Declan Rice stars on a famous night for Arsenal – Football Weekly

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Speaker 30 Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. Declan Rice with a free kick for the ages, bending it perfectly round the wall, giving Thiba Cortua absolutely no chance.

Speaker 30 When will we see another like that? Well, 12 minutes later. We were all Martin Odegaard, just hands on head in disbelief.

Speaker 21 Did anyone know Declan Rice took free kicks?

Speaker 30 Not even him. What a time to bring them out.

Speaker 30 Arsenal absolutely destroyed Real Madrid in the second half at the Emirates, which is going to make Real's inevitable comeback at the burnabout even more galling.

Speaker 30 On the evidence of last night, there is no way Anchilotti's men will get back into it, but we all know there's no point using things like evidence when talking about Real Madrid.

Speaker 30 In the other game, a brilliant win for Inter at Munich. Bayern dominated until possibly the goal of the night.
Marcus Taram going full Gootie before Lautaro went full charisma. What a joy.

Speaker 30 But that game is definitely still alive. Also, today we'll cover another miserable night for Leicester City.
Barry's first run.

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Speaker 30 And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Speaker 30 On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Speaker 1 Hi, Max.

Speaker 30 Nick Ames, who's out in Munich for the game of the night. Hey, Nick.

Speaker 37 Hello, Max.

Speaker 30 Yeah, be with you in about an hour.

Speaker 30 Matthew writes, not a question. I'm just happy Nikki is on the pod after an Arsenal win for a change.
Robert, I'm amazed you have Nikki on after a great Arsenal performance.

Speaker 30 Los Paulsas, surely this is a Philippe day. Nikki doesn't get happy pods.

Speaker 30 Well, look, Philippe is on tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll address it again. But Nikki, yes, congratulations.
What a night.

Speaker 38 I can't tell you if it's a trap, Max, because I have been pre-booked for after the second leg as well. Right.

Speaker 38 And i don't know if this is all just a set up to make it an even bigger kicking when it turns around in the second leg but i hope not because that was one of the most incredible european nights um in all my life watching arsenal i think it's certainly the most the best european night at the emirates um since they moved there i was thinking about comparisons and what else it could be and of course there was the the the the thrashing of me lamb but it didn't matter because they'd lost so heavily in the away leg anyway there was um archivin with a winner against barcelona and they lost the second leg of that one as well.

Speaker 38 And so let's not preempt the second leg, but none of them was as emphatic as Beasting Real Madrid. 3-0 at all.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, it could have been more, couldn't it?

Speaker 30 Steve says those Declan Rice free kicks were so good. My wife and I shared a cigarette afterwards, and we don't even smoke.

Speaker 30 Ken says, how good was Rice's achievement this evening, given Roberto Carlos tried for the next 12 years unsuccessfully to replicate his free kick?

Speaker 12 And Rice did it in 12 minutes.

Speaker 28 And T to the Max is a genuine dilemma.

Speaker 27 Which of Rice's free kicks were the best?

Speaker 30 I mean, I'll go to you, Nikki, first as well like when he scored the second what how did you react

Speaker 38 it's one of those weird things where it's easy to say afterwards but there was something about when he was standing over i thought he's gonna he's gonna do it again there's just that feeling you get sometimes in the area there's something about the way he's standing and i i think that's clearly something that was in his head as well because he said it in his interviews after the game he was like oh um basically just i just sort of had that feeling of belief in myself after doing the first one.

Speaker 38 It's an impossibly good free kick, the second one. I mean, the first one was just perfection because you look at it.
And then, of course, the camera's cut to Roberto Carlos, who is just because

Speaker 38 these things are like this in the world, he's there to see it. He's there to see someone do his free kick homage.
But the second one is

Speaker 38 it's so in the top corner that you almost couldn't have physically held it more in the top corner than where it was. It was just exactly perfectly where it where it could be.

Speaker 38 And and and you know, the first one's got such incredible bend on it, but maybe, maybe, maybe a keeper who was positioned differently could have stopped it. I don't know.

Speaker 38 But the second one, I don't care who you are. You can't stop it.
It's just the perfect free kick. And I, yeah, it was absolutely astonishing.
What did I do? I yelped. I made some noises

Speaker 38 that don't normally come out of a person.

Speaker 38 But yeah,

Speaker 38 I was astonishing, Matt, because honestly, there's just one of those. moments in time and clearly Declan Rice is an exceptional footballer.

Speaker 38 We got him half price after all, but still, could he hit another free kick like that? I don't know. I mean,

Speaker 38 you'd have to take quite a few goes to get it better.

Speaker 26 Yeah, I mean, you could just

Speaker 30 see the reaction of all the players, you know, sort of Bellingham and Mbappe. There's a lot of, well, I mean, fair enough.

Speaker 30 And it was sort of, like you say, the second one, it was sort of even further in the corner than a postage stamp, wasn't it?

Speaker 30 The Arsenal hadn't scored a direct free kick, Arteta was saying after the game, since September 2021. Martin Erdegaard away at Burnley.

Speaker 30 Declan Rice, Barry, has never scored a direct free free kick.

Speaker 12 It's ridiculous.

Speaker 20 Like, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 It beggars belief that he has played 402 senior games of football for club and country, two countries, and

Speaker 1 never scored a free kick and then scores two of such sublime beauty in 12 minutes. It's just astonishing.
I had my head in my hands, like, disbelief,

Speaker 1 not in sadness, in disbelief when the first one went in. And then when the second one went in I just burst out laughing like I was sitting on my own just burst out laughing

Speaker 1 and then he revealed after the game that the SEPI's guru that is Nicholas Jover had told him for the first one to cross the ball to the far post but after high-level talks with Pakaya Saka decided to he was feeling it so he went for it and ignored the instruction and scored the second one i think the first one if you want a nitpick you could could say there probably should have been someone else in the wall, another man in the wall.

Speaker 1 The second one, if he had gone up to Thibaut Corta and told him where he was going to put it, he still wouldn't have kept it out. I mean, it's the one part of the goal the guy can't reach.

Speaker 1 It was astonishing. I don't want to be Debbie Downer on Declan, but I do remember last year when Arsen went out against Bayern Munich.
He did not show up for either leg.

Speaker 1 I think it was Leon Gorecka took him to school over the two legs. Last night he was just sensational and one of several Arsenal players who performed outstandingly.

