Sporting thrash City to give Amorim perfect farewell party – Football Weekly Extra

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

And who needs Pennsylvania and Wisconsin when you've got Ruben Amarin?

What a night for him and for Victor Jokarez sporting for Manchester City One, the first time in six and a half years that the city have lost three games in a row.

It wasn't perfect for the new Manchester United manager, shamefully deciding to answer questions at a Portuguese press conference as a Portuguese man in charge of a Portuguese side ahead of a game in Portugal in Portuguese.

While it's not enough now to just cut to Noel Gallagher in the crowd, we get him on COCOMS.

Liverpool followed up beating someone good in the Premier League by beating someone good in the Champions League, 4-0 over by Alever Kusuz and a hat-trick for Louis Diaz.

And then there's AC Milan's excellent win at the Bernabau and the same for Celtic over Leipzig.

They have a great chance of getting through.

Also, today, we'll ask if the World Cup in 2026 will be any different.

Now, Trump is president.

We'll look back on Harry Wilson's last ghast win over Brentford.

We'll take your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

D1 Sizzle says, unbelievable lineup, this.

Dave says, no questions.

Elite lineup.

Instructions would only complicate things.

Just go out and play, lads.

Philippe Aucler, bonjour sava.

I've been better.

I think it's one of those mornings when I considered if having a Scotch whiskey breakfast was actually called for.

Yes, all right.

We obviously will welcome listeners from all parts of the sides of the political spectrum, don't we?

Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

And hello, Lars Ivertson.

Hi, Max.

Simon says, has Ruben Amarin been a better Manchester United manager this season than Ten Haag without being the Manchester United manager yet?

It is, Lars, an amazing result this 4-1 for him, isn't it?

Yeah, I'm inclined to say yes to that that question.

I mean, that was just incredible timing,

and just many wins for Madame Arim, as you alluded to in the intro, just him absolutely not having any of the Gary Cottrell nonsense I thought was also a big win for him on a personal level.

That immediately endears him to me and many other people in the UK, I'm sure.

They were very convincing, but it was also one of those where it was such an example of how to like dismantle Manchester City.

It was like, it was like playing the hits of what happens when City are not at their best in terms of, you know, obviously obviously city had a tone of possession and and moved the ball around and had their chances but they didn't take it and when they lost it they looked so vulnerable and we've talked a lot about the gap that rodri has left in terms of regaining possession and stopping those counters that's sure but i thought it was also noticeable how we had one of those rapid uh city collapses which

which i mean that was always the thing when city was struggling to to get all the way in the champions league i mean i think wilson wrote a couple of really good articles on it: how when things go wrong for Peb City and Pep Guardiola's teams in general, they tend to go wrong really quickly.

It's something like when the system malfunctions,

they don't have the guys, there's no,

you know, the thing that Ibrah always said, that they're all schoolboys, you know, you don't have the big, strong, shouty men who can just, yeah, put their foot on the ball and kick someone and just nothing stupid for the next five minutes.

When the system goes wrong, they all kind of freak out and get really stressed.

So we had the goal just after halftime and then immediately like conceding a dumb penalty afterwards.

And like, there's no, and it's been felt like it's been a while since we've seen one of these rapid collapses.

It kind of felt slightly nostalgic for the sort of pre-city winning the Champions League era when this seemed to happen occasionally to them.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess the point is, Barry, if you

if you're not used to it happening, you can see why all the city players are going, well, we don't know what to do in this situation.

This doesn't happen to us.

Yeah,

I had a feeling sporting might win this.

I didn't think they'd win it as emphatically as they did.

And yet, the 4-1 scoreline, I think, flatters them a little bit because,

you know, you mentioned Noel Gallagher

was on Co-Comms for TNT Sport.

And I see he's being derided this morning for

saying

shortly before Sporting scored their first goal that I didn't think this was going to be so easy for City.

And they had loads of shots.

Haaland had an effort saved by Israel.

He lashed a shot wide.

He had another volley saved.

Bernardo Silva had a low diagonal just wide at the far post that you'd expect him to score.

They had originally opened the scoring through Phil Foden running at a backpedaling defence.

And then Gaucher is

put through after City giving the ball away and shot straight at Edison.

So City were fairly rampant, I would say, in the first half.

And then just boom,

it all went wrong for them very, very quickly, either side of half-time.

And they just couldn't cope.

They had no answers.

Give away two stupid penalties, I would say.

And that cost them.

Jim says, can the panel please acknowledge it was Mark Robbins and not Ruben Amerin that has turned Victor Jokarez into the most dangerous man in Europe?

But Michael says, how long before Man United turned Jokeres back into a League One striker?

Is the second Swede Philippe Philippe to ever get a Champions League hat-tricker after the aforementioned Zlatter?

I think we can guess who the first one is.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, exactly.

It was Stefan Schwartz.

No, I mean, he's a really exciting footballer, isn't he?

And I mean, lots of people saying, you know...

How could it the Premier League miss him?

But there's no guarantee if you're doing well in the championship that you will do well at a higher level, but he's certainly got the talent.

Okay, first thing, how could the Premier League miss him?

He's not exactly in a Mickey Mouse club, right?

Yeah.

Sporting Lisbon have just beaten Manchester City, have been Portuguese champion twice with one of Europe's finest young managers.

They are not exactly donkeys, right?

So he's just because he didn't join Nottingham Forest or Crystal Palace doesn't mean he's in a lesser club.

That's the first thing I would say.

The second thing, I think he's quite a surprising character.

I think perhaps he's one of those, because of his build, it plays a little bit against him and people tend to forget that he's also technically a very astute footballer, like his

finish, actually, the dink for his non-penalty goal is actually

something rather beautiful.

He holds the ball extremely well,

is very quick

as well for somebody as big as he is.

And I think it's a bit deceptive of that.

And the fact that, yes, I mean, okay, he was very good with scoring loads of goals for Coventry, but he's been scoring loads of goals for sporting Lisbon as well.

I mean, it's a surprise and not a surprise.

It's just maybe we have to recalibrate perhaps the way we judge players like that.

