Real Madrid do it again and Villa maintain 100% start: Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly new Champions League, same rail Madrid, lulling us into thinking this might be the day.

2-0 down, deservedly so at home to last season's beaten finalist, Borussia Dortmund, with half an hour to go before they kicked into gear like normal.

A Vinicius Hatrick making him the best of all the rail attackers who like to cut in from the right at the moment.

Then on to regulation wins for the English sides.

Aston Villa take a while to get going against Bologna before John McGinn's free kick sails in and John Durand seals it to send them top.

No goals conceded.

Same for Arsenal who do enough against Shaktar.

Gabrielle Martinelli just about the difference.

Elsewhere a good point for PSV in Paris.

A great win for Stuttgart in Turin.

Also today, another win for Forrest, another goal for Chris Wood on Monday night football.

At least half an hour on Cambridge United's second win in a row and second win of the season at Gary Monk Masterclass in Stevenage.

There's Diego Forland, professional tennis player.

Barry has a quote pod gold listener anecdote for us.

We'll take your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello.

I may have oversold the anecdote, but

I'll let the listeners judge for themselves.

I'm on tent I will race through the whole pod just to get to it Nicki Bandini welcome morning hello Lars Sivitson hello Max Michael says is this Real Madrid game proof that the new Champions League is exactly the same as the old one

and and Lars I got sucked in again I really thought a 2-0 you know Dortmund were really superior.

I thought they were gonna do it.

You know, their goals were both nice.

They were playing well.

And I thought, ah, this Real Madrid aren't the Real Madrid I'm used to.

And then obviously they just turn up and won it really convincingly in the end.

Yeah, I also got sucked in a little bit because I did send a snarky message to a friend of mine on WhatsApp.

It's like, maybe playing with like three forwards who don't defend and like two number tens of which one is 40 and one sort of number eight type of guy in midfield is not a good idea for Real Madrid.

Maybe it's not.

And then it turns out in the second half, it's actually kind of fine.

And I've seen it referred to as like an incredible comeback.

And then I kind of looked up the dictionary definition of incredible.

It says impossible to believe or difficult to believe.

And I was like, it's not that.

It's a highly.

You're never going to make it in journalism, Lars, with that mindset.

It's a highly credible comeback.

I mean, that should be the headline.

Real Madrid in extraordinarily credible comeback.

We shouldn't be surprised that Dortmund have thrown away a 2-0 lead.

We should not be surprised that Real Madrid have kind of stormed back into the game the way they did.

I guess it's two sides of it.

And

I mean, Anchalotti was kind of he simplified it in the post-match, as he often does.

He said it was all about just they had more intensity in the second half and they played more like their true selves.

And I think that's true.

But there's also another side of it, which is Dortmund made a tactical switch that I didn't love.

They took off Jamie Gittens and put on another center half.

And I just thought they just kind of surrendered initiative in a way they didn't really have to do in the game.

Because the whole thing about this

Real Madrid lineup is not super well set up to defend like you have quite a lot of attacking guys on the field there so when dortmund were able to run at them they didn't like that so to then take off one of your attackers so that you'll attack less just kind of seemed like i'm not sure this is why we're doing but I guess being 2-0 up at the Manabeo, it kind of does something to you.

And you think, oh no, it kind of changes the psychology of the situation.

And they felt like they had something to defend.

And they tried to defend it.

And that did not go well.

Yeah, it feels to me, Nikki, like actually,

and I have no evidence for this, taking off an attacker and bringing on a defender, it just sends this message.

Every time I think it just means, it just means you're going to defend.

It's getting deep, you're just going to get deeper and deeper and deeper.

And I don't think you want to encourage Real Madrid on, to you, certainly not Vinicius.

No, I think Lars has called that exactly right.

And I think, especially in that stadium, that stadium that does expect to win these games, it does have a tremendous volume

when it's behind the team.

And I don't know,

even before half-time, when they hit the woodwork twice in quick succession,

and then there was another ball in that the key made a fantastic save-off, there was just that threat always with Madrid.

And that's kind of the counterpoint again to what Lars is saying about playing with a team that's 50% just attackers, is that when it does tilt in your favour, when you have got the momentum behind you, you've got that potential to score a lot of goals quickly.

I don't know, though, because I mean, part of me thinks that it wouldn't have made the the slightest bit of difference what dortmund did because in the end this was going to happen in the end vinicius was going to wake up for the last half hour and score some brilliant goals in the end the weight of having mbappe and bellingham and vinicius and rodrigo all on the pitch

just to name some of them by the way because it's not like the rest of the team is is exactly slouches it's just got that again that that that weight of inevitability to it and of course it doesn't really because they lost in the last round against leal so it doesn't always work that way

it can definitely feel like that at the Beneveo.

And actually, Baz, when Vinicius was running through, I forget for which goal, he was like five.

It looked like he was just, he was so much faster than all the Dortmund defenders who were just absolutely knackered.

The one when he sort of ran down the left and then just put it in the corner.

Yeah, Emir Chan had a, I think, trudge across the ball and it was intercepted.

It broke to Vinicius Jr.

sort of in the left back position and he set off on a run and Emre Chan was in hot pursuit.

Emre Chan just gave up, stopped running.

Probably warm pursuit.

Yeah, I was about to say lukewarm pursuit.

Well, it was pathetic and I think it was indicative of yet another Barusia Dortmund bottle job.

They shot the bed in this game, no question about it.

But Vinicius Jr.

kept running and drifted inside and shot from distance.

And it was a lovely effort into the bottom corner.

But when he drifted inside, he almost collided with Mre Chan.

So if Chan had just kept sprinting and not giving up the ghost, he might have been able to do something to stop that goal.

But I don't want to single him out for criticism.

I think quite a few of the Dortmund players just disappeared in that game.

They were hiding.

Yeah, they have a reputation for being a bit spineless.

