Thomas Tuchel’s England era begins – Football Weekly Extra podcast

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

The Thomas Tuchel England era begins.

His first message has been to tell the lads to communicate more in tough periods.

Lads, we're quiet.

I need to hear hear talking.

Does this single-handedly explained Jordan Henderson?

We'll look ahead to Albania, Latvia, worry about nil-mil at halftime, shout about hand breaks and ever-decreasing honeymoon periods.

And we'll try and work out how Tuka will plan to win the World Cup in a year and a half's time.

There's Nation League's playoffs for Scotland and the Republic.

We'll remind you what that means.

And the Nation League quarterfinals, games which look great if it was the Euros.

Also today, we'll discuss football and climate change and a new initiative called Green Football's Great Save.

Also, there's a minute's silence for players who are still alive.

And it's Victor and Ichibi taking over Gateshead.

We'll do all that, plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Lars Sivitson.

Hello.

Hello, Max.

Hello, Jonathan Wilson.

Morning, and a very happy St.

Cuthbert's Day to everybody.

Good old Cuthbert.

And welcome, Jordan Jarrett Bryan.

It's been a while.

It has been a while.

You forgot about me, but I still love you.

I've missed you.

Good morning.

Okay.

That felt passive aggressive.

Not even passive.

I can play two games.

not even passive, just straight aggressive.

It's why we love you, Jordan.

So England and Albania on Friday night, Latvia on Monday, their World Cup qualifying group.

It's those two plus Andorra and Serbia.

So Serbia, the side that could pose the biggest problems for England, but they are clear favourites to progress easily.

Wilson, sort of win all the games, how does Thomas Tuchel approach the qualifying games?

the World Cup, his 18 months?

I'm uncomfortable even about that win all the games.

No, his job is is just to qualify.

It doesn't matter how England qualify.

People will get very excited about it.

It doesn't matter.

The important thing is to get there and to create some kind of,

by the time they're approaching the World Cup in 15 months' time, to have

a sense of identity, a sense of togetherness.

England have won qualifiers by huge margins before.

Doesn't really matter.

I don't think it's the easiest group.

I think Serbia are tricky.

I think Albania could be tricky.

We saw the Euros there,

a decent side.

You took the lead against Italy.

But yeah, I think for Tuchel, Tuchel's problem, I think this is true of a lot of sort of international managers of the sort of top-tier nations, they almost have too many choices.

So you'd never have a club manager having to pick between

Bellingham, Foden, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Saka,

Jared Bowen.

I've clearly forgotten loads of people here.

Grealish, Rashford.

Exactly.

So, and and yeah,

the problem is that people always think in terms of ideals.

So some players, some very good players, maybe good players who are in good form, will be left out.

And as soon as England don't win a game 10-0,

everybody's going, oh, yeah, why is he not picking Sanso?

And we've really got to get out of that.

Consistency of selection within reason and creating a club-type dynamic,

as near to that as you can manage at national level, is what wins your tournaments.

And that, I think, is why Jordan Henderson's come back in.

So, are you pro, Wilson?

Are you pro?

I mean, you like the guy, obviously.

No, not I mean, like the player, just because of his Sunderland links.

I mean, that obviously gives him an edge up, but I don't like the

fact he went to Saudi Arabia.

I don't think he's playing particularly well at the moment.

No, of course.

I think his interactions with the Dutch media are increasingly hilarious, largely because the clash of accents is just amazing.

But

I don't, I'd be amazed if he were in the squad for the World Cup on merit as a player, but there's no reason not to take him as a 27th man because he's really good at clapping his hands and shouting, come on.

I think one of the things that went wrong at the Euros was England lost a little bit of discipline and togetherness.

And this is sort of the opposite of what seems to be the prevailing view on Southgate.

But I think he wasn't loyal enough.

I think he

culled too many of the old guard, brought in too many new figures, didn't really know how to use them.

England's still scrabbling about.

Oh, is it a back four?

Is it a back three?

Can we play Alexander Arnold in midfield you know all of those things have been done on the hoof it needed to be a slower progression and I think Henderson is somebody who can keep other egos in check he can keep focus keep discipline make sure the training is intense jolly everybody along make sure everybody's wearing the right polo shirt at the right time yeah he's not there on you know for footballing reasons I think he's there for leadership reasons and togetherness reasons as I say I'd be amazed if he's one of the 26 for the World Cup, but I don't see why you can't take him as a 27th.

So the other thing about Henderson is that you kind of touch on an issue.

That's what Jonathan said about having too many things to pick from, it's true for England in certain positions, but in some positions it remains untrue.

And I think if Jon Henderson had this exact leadership qualities but was a winger, he might not be in the squad because there's a ton of guys you want to look at in that position.

But what he is, is a slightly defensive midfielder.

And there you don't have a lot of guys.

If you do something like I did something very basic here, which I went to TransferMarkt, the wonderful website, and just sorted defensive midfielders with English citizenship according to their sort of market value at the moment.

And there is Adam Morton, who's the obvious one, who you're kind of hoping will mature in time and be ready in time for the World Cup.

But then there's like James Garner, Flynn Downs, Calvin Phillips, Oliver Skip, Perry Winks, like the sort of list of good defensive midfielders

with an English passport or a British passport and eligible for England.

That list is not very long.

And I think that leaves the doors a tiny bit ajar for Henderson, because if he could perform in a sporting sense, not just as a cheerleader, that would be very useful, at least during the qualifying phase.

You're hoping someone will have emerged by the time we get to the tournament.

But there is an issue there in that part of the team.

Feels it's always been thus.

I mean, ever since the troublesome left side, Jordan, it's now just a holding midfielder who can take the ball in tight space.

You know, we're dreaming for that.

And we sort of thought Angel Gomez might be that guy.

