Is football ready for the Club World Cup? Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Give the people what they want, a club World Cup preview.

No, keep listening.

Today we try to set the scene, talk about the serious things: the travel ban, the player fatigue, ice at the grounds, just checking in what it might tell us about the World Cup next year.

But also, outside of our Premier League and European bubble, is there enthusiasm around the world?

Can someone, brackets Paul Watson, tell us a little bit about the sides we don't know?

Your ulsans, your wide dads, your mammalodi sundowns.

There's Tuchel's Mum's feelings on Dude Bellingham.

A bit more on World Cup qualification discuss and some transfers to all that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

Hello, Nick Ames.

Hello, Max.

And hopefully, Paul, I didn't scare you in that intro and you haven't had to frantically Google who Ulsan are in the last 20 seconds.

Because I'm just typing in Wydad on Google right now.

You're welcome.

Anyway, it's great to have you on board, Paul.

As always, from the excellent sweeper pod.

Right, let's talk about the Club World Cup then.

It starts on Sunday in the United States, the first of a brand new format featuring 32 teams for now in the classic group and knockout stage style.

Teams are mainly made up of clubs who've won their respective continental championships over the past four years.

Games on the opening day.

Al Ali versus Intermiami, Bayern Munich versus Semi-Pro Auckland City, PSG versus Athleti and Palmeiras versus Porto.

It is free to air.

Some on Channel 5 in the UK, all on DeZone globally, who won the broadcasting rights thanks to a timely investment from PIF.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund and Qatar Airways are major sponsors

and it is being held in the US where there are currently troops on the streets in LA and the Department of Homeland Security announced that ICE

would be at the first game in Miami providing security.

There's a travel ban barring 12 countries from entering the United States.

Has been seeing the Club World Cup as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup next summer.

It doesn't Nick feel

sort of like a you know a celebration of football at this stage?

No, it doesn't.

Certainly from a British European perspective, it feels like a bit of an ordeal that everyone's going to have to go through in the next month or so.

The backdrop that you've just described is intensely troubling, I think, involving

the ICE members going to be in the stadiums and obviously the terrible scenes we see around LA, which we can only hope abate in the next couple of days before the tournament starts.

And we've had so many troubled and blighted major tournaments in recent years, and we're going to have more.

And we've talked about them all on this pod before, and we will again.

I can't remember anything like this.

I can't remember a time when fans have basically been told if you're at the stadium, you better have your papers ready, which is basically what the edict, as I understand it,

was

the other day,

yesterday evening, Wednesday afternoon.

And

there's the footballing angle to this, which we will talk about and is

very problematic in terms of player workloads and what it does for inequalities and solidarity and that kind of thing.

And then there's simply the political bandwagon that FIFA has, like it or not, hitched itself to.

They can maybe say, okay, we didn't know all this was going to happen when Trump got in.

Now, I think anyone with half a brain knew that a second time around, some serious stuff was going to go down.

But the fact is,

they have attached themselves now to this administration so strongly.

You've got Infantino turning up, and I think it was after the inauguration, which he was at, saying we will not only make America great again, but also the entire world because football unites the world.

He's literally parroting Trump's, you know, pet slogan.

And

I think the difficulty for FIFA now is that

they are going to be attached and they should be attached and they shouldn't get away with it.

Anything bad away from the pitch that happens at this tournament as a result of the actions of the current US administration or president

has to be associated directly or attached directly to FIFA because they have made this happen and they've got into bed firmly with the current regime.

And I think it's a very difficult backdrop to start a tournament with.

I was listening to something saying, you know, fans may not go, like, if you are,

if you are in the country illegally, but you've been there for years and you, you know, and you pay your taxes and all that, and obviously you're in fear of where you're going to go, you're not going to go to these football matches now.

So you're saying if something happens, like there are scenes outside of ground where someone is taken away from their family, that kind of thing.

Yeah, but

I'm saying precisely that.

If somebody, you know, if somebody who has everything in order doesn't happen to have the right papers or documents or whatever and gets into trouble at the ground, is disappeared, whatever, that is on the US administration, but it's also, I think, on FIFA because this was coming and FIFA have shown us where their loyalties lie.

And I think it's despicable.

I suppose the interesting thing, Barry, is

even before all of this, like the tournament itself was met with at least very lukewarm enthusiasm, if enthusiasm at all, from certainly from Europe, given how much football there is, given

FIFA's reasons for bringing it in

as a sort of direct attack on the Champions League, I guess.

And then you add this to it, and you sort of think,

what's the best way to cover this?

What's the best thing to do?

Like, watch it, not watch it?

I don't know.

I think it's quite obvious.

Lots of people aren't sure how to cover it.

I know we're not.

And

we've spoken about how much attention we should give it.

I guess that's the same in newsrooms and TV stations and on podcasts all over the world.

I'm reminded of Carlo Anchilotti when he was still Real Madrid manager last year, I think it was saying FIFA can forget this.

Footballers and clubs will not participate in that tournament.

Well, Carlo Anchilotti is now the manager of Brazil, and 32 teams have travelled to America to take part in this tournament.

It will be on tele.

I'll probably watch some of it personally.

I won't be massively invested in it.

I haven't gone to W.H.

Smith's to get my

When Saturday Comes wall chart.

I don't even know if When Saturday Comes, I've done a wall chart.

But that's a little ritual I have for every World Cup or Euros.

But yeah, I definitely will watch some of it.

I don't think it matters whether people ignore it or not, not because it's all paid for anyway.

I think the disdain with which this tournament is being greeted, and I totally understand the disdain, might be a bit premature insofar as I think in years to come, might be 20, 25, whatever, long after I'm gone, years to come, this will be a big popular tournament.

It's just a per personal theory.

