Spain v England: who will win? And the Southgate verdict - Football Daily podcast

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

And so here we are, two left standing, two different styles, two different journeys, so much talk.

But finally, we get to see it.

Barney Ronay versus Barry Glendenning, the Southgate verdict.

Perhaps it'll be one big anti-climax, which worryingly might be what it's like if England do beat Spain on Sunday, however ridiculous that sounds.

Can anything that has been built up for so long be as good as you want it to be?

That is, of course, not a reason not to want it and how wonderful it would be for Gareth to silence those freezing cold takes, for Harry Kane to finally have a medal to show his up-to-date completely unimpressed grandchildren.

Of course, Spain are the best side here, defying the you can't play good football at tournaments, truthers.

So we probably don't have to worry about finding a new winning emotion.

Also, today, the state versus Barry Glendenning.

What does the chef's kiss mean for honesty and podcasting?

We've assembled the witch's curse squad for a pod of this importance.

All that plus your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Robin 16 says, forget the Euros final.

This Barry v.

Roné Showdown is more thrilling with Wilson as the moderator.

Stuff of Dreams, pod in the making, for Chef Kisses emojis.

Jay says, who will win the bare-knuckle shirtless brawl?

Welcome to the panel.

Barney Ronay.

Hello.

Hello, Barry Glendenning.

Hello.

And in the neutral corner, Jonathan Wilson.

Hello.

Morning.

How are you doing?

I'm very good then.

And look, before we

sort of get into that...

non-fight fight that everyone's looking forward to.

Look, Jonathan and Barney, you were both at the game, the semifinal, Ollie Watkins, last minute winner.

How was it for you, Barney?

You did the right thing to ask me first actually no

there was um

it was it was amazing uh uh there was last-minute drama someone why are you laughing Wilson well I was wondering whether to mention this but we were going down no we're going this route straight away there was an amazing yeah come on that's an incredible awful terrible scene at the end um where the english media were shamefully pelted with um missiles i have to call them missiles because it's football like basically full pints of lager, as far as I could tell, by the Dutch/slash German fans in the tier up ahead.

So that's me and Wilson desperately trying to file on copy.

Well,

these missiles exploded around us.

I was literally typing in a puddle,

which this obviously overshadowed the goal.

I mean,

there were altercations there.

It was really quite fraught and wild.

It was really,

I looked around at one point, and this beer was being thrown from a really high tier.

And I just watched this full pipe.

I felt like I was underneath a World War One shell.

It seemed to fall for about 30 seconds, and I was watching it.

I was like, How is it going so slowly?

And I was thinking, it's coming for us, it's really coming straight for us.

And then just exploded on the desk next to us as Wilson furiously typed away at his copy.

So, I actually got hit.

I got hit

on the left shoulder, and I actually can't turn my head probably to the left now.

And I think because of that, and the kind of you know, the adrenaline's up having to file in the final whistle, especially when there's a, you know, a late goal,

I think in retrospect, I maybe didn't behave that well.

I took out my frustration on a steward who was doing nothing.

And I found myself like screaming.

And as you know, from the last pod, my German is not great in the heat of the moment.

I have to say, your German did seem very fluent in that moment.

Fluent and very loud as well.

I was jabbing a finger in his face, pointing up at this.

As Barney said, I was thinking of First World War shells, but it's had a weird beauty

illuminated in the floodlights of the plastic glasses and the beer.

And the thing is, these are not like soft plastic glasses, they're the hard, recyclable plastic glasses.

So it's not as bad as glass, but it's also, it hurt, frankly.

But yeah, this odd beauty of a beer coming out of the floodlit sky.

And me screaming at him, Rufsian, Rufsian,

mentioned Berden Steven.

Mine laptop, Viet Steven.

Farum!

Okay,

and just for the benefit of everyone listening, and in many ways, England's late victory was like a beautiful shower of beer coming right at the end.

It was, sorry, everyone, but it was a funny incident.

No, it was great.

It was amazing to be there.

I thought it was a really good game.

The stadium's great.

It was raining, which helps.

The stadium is really old school and wild, and it felt really very football.

And England were great for the right reasons in those first 30 minutes.

You could really see those three three players, Mainu, Foden and Saka, playing together.

Because having Foden and Saka on the same side is really amazing.

It's like English football, you know, standing up and doing a fancy dance and saying, this is what we've got.

These two brilliant young players.

And Mainu was fantastic.