And I think we saw the best and worst of both teams in this game but Brussy Dortmund just from Nouri Sand's ill-advised substitution to various players just going missing it was a poor effort from them but as as the others have said Nikki and Lars that you know if you're tuning in up the burnabout you

you know you know what's coming and uh but they did very little to to stop it happening I think it's worth like saying that as as well, because there is this tendency, and we've all done it, and I probably will continue to do it.

Because after a while, you do feel these narratives playing out over and over again.

It's hard to resist them.

There is a tendency to see it all through that lens of, oh, it's Real Madrid.

And look, by the way, Vinicius is probably going to win the Ballon d'Arr in a few days.

The truth is that Dortmund are not having a particularly great season.

They're seventh in the league.

Their away form has been especially dreadful.

I think they've conceded seven times in three away games in the Bundesliga.

So it's not like this result came out of nowhere for them either.

Yeah, I just wonder, is Barry being a bit harsh Lars?

Because if they hadn't gone tuna up, then you wouldn't accuse them of shitting the bed, but because they did, then they can't, you know, like they don't have a bed to shit in or whatever the analogy is.

You have to make your own bed before you can shit in it.

It's another wise, it's a wise saying.

What I would say is it's enormously, it's enormously easy to sit here on like a next morning podcast and say, oh, just play with much more intensity for much longer.

Like you have to, you have to actually go out and do it, right?

And it's not just, it isn't as easy as you just attack Real Madrid for 90 minutes.

Like, people run out of energy.

And, like, I do understand that it's not as simple as that.

But I just thought the wide players really had Real Madrid's fullbacks on toast, as they say in the UK.

And so, taking one of them off seemed like a very rogue move from Nurish Ian on the bench.

But I do, I do,

at risk of repeating myself, I love the simplicity of Ancelotti's post-match stuff.

He was asked, you know, about the team talk at halftime, and he just said, well, I want to quote here.

I told them that thinking about scoring three goals was a bit idealistic in that we had to focus on the basic, not missing our passes, winning our duels, pressing better, showing increased intensity.

So it was just, yeah, just

hit your passes, lads.

Just show a bit more intensity and it'll be fine.

But that is exactly what happened.

And I think, yeah, we shouldn't,

as much as it's fun to make fun of you, of Dortmund, Real Madrid were a completely different team in the second half.

Definitely said this before with Anchilotti because it's just the same story again, over and over again, and repeat with him.

But there's this Italian word, srama ditare, which means to de-dramatize, take the drama out of a situation.

And that is what he does so well for Madrid.

He does make it just don't overthink it, guys.

Don't overcomplicate this in your minds.

And I think that, again, it was no coincidence that Vinicius, after the, I'm pretty sure it was the fifth goal, I saw him run over and give Angelotti a big high 10 and a hug.

So I think his role in it is not nothing.

Yeah, it's reassuring that Ancelotti's team talks,

you know, the most successful, arguably most successful manager.

Anyway, it's doing the same stuff as anyone does in Sunday League, just going, nothing silly, next five.

Your first touch is crucial, lads.

Just, you know, like,

complete your first pass, then it will be fine.

Lars, a word on dude Bellingham hasn't scored in 12.

Marker writing that he's gone from a 10 to a 0.

How worried should we be about the form of Bellingham?

Unlike Marco to be just massively hyperbolic for

dumb reasons.

I just think his role in the team is slightly different, right?

Like, he's

if you've got a front three of Vinicius and Bapen Rodrigo,

and one of your midfielders is Modrich, who obviously is 39 now.

Bellingham's going to have to do a little bit more in other areas of the pitch and can't just focus on getting in the box all the time.

Because, guess what?

There's a lot of other guys in the box.

So, I think his role is obviously changing a little bit.

And I think freaking out over him not scoring goals after you've scored five in the Champions League is is kind of dumb like that's like why why why are you worrying about this like if they drew a blank then maybe but like this isn't the problem dude bellingham who hit the underside of the crossbar and set up one of the goals that dude bellingham just to check just well i mean he should have he should have he should have scored that if i'm gonna if you want to make a very tabloidy sort of psychodrama out of this game

where i would kind of stir the pot would be in pointing out that those two last vinicius jr goals in particular like that's the exact run that Killion Mbappe wants to make.

Like

that step for step.

Those are, that's what Killian Mbappe wants to do.

But he can't really do it because Vinicius is there and arguably doing it better than him right now.

And so Mbappe, you know, who is supposedly the Sun King and the best player in the world and all this, kind of has to find a different place to play in the team.

And he had a really good assist across cut over from the right, actually.

So maybe that's the future for him.

But yeah, that is the sort of clash of the egos thing.

That's not, that's kind kind of rumbling away in the distance.

And if you, again, I don't know if it's worth kind of soap operating this up after they've won 5-2.

But, you know,

that's a situation that hasn't resolved itself.

And yeah, classico at the weekend.

Let's see what happens there.

Worth mentioning, Modric.

Playing really well at 39.

Still ridiculous, isn't it?

Anyway, Tavilla Park.

They are two points clear at the top of the league of the giant league table drinking in.

Golson, John McGinn, and John Duran.

And actually, Barry, before we came on air, we're still trying to work out if we think this new Champions League format is good or better or worse or the same or whatever.

But whatever it is, for the Villa fans there yesterday to be three from three, to have not conceded a goal, they're just having a total way over time.

Yeah, they're having a ball on fair play to them

because

probably most of them won't have experienced Champions League football or top-tier European football before.

They

were pretty impressive in this game, thoroughly deserved to win.

I think they

probably,

you know, most people would have expected them to win against the Bologna side.

That is completely different animal to the one that did so well last season.

And

John McGuinn was superb.

Jacob Ramsey, good.

Morgan Rodgers was great.

John Duran scored again, then threw a little tantrum and he was taken off,

even though the game was more or less over at that point.

and

could see Buba Karcamera back after his knee injury and Tyro Mings back in the matchday squad.

I think that was the first time he was back in a squad since

he's been out 14 months now.

I think Buba Karcamera actually did his knee after Mings, but he's back first.

So, yeah, thoroughly deserved win.