Speaker 30 Yeah, Scott says, I don't know what it says about me or about the pods' ability to not so much get under one's skin, but to shape one's thinking.

Speaker 30 But when Rice, that Rice goal went in, the first person I thought of was Barry.

Speaker 1 Thing is,

Speaker 30 there is part of me that prefers the first one. Because

Speaker 30 I agree with Barry and Nikki.

Speaker 37 And the second one, it it is perfect it's perfect like you can't strike a ball like that in a place like that but you sort of see free kicks a bit like that reasonably often i don't think i've seen one bend that much since roberto carlos i mean there probably will have been ones but barry said you could put one more person on the wall i i think it went further wide than that yeah i think so too it was it was a proper kind of old old school brazilian banana kick wasn't it it was just so so much whip and swing out and in I agree with you, Max, but I also have got a nasty feeling it's going to be lost to history by the second one because that's going to be the one people show because

Speaker 37 it was just something out of this world visually and optically. And as I think Nikki said, it couldn't have been further top corner.

Speaker 37 But you're right, the technique for that first one was absolutely astonishing. And really,

Speaker 37 it absolutely beggars belief what we saw there last night. For that to happen twice was,

Speaker 38 I think, something that on that level on that stage on that occasion we hadn't really seen before i think that second one is just like roy of the rovers isn't it it's just like you've got like a cartoon picture and whoosh is the ball's going off his foot like it's just so

Speaker 18 yeah no no no that was the right noise and also nikki like

Speaker 38 in an any other game we would be purring about mikel marino's finish which is absolutely elite it's behind him the technique is so perfect yeah i mean all of them were exceptional goals and it was just, I mean, so happy for Michael Marino, and

Speaker 38 one of the real, I guess, embodiments of

Speaker 38 selflessness and

Speaker 38 doing what is asked of you when it's not your natural role in the team and perhaps coming at it. I'm trying to remember what the stat was.

Speaker 38 He's got this incredible record, more goals against Madrid than any other team in his career.

Speaker 38 So, someone who, I guess, has brought that little bit of understanding of a particular opponent to the match as well. But exactly as you say, Max.

Speaker 38 the least impressive of the three goals of the night, but that's just because the bar is somewhere up on Mars. I don't know.

Speaker 30 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Who else did you want to pick out, Barry, from that performance?

Speaker 21 Because they were just so much better than Raoul.

Speaker 1 Well, I think while he didn't have a huge amount to do, I thought Jack O'Kirrior did everything that was asked of him. And

Speaker 1 people had...

Speaker 1 including myself had identified him as a potential weak link, but he more than

Speaker 1 adequately covered for Gabriel. I thought Bakaio Saka was excellent.

Speaker 1 It was his first start in quite a long time, but he didn't show any signs of rustiness. He won the two free kicks.

Speaker 1 I thought Miles Lewis Skelly, there was some question over whether he would be picked to play in this massive game or not. He was, and he was superb.
You couldn't single out anyone for playing badly.

Speaker 1 Marino did what was asked of him. As you say, brilliant finish that that is being overlooked.

Speaker 1 But yeah, they're the players I would pick out. And,

Speaker 1 you know, Rice, Odegaard, Party totally dominated the midfield.

Speaker 1 And I'll be honest, everyone's saying, ooh, Real Madrid, I think this tie is over. Real Madrid haven't kept a clean sheet in nine games.
They've conceded 17 goals in those nine games.

Speaker 1 I think this is done.

Speaker 38 I've asked us to talk about this, Kivior and Saka. I mean, I thought Saka was in parts brilliant and absolutely, you could see, was putting the frightness on Madrid.

Speaker 38 And there was that ball he had across the penalty area in the first half, and it was still 0-0, where you just thought, oh, where is that striker again?

Speaker 38 That same moment, because, of course, at that point, we don't know how it's all going to end up. But they did, there were moments of rust at the beginning, and both Kivior and

Speaker 38 Saka gave the ball away that led to Madrid.

Speaker 38 half chance at least in the first half one of which I think was Saliba cut out and there was the one that Mbappe had had a shot that was that was saved by Ryan but you think Mbappe probably should have done better.

Speaker 38 So, there was a moment in the game, it's easy to forget it, there was a moment where the game, despite Arsenal, I think Arsenal were better all the way through, but there was a moment where it still felt like there was jeopardy.

Speaker 38 It's just in the second half where something ticked over and Rice's goals, and

Speaker 38 it just felt like mentally Real Madrid came apart, and Arsenal just got stronger and stronger.

Speaker 30 Nick, you've watched a lot of Arsenal in the last few years. Did you sort of, have you seen this performance coming?

Speaker 37 Not this season, I don't think so.

Speaker 37 Not such an emphatic and barnstorming second half as that. And obviously

Speaker 37 with

Speaker 37 their attacking options obviously and not quite where they might be still and that has hindered them domestically. Didn't see it coming.
Honestly,

Speaker 37 I could have envisaged them winning against Rael. I think obviously they're so well structured and well coached

Speaker 37 and so good on set pieces for example that it wouldn't have surprised me to see them nudge it 1-0 or 2-1. But a result of of this emphasis, I honestly could not see it coming.

Speaker 37 It's not been the kind of performance that has been in my post as such. And now now I think, you know, I personally agree.
I think that I think Bataille's done.

Speaker 37 I think let's feel anything can happen at at the Burner Vale, which for various reasons it definitely can, but I think Arsenal will probably lock this down after a scare or two and then you've got I think

Speaker 37 this could be their year. They could do it.
Villa or PSG is a perfectly winnable semi-final. They've obviously beaten PSG already in the league phase.

Speaker 37 Arsenal fans are going to kill me for looking too far ahead, so I'm going to stop. But no, didn't see this coming.
I think they'll lock it down.

Speaker 37 I think they'll see it out, and it could get very exciting.

Speaker 30 Nikki grimacing at these, all these, you know,

Speaker 1 yeah, of course.

Speaker 38 I know I'm coming back here in a week's time. Of course, I can't.

Speaker 38 It is worth saying that in amongst this, you could make an argument that Real Madrid aren't at their pinnacle right now. Of course, they lost at the weekend.
They're having their own struggles.

Speaker 38 And I felt like looking at the formation 442 with Rodrigo on the right, is that enough of a, is that giving you enough in the middle of the park to deal with

Speaker 38 a pretty physical arsenal midfield when you think about Rice's energy and Partey's energy? I think on paper, you could certainly look at it and go,

Speaker 38 it's not feeling balanced and right right now for Madrid. And they've got their own injury problems as well.
They've had injuries at the back.

