Olympiakos make history, while Wembley awaits for Dortmund and Real Madrid: Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Olympiarcos become the first Greek team to win a European trophy apart from Greece.

That is a late winner an extra time after 115 minutes of relative bleakness in Athens.

A classic of the they won't care about anything but the result genre.

Agony for Fiorentina, their second defeat in a row this competition.

After that, all eyes on Wembley for the Champions League final.

How did Borussia Dortmund spring a surprise against Real Madrid, who haven't lost a European Cup final since 1981?

We're expecting Mareska to Chelsea, confirmation later.

Big Sir Jim's five-point plan, Gerard Piquet's seven aside.

Baz has more trials and tribulations of the FAI.

There's another medical procedure to add to the tally.

Your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Mark Langdon from the Racing Post.

Welcome.

Hi, Max.

Hello, Johnny Lou.

Hello.

Good morning, Barry Glendenning.

Good morning.

And joining us for part one, Stephen Conturu from the Hellas Football Podcast, an Olympiakos fan.

Stephen, how are you?

Oh, Max, I am...

On top of the world.

Quite frankly, yeah, amazing night last night for Olympiagos.

And I still can't quite believe it I still cannot believe that we are the first senior men's Greek side to win a major European trophy it just yeah I had to take a minute once I got home I just stood outside for like five minutes just looked up at the sky and was like wow we did it we did it yeah that's beautiful and and um i mean the game was garbage stephen we've got to be honest um but do you care do you remotely care not one bit i mean it's weird because i'm coming at this from a very partisan place obviously i'm I'm sure people can't really see, but I'm wearing an Olipyagos shirt right now, obviously,

and I will probably wear every single shirt I have for the next week or so.

But I just went into this game,

the nerves that I had going into this, my stomach was absolutely churning all day.

And then when the goal was scored late on in extra time, it's like the whole

weight that I felt for the last day just absolutely lifted and it was and I and especially when we lifted the trophy afterwards it felt like reality really set in and ironically i got a headache after that so it was yeah the game itself was was wasn't great i guess from a neutral perspective there were chances from both sides it's from either in either half and then it's certainly in extra time i felt like we had libiagos had the edge overall in in in in extra time and you know it felt like it was slowly coming and and it it came through El Cabi, who's the top scorer in all European competitions and has beat Cristiano Ronaldo's goal scoring record in Europe as well.

So we've heard it here first.

Ayyubel Kabi is better than Cristiano Ronaldo.

Maybe it's too soon to say, Stephen, but what does this mean for Mpiakos?

And what does it mean for Greek football?

I was trying to work out if AEK and Panthaniakos and Pauk fans, et cetera, would be supporting Olympiakos.

So I guess what it means for Greek football is it's the first senior men's team to win a major tournament.

And I think, obviously, I'm more than happy that everyone is saying it's the first Greek side to ever win a European Cup.

And it's technically not true because only a couple of months ago, Oli Biagos's under-19s won the UEFA Youth League.

And so a lot of credit has to go to them because they officially, well, UEFA said it, so it must count.

They are the first Greek side to win a major tournament.

But Olib Byagos being the first Union Men's side is massive for Greek football because,

you know, I won't sit here and say Oli Biagos is, you know, barren of success because they have won so many league titles more than any other Greek side.

All the Greek sides who have ever won a league title combined,

47 and 28 Greek cups, among a host of other major honours.

But I think that it just takes that the club up to another level because no, you know, like I said, no, no senior men's team has ever done it before.

Only Banathan Ayagos before us got to the European Cup final in 1971, lost to Ajax, and that was that was it.

And I guess to go to the rivalries, you know,

it was even that much sweeter that we did it in igathens new iasophia stadium because they you know state of the art most modern ground in greece newly built and we we go there and win our the biggest trophy we've ever run won in our history in our 100 year history next year that is uh in their ground and and i i i've on social media certainly i've seen a lot of ike fans and banathan igos fans supporting us because it for Greek football is massive.

It's massive for the Greek coefficient as well.

