Champions League glory for PSG at last – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, a performance that merits one of those and how's PSG win the Champions League and how a 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan.

They were dominant from start to finish.

Men against boys, except this time the boys were all really fast and brilliant, and the men looked like old and haggard and ready to join the Vets League.

Desiré Douay scored twice and set up one, 19 years old.

Osmana Dembele had another fine game.

Cravatielia, the midfield, the fullbacks, let's face it, the whole 11 were brilliant.

A truly stunning achievement from Luis Enrique, whose dignity in the face of personal tragedy is truly breathtaking.

And yet this is not just a fairy story, it's the completion of Qatar's sportswashing project that began in 2011.

And it was also a night that ended in tragedy and violence across France, with two people losing their lives.

What of the opposition?

Inter were there, but they weren't there.

Even the ref felt sorry for them.

Naught seconds of injury time.

A season which promised so much a month ago, but ends with nothing.

Also, today, we'll congratulate Olden for winning the National League playoffs.

There's Angelotti to Brazil, some transfers, some Wilson stuff about Argentina, and perhaps the greatest parallel park in world history.

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

On the panel today, Barry Glenn welcome.

Hello, Max.

Hello, Jonathan Wilson.

Morning, how are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

And good morning to Nikki Bandini.

Morning.

Alan says, best performance from a team in a final, question mark.

PSG, we're going to win a Champions League eventually, and I'm happy it's this one, says Alan.

Yes, PSG 5 into 0, their first European trophy, the biggest ever winning margin in a European Cup final.

And it feels, Wilson, like Luis Enrique has built the most perfectly balanced football team, like the roundest of pegs in the roundest of holes.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, from a football point of view, they're brilliant.

They're great to watch.

Defensively, are there slight question marks, possibly, but not an issue at all on Saturday?

Was it the best ever performance by a team in the final?

I think it's certainly the most one-sided European Cup final I'm aware of.

I mean,

four times the margin's been four goals.

So Real Madrid beating Frankfurt 7-3 in 1960.

Frankfurt did get three.

They did take the lead.

I mean, I know that two of their goals were quite late, and this is sort of a mad sort of splurge of goals after the 70th minute.

But

it was clearly competitive for a while that game.

The 4-0s, Milan beating Barca in 94, was a sort of tactical triumph rather than one team just being better than the other.

And in that game, I mean, certainly at 2-0, maybe even at 3-0, there was a thought that Barca could click back into this.

When Bayne beat Adletico in 74, that was a replay.

So obviously, it has been tight, at least in the first leg,

first game.

And so

the only one I think you could say is remotely comparable was when Milan beat Stauer 4-0 in 89, which Amigosaki said it's the only time he's ever gone to bed after a game and thought that was perfect.

So it's a maybe, maybe that one.

It's very hard to contextualise this remove.

But it was sort of in a WhatsApp group, we were talking after sort of 20 minutes, what's the most one-sided final we remember?

And we were sort of saying Barca and Manchester United in 2011.

But even then, United were able to cling on, they got the equalizer.

I mean, it was completely sort of against the one-to-play equalizer, but they did have that punch.

Whereas Inter really never looked like I mean, until the very final minutes when the game lost all shape, they never looked like hurting PSG.

So, yeah, an absolutely magnificent performance.

And

I would imagine if you were there writing on it live, a very easy game to write about because it was done after 20 minutes.

I mean, I don't know if I am disappointed to not be in the genuinely talking about football WhatsApp group that you're in, Wilson.

I'm looking at Barry.

I'm sure he's not in it either.

Trust me, you wouldn't say.

I don't think that's all they talk about.

If it was someone's game, Barry, it was Desiro Due.

I mean, there were so many great performances,

and I guess it might be Louis Enrique's game as well.

He was so, so good.

And there was some talk about whether, you know, it's him or Barkler who starts, but what a performance from him.

Yeah, I don't necessarily agree it was his final.

Yes, he scored two goals.

He provided an assist, but there were so many other good performances.

I thought Usmano Dembele was brilliant, even though he didn't get in the score sheet.

Vetina was brilliant.

Faraskela was brilliant.

Every single PSG player played well.

Maybe apart from Donnarumma, and the only reason he didn't play well is because he didn't have to do much.

I think he was called upon to make one good save and he made it.

It wasn't a particularly difficult save and the match was long over by that stage.

But he won't have many easier nights at the office.

I think it was as near to as perfect the execution of a game plan by a team I've ever seen.

And while Inter were dismal,

I think even if Inter had played well, they'd still have lost because I don't think anyone was beating PSG that night.

But yes, Douay was superb.

The early goal, obviously, he set up the first goal.

That was a brilliant move.

Some appalling defending from Inter,

and then scored the two goals.

And when he was taken off,

there was mutterings from the commentary team that, oh, this is a real shame.

He should be allowed to stay on the field to try and complete his hatch-ery.

But I think that would fly in the face of everything this PSG team is about because it is very much the collective.

It's not about individuals.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, he was superb, but they were all superb.

Yeah, and he didn't actually look that fussed when he was jogging off.

You know,

I can have a sit-down.

Now, it's interesting, Nikki, Louis Enrique kept bringing up Usman Dembele and said something like afterwards, like he'd given the ballon d'Or just for his pressing and his defensive work.

Perhaps, I don't know why, perhaps that's the achievement Enrique is most proud of of turning Dembele into this like complete footballer.

Yeah, I suppose, like, when we think about Dembele, he had this reputation, didn't he, as a younger player, I think, especially after I moved to Barcelona, where more than 100 million euros spent on him and this expectation that he was going to be, I guess, something more like what we've seen this season.

He was going to be that level of talent.

And when it wasn't quite happening for him for various reasons, you know, he wasn't maybe still isn't a great finisher, despite scoring an outrageous number of goals this season.

But there was people, I think, looking for reasons,

were clinging very much onto stories like, oh, the barcelona doctor going up to see him because he was having some stomach issues and finding him in the room with basically a bunch of young lads playing PlayStation with chips on the floor and generally looking like a bunch of.

teenage boys that haven't grown up, even though they might be in their 20s at that point.

