Euro 2024 preview: Groups E and F … including Portugal – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, the final preview pod.

Then Groups E and F.

Belgium look favourites in Group E.

It's astonishing how many of the golden generation are still there.

Can gold rust?

Will they just put Jan Vertongen in a big cup of vinegar or Coca-Cola to make him shiny again?

In with them, Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine.

Can't be emphasized enough.

What an achievement it is for the latter to be there.

In Group F, Horses Portugal and Dark Horses Turkey, along with the Czech Republic and Georgia.

And now we know the Georgian skipper listens to us.

We will support them in the most tribal of fashions.

The Portuguese squad is up there with the most talented, but they are managed by...

Roberto Martinez, who didn't get up to much with the last golden generation he managed.

Also today, Paul Watson Corner with Greenland, Turkmenistan, and countries we probably haven't heard of.

All that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glen Denning, welcome.

Hello.

Back from the Racing Post, Mark Langdon.

Hello.

Hi, Max.

And Paul Watson, hi.

Hi.

You were just saying, Paul, before we came on air, that, you know, being a man who follows countries that don't qualify,

you realise when a tournament comes around, maybe it wasn't the greatest tactical plan in a way in a way but also i've got my feet up you know um these are outside my jurisdiction good you're on the beach yeah unless samarino miraculously qualify one year i'm yeah i'm off basically it's an exciting moment to see can you cope with groups e and f at this elite level of football we'll find out let's start then with group e belgium slovakia romania and ukraine uh belgium managed by the 38 year old domenico tedesco they were runners up in 1980 uh lost in the quarterfinals to Italy last time out.

It is, Mark, amazing how many of that golden generation are still kicking him out.

They are, yeah.

I mean, you know, Jan Vuertongen,

I'm going to try.

I want to be kind to him, but when he was finishing up in the Premier League, I was...

I thought you're finished, Jan.

You know, it might be the time to retire.

And he's actually sort of going on and is still a very valuable person within sort of the Andelect side

for his experience and for everything that he can bring to kind of mold together a younger team.

And I suppose it's that kind of experience that's still required as well at international level.

But it does sort of make you fear for Belgium with some of the players they've got that sort of still knocking around, as you say.

Witzel

could be another one.

I do think though, Max, there are some sort of younger players that are sort of coming through in the kind of forward positions.

You know, we've got Doku, uh bakayoko somebody i really um like but with a lot of these international teams you do sort of get a lack of balance at times and it's the defensive area of the side that would really concern me and it's not necessarily just the age it's just whether you know they really are um good enough of course goutois not able to play um you know he's only just come back from injury and decided a while back that he wasn't going to um be in gold so i think castilles is a sort of decent enough replacement, but I imagine he'll be worked once they get to the knockout stage.

I think Belgium can

get through this group easy enough, but they've got some quality in midfield, some really interesting attacking options, but not sure about that defence at all.

Was that Courtois' call, Mark?

It was in conjunction with Real Madrid.

So I think Real Madrid were,

I suppose, leaning on Courtois to

not play.

Courtois said he fully respected that.

He had also had some issues with Tedesco over who was going to be captain of the side.

So I don't know if he'd been if he'd been named skipper, maybe he would have been more forceful in coming back.

I was under the impression he was thrown out of the squad because of that row.

But anyway, it doesn't matter.

No, no, I think he would have.

I still think he would have been able

to have played had he had a full season at Real Madrid behind him.

But

they are relying on maybe somebody like Voutface at Leicester or

maybe one of the younger players, Debasque, who partners for Tongan at Andalect.

Could he come through?

I'm not sure.

Paul, how do you rate this Belgian side?

Well, you know,

not to disagree too much.

I do think their defence is the worry.

And I think the fact you've got

a player

at Vertongen's age, he's 37 and he's playing at centre-back still regularly is a worry.

But they did actually, I think they only conceded four in qualification the whole way through.

Now, you can look at the quality of opposition and say it's maybe not the strongest, but it's Austria in there and I think Austria are a decent side.

Then it's Sweden, Azerbaijan, Estonia.

But they did look pretty comfortable in qualification.

So I actually, I'm not as worried about them in that regard.

I think one worry is De Bruyne.

Like,

how much are they looking to De Bruyne still to create that spark?

And is he going to be up to that?

But I think Doku is a very exciting player coming forward.

As you say, Bakayoko of PSV, really high on confidence.

And Trossard as well could actually be a big player for them.

Quite excited to see what happens with Vermiran as well, the 19-year-old Athletica Madrid.

Could be a big tournament for him.

So I actually am maybe more positive about Belgium's chances than

other people.

But yeah, I'm still not totally convinced by Domenico Tedesco as coach I I despite that qualification campaign just have this slight feeling that when it comes to the big matches you might not quite have the the kind of nouse to to to do it I was wondering because we're going to get to Portugal Barry in a bit but it would one of the advantages be that Roberto Martinez isn't managing Belgium

you know despite Paul's reservations on Todesco funny Paul says that because I look at this Belgian squad and team likely starting team and I see

they have an awful lot in common with England.

Excellent midfield, excellent front three, dodgy-ish defence,

no left back, questionable goalkeeper, and a manager I think is a bit meh.

So

I would say the exact same thing about England.

Obviously, other opinions on Gareth Southgate are available, and we've already covered them.

But

no Christian Benteke, so I won't be nominating him as a potential golden boot winner.

Hasn't stopped you in the past.

Yeah,

but yeah,

you point out that a lot of the golden generation is still there.

A lot of them have also been given the elbow.

Drees Merton is gone.

Mickey Batcheraya is gone.

Both the Hazard brothers are gone.

Toby Isle the Wild, he's not there either.

But

you look at their squad, you look at the group, and you think, yeah, this should get out comfortably and they could do well, could go deep.