I'm not saying that's going to be a good thing because

we know how much money is on offer.

There's $1 billion.

Do my Dr.

Evil finger to corner of mouth.

Up for grabs.

You've got teams of unimaginable wealth like PSG and Man City in.

Then you've got Auckland City and amateur side in.

But Auckland City...

just for turning up will get 2.5 million quid which would one would imagine will skew their league forever because it's a ridiculous amount of money for an amateur team to be given.

It's going to skew

leagues all over the world.

Not so much the Premier League, but the amount of money, you know, Brazil,

one imagines, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the teams participating from those leagues will get so much money for this.

particularly if they do well, that their leagues will possibly be destroyed for years to come.

And it's an

ongoing cycle because the teams that are in this now, because of the money they get, will probably be in the next one and they get more money.

And it's just an ongoing cycle.

Yeah, just quickly, when you said this might be big in 20 years, long after you've gone, I mean, you're only 50-odd, Barry.

Like,

we've got to enjoy you while we've got you, I guess.

If long after you've gone, it's 20 years.

So you'll be gone in the next couple of years.

But I take your point.

I think it might, you know, I think at some point, you know, River Plate versus Bayern Munich, even this tournament might be interesting.

It is an interesting point that Baz made, Paul, about

that knock-on effect that we've seen in the Champions League as well.

Like,

if you are young boys or red star in the Champions League and you constantly get in the Champions League and you get more and more money.

The same about like Auckland City.

The thought of them, like a semi-pro team, now sort of building, I don't know, they could build like,

you know, could build like Dortmund's Wall, couldn't they, at their stadium or something?

Like, it's mad that it is crazy.

And Auckland City are like the glaring example because their players are, you know, fully employed.

They've struggled to get time off work.

There's a past competition where their captain, Mario Illich, just wasn't given time off, so he couldn't be part of it.

I mean, can you imagine going into your boss and say, what do you need time off for?

Club World Cup?

And he'd go, nah, nah, come on.

You know what he does?

I think he's a project manager or something like that.

But I mean, their coach, their coach, who sadly can't be there for personal reasons, runs a dental surgery.

You know, he's a proper dentist.

So there is a kind of, if there's any romance at all, that's the romantic story.

But as you say, you only have to scratch very, very small way beneath the surface there.

And you think, these are the record 13-time OFC Champions League winners.

So in their little pond, they're already the massive, powerful force.

You give them 3 million.

And in that region, again, you're going to massively skew in their favor.

So yeah, it's very hard to see how these sums of money, which can be sneered at by a European audience, because they really are, you know, not that transformative for most European teams.

But yeah, you put these sums of money into the pockets of some of the other Confederation's teams, and it probably, again, just increases that disparity of wealth that's already present.

Yeah, Wilson wrote a piece about this.

So, Platense won the Argentinian league.

Their prize money was £370,000.

pounds.

Boca and River, even if they lose every game, will get £11.25 million for participation.

So turn up and they get 30 times as much as the winners of the domestic

championship.

Albeit, there are two champions every season in Argentina.

If Boca beat Auckland City, they get another one and a half million.

If one of them, Boca or River, gets to the last 16, that's 5 million more.

So that is a problem.

In addition, and we talked about the interest in it, Nick, ticket sales are really not going very well.

Adam Craft from the Athletics saying FIFA's latest attempt to fill hard rock for the Club World Cup opening match between Inter Miami and Al Ali involved offering students at an affiliated local college a single ticket for $20 with the promise of up to four complimentary tickets.

So

it's fascinating to see, you know, on the one side, I watched Gianni and I show Speed and him in a

really wide-ranging interview

talk about, you know, how amazing it was going to be and it was the greatest, you know, bringing everyone, you know, it was the best thing.

It's what football's wanted all the time.

And now you just have, you know, the stadiums are unlikely to be full, certainly for games that don't involve the bigger sides.

Yeah, and I wonder whether they've chosen grounds which are slightly too big in some cases.

Like, I think they've gone huge with some of some of the venues they've chosen, but I know also in the US that there are some very good, more compact sort of soccer slash football specific stadia that maybe could have been more appropriate for some of these games.

Also, saw somebody make the point recently that

US fans are, you know,

switched on and in many cases increasingly switched on to what they're being presented with and there have been many cases in my last 10, 15 years of European teams coming over and sort of fielding a half-assed B team in a friendly and you're not really watching anything special that you're paying your money for.

So there's also a sense that maybe the public want to wait and see exactly

what kind of teams get put out and whether this competition is any good, which I sympathize with.

But

I think generally it's an issue of choosing venues which are too big, which FIFA did not have to do,

and the prices being ludicrously high, which FIFA also did not have to do.

Can I also,

I don't want to go off topic, but back on the kind of

immigration checks and

security issues, somebody on a WhatsApp group of various journalists, someone, just sent a tweet that somebody wrote overnight.

And if I can read it, it was a boat transporting individuals to a Telemundo party.

Telemundo is a big Spanish language channel in America, like huge, celebrating one year out from the World Cup, was boarded by the Coast Guard.

They checked the immigration status of the staff on the boat.

The mayor of Miami-Dade, FIFA officials, and Telemundo leadership were present.

So you've basically got an innocent boat, you know, carrying all these people very closely connected with the Club World Cup, being raided basically by immigration officials.

And obviously,

if you're a massive law and order type, maybe that gets your juices flowing.

But I think it's unacceptable.

And if this is happening on a craft with senior people on it and FIFA people, which is, I think, very interesting.

Really interesting.

Then who else is at risk in the next few weeks and also next year at the World Cup?

And sorry again for the diversion, but I think that's worth pointing out because

it's unacceptable.

No, no, not at all.

