Heartbreak for Croatia as Italy leave it late to progress - Football Daily

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

And by my reckoning, and you can correct me, it took five years, 11 months, two weeks and five days for the Croatians to finally get tired.

Some finish from Mattia Sakagni in injury time to guarantee second spot for Italy.

Not a lot happened until Luka Modric looked old for 60 seconds, missing a penalty before hanging around in the box to score a different rebound.

But the Croatians are out.

Meanwhile, Spain B beat Albania 1-0.

They were brilliant in the first half, but Albania, who needed a win, came back in the second.

And with a bit more luck, better finishing, better ability, they could have scared the almost completely changed Spain team.

We'll look ahead to England tomorrow.

Connor Gallagher in, Trent Alexander Arnold out.

Is that enough?

Or should we all get angry with Gallagher?

Now we can't get angry with Trent.

Group D is interesting.

Could the good dark horse of Austria upset the Netherlands?

And will the Marston Buffet feature for France against Poland?

We'll do all that, answer your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glen Denning.

Hello.

Hi, Max.

Good evening.

George Ellick from Not the Top 20, but allowed to talk about the Euros.

I hope.

I don't want to do a whole lot on Rotherham's.

You know, how Rotherham has set up an Ed next year.

I'll take 20 minutes on Sunderland's new market.

Am I not here to talk about Rotherham's 10 signings they made already this summer under Steve Evans?

Well, we can do.

Why not?

Nikki Bandini, hello.

Hi.

Relieved, I presume.

Let's start then with that Croatia-Italy game.

I mean, the final group, Spain on nine points, Italy on four, Croatia on two, Albania on one.

And Nikki, I had, and I don't want to sound like one of those journalists complaining about, oh, I had to do a rewrite, but I'd done a whole lot on, you know, never write off the Croats.

We all knew this was going to happen.

And then in injury time uh

sort of the one i mean they had a couple of chances italy no no one really was good in this game i thought but it was a brilliant goal yeah i don't we're recording this really soon afterwards by the way i feel like i haven't had a second to to re-watch that last bit or uh process it properly but it was it was a terrible game max it was it was a really

a lot of it stodgy stultifying game of football um croatia's goal i wouldn't necessarily say it felt like Croatia particularly deserved to take the lead.

It wasn't like they were playing especially brilliant or compelling football.

They were dominating possession, but they weren't building up to something.

They won a penalty, they missed it, and then a minute later, separate phase of play, the ball comes back in and Moderic scores.

And after that, it was just this growing sense of frustration at the lack of really anything interesting going on in this Italy team.

And I think this has been the fear coming into the tournament.

I think there's some good elements in this Italy team.

I think there's promising parts and I've talked about them before with the young defenders and perhaps fitting in the end that one of those defenders who I think has got a bright future with Italy, Riccardo Calafiore, who notionally is part of a back three but at the 98th minute is rushing forward like a number 10, plays the pass and Mattia Zacañi, another very apt figure because he was frozen out under Roberto Mancini, scores the goal that sends Italy through in second place.

And yeah,

it was a not particularly sparkling game of football in which neither team looked much like a team that can go on to win this thing.

And in which, for a long period, I was thinking, isn't this the ridiculousness of this 24-team tournament that I don't even know at 1-0 if Italy are better off going hell for leather after an equalizer or just making sure they don't concede another goal?

Because there were a couple of times when Quresh came forward at 1-0 and you thought, actually, that goal difference really could matter if they concede another goal.

Yeah.

I mean, you made that point, George,

before we came on air, that it's sort of slightly weird with these teams that they just don't know for sure what they have to do.

Yeah, I mean, anyone who watched the game last night, we saw Hungary score a goal that I think their players and fans assumed was going to be enough to get them through to the next round.

But had Croatia won this game this evening, suddenly Hungary would have been looking like an outside chance of getting through.

Weirdly enough, you know, if you're a Hungary fan, you've seen two goals go in in two nights that are absolutely massive for their campaign because that goal that goes in for Italy tonight massively improves their chance of getting through.

But it's a bit of a ridiculous situation where we all love tournament football.

Tournament football in its purest form needs jeopardy.

And this evening's game between Croatia and Italy, had it been the top two teams going through, would have meant that once Croatia went ahead, Italy would have absolutely needed to win it.

