England’s gamble pays off with smooth win in Greece: Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, England victorious in Greece.

Ollie Watkins got one early.

Does that justify Lee Carsley's decision to drop Harry Kane before a Vlakademus and Plya's own goal and Curtis Jones first for England.

An impressive first half performance.

Madowake was excellent on the right, Gordon direct on the left, while Dude Bellingham had his best game for a while.

The second half was one of those the game is on but nothing's happening affairs for a bit before a basketball batch broke out in the last 20 minutes.

Beat the Republic of Ireland and England win Nations League B Group 2.

Ireland also won Evan Ferguson with the only goal at home to Finland elsewhere.

Italy win in Belgium.

No one goes to see France, Israel and there's a rarely seen Faroe Isles.

away win to bring you.

There are further allegations regarding David Coote and some reaction to how we cover the story on Wednesday.

All that plus 12 seconds on Shrewsbury, maybe the same on Auckland.

Your questions?

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, John Bruin, welcome.

Hello, Max.

Hello.

Hello, Sam Dalling.

Hello, Max.

You're well.

Very good.

Thanks for asking.

Jonathan Faduba, good evening.

Good evening, Max.

Right, yeah, we are recording at full time of Greece, England.

Adam says, I just passed the Croydon Box Park.

No sign of an England game being shown.

Is this fixture even real?

What did you make of it, Sam?

I thought it was quite impressive from, you know, England with all their players missing, etc.

I thought it was quite fun to watch.

It was a proper game of football.

I mean, you know, you're in for a game when the laser pen's back out, right?

I haven't seen a laser pen at a football stadium for a long time.

And I thought, yes, this is real football.

It's not too sterilized.

But yeah, you know, one nil up early in control of the game.

The Greeks had a couple of little spells where you you thought, oh, dear.

Jordan Pickford showed why he's England's number one, scored a couple of late goals, and that's it, really.

We could close the podcast off now.

I mean, in many ways, it would be quite a funny episode if we did.

John, though, they started really well in England, didn't they?

And Ollie Watkins scored.

And obviously, the big story early on was him starting instead of Harry Kane.

What did you make of that?

Well, I suppose the longer the game went on and Ollie Watkins didn't score, the more clamour you're going to get for Harry Kane.

But Manuecki, who's been getting quite rave reviews in the Premier League, though though I actually think he's probably only done it in a few games.

Well, he did it in this game, didn't he?

Classic run to the byline and the ball's played back across and a good finish from Ollie Watkins, a player who you'd expect to score that type of goal.

So the thing is, at this point, what we have to say is that League Harsley, the experiment, the interregnum, Should They Beat Ireland at the weekend has gone well.

I was thinking about comparing him to previous England caretakers.

So, who can we remember?

Sergeant Wilco, do you remember that?

That was against Finland, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was that was a game that no one, yeah, yeah, Ray Parley put a load of old people in, didn't he, in that game?

And then there was Peter Taylor, who gave Beckham his uh

uh

gave him the England captaincy, and then there was Gareth Southgate himself, of course,

uh, and Stuart Pierce.

But I think if Lee Carsey pulls this off, he's the most successful England caretaker since Joe Mercer back in the 70s.

And Joe Mercer was famous because he put in

a series of, you know, those sort of 70s Mavericks that you see on those documentaries, you know, your Frank Worthingtons and Stan Balls.

He selected those players and put a smile on the face of everybody.

Also, he's famous for a fact that there's a guy called Mike Pedgick.

We're back into Wilson time here.

If you go to Stoke City, you'll see Mike Pedgick still commentating.

He dropped him

because he didn't smile enough.

Now, I don't know if Lee Carsley's operated that principle, but that seemed a happy camp there, didn't it?

It went well.

You know, it's a Nations League week when we're on to Mike Pedrick within five minutes

of the podcast.

John mentioned Madowecki there, and I thought he was him.

I thought Bellingham probably the standouts for England today.

Actually, I thought Corona Gallagher played well as well.

I can't list the whole team.

You can.

I can list the whole team, but I do agree.

I think Madowake had a good game.

Obviously, an assist within seven minutes.

Lovely little bit of trickery to get down the byline as well, and a nice cutback.

It's a sign of the sort of the youthful, well, not youthfulness, but inexperience of the England team.

Kyle Walker pretty much has more England caps than more or less the entire starting 11, the rest of the starting 11, besides Pickford.

So that kind of gave you an insight into the team itself.

You had Curtis Jones in there, of course,

on his debut, pretty much getting a goal.

You had Meruke, of course, who has very few caps as well.