And actually,

even if you are, you know, the whole, I guess the argument would be, well, you've got nothing to worry about if you're fine, but you know, you don't go to a country to enjoy a World Cup to be messed around with by immigration officials.

Like, that is just not part of your enjoyable World Cup.

Anyone who's been to any tournament or any European fixture or whatever, that's not like, oh, that was fine when some man in a uniform came and said, Where's your passport?

Barry, sorry, you wanted to come in?

No, just given the scenes we've seen from various parts of the US

in recent days and weeks, I would not be in the least bit surprised if during a game the camera was to cut to the sand and a load of ice goons in their Ray-bands, their masks, their helmets, and their fatigues, armed to the teeth, are wading into a stand to pluck spectators spectators and and hustle them away into the back of a van.

It just

it seems to have descended into total lawlessness over there.

Lawlessness, sorry, on the part of the authorities, I mean, not the public.

And, you know, how to describe the US right now, but

experienced dictatorships, Russia, Qatar, etc.

Sort of, you know, they made sure that when the tournament was on, that nobody saw that.

And Russia, especially, and I think we all realize now that we didn't report on it in the right way, you know, lots of people went there and said, oh, I had a wonderful time and it was all great and everything was wonderful.

And so that's quite an interesting of this country that sort of, you know, maybe it isn't, but trying to become a dictatorship and isn't quite there yet, haven't really worked this subtle bit out of it.

And Matt Hughes in The Guardian yesterday saying FIFA will hold a consultation about expanding the Club World Cup, oh, goody, to 48 teams in 2029 If this summer's edition is successful, after lobbying from clubs who failed to qualify for the new tournament, Barca, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man United, AC Milan,

among clubs with large fan bases who haven't qualified.

And unless FIFA lifts the cap of 12 European entrants, expansion is the only way to ensure more European competitors.

Sounds, Nick, you wanted to talk about this?

Well, yeah, good report from Matt yesterday, and also quite an open secret, I think, on the European scene that this is going to come to to the table.

And I think it's quite inevitable

when you see the prize fund that Baz was talking about earlier.

And

you see the clubs that have missed out this time might miss out next time, thinking, well, we need a bit of that.

We want to keep up with our rivals.

And

more and more big clubs will start thinking that way.

And this is going to be

an issue.

This is going to be a big, big, big issue.

I don't think anyone realistically thinks that they can put the

32 Club World Cup back in the bottle, much as a lot would like to.

I mean, unless it's an absolute disaster on every level in the coming month.

And obviously, there is

a complaint that FIFA Pro, the Global Players Union, and the European Leagues have jointly made to the European Commission.

We may have talked about it on here before, about FIFA's unilateral management of the match calendar.

So

we'll see what comes of that, but it won't, I don't think, mean that the 32 gets cut or shortened.

But 48 is my words, going to be a different issue.

And in brief, I would say if this comes seriously to the table and becomes a serious proposition that is agreed upon by clubs and

at least one governing body, i.e.

FIFA,

this might be the tipping point for how football, football as we know it looks like in terms of how much time is given to domestic football, in terms of what we see as a global super league, in terms of maybe clubs splitting off and doing their own thing.

I think 418 Club World Cup might be a massive moment in

how football looks when it's 10, 20 years and longer, generally.

So personally, I hope it doesn't happen, but it's a very serious conversation.

It's going to happen.

And player fatigue, Paul, is interesting as well.

From The Guardian's preview, it said, a top player in Europe will face having almost no rest in the summer for three years if they ended up playing at Euro 2024, this club World Cup, and the World Cup in 2026.

It does feel

unsustainable.

I just think about my knees.

I can do 45 minutes a week to 13 games a season.

This is mad.

Physically, but also I think sort of mentally for footballers, like how

far you have to push yourself to be an elite footballer and to get no time to rest and zone out.

Yeah, I mean, it clearly is not sustainable, as you say.

And,

you know,

there's always been a downtime of some sorts.

And, you know, we've rolled our eyes at the preseason tours and they are.

pretty unnecessary and pretty dreadful a lot of the time.

But this is different because these are seen to be super competitive matches that clubs are supposed to be taking, you know, deadly seriously.

So teams aren't expected to be fielding weakened teams in this.

This is supposed to be a full intensity tournament as if we're watching a you know a World Cup.

So yeah, it feels like any downtime there ever was in the player schedules has been removed.

And I wonder if this is slightly a move towards this thing of like squads changing before this tournament.

I wonder if the view that FIFA have is a bit like this idea of Sunday Cristiano Ronaldo might have been transported, just dumped into one of the teams.

I wonder if it goes back to another view of football where it doesn't matter as long as, you know, there's enough superstars on show that what club you play for will become more flexible.

And, you know, maybe players are going to get parachuted in and out of clubs just to make sure that enough able-bodied players play.

But even as I'm saying that, it's anathema to everything any football fan believes in, right?

That, you know, just a random assortment of superstars.

get rotated in and out of clubs.

But if you don't do that, I just think you're going to see more and more players' careers just curtailed.

I completely agree on the elite player workloads, but

it's a discussion that I always feel needs to be handled maybe a bit more gently than it is because it always circles on the

elite players and what is happening to their bodies and everything like this.

And it's totally correct that schedules need to be cut going forwards.

But let's be honest, all that is going to get cut

at the moment is probably the bread and butter, the domestic games.

You're not going to be losing your lucrative pre-season friendlies or your 32-team World Cup.

You're going to find a case, and I was in a FIPA event before the Champions League final in Munich a couple of weeks ago, actually, where people were warning that, okay, you're going to have

players that play too much, but you also, if you cut away in the wrong places, you're going to have players who don't play enough, which will be a lot of these guys in the domestic leagues that FIFA wants, I think, quite actively to

shrink in some cases.