Kobby Maynou was sort of dressed up as that guy, but isn't that kind of player.

And I'm not sure if Wharton is either, but it is interesting that that is, it feels like we'll have another year and a half of wishing for that.

No, no doubt.

I think having that kind of key central player is an issue that England have had for decades now, someone that can really control the game, dominate the game.

We've seen our European counterparts over the years have had that sort of player.

I don't know if we produce that type of player, unfortunately, as well.

But just kind of going back to

Wilson's point earlier on, which I definitely echo, I'm just so bored of the constant crying and moaning every time an England manager picks an England squad.

If Gary next door gets the squad that he wants, Jenny next door to him is going to be pissed.

And then if she gets the squad that she wants,

someone's always going to be pissed off.

Are there selections in this squad that I'm not particularly in agreement with?

Yes.

But my view is that although I don't rate Thomas Tuchel as highly as many other people do, the guy's one stuff.

That's facts, right?

So you've brought in a guy that has one stuff.

Just trust trust him.

And going for this constant crying and moaning and phonings and podcasts of fans just, oh, it's an outrage.

It's a disgrace.

It's out of order.

I'm just so over it.

Just let the guy work and then judge him

when he wins or doesn't win the World Cup.

He's from a nation that has a history of winning World Cups.

Just trust the guy.

Are you saying no, no podcasts about England until after the World Cup?

Is that?

Well,

we can comment, we can analyse, we can discuss and whatever it may, but just the spitting of bile I hear from some fans that this guy's not in, but that guy is in.

It's just like,

I'm in agreement with the guys regarding Henderson.

Henderson brings a lot of things that I think a national team needs.

Is he the most technically gifted player in the world?

No.

Is he going to be up to scratch, up to speed in terms of fitness?

Probably not.

But again, Thomas Tuchel clearly values standard setters.

He clearly values those sort of people in and around the squad that I think can, what you might lose in, I love Jacob Ramsey.

I think he's a great player.

But what you might lose in talent, you might gain in other areas that might get you over the line.

No, I totally agree with that.

And I think you, you build international football is such a funny thing.

Wilson touched on it.

You can't just pick the

group of players who are performing the best for their clubs at any one given time because you'll have a different squad every time and they'll play like people have never met before.

So you have to kind of select a core group and try to balance it out.

I guess to finish my own point from several minutes ago, I suppose the answer to this midfield six thing is that you just tell Declan Rice to hang back.

I guess that what that's what we'll end up doing, which is kind of sad because he's good at other things as well.

I'd also say he's quite he's quite bad at hanging back.

Yes, it's not, he's not, he's not as good at that as what is ideal.

But but what do you do?

Like, there's no, there's no guy for that role.

I'm not sure that's true.

I think you could bring Walton through, you could try that.

I think could Curtis Jones play deeper?

Uh, is the Angel Gomez experiment over completely?

I mean,

did he play badly for England?

But is that

finished?

Uh, there's somebody else, isn't it?

God, who's the other one I'm thinking of?

Um, Maynu or not?

No,

oh fuck, it doesn't matter.

Finally, finally, Wilson gives up.

This is the last, and we, and we never heard from him again.

And then

doesn't matter, but but it is fascinating how I know it's an age-all talking point that we've done so many times before, but how English football can produce like far too many players for some positions.

Like, there are some positions where the genuine LR, like four or five guys you'd be happy to see starting.

And then there's this one absolutely crucial spot in the team where this just

even Wilson can't think of the person he's trying to.

It's difficult, right?

This is not easy.

Hence, you know, Hendo.

There he is.

Oh, so you could play, you could play, you could play John Stones in midfield if he was fit.

That was the other one who got there in the end.

There was an interesting, I mean, one of the press conferences, I think it was Gibbs White or maybe Dan, but I can't remember, was talking about Tuchel had been talking about what he wanted from the squad.

And a study was done on how often each player gestured or spoke to a teammate against Spain in the final.

And England went one down in the 47th minute.

England's interactions, either the number of times they communicated with one another, were far too low for Tuchel's liking during the second half, falling from 60 before the interval to 35.

Which I was trying to work out if I was interested in this, Jordan, or not, but I was kind of surprised that it halved in, because like you've got to talk to each other I mean like a lot of it is just man on or you know away but like you you have to talk to each other on a football pitch at any level and for it to half is actually and that sort of goes back to what Wilson was talking about yeah and I guess the kind of the percentages and the differentials could make the difference ultimately at that level I think for me it's looking at the teams that do win tournaments do they have a high number of people that communicate because I think that would be the model you want to look towards the Spains the Brazils, the Germanys, do they have,

you know, do they talk a lot on the pitch?

I don't know.

So I think that only really matters if

you can model it next to people that actually convert that to winning.

Do you know what I mean?

If the Germans win at World Cup and they're slow, then I don't know how important that particular statistic is.

You need 11.

You need 11 leaders on the pitch.

I totally silent.

Charlie Chaplin, 11 winning the World Cup.

But equally, I don't think Peter Eusnoff 11 is going to win the World Cup, is it?

It's one for the kids, Wilson.

But you're right.

Let me tell you, let me take you back.

But I definitely think there's an opportunity here if you are like Morgan Rogers or Curtis Jones, one of these guys who's very good, but a little bit on the outskirts of the squad, to just come in, if they get any minutes in this window, to just constantly gesticulate wildly and shout at everyone and just

so many, like do hand signals at all times.

I'm communicating, boss.

I'm communicating so much.

Have a Blackberry in your sock.

Yeah, exactly.

Wilson,

how does remind everybody how Tuchel plays?

Is he a wingbacks guy?

What is he?

Or is he a pragmatist?

What are we going to see?

I'd say he's fairly pragmatic.