So, it is a team that's really been sort of put together because of the rigours of the Premier League and the fatigue in the bones of certain players who were unavailable.

But all in all, I think Lee Carsley's done a pretty good job.

I have to say, I've quite enjoyed watching his England teams.

I know it seemed like there was a sort of pre-kickoff knives out kind of clamour for, oh, well, he's dropped Harry Kane, he's left Harry Kane out and it seemed like the knives were sharpening and I think someone mentioned that in the group chat as well actually didn't they before so I can't claim credit for saying that myself but it did feel that way like maybe if England were to drop you know drop points here or to to lose then there would be sort of a lot of criticism for Carsley but I have to say although the Greece home game at Wembley was was a disappointment I I quite like even even in that game I quite like how he's approached things he's he's tried different he's tried something new if everyone remembers back to the Euros that was the biggest complaint wasn't it everyone was moaning that we England are boring we should just go attack them, we should start playing more nice, pretty football, and that's essentially what he's tried to do.

Um, I like the use of the squad in terms of Gibbs White, uh, as you mentioned in Medal Madowecki, and lots of other new players who've come in.

Angel Gomez, I've enjoyed.

So, I think the experiment's gone okay, and I think Madowake is one of those players who sort of Carsley's time will be remembered as the

he's got a sort of set Thomas Titchel in his way, hasn't he?

There's a few players from these squads that he's selected that will probably go on, and uh, Jones, as well as another one.

So, all in all, I've actually quite enjoyed watching England these last three, four games, I have to say.

The only thing missing from tonight, really, was the fact that it was clearly not an English production company, because had an English production company been in charge of it, we'd have had far more images, like just cutting to Harry Kane looking forlorn on the bench.

We just had none of that.

Particularly after that first goal, we wouldn't have worried about the celebration in England.

We'd have just had Harry Kane and he'd have had to really focus.

on his facial expression and we'd have had front pages reading into his body language and we'd have had various psychologists looking into it so that disappointed me a little bit yeah actually the the the chances are harry kane probably didn't know that it was a foreign director and so he probably did all those facial expressions and we have will it no one will ever know how supportive he was how aaron ramsdale he went you know when uh you know every time david rayer made a save harry kane was probably there punching the air with a watkins shirt on such as such a team player uh that he is it is interesting john i i and i can't remember if you said or whoever said it in the group, talking about the knives being out.

There has been, and maybe just because it's an international break and people have to have something to talk about.

But some journalists going completely mad about players dropping out of this squad as, you know, and, you know, just saying what a disgrace it is that Tuchel's starting late and what a disgrace the FA should be ashamed of themselves, etc.

It seems a bit ridiculous.

Yeah, it's funny.

I mean, obviously, players have dropped out of the England squad as long as all of us have been watching football, but I don't quite quite remember it being that much of a fuss.

I mean it was you know maybe it speaks to the ultra-competitiveness of the Nations League and how important it is that we progress back to Group A or whatever else tier one or whatever we're calling it that shows you how important the Nations League is to me but I mean it's just got this

yeah

listen

the England camp if you're within those reporters and I have some experience of this there's got to be an angle and I think one of the problems with Carsley was that he didn't really give the reporters much to work on.

Once we got past a couple of fairly halting performances about his own future, once we got to the Thomas Tuchel thing, Lee Carsley is actually no use to the England reporters that are there because he's essentially a dead duck, right?

Yeah, I mean, that's how it works.

That's the cynicism of the industry.

I've been in that position myself.

It's like, well, this guy's no use.

but

maybe if there are those journalists who are going to be much more positive, you could say Lee Carsey has bequeathed quite a

decent dowry for

Thomas Suchol to, I mean, you know, he had Lewis Hall coming on.

Now, Sam, Sam was,

we sat together, chatted at the Forest game at the weekend.

Now, Lewis Hall is a player that

a year ago,

I think Jason Tyndall has had him in the gym, yeah, because he's now robust.

When they brought him on, there was no problem that a player like Lewis Hall came on.

And then, you know, Curtis Jones, who's been such a good player this season, came on and replicated his England,

his Liverpool performances for England.

Now, a lot of international managers struggle to do that type of thing.

So if Lee Carsley is replicating club performances for the international team, that's a good sign.

It's a good sign of a good coach, actually.

And I think we can say that Carsley, as Jonathan said, has done a good job.

It's been interesting to watch.

The problem is, if you're in the game of a backpage story, and hey, we've not been without backpay stories this week, it was perhaps a little bit disappointing.

Thing is, they'll get Thomas Tuchel, he'll be dynamite for backstage stories, so don't worry about that.