And that is a much better spectacle rather than, as Nikki says, there, Italy kind of going into it being like, well, hold on, we need to make sure we don't concede two two more goals and then we'll be level on goal difference with Hungary, but then we don't know what's going to happen elsewhere.

It's a bit of a strange situation.

And almost for that reason, the fact that Croatia,

against a side who didn't necessarily even need to score, still conceded, you know, they're the team who have had, you know,

how many lives have Croatia had in their recent history in tournament football?

So many.

And it feels a bit strange to be sitting here having seen them do it yet again, but only to come undone in the 99th minute.

I just, I think there's like two different things that I feel about this whole situation with the third-place teams.

One is that it's just straightforwardly unfair, because the whole reason that we're playing these two games concurrently, the Albania-Spain game and the Itali-Croatia game, is because you have the same knowledge about the situation in the group.

You have the same knowledge about your chance going through.

So that's to create fairness.

But then in this system, the teams in the last groups to play have more knowledge.

They potentially can have those biscotti, as the Italians would say,

where they can have draws that suit everybody.

Don't be Scotty.

Scottish.

It never works.

The counterpoint I do want to say is: I feel like we spent the first week of this tournament saying how great the football was.

And I think part of that was because people thought, actually, we can almost afford a throwaway game because if you lose a game in the group, it's not going to kill you.

I wonder, Barry, if

obviously we know that people say actually the 16-team Euros was great because you began and every game was like intense and it was high quality.

But if you're going to go to 24, might you be better off going to 32?

So at least it meant that the top two would go through that in these last games and maybe there'd be, you know, surely we can dig around and find another six that are okay, can't we?

Well, Ireland still wouldn't qualify, but

yeah, I'm wholeheartedly, look, if it's a party, a dinner party, a booze-up, a stag do, whatever, the more the the merrier.

Bring it all.

I don't know if I agree with that.

Are you sure?

Yeah,

I think at a dinner party,

I don't really want more than a party.

I think the more the merrier.

I'm very much a more the merrier enthusiast.

Especially when you consider that Albania came into this tournament as...

Maybe not the minnow, but one of the minnows of the whole competition.

They got a draw against Croatia.

They lost by a solitary goal against Italy and Spain.

So it's hardly like they've been blown out of the water.

And you also have to think that Italy were one minute away from qualifying out of the group stage by beating Italy to sorry by beating Albania 2-1 and then losing the other two games to nil and they were going to get through like it just rewards mediocrity in a in a way that isn't conducive to a good tournament I actually thought Italy were the better team this evening I was kind of confused scrolling on Twitter in the last 20 minutes or so and seeing a lot of the narrative being you know this is another great performance by Croatia wherever all of Italy's good players gone I thought in the first half Italy were by far the better team Croatia had a lot of of the ball.

Italy created all the chances.

Croatia had basically no joy until the penalty, which Podric obviously missed and then scored soon afterwards.

And then in the last 25 minutes or so, Italy had a lot of the ball, didn't do loads with it, a couple of headers that were missed that were decent chances.

But I think on the balance of things, if one of those teams deserves to go through on the night, I think it's Italy.

Would you go with that, Nikki?

I think I sort of broadly agree.

I think that the football, definitely the first half, Italy played better than Croatia did.

I think the problem is just this Italy team is supposed supposed to be defending champions and the lack of energy and creativity going forward is really glaring.

I did think, because there was a shift in shape this game, they went to a more like a 3-5-2.

We can get into the reads of formations because all of these formations are different with the ball and without the ball, but it was more like a 3-5-2.

And to me, it was the more logical system to use because it basically just shapes the team more towards what Inter do.

And look, a lot of your best players are from Inter.

You've got Bastani at centre-back, although he's moved into the middle in this formation, where Adinte normally plays on the left and therefore has that connection with DiMarco.

Still, you've got Bastoni in a back three, you've got Dharmian in a back three he's used to playing in, you've got Di Marco in a more familiar spot further wide on the left.

It just feels like a shape that makes sense for what you have.

And what sort of struck me in that first half was, actually,

yes, I thought Italy created better chances, but the best chance was Aninte midfielder Barella chipping the ball to Aninte's centre-back, Bastoni, who, again, look, he does that for inter.

He gets into the box.

That's not unheard of.

But it's not great that in the whole first half, your attackers didn't really register with me at all.

And then at halftime, when Spoletti's looking for his first change, he sends on another inter player, Fratesi.

