End of season mailbag special – Football Weekly

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Barry's here too.

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly end of season mailbag special.

Philippe's here so we can start with a little PSG before moving on to the broad brushstrokes, goal, game, moment of the season, if anyone can remember anything.

Then, there's the transfer stuff: our Manchester United closing in on Mbomo after Cunha.

Why does anyone want to go there?

There's Apnori to City and Dalap to Chelsea.

While Palace might be thrown out of Europe before they're even there, and we're all still waiting for Daniel Levy to make up his mind on Ange.

There's Club World Cup and whether there'll ever be a break from football again, and some boring but important regulator stuff.

Alderman Chelsea, join us in Pedant's Corner.

And someone's asked the most difficult thing about hosting Football Weekly, which I'll answer at the end.

By which time, hopefully, I've thought of something.

This is the guardian football weekly

on the panel today barry gledening welcome hi max hello john bruin hello max and bon je sava philippe auclaire bonjour sava boncha max

yes peter says give the people what they want five minutes of philippe waxing effusively and lyrically over desiré douai what a joyful experience to watch talent booming on the biggest stage um we did talk about it yesterday Philippe.

But it wouldn't be right not to let you have a moment on PSG's victory.

Well,

if it comes to the game, yes, it was an absolutely extraordinary demonstration,

confirmation.

Even though I think that the

celebration of what PSG did were a little bit over the top, I'm talking about the punditry here.

Because to be honest, there wasn't much in front of them.

Surprisingly, I was as

impressed by PSG as I was disappointed by Inter, I think.

And the other thing that I would say, just to start with, you know, to put everybody in the right kind of mood for a celebratory podcast about this particular season, I think that the way that

what happened during the game and after the game around the Pilot Prince, but elsewhere in Paris and elsewhere in France, has been totally airbrushed in so many ways.

And that I find that absolutely scandalous.

When I saw the front page of Liberation with a picture of all these people celebrating PSG and so forth.

It's everywhere in France the same thing.

And I kept

thinking to myself,

do I live in an alternate universe or haven't two people been killed and about 400 injured?

And this has somehow been already airbrushed.

And it's been put on the

basically, it's been explained away as a kind, well, this kind of thing happens with the disenfranchised youth from the bon Lieu and so forth who will take this kind of opportunity to make,

to vent their anger and so forth.

Guys, with PSG, they were PSG fans, right?

Can we be actually absolutely straight about that?

They were PSG fans.

And their behavior was absolutely disgraceful.

It was worse than disgraceful.

And I'm really sorry that I'm actually a bit, I'm actually very angry, you can hear it, that this has been forgotten already.

that we're talking about celebrating a team that has been absolutely fantastic for six months, but we're forgetting about what is going around that.

And also the fact that this is, amazingly enough, when I see Emmanuel Macron next to Nasser Al-Khalaifi

saying how great it was, the self-confessed Marseille supporter, and I see Nasser Al-Khanaifi by side, you know,

I also, I want to vomit, basically.

So I think I've gone past my face, PSGR grade.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Barry and I have been talking about it.

They're great.

The team is fantastic.

Luis Enrique, I think everybody will be genuinely pleased that this man who's had

so much tragedy in his life and who is a proper coach has been rewarded.

I'm delighted to see Desir Edway showing what he can do.

I've already worked a record for him, about him for a while.

But then again, lads, it's PSG.

And let's never forget that.

John says, given Liga isn't competitive, PSG are better than every Premier League team.

And Paris is just a a train ride away.

Is the logical next step for PSG to take their place in the Premier League?

Is that the next, John?

Is that the next Rangers and Celtic chuck-em-in conversation?

Well,

with due respect to one of your employers, that sounds like a classic phoning subject, doesn't it?

I mean,

and if we go to the chase, it won't happen.

But I mean, it's one of those things where people will debate that.

And yes, actually, think of PSGs.

Actually, Philip makes a great point.

Six months.

Because before that, in the Champions League, they were nowhere.

But then they conquered essentially the Premier League's opposition to get to the final, where they demonstrated that they are the best team in Europe.

It's funny, actually, I've seen some sort of discussions over the last few days, people saying, well, if only the Premier League didn't have these pesky PSR rules, we could have had Bettinia, we could have had the George and George best, we could have had all these.

And it's like, isn't it better that it's spread across Europe and it just isn't the Premier League that dominates everything?

Because Premier League now, as I see it,

it's getting fat, it's get wastage.

The wastage of talent, the stockpiling of talent is something I don't like.

Um, at PSG, they may well be doing that themselves.

Uh,

other French clubs won't have that luxury for reasons of finance and TV TV deals and all the rest of it.

And with Philippe, all hail, PSG, the football team, Luis Enrique, the coach.

Peel just a millimeter below the layers.

And what you're finding is not particularly to my taste.

As we carry on this upbeat pod, Barry.

We were chucking in the WhatsApp group.

You know, can everyone have a player of the season, team of the season, signing of the season, goal of the season?

I wonder if moment of the season is more interesting.

I don't know.

Take the conversation where you want want to take it, Barry.