And that's, I guess, the positive of the Conference League that maybe a lot of people in this country wouldn't see is that Greek football really needed the Conference League because we were at risk of falling out of

the top 20 in the UEFA coefficient, which would be hugely damning for how many European places we got and how early we'd have to start our seasons in the qualifiers.

Whereas now we've jumped from 20th to 14th, which means that there's now two Champions League qualifying places for 2025-26.

And Barry, I guess this is the point of the competition, right?

It's for teams that don't win European trophies to win European trophies.

I think we all scoffed when the UEFA announced this new competition in 2019 as yet another

sort of money-making scam, but it seems to be a rare thing from UEFA in that it's a really, it's turned out to be a really good idea.

It

gives teams, as you say, who probably don't have a great chance of winning the Europa League or any chance of winning the Champions League, get their hands on silverware.

So far, we've had Roma win, West Ham win now Olympiakos.

West Ham ended a long trophy drought.

I would imagine Newcastle fans all had their BDI on next year's competition as a potential chance to end their trophy drought

until Manchester United

shatt all over them by winning the FA Cup and now they're not in it.

And

it also gives you know teams I have literally never heard of an opportunity to play in Europe and to get a big, what for them is a big payday.

I think if you're in the group stages, you're guaranteed 2.5 million quid.

So for some team I've never heard of from Iceland or for the Faroe Islands, that's quite the lottery win, isn't it?

Yeah, Sid Lowe tweeted

for the first 29 years of his coaching career, Mendeleebaugh had not taken charge of a single European game.

In the last year, he's won two European trophies.

Mark, a word on him.

Yeah, I mean, very much, I think, seen as a journeyman in Spanish football, would be

coaching smaller teams, often ones that were at the wrong end of the table.

Got his opportunity with Sevilla, really, to kind of work at a higher level

last season when they were going through a terrible time.

And he was brought in as a firefighter, really.

And obviously, it was Sevilla, it was the Europa League.

So it probably didn't matter who the coach was.

They were always going to win it.

It's just kind of how they do it.

But he managed to turn that team around.

And then he was sacked pretty early on because

in terms of this season, because he wasn't seen as good enough, really, for a club the size of Sevilla.

And they've ended up having another nightmare campaign.

Olympia Icos went for a couple of coaches.

ended up

with him again and I really enjoyed watching Olympia Icos' his football particularly in the semi-final.

I think it'd be fair to say that most people in Britain hadn't watched many of Olympia Icos' games this season until that game against Villa.

And most people probably assumed that Aston Villa would beat them.

And it was a real eye-opener because Olympia Icos played.

fantastically well in both games, counter-attacking, you know, and looked devastating on the break.

And then in the final, I thought it was a very tight game against Turantina, but it definitely an extra time Olympia Icos with the side pushing and I did enjoy sort of seeing some players that I'd completely forgotten about sort of turning up for Olympia Icos.

Retsos the centre-back, I remember when he went to Bay Levikus and he was seen as a really big signing for them and somebody that could be a typical Levikus in signing in terms they develop him and just sell him on to somebody sort of bigger and better in the future.

And it never worked out for him.

He ended up at a few different places.

I think, was it Sheffield United as well?

He ended up in England somewhere.

And

the fellow defender, Carmo, was a big money signing for Porto from Braga.

It didn't work out for him, and he's ended up at Olympia Icos.

So I think it is a great story, but just you just wonder if Chelsea might ruin this

Europa Conference League,

I suppose, fairy tale at the moment, because it has had three great stories with Roma, West Ham, and Olympia Icos.

Chelsea probably wouldn't put this at the top of their sort of trophy cabinet if they do go on to win it next season.

But, you know, hopefully it's not a walkover for them.

I mean, given how Chelsea did this year,

there's every chance it won't be.

Craig says, with hindsight, what would you rather have been doing than watch this dire Europa Conference League final?

Michael says, are we sure this isn't one of those post-season friendlies?

There's something, Johnny, interesting about finals where you can just see the stress.

Like the first 20 minutes were sort of quite a good game, and then it was just, oh, I don't want to be the guy that mucks up in this.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, because

we don't have much of a personal stake in this, you know, most of us in the UK, I think we're watching it for slightly different reasons.