I'm just thinking about who would I less want to be there, you know, standing next to me while I was on the bench press than Jason Tyndall going, you got this, bro, one more set.

I'm not sure that would inspire me to get massive.

What did you make of that midfield then, Jonathan?

Because

I thought Bellingham, and I've been quite critical of him in an England shirt recently, I thought he was brilliant tonight.

And actually, it felt like there was a balance with Gallagher and Jones.

It sort of felt like a nice, obviously, you know, when you add all the players that are back, that won't be the three, but it felt like a nice three.

Yeah, I think it worked quite well.

Greece started with sort of fairly high intensity.

The fans were obviously up for it.

And with the previous result against England,

they had some energy about them and they looked enthused.

But I felt as the game wore on, they kind of lost a bit of maybe sharpness.

And so as the match went on, I think the midfield started to dominate more and more.

Gallagher, obviously, that was the referee.

Wasn't afraid to pull out yellow cards at that early match.

A bit card happy, but yeah, Bellingham is an interesting one.

He's had a lot of criticism in Spain this season season just with this Real Madrid form not maybe matching the peak of last season.

You know, he's only recently just started scoring goals, whereas I think I read something saying by this time last season, it was close to 10 goals or at 10 goals for Real Madrid.

So there is that backdrop of a little bit of criticism that he's had to take into this season, whereas last season

he was the golden child, you know, in the England camp in Spain, wasn't he really?

So there's that backdrop.

I still think he does look maybe slightly a little bit fatigued as well, but he turned up fair play to him.

And I thought Jones was very good.

He didn't look like he had no experience as an England player, you know, he really slotted in really nicely.

Gallagher, industrious as always.

I like Gibbs White as well.

So I have to like, and I'm sort of repeating myself in the sense of Carsley, but I do like, I do, I've like, I've quite enjoyed his selections because they're sort of players that you want to watch and say, okay, how will they adapt in the England role?

So

from that point of view, I was happy with it.

I didn't see a massive issue with sort of leaving Kane out.

As you mentioned, I'm sure that there might be a few thoughts on Kane's mind himself, especially having sort of gone semi-rogue with his comments this week, which is one of the first times we've seen him really kind of do that, to be honest.

That is the roguest Kane has ever been.

Yeah, it is.

He must have felt really upset to sort of have finally come out with a strong statement and then been left out.

I mean, that is just a, especially when he's talking about not missing games.

So that was an interesting point.

It's just someone that he really likes being on England duty and is annoyed they're not there, you know, like that they have

like his best card partner, or you know, a Swiss, you know, PlayStation partner.

It felt very much like maybe a Spurs Arsenal sort of his, you know, maybe Rice and Saka were the ones I'm I would be looking at, maybe.

I reckon, um, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you've, I think you've, yes, which is actually pretty harsh because, you know, the Arsenal players tend to turn up, don't they?

The Arsenal players tend to turn up and play all the games.

And then the fans are like, why did all our players play all the games?

Oh, yeah, the idea that Harry Kane didn't have anyone to play Fortnite or werewolf or whatever that, you know, whatever he wants to play.

Is it werewolf?

I forget.

Sam, can I ask about Lewis Hall?

Because

he did, he played one ball with the outside of his left foot that went out of play.

But even then, I was like, wow, a left foot.

I've not seen one of them for ages.

I know.

It'll never catch on, will it?

It will never catch on.

A left-footed left-back.

We haven't had one of those for a while.

It's set up for him, isn't it?

And I think he's taken people a little bit by surprise.

I think he was surprised himself how little he played at Newcastle last year.

And he got a lot of stick because they haven't been able to spend any money this summer.

And everyone said, oh, they spent 28 million quid on Lewis Hall.

What a waste.

But it was one of those deals where it was set up.

I think that he basically had to turn up to work for a few days.

And that clause for the permanent deal was triggered.

And they just didn't like him defensively.

I think they were a bit surprised, How and Tyndall, how weak he'd been defensively.

Tygal gave him his debut, by the way, back at Chelsea, and he just couldn't get in the side.

Dan Byrne played left back ahead of him.

Tina Liverramento and Kieran Trippier both played at left back out of position.

I don't think Matt Target was fit at any point last year, but he would have played against Hall.

We just couldn't buy a game.

And people were thinking,

why sign this lad?

But Howell's always backed him.

And weirdly, he threw him in.

I think he started...

He started a Man City Carabao Cup game.

He started away at Dortmund.

They were his first couple of starts and he got pulled off after 45 minutes.

And people are thinking, oh, he's got no chance.

But back end of the season, they clearly started to trust him.

And I think he's already played as many minutes this Premier League season as he did last year.