Well, are we talking?

I've done sort of contenders for each because I'm nothing if not thorough Max.

Is this strictly Premier League thing?

Can it be anything?

Follow your heart.

For me, moment of the season was being alongside Wilson and his Mac and pals at Wembley when Sunderland won the playoff final.

Just the Sunderland support was incredible.

The manner in which that added time winner managed to reduce Wilson and his mates to,

you know, just

shoulder-wracking sobs of happiness.

So that was undeniably the moment of the season for me, just to be part of that.

It was a real privilege.

And beyond that, I think the moment of the season for me was Iliman in Jai getting booked for impersonating a seagull after scoring a goal against Brighton.

John?

It's funny you asked this question, and

you actually said, Can you actually remember the season?

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

So I did watch, you know, when Sky do that sort of montage of comedy moments of the season, and it featured the and die moment.

But I suppose one person that we will miss after this season is the Jamie Vardy wind-up.

He did a proper number on Spurs at a certain point, didn't he?

And actually,

my greater memories of this season are memories of hope at Ipswich in early season, the great atmosphere at Ipswich, all that time they spent out of the Premier League.

It was a great atmosphere down there.

Later on in the season, maybe not such a great atmosphere.

It's funny,

Barry talks about Wilson and his pals sobbing with joy.

Next season, maybe slightly different motions.

Let's keep this upbeat.

I know, I know.

Other stuff that I've enjoyed, as you know, I spent a lot of time at Bournemouth, and I think there was a point in the season-I think was it 11 games-they played the best football of anyone all season, I'd say.

In that sort of pressing game,

when they just had 12 fit players, yeah, with their injured players suspended in the box, like they've been playing in the game.

In that box, yeah.

And

I suppose that the legend of that started with a beating of Manchester City, which led to the sort of your classic Pep puffing out his cheeks, and wow, guys, you know, just unable to

deal with that.

And actually, Pep himself has been very entertaining this season.

We've seen a different side of him,

a side of him that he's had to deal with.

And he's not actually the worst loser.

This is the thing, isn't it?

I mean,

we have seen

there's a sportsman in there, which is good to see.

It's been one of those seasons,

a game of the season, perhaps a game of, you know, this century so far would be, of course, those Champions League.

But it's two games, isn't it, into Barcelona?

Just incredible, incredible.

Philippe, can you pick a moment or two or three?

First of all, I want to pick, I want to go back to the predictions of the Guardian sports team for what would happen in the Premier League.

Yeah, I can do that.

Okay, and the germ in there

is the teams which were supposed to finish fourth and fifth were Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.

Yes.

That's great.

Anyway, yes, I mean, I realize I went through, I tried to rack my memory, and most of the moments, apart from those already mentioned, involve Manchester City in one way or another, but generally when they're beaten.

So there was the Louis Skelly celebration in the 5-1 victory in February, you know, the Erling Holland yoga pose.

There was one of the very best league

phase Champions League games, which was the evisceration of Manchester City by Sporting Lisbon, whose manager at the time, I believe, was Ruben Amory.

Yes, it was.

I mean, with this hat-trick by Victorio Keres, that was fantastic.

But if you look at the most unlikely moment of the season, and actually quite something, I think it's got to be Scott McTominay's overhead kick, giving Napoli an Syria title.

I don't think that can be beaten, honestly, Max.

Fair.

I mean, I have got...

The Van der Wen goal line clearance when you watch it in super slow-mo is

quite ludicrous.

And actually,

that moment when Casemiro's overhead kick hits the side netting, and then you know, the fans know that they've won.

The Europa League, a bit like when, and we haven't mentioned Palace yet, when

I think it's Jeremy Doku put one wide.

And even though the game is still going, there's this amazing sort of fleeting moment for fans where the final whistle hasn't blown, but you know, you've won, like, like it's so rare that you can be like confident as a fan going, well, this is done you've got a goal kick and it's like two minutes past injury time and i just think that moment and actually for both of them i was like welling up for the palace one and i had no real dog in the fight but so delighted for palace and just from a cambridge from a classic cambridge united perspective was you know the first game of the season i think it kicked off midnight over here and five minutes in louis barry for stockport like kicks it from about 45 yards we've got this brand new keeper we're excited about and then he's just flailing around with the ball in his net and you were just like it's going to be one it's going to be one of those seasons is it and then we didn't win we didn't get win for nine one point in the first nine since you've done your due diligence barry go on then give us your give us your uh did you do a whole team i don't know if i want a whole team of the like a team of players or just a team or uh who are you going to go for um well it's liverpool i guess okay no no no no you're absolutely right that's why i that's why you know player of the season is salad team of the season is liverpool so anyway take me through your thorough workings of whatever you want to, Mary.

The goal of the season, I think I'm presuming, and I may be presuming incorrectly, that everyone's going for Caro Matoma for Brighton against Chelsea.

That one where he took down the

Bart for Bruggin free kick.

Brilliant touch and scored.

But I went for two.

So the first one is a goal Ryan Christie scored for Bournemouth in a 2-0 win against Arsenal.