Slight bone of contention among some Villa fans.

Dan Bardell flagged it up yesterday that after all the hoo-ha over them them selling really expensive champions league tickets uh quite a few tickets were available on the cheap on resale sites yesterday so while quite a few fans who were there paid up to a hundred quid to be there others were able to get in late with uh 30 pound tickets or 40 pound tickets so that's a talking point i suppose but yeah top they won't care how much it's costing them while they're top of the league i suppose yeah villa have said uh in response to that that they didn't release any tickets to third-party sites.

I didn't say that Villa released tickets to third-party sites.

I said there weren't.

No, I was just...

It seems people like Dan were also offered

an exclusive offer to pay another £86

to get into

a bit of corporate hospitality, I think.

Well, I mean, if you get to meet Austin McPhee, I'm interested.

I wonder if

he gets credit for that John McGinn free kick that sounds just straight in.

I mean, it's the perfect delivery, isn't it?

We touched on Morgan Rogers there, Nikki.

We talked about him on Monday, but it's such an exciting player, I think.

Yeah, I thought he was absolutely the one pulling the strings in this game.

I think there's this inevitable focus on Duran because he keeps sticking the ball in the net.

But I think Rogers was

the best player on the pitch for me, I think, in

this one.

Obviously, he set up Duran's goal.

I thought it was

an interesting game in that, actually, while I agree that Villa by the end were fairly good value for their win,

when Baz talked about all the good players, all the good performances, actually, one of the ones that he didn't mention was Emi Martinez.

Emmi Martinez in the first half had to make some sharp saves.

And there was a period, again, really in the first half, I think in the second half, it was much lessened, but there was a period when this was quite in the balance and Bologna looked a threat with Dan and Doy on the left, I think, really in particular, standing out as the one who was doing some good creative work.

But Villa

are very at home on this stage.

And

I'm caught between two positions a bit, which is, as we were talking about, just before K M1, in fact, last raised before I did, before I get to be the one who's the Italian killjoy, that the wage bill differential is significant.

I mean, Asten Villa do have

a wage bill that's about three times higher than Bologna.

So this is an expected result in some ways.

But at the same time, I think it needs to be sort of the counter to that that needs to be acknowledged is that lots of Premier League clubs have come into this level of European competition and not delivered like this immediately at their first go at it or even at their second go at it.

I think arguably you could point to Arsenal who we'll get on to, I'm sure, and say that they have not really hit their straps in the Champions League yet to the degree they have in the Premier League under Michael Arteta.

And I think that goes in the end for all these players I mentioned, it goes to Unai Emery, who understands European competition, who gets these nights and who absolutely, despite having Duran coming off and having a little tantrum about being substituted, seems to know how to push the right buttons.

Yeah, I did enjoy Jung Duran there.

I wondered if he didn't know you could be subbed.

He obviously knows you can come on, but maybe he's just completely unaware that you could be substituted.

Let's go do the Arsenal game.

They beat Shakhtar 1-0.

I mean, very much, Lars has kind of got the result.

Let's move on.

They're obviously missing Odegaard and Saka, which is like a massive part of their attacking threat.

They did enough.

For me, I mean, Shaktar continues to be one of the big stories of European football, them in Dynamo Kiev, and the fact that they can still play in these tournaments.

I was reading about their journey, like they have to

start out their journey to London on Friday, basically, because they have to get a six-hour bus from Kyiv to Lviv, where they sort of had a day to train and chill, and then they go on to Poland the next day so they can fly over.

Like, it's a whole thing for them to actually even get to these games.

And obviously, attracting players is is a little bit difficult when you're playing your domestic football in an actual war zone.

So it's a real struggle for them.

So I think it's, yeah, to their credit that they could go to the Emirate and put up a highly credible performance in the second half in particular.

But Arsenal got the job done.

Suspect will feel, I mean, we haven't heard yet what the situation is with Calafiori, but it might be a bit of a Ferric victory if he ends up, you know, missing games because he looked in some discomfort when he came off.

And I'm also a little bit curious about what's the story with Zinchenko, who doesn't appear to be like in the reckoning at all.

I think it was interesting to see young Louis Skelly, Miles Lewis Skelly, come on from the Academy.

It's kind of interesting.

But like you, you took off one fullback in Ben White and you took off another in California.

It's two fullbacks

coming off and no Zinchenko.

Zinchenko just sat there on the bench.

Is he completely on the naughty step there?

I'm not sure.

Cabio Martinelli obviously scored the decisive goal.

Has not been in brilliant form as producer Joel writes.

He needed one to go in off his ass or in off the keeper's ass, as was the case.

Martinelli was very good in this game.

He was a standout player in

a team whose performance, I would say, was sort of workmanlike at best.

It was

fairly uninspiring from Arsenal, but they won, and that's what you need to do, I suppose, at this stage, just get the points on the board.

And,

you know, they've got a much bigger game at the weekend.

And,

yeah, there's not a huge amount really to say about this game.

Arsenal were just, you know, well, they were all right.

I suppose just to chip in on Zinchenko, he did at the end of the game, made a bit of a didn't get off the bench during the game, but did go and

go and, I guess, give a bit of acknowledgement to the away fans.

And I think handed his Arsenal shirt over to one of them, which I suppose is just a bit of solidarity for all the reasons that we're already alluded to.

Doesn't he have a book out?

He might be doing the, you know, the publicity rounds.

I think he had an interview with Don McRae in the the paper

the last day or two, in which he told the story of, I think he kind of knew the jig was up for him at Man City when he

gave Pep Guardiola a bit of lip when, upon being criticised during a training session, and Pep Guardiola just abandoned the whole training session and sent everybody.

It was like, uh-oh,

I think I'm in trouble here.

That's quite the power play, isn't it?

Obviously, landred trossard missed that penalty lots of saved penalties uh tonight actually um phil says after mark clattenberg described the shacktie defender's second arm as the perpetrator of handball did anyone else wonder which way round their first and second arms are that's a very good question just generally how are you feeling about Arsenal, Nikki.