But the thing as well, he missed the easiest chance of the game.

I mean, I still couldn't believe, and to actually to carry on what Barry was saying, at the first five minutes of the game, or first, yeah, five minutes, because that's Phil Foden's goal, and the chance that he gets and completely fluffs, he actually passes the ball to the keeper, to Edison.

I thought

the emotional context of the game is such: like there are spectators in tears, there's this huge Tifo.

Ruben Amarim doesn't know if he should just give himself to the love that is pouring down from the stands.

I have to focus on that game for two.

And you thought, my goodness, they really could be in for a tough, tough evening.

And they didn't.

They didn't.

and we have to stress that the gold discord from kickoff in the second half was a thing of almost sublime beauty it's it was just oh oh oh my goodness

one touch after one touch after one touch like a like a virtuous applying yet another stroke of the pen and it's even better and it gets better and better and better

i felt philippe that was i felt i felt philippe that was the closest you've got to when harry met Sally in your experience.

Yes.

I just checked myself.

Sorry, Lars.

There was also a little detail to that goal is the run that Yokarez makes, which is a completely selfless run for a forward to make.

He makes a run out to the side where he almost certainly cannot receive the ball.

And if he does, he's going to be in a bad position to do anything with it.

But what it does is it takes a defender with him and it opens up a little bit of space.

And I thought about that a lot because of a game we're going to get to later because I watched Real Madrid, Milan,

and a forward who will actually just accept that part of his role isn't just to score goals, it's actually to move around and to pull defenders out of shape and create space for others.

That's a really useful and valuable thing to have.

Who could you possibly control?

We'll get there.

Let's not spoil it, Barry.

We'll get there.

We'll get there.

On Yokoz's going to Manchester United, Ruben Amarin was asked that after the game, and he actually answered it brilliantly.

He just said, I can't be funny with that in this moment.

If I start joking about that, I have problems.

this is my city this is my country victor has to stay until the end of the season and then he'll probably be off somewhere um

city's third loss in a row then in all competitions first time that's happened since april 2018 which was the home defeat to man united when pogbus i think city were 2-0 up and then pogbus scored a win i think city were already running away with the league by then but they lost both quarter finals of the Champions League to Liverpool either side of that.

So how big a crisis is this, Barry?

You know, this is without Rodri,

three three defeats in a row, it just doesn't happen to Manchester City.

Well, I think the fact that it's happened in three different competitions,

and two of those defeats are fairly inconsequential insofar as the Carabao Cup isn't that important, and they can afford to get beaten by sporting in this competition without it.

necessarily impeding their progress to the knockout stages means as crises go it's it's not as catastrophic as another crisis that has unfolded over them throughout the course of the night while most of us were sleeping but yeah it is indicative of a general malaise and

we all knew uh city were going to miss rodri every goal they concede you can look at and go well they wouldn't have conceded that if rodri was there

and you wonder if if perhaps even manchester city's players are thinking well we can't cope without this guy.

So, you know, they've been

playing at such intensity for so long

over so many years under Pep.

Yeah, this might be the season the wheels come off.

And the fact they've lost three in a row, which is something that hasn't happened for six years,

suggests that things could get a lot worse before they get better.

Big trip to Brighton at the weekend, I think.

The 5.30 game on Saturday.

Yes, Laws.

One thing that I think compounds the Roderie absence and the fact that there is no natural replacement in the whole control the counter-attack role there is that Kyle Walker is not looking quite like himself.

And

because he's kind of been their sort of cheat code a lot of the times is that he's been so fast, like his recovery speed has been so extraordinary that because City commit a lot of men high up the field, in the rare times that Roderick didn't stop the counter-attack or someone else didn't stop the counter-attack, you know, Kyle Walker would just eat up the ground and stop stop the guy who's running that way.

But but Kyle Walker is 34, and

as much as he is a physical, you know, an incredible specimen physically, like he's not going to have that, he's not going to have that forever.

Like, that speed is going to go.

And

I think the last few games I've seen City, he has looked maybe not quite as fast as he was.

And that's also, he's one of

some City players who have played a lot of football the last couple of years.

You know, Guardiola likes having a pretty tight squad.

Like, he doesn't, he doesn't rotate as much as other coaches.

I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying.

And there are there are players there who have so many minutes in their legs that maybe a slight sort of decline in energy and

physical output is something that's happening right now.

And then on top of that, they were missing chances.

They did create enough chances, really, both here and against Bournemouth to get away with it.

But they've not really been sharpened up up front.

So there's a lot of little things going wrong at the same time.

And I'm going to say, just I'm really fascinated to see what Guardiola will do to try to fix this because Guardiola is clearly an incredibly intelligent coach who's very good at thinking of like tactical solutions to situations.

I still think, I mean, he got credit for it, obviously, but him looking at it a couple of years ago and decided like Jon Stone's hybrid midfield fullback thing is

he's a very smart tactician, and it'll be fascinating to see in the next couple of weeks what he does to try to fix this.

You know, when you looked at the lineup and you saw that that Jamal Simpson Pusey was in the starting 11, and then you realized Walker and Ake were on the bench, you thought, well, that's a bit of a gamble.

They're not exactly playing a small team here.

They're playing a team that is doing very, very well.

And that's an interesting choice, shall we say.

And you look at the other players who were on the bench as well.

Gundogan,

Jeremy Doku, Kevin Dobruyne, I mean, who is, yes, coming back from injury.

But it was a bit of a strange team that he put there.

And as for Simpson Pusey, who, by the way, got an absolute earful from Akangia, I don't know if you saw that, because he didn't quite manage to prevent Giucheres from taking the shot for his goal, for his first goal.

You have to wonder sometimes if he didn't try again to be a bit too clever, which is something that he has done quite a few times in the past.

And I see that last ones to intervene, and

I want to hear the wisdom of the bearded one on this one.

Well, not to intervene, but just to say that maybe

resting guys for this game was not the bad call.

Even if you lose and it's Amorim and it's a big story, you can afford to lose this game.

