Advantage PSG after first leg at Arsenal – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

PSG win 1-0 at the Emirates in the Champions League semi-final first leg.

The French champions stunned Arsenal early on, that midfield three.

Neves, Ruiz, Vetinia dominated, De Bele scored early.

And you wondered if this was a step too far for Mikel Arteta's men.

They did improve in the second half.

A semi-automated offside away from an equaliser and then hit and missed Donna Rumma made two brilliant saves.

He gets down fast for a big man.

PST could and probably should have extended their lead at the end.

Barclay and Ramos with excellent chances.

So you're left running if Arsenal were unlucky or lucky to be going to Paris.

A goal behind.

We'll look ahead to Interbarca in the other semi.

Talk about Barca's Coppa del Rey win against the spoiled brats from the Bernabau.

Is Scott McTominay propelling Napoli to the Serie A title?

And there's a hat-trick of sorts for Boreham Woods left back.

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

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

And we thought we'd try it to see if we could give Arsenal victory.

We brought them both together.

Nikki Bandini, hello.

Morning.

And Philippe Auclaire, bonjour sava.

Sava, sava.

Bonjo, Max.

Buer, sava, sava.

Boff.

Boff.

Okay, then, well, I'll leave it to you to begin with.

Philippe, you can kick it off.

What did you make of it?

I think lucky rather than unlucky, if I'm absolutely honest.

A strange game in which didn't quite, I think, reach the highs that we were expecting because the two teams were not playing at their most fluid at the same time, if you see what I mean.

But unfortunately for Arsenal, it was PSG which was doing that most of the time anyway.

And they completely fluffed their opening 20 minutes.

They looked a little bit to me intimidated by the occasion.

I have to say, I found they were playing too much within themselves.

The pace of the passing was was slow the players were quite hesitant they were running about quite a lot and in fact strangely enough i believe that they actually ran more kilometers than psg players in that game which you know when you watch it you think the psg players were like ants going mad you know having found this marvelous piece of biscuit and then suddenly

you know, congregating, running at full speed and getting it and bringing the biscuit to the queen, which would be Donaruma, obviously, in this case.

If there had to be a queen for psg queen ant that would be donaruma no would it well i i mean i suppose you want to bring the you don't want to take the biscuit there do you you want to take the biscuit it's dembele in this game i think he gets the biscuit early well it's the soldier ant

or is the is the top is the alpha ant yeah which brings the biscuit to donaruma anyway to go back to the game if you would yes yes sorry

well i'm trying to to cheer myself up, you know, and

the only time when we saw Arsenal do anything was about from 25 minutes on.

And even in the second half, there were a couple of half chances.

Quite amazingly, apparently, the XGs are in favor of Arsenal in that game, which is quite surprising.

Tells us perhaps something which escaped our attention when we were watching the game.

But you had the feeling that PSG were very much in control for most of the time.

Arsenal didn't lack courage, didn't lack will,

they did lack imagination, they did lack energy, which is they lacked creativity.

Martin Ludegaard

didn't have one of his finest

games for Arsenal in that kind of role.

I mean, they tried, they huffed and they puffed, but then they were bereft of solutions.

And you saw, I think, the last 10 minutes of the game, just after those two incredible chances for PSG, the ball was just going from one flank to the next, and there was no real hope of going through the defenses.

So, all in all, even though it would be a big disappointment, and even if there were factors such as them barely opening the scoring that early in the game, and which obviously quietened the atmosphere in the ground, which was not, you couldn't compare to what happened against Real Madrid.

It was a very different kind of atmosphere.

I think they're lucky because they're alive.

They're alive.

And I think they can be much, much better than that.

And there might be the return, but, you know, maybe we could talk about that, the prospects for the return game.

But

to answer your question, which took me about four minutes, 30 seconds, they were lucky, in my estimation, to get away with a 1-0 defeat.

Of which four minutes, 20 was talking about ants.

But

we understood, I think.

I mean, it's true, isn't it, Nikki, that that goal, you know, when you hear a goal, and there were a lot of PSG fans making a lot of noise, but you just sort of heard that silent, like the stuffing, sort of like the fans had been winded when that went in.

Yeah, what it reminded me of,

I don't know if Philippe will share this thought, but it reminded me of the Champions League Semi final the way back in 2009 and Manchester United

came to Arsenal and I actually think and Philippe might be right that the atmosphere even from the start was different that game but I remember that Man United game it was really rocking at the Emirates it really felt like okay even though this is going to be a big ask it's it's the stadiums up for it and then United just immediately just knocked the stuffing out of Arsenal and it really changed something in the stadium and and I think that

it sounds so cliché to state to say it but I think it's absolutely true that from PSG's point of view that's just exactly what Luis Enrique would have wanted from them to get that goal early on and to take that that energy out of the stadium.

Obviously, like the counterpoint to that as well is that PSG's fans are incredible.

They didn't stop singing the whole game.

They're very loud.

They make a lot of noise.

It's a whole interesting story with PSG's fans and

not always an easy fan base.

I'm sure Philippe can speak to the ultras there.

There's been this sort of distancing and then coming back together with that fan base because of how the club's tried to brand itself and what it's wanted to be seen as internationally.

And in some ways, perhaps that's even reflected in the identity of this team that is now looking like it's got a very real shot going to a champions league final is it's giving up on some of that idea of of um glamour and glitz and superstars and and a bit more back to the grounding of of i suppose some of what's easier for fans to connect to in this team i'm not sure but uh but certainly dumbele has been exceptional all season and uh is a player who was missing from the game which they played in the group stage against arsenal so not a surprise to see him be impactful But I have to agree with pretty much everything that Philippe said.