It really felt like, okay, this is clearly just the, let's hope this works.

In the end, that wasn't what worked.

And I do think...

Again, the Zacañi story is interesting because Zacañi has been a really, I think,

under-appreciated player in Italy.

Perhaps not in Italy, because I think in Seria people are aware of him,

but maybe internationally, because he's been a Lazio who, yeah, they finished second a season ago, but they hadn't always played that sparkling football.

They didn't blow anyone away, particularly in Europe, even though they did make the knockout stages.

But he's basically been frozen out of the Italy team because of a situation a year and a bit ago, I think it was, where he was on international duty with Italy and he got an injury.

The Italian medics looked at him and said, no, you can still play the next game.

And he said, yeah, I'm going home anyway.

And after that, Manchuni was just like, right, done with you.

You're not part of the setup anymore.

And he's good.

He's not going to be the next Leo Messi.

He's not going to be even the next Nico Williams.

But he's good.

And I think it's...

certainly valuable for Italy to have him back in the setup and able to do things for them.

That penalty, George.

I mean, I think handballs, I've got so angry with the handball law that I now refuse to accept handballs that probably were handballs before I hated hand balls, if that makes sense.

But it still feels harsh, that one.

But I mean, I put that on Twitter and I got roundly yelled at, so perhaps I'm wrong.

Yeah, I think it's one of the few times I've ever seen a penalty not be given and the team.

the team who are Appealings fans continue to celebrate because they were so confident it was going to be given.

The hand was in an unnatural position away from the body.

I think the fact that the shot could well have been going on target,

I think, frankly, if you've got a goal-screen opportunity that's being denied by a hand that is away from the body, then that has to be a handball.

Yeah.

So I'm, well, I'm already, that's a totally natural, you know, when people move, it feels natural.

I don't even know if it was a shot, was it?

It was sort of a bit of a dink.

But I think natural is meant to be making like the shape of your body bigger than it than anybody otherwise would be.

It's not, you know,

I think I'm howling into the wind.

I think that people have now,

the sort of dial has shifted.

You know, we've all moved.

We've all moved that way.

Have you turned into Abraham Simpson?

Are you waving your fist?

Pretty much.

I mean, I'm yet to just walk into a room,

hang my hat up, and then leave the room.

I haven't got to that stage of my Abe Simpson.

Well, that would be worrying for the current Mrs.

Rushton if you're walking into Bordellos.

You're going to be a handball denier.

Just nothing has ever handballed.

I agree.

I wouldn't penalise Suarez anyway.

Where do you stand on climate change and gummies, man?

I'll start my new Twitter campaign on that.

Luca Modric becomes the oldest ever player to score at the Euros, 38 years and 289 days.

Do you think, George, I mean, and I'm reticent to ask this question.

Do you think this is it for this crowd?

Who can say?

I mean, the fact that the midfield is still Modric, Brozovic and Kovacic, and yet seemingly none of them can play 90 minutes, two games in a row, I think think the writing is probably on the wall where we saw both Modric and Kovacic come off in the first game.

The fact that Kovacic had to come off with 20 minutes still to play

today, despite the situation of the game, Danny Murphy was livid about that.

But also with having played 90 minutes in the previous game against Albania, Brozovich coming off at halftime in that one, you know, it's been a hell of a run for these guys.

There's a Luca Modric was given the Player of the Match award, and the photo that has been released by UEFA of him holding the Man of the Match trophy suggests that he has shed some tears in the last 10 minutes,

which is understandable.

So it's been some era for Croatian football, and it's a shame it has to end this way.

And clearly, you know, Modric's reaction to that goal, where the relief he must have felt at having put it right so soon afterwards was incredible.

But you know, the famous last words, but maybe this is the end of that era.

Can I ask George?

For the benefit of those like myself who didn't hear it,

Why was Danny Murphy angry with,

was it Kovacic or

Brozovich being tired?

Kovacic coming on, I think, just because he is a player who is incredibly good both at carrying the ball out of midfields and he's good at winning the ball back and he's a very good passer.

So he reckoned he should have stayed on the pitch, yeah?

Purely from a, you know, he's a quality player.

This is a big game.

point of view rather than anything else.

Gilly says, I want to ask Nikki what's happened to the talent in Italy.