Speaker 38 But at the same time, it's still Madrid at the Bernaval. It's still Vinnie and Dembathay and Jude Bellingham and Rodrigo.

Speaker 38 No, of course I'm not confident they're going to go there and have an easy time.

Speaker 30 Yeah, confident and Bemius says, in what minute will Real Madrid score their first goal in the Bernaval comeback victory? Old Jotter responded, 80, 89, 90 plus 3, OG, 90 plus 8.

Speaker 30 I mean, that's the thing, Barry.

Speaker 30 Like all the stats you've put out, really, when you say they haven't had a clean sheet in nine, and

Speaker 30 you know, the way Arsenal can counter and the way that Arsenal can set up as well, and they can be defensively excellent. 99% of me believe agrees with you that the tie is done, but you just

Speaker 30 don't know. Like, Real Madrid, just you can just see us in a week desperately going, Come on, Sid, you've got to come on, and him going, They suffered all night, but they found a way.

Speaker 30 Like, they just I can see it happening, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, look, uh, the latest series of Reacher,

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 new mon is this fight between Jack and this bloke who dwarfs him in terms of

Speaker 12 enormous

Speaker 1 Dutch bodybuilder guy.

Speaker 1 The whole series is leading to this showdown between them. And, you know, obviously Reacher wins, but the bloke just will not die.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of what Real Madrid are.

Speaker 1 Part of me hopes they

Speaker 1 sort of go 2-0 up at the burnout.

Speaker 1 I'm a neutral, but I want Arsenal to go through, but I'd love to see an Arsenal Villa semi-final.

Speaker 1 But yeah, in terms of short-term fix, yeah, give me Real Madrid going 2-0 up with about thirty minutes left in this tie at the Bernabau.

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 30 With the knowledge that it's Nikki and Philippe on after that one.

Speaker 28 Just wonder, Nikki, you know, it's such a statement victory for Arteta.

Speaker 30 And I there have been

Speaker 30 and some dissenting voices and they're always dissenting on voices everywhere.

Speaker 30 On the fact that, you know, if he doesn't get Arsenal over the line with a trophy, a major trophy soon, that questions should be asked.

Speaker 28 I mean,

Speaker 30 I think this goes quite a long way to say, come on, you've got a great manager. It's hard to win trophies, right? And

Speaker 30 everyone should just be a bit calmer.

Speaker 31 But

Speaker 30 is it a daft question to say he needed a night like this at some

Speaker 38 I mean, need is a weird word.

Speaker 38 I'm certain the camp of it is a bit daft because people have very short memories and forget how not long ago it was that Arsenal went missing out on Europe altogether and then it was playing in the Europa League.

Speaker 38 It's not like Arsenal have been camped out in the Champions League later stages, is it? This is something extraordinary. It's not like Arsenal had been mounting serious title challenges on any...

Speaker 38 consistent basis before Arteta took over either. So the idea that it should be expected that everything goes our way

Speaker 38 is probably a bit just reflective of the impatience of the social media age of football. Maybe it was always us and we just play that on social media.

Speaker 38 But I think that from the point of view of this season,

Speaker 38 there was this odd feeling after the Everton game where, of course, more drop points and then you see that even if we don't win the next game, you think, well, it could have still meant something if you win that game.

Speaker 38 But there was this odd feeling, and I think there has been for a little while,

Speaker 38 it almost felt indifferent the end of this Premier League League season, which I think is the most frustrating feeling of all.

Speaker 38 It almost feels like no one still believes it's possible, even though they say the right things and go through the motions. And that feels a bit empty and like you should be aspiring to more.

Speaker 38 And perhaps all that aspiration, whether deliberately or not, for the players, has actually been just waiting for this, for the cup, for the Champions League that felt like more of a possible goal than catching up to that Liverpool team.

Speaker 38 I don't know.

Speaker 38 It certainly is energizing as a fan to have that reminder of

Speaker 38 everything, of how it can all be when it all comes together.

Speaker 38 And also, of course, in this game, you get a reminder that, yeah, when Bakayo Saka's there, that attack looks quite different, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 I did think it was a nice little touch at the end because on the night of Rice, you know, the season sort of began with Arsenal fans outraged at this heinously unjust

Speaker 1 second yellow card he got for kicking your ball away at a free kick. And on this, his night, Kamavinga got his second yellow

Speaker 1 for a far more emphatic kick away of the ball

Speaker 1 before a free kick. You know, and this being a foul that many Arsenal fans claim is only ever awarded against them.
So that was the little cherry on top.

Speaker 28 Well done to Arsenal.

Speaker 30 And yeah, Philippe is on tomorrow. So I imagine we will discuss those free kicks again.
And why not? I'd happily discuss them every single pod. And then Nikki and Philippe will

Speaker 30 be there for the quarterfinal second leg, whatever happens. And yeah, I'm with Barry.

Speaker 39 Let's hope it's tight and nerve-wracking.

Speaker 30 But, you know, it would be great if they managed to get through, right? That'll do. Oh.

Speaker 30 And just before we end part one, Kenneth said, not a question, just appreciating the symmetry of the Arsenal men's and women's games against Madrid because it was the same scoreline at the same stadium, similar goal scorers, like someone got a brace and one for another, same nationalities of the scorers, one English and one Spanish.

Speaker 30 Um, and that you know, that is you know, what two amazing well, after that, one and you know, the women beating well, we were like, This, you know, what a brilliant result for them to both do the same thing is superb.

Speaker 30 And also, coefficient news because we're all here mainly for the coefficient.

Speaker 30 England will have five teams in the Champions League, could be six if Villa finish out the top five and win the championship.

Speaker 30 Could be seven, Matt, could be seven if Spurs or Man United finish out the top five, massive lol, and win the Europa League. So, yeah, who knows?

Speaker 14 We will find out.

Speaker 30 And in part two, we'll do Inter's win at Bayern.

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Speaker 2 Coach, the energy out there felt different.

Speaker 3 What changed for the team today?

Speaker 4 It was the new game Day Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Speaker 1 Play is everything.

Speaker 5 Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Speaker 6 Are you saying it it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Speaker 4 Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game. That's all for now.

Speaker 1 Coach, one more question.

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Speaker 30 Welcome to part two of the Guardian Guardian Football Weekly. So Bayer One into two.