I mean,

I would think this squad naturally fits to sort of 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 shape.

I think Tuchel has played a back three as well.

I think he's...

I may be wrong about that.

I think he's fairly flexible on on that, but I think of him as a

back four bloke.

But

yeah, I don't think he's sort of fixed on playing one specific way.

You know, he's always pressed.

He comes from that German pressing school, but I don't think he's sort of a

fundamentalist in that regard.

So

I think his profile should be quite good for international football.

I think he is able to change.

He referred to this in his interviews yesterday, the day before, whenever it was,

about the importance of taking the sort of the great strength of the Premier League, which is its intensity, its pace, and trying to use that at national level.

Now, clearly, in the heat of the US

in June, July next year, that's not going to be easy, but still, other countries will struggle with that as well.

And if England can have 5%, 10% more intensity, that is an advantage that they shouldn't eschew.

And I think that's a not necessarily recently, but I think historically that's a problem or trapping them to fallen into, oh, to play international football, you have to play this sort of slow patient possession football but so yeah it might help but like our players can't do that it's not what they're used to quite apart from that they're having to play with people they don't necessarily know very well you're asking them to do something that's totally alien to them so it's about finding that balance between um you know not running out of steam after an hour playing in new york in 38 degrees and 90 humidity uh but equally not sort of being very passive and not using a weapon that England should have.

Really, just auto-entertainment, but the biggest complaint that i heard covering the euros last year for england fans after not winning the world cup not winning the euros sorry was they were bored so i'm really interested to see if you know what kind of football he played in terms of entertaining the the public if he wins 2-0 on the weekend but it's a drab 2-0 well do the fans respond this is ball ring this is rubbish this is only one bench rubbish or do they just want to win and get through so i'm interested to see wilson talks through tactically what he may do, but in terms of entertaining, I'm interested to see if the brand of football is something that people can get behind as well.

I get what Wilson is saying about finding a balance, but I honestly thought hearing Turkel talk about wanting to bring that intensity worried me a little bit because the reality is

the only thing that matters in his tenure is for England to win the next World Cup, right?

That's the only thing.

I'm reliably informed that Gareth Southgate was a total failure, even though he kept getting to like finals and stuff because he didn't didn't win anything.

So, the only thing he's there to do is to win a summer tournament in the US and Mexico and Canada, where most of the games are likely to be played in high heat and, in some cases, high humidity, as Wilson says, after a very long club season, which, by the way, comes off the back of a summer where players will have been involved in the Club World Cup.

So, he's going to have a situation where a lot of players have played an extraordinary amount of football over the last 24 months, and the job is to win the quarterfinal, the the semifinal, and the final in a summer tournament.

That's the only thing that matters, really.

Do you then want to go in saying, we're going to do Premier League intensity run around like lunatics?

I'm not sure that's a good approach.

I'm not sure that is smart.

I totally get what Wilson is saying about you don't want to ask them to do something that's completely alien to them, but you also don't want to ask them to do something that's physically not possible.

Maybe he's therefore just picking, you know, these older players, Kyle Walker, Jordan Henderson, Dan Byrne, because he doesn't mind if they get injured in the next year and a half.

And they're just, you know, he'll have an entirely just resting some players.

You mentioned Southgate.

He did the Richard Dimbleby lecture.

It's an annual television lecture founded in memory of the BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, as you'd imagine.

He chose to talk about young men.

He said this, he said, there's one topic that keeps being brought to my attention and it's parents who keep raising it.

Young men are suffering.

They're feeling isolated.

They're grappling with their masculinity and with their broader place in society.

He believes the decline in communities and a lack of mentors or father figures are causing more young men to become reluctant to talk or express their emotions.

They spend more time online searching for direction or falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography, Southgate said.

I think it's probably important to sort of split those three.

He does speak really well on these topics, Jordan.

And, you know, we all, like, we know the rise of sort of alt-right YouTube, et cetera, and the impact on young men.

And, you know, I don't know how any young people listen to us.

I suspect our references, such as Peter Eustinoff, probably don't lend themselves to lots of young men listening to this podcast but it's a really interesting thing that he is talking about and he's coming from a real position where he had a you know he he would have had a real impact on on young men in this country for sure just to start off by saying that i had the the pleasure and i will say a pleasure of meeting and interviewing him gare southgate a couple of times and a lot of my friends didn't like him because one he couldn't get over the line he was a loser he lost the finals but he looks like a weasel and really horrible things they kind of asserted towards him which i thought was really unfair.

One of the reasons why I liked him so much was because he always came across as more than just a football manager.

He was conscious of things that were going beyond his remit, which was fundamentally to win a Euros or a World Cup.

And that really connected with me as someone that sees people more than just kind of one-dimensional.

So I've always been impressed by Gareth Southgate.

And this doesn't, this, this speech doesn't, doesn't surprise me at all that he's addressing some of these issues.

There's clearly something really bad and sad happening with a generation of young boys at the moment.

I too get a lot of parents coming to me and telling me about their sons and what their sons are doing or not doing

and looking for me to have a chat with them.

I'm far from perfect.

I make mistakes.

I'm not the greatest human being on the planet, but I think people are looking for other men

who are doing.

relatively well to try and help a lot of these young boys.

I see and hear this a lot.

So I try to reach out in particular to young men in particular, especially young black men, because where I'm from, in the community that I'm from in South London, there are a generation of young black men that just feel disillusioned and very angry.

And just finally, I'll say as well, I think it's important to note that we know that with young women in particular, there are other issues going on, violence against women.

We can't make it binary.

If we have a generation of dangerously disenfranchised young men, that's bad for women and for men.

And I think that the thing that I'm posting a theory there is because winning and bringing back to Southgate has been amplified because of social media.

