so many different ways that it's done and I don't know if this is necessarily the best way for it to be done because if all these teams for example that travel from Europe to play in America played in the MLS stadiums they'd probably have a better experience because it would feel more true, feel more fair.

And the crowd, the stadiums would look fuller, right?

If they're all in the middle of the day,

exactly.

Very quickly, Nadam, Mark sent a message going with all this weather talk.

Can we hear Nadam talking about playing for real Salt Lake against Sport in Kansas on the 8th of November 2020?

I watched the highlights.

It's very snowy.

You keep the line quite well, Nadam.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

But you did get, you got hooked in that game, I did.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You see, this is the difference between having

data and having the understanding to turn that into information.

That was the last game of my career.

Got it.

And the reason I came off was because they wanted to give me, at the time, like due to the pandemic and so on, the stadium wasn't full, but they wanted to give me the chance to have a stand-in ovation and my last ever professional game.

So there's the context.

And there you go.

It makes more sense.

And my memory of my last ever game, I love the fact that it snowed so heavily.

We hadn't qualified for the playoffs.

This is my last game.

I had family in the stands.

I had friends in the stands.

And it's the first time in my career I played with an orange football.

And that ball is upstairs in my house now.

So that's it.

Yeah, that's my memory from that.

see so there's the context you see you see you know just don't just go just don't just go on the internet my friend that's the people did you get the standing ovation from anyone that was still left yeah

listen it wasn't a lot of people but it was uh it was a nice moment i remember when because i knew it was going to be coming off before the game and when it was like i'll be honest when it was that time and the board was going up i like took a breath i was on the pitch people coming over to me like shaking my hand all this stuff and it felt it actually felt quite nice You know, football, it can be such a hostile sport.

This was my last game.

It was my last moment.

Felt nice to clap whoever was there, go go off and then just sit down on the bench and just watch the game in the most carefree manner, knowing that I cannot affect this anymore.

So yeah, that was a nice moment.

Well, look, before your last pod, we will let you know.

Is it this one or

we'll get Lars or someone off the bench for the last two minutes and you can have a round outstanding emotion?

And that'll do for part one.

Susie Rack will join us in just a second for part two.

Hi, pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

In the break, Barry has called for mandatory water breaks because of the heat in London at the moment and announced that he went to MNS in Brixton just to stand in it for 20 minutes yesterday.

Are you looking?

Are you refreshed and hydrated enough to continue, Barry?

I am.

I've got my pint of water.

I've got some sort of protein drink out of the fridge and a coffee, so I'm okay.

Okay, good stuff.

Let's bring in Susie Rack, who's out in switzerland for the euros hey susie hey hey how are you doing yeah good concerns about the heat there as well there were amber weather warnings in switzerland that could hit 35 degrees apparently later Yeah, it's horrific.

And air conditioning isn't really a thing here either.

So this really, really ineffective fan has become my new best friend.

They're just following me around this tiny studio apartment

wherever I move, basically.

Right.

I was interested reading about football in Switzerland, women's football in Switzerland.

Donnie Lou wrote a piece saying that women were not allowed to play organised football, 11-aside football until the late 60s.

Women's Leagues not integrated into the Swiss FA until 93, which was three years after the northeastern canton of Appenzell Inner Hoden became the last Swiss province to give women the vote.

Wow, it's 93.

Wasn't it similar in England?

It was

1970 that the ban on women's football was lifted, 50-year ban.

And I think women could vote earlier than the 90s, 90s, I think, very unsure.

But, you know, the point he makes, Johnny, in this piece, is that before a ball's been kicked, ticket sales will surpass that of Euro 2022 in Switzerland, which is great.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

I think they're past 600,000 for the tournament so far, which when a lot of people were quite critical of it being hosted in Switzerland because of the smaller stadium sizes and stuff is impressive.

That said, it sort of shows how much further they could have potentially gone if they'd gone for, you know, a country like Germany or something with much much bigger, higher-profile stadiums.