I think it was at Bournemouth in October.

And it was first goal in a 2-0 win.

And I think context is kind of important when you're picking your goal of the season.

I'm wholeheartedly in favour of just the individual moments of brilliance.

So Arsenal have this reputation for being brilliant at...

set pieces and being very innovative with Nicholas Jover in charge.

And I'm starting to to think it's becoming detrimental to their game because it's becoming very American footballized whenever Arsenal get a corner.

I think it slows the game down so much.

It's starting to affect their rhythm,

these long breaks in play.

But anyway, just to see them undone by another team

doing as good or better a set-piece routine as they've ever tried was quite amusing.

And this one, Lewis cook Cook played a low short corner towards the edge of the penalty area justin cliver darted towards that side of the penalty area and then with a maneuver that if i tried it i would almost certainly break my ankle but he's justin is is younger and and fitter and more skillful than i am you know other opinions are available but

they are they are categorically not available but let's carry on he flicked the ball into path of Ryan Christie, who just from the edge of the area ran onto this perfectly placed pass and buried the ball into the top corner.

So I really enjoyed that one.

And then there was one Carlos Baliba scored for Brighton against West Ham.

It was the winner in a 3-2 win.

Brighton were 2-1 down against West Ham going into the final minute.

Caroly Matoma equalised on 89 minutes.

Then with what was ostensibly the last kick of the game, Baliba picks up the ball in midfield advances sort of looks up surveys his options sees he doesn't really have any so then curls this wonderful shot and it's it's one of those shots uh a kind of a roberto carlos except it's not a free kick it was it looked like it was going to curl wide at the far post but he put enough curl on it to get it inside the the post and yeah his last keeper don't know which west ham keeper it was

in the traditional style whoever it was, didn't move.

And I thought that was a wonderful goal as well.

Anyone else want to take the goal of the season?

A couple, perhaps, very quickly.

Declan Rice's second free kick against Real Madrid.

Oh,

yeah.

That was a bit of a both so good.

Yeah, they're both so good.

But the second one is because it's important.

You don't score two free kicks like that.

Yeah, yeah.

After the other, you don't.

And I think also because it's a goal that symbolizes a season, symbolizes the contribution of various players to that season, symbolizes the way this team plays and it was a super important goal.

That's a very chief in the IFA Cup final.

And it was a lovely goal as well.

It was

a proper team goal and everything about it is absolutely right.

And I think that's, you know, very often we finish the season and we wonder that game, was that January, March, November?

Was it last year, three years ago?

And this one, I think, there's no doubt we'll never confuse that with anything.

That's a

historical goal for Palace and an absolute beauty as well.

Yeah, and the Declan Rice one is the second one.

It's amazing.

I just think everybody, like, I don't know, I just burst out laughing because you're just like,

you can't have done that.

The first one is so good.

Because the first one, you know, it's inside of the foot, but it is Roberto Carlos.

Like, it is, that is.

so far wide.

How has he done that?

To then score another one, you just think, well, this is ridiculous.

John?

I feel like we've left Liverpool out a bit here,

fair, considering they were runaway title winners.

Two Seller goals, just seller goals as you'd expect them to score them.

Opening game at Ipswich, struggling a little bit, Seller scores.

That's what we do here.

And again, I'm going to mention Bournemouth.

Bournemouth riding high, playing the best football, really gave Liverpool a scare.

Who wins the game?

Seller, you know, with his finishing.

But other side of Merseys, Merseyside, we've got to mention, haven't we?

Tarkovsky's

kind of goal of the season and moment of the season.

Yeah, yeah, fantastic.

You know, and it scored in the way that

can we call it an Irish goal, Barry, now that we've sort of established

the nod down and wallop is the

was brought to the world by Jack Charlton's team.

It was fantastic.

The finish, the celebration, we shall never see the like again.

Just wonderful.

No moment really could compare with that.

And actually,

actually,

there probably was one.

A Serbi,

of course,

in the intergame.

A Serbi, a 37-year-old defender that scored about four goals in his entire career, finishes like Alan Shearer.

It was unbelievable.

Totally right.

So, been some great goals this season, actually.

Candid says, favourite football weekly episode of the season, in case you can remember any of them.

I mean, that is...

I mean, I think they're good, Barry, but

I couldn't tell you one moment from the season.

I can't tell you a moment since the witch's curse, if we're being really honest.

But look, thanks for the question.

We'll wrap them up.

It's not for us.

That's for, you know,

Football, Football Weekly, or whatever the podcast is called, where they just review our podcast.

That's for them to do on their podcast.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do some transfer stuff.

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.

Mr.

MNVS says, How can Manchester United squad change mentality from entitled to embattled?

Moth Simpson, how will Marcus Kunya do during his career rejuvenating loan to Villa Royale in 2027?

And Jim says, first Kunya and now perhaps more remarkably, Brian and Bumo choosing this Manchester United.

How long will their aura last when all evidence suggests they shouldn't be touched with a barge pole?

Yeah, I mean, Kunya and Buma even more, John.

It's a amazing sign.

Really, really exciting.