And he just looks fantastic.

The partnership with Gordon for Newcastle on the left really works.

And I just want to try and get a full England 11 of players Chelsea have had on their academy and let go.

Tino Liveramento would come on.

We could have had three of the back four that Chelsea had and just sold for PSR reasons.

So we can get to 11.

That's brilliant.

It's worth mentioning Jordan Pickford, Jonathan, isn't it?

Because he,

again, didn't let England down.

Actually, there were sort of some cruise.

This whole story would be different.

He had made one really good saving at the start of the second half, didn't he?

And one in the first half.

But it could have been one of those games where England were better, but didn't get all three points had he not been on it.

He's always entertaining to watch, I think.

There was one moment, wasn't there, in the second half where he charged out of his box to kind of get a lose four.

And

there's always something going on with with Pickford which which which adds to the entertainment obviously he's close to 75 caps now for England so he you know sometimes we kind of maybe he really is one of the most established players in that squad and it's a testament to him he's always available and you know I think he he did okay he made some made some decent saves I've always thought he's a good goalkeeper really and he's never let never really let England down has he so had it had a good performance I wonder

from the tutorial point of view what what he'll do with Pickford.

I wonder if that's going to be a Joe Hart pep vibes type.

Maybe is he going to try something different there?

So I wonder from Pickford's point of view how he'll interpret that or if he will be able to keep his place.

I think that could be something maybe for future pods and future squads on Tycho takes over.

But I think that's one of the areas that I would imagine if Tuchel was to start looking at how can I tweak this team.

He may sort of come for Pickford.

He's never really been challenged under the Southgate.

So that's maybe one to watch in the future.

But no, he's reliable as always and uh you know no one can say that he he um he doesn't show up for for England yeah

no one puts their fingers to their temples more do they after anything that happens and that camera cuts to Jordan Pickford and he's there with two fingers either temple yelling focus it's just a thing that if Tuchel did say I'm going another direction I would miss that so much like it's a sort of part of the you know the England DNA now is Jordan Pickford with his fingers on his temples

Quick one on Morgan Rogers, John, who has an air of Bellingham around him in the way he moves, doesn't he?

And he actually played Bellingham in really well for that goal just shortly after coming on.

Well, yeah, well, Sam talks about ex-Chelsey players.

We're in the ex-city collection there, aren't we?

So Morgan Rogers is a city, not reject, but a player that didn't quite make it there and has gone on to great things.

Just had a,

I think in a commentary this had a great 18 months.

There is is improvement to be made in him, you'd say,

after coming that way.

But he's got a lot of skill, a lot of power, and he just adds to that options of players that are,

they're not forwards, but they're essentially attacking midfielders.

What England do lack, obviously, is

beyond Harry Kane, beyond Ollie Watkins.

the striker.

And

that's the concern I'm sure Thomas Tuchel has.

But Morgan Rogers adds to that collection of players that, you know, Lee Carnes himself will know from working through the representative levels.

Dinglers just have too many players, don't they?

And that's possibly one of the problems that we've got here.

And it was Gareth Southgate's problem at the Euros in that he selected the wrong players of that big selection that we've had.

Yeah, I mean,

Rico Lewis, you know, I'm told actually that Rico Lewis doesn't want to be a fullback, but managers keep playing him there.

and he played both sides didn't he he's a centre mid right he's um he is a really talented player like you sort of imagine in the in the angel gomez would is that where he would sit yeah i think that's where he would fancy it yeah but if you play for manchester city you almost have to fit in where i mean it's it's a bit like um you know trent alexandrano when he began it was you know you will fit him somewhere in the team i mean if i this is another thing with england we've got a lot of players where you think, hey, do you know what?

He could be good in centre midfield.

And then, of course,

that's where we ran into problems last time.

We can't have long think pieces on should Rico Lewis become a centre midfielder yet.

Let's let Trent get there first.

Yeah.

And the point, the point Jonathan made about Bellingham, which I think is interesting, is Bellingham played one of his better games for England with two players who are prepared to sit and work and do the work that he's not going to do.

I mean, we've got to say that, don't we?

Because Gallagher will do what he does.

And Curtis Jones, we've seen, is an old style, sort of Jimmy Case-style Liverpool player that will get stuck in and go forward and be, you know, like a midfielder as we remember them from the 80s and 90s.

And Bellingham is allowed to be that sort of rude hullet drifter.

And maybe if you want to get the best out of Bellingham, you need two players that are going to sit there.

Yeah, which means who are you leaving out?

But let's not get into that.

Sam, Jonathan, anything else you wanted to add to this game before we move on?

Any salient points?