He was getting in the space between the midfield and defence of Holland and intercepting.

He reads the game brilliantly.

They had left that kind of gap.

They wanted to defend deep, presumably because they're not afraid of Harry Kane.

And that was England's real bonus in that period.

Kuhman then fixed that, and they actually defended higher.

And Goward Southgate brought on Ollie Watkins to run into that space, which I hadn't really noticed at the time.

That's why the game then became very boring because both teams were kind of like watching a rugby scrum in the second half, just these two matched forces.

And I remember when Watkins came on thinking, why are they bringing him on?

Like, you just assume that doesn't work with England when they're having a bit of the ball.

But I think it was a really smart substitution and it worked in a way that was not obvious at the time.

So I think it was a good game.

Yeah, I mean, I sort of felt from the start that England would have an advantage in midfield, partly because I had an extra man there, partly because they were just physically more imposing players that England had there.

That Schouten is a very tidy player, but he's not really an aggressive

deep-lying midfielder.

Reinders normally plays further forward.

He's number 10, who was playing deeper because of his distribution quality.

Zavi Simmons

is a small player.

He's a lightweight player.

So for him to try and tuck in to be a third midfielder was always going to be difficult.

And you look at the players England have there, Rice and Maynu and Bellingham and Foden.

They're good players, but they're also, well, certainly Rice and Bellingham are very physically imposing players.

And that was why England

were able to play so well, that sort of 25 minutes between going behind and

Depay going off.

And so Veerman coming on was an extra midfielder just to sort of plug it up.

And then, as Barney says in the second half, by bringing on Veghorst, it allowed well, it allowed two things to happen.

So, I think there was a general plan just to be more compact.

So,

they tried to push higher, but also when England had the ball, they could drop deeper, but the midfield could play deeper, and it didn't matter that Veghorst was slightly isolated because you can go long term, so they've still had that outlet.

Yeah, that domination England had for that 25-minute spell, why that faded.

I mean, Southgate was really interesting afterwards.

I'm not sure I've ever heard him speak with such sort of tactical precision about how when Veerman came on, he switched from a back three to a back four, but Saka's role had changed completely.

I mean, he was praising Saka and Saka's intelligence and how he defended brilliantly in three different positions over the course of the game.

South gets often criticised for his in-game management.

I think there's always been this sort of feeling he was better at the management side of football management than the football.

But actually,

he got this right: that yes, the game drifted away from England in the second half, and it felt a bit typical of how England often are.

But then bringing Watkins on was the solution to that, and he he got his reward for that.

Barry, have you had any strong feelings since we recorded the last pod?

I should have asked you at the time, and I forgot, so I'm going to ask you now when it's far too late.

But if an identical penalty had been given against England, I presume you would have thought what shouldn't have been a penalty.

I would have been annoyed because they're often not given.

But I suppose I landed on the side of, you know, Ian Wright saying that you often see that as a free kick when a defender clears it and a striker comes in and catches them, right?

That is just a free kick you see a lot of the time.

And so, if that's a foul there, then it is a foul in the box.

But I could totally understand why, if you were Dutch or you just didn't want England to get a penalty, why you would be furious about that.

And I was slightly surprised it was given.

I think that's how I felt about it, but I was happy it was given.

Yes, Bernie.

Well, I think it was lucky, but it's a really interesting use of the word lucky or idea of being lucky because this is

very difficult for people to

feel good about Gal Southgates England winning.

So we have to find reasons why it's bad.

And lucky is one of the, just lucky seems to be one of the things.

But, you know, luck is not really a thing.

We are back in Witches Curse territory.

Which is where we want to be.

So the luck of that penalty, did it happen out of nowhere?

No, it didn't.

Because it's one of those things where you felt England were going to score at that stage.

They reacted really well to going one no behind and they had a spell of pressure and they were suddenly all over the Dutch and they had chances.

During that period, Foden almost scored, Foden hit the post.

Was it weird that England scored there?

No.

And this is often why people, big teams, are accused of being...

Sometimes I feel it's unfair that we say referees favour bigger teams.

Bigger teams, stronger teams, tend to have more possession.

and tend to attack more and to give a feeling that the game is going one way and maybe that

uh that's why they tend to get refereeing decisions i think what happened there was it was slightly lucky but it was a result of pressure and so was it lucky or was it just in keeping with the dynamic of england playing well probably so it wasn't the work it wasn't the it wasn't a totally random element of luck and this this sort of goes back to england's luck i have a real problem with that i mean i feel forced into a really difficult position here i've become this kind of southgate truther I've been there shouting out Southgateisms, an apologist.

