Euro 2024 preview: Groups C and D … including England – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Group C and D's turn.

So that includes England.

Forgive us for doing a bit more on them, but could this be the year?

Some big calls from Gareth in picking his 26.

The handbrake suddenly off.

And then on again in the the three lines, second worst ever defeat to Iceland.

Who should play in midfield?

Are there just too many good attackers?

Why won't Southgate pick them all?

Will he have four fit international standard defenders?

How tired is Jude Bellingham?

Is it going wrong already?

And should England fans already be plotting their route to the final or will Slovenia, Serbia and Denmark stop them before it starts?

Then to Group D, France have an elite squad, a trophy-laden manager, Killian Mbappe, and Rabio, Rabio, Rabio, Griezmann in that quarterback role and Giroux ageless and aging so well.

They are good.

The Netherlands have some good players and by all accounts haven't had a big fight yet, which leaves Austria quite interesting and Poland not as interesting.

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

On the panel today, Barry Glen Denning, welcome.

Hello.

Philippe O'Claire, bonjour savaire.

Savadien, bonjourtois.

Yes.

Lars Siverton, hello.

Good morning, Arsenal.

Hello.

And to do some England, Barney Ronnet.

Hey, Barney.

Hey there.

How are you doing?

Yes, very good.

Charlie says, should I put the vacuum round ready for when it comes home?

Or am I good?

Let's start then with England.

Group C alongside Slovenia, Denmark, and Serbia.

Gareth Southgate, of course, the managers, run us up last time, losing our penalties to Italy in the final.

Barney, are England good?

What are we?

Yeah, I think England are good.

They're one of...

five teams who are good, who might reasonably expect to win it if things go well.

but they're good in an interesting way as well which is kind of

they have super strengths and weaknesses which is kind of the way it always is with England in some ways but I think that we've forgotten that they have the weaknesses in some regards I mean the defence

isn't great that there are obvious things that are missing and you saw those at ice in the game against Iceland it's not great having a left-footed a right-footed left back when you're trying to get width and attack how is it possible the Premier League has only produced one functioning

left-footed left-back who is English?

You know, we talk about we have a group of players who are the envy of the world.

It's the most incredible sort of player-making, football team-making machine ever devised, but there's nobody who can play in deep midfield.

There just isn't anyone apart from Declan Rice.

So I think people need to be realistic.

It's very rare that you go to an international tournament and just overwhelm everyone with your strengths.

The teams that win tend to be solid, well organized, and not have weaknesses.

And even when they could play in that kind of overwhelm everyone thing, tend to play in a more cautious way.

You know, I think of Didier de Champs's version of France, who'd been a great tournament team, but know that you have to stop the opposition scoring.

So it was really interesting to see.

missing Harry Maguire is actually a thing.

He's a really solid one-on-one defender, does things maybe other players don't.

So it's going to be, hopefully, going to be a ride and a kind of a roller coaster, which I think will be quite fun.

But I think it's really unfair to say, well, if England don't win, this is because of the manager, because he merely receives the players that the system makes.

And I don't think anyone can quite,

you're always covering up gaps

in the blanket, aren't you?

You're always pulling it to cover the bit that you can't quite cover.

And that's what Southgate's going to have to do here.

it's interesting you know you talk about you know tournaments are won by cautious safe teams and we and that is what southgate has been as a manager but peter says look is this england squad actually a bit too exciting there's no henderson phillips mount maguire it's that just so much of england's relative success has been built on being solid rather than spectacular i'd feel more confident if the squad were more boring it's an interesting point philippe isn't it that this squad announcement you know was quite exciting you think of all you obviously can't pick all those players but palmer and eze all those guys, you think, oh, there's, there is real excitement here.

There is excitement.

There was surprise as well.

Luke Shaw, I think, is a pretty big gamble.

I'm still surprised Dominique Solenke was not preferred to either Watkins or Tony, who's done very little since he came back from his suspension.

But you wonder, and I think we're all wondering the same question, when you're a pragmatist,

right, like Southgate, a pragmatist is somebody who takes the decisions which will get to the best results 1999s out of 100.

This is what we've got to do.

And I'll put the question to you, is that being pragmatic in this case, doesn't it mean he has to take risks?

Because if he tries not to, if he doesn't take risks, he hasn't got the team to play with that.

Even talking about Dickland Rice as a kind of anchor, he's not an anchor.

That's not the way he's playing with Arsenal.

And there is really nobody.

So,

but this being said,

there might be other solutions.

Like, for example, Dier Deschamps, whom Gary Southgate is actually quite close to in many things, many ways, the last World Cup, he had a problem with

his midfield, right?

Because the problem was that the players that he'd built his success around, with like Poképar and County and so forth, were not really

there.

What did he do?

It took Griezmann and made him play much deeper.

Why wouldn't it be possible

to have one sole midfield player and having Bellingham come in in the Griezmann role, for example, or Foden playing in the Griezman role.

That would be great.

I'd be very excited to watch that.

And because I want to be excited by England, because I haven't been excited by England for a very, very, very long time.

Usually the excitement is restricted to pre-tournament talk.

And then the tournament starts to think, oh, yes, now I remember this is what they're like.

But I think that could work.

That's a really interesting point, I think, that goes to the heart of what England managers have always struggled with.

In that,

who would do that for England and how confident would you be that it would work?

Because, I mean, Jack Grealish, for example,

his game has really narrowed at City to he's this efficient kind of possession-holding winger.

But really, really,

he should have developed into a central midfielder.

He should have done.

That's what should have happened.

City, you're always bringing bringing more to players positionally.

You end up playing, you know, Bernardo Silva's played every position on the pitch because he's super intelligent.

What's happened with Grealish is he just didn't have, he hasn't had the ability to do that.

English players aren't as tactically aware, flexible or intelligent, even coming through these academies, which are supposedly supposed to give them this, as someone like Griezmann, who you think could sort of play anywhere because he really understands the game.

I think it's one of the reasons that there are no

English managers.

I mean, there just aren't.

Southgate gets a lot of stick, but he is the best English football manager.

Who else is there?

There's Eddie Howe, I suppose.

