Romania rock, Slovakia shock and France find a way – Football Daily

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

A win for one of the favourites France over Austria, but not totally straightforward.

An interesting night for Killian and Baffay set up the only goal, missed a glorious chance, and potentially broke his nose.

And Austria might be the one dark horse who could turn out to be one.

They were good off the pitch.

We'll discuss Turam and Bappe and others using their platform to persuade the French public not to vote for the far right.

And then to Group E with two shocks.

Slovakia stunned Belgium.

A brilliant performance, an early lead, brave on the ball and some great last ditch defending.

Belgium thought that equalised when Lukaku stuck one away offside.

Belgium thought that equalized when Lukaku stuck one away, a marginal hand ball in the build-up.

Meanwhile, Romania, led by the inspirational Radu Dragasin, just kept hammering the ball in from the edge of the box.

Well, twice, but it all felt very 1994.

Stoichu with a glorious opener.

We'll look ahead to tomorrow's games.

Well, we'll mention that the Georgia captain listens to us.

We'll discuss what your average 20-year-old man does.

Welcome a new Football Weekly listener to the world.

Answer your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Philippe Auclair bonjource avatar.

Bonsoir, Max.

Savatravi, merci.

Ah, bonsoir.

Paul Watson, hello.

Hi.

Hi, Max.

Yeah, from the excellent sweeper pods.

And Barry Glendenning, hello.

Hello.

Let's start then with France's win over Austria in Group D.

Philippe, you're in France watching with the fans in the box park, I presume.

I presume that own goal went in, you hurled a bottle of Chenon Blanc over your head.

What did the fans make of it?

What did you make of it?

What I made of it is that, in a way, a typical additional performance, not totally convincing, but three points at the end.

Very good start to the game, actually.

I thought that the rhythm in the first 15 minutes was absolutely terrific.

And then long periods of just managing the game and finding it quite difficult against an extremely aggressive and very well-dread Austrian side, which really created problems.

Not many chances for Austria, just one big, big save by Mac Meignon.

But other than that, a flurry of chances made

and missed in the second half.

But I would say we finish that game with satisfaction of the three points, but also quite a lot of concern because two of our biggest players have suffered injuries.

As it stands now, we're not too sure.

French television is talking about a broken nose for Kiel and Bappé.

So we would have the return of Zorro, basically, for the second game.

But I have to say, I'm more worried about Antoine Guessman because that looked bad.

I mean, when his knee went the wrong way, he soldiered on for a bit, but couldn't.

And when you know how, you know, what a tough customer he is, and he's absolutely essential.

Um, to quote Deschamps, he's not irreplaceable because nobody's irreplaceable, but he's indispensable.

And that's what Antoine Grizzmann was.

He was absolutely magnificent, by the way, today.

I mean, tonight, I thought.

But there are actually, in fact, there are many subjects of satisfaction apart from the three points.

And I think top of the list would be the return of His Majesty Engelo I,

the second, the last, who was absolutely stupendous.

I mean, it's a miracle to have him back.

We thought France

had lost him and football had lost him when he decided to go to Saudi Arabia after a couple of pretty indistinct seasons.

And he's back at his absolute best with France.

And I mean, that's more than the Philip.

It's just a reason to rejoice, I think, for everybody, Max.

And actually, I can see you're smiling because I think this is what Ngoluk Conte does to everybody.

He makes people smile.

Yeah, I met him once.

He was so short, I thought there's no way he could be better than me at football.

But all evidence suggests

the contrary.

And actually, Barry, there was a moment where,

you know, because we've talked a lot about, you know, what would the impact of being in the Saudi league have on players.

And there was a moment late on when Austria were on another break.

And then just out of nowhere, he just sort of barreled back and was there as the last man.

So Austria were on one of their counter-attacks.

Kevin Wimmer, which has got to be one of the most Austrian names imaginable, he was gadding up the pitch and looked to be through on

goal.

And out of nowhere, Ngolo Cante just appeared, dispossessed him, and tidied up.

And I think this was...

quite late in the game and already at a point when many people were saying ngolo kante is the best that is the man of the match And for the start of the game, I think he finished the game and still displayed those levels of energy.

You know, this kind of a concern that because everyone's been at this retirement home that is the Saudi pro league, they're all going to turn up, you know, overweight and huffing and puffing and not able to last more than 15 minutes.

But he certainly put paid to that notion.

I mean, incidentally,

before the tournament started,

I don't think I've mentioned this, but

in an idle moment, I sort of went through the squads to see how many players at the Euros are playing in the Saudi pro league.

And I think I came up with 13.

It's a pretty decent team, except doesn't have a goalkeeper.

Who did you put in goal?

Ruben Neves.

I think I put Ruben Neves in goal.

It could have been anyone.

I put

Milinkovich Savic on the bench.

So, you know, he could have got on goals.

Patrick Wimmer, by the way, Kevin Wimmer, also an Austrian footballer.

I can't possibly be expected to keep up with all these wimmeries.

You're absolutely right.

Now, Paul, I suppose the pivotal moment of the game is the goal.

And a couple of minutes before, Baumgoden has this amazing chance that's beautifully set out by Savitsa.

Obviously, there's a lot of players, two minutes between that and the goal.

But I am still incandescent that the ref gives a goal kick when Manjum has clearly made a brilliant save.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's

it's funny, isn't it?