Yeah, I mean, it is impressive, and it shows how rapid the rise is, I guess.

And what's also very impressive is that I think English fans outside of Swiss and German fans are the biggest traveling contingent out as well.

So it shows it's a reflection of the success of the game and of the WSL, that obviously 2022 win and how much that's sort of brought people on the journey.

Taking over town squares, throwing plastic chairs around.

It's what we want to see.

Flares up the arse.

Yeah, that's what what I want.

Although, you know, I'd wait till it's not 35 degrees.

So, look, how do you see England?

We talked to Seb about it on Monday, who's covering it for ITV.

But how do you see England?

I saw someone saying, look, the exciting thing about England is they could win it.

They could go out in the group.

You just don't know.

That's kind of what is the great thing about the tournament as a whole: in that there's about five teams that have a realistic shot of winning it.

I mean,

once you sort of exclude Spain, England's chances,

I'm nervous about the group stage because it took them time to sort of get into a rhythm in 2020.

The first game was against Austria.

It was a 1-0 win.

It wasn't overly convincing performance-wise at the World Cup.

They played Haiti first game, so you know, a much easier job for them.

They start straight off with France, then they've got the Netherlands, then they've got Wales.

It's a much tougher start.

They've got to be on it from the beginning.

And I'm like a little bit wary of that situation.

Then also, Tom was pointing out the other day that no team from

that hasn't been from Group A or B has won the tournament, which is a slightly ridiculous fact.

But there is a point there in that if you're in Group D, you've got shorter breaks between all the rounds, so there's less recovery time and stuff.

And obviously, England were in group A as the host last time round, so they had a bit more time to breathe around fixtures.

So I am a little bit worried about even if they get through the group stage, then them going into the quarters and the semis on a fairly short turnaround, having played three very exhausting games in Ridiculous Heat.

Yeah, I mean, that was an extraordinary stat.

It's from

our colleague Tom Gary saying in the last 15 major tournaments, I think, men's and women's, the team that wins the first semi-final, that's gone through from the top of the draw, wins the tournament.

Like, so sort of

because they have a day more time just to put their feet up.

It's a mad stat.

Barry, you had your hand up.

Polite.

Yeah, I wanted to ask Susie, who knows far about more about the England camp than I do, is it a harmonious camp?

Because there seem to be mutterings that all is not well there and there's a bit, you know,

they've gone a bit Dutch.

There's lots of infighting.

And I have no idea, but that's the vibe I'm getting that.

It might not be the most harmonious camp of all time.

I don't think it's as harmonious as 2022 when literally everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet, players, agents, staff, FA, fans the media like i don't think anything would be able to compare to that in a way it is a pretty harmonious camp because the people who don't want to be there aren't there so in a sense you know if you it if you've made it into the squad you're happy you're there and there's a level of harmony in that in that yeah now they're finally down to that 23 i think it is pretty tight um and it is a nice it's a nice group as well relatively there's not there's not too many areas where i think you'd expect to be fractious serena's like handling of things has been questioned a little bit, particularly around like Mary Earps and Frank Kirby, in particular, who both retired.

And when you look at, say, like the US women's national team, who had like Megan Rapino and Becky Salbron and Alex Morgan, like playing well into their late mid to late 30s, to see players sort of retiring in sort of early to mid-30s is a little bit, a little bit odd, maybe in that context.

So her handling of things, I think her sort of veneer of like perfection has slipped slightly.

But then again, you know, she's won back-to-back European titles and clearly is a very good tournament manager so like i'm loath to like say oh it's all going to fall apart in in a major tournament when she's the expert at them so you're saying there's a chance

of course uh nadam you're covering this as well um how do you see england's chances to be honest i was gonna ask susie about this but i feel like a lot is pinned on this game against france to start with because i think if they do start with a win, then with all due respect to the Welsh, and I apologise to Ellis and so on, like I'd fancy England to be able to win that last group game and six points is realistically going to be able to see you through.