I'd just say, you know, they went out of the World Cup really early and that was seen as a disgrace, really.

And Lukaku missed a lot of chances in that final game to take them through.

But actually, when you look back on the tournament, Croatia and Morocco both reached the semi-finals.

So maybe that group was

much stronger on paper than it initially appeared.

Now, they didn't cover themselves in glory, it has to be said, in the tournament.

But if Lukaku puts away one of those five or six chances that he had, you might have been looking at a team that potentially had gone to the quarterfinals and you would have said, Oh, yeah, that's about right for them.

But that is an if with Lukaku, though, isn't it, Paul?

In the sense that in big moments, he's clearly a brilliant footballer.

I just think back to that Champions League final against Man City as well.

Just the, you know, if he's the guy that they will rely on, is that who is that enough?

Um, yeah, and and this is the thing with Lukaku.

I'm quite a supporter of lukaku um but i i think i'm lucky in that i tend to watch him when he plays pretty well so i feel like there's two schools here there are people who've watched him play badly many many times and then there's me who it tends to be i watch a lot more international football maybe than than club football i don't know what it is but i i still rate lukaku quite highly and whichever way you look at it he's their all-time top scorer he's got 83 goals you know he's not He's not aver, like he can put the ball in the net at international level.

But this question you have is, you know, can he do that on the biggest of stages under the most pressure and i yeah that's where my backing of him starts to waver a little bit i i would i would not necessarily want to pin all my hopes on him putting away those chances i'm not sure if we've mentioned him but jeremy dock who's there as well so he's got two brilliant wingers um

who you presume will create a lot of chances And they've got other options up front.

I mean, Apenda has had a decent season

with Leipzig, for instance.

They have got those forward options.

And there are younger players coming through.

And Inanna Everton, I think, is somebody that's got the potential to sort of go further than what he has so far.

He's shown a fair bit, but I think there's still more to come.

So there are bits of Belgium that if they were to go really deep this summer, you could sort of look back and think, well, yeah, of course, they've got De Bruyne, they've got Doku,

but it's just whether it all comes together.

And I'd always, I think I just prefer international teams that have got better balance, I think, is an underlooked kind of thing in international football.

Everyone just goes for the star players and looks for where it's strong.

But I think you're better off not being so lopsided in attack, for instance, and just having a decent number of players all over the pitch.

How balanced would you say Slovakia are, Mark, on your dream for balance, managed by Francesco Carzona?

Got to the round of 16 in 2016 out in the group stages last time out.

What do you know about Slovakia?

And please tell me it's more than I know about Slovakia.

Well, I mean, it's balanced in that

a number of players are of a similar ability.

Whether that's a good thing or not

is open to debate, I suppose.

Without being sort of disrespectful, I think that

reaching the sort of the finals

is a solid achievement from Slovakia in the first place.

I think someone like Duda in midfield midfield for Verona is quite aggressive, picked up a lot of yellow cards, but

I think he's a decent player and one that I'd certainly say to watch out for.

Skriniar at the back obviously plays for Paris Saint-Germain, been at the top European level for a long time now.

So you've got kind of somebody at the back there that can keep the door shut.

De Bravka in goal, I'm not a massive fan of, but at least he was playing.

I think there was a big concern over that.

Obviously, you know, had had nick pope not picked up his injury then depravka wouldn't have played much this season but i do think it's weird that calzona just departed for napoli um for sort of the last few months of the season i would have thought that's when the coach really you know he hasn't got that much to do at times at international level you would have thought a couple of months before the tournament would have been the time when you do start watching the opposition and you maybe not the best time to take another job i mean he said that he was just working more hours and was able to do both.

I mean, I don't know.

It doesn't feel like the best of preparation for me.

Yeah, I've got a great Carlzona story.

So he's a fascinating character.

But most interestingly, he was a coffee dealer initially.

So when he was about 30, he was a full-time coffee dealer, part-time footballer.

And he was with a club in Tuscany, in Italy.

And they said, look, we want you to be player manager.

We want you to step up and do this, put more hours into this.

And he said, no, I want to focus on my coffee.

But I've got a mate, he said, who is going to be great for this.

And that mate was Maurizio Sari, who was at the time a banker.

So he brought Sari in.

And that was how later on he came to be Sari's assistant.

And so he had this weird

pathway into top-level football.

And then, as you say, like, Slovakia was his first full-time head coach job.

And then he's brought into Napoli.

And his first match with Napoli is, I believe, is the Barcelona Champions League.

So he has this bizarre thing that he's almost started at the top.

And yeah,

I don't know necessarily whether that is good or bad, but

he's certainly like a guy who doesn't seem to feel a lot of pressure.

The other weird fact about Slovakia is they have the only third tier player, so the only player playing in the third tier of a country

to take part in Euros.

And that is David Duris, because he's just been relegated from

Ascoli with Ascoli from Italy's second division.

So, like, he'll probably leave now.

He's only on loan there.

But, you know, that is a measure, perhaps, of what the disparity is here in terms of like the level some of the players are playing at.

There's even more to the Calzone story because when he was at Napoli, he became friends with Hamschik, and that's how he got the Slovakia job.

If you're friends with Hamschik, then

he's just a great guy.

He's just a great guy.

That's clearly what it is.

He's just like good to have around.

He's a lovely bloke.

You just, ah, he could do a job.

And it would be remiss of me not to mention Labotka in midfield because, I mean, he is,

I think, an absolute delight.

He's a bit like Adam Wharton, I think, in sort of the way that he dictates play from midfield.

But no, I really like Labotka.

So I was a bit disparaging at the start.

They have got Scriniard.

They have got Labotka.

Not sure about the players around them, really.

When you put dealer on the end of anything, it doesn't make it sound sort of illicit.

Like, was he legally importing coffee?

Or was it sort of like a backroom?

No,

he'd just walk up to you with a coat full of coffee.