I was going to say shout out to Mark Guehye because we haven't mentioned him, but he's actually the fifth most capped player in that squad, which

baffled me.

But he is.

He's just solid, man.

It's just too good, isn't he?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Another good performance from him.

The only thing I noticed, A, was I'd never really studied Simakas, who had a bit of a runaround from Madowake.

I'd had quite a fun battle, but he has the look of come straight from the club.

A bit like, was that Leeds player?

Is it Pablo Hernandez?

You know, that just sort of, you know, it looks like my, I mean, my eyes look exactly the same because I have a toddler, you know, and so like, I'm just never, I'm never really awake and I'm never really asleep.

It's just that it's that Simacas has the air of that.

And you really heard the

national anthems.

I think the mic was very close.

God,

England was so out of tune, the players.

It was actually quite astonishing.

Like, you know, belting it out.

And obviously, I can't comment on Lee Carsley's singing, and I also don't mind, but yeah, the England players were dramatically out of tune.

It would have been, it would have been, you know, one of those where they cut to the X Factor judges, and you know, Sharon Osborne, Louis Walsh, and Simon Cowell all trying not to laugh and were putting their cards up over their mouth and saying, you know, who sent you to this audition?

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two will round up the rest of the games that happened this evening.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratches from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

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

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

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Help!

One more question!

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

The Football Sports Association Awards are up for grabs, and we are up for podcast of the year.

Again, we can't let this slip.

But I just read you a bit of a transcript from Kevin Day on the prices of Football Pod, who said, I'm not making any comparison between listeners to the Guardian Football podcast and people who voted Republican.

I am.

I am making a direct comparison.

A vote for Barry Glendenning is exactly the same as a vote for Donald Trump, is what I'm saying, Kieran.

That's the two big fault lines in democracy: America and the Football Supporters Association awards.

That's what Kevin Day is saying.

Obviously, we welcome voters from everywhere to this podcast, and we wouldn't make such on a podcast like this, we wouldn't make any,

you know, cheap shots like the Prices Football.

So, you know, don't vote for them.

Although you can, because they're quite good.

Lots of Guardian content up for awards as well.

Johnny Lou, Jonathan Wilson, Susie Rack up for Writer of the Year.

Robin Cowan for commentator of the year.

The Guardian is up

for Men's Football Meader of the Year.

And the Guardian Women's Football Weekly for Women's Football Media of the Year.

So a clean sweep is possible.

So let England play the Republic of Ireland next, John, and the Republic of Ireland beat Finland.

A classic Ireland goal, we can say it because Barry's not here, scored by Evan Ferguson.

Can I just ask quickly before you answer that?

Does that make Kieran Maguire Kamala Harris?

Yeah, yeah, maybe, yes.

That's a very good point.

It makes, yes, it does.

He's my former lecturer.

So, yeah, he is.

I love him.

I've now got an image in my head of him with a sort of like.

He really should have gone on Joe rogan is what they're saying if kieran maguire had done the joe rogan podcast maybe they'd have won the fsas who knows the evan ferguson talent it's never been in any doubt has it but it's been dormant for quite a while uh he scored a good goal uh the other week against wolves and the signs of revival are there mikey jinky johnston great little run

stood it up to the back post And this is what Evan Ferguson was made for eventually, you know, because there's been talk of him like being actually actually a bit of a Teddy Sherringham style player, you know, with a bit of a creative touch.

If you're Ireland striker, actually, if you're probably Brighton striker, you've got to be tucking those away.

And he did.

Good header.

I don't think Phillip were particularly up to much.

It's not been a great campaign for them.

But

I'm their manager, is on the way,

perhaps silencing some of the doubters.

I think the doubters of that appointment are going to continue for a while.

And it's to Wembley they go.

I don't think in much expectation.

But we'll see if Lee Carsley shuffles the pack.

We'll have to see.

I think Harry Kane might fancy playing this one.

Don't you?

But yeah, good win for Ireland that.

It'd been a long time, hadn't it?

And they're starting to put it together.

Thank God for that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it sounded like you said Fulham weren't up to much as opposed to Finland.

I mean, I hope you did.

I like a Nations League group with Finland.

No, no.

that, like Evan Ferguson, it was his third international goal, but the two previous goals were against Gibraltar.

Now, do those count?

I think he'll be happy that it's against

Finland and he's on the way.

I mean,

so much is expected of him.

And, you know, you go back two years or so, and it was like, this guy will be worth £100 million.

And then he's had injuries and he's been dropped.

So I was very happy for him to see him score that goal.

Yeah, absolutely right.