He might be similar or have his own flaws, but we don't produce that kind of flexibility and that ability.

What's the English style?

I don't know.

They tried to invent something,

the DNA blueprint, which was a bit based on sort of Catalan Dutch football.

There isn't an English style.

So Southgate has to invent tactics.

The players have to invent new ways.

It's a lot.

We're asking a lot.

It doesn't feel so weird for Griezmann to do that to me or such a stretch.

But it feels like a stretch to ask an English player to play an entirely new position at a tournament.

And I don't think that's Garrett Southgate's fault.

I think that's the culture of English football that has always been there.

That's a really interesting point, isn't it?

When Griezmann went and sat there, I was like, well, that's just fine.

But if I think if I saw Bellingham or Foden trying to do it, I was like, this is entirely wrong.

Maybe that's just how invested you are in each separate side.

Lars, you were ready to come in.

Well, yeah, I kind of find this Bellingham discussion kind of funny because it's a fairly recent thing that he's much more attacking.

I mean, he was much more like a complete number eight for Dortmund.

So moving him into that position shouldn't really be a stretch at all.

It's just a change over this season.

He was kind of retooled at Real Madrid because they have some gaps Dev needed filling further up the field.

And he was surprisingly good at that.

We were always talking about him and seeing him at Dortmund as more of a complete central midfielder.

So

you could say that you're wasting him a little bit by pulling him deeper onto the field.

But if you have no one else who could do it, it makes perfect sense because you have a ton of good attacking guys.

So

I can definitely, I'm totally here for the Reising and Bellingham axis in the middle for sure.

Can I ask you a question, Lars?

You might know this.

I was listening to a podcast the other day where there was a Spanish journalist who said one of the issues, one of the reasons Anchilotti played Bellingham.

This is news to me.

I have no idea if this is just true or pulled out of the air.

One of the reasons Ancelotti played Bellingham in that forward space.

Obviously, they don't have someone to play there.

That was the one reason.

But also, there's a concern with his stamina that he struggled to play central midfield for 90 minutes, getting up and down the pitch.

Is that true?

That certainly wasn't the case in Germany.

That doesn't scan at all with, I think he gets around the field very well.

I thought that was much more a case of them, like you said, lacking oomph up front and having a ton of of good central midfielders.

So they just kind of retooled it a little bit.

He's actually a really good finisher, isn't he?

He's great in the box.

Which was a surprise because that's something we hadn't seen at Dortmund when he was there, really.

And then he came to Real Madrid, was moved up and scored with like every shot for the first couple of weeks.

So no, I

think, listen, South Kate's going to get criticized no matter what he does, unless England win the Euros, in case he will also somehow get criticized, right?

So if you move him deeper, he's going to get sticked for wasting Bellingham.

But I think

if it's that, or playing the very promising but inexperienced Kobe Mayno, or the equally inexperienced Adam Morton at this level next to Rice, I think that makes much more sense, really.

And then you have an extra spot for the, but I feel like we are almost like getting stuck in the weeds a little bit.

I guess this is what we do with England.

I think tournament football is kind of a lot simpler.

It's kind of, it tends to be won by the teams that mess up the least.

And

you get yourself into these quarterfinals and these semifinals, and then you need a defense that doesn't catastrophically mess up, and you need some individual difference makers up front.

And I think with England, I think there's really no doubt that you have those difference makers.

You know, Harry Keynes is scoring a lot of goals.

Foden, Foden scored was 19% in the league.

Like he's had, he's coming off a great season.

You clearly have guys who can do things up front.

I would just drill back down

to whether you have a defense that cannot mess up in these pivotal games.

And that would be my concern right now.

And I find myself in the very, very deeply odd position of like Barney.

Do we almost miss Harry Maguire a little bit?

Like maybe not the player he was the last 18 months, but the player he was for England before that, certainly.

There's no equivalent sort of commanding presence at the back there.

I don't think I was, I didn't think I was ever going to say that out loud.

But I look at the squad and I do almost miss Harry Maguire, which is a very strange position to find yourself in.

Barry, does this sort of general level of conversation of sort of optimism, but some realism here make you feel slightly more comfortable about England's chances?

Like Barney says, I think they're one of four or five teams with a standout chance to win in this tournament.

And

I can't think of an England team in the 40-odd years I've been sort of seriously interested in football that has had this much attacking talent, the front six.

And now that just might be recency bias, but I genuinely can't.

But I do see obvious flaws that maybe teams like France and

or squads like France and Portugal don't have.

I would have concerns over Jordan Pickford.

The fact there's no obvious left back and they're taking this gamble on Luke Shaw would be a source of concern.

Yeah, Harry Maguire missing.

I think he'll be a big loss.

And I think the fact that he's injured has cost probably cost Jared Brantwaite a place in the squad because Gareth Southgate didn't want to risk taking someone so inexperienced without, if Maguire wasn't there, then there's obviously been loads of debate over the squad.

Who's in, who's out?

Was Jack Grealish hard done by?

Was Madders hard done by?

But the fact of the matter is, you can only take 26 players.

Quite a few of them won't see any game time or very little.

And

I noticed with interest, actually, I think Didier Deschamp only named 25 players in his squad.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Which I thought, you know, if Southgate did that, there'd be absolute uproar.

You know,

people would lose their minds.

It's incredible arrogance, isn't it?

Arrogance.

Yeah.

But it just, all this debate shows how deep the talent pool is in England and how many good players England have.

But yeah, there are noticeable

areas of concern.

But, you know, teams with

average players.

I'm not saying Jordan Pickford is bang average or Kieran Tripier left back as bang average, but teams have done well in the Euros before without half as many superstars that are in this team.

There is one thing that Southgate's done that I quite like and I think it's worth fighting up: is that he has

been prepared to kill some darlings there.

You know, he has been ready to, okay, Harry Maguire, you've had a bad season.

You're not very fit.

We're going to do something different.

And moving forward, like experienced guys who have been part of so many of his squads, and he has been very loyal to his guys over the years.

Like, guys like Rashford and Sterling and Grealish have been cut.