It always seems that we have a pod on a Monday where after we think we've been reasonable about Arsenal, we get absolutely hammered.

And then you or Philippe as an Arsenal fan are here to hopefully rescue us from being, you know, all the Arsenal fans saying, that's it, I'm unsubscribing, you moron.

Before Nikki says something very sensible, let me just butt in and say, I listened to that pod and thought there will be comments.

I had a feeling.

You can't be like...

Wilson's sort of scathing attack on the scrambled brains of the Arsenal players was sort of, yeah,

there'll be some comments on this, I thought.

I'm going to get in trouble here because I haven't listened to Monday's podcast yet.

I think basically Jonathan Wilson gave a thoroughly reasonable dissection of the manner in which Arsenal players seem to have a habit of making life unnecessarily difficult for themselves.

And Max seems to have got a load of abuse because of it.

That's my read on the situation.

I suppose, I suppose, I think...

I suppose the interesting thing is, is that when you are judging Arsenal now, you are judging them at the top level, right?

So you're saying anytime you drop points, right, you're trying to win the title.

It's not, you don't talk about them in the same way you talk about Crystal Palace or you talk about even Aston Villa, right?

Because you are saying these are the crucial fine margins.

If they want to go from where they are, which is an absolutely brilliant team, brilliantly managed with brilliant players, to be better than Man City,

they've got to stop having players sent off, for example.

It's definitely not a good habit to keep having players sent off, and especially at a time when the injury list is significant.

Looking ahead to the Liverpool game, which I'm sure people wanted to, but potentially know Fiori, you've already had Saka injured, Odegaard injured,

Ben White injured, Timber injured.

It's definitely not helping yourself if then Salibra is suspended for that game as well, which of course he is.

Regardless of what the refereeing decisions are or aren't, and I think the most recent one was a red card.

I don't have any complaints about it.

There is a bigger picture of you as a manager, Mecca Lateta, need to recognise that if you keep putting yourself in these situations, it's going to stack up against you.

And it obviously is in the games themselves.

I think, I don't know,

I think every fan hears comments about their club differently to how they hear comments about other clubs.

That's inevitable.

And I think there is probably a bit of an extra touchiness for Arsenal fans, if I will speak for the Arsenal fans, that comes from this feeling.

And I think perhaps at certain points, Liverpool fans have felt this as well, where your club has been so close for a while and not actually got across the line to get that piece of silverware that feels like the reward,

that your performances have so nearly earned.

I think that probably builds an extra level of touchiness into your feeling about it because you feel like somehow, because you didn't get the prize, you haven't been given the credit that you deserved already.

And now journalists are piling on and they're not giving you credit either.

Give us credit.

It's very hard to win the prize.

We do give them credit all the time though.

I mean, we're never not giving them credit.

I don't know.

Sure, I'm not, I'm not, by the way, I'm not saying that, I'm not actually saying that all journalists are horrible and and biased.

I'm just trying to give the perspective of a sport.

No, it makes sense.

And it's obviously very hard to win the prize.

So when you don't win the prize, you get close.

You think, ah, it's going to be really hard next time.

Anyway,

we'll be back in a second and we'll go through all the other Champions League games.

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.

Help!

One more question!

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Please play responsibly.

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

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Oh, yeah, we've established the break.

Ben White was taken off for tactical reasons, not injured.

So you do have, you know, at least a defender for the Liverpool game.

They're coming at me now.

They could do.

PSG won, PSV one.

A great goal this last from Noah Lang.

Tell us everything about Noah Lang, please.

He's kind of a funny character because he's well known for being a confident young man, put it that way.

Some might say a bit full of himself.

He's one of those who's like, there's a touch of the Bentners to some of his public proclamations occasionally.

But

he is also enormously gifted.

So there is that.

But I remember he left, I think he left Club Bruege to go back to Holland.

And he said something, I wish I had the quote in front of me.

He said something about how Belgian football will be worse off for me leaving or something.

It was incredibly, wildly pompous thing to say.

But, you know, a pretty gifted player who scored a very nice goal.

And

PSV, it's a creditable draw.

I think I find myself in the unenvious position of occasionally feeling a bit sorry for PSG this season because they created an absolute bunch of chances and probably should have gotten the three points there.

But yeah, they couldn't convert.

Usman Dembele in particular had a really bad miss.

And yeah, they won one in the end.

I think it was when Arsenal beat PSG.

It was a long time ago, so I might be wrong on this, but we were saying that.

they really missed Dembele because

they couldn't score and they had loads of chances.

And then he was there there tonight and he had loads of chances and

he had one of those Dembele days I think but that Lang goal came completely against the run of play

and

Hakimi

his equalizer it was quite soft I think it went through the keeper's leg real legs a real

long range effort

and

PSG had a chances to win it then they had that penalty that was overturned and thank God it was I mean like because it was just an absolutely clear like a total attack just a clearance you know i was like and that when you first saw it you thought okay maybe that is a foul and then you saw it again you're like oh please please overturn that one and actually from the corner their keeper makes a brilliant save from marquinhos didn't he i have dug since i said a but didn't fully say b i have dug up the noah lang quote it was when he left kerobrugger he said and i quote believe me belgium will miss me when i'm gone i gave your football color next season you will pray that there will be a noah lang walking around in Belgium who can also play football so well.

It's an incredible thing, incredible thing for a

notional adult to say out loud.

It's a great line to say Belgium will miss me when I'm gone.

Who could say that, couldn't they?

Look, PSG lost to Arsenal in their last time out.

They got Bayern next.

They're 17th.

So, you know, they could be the big side who are in the bottom bit of the playoffs, which is sort of about as much jeopardy as we think there might be.

To Turin, Jovenders Nil Stuttgart won.

I mean, Stuttgart, I thought, were brilliant.

I think they've, there was another game, maybe it was the Real Madrid game, where for a while they were brilliant, but

it looked like they weren't going to get the win, Nikki, because Perrin, who had a brilliant gaming goal for Juve, saved Mio's penalty.