No,

I think he was a rep, like, you know, like a coffee rep.

He'd bring his coffee.

He'd work for Lovazza.

Was he selling the machines?

Right.

Okay.

Or the pods.

Was he doing those little...

They're never quite as good, are they?

No, he'll be doing a bit of this on the sideline, I imagine, with the other managers.

I should hope so.

That's exactly what you're here for.

You've done exactly what we wanted you to do, Paul.

This is marvellous stuff.

Do you have any strong Slovakia thoughts, Barry?

I don't.

My only strong Slovakia thought was the Marek Hamzic story.

That's how Carlzona got involved.

He is on the backroom staff.

I'm not sure if Mark mentioned that, but like quite a few teams in this competition, it looks like goals will be hard to come by for them.

But if they can have someone who can bang in a couple, who knows?

It's another group that looks, you know,

quite get out of a bull.

Romania, managed by Edward Jordanescu, son of the legendary USA 94 quarterfinal manager, Angel Jordanescu.

Best they've done here, quarter-finals in 2000, last time out, 2016, finished bottom of their group.

So how do we see these guys going, Barry?

Again,

I'm not going to claim to know a tremendous amount about Slovakia, Romania, or Ukraine, but they

this does look, you know, like a group who who will finish behind Belgium and will whoever come third come

enough third to to be one of the four lucky runners up Romania were unbeaten in qualifying they came out of a group with Switzerland Kosovo Belarus Israel so that's quite the political tinderbox they found themselves in and they managed to negotiate it.

I think Israel, Belarus and Kosovo, none of them played their home games at home, if you know what I mean,

because of assorted bits of turmoil that were going on there.

Key men,

Nikolai Stanchu, who's spent the season in Saudi Arabia.

They obviously have Radu Dragasin, who Spurs signed in January, and then he barely got any game time under Anj Postakoglu, who, I don't know, didn't seem to trust him, or maybe

just didn't think he was ready.

He's still a young player.

Florence Coman is a good left-winger.

And

obviously, Yannis Hadji,

who used to play for Rangers and is the son of Jorde Hadji, the Romanian legend.

He's been on Lona Alavez since January, but has barely played for them either.

So that's not ideal.

They only conceded five goals in their group.

in qualifying and only scored 16.

So I think quite a lot of them were scored against Andorra, who were the group whipping boys.

And they also have Puskas, which is always a handy man to have on your side.

Georgie Puskas,

who Reading fans will remember as one of their players.

Starting to feel Paul like a group of life, this, as opposed to a group of death.

I don't know.

I mean, I know that in Romania, there's a lot of

positivity and enthusiasm.

That qualification campaign was brilliant.

They looked very strong throughout.

And this is a squad that are hitting their kind of mid to late 20s now.

So there's a feeling there that this is actually a Romania team ready to have an impact.

And as you say, Jordanescu in charge, his dad actually coached Romania three times.

He's kind of known as a bit of a stickler in terms of his preparations.

He's very exact in how he wants everything to be done.

He's been referred to as a bit of a ballbuster by players in the past, but that's kind of what you need.

As a side note, he's also, empirically speaking, the second sexiest coach at Euro 2024, according to a Romanian newspaper which did an extensive scientific survey.

He was only beaten by Sergei Rebrov in fifth play.

Southgate came fifth, apparently.

Really?

You know, yeah, I mean,

there's not a high bar.

Not a disparaging

really from Harry on the aesthetic appeal of Gareth Southgate.

I don't look at Gareth Southgate and go, four.

I mean,

yeah, I mean, he wears a cardigan well.

Yeah, but he's only fifth.

I mean, you know, fifth isn't foir.

Fifth is respectable, isn't it?

Fifth out of 24 is a lot higher than I'd have expected, but anyway.

Yeah, they didn't rate all the way down to the bottom, which I was disappointed at.

They only did the top.

Well, they did, but they didn't declare that.

They only did the top 10.

But on the football level, you know, yeah, it's a team without stars necessarily, but they've been building this nice momentum.

And then they've just literally drawn 0-0 with Liechtenstein in a friendly, which was Liechtenstein's first clean sheet in 36 games.

So maybe that's taken a bit of the edge off the optimism.

But I'm quite looking forward to seeing Romania at this tournament, to be honest.

Mark, I mean,

we didn't see a lot of Dragasin, as Barry mentioned.

I know that in Romania, he is sort of seen as the great hope, isn't he?

He is, yeah.

And, you know, he did very well playing for Genoa.

And the fact that Bayer Munich were interested as well as Tottenham, I think, shows how well he performed in Italy.

Very good at aerial duels, didn't get probably as many opportunities as he felt he would get at Spurs.

Well, they did play in the final couple of matches and definitely added something, I think, to that defence.

When Van der Wem went out to left back, and he started to partner Romero, for instance, a game against Man City.

Thought he played very well in that one.

So he definitely is a player, I think, of big potential.

I just don't see where the goals are coming from for Romania at all.

I know that the coach was saying about Stanchu that he was playing too deep.

Paul mentioned the 0-0 with Lichtenstein.

Their other friendly before they headed off to the Euros was a 0-0 against Bulgaria.

So goals might be a problem.

And he was saying that Stanchu was just too deep and trying to get involved in the game.

If Stanchu's not creating or maybe shooting from distance, I just don't see where the goals are coming from.

On to the best-looking manager at the Euro, Sergei Rebrov, who has won league titles in Ukraine, Hungary and the UAE.

Ukraine got to the quarter-finals in 2020 when they lost to England.

And look, you can't state it enough, and we've talked a lot about this, Paul, but to get here,

given the situation of Ukraine and Russia's invasion, and actually the importance of being here, because every time Ukraine play, there will be talk discussions about the war, which has largely been, I say, forgotten when, you know, events happening in the Middle East, and a lot of focus in the the news agenda has gone to that.