So boys are told now, if you're not winning a World Cup, you're not a success.

If you've not got a certain car, you're not a success.

If you don't have big muscles, and if you're not sleeping with lots of women, if you're not doing all these hyper-masculine things, you're not a success.

That's always arguably been there.

But I think social media now has really put a prism on that because you never see the failures in social media.

You never see somebody bankrupt.

You never see somebody with a back, you know, crappy car.

It's always just just the extreme wins, the positives.

And I think when men see that constantly, their idea of what a good man should be doing, I think, is warped.

And it's really, really sad.

The crisis of masculinity, yeah.

It's a really interesting subject.

I wonder how exactly we would cover it or if it's the place to cover it, but it is certainly something that is worth thinking about and talking about.

And that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do some other international business.

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Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

As a look at Scotland, we've got a Nations League playoff against Greece.

They were in Group A, remember, so they could get relegated to Group B or they could stay up.

The Republic are in Group B and have a relegation playoff to see if they go into Group C or stay in Group B.

I'm pretty sure about that.

How important, Lars, do you think those games are?

I mean, the nations league for countries who don't have the luxury of knowing that they're going to qualify almost no matter what, so it's fine.

The nations league with the potential uh gains in terms of playoff spots and things, the nations league kind of does matter for smaller countries for reasons that are a little bit complicated, but they can give you a second chance at a chance at qualifying for a tournament.

Their seeding points

the nations league matters.

I've the nations league, it might be complicated, cumbersome, and not fun to talk about, but it does kind of matter.

So

that's the thing about the ego.

Do you want to be in Group C?

Like, if you look around at some of the countries that are in Group C and you think, is this where I belong?

Like, that's not a, it's kind of like an existential thing.

I'll tell you why you do want to be in Group C.

It's because one Group C team is guaranteed to get the Euros.

So there is an argument that Ireland will be better off losing to Bulgaria, going to Group C, topping their group in Group C.

They don't have a playoff against the other Group C winners to get into the Euros

if they don't qualify through the normal qualification process.

This was put to

Hamerhal Gunsson, the manager, yesterday in Plovdiv,

and his response was: while that may be true, I think he said, I respect your view.

So, you know, he understood the logic of it.

He said, but we want to get better, and the way we get better is to play a higher tier of opponent, and we're not going to go into games looking to lose them.

Which is probably the right way to approach it.

But

you can, and I guess from a financial point of view, and you know, Irish football is desperately impoverished at the minute, needing all the cash it can get, and you will get more money from, yeah, say, a Scotland or a Greece than you would from playing the Group C team.

So it makes sense from that point of view as well.

But

it's not disastrous, I think, for Iron World to lose that game and go down to Group C.

Yes, good if he just said, I'm putting all my eggs in that basket and I'm playing the kids and we go for it.

It's the quarterfinals of the Nations League.

I are the teams that won their respective Group A divisions: Croatia, France, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain.

It has very much a Euro's quarter-finals look to it, doesn't it?

Who do you want to win that?

Who do we want to win the Nations League, Lars?

I find myself, like, logically, I like the Nations League.

I see how it serves a purpose.

You just mentioned these look like tournament quarterfinals.

Like, this is actually good competitive

training.

This is the thing that teams have been screaming out for.

Like, you're either playing major tournaments or you're playing meaningless friendlies and there's nothing in between.

This is the in-between thing.

But I also find it really hard to care now that the games are coming here.

So, like, logically, this is the thing that makes total sense.

That's really good.

But I can't sit here saying I have a strong opinion.

My opinion is

I wonder who's going to win out of Italy and Germany, because I think the loser goes into Norway's qualifying group.

We don't like the qualifying groups are not fully set yet.

We don't know who we're playing, the Norwegians.

There's a TBD in our World Cup qualifying group, and I'm pretty sure it's the team that loses out of Italy and Germany that gets dumped in there.

So we're going to find out who we're coming up against.

That is correct.

And the first game would be in Oslo against that loser in

early June.

And it's the day before Albania v.

Serbia and Tirana.

And so I'm waiting for these fixtures to work.

I had to juggle my schedule because

I quite want to go and see Albania, Serbia, and Tirana.

But I also quite want to see Norway against either Italy or Germany and hopefully speak to Stolus Olabachen before that.

All right.

Well, that's good you've done that research, isn't it?

Jordan, are you planning your summer trips around the Italy-Germany results?

I'm not.

Okay, good.

No, no, I'm not.

Okay, well, good luck to all of those.

Craig Benemies, Wales, home to Kazakhstan on Saturday, and then they go to North Macedonia on Tuesday.

So we plan, as we always do, for Ellis James voice notes as we go through those games.

Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic all have been drawing four team groups, so we will not start their World Cup qualifying campaigns until September.

Last, Scandinavia.

We have a big audience

in the

Scandinavian region.

Yeah.

And we've mentioned Sweden.

We'll get to Norway, but Sweden do are starting to look like they have a very exciting, you know, attacking line of, you know, Isaac, Kulasevsky, Alangurg, Jokarez, Bergval behind him.

Is it still Glenn Hussein at centre-back?

Like, like, is it very top top-heavy?

Yeah, well, I mean, I let's start with the good news.

Yeah, you're right.

They are sort of like low-key, uh, starting to have a very fun generation, uh, the Swedes, because it's been a slightly fallow period, I would say, by their standards, where they haven't had like a lot of stars in the team.

But this is like

there was a sort of After Zlatan, who is the guy, and now you have several guys who you are very excited about.

The defense, I mean, I guess you're looking at picture Lindelof is still there at the back, and

guys like Isaac Hien, Fratelanta.

It's a less exciting part of the team.

But I also think Sweden have a strong tradition of at least being pretty well organized.