But the winning goal is so good, isn't it?

Yeah, and so deserved, like, so very, very deserved.

Because I think, as you were already alluding to, Stuttgart, very much the better team on the pitch, even before Danilo gets sent off later on.

And Elba Lature, as you said, with with a brilliant goal to reward them at the end of it.

Juventus was usually their weakest performance so far on Tiagomoto.

They've been quite good on Tiagomoto.

I didn't see

this result coming, but I think a draw would have flattered them enormously.

And

in some ways, after another missed penalty in this game, on a, as you were saying earlier, a night with plenty of them,

nice that the goal got to be such a good one.

Yeah, I was going to ask Nikki, has there been any sort of big reaction in Italy to this performance by Juventus?

Because this was pretty stinky.

No, I think Juventus have been an odd beast this season.

They've had moments when they've been really eye-catchingly interesting and playing some enterprising football and it's been fun to watch.

And indeed, even

in their game against Leipzig in the was that the last round or was that the first round?

I'm losing all sense of time here, but in the Champions League, they showed that they can commit to going forward.

But they have been quite stodgy in plenty of games, like a team that is working out how to play attacking football.

Again, though, the one thing they have been is generally very tight at the back.

They've only conceded one goal in Serie A.

So to be overwhelmed like this was surprising.

But I think nobody is quite at the point yet that expectations have risen sky high for Juventus.

They're still viewed as a work in progress.

And perhaps this is

a natural setback.

And perhaps again, also, as we keep talking about, nobody really knows how to frame these Champions League results yet because the group's not even halfway done and there's a massive chance they'll finish at least in the top 24.

Yeah, just if you haven't seen the goal, it's like a lovely link-up play with Milo and Albert Altour.

And then his first touch, he sort of dinks it over.

I don't know if it's not necessarily over one defender.

It sort of takes all the defenders out of play.

It's so clever.

And like to have the presence of mind to think to do it and then to do it.

And then he absolutely hammers it home.

It's a brilliant, brilliant goal.

And it was a sort of justice justice has been done moment as well because stuttgart were so much the better team and they had a goal like very annoyingly disallowed uh for one of these handballs that like nobody in their right mind likes or wants to see but because the laws are the laws the referees just kind of have to make the decision so uh but denis undau very harshly done by i thought for that one so and it was a rocket who scored absolute rocket he hasn't got to play a lot yet ture since moving from atlanta in the summer but you definitely would like to see more of him after this.

Jumedis had their Twitter account hacked and announced the signing of Real Madrid's Ardagula, which I thought was quite a good choice to make up.

Kind of believable.

You know, if you'd gone really top table, you'd go, no, you actually go.

Some guy who's really talented, he's not getting a lot of football.

I think, like, whoever thought of it, it's perfect.

It's the perfect signing to invent.

Milan beat Bruegge 3-1.

Their first winning the Champions League after two defeats.

And actually, I mean, they didn't have all their own way.

You talked about Emi Martinez making good saves early on.

mike manion made three really good saves nikki before uh milan scored yeah i think brigoa could feel hard done by about not having come away from that opening part of the game with with something more for it and even after on your dicker gets sent off at 1-0 down they come back and equalize i thought they were um they were very very competitive for for most this game perhaps faded understandably by the end of it because of their um playing on 10 10 players for so long Milan not having a great start to this season in general, clearly some tension going on between Paolo Fonseca and Rafael Leal, perhaps others in the squad.

And Leal looked extremely unimpressed when he got substituted off at one all, only for his replacement, Ocufort, to immediately set up Brinders for putting them back to one in front.

But I suppose the

headline grabber, more consistently for Milan at the moment, a player who really is in good form, Christian Pulisic with a goal straight from a corner, was probably the other headline from this game.

Nikki, Milan had a goal ruled out, Francesco Camada, 16-year-old.

Do you know anything about him?

Oh, he's the great hope for Milan, the one they're all excited about.

He made his debut at 15.

A lot of pressure, and I think a lot of potential, but also a lot of pressure being put on him.

He absolutely has scored bags of goals at the youth levels, and that's why he's getting this chance in a country where they don't often give kids a chance this young.

He's getting this chance very young, and it was hard not to feel a bit heartbroken for him because he very clearly meant a lot to him to score that goal had his shirt off celebrating and uh and and and lapping up the moment um but uh he'll get another chance i'm certain monaco five red star one barry would you like to talk us through wilfrid singo's absolute bullet of a goal it was just the greatest kick of the night it was a goal of the night without question an absolute screamer from

what going to say 30 yards yeah i'll give it 35 i reckon maybe 30 i reckon, yeah.

I think I'd initially written down 35 and then revised it to 25.

So I've got to go in the middle, 30.

Yeah, slightly out to the right.

Didn't quite stay ball to pass the Rushton test, but

the goal of the night for me, without question.

And Monaco scored five.

I think they hit the woodwork three times, and Red Star were just not at the races at all.

There seemed to be an awful lot of empty seats at that game, but I don't know if it was just the camera focusing on the corporate seats or whatever, but that was the impression I got.

Yeah, that goal was, it felt very Mexico 86 to me, you know, just at a time where people just Laroped it from everywhere, and it was just absolute heavenly to watch.

Red Star and Sloven Bratislava really fighting it out for 36th place for the ultimate scroll-down bottom of the league.

Lars, Bratislava going down 2-0 in Girona.

Did you you take anything big from this football match?

Not a lot.

To be honest, that was on a busy night of football.

Definitely one that I didn't pay a lot of attention to, except to say,

is it that we make our mandatory mention of possible football weeklier listener, Guram Kashia,

at the heart of the Slovan-Bratislava defense, having a slightly difficult time there

against Girona?

Well, what we say is, Guram,

we're pushing for you to be 35th, and we will be supporting you against Red Star if that game happens, of course.

And the other game, sporting one, 2-0 at Sturmgratz, brilliant goal from Gucharez, who is just an absolutely sensational centre-forward and will go for buckets of money.