It seems ridiculous to say it's important for the war effort that Ukraine are here, but actually it is.

Yeah, and I think when you think about that, then you also think about the pressure these players have been under.

And it wasn't an easy path to qualification.

They needed the playoffs and they needed this quite dramatic win against Iceland.

And

yeah, what it all means to these players to be there is...

is kind of crazy to think, you know, how much this means.

And, you know, beyond that, this is a very talented group of players.

Like,

there are strong players throughout this lineup.

Particularly interesting is this partnership for Girona that have been part of Girona's amazing season in La Liga.

And, you know, you've got the top scorer in La Liga on his debut season in Artem Dovbuk.

So you've got him, then you've got Viktor Sikankov, who is sort of his provider.

And you've got this kind of this partnership that's obviously done really well in Spain, and it's whether it can translate internationally.

But, you know, there is star quality throughout this team, and they shouldn't be underestimated, I think.

And actually, Mark, in goal, like we talked about Cortois not being there, Lunin is there, who played really well for Real Madrid, actually.

And in many ways, it was slightly unfortunate not to play in the Champions League final.

Really unfortunate.

I mean, to pick up an illness on the eve of Champions League final, it made Angelotti's decision easy in the end.

I'm not sure which way he would have gone before that, but in 90 minutes, Lunin didn't lose a game this season.

You know, fantastic record.

I'm sure that there'll be a few sort of dark horses being thrown around.

I'm going to officially declare Ukraine as the dark horses of the Euro.

So Nilpois probably forthcoming.

But they've got really good players.

Paul's already mentioned some of them, but in

midfield as well, I mean, Zinchenko, I think, is a midfielder.

Keeps on being played at left back at club level, but I'm just not sure that works for him.

Sudakov, that plays for Shaktar, is being spoken about as definitely going to move to a top European club soon.

Interestingly, Mudrick has told him to stay put

for another year or two,

maybe something to do with his own kind of experiences in the Premier League.

But let's not forget, it wasn't that long ago that Mudrick was being sort of this tug of war between Arsenal and Chelsea for nearly £100 million.

So there's definitely definite talent there even if it's not sort of um sort of come out fully yet that we've seen even at the back um micholenko that plays for everton i think does a really good job um you mentioned there's a couple of goalkeepers because um as well as looning um they've also got the ben uh benfica goalkeeper truven so that there is definite talent in this side they're in a weak group um so they should be able to qualify and the under-20s also won the world cup in 2019 so you are starting to see some of those players being drip-fed into the sort of senior side.

So I think they've got a lot going for them actually on the pitch.

And

I wouldn't be that surprised if they topped the group and would be very surprised if they didn't get out of the group.

And from there, I think they would be very dangerous sort of knockout opponents.

And in Artem Dovbik, they've got the striker who won the La Liga Golden Boot this season.

And

he did so in the last round of games where you had Girona playing already relegated Granada

and they were scoring goal after goal after goal just to try and win the golden boot for Dovbik.

And Granada were sort of going like, come on, what are you doing here?

They beat them 7-0.

And

Girona's manager was, he more or less apologised after the game.

Look, he said, we're really sorry.

for embarrassing you like that but when you're already kicking a man while you're down while he's down but we really wanted this because it's you know, been such a good season for us, we want something to show for it.

Um, so he's there, he's obviously in form,

and a few English-based players.

Obviously, you've got um

Zinchenko from Arsenal, Michelenko from Everton, Zabarnia, who I think played every minute of every game.

I think he missed, no, because we said he hadn't missed a minute, and then the next day he got something and missed the next time.

Right, okay, right, okay.

Well, he was he was more or less ever-present for them and uh Yarmil Yuk from Brentford.

So yeah, I really hope to do well.

I think everyone will be rooting for them and

I'd love if they were the dark horses who went very deep.

All right, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do group F.

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Barry's here too.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Group F, then Turkey, Georgia, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.

Let's start with Portugal, managed by Roberto Martinez.

They won it, of course, in 2016.

They drew their three group games,

but won that Edir's goal.

Was it an extra time?

It feels like it was an extra time.

It was late on, whatever it was.

It was a long time ago.

Last time out, they lost to Belgium in the round of 16.

Martin says, Are Portugal being underrated?

Strong in all areas of the pitch.

Barry, there, your tip, are mate.

I put a bet on them the other day.

I don't want to promote gambling or anything, but I fancy them.

They're quite a big price.

I think they were a nine or ten to one.

I just look at them and their strength and depth is incredible.

Every single position, they seem to have two or three players or even four who

you know would walk into quite a few teams.

My concerns, they've got a brilliant midfield, which I don't know exactly what it'll be, but Paulina, Vettina, Bruno Fernandez, and Bernardo Silva would be my

four in the midfield.

And

the bottom midfield that is everywhere you look in the squad, they're well equipped.

My concerns are that Roberto Martinez is the minute manager.

He's already squandered the golden generation of one country.

Is he about to do the same with another?

And

although I appreciate Portugal have won this in the past and yeah our old friend cristiano ronaldo is still there uh he will probably play

and

i

yeah i just

he's a malign influence i think at this stage and i reckon they'd probably be better off without him but he's there and he'll probably play and he did score quite a few goals in in qualifying but uh i i would have very high hopes for this team paul do you think ronaldo is an asset david says that is ronaldo still an asset to portugal Or is he only in the side because he's Ronaldo?

You know, in the past, I would have said he has become something of a negative to the side, but I wouldn't say that's bearing out at the moment.

I mean, qualification campaigns always taken with a pinch of salt.

Obviously, they weren't in the strongest group.

They had Slovakia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Bosnia, and Liechtenstein, so it wasn't testing them.

But I would say what's encouraging perhaps is because Cristiano Ronaldo is now coming towards the end of his

career and because he is quite clearly older, and I don't think even he can present himself with that same swagger that he did before.