So yeah, that whole thing about how can they start, can they start quicker is a different sort of test.

And looking back at the last Euros, like there have been so many documentaries looking back at it.

And so it's a lot of fun, to be honest.

I quite enjoy that.

It gives me a little goosebumps and so on.

But this is different now because it's not on home soil anymore.

You know, that advantage that they had, it's very easy to forget about sometimes.

But for the draw that they're the side of the draw that they're on and the group that they're in, I think it's good to sort of sharpen the mind as such.

And I fancy them to get results against France and Netherlands, to be fair.

And then when it comes down to knockouts, I guess you've got to see how the other groups are going to fall because it's not necessarily,

I don't think it will necessarily be as straightforward as say some people believe in terms of who's going to finish top and second in some of the other groups.

So then your path then, you know, because we're hearing people, I don't know if you've, you've probably seen a series where people say, oh, maybe if England finished second in their group, then they'll avoid Spain before this, that, and the other.

And I don't know, man.

Finishing second in the group doesn't give me good vibes there, I'll be honest.

And Susie, as well, you you said the five teams that could win it.

Which five do you think that is?

Good questions.

I think England, Spain, France, the Netherlands.

You think Netherlands, that's a big core.

Yeah, and Germany.

I think they've all got a shout.

Maybe

the Netherlands and Sweden are like the ones who are battling out in my mind for the fifth of the big five that could win it.

And then in terms of like where they finish in the group, I'm totally with you in that like you go to win that group.

Because if you come out of that group, I mean, you'll be exhausted and the turnaround is then short to the quarters.

But at the same time, if you've come out of a group on top again with France and the Netherlands in your group, and then rivals, Wales, who, yes, they're not a big challenge, but they will be up for that game big time.

The momentum and confidence you're going to have going into that next round is going to be better than anyone else in the tournament.

So, like, I think you can't underestimate that psychological factor of coming out of that group top.

Um, so, sort of, yeah, where they finish and who they play next is kind of irrelevant in that sense.

They won't want to, they won't want to be playing machinations.

Do we think this is like, because you've named five, which already is quite a big group, really, when we're talking about possible tournament winners, but like, do we think this is the tournament where we could see like a proper like genuine dark horse winner?

Like, I feel like maybe I'm getting a bit too caught up in artists.

I don't think Turkey are in it, Nikki, are they?

Turkey aren't in it, don't they?

Definitely not just saying this because I've seen even some of the Guardian predictors putting Italy among their dark horses this time around.

To win the whole thing.

But no, I don't think they can win the whole thing, honestly.

I think Emma Hayes tipped Italy, didn't she?

She knows her own

about Emma Hayes's knowledge.

It's funny because Baz raised it about like the atmosphere in the England squad before, and I do think with Italy, the big thing is just the vibe feels so much better than it did the last couple of tournaments they've gone into.

Like, I do think with Sonjin in charge, the whole atmosphere is different.

Stupid stuff, like really stupid stuff.

Like, after he beat Denmark earlier this year and him saying, Oh, well, because we won that game, I have to deliver on this promise to get like a new speaker for the dressing room so everyone can have their music.

I know that's stupid, it really is.

But I'm a big believer in this with like tournament teams that like at tournaments that people have to want to be there.

Like I think it's been one of the problems for Italy's men's team, frankly, even at the last Euros, was the vibe was just horrendous.

So like the, that, that, that, that stuff does matter.

I don't really think I believe this Italy squad is good enough to win it.

But then at the same time, like no one thought Arsenal were going to win the Champions League at the start of this season, did they, right?

Like, so there's, there's, there's maybe a moment where it could be you look at some of the teams that are going as a traditional favourites.

It feels like Spain and Germany still everyone's favourites, but hey, you know, Bob Mati might not be in good shape to start this tournament.

And I don't know, it feels like maybe there's a chance this is a real surprise winner year.

There's definitely a chance of it.

I think outside that top five, it's unlikely.

Although, like you say, Italy, I don't think would win it, but they look so much better and so much more.