Speaker 30 Nick, you were there last night. How was it?

Speaker 37 Yeah,

Speaker 37 thanks to all our listeners for sitting through, listening through all that to get to a match of the night.

Speaker 37 You guys have earned this.

Speaker 37 No, yeah, hello from

Speaker 37 Munich.

Speaker 37 It's a bright morning. I'm sat overlooking an electrical substation.

Speaker 34 The lights might have gone out for Bayern last night, potentially.

Speaker 37 I I I've not been working on that during part one.

Speaker 30 Was that improv? That was improv.

Speaker 1 This is great. That was pure improv.

Speaker 30 I'm just trying to this is just a work in progress gig that I'm doing here in part two.

Speaker 37 Yeah, you got you guys going about Declan Lyce. I'll workshop jokes for um for the main bit.

Speaker 1 No, um I wouldn't open, would you?

Speaker 1 Sadly he has.

Speaker 30 But anyway, crack on, Nick.

Speaker 30 Too late.

Speaker 37 Bayern won into two.

Speaker 37 This was a good game. This was a very good Champions League game between two quite flawed sides.
It was quite fade at points, but end-to-end, plenty of intent, plenty of creativity, a lot of chances.

Speaker 37 And in the end, I think a well-deserved win for Inter. He scored two fantastic goals and have this habit of

Speaker 37 sometimes you don't see them in attack for periods of a game, but then they put together moves of such fluidity and incision and such emphatic, explosive finishing that you think, wow,

Speaker 37 this is a top elite European Champions League team that has got a chance of going all the way. To be fair,

Speaker 37 Bayern came out well. They came out strongly.
They broke the lines quite a few times.

Speaker 37 Michael Elise, who I think we still need to see do something top, top, top in a game of this size, and I'm sure we will one day, but he started quite well, had a a two or three shots actually.

Speaker 37 Jan Sommer, who

Speaker 37 spent a brief spell at Bayern, I think people felt he was too small when he was at Bayern, apparently. I was told that by our friend Archie Rin Tut,

Speaker 37 certainly stood tall today last night and repelled a few.

Speaker 37 And then there was the moment, and it was a moment Harry Kane, I think, knew might be quite significant, judging by his reaction when there was a bit of ragged into defending.

Speaker 37 And at least I thought he was going to cut in and shoot, but to be fair, showed showed good composure to find a totally open cane to his left he's eight or nine yards out a very slight angle but Harry Kane is scoring that all day

Speaker 37 except when he doesn't and

Speaker 37 grazes the outside of the post and you looked at his face and it was a reaction of absolute horror and even then at that early point in the game I felt sorry for him because he's he's I think he's scored 18 Champions League goals since arriving at Bayern.

Speaker 37 I think that's more than anyone else in Europe. And then the big one there, he's missed it and we all know what his history is in pursuit of the big prize.
Could that be another costly one?

Speaker 37 And then an inter from that moment on in the game, I thought inter were really, really good.

Speaker 37 Bayern didn't really have another chance for an hour. Inter had a couple of chances, showed themselves going forward, and then they scored the goal of the night.

Speaker 37 Sorry, deck, but this was the best goal of the night.

Speaker 37 Wonderful back-to-front back-to-front move. Lautaro and Martinez

Speaker 37 involved at quite an early stage of it

Speaker 37 around halfway. They work it down the left.

Speaker 37 Carlos Augusto, who had a very good game up and down the left flank, eventually centers it low. And Marcus Taram

Speaker 37 shows incredible presence to eyes in the face.

Speaker 1 That's so good.

Speaker 30 It's so good.

Speaker 37 It was a gootie-style flicker. I think you said it at the top, like behind him.
He knows that La Taro is steaming in behind him. Wrong foot's an entire backline, just wrong footed all of them.

Speaker 37 And Lotaro is indeed there when he flips it back into this vacant space. And then the outside of the foot finish was just an absolute chef's kiss.

Speaker 37 It was a beautiful, beautiful goal created brilliantly in every element from back to front. And then the finish was...
very Lotaro Martinez, very emphatic, very inventive.

Speaker 37 And yeah, you could watch it over and over again. Yeah.

Speaker 30 I was going to say, Nikki, like, I don't know where that ranks on inter goals in Champions League football, but it was just so good.

Speaker 38 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to say about Inter actually. And this win, there's

Speaker 38 a lot been going on with them. They've actually been getting a bit of a kicking last week in the press after they drew with Parma.
They could have lost to Paramount.

Speaker 38 They were tuned up and they really nearly threw it away. And Inzagi, in particular, getting laid into for substitutions and accused of taking things complacently.
And

Speaker 38 it's been really interesting because about a month ago, I had people saying, oh, Intel could win the championship, though, couldn't they?

Speaker 38 They're still that team that played City in the final couple of years. And I think they, I don't know, they look kind of tired.
They look kind of like they might be losing steam a bit.

Speaker 38 And my opinion is slowly shifting on that because actually, like, listen to Nzagi and he's talking in press conferences. about not even just the treble.
He wants the quadruple.

Speaker 38 He wants to try and win the Club World Cup afterwards as well.

Speaker 38 And it's reminding me a tiny bit of mourinho in 2010 because inter scraped across the line in in sedi air that season even on the last day there was a point when they weren't they weren't on course to win the league but it was because they were splitting their energies and doing things and i i think in zaggy

Speaker 38 a bit like i suppose with arteta and saying well remember where this team's come from inte used to go into european nights

Speaker 38 and struggle with teams that it on paper you'd think should be far beneath them. They went through a long period of really having a a hard time doing anything in Europe.

Speaker 38 And now they go to Munich and they have a performance that, as Nick was saying, wasn't perfect.

Speaker 38 There were parts of the first half where they looked a bit on the back foot, but they just seem to have this presence and calm about them and willingness to engage the game on their own terms.

Speaker 38 And then knowing that you've got...

Speaker 38 players like Turam and Lautado who can resolve it for you. Now, Lautaro, I have to say, he's a,

Speaker 38 this is definitely his coming of season in Europe because the last few seasons actually that's always been the disappointing thing about him and last four Serie A seasons he scored in Serie A 17 goals 21 goals 21 goals 24 goals in Europe it was one one three and two so it's really been this big gulf between his ability in in in Serie and what he's been doing in Europe this season he scored um I think seven times already in the Champions League and listening to him talk afterwards and saying about, yeah, you know, I was, when that ball came to me, my first thought was I wanted to take it on my left foot, but when I saw the balls coming, I thought the angle is better to down my right and the way he hits it.