So, yeah, I think it's a very important discussion, and the Club World Cup does sit at the heart of it.

But I think it has to be handled in such a way that we're not just worried about, oh, make sure the elite players play less.

We have to find a really good compromise that makes sure everybody is playing enough.

And

I think it's very impossible to, well, very difficult to solve.

Sure.

And also, I guess, you know, what happens is like FA Cup replays going, those kind of things.

Is that what you mean, Nick?

So yeah actually the

go are you know even the first and second round FA Cup replays aren't

have no relation to elite footballers right but but those things fall off the calendar and then they think oh the league cup etc etc yeah well look if you are still looking forward to it we'll actually look ahead to the football in just a second

Hi pod fans of America Max here Barry's here too hello football weekly is supported by the remarkable paper pro now if you're a regular listener to this show you'll have heard us talk before about the remarkable Paper Pro.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Is it fair to say, Paul, that teams outside of Europe, we're obviously quite a Premier League-focused podcast, but we love world football.

And, you know, occasionally we can be accused of being, you know, very Anglo-centric.

Probably fair enough.

Is there more enthusiasm for this outside of Europe?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I think there is.

Yeah, I think Europe is naturally going to be the most cynical of this event.

You know, in the way that it always has been of previous iterations, even the much more sparing, you know, versions of this idea, Europe always saw it as a bit of a petty inconvenience.

Whereas I think actually South American teams were pretty up for it and wanted to come in and prove a point.

And, you know, it was a bigger deal.

What I will say is there's kind of two questions here.

The owners and I think quite a lot of the players are probably pretty up for it in theory.

You know, if you play for one of these clubs, whoever it is, Mamalodi Sundowns or Wydad Casablanca or Alain,

you're probably pretty up for this opportunity to take a crack at some of the elite players from other teams and other confederations.

The people who are suffering in a way are the fans, because as much as the fans might be looking forward to it, very few of them are actually going to be able to be present for the reasons we've outlined.

So it just seems like a bit of a waste, partly because of where it's being hosted.

You have clubs like Wydad, who have one of the the best fan bases in the world.

They actually always finish very high up in this like list of most passionate ultras in the world.

They take part in what is probably the most fiery derby against Royal Casablanca.

It's a huge club with massive passionate fans.

But those fans are just going to be watching on TV sets.

And I feel like that's the real shame of it.

I think there probably are fans who are pretty excited to see their team getting to take on other

big, big names from the world of football.

But I'm just not sure they're going to be as as excited because so few of the actual real fans are going to be present tell us a little bit if you could you've done you've mentioned wydad there but other teams that sort of jump out at you that we would know nothing about obviously mammalodi sundowns from south africa i could list pretty much all the teams

but you know urawa red diamonds in japan ulsan and south korea i mean i don't expect you to be you know have an encyclopedic knowledge of these teams but much like when wilson tells me something about hungry in the 50s you now pool can just say anything and i will just not and you'll believe it

Well, I mean, yeah,

I think there's a few clubs that, I mean, loads of clubs here have got pretty interesting stories.

I think when you look at clubs that are going to stand out, there's a few.

Mamelodi Sundans are one of them, because Mamelodi Sundans from South Africa, they, in their own way, are a good example of this phenomenon where they're already becoming

too powerful in South Africa.

So they've now got to a point where they are completely dominant in South Africa.

They actually just lost the final of the CAF Champions League to Pyramids FC of Egypt, who are a very controversial club because they are effectively a fake entity, Pyramids FC.

They were set up by a billionaire.

Sound,

if I was going to set up a fake Egyptian club, Pyramids FC, it's that or AFC Tutan Kharmoon.

Yeah, and I mean, it really was.

It was almost an act of pettiness that it was set up by a billionaire who was basically told he couldn't be part of Al-Akhli, one of the big names who are also in this competition.

So he set up his own club, moved them to Cairo from their original location, pumped billions in,

and has made this kind of fake club pyramids win.

So they beat Mamelodi Sundans, but Mamalodi Sundans were.

They're the top of the pyramid.

I mean, I'm sorry to.

Well, no, they were second, but I get where you're going from, right?

They're second in Egypt.

But to Alali, who are, you know, a genuine thing, Alali and Zamalek are the powerhouses of Egyptian football.

But where I'm going with this is Mamalodi Sundans, as a result, by losing that CAF Champions League final, are under quite a lot of pressure to do something on this stage because it was felt that they really should be winning CAF Champions Leagues.

But in South Africa, they are already too dominant and it's starting to cause problems.

They also have this bizarre situation in Maladi Sundowns where their owner is the president of CAF, Patrick Monsepe, who's also being sort of touted, widely touted as being a future president of South Africa.

So he's this enormously powerful, vastly wealthy man in charge of a club that has basically now taken so much power in South Africa that it's bad for the game.

So, yeah, they're under a lot of pressure to do something here.

They play a type of football called shoeshine and piano, which I love, which is

effectively a sort of, I mean, it's really kind of, as far as I can see, just a very flamboyant, sort of flare-based style.

They're also called the Brazilians, partly because of their kit, which looks like Brazil's kit.

So, yeah, I'll be keeping an eye on Mamlodi Sundowns at this tournament.

But again, not exactly a fairy tale story, is it?

But they're definitely one of the clubs that that I've got an eye on.

How competitive do you think it will be?

I mean, I suppose that's an interesting part.

It's like, I don't know if River Plate would get smashed by Bayern Munich or would beat them or it would be tight or whatever.

I have no idea if Mamalodi Sundowns would beat Seattle Sounders.

And I guess that is kind of the interesting part of this

of this competition.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

The levels are really hard to call against each other.

I think games are going to be very competitive.