They've often gotten to tournaments and not have like defensive superstars, but they usually hang together.

And with those attackers, yeah, it could be an exciting generation.

Can I come in with a story very much in Moldova?

One of your stories, in fact.

Oh, great.

I played against Glenn Hussain How did you?

Had a game.

In an England media game in 2004, I think.

Okay.

In Gothenburg,

they battered us.

We clung on, took the lead about 20 minutes ago.

Amazing.

At the moved Glenn Hussain from centre-back to playing a sort of left-side of the strike, all I was playing right-back.

And all they did was...

put in long diagonals to the back post and he absolutely fucking battered me.

And thankfully, about the fourth Cossa went in, he scored.

He went back to centre-back.

We drew the game 1-1.

And I've rarely been as bruised.

Lars, what about the Norwegian?

What about your brothers?

It's a strange thing that we've had this,

which is often referred to internationally in particular as like a golden generation because there's a few very visible high-profile players.

But we've always had an extremely uneven squad.

You know, we've played during this time of having Martin Edgor and Arling Holon, we've played qualifiers where we've had a guy on the team who's been unattached, like we've we've had without a club.

We've had Martin Edgo Arling Holon, an unemployed guy in the same lineup.

So it's a very uneven generation.

And I think that's part of the reason why we've struggled to qualify.

And we've had a tendency of starting...

qualification

campaigns very poorly.

So last time out for the Euro qualification, we started off by dropping points to Georgia, losing to Spain.

Okay, that happens.

But then there was that sort of catastrophic last minute reversal against Scotland when we were 1-0 up.

And then in the last couple of minutes, Scotland turned it around.

And Stahl Solbachen has talked about how that still keeps him up at night.

So the last minutes against Scotland

in 2023.

That's kind of because that ruined everything.

But the hope is that there is so much talent in this group of players that it will be different this time.

We still don't entirely know what the group is, but either one of Italy or Germany is going to be tricky.

But you think certainly a second place in that group is attainable.

And with a little bit of luck, maybe sneak in first.

Paul Watson is on next week, so we'll get to, you know,

far-flung areas of the world.

But, and not just because I'm in Australia and we have a significant Australian audience, but the Soccaroos are kicking off in 10 minutes.

Their group, I don't know if any of you have seen their group that they're in.

Japan are, if top two go through, then I think if you come third or fourth, you cling on, you get to another sort of playoff.

But Japan have 16 points from six games.

Below them, Australia have seven, having won once and drawn four.

Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and China all have six, right?

It's just this amazing bun fight below Japan.

And the only other time side to have won more than once is China, who have two wins, but they are bottom because they've lost the other four.

So anyway,

very exciting for all those groups, those teams, to see who can get through.

Jordan, James, I feel we do another hot take from Jordan.

It's been too long.

What did you want to talk about?

Hot take.

Yeah.

You wanted to speak about the clutch of clubs outside the traditional big six.

Oh, yes.

I'm told that's what you wanted to talk about.

Yes.

Here, let me prompt you with your thoughts.

Here's, Jordan, here's what you're thinking about today, Jordan.

Who knew?

Nobody knew that.

Actually, I feed you.

I feed Jordan, it's just a mythical creation of mine.

It's not real.

And I just found the voice and I just

give him some lines.

Say this.

Exactly.

It was more.

I just find it interesting

the successes, if a small S, if you like,

of some of the teams in the Premier League.

And I can't quite work out, and it was something that I'm happy to hear from the guys from.

I can't quite work out if this is something that's going to be the new normal.

So your Bournemouths and your Brightons and your Brentfords,

even your Fulhams, you know, that are kind of taking up space in the top 10.

or if next year we'll just get back to the what was traditional six with united and chelsea coming good i i think united are miles off being that top six club again um so maybe not, but I just wonder if the guys have any thoughts on whether, you know, it's sustainable.

If Forrest gets top four, if Bournemouth gets top six, you know,

is that the new norm or is that an anomaly?

Do we think

just the theory I'm posing out there?

Well, I think the last time we had a season a bit like this was 15-16.

So obviously Leicester winning a league is what sort of took all the headlines, but it was a lot of that season, a lot of what you consider mid-ranking clubs overperformed or the league clubs underperformed.

And I remember sort of writing pieces then saying, oh, the Premier League's middle class is now so wealthy that the additional wealth of the VLE doesn't really matter anymore.

And this is what we're going to see from now on.

Of course, that didn't happen at all the following season.

The big clubs just spent more and pulled away and that you got their houses in order.

And I think it is possible that happens again.

And I think a lot of the big clubs, a lot of the V League clubs have had specific issues to season which will be resolved by next season.

But I also wonder whether this is PSR in action, that their advantage is not as

pronounced as it as it used to be.

I mean PSR or FFP did exist back in 15, 16, but it hadn't had such a long run to get embedded.

I don't think it was taken quite as seriously.

You didn't see points deductions.

And so I think people are

being much more careful about obeying it.

I think you can see things I mean, this is obviously a slightly it's it's a slightly skewed argument because it would work on both sides but if PSR didn't exist other teams would have been able to sign Alexander Isak and so Nikasa wouldn't have had him.

Now of course Nicasa would also have had more money or more money available and

therefore would have been able to keep him.

But one of the reasons why other clubs couldn't come in and pinch Isak was because they didn't have the the funds to to to make that bid of 65, 70 million, whatever it would be to to get him.

So I wonder if that is causing a a leveling off effect.

I also think that a lot of that middle tier of the Premier League are actually very well run at the minute, unusually so.

So Brentford and Brighton with

their data modelling for signings.

Bournemouth, I think,

have got a really, really gifted coach.

But also, their signings have been very, very good.

Fulham.

I think Fulham actually should be doing better than they are at the minute.