But I don't really

care that much.

I don't really support England that much or think he's a really great manager.

But what's annoying is the things that are supposedly wrong with Southgate and wrong with England are so kind of clunky and ill-thought out.

There's two ways of being annoyed with England winning.

One of them, I totally respect, is not being English and having to face English people going on about themselves all last night.

I was actually out last night with some Irish journalists, and the general viewers, oh god, we're going to have to write about England talking about England.

It's always about being English and what does it mean?

It must be so annoying.

And I guess that's part of the root of Barry feeling slightly annoyed.

But I mean, England are annoying.

England are pricks to lose to.

You know, that was the phrase from the New Zealand rugby captain.

And I can see that's true.

But then there are English people who don't want England to win under Gower Southgate.

And that I find that's fine, but don't denigrate his achievement in turning a kind of underachieving team into one that is basically achieving what it should do.

I think the reason people are angry with Southgate really is he's made the terrible mistake of giving people what they want.

And people don't really want to be given what they want, not when they're in love with wanting that thing.

You know, it's like a scene from Catch 22: like, I'm going to give them what they want.

They'll be delighted.

They won't.

They'll hate you.

No, no,

they keep saying they really want it.

They seem to really.

No, they don't.

They'll never forgive you.

There is a truth in this, buddy, is that, and I had this before the final against Italy.

I had this sort of weird feeling, and I've said this before, that, you know, those boys of 66 are so deified, right?

Because

I've never seen Nobby Styles have a shit game because I've only seen him play once.

And that was, you know, the 66 World Cup final, which I wasn't really watching.

It was locked down.

It was just something to do, right?

And I have seen, you know, Luke Shaw have a bad game.

So there is part of me, like, obviously I want to win, but there's part of me that knows it won't be as good as I think.

No one's going to like float me onto a cloud.

Well, it won't be as good as not winning either.

English people are in love with not winning, in love with the weight, in love with the glory.

It's a wonderful story.

It's English exceptionalism.

Look at our wonderful, brilliant failure to...

You know, we write songs about it.

Brilliant.

We have a brilliant culture of not winning.

And it's what fires the interest in the team.

And then somebody comes along very pragmatically and says, oh yeah, I can make that happen.

This is how you win.

It's a really simple thing in modern football where you eradicate mistakes, you have a kind of Guardiola light kind of team, and we just make it happen.

And that is really frustrating because it's not going to feel like an ultimate triumph of the will of Englishness, is it?

It's just going to feel like winning some games.

I think there's two things to add to that, which are, what do you do next?

I think English cricket's seen this, that it built itself up for so long to winning the Ashes that when it finally happened in 2005, the truth is nothing in English cricket has ever been remotely as good as that, and it can't be as good as that again.

And equally, in cricket, winning the World Cup finally, it's just felt really frustrating since then.

Nothing is ever going to be that good.

But there's also, there are two ways of winning, there are different ways of winning tournaments.

Look at, say, Portugal in 2016.

And I don't mean about the way they played or about the tactical approach or even the individual players involved.

But if you're Portuguese, which moments of that tournament do you remember?

When you're looking for sort of some nostalgic, sentimental moment to feel happy about in the way that

English people would remember Sheringham's layoff or David Platt's volley or Banks is save.

What are the moments from 2016 that Portuguese people remember?

How about Ronaldo's incredible header in the semi-final or the winning goal scored in the final by a journeyman striker from nowhere in extra time?

Those moments are quite good.

A desperate final.

A desperate final.

They're both better moments than that criminally overrated Sherringham Leo, which I trust.

Come on.

I'm not rising to it.

A little sideways pass.

That's what I mean.

A really workaday 2-0 victory over, with all due respect, Wales.

I think if England had won the last Euros, it would have been a bit similar.

What were the great moments?

I mean, there was a...

Maybe

the goals against Germany, but it was a pretty drab group stage.

Ukraine just didn't present enough of a challenge.

The semi-final,

I mean, maybe kind of Kane missing the penalty and then scoring the rebound, but they weren't dramatic moments in the way that, say, the Platte Volleyball was dramatic moments.

This time in England have had those moments.

They've had the Watkins goal, they've had the penalty shootout, they've had the Bellingham goal.

It sort of feels like this will be a good one to win because the moments are there, but it's not going to be a fairly worker day triumph if England do somehow beat Spain.