It's like a 2.0 of the one that of the team that did fairly well at the 2019 World Cup.

And the group that they're in is fairly kind to them.

Obviously, Spain will top it.

But then it's sort of, I would say, between Belgium and Italy for that second place to get out.

I think it's realistic that they could

have to win.

So that's that's quite fun.

I mean, who knows?

The World Cup in Australia, Germany collapsed out of the group stage, and you know, Tom had predicted that they were the winners.

So, you know, anything can happen.

I just love throwing that in there because he hates it.

For every single one of these teams, there's two versions of that team that could show up in the same way that there were very much two versions of Arsenal that could show up in that Champions League final.

Absolutely blisteringly brilliant Arsenal or the

like pretty chaotic, very prone to collapse Arsenal.

And I do think that pretty much almost every single team in this tournament has

those two elements in them, which means that there's not an outright favourite.

So, you know, maybe

Bar Spain, but I mean, I'm really putting that down to Monste Tome not necessarily being the best manager rather than the players being absolutely phenomenal.

But yes, I do think it is, there is a chance that there is a new name on it for sure.

It would be nice if it wasn't Germany purely because of their sort of history in the tournament and how many times they've won it.

That obviously wouldn't be a new name.

They've won it like eight times or something.

But yeah, it'd be good to see one of the other teams get a title.

Yeah, I'm not so convinced we'll be seeing that.

But say when I look at this tournament, you're looking at basically Spain, Germany, then, you know, that next sort of tee, you're looking at England and France and so on.

And the difference between them all, it's not massive, but Nikki's alluded to it.

Susie's alluded to it.

We allude allude to it basically every time we're on this show.

I wish you could quantify vibes.

I wish you really could because that can be such an elevator, or sometimes it could just take you down.

Like for all the years, for example, with,

say,

these tournaments, like the France team, everyone always acknowledges their talent, but then they say the vibes are off and they end up winning nothing.

But with the talent that they have, of course, they should win it.

Well, why wouldn't they win it?

Why wouldn't they be in the final?

He said, yeah, but you see, there's this drama, is this this, this, that?

Max, you need to get to the bottom of this, my friend.

What is the value of vibes when it comes down to success?

I was going to to say, vibes are every, if you get the vibe right, the show is great.

100%.

See, yeah, you get that.

See, if the vibe is good, if the vibe is good, you don't sweat any of the small stuff, the podcast is great.

That's the truth of it.

I just pick up, I did like you describing the whole Welsh nation, name him as Ellis and so on.

That's for Ellis, isn't it?

You know, is it too patronising?

Just say happy to be there, Susie, or do you think their eyes will be on that England game?

Um, because you know, it is a great achievement to make their first major tournament, yeah.

And Jess Fishlock said she can sleep at night now, um, because it was the thing that was missing was getting Wales to a major tournament.

Yeah, I mean, they're very much there for the participation award.

I think the likelihood of them doing much against any of those three teams is pretty slim.

That said, that psychological element of elevating your game against the English, I think, is there.

That said, the gap is just so huge.

I mean, like, the gap in international football in the women's game is massive.

Like, you just don't get the scale of the gap that you do in the men's game to the same extent.

Like the game against Jamaica the other day, there were four players who are university players in that Jamaica side, including the goalkeeper who's 20 and plays for a university team.

Like that's the finished essay at half-time.

And

there's only 35 places between them in the FIFA rankings.

So it's not like they're at the very bottom and England are at the very top.

It's only once you get into that sort of like top 20 that you actually get sort of professional competitive level like players.

So yeah, we always have a task to take anything from it.

But with Jess Fishlock, I would never rule anything out because she's just a magician.

So Women's Foot Weekly is going to be out three times a week.

We're going to put some of your episodes on our feed or obviously get you and everyone else on this pod as well.

But for, you know, listeners that just don't follow the women's game week in, week out, but will come in for this tournament.

Are there players that they don't know about that they should be like fixed on?