I think there's now more potential to utilize him and then switch things up than there perhaps was in the past when he felt he was carrying the hopes on his shoulders.

So I think there's more of a chance now to have someone like Gonzalo Ramos is up there, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Leão,

and then you can sort of mix that up and mix it around.

And I don't think Ronaldo is going to be that kind of negative force in the dressing room that he perhaps was in the past.

Because I think even he's realizing he's no longer the big man in this squad.

That's my feeling on it.

It's interesting, Mark, isn't it?

As Barry said, when you look at that squad, and he's mentioned that midfield, if you play three of those four, maybe Bernardo plays a bit more attacking.

And then you've still got Jotta, you've still got...

Raffalio, you still got Jiao Felix.

Like,

there is an embarrassment of riches there.

Yeah, they'd be my sort of tip to go and win it as well, Max.

So me and Barry sort of in the same kind of thinking there.

There is an accusation that, say, Bernardo Silva doesn't play his best for Portugal and that maybe

Martinez's team is too narrow and he does need to find room for Leal

rather than sort of have him as a game changer off the bench that maybe somebody like that needs to find a way into the team.

I'm also going to defend Roberto Martinez as well because it feels like he's getting a fair bit of criticism.

The two times I think he had a really good Belgian side.

I don't actually feel like he did anything wrong in those two tournaments.

They reached the semifinal of the World Cup and were beaten 1-0 by France in a really close game that could have gone either way.

And they beat Brazil in the quarterfinals.

So they'd already proven they could beat a big team.

Then in the last Euros, they played Portugal in the last 16, beat them, and then lost a close game to Italy, who went on, like France did, to win the tournament.

I don't feel like they were that far away.

On both of those occasions, they ended up in the wrong half of the draw, which wasn't their fault because they actually won their group both times.

And it was just the way that it can work out in international tournaments.

And I think we can get too hung up.

And there's a simple reason for it because it's so definitive, isn't it?

You either win the tournament or you don't.

But if you kind of look at sort of international tournaments, there's a real big amount of randomness to it.

We do get so many sort of thoughts and ideas on the back of like three or four weeks' worth of football.

Like, if you look at the Premier League, Luton, just after Christmas, were playing really well.

And

that was their kind of time to shine.

Burnley had a spell just before the end of the season where they played really well.

Maybe not Sheffield United, but you know where I'm going with this.

You could probably box out three or four weeks

in a season, and every team will have kind of played probably above their level.

And that's what you need in international sort of tournaments.

You just need somebody to get hot and play well for sort of free games.

And I think Portugal have got that in their locker.

And if they lose, I don't think it'll be just because of Roberto Martinez.

I always think: if it is so random, why is it that England never wins?

Why doesn't the randomness wheel just spin and land on us just once?

I feel about two inches tall now after hearing that impassioned soliloquy from Mark, and I'm going to write a letter of apology to Roberto Martinez as soon as we're done here.

I would say, Barry, I would say I wouldn't want him in charge of my football team.

But if I was being, you know, putting out a defence for him, that would be...

Ronaldo's not actually the oldest player in the season.

No, he's not.

Pepe.

Pepe, 41.

If he plays, he'll become the oldest player to play in a European Championship, taking the record.

Does anybody know who has the record?

It's going to be a goalkeeper, isn't it?

It is a goalkeeper, yes.

I'll give you a clue.

Do you want a clue?

Go on.

Tracksuit trousers.

Oh, Cabar Carilli.

Correct.

Yeah, he was 40 years and 86 days old when Hungary played Belgium in 2016.

But yeah, Pepe's still doing it, Paul.

It's just one of the joys of football.

I don't know if he's in there starting 11, but I hope he is.

He won't be.

It'll be

ruben dias and silver won't it right that's a pity but you know get him on when they're holding a lead that's what you want pepe coming on with 10 minutes left but there's there's a joy about him i think yeah and it's funny isn't it because i'm getting this more and more now i'm i'm just about to turn 40 and i look at players and think they're ancient and they are basically my age and pepe is a good example of that really where you think i think you're looking at three men who are jealous

sorry

because i'm still somewhere holding out hopes i'm gonna gonna have my moment and my career is going to kick on.

But yeah, I mean, Pepe, Pepe, as you say, I think he'll probably be one of those people that's on the bench.

But, you know, a very good presence to have.

And this is the other thing with Portugal.

They are a team packed full of leaders, and often that can start to get in each other's way.

But, I mean, you look at Pepe, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes.

I mean, there's a load of players in that team that can be the person to sort of rally them if they have a dodgy spell.

So

honestly,

weirdly, I think we are unanimous that I would say Portugal would be my favourites.

They've also never failed to qualify from a group stage in the history of the Euro, and I think that's not going to happen here.

On to Turkey, managed by Vincenzo Montella, who was known as the Little Airplane because he is five foot eight and he did the Janaga Fiotov celebration, aeroplane celebration.

Best they've ever done is the quarterfinals in 2000.

When out in the group stages, they lost all of their games last time, despite being fancied as the dark horses by all of us.

What about this time, Mark?

Where do you see the Turks?

I'm definitely less confident this time than I was for the last Euros.

I did actually like Montello and I lost track of his career.

He ended up in Turkey doing well and that was then what got him the national team job.

But there was a time when he was in Italy where I felt like he had some really good ideas and was an interesting coach and had the potential to sort of go on and be kind of elite level.

And then his jobs just got worse and worse and worse throughout his career.

And now here he is, sort of with a national team that I think has got a chance of getting out of the group because

it feels like quite a balanced group, but

not the strongest team.

I think you've got younger players like Guillaire that plays for Real Madrid that

could go on and become anything.

The fact that he's at Real Madrid tells you how high he's rated, but I'm not sure about the sort of rest of the side.