I by no means think River Plate would be getting smashed smashed by Munich.

I mean, I'd be really surprised if that's the case.

I think that that level is going to be pretty equal.

I think the teams that are in some danger

are probably Auckland City.

And I don't massively think Alain from the UAE are looking particularly good.

They only finished fifth in the league, but they do have a player who I think is going to be pretty popular with Jenny Infantino.

They have a player called Gino Infantino, Argentine winger.

So I imagine he'll probably get some preferential treatment.

But no, I think teams I would fear a bit for Ally and I'd fear a bit for Auckland City.

But I think there are going to be a lot of pretty competitive games.

I don't think they'll be whipping boys.

Maybe I'll look like an idiot for this, but I don't think there'll be a lot of teams that will be smashed around by anyone.

I don't want to be the negative voice here.

Bit late for that, Nick, I hate to say, but you know, 30 minutes in.

I don't too much want to be the negative voice here, but

I have the pleasure of attending the last club World Cup in Saudi Arabia a year and a half ago.

It was obviously much smaller.

And the final between Man City and Flaminense

was fated as being a very interesting tussle because Flaminense played this very fluid, I think they call it relationism, don't they, style of football.

Very fun to watch.

And very fun to watch they were, but they got absolutely drubbed out of town for nil.

So

I'm hoping that we don't see more games like that.

And I fear that it might depend on

how intensely the European players treat it.

And, you know, maybe the weather conditions might also have some bearing because it will be very, very hot.

But

I didn't see a lot a year and a half ago to give me much hope on that front.

That last Club World Cup final was the equivalent of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the bloke comes out with the two swords and starts waving them around.

And then he just pulls out his gun and shoots.

One of the film's greatest scenes,

I would go as far as to say.

And apparently totally improvised.

So, yeah.

It's an abomination of a tournament.

It's a vanity project.

Lots of people are turning their nose up in it.

And in that regard, or in those regards, it's very much like the first proper World Cup, which England didn't bother entering.

That tournament's gone on to be quite popular, I would say,

which is kind of why I think in years to come, when I'm long gone, in four years' time, it'll be much more popular than it is now.

It will be interesting to see how seriously various teams take it, how, you know, a lot of them will have knackered players playing in oppressive heat.

But

I think it is, as I say, it's an abomination, but it's one I'm kind of intrigued to see how it pans out.

And can I just say for balance in inverted comers, I do not think there is anything wrong in principle with a Club World Cup and I do think there does need to be some kind of correction as well away from Europe in terms of both where the economic strength and power of the game lies and where eyeballs go.

I think a Club World Cup is a good idea

but I just think the way this has been shoehorned into the calendar,

which we've talked about, the way it's been expanded

so vastly and so quickly, which we've talked about, the way in which it totally distends the financial disparity between the bigger clubs and the rest with their insufficient solidarity in return, which we've talked about.

I think all these factors, it's just been imposed so quickly and thoughtlessly in the format that we see it in, that it needs to be talked about and it isn't good enough.

I do think that in principle, such a tournament is a decent idea.

So I just want to get that on record amid the negativity.

Can I just say on the financial disparate?

I did, there's a good point to be made here that actually where the money goes.

So we've said these figures of money being given to

these clubs.

Well, I think there is actually not, it's not totally clear whether that money will go directly to the clubs.

So we say Auckland City are going to pocket this money.

I think there's a potential, isn't there, that it it radiates out through the system.

Is that not the idea?

So I don't want to like be on record saying that 3 million all goes to Auckland City if actually perhaps it doesn't.

I don't know the ins and outs of that.

And actually, if you are, and obviously we know the football family isn't real,

if it's affecting you, but if you were really a genuinely football family, competition matters, you would be like, let's spread this, you know, let's have a sort of socialist view of what we do with this money.

And then it, and actually, that would be a sensible thing to improve the quality all over, you know, New Zealand, for example.

The interesting thing about Auckland City is, you know, they are not, there is a team in Auckland that came top of the A-League, right?

Didn't actually win the grand final, but because the A-League is in the Asia, you know, Asian Champions League, they don't get to be part of the Club World Cup, which is another slightly weird situation.

Auckland FC, who came top of the A-League, also aren't allowed to go into the Asian Champions League because they're in New Zealand.

So they're not allowed in the Club World Cup because they're in an A-League, and they're not allowed in the Asian Champions League because

they're in the A-League anyway.

I guess, Nick, the question is: I agree with you.

I think the idea of this in principle is good,

but

if we think that, well, when do you do it?

How many teams do you have?

I don't expect you to have all the answers, but like, because the previous incarnation, even when, you know, when Man United didn't play in the FA Cup, and we thought that was an inconvenience, and that was what, a semi-final and a final.

Like, how possibly do you make this work without really impacting leagues all around the world?

Yeah, it's a really, really good point.

I don't have the answer.

I think you consult about it which definitely didn't happen um or didn't happen enough even even going down as far as the european club association by the way which backed it without holding any kind of vote among its clubs or even as far as i'm aware among its its exco um you

i i think a slower expansion um to I mean, it was eight, wasn't it, in Saudi recently.

I'd have gone to 16 and just taper it up and up, depending on interest, commercial success, what it looks like on the pitch.

I'd have taken a much slower and more cautious approach.

And I just think the lack of consultation, we do not know whether this is what football or football people really want because in many cases, I don't think they were asked.

But I do take the point that, you know, we're saying this is good, but the current format bad, and we're not proposing.

an obvious alternative but i just think the way this has been unilaterally imposed is very very poor.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll move away from the Club World Cup and just round off a lot of international action that's just happened.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly Thomas Tuchel was on talk sport for half an hour, I think, maybe a bit longer with Adrian Durham and Stuart Pierce.