I think that was that was sort of this idea of him as being this kind of not like the old-fashioned out-in-nightclubs kind of reckless but this kind of maybe more modern version of what we perceive

the haribo reckless yeah like that that sort of idea of it and and and i think he's very clearly had a growing up this season at paris saint-germain and i think he was already doing that a bit at the end towards barcelona i think it's too black and white to say this just happened overnight under luis enrique i think his his final chapter at barcelona was actually much more positive and they weren't particularly keen to let him go when he when he when he left.

So it isn't as simple as just saying and Luis Enrique showed up and clicked his fingers and changed everything.

But without question, that moment when Enrique drops him early this season has had

you can really separate his season to before and after and it certainly from the outside looks like there's been an impact to the management there.

But just to

view that more broadly as well,

when Jonathan was saying at the start about definitely the most one-sided final, but was it necessarily the the best final performance?

I think

that's going to be subjective, obviously, for everyone.

But I think that the case you could make for it is that even at 4-0, even when Inter had long ago run up the white flag and were just trying to get off that football pitch, you had Kfarat Scalia tracking back like an absolute madman, like absolutely charging players down.

And I think We always talk in football, don't we, about this idea that you can only beat the team in front of you.

PSD didn't stop only beating the team in front of them until the 90th minute, until the referee finally said, like you said, Max, no injury done.

Yeah, exactly.

But PSG were absolutely, and I think Adem Bele was, was, um, was that a wholehearted commitment for the team, but so was everyone.

Like the whole team just was not going to stop until until the final Western.

I think that that is one of the reasons why I would say.

absolutely one of the most impressed performances I've ever seen in a final because it was 90 minutes like that.

Yeah.

And that midfield, and Barry touched on it, Wilson, is so good.

The little pass from Vettina, the opening goal looked like a training ground goal.

Like, it was, it was, and I know, you know, DiMarco was out of position and played him on side, but I just wonder with that three, and I can't remember if I said this on a pod or somewhere else, but like, is it ridiculous to compare them to Javi and Yester and Buskas?

Not necessarily like for like, and they clearly have to go and repeat it and repeat it if this team stays together, but just as a kind of perfect three who complement each other in such a way.

I mean, I know what you're saying, and I guess, yes, the problem is that they just don't have to do it very regularly because the French league is so one-sided that it's easier to look incredibly energetic.

I mean, look, it can go both ways.

We've seen teams before who get sort of flabby and complacent because they're not being tested week in, week out.

And the fact that PSG have been able to rest players for the last, I don't know how long, months, six weeks.

And that's one of those things.

It's always sort of judged after the fact.

If they rest players and they then play well, okay, they've done the right thing.

If they're somehow just off it, then you need to keep them playing to keep them sharp.

so it's it's very hard to judge that but no they're a great three and i think chanevers uh i think the thing i like most about him is he looks really like a young anthony perkins

from psycho you look very blank there yeah well i was waiting for hopkins and i was thinking he does look like anthony hopkins and that's where my brain had gone let me just look at anthony perkins so if he's if he's got a sort of you know, a deep interest in taxidermy, I think people should be very, very nervous going to his hotel.

Right.

That's a good point.

He does look like him.

I mean, I don't know who else to mention, Barry.

Like, you mentioned Marquinhos, the one constant there.

The fullbacks are so good.

You know, Pacho alongside Marquinhos.

The players that come on.

Barkler, the way he put a Terby on the floor before putting that shot wide was just something else.

And Mayula looked, as producer Joel says, he looks like I would if I scored in a Champions League final.

It's like, couldn't you believe it?

So the question about all of these guys is like the fact that Enrique has built this team and they are so young and at the sort of expense of real Galacticos, even though they've been very expensively put together, is do you envisage eras of domination or an era of domination?

I suppose you have to remember that PSG sort of scraped into the knockout stages and then

they struggled against Liverpool at times.

I mean, I think nearly their other most complete performance in this competition was the match they lost against Liverpool 1-0.

Yeah, they were great.

They did everything but score five or six goals.

There was a period against Villa when they looked like they might be in trouble.

Was there one other game?

Who does it beat?

Arsenal was very comfortable, wasn't it?

I thought.

Yeah, Arsenal was comfortable.

But certainly, yeah, so they scraped into the quarterfinals, didn't have it all their own way against Liverpool, certainly didn't have it all their own way against Villa.

It's the nature of knockout football that sometimes the better team will get beaten.

Not always over two legs, but it happens.

So I don't foresee them going on to win this every year for the next seven or eight years, but there will certainly be more of a force to be reckoned with than they used to be, I think.

Pick up on that and say, even the game against Arsenal, not for a second, pretending that Arsenal were on a par with PSG because they weren't, but at the start of that second leg, PSG could have conceded a goal, right?

1-0 up in the tie.

Donald Ruma makes some great saves.

I mean, we'll talk about that.

And then PSG go on to score and play great.

But I think the margins, it's easy to forget after this final, but the margins in European football are generally quite tight.

And it's really hard to put it all together because I always have talked about this.

And I think maybe it's even more true now that we have this

eight round group stage.

And then for some teams, the playoff game as well.

Champions League football has never been just about who's the best team.

It's about who's the best team in the spring, right?

You have to get to the spring.

You can't mess it up in the group stage and not get there, but it is about who's the best team at the right point in the season.

Because,

again, I think

ridiculous as it sounds, you could still make a case that in the tournament as a whole, Intel were the best team, right?

Because they played the group stage much better than PSG.

Clearly, they are not anywhere near as good as PSG on the night.

There's no case you made.

I don't think that you could have played that final 10 more times, and you wouldn't have had a different outcome because it was a non-match.

But PSG weren't good in the groups, they were just good enough to get out of it um and i think that the margins is one thing the timing is one thing but having said that to me looking at this team i i do look at this team and think

this is absolutely the favourite next year i think that's this is there's no one else who i can put as close to them maybe liverpool if they carry on the direction they're going but

this inter team again were really good in this tournament.

It's going to be forgotten that Intel were really good in this tournament.

They were really, really good in this tournament.

And they beat Barcelona and they beat Bayer Munich and they did a lot right.