This is like, this is a game, this is one you can not kind of give up on, obviously.

That's a daft way of looking at it, but like we you're gonna have to arrest some of these guys.

And like certainly Walker, the way he struggled against Bournemouth, like him sitting down for a week is probably not a bad thing.

And

a few of these other, who I just said have had maybe too many minutes.

And

as Barry, I think said earlier, of these three defeats, you know, they played an almost entirely reserved team against Spurs in the League Cups.

That's almost completely inconsequential.

And they will have no problem getting enough points to go through the Champions League giant table.

So maybe just not.

Yeah, maybe rotating here, even if it's a bit of a loss of face losing against the Nextman United manager and all this, it's probably not a bad move, actually.

Mark says it's not usual that a question is directed towards the host, but I'm particularly interested in Max's view on the handball penalty.

Not sure that it's a topic he's made his views clear on before.

I can't even get into it.

Uh, Scrimfish says, Um, Noel Gallagher on Co-Comms for TNT is the most amusing thing I've heard in ages.

What next?

Sporty Spice, Martin Keown, and Darren Fletcher for a Liverpool game in match week five.

Nick says, Could you do the whole pod in Portuguese for Gary Cottrell's sake?

And uh, Michael says, Otimo, o que vem primero um a vetoriado, Manchester City, U ano vedicto da cento equenze

acusacoes,

which translates as

what will come first, a Man City win or a resolution of the 115 charges.

Interestingly, Amrim after the game, if you're not in the UK, that you won't have seen this, but in the press conference before Sky Sports Gary Cottrell said to Ruben Amarin, look, just a few words in English about something or other for Manchester United.

And he was like, we're gonna do this in Portuguese.

And his commons person said, we're gonna do this in Portuguese.

And Gary Cottrell just got a bit sniffy about it I mean after the game I think Rubin Amarin did answer in English to Gary Cottrell I think so it doesn't need to get overblown but it was a it was an awkward unnecessary moment I think what Amrim said that was the most interesting aside from that little amusing aside was that he said after the game he was asked

uh about the whole united and their performance and he said that united United, that's a good quote, United cannot play the way we play.

They cannot be so defensive, which I think is worth bringing up because if you you just saw the highlights of this game, you might be forgiven for thinking sporting weren't being very defensive because there were a lot of sporting attacks.

But of course, they did have something like 27% possession over the 90 minutes and were outshot 20-9.

So it was a counter-attacking performance,

which is not what United fans, I guess, will be expecting.

But

it certainly was enough

to deal with City.

There's one thing I would say for Amoring.

He's now leaving Sporting Lisbon as they're having a great season in Europe.

And I think i will just leave this debate for another another day max but i do think there should be a transfer window for managers as there are for players because i think it totally skews the competition sporting lisbon in the spring won't be sporting lisbon that we really love to watch last night and that is a pity yeah also interesting that they their transfer fees seem so minimal compared to how important they seem to be it's sort of mad that they haven't got to the state you know you can blow 80 million on a left winger who's hopeless but you you you know, 10 million for him.

And you think that seems really weird, doesn't it?

Liverpool for Leverkusen-0.

I think we can't now say, Barry, that Liverpool haven't beaten anyone good.

Brighton of the weekend, Leverkusen are good, perhaps not as good as last season, but another excellent performance and another excellent second half from Liverpool.

Yeah, we pointed out a couple of weeks ago that they had this series of stern tests of their metal coming up, and they've passed them all, I think, haven't they?

Yeah.

and this was a very emphatic win against the buyer leaver cousin side who i thought more than held their own in the first half and then i thought they should have had a penalty actually for a virgil van dijk tug on jeremy frimpong which certainly impeded his progress in the box but but we've had it explained to us in recent weeks that you know unless that progress is emphatically going to result in him scoring then it's not enough of a foul to give a penalty, which I think is ridiculous.

But,

and then Frimpong also had an effort ruled-out good finish, actually, after he'd handled the ball in the build-up while running past Kimikas.

But Liverpool just absolutely blew them away in the second half.

Kelleher did have to make a double save from Schick and Flurry and Wurtz, but

Luis Diaz with his hat-trick and who was it?

Cody Gaspa's head.

Yeah, it was another excellent, excellent performance from an

Ernest Slott, who seems to be the real deal.

Even it is too early to say, but yeah, I've been very impressed.

And I think the really interesting thing we've learned about Liverpool in this run of more difficult games is that they're not.

I mean, when Slot took over, they were keeping the ball a bit more, a little bit lower intensity, trying to control stuff more.

And they were like, ooh, yeah, there's more control, not as much heavy metal.

But when they've come up against stronger opponents, they've been really good at attacking directly.

I mean, the way they just kind of cut through Levikuz and Hair, they were so quick on the counter, so much speed and dynamism.

So it's not just like, yeah, it's not just about areas of easy fying the team, put it that way.

Like they're playing in different ways in different games, which I always think is a real strength.

Philippe?

I think one thing which is very impressive, and obviously the one thing that makes me think of that is Curtis Jones' absolutely beautiful pass.

Yes, I know.

Absolutely gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous pass.

I didn't know Curtis-Jones was capable of doing passes like this.

It's something I would, in the Liverpool squad, I would associate that either with like a Fantasista Laksada or McAllister, Alexis McAllister, who is that type of player who just sees openings when nobody else does.

And the one thing you've got to say for Aristotle, I know it's early, but it's early-ish, actually.

It's not early anymore, is the number of players who seem to have improved

under him.

Ryan Graverberg is another one.

Luis Diaz was already very good, but at the moment is walking on water.

And Curtis Jose, my goodness,

he's taking a dimension that I don't think many people thought

he could do.

And that's actually that and the kind of unflappability of this team.

It doesn't matter, even if they're a little bit pushed this way and that by their opponent, they never panic.

They're a kind of, at the moment, an anti-arsenal who panic when they're put under pressure.

And Liverpool is the opposite.

They might actually look a little bit at times.

You think, well, they might concede a goal, but you don't feel that it's something that is affecting their inner being.