Speaker 38 There's something about the confidence of the key players in this team on this stage that I think has shifted a little bit. And

Speaker 38 they're by no means the favourite in my eyes.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 38 I think this was one of those wins where you think, but they really could. They could, though.

Speaker 38 They're not the favourites, but they've got enough things about them to make you think that they're not incapable of it.

Speaker 30 And Barry, there is something about

Speaker 30 striking the ball with the outside of your foot, which makes the Roberto Carlos free kick feel better than the Declan Rice one,

Speaker 30 even if recency bias makes us, you know, think whatever happened yesterday was better.

Speaker 30 About that, that makes that Lautaro finish. I don't know if it is the goal of the night.
It's so hard to say, but

Speaker 30 it was just such a joy to see it go in the back of the net.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I don't think we have to rank them.

Speaker 1 They were all very good goals. Yeah, you're right.
Well, I mean, he chose

Speaker 1 the far more difficult option because I would imagine

Speaker 1 everyone involved, Jonas Urbig, the Bayern Munich goalkeeper who was in for Emmanuel Noor, who's injured, and the defenders were all expecting him to go for the far corner.

Speaker 1 And it was the easier option to go for that corner, but he elected not to. And it's clearly the sign of a player who's full of confidence.
No, I'll take this on.

Speaker 1 I'll roof it with the outside of my right foot. A wonderful, wonderful finish.

Speaker 1 I'd be interested to know, Nick, do you think Vince and company deserves criticism for not sort of locking the game down

Speaker 1 after Muller had scored the equaliser? And instead, he kind of insisted on sending men forward in search of a winner, and it ultimately cost them because they got caught on the break late doors.

Speaker 37 You must have been listening to the post-match presser because I asked him exactly that question, basically. Oh, really?

Speaker 37 Was it one of those where you've got the draw,

Speaker 37 and if you can't win it, don't lose it situation? Because obviously they got done, I think, kind of from their own free kick.

Speaker 37 He preferred not to go there. He was more interested in pointing out, you know, that everything Inter did in the move subsequent was so clean.

Speaker 37 The impression was they couldn't have defended it. I think the back line was in quite a ragged shape when Inter came forward.

Speaker 37 Dyer was about, Eric Dyer was about four yards behind the rest of them I think especially. But yeah you want you wonder whether given they were so

Speaker 37 so stricken by injuries and absentees and had found themselves a way back into the tie I'm pretty sure that if they'd have wanted to wanted to dial it back a bit and take the draw I think that would have been fine for both teams.

Speaker 37 I don't even think Inter would have minded going out of there with a draw on on the balance of things. And they got punished.

Speaker 37 i think it was a fair question to ask him but he didn't seem to agree i love eric dyer but i've seen him just be so close to people scoring goals

Speaker 30 so many times it feels harsh you know i don't know if he's at fault but he's just really near someone who's just like a less conspicuous vouch fat yeah maybe

Speaker 30 yeah anyway i mean buying had a lot of players out didn't they and important players masiala pavlovich davis Upamakano, etc., etc. So

Speaker 30 I wonder, Nikki, if they were, you know, when you score that late on, you sort of think, okay, well, it's ours.

Speaker 34 We're either going to win or it's going to be a draw.

Speaker 27 You just don't.

Speaker 28 And so they've committed so many people forward when Fratesi scores.

Speaker 38 Yeah, and I do want to

Speaker 38 pick out the Fratesi story as well, because this has been big news in Italy. His

Speaker 38 grandmother passed away on Friday, and it was one of those relationships where he's very close to her.

Speaker 38 talked really sort of wait he'd already posted some things on social media about it before this game and he talked about it afterwards just saying you know this was he likes to think he's someone who's quite strong mentally but this is like the one thing that's just completely flawed him and he'd been really struggling seeing her in her in her last uh few days so for him to get that goal felt like another of those little um

Speaker 38 personal moments that that get lived out in front of everybody that um was was very powerful i thought um and to talk about him as in the greater context of footballer he's he's really the sort of player who Inter

Speaker 38 are probably going to want to be building their next step on. Marotta was talking before this game about their plans for rejuvenating the squad a bit, bringing the wages down.

Speaker 38 That's going to be part of their project.

Speaker 38 It's kind of always part of their project in Inter because they're in this cycle where they're trying to be competitive on all fronts, but they can't live in the old days like they did under Marati of throwing money around.

Speaker 38 And

Speaker 38 there is a core of that team that's aging.

Speaker 38 Mikatarian, who I thought was brilliant in this game, by the way, and has been quietly reinvented into something absolutely wonderful under Simon Nzagi.

Speaker 38 I think he's one of the underappreciated parts of that team, possibly.

Speaker 38 I can't think how old he is now. He's well into his 30s.
I can't think exactly how old he is.

Speaker 38 And Fratersi is this Italian talent who really should have been playing more football at this point in his career and has become really just an impact sub for them. I think

Speaker 38 very much ready for and deserving of his run of being a regular starter because he's got that directness, that ability to break the lines, that capacity to thrive in situations exactly like this, when an opponent overcommits a little bit, looking for that winning goal, that killer blow,

Speaker 38 and can get

Speaker 38 on the counter. I suppose it's one of those goals that, if it was still away goals, would be even more meaningful.

Speaker 38 It doesn't deliver quite the knockout punch it might have done if it was away goals, but it's clearly significant taking a lead back to Tathanzira.

Speaker 37 I think

Speaker 37 as well, something that emphasises Inter's achievement is that the script, such as it was, was written for Bayern despite their injuries. Like, they're going for a home final to start with.

Speaker 37 I always think that second to Real Madrid, they're one of those clubs that tends to puff their chest out and sort of see things through vibes-wise and aura-wise as well.

Speaker 37 You know, they are Bayern Munich, they're very proud of it. Obviously, won many European Cups, but also

Speaker 37 the Thomas Mother story.

Speaker 37 He came on when Bayern really weren't doing much

Speaker 37 with defending very well. Most of the plague was in front of him.

Speaker 37 There was no Messiala to

Speaker 37 go beyond Kane, and it was causing Bayern issues.

Speaker 37 Muller comes on, they announced on Saturday, I think it was, that he's going to leave after 25 years

Speaker 37 at Bayern, man and boy. He's a real all-Bavarian icon, isn't he? You can't really envisage Bayern without him.