I've grown up with them having world-class talent right down the spine for years unrecognizable these players for me nowadays is there any talent coming through where the next generation will have italy at the top again there's layers and layers to this question and way more than you're going to want me to go into um in this uh in this um answer i'm sure um the first thing to say is i think there is even in this squad there is some world-class talent in this squad and i think the one name i haven't said so far genluigi donaruma needs to be said because he saved a penalty and then made an astonishing save before modric finally put the ball in the net he's been i think the one player in this Italy squad who really is still playing at the same or even higher level than Euro 2020 when he was the player of the tournament.

So he's been brilliant.

And I think I can go through the team and say, I think Niccolo Barella in midfield is a world-class player.

And I think that Bastoni is on his way to being that.

And I think Galafiori is

someone else who can be special.

Buongiorno, who I haven't even seen at centre-back, is another defender who's...

really talented.

Scalvini, who's been at Atalanta but injured himself to spoil this tournament, another really talented young centre-back.

So there are positions on the pitch where I think there actually is a decent amount of talent.

I think that from an Italian perspective, the original thought of what this summer's midfield would look like would also have featured Sandro Tonali.

Of course, he went to Newcastle and was supposed to be having his breakthrough, I suppose, into a different competition.

He'd already made his breakthrough in Serie in a big way and played in the Champions League semi-final at Milan.

But

he obviously had his gambling suspension.

And so that's

gone away.

And Faggioli, the other player called called up in this midfield who's also served a gambling suspension, still got called up, but we haven't really seen him back yet from his seven months out.

There's lots of things I can give you as conditionals.

Having said that, there's unquestionably still, even if you take all of those as positives, which is probably overstretching it,

there's still unquestionably a real talent lag up front.

There isn't real quality up front in particular.

I've had so many conversations about this topic with coaches in Italy, with

people who work throughout the Italian Football Federation in different places, and they'll all give me slightly different answers.

Some of them will talk about the Italian culture of not giving young players a chance, of always wanting everyone to fare leosse, make their bones and go and play in Serie A B and grind it out.

I think that's less true than it used to be.

But you hear a lot of people will talk to you about coaches still being too tactically obsessed and not.

focusing on the individual and letting them express themselves.

And you'll get other coaches will talk about, well, look at the ratio of Italians to foreign foreign players in Serie A.

It's skewed much more towards foreigners than it used to be.

It's a really complicated answer that doesn't have one thread.

But I think it is undoubtedly true that while there are areas of the pitch where I think they do still have good talent coming through and defence in particular, and

also, let's say it, I've just praised Donaruma, Vicario is the backup goalkeeper who's no slouch.

There are some areas they're strong.

There is definitely also areas where you think, gosh, where are your

Tottis, Del Pieros, Lucatonis, Christian Vieiris?

It's really missing in that area of the pitch.

Last 16, Saturday, the 29th of June, Italy will play Switzerland, George.

That's not straightforward.

The Switzerland team are actually quite interesting, aren't they?

Yeah, I think they've been good so far.

They'll be frustrated that they looked set to top their group before the very late goal from Germany last night, which would have

provided an easier route through.

England fans out there who hope and think we may still top the group tomorrow night with a win against Slovenia.

The winner of Switzerland and Italy will play England in the quarterfinals as well.

So

I don't know.

I think watching that game from an England point of view and Italy scoring, given the way that it kind of went, I probably would have preferred to play Croatia in the quarterfinal personally.

But, you know, Switzerland, definitely a very difficult game.

And, you know, the way that England are playing right now, you wouldn't be particularly bullish against either, would you?

No.

But perhaps you could fancy the Swiss against...

I mean, I don't, it would be an upset, I guess, but the way Switzerland are playing, you could see them doing Italy.

I'm not sure it would be an upset.

I think I was quite, I've got a big grief.

The Swiss, the Swiss are out to get me, mate.

Right.

Finally, of all the things, of all the things to stop Swiss neutrality, it was you.

Did we ever think we'd see the day the Swiss get antsy about me

not being as complimentary as they think I should be about their team?

And I think they have a case.

I wouldn't see it as an upset if if the Swiss beat Italy.

I was probably

unnecessarily harsh on Scotland when they drew with the Swiss and not complimentary enough of the Swiss but I've I have reaped that that whirlwind I've I've

got some steak.

Right.

And I am prepared to concede I should have been more complimentary about Scotland and I should have been more complicated, also more complimentary, or less derogatory about the Swiss.