I thought Arsenal did really lack creativity and care at key areas.

I likewise was really surprised when I saw the XG because I felt like just the two chances on their own, Barcola and Ramos at the end, both felt like they were practically goals and the fact that neither of them went in was something.

Arsenal absolutely could have scored very they did score a very narrowly offside goal and I think you can lose sight of that.

You can lose sight of the fact that Trossard had a brilliant chance, that Donna Roma makes an incredible save on, and likewise, Martinelli.

But absolutely, in my mind, PSG could have scored more, and I think they were the better team.

There's no ambiguity about it.

And Baz, we've talked about that PSG midfield, and you know, especially against an Arsenal midfield that was missing Thomas Partey, so they had to jig things about a bit.

But,

you know, Vetinia Ruiz and Nevers, especially Nevers, were just everywhere.

Yeah,

they're really good.

They

just metronomic passing.

They're good at playing the ball forward.

Uh they're good at playing the ball back to Donnarumma.

They always seem to know what to do

and to do the right thing at the right time.

I think it was Neves popped up with a potentially goal-saving tackle from Marino.

They're fantastic.

Just touching on what Nikki was saying about the PSG fans, this was like a home game for PSG.

I thought it was,

with all due respect to the gooners in attendance here, I thought it was a dismal, dismal effort from Arsenal's fans who were silent throughout.

Maybe they made a bit of noise until the first goal or the goal went in, but that was it from them.

I suppose their effort was such as it was, was best illustrated by that

TIFO, if you could call it that.

that looked like it had made by some junior gunners who'd been brought to the Emirates for Easter camp and

put up behind the goal.

I just, I couldn't understand it at all.

A Champions League semi-final to be that quiet and apparently uninterested in how your team gets on and to provide so little encouragement.

It's baffling, I thought.

I don't know.

Can you imagine that happening at Anfield or Villa Park or St.

James's Park?

I don't know what Nikki and Philippe made of it, but I thought it was bizarre.

Philippe goes, you know, Philippe is a match going fan.

Does Barry have a point?

A point up to a point, because

it did feel flat at times, but I think it's because people realised very early on, first of all, there was the

knockout punch, you know, in in in the in the plexus.

So you're you're out of breath.

You don't know how quite to react to that.

This is not what you had envisaged.

Because believe me, the atmosphere in the build up and all around Highbury was absolutely extraordinary.

And

then afterwards it takes a while to get back and they tried.

But then

the mastery of PSG and the suffocation that the team

was

having to deal with is something which passed on to the fans.

And then of course back to the fans, to the players, back to the players.

It's a kind of vicious circle.

And it's not something that is usual at all at this Arsenal ground these days.

I mean, for the last three years now, the atmosphere has actually been very good and as good as anything, I think, in any other Premier League ground, be it for Premier League games or for Champions League games.

And the fans have been very passionate, have been going,

I mean, backing their team like mad.

But in this particular occasion, I really think it's a case of...

oh shit, they're much better than we are.

And there's nothing much we can do.

And also, you have to say the players have got to create that excitement as well.

And the way in which Arsenal was playing was not a play that was conducive to creating that kind of electric atmosphere.

And,

you know, from time to time, there would be moments when the guys were behind

the North Bank were really trying to G the teams up.

fell flat, you know, a bit like somebody starts a song and then after five seconds, it's kind of, there's a decrescendo and a fade out.

It's very sad.

But they tried and tried but they i think in a way everybody was in a bit in shock as to to to what happened uh and and that's not something which is usual at all at the emirates these days um it's uh

something to reflect upon perhaps but um i think it has to do with the performance as much as anything and and again the super high quality of what PSGHG showed on the ground.

I mean, it was, we were talking about ants, you know, ants are a collective organism and PSG were playing like a collective organism.

They were absolutely magnificent.

The collective movement was absolutely out of this world.

I would argue, by the way, that Luis Enrique is probably the queen because he's the central figure in ensuring the PSG colony's

survival and continuation.

Oh, yeah, thank you.

Callum says, perhaps a stretch, but that PSG midfield reminds me a little of Javier and Yesta and Buskettz, right?

Which is some praise.

Not the biggest, quickest, but technically excellent.

Movement was unbelievable.

Felt like we couldn't get near them a lot of the time.

What are the panel's thoughts on how we'd bridge that gap?

I mean, I suppose Nikki, Thomas Party comes back in, and that's not just good because he is good defensively, but that frees up Declan Rice.

That means you could put Marino back into the force night.

So, you know, it will be a more familiar setup for us.

Yeah, I mean, I think the Luis Enrique point by Bear as well, it's framed as ants, is a really important one, right?

Louis Enrique has done an extraordinary job there this year.

And I think, actually, like, if we want to frame it in that way of

a queen ant or whatever, like, the level of authority to, in fact, in that first game, drop Dembelli and say, nope, we're going to establish principles here.

And of course, Arteta has done that at times with Arsenal too.

You go back to definitely happened with Albamayang when he was there and that exerting of authority.

I think that's something that requires a level of bravery and self-confidence from a manager.

And I think that Enrique, you really can't speak highly enough to the job he's done there because this is a drastically different team to the one that played Arsenal earlier in the season and

I think

even like that overview and the way he's approached it and things he's talked about

I think he said it at the time actually building a team is not easy it takes time you have to you have to put the work in and the work has been put in to make that midfield look like that

and to empower the attacking players in the team to be as bold as they are taking opponents on.