These little moments do make a big difference.

And

I'm gutted for Austria, that that's the way it went.

And even then, the moment that Wen Mbappe

makes the run that leads to the own goal,

and Wene

can't really tackle him because he's on a yellow, and just that little thing, these little moments that turn it, I feel like he would have put more in.

He may have even given away a penalty, but you know, you have a whole different game.

plays out after that.

But I did feel really gutted for Austria.

I felt really gutted for um max verber who puts in his own net because he's really trying to get out of the way of it and the moment he realizes what he's done it's just one of these horror moments probably because he in his heart of hearts kind of knew that there was nothing he could do but you still think you know what why have i done this and why have i done this right now because that leaves austria with this mountain to climb and yeah i felt really sorry for him yeah i'm

gary gary neville was saying wasn't he that you know as a defender and these things things you don't really think about when you're just watching it, is you've got to set yourself, right?

You've just got to be not facing in that direction.

Because actually, it's a really odd own goal.

It's like an odd, you never, you very rarely see one like that.

I think if it was a centre-forward trying to head that in, he would not succeed in doing it.

It's a glance.

It's like a glancing header, isn't it?

You can't even see the angle.

Yeah, it's ridiculous goal.

But just on that corner thing, and I think I'm the only person that thinks this because nobody wants more VAR intervention, but we all can see it.

And you don't have to send a ref to a monitor.

Someone could just, at any point, a fourth official could just go in his ear going, actually, mate, goal kick, corner.

Like, it just wouldn't, I don't understand why that is such a.

We spend hours, not in this tournament, granted, but like in the Premier League, waiting for things that are marginal and things that are so obvious, we let go.

And that's a kind of weird sort of...

There's a cognitive dissonance there, I think.

I don't know what you think, Philippe.

Yeah, and I was thinking, you know, an equivalent would be a noble in cricket.

Yeah.

Now the umpires no longer bother themselves with no balls so that they can actually look at what is happening on the actual pitch.

And they don't have to look at lines.

And the decision is taken for them.

And suddenly you'll see, oh, no ball announced.

That's fine.

There's no reason why that shouldn't be the case either.

Because if the technology exists for the goal line,

obviously it must exist for all the lines.

So certainly in this type of tournament, I'm totally with you here because I don't think anybody would have anything to say about it.

It's just a fact.

The ball is out.

The ball ball is out.

The ball was touched by this player.

The ball was not touched by this player.

That's it.

Very, I mean, very easy and a little bit, yeah, I suppose, galling.

I mean, it's happened twice today, hasn't it?

Because it also happened in the Belgium game, if I'm not mistaken.

There was a corner kick that wasn't given.

But there you go.

And by the way, I just wanted to say one thing: Saudi League, it was a good day for the Saudi League because Tanchu plays

in the Saudi league as well.

they've had a pretty good day.

So maybe that's the secret.

Find out when Matt Cristiano plays tomorrow, I guess.

Should we talk about that and Bappé miss,

Barry?

Because I watched it, and even when it went wide, I was like, there's something wrong with my telling.

You know, it was like one of those moments.

Well, he's clean through on goal.

He sort of has a look.

Where am I going to put it?

Yeah, I'm going to curl it into the bottom corner.

And he missed.

And

was surprised.

I think my note here is a quite astonishing miss from Killian Mbappe.

But

he too is fallible.

And now he's fallible with a broken nose.

I mean, people are going, oh, he might suspect a broken nose.

He has a broken nose.

I'm telling you now.

Paul,

you missed the miss.

Yes.

It was the most incredible, almost cinematic moment where I was watching it, the game, my wife was sat with me and managed to somehow land on the remote.

She'd sort of moved, hit the remote as Mbappe went through on goal.

And we both sort of scrambled to find, like, where, where's the remote gone?

We knocked it off the sofa.

And as she was going, oh God, I'm so

sorry.

I put it on.

I was like, oh, you know, I know what happened.

It's fine.

Put the game back on.

And I was like, wait,

how is this possible?

You know,

I was like, there is no way I can imagine this ball has not gone into the net.

And yeah, it was only seeing the replay like a minute later that I could kind of fathom how this ball hadn't gone in the net.

It was, yeah.

Yeah, he missed it with such conviction.

I mean, that's the.

He looked, he looked like he felt something had failed him when he missed it.

He turned away.

Yeah, that's cool.

He's like, what do we, we still count this, right?

You know, I'm good for it, guys.

It's very much typical of the Kielen Bappet we've seen in the last few weeks, the last few months,

with Paris Saint-Germain and with the French national team where things are not quite happening and I think we were looking at this tournament for him to find his his mocho again before moving to Real Madrid and he wasn't absolutely extraordinary tonight was he even though despite not being extraordinary it's still him who actually creates the goal Barry what did you make of Austria because I was really impressed I mean we talked about them being good and you know the rangnik press and all that but it was great to see it and I

I mean I don't know if they were unlucky they only really had one great chance but they gave a lot to this game yeah it was a very good game uh i was very impressed with them i they just seemed to be missing that little bit of magic up front uh the incisive pass or the killer touch you know i i'm presuming most austrians would have presumed we are going to lose this game they lost they was 1-0 but they have every reason to be confident um

they were they were decent gilly says says, Rabio is Rabio is Rabio is sublime every time I see him in a French shirt.

Doesn't seem to get the adulation across Europe.