I would just like to state for the record,

I have no beef with the Swiss.

I love the Swiss.

It's truly noted.

Nikki, your thoughts on that game?

Italy, Switzerland.

I would not feel confident about Italy going through that tie from what I saw from Switzerland.

Switzerland very nearly ensured that it was Germany playing Italy, didn't they?

I mean,

they were very close to winning that game last night.

So

I don't feel confident with many things with Italy at the moment.

Like I say, there's parts of the team that I like, and there's things, players that I think are

within there who have more to give still.

But the attack is a real problem.

And I don't think Spoletti's got an answer to it, honestly, in the players that he has and in his ideas right now.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with...

their army knives.

I used to collect them.

At one point, I had about 30 Swiss army knives.

It's a red flag.

Of varying sizes.

Yeah, it is a red flag.

Yeah.

I no longer own any.

But anyway.

Why?

Because you suddenly realized you hated the Swiss and you've got rid of it.

Yeah, that was it.

I took against the Swiss.

You went down to one of those bins.

Right.

Go ahead and all.

Yeah, an amnesty bin.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two will do Spain's victory over Albania.

Hi Pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Time for you to step up to the plate, Barry.

Spain Reserves beat Albania 1-0.

They were very good in the first half, I thought.

Albania came back, but it looked like Spain B had a sort of a balance and a plan to them that England A don't have.

Yeah, another fun game.

Okay, some little bullet points before we get into the weeds of it.

Spain played in lemon and grey,

and Albania played in red with dark shorts.

Now, I'm sorry, that's just wrong.

And I apologise to our Albanian friends, but Spain need to be in red with dark shorts, and the other team need to be in whatever, white,

you name it.

Noted.

Guy Mowbray, who I have nothing but admiration for.

He's gone full Troy Townsend.

And he said Albania started like a train.

I want to reiterate, trains start very slowly.

They start from a standing start.

and work up to Albania went full throttle from the gun.

Jose Font was

a pundit.

I'm not sure if he's dyed his hair or not.

I hope he's like me.

I hope he hasn't.

Yeah, his hair was tremendous.

Tremendously black or dark.

His glasses, not happy with them.

I'm due a trip to Specsavers now this week.

He's got those kind of Jürgen Klopp welders, goggles glasses, which no

chemistry lesson safety specs.

It doesn't work, Jose.

Okay, okay.

Anyway, that's my Spain Albania coverage and Min.

I mean, it was Spain's big team.

Jesus Navas was playing right back.

He was brilliant.

He's 38.

I mean, hats off.

Spain, the players that aren't in their squad, that didn't get picked.

At one stage, Caimovre was noting the...

the Spain players who didn't get picked.

Ansu Fati, Pedro Porro, Paul Torres, Alejandro Balde, etc and so on like these are the guys that are being left out of that squad but uh

spain were very much in control i would say for 65 minutes and then albania someone flicked a switch and albania looked like they might get the equalizer they needed and they might win it 73 minutes is the note i made kitchen sink time for albania and

they just didn't have a striker and

they had the chances to win this game, but they couldn't do it.

But I think they can leave the tournament with their heads held high.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, Brocher is a good player, right?

And he's a good player.

I think he is a good player.

I don't think he is.

I know he's not had much of a season.

He's only played like 90 minutes for Fulham.

But

I am unconvinced.

Yeah, I mean, I had him as a real sort of heir apparent to Drogba's role two, three years ago.

Oh, no.

And I know that.

You're not playing the same scorer.

No, I know that, but

he is ostensibly quite a decent number nine for a country of Albania size, I think.

And had he had his shooting boots on today, could have been slightly different.

And David Raya did make

a couple of good saves, actually.

I mean, he had one of his traditional,

I'll just play it to an Albania player, but it hit him rather than anything else happening.

But he did make a couple of good saves.

I liked

the story that Guy Mobre told about Jasir Asani, the Albania striker who plays in the K League for Guanju FC, and asked why he'd only played eight minutes so far this season.

The coach, Lee Jung-ho, said he's put on too much weight, is not good enough in training.

Even if we lose 10 games in a row, Asani will still not play with the performance he gives in training as long as I'm still the coach.

And he's actually looked really quite good for Albania in this.