And actually, if you know, obviously, if Ireland do a number in England, everything we said about Lee Carsley in part one, we can throw that away.

It's all wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

And Michael Johnson did really well, actually.

It was very jinky, as you say, to set off Evan Ferguson.

Jim says, Ireland were wearing their so-called hype kit

tonight.

Out of all the clothing you've owned, which were you most hyped about?

I mean, it looks quite a lot like any other Ireland kit, but it is officially called the hype kit which seems dangerous doesn't it?

It seems risky

especially when you normally just draw 0-0 with Denmark to wear a hype kit.

So I think it was based on the one of the kits they wore at USA 94 it was supposed to look back at that but it isn't the kit that they wore when they beat Italy.

So it's actually more the one that John Aldridge

screamed at the referee.

Yeah, the fury.

The fury and the heat.

They were clearly a bit worried though that people weren't going to recognize it or these millennials or whatever the generation is because on the tracksy bottoms they all came out uh pre-play on it had the words the words the numbers 94 on the back just in case

they were massive shirt size just in case went under actually it should say and then it should just have a paragraph saying just in case you're not sure what we're talking about here with a you with a qr code that could link to a youtube clip of john oldridge getting furious on the touchline with jack charlton um Elsewhere tonight, France nil, Israel nil, the standard France virtually empty.

According to a lot of journalists, in Paris, French fans stayed away in protest at Israel's continued bombing of Gaza and

Lebanon.

Of course, some French fans may have just stayed away because they saw the trouble that happened in Amsterdam when Maccabi Tel Aviv went there last week.

Italy won 1-0 in Belgium, Sandra Tanali with the only goal.

Sam, he's impressed you recently and you as well, John.

Go to you first, Sam.

Yes, he he can't always get in.

The Newcastle starting 11 at the moment.

Sure, Longstaff seems to be keeping him out, but he's getting regular games for Italy.

They love him.

Newcastle can't quite work out how to play him and Guimarez together, but he came off the bench against Nottingham Forest and made a real difference in the 20 minutes he's on.

He looks like a Rolls-Royce footballer.

He's still getting used to the Premier League, but I mean, he plays 90 minutes every week for Italy.

It's a bit of a tap.

a bit of a tap in it was a tap in one of those right place at right time goals but i think he could be a focal point for the italian team for quite a few years he's still a very young man uh yeah good run though gotta gotta make the run norway won 4-1 in slovenia erling harland scored one of his earling harland goals austria won 2-0 in kazakhstan north macedonia beat latvia 1-0 and the faroe islands john won 1-0 in armenia well done the pharaohs 781 days without a competitive win

1530 days into competitive away win this is what the tweet said the torrid streak for the Faroe Islands is finally over.

So well done.

I wonder if they still have a goalkeeper with a woolly hat.

Do you remember those days?

Yeah,

that is the go-to, isn't it?

When Paul Watson's not on,

the general,

the reporting on the Faroe Islands is, do they still have that?

Was he called Knudsen?

I may be doing them a massive disservice, but I believe it was somebody Knudsen.

I'm just trying to work out how many years 1530 days is.

Over four years without a competitive away win.

So, well, so those Pharaohs fans that you know go away from home week in, week out, finally have something to cheer about.

I messaged Paul Watson.

He said, Yeah,

they're singing We Are Staying Up.

Anyway, so well done to the Pharaohs.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll discuss some more allegations about David Koot.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

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

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

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today, it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So a new video allegedly showing David Coote snorting white powder

emerged on social media.

The PGMOL said David Coote remains suspended pending a full investigation.

David's welfare continues to be of utmost importance to us.

We're committed to providing him with the ongoing necessary support he needs through this period.

We're not in a position to comment further at this stage.

UEFA has also launched its own investigation and suspended Coot as well.

Sam, look, we talked about it a lot a couple of days ago.

Now another video, we it is alleged to be him, alleged to be snorting white powder.

I don't know if you have any strong thought.

Now,

we saw, presumed after the first video, that his career was pretty much done.

If this is what we think it is, then this would suggest it definitely is.

Yeah, and there's the human element, isn't there?

It's this slow drip feeding of stories they already have because it's about selling whatever they need to sell, getting those clicks in that.

I saw the person, the source from the Sun's video talked about, I believe the FA and the governing body referees have to make sure that the sport we all love is protected and being officiated by the right people.

Right.

So, go your first port of call is the sun newspaper or tabloid newspaper.

Is it it's cruel that people engaging on it,

engaging with it online also need to have a look at themselves.

Uh, there's a there's a human, there's a there's a person involved here.

I really don't like it.