Speaker 37 He doesn't want to leave, that's very clear, but he's not getting an extra year. Comes on,

Speaker 37 and then nine minutes later,

Speaker 37 classic Thomas Muller finds a bit of space that hadn't really existed before in that half, anyway, and snaffles it up from a couple of yards. And you think, then, okay, this is the story.

Speaker 37 And definitely, when you're writing a live match report, you're thinking, good,

Speaker 37 this is the story.

Speaker 37 I can do a nice, dreamy little opening par here, sign off, go downstairs, have a coffee, think about what I'm doing for my rewrite.

Speaker 37 And then, to be fair,

Speaker 37 to rip that up and have the presence of mind at a time when you are coming under pressure. I think Kane had another shot after the goal that was saved.

Speaker 37 There was a few things going in and around the penalty area. To have that coolness and presence of mind to be able to construct the kind of move

Speaker 37 that they did for the winner and not just sit on the ball and wait for everyone to sit in and get back and see the game out.

Speaker 37 I think that says a lot for the way that Nzagi encourages them to go at teams.

Speaker 37 It was a good achievement from them last night and you've got it back then now.

Speaker 38 Do we surely not, sorry,

Speaker 38 we can't completely ignore the fact that Philip Lah might have written a column for The Guardian on Tuesday with the headline, Italian teams cannot cope with modern football's intents.

Speaker 38 Do they need a reboot?

Speaker 30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, we have it all here, you know, on the pitch.
There's a lack of initiative, commitment, athleticism.

Speaker 30 Italy spends a lot less than the four other top leagues in Spain, England, France, and Germany. The players run less.

Speaker 30 I read a statistic a few years ago that said the Bundesliga team with the lowest values ran more than the team with the highest values in Serie A. Italy has not updated its operating system.

Speaker 28 It works too slowly.

Speaker 30 The good news is you can still win with defensive football, but slowing down is not the answer.

Speaker 30 You need to add something. Power when winning the ball, activity and possession, an unrelenting desire to conquer and attack.
The Simeone style. The whole of Italy should be playing like Adletti.

Speaker 30 Should he have waited until after the game? Nikki is the question.

Speaker 38 I think the whole of Italy should be playing like Inter. I don't think they need to play like Simeone, but Inter are a class apart.
And

Speaker 38 on this point, I mean, the thing is,

Speaker 38 it's not without a grain of truth, the things he writes. And I think

Speaker 38 the thing that, from my perspective, right after every other Italian team went out of the Champions League in the, what was it, the playoff round, it was officially called, wasn't it?

Speaker 38 I was asked to write a book, a column about Italian football in crisis, and because of various things, I didn't write it because I was already had other things on, but I also kind of wanted to go, yeah,

Speaker 38 all these stories are individual club stories. It's never about like one unified picture and everything is the same.
And Inter are absolutely a top European football team.

Speaker 38 Whether that means that all of Italy hasn't got its problems is a different conversation, but Inter absolutely deserve to be treated like what they are which is one of the best teams in Europe.

Speaker 30 On Baz punditry watch is Declan Rice having a good day but Harry Kane having a bad day basically a carbon neutral punditry day for Baz. Anyway that'll do for part two.

Speaker 30 Part three will begin with another defeat for Leicester City in the Premier League.

Speaker 10 HiPod fans of America, Max here. Barry's here too.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 11 Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Speaker 13 Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before before about the remarkable paper pro.

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Speaker 19 a proper football journalist exactly too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out this paper tablet doesn't it'll never beat or buzz to try and grab your attention so you can devote your focus to what or who is in front of you it has a display that looks feels and even sounds like paper think and work like a writer not a texter and the battery performance is amazing no worries about running out of power before the end of extra time the remarkable paper Pro Move can keep going for up to two weeks.

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Speaker 2 Coach, the energy out there felt different.

Speaker 3 What changed for the team today?

Speaker 4 It was the new game day, Scratchers, from the California Lottery.

Speaker 1 Play is everything.

Speaker 5 Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Speaker 6 Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Speaker 4 Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game. That's all for now.

Speaker 7 Coach, one more question: play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Speaker 8 A little play can make your day.

Speaker 9 Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Speaker 30 Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So, Leicester Nil, Newcastle 3, 8 straight defeats without scoring a goal, over 12 hours of football without scoring.

Speaker 30 Their next two games are away at Brighton and home to Liverpool.

Speaker 30 Also, eight home defeats without scoring, stretching back to a 2-2 draw with Brighton on the 8th of December, which beats Watford's previous record of seven, set between December 1971 and March 1972.

Speaker 30 Barry, you mentioned on Monday's pod that Southampton, despite being on 10 points and already relegated, don't feel like the worst team in the league.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think this confirmed my view. It was an absolutely dismal performance by Leicester.

Speaker 1 I think Newcastle, obviously they're still very much in the hunt for a Champions League place, but they could be forgiven for sort of checking out after that huge high of winning the Carabao Cup.

Speaker 37 But

Speaker 1 instead, it's Leicester Leicester who've checked out, and they've checked out months ago. They're an appalling football team.
And the problem is that the club are massive.

Speaker 1 They have a chief executive who never makes a public utterance. Their owner communicates through the medium of programme notes.

Speaker 12 Mime, mime?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Through the medium of pro

Speaker 1 mime would probably be as useful. But he communicates through the medium of programme notes in which he just tells fans it's important to get behind the lads and blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 This game they conceded after 115 seconds. The game was gone after 34 minutes when there were three kneeled down.

Speaker 1 The pick of the Newcastle goals was the second where Fabian Scherr spotted Mad Termundson off his line, tried his luck from just inside his own half and hit the crossbar.

Speaker 1 Jacob Murphy was the first to react and he scored with the on the follow-up and

Speaker 1 appointing Rude Van Isleroy was clearly an error but it's difficult to see how anyone could have whipped this rabble into shape and if you look

Speaker 1 like Oliver Skip and Harry Winks can't get in this team Harry Winks has been sort of banished from the first team squad because he refuses to spend one night a week in the training ground he's commuting from Hertfordshire I believe or Hertfordshire however you pronounce it and

Speaker 1 I think his wife has just given birth to a daughter. So, you know, he might have his own reasons for that.

Speaker 1 I think, knowing you as I do, Max, you'd be delighted for the opportunity to spend a night in the Leicester training ground.