I have to say, it looks fairly average to me, really.

Shananolu remains important in the midfield, you know, has kind of gone on and with interplayed just as well as what he has done previously.

I don't see that many standout players, and I don't know if I am just scarred by what happened three years ago because I was one of those that really did

sort of like them.

And they've had some injuries as well, particularly in defence.

So Jonchu and Kabak both had to withdraw through injury.

So

maybe able to get through, but I wouldn't expect, say, more than the last 16 from them.

There's a huge Turkish diaspora in Germany.

So it will feel like home games

for them.

And apparently, after Turkey's matches, Erdogan, the president, likes to call Montella.

And Erdogan doesn't speak Italian.

And Montella doesn't really speak Turkish.

So that really

happens during this phone call.

But I presume Monteller is just absolutely desperate to get off the phone.

How do you see them going, Baz?

They have Varda Güler, who's this

attacking midfielder, a youngster from Real Madrid, who Carlo Anchilotti speaks very highly of.

I'm not sure how many

opportunities he got playing for Real this season, but he's a high hope.

And they've sort of a blend of experience, youth.

You look at their squad, there's a lot of familiar names there: Cabak, Demeral, Kalanoglu.

Then, you know, Yild is Barak Yilmaz.

Like,

he's no longer in the picture.

They beat Germany in a friendly in Berlin, which is obviously decent.

But that was back in the days when Germany weren't any good

sort of before the last six months when they came good again.

And as you say,

for them, it'll be like playing at home.

So who knows?

Yeah, I'm a bit more positive about Turkey.

I think, you know, they beat croatia uh croatia's first ever home defeat in the euro qualifier and that's that's no small feat um they they looked genuinely very strong in qualification uh the the worry as you say like chalanogu brilliant player no doubt about that um fantastic for into the season but beyond that there's a lot of young players that pressure is going to be put on and goule's one of them gula could could be the breakout star of this tournament but he also just could be too young to to be thrust into that uh same with kenan Jultes.

Like, there's a lot of positivity around him, what he's done at Juventus season, but he is still very young.

So, yeah, I think it really remains to be seen.

And again, maybe to get rid of that dark horse tag, they got thrashed 6-1 by Austria in a friendly.

And more than the result itself,

I think the worry was it showed up a real weakness in this side that when they were pressed and pressed hard, they just didn't have a way out of that.

And that is a thing that at a tournament like this, if they aren't able to respond to that, they are very much going to struggle, I think.

It's like a Lloyd's TSP advert.

There's so many dark horses left.

We've got Turkey, Hungary,

Albania, Austria, Ukraine, so far, I think.

So, you know,

one of them has to do well.

Yeah, absolutely.

Or actually, none of them do.

History would suggest.

Georgia, then, managed by Willie Sanyol, their first ever tournament.

This is right in your wheelhouse, Paul, surely.

Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing, amazing qualification for them, and obviously went right to the wire with that penalty shootout.

The player everyone knows is Kvatzelia.

Like, everyone is going to be looking at him.

But

I would also say

Chakfadadzi, like, it will be really interesting to see.

how he does.

A lot of people say he actually could have been the massive star, except for knee injuries that have sort of docked his career at certain points but um i think with him sitting behind kvacelia and mikotadzi up front it's a really interesting little unit um the other one is the goalkeeper i think it's worth mentioning uh mama dashvili partly because he had this kind of freakish season that he was brought to valencia basically to be their fourth choice goalkeeper in in preseason last year and then there was this like series of injuries and illnesses that meant he got thrust into the lineup in pre-season, did amazingly, and then started the season in goal with a man-of-the-match performance and just stayed in the whole campaign, more or less.

So

there are some really decent and strong players in this side.

But I think obviously all the eyes are going to be on Kvatzeli and whether he at this point is ready to carry that weight of pressure on him.

Because he hasn't had...

The greatest season mark, has he?

Because his breakout season, everyone was like, this guy is, you know, the Georgia Messi, of course.

And it hasn't quite worked this year.

No, I would.

I suppose you wanted to give him some slack.

Napoli have been awful, and we spoke about the sort of their managerial change earlier on when Carzona came in.

And always going to be difficult for any individuals to shine when kind of the whole collective is broken, as it was with Napoli tried to play different football.

It didn't work.

I don't think that suited the attacking technical players that they had.

And then by the time they sort of tried to change it, it was already too late and the season had basically was over so uh definitely been a kind of I suppose that a difficult season but I wouldn't go sort of second season syndrome and he's been found out and he's just not very good that there were reasons why and even Oshiman didn't didn't look as good and I still think that people rate him highly for Cavrat Skelia

how much of the ball is he going to get and that's always the problem when these smaller nations have got kind of one star player.

Opposition teams tend to put two or three players on him, stop him, and you stop them.

Now, for somebody like Wales, if you remember, like Gareth Bale was still able to kind of do that, and

he would sort of smash in the set piece if even if he wasn't doing well in the 90 minutes.

And you're hoping, and I think for Georgia to get out of the group, they're going to need probably that individual moment, even though collectively they've definitely improved.

This is not like a absolute sort of minnow, as Paul will know.

They've kind of been improving through the Nations League and they've had some good results in sort of moments in qualifying campaigns without being able to put sort of a whole one together really.

So I definitely don't see them as like a joke team and why have we got 24 sides when you've got something like Georgia in it?

But it's still going to be difficult to qualify.

But Czech Republic and Turkey are not that strong that you kind of completely rule out Georgia, I would say.

And of course, Barry, their captain, big listener to the pod, constantly messaging us to say, why is Jordan badmouthing Aston Villa again?

He's right into it, isn't he?

Yeah, Guram Kashai is their captain.

He plays in the middle of the back three.

Got an interesting story back in...

2017.

Sorry, you'll know all this already, Guram, but our listeners might not.