And then in this final, they look like a completely lower level altogether, like they weren't supposed to be part of the same conversation as a teammate's PSG.

And I think that when you see,

to go back to Dewey, who Jonathan was talking about at the start, like when you see someone like that having this, not that he hadn't been great in this tournament already, but this.

to me, what felt like a coming of age moment on the big stage where he's not just scoring two goals and getting an assist.

He's acting like, oh, but I own this place, right?

Doing that roulette around Bastoni, who, by the way, also a really good defender, but making him not look like one, which again, you could say he's done it all through a tournament.

I'm sure he did one.

I can't remember who it was against, maybe Nkakpo against Liverpool as well.

Seeing those players behave on this stage like, yeah, we're not at all fussed that we're in a Champions League final.

It's where we're supposed to be.

That's what makes me think we'll see them again and again in the latter stages of these tournaments.

And it's

to bring it back to the elephant in the room, it's what makes these, I suppose, this occasion feel quite conflicting because there is no romance in Oil Club wins another European trophy.

We knew it was going to happen sooner or later.

But it is,

in terms of the players in it, quite a compelling, interesting team, which perhaps they haven't always been.

That's what's going to be, I think, forever the

oddness, the difficulty of covering these stories stories in the modern era is there is no beauty left in the top levels of European football in terms of who owns these clubs and who's running these clubs.

Not like there's some great pure examples out there at the leading edge of European football, but there are still compelling stories within that.

And yeah, seeing Dewey have that moment on a big stage is still, I think, quite thrilling.

Yeah, and so on the beauty of it, like that Tifo Wilson that was unfurled at the end of the game with Luis Enrique and his daughter, who sadly passed away, and the way he has spoken about it so openly.

I mean, there is just so much goodwill for Luis Enrique when we, you know, when we try and split apart the bits that are conflicting and aren't,

not just him as a coach and what he's achieved, but just on a human level, like that outpouring of love has been something to see.

Yeah, I mean,

his tragedy and the way that he's he's dealt with that, the way he's spoken about that.

You know, it's, it is, I mean, there's no real way of saying this without sounding trite, but it's sort of a, it's a, it's a great human story and you can't you can't but feel for him and you can't but sort of you know be grateful that the universe has given him given him this after the after the terrible times that that that that's completely true and just on that other point about whether uh psg can can sort of build a dynasty here i think a lot depends on whether those younger players i mean even people like faustkellia how long do they want to stay there you know are they happy sort of plodding along winning the French league without sort of breaking sweat and if you think that the French League was one-sided this season, wait till next season when the Dazone collapse kicks in, and everybody's having a fire sale apart from PSG.

I mean, A, do they lose their edge because they just will have even less challenge at home?

B, do they think, actually,

you know, I want a proper test, um, and they either decide to move to Mel Madrid, Barcelona, or possibly the Premier League.

Yeah, that's, I don't know, if you're Due, do you, I mean, no reason to for him to think about it now, no reason to think for him to think about it in another three, three, four, five years.

But at some point, does he think, you know what, scoring a hat-trick against FC Patisserie every week isn't actually doing it for me?

Obviously, they'd be playing FC Boulangerie and then Boucherie.

They wouldn't just be Patisserie every week.

It's like the Argentinian league where the structure is made.

I understand that.

The League of Ultras yelling, yeah, but look who PSG beat on their way to the final.

But an interesting question then, I guess, Barry, about, you know, is the challenge for Enriquez, you know, he's built this team of non-Galacticos, which is probably not the most accurate way of describing them, but you know, and he's shipped off or they left.

You know, lots of questions about Mbappe and how we view Mbappe now.

He's gone and they've won.

Is actually the skill for Enriquez to keep these players still tracking back, right?

That's the key.

Like, how many Champions Leagues do you win before you go, I don't want to do, I don't want to be tracking back in the 90th minute when we're 4-0 up?

Yeah, they're young footballers who've done well, so there is a chance they lose the runner themselves as far as ego is concerned.

But Luis Enrique runs a very tight ship, and I would imagine anyone who shows any signs of getting too big for the boots will be slapped down immediately.

And if they don't

adjust their ways, they'll be shipped out and some and replaced.

So I can't see that being an issue for Enrique.

On the whole Qatari thing, I mean, Luis Enrique is such a likable guy,

and

this is such a nice team to watch, but it does.

You can't ignore the fact that it's been massively expensively assembled, and it is a sports washing project, and it's one that is working because sports washing works.

Well, and the real point about that is that any club that's funded in a more traditional way, if they'd wasted the money that they have on Neymar and Bappe, Messi,

then they would not be in this position.

But because they have a non-traditional means of financing, they still have all the money in the world to go out and hoove up the best young talent from France.

Yeah, Mike, so 700 million Euros in transfers in two years, a 658 million wage bill win stuff.

Who knew?

GT saying, is it okay not to hate the fact PSG won this?

Starting 11 cost 403 million to assemble.

pounds compared to 137 million for intervars shelli cost them 60 million in in january you know Nassau El Khalifi was celebrating with Shefferin sort of being thrown into the air by the players.

And I agree with you, Nikki, about the conflict, right?

It's almost like I don't know what else to say about sports washing that we haven't said a million times, apart from it's important to say it when not everybody says it who is covering this.

But beyond that, I don't know what else to say.

I mean, and listen, there's a nice picture in this final almost a still frame you can take

that says a big part of it, right?

Because the first goal scorer is Ashrafakimi, who is very possibly the best right back in the world, has been brilliant.

He was an inter and had a brilliant season at Inter, and they sold him for, I think, about a 50% profit on what they spent on him after one season because he had one good season.

They thought Wright got a cash in.

And the positive story that's been told in Italy about this season for Inter after everything went wrong at the end of it is, oh, but guess what?

They're going to turn a profit for the first time after Inzaghi took charge.

I think they, when he took over, the year he took over, they just posted losses of like 250 million euros.

So Inter have been on this journey back towards actually trying to balance the books and PSG just don't have to, right?

They just don't have to care about that at all.

I think that there is a difficulty because listen, Inter were the club of Marathi and his oil money that he threw around.

And of course, ultimately, he got his treble as well.