I think when you look at this team and why it's so difficult to play against, because you've got a wealth of players who are really, really courageous in taking on opponents from Dewey on one side to Cariot Skellier on the other side.

You've got Dembele who can go wherever he wants in the middle.

You've got both the fullbacks who are capable of doing it.

You've got so many angles they can attack you from.

And I think the answer to

how you shift that narrative and

do something, make something different happen in the second leg is not at all easy.

But I think there is a blueprint for it, perhaps, in looking at what Aston Villa did.

And I think, again,

to lean on Enrique's own words, he talked about there being a phase in that tie in the second leg where he felt like his team was being bypassed.

And he was talking about how Villa basically, coming back to that word Philippe use earlier, had the courage to go at them and to play directly and just to go straight through them.

And I think that some of it is in mentality.

And I do think it's worth saying, well, we had a a little go at the fan base just now yes it's great when fans lift a team it is not the fans responsibility to go and win a game of football right that that is down to your your your players on the pitch and and I think that's um not a thing that you can expect fans to to be responsible for and some of it so some of it is mindset the worry I have for Arsenal is that they simply don't have the tools that Villa do I think one of the things that was fun with Villa all the way through their Champions League run was the way they approached these games.

I think they were completely undaunted by the Champions League stage, despite not having been on it in such a long time.

And they approached it really well.

But they also have had a wealth of quality centre-forwards to use throughout their season.

And in the end, that is still, as boring as it is to come back to that over and over again, the thing that this Arsenal team is missing.

And I think, again, you talked about the knock-on impact of party not being there.

I think I can make an argument that there's knock-on impacts of that as well, the centre-forward position for the rest of the team, and even for a player like Odegaard.

Odegaard has had a bad season.

I'm really like a number one Odegaard fan.

I don't like saying it, but he has had a bad season by his standards, obviously injury included.

And he was anonymous last night.

And I'm not trying to absolve him of responsibility for that because you shouldn't.

But I do wonder if his

comfort, his role is being impacted by that as well.

His not feeling like he has those balls that he might have had in the past with a more conventional number nine in front of him.

Yeah.

And I know, look, they are missing Havertz, right?

Jesus as well, no parte, California as well.

You know, like the bench for PSG, they could bring on,

you know, the Arsenal bench was like all these children, wasn't it?

And Ben White.

And you're like, okay, this is going to be tricky if you want to change the game.

I'm trying to think of positives for Arsenal.

I guess they did grow into the game, Barry.

I thought Louis Skelly, again, was great, especially when he sort of brought the ball into midfield.

It's such a high-pressure game when, you know, your sort of more experienced players around you aren't really delivering.

Yeah, they were very poor for the first half hour, and PSG totally dominated the last 20 minutes or so.

But the time in between, I mean, Arsenal weren't terrible.

I think they weren't as bad maybe as we're suggesting, but they weren't anywhere near their best either.

At 1-0, there's a chance because

whether it's set pieces, there's always a chance Hakimi or or Nunes will get caught gallivanting upfield and leaving acres of space behind them.

So I certainly don't think Arcelor are out of this by any stretch.

Lewis Kelly was very good.

He's been an absolute revelation and a huge positive to come out of Arsenal's injury crisis this season.

That little chance he set up for Martinelli, that should have resulted in a goal.

Took a good save from Donner Roma to keep that out.

Arcela's certainly alive in this tie, absolutely, but

I think the atmosphere they're going to walk into in Paris and and PSG

we don't know yet if they're the best team in in Europe, but they've they've beaten Man City, they've beaten Arsenal, they've beaten Villa, they've beaten Liverpool.

Maybe there's a case to be made they're the best team in England.

So I I'm looking forward to the the second leg.

If Arsenal can c score first, it's very much game on, isn't it?

I was just going to bring up the point I made on social media last night, which is, well, if only there was an Arsenal team in recent memory that lost at home to a French team in the Champions League so we finally went away to win it.

I'm being a bit silly with that, obviously, because they're two completely different teams.

But at the same time, there is a model there provided by the Arsenal women's team, which is if you get in front in the second leg,

That's when it becomes a psychological game as well as a football game, right?

It becomes about how the team that feels like it had that advantage from the first leg, suddenly back in its own stadium, feeling like it should be able to

control the situation, starts to feel that loss of control.

And I think that psychological aspect of a two-legged tie is why we love two-legged ties.

That's absolutely a part of it.

And why we love the fact that the away girls no longer are away as much as they used to.

It was, of course, totally different when they went to the Bernabau because they were 3-0 up.

But they did go to the Bernabau and they, you know, that was pretty intimidating.

And Real Madrid played a very intimidating game, and Arsenal were brilliant in that game.

I mean, this is a different, they're playing a different, they're playing a better team, right?

That's that's the problem, and they're a goal down, but they can take solace from that.

I, I suppose.

I did want to ask you about Donna Rumman, Nikki, because he does seem to me sometimes I watch him and I think, God, he's used.

I mean, no, obviously, he's not, but like, you know, when you sort of like general go, how is he, how is he playing at this level?

And then he has a game like that where I think both Trossard and Martinelli, you know, they could do slightly better with their chances, but they're still brilliant saves.

Yeah, I really enjoyed Luis Enrique at full-time.

I'm really enjoying Luis Enrique the season, all except for the fact that his team just beat my team.

But Luis Enrique just, when he was asked about it, saying, oh, well, that's the job of goalkeepers, save the team.

He was so blunt about it.

It's just their job.

But I thought Don Omar was brilliant.