I mean, if that was, if we were implying or putting the same rules in place in this podcast i i would not do a minute and i did notice max yesterday yeah i missed a podcast and we went to number one in the charts yeah number one in you know and those other podcasts get talked about quite a lot at england press conferences the rest of those podcasts

how do we how do we view spain george i know you were concentrating more on italy creators today but um

they've looked really quite good especially uh against italy they were absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, and also I thought, you know, it's easy because the game kind of went away from them, but in the first half against Croatia, they were brilliant as well.

And I think when you're 3-0 up in a group game, it's pretty easy to take your foot off the gas.

They look very good.

When you consider how

both England and France haven't started the tournament particularly well, and Germany have looked impressive in flashes, but again, yesterday kind of struggled to implement

their game plan fully effectively.

It does feel like Portugal and Spain are the two teams who have started really at it.

And when you consider Spain have been able to completely rotate their starting 11 in their third group game, they were able to take Laporte off at halftime, presumably to give him a breather until the first knockout game.

Yeah, it looks fairly ominous.

This isn't the first time this has happened with Spain.

I thought in Qatar they looked very good in the group stages as well, especially in possession.

And I think if you look back at previous tournaments,

England very much the case, but also of course Argentina last time, France in the past as well, performances, form levels in the group stages often doesn't really equate to what happens in the knockouts.

Where sometimes I think complacency can set in if you've had three very easy games in the group stages.

And similarly, if some deficiencies have been exposed in the groups, then it can give you something to work on and make improvements to.

So, yeah, I mean, Spain look good now, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to,

you know, I still think some issues that we've seen with them in the last couple of years can still rear their head when they play against a tougher opposition.

There's only five teams qualified so far and I think three of them Spain, Germany and Portugal are in that top half of the draw.

The half of the draw is already looking like

you want to avoid that.

So

Italy and Switzerland at least no they're not in that and I suppose if England win the group tomorrow they won't be either.

England have tweeted this evening that England have qualified to the last 16 after tonight's results.

So yeah, we can all be delighted about that.

Oh, they they have officially qualified you yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, we're in.

It's coming home, Barry.

I suppose the interesting thing, Baz, about that the thing I thought about this Spain performance, especially the first, like you say, 60 minutes when they're in total control, is there is a side where, you know, they all, they're all playing the same, you know, to change 10 and still have that balance and to still have a way of playing and everybody knows what that is.

And obviously I'm looking at it from a very English point of view of,

you know, we don't really know what we're...

what we're trying to do.

And here you see an entire beat reserve team playing in the same way and doing it incredibly well.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because Ellen White, who was on with Joseph Font and his health and safety goggles, I was impressed with her as a pundit, I must say.

She said at halftime, the changes they've made, the relationships and the connections, they're just, it doesn't matter who's playing, all works.

It's like clockwork, you know.

I see the same with Portugal.

I look at both teams and I look at this from a perspective of a Republic of Ireland fan.

Like, every single player on the Spain bench or the Portugal bench, or indeed the England bench, would walk onto the Irish team.

Like, no problem.

And I'm just so envious.

But,

yeah,

I think Ellen White got it right.

They just, they have this system.

They all know what to do.

and it works.

All right.

Well done to Spain.

And that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll look ahead to tomorrow's games, including England versus Slovenia.

Hi Pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So, yes, tomorrow, in the least interesting group so far, England plays Slovenia, Denmark play Serbia,

England are through.

A win will guarantee them top of the group.

A draw would probably be enough.

Georgia, apparently, the one change that we know about, and perhaps the only change, will be Conor Gallagher coming in for Trent Alexander Arnold.

So it's the last time we get to say the Trent Alexander Arnold experiment, which sort of starts to sound like a band or a movie eventually, doesn't it?

Do you think that is a good idea?

I think taking Trent out of midfield is a good idea.

I do think, given the opposition that England faced on Tuesday evening with Slovenia being one of the teams who are happiest out of possession regardless of game state, taking out a player who is an incredibly incisive passer and he's shown that this tournament I would say as well even though a lot of England's issues in midfield have been his out of possession work and maybe positional issues to take out a player of Trent's passing ability and replacing him with

you know, a human batting ram, albeit quite a good technical one in Connor Gallagher, someone who isn't known for his intricate passing and his abilities to progress the ball up the pitch with his passing ability, feels like a bit of an awkward change.

Like, I think if we were, if this was the first knockout game, we were playing someone where we're expecting to rescind a lot of possession, if we were playing someone like Denmark again, then I think this would make a bit more sense.