It's just, it's Manchester United.

Philippe mentioned the sporting Lisbon Manchester City game.

Perhaps we can have an element here which perhaps we forgot, which is Liam, so not Liam, Noel Gallagher did the commentary on this in an experiment not repeated.

Though CBS did that Tom Cruise and David Beckham thing,

I was saying elsewhere that the room resembled the butler's cabin on

the Masters when they all just sort of sat by a fire.

Anyway,

but yes.

Sorry, what was Tom Cruise doing?

He was doing the Champions League.

Well, they have this sort of watch-along thing, and you sit and watch Beckham, who, let's just say, is not the world's best TV guy, and they sit and watch.

So it's like Soccer Saturday, but Jeff was going, there's been a goal at the Hawthorns, Tom Cruise.

It's just them sort of just, I don't know how much Tom Cruise knows about football.

I mean, you know,

very little.

I didn't illegally stream it or anything like that.

I've seen a couple of clips that it doesn't look like.

Anyway, so, yeah, so Noel.

Maybe Noel could

commentate on Ruben Amarim's games at Manchester United and things could get better.

That could be.

As for Umbuemo, I mean, another team I've seen an awful lot of over the last three or four years

is Brentford.

And this guy has got better and better and better.

And

I say this as a Manchester United fan.

It's a shame to see him leave Brentford because he's been such a good player there.

And he had that great link up with not just Joan Wisser, but last season, Kevin Schader, this season, where they all scored over 10 goals.

Thomas Frank, a brilliant coach, a brilliant coach who may be on the move this summer.

We'll see,

which would be also a great shame because you associate him with Brentford's rise and what's a good team, what a likable team they are.

And Wemo

could fit that Manchester United system, that sort of 3-4-3, perfectly because he comes off the wing, he's a great finisher, superb penalty taker.

And Cunha, we've discussed before, I know, can be brilliant, can be absolutely brilliant, but can be absolutely awful too.

So that suits the Manchester United model.

And as for the pull of Manchester United, well, yeah, funny enough, because we had this last week when Liam DeLap was supposed to go to Manchester United, they would trigger the cause, he would go there.

Chelsea, making the Champions League, changed that, yet still Manchester United have that pull.

How long it can go on when, if you were an agent or the father or mother of a player and looked at what happened to various players players of

the standard of henrik miketarian uh bastion schweinsteiger um paul pogba that have gone to manchester night and almost the career has gone to well shit you you would worry but presumably There is a pull there and there is a belief that Manchester United can turn it around.

Not many people share that belief, but we'll have to see.

But those look like two good signings if a club was sensible.

But can we say that Manchester United are sensible?

What's extraordinary about Manchester United, just to bounce off what you were just saying, John, here,

is that it seems they've become completely impervious to anything that happens on the pitch.

I was reading this piece by Forbes, which was listing, you saw that?

Listing Manchester United the second most valuable club in the world.

And you thought,

hello, in the world,

that's crazy.

That's a club that's going nowhere.

That's a club who's just missed out on 100 million quid by not qualifying for the Champions League.

That's a club which has got huge financial problems

and which is going absolutely nowhere in terms of its sporting structure.

and has probably the worst owners in world football.

I mean, perhaps not morally, but certainly in terms of what they're doing, it's crazy.

And they're still considered to be the second most valuable brand, but for how long, how long can it go on?

I mean, that's the thing.

I'm like you, I think Brian Bumo, my goodness, what a catch.

What a catch.

Absolutely, absolutely fantastic.

And we've forgotten, you know, we talk about Wisa, we talk about Shadda.

And before that, there was Ivan Tony, who's been banging them in the Saudi league, which nobody gives.

anything about.

Edling England squad, though.

Well, there you go.

I mean, you look at the numbers.

He's got better numbers than Cristiano Ronaldo, but who cares about Cristiano Ronaldo?

Well, Jenny Infantino does, but that's a different conversation to be had.

So, yeah, it's a mystery, this thing that it's like this Manchester United remains this incredible magnet, exerts this magnetic force on things which just get caught in the orbit and then suddenly,

you know, like iron filings, even though there is nothing much there.

In the middle of the magnet, there is at the moment absolutely nothing.

But there you go.

you go.

Iron filings.

You're taking me back to my physics lessons in about 1988.

There, that's incredible.

Bring out the Van de Graaff generator next.

You make your hair stand up on end, yeah.

Exactly.

Man City Confident sign Ground Ak Nori from Wolves,

thought to be around 50 million.

Seems like quite a sensible signing.

Ake Nori is one of the most free-spirited players I've seen in the Premier League.

I mean,

as Gary O'Neill's fall came last season, I was at a couple of Wolves games, and one of the reasons was that Ait Nori, I think, might even scored in these games, but at the same time, left the entire left flank completely vacant because he would go off on some safari or other.

Gary O'Neill would be doing his nut going, like, you know, you'd actually say, How can you do this when you don't have a left defender and all that type of thing?

And Pep thinks he can change him.

That's interesting.

We haven't really talked about DeLap to Chelsea.