I don't watch much Serie A.

Is he as good at Juve, Philippe?

He's the best midfielder on the park every time I've watched him.

Xavier says,

I'm in a beer garden in Munich.

A German friend of a friend who is the kicker reporter for Buy Munich just said, Rabio is Rabio is Rabio.

We can't.

Has he got better since you first said that?

Yes, no, he has got better and you could actually use the expression as as being as having a different meaning now okay because you can take it in a negative way but you can perhaps twist it so that it sounds more positive than it was meant to to sound at the very beginning i i have to admit but he had i mean first half certainly was he was really excellent he was actually one of the best players on the pitch and you can understand why a tidy deschamp insists on having him um because he was very energetic He was extremely good in the way he used the ball as well.

And believe me, it doesn't cost me much pain to say things like that because I'm happy not to have been wrong, but I'm happy that he's getting better and better and better.

And it's a weird one, actually, because when I'm thinking back to the game, I'm thinking individually,

okay, Den Bellet was Den Bellet was Den Bellet.

So there are moments when

the whole team, this is good.

He's terrifying.

He terrifies everybody, including his own teammates, because his decision-making is bizarre, and his technique sometimes seems to desert him.

And he has it at times when he really needs it the most.

So the pass will be not five yards off, it will be 25 yards off, and the shot will not be wide of the far post, it will go straight into touch.

That's Dembele Value.

But other than that, if you look at the individual performances, Mike Meignon was excellent.

Upamekano, the clearances of Upamekano are unbelievable.

It's like 70 or 80 meters when he kicks the ball, so it really clears it.

Saliba, who is a player who was, you know, whom Deschamps was not too convinced about, had actually a very good game.

Jules Condé, I thought, was excellent at right back, which is a problem position for France.

Thérane Nordés always has one funny moment in the game, but other than that, was also truly excellent.

You go through the whole team like that and you think, actually, no, the individual performances were good, good to very good.

Camavinga, when he came on, was absolutely fantastic.

And despite all that, believe me, there was a huge sigh of relief when the final whistle went, which is,

I think, testament to the quality of the opposition of how difficult Austria were to beat tonight.

Yeah, it's quite a lot of comparisons, Paul, about France tonight and England yesterday and the sort of the comparative reaction.

And that most people here in the UK will be like, oh, that France, you know, won nil, managed the game really well.

England, you know, were shight, but, you know, just got got over the line.

And I don't, I mean, I don't know if the comparison is direct.

Football matches are different, but I wonder if, you know, they'd been England shirts, we'd be more critical of France than we perhaps have been in this last 15 minutes.

Oh, that's a very good question.

I've actually found it quite funny watching Philippe's response to the French performance because the general feeling was that this was not a great performance and they kind of squeezed through.

But actually, I've got to say, I really enjoyed watching them.

And I thought they looked very good at times.

This is the first game of a competition.

And they were met with an Austria team that I was really excited to watch coming into the tournament because

this is an Austria side that I thought had an awful lot to give in this tournament.

I still do.

I still think they may well go through.

So really, to be honest, I actually...

I was quite impressed by France.

I was quite daunted almost by the idea of an England team coming up against that.

If that is France on an off day, they seem to have just

a lot more weapons, a lot more ways to hurt you than England do at the moment.

Well, I would suggest that Austria team are a lot better than Serbia, played

far more aggressively than Serbia did.

And

I wasn't bored watching France.

There were times during that England performance yesterday, especially during the first half.

I was just bored.

They were, what are you trying to do?

You know, just passing it around backwards, sidewards.

And, but look, they both won.

So it's fine.

It's the job done.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Philippe, I wanted to talk to you about what Marcus Turam and Killian Mbappe said in the press conferences.

There were European elections in France.

The far right did really well.

Macron called a snap election, and that's where we are right now.

Killian Mbappe said the situation was dire.

He said, using, referring to himself in the third person, Killian Mbappe is against extreme views and against ideas that divide people.

I want to be proud to represent France.

I don't want to represent a country that doesn't correspond to my values or our values.

Marcus Taram urged people to fight daily to prevent RN, the far-right National Rally Party, from gaining power.

And Deschamps said, look, it's their free will.

We must recognize they're great players, but also French citizens.

They are not immune or indifferent to the situation in the country.

Really interesting to to sort of hear what they've said.

I mean,

it chimes with what I believe, but I don't know what how it's gone down in France.

The reaction to that has been very much alongside the lines that you would expect and the political lines you would expect.

The French Federation has taken a step back, explaining that as a body, they could not possibly take any position which has to do with politics, but that the players had a right to

to express their mind.

Deschamps, who is not somebody I would suspect to have particular sympathies for either the Liberals or indeed the national rally

decided to

just say that yeah the players are also human beings and citizens have a right to express their opinions i think that in in many ways it's gone down as well as could be hoped for that's what i would say is in in that much that it's quite something to hear two young um two young frenchmen of colour

actually expressing perhaps more eloquently than anybody else at the moment the values of our republic.

And I think many people respect that.

I certainly do.

I'm very grateful to them because they can certainly have a big impact, because one of the big problems in the rise of the far right in France is the rise of sympathies for this movement within the youth.

And that might surprise you, but a large part of the electorate which has decided to side with Maille Le Pen, Jordan Bardelin and the others, are actually very young people.

And Kiran Bappé and Marcus Tora, I know

their word will carry some weight.