I think

they've actually, I mean, I'm sure if you'd offered them this before the season, they'd be very happy with it.

But I've seen quite a lot of Fulham this season that I feel like they've chucked away quite a lot of cheap points, so they didn't need to.

Drawing at home against Southampton, I mean, come on.

They had a lead in a load of games against big teams that they didn't finish off.

So

they're three points off qualified for Champions League, which is amazing for them, but they could be easily seven, eight points better off than that.

So, yeah, I mean, we'll see next season.

I think we will return to something more normal, but maybe PSR has caused a slight levelling.

Made it sound like Schrodinger's Alexander Isak there.

Like I didn't couldn't quite work out how many places he was, but he was in lots of places.

Yes, love.

That's why it's so hard to rock.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

So there's an interesting parallel in German football over the last couple of years where we've seen a lot of the traditionally huge clubs with huge fan bases who have but have been badly run get relegated.

In the second Bundesliga, you have Hamburg, you have Cologne, you have Schalker, you have Hoetter Berlin

in the second Bundesliga, which is quite remarkable.

And on the flip side of that, Mainza is currently third, and Fiburg are consistently in the top half of the league.

You've got Augsburg in ninth in the Bundesliga.

So there's been a movement towards smaller but smarter run clubs.

doing better than the teams who have a huge cultural imprint, a huge fan base, but also tend to be messier behind the scenes because

there are more chefs in those kitchens who are trying to get involved.

The difference being that the big clubs in England have got so much money that they don't, like, relegation isn't a thing that'll happen.

But we see, I think there's a slight that we see Tennessee's United being a total mess, Chelsea being a total mess, or less of a mess now, but buying too many players, Spurs being where they are.

There's an element of these teams

with all these resources come sometimes a lack of focus and they're not run as smartly.

They also have to play in Europe.

Some of them, that can be an issue.

So there's an opening there for teams like Bournemouth, teams like Brentford, smart, more compact clubs with smart owners, more of a clarity of thought to be more efficient.

But I feel like money in football tends to be like gravity or the opposite of gravity, I guess.

Like if you have it, you will always sort of drift towards the top eventually.

And if you don't, you will always fall off inevitably.

And I do think, broadly speaking, that's still true.

But I wonder if...

I wonder if there are edges, there are competitive edges to be had in being a quote-unquote smaller club where fewer people care about what you do, where there's less forces exerted on you, and you can just kind of run the club smartly and be left alone most of the time.

And maybe that makes it just easier to be a football club.

Just to answer the correspondent's question, my hot take would be Fulham to go down next year.

It's just going too well for them.

So I think at some point.

So I'm going for them, you know.

Just a very, it was a very meandering and rambling and incoherent answer for me just then.

A case in point to what I was saying is actually Bournemouth, where Adoni Iraola did have a terrible time in the beginning.

It took him a while to figure this stuff out.

Now if he'd gone to a club like Man United or Spurs and had the start he had at Bournemouth he'd been fired.

Like you couldn't it couldn't continue like this.

But Bournemouth you can afford to be terrible for a couple of months and just give a smart head coach time to implement a system and give it time to work and look at them now.

Now they're very good.

I do sometimes think there's a huge advantage of being a club that people will just leave alone because if you're bad, it's not a huge news story and it gives you time to work and time to figure things out.

In the Women's Champions League, it was the first leg of the quarterfinals this week.

Chelsea's first defeat of the season, first under Sonia Bompasto.

They lost 2-0 to Manchester City.

Worth checking out

Midamar's second goal.

She scored 2 coming off a bench.

It's just a really lovely move.

And I think she's such a brilliant footballer.

Just lets the ball run across her and then just slides it in the bottom corner.

Arsenal lost 2-0 to Real Madrid in Spain.

Main talking point was the state of the pitch.

Susie Rack tweeting, Real Madrid's men's team last played at the Bernabelle on the 9th of March.

They play again on the 29th of March at home.

They have a state-of-the-art retractable pitch with a greenhouse environment under it.

Yet the women's team are playing on this shit surface.

Give me strength.

And yeah, I mean, it is a plowed field that they were playing on.

Leon won two now at Bayern.

Barcelona beat Wolfsburg 4-1 away from home.

Of course, the Women's Football Weekly, wherever you get your podcasts, we'll update you on all of that.

And just finally, the story of the Bulgarian Minute Silence.

The club Arda Kars Dali in the Bulgarian top flight has apologised for holding a minute silence for a former player, only to later discover he is still alive.

A minute's silence was held for Petko Ganchev before Sunday's game with Levsky Sofia, both teams lining up in the centre circle, bowing their heads in Ganchev's honour.

The management of PFZR would like to express a huge apology to the former player,

Petko Ganchev, and his relatives after the club received wrong information about his death.

We wish him many more years of good health.

I was 10 minutes late for kickoff because I had a personal job.

While driving home, my phone started ringing a lot, former striker Gunchev told the Bulgarian website.

I parked in front of the house entered the yard and my wife greets me crying shouting petko petka they announced on tv that you're dead i couldn't understand what she was telling me and what had happened and two of my friends call me being buried alive is quite stressful really when i heard the terrible news i poured myself a small brandy um it's a great story anyway that'll do for part two part three i will be joined by the director of green football's great save sarah jacobs

Hi pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

We're joined by the director of Green Football's Great Save, Sarah Jacobs.

Hey, Sarah, how are you?

Yeah, very well.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Tell us, what is Green Football's Great Save?

I'm well, thank you.

So Green Football's Great Save is the world's biggest climate football charity campaign.

It's happening now across the UK, also in Australia,

kicked off at the start of this month.

And basically, it's creating this huge national moment where we've got fans, clubs, players, grassroots teams, schools all coming together to raise awareness of the impact that climate change is having on the future of football

and to take action together to help tackle climate change and protect the game that we love.