When you've got two players in Adam Wharton, whose passing is unbelievably incisive, especially over kind of shorter distances, which is so rare, and Kobi Mainu, who clearly is a brilliant technician in the middle of the park and is able to progress the ball both in terms of carrying it, turning out of tight spaces and his passing.

It seems a bit of a shame that those two players aren't being utilised.

And maybe it points again to Southgate's fairly safe nature in terms of the players that he picks.

I think that Trent, there'd be a room for Trent Alexander Arnold to play at right back.

I know that Carl Walker's almost undroppable, but

when we are already playing a right back at left back who came into the tournament completely unfit and out of form and Kieran Trippion and has offered next to nothing in the first two games.

If we're going to have experiments, can we not experiment by having Karl Walker playing left back who would seem to me to offer a lot of the things that Trippier offers but also is fit and fairly dependable and has that ability to

his pace enables him to defend very well facing his own goal, which I think Trippi has really struggled with with the wing backs that we've faced so far.

So I don't know.

I mean, we all sit here and we talk about it so much, about what we would do.

And generally, for the most part, I think Southgate, when it comes to the crunch moments in tournaments, has got it right.

But I don't go into tomorrow's, I mean, I hated that second half against Denmark more than, you know, it's easy to talk about poor performances in the past, but

you know, it was absolutely desperate and so short of quality.

And it doesn't feel to me like taking out one of the few players who's able to progress the ball effectively into our forward players is a

and not replacing but someone who can also do that is a very good way to play it.

I don't know what you think, Nikki.

I mean, I've been wanting Adam Wharton in as the one midfielder who does move the ball quickly over short distances.

And this sounds like incredibly like the arrogance of an England fan.

You can see Connogalega coming in and actually England being okay tomorrow and beating Slovenia and then sticking with that team against someone better in the last 16 and it being a problem.

Yeah.

The thing is Slovenia, their two games so far, they've had the same approach, really, which is pretty relentlessly direct.

They don't have a lot of the ball but they they don't muck about with it they they bring it forward and they'll they'll go with england and so actually the play in the transitions is going to be really important um i don't think we're going to see another game like the last one where you get into that really sultifying game of the phase of the game which is not a lot happening because i don't think slovenia will let it be that and the reason that slovenia aren't in a better position in the group is because despite playing like that they haven't got a really sharp cutting edge up front.

There's been a couple of players who've played really well.

I think Elsnick in midfield has been really good,

but they are missing that sharpness.

But I think that the game will be a lot more,

I expect it to be a higher energy game than the last one.

I think that's definitely something I expect.

And I do think, well, I suppose I'm curious to see how England are going to approach that.

Do you embrace it and say, okay, this team's going to take those chances playing directly at us and therefore we've got all of this attacking talent, which England do have?

Or will they try and gum it up in the middle of the park?

I hope it would be the former because I think not only would it be a more entertaining game, I also think that England can do that very well if they let themselves.

Isn't it kind of mad that we are, you know, Drew Bellingham's had the incredible season playing as a 10 for Real Madrid in a totally different system with totally different players, and therefore we are building our team around him being a 10.

Given what happened in Qatar and given that he played in a midfield three with Declan Rice, which got the best out of Rice, he played very well, and Harry Kane played very well.

What are we changing?

Like, why are we changing everything in order to facilitate him playing as a 10?

I don't really see what the point in that is.

And what I also find strange is in the first 15 20 minutes against serbia in that first game it kind of all made sense with trent because in possession trent started playing out on the right hand side we kind of shuffled into a back three in possession and you were like oh okay so like it enables us to be pretty fluid in possession where trent can sometimes go out to the right hand side and then as soon as we scored it became incredibly rigid and it stayed that way against denmark it it just

it you know for all of the detractors to southgate in the past it's always felt like we've been really well prepared coming into major tournaments and the players have known their jobs and how we're going to play.

And this time around, at this stage, to me, it doesn't feel that way.

Nikki?

I don't know.

I was on after the last England game, wasn't I, Max?

And I think the thing that

we talked about even then was it was almost being talked about like some great national crisis and they had four points, they were top of the group.

I think England, it's very easy to blow up how bad things have been when actually they're not that bad at all.

It's really just this frustration for me, I think, much more than the over-analysis of whether Harry Kane Kane should be starting.