Barry, we've heard from Barney basically say that Gareth Southgate's the greatest tactician and the greatest football manager that has ever been.

And you obviously think he is

not worthy.

Well, he may well change his mind by part three because I've seen more reverse ferreting from Barney on this topic over the past eight years.

What are you talking about?

That's Bollock.

I've always thought the same thing, which is he's okay.

And I know that a lot of people have been ranting on about him being a bad football manager, blah, blah, blah.

I've always thought he's just fine and always said that.

But I've been more emphatic in saying he's fine as the kind of bizarre.

I mean, it seems to me,

I get the impression from here with the pub, what's happening is a weird kind of version of downfall, a kind of reverse downfall.

England England advancing on Berlin.

You know, Southgate's the general pattern in this situation.

Meanwhile, in the bunker of Football Weekly, Barry quietly goes insane, denying reality, hands shaking, high on energy drinks, and denying the reality of a quite good manager kind of getting a pretty good team to a final.

And it's nothing more than, I mean, no one, surely no one thinks Southgate is a wonderful manager, but managing the culture, he's been very good at.

And the numbers that I just don't really understand the need to denigrate his achievements.

That's my only source of loyalty.

I've never actually denigrated his achievements.

My

sort of disagreement with you,

only disagreement, is that I think it's all right.

It can be true that he is arguably England's greatest ever manager.

But it can also be true that he has

messed up and cost England the last euros through his indecision.

Both things can be true.

My understanding from reading Barney's repeated

articles on the subject and listening to him talk about Gareth Southgate is that Barney thinks Garrett Southgate is among England's best managers,

possibly the best they've ever had, or the second best.

I think that if Southgate, if England get beaten by Spain, that status won't change.

But people who don't think Southgate is a particularly good manager can also,

their position will remain unchanged as well.

So it probably is the outcome that suits everyone best.

Well, I agree.

I don't think Southgate is a great tactical manager.

I don't think anyone does.

But I think the nature of managing England is that that's the bit you see above the waves.

And underneath it is this vast complicated substructure of making the players want to play for England, managing the weird pressures,

the culture stuff that he talks about constantly and you kind of ignore and forget about because he's managed it quite well but once he's not there may once again become a problem.

So he's very good at the

duck's feet under the water paddling stuff.

But yeah, there are bits I don't think his succeeding club management for the same reason that that's more your in-game management.

It's more sort of visceral decisions based on the sort of tactical stuff having in front of you.

You've got more control of what the players do, and that can expose how good you are at controlling those things.

But given the England manager's job is sort of ambassadorial, it's this cultural thing.

He's been very good at that.

And his record's undeniably...

you know, right up there compared to anyone who's ever had that job.

I mean, partly helped by the fact they haven't had the right people doing the job before.

They didn't employ Brian Clough.

They gave Terry Venables one tournament.

I think if Venables had got the amount of time and patience and the management of the FA that Southgate had had, he'd have a far superior record because he actually was a really good tactical manager and made the players feel good in the same way.

I agree that I think Spain deserve to win and are the better team and it would be good for the tournament if they win and I agree with Barry that that probably is a good result because nobody has to change their view on what Southgate has done over the last seven years when he leaves as he probably will.

This pod has been billed as some sort of showdown between myself and Barney, which is not going to be much of a showdown because it's a showdown between two people who both think Gareth Southgate is quite a good manager, but one of whom thinks he should have won the last Euros.

You know, that's it.

That's pretty much the only thing we disagree on.

We basically disagree, but I'm annoyed with people saying

is rubbish and Barry's annoyed with the sort of overreaction of the English media, I think,

kind of, you know, going on about how this is the most wonderful thing ever.

It's a question of what you're annoyed by.

Wilson has been lying back with his eyes closed.

Presumably that was just because it was so beautiful to listen to.

That would be my conclusion.

What we'll do in part two is look ahead to the final.

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Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Adam says, after the France-Spain game, Philippe said the Spanish were looking leggy towards the end of their game.

My question is, are the Spanish looking tired?

Just imagine.

Wilson, how do England go about beating Spain?

I mean, the wingers obviously are the major attacking threat.

I don't think any English centre-backs will be particularly scared by Murato, although Murato, I mean, assuming Murato's fit after

being

collided with by a Steward.

Kyle Walker on the right to deal with Nico Williams, presumably on the right of the back three.

I think that's probably fine.