And you've got Jared Bowen and Eber Esse and Anthony Gordon in there.

And I quite,

I mean, me subjectively would perhaps prefer to have Grealish over a few of those guys in there.

But the point is more, this is overwhelmingly likely to be Southgate's last tournament with England, right?

I mean, that's...

It's pretty much decided.

And I like the fact that he seems to be kind of going a little bit YOLO here.

He's just kind of, I'm going out on my own terms.

Like, I'm picking the guys who are informed, the things I like.

He seems to have had very little regard to public reaction and to what individuals might think for the future, all this sort of stuff.

He seems to have just gone, no, these are the guys informed.

These are the guys I like in training.

These are the guys I'm going to pick.

And I think if you're going to go out, at least that's a good way to go out.

I just wish you had the option of doing that in every position, that you still have to have a half-injured shaw there because there's just no one else.

And there are some issues there, but I like the vibe of those decisions.

Do you like the fact that he's taken, I mean, he's taken his cue from the NFL when you have to shoot at goal, you have a specialist kicker coming in.

He's got Ivan Toney in.

And I really can't understand that.

Dominique Solanke has had an absolutely phenomenal season with Bournemouth.

And just not the numbers, but his play has been phenomenal.

He's a world champion with England.

He's much more, his style of play is very similar to Harry Keynes.

I think he drops deep.

He

allows runners to go through.

Yeah, and it's strong in the air.

And I mean, he's got many qualities, wonderful finisher.

I mean, full of confidence at the moment.

Sorry, I keep on going about Dominique Selenki.

I just can't understand.

I can't understand.

The other thing, though, you know, when you talk about the possible weaknesses in the English backline,

Those weaknesses are not necessarily the individuals.

Because, for example, Mark Gee, I really rate him and I've rated him for a very long time.

I think think he's absolutely a wonderful central defender.

The problem is more as a unit, it's very likely that the back five that will be against Serbia, and by the way, careful about Serbia,

we'll get to that,

might be a back five that has never played together.

And

that is a problem because

Having a unit which has experience of playing together where the positioning comes naturally and so forth is much more important than perhaps the specific qualities of individuals who will all be anyway excellent footballers.

To be at that level, you've got to be an excellent footballer.

That's what worries me a little bit, I have to say, for England.

Can I ask Barney about the difference makers?

Because

you have Kane playing and we presume Saka and Foden start.

And then you have, you know...

Palmer who's had this amazing season, Eze's had this amazing season, Anthony Gordon as well, and Jared Bowen.

Like two of those will probably get no minutes or get like three minutes.

And Southgate almost has to decide who are my go-to guys.

How does he do that?

Or what would you do?

They have different qualities, those people you listed.

You know, Jared Bowen's not the same as

Cole Palmer.

I think he will start with

Foden and Saka,

which I think has been the way he started the last two tournaments as well.

And, you know, he plays this 4-2-3-1 now, which is Bellingham playing as a number 10.

So I guess he'll stick with that.

And then, if you think about it, you've then got Palmer and Eze as your most obvious go-to replacements, who are both interesting because

there's this sub-dialogue about tactics now, where we talk about positionism and relationism.

The idea of players that really stick.

very strongly to a role, you know, Pep Guardiola pointing a spot and telling Raheem Sterling to stand there.

And players who are a bit more creative and try to make up their combinations on the spot are given freedom.

And the way Real Madrid's players are allowed to basically invent the way they want to play in specific attacks.

They're trusted to do that.

And I would say both Eze and Palmer are those kind of players.

They're players who will come in and play

where there's a broken game.

They're really good at picking up parts and just inventing how to play off the cuff.

So they're really interesting replacements replacements to have coming in, but they offer something different to, say, Bowen, who's a really hard-running player who scores goals by getting in the centre as a kind of, he'd be quite good as an auxiliary number nine.

So they are different.

And you're either going to play against teams who are worse than you, who sit deep, or teams who are as good as you, who might have the ball for 55% of the time.

So I think that there is real variation there.

I agree with Lars that I think in the end, Anthony Gordon has come in for Grealish.

And

he's a good player, but

I don't think he quite offers as much.

He offers speed.

I think that decision was made because England don't have a great deal of pace outside Saka and Bowen.

And that's been a Southgate thing.

They miss Reham Sterling in that sense, in that he didn't just have pace, but he was constantly moving.

So I think that's what got Gordon in the team.

But I don't know about him playing on the left, whether that really offers you a massive difference-making thing.

And just on that subject, the players that you mentioned who are really good-Bellingham, Foden, and also Saka-are gonna have to do something slightly different.

They don't have brilliant England records and not brilliant recent England records.

These are guys with three goals in 30 games, and Foden hasn't got an assist for England since the last tournament.

Like, they're brilliant and they can just click, but it's not like you're going in as a perfectly grooved machine.

I don't think it's as you look at them and go, He's good, he had a good season.

It's um, for England, it hasn't really worked.

Saka's got 11 goals, eight of those came against san marino uh north macedonia and andorra like not against really good teams so they do have it's only kane who just keeps on ticking along doing it every single time uh there is a need to throw a lightning bolt through this and for it to actually do something different uh to what they've done in the past and i also just to yes and that

It feels like a huge tournament for Bellingham because he's very young, but if you look at Foden, he's used to having Kevin De Bruyne and to an extent Bernardo Silva around him as more of conductor types.

Whereas Foden is technically unbelievable, but he is one of those players who kind of does everything at 100 miles an hour and is much more of a direct thrusting sort of player than someone who pulls the strings and sets the tempo.

Which is one of the reasons I think Guardiola doesn't love playing him centrally.

He rather has him doing damage from out wide.

Whereas, of course, Saka's used to having Maften Edego playing incredible little passes to him.

Now, who's going to be the Muften Edego Kevin De Bruyne figure in this attack for these guys to feed off of?

I guess the only answer will be Bellingham.

It's likely to be that.

And is that entirely the role Bellingham has been playing?

Kind of not.

Now I'm of the,

I'm a big sort of, I'm a member of the church of Bellingham.

I believe he can do almost anything, but it is a slightly different role that he's going to be asked to take up.