When I was at Forest on

uh Sunday, I saw a sign in the in the cubicles which had this word written up, and it said cocaethylene.

Do you know what cocaethylene is?

Cocaethylene is the substance that forms when alcohol reacts with cocaine and is very bad for the heart, very bad for the system.

And the reason it's been advertised in football grounds is there's a lot of cocaine use in football grounds, as we know, and as we've discussed on the pod.

And we also know that cocaine is quite widely used in society.

You know, I'm a man of the 90s.

So are you, Max, but we lived in a different 90s.

And so, yeah, I would share Sam's sympathy, but I do think it's this goes on an awful lot in society.

The problem is, at this point, of course, is that if this has been going on for this long,

well, what questions do the PGML have to answer?

And

listen, every week we talk about refereeing and

we'd laugh and we set aside refereeing conspiracies.

This type of incident, this type of

downfall is only going to set that stuff further and further.

And the trusted referees, and it's regrettable because I would like to believe in the sanctity of referee.

I do believe in it, but

this raises questions about what these people are getting up to.

Now, you could look at it at the point of view that they're just living the life of what normal people do, or you could say, what on earth is going on behind the scenes here?

And who knows about it?

It's terrible for the PGOL.

It's terrible for football.

It's filled a quiet international week with a story that I can't remember anything like this.

Can you?

It's huge.

It really is a massive story.

And this chap is at the center of it.

And

it's so many little strands

at the heart of it.

And what we saw on,

you know, with him talking about Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool, that's big.

That's the end of his refereeing career.

But there are so many other strands beyond that now.

Yeah, and they're going to get bigger by the sounds of it.

Actually, a lot of people did get in touch on one thing on our coverage.

Peter sums it up quite well.

He said, listening to your debate surrounding David Koot, I was surprised that no mention was made of him referring to Klopp as a German C-word.

Yes.

This racism, yet xenophobia seems to have been largely ignored.

As Max said, we all say bad.

Yes, many of us will use ugly language when describing someone in private, but most of us don't then bring their nationality race into it because that would make us racist.

Growing up in the UK with a German parent, I'm used to this casual and widely accepted abuse not lazy Nazi jokes being an example I just wonder if the nationality mention had been different would there have been more of Fiora I think that's a really accurate point and something that we didn't pick up on also got a few messages about the other guy in the video saying we hate scouters and obviously David Coote did not say that but obviously that is a just it's such a dumb stupid I mean the video is dumb you know and David Coote was stupid to do it and his mate is stupid to be on it but yeah

noted that we didn't bring that up but because David Coote didn't say it, we didn't.

It's not that it's not part of the story, it's not part of the David Coote story, but it's a stupid thing to say.

Um, and perhaps worth bringing to our attention as well.

Jonathan, I don't know if you had any other thoughts on

what you've seen over the past week.

Yeah, I think

whenever these sort of pylons happen, I'm always quite

try to take a distance on it, so I haven't really massively engaged with it, I'll be honest.

But I have sort of two, uh, well I have one thought and it's more to do with the future of refereeing if you were to say that every person who has ever insulted somebody or taken drugs cannot be a referee you will not have a single referee ever again

so

I think it's not really a question about the person who's accused and as you said a lot of its allegations it's not really about David Koot in my opinion it's more about how do we interpret people saying silly things or doing silly things, which ultimately is always going to happen.

So my thing is

we will eventually run out of referees in this country if kind of like the environment around them isn't protected.

I'm not someone who's really like

sort of hard, ideological pro-referee, if you know what I mean.

It's not like a kind of stance I take, you know what I mean?

I think getting a bit of sticks part of the experience, isn't it, as a referee?

Fans want to go and sort of shout at a referee, and that's fine.

but i i do wonder about where this is all going because there might be another referee who might be caught next week on a video saying something and it's kind of like

and even you know at grassroots level obviously i do work a lot of work in at lower levels of football and semi-pro leagues and things like that non-league and they are struggling to find referees at the moment to take up to take up football so

unless we invent a var bot who can run around those dolls that are coming out now and those those like you know the ai dolls and stuff like that if he could create a referee out of one of them maybe we won't won't need human beings but until that day we are going to need referees in football so all we want from these robots is common sense all we want from these robots is common sense i mean i get look the the the the argument that someone against would say yes

i understand that but you can't be on video calling one of especially you know you know bringing their nationality to it but calling a current manager a C word even if I suspect all the referees have been yelled all the all the referees probably think that about Premier League managers managers because they all are really really rude to them so he pretty much has to lose his job I'm not I'm not sort of saying like he's not done something wrong you know my point is more about

I'm pretty sure you could find every single referee in the country has said something stupid about one manager or player or someone in the Premier League do you know what I mean and if they have happened to have been recorded at that point

this could go on for weeks and months you could you could just have pylons on every single referee and eventually because there's that culture isn't there of sort of oh he's he's from he's from Manchester like now he, or he's from London.