You think they're going to react, they're going to find a solution.

Here against Bayeleva Kusen was not easy.

First half was a very KG, and then suddenly

they found that extra gear.

And I think that's that combined with the fact that there's been an improvement in some of some individuals in the team, I mean, is something that Liverpool fans should be very, very,

I think, optimistic about.

I mean, Gravenbach in the early season, like, Gravenberg has the number six.

And we were all like, yeah, that's probably fine against like Ipswich and Bournemouth and whatever.

But when the big games come, that will not turns out it's fine.

Like,

he's a very intelligent and very good player.

And it seems to be working absolutely fine.

The work rate, as well as impressive.

The 3-0 up, games won, and just this incredibly intense pressing inside their own half, which forces a turnover.

And then

Darwin Nunes, I think, went to the loan.

They had three on two or three on three, but his shot was parried to defeat of Diaz, who scored their fourth.

That is indicative of a team whose manager will not let them

ease up no matter how much they're winning by.

Yeah.

And just give us a bit of context so far, Labour Kuzenlars have played 9-1-4, drawn four, lost one in the league.

So they're not flying.

They have been defeated and they're not flying like they were last year.

But it is still a very, very good win over a very good team.

Yeah, absolutely.

But I think Archie touched on it in an earlier episode that...

There's something not quite the same with them.

And I do wonder if there's like an emotional hangover almost from achieving such a historic feat last season.

Because the intensity just isn't quite the same.

And certainly they're looser defensively, considering more chances.

And yeah, I think it must be really difficult to follow that up when you have a season that goes better than anyone could have dreamt of.

Maybe ask the Leicester guys.

You know, the next season is

not entirely comparable.

Ever Krusen are a bigger team than Leicester, obviously, blah, blah, blah.

I think, yeah, emotionally going again after achieving something like that must be tricky.

And they're still a very good team, but they're definitely not quite where they were last year.

Alright, that'll do for part one.

Part two will begin with Celtic's victory over Arby Leipzig.

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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.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

The one vote that matters then, the FSAs.

Could change the future of the world forever.

And it is in your hands.

We are up for podcast of the year.

We are going back because we won it last year, I think, and I think the year before, I forget.

Anyway, competition is tough.

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Don't let one of the evil bastards win.

So, yeah, please vote for us.

We would appreciate it greatly.

Others who can vote for Jonathan Wilson or Johnny Lou or Susie Rack in Writer of the Year.

Not the top 20 is up for an award as well.

Women's Football Weekly.

Women's Football Weekly is up for, yes,

as is The Guardian, the whole of the Guardian.

So there you go.

And Robin is up for a commentator of the year, isn't she?

Oh, yes.

I think she is.

Forgive me.

Yes, Robin Cowan.

Robin.

And yeah, and congratulations to Robin on Child 2.

And so far she tells me it's as exhausting as I'm expecting.

Anyway, Celtic 3, RB Leipzig 1.

You and Murray writing last night, Scottish teams internationally or domestically don't routinely play as Celtic did against top-level opposition tonight.

Perfectly controlled, perfectly comfortable.

For a first half spell, they wobbled, but Leipzig were a clear second best, a triumph of management and attitude.

And Barry, if Ewan is being that positive about anything, it must be true.

Forgive me, Ewan.

It must be true.

Yeah, they were very impressive.

After the game, Caspar Schmeichel said, I think we showed what we're capable of.

And on this occasion, they certainly showed what they're capable of in a good way.

You know, previously against Borossi Dortmund, they also showed what they're capable of.

But this was a great performance.

And as Ewan said, they did have a first half wobble.

They went behind to a team who, you know, even at this early stage of the competition, really need points because Leipzig have now lost four out of four.

But they went ahead through Christoph Baumgart, their header at corner.

Leipzig had two more chances to increase their lead.

Celtic, probably their their players wouldn't have been aware of the fact that they have lost 27 of the last 28 Champions League games in which they'd gone behind.

But

they had a bit of a masterclass from Nicholas Kuhn, who equalised with a textbook Mo Sala goal that Mo Sala would have been very proud of, cutting inside after running on to a brilliant pass from RA Engels and curling the shot past the keeper.

They worked really hard, relentless pressing, their energy, work rate, finishing, defensive discipline, and all augmented by a great atmosphere at Celtic Park.

So they were more than worthy winners of this game.

Yeah, it sounded so good there.

And Lars, look, you know, Leipzig, have no points in this competition, but are second in the Bundesliga.

Yeah, no, this is a huge result for Celtic and the way it happened, just as Barry said, like, I wasn't, I believe you were watching the full game, Barry.

I wasn't, but I just saw in the highlights that they were, you know, they were creating chances by, like, not by counter-attacks, but by by winning the ball high up the field, by like being brave and going straight at them.

They had more possession.

It's a really impressive thing for a team from the Scottish League to be able to do against a strong European opponent.

I mean, Leipzig have conceded five goals all season in the Bundesliga so far, and Celtic put three past them.

Like, that's really, really impressive.

There's no caveats.

It's just a brilliant, brilliant night for them.

Felipe, did you want to come in?

Just wanted once again to stress that it's quite remarkable for Celtic.

I would think of Nicholas Kuhn.

They didn't pay a lot of money for him at all.

I think they paid something like three million pounds, which these days is change found at the back of the sofa of Sergei Ratcliffe or in his toilet.

And he's yet another of those players who will now, they will probably sell him for about five times that, as they do every season.

And it's the wheel Celtics Paradox.

It's one of the best run clubs on the planet.

You look at their financial results.

They're fantastic.

They profit, profit, profit, profit all of the time.

But the reason why they profit is because they find these players and then they sell them.

So they can never build on them.

And that's a Celtic paradox.

And you wonder if at one point they're going to say, you know what?

Let's try to keep a few of those guys and see what we could do if they stayed for more than two seasons with us.

First win for AC Milan at the Bernabau in 15 years, Lars.

Great win, great performance.

Mike Mannion did have a great game in goal for Milan, but they had chances to make this even more comfortable, actually.