And the way they've done it, I think, was

absolutely admirable and very much in keeping with Republican values.

And they spoke as citizens.

And being a Republican is that, is to believe that a human being is also a citizen and has to take his responsibilities.

So, which is why I have absolutely no bloody time for Unais Simon, the Spanish goalkeeper, who made some comments today that I thought were, I wouldn't say shocking, but really disappointing about you have to leave politics to the people, the political people and organizations, basically dissing what Turam and Bappe had to say.

Well, all I can say is I hope those words are heard far and wide.

It's also in keeping, Max, with, I wouldn't say tradition, but In France,

we are quite used to having players and footballers having, you know, being quite outspoken politically.

People will remember Dominique Rocheau, people will remember Eric Contonat, for example,

Micheli Delgo as well, the French manager.

It's perhaps a different culture, I suppose.

But the fact is that the France which this team represents and which has represented so well

in past tournaments,

winning

world titles and so forth, is the kind of France that the national rally doesn't want to recognize being French.

They're the kind of people who

have made comments about the fact there were too many black players in the French national team.

A bit like people used to say that England didn't beat Brazil too near Maracana because John Bounce's goal didn't count.

So these are the people we're talking about.

These are the people that Marcus Turam and Kien Bappé are talking about as well.

And good luck to them.

And by the way, Kieran Bappé made this,

he said this after consulting apparently with all of the team.

Because he's a captain, he didn't want to speak merely in his own name.

He consulted the other players.

Not all of them feel as strongly, perhaps, as he and Marcus Turam do.

But there is a feeling within the team, they know what they represent.

They represent a different France, a France that the national rally doesn't like, but which is the true France, the true republic.

That's the way I look at it.

And good luck to them.

Yeah.

Totally agree.

Right, that'll do for part one, part two.

We'll do the games from Group E

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Max here, Barry's here, too.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly Group E.

Then, might be the most fun of the opening results.

We'll get to Romania

as beating Ukraine in just a second.

But before that, we've just finished watching Slovakia beat Belgium.

The first, probably really big upset of the tournament.

Belgium were unbeaten in all 14 games under Domenico Tedesco until now.

So Paul, the coffee-dealing dual club managing Slovakia coach, pulled off quite a scalp.

It was, wasn't it?

It really was.

And

for a lot of the game, you kind of forgot.

just how frustrating Belgium were until you get into this game and you watch them.

And it is just torturous watching Belgium because the talent on that pitch, it's almost incredible to see how little sort of goal effort can come from that at points.

It's painful.

Just to be clear, are you talking about Belgium or anything?

Well, I actually,

it's really funny.

It's really funny you say that because it really reminded me of watching England.

Like, you know, it was like, it's like years of England trauma come back when you watch Belgium because they just cannot put it together.

I mean, interestingly, and we'll get to, you know, Lukaku's disallowed goal, second one later, Philippe.

But actually, Belgium started brilliantly.

And they could have been probably two or three up.

Their first six minutes were amazing.

The first six minutes were amazing with Jeremy Docou basically burning the pitch.

Absolutely fantastic.

And then they totally lost it.

They lost everything.

And I don't know if it was...

I mean, some of it was a consequence of Slovakia being super brave when they were defending, keeping a really high line, running far more than the Belgians, I have to say.

I had a look at the stats at the end of the first half, and they'd run 59ks to 54 to the Belgians, which is a huge difference.

And

they looked totally devoid of ideas.

And I thought...

that they were missing somebody like, you know who I'm going to mention here, like a creative force who could help Kevin de Bruyne a a little bit in midfield, like my friend Charles,

the Qatalera, when they had two sitting midfielders who never went up the pitch.

Very often they were in situations where Jeremy Docu was making the difference as he does regularly against anybody, basically,

terrorizing everybody, trying to square the ball to Lukaku, who hadn't quite made the right run, but there was absolutely nobody next to him.

And there was an instance in the second half where Luke Aku thought, I've got to give a little bit of help

on the the wing, and so he did.

And actually, there was quite a nice combination and a good ball that was put in the box.

But was there a Belgian player in the box?

There were none.

And there were two or three V7 most of the game, up until the moment when Tedesco

remembered that they were actually one nil down

and actually tried to make something happen with some very strange substitutions.

I have to say, when I saw Trossa coming off and Tillemans coming, I thought, what the hell is going on here?

And sometimes it makes sense to bring another midfield player when your team has lost its shape and you think it's a bit too chaotic.

But then the next substitution he did was to create even more chaos.

It was crazy.

I mean, Carzona won the game against Tedesco, as far as I'm concerned.

And it's another huge disappointment for Belgium.

It's not perhaps as good a team as it's been in the past.

And you have to say that in defense in particular, you know, this is not the Courtois, Vertong Alderweierheld combination that we have known in the past.

It's nowhere near.

Even if Castells actually wasn't that bad on the night and actually saved an absolutely, what would have been an absolutely fabulous goal by Franz,

which is a pity because that would have been my favorite action of the whole tournament so far.

Because the way...

Was it Hans Gerr who was on the wing?

The way he took the ball in full flight with his leg cranked like a pigeon's wing, and having the right that was absolutely beautiful, and then squaring it and this magnificent volley.

It was just gorgeous.

They were good, weren't they, Slovakia?

Let's not talk about too much about Belgium because Slovakia were fantastic.