So I'd be very intrigued to see how that works.

And it's a huge amount of expectation and burden to put on what is still a very young man.

Can I ask the

who are you having alongside rice and bellingham i i would like to see trent alexander arnold there because i think england in the group games at least will be playing against teams that'll be sitting very deep and hard to break down and he could play his his little quarterback passes but it's unlikely to happen

who who would you guys have i i would love adam wharton As a as it feels like the most, I know that the experience thing is absolutely huge and like the jump from Blackburn to Palace to this is ridiculous.

And maybe it's just total recency bias, but I feel he is the guy that means Rice could play a more natural game.

That is just, and then you've got more players playing the more natural game, but

I'll defer to others with more knowledge.

I mean,

it's, I think, yeah, we are, like Lars pointed out, we're getting a bit stuck in the weeds here.

But I think it's the key question.

I personally think that knockout games in big competitions tend to be decided by who's got the best midfield because around about 60 70 minutes that team tends to take control that's what's happened to england going back to the nations league world cup and euros basically their midfield has not been able to assert itself against luca moderic frankie de jong and its league's midfield which was just a bit better than England's on the ball.

So I think it's really important if you want to win those games.

And

the only deep English midfielder currently playing in the Premier League who genuinely plays that position position is Lewis Cook of Bournemouth.

There is no other player.

I'm not saying you have to pick him, but he's not bad.

He did play coming up through the levels.

It's his role.

He literally sits between the centre-backs there at times.

And he's really improved under the new manager.

I'm not saying this is what should have happened.

But if you had done that, you could have had Bellingham and Rice ahead of him as sort of twin number eights, which I think is really exciting.

Because one thing about this England team against Iceland, not very physical, which is unusual.

They're not very strong.

That's something something Bellingham's going to have to give them.

Like, Southgate system does assume that you're going to be physically powerful.

And imagine those two given freedom to defend, but also attack with a Lewis Cook-style player behind them.

That would be a nice midfield.

But there isn't anyone to do this.

And, you know, there was a lot of stuff about Kobi Maynu playing there against Iceland and about the fact that the parts of the team just seemed slightly too far apart and it wasn't but that's because those two guys have never played together because Maynu's a young guy learning the position, because Rice wasn't didn't have a great game, he wasn't totally sure of what he was meant to be doing, and because they've not done it before.

Um, and I don't think it's really Mainew's ideal position.

England looked like Man United in that game, they look like a team that's going to be counter-attacked all the time for the same reason.

Um, so I don't think there is any solution that works.

Um, and I think probably it will be Conor Gallagher because uh, the one outstanding super strength he has is he never stops running, He has incredible energy right to the last minute.

And that is the best, probably default option, which allows Rice to carry the ball forward a bit more.

Well, we have a proof that there is an anti-Bournemouth plot.

Yeah.

Maybe a Southgate just doesn't like going to the Vitality Stadium.

He just thinks it's a bit of a...

Well, Lewis Cook actually has a cap.

Yes, Lewis Cook has played for England and played all the levels coming up.

He's a good player with a pedigree, but I think it's come, you know, his season, he didn't have enough time to really show how good he was this season.

Can I, before we finish, England, where uh where do you have them

you know if it was to were you to make a prediction Barry I haven't really tracked their likely course so I don't know who they're like assuming they topped the group which I think they will who are they likely to get in the the knockout oh I wrote this down

it can be anyone it really can be but it's like in the semis like likely to be France in the semis right yeah lose to France in the semis.

I will have an opinion once they've played their first game against Serbia, which I do believe is a super, super dangerous game given the way the two teams will line up.

If they win that, I would say semis.

Okay.

But I'm not absolutely sure that they will win against Serbia.

Oh, God.

The day after is going to be miserable.

Yes, Lars.

So I think looking at the bracket, if they win the group, they've faced a third place finisher in the round of 16, which should be manageable.

But then they will bump into the runner-up from group A or the runner-up from group B in the quarters.

So there's some Spain, Italy.

And yeah, the runner-up from Group B would be Spain, Croatia or Italy.

I don't know, man.

I don't know if I trust.

Yeah.

There's no shortage of talent, but for all the reasons we just discussed, do you fully trust England to get past all those three?

I don't know, man.

Stressful.

Anyway, Barney, thanks so much for coming on and doing that.

We'll do City another time.

You need time to talk about that, don't you?

Yeah, it's also incredibly boring.

Fine, fine, that's cool.

Barney, thanks for coming on.

We'll chat to you during the tournament.

Cheers.

See you, everyone.

Barney Ronnie there.

And part two, we'll do the rest of Group C.

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Max here.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Then, our solo England's opponents are Serbia, Denmark, Slovenia.

Let's start then with Serbia, Philippe, as you've talked about how they are the dark horses.

Dragon Stojovic is their manager.

They were runners-up in 1968.

Last time out, Serbia and Montenegro reached the quarter-finals in 2000.

Is that the last time they were there?

Serbia has qualified for the last three of the last four World Cups since Montenegrin independence.

So, look, why do you think they're so dangerous, Philippe?

I think they will pose problems.

They are a very strange team.

They're not at all the team that we were used to remember with the Guard of Iron or the Iron Guard, you know, the time of Bryce Lavanovic and all that, where their strength was strength at the back, and they were conceding few goals, and they were very physical.

They score lots of goals.

That's one thing.

And when you're facing a team which will have a fairly

defense that will have very little

communal experience experience in the case of England.

And you've got the talent of Lahovic and you've got the presence of Mitrovic,

a front, and when you've got a manager who is quite gung-ho in his choices and won't hesitate for them to have a real go,

you could run into problems.

The prime with Serbia is that I think they were

exemplified in the last World Cup.

You look at them, sometimes they were wonderful going forward.

And they put themselves in super positions, both against Cameroon and against Switzerland.

But every time,

even though they were, I think Lars will probably remember that better than I do, but they were 3-1-up, I believe, against Cameroon, but it was a three-all draw.

And they were two one-up against Switzerland, and they lost 3-2, and they finished last of their group.

But if you play against the Serbia,

that actually can create havoc.