Oh, God, so many.

I I mean, from an England point of view, I'm just so excited to see Lauren James back, who is probably a name that people know, but she's been injured.

She's been out for three months with a hamstring injury.

And I saw her in training the other day, and she was still like

one of her, probably her first, like, first, second training sessions, like where she was doing it in full.

And she just looked absolutely incredible.

And her skill level was insane.

Obviously, all the Spanish players.

But then, if you, you know, you go a little bit deeper, you've got Berenstein for the Netherlands.

There's some really like exciting young players about.

Pretty much every single team has someone decent in now, which is a little bit of a stretch,

like a change from the previous tournament.

There are like top-level players at every single team, which is a positive sign for development.

I think from my perspective as well, what I would say is, you know, you've mentioned the gap between, say, the very best nations and some of the other ones.

So, say, like, Wales being here, but then Spain also being here as world champions.

The gap between those two teams will be very big.

And say Wales, for example, could have a Jess Fischlock who could play for a higher-ranked nation as such.

But if you want to get a feel for who's going to be in and around the knockouts, get a chance, have a look at those teams which you mentioned before, the Spains,

the Germanies, the Englands, and so on.

And you'll see the quality that's there.

Because, for example, it's really obvious to mention Spain.

But like in Aitana Bon Mati, that's a two-time Ballon d'Or winner.

playing alongside Alexei Poteus, who's also a two-time Ballon d'Or winner, around players who are all capable of being Ballon d'Or winners.

So you'll see the way that they play and gain an appreciation for how good they are and why they are where they are in the FIFA rankings and why they are currently world champions.

And then, as I say, well, who's going to beat them?

Well, go and watch Germany.

You know, if you obviously want to watch England, watch England from that standpoint, get a chance to watch France.

And yes, not every team is going to be as good as that.

But if you want to see the pinnacle of like European football, and to a certain extent, world football, as we've seen with Spain, really watch it and see the quality that's there because it's not, even for as good as those names are, look at the way that Spain plays a collective.

You know, know, for England, in my opinion, like they play really well as a collective, but you get the feelings that like if Lauren James plays well, they'll probably get into later rounds.

For Spain, it could be anybody.

And that's the real quality and depth that they have, especially with people, for example, Claudio Pina, for example.

You know, one minute you've got Parajuelo starting Barcelona striker.

Well, she's coming off.

Well, here comes Claudio Pina, who scored two goals against England just a couple of months ago.

So the quality is there, the depth is there.

You watch it.

and watch it from a footballing standpoint, you know exactly why some of these are at the absolute pinnacle of world football because they are class.

I'm actually really excited to see some of the,

like, if anything, more excited to see some of the more senior players who, this is sort of their last hurrah, quite probably,

definitely in a Euros, probably World Cup as well.

Jess Fishlock being one, but also like

Christiana Giarelli, Viv Mirdema,

Mariona Caldente, probably not her last, but she's in a race for the ballon d'Or, probably with Bob Matti and Alexia, Penilla Harder, Ada Hagerberg, like some of these players who haven't tasted major success at European or global level

with their national teams, but have like scooped it up across the board domestically and seeing how they cope because a lot of them have got fairly favourable groups and draws and slightly stronger squads around them to see whether any of them are able to do anything particularly special, I think is going to be really exciting.

Cool.

Susie, thanks for coming on.

Chat soon.

Thanks for having me.

I'm going to go and practice my leaving cert for some reason.

I've just got to urge.

Ah, yeah.

We'll get to that in part three.

See you later.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office, like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

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A proper football journalist, man.

Exactly.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Purple Weekly.

Henning says, What happened in Italy in the playoff between Salonitana and Sampdoria?

Did I pronounce that correctly, Nikki?

Because I tried about 15 times before that moment.

I'll just throw it to you and you can can drag on.

Sala Nitana, the team who played Sam Doria

in the City of B relegation playoff playout, I guess.

What happened?

Oh my goodness, Max, so much happened.