You're right.

I mean, you're thinking about a pigeon that is, you know, fully fit rather than the sort of, you know, the hobbling pigeon.

I'm just thinking of all the burrs you could have picked on the planet.

You went for the pigeon.

It's called the pigeon pigeon swing in French.

El de Pigon.

This particular flick is called El de Pigeon.

And that is true, isn't it, Barry?

And like Slavakia, perhaps they deserved that luck, right?

Because they defended so brilliantly, the luck of that handball for a decision for a pender, because they defended so brilliantly.

They were pretty heroic.

Once in the case of Henko, who cleared a goal bound,

Bakioko shot off the line, and then he fell over and hit Vavreau's knee and he looked to be out.

There was a suggestion, oh, he might be staying down

just so the ball will have to be put out of place so medical attention could come on.

Then we look at the replays, and he's, yeah, he's definitely got a bit of a nice clatter off his teammate's knee, Vavro.

Interestingly, Rob Smythe...

said, stated as fact in his Guardian Minute by Minute report, Dennis Vavreau, the Slovakia centre-back,

his nickname in the dressing room is Bobby, which I thought was very funny.

But I couldn't find any evidence to suggest this was true.

But working the assumption it is true, I really hope that Belgian goalkeeper Colin Castile's

nickname is Fruit.

Nothing got it.

Fruit.

I haven't got it.

Fruit Castilles.

Flute Pastilles.

Ah, Fruit Pastels.

Yeah, Pastilles.

Anyway, I think we call them pastilles in our...

Okay.

Producer Joel can do with that what he will.

Keep it in.

I was like,

I mean, I could literally see the tumbleweed

blowing across the screen.

So it works if you pronounce both words differently.

Correctly.

Got it.

Got it.

Can we talk about

the second disallowed with Kaku Gold Paul?

I mean, he'd obviously missed so many chances.

He's had that one ruled out for offside, which is unlucky because, you know, it was a really tight one, but it was offside.

And then Apender is a judge to have handled it in the build-up.

I just tweeted that is harsh and put harsh in capital letters.

I hate all hand balls.

I've been conditioned to just hate.

I just want people to be able to touch it whenever they like.

Barney, you know, who I feel might be more intelligent than me, Barney Ronay tweeted, I guess he did control the ball with his hand, which on balance is seen as a no.

And Gary Lineker tweeted, that's a bullshit decision.

So I don't know, where do you stand on the Roné Lineker axis of this append to hand ball?

Very much on the Lineker side.

From my perspective,

I'm as committed as anyone to this in-joke that Lukaku never scores a goal, despite clearly being a very talented footballer.

I'm really, I'm all in.

But this was a goal.

And to see that ruled out and to see it ruled out when no one had actually really understood what it was being checked for, I think, initially.

You know, people saying,

what are they checking this for?

um and then even when you see what it actually is

it's i think it's again it's this thing where no one was i when i grew up watching football i i never dreamt there'd be a day where i'm watching for a snickometer on a on a tiny handball in a build-up to a goal uh no for me for me

no they didn't rock and roll it the snicko did they matthew says lie detectors for intent up next yeah yeah they have to take a fender off and get him interviewed by jeremy kyle to see if he meant to do that yes philippe i think one way to

substantiate what Gary Lineker is saying is that the way he controls the ball, actually, he doesn't control the ball with his left hand.

Compare that with the left-hand control of Terry Horry for the game against Ireland.

If you can't see the difference between the two, you genuinely do not know anything about football.

I mean,

because this is exactly, he's in the same position, body position, but Horry is definitely controlling the ball with his left hand.

But Panda is not.

It's just that the ball happens to

slightly brush his hand as he's trying to make, you know, to keep his balance.

I mean, this is crazy.

Right.

There's a lot to go through here.

First of all, yes, Barney is smarter than certainly me and you, Max.

I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But when he gets an idea into his head, i.e.,

Gareth Southgate is a brilliant football manager, There's no talking to him, even though it's a clear blind spot and he's talking shite.

On this one,

I'm kind of

so we I'm happy to defer to I think it's the ITV foot, uh, their referee expert,

Christine Omkel, and she explained that while it is a debatable decision by her old friend, the letter of the law laid down by ifab and UEFA and fifa it is the correct decision and it's because uh appenda's arm

hand sorry was slightly in line with or above his shoulder as he touched the ball so if his hand and and that's just bad luck for him because it's the way he's running i don't think he moved his hand to the ball the ball just happened to brush against his hand So if his hand had been down by his waist, then it wouldn't have been disallowed.

It's Lois appendage, isn't it?

Lois, yeah, very good.

Yes, pastels.

Anyway,

but look, Savaki were brilliant, and well done to them.

They were clearly delighted when they covered the bit.

Interestingly, Max, or not, as the case may be, after the Romania-Ukraine game, I had made a note on a Mov post-it note, which is here.

I'd said, no contentious var decisions yet.

quick, efficient, accurate.

So that one was slow,

possibly officious.

And yeah, whether it was accurate or not is a matter for debate.

Yeah, I like Jim saying, with both Clive Tilsley and Andros Townsend pronouncing Duda as Duda during Belgium Slovakia, was I alone in thinking they'd forgotten his name?

Just, you know, alongside thingamy jig and

that there bloke over there.

Anyway, you got Luke Kako, but you ain't got me, Duda, Duda.

that followed a brilliant win for Romania over Ukraine.