And there are

also some players

who have got, I mean, great imagination.

The little little Samadzic is one that I think many people probably will discover.

I know,

I have the feeling that England being quite cagey, usually in its first opening-run encounters, where everybody will tell you the important thing is not to lose the first game.

I think Serbia is the wrong team to have this kind of attitude against because they are dangerous.

And Mitrovic and Vlahovic will cause problems to Stones and Gehi, no doubt about that.

I was just thinking, Barry, Barry, like, like about 40 minutes ago, I thought, yeah, I think we'll do pretty well here.

Now I've discovered that the England team have never met each other and Serbia are the best football team in the world.

But just to flip that a little bit, if England go out and attack, if they're assertive, if they keep the ball, if they play, they could score two quick goals in the first half and it doesn't even turn into a football game, right?

Because they're better than them.

I just think if they do the let's just sit back and wait and see what happens, what happens could be a ton of crosses on Dmitrovich, which is not what you want.

So

it's a game you have to take seriously and be a little bit brave in, I think.

But it's for sure something to, it's not a walkover by any means.

I'm surprised by the lads' confidence in Serbia, I have to say, because you look at their team, Dusan Tadic is, what, 36 now?

He's a beautiful team.

He is, yeah.

Mitrovic is pushing on as well, and he's been playing in Saudi Arabia.

That could be a factor.

The same for

Sergei Milinkovich Savic, who's been playing playing in Saudi.

We don't know if that will be a factor or not.

It might not be at all.

Maybe it could even benefit them because they've had a more relaxing season.

And there's also

reading about the Serbian sort of the politics of Serbian football,

it reminds me of Ireland and the Football Association of Ireland.

Dragan Stojkiewicz is not popular with the Serbian public.

Namanda Vijic,

who I think earlier this year or late last year was going to run for the presidency of the Serbian Football Federation in a bid to sort of take a new broom.

And he's been fiercely critical of Stojkovic.

He's publicly condemned his methods, his tactics, and the size of his salary, which seems to be absolutely enormous.

Stojkovic basically flipped him the Vs and said, I earned

my money.

And

I think England will

win very comfortably against them.

But I will happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.

Very happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.

Oh, I feel much better now.

What about the Danes?

Managed by Casper Hjulmund.

They won, of course, in 92.

Last time out, they came third, losing in that semi-final to England.

I think it's safe to say now that wasn't a penalty.

It's far enough away.

They're not going to make us go back and retake that.

Of course, last year, I think actually this was the panel, wasn't it?

On that day when Christian Erickson

died for a short amount of time.

And that last, that sort of groundswell of love following that and how well they handled that

is just something that you remember so well.

And

it's weird to say.

I don't know if it helped them get to where they got in this tournament, but how do you see them this time around?

Well, they're a capable team.

They have a pretty solid core there.

They beat Norway in a friendly at the weekend, by the way, but then most teams seem to do that.

You'll have a centre half pairing of, I'd say, I mean, it was Joachim Anderson and Janek Vestigaard against Norway.

Probably Joachim Andersen and Simon Schaer, I would imagine, will be starting.

And then Andreas Kristensen as number six.

So you kind of had three centre halves in a sense there.

And then Pierre Emilhuiberg and

Motten Jürmann, no relation, but those are two sort of very no relation to the coach.

Those are two hardworking, you know, solid central central midfielders.

And you have a good striker in Los Moshellen.

So the spine there is pretty solid.

What I would worry about in terms of Denmark going far in the tournament is that they look a little bit short on creativity.

You know,

they're still looking to Ericsson, who, as we've seen, I think he's a player everyone has a lot of affection for.

You know, he was looking a little bit slow this season for Man United.

Maybe the sort of more languid pace of a summer tournament would suit his skill set more.

But if Ericsson can't make an impact, then Mikhail Damsgord's career and development has really stagnated.

I'm not sure where the sort of chance production is coming from here.

Acknowledging that they scored three against Norway at the weekend, but that was very much us creating

our own nonsense in that game.

So they're a solid team.

They're an unpleasant team to play against.

They changed formation a lot in qualifying.

So there's a bit of tactical flexibility there, I guess.

But they're not a team I would imagine would really trouble the best opponents in this tournament.

But

I think they have a fair chance of getting out of the group,

whether as a second-place finisher or as one of the best number threes.

But I wouldn't have a ton of confidence when they then come up against one of the bigger clubs in the knockouts.

Bigger clubs, bigger nations.

There seems to be a real jobs for the boys vibe about this squad.

And I would like to know, Lars, or if you happen to know, Matt O'Reilly from Celtic wasn't included in the squad

despite scoring 19 goals and providing 18 assists this season.

And Caspar Hulemund, I assumed he was injured, but I checked and he's not injured.

He just wasn't picked.

And it seems Hulemund had a very dismissive opinion of the Scottish Premiership, and that's why he wasn't included in the squad.

Yeah, I mean, we should stress that the midfielder named Huleman is not related to the coach Caspar Ullman.

I mean,

that is, so it's not like like there's not an epitism happening here.

But I think because of what I just mentioned, if Ericsson doesn't fire, there is a lack of forward thrust from that midfield, in my opinion.

O'Reilly, as more of a wild card because he has a good goal scoring record for Celtic.

Yeah, that would have been interesting, but he is not in.

Let's go to Slovenia there, managed by Matej Kek.

Got to the group stages in the year 2000.

Standout players, what Benjamin Sesco, who's, I think, Arsenal, amongst others, are after.

Jan Oblak, who's still only 31.

i mean that is astonishing isn't it

at least 45.

um

where do we see these guys um you said england should be scared of serbia philippe should they be scared of slovenia scared no they shouldn't be scared they should be wary of which is not quite the same thing and one thing they should be wary of is that um the slovenian team uh apart from i think it's believe it's Šzzko isn't it um szeszko my apologies

absolutely fine um

absolutely He finished the season absolutely magnificently with Arby Leipzig.

Quite incredible numbers.

But the thing, it's a team that won't necessarily mind being under the cush for a while and seeing England have a lot of slow possession, which is what type of possession England tends to have.

Oh, yeah.