So yeah, climate change is threatening the future of football.

In 2025, 120,000 grassroots football matches will be cancelled due to flooding.

I have experienced that so many times.

By 2050, one in four English football clubs can expect partial or total stadium flooding each year.

They're doing a big thing about sort of the amount of sportswear that ends up in landfill as well.

aren't we sarah yeah that's right so kit is actually a big part of this it's not particularly well known um but there's a hundred thousand tonnes of sportswear that goes to uk landfills every year um massive number It's the equivalent of 951 shirts per minute.

And obviously, once that's in landfills, it's contributing to waste.

It takes decades to break down and contributes to the emissions of methane gas, one of the most toxic greenhouse gases.

So it's a really big issue.

But it is one that there's a huge amount that we can do about.

If you take us all in our individual lives, just by keeping, you know, it might be a shirt, a hoodie, whatever it is in play for just nine months more, you're already reducing its carbon waste water footprint by up to 30%.

And if you're thinking about that at kind of, you know, mass national stage with millions of people adopting these sorts of habits into their everyday lives, that makes a huge, huge difference.

And there's, of course, lots that clubs as well can do.

Whenever we do this story or stories about climate change,

We will get messages like, what's the point of me keeping this football kit for a year when, I don't know, India is burning this amount of fossil fuels or, you know, UMAX fly from Australia to the UK.

I mean, and my understanding is that nobody is perfect, right?

That is no one, you don't have to be perfect to care about the climate.

No, I mean, absolutely.

And if we all waited until we were all squeaky clean or all this stuff, nothing would happen.

It's, you know,

it's an understandable anxiety.

And often it does feel so overwhelming where you've got these huge forces at play.

But, you know, there is actually, there's multiple impacts that we can have as fans and individuals that actually can help impact that as well.

So there's obviously the stuff that we do in our individual lives.

And actually, there's evidence to show that what we do as households and individuals can account for up to, you know, 25, 30% of carbon emissions.

So, you know, that is in itself significant.

But if you think about, I mean, obviously using football, if you think about clubs and how they're, you know, the actions that they're taking, what's going to help influence their decisions.

Obviously, there are big commercial questions here, but, you know, if you're a brand sponsor, if you're a club, if you're hearing and seeing that your fans really care about this and want their clubs to be, you know, having that really strong sustainability strategy in place, taking really positive action, showing leadership on this as an issue, that's going to be really influential.

And similarly, you're thinking about the decisions made by political leaders, by business leaders, by visibly demonstrating that, you know, voters, that that consumers really want to care about this is an issue.

You know, this is, this is our future, this is our sport.

And that, again, can be really influential in creating an enabling environment for those much stronger, more ambitious decisions on climate.

So it's very understandable.

You know,

we're not in a great place.

There's a huge amount that needs to be done, but we all have agency.

And it's by creating these massive moments that actually you feel, you know, you feel that momentum.

You see what progress is possible.

And that can inspire further change.

Do football clubs care?

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

there are lots of clubs across the full pyramid who are really investing in this and starting to play a real leadership role.

Obviously, there are other clubs who might not be doing so much at the moment or smaller clubs who want to be doing more.

But again, how do they start that conversation?

And again, that's why Green Football's Great Save as a campaign where we're all coming together provides a really important platform for clubs to start engaging their fans in what they're doing finding a way to talk about it um and taking more um ambitious action i mean to give you a few examples there um thinking about the campaign this year um with the focus on kit um you know we've got clubs like bristol city who've got really really strong um sustainability um initiatives in place they're running repair workshops um as part of their matches with players and communities.

We've got clubs like Rochdale who have been working with neurodiverse individuals that they support to turn a corporate hospitality box into a kind of really vibrant area for those people, but working with them to re-upholster the chairs using old shirts as part of that.

You've got bigger clubs like Man City who are doing really important things around the polyester that they use in their shirts, making sure that that's really fully sustainable and recyclable.

They work with Puma.

Saw Sunderland change their badge, Wilson.

Did you see this?

Yeah, I did.

I mean, they had to then readopt the badge that they've had from 1976 to 1997, which they have been using on their awake it this season, which is based on the 912 away kit.

But yeah, they had the ship and they had it sort of, well, I guess the sea level rising rather than the ship sinking, but the effect's the same, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And

I mean, I suppose that's quite a visible sign of, you know, a club doing something, Sarah.

I mean, what you, what you've, your fear, I guess, is that clubs do something like that, but are still, I don't know if Sunderland do, but, you know, are still taking private jets everywhere for all their games and stuff.

Like, is the dream that football teams are just getting the train everywhere or just getting on Ryanair flights when they have games?

Well, I mean, obviously flying is a part of all of our lives, and that's never going to completely go away.

But 100%, you know, if clubs are playing within a reasonable distance, we definitely want to see, you know, that becoming a coach or a train journey.

And you have got the sustainable travel charter, which has got more and more clubs signing up to kind of commit to that.

But, you know, there is a long way to go, as we said, but it's about really helping to encourage this momentum and build kind of willingness and proactivity around some of these, these more complex issues.

For people who are listening, like

as twofold.

One, the people who are generally engaged by this and care, what can they do?

And for people who just, you know, people are time poor, they've got lots of things to worry about.

The news is pretty tough at the moment.

And I know, like, climate change just doesn't feel quite as real for a lot of people as other serious things in the news.

Like, what, what would you say to them?

I think again, through that lens of football, every time, you know, that the match is called off because the pitch is flooded or it's frozen.

You know, we saw so many games postponed due to the big storms at the start of this year.

Sometimes it's not immediate that you make that connection that actually this is due to extreme, more regular extreme weather events caused by climate change.