They do need a number nine.

He's a very good one, Barry.

Yeah, um, I mean, I think Newcastle were after him, but if he went to Newcastle, he'd be very much second in the pecking order.

He's elected not to go to United, presumably on the grounds that A, they're a basket case, and B, he wouldn't be playing in the Champions League.

I think if he goes to Chelsea, he goes straight into the first team.

And if he plays as well as we know he can, he stays in the first team until such time as he gets his fifth yellow card or gets injured.

I think he's a terrific player.

I do remember, and the lads on not the top 20 pods

saying, I think it was last season.

No, sorry, the season before last.

I think he was on loan at Hull.

And I do remember, I always listened to their...

preseason, you know, rundown of Championship League One, League Two.

It's very, very helpful and informative.

And they were concerned at the time that if he didn't make an impression at Hull, he was in danger of disappearing off the

collective radar.

So I'm not saying they made some terrible mistake, but at the time, and I get he's only a kid, but at the time, they were already concerned, well,

he needs to start making more of an impression.

And he clearly has done that.

He scored, what is it, 12 goals in a very poor Ipswich team

and I'm looking forward to see how he gets on next season

because

based on what the lads were saying on not the top 20 there could be a minor concern that last season was a flash in the pan but I don't think so because he's he's quick he's strong

He's got some shot on him.

I just heard someone on the radio, actually, just before we started recording, someone on Talksport who used to train him underage underage with England saying one of the problems they had with him was that he wanted to burst the net with every shot he took, and they had to kind of coach that out of him a bit.

Just, you know, you don't always need to welly the ball as hard as you can.

And I think he took that on board.

But I do like seeing him try to burst the net off.

What a shame.

What a shame.

It's very, you know, hot shot hammish from Roy of the Rovers.

Wasn't Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank in the the England setup for a bit?

It would be quite ironic if he'd told Liam DeLap to

stop wellying the ball.

Philippe, Crystal Palace are holding talks today about their participation in the Europa League.

John Texter owns stake in them, also the owner of Leon, who qualified for the Europa League from League R.

And individuals not allowed to have a significant stake in the running of two clubs competing in the same UAF competition.

I mean, every part of me thinks they'll just find a way of making it work, but am I wrong?

Yeah, I think there's absolutely no doubt about about that.

There have already been a few examples of

UEFA being quite imaginative and actually suggesting various clubs and various owners how they could possibly do a few things, which will mean they will be within the regulations.

One thing which really surprised me is that absolutely nobody, when Nottingham Forest were still in the top five,

nobody was mentioning the fact that their owner Evangelos Marinakis is also the owner of Olympiakos, who are the reigning Greek champion and have qualified for the Champions League obviously.

So there was a serious problem there.

Probably because he just is so understated on the radar.

And I mean because there's a trick that can be played.

One is to transfer ownership of your shares to another company or a trust.

Now, To be absolutely honest, the transfer to a trust is absolute, complete, utter bollocks and just a way to go around the system.

It's utter bollocks.

It should be prohibited.

Unfortunately, it is not.

And there's an example of that.

John, it's Ratcliffe with Lausanne had the ownership of his share of Lausanne transferred to a trust, which meant that suddenly

if Manchester United and Lausanne found themselves in the same European competition, there wouldn't be a problem.

Well, Maranak has transferred his forest shares to a trust towards the end of the season.

It's the letter of the law, that's fine.

But in the spirit of the regulations, that's absolute bollocks.

I'm sorry.

It's just like

sorry, it's not me, nothing to do.

No, no, no.

I'm just trying to work out, would I rather that they fix the regulations for the good of the game?

But then we wouldn't get to hear Philippe saying utter bollocks so many times.

And actually,

I derive so much pleasure from that that maybe it's worth keeping them.

The thing also, those regulations, they are really, they're not fit for purpose anymore because, for example, how many Liverpool fans are aware of the fact that one of their part owners is also a part owner of Paris Saint-Germain?

It's a fact.

It's the Autos Fund.

And they are part of, they have got a capital, a share in the capital of

FSG.

So I was going to say FSB, but no, we're not talking about Russia here.

And which means that they have fingers in many pies.

If you look at Los Angeles FC, who've just qualified as far as

in the play-in for the Club World Cup, the guys from LAFC, they've got fingers in more than 20 clubs in total.

But it's all through various, it's the whole thing, as I said, Max, is bollocks.

And these are just, it's window dressing.

It's the authorities, I don't think they even understand what the hell is going on in the world of multi-club ownership.

I don't think they do.

But I suspect fans don't really care that much.

Well, I think that we should care because if you have got people who are able to control, which is already the case, if you've got clubs which control so many, so many others, I mean, what does it say about fair competition?

I mean,

it's crazy.

So we should care, you know, about it.

I mean, I know my club Arsenal, and they've started making noises about MCO and perhaps purchasing part of another club.

I can tell you one thing, I'm certainly going to make bloody sure that they know what we fans feel about that.

And I wish more fans were doing it.

And in Germany, Max, I was going to say, this type of thing will be totally frowned on amongst the fans because we've seen all their protests against

50 plus one

again going against that stuff.