And because the last time they did that against a top-notch opponent, that was Portugal.

And that was only three months ago.

And they won 2-0.

And they only had like one-third of possession.

They had two shots on goal.

And they scored twice.

And they won 2-0 against Portugal, which normally would be one of the favorites of this Euro.

To be honest, when you look at it on paper, I think most people would say Slovenia would be a candidate for the fourth place, but

they can pull a surprise in

one of those games.

And again, that game against Portugal is the one, it's only a friendly, but it's one that's pointing that they're not necessarily that don't mind not having the ball because they know how to play like that.

There's a very heartwarming story in the Slovenia squad.

Josip Ilcic, who used to play for Atlanta, so he was in Bergamo when the coronavirus hit that place particularly hard, if you recall.

And he, during lockdown, he really got to him and he was suffering from mental health issues and depression.

So he left Atlanta, went back to play for Maribor in Slovenia.

And

this season,

Atlanta were on their way to play Sturm Gratz in the Europa League.

And a busload of their fans made a detour to Maribor's training ground just to say hello to Josa Bilchit.

And he came out and met them.

And it was really emotional.

He was very moved by the fact that taking the trouble to

come and see him.

So he's back in their squad.

I think he's...

probably a fringe player.

He's 36 or 37, but it's a nice little story.

And he is also, I mean, I recommend if you're bored this week, you could busy yourself by looking up the sort of Joseph Ilisic YouTube highlight compilations because he's a player who could do absolutely incredible things.

Now, he's 36 now and playing in Slovenia, so you're probably not expecting a lot from him.

But if he gets some minutes, that's something.

If you're watching Serbia Slovenia and you're wondering, like, what am I doing with my life?

Maybe, like, if Ilisic comes on, you should sit up and take notice.

I kind of echo Philippe, and I'm not going to spend a ton of time because we've got a lot to get through, I guess.

But the goalkeeper is very good, and the striker can do stuff against anyone, right?

And I think it was, I looked this up, I think it was 11 goals in the last 16 in the Bundesliga of the season or something.

Like his springtime form was quite something.

So I guess

if a team has a real match winner in goal and a real match winner up front, you can't write them off entirely, right?

Football's a funny game.

If you've got those two things, you can, but, but everything in between, I'm not excited about.

So they should finish last in the group.

All right, that'll do for part two.

part three.

Uh, we'll do Group D, Poland, Netherlands, Austria, and France.

Hi, pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly uh so group d then let's begin with france uh tidier deschamps uh their manager as he will be for the rest of his life we presume uh they've won this tournament in 84 and in the year 2000 they lost on penalties to Switzerland in the round of 16 last timeout.

Of course, World Cup finalists, Philippe, how are they?

I mean, their squad looks so good.

And you just, you know, when you sort of go, oh, England are favourites, then you look at France, you think, wow,

this is a different level.

Yeah, I mean, though, I would say that if you took the front six, I would still put England ahead of France myself.

But there you go.

But yes, they're impressive.

They've had a very impressive qualification campaign as well.

They have been less impressive against Canada.

I can tell you that.

I wasted a lot of time trying to find a good stream of that game.

Then I wasted 90 minutes after that, because apart from seeing Golocante back

in the French Jersey, which would probably come as a surprise to some people,

there wasn't much to show.

But it's Deschance France, so it will turn up at the right moment.

And it knows how to do that.

It does that without fail.

The only time it didn't happen was against Switzerland, as you mentioned it.

This is not going to happen twice.

The

strength in depth is quite something, but not in all positions.

If there is one weakness, I would say it's the right back position.

where

you could think Genetor close, but it's perhaps a little bit too gung-ho.

So Jules Coondé finds himself positioned there.

And yesterday, in particular, Canada exploited that quite well on a couple of counter-attacks.

So, that's their one weakness.

Apart from that, Paul Pesca Solido getting behind.

Is that what happened?

Yes, that's exactly it.

The thing is that, okay, it's a tournament without Hugo Loriz, it's a tournament without Rafael Varan

and

without Luca Hernandez, either, which is a

quite a big loss.

And there are still doubts about Aurelian Chuameni.

You know, he missed the Champions League final because he had this stress fracture, Metatarsol, which apparently we are all assured he's coming back from and he won't be ready for the Euro, but which explains, by the way, the fact that Golocante has come back because

it's a position in which we don't have as much cover as we would like, even though I think that Eduardo Camavinga could play there as well, as he can play anywhere.

And for the rest,

yeah, I mean, France will win the group.

Next, I'm almost tempted to say next, because what else do you expect?

Well, I had an interesting question about centre-backs.

It looks like William Solibes won't start.

And I think, certainly, for people who watch the Premier League and don't watch the focus

the rest of European football will be very surprised about that.

Yeah, it's crazy because he will go for, if they fit, of course, Conneto, Pamecano.

And

that's the way Descharrell goes.

And he said famously once, because he hardly ever criticizes his own players um but he did in this on this occasion he said um

william salibar does things i i don't like

which is strange thing to say in a press conference i think he plays a bit too much football william salibar

uh but there are some doubts as to the fitness of the players who will be in competition for a place in central defense so it's not impossible you will see him earlier than you think well i wanted to ask flee philippe i mean maybe he it's a hospital pass because he's already just say it's a mystery but it's funny that international football can be like a parallel universe sometime right in the sense that like harry maguire always looked like a much better player for england than he did at club level and all this sort of stuff because you look at upamakano he's been making so many mistakes this season he effectively lost his place in the buyer team to eric dyer towards the end seems seems bad and then and and then yeah he's gonna he's gonna start ahead of salibla for the international level and i know you just said it's just because the champ moves in mysterious ways, but is there any other sense that he's a different player for Franz Super Pomacano?

Is it just one of those things?

I think that it's a question of physical presence, which Deschamps puts at the top of the qualities he requires in the centre-back.

Though I would have thought with Rafael Varan

retiring internationally, William Seliba for me was an obvious, almost like-for-like.

I mean, so-called elegant central defenders who can bring the ball out of defense, have got a superb range of passing, are terrific on the ball.