I think maybe there's an argument then to start with Kevin Trippier as left wing back, rather than sure if Shaw is fit enough.

Because he, A, I think he's probably a slightly better defensive fullback, but B, because he's right-footed, that might actually be an advantage as Leminiamal comes inside.

He's coming onto Trippier's stronger foot.

so in a sense the the skew that England have that the way that everything tips to to be more attacking down the right and thus more defensive down the left actually works to deal with Spain Rodri clearly is the other the big problem Rodri's the the outstanding player on either side I don't know if if maybe

trying to get Bellingham in his face would work partly because Bellingham is physically big enough to deal with Rodri and obviously is a is an excellent player as well and maybe that can can distract him.

I mean the fact that again England's shape seems a shape they've come upon this this 3-4-2-1 seems quite helpful to deal with Spain.

That Rodri is going to have to deal with both Bellingham and Foden.

Now, he's clearly capable of doing that.

But that maybe is slightly more complicated than anything he's faced so far in the tournament.

But, yeah, Spain, without question, playing the better football than England.

If you're English, you're looking for reasons to be positive.

That 25 minutes against the Netherlands in the first half was a really, really good 25 minutes.

And that's really the only time in the tournament when England have had space to play into.

Now, I can't see Spain sitting deep and trying to restrict the space for England.

They will play.

Having said that, what Spain have done, they tried to do it against Germany, didn't really work, but they did it very efficiently against France, was having got the lead, they're very good at closing the game down, partly because they're so good in possession that they can just keep the ball off you.

I mean, they had over 500 passes, didn't they, in that semi-final?

If England go behind, I mean, I know England have done well by going behind, but I think going behind in this game makes it very, very difficult.

Barney, you've said a lot that the team of the best midfield wins, and Rodri and Faberin Rees has been brilliant, and actually Olmo coming in for Pedri hasn't been a discernible trade down.

In many ways, they've become more threatening.

So, like, that is a, that's difficult for England.

Yeah, it is.

And, I mean, I wasn't, I hadn't seen Yamal in the flesh, Limin Yamal, until this tournament.

And you're never sure with young players

if it's all just sort of hype or people getting excited on the internet.

But he is really something else.

He's got that thing that Messi's got.

We were sitting right really near the pitch on his side when he scored that goal in the semi-final.

He's got the thing where the ball just comes in and absolutely sticks to him and he's always facing the right way and it just looks terrifying.

And 16 year old scoring goals from that far out.

I mean that's just how good it'd be in the under 16s.

I mean it's it's incredible.

That just doesn't normally happen.

I do think that it might be hard for him just at that age to play so many games and peak again in a final.

There may be some sense of you can't really expect him.

It would be sort of preternatural to keep performing.

but on the other side Nico Williams incredibly good in possession as well and that's a real problem for England on those flanks where they are weak I struggle to find a weak point in Spain's game what the England can exploit and I see plenty of weak points in England's game there's going to be another debate about Kane but he's probably I mean he's definitely going to start what strikes me with that is that there was this problem England had a problem with Harry Maguire the lack of pace and that meant the defensive line was really deep and that caused problems with the midfield.

But what they've done at this tournament is they've inverted that problem.

Like Kane's extreme lack of pace.

They've sort of solved the Maguire one.

The centre-backs are quick.

They can push up.

It's fine.

It condenses that space quite nicely.

But now it's at the top of the pitch.

Like Kane is so immobile and so slow that that problem is happening there.

We've just kind of switched it to the other side.

It's the bed sheet of pace.

You just can't have pace

everywhere.

Yeah.

It's weird.

It's like Harry Maguire is now playing up front.

You've had to kind of feed him in there instead.

but the same problem is happening i wonder if that will be a problem because again you you'd imagine spain will have a lot of um possession and this is finally a game england can play on the break and if that's something southgate will think about and try to set up and play on the break is not just about sprinting you know it's put your quickest player in it's about moving the ball quickly and players like phil voden can obviously do that but obviously sprinting speed does help as well um and i wonder if he'll address that because it's really not ideal having that lack of pace in attack against spain uh barry you

after the semi-final, you felt that England would win.

I don't know if that's changed since that moment.

There's no real rhyme or reason to

me thinking that because trying to make sense of England in this tournament and their progress is just a fool's errand.

I just think it is unlikely that Spain

will play well and win a seventh consecutive match in this tournament.

It just seems very unlikely.