Maybe we mistake the

apathy in UK fans or English fans for other countries.

Though, having flipped that around,

when the Super League came, it was the English fans that were the visible, vocal ones against it, whereas the Spanish and Italians were those shrugging.

So, yeah, we don't know, but

it is for us in the journalism game to spell out that this ain't right.

No, and

you know, it's not for me to say whether fans care or do you know, lots of, there are, you know, you can never talk about all fans for any little, any tiny part of this game and perhaps you know just the powerlessness of it does impact your uh you know your your feelings about something i think david says if ange gets sacked is it reasonable for australia to deport all english citizens um

apart from max of course um is no news just no news barry presume if they're sticking with him they'd just say wouldn't they or they just they just can't get thomas frank and so they're just we're just sitting here waiting we're sitting here waiting I imagine there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes at Tottenham that they're feeling out other

possibilities.

I presume Ange is on a holiday at the minute, but they will have to let it be known at some point whether he's staying or going, ideally sooner rather than later, so they can get their summer horse trading done.

But

I guess we'll figure out in the next fortnight.

I think it was this week, wasn't it?

My expectation is this week.

I mean, now that we're talking about it, it's guaranteed to break one range.

It's

the moment we finish recording this pod.

It's a massive voice note.

It's a massive voice note.

I was going to say, maybe I shouldn't reveal the tricks of the trade here, but someone here, me, was asked to redraft the

Anders Bean sack piece with the details of his uh you know for the guardian to go live with uh when it happens so uh so it's like an obit isn't it like an obit oh yeah is there is there an do we have an obit desk for managers at the guardian oh that's brilliant oh did should i have revealed that i'm not sure uh yeah well yes we yes yes

listen listen be prepared you know i'll be so sad i'll be so sad but you know i'd be i would just be sad would there be demonstrations at the stadium max as as no i don't think so i think if you'd done it three days after you know

you know during the during the pre during the trophy parade that would have been poor timing i mean daniel levy's known for poor timing

classic levy that would be amazing but yeah maybe maybe

i don't know like like the i've spoken to a few spurs fans like paul hawksby who hosts the talk sport because he goes week in week out i think it's different if you've seen 22 defeats than if you're just a tv watcher you know you can switch the tv off and you know just go to the fridge it's just different it's different to like having and getting home from tottenham is hard right you know you know getting to the seven sisters road walking all the way down or trying to get out of that train so many times having just lost another game

maybe that hits home but we shall see uh in total news ryan mason their coach is now manager of west brom rumors of jack wilsha to plymouth which is quite interesting considering what happened with wayne rooney but you never know might be good uh club world cup stuff Um, did you see, Philippe, that in the Panini?

You'll love this if you haven't seen it already, that in the Panini sticker album, if it's Panini, I'm not sure, you can get a sticker of Gianni.

Have you seen that?

Oh, no, I hadn't seen that, but now I want to see that.

And it's not just any old sticker, it's a special like is that a shiny wonka-esque shiny golden sticker.

Can you believe it?

Gianni Infantino.

He's known as the emblem.

It's hard to see if it is a shiny or not.

Oh my god, this is absolutely revolting.

And he's doing the Trump thumbs thing as well.

It also looks like he's in Cluedo and it's like Gianni with the lead piping

in the study, in the Oval Office perhaps with Donald.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow.

This guy, this guy.

And do you know who was the first to say that I knew that said this guy was not a good guy?

It's Philippe Hare.

Philippe, on that day, you know,

that day when, you know, Seth Blatter had gone, God bless Seth Blatter, you know, bring him back.

Tarek says in his post, he just says, there is a type of neediness to some of this behaviour that's hard to explain.

And that's it.

Like, at what point?

Like, because you must know in the meeting where you say, I think there should be a sticker of me, right?

Unless you have absolutely no self-awareness.

When you leave the room, everyone else must be going, oh, we got to fucking do this.

Like, like, then, like, and to not care that anyone thinks, oh my God, why?

why, like, who, which kid is saying, you know, it's not, I desperately need Chris Waddling, Publium 86.

I'll swap you all my stickers.

I really need Jani to complete my album.

I think it's probably more one of the minions than the many minions around him.

They're all trying to ingratiate themselves to Jenny I.

And one of them comes and said, with a mock-up, I said, Janny, wouldn't it be great if you had this card in the pan in the album for the Club World Cup?

You know?

Jenny, you look great with your sneakers and your suit.

You know, there are people saying that to him.

This is a guy that won't do a press conference, right?

No, but it's spreading himself.

It sort of reminds me of some sort of like Michael Jackson or something like that.

You know, where it's like, won't speak to the press, but like their image is everywhere emblazoned as far across the world as possible.

It's a really strange cult.