James says, Guardian Football Weekly got out of dated very quickly today.

I expect Romania to do nothing, was one quote.

Apparently, is this the new you can never win anything with kids?

Can the podcast carry on with such outrageous takes?

Romania's biggest ever win in European championship football.

Philippe Simmo says there's something very satisfyingly 90s about Romania in yellow banging in a goal like that at an international tournament, referring to Stanchu's opener, which was just so good.

Oh, it was absolutely magnificent.

It was absolutely wonderful.

By the way, Max, not just to twist the knife a little bit more,

you know, everybody's saying it's

the first win to the Euro since 2000, isn't it?

24 years.

What was the last win of Romania?

Was that the 3-2?

Did we give away a penalty?

Didn't we give away a penalty?

We were 2-0 up.

We were 2-0 up, weren't we?

I think 2-1, 2-1.

Garyana, an 89th minute penalty, yes.

I just thought I would mention that.

No, you're welcome.

No, no, no.

But it's actually quite amazing how

Romanian players tend to

trust

their power and their prowess in striking the ball.

Because it seems to have been, I wasn't aware of it, I must say, that apparently Romania has made a specialty of hitting goals like that.

And you could say that Marin's goal, I mean, even, you know, people will say Lunin should have saved it.

Again, that's a strike from outside the penalty box.

I mean, not as pure as this one.

This was just absolutely perfection.

There's nothing that any goalkeeper could have done about that.

But it was a weird game.

And I think it's a game for our statistician friends to have,

they have to do some explaining

because

I looked at it and apparently, apparently, it's not just that Ukraine had more possession, more successful passes, more successful passes in key areas, but they also had more ball recoveries, more successful tackles, more free kicks, more corner kicks, and more efforts on target than they lost Trinil.

They weren't as good, is what I thought.

I mean, I just thought they started well, didn't they?

That goal, by the way, importantly, 10 revs per minute on the ITV.

Revs per minute.

Is it per minute?

No, revs per second.

Revs per minute.

It took a long time to go in, didn't it?

That Stanjo strike.

10 revs per second.

My apologies, Nikolai.

Poor old Lunin, Paul.

You know, he's had a great Champions League.

He's dropped for the final.

He's ill on the day of the final, right?

He's been brilliant for Real Madrid.

He makes a mistake in the build-up to the first, and he does let the second slip through his hands.

Yeah, and in a way, I think that's what the game felt like.

It felt like it was almost a sliding doors moment where he lets in that first goal.

Because the first goal was a mess.

However much it's a beautiful strike, that is a mess.

That's not a goal you should give away.

And it's funny because some people are saying, will this be a goal of the the tournament contender?

And in terms of the quality of the strike, possibly, but only in isolation.

Yeah,

you can't run the footage from very early, can you?

Right, right.

And before that, and granted, they've only been playing half an hour, you could almost see a different game that could have played out there where

you could see Ukraine were having more of a possession.

Okay, Romania were very kind of compact and they were narrowing things in defense.

They looked like a decent unit.

But really, it looked to me like this problem we had identified in the build-ups tournament: where were the goals going to come for Romania?

That very much looked like what the question was going to be.

And then, suddenly, after that,

that sort of first goal, it just changed the whole complexion of everything.

And that's not, you know, to say that the era is responsible entirely for that.

Romania were absolutely brilliant, and

certain players like Dragasham was incredible.

Their energy, their workload, it was a real breath of fresh air to see a team come at a tournament like that.

But I've got to say, that moment where that first goal went in seemed to absolutely change the whole complexion.

Paul makes a good point, doesn't he, Barry?

Romania's defence is so fun.

It's like watching the Romanian Bonucci and Chiellini, you know, just so.

I mean, and Dragostan, who we didn't really see much for Spurs, was just

enormous in this game.

And every time he does something impressive, he sort of high-fives or hogs a teammate and then fiddles incessantly with his top knot, which I, as an old man find annoying anyway uh they were their defense was really good really solid really compact they weren't leaving any sort of gaps for for Ukraine to exploit I mean I wonder this about the the

Slovakia scored against Belgium and also here it was it was down to pressing basically and

I think if if your manager insists you play the ball out from the back, you should get at least, you know, two vetos where if you're a goalkeeper or a defender or a winger who finds himself down by the corner flag in in the at the wrong end of the pitch you should just be allowed to hoof the ball into the stand uh if you're under pressure uh without fear of admonishment uh at half-time or after the game do you have to um like play your do you have to play a joker can can you just do it or do you need to like make a sort of signal that you're going to look get it launched like a big picture of sam alladine well i i think given given the constraints of time possibly you have there's some gesture like the the subs gesture or the the var tv gesture that you make to the the bench afterwards to show right i have now used one of my my two get it get it lost

uh cards amnesty cards you are not allowed to criticize me for it or drop me for the next game or take me off.

Because, you know,

that first goal was very easily avoidable if Luna just puts it in the stand, but he's clearly not allowed to do that.

And, you know, it all goes wrong.

He hits it straight to Dennis Mann,

who I must confess I'd never heard of before.

He's a winger with Parma.

He squares it for Stan She.

And what, yeah, an incredible shot.

And I think after that, Romania just believed.

you know, it was like, oh, this lot earned all that.

And

went and made hay.

Yeah.