What I'd like to know, actually, is: if Harry Kane wins the golden boot, which is not out of the question, does that mean those of us who perhaps thought he

should not have been selected for previous games, or maybe even this one, are all complete idiots?

Or

is our point still valid?

And if Spain win and Lamin Yamal plays well in the final, there's a very good chance he could win player of the tournament, a 16-year-old boy.

That would be incredible, surely.

I mean, Kane Wilson, that is interesting.

He could win the golden boot.

England could win the Euros, and he could have had a bad tournament.

Like, those things are all, but obviously, it's ridiculous.

Or in like 30 years' time, we'd be like, well, that's ridiculous.

But he has spent his entire career playing really well and winning nothing.

So maybe he's doing.

Did Jeff Hurst have a terrible tournament in 60?

That's what I'm thinking.

Was Jeff Hurst terrible in 66?

Well, I was thinking about this last night.

Like, if England do win this tournament, you know, loads of us was going, how the hell did they do that?

You know, they played well for 35 minutes in the semi-final, and so they've won the tournament.

In 50 years' time, no one will care.

Everyone will look at Garrett Southgate's record and go, fuck me, he must have been a brilliant manager.

They must have been a great team.

Like, the 66 team could have been absolute rubbish for all I know.

The only thing I've ever seen from that campaign is Jeff Hurst's final goal.

So everything else could have been absolute shite from England.

I just don't know.

I just presume they were a really good team.

Well, they were criticised in the same way.

They were seen as a kind of paired back

version of what England could be.

And they started badly.

And, you know, we want goals, the crowd chanted.

And against Mexico, they got one.

Beauty scored by Bobby Chelton.

And then they grew into the tournament.

But they actually did beat really good teams.

You know, that Argentina team that they beat beat was fantastic.

George Cohen says they were the team of the tournament.

They were brilliant.

And they beat Eusebius, Portugal.

They beat West Germany.

So it's hard to disagree that Spain should win this tournament because their run has been incredible.

The thing about them not being able to produce a seventh-straight good game, I mean, they have beaten teams who I would say are better than England.

I mean, France, a better, you know, surely

this is kind of, you know, it reminds me a little bit of France, Croatia, 2018.

I kind of feel like we'll know after 20 minutes how this is going to go.

Do you agree with that, Wilson?

Do you think we will know?

Like,

obviously, there's a part of me that thinks we might just do it, but objectively, I know how good Spain are.

I mean, I think the thing with this England team, though, is you don't know.

I mean, I thought I knew against Slovakia after 94 minutes or whatever it was.

I thought I'd read that script quite a lot before, and it turned out there was a twist I just didn't see coming.

So I'd be much more comfortable answering questions on 66, and I want to come back to that.

But

I do think about

tournaments.

And I think this is the thing.

When England were doing badly, it wasn't recognised how much randomness there is.

And all a manager can do, when I say doing badly, I mean going out in quarterfinals.

When England played badly against

in year 2012, year 2016, or

the World Cup in 2014, they were just bad.

But there were times when you had okay England teams who played okay who went out in quarterfinals and everybody would always finish a tournament talk about root and branch review, got to change the manager.

And sometimes it is just fortune.

It is just a bounce of the ball goes against you.

It is just a player that has a good game at a particular time.

But where I think you,

I think what Southgate has done that he deserves credit for is A, having the sense and the humility to practice penalties and get penalties as good as you can.

Now, I doesn't guarantee you win them,

but

you can get yourself better at them by all these little psychological tricks, by all the planning.

You can transform your chance of winning that penalty shirt from 50% to 65% or something.

And obviously, other teams are trying to do that back to you.

So maybe you just keep it at 50%, but at least it's not 35%.

And so that is something where when England drew against Switzerland, I was fairly confident England would win the penalties just because I had faith that

they would be better at penalties in Switzerland.

And that's part of a more general thing of

I don't think destiny exists until you start to believe it does.

And then that can create remarkable effects, particularly if that happens in-game.

And I think what you've seen with England in this knockout phase is now there's this sense.

And I know Barry loves me talking about Ivory Coast at the Cup of Nations this year.

I know that's one of his favourite things.

And all the football is hearing me talking about that great Ivory Coast team.

But they were hopeless.

I mean, they were genuinely hopeless, way worse than England.

They're getting beat 4-0 of Equatorial Guinea.

And the fact they didn't go out, suddenly the players, the fans, got this belief of, well, it doesn't matter what we do because we're going to win.

And

that can be punctured really humiliatingly, as happened to say to Brazil in 2014.