I mean, to be, I mean, listen to Set Blatter,

we know what the deal was there, but the guy did speak to people and did try and explain himself as amusing and as wrong-headed as that could be but infantino philip you you were bang on man it was just this is incredible no i just think the fact that he won't do press conferences suggests there is a level of self-awareness there because there's a reason he won't do them because he knows he's going to ask get asked a lot of difficult questions but i also think it's it's kind of like bono syndrome if you're constantly surrounded by sycophants who are telling you how great you are all the time you you eventually begin to believe it people who and I firmly believe these people like this that they clearly don't have good friends

people who will yeah yeah yeah take you to one side and go mate you're behaving like a dick you know you're really acting like an asshole you need to rein it in a bit because if if one of your good friends tells you that you believe them and you have a think about it and go, oh, yeah, you're right.

So I think that's probably part of the problem as well.

These guys are surrounded by colleagues, surrounded by sycophants.

They are not surrounded by mates.

On that note, Barry, we should have a chat after the pod.

Anyway,

you're a colleague, Max.

That'll do for part two.

And a sycophant.

We'll be back in a second.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Christian says, When do we get a break from football?

I could do with a palette cleanser before going again.

Ben says, Can you give us an idea of the summer plans?

Conscious, you all deserve a break.

Thoughts on skipping the Club World Cup?

I mean, me and producer Joel had a ludicrous WhatsApp exchange where we tried to work out

the best we've got is three days off between the women's Euros final and the EFL season starting to book our mini breaks.

Will there ever be a break again, Philippe?

I'm not so sure.

When is the Champions League starting?

Is it like 1st of July or something like that?

Something like that, yeah, as well.

So, and we haven't really stopped because there was the play-in for the Club World Cup as well.

Then we have the Nations League coming,

and

then we have the Club World Cup.

Will we do anything about the Club World Cup, Max?

I mean, I just, I'd be interested from listeners if they want to watch it, or if they'll just get carried away with it, or because it's, you know, it's still football.

And there are some interesting teams you've never heard of.

You know, it might feel, I think we've mentioned it before, might feel a bit like, you know, a World Cup in the 80s where you just didn't know every player from every team.

Yeah, but I was at

a conference called

Fair Game at Wimbledon, at AFC Wimbledon, the other day.

And we had a conversation and we asked

the audience at one point, and there were, you know, over 100 people in the room.

And said,

and anybody has made any plans to watch the Club World Cup?

And there was not one hand coming up saying, I'm going to watch it.

I'm going to make plan.

And I think we will end up somehow watching bits of it and something crazy might happen and we might feel that it's interesting, then we'll switch off again.

But there's absolutely none of that thing that you normally do, which is you take your diary and you think, okay, you put in, okay, that day, it's that game, it's that game, and that game, and then and then you plan things around that.

And this case, no, there's absolutely nothing.

A break, no, I mean,

there is no way, uh, unfortunately, that uh, this is going to happen, and uh, unfortunately for us, and even more unfortunately for the players, yeah, I mean, I don't have a wall chart yet, this is true for the club World Cup.

I don't know the tour de France and a bit of Wimbledon, that that's my usually my summer palette cleanser.

Yeah, I love

cricket.

yeah I'm going to India two days yeah that's that that's that's my sort of like here's my holiday two days of cricket and straight back

the thing is the thing is like the club I do I wonder you know I mean obviously given the prize money teams have to take it seriously right the ones that have a chance of winning it because that is a

not a gal free card but that's a huge amount of money and so

and obviously this is a FIFA VUA for thing and Janny and blah blah blah but like if it, if it's okay, then the next one you might be a bit more interested in.

And in 50 years' time, or who knows what football will look like, if climate change hasn't meant that football can't, you know, we're all just like swimming about somewhere, I think people will be interested in it.

Well, if you're Chelsea and you've got some financial fair play issues and you've been bailed out essentially by appearing in this conversation in the first place,

your owners are going to, particularly as in their home country, or one of them's home country, are going to want to win you know 125 million dollars or whatever

and you know the assorted endorsements that you're going to get on top of it um

we've heard how football club owners are interested in being in the champions league rather than actually winning it because the cost of winning it is will cost more than actually being you know it

actually this competition being in it is going to be worth a lot of money to a lot of clubs it's that money aspect of it is that if you're Enzo Mareska, who I think is one of those managers who likes to manage upwards, yeah, I think he's been quite good at that, you would prioritise trying to win this trophy.

You would think, right, try and go for Arnie's trophy.

The owners are going to think well of you.

Yeah, and if Chelsea win the trophy, they can also sell the trophy itself back to themselves to make even more money.

They can sell America back to itself or whatever, yeah.

But

the thing as well is that June and July should be the time for international competitions, right?

This is what it is about.

So, which means that I'm not going to watch the Bloody Club World Cup because I'm going to be watching the Women's Euro, which is a much more interesting competition.

And of course, Jenny, who is, of course, the great apostle of the women's game, never thought of the fact that,

oh, actually, the competitions will overlap for something like two weeks.

almost two weeks, right?

So, and that's actually barely been mentioned, but that's absolutely crazy that you should have, I mean, the Euro happening and

with England playing France, Wales and the Netherlands in their group, I mean, which is really quite an attractive proposition.

And then you will have this competition at the same time.

And that it should be, it's for international football for crying out loud this period.