Just take one look at his goal scoring record, look at any other country and ask if they'd like to have someone with their goal scoring record.

They'll all tell you they would.

But I also think that all of the analysis of, oh, can we have all these players?

Can we have Foden and Bellingham and Saka and Kane, the same team?

Whether or not the very best team you could make has those players in.

The fact is that I think if this team just doesn't

feel the need after going one goal up to immediately shut up shop, this team will be just fine.

And so that's the big question for me.

Can they just not even take the handbrake off, but just maybe ease it up by halfway or something and not feel the need to go score once and immediately go into defensive mode?

Because the talent there is so far above

Slovenia with all the

respect in the world, because Slovenia have been one of my favourite teams to watch at this tournament.

I was just talking about how direct they've been.

The talent is not the same.

And England should, for that reason,

to win um expect to win this game uh in group d um currently the netherlands france joint on four points i'd forgotten that they'd drawn i just presumed france had won all their games because i just presume france always win all their games austria on three so france poland netherlands austria um and george we talked about switzerland being quite exciting austria as well in this traditionally quite boring strip of europe footballing wise has been really quite good this tournament and you could see austria really doing something to the netherlands i think this will be a brilliant game um i I think any game featuring Austria will generally be very good because this is what Ralph Ranik does.

I know it hasn't translated particularly well to club football, especially at Manchester United fairly recently, but on the international stage, it's a massive leveller where not only do we see often nations with immense talent coming up against those, as Nikki was just saying, with Slovenia.

because they don't train together consistently and play together consistently, they come closer.

When you have a team in Austria who have completely bought into the high-octane, pressing nature of of Rennik's football, it gives them a massive advantage.

And we saw them make it incredibly awkward for France in the first game.

We saw them blitz Poland in that 3-1 win last time out.

And in Ronald Kuhman, Netherlands have a head coach who

I would say isn't the most exciting and the football isn't the most interesting.

And I think Austria will really fancy themselves to get something out of that game and will want to finish second in the group in order to help their own chances of progression.

So, yeah i mean certainly as an england fan there's only one big game tomorrow but from a neutral's point of view if you're only going to watch one of the one of the four games i think it has to be um austria against netherlands enjoyed ralph ranyak talking about uh finishing third um he says that i prefer to finish first uh but we have to win and france not to and it's not very likely for both those things to happen i would take second place third place is too complicated i looked at it but i gave up because it's too complicated it just isn't that it might not be good for the tournament isn't isn't that complicated ralph i reckon you could probably work it out.

I'll be honest, Max.

I was looking at my wall chart earlier and I'm on Ralph's.

I'm on the same page as Ralph.

It's too complicated.

I was definitely not enjoying, as I was sat there trying to think, okay, so which groups are going to affect Italy then if this one goes through?

It's not fun.

It really isn't fun, like doing the maths of who goes through in third place.

But I think it's like a really interesting, weird point that we haven't really talked about.

Like right now, Hungary, they have to stay in Germany and train together and act as though they've got another game, even though they don't know if they do.

Like, that's that's a really strange dynamic for a football team.

They've got to keep preparing as if they're going to keep playing football when they might not.

So, I'm fortunate in that my dad is Hungarian, was born in Hungary, and he's just messaged me to say that if England beats Slovenia tomorrow, then Hungary are through.

So, if my dad, a Hungarian-born Englishman, it's just a huge double whammy if England were to win tomorrow night.

Good stuff.

I will finish on this email.

Um, uh, uh,

moving on from Barry's friend who was sick in a crash helmet to somebody who was sick while paintballing, James says, just another one of the worst places to be sick discussion.

After a heavy night on day one of a stagdoe, it wasn't like Max's stag at the weekend.

The best man thought the Zorb football, oh no, would be a good idea for the following morning.

I then witnessed a mate throw up into said plastic bubble and fall over, ending up like a big puky washing machine.

Very grim.

Keith, that is terrible, isn't it?

You can't can't get out just rolling around

and just can't get away from it.

I mean, I don't think I spent any time in Azorb, but yes.

Anyway, keep up the good work, James.

Thank you so much.

And that'll do for today.

We'll be back with England tomorrow.

Thanks, Barry.

Thank you.

Cheers, George.

Thanks, Max.

Thanks, Nikki.

Thanks, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Josh Kelly.

This is The Guardian.