And I think that

there isn't much purity at the top of European football anymore as I was saying before but no it's still seeing

just everyone really just all the people you don't want to see at the centre of that celebration you're very happy when the camera's on Luis Enrique you're very happy when the camera's on these young players and and and being reminded that football is still football but I do ultimately also agree with that as sports washing unfortunately works and is working right here.

I completely take the point about Marati, and I'm sure lots of fans of smaller Italian clubs are sort of going,

you've done this to us for years, they grow up.

But the difference is, Marati is not a state where workers' rights are abused.

He's not a state where

same-sex relationships are criminalised.

He's not a state where

women have to obey male guardianship laws.

He's not a state where freedom of expression is severely repressed.

He's just a very rich man.

And that is a qualitative difference.

Also, look at the sponsorship revenue the PSG get, and large chunks come from Qatari Airways and the Qatari Tourism Authority.

I mean, how hard do you think those negotiations were to pull off?

You know, that's the difference.

That's why a state is different to a rich man or venture capitalists.

However unpleasant they may be, they're not as bad as a state and never will be.

Well said.

Yeah, a lot of people asking questions along the lines of this from Jamie.

How many hamstrings will Mickey van der Ven pull chasing that front three around when Ange plays the suicide highlighting PSG in the Super Cup?

Yeah, are Thomas Frank and Marco Silver thinking, look, I will take over.

Can it be after August the 13th?

But yes, the Super Cup between PSG and Tottenham.

I think a lot of Spurs fans are quite nervous about that.

How deep will that bus have to be parked?

Something to look forward to.

After the game, there was a lot of violence,

not just in Paris, across France.

Two people have died.

Hundreds have been arrested during the celebrations of PSG fans.

France's interior ministry said 192 people were injured in the clashes in the early hours of Sunday.

559 people arrested, 491 of those in Paris, 22 police officers and seven firefighters were injured.

One police officer was put into an induced coma.

264 vehicles were set on fire.

PSG condemned the violence, saying these isolated acts are contrary to the club's values, in no way represent the vast majority of our supporters.

Emmanuel Macron said the clashes were unacceptable and unjustifiable.

The French interior minister Bruno Rattayeux on social media said, true PSG supporters are enjoying their team's magnificent match.

Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the police.

It's unbearable that it's unthinkable to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.

Philippe did on Blue Sky said, I do not think that the sickening violence unleashed by PSG fans during and after their team's Chemizig Wynn would be that miraculously airbrushed from most reporting if it were another club.

The idea that this what went on is somehow unrelated to PSG is one of the reasons why it happened.

And I guess that tiny minority line is used too often, but it's very hard for us to speculate on how much Bazis is PSG hooliganisms and how many is other people taking advantage of the situation.

We spoke to the Times Paris correspondent yesterday who seemed to think it was quite distant from PSG fans.

Yeah, that was my initial thought that the football match was more of an excuse for violence than the cause of the violence.

And

I've tried to educate myself in the meantime and I've found it difficult because because either no one knows or everyone's very reluctant to say

what the reason for this violence was and what actually prompted it.

Well, I think

you also have to bear in mind that

this is totally speculative, I realise that, but we have seen at repeated football matches in France that policing in France is abysmal.

So to what extent that

is an issue, we don't know yet.

You would hope that any inquiry into it

is proper and thorough in a way that eventually I think the investigation into the final between Melmadrid and Liverpool was, but it took a long time for the truth to come out there.

Yeah, all right, that'll do for part one.

We'll do interim part two.

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Barry's here too.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Fraser, amongst others, asks, Has anyone ever shat themselves so emphatically in public in Munich, like into Milan?

Just have

we knew it was coming.

Liam's saying

if the pods' reaction to the Champions League final is not an hour of in-depth discussion on why the ref blew the whistle exactly on 90 minutes with no injury time, like it was an under-12 game that got out of hand, I'll be very, very disappointed.

I'm stealing from your column, Nikki, but you went through like all the Italian press, and you know, nightmare, humiliation, rout, the debacle.

I mean, it was, I thought it was interesting, that line that Franco Vanni in La República said about interseason after all this promise.

It was nothing in the most painful way possible, a kind of reverse perfection, what it was from Inter.

I mean, it was just, you know, it was bleak for them, wasn't it?

And look, we've touched on a lot of the reasons of why it's hard to compete with PSG, but even still, it was a tough old night.

Yeah, I mean,

to give the brief synopsis for those who haven't heard it a hundred times before and sorry for everyone who has from me but inter

this is the culmination of them blowing absolutely everything this season uh they lost the super coppa uh to to milan they lost uh coppa italia again they went out in the semi-final to milan milan are not good by the way this season really not a good melan team finished very much in mid-tabour and then they were

obviously in position to win the league blew that against napoli and blew it again on the penultimate weekend when they had a chance to go back top because napoli drew with parma and they all Intel needed to do was hold on to a 2-1 lead against Lazio and then in the 90th minute they give away a penalty and draw that game and miss their chance to go back top again to do all that and then you've just got this final left and this is the one chance to redeem yourselves and to not even show up.

Yes,

it was as horrible a way as this season could have ended.

And it does create this very odd dynamic, I think, for

not just thinking about this season, but thinking about the whole Simona and Zaggy chapter in charge, because we still don't know at time recording.

We're recording on Monday.

He's expected to meet with

the ownership on Tuesday.

He said that before the final.

It's always been a line.

He could end up leaving now.

And if he does leave, then look, he would have won

the league, would have won the Copy Tally a couple of times.

He's done things.

He's taken them to two Champions League finals.

But there is this feeling of somehow, was it actually as successful as it was meant to be because they also didn't win the league a couple of times when they were meant to they did reach these two champions league finals and and not win them it was interesting because i i i was uh doing match the day with with nedim uh the other day not nedemanua of course friend of the pod and uh and we were talking about which of the two champions league finals inter end up regretting more because he was talking about this as being like this massive feeling of regret after you beat by a mini-beat bastard.