It was a shame there wasn't a stanchion in the goal for Stanchu's shot, which would have gone

right into the stanchion, wouldn't it?

Simon says serious questions have to be asked about Lars and Max and everyone on the pod and their ability to call a dark horse.

Never has a panel of experts got it so wrong so consistently.

Turkey, now Ukraine.

They didn't, Paul, they didn't really show up, did they?

I mean, you're right.

They played okay at the start start of the game, but it's just a real, it's a real shit.

And the tournament for all these sides is not over, right?

You can come third and qualify.

But

once Romania started to believe, they were really second best.

Yeah, they were.

And there was a degree to which it looked like you could see that belief drain out of them.

The second goal,

you know, the old cliches of when are good times to concede goals.

But if you were going to concede a second goal, don't concede it on the 53rd minute, like just after you've kind of come out from the break and you're you're a goal down, to concede a goal again and in that way, in that way that that goal, again, it shouldn't have gone in,

that's got to take all the wind out of anyone's sails, really.

And then obviously the third came along pretty soon after and the game was done.

And weirdly, there were almost some moments after they were 3-0 down where you could see them almost come back to life a little bit, like the pressure was almost off and you could see some of the movement that they that they've got and some of the ability they're in there.

But it was that second goal that just absolutely killed the contest.

And Romania, as much as it powered Romania up, it just

robbed Ukraine of any belief.

I think they could get anything.

Yeah, I mean, great.

The Romanian fans, and the fans have been generally brilliant, haven't they?

That sea of orange bouncing around yesterday in the street, like I sort of like just synchronized boom, boom, which is really exciting.

Like the Romanian fans here were brilliant.

Well, I was going to say, and all the more remarkable for the fact that the organization of the tournament is an absolute catastrophe in terms of transportation of fans, which we have to stress that the whole thing is absolutely scandalous, but absolutely, totally not surprising to anybody who's been traveling by train in Germany in the last five to ten years.

It's absolutely broken down.

And the fact that there is the reliance on the public transport is huge for the fans to go to the stadium and especially to go out.

And they've been remarkably well behaved considering the way they've been treated by UEFA and by the organizers, which is honestly shocking.

And so yeah, they've been fantastic.

We just have Germany should be an easy place to get to.

You're talking Slovakia is not very far.

Romania is not very far.

Actually, England is not very far.

Scotland is not very far.

True, true.

Yeah, you know, but it's an absolute mess, but it's a beautiful mess because all the reports you're hearing, I mean, from friends who are at various places, is that going to the stadium and going out of the stadium is an absolute nightmare.

But what's happening with the fans is absolutely fantastic.

Quite old-fashioned in a certain way, I suppose.

The way they're mingling together and having a good time.

When I say old-fashioned, I'm not talking about the 1970s or 80s, I suppose.

I don't know when I'm talking about it.

No, I don't either.

I can't remember.

When is the last time?

Are you saying, God, it used to be Britain used to be great?

Let's go back to those days.

I didn't have any outflip.

Claude Fleet.

I mean, it's a sort of long-standing joke.

Everything in Germany is ruthlessly efficient.

Everything runs in time.

Wha w why is it all so bad?

I was surprised to hear Johnny.

Because there has been absolutely, I mean, we could go into a political broadcast now, but what was one of the most efficient rail systems on the planet, as people who went to the 2006

World Cup will remember,

has now turned into one of the worst ones in Europe.

And it's worse than the British system, believe me.

and every time I go because I go to Cologne quite quite regularly every time I pass the the border from Belgium I have a I shudder because I have to take a Deutsche Bahn train and you know when it starts you'll never know when it finishes and believe me there are some stories already I think there should be a compendium of the stories by loads of friends who have missed the games, missed connections and so forth.

But you know, anyway,

it's still a great tournament.

And what a start.

What a start.

It's joyful.

You know when it starts, you don't know when it finishes.

It sounds like sort of any film Martin Scorsese has made in the last 10 years, doesn't it?

Or one of your anecdotes.

Thank you.

We'll be back in a second with any other business.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

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A proper football journalist, man.

Exactly.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Exciting news, everybody.

From the 16th of June, which was yesterday, to the 25th of June, which is next week, we are exclusively offering Football Weekly listeners 50% off for the first three months of our all-access digital subscription to The Guardian.

As a reader-funded organisation, we rely on the generosity of our listeners to keep Football Weekly going.

If you can, please choose to support The Guardian.

It only takes a minute.

It makes a world of difference.

All the money goes to me and Barry to take up the offer.

And for full T's and C's, follow the link in the podcast description.

I'll probably have to say that isn't what happens to the money.

It funds more important things that the Guardian does.

Tomorrow, we've got Turkey v.

Georgia and Portugal versus the Czech Republic.

Now, the Georgia captain, Guram Kashir,

listens to Football Weekly.

We've already mentioned this.

The interview came out

today.

I like to talk about football or people talking about football.

So when I wake up, I start with the Guardian Football Weekly.

Scandalously, Barry, no follow-up questions to that very exciting sentence.

Yeah, I was very disappointed.

I'm not going to lie.

I sort of scanned all the way down through the interview to get to the mention of Football Weekly.

It's like whenever a friend of mine writes a book, I immediately go to the, is it the appendix at the back, go, am I mentioned?

No, and then I throw it in the bin.

What if the book has nothing to do with like football?

What's it a novel?