And

he has been brilliant at this sort of stuff.

We saw it even when Italy won the Euros because he's a great shotstopper.

We saw it again in the game against Liverpool where he was decisive in the shootout.

We saw it in the game against Villa when he made some extraordinary saves.

I think it was Tie Lemons who made that unbelievable stop from Mera.

He is an exceptional, exceptional shotstopper who has been getting only better at that, having been good at that his whole career.

I mean, he's been around forever, he's slowly in his mid-20s.

He is, in my opinion, still

less reliable on the high balls, on the crosses.

And there's still parts of his game that I think are not as well-rounded.

I think he's a goalkeeper.

His distribution as well, I think, still isn't as good as it should be, given how long he's been playing at the top.

And

I think that's

was a really interesting point that I saw made somewhere, and I can't remember who

it was, who made it, that actually, in some ways, he's been a less good keeper for them in League Un this season, because in League Um, they tend to to dominate games and so the areas that you see him in

sometimes you see him in those moments when there is a cross comes in he doesn't deal with it so well but in the Champions League where they're playing teams that do create proper chances and do demand those saves of him that's where you're seeing the best of him because he's a really really good shotstopper

and yeah that adds to the the challenge that Arsenal face now of having to overturn a deficit is you've got to actually get past that guy as well.

Yeah you've got to remember that when Donald Rumour arrived at PSG, there were loads of fans who were not happy because they already had Kayla Navas, who had just had a couple of absolutely outstanding seasons.

And then Dona Ruma arrived and blew hot and cold and now he's who he is.

But

can we also quickly mention David Raya?

Because it gets lost in the narrative, but he had an absolutely tremendous game.

That near post one is brilliant, isn't it?

Because he's going the other way.

Unbelievable, say, from from Douet.

It's absolutely going the other way.

He's on the wrong foot.

I mean, he's basically, yeah, he has to rebalance and throw himself to the ground at super at incredible speed.

And his distribution from the back

was at times exceptional, by the way.

He was actually one of the few.

who found those quarterback passes, which found Martinelli Osaka in some space, which everybody else seems to struggle with, but he didn't.

But he's an exceptional keeper.

Again, it has to do with the collective i mean i think with psg you you can talk about um you know the individual contributions of each and every player and they were all superb

but i think that the differences between the two teams in terms of the collective approach is best demonstrated by what happened on the goal you know 26 move pass uh 26 pass move excuse me from PSG and then a complete lack of cohesion of the Arsenal defense with rice being sucked the wrong way, with Timber being sucked in the middle, completely leaving the equivalent of a five-as-side pitch for Kvaras Velia to have to do his thing in, which is not something I would advise to anybody.

And they had totally lost this cohesion, and that was for me the main difference: is that

Arsenal's, one of Arsenal's key qualities in Europe, at least, this season, has been this incredible togetherness, which we saw against Real Madrid in both legs.

But then suddenly you're confronted with a very different kind of team.

Baz, any other strong thoughts do you have on this game?

No, just I suppose we probably haven't lavished enough praise on Usmeini Dembele, who just his transformation into this

reliably consistent goal-scoring phenomenon is remarkable.

It's just what Luis Enrique has done with him is outstanding.

I think kicked his ass is probably the technical expression that you're looking for.

Yeah, and he needed his arse kicking

because I think there were all sorts of disciplinary issues off the field, problems with punctuality, attitude, that kind of thing.

But

he's just so reliable now.

And when I think back to all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that's been done about him on this podcast in previous years, but he's really come into his own now and it's lovely to see.

Yeah, 32 goals, 10 assists in 44 games in all competitions this season for PSG.

Robert says, How many Academy players do you see making their Premier League debuts for Arsenal at the weekend?

Yes, I do hope the Football Weekly audience are ready to learn what was number one in about 14 different weeks in 2009.

It was 26 degrees in London.

Oh, London is good when it's warm.

I'm jealous of you.

Arteta in a coat seemed unnecessary to me.

Yeah, it was very much t-shirt weather in London, yes, T-shirt shorts.

You lucky lot.

I mean, I suppose, you know, I'm still in shorts.

Anyway, anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll look ahead to Barcelona.

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.

So Barcelona into

tonight, Wednesday night.

Clearly, this is enormous for Inter anyway, Nikki.

But given that they lost in the semi-final of the Copper Italia, they're three points behind Napoli and Seriao with four games to go.

More on that later.

I mean, obviously, they're still in the title race, but this isn't everything, but it is a lot for them now.

It is.

They've, for a while, I'm pretty sure I've talked about it on the podcast before.

Simon Zaghi has been absolutely unabashed in his ambition.

He talked about not just wanting to win a treble, wanting to win the quadruple because he wanted to win the Club World Cup afterwards as well.

And now they are in this position where, as you just said, they're out of the Cop Italia.

They no longer control their own destiny in Serie A.

And they're playing a pretty daunting fixture away to Barcelona at the end of a week in which they've played three games, lost all of them, scored zero goals, and conceded five.

So

it's a pretty brutal moment for Inter.

So are they knackered as well?

Like, has he rotated at all, or is that this is the starting 11?

There's been some rotation, but it's for certain certain been a factor for them.

I haven't double-checked the numbers for his podcast, but certainly a couple of days ago when I looked before the last game, I'm trying to think if anyone else came in, they had the fewest number of players used in all of Serie A, and they had the oldest squad in all of Serie A.

So combine those two things together and it's certainly a part of the puzzle.

They have been working a small squad really, really hard.

I think they have depth in some positions.