And I was like, as a player, do you regret more this one where you just think well we didn't show up and we got walloped or do you regret now with hindsight that actually against city you could have won against city they really could have scored a goal and gone to extra time and things could have happened they were in that game um so i don't know which of them ends up being a more more profound regret but i do feel like from having been

very much

in my opinion certainly and and i i feel like he was finally getting the recognition from the rest of europe in zaggy's stock being very much of these managers who deserves recognition as one of the best working in Europe, deserves, if he decides to stay in Europe, to be considered for all

the biggest jobs going.

How does this change that?

Does this now mean he's completely viewed differently?

Because on the bigger stage, he really completely got outdone by Luis Enrique and his team got embarrassed.

I think it leaves scars that are going to follow him and his players now in their careers and and possibly even in some cases they're going to be those lingering scars for players in retirement for some of these inter players who are up now into their mid and late 30s in some cases and uh the the thoughts they'll have with them for the rest of their lives to some extent sort of fascinating that you'd be better off just losing a ding-dong semi-final in sort of heroic way and then sort of you sort of go down in like heroic failure as opposed to this jim says if a cherby was 37 years old before kickoff how old is he now um I mean,

the average age of inter-starting 11 in the Champions League this season, 30 years and 19 days, the oldest of all the teams.

PSGs is 24 years and 262 days.

So the biggest age gap between two teams in Champions League history.

Wilson, do you think that feels like that does matter?

Like when everyone is old.

I mean, that isn't quite right.

I guess, you know, Marquinos isn't young.

and De Belly isn't young, but like that difference,

like eventually, like the wear and tear of a season, it just looked like they were falling apart.

It certainly looked like that.

I mean, there's no question which the knackered old men were and which the thrusting young pups were on Saturday.

I guess the question then is, Barcelona have young players?

Why was it not such a big difference then?

I mean,

the other thing I was thinking on Saturday was Barcelona must be looking at this thinking, you know, if we just spent 10 minutes practicing defending corners, you know, we'd have been there.

Like, how do we lose to this lot?

And that's something I can't quite get my head head around.

And there's a strange dynamic to those semi-finals,

well,

certainly here,

that

I think even up to about

an hour into the second leg,

all the talk was sort of, well, Boss Leonard will win this eventually.

Of course they will.

They're just better.

And then because they don't, you start, oh, maybe into our doing something kind of clever or better.

And actually, I just think...

Boss Leonard's inability to defend set plays, their vulnerability to simple balls playing behind them, is just just a bizarre abnegation of responsibility from Hansie Flick.

I know that's not really the question you asked me, but

this final puts lots of question marks next to Hansie Flick's career, as well as whatever it does to Inter.

Poor old Hansi Flick will be 90 and a Cherby will be 250 and they'll be like, ah, yeah, that year that ruined the pair of us.

I don't know what, I don't know if a lot's been made, Nick, give that age, you know, how old this team is, because you sort of think, in Zaghi, right, he's being offered 50 million Euros net for two years, right?

You know, which would test, even it would test Philippe, surely, you know, like in the Saudi league.

So,

I mean, I don't know.

And if he goes, but even if he doesn't, like that squad needs so much of an overhaul.

Yeah,

speaking just personally for a second, I think it'd be a massive shame to see Inzaghi at 49 years old take that step.

I think if he's going to leave Inter, it would be much more interesting to see him go somewhere else in Europe and see if he can do some of the same things he's done, achieve the same successes.

In my opinion, and I get the impression that Jonathan has a much lower opinion of Inter and Nzaki than I do, but in my opinion, he's absolutely

notwithstanding this result, and a brilliant manager

who has done so much right at that club.

And again, I think it's worth remembering they haven't been spending in the period he's been there.

They have been cutting budgets the whole time, selling players.

And

let's not also forget he had a pretty impressive chapter at last year as well, winning the cup before there.

I think he has shown he's got a lot going well for him.

I think he definitely made

some horrible mistakes in this game.

And I think that it was really an underwhelming tactical performance and some very confusing substitutions, not making really any attempt to...

reshape his team in a more attacking way at 2-0 down.

So you don't absolve him of the things that he gets wrong in this game.

But I'm, I think, certainly more positive than, again, it sounds like maybe Jonathan is on some of the things he's done before in this tournament.

You obviously see him way more than me, and I defer to your judgment in that regard.

You know, I basically see him in the Champions League.

Yeah, clearly, he got the semi-final right, and you have to give him credit for that.

I like the way that he's been so flexible.

Sometimes it's a back three, sometimes it's a back four.

I like the fact that they could press in patches, drop deep in patches.

I think that ability to switch between styles is great.

But to just be so

not just to be outplayed on Saturday, but to be unable to check that in any way.

And that's why I think that comparison with 2011 is telling that Alex Ferguson said that no team he'd ever managed had got a chasing like that, but he kept it to 3-1.

They had it, was it 1-1 at halftime, or did Barca get the second just before half-time?

But they got it to 1-1 after sort of 35, 40 minutes.

They're still in it.

And sometimes that's all you can do.

And I know it's difficult when the second goal goes in after...

what, 19 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it was.

If you're really the best in the world, you have to be able to do something.

And it just seemed like a complete capitulation.

And I'd almost have respected him more if he just retreated to his bench and sat there there with his head down till it all went away.

Rather than that weird sort of

arms out like he's been crucified, but thrusting his groin at the same time, which he just kept doing over and over again, which just made him look a bit silly.

So, look, I absolutely defer to you.

You know, he's obviously a good coach.

He obviously gets a lot right.

He got a lot right in the semi-final.

I'm just baffled by how unable he was to respond.

How he didn't seem to predict those interactions in midfield or didn't have a plan to counter that, which I just don't get how you could.

I mean, maybe his players just weren't capable of it.

Yeah, I think you can't absolve the players, right?

I mean, DiMarco is absolutely awful in this game, really awful.

Yeah, I'm now asking questions about Lamini Amal.

Is he actually any good?

Did he just play

his legacy as well, poor guy?

So you can't absolve players of responsibility.

And I think there are some players for whom you feel like they were exposed.

Like,

I have no defense to mal on some of the things that DiMarco did at the start of that game.

I've been playing everyone on side on the first goal.

There was so much about him that was just off.

Really,

maybe some of it is tiredness, but really, really disappointing.