Like, what?

what if your friend has written a book about something that really would have no there's no context to put you in it you still want to be in it yeah i want to mention yeah like a wedding speech a wedding speech you want to mention well like uh a friend of mine his brother wrote a children's book and i was a character in it

yeah yeah i was i was a balloon an evil balloon salesman now you know so the next time jonathan wilson writes a really, you know, a book about the history of Hungarian football, put me in as an evil balloon salesman.

But sorry, yeah, Guram Kashaya announced that he loves to listen to you and I first thing in the morning.

And there should have been like a record scratch there and got, you what?

Oh.

And then every question after that should have been about Football Weekly, who he prefers,

why he likes us over other podcasts, etc., and so on.

Probably because we're so humble and not like massively narcissistic, but I would suggest the last three minutes don't

make people think otherwise.

On the game itself, Paul, which perhaps people might be more interested in, how do you see it?

Which game?

Oh, that's Georgia versus Georgia versus Turkey.

Sorry, I thought I've got so lost in what we were talking about there.

I can see as we speak, Guram Kashai has gone to

Spotify or whatever.

He's got an unsubscribe.

The one player I would look out for is Guram Kashai, like really talented talisman for Georgia.

It's a really intriguing one.

I gotta say it's a really intriguing one.

I

can see

Turkey actually being quite underestimated in a weird way.

I think because people

have had this backlash about them being dark horses last time and delivering absolutely zero, I think actually, if anything, people are slightly underestimating Turkey going into this tournament.

So I'm intrigued to see how Turkey performs.

But I would say that Georgia are a pretty resilient side.

And I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they managed to just close them down and get a draw out of it, which would leave the group looking very exciting.

What about Portugal, Czech Republic, Philippe?

Have we had enough surprises, you think?

So far?

I mean, we can't have another one.

We can't have Portugal succumbing to the Czech Republic.

That's not possible.

No, of course it's possible, but

I cannot see it happen, to be absolutely honest.

I mean, because if you're talking about

how dark should the dark horse be,

when you're talking about the Czech Republic against Portugal, that's

it's a black horse.

It's a Lloyd's commercial.

Right.

Okay.

I would have thought so.

Fine.

Well, we'll see, won't we?

Driving class IE says, why does the British media never talk about how mature Jude Bellingham is?

Drew me to Dan Snow, obviously the history broadcaster's tweet, which I put in the group, which I've found absolutely amazing.

He said so much condescension towards Bellingham.

Only 20.

20 year olds are fully operational.

It's a wonderful way of describing 20-year-olds.

Muhammad Ali had an Olympic gold.

Tom Neal was flying hurricanes during the Battle of Britain.

Nelson had his own command.

Edward IV had smashed a Lancastrian army and snatched the throne.

Men had shouldered muskets from the Rhine to Moscow and back again.

Countless women, like my grandma, were raising children in foreign lands alone in wartime.

Genghis had hunted and trapped to keep his family alive in the wilderness.

Come on, folks.

Interesting comparisons there for dude Bellingham.

Interestingly, Dan Snow is a contemporary of mine at university.

And I can see why he's because when he was 20, he was fully operational.

He was like...

dashing, walking around in a nice blazer.

He looked good.

He was getting a double first.

He was rowing.

You know, he was, you know, probably in the Olympics.

When I was 20, I was not fully operational.

You know, I would just smell of kebab meat.

I didn't change my bed sheets.

You know, so I can see how he, because he was a fully operational guy at 20.

I don't know about anyone else, but.

He went to university, you say.

Oversea, he must have done if he's a professional historian.

Has he actually got a copy of the dictionary at home?

So you can look at the letter C.

Yeah, I don't think he understands the meaning of the word condescension.

That would be my main problem with that tweet.

And he's also

kind of contradicting himself by referring to all these people

who did remarkable things before, you know, at a very young age.

And that's why we know who they are.

You know, I was masturbating into a son.

And 31 years on, 32 years on, to a certain extent, I still am.

Not right now,

but

so we can't praise Jude Bellingham for things he hasn't done yet.

So we can only praise him for things he has already done or what he's doing at the moment.

And

Jude Bellingham at 20 is a greater human being than I will ever be.

A greater athlete, a better man.

Oh, don't say that.

Oh, yeah, he is

better athlete, yes, probably

Jury's out.

Do you think

I didn't expect to use this?

Is a link that producer Joel writes onto someone who didn't masturbate into a sock.

Hello to Tom,

who messaged me on Sunday, I think,

yeah, to say, awaiting the birth of my son.

I've got a few hours to kill until my wife gets to push a clock, he called it.

Time to listen to the soothing tones of Max and the crew on Football Weekly.

I said, good luck, you know, keep us posted.

All being well, he should arrive just minutes before the England game.

Could be a contender for England's youngest fan today.

A win today for Tristan, please.

I've been up for two days.

This tweet may not make sense.

Well, Tom has sent me a lovely photo of him, Tom, and little Tristan.

And he says, Football Weekly's youngest ever listener, Tristan Rainsley-Hughes.

And there he is,

fast asleep.

And hopefully, well, fast asleep rather than listening to the last five minutes of this part, I I would say.

But anyway, thanks so much.

That'll do for today.

Thanks for your company.

Cheers, Philippe.

Thank you very much, Max.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Cheers, Paul.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Josh Kelly.

This is The Guardian.