But, you know, you could see, is there any, you see like the celebrations and like the sheer kind of release of emotion?

Is there any better way to win anything than you know, at the home of your rivals, you know, a European trophy, like after a really, really shit game, like in extra time.

Um,

I'm not sure there is like your first ever trophy.

It's, I think

one of the big questions for the conference league was: was it going to give teams outside of the major footballing countries?

Was it basically just going to be a second chance for teams that are seventh or eighth in the in the big leagues

to pick up something?

And obviously, the first two years, you know, you had

Roma and Fiorentina reaching the final and then West Ham.

And so it felt a little bit like a second chance competition.

And Olympia Arcos winning, I think, really changes the dynamic because it has been,

you know, I don't want to use the term, but like the nations beyond the elite, the nations outside the elite who have taken this competition most to heart.

I like Final when they reached the first final, they absolutely totally got into it like it was their, you know, it was like their Champions League because they're not going to have a run in the Champions League anymore.

And I think, you know, it's an interesting point about Chelsea next season because the prize money for this, while it's transformative for a lot of the smaller clubs, for Chelsea, it's not at all.

And

I think the winners get them like 5 million Euros.

And the question is whether Chelsea can actually afford

to host it.

Opening Stamford Bridge for what is not going to be capacity stadiums against teams that are not going to draw the punters in.

There is a case for them maybe playing it at Kingsmeadow because...

it's actually going to be a loss-making enterprise for them, especially when you factor in all the travel and

things like that.

we had to sell Connor Gallagher because we're in the Europa Conference League.

That's what I'm saying.

They didn't want to be in it.

Yeah, and that's actually interesting, Stephen, about Olympia Cross.

And sort of, I see this from a lot in Australia, right?

When anyone asks me, do you watch the A-League League?

How good is it?

Is it League One?

Is it the Championship?

And I don't know if you constantly have these conversations about how good Greek football is and sort of making blithe comparisons to the Premier League, which are ultimately pointless.

But I think, especially at semi-final, they surprised everyone in the UK, that's for sure.

I think, as Greek football fans, we're under no impression of the quality of Greek football.

But we at Hell S Football have a saying about Greek football.

It's the gift that keeps on giving because it doesn't matter what you're going to get.

There could be something amazing that happens, like this.

That happened last night for Olip Biagos, or when you get like an incredible derby match, or when an amazing manager or an amazing player comes to a big club like Marcelo did last season, and the entire kind of area of Berea and Athens celebrated that this legendary legendary player had just decided to come to Olibiagos.

He was pretty bad, to be fair, left after like seven months, but still.

But then you have the other side of it where anything ridiculous can happen.

Like, obviously, you know, Ivan Savidis running onto the pitch with a gun and a holster, or people fighting after a game, or, you know, it just, it's so crazy.

So, as someone who doesn't have a horse in the race in the Premier League and obviously loves the Premier League, there's just such a unique passion for

Greek fans about their sport.

And I think going to the Conference League, it makes the world of difference for us to have a competition that we can compete in.

Because, you know, Olibiagos,

the club strives to compete in the best tournaments for the best trophies.

And obviously, in an ideal world, the Champions League is what Olibiagos wants to compete in.

The Conference League has now given Greek football the opportunity to grow and progress.

And if more Greek clubs can qualify for these tournaments, it can get more points onto the coefficient.

It can get them higher up the rankings.

It raises the quality, raises the level of Greek teams.

And then therefore, later down the line, maybe we can compete in the Europa League.

Maybe...

Maybe one day in like 100 years' time, we can compete in the Champions League again.

It's been a long time since a Greek club has done that.

And it was actually Olip Jagos 10 years ago who last reached the Champions League round of 16.

No Greek team has done that since.

Some Forest fans aren't totally sure about Evangelos Maranakis.

I mean, presumably, you know, he was right in the middle of that huddle when they lifted the trophy.

I mean, obviously, today is probably you're not going to get an objective answer from Olympia Argos about how you feel about this owner, but is he universally loved by your fans?

It's complicated with Marianakis.