Johnny Lou was saying he was he was sitting behind an Italian journalist who's doing the ratings, and next to Barella, after 80-odd minutes, it just said indolente,

which seems, I mean, you could pretty much say that of any other midfield, I suspect.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

And I mean, some look, some of them, some of them it is just age, right?

I think a chair to be honestly, I've been thinking for

despite that incredible goal against Barcelona, which is amazing, right?

What a moment.

And he'll still have that.

Maybe at some point in his career, we'll be able to look back on that and think, even though we lost the final, that was pretty stinking cool that I scored a 92nd-minute equalizer in a semi-final against Barcelona.

But I think his defending this season has not been at the level it was when they went to the final two years ago.

Just objectively, I think across the season, if you look at the games he's played, he hasn't.

Whereas I think two years ago, he was really in this

particular moment almost at 35 years old in some odd second peak.

And I I think when you watch the way he played against number nines like Erling Harland in that tournament, it was really impressive.

Yeah, some of it is age, some of it is tiredness.

I did wonder, not to absolve Inzagi completely, because I agree with everything Jonathan just said.

I think his failure to predict and his also failure to react were really, really disappointing.

But I did wonder,

while we always talk about is it better to play in a competitive league and have the competitive games, or to have a league that is easy where you just win those games, but maybe you don't get the good practice, I think just the end of this season, the fact that PSG were basically done weeks ago, it felt like Enrique had come to this game with a plan that he'd been working on for weeks.

It felt like he had really studied inter and knew exactly which buttons to push.

And it felt like Inter came there going, oh, we'll just do what we always do.

And I think that was, that was maybe a...

maybe could be influenced by the fact they had a competitive title race at the end.

Inzagi was, he was just in the WhatsApp group going, is anyone around?

Anyone available for Saturday?

I know people don't like the uh, you know, find the comparisons between amateur football and this level ridiculous, but as a team that play, we are over 40s ostensibly, and we play in an all-age league.

And sometimes we're playing against 25-year-olds who are really good.

And it was Hume away last year, and it's rolling subs.

And I think we were 4-0 down.

So, like, the gaffer looks around to the bench to see he can bring on, and we'd all got changed.

We're like,

these guys can just finish this run.

None of us can walk.

It's all right.

You're done.

We were just there.

Sorry, Wilson.

I was going to say quickly on that point specifically.

There was a really fun conversation between Nedim and Thomas Hitselsberger at the BPC the other night, which was off-air, and I just thought I'd share it.

Hopefully they don't mind.

Sure.

Because they were saying that

when you play as a professional footballer, when you're in training, they quite often do like old versus young, like the older half of the squad against the youngest half of the squad for the mini practice games.

And Nedim was saying, and you know, like, normally the more experienced players win that, right?

More often than not, they win.

But he was saying, and Thomas is agreeing, like, but when we don't win, when the older players don't win, the more experienced ones, it tends to be an absolute walloping, it tends to be an absolute thrashing because everyone just suddenly realises, God, we haven't got the energy to run with these guys.

I mean, in a sense, there's a comparison with the end of the 66-67 season for Inter.

Because that season, I think there were four points clear with, I'm going to say, seven games of a league to go, something like that.

Then had the semi-finals of European Cup where I think they played Saskatchewan Sofia and then obviously Celtic in the final.

But that Saskatchewan Sofia game

went to a replay, which managed to get played in Bologna, I think, by giving away

three-quarters of a gate receipts so they didn't have to travel.

And they just fell away completely that season, losed to Celtic, and then Nikki will be able to remind me who they played on the final day.

But it was the team who came from Serri D under the Bloku Coast Italy of the 66 World Cup.

And they lost, and I think if they'd drawn, they'd have won the title.

Padua.

Mantava.

Mantava.

That's it.

That's right.

That'll do for part two.

And

we'll do any other business in part three.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Week.

Actually, just one more on the Champions League.

Zach says, does PSG's victory emphasize how pointless 90% of the league phase was?

Like, now we've had the whole competition, Barry.

Is the new format good?

Or I remember you saying you were looking forward to it just because it was different.

Is it so long ago now you can't remember it?

No, I remember it.

So what?

We've had 189 games in this year's tournament.

I can't remember every single one of them.

It's a shame that Chairby played in all of them.

Look, the Champions League knockout stages are always brilliant.

The group stage is hit and miss.

There are some woeful mismatches.

Some games

end up being kind of meaningless or totally meaningless, but they can still be good.

And it was ever thus, I suppose, since the Champions League format became a thing when they switched from straight knockout.

And

I think the new group stage is fine.

It's all right.

Look, we've only had it for one season.

Come back to me in five years.

They're not going to put that on the poster, though.

Oh, they is.

Yes, Wilson.

Well,

the question I would have is that I saw a lot of fans, well, Celtic fans particularly, but I guess other teams of that sort of level, who would say, oh, this is great because we're still in Europe after Christmas.

We've got these playoffs.

And, you know, they came remarkably close to beating Bayern.

But they finished between 17th and 24th.

Now, if they'd done that in the old group stage, they finished third in the group.

They'd have been in the Europa League.

If you're a Celtic fan, would you not fancy a crack at Tottenham to win that title?

Is it better to go out in a playoff to a big team?

Or is it better to have a chance of winning something?

And so I think, whatever the merits of the league stage, what it has done is make the Europa League weaker.

And I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I don't know.

I feel like the greatest team in the world won the Europa League this year.

Jonathan, you've written a piece about Angelotti becoming Brazil's head coach.

First foreign manager to take charge of them.

Soul charge.

Since Soul Charge.

Yes, there was like a Uruguayan in the 30s or something.

There's a Uruguayan and I think he's called Jareko, a Portuguese bloke.

The Portuguese bloke did two games as joint manager in friendlies against Uruguay in 1944.

The Uruguayan

did the, again, was a joint manager in the 1925 Campinal de Sudamericano.

Angelotti is the first sole manager.

And you'll be excited to learn it's actually all about the Hungarian coffee houses.

Is that right?

Are you not going to tell us what it is?

I mean, I'm happy to point it out, but could you...