So I think it's firstly, you know, just hearing, talking about stuff with your, with, you know, your friends, your family, whatever, around football and noticing.

But people are time port, but there are really easy things you can do.

So on a very practical level, you know, digging out whatever the sportswear or clothes that you've got in the back of a cupboard, definitely don't take it to chuck it away, but donate it to your local charity shop.

Salvation Army is the Greens Football's great save partner.

And if you do it with them, hop onto greenfootball.org, scan the QR code.

There are prizes to be won.

So that's always hopefully a good incentive.

But there's loads more.

You know, we're selling, again, partnering with eBay.

And just by selling your clothes on, again, it goes to someone who needs it.

You make a bit of money.

learning how to repair.

There's a really great outfit that, again, we're working with called WeFix Kit.

So you've got, check out the YouTube channel.

But, you know, if you've got a kit where you've got a name on the back that you really don't want there anymore, or you've got kids and the younger child needs to inherit it from the older child, but you know, they've obviously got different names.

And there's actually really easy ways, things that you can do to take those names off, put the new names on, get your sewing kit out.

All of this does make a genuine difference.

It might feel small,

but as we've said, you know, it is saving on carbon, it's saving waste.

And if we're thinking about that, times the millions of fans that are across the UK, that's really making a big difference.

Thanks so much for coming on, Sarah.

Appreciate your time.

Thanks so much.

Sarah Jacobs there, director of Green Football's great save.

Before we go, Jordan, you have a new podcast, World's Coolest Disabled.

Tell us about it.

I do.

Well, it's called Jordan Jarabrian's The World's Coolest Disabled, actually.

Oh, okay, right.

And you put your name right there.

You put your name right there.

That's the trend now.

You've got to put your name in the podcast.

When is this not Max Rushton's Guardian of Football weekend?

Come on.

Anyway, have a word.

Very simple.

I've been working on it for about a year.

There's very little to no content for people with disabilities out there in the form of podcasts or programming.

I mean, beyond the Paralympics, and that is exclusively around athletes.

There's just nothing for people with disabilities to kind of hear the stories from other disabled people and the people who are not disabled to learn about the lives of people who are disabled.

The premise is basically...

I interview really interesting people who've done some phenomenally dope and interesting things.

They just happen to have a disability and explore whether disability has shaped or not the things that they've done.

We've recorded 15 episodes already, had some great people on, but there are things that I don't think our community discusses.

Things like sex.

We discuss sex and, you know, dating and relationships.

We discuss acquiring disabilities.

We discuss finances, all the things that I think other communities happily and freely discuss and talk about.

But for some reason, disabled people do not.

So we have a laugh with it as well, but it's kind of just exploring the great things that people have done.

And it's on all your podcast platforms on YouTube.

I'd appreciate everybody, even the Villa

fans, to give it a like, give it a share, give it a subscription.

Um, go and check it out.

Good stuff, good luck with it.

Um, Peter says, Thoughts on Victor Nichebi's rumoured takeover of Gates at FC, the right man to let the heed back into the football league.

You're the closest to the northeast.

Well, I was looking at this,

it's the rumor seems to have started, Wilson, where

somebody tried to sign Frank Newblay from I can't remember where he's playing now.

Oh, forgive me.

And they were like, it was some Gateshead.

He was like, someone wants to sign up for Gateshead, but not someone who's at Gateshead at the moment.

It was like, just like, somebody.

And that's where the rumour starts.

But all I thought was, God, if Victor Nichubi, it says, it just feels like you've been playing championship manager forever.

When you get a little thing on the thing saying, Victor and Ichibi is now the owner of Gateshead.

You're like, oh, man.

Do you have any strong thoughts, Wilson?

I mean, I'd love to see Gateshead back up in the league, but I think the stadium needs quite a bit of work.

uh yeah very much an athletic stadium and lots of nice hockey pitchers out the back of these to have be anyway i haven't been there for years um it's probably our fault isn't it cambridge beat them in 2015 i think it was 2015 to get in the football league is that right probably their last chance yeah yeah yeah um two one up we uh liam uh ian miller got um uh injured broke his ankle or something and so we had 10 men for injury time it was absolutely terrifying they had john oster i think playing in centre mid um but you know uh miller still made it to former soldier yeah still made it it to Fez Club

in a boot and in a wheelchair at two in the morning the next day.

Finally, this from Jeff, who says, Hi, Max and everyone.

A recent discussion about meeting panelists in the wild reminded me of this picture taken by producer Joel of me and my partner Jackie with Max and Barry at Manchester Piccadilly the night after the live event, which me had attended in November 2023.

Jackie was particularly excited as she hadn't been able to catch you in the pub after a previous event in Birmingham.

At the time of the photo, Jackie was cancer-free following a lengthy and grueling treatment regime.

Unfortunately, the disease has returned.

She's again undertaking an arduous bout of chemotherapy with both longtime listeners.

Jackie will often listen to the pod while other than going, treatment.

Like many, we found the pod and football more generally a source of escape, amusement, and community at a particularly tricky time.

Thank you very much for that.

We're longtime Forest season ticket holders.

So this has been a strange season in more ways than one.

Fortunately, Jackie's only had to miss one game so far.

Unfortunately, it was the win against Man City.

If you were able to give Jackie a shout out, I'm sure she'd be thrilled.

Keep up the good work.

Come on, you reds.

Lots of love, Jeff.

Absolutely, Jackie.

Um, yeah, I do remember meeting you at the station.

I think me and Barry were in actually pretty decent repair at the time, considering it was the night after a live show.

And Barry, although he's on holiday, sends his love as well.

And we all do, and we wish you all the best with your treatment and your recovery.

And do take care, and that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jordan.

Cheers, mate.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Bill Maynard.

This is The Guardian.