I think at the back they have some depth, but at some positions they really don't.

And it's come out.

One of the big questions for Inter going to this evening is Will Marcus Turam play up front.

When he's there, Turam and Lautaro, it's a pretty serious attack.

They do really, really work very well together.

And Lautaro has had easily his best European season, actually, slightly less good domestic season, but his best European season at Inter by far.

And yeah, when that's there and it works, it's brilliant.

When he's not there, Mediterranean has been a massive disappointment this season.

Arnautovich is still Arnoutovic.

They haven't got those alternatives like they did the last time they went to Champus League final.

But yeah, it's been really interesting listening to this progression through the week because you had a 1-0 loss to Bologna with a 90th minute goal after 90th, I think it was Mussolini.

And afterwards...

Barela comes out and he's talking about, oh, look, we're tired, but that's no excuse.

Then they go to, well, at home, sorry, that's the same stadium, but they were technically at home against Milan in the Coppitalia.

Second leg, they lose 3-0.

And afterwards, you've got more players.

I think DeVry was at the press conference saying, Oh, we're all tired, but it's no excuse.

And Simone and Zaggy, by this point, are saying, Can we all just stop talking?

Literally at the press conference, saying, I don't want to talk about tiredness anymore, I don't want to talk about it anymore, because I think it's one of those things where it's almost becoming self-fulfilling for them.

Sounds like Mrs.

Rushton when I wake up in the morning.

It's like he doesn't want to hear it.

And then they played Roma at the weekend.

Look, Roma are on incredible run under Claudio Ranieri.

That's his own story.

But again, they lost and did not look like they deserved any better.

So, and at the end of that, Zaggy was not even trying to be critical at all.

He was just going, I just want to say how proud I am of the team and everything they've put in this season.

I think he's just trying to rescue the morale a little bit because morale is on the floor right now.

I do think energy is part of it.

I do think lack of depth in certain positions is part of it.

But I think at this point, it's also just undeniably a little bit, it looks like the team has lost its heads, like they've lost their sense of confidence, they've lost their belief in themselves, they can do this.

And maybe a Champions League semi-final is one of those things that can become a big rallying point for you you where you've all been thinking about it for so long and you bring it all together.

But I think there's a real chance they get thumped.

And there's a real chance Barcelona just absolutely taken to the Kalinas.

Yes.

Until that monologue, Nikki, I thought this might be a tighter game.

It might be.

It might be.

Given what we know of Barcelona, you know, they beat Real Madrid in quite an amazing Capa del Rey at the weekend.

But, you know, we have seen it this season of, you know, Yamal and this amazing season Raffini is having with Lewandowski that they are a serious threat to this Barsa Well Lewandowski's not playing tonight.

He's injured I think.

So it'll be Ferran

Torres up front.

Interestingly Barcelona put Lamin Yamal up for the pre-match press conference and he was asked immediately about some Instagram posts he put up I think after the Copa del Rey and there's a suggestion he's perhaps getting a bit too big for his boots.

He put up this post in which he said I said to Ronald Arahu, if they, they being Real Madrid, if they score one goal, no problem.

If they score two goals, no problem.

They cannot handle us this year.

We've shown it.

And there was a suggestion, are you getting a bit too cocky now, Lamine?

And he went, well, until they come and beat us, I can be as cocky as I like.

How old is he?

17.

What a 17-year-old would say.

Yeah, isn't he?

So I'm not going to call Abe Simpson on him and say he shouldn't be doing that, but

he has a point, doesn't he?

He does.

I mean, I don't know if you've seen the footage from the Copper Dog race.

Ah, Philippe.

Tremendous.

It was absolutely brilliant, brilliant game.

Yes.

And then, to which Barcelona winning in extra time, it was a great finish from Jules Kunde to win it.

And then three Real Madrid players are sent off.

in scenes that we don't like to see but we do like to see apart from i mean obviously rudiga hurling a an ice cube uh reportedly at the referee which as producer joel says if if it wasn't being filmed by thousands it's the perfect crime isn't it

the weapon melts away yeah that reminds me of an agatha christie um who done it in which the murder weapon is a frozen leg of lamb

yeah oh right clever isn't it that wasn't agathie that was a rolled down tale of the unexpected

okay i'm sure podcast listeners will uh put us to this i would bet hard cash that right.

Well, Ruduga hadn't been around Mark Landon's house, so he didn't have a leg of lamb to hurl.

This is more about Real Madrid, Philippe, than Barcelona, but God, they are bad losers, aren't they?

They were bad before the final because

what they did with the referee Ricardo de Purgos at the Bengueta is absolutely unacceptable and should see them thrown out of any competition.

Remind listeners what they did.

What they have started doing is to show footage of referees before they have a big game.

And they try to isolate mistakes made by those referees, particularly in games involving Real Madrid, and to basically to say that they're banned and not good enough or whatever.

It's an absolute disgrace.

I think the referees in Spain have talked about possibly striking, and I think they bloody should do it because that is totally unacceptable.

Absolutely unacceptable.

But I'm afraid that's the kind of club that Freematri has become.

And it's nothing new.

It's extraordinary for a club which has got such an extraordinary history, so much to be proud of, to be so classless is just extraordinary.

And we have what happened with the referee before the game and after the game, because they complained about it as well.

Then you've got the behavior of Rudiger, who was still, he'd lost it, basically.

That can happen, but that's unacceptable as well.

And then the behavior during the game itself.

I mean, the constant nagging of the referee, the constant complaining, the constant play acting, the constant diving.

You're bigger than that, guys.