When Brazil were great, and I think

there's this myth about Brazil that

in 1970, they were just sort of these sambre geniuses who've wandered off the beach, which is not true at all.

They're one of the best prepared teams there's ever been.

And that was true when they won it in 58.

It was true when they won it in 62.

The organisation went a bit awry in 66, but the organisation's brilliant again in 1970.

Physically, they're incredibly well prepared, but tactically, they're ahead of the game.

You know, they invent the back four, they invent the 424 before 1958, and that's what gives them a huge tactical edge.

The rest of the world tries to copy them in 62, by which time they've moved to 433.

By 1970, although they're not pressing, they're playing a very modern-looking system where they've got sort of four number tens and a wide forward.

but they've got a shape that works.

The interactions between them work.

They play very compact.

So it's not pressing, but there is sort of a zonal element to it.

All of that puts them ahead of the rest of the world.

They won those World Cups because they had brilliant players, but because they were brilliant players who were very well prepared in a very good system.

And if you look just before the 58 World Cup, a lot of the influence was Hungarian.

You had Hungarian coaches going over from late 20s, a lot of them in the 30s.

Dori Kushner,

probably the most significant in 1936, he took the WM to Flamengo.

His assistant, Flavio Kosta, then takes that on.

He sort of slightly tweaks the WM to make the Diagonal, which you sort of, if you imagine the WM, you've got 3, 2, 2, 3.

You've got that square in the middle.

You slightly tip it.

So one of those players.

You you had to ask him

if you

if you let me finish mary

i'm so sorry marry can we still be friends

but deep line one of the one of the midfielders drops deeper becomes a a second tunnel defender one of the uh inside forwards goes slightly further forward so you get the 424 anchilotti comes absolutely from that hungarian tradition he has always said you know although he's associated with with rigosaki particularly anchilotti has always said his great mentor was Nilas Liedholm, the great Swedish inside forwards, well, played in the wing as well, but great Swedish forward at Norschopping and then at Milan, and then a great coach in Italy, won the league with Milan, won the league with Roma, took Roma to that

European Cup final in 1984.

Liedholm's great mentor was Laios Sesler, who taught him the game at Neuschoping.

And Cesler is absolutely of that Hungarian Jewish tradition who fled or left Hungary in the 1930s.

So

by appointing Ancelotti, Brazil have returned to their roots.

That actually, this is more the tradition of Brazilian football than Dovival or

people like that.

Do you want the bad news, Barry?

But there's a question about

the Argentinian league title.

Here we go.

Jessica says, can Jonathan Wilson comment on Platense's historic first ever Argentine league title on Sunday?

Phenomenal achievement for a small underdog club from Saavedra in north Buenos Aires, beating Giants rassing River, San Lorenzo, all-away games with no fans, one goal conceded on the route to the final against Huracan.

I've done most of the work for you, Wilson.

Yeah, I mean, defense would be excellent.

The problem with Argentinian football is you always have to explain how the

league works, and it's always much more complicated than it needs to be.

So there's two groups of 15.

You play everybody in your group once.

You also then play two teams from the other group, one of whom is your designated rival.

So, everybody's given a, you know, so River's designated rival obviously is Boca, Independiente is Rassing, you know, and so on.

You will also then be drawn a random team from that group.

So, you play 16 games.

The top eight from each of these 15 team pools go through into the last 16.

Uh, it's one-legged.

Platense won 1-0 at Rassing.

They drew one at River and then one on penalties.

They won 1-0 at San Lorenzo.

And then, in a final play, for some reason, in Santiago del Estero, which is, I think it's the 12th biggest city in Argentina, It's up in the north.

They beat Urocan 1-0.

No, if Urocan had won, they haven't won the league since 1973.

So that would have been a big story as well.

But this is Platense's first triumph.

They've been around for 120 years.

Do you know what their colours are?

Do you know what kit they wear?

Well, I do, you've told me, but surprise.

They wear brown.

So I suspect.

Coventry away.

It's a Coventry for mine.

Yeah, so I mean

the reasons why they wear brown are lost in the mists of time, but there's there's two stories.

So I think the less believable is they used to wear white and because the the kit would get um mud stained and apparently their their home ground is very marshy, so there's a lot of mud there.

Uh one of the directors early on said, Why don't we put brown patches on the kit and then that'll hide the mud stains?

I think more plausible is

they they said right there's this horse race and whoever wins we will wear the colours of that jockey and the jockey one wore brown and white.

So that's why they w wear brown and white.

And they've also got joint managers.

Uh, so their managers are Fabio Orsi and Sergio Gomez,

who seem to have worked together for 12-13 years.

I don't know why they worked together, but they always have.

They come as a pair, and now they won the league.

And

if you want, if you want the slightly gleamier side of things, I think this probably shows just how weak the Argentinian championship is at the minute.

Um,

but it's obviously a great story for La Potense, and one of the great things about having

two championships every season, having it being sort of very short form, having everybody having equal amounts of no money is lots of different teams can win it.

And so, Viola Tensei fan, I suspect yesterday was one of the great nights of your life.

And interesting, those two joint managers, because they've been together for so long, like Anton Deck, they have to stand in the same order, otherwise, it just doesn't work.

Thank you, Wilson.

I think that 10 minutes is why we all love you.

It means we don't really have a lot of time for much else.

Real Madrida paid 10 million euros around to sign Trent Alexander Arnold early from Liverpool in time for the Club World Cup.

Probably wanted a holiday, didn't they?

Chelsea looked like they'll get Liam DeLap.

We can talk about that nearer the time, I guess.

On the subject of Chelsea, an apology from me, I said on the last pod the reason they had an opportunity to win the Conference League is because they finished eighth and they actually finished sixth.

And lots of pedants got in touch.

But most pedants were like, I'm really sorry to be a pedant, but I'm being a pedant.

So that's fair enough.

But their league position is wide.

They were in the Conference League.

Liverpool confirmed the signing of Jeremy Frimpong.

Close to agreeing a deal for Kirkus and Bournemouth at Florian Vertz as well.

Seem like very sensible signings, don't they?

All of them.