Sorry, it really annoys me.

I mean,

it's just so annoying.

And also the fact, again, that this Club World Cup, if you look at the way the money is going to be divided, I think that even if auckland managed to qualify for the knockout phase of the competition they would still earn less money than manchester city if manchester city won zero game and got knocked out that the whole distribution thing is absolutely shocking it's it's basically um sweetening the pill for people who are already bathing in

in in sugar and honey and and you you give them even more and uh oh my goodness this is it's it's a disaster In Pedant's Corner, RGCP says, sorry to be a pedant, Max, but you corrected yourself that Chelsea finished sixth last season.

However, you then said their league position is why they were in the conference league.

While partly true, until Manchester United won the FA Cup, their league position actually qualified them for the Europa League.

Thank you.

Neil says, Forgive the Lattics-related pedantry, but Oldham were relegated in 1994, having been in the top flight for three seasons.

The first Premier League season finished in 1993 and featured the original, arguably Great Escape, during which they beat Villa to hand the title to United.

I'm not sure, Barry, if starting Pedant's Corner is a good idea.

Probably not, but

I do admire pedantry.

You know, a pedant is just somebody who knows something that you don't.

And wants to make sure you're aware of it.

And yeah,

if we got it wrong, we have to be held accountable.

I totally agree.

Jack says, Dear Max and Cole, I was listening to yesterday's podcast while replying to emails.

My ears perked up at the delightful idea of Max showing his pals his favourite park.

It It was only after a moment or two, when my attention was fully on the podcast, I realized you were discussing car parking rather than parks, i.e.

trees, grass, swings, goalposts, etc.

Therefore, my question, what is your all-time favourite park?

The nice green kind rather than the four-wheel variety.

Yeah, it's very much the lexicon of Australia to call it a park.

You know, my wife will say, there's a park, where I would obviously say, there's a space.

But I don't mind it as a phrase to discuss, to describe, you know, where to park your car.

But yeah, go on then.

Your favourite park in all of the world, Philippe, Kew Gardens.

Puts a great shout.

He started strong there.

That'sn't me.

I'm East London, so Victoria Park.

Historic, historic.

If I'm going back to my hometown,

also Victoria Park,

which

overlooks, but it's no longer there, the flats where Ian Curtis grew up as a young boy.

So there you go.

So, yeah.

Camcor Park in Burr,

Phoenix Park in Dublin,

and

Clapham Common in south London.

Okay.

I mean, I would go.

I mean, Parker's Peace is not necessarily a park in Cambridge.

It's just

a square expanse of grass, but I don't think you'd call it a park, but it is where the first ever rules of football were put up back in the 18 somethings.

But it's where I learned to play football and ride a bike, and it's a great bit of Cambridge.

I mean, I do like London Fields.

Also near P-Max, you know.

Yeah, also near you, of course.

I mean, I love Victoria Park as well.

Probably Edinburgh Gardens, if I was going to give Melbourne's Inner North a shout.

Anyway, yeah.

And the Tier Garden in Munich is something else, actually.

That is, that is, I mean, I think it might be the biggest park in Europe.

I'm not sure, but that it's an incredible place.

Phillips says, tell the guy who talks about Football League ground car parks, i.e.

Ben Fisher, that he's no longer made the dullest contribution ever to a podcast.

That was Read My Parallel Parking.

And John from Albuquerque says, What is the hardest part about hosting the pod we never hear about

I mean

the key here is I need Barry to suggest that this is incredibly taxing affair so that you know the bosses I think I know what the most difficult aspect of presenting the pod for you is tell me and that is trying to get Sid Lowe to respond to whatsapp messages

you know he's pretty good Sid I would say but you know occasionally he's otherwise I think it's fairly cushy gig.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mainly because of the super high caliber of guests

who make your life so easy.

And producer.

Yeah, well, I must say.

Who, let's face it, we don't praise Joel, producer Joel, for a reason.

We don't want him getting notions

above his incredibly lowly station.

But I think he does do a very good job.

I'd agree completely, yes.

He does a reasonable job under very easy circumstances because you know some presenters are terrible to work with but he has found someone whose feet are on the ground despite being surrounded by sycophants i think if there was a football weekly album it would i'll tell you gianni infantino would not last long on this podcast if he was a regular he'd soon be told

There would be no Infantino sticker in the Football Weekly Canini album.

You're right.

Anyway, look, that'll do for today.

We're back on Thursday because it's an international break.

Brilliant.

That's what we all want.

We'll look ahead to

England trading intents ahead of their game against Andorra.

And we'll try and find someone that's furious that Jared Bowen isn't in the squad or something.

But, you know, at least we now have our summer holiday.

But Jared Bowen is presumably on his honeymoon because he got married.

Is he?

Oh, yes.

Many congratulations, Jared.

Sorry, that passed me by.

We had a wonderful time.

And that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Barry.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Thanks for having me.

Merci bouquet, Philippe Auclair.

Durien, Monsieur Maxime.

Durien.

Au revoir.

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Football Weekly, a producer,

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A notre producer executive, a Danielle Stevens.

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