You know, the day you realize you're bigger than that, perhaps you'll start winning things.

But until then, I hope you win nothing.

It's really a club that has become absolutely nobody, the Real Madrid, you know, the Real Madrid of Redondo and Raul was a club that you had to respect and admire.

That particular Realm Madrid is not a club you have to respect and admire.

It was absolutely shocking.

I'm probably going to get a lot of stick for that from Madrid Easters.

I don't think you will, Philippe.

I think it's entirely justified.

And I think a certain Jude Bellingham deserves some opprobrium as well because he always struck me as being an exceptionally nice young man.

And he's turned into this entitled, petulant,

just unpleasant brat

since moving to Madrid.

And

I get that players are angry and riled up in the heat of the moment and all that, but there's a pattern emerging with him now.

And he's

after the game, he was seen stomping around, complaining about the referee, not giving them 50-50s.

To be fair, in this game,

Barcelona

were given a penalty which was overturned.

So that's not a decision that went against Real Madrid.

But yeah, I'm kind of disappointed to see what's happening with Bellingham.

And I'm glad Sunderland have the better of the two brothers in their rank.

You would say to win, I think it's 36 Da Ligas, 20 Coppa del Reyes, and 15 European Cups when everyone's against you is actually quite impressive.

So, so, I mean, many congratulations to them when suddenly all the refs are for them.

God, imagine.

Let's do a bit of Serie out there.

Napoli unbeaten in eight.

Four games left to play.

Three points clear of Inter.

Scott McTommon scored both goals in their 2-0 win over Torino.

You know, always good to leave Manchester United, guys.

You wrote about him in the paper.

It's wonderful, isn't it?

He's been genuinely the single most important player on a Napoli team that's going to end up...

Well, I shouldn't say it, because they might not end up winning the league, but they're currently in pole position to win the league.

His last three games,

he scored five out of Napoli's six goals.

He scored two of them when they beat Employe 3-0.

He scored the only goal away to Monze, scored both goals this weekend against Torino.

He has, I think this season, he's

broken the deadlocks.

He scored the first goal in game seven times.

So seven times he's taken it from nil-nil to one-nil for them.

Like he's he's been consistently like changing games for them.

And it's uh it's been really fun to watch because I think when you see footballers go to any new setting, but certainly naturally, given that I have a split between Englishness and Italianness in me, it's always an extra level of fascination when I see players coming from the Premier League to

play in Italy.

And I said the word English this day, I need to make absolutely clear that I do understand Scott McTominay is Scottish, not English, just so everyone's clear on that.

But still, coming from the Premier League to coming from English football to play in Italian football is what I meant.

It's just always really enjoyable when you see someone who doesn't just go somewhere and play the football, but actually really gets into it and becomes part of it.

And I think McTominay is one of those players who just absolutely looks like he fits in Naples.

And that's a little bit hard to explain some of it.

Some of it, you just listen to things he talks about.

Gave an interview recently to Athletic and he was just braving about tomatoes.

And it's the sort of thing that's so specific exactly.

they are better there let's face it i mean the tomatoes really are it's not just that it's better it's it's one of those things that the people locally will feel proud to hear you think is the thing that's important and i know that sounds stupid i know it does but i have so i have such familiar conversations when i go to italy i hear all the time and a lot of italians when you talk to italians about italy one of the first things they do certainly with me is tell me all the things that's wrong with Italy, right?

They'll tell me all the things that's wrong and about how there's things that they think are better

in Britain, the things that they think we have better over here.

But consistently, always,

no, food is a thing.

And you can have a generic conversation about food.

You can have a conversation, oh, yeah, you know, Italian food's the best and that's there.

But when you get into the details of it and you're willing to engage with, no, this is like, this tastes completely different, this is better, that's when they start to really like

enjoy it.

And I think that like, that's a stupid point to make, but it is also kind of an important point to make.

And I think there's lots of that sort of thing you're seeing with McTominay like he has done an incredible job of learning the language it's not easy he said himself it's not easy to learn the language but he's he's at his uh even this weekend after scoring the goals when he was doing his uh interview on the pitch with his own he's not answering italian but he's listening to the question in italian he doesn't really want to translate it to him he's doing some messages recorded in italian so he can speak it more or less he's just at that point where the confidence of replying isn't quite where it could be

and he got a joke when the interviewer was asking him about the different nicknames he's been given because he's got a lot because, well, it's not the only reason, but there is some hilarious content over local interviewers trying to get fans to say his name and they can't pronounce McDonald's very well.

So

they've given him all sorts of nicknames and one of them is this one, McFratima, which is it's kind of a riff on

a meme from a few years ago that went around in Naples of someone not knowing how to pronounce McFlurry.

Now, Macfratima, Fratima, just the part fratima in Italian, well, sorry, Neapolitan specifically is is, because it comes from a fratello in Italian, but it's dialect and it means brother.

So it's kind of like saying McBro, as someone actually had some Neapolitan in my blog comments helping to clarify that this week, which is really nice.

But it's the gag is about this gag that was...

did the rounds in Naples a few years ago and it's like he's part of it.

Maybe he doesn't get it all the way, right?

Because he wasn't there three years ago because he doesn't actually like have Neapolitan dialect down, but he's willing to get into it and joke about it with everyone and be part of it.

And I think that side of things has made him like go from, look, he's already winning games for them, but he's made him go from a player who's like, oh, we like this player to like, they love this player.

They really, really adore him at Naples.

Nikki, yeah, there's another Scott in that team who's had, you know, up and down season, but he seems to be on the up again, Billy Gilmore, which perhaps is more of a surprise to see him succeed there.