Yeah,

you're right to point out that Magnon had to make some big saves, and that's true.

But this was still a remarkable game.

So

I had this kind of up on my main screen, and I had the highlights.

You know, I basically, again, turn into to I turned into Alfred from the Batman with all the screens when this evening's going, but this was the one I was watching the most.

And it's remarkable how

disorganized and poor Real Madrid are at times.

They were so bad.

And again,

yeah, they had something like 23 shots.

And

there's so much attacking talent on the field that they will inevitably create some stuff.

But the balance does not seem right.

Like, they don't seem to be getting on very well.

And

there's a lot of an issue.

And Mbappe just kind of hanging around and shrugging and looking annoyed.

Bellingham looks

restrained, if that works.

He's clearly being asked to play a more defensive role.

He can't go forward the way he was doing last season and isn't really, you're not really seeing the full dude bellingham and and just like they're not it's not it's not working there it's it was a really poor performance and i guess i would have said the same thing after the first half against ortman and then they came roaring back in the second but here they they really didn't

yeah and and also i i mean i you try and work out what the problem is you think mbappe is a problem because elite football you can't defend with just nine players right if him and vinicius aren't tracking back it seems so strange when the other day we were talking about intensity on Monday and the idea that you just have to find the right personalities, I guess.

Because if you think about, we talked about Liverpool, you know, Klopp with Mane and Famino and Salah, like elite center for all elite attackers who defended all the bloody time.

And so when do you, is it a Real Madrid thing?

I mean, it's a huge problem for them.

It hasn't been for years.

But adding another one like that, do you think that makes it a big issue?

If you just take names and reputations and online followers and all that out of the picture, would you have sat down after last season and looked at the Real Madrid squad and said, you know what?

What we really need is like a right-footed forward who likes to cut in from the left, who's really, really fast and can run past people.

Is that what?

No, we'd go, no, because we have that.

That is what, that's like our best player right now.

But that's what they've added.

And they, I'm not saying this will never work because these are really intelligent.

Well, they're really talented people.

How intelligent they are, I don't know.

They're really talented people.

And Ancelotti is a clever guy.

and maybe the, but currently, the Vinicius Jr.

and Bappa combo is not making any sense, and you can see they're not, yeah, and I, I, I, I, I, you, I pulled up the sort of the very selfless run Yokeris made for the very good sporting goal.

They don't have a forward who will make that run.

Like, they're both the Vinicius and Mbappe have got sort of big main character syndrome thing going on.

Like, everything is about them.

None of them are going to like consistently make runs that don't benefit them.

And they need someone to run.

They need a big lump to run the channels for them, really.

And they don't have that character.

Well, they kind of do.

He's not necessarily a big lump, but Rodrigo, who's been, is no longer in the side because Mbappe is there.

And Vasquez got roasted by Rafael Leia.

So they're really missing Carvajao, who's out for the season.

Schumani had the crowd on his back from the first whistle.

Valverde and Modric were, well, Modric on this occasion just looked like an old man, and uh Valverde, I think, got hooked at half-time.

So there are problems all over the pitch, but they look really,

really out of sorts when they don't have the ball, and they're quite easy to play against.

But having said that, Mbappe, I think, had three chances, which on another night he might have put away at least two of them.

Yeah, I mean, on um on Bappe, because uh I think I have to go back to the the Morata goal, because that, in a way, showed everything that was wrong.

There's a rogue ball from Tremini for Vinicius.

The way Vinicius reacts to the misplaced pass

is so shocking.

Honestly, it happens in any game at any level.

Your manager hooks you up after that.

He didn't fight for the ball at all.

He didn't even try to compete for the ball and he didn't move.

He didn't follow his man.

He just stayed there absolutely immobile and just, you know, basically, I'm not interested.

I'm I'm not here to do this.

I'm here to do Vinicius' things,

score beautiful goals, dive for penalties, try to get the keeper sent off, all these things which would have made him such a great ballon d'oeuvre.

I'm so happy he didn't get it.

And Mbappe was the same.

So you were playing 9 against 11 out of possession.

How can you do that?

And there was another extraordinary moment at the end when Vinicius has this header, which Meignon, I think, does it go wide or Mignon gets at the very end of the game when it's already wrapped up and the camera cuts to Ancelotti and you've got everybody around Ancelotti with their head in their heads and the impression of Ancelotti's calm personified but there's at the same time a profound sense of disgust.

You could feel that he's thinking, I don't like the way my players have been playing tonight.

I don't like it at all.

I don't recognize myself in that.

And I'm wondering how he can recognize himself.

I mean, to be honest, at the moment, I'd be tempted.

One of Initius Ombappe has got to get out of the team.

Which one is he going to be?

That's such a tough question, isn't it?

Like, it's so hard to drop one of them, right?

And Barry rightly points out that Mbapu could have scored some goals in this game because he still, as much as we kind of...

diss him at the moment, he still has that sort of flash of acceleration and skill and he hits the ball.

He has the skill set to just score goals out of nothing.

And he will do that occasionally.

But we also look at things like in the classical when he was offside eight times.

It's like, how does that happen at this level?

There's like, are you paying attention at all?

And I wonder if,

and maybe Philippe will know this better than me, but I wonder if the extent to which he was kind of mollycoddled at PSG and was effectively not coached and just kind of allowed to do whatever he wanted at all times, maybe a couple of years of that will have just really set him back as a footballer because he's now in a context where more is expected of him and where the team isn't completely set up around what he wants to do at any given moment.

And now he needs to make more intelligent runs and do stuff that actually helps other people on the field.

And that doesn't seem to be in his repertoire.

It is not going to happen.

And what's really funny is that PSG wanted to turn into the Galacticos.

You know, the ones who actually used to...

to win things.

And now Realm Buddha is turning into PSG, which is hilarious.

And as we said in the preview, I think, with all those players that like to cut in from the right, they're just like one of those old snook of tables.

With, you know, everything goes into that pocket, and that pocket is on the side, it's not where the goal is.