And it was quite an interesting interview, actually.

And

once again, he was quite honest.

Quite interesting when he talked about Jude Bellingham.

And he was asked if England might be better without him in the team.

And this was regards to sort of Jude Bellingham getting a bit angry about things on the pitch again.

And he said, I struggle to see that.

I think it has to be the other way around.

How can we have the best version of him that people understand what he brings to us?

And he's bringing a certain edge.

I can see it bring mixed emotions.

I see this with my parents, with my mum, that she sometimes cannot see the nice, well-educated, well-behaved guy that I see.

If he smiles, he wins everyone, but sometimes you see the rage, the hunger, the fire, and it comes out in a way that can be a bit repulsive.

For example, my mother, when she sits in front of the TV, I see that, but in general, we're very happy to have him.

He's a special boy.

There is a looseness to the way Tuchel talks, Barry, which is quite entertaining, isn't it?

I like the idea that in between that game, maybe, and...

This interview, which is like just a night, he's basically chatted to his mum about what she thinks about all the players that were playing.

Yeah.

I mean, I have commented on Jude Bellingham's increasing petulance a couple of times.

I wouldn't see it as a reason to take him out of the team.

I just think he needs to be a bit more mannerly.

Jude Bellingham is, by all accounts, a lovely guy.

A friend of mine brought his son to a sponsored event where Jude Bellingham was the guest of honor.

My friend's son was wearing a West Brom shirt and Jude Bellingham went out of his way to come over and give him abuse in the nicest possible way.

You know, he didn't kick him or kick a water bottle at him or anything like that, but he said, oh, we can never be friends, mate, blah, blah, blah, because you're a West Brom fan and I'm a Birmingham City fan.

It was a good interview.

I quite enjoyed it.

I found it interesting.

I don't think he said anything that was too shocking.

I think we're just so used to Garrett Southgate not really saying anything that a manager who comes out and is quite frank, as Tuchel always has been, been, is refreshing.

But he was also quite coy in some regards, you know, making it clear that there are some things I'm not prepared to talk about in public.

They stay behind the scenes, and that's completely fair enough as well.

Yeah,

it was quite interesting about, you know, he just said, like, Kyle Walker didn't play very well.

He was like, yeah, he didn't have a good game.

And even that is sort of slightly new to hear.

He's very effusive with, I mean, we've talked about Jordan Henderson, how good he is around the place.

But like, honestly, it sounds like you just want him to live with you by the time you'd finished listening to thomas tougher also worth remembering you know even though his english is brilliant it is not his first language so like little words that you can read too much into might actually you know

it's just worth remembering that isn't it um uh england under 21s euros some more football uh for our young players just to get some get some you know get some more muscle strains in their in their calves and hamstrings before the season starts but um you know England have a decent squad.

I don't know, Nick, where they rank in terms of the favourites for this.

I think they're in the sort of second or third favourites,

Casseguru.

The last I saw, I think Germany are ranked very highly, who are in the same group as England.

Yeah, tournament started on Wednesday, England kickoff against

Czech Republic, I think it is, later in their group.

Lee Karsley in charge, of course.

And they've got a title to defend because you might remember that a couple of years ago in Georgia, they beat Spain 1-0.

It was a three-kit that kind of deflected off Curtis Jones and went in.

And then

James Trafford made that very memorable 96-minute penalty save that was at the time quite a big deal.

And this tournament is or should be a fairly big deal, much as under-21 football is obviously a training ground ultimately for senior football.

But it does feel like it's been dwarfed a bit by the Club World Cup.

And I think

under-21 managers have to be ready for anything, don't they?

Senior call-ups, big transfers, anything.

You know that you're dealing with a movable feast.

And this is, but, you know, it's the last time I'm going to pile in on Mid Club World Cup on this podcast.

But the fact that, you know, Carsley's had to lose Joe Bellingham, I think, yesterday, because he's gone to Berucha Dortmund, obviously, from Sunderland and chosen to play in Midland World Cup.

And that Liam DeLap last week after his move from its switch to Chelsea and he again elected to play in the Club World Cup.

It shows partly the increasing power, by the way, of elite club football over these international tournaments, but also it shows how difficult the job is of an under-21's manager.

So, I think it will be an interesting tournament.

I think England do have

a lot of talent out there.

They'll be captained by McAtee, James McAtee of Man City, who is going to play.

I think he's quite keen to get a move away from city and should have quite a lot of suitors.

You've got got a couple of survivors from the team two years ago.

You've got, you know, some good attackers in the England team too.

I think they're missing a couple of players like Adam Warton, who obviously has fantastic talent from Paris.

I think he's still getting over his concussion from a couple of weeks ago, so he won't be playing.

But yeah, it should be very interesting.

England should get through the group with Germany.

And then it's probably a battle against the likes of Spain, Portugal, France,

the usual suspects at this level to see who comes comes out on top.

I think the finals in Bratislava in a couple of weeks.

And I think it'll be watchable, but I think it's going to fly below the radar here unless England do really well again.

Sure, yeah.

I think Tuko said Adam Warton might be around for a bit of it yesterday, but anyway, we will find that out.

Also, Nick,

you were at the Serbia-Albania game.

Yes, Albania-Serbia.

Viewers, listeners with very long-term memories may or may not remember that I was at the original game in 2014 that was famously disrupted by the drone on the pitch in Belgrade that led to

all hell breaking loose.

They were drawn together again in England's group, World Cup qualifying group.

This time around, quite surprisingly, they haven't been kept apart in the drawers because they're not actively at war with each other, even though there's a long and bloody history largely surrounding Kosovo.

So I showed up in Tirana over weekend to see whether anything would go down.

And fortunately, it didn't.