We haven't really spoken, Nikki, to you about Napoli winning the title and, you know,

Scott McTominay's year.

You know, it's just been so glorious, hasn't it?

Yeah, but it's been an incredible year.

And I feel guilty because I've talked a lot about Scott McTominay and not without good reason because he absolutely was the defining player of the season, as crazy as that sounds.

He was a Serie Az most valuable player.

He's got the award and deserves it.

With not only the fact he's scored,

I think, was it 12 goals in total for Anapoli, but I think eight of them were the goals that broke a 0-0 deadlock as well, so scored important goals.

But also, Billy Gilmore on that team, who wasn't always a starter for them, wasn't as

much a leader of the group as McDominé, but does

was really good in the final round and does absolutely deserve his winners' medal as well.

So, yes, the Scottish influence in Seria only grows.

Of course, Lewis Ferguson, brilliant Bologna last season, came back from his injury there as well.

Yeah, all through the division, there's a few names now.

So, yes, great story with Napoli.

I'm sure we don't have time to go into it in a big detail, but I was just counting this morning.

And I think this season, Napoli, Antonio Conte, there was a lot of suggestion he might leave after they won the title.

He's now looking set.

But even if he stays, there's a chance we could have as many as eight new managers across the top 10 teams in Serie A.

Great.

Because, yeah, because, well, inter ball wait and see, I already said Inzaghi's meeting with the owners on Tuesday, but he's certainly

at time of recording, it's not certain while Inzagio stays at Inter.

So there could be a vacancy there.

Atalanta, well, Gasperini's already gone.

After nine years at Atalanta, he's gone to Roma.

Juventus, we don't know yet.

Igotuder is kind of on tender hooks, waiting to find out.

Really, poor Igo Tudor is waiting to find out if the owners think they can find someone better, because it seems like what's happening at the moment is they're having a good chat about whether or not they want to stick with him, but really it's about who's available to replace him, but not certain at the moment.

Roma, who have, yes appointed Gasparino that'll be announced very shortly.

Fiorentina Palladino stood down.

Lazio looks like Maurizio Sari's coming back in to replace Marca Peroni.

Milan Maxalegri is back refracing Conseil Sao.

Bologna finally we've got one where we get Italiano sticking.

And then Cormo in 10th place is Sesque Fabregas.

And the word is at the moment that if Nzagi does go, Fabregas could be the number one candidate for the inter job.

So we could have as many as eight changes to that top ten.

There's a lot of speculation in there, but certainly we're getting a minimum of about five or six.

So lots of change.

Speculation is okay in the summer.

I've just seen Criven Keller here has agreed a deal to go to Brentford, which is quite interesting as well.

We'll talk about that on another.

We've got a Q ⁇ A tomorrow.

We can do that.

Can I bring in one other thing that I just think is very football weekly?

Yeah.

So obviously, Intel lose the Champions League final, Luis Enrique story.

The signing that they've already announced this summer is Luis Henrique from

Marseille, which I just thought is perfect.

Lose the Champions League final and go out and sign someone who just sounds like the guy who beat you in the

National League Power Final.

Aldham beat Southend 3-2 after extra time.

I don't know, Barry, if you've seen the highlights of this one.

That was a cracking old game.

I'm afraid I haven't.

But I am a gentleman of a certain age who's old enough to remember Aldham in the Premier League, Andy Ritchie, Ian Marshall, Roger Joseph, and the boys.

So they've been through the ringers since they got relegated from that in 92.

Yeah, it was the first season season at the end

the end of the first premier league season and they've only suffered relegation since and had some dismal owners so it's good to see them back and joe royal's son uh joe royal obviously managed them that time uh his son is the ceo at oldham now okay Didn't know that.

Yeah, it was a ding-dong game.

South End were 1-0 up at half-time, 1-0 at full-time.

South End went 2-1-up.

They had a great chance to go 3-1-up.

Guy hit it straight at the keeper.

And then oldham scored twice the winning goal one of those crosses that just evades everybody and just sort of bounces looking like harmlessly into the back of the net but yeah very well done to oldham there's a crowd of i think just north of 50 000 at that game which is a record uh for a non-league final and it would have been higher but for uh

travel shenanigans yeah um uh tom says sometimes you wait your whole life for one moment but enough about max's parking skills people have seen it And I've talked to you about it a lot, Barry.

But I did, I would say, one of the greatest parallel parks of all time.

And not much of my content on Instagram does well, but this has done...

really excellent numbers people very excited about it i was so excited that i was filming the uh at the last uh a-league show of the season uh the grand final melbourne city congratulations to them beat melbourne victory and i i parked about 50 yards from the door i walked to the door and there was one of my co-hosts thomas sorenson and i was like hey thomas you've got to come and as i got out of the car a girl who owned the car in front of mine who was just coming out of her flat said that is a good park and I was like yeah it is a good now you mention it it is good so I went up and at the door Thomas Sorenson was there I was like how are you Thomas he was like fine I said I've just done a great come and have a look at this park and he's like not he's not a man for hyperbole so I took him down the road and he was like actually that is a great park so then we walked to the front door to go in and then our other co-host Archie Thompson who has got the world record for scoring the most number of games in an international fixture when Australia beat American Samoa, I think 36 nil, but he scored 13 goals in that game.

I said, Archie, you've got to come and see this park.

We went down and we looked at the park and he was like, that is a good park.

And that was when I filmed the

bit of content.

But yeah.

delighted and Barry and I got a two-hour radio show out of people's favorite parks.

It turns out people take photos.

You know, people are sending us photos from like 2006.

This is when I parked the Fiat Punto in Portofino.

This was the moment.

So anyway, thank you, Tom, for getting in touch and letting me recount that anecdote again.

Sure, I'll find another place to use it.

Women's Football Weekly is back on Thursday this week, covering the Nations League.

Also, do a bit more on that brilliant 6-0 victory over Portugal on Friday.

And we have an end-of-season mailbag tomorrow.

So we desperately need your questions.

Me, Barry, Philippe, John Bruin.

You can talk to us on Instagram, on Blue Sky, or on email, footballweekly at theguardian.com.

And that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Nikki.

Thanks.

Thanks, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

Thanks.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.