Um, I'm glad you pointed out Rafael Leal, Baz, because he did brilliantly for that third goal, and he's such a, you know, like he's such a tremendous talent.

And I like seeing him being,

I think he was recalled after a spell out of the side because, like, Milan aren't pulling up too many trees this season, they're only sevenths, and Fonseca is under big pressure, so that's a huge win for him.

Massive.

Um, yeah, and Antonio Rudiger did score an absolutely brilliant goal that was dislaval side.

I mean, he hit the ball so sweetly.

It was just like, and they just jogged back like he does it all the time.

It's absolutely brilliant.

And nice to see Emerson Royale.

Bit of nostalgia for Spurs fans giving away the

penalty for Milan.

Lille won.

Juve won.

Leal went one up.

Great goal from Jonathan David.

Glorious pass, brilliant finish.

What did you make of that game, Philippe?

I made it that Lille have did what they've been doing since the beginning of the competition.

They haven't played particularly imaginatively or beautifully, but they're getting the results.

I mean, come on.

You know, you beat Atletico, you beat Real Madrid,

even if it's this Real Madrid.

And then against Juve, I think they were a bit unlucky with the penalty, to be honest.

That's for another day to discuss.

And we don't discuss the award of penalties on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast ever, of course.

But the goal itself was a thing of absolute beauty.

I think it's the passer from Edon Zhegrova, who was

a bit like Curtis Jones, actually.

It's one of those where you dissect the field,

which also means that you have an understanding with your striker that has been worked on and on and on.

It's not just a personal affinity, but obviously on the training pitch,

you've actually watched how this striker was moving and this striker has watched what you could do with the ball.

And it was absolutely glorious.

And they're now in superb position to qualify automatically, which is honestly totally unhoped for.

The striker in question being Jonathan David, of course.

Jonathan David, yeah.

I've only seen highlights of this sleep or

Chevalier in goal for Lil.

He looks

super.

He looks class act.

He looks class act.

And actually,

there was a lot of things on Twitter before it turned its attention to...

what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic.

There was a lot of discussion about should Chevalier be actually equal to the French national team?

Because we've now got a number one Mike Mignon, who I think everybody would agree is one of the best keepers in Europe, best keepers

in the world, in fact.

And Chevalier actually was absolutely superb.

And

as he has been since the beginning of the competition, I think, you know, they've got the UFF got this save of the week or save of the month or whatever for the Champions League.

And I think Chevalier has been in every single one of them.

Really?

Oh, there was one at the near post, wasn't it?

There was one at the near post that was just instinct from Vlahovic.

Absolutely brilliant, save.

It really was.

I would also very quickly flag up.

I know Philippe mentioned it, but the Azist from Edon Zhigrova is brilliant.

And he is one of those players who, if you're like me, you kind of miss the age of the sort of super technical, slightly rogue Maverick creative players.

Every time I see him, like, he's not massively consistent and he does some strange things occasionally.

But Edon Zhigrova is like a technical cult hero type of guy who, yeah, I'm glad they're still around.

Probably not going to play for a top European team at some point.

I think he's a little bit too chaotic for that.

How dare you call Lille not a top European team?

Oh, no.

No, because they're not.

Okay.

But I love players like that, and I love that they're still around.

Philippe, give me a tight minute on Monaco's win in Bologna.

They're third in the table.

There's not much to report on that because the game

was actually rubbish and

there was hard competition from some much, much better games.

But again, they did what they had to do.

It was a bit of a scruffy finish, honestly.

They had a goal disallowed, which shouldn't have been disallowed, but we never discuss refereeing decision on Galilee Football Weekly ever.

But look at them where they are on the table.

It's a bit of a surprise, to be absolutely honest, because nobody.

I mean, I don't know what's going on with French football.

You know, what is Brest going to do?

You know, maybe they'll top of the league or something.

Could be.

Lars,

give us the same tight minute on Dortmund's 1-0 victory over Sturm Gratz.

Just

a good three points for them.

And

I mean, they were the better team.

They had more chances, but it looked like they weren't going to get there.

And then in the end, it's a really good shot by Donnell Marlin and quite a well-worked goal.

And Mal Marlin's been decent this year, which is useful for them because he's one of those signings they made that has never really fully worked out.

But yeah,

not a spectacular game, but a deserved win, I'd say.

And because I spent two hours of my life, which I would never get back, watching PSV Girona.

It was a bad night for the city football group.

A very bad night for the city football group.

Girona lost 4-0

and this is what happens when you're part of a multi-club ownership system and suddenly you qualify for the Champions League and oh

you sell your best players or Savigno goes to the mother club or Alice Garcia and goes to Leverkusen and that's what happened.

4-0.

That was really bad.

I thought that was quite entertaining game, Philippe.

I wouldn't.

Oh, the game was cracking, but Girarda were awful.

Oh, no, it's just that you said it was just two hours of your life, you'd never get back.

Seems like it was as if you were suggesting it was a waste of your time.

I thought it was quite quite.

No, it would have been a waste of my time if I didn't have 30 seconds to actually talk about the city football group.

Yeah,

I fell asleep, but the Bacayoko goal is worth looking up if you haven't seen it as a great player.

What a play.

And Dino Zagreb won 4-1

away at Slowman Bratislava.

Bratislava did take the lead.

Two wins in a row for Zagreb now.

Actually, the league table is quite interesting, like the top eight.

There are lots of big, big clubs that aren't in the top eight.

I don't know yet if that is, you know, we'll have to wait for another four games.

But at the moment, you know, kind of interesting, isn't it?

Arsenal go to Inter.

Villa go to Bruges.

Nikki Bandini, Mark Langdon on tomorrow to talk about those games.

And that'll be for part two.

We'll start part three with Fulham's win over Brentford.

Don't raise your voice to prove you're right.

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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.

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A little play can make your day.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Great apologies to Fulham and Brentford.

It turns out that this is...

And we do say, please vote for us, the Football Supporters Association podcast of the year.

But this elite panel, this stellar panel of Felipe O'Claire, Lars Simons and and Barry Glenny between them, have not watched a single second of Fulham's stunning comeback over Brentford.