Or can we talk about him as a success as well as Mac Tominet?

He's definitely been a part of of a team that, again, is three points clear.

I don't know if I said that clearly enough when Max asked the question before.

Napoli are now three points clear because Inter have been dropping these points and Napoli have managed to win games even without always looking perfect.

By the way, Napoli are not playing their best football at all lately and selling Faratskellia mid-season is part of that, but they are winning games and Gilmore is part of it.

He's a valuable part of the squad.

in a three-man midfield, which is most often what Napoli use, he's not necessarily first choice because in a three-man midfield, you're often looking at Anguisa, who's been exceptional again.

I think that's one of Conte's other great success stories: Anguisa, who was huge for the title-winning team under Spoletti, maybe took a step back last season, is back to playing his best football under Conte.

Lubotka in that midfield, and then McDominé.

And so, if it's a three-man midfield, there isn't really necessarily a starting spot for Gilmore, but he has played and contributed, and in a slightly more understated way than McDominé.

I think

his role is different, right?

He's a more defensive player, He's not the one who's going to be as headline grabby.

Yeah,

I think it's absolutely fair to say he's been a valid and appreciated team member, but

he's just not the star.

He's just not integral in that way that McTominay is.

Could we reach a point in Naples where all the thousands of murals of Diego Maradona will be painted over with Scott McTominay?

All jokes aside, if you go to Naples and the Spanish quarter, yes, Maradona is everywhere, but it's not like there's just one mural, and it's not even like there's just like one courtyard with murals.

The whole thing is murals, like it's everywhere you go, every you turn.

There's murals of all sorts of players, but you see certain ones more prominent than others.

So Marek Hamzik is quite prominent.

Karat Skelia, I haven't been able to get down there

in the last little bit, so I don't know if Karatskelia or if anything has been scrubbed off because he wasn't particularly appreciated how he left but karat skeleton had a certain prominence and that there's this there's players who who achieve level of hierarchy or level of appreciation no one's ever getting close to maradona maradona is in his own section but there are other players who get appreciated and i i strongly suspect that if napoli win the league this season mctominay is going to be the player who's kind of remembered as the guy i know lukaku's scored 12 and got 10 assists too, but it feels like McTominay has been the figure.

There are photos of Napoli fans in kilts which is great I just do love the idea of you know someone's there with the aerosols or the paintbrushes and someone's like you know what are you doing and I was like oh just well just putting a kilt on Maradona that's what they should do that's the first step isn't it anyway well done him uh all right that'll do for part two uh part three we'll uh do a bit of EFL and any other business

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Leeds beat Bristol City 4-0 on Monday night.

So Leeds and Burnley level on points with one game to go at the weekend.

Leeds have a superior goal difference.

Despite that, Matt Hughes writing in The Guardian that the Leeds chairman is flying to the UK for talks with Daniel Farker over the manager's future.

Quite a brutal business, isn't it?

Members of 49ers Enterprises Consortium that owns Leeds have privately expressed doubts over whether Farker is the right man to manage the club in the Premier League.

I mean, managers have been sacked after winning trophies.

See, Ange will be sacked after Tottenham win the Europa League.

Touched wood after we get hammered by Bodo Glimpt on Thursday.

Does seem harsh, Barrett.

It feels like you should just get...

You know, I feel it with Ange winning the Europa.

If they win the Europa League, you've got to have another year.

Like, Daniel Farker's done this.

He's surely allowed.

Surely it feels right.

I mean, romance isn't everything in football, I guess.

I think it would be brutal to sack him, but I can also see the logic of it if you go back to his performances with Norwich.

But I think the first time he brought Norwich up, he was given a pittance to bring in new players, and Norwich just sank.

They were dismal.

I think it'd be brutal to get rid of Farka, but if they do decide to do that, he will obviously get a nice payout, and

they have to get his replacement right, or they look like proper chumps.

But I think if he goes up and gets a proper war chest from the 49er gang, then he'll be better placed to do well with them than he ever was with Norwich.

In League One, Burton drew one all with Wigan.

That guarantees their safety.

So that means Crawley and Bristol Rovers definitely down along with Shrewsbury.

And the mighty ewes bouncing back from League Two next season.

Philippe, you wrote a piece for play the game on multi-club ownership.

Here we are.

Focus everyone.

That's late in the pod, but put your focus brains on and listen to Philippe.

Yeah, usually you think of multi-club ownership structures as being pyramidal with one big club at the top and then feeder clubs, satellites, whatever you call it.

But in fact, it's much, much more complicated than that.

And that's what I've tried to write about, is the fact that people don't realize that in fact

multi-club ownership is much more fluid and much more opaque than that.

And it's because the way it works at the moment is that you have a lot of private equity funds which are going into

the market, most of them American,

and you don't know who are the people who actually give the money to these private equity funds to actually buy the clubs or buy part of the clubs.

So there's a complete opacity about the name of the actual owners, the people who actually put the money in it.

And there was a famous example when it was revealed that the Saudi sovereign fund was a very big investor in Clearlake and therefore indirectly an investor in Chelsea Football Club.

But then you realize you have this other thing, which is

those funds like Arctos,

which are set up solely for the purpose of investing

in big clubs.

And Arctos is absolutely extraordinary because wherever you look, they're somewhere.

I don't think that there are many Liverpool fans

who know that Arctos is actually a shareholder of that club.

Sorry,

who are Arctos?

Arctos are basically, they are funds which are created with a purpose, which is to raise a certain amount of money.