And, you know, there is that culture we have in England, isn't there?

And in every country as well, you know, this happens in Turkey, this happens everywhere.

So it's not just England, but I read earlier they're talking about maybe now, maybe bringing foreign referees to referee Premier League games.

And that's maybe the next step of this conversation is,

will we now have to maybe have referees from abroad as they do in some other countries?

So, yeah, just my thing is more about where is it going rather than commenting on the actual incident, if that makes it.

Well, I was going to say, actually, just Sam probably will have heard this actually again at that forest game the abuse anthony taylor the referee received during that game it was horrible wasn't it i mean listen i i i'm no fan or advocate of anthony taylor in fact i don't really have any feelings on anthony taylor but

there was one chap near me who i was trying to work out what it looked like how I imagine someone in a medieval time looked in the stocks like when someone was there and screaming and baying for the blood of Anthony Taylor,

perhaps fueled by a bit of coquethylene.

It's not impossible.

And he's screaming and howling.

And, you know, you remember Nottingham Forest entered that game, third in the Premier League, playing the best football they have in 30 years.

And that was his target.

And this is the problem that the refereeing community has, is that they're already pariahs and they don't need this scandal to add to what is already

a fairly heady mix.

And

VAR has stirred that pot up even more, as I think we'll agree.

It's the refereeing game.

Who'd be a referee?

That's always the question you've got to ask.

And that's what Jonathan was talking about before at grassroots, because we need referees and we need people

to have respect.

And I don't really know

where the solution to that lies.

No.

And it's an interesting point that Jonathan makes, a philosophical point about how we judge different people to different standards.

And if you are there to, you know, you are there as an arbiter of the rules, be it a police officer or a referee, then, you know, or a teacher or a lawyer or an MP, I guess, as opposed to a rock star, you know, where you'd be totally celebrated for all, you know, this kind of stuff is very interesting.

Yes, sir.

They've got a duty of care towards him.

I hope it's not, they're not paying lip service towards looking after him and the other referees, actually.

It's a massively high pressure job, as John was saying.

That is not nice to face that.

So the PGML MOL has a lot of work to do, but it's not just around David Koot.

This has just nudged it into the public spotlight.

Elsewhere, Australia drew nil-nil with Saudi Arabia.

Doesn't mean a whole lot.

Apparently, if they'd won, it would have been better.

That's what my contacts tell me, but they're still second in the group behind Japan.

Sam Paoli have announced that they've left X because Elon Musk has turned the platform into, quote, a hate machine.

So that's the Guardian and Sam Pauli.

What's left on X?

G says, will Gareth Ainsworth at Shrewsbury be more Gareth Ainsworth at Wickham or more Gareth Ainsworth at QPR?

It's a very good question.

I'm slightly disappointed because, you know, as one of the other four to six teams going for relegation in League Well, I didn't want Shrewsbury to get any sort of Ainsworth bounce.

So hopefully QPR from my point of view.

And George says, hi, Max Barry and Co.

After hearing you all praise teams from some of the niche corners of the world, I wonder if we could get some love for the brand new A-League side, Auckland FC, who in their inaugural season have won three from three in their opening games, collecting all nine points and thrashing Wellington Phoenix in the first 2-0.

That's not really a thrashing, is it?

In the first ever Kiwi Derby, known as the Kiwi Classico.

I love football.

I've lived in London for a few years.

I'm a passionate Arsenal fan, but thrilled to not only have a hometown team to support, but one that seems to be kicking some ass.

Long may it continue.

Yeah, I'm doing a little bit of A-League stuff.

They've started very well.

And also, they nicked.

I watch a bit of a league stuff it's good isn't it auckland fc are part of the uh bournemouth they've got the same owner what's he called bill foley yeah and so what bournemouth did was they signed wellington phoenix's keeper right and they said no no he's not going to go to auckland well no he's not you know we're signing for bournemouth they immediately loaned him to auckland so uh he played in goal for auckland against his former side so there's you know the rivalry is growing over there uh but yeah you're very welcome and all our new zealand listeners of course welcome as everyone else is.

And that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks for staying up late.

Thanks, John.

Thank you, Max.

Cheers, Sam.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thanks to you, Max.

No, thanks to me, of course.

Football without me, you know.

Let's not go there.

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Phil Maynard.

We'll be back on Monday.

This is The Guardian.