But it also means if you go behind, you don't panic.

You just say, well, we will score eventually.

You just keep playing.

And that's a really sort of powerful force.

But anyway, so 66.

Barney's absolutely right.

They were heavily criticised.

There was a lot of the similar sort of phrasing of, you know, why are we so boring?

Why is it so defensive?

Why is it so conservative?

But that was part of a much bigger shift in football from a very individualistic game towards a more structured game, basically towards the game we recognise today.

And you look at, say, the 65 FA Cup final between Liverpool and Leeds, and if you watch it now, it just looks a pretty good game.

It doesn't look anything extraordinary.

It's not fantastically exciting, but you wouldn't say it's one of the worst games in history.

And you look at the press reaction, and they think it's terrible because people pass the ball sideways at times, because people don't just go hell for leather forward.

Peter Wilson, the mirror columnist on the Monday after that game said, you know, I'm told this method football, which he puts in scare quotes as if it's a thing he's not quite sure about, I'm told this method football is the future.

And if we are to have any chance of winning the World Cup, this is the way we have to do it.

If this is the future of football, I want no part of it.

Now, of course, he's playing a very happy part in it.

you know, a year and a bit later when England do win the World Cup.

But Ramsey was really radical.

Ramsey took

that method to levels people had never seen before.

He got rid of the wingers.

Everybody thought you needed wingers, and he gets rid of them.

And so the reaction against Ramsey was partly people not really understanding what he was trying to do, and partly that

it was disruptive and it was new.

And people were having to sacrifice something they really loved and they really cared about.

And all the stories about Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney, none of that mattered anymore.

And so that was really disturbing.

And so I think that is qualitatively different to what's happening now.

I think Ramsey was a much greater manager than Sad.

I think Ramsey genuinely is one of the all-time great managers from anywhere in in the world.

He was...

What he did at Ipswich was amazing, wasn't it?

Absolutely, yeah.

It took Tang Ipswich from the third division to win the title in, what, five years

when they'd never been in the top flight before.

That was an extraordinary achievement.

And I think his sort of brutalist conception of football, strip away anything that doesn't matter, make it very functional, that was radical.

And it perhaps wasn't recognised because he was such an introverted, sort of repressed man who hated the media and just didn't tell anybody he was doing it.

And you had to kind of go back years later and pick through it and realize what he was doing and and take the odd little thing he let slip in press conferences and and and find out from players what he'd said to them but even from the players he sort of hid what he was doing so i think they are qualitatively differences i don't think you can say southgate is anywhere near the manager ramsay is i so i think you know if you're listing england managers in terms of greatness in the england job it is ramsay a huge golf southgate a small golf the rest but you're basing that on on his ability not on um what he achieved well it's a combination of achievement and

part of that achievement is changing the style of football of a nation.

Ramsey took a nation obsessed by wingers and he made them play a totally different form of game, won one World Cup.

I know we've had this discussion about whether the 68 and the semi-final really means anything, but, you know, they were in that semi-final.

And then 70, you know, England played really well in 70.

They just happened to lose to a brilliant Brazil and lose to a very good West Germany.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin with the chef's kiss.

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Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So, Barry, to the chef's kiss.

There was quite a lot of reaction.

The what?

What do you mean, what?

What are you talking about?

I'm talking about the chef's kiss.

Where are they?

chefs?

The alleged chef kiss.

My apologies.

Mark Pugach said, in the manner of the famous Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch regarding John McEnroe, the juice was slurped.

We can say the chef was kissed.

Troy Townsend sent three crying-laughing emojis.

Ellis James said it was superb.

Dan Bardell have to praise Max for spotting this at the time and sticking with his original call.

Nice implementation of VAR as well.

Good process.

You tweeted Richard Osman about changing the rules of tennis, to which he replied, this tweet also really deflects attention from your very obvious chef's kiss.

Josh Whitticom, what's up me?

A chef's kiss emoji.

First thing in the morning.

Curtis Davis sent a gif of a chef's kiss.

Ollie says, in Barry's defense, he did close his eyes whilst chef kissing, so did not see himself chef kiss.

John says, what restaurant did Barry train in?

Charlie says, will Barry ensure he has clipped his fingernails properly to avoid any potential misunderstandings for Sunday?

Steve, how does Barry plan to win back the hearts and minds of the nation, any nation, following Kissgate?

I'm struggling to believe his legendary header happened at all.