In 2017, he was captain of VTES in the Netherlands, and he wore a rainbow armband which didn't go down so well with some of the more conservative folks back home and

he

ahead of a Georgia game against Belarus at the torpedo stadium a far-rights group called Georgia March basically stormed the stadium hoping to disrupt the game and insist that he either be chucked out of the squad or resign and he said it was a tough time for me i didn't expect that much hate.

Such things really impact a person, and it sort of sometimes hurts me in that position.

But he wasn't having any of this from these guys.

And he said, I don't regret what I did.

I don't care who you are or what you do in your life, as long as you don't hurt others.

So he's a big snowflake like you, Max.

It's no wonder he likes the pod.

But, um, well, I got another story about him I quite like last year.

He got a load of shit back home because when he was nominating his top top three players in the world in the best FIFA football awards, he only put Farasphila

third behind Mbappe and Messi.

I think he had Messi first, then Mbappe, then his teammate.

And apparently he got a load of grief for that as well.

So the poor fellow can't do right for doing wrong.

But

he's a very popular figure at home,

apart from certain factions of the far right.

And this is an important tournament for Georgia.

It's a free hit, but it's also an important tournament.

It's an election year in Georgia this year.

So there's loads of politicians who have sold quite a lot of division in the country now all jumping on the football bandwagon.

So I wish them nothing but well.

Yeah, come on, go and win it.

The Czech Republic, managed by Ivan Hasek, a former midfielder who captained Czechoslovakia to the World Cup quarterfinals in 1990.

Czech Republic have qualified for every tournament since the split with Slovakia in 1992.

Have reached knockout stages four times in those seven tournaments.

Will they do that this time, Paul?

Will they get out of the group?

Possibly.

Really weird sort of build-up to this tournament in a way in that they've changed manager.

So Hasek's actually only been in for a couple of friendies because the former manager,

Yaroslav Silhavi, live on TV after they'd qualified, he resigned.

Basically, he said,

I've had enough of the criticism.

Like, you know,

this has been too much.

People have been laying it all on me.

I quit.

So, you've got the situation where Hassek's come in.

He's been coach of the Czech team before.

Weirdly, I think he's also been president of their FA in the past.

I will beg anyone who wants to to look at his Wikipedia photo because it is the best awful Wikipedia photo of a manager.

He just looks hungover and sort of blurry.

They really do need to get that sorted, but

he's sort of a journeyman manager and he's coming into this squad.

And it's really hard to know how that's going to impact, but it is clearly going to have an impact on the team, you know, suddenly having this change of manager.

And, you know, it's a decent side.

It's a strong enough side, but they were not in a strong qualification group.

They were second to Albania.

I don't have a huge amount of hope for them, to be totally They've got Sucek, they've got Patrick Schik, but there isn't, I don't feel like this is a particularly strong Czech side.

Well, I just think the change of manager makes it harder to weigh them up because who knows if Sue Harvey was one of the reasons why it didn't go well for them in qualifying.

Three of the players were chucked out of the squad, including West Han Sufal.

And you just wonder if the disruption there and discipline and team harmony and all of the things that actually I think you do need at international football

were broken, and that the new manager can come in and fix some of that.

I think we have also got one of the most unfortunate stories of heading into the Euros with Sadelek, the midfielder, getting ruled out on the eve of the tournament after he fell off his bike and cut his leg to the point where he's not able to play.

So, I mean, that must be absolutely devastating

to miss out on a tournament for something like that.

If they're to get out of the group, the fact that Turkey and Georgia are both beatable is one reason.

And then the other one, it's obvious, but Schick, who had a great last European Championship, if he can deliver to similar levels, then

I think they might be able to get out of the group, but probably not go much further.

Schick himself is somebody that has definitely got the talent to go well, but he does suffer from injuries.

So

that would be a concern.

I don't have a huge amount to add to the Czech Republic, chat, but it's I didn't, that story about the guy who fell off his bike, it's funny.

I was reading the Netherlands preview in The Guardian, and the main picture was the squad presumably going to the training ground on their bikes, and they were all quite close together.

And I was sort of thinking, whoa, that's a bit dangerous, because, you know, riding bikes in a group is quite difficult if you're not used to it.

But then I suppose the Netherlands, people from the Netherlands are much better at riding bicycles than the rest of us.

Probably wasn't like a Tour de France Peloton, was it?

They probably weren't quite going at...

No, I think they were going at quite a leisurely pace, but it's very easy to, you know, tip wheels with someone in front of you and then just go down and whack your knee or something.

They'll say Cody Gakpo wasn't like leaning against a car, getting an energy drink.

Changing his shoe.

Exactly.

Anyway, that'll do for Group Ev.

We'll come back with some AOB in just a sec.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Internationals, we might have missed Paul.

With all this major tournament going on, I haven't been focused on Greenland versus Turkmenistan, but I am excited.

I can't believe you weren't watching it, Max.

It was actually very hard to watch because there was no score.

There was a stream of it, but there was no score at the top.

So there were like people messaging each other to say, Do you know what the score is?

Did I miss one?

And the goal got disallowed.

And so I was getting a message from a Turkmen journalist saying, I just don't know what the score is.

Can you please let me know?

And I was like, I don't know.

But yeah, basically, so Greenland,

Greenland have applied to be a member of CONCACAF.

So this is like a huge moment for Greenland.

Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

So it has actually the same status as the Faroe Islands.

And in the old days, they used to play against the Faroe Islands and Iceland quite regularly.

And now you look, you know, the Faroe Islands have gone strength to strength, they've gone into UEFA.

Greenland just never applied to UEFA and then the door closed.

Like it's closed to anything but independent nations.

So Greenland has been stuck in this situation where they don't have a home in UEFA.

So they've taken the next route available and applied to CONCACAF.