But I am here and I watch football.

So I will tell you this, that Harry Wilson, his first goal, and some people are saying, did he mean it or what?

He definitely, it's like a little cross-in and it's a sort of deft back heel over the keeper.

I'm now questioning myself.

I would like someone to back me up that they didn't just hit him in the hip, but I'm pretty sure it's an absolutely brilliant finish.

The second, then in about the fifth minute of injury time, Brentford have a break and they have a really good chance.

And it goes down the other end and Harry Wilson shoulders one.

And so it just wrong foots the keeper.

And there are incredible scenes in this southwest London derby.

Janel's goal for Brentford was an absolute ping, by the way.

Lots of accusations of Brentford time wasting for the entire second half.

I confess, I didn't watch enough of it.

In the highlights, they didn't have a cutdown of all the time wasting.

So it would be wrong of me to pass that off as my own thoughts.

Philippe can we talk about Donald Trump and World Cup in 2026

and whether that makes any difference and specifically I was thinking about this we obviously don't know what will happen in the US in the next two years and um but you know we did lots of podcasts about

you know human rights in Qatar and you know if we want to be consistent we need to do that about whichever country has the major tournaments and you were talking just before we came on air about Fairsquare who do a lot of work in this space right

Yeah, and the main people that Fairsquare was presenting just a few days ago in London, the new report

which has been which has been done by Fairsquare, which is

about FIFA, but written from a purely human rights perspective and showing that basically FIFA was not fit to govern world football because in terms of their legacy and what they're doing regarding human rights, the impact is phenomenally negative.

And of course, everybody will think about Russia 2018, but especially about Qatar 2022.

And, you know, heaven knows we talked a lot about it.

So now I think the time,

we've got three World Cups coming that we know where they're going to be staged.

There's 2034 Saudi Arabia, which to be honest is a bit, I wouldn't say an open goal if you're talking from a human rights perspective.

But honestly, we already are talking about Saudi Arabia and rightly so, both because of their geopolitical ambitions, but also because of the appalling human rights record of this regime and the fact that there's been a whitewash of this in the report commissioned by

themselves and by FIFA.

The bid from Morocco, Portugal, and Spain also should draw some attention, particularly when it comes to Morocco.

Not just Morocco, actually, that whole communities are being moved out of where they live to accommodate new buildings, new infrastructure, and the rest of it.

But then there's this big thing, this big elephant in the room.

Yeah, elephant, Republican elephant, I suppose.

It's America.

We have Mexico, which has huge problems of corruption.

We know that.

Which has political problems with the populist government of Claudia Scheinbohm seemingly wanting to take over many national institutions.

We've got Canada, which has also got problems.

And of course, we've got the United States of America.

And now we look at four more years of Donald Trump from 2025 onwards.

We know his cozy relationship with Jenny Infantino, by the way.

If you want to feel really sick, just do a search for Infantino Trump and look at videos.

You'll see a few incredible things.

But obviously there are loads of human rights issues.

Obviously reproductive rights of women is one.

Then you have the exploitation of

undocumented workers on worker building sites, which is something that we've heard a lot about.

We're talking about cleaning or cleansing the host cities, which is a problem associated with every mega event.

And also, we don't know what's going to happen if Donald Trump were to

put into practice even 10% of the craziest things that he said on the Rostrum trying to be elected, we're in with an extreme right-wing government, which obviously is going to have a very different approach and attitude towards American institutions and human rights than previous administrations, including Trump's own first administration.

So, us

from journalists, broadcasters, investigators who feel they have a duty to speak about the human rights dimension of sport,

we have to have the same focus

on America, Mexico and Canada, as we had on Qatar.

And if we don't do it, we are failing ourselves.

We are failing our audiences.

And we're also totally discrediting, not only, totally, but we're discrediting the work we've done in the past for Russia and Qatar.

We've got to do the same work for everybody.

And that very much includes on this dark day the United States of America.

Yeah.

I mean, it is obviously worth saying that, you know, it's not a direct comparison.

Every country is different.

And when we were talking about Qatar, we were talking not about a democracy.

And, you know, Donald Trump has convincingly won this election, it seems, democratically.

But yes, you're right.

It shouldn't just be the states.

It shouldn't just be Saudi Arabia.

It should be how we view every major tournament, right?

Which is, you know, at the same time, wanting to talk about the football, which is sort of what we're meant to be doing, but you know,

it goes everywhere, doesn't it?

Sir, can I just say if there is one tiny crumb of comfort to be taken from this Trump victory, it's learning that

big boy journalists, as well as us clowns in the toy shop talking about football, are equally as bad at predicting things.

It's a very good point.

Philip, you also wanted to talk about, there was a vote recently.

I know that FIFA were meant to be, you know, come to a decision about,

you know, the Palestinian FA had asked for Israel to be basically kicked out of major competitions like Russia were.

FIFA were meant to come up with their verdict a few weeks ago, and they haven't, Philippe.

That's right, isn't it?

Yeah, it's been postponed.

Again, I don't know until when it's going to be postponed until

until a time when there is no Palestine to talk about.

I mean, maybe, maybe that's what they have in mind.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

It's quite shocking, regardless of what you think of the situation there.

And I think more and more people are thinking the same way about the situation there.

And actually, the one thing that everybody can agree on is the fact that in humanitarian terms, what we are seeing is beyond appalling.

And what is extraordinary is the absolute silence of football institutions, both UEFA, but especially FIFA.

And if you want to look at it from a purely sports perspective,

so many people who play football, coach football, children who wanted to become footballers have been killed, have been bombed out of existence, have lost their home, have lost, obviously, their stadiums, have lost everything.

And yet FIFA has not even had,

it's not a good grace, I don't know how to qualify that.

The

minimum, there's a minimum requirement at least to express some solidarity

or to to

if it is just ceasefire but to call it in proper terms and to

i don't know they've done nothing i'm sorry i'm struggling to find my words because it makes me so angry and it's it's nobody wants to talk about it and what what has got to happen for us to talk about it so does it have to be does gaza have to be completely destroyed before we actually start talking about it?