When I mean, the moment I arrived and was told that there'd be anti-drone technology outside the stadium, I took my drone away and turned around to be honest.

So I was like,

you did make it sound like you go looking for trouble.

You know, just like, where's there going to be a bit of trouble?

I'll just go down the high street on a Saturday night.

I'll just pop over to Albania.

The Guardian's Danny Dyer.

Yeah,

in with the Albanian Bubber Boys.

No,

it was still pretty heated in there.

It was actually very well refereed because there was a couple of times when Serbian players got hit,

not very hard, but hit by cuts from Mustangs.

And then on the third time that this happened, on about the hour mark, the referee, you could see that he sort of gestured for the players to come off the pitch.

And at that point, you think, oh, we're going to have another story here because, you know, if I'm actually suspended because of missiles, it's a live news story.

It's not a good thing.

And to be fair,

Italian referee Masa, I think it was, pulled it back and ended up corralling the players in the centre circle, got them to have a word with the fans.

The game carried on and I think bringing the players off would have led to things escalating a bit further.

But there's

a couple of interesting wider things here.

Firstly, I don't think either of those teams is a threat to England finishing quite comfortably top of the group because it was a goalless draw.

And I mean, mean

albania missed the penalty mitrovic missed a couple of chances for serbia but there wasn't much quality out there um and secondly these two countries are now are going to co-host the under-21 championship in 2027 in one of those attempts at football to force a bit of diplomacy upon everybody and I don't know what the reaction really is in Serbia because they don't really have

and they have a big alterist culture as we know around teams like Red Star, Belgrade, and Partizan.

But around the national team, it doesn't sort of exist as much, really.

But in Albania, the reaction has been absolutely furious,

which led actually, I mean, the altars, the main alters groups from Albania had protested both visually and verbally against this decision in the last six months to a year or so.

And it led directly or indirectly to them not being sold their usual place block of the stadium for the Serbia game.

So long story short the Albanian alters were not at the game on Saturday.

They watched it on a big screen about half a mile away which it did dampen the atmosphere not that much but it did dampen it.

I think they were kept away pretty much intentionally and I think we're going to have quite an interesting vibe there in a couple of years time when the two countries co-host that tournament.

Nick, didn't they produce the world's smallest Serbia flag as well?

I saw this picture that they, you know, they have have to have the flags of all the countries participating or both countries participating.

Didn't they have like a big Albania flag, big FIFA flag, and then some tiny little Serbia flag, like holy snap the size, just like a little

an A5, A6, really,

really good.

Hey, Paul,

we didn't really talk about South, we haven't really talked about Asian CONCACAF qualifiers

yet in this international break.

What are the highlights?

Well, for me, the standout game was Palestine palestine oman and this oh yes the penalty so unlucky for palestine their world cup dream ending with this uh 90 plus seven minute penalty um that that cost them against oman for i mean there really is no contact like if there's any contact it's the most minor fraction of contact and um the referee didn't go to var for it the penalty was given it was scored uh the game ended one all and that cost them would have been fourth place which would have taken them into the next round of qualifiers.

And I think with the backdrop of everything

that's been happening for this team to have got that far, and

Palestine, had they gone through to be this close to a first World Cup, would have been just an incredible story.

They've played

all their home games they're playing on the road.

They've played in Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, Jordan.

During this campaign, they've drawn twice for South Korea.

They've beaten Iraq.

It's been a phenomenal effort.

So it was really, yeah, just sad to see the way it ended.

It just felt pretty unjust, really.

That penalty.

I don't think anybody thought it was a penalty.

And yeah,

it was a sad way for that to go to go down in the end.

Yeah, I agree.

It was incredibly soft.

And you could just see the reaction of the, you know, the players just crumpling to the floor

before it had been scored when it was given.

Yeah.

Pretty heartbreaking.

You knew it was going in.

It's always like that, isn't it?

90 plus seven.

Penalty clearly shouldn't be be given.

You know that penalty's going in.

And just that, the devastation for those players, given what they've put in and the difficulties, just even the sheer logistical difficulties for them beyond anything else, let alone the emotional pressure and weight they're carrying.

And a word for Ode Daba, who is the top scorer for Palestine, plays for Aberdeen.

Phenomenal campaign he put in.

So yeah, like just all the credit in the world to that team.

And football just has this way of dealing these kind of very unjust blows, doesn't it?

Anything else,

Mike, that caught your eye?

Well, I wanted to give a shout to Bermuda.

actually we i bet bermuda don't get a lot of shouts on uh on football weekly but bermuda beat cuba uh 2-1 away to get through to the third round of qualification and um i'm always intrigued by bermuda partly because it's the most remote football league in the fifa system it's not the most remote football league in the world.

That is Rapanui or Easter Island, but it's the most remote FIFA one.

Yeah, I know, I know you know that, Max.

Yeah, yeah, but good to let the listeners know.

But again, like this is a Bermuda team that is packed with,

as well as domestic players, it's packed with English non-league players.

So the hero of the hour against Cuba was Reggie Lamb, who plays for Needham Market in the Southern League Premier Division Central.

It's a Norfolk way, isn't it?

Is it?

I think so.

Do not call that Norfolk.

All right.

Is it Suffolk?

Is it very Suffolk?

My apologies.

It's Rich Old Boy.

There's quite an interesting story behind him, but I will let Paul carry on.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Please do.

I don't have anything more to say other than really what a heroic effort that is.

And this is a team that was playing without arguably their most famous player at the moment, Narky Wells, Bristol City's Narky Wells.

But this side

of players, either local players from teams such as the Dandytown Hornets in Bermuda or non-league players like Reggie Lamb, have have really pulled something pretty special off there I think to get through.

What's Reggie Lamb's story?