Before we end, part two, Football Weekly is supported by TNT Sports, and we're going to do what we did last time, which we enjoyed, actually.

I sound surprised.

We have spent all of this podcast talking about it.

The UEFA Champions League is back, and we're all hoping this season throws up vintage moments because then we'll have something interesting to talk about because we all love the emotions it unlocks.

We simply don't experience it in everyday life.

You know, just watch sport, you feel it, only sport can do this.

And they have let us just do a moment in sport and Barry and I have done one of these already, but I'm going to ask you for another, Barry, if you've got one.

Just a time and it could be you playing, it can be watching, it could be any sport.

It doesn't have to be football, doesn't have to be Champions League.

But when, but when you did, you know, there is a moment that felt like yesterday that really moved you.

I'll start with you, Nikki.

Do you know when I get that question?

Is there's two that come into my head that are like polar opposites almost, which are Michael Thomas, surely, surely it's up for grabs now.

No, okay, no, no, it's as a spoiled Italian, it's the two

World Cup finals.

It's uh 2006, obviously, but also 1994.

2006, because in the end, when I think about sporting moments, so much of it is tied to the people you're with, isn't it?

The way you experience these things.

And 2006 is being in a weatherspoons pub in London with my brother,

which was the, I think it's the moon underwater, and at the end of penalties just spilling out and

into this absolute wonderful carnage in Soho of all these Italians with flags and being completely

deliriously happy about

that.

And the contrasting one is actually 1994, also Italy in a final and penalties.

And that was with them.

We were in a village close to where my dad was born, a little village in Italy, where they had to put a big screen out in the square and they had a stage set up.

And there was someone doing a drum roll before every penalty, which was just

absolutely brutal then when Badger misses.

And I cried my little heart out in 1994.

I was sobbing.

But those two moments, I think, are two of the most vivid

for me of any sporting experience.

I suppose

the highs and the lows, but it's also, again, for me, both of them very closely tied to family and the people I was with.

Loves?

Well, it's a slightly sort of different one because it was

actually in my kitchen at the time, which is not as exotic a location as a Witherspoons or an Italian village.

Probably a nicer location.

There's less piss on the floor.

But since emotion is like the thing we're talking about here, I think I've watched football in the company of everyone on the pod now, and you may have have noticed, like,

I can seem almost slightly detached because I don't always experience football through the sort of lens of emotion.

I'm kind of like analytical.

I'm often texting people and looking up stats and things

mid-game.

I don't often

lose my shit, as they say.

But the time I can really think about when that happened was on the 18th of February in the year of our Lord 2020,

when Brussio Dortmund played PSG PSG in the Champions League, because of course, already

the legend that is Aling Holland was already starting to become a thing.

He'd done incredible things for

Salzburg in Austria.

He'd made his big move to Dortmund.

He'd scored seven goals in his first three games in the Bundesliga, as you do.

But it was still sort of an element of seal clubbing in this.

Like, he was clearly way too good to play in Austria.

And he'd scored some goals against Augsburg.

And who cares?

But he was kind of playing PSG in his first, like, really massive Champions League game for Dortmund.

And he'd scored one tap in.

Again, something that he's been accused of being a tap-in merchant.

Neymar had equalized.

And in the 77th minute is when he gets the ball from Gio Reina and it kind of sits up to his left foot.

And he just absolutely hits it from outside the box.

And it's such a clean strike.

And you can hear it kind of, it makes that clanking sound as it hits the goal, which is very, very satisfying.

Before the signal I do in a park just goes mad.

And

in my kitchen in northwest London, I also went slightly mad.

And I may have actually jumped around and actually,

I remember laughing.

I was kind of reduced to a giggling wreck because it's kind of when you realize, like, this guy's actually unstoppable.

I think that was the moment when, like, the penny dropped for me.

Like, this isn't a short-term thing.

This isn't just a mad goal scoring streak from what used to be a pretty scrawny kid from my village.

This guy is actually going to be the best striker in the world.

I just kind of realized in that moment, and it was pretty amazing.

And it couldn't have happened against a nicer team as well, against PSG.

So that was a lot of fun.

Before you can finish this off, Baz, I'm going to go self-indulgent.

Just a couple of months ago,

playing in Metro

Northwest Football Victoria Division 6, right?

We've got three games to go, and we need to win all of them against the top three to win the league.

And we beat Hume 3-2, and they're not the nicest bunch.

And we score late on and then we play Barnes Town Worth and we draw 2-2 so it's not in our hands and so we're up against a team that can win the league but then there's two teams playing each other that can also win the league and obviously we don't know what their result is so we win our game and we're 8-2 up right and it's fine but we've sent our left backs parents to watch the other game and send us text updates of what's going on but we can't be sure because we don't know if our left backs parents know which team plays in which color so we sort of have to we have to really back them but we we've won and we just think and we're playing all age right we're all old and if we if we beat all these teams and they're all 25 and they're all young and fit and good and like we're battle harden and we're broken and our bodies don't work anymore and so we're we're eight nine two up and there's like five minutes left and uh one of our midfielders is injured cairns he has is getting the text updates from the left back's parents and he's like it's still nil-nil So we're thinking 0-0 means we've won the league, but obviously one goal can change it.

And he keeps saying it's still 0-0.

It's still 0-0.

And we're just like, because, you know, the whole sea, the season's a long part of your life.

And, you know, the commitments that you all make to be there for every game if you can.

Although I do take two months off in the summer.

So I don't miss, I miss quite a lot of the season.

And then he just gathers everyone who's not playing at that particular point.

And he just says, I've been bullshitting you.

They're 4-0 down.

We've won the league.

And just that moment, I'm just like, it was like transistor radio, you know, when like, when, you know, the, the, uh, the, the, the, Blackburn fans find out that Man United of West Ham have equalized against Man United or whatever it was.

And just that moment, that sheer, like, excitement and joy is something that is very hard to bottle.

And it was, it was a wonderful moment.