So Sam Doria initially had been relegated based on the league standing.

Then Brescia were handed an eight-point deduction for financial irregularities.

So they got relegated and Sam Doria were bumped up into the relegation playoff against Sala Nitana.

This caused already before any ball had had been kicked a certain amount of, I suppose, disagreement about the approach taken.

I think there were plenty of people, certainly fans of Salev Nitana, who felt that they should have just been allowed to stay up at that point.

And Samdoria, who had been relegated on the pitch, should have gone down and there shouldn't have been a playoff.

But the way they did it, they applied the eight-point penalty, which meant Samdoria got bumped into the relegation playoff.

The way that relegation playoff works is it's two legs.

If it finishes in a draw, then Serv Nitana stays up because they finished higher in the league.

The first leg was played in Genova, home of Samdoria.

They won that leg 2-0.

On the way back from that leg, 21 members of Salevnitana's travelling party were reported to have come down with some form of food poisoning on the way back from that leg, which meant that the second leg, which would have been scheduled, I think it was for the Friday, had been, was pushed back two days because there were so many people sick.

When the second leg finally was played, Samdoria were winning that game.

I think it was 1-0 when it first stopped, but 2-0 by the time it was eventually called off.

The game was stopped three times due to disturbances from the crowd the Southern Tana fans a group of them were very well very upset and were throwing things on the pitch and fireworks and all sorts and so eventually the game got stopped and yes has been awarded as a win Samdoria so Samdoria stay up but my goodness there was a lot of drama on the way to getting there

Keith says gonna be an ordeal

thanks to Joe Akim who

alerted me to this a tweet from Keith going to be an ordeal where someone says mourning Steve at Blackpool this season head coach Steve Bruce Assistant head coach Steve Agnew, first team coaches, Stephen Clements, Stephen Dobby, goalkeeping coach, Steve Banks.

That's absolutely perfect to have your entire coaching staff all be called Steve.

Finally, Barry, a lot of people have been in touch about a video that surfaced on the internet from a very young Barry Glendenning complaining about, as Susie alluded to at the end of part two, the leaving cert, which is what?

A-levels in Irish terms back in the late 90s.

Did you like seeing?

How old were you there?

20?

18?

24, I think.

24, okay.

24 years old and about four stone lighter, I'd say.

Yeah.

So just to be clear, Max,

this part of the show, which you have clearly been looking forward to immensely,

is you making fun of someone else or belittling someone else's attempts to be funny on television.

Think about that for a second.

Do you know what?

I actually

wanted it to be much shitter than it was, I must admit.

Well, the context is it's it was kind of this youth equivalent of the one show

called At Last TV.

And I was just asked to do a segment on it called Ger Qs.

And so you had to go go on and complain about something that you didn't like so my complaint was about the rigidity of the leaving cert

series of examinations school leavers have to do where you're very much restricted in my my problem I did a very mediocre leaving cert mainly because I was forced to study a selection of subjects I had little or no interest in

and I think I would have done a lot better if I'd been allowed study subjects I was interested in.

And did your video, did your, you know, did that change no education in Ireland?

I remember that particular episode of the show was reviewed by the Irish Times TV critic, and he referred to me as, and I quote, some idiot.

Well, we have that in common from reviews of TV shows.

I would say that I thought actually it was quite fun.

I think

you run like a pigeon what is the only other observation i had okay right that's fine well i don't run anymore oh i don't do you not we've got a half marathon to do mary

yes that's true but that that's

uh i wouldn't say i'm like a pigeon more like a a fat old man

well uh i'll do i run like a fat old man because that's what i am

When I was 24, I was a pigeon.

Right, I see.

Well, you can always get back to being a pigeon.

and maybe you will.

That's the goal.

Yeah, exactly for the half marathon.

I'll run it with you if we're in the same country.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Nadam.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Nikki.

Thanks, Max.

Cheers, Baz.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Phil Maynard.

We'll be back tomorrow.

This is The Guardian.