But no, he just likes the idea of having this incredibly strong, incredibly physical pairing.

And I don't think we should look beyond that.

But again, I think it might surprise you.

Deschant is learning with time to throw a few curveballs at people who are not expecting it, like playing Kamavinga at left back, playing Griezmann in the kind of,

you know,

I mean, yeah, quarterback role, which nobody was really expecting.

So it might be that he finally decides that William Sediba is the kind of player we need.

Perhaps group stage,

I'm wondering, given the type of opposition we're going to meet

against Poland, for example, I'm not sure that he would pick Saliba.

I'm not sure.

Against Austria and Holland, maybe.

But that's a really interesting one to follow.

But he might surprise us.

Barry, are you looking forward to some more Olivier Giroux?

I am.

I was about to comment on the fact.

I don't think we've even mentioned Killing Mbappe, and he's probably the best player in the world.

I presume Mbappe will play.

I mean I

love Olivier Giroux and you know he's he's a brilliant player.

He's a very handsome man and he seems like a very nice man.

Killing Mbappe

we have a remark that he didn't play very often for PSG towards the end of the season because he was in dispute with the club and the manager and whatnot.

That may help him.

I don't expect him to be rusty or anything.

Randall Colomoani hasn't scored too many goals in the limited opportunities he's had for

PSG since I think his last 16 appearances he hasn't scored.

I don't think we mentioned Warren Zair Emery either, who's

seems to be a superstar in the making as well.

I think France will top their group doing handstands, and i would have them among i'm not surprised they are

sort of joint favorites along with england uh who lars who's starting up up front for you and would you presume deschamp will stick with with giroux yeah i mean i'm very much a giroux loyalist but i mean you can make it i mean tiram's had a good season uh and and and offer some more mobile sort of uh counterpoints i suppose but i i think you

you you can probably adjust it a little bit against who you're playing against.

But Giroux, like, I know he's 37, but he's had a very productive season.

He scored 15 goals this season for Milan.

Like, he's still 15 goals and I think eight assists in the league.

So

he started more games than I think in a long time.

So, so Giroux is still doing the things.

And I would prefer to see sexy Olivia Giroux, but I'm aware that there is a case for Tiram to

be up there as well.

But maybe you can adjust it according to opposition a little bit.

Like, if you're expecting to maybe be pushed back a little bit and have some space to run into into run would make more sense.

But against the ones where you'll be knocking on the door, then I think Giroux is the one.

And

Rabio is likely to start.

Yeah, absolutely.

He's one of those people that Deshaun trusts through thick and thin and everything in between.

He will start.

He will start.

Giroux,

I mean, he's quite good at football, Philippe.

But listen, he's with France, he's not the, I have to say, sometimes he's infuriated me, but no, he's not.

He's no.

He's improved, let's put it that way.

Right.

But Giroux, unfortunately, I don't think will start many games.

It's possible

it's possible he starts one of the group games.

Possible.

But otherwise, you know, when you see, I mean, Musman Dembele will start on the right.

There's absolutely no doubt about it.

The reason why Bappé was on the bench last night up until the 70th minute was only just to give him a rest.

That was it.

And by the way, when he came on, he looked much sharper in those 20 minutes than he's looked in the last few weeks with Paris Argerma if you see what I mean.

Let's talk about the Netherlands managed by Ronald Kuhman.

They won it of course in 88.

Last time out they lost in the round of 16 to the Czech Republic.

In the World Cup of course they had that feisty game with Argentina and lost on penalties.

Barry where do you where do you see the Netherlands?

I don't know.

I'd have them just below the sort of top tier of four or five teams that I think can win.

But you look at the squad, they've got a preponderance of centre-backs: Big Virgil, Nathan Ake, Matthias de Lick, Mickey Van de Ven, who I believe might play as a left back or a wing back.

Ian Mattson wasn't picked.

Stefan DeVries is in there.

Daily Blind is still knocking around.

Questions over Frankie de Jong's fitness, but I think he'll be okay.

Curiously, I've read...

Three or four sort of

Euros previews about

the Dutch squad, and I don't think Zavi Simmons was mentioned in any of them.

I love this guy, he's fantastic.

And

I think the first comment under the Guardian guide to the Netherlands was, Why did there isn't a single mention of Zavi Simmons in this piece?

Why not?

He's a superstar in the making.

I've already said that about one of the French players, but I think my entire uh love for him was just when he was at PSV,

him and uh Cody Gatpo absolutely tore Arsenal apart in the

Champions League of Europa League last season.

And from then it was like, whoa, one of those really eye-catching performances that made me sort of take an interest.

And

he's at RB Leipzig now.

I think he'll be a very important player for them.

And I love watching him.

But again, it's the Dutch.

It's Ronald Kuhman's first tournament in charge.

There's always the potential for a meltdown, and he's not adverse to criticising players publicly, is he?

So it could be fun in games in the Dutch camp.

Well, Simos has never really established himself as like the guy for the national team.

And when he's played, his output hasn't been for them the same as it's been for the club levels.

I completely agree with Barry.

He's a great player and a star in the making, but he hasn't really

become the guy for the national team.

So

he might play less than you'd expect.

The back line could potentially be tremendous.

As Barry mentioned, there's so many good center halves, and they've got some attack, good attacking wing backs on the right-hand side.

Dumfries has usually been preferred, but of course, Frimpong has been incredible for Leverkusen.

Maybe you use Frimpong as like a right-winger more.

Like, I don't know.

You want to use both of them.

Daly Blinn is still knocking around.

Could be playing left-wing back.

That'd be something, but that is a slightly more conservative option on the other side.

But

I'm wondering more like what the mix is in midfield.

Frankie De Jong has had an injury, but is expected to be back and be playing.

But who plays next to him?

Is it like old man Vine Eldum, who's been off in Saudi?

Maybe not.

Gravenberg has been sort of on and off for Liverpool.

I don't know.

I mean, I like Cope miners a lot from Atalanta.

He would make sense.

And up front, you've got some decent players, but you don't have an outstanding number nine.

Listen, there's quality on here.

Isn't Vout Veghost there?

Yeah, exactly right.