Yes, Lars.

Can you just say this is an aggressively unbrand feature so far with Nikki being in Italian Village, me talking about Alien Holland, and you talking about playing Sunday League football?

This is like, yeah.

Over to you, Barry.

Here we go, Baz.

Euro 1988, Ireland's first major competition.

Republic of Ireland won.

England nil.

Greyhout now after five minutes.

Thank you.

Oh, really good.

Yeah.

On brand.

Yeah, really good.

Della, the Champions League season's here.

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And we'll be back in a second.

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.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Jim says, as you promised on Monday, here's your reminder.

Forest are good, aren't they, Barry?

Yeah, Forest won Crystal Palace 0.

And before we get onto the pressure on Oliver Glasner, once again, Barry, you and I start to look like real chumps for relegating Nottingham Forest.

They're having an absolutely brilliant season.

Yeah, I was reading

a sort of progress report article on the Premier League this season so far in the athletic where various writers, you know, just gave their thoughts on who's doing well, who's doing badly, blah, blah, blah.

And in the comments section underneath it, someone had a right pop at me for being a know-nothing moron who

said Nottingham Forest were going to be relegated because Nuno, Spirit of Santa, doesn't smile very often.

Now, there may well have been, there were reasons I thought Forest would be relegated.

That is not one of them.

I haven't checked, but I'd be very surprised if that's what I said.

This Milenkovich chap they bought in from, I can't remember where,

he's been one of the players of the season so far in the heart of their defence, I think, alongside Murillo.

And Chris Wood is having a brilliant season, and you know his form can be up and down but he he was just a real handful for Palace on Monday night they couldn't cope with him at all and the chance he scored it he was a bit lucky really Dean Henderson made a mess of it and should have kept it out but you know Wood did deserve a goal for all his his hard work and he went close a few other occasions.

Palace had a couple of chances.

I think Gebaricies had a a long-range effort that went close.

I think it took some saving.

But,

yeah, you'd have to be worried for Palace because they're really missing Joachim Anderson in the heart of the defence.

I think a lot of Palace fans think they sold the wrong centre half.

They should have got, or not got rid of, but sold Gay, kept Anderson.

They would have got a lot more money for Gay, but

they're missing Michael Elise, obviously, as you would.

And Adam Wharton is, I think he's struggling with injury, but he hasn't really done much for them this season either.

I mean, I did feel a bit for Palisin that they had, as you say, two or three great long-range efforts that like hit the, I think Nketiah hit the bar as they went close, and then Forrest scored from a like a really sort of bobbly one that Dean Henderson should definitely keep out.

But I think Forrest did deserve to win.

Glasnar under a bit of pressure, Lars.

The Guardian reporting that he's going to have time to turn it around, but he needs to do it soon unless Steve Parrish reaches for the big red Roy Hodgson button to to press sometime soon.

Glasnar said afterwards, we have to be, we have had better times in our life together.

We have to support each other, get the chin up, be ready for the next game.

We're humans.

It's time for hugging the players, not for kicking them.

What do you

he is, I mean, he is clearly a good manager, right?

What he did at EinTrack was so good.

Yeah.

And feels like...

Especially, as we've said this before, most seasons, you know, there are three teams that are worse than Palace.

Giving Glasnar time would be smart.

Yeah, I would agree and yeah took volsberg to the champions league as well which is not an easy thing to do uh i mean just because they obviously they play they're from sellerst and that's kind of the setting for for for ted lasso immediately when a palace coach starts talking about hugging its players that's inevitably the sort of austrian ted lasso vibes is uh is is something that comes to mind but no i it is really tricky and

losing

yeah losing a lisa doesn't help them because it's so you see in this game, it was very pronounced that there were so many attacks in the second half that just leads with Eza just having a whack from outside the box.

Like, Eza had six shots in the game, five from outside the area.

And while some of them were very good, you don't want any player to be taking five shots from outside the box in any game.

Like, that's a sign that your attack is not working the way it should do.

And there's a real sense...

when Palace go forward that they're all just kind of, ah, where's Eze?

We'll get it to him and he'll do something.

And they need a little bit more variety there.

They need the other players to step up a little bit more.

And I guess you're hoping that Enketia will

settle in and make more of a difference after a while.

Kamad, I've been a little bit disappointed by because, again, I've seen him play much better in the past than he's done so far from Palace.

And it's not great for them that Jean-Philippe Mateta has kind of turned back into a pumpkin after this sort of crazy goal scoring streak he went on before summer.

So a lot of things are going against them at the moment.

But again, I don't think they'll get relegated.

And I think Glasner deserves time.

Evangelist Maranakis, the Northeast Forest owner, has been banned for five matches after the FA argued successfully that he'd spat towards match officials in a quote flagrant display of disrespectful behavior.

He denied the charge.

He was found guilty of improper conduct by an independent regulatory commission.

It happened after Forrest's 1-0 defeat against Fulham last month.

Forrest were furious with the referee Josh Smith after he awarded a penalty on the advice of the VAR, John Brooks, while also denying forest claims for their own penalty kicks.

The Greek billionaire argued that he was merely disposing of phlegm caused by his cigar habit, and the incident was unintentional.

As the officials approached, he felt a cough coming and he coughed on the floor down and to his right, which was away from the path the officials were taking.

He did not speak to the officials.

Very JFK.

Crassy knoll.

You owe it to yourself to find the documents from this hearing because the sort of the very serious and somber legalese in which this is put out is deeply hilarious, including things like he'd had a cough, he was taking lozenges on the day, you know, that can create more phlegm, I guess.

And he just,

I, I, so you know what?

Sometimes the defense is more embarrassing than the punishment.

Like, I think for Marianakis,

who clearly wants to be seen as like one of the hard men of the world, to get like a highly paid lawyer to argue that he just, no, he didn't spit.