And Dave says, even with the evidence in front of my eyes, I'm not sure.

That's how believable Barry is.

Will you apologise?

One of us said we would apologize.

No, you said one of us would apologise.

All right.

So where do you stand on the chef's?

It was.

I've told you, I was biting a snout off my nails.

If a cartoonist drew like a, you know, like.

If only we knew a cartoonist.

A chef's kiss.

Oh, he's working on it, trust me.

But, like, it was the ultimate chef's kiss.

Because when you were so adamant, not once, but twice, I was like, well, maybe you didn't.

Like, I wrote it down.

I saw it in my eyes.

I was so adamant.

Well, I had at the time no recollection of biting the little rogue fingernail off at that time.

Right.

When you bite your nail, do you then raise your hand a little bit?

and have done for years so i don't remember whether i was biting my nail no i understand but then when the video said oh yes barry was emphatically biting his fingernail.

And you happen to misconstrue that action for a chef's kiss.

When you normally bite your nail, do you then raise your hand slightly and like give it another shake?

Yeah.

That is a.

Right, I understand.

Doesn't it seem an odd moment to bite your nail as well?

Like the ball's just gone into the net in a World Cup.

So well, you wouldn't just.

Watching England play a semi-final seem an odd time to bite my nails.

No,

I can't think of a more appropriate time to be bite my nails.

It's a strong, it's a strong argument.

So you did say that if the video evidence had proved you had bitten your nails, you would give me a hundred pounds.

So

I didn't say that.

I bet you £100.

You didn't accept the bet.

So

and the video proved nothing.

So

Adam says this basically means the river dance of three years ago is also true.

Well, 2018, there was the 2018 river dance, which you also so vehemently claim it didn't happen that in my mind I'm not sure it happened.

When I saw it with my eyes, it's happened again.

You're just a liar.

You're just a big liar.

That's a very serious allegation.

It is.

And I'm not the lawyer on this panel, but

I want the truth.

You can't handle the truth.

Thank you so much.

So what were you actually doing in 2018 when you were skipping your legs high?

It's a good question.

with my arms rigidly tarp by my side i can't remember

of course you can't

so there's no apology just to just just to confirm for the tape there is no apology no admission of guilt and no i mean you're welcome to apologize to me for producing my good name and my character slandering me calling me a liar with no evidence no evidence

none zero evidence it's the ultimate chef's kiss.

Like, it's so amazing how much of a chef's kiss it is.

It's like, I've never seen anybody in real life.

I've never seen my nails.

In real life, I have never seen anyone do a chef's kiss like that.

It is the emoji.

Like, it's like it will be the gif of a chef's kiss.

It's that good.

It was also an appropriate reaction.

It was a brilliant, it was the perfect Barry Goal.

You know, Xavi Simmons, the bit of Declan Rice, England, brilliant goal, brilliant goal.

If you're not doing a chef's kiss then, when will you ever do one?

What would it take?

I'd have to have cooked something nice and

tasted it, you know,

and then gone, oh, yeah,

Barry's ragu sauce.

Lovely.

So you're not apologising to me.

I'm not apologising.

I said,

if the video evidence suggested you didn't do it, I would apologize with all my heart.

Because you at that point had said you were the better man.

I'm not here to decide who is the better man between the two of us.

I'm saying I believe there is compelling evidence that you did the quintessential chef's kiss.

No one before or since will ever, ever do a chef's kiss of that quality.

And you sit by your biting nail defense.

Yes, and I don't think

your argument would stand up in court.

Barney, would my argument stand up in court?

I think there's enough room for doubt there for a jury to acquit me.

Beyond reasonable doubt.

So I says, can Ryan Loft improve on his 3.2 aerial challenges per game?

Aiden says, I'm obsessed with footballer house names since the Ryan Loft chat.

Les Fridge, Keemar Roof, Elias Chair, Mick Wardrobe.

Was there a Mick Wardrobe?

That's delightful.

Luke says, as a Portvale fan, I really didn't expect so much Ryan Loft content.

Who will be discussed on the next pod?

Lewis Cass, Jason Loot Villa.

I don't know who they are.

Lute Weiler, maybe.

And Ian says, if your new striker knocks in a through ball for Cambridge, will it be a loft conversion?

Thank you, Ian.

Greatly appreciated.

Anyway, I think we've covered everything and we all remain the firmest of friends.

So that's good.

Enjoy the final, Barney.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks.

Yeah, enjoy it, everyone.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Bookball Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.