Oh I don't want to oversell it.

I think he was

as I remember it was quite a long time ago he was playing in Bermuda and I think

a woman who was the director of Ipswich at the time kind of spotted him and basically earmarked him out as a good talent and he ended up coming over and signing a pro contract and I think he played a few games in the League Cup or something like that and then worked his way around a bit.

I'm sure I'll be corrected by people about the detail, but I know he was plucked from nowhere

in quite a chance situation and has now risen to being mentioned by Paul Watson on the Football Weekly pods about 15 years later.

So, you know.

Greenland's CONCACAF

application has been rejected, Paul.

Feels heartless, but I don't know.

Maybe there are some real reasons for it.

It's a brutal decision, Max.

And so this is Greenland have been basically stuck outside of FIFA's fold for a long time now.

And it's really unjust because they have the same political status as the Faroe Islands.

They're both part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but they are to some degree autonomous.

Faroe Islands went and got themselves into UEFA.

Greenland were playing games against the Faroe Islands regularly.

You know, they were in a very similar position, but they just never applied to UEFA at the time.

Then UEFA shut the door to anything but independent nations.

Gibraltar managed to force their way in through a court of arbitration for sport, but that door is shut to Greenland.

And so it left Greenland now basically having to go to CONCACAF as their only option.

And CONCACAF, they really thought they had a shot.

You know, Greenland, for all the geographical and climatic difficulties, which mean their season basically is their outdoor season can be as short as a week.

Their national championships, they get people, people travel from all over Greenland, which you can't drive.

So people are going on planes, on boats, sometimes quite dangerous boat journeys.

Skiddoos.

It's incredible how they make this tournament work every year.

Like they have a national championships.

It's amazing.

It's in Nuke this year, the capital.

Strongly recommend it if you want a weird ground hop.

But Greenland has kept football running.

And more than that, they've got a brilliant Danish coach called Morten Rutja who has really professionalised this national team, but they just can't play against anyone really.

So they thought they had a real run at CONCACAF.

They put together a bid saying how they wanted to sort of develop over the next few few years.

There was a lot of positivity.

And,

you know, the fact is, you know, if Greenland's got 6,000 registered players, 11% of the population play football regularly in Greenland.

So this is not a small population base.

CONCACAF has members like Montserrat.

It's only got about 5,000 population.

So they had every right to try.

Is it basically UEFA closing the door or CONCACAF saying no, like those nations just don't want another team that might beat them?

Like, is it just, you know, that sort of nimbyism type thing?

I don't know.

It's really hard to say.

This one felt to some degree like there was some politics in action.

So Greenland was receiving, as far as I could work out, encouragement from the US.

Around the time that Trump was

flirting with taking Greenland by force or by purchase, there was suddenly a real interest from US soccer.

And I suspect that went cold because suddenly meetings start to drop out.

So Greenland's invitations to meet people just stopped happening.

Then this vote comes up and it's unanimously against Greenland.

And I can't help but wonder if something's happened politically for every single member to vote against this.

Just seems odd, especially when you consider a lot of CONCARCAF members probably have a lot of sympathy for Greenland's situation.

A lot of them are territories rather than nations.

I don't know.

I think something happened behind the scenes.

But

it's really sad for Greenland.

It just leaves this situation that, you know, again, the hypocrisy hypocrisy for all the talk we hear about the game being for everyone.

And, you know,

this is the whole watchword of CONCACAF and FIFA is here.

Everyone's invited into this sport.

Well, Greenland's stuck and there is no way for them to compete internationally except for they play in the island games, which is, you know, an irregular opportunity to compete against other islands.

It's not where they should be.

We start with the game being run terribly.

We end with the game being run terribly.

But it's been a nice journey we just finished on this email kieran says i don't know if my experience fully qualifies i suppose i am an almost member of the now thriving football weekly vasectomy appreciation society i had every intention of joining the hallowed ranks of those who've had the dulcet tones of max and barry accompany them through the snip but alas when the big day came podcasting was strictly off the table no phones no headphones no distraction from well what turned out to be quite the experience let's just say the anesthetic was more of a concept than a reality oh i went through the whole procedure fully aware of every bit of pain and fully aware of the aromatic smell of my own innards being lightly flumbéed, which is now forever etched into memory.

In retrospect, I'm deeply relieved that Max's voice isn't now a Pavlovian trigger for phantom groin pain and surgical trauma.

So while this might not be the classic Barry Got Me Through It testimonial, I do want to say thanks.

In the fog of my recovery, a regime of paracetamol and quiet contemplation, the show's been a genuinely comforting, hilarious companion, and hearing other listeners' more poignant stories really does put my acoustic vasectomy into perspective.

Keep doing what you're doing.

You're the best in the game.

That's very kind of you to say.

All the best.

KB.

Thank you very much, Kieran, and may you recover fully and obviously not get back to what you were.

That's not the point.

The whole point of vasectomy is not to recover fully, I guess.

It's to, but make, hope you feel all right down there, is what I meant to say.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Barry.

Yeah, could I just say hello to Oscar and apologies to him?

Hello, Oscar.

He approached me on the street yesterday at the exact moment I was shouting at my neighbour's dog and calling her the C-word because she ran out on the street while I was walking her.

Did Oscar get the sense that you were calling him that?

No, I think it was quite clear where my ire was aimed.

If I was going to meet Barry Glendenning as a listener, I think that's exactly what would want to be happening.

Hey, thank you very much, Nick.

Thank you.

My conscience is too clear for any such apologies to anyone, so thank you.

No, no, you're fine.

But, you know, you can apologize for bringing the mood down, of course, on this one.

And thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Phil Maynard.

We keep on trucking back on Monday.

This is The Guardian.