And as part of that process, they're trying to show, you know, look, here we are an active side.

They've got a brilliant coach, Morten Rutya, former Danish International, doing a really good job.

And he's setting up these training camps.

And one of them was just now in Turkey.

And during that, they played Turkmenistan.

They basically, I think, looked for any team that wanted to play them as a warm-up for their World Cup qualifiers and brought Turkmenistan to Turkey to play in this really kind of bizarre friendly.

They've applied to CONCAF.

Are they in CONCACAF?

Have they got.

So they've applied.

So Greenland has, yes, officially submitted an application to CONCAF.

The process now is really unclear how many years this could take, how many months it could take, but they have said, look, we want to be a member.

And

there are lots of members of CONCACAF who are territories of France or the territories of the Netherlands, even.

So they don't have such a sort of definite reason they wouldn't get in there.

But the next process for them is basically going to be trying to convince a body of support within

CONCACAF to sort of step up for them.

Right.

And

is that kind of, you know, the rest of CONCACAF sitting in a room going, do we, do we want to play Greenland away?

I mean, I'm just, I mean, like, yeah.

I think it sounds great, but I'm trying to think if I'm the Jamaican board, do I want that match?

Well, the thing is, initially, they definitely won't be playing in Greenland, sadly.

So there's been talk of building

a stadium there called the Arctic Stadium, which this came up years and years ago because initially Set Blatter went to Greenland and just said, you will need a stadium.

So they sort of put this effort together to build this like state-of-the-art stadium, but they've just never found the funding.

So, at the moment, people in Nuke, if you go to the capital and watch the games, there's a week-long season where teams from all around the country come and they sit on a hill above the stadium.

And it would definitely not pass any kind of international muster.

But they basically would be allowed to play their friendlies, play all their games in Denmark.

And there is a precedent for this.

Like, a lot of other countries in the past, over various periods, have played games abroad.

In Conquer CAF, an obvious example is Montserrat, who haven't been able to play many games at home at all, especially since sort of the,

I think it was a volcanic eruption that rendered it impossible for many years.

So yeah, there is hope.

And I do a podcast called The Sweeper, where we do talk about all this kind of stuff.

We went into quite a lot of depth on Greenland's chances and whether we think they'll get in.

And basically the long and short is we think there is a chance they could be in CONCACAF and that'd be fantastic.

But World Cup qualification matches are quite a long way off and possibly impossible with the current rules.

North Korea played Syria,

which

it's also not a game I've followed, but imagine seems politically a sort of nightmarish football match.

Yeah, and it was one of the weirdest matches I've ever seen because North Korea was supposed to be hosting this game.

They refused to host Japan in their last game because they said there were infectious diseases in Japan.

They were worried about players coming over.

So they defaulted their last game.

This game, they agreed to play it in Laos.

So it's played behind closed doors, technically.

And were Lao cool with Lao friendly with North Korea?

They allowed it.

You're asking there, Max.

Yes, they allowed it.

I don't know if that was an intentional pump, but I'll take it.

Yeah, so they allowed it to happen.

And the weird thing was the North Korean authorities appear to have intervened to stop any streaming of this game.

So all games, usually, you can watch them, but they stopped the streaming.

And because of that, and because of the confusion around this, the live score apps didn't really know what the score was.

And at one point, they listed Syria as being a goal ahead.

They even had a goal scorer on there and everything.

And then at full time, the Syrian FA posted the confirmation they'd lost 1-0 to a last-minute goal.

So there was a lot of kind of people saying, is this rigged?

Is something foul play here?

But really, I think what had happened is because of all these normal resources for getting what the score is being shut down, people just did not know the score.

And the live score apps were starting to pick up goals from other games in the past.

They were just panicking and trying to work out what the score was.

And it is, it was 1-0 to North Korea, which interestingly actually puts them somewhat back in contention for progression in the World Cup qualification.

I like to think Kim Yong-il

sort of scored nine goals and took home three match balls, like his

famous round of golf.

He's a dangerous player to play against, isn't he?

Yeah, with VAR, though, with VAR, I mean, it could have just been ruled out.

I mean, I've been at games and sort of misunderstood the score, and sort of it's been in front of my eyes, Paul.

So, I mean, but maybe it's an easy mistake for the apps to make.

Let's say maybe Mark Cluttenberg will be hard as a referee's

consultant for North Korea

in the future.

Also, you wanted to mention English eighth tier side Hadley, just playing a game in San Marino.

Yeah, Hadley FC of eighth tier English side set up a friendly against one of San Marino's top teams, Juvenes Dogana.

They finished eighth in San Marino in their Premier League last season.

So it's the weirdest, most random friendly.

And it came about because Chris Nash, who is one of Hadley FC's players is trying to go to all 55 uefa members hadn't got to samarino and thought well i'll just set up a friendly juvenez dogana actually have an english player in their squad and so he helped set up this friendly and it was quite interesting because i had no idea what the score like how the level would would pan out but it turned out hadley fc won 9-1

which says quite a lot i think about the

the disparity in levels that jovenez d'agana were in a playoff system for a european place so they were they did lose that playoff, but they theoretically could be in Europe.

And yeah, that was a pretty bad one for them.

I thought you were going to say you didn't know the score of that one.

I can't, because most football you follow, you're not actually sure what was Chris.

Maybe knowing the score is really overrated.

We don't need to know that.

You're just watching them run around.

It's nice.

If you know the score, it's just an added bonus.

Look, anyway,

that'll do for today.

Obviously, listen to the sweeper pod for more stories like that.

Thank you, Paul.

Thanks for coming on, as always.

Thank you.

Cheers, Barry.

Thank you.

Cheers, Mark.

Thanks, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Sidus Gray and Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Christian Bennett.

We'll be back on Friday night after the opener of Euro 2024 as Germany plays Scotland.

This is The Guardian.