Speaker 30 Do I say it out loud? But you've read my mind.

Speaker 1 Yeah, one night a week.

Speaker 30 Do you know what? Even now, if I could spend one night a week in Leicester, I would. And that is some fucking commute.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so they've now gone 12 hours without scoring.

Speaker 1 I read somewhere yesterday they're the only club in Premier League history to have paid out more in wages than they bring in in revenue.

Speaker 1 So it clearly didn't really cross their mind that they might be

Speaker 1 among the worst three teams in the league. And

Speaker 1 they are an absolute mess. But the performance on Monday was diabolical.
The only

Speaker 1 bright spot was they brought on a 15-year-old Jeremy Munga for his debut.

Speaker 1 Couldn't wear a shirt sponsor because Leicester is sponsored by a betting company and he's only 15.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, one for the future maybe, but that's it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 a lot of there were a lot of empty seats at the King Power. The fans have just given up on them, or a lot of them have anyway.

Speaker 30 Jack Rafferty tweeting, when Jeremy Munger was born, the number one single in the UK was Evacuate the Dance Floor by Cascada.

Speaker 30 Harry Potter and the half-blood prince was top of the cinema box office and Michael Jackson had just died. We all feel nice and old now.

Speaker 30 Carl Anker said, Bulletproof by LaRue was at the top of the UK charts.

Speaker 35 I Got a Feeling by Black Eyed Peace hadn't reached these shores yet.

Speaker 30 Producer Joel said, I got a feeling was top of the charts. Whose charts are we following? We keep doling this out with young players, and we might have got them all wrong.

Speaker 30 Anyway, Nick, you wanted to come in?

Speaker 37 Leicester were obviously top of the charts in the championship last year.

Speaker 37 But

Speaker 37 I did feel that their promotion promotion was all a bit surly and morose, really.

Speaker 37 Enzo Mareska was in charge, and they were getting through games, but wasn't really very popular.

Speaker 37 But I remember a run they had towards the end of a season where they weren't winning a few, and the atmosphere was turning quite a bit in there, even though they were comfortably top two most of the season.

Speaker 37 They didn't exactly go up on the crest of a wave, and I think that's largely because of the precipitous fall they had from obviously very, very great things in previous years. And I think,

Speaker 37 obviously, then there was a lot of change, the ill-advised ultimately appointment of Steve Cooper. And it just felt at the start of the season like they didn't really have much of a chance.

Speaker 37 It just felt it was a rare example of a club coming up.

Speaker 37 in a bad place with no real momentum, just kind of getting up through almost simply because they had better players than most of the others in the championship last season, rather than through having any kind of goodwill or momentum behind them.

Speaker 37 And yeah, they might have issues now. You know, the finances, as we know, have been problematic.
Who's going to coach for team?

Speaker 37 It's going to need a massive reset if they're going to challenge strongly next season.

Speaker 30 Ipswich have, you know, looked better.

Speaker 30 I mean, they're not, what are they, three points above Leicester, but it sort of feels like they've given it a good push.

Speaker 27 Harry says, question for Nick.

Speaker 30 Do you think McKenna will still be there next season with your Ipswich hat on?

Speaker 37 I was hoping we weren't going to go there.

Speaker 37 Do you know what? I had thought that this season would be the last we'd see of McKenna at Ipswich one way or the other.

Speaker 37 I'm increasingly of a mind that he will stay, which would be a good thing for them.

Speaker 1 I don't really see

Speaker 37 a vacancy.

Speaker 37 I think one consequence of the Premier League's middle ranking teams, especially all all looking so solid and so strong and so and so upwardly mobile even if in practice they're not in the table is that there's no managers particularly in trouble.

Speaker 37 I think we can expect Angel Prostacoli to leave Spurs and I'd have pegged McKenna for that maybe if he kept hip switch up but I don't think Spurs are going to appoint a manager who who has got relegated.

Speaker 37 Maybe you could see Ireola take that job for example but again would Bournemouth take that punt? I don't see enough vacancies in the Premier League that someone takes McKenna.

Speaker 37 I think probably he stays on and gives it another year and I think Ipswich will need that because I agree.

Speaker 37 I think they've given quite a good account of themselves over most games but they have fallen short. I think they're going down and I don't think anyone's going to argue with that or

Speaker 37 be too devastated actually given where they've come from. Personally I'm not crying about it.
I think they'll come back stronger. But there is quite a rebuild to do.

Speaker 37 Liam DeLatt is among those who will be on his way. And I think losing McKenna at this point too would complicate things.

Speaker 37 But yeah, short answer, I'm more confident than I was that he'd be there next season.

Speaker 30 I like the idea that someone could argue with them going down when they are finishing the bottom three, which is quite a tough one.

Speaker 34 Look, big night in the championship.

Speaker 30 Great night for Leeds because they won one then at Middlesbrough. Not an easy game.
While Burnley were held at Derby, and Chevy United lost at home to Millwall.

Speaker 30 That's two defeats in a row for Chris Wilder's men. So that has Leeds on 85 points.

Speaker 30 Top on goal difference about Burnley have 85. Chevy United have 83.
Five games to go.

Speaker 39 Pretty tight.

Speaker 28 Not tight at the top of the league one.

Speaker 30 Birmingham are promoted. They won 2-1 at the same time.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Max, you missed out on the most important news from the championship, which is that Sunderland have confirmed their place in the play-offs.

Speaker 30 Please accept my apologies.

Speaker 1 I thought you'd lead with that before the Arsenal game, if I'm honest.

Speaker 30 It's exciting. I'm excited.
I'm excited for you for the playoffs. Birmingham have

Speaker 14 got promoted.

Speaker 30 They won 2-1 at Peterborough. They'll be champions any minute now.
Big games in the playoff races. Wickham won 1-0 at Huddersfield, so they're still in with a chance of automatic.

Speaker 35 It's a blow for Huddersfield.

Speaker 31 Bolton lost 1-0 at home to Rotherham.

Speaker 30 So they dropped to seventh. Reading won 3-1 at Shrewsbury.

Speaker 30 so lots of problems off the pitch but reading still in a playoff position on it uh they leapfrogged bolton by the way shrewsbury basically down um uh nick you were in belgrade for the annual uefa congress i you have my sympathies What's the top line coming out of that?

Speaker 37 It was interesting. I think a lot that you could take from it was the contrast between Janny Infantino and Alexander Chaffun, both of whom were there.