He just, he, he sometimes coughs and it has phlegm because he's it's so embarrassing just take the punishment and behave yourself

he cannot now remember if any spittle left his mouth but if he did and he does not challenge that some might well have done it certainly was not aimed at the referee's feet and did not hit anybody he fails to see how coughing where spit or phlegm can come out from any person towards the floor in a relatively crowded tunnel is misconduct.

The referee said as I walked down the tunnel at the the end of the match,

Mr.

Maranakis was stood on my left-hand side at the end of the tunnel.

As I walked past him, he spat on the floor next to my left foot.

The assistant referee said at the top of the tunnel on our left-hand side, Mr.

Maranakis was stood.

He did not say anything, but as we approached him and was close, he spat on the ground in front of us.

So, anyway, that's a five-game ban for him.

Didn't Forrest get fined as well for that deranged tweet they put out last season?

It was 750 grand, which

seemed quite steep, but yeah.

Yeah, they were fined £750,000.

The tweet said three extremely poor decisions, three penalties not given, which we simply cannot accept on their official ex-account.

We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a looting fan before the game, but they didn't change him.

Our patience has been tested multiple times.

Nottingham Forest will now consider its options.

Yes, that was the line.

I remember it well now.

A statement from the FA said Forest had also been warned for misconduct in relation to comments posted on social media alongside the fine.

But yeah, a £750,000 is a lot of money, perhaps in comparison to what other teams get fined for other things.

Forrest could argue.

Yes, Lars.

Well, I've said before on the pod that I think for that kind of nonsense, like saying, oh, the fan with the referee with the fan,

which is the voice Marinakis no doubt speaks in when he makes these points.

I shouldn't think there should be a points deduction.

Like, I'm sorry, this is no place in the game whatsoever.

There's no point.

Like, you're basically using your social media channels to rouse the rabble and encourage more abuse of referees.

And there's absolutely no need to do that.

There's no reason why you should be allowed to do that.

So maybe the fine seems high, but I honestly think this should be a points deduction, not a fine.

All right.

In the championship last night, five draws in seven games.

Only Cardevin leads one leads beat Watford.

They're top.

Richard says, Will Cambridge ever lose again?

Two wins in a row now after no wins all season.

We played very well at Stevenage.

We're doing EFL pod next Tuesday, by the way.

Now we're home to the only side who are below us in the division on Saturday, Burton.

So no doubt we will mess that up.

Diego Forlan will make his professional tennis debut in an ATP doubles event in Uruguay next month.

He's been playing ITF Masters events.

This tournament is an actual ATP event requiring Forlan to get a wildcard.

So extraordinary is, you know, sort of annoying when people are so good at sport, at more than one sport.

But how old is Forlan?

I mean, like, like, this is 45, I think.

He's 45, and this is a proper ATP.

This is not like playing, it's always who is, it's always McEnroe, Illy Nastasi, you know, in one of those, in one of those sort of like, they all have fun on and around the neck

and on with the car.

It's not that.

He's 45 and he's playing a new sport.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Well, I think it's not like suit, it's not like he's just taken it up.

Of course.

I think when he came to Manchester United,

I have a vague recollection of people saying, oh, this guy, he had to choose between being a pro tennis player or being a pro footballer.

I think a lot of Manu fans were wishing he'd gone the other way.

Well, this reminds me of a month ago, Ed Ahrens did a great piece with Peter Odunwingi, who is not now a golf pro.

He's qualified as a PGA golf pro and is looking to maybe get on some of the professional tours, possibly.

I mean, that's another big leap to make.

And he picked that up

as an adult, as as a player he started playing golf and now he's retired he's become a a qualified pga golf pro so good on peter odd and winky for a moment there i really thought last was going to say that ed ahrens had joined the atp test

i was going to say insert your joke about peter odd and wingy in the car park in riyadh waiting to be signed by the live tour but uh they haven't signed him anyway um uh barry we teased it in the intro you teased it in the whatsapp group you have a great you have a wonderful anecdote uh to finish this podcast with well i was i was out walking on Monday afternoon.

Sorry, you know, near around five o'clock.

Traffic was busy around Clapham Common.

I was walking around the edge of it.

And I was the victim, Max, of a drive-by shouting.

Wow.

Okay.

So I was just walking along, minding my own business.

Got my headphones in and listening to something or other.

And next thing I hear is, Barry!

Barry!

Barry Gandening!

I sort of turn around, quite startled, because it's coming from the the road

and

So the traffic has sort of stopped at lights and this guy

has rolled down his driver's window and he's shouting out at me out of the out of it from his car going I have no idea who that is young lad that's a late twenties maybe early thirties yeah he he just he had recognized me and he wanted to tell me how much he loved football weekly and how much he loves everyone on football weekly and he was chatting away to me i couldn't really get a word in edgeways and then uh the lights had turned green and all the cars in front of him had driven off and it's like a two-lane road and then this this green taxi driver or no the driver wasn't green that he was in a green cab

he started tooting his horn quite aggressively and other people started banging so the only words i said to this listener were go go go i was like murray walker Walker.

So he just drove off.

So, yeah, if you're listening, I apologize.

I didn't really say anything much to you apart from more or less telling you to F off because you were holding up traffic that I wasn't stuck in.

Well, that's how we treat all our listeners.

That seems to be how most fan interactions with Berglinden go.

I mean, whether that is.

I was slightly worried he was going to get stuck into me

because I'm not pro-Arsenal enough for his life.

He could have been.

Yeah.

And he was driving a red car, so he could be an Arsenal fan.

Possible.

I mean, surely adults don't buy a colour of their car,

do they?

Oh, maybe.

I don't know.

I don't have a yellow car.

It would be nice if you had a car with yellow and amber stripes.

Yeah, it would.

Anyway, thanks everybody for listening.

If you do see Barry trudging around the streets, yell at him by all means.

Or you can get in touch by email.

Footballweekly at theguardian.com.

Thank you, everybody.

That'll do for today.

Thanks, Lars.

Anytime, Max.

Thank you, Niggy.

Thanks.

Cheers, Baz.

Thanks.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Daniel Stevens.

We'll be back tomorrow.

This is The Guardian.