Unleash the Vout.

No, but I think it's one of those where there is a good team in this squad, but it's going to take some good work from the coach to find it.

It's not immediately obvious who your strongest 11 is.

It's not immediately obvious how it all fits together.

So

how much are we betting that Ronald Coleman is the guy to find the great team that's lurking in this group of players?

I'm not betting a lot on that, I have to say.

I'm not a huge Coleman fan.

I would add also that they've got...

for me a guy who's going to be one of the best goalkeepers in Europe, Bardva Bruggen.

And

he's still very young and inexperienced, but this guy has got tremendous talent.

I mean, that back five or back six, depending, or back four,

looks very, very, very strong indeed.

Let's talk about Austria, managed by Ralph Ranyick.

Got to the round of 16 in 2020, losing to Italy.

Henry says, would be interested to know who you guys have as a dark horse.

You can't have Denmark, Turkey, or Hungary.

Is it Austria?

Is it Austria, Barry?

Not for me.

I think they will surprise a lot of people, but I think they might struggle.

I would expect them to come third in this group.

They're quite an interesting team insofar as not many international teams have a fierce pressing game, and they do under Alf Renyak, who my main knowledge of him is from his time at Manchester United, and I thought he was just a clown.

but you know he's clearly not and he he apart from

his spell there he obviously has has achieved a lot.

Under him, they've beaten Croatia, they've beaten Italy, they've beaten Germany, they've beaten Turkey, and he's turned them into a very exciting team.

And they have, you know, in Sabitzer, Leimer, Marko Nautowicz still there, Christoph Baumgartner,

Patrick Wimmers, one to watch.

uh the Wolfsberg winger and uh

yeah maybe they are dark horses I wouldn't expect a huge amount from them I they might go through as third place finishers but I'm looking forward to seeing them yeah it's interesting Lars isn't it I think you were mentioning to us on the radio that you know Ranyuk you know has that sort of red ball background a lot of these players do as well so in terms of trying to find a club feel within an international team they might have that Yeah, because he was kind of the philosophical architect of the whole sort of fizzy drink footballing empire, the sort of high-pressing style

and all of that.

He's considered by some as like the grandfather of the sort of modern German pressing game.

So you've got a bunch of players in the squad who've gone through the Red Bull system in some capacity.

So they'll be to some extent indoctrinated with his sort of views on how to press and how that should be done.

So when they go and play under him, they already know that.

And the players who haven't been through the Red Bull system, a lot of them have played like for coaches who've worked under Ragnik or with Randnik directly inspired by him in the Bundesliga.

So the difference, of course, from the Man United days is that he found a squad that were maybe not entirely keen on running quite as much as he wanted them to do.

That seemed not to work very well for them.

Whereas at Austria, you have a group of players who know exactly what's required of them.

David Alaba is a huge loss, of course,

in every way.

Supposedly he's coming along as a non-playing captain, like he's the Vibes man.

And I question where the goals are coming from.

You know, it's the old adage that, you know, a good counter-pressing situation is the best playmaker in the world.

And that's maybe so, but I also do kind of like having good playmakers in the team and having like good strikers.

And I'm not sure Austria have that.

But I would expect them to be, I would expect them to get out of the group in some capacity.

I wouldn't be surprised if they made life difficult for the Dutch because...

Like I said, there's a good team in there, but I'm not sure Ronald Cohen will find it.

And they're not necessarily going to be a nice team to play against.

Reinich has said that the goal is for them to be the most difficult team to create chances against at the tournament.

That's a very lofty goal.

I'm not sure there'll be that, but they'll certainly be unpleasant to play against, I'm expecting.

Austria have been very unlucky with injuries.

I think there are four different players out with cruciate

injuries,

including Tladzic, that fellow we've all forgotten about, who's still at Wolves.

Oh, yeah.

Poland, managed by Michael Probiez, got to the quarterfinals in 2016.

Last time out, they only managed a point in their group, which contains Spain, Sweden, and Slovakia.

Barry, what are your feelings on Poland?

My feelings are that Camel Glick

has retired and will be missed.

I always liked his name.

Camel Glick.

No Matty Cash in the squad.

I'm not sure if that's injury related or it just wasn't picked.

It is injured, yes.

Is he injured?

Looks maybe like another expendables job.

Shesny still there robert lundowski isn't the player he was they have uh jan bednarek obviously uh football weekly favorite uh will be there it's a really difficult group they're in

and

poland i never expect anything from poland i'll be honest i don't think i've ever expected poland to do anything in a tournament

maybe expecting not any expecting anything is exactly what you should expect from poland uh lars a final thought before we wrap up this preview.

Well, they keep getting.

I mean, I, as a Norwegian, can't, I'm not in a position to be dismissive of Poland really because they keep getting to tournaments, which we don't, but they also keep not doing anything when they get there, which is like, well, they get there and then they kind of stink up the place and then they go home.

And in this case, they didn't qualify.

They had to go through the Nations League playoffs.

But the qualifying group was like the Czech Republic, Albania, Moldova, and the Faroe Islands.

Like, if you're not getting out of that group, I'm not super optimistic on your behalf.

So, I mean, I know it's a a little bit sort of

a little bit reductive to say it's Robert Lewandowski plus 10, but it kind of is.

And I'm not, yeah, I'm not excited about watching them at all.

It seems slow, not a lot of pace or excitement in this team.

I think they'll go out.

And yeah, I mean, I would agree with that sentiment.

The other thing as well is that if you look at the squad, there's a number of these players.

Either it's their last tournament, basically.

And the problem is that you can't really see anybody coming from the younger generation being able to

be streamed into the current team without creating problems.

So it looks to me the weakest team in the group by some distance.

And it might, this being said, there might be an aesthetic dimension to my judgment because I really don't like watching them play.

They are so boring.

Honestly,

it's unbelievable.

I apologize to all our Polish friends, friends, but my goodness, they might surprise us.

You never know.

Anyway,

on that note, we'll leave it for today.

Thanks, Barry.

Thank you, Max.

Thanks, Philippe.

Thank you.

Cheers, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Groups ENF Tomorrow.

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Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

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