I think in their case, it was $2.9 billion for phase one and $4.5 billion dollars phase two.

And you've got investors coming, all kinds of investors.

They can be pension funds, they can be private individuals, they can be all sorts of things.

And then the money is invested afterwards by buying stakes in football clubs and sports franchises.

Okay.

And this happens, you know, in the back rooms.

You don't know about it.

And Arctos now, they don't just have a share of Liverpool, they also have a share of Paris Saint-Germain.

Now, you think, okay, isn't there a problem there somewhere that you have people who have shares in clubs which are playing against each other?

Well, of course, yes, there's a big problem.

But the bigger problem is that nobody does anything about it because all of this is happening outside of the public stage.

And unfortunately, it's something which is becoming a rule because all clubs need money.

So when you've got somebody coming with you with saying, I'm going to buy 5, 10, 25% of your equity, here's the cash.

You stay in the background, but you're you're there.

And the problem is that the fans don't know about it.

And the problem that the institutions, the regulators, the leagues, the confederations, the federations have absolutely been left behind.

They haven't got a clue what's going on.

And that the whole debate on multiple

ownership, it shouldn't be really about the fact that,

even though it should be as well, that Jim Radcliffe will be at Nice and Lausanne and Manchester United.

But the fact that you've got all these silent investors who are actually presented at every single level of the game or rather at the top of the game but in so many clubs and we know nothing about it and and that is a real concern and something i'm trying to actually uh draw people attention to but to be honest it's a bit of a losing battle because first of all it's quite complicated to understand it's quite complicated sometimes to find out who has bought what and also there is nothing in the regulations that prevents things like that from happening but this is another dilution of the identity of the clubs You know, the ownership is part of the identity.

And when you've got a single, I mean, in the case of LAFC, for example, you know, the MLS franchise,

I think they're involved directly or indirectly in about something like 40 clubs.

And so, my pension, I could be the owner of Liverpool without knowing.

Absolutely.

Some of your money could have been invested in Liverpool or Paris Saint-Germain, provided you can have access to the same pension funds as those guys, which I'm not absolutely sure of.

Perhaps unlikely.

Anyway,

keep us posted, Philippe, on that.

Take us to the National League South, which is easier to understand and utterly thrilling, and it continues to be.

Dorking, three, one up in the playoffs.

So, this is sort of the bottom two of the playoffs.

They play a playoff to see who plays

the team that comes above them or something like that.

There were three won up in the playoffs with less than 10 minutes to go.

They lost 4-3, says Pudzy.

Has there been a better end to a league season?

So, Boremupper halftime.

Then a guy called Femi Ilasanmi scored an own goal, one all.

Dorking then went 2-1-up.

Then Ilasanmi scored another own goal.

So, Dorking a 3-1-up in the 83rd minute, Borenwood made it 3-2.

89th minute, 3-3.

And then Ilasanmi scored the winner, having scored two own goals with a sort of swivel left-foot volley into the top corner in the 96th minute.

It's absolutely brilliant.

Like the guy, it's just a wonderful moment.

So, well done to him.

And yeah, really, really good.

Ian says.

Can I say a couple of things about?

Because he's a colleague of ours.

He has a podcast.

Does he?

Yes, indeed.

He has a podcast about non-league football, which is called Beyond the 92.

So that's a bit of a free advertisement because they've got a YouTube channel, I think.

God, the next episode is going to be good, isn't it?

And it should be, actually.

And the other thing as well, because I looked a bit into it, I love these kind of stories.

I realized when I went, his wiki entry is actually actually incredibly detailed for a player of that level.

And I noticed that it was in two languages and one language is English and the other is Volepook, the universal language, you know, the kind of Esperanto Mark II, which was created in the 19th century by a German.

Why is it in that?

I have no idea how it happened that he should have that, Ily Sanby should have a wiki page in Volepook, which even Killian Bapri hasn't got.

So that's absolutely remarkable.

I'll finish with a couple of emails.

Ian says, dear Max Barry and the gang, long time listener, first-time writer, etc., etc.

This seems to enhance the prospects of getting aired and is true.

Despite my vasectomy being years ago, I needed to write about your appalling coverage on The Last Pod.

With all your lower league and non-league roundup, you made no reference to Barnett's fantastic achievement of getting promoted back to the league.

The first club to ever win the fifth tier four times.

Admittedly, that does require a few too many relegations to boast about.

You gave us Truro, you gave us Horsham's goal difference, for fuck's sake.

Meanwhile, Guardian football editor John Brodkin is a Barnett season ticket holder and

has so little sway he couldn't get Barnett in the running order, an absolute disgrace all round.

More significantly, I've always had to tell him what you lot are droning on about as he doesn't seem bothered to listen to his own colleagues.

We'll finish with this one from Rose, who says, Hello Football Weekly team.

Barry's mention of seeing Trigger from Only Fools and Horses in a play took me back to a GCSE drama trip in London to see The Crucible in the late 90s.

I'm sure Trevor Peacock was a fine actor, but every time Jim from the Vicar of Dibley came onto the stage, the only reaction of a crowd of teenagers was to laugh.

Perhaps not quite the response he or Arthur Miller was going for.

I've had some terrible theatre experiences over the years, including having raw meat thrown at me during a production of Fedra's Love at the Almeida, if that's how I pronounce it.

But none have come close to the dreadful performances I've been subjected to as a St.

Johnson fan this season, which just goes to show all pain is relative.

Best wishes to you all, Rose.

And that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thanks.

Cheers, Philippe.

Thank you, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by James Hurley and Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.