Speaker 37 Obviously, Chaffun, the UEFA president,

Speaker 37 obviously gets up and gives his state of a nation speech and that kind of thing, but he was upstaged a bit by Janny, who looked like a man reborn.

Speaker 37 He obviously hasn't checked the economic situation in his beloved United States. He gave some quite boosterish announcements,

Speaker 37 a very good one for us about the Women's World Cup in 2035, almost certainly taking place

Speaker 37 in the UK and Northern Ireland,

Speaker 37 and gave some, you know, spoke about a 48-team Women's World Cup as well.

Speaker 37 And it felt that Mfantino was a man energised by the Club World Cup

Speaker 37 funding going through and

Speaker 37 just by

Speaker 37 the fact that he's got a World Cup next year and that he's got these close ties to the Trump administration that is kind of overseeing it all.

Speaker 37 And by contrast, UEFA, it was all fairly procedural, a bit flat.

Speaker 37 Last year, there'd been quite a lot of dynamite in Paris because Alexander Cheffrin had just succeeded in getting the statutes changed so that in theory he could run for another term and then had told everyone that he wasn't going to straight after,

Speaker 37 causing a lot of ruption and conspiratorial chat between people within UEFA. You wonder whether there might be a power struggle or civil war.
And that's all calmed since then.

Speaker 37 A lot of people seem, I don't want to say they've been whipped into lying, but they seem to be in line. And I think we can expect Cheffrin probably to run again, in fact, for another term

Speaker 37 in a couple of years' time.

Speaker 37 And that was probably about it in terms of newslines, really.

Speaker 37 That's enough for me.

Speaker 1 That's enough for me.

Speaker 37 Yeah, it was enough for me by the end.

Speaker 37 UEFA seemed pretty happy with the Champions League format. I would say that.
There was quite a lot of

Speaker 37 graphs flashed up on the screen showing how successful it's been this season. I think I I was wondering whether it would survive beyond 2027 when this cycle ends.
I now think it will.

Speaker 37 They seem really pleased.

Speaker 37 Personally, I'd be quite interested in seeing it divided into the league phase divided into two times eighteen teams rather than one times thirty-six.

Speaker 37 And I know that got discussed before, but I think it may well stay the same. And whether we like it or not, we'll get another three years of it.

Speaker 31 All right.

Speaker 30 I don't haven't disliked it so far, to be fair. Spice says, which would be the more satisfying watch?

Speaker 30 Declan Rice scoring an absolute top bins fizzer world either free kick against Real Madrid or Jonathan Wilson's face after discovering Baz has just beaten his personal best for a half marathon.

Speaker 30 John, given Declan Rice went from never having scored a free kick to scoring two in a game, should Barry in fact be targeting two consecutive half marathons?

Speaker 30 I see on Blue Sky you announced you went for your first run, Barry. How was it?

Speaker 1 I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would.

Speaker 1 I think it was like watching Newcastle win the Carabao Cup final. It was unpleasant but tolerable.

Speaker 1 So yeah,

Speaker 1 I thought I'd grab the bull by the horns. So I signed up or I downloaded a running app and I was looking for a schedule to go from, you know, sofa slash barstool to half marathon in a year.

Speaker 1 And so they've automatically said, no, you need to target a park run first, you know,

Speaker 1 build a basic level of fitness. So

Speaker 1 I'm going to follow their instructions to the letter. So yesterday I went for one of my big long walks, and during the walk, as an homage to your country of residence, Max, I

Speaker 1 did

Speaker 1 seven rans, seven or just jog seven lengths of the Aussie Rules Oval on Clapham Common.

Speaker 12 So not small.

Speaker 1 Jog, walk, jog, walk by seven, which I think is one more than was specified. And yeah, it was all right.
I think this will be doable.

Speaker 1 The one thing was, on one of the jogs,

Speaker 1 two, I guess, professional dog walkers hoved into view with, I counted 11 dogs between them,

Speaker 1 six or seven of which were not on a lead. And I was just thinking to myself, please, please, please don't get bitten by a dog on your first run.

Speaker 1 So I had to sort of veer off course a little just to make sure I didn't antagonize any of the pooches.

Speaker 1 So I, I, yeah, it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be, and I got a little bit of a buzz out of it, I have to say.

Speaker 30 Oh, good. Well, lots of reaction, lots of people very excited.

Speaker 1 Yeah, look, I'm not going to become one of these evangelical running boars, by the way, so I will not be taking further questions on this one.

Speaker 12 I see, I see.

Speaker 30 Well, they may come in on email form, but

Speaker 30 understood. We'll just see you at the start line.

Speaker 30 Brad says on his recent vasectomy, I finally had mine done and somewhat sheepishly asked if I could use earbuds during it.

Speaker 30 As the doc rummaged around, I was able to listen about the joy of Bacayo Saka's smile while I certainly felt far from gleeful. The comfort I got from friendly voices was immense.

Speaker 30 Thanks for the support, though I suspect you didn't set out in this career so a bunch of men would associate you with testicle pain.

Speaker 30 And Matthew says, dear Max Barry and the team, we welcomed our first child, Rosa, to the world in the early hours of Saturday morning, and it's been a wonderful, if sleepless, experience.

Speaker 30 Although my life will be forever changed, the Football Weekly has been my grounding force at this time, as has my team Spurs incredible mediocrity.

Speaker 30 My wife's family are Saints fan, and it was deeply amusing to have my mother-in-law visit the maternity ward and swearing at her phone when Brennan Johnson scored to send her beloved team down.

Speaker 30 Best wishes, Matthew. Well, our love to Rosa and you and Mrs.
Matthew as well. Congratulations.

Speaker 30 May you have a wonderful time raising a small child.

Speaker 1 They'll make up a bed for you at the Leicester training ground.

Speaker 1 One night a week off.

Speaker 30 God, they can make Ruben Eston could make an absolute fortune, honestly.

Speaker 1 Uh, anyway, that'll do for today.

Speaker 30 Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Nikki.

Speaker 1 Thanks.

Speaker 30 Congrats for being on after an arsenal of victory.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Nick.

Speaker 40 Thank you, Max. Cheers, Baz.
Thanks, Mick.

Speaker 30 Okay, you're right, Nikki.

Speaker 40 Don't get too excited until after the second.

Speaker 21 We'll do this again in a week.

Speaker 13 Football Weekly is produced by Del Grove.

Speaker 30 Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

Speaker 1 This is The Guardian.