Do these people count for nothing?

Well, according to FIFA,

maybe they did, maybe they do count for something, but we'll talk about it later.

And it gets later and later and later and later.

Come on.

This is from the Guardian's reporting on this subject.

FIFA has said it will undertake further investigations into the possibility of discrimination by Israeli football authorities.

The governing body confirmed following claims made by the Palestinian FA, the PFA, earlier this year.

Two new investigations were announced at a meeting of the FIFA Council in Zurich on the 3rd of October.

The first, according to FIFA, will cover the alleged offence of discrimination raised by the Palestinian Football Association.

The second relates to a specific claim by the PFA that clubs based in illegal settlements on occupied territory have been allowed to take part in competitions licensed by the Israeli FA.

FIFA's decision comes after the claims were first analyzed by independent legal advice.

Giannin Fentino said the FIFA Council has implemented due diligence on this very sensitive matter.

And based on a thorough assessment, we have followed the advice of independent experts the ongoing violence in the region confirms that above all considerations we need peace we urge all parties to restore peace to the region with immediate effect the original palestinian submission was presented in may to fifa at the congress in bangkok which called for immediate and appropriate sanctions against israeli teams including national teams and clubs in response to the unprecedented violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed by the israeli occupation in Palestine, especially in Gaza.

The submission also referred to the violations of regulations related to Israeli teams in Palestinian territory.

There is no fixed date for the investigations to be concluded, and the council will then take advice before acting on the outcomes.

But as you say, Philippe, on a purely humanitarian level, the devastation that we keep seeing

is

just utterly heartbreaking.

Now, moving completely away from that and onto something

slightly more prosaic.

And I think going from that, the next thing I said was always going to be some massive gear change.

But Rob says was Plymouth Argyle's performance on Saturday, the most passive ever.

Shots on target, zero.

Shots off target, zero.

Shots blocked, zero.

Corners, zero.

XG, zero.

Bookings, zero.

They did beat Portsmouth 1-0 last night, so things looking better for Wayne Rooney.

Sounds like a hard thing to do, just like in terms of getting through 90 minutes without doing anything.

Even if you're trying, surely someone will just accidentally let one slip.

How does that work?

Do you know, to be fair, I haven't fact-checked.

I haven't fact-checked the uh,

I got it.

I mean, I enjoyed it tremendously.

I've got the sort of rudimentary stats here.

Yeah, they had just 25, 21% possession.

They completed three dribbles.

I mean, that was a lack of dedication.

I was about to say, well, you know, if you've got running stats naught kilometers, then we have to start questioning.

Yeah, no, 23 tackles.

They were tackling quite a lot.

I guess they were kind of played off the park in a way.

When we say played off the park, we don't actually mean that.

But I think this is the closest thing to the literal

being actually played off off the park they they might as well not have been there also last night a uh a fulham like 2-1 win comeback for sheffield united at bristol city two very late goals for them uh uwe says i think i pronounced that correctly might just be ov ov uh lars is laz moving back to brune now that his team is back in the top league since for the first time since 2003 congratulations

yeah thank you that's uh i'm Listen, I've lived abroad for so long, I can't claim to have the emotional connection with my hometown club that the thousands of people who are there have but I'm very glad on a personal note that my grandmother got to see this because she's well into her 90s and still goes to every home game and it's been it's been over 20 years since they were in the top division so

you know when your grandparents get to that age it's not a given they're going to be around forever so I'm very happy she got to experience that.

We're delighted for grandmother Lars.

And this is from Reese and Carwin.

uh barry it's another one of those but i think we might have time for it evening mac barry and co our friend dylan price price is getting married next spring so on wednesday we're heading to krakoff for his stag do he's a big fan of the podcast especially barry blimey and being a huge liverpool fan he was thrilled that Barry picked them as his champions in the preseason preview.

His message to the Football Weekly chat was, Baz has put us first.

Yes, Baz with three Zeds.

He thinks Barry is a genius because he correctly predicted Liverpool to finish outside the top four a couple of seasons back.

So he thinks the league is now a given.

Anyway, he'd love a good luck message from Barry for the the stag.

Do I'm sure he'd be willing to pay, but the way he chats about Baz, we assume that they are best friends.

Barry always asks for additional information, so for your benefit, he won Mark Langdon's meat raffle at the Bristol Football Weekly Live.

I've never seen anyone so happy to receive a pack of salami.

He sings Liverpool chants in a scouse accent, despite being from Caernarf and in North Wales.

He listens to the high-performance podcast, make of that what you will, and regularly messages Adam Adam Hurry about football clichés, um, which I is perfectly acceptable.

Uh, but Football Weekly is and always will be his first podcast in love.

He's marrying Megan Price from Cardiff.

They met at a club Kimrick hockey and football social a few years ago, and they are brilliant together.

So, just to be clear, Dylan Price is marrying Megan Price.

Yeah, will they be the will they take each other's names?

Will it be the Price Prices?

You can only hope.

I don't know.

I hope they're not related.

But, um,

Do we have a view on it?

Do we have a view on it?

Did it exist on the pod?

I have.

I'm keeping it to myself.

It probably won't be the most controversial thing said on this episode anyway, so maybe we should just go ahead and...

Well, if Dylan listens to the high performance podcast, I presume he gets up at five o'clock every morning and does his list of world-class basics.

And

his stag do will be organized to within an inch of its life.

My only concern is I think it's Krakow

where some people go on stag do's and then realize they've picked the one weekend of the year where there are no pubs open or drink available in Krakow.

So I really, really, really, really, really hope that that's the weekend the lads are going on.

And they'll have a terrible time.

And the best man will be in all sorts of trouble.

All right.

Well, have a wonderful time on your stag.

I hope they don't shave off your eyebrows or, you know, all those other things.

Um, and that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Philippe.

Thank you very much, Max.

Thanks, Buzz.

Thank you.

Cheers, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray and Jesse Howard.

Our executive producer, Christian Bennett, will be back tomorrow.

This is the Guardian.