Oh, yes, it is.

That is a very complicated.

Oh, yeah, it's never simple.

It's never simple with Evangelos Marinakis.

But what I will say about him, he definitely, I mean,

it kind of comes and goes with Olympia Agos fans because, you know, we have had a very turgid couple of years where the administration has kind of been all over the place.

We've had eight managers in two seasons, which is ridiculous, like 50 players in and out.

And that's all sporting collectors as well.

Yes, literally.

It's almost like they're owned by the same person.

And so there has been a bit of frustration with Marinaki from a minority of supporters because they feel like there's the accusation that his focus has changed to Nottingham Forest because obviously Forest in the Premier League now, there's a lot more revenue in the Premier League.

There's a lot more profile to have a, you know, very historic Premier League club that he owns.

But I think that the fans

obviously appreciate everything Marinakis has done because he took over the club in 2010 when

the club was actually in debt, whether that be because of the financial crisis and what else that happened in Greece.

And he kept the club afloat.

And so we were one of the only teams that were actually making money during the difficult times

of the early 2010s.

Yeah, Marinakis is a complicated figure, but generally I'd say

he's got the support of the majority of Olibiagos supporters.

And just to say also, it's very typical that he will be in the trophy celebrations.

I know a lot of fans from the UK might find that as weird, like the owner of a club coming and raising the trophy.

It's very commonplace in Greek football.

He's done that multiple times when we've won the Super League title.

And to be fair to the players, they were the ones who ushered him on.

And they...

From what I've seen of videos of

in the dressing room after celebrating all the wins that we've managed this season,

they've either had him over like like Zoom or on the phone, kind of celebrating with him, or he's come in and celebrated with them.

So there is a camaraderie from the players with him.

Lovely stuff, Stephen.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Congratulations.

Enjoy going through your entire set of Olympiarcos kits over the next week or so.

Thank you very much for having me on, Max.

I shall.

Cheers.

Stephen Contouri there from the Hellas Football Podcast.

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

We'll look ahead to the Champions League final.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly Champions League final then, Brussio Dortmund versus Real Madrid.

Johnny, how did Dortmund beat Real?

I've tried to make it happen.

I've been running over the scenarios in my head and

I just can't.

I can't see it.

I can't imagine it.

I can't envisage it.

I've tried to do the visualisation thing.

I've tried to summon it like a, you know, like a kind of a spirit, like a vision.

And

I just don't see how they do it.

I think if

Dortmund was slightly better

or slightly, or I guess believed in themselves slightly more, I think, you know, you could say that

they've ridden their luck a little bit to get to the final.

They probably should have been put out by Atletico within the first half an hour of their tie.

They somehow managed to keep Paris out in the semi-final.

They managed to keep Mbappe out for 180 minutes.

And I don't know, it feels a little bit like Spurs in 2019, maybe, where

they've ridden so much luck to get to the final.

And it feels like getting to the final is such an achievement that

it's really, really hard to see them

taking the next step.

I honestly think Madrid could wipe the floor with them.

Just because it is Madrid and it's not like, you know,

obviously they know what they're doing, but obviously there is this big kind of

swell of momentum and form behind them as well.

You know, they know what they're doing in this competition.

They've played very well.

They've put out, you know, two huge teams in Manchester City and by Munich.

And

I just think

they'll find a way.

Yeah, I think they'll find a way as well, Mate.

So, I mean, I was on the pod last week.

At this time when we were all writing off Manchester United, and it was just a case of how many for Manchester City.

And, you know, Manchester United, that, you know, put in a really um you know big performance and so from a neutral point of view you hope I think that that Dortmund are able to to do that but I do agree

with Jonathan just in terms of the way that Dortmund have reached the final it's a it is a brilliant achievement for them to get there but I can't you can't ignore what they've done in the Bundesliga this season which is to be a team that is you know way off the pace and and struggled um you know for the vast majority of the season they did come through the hardest sort of group.

It certainly looked that way on paper, but you could say, well, PSG or PSG, you know, Newcastle didn't repeat the season they had.

Milan didn't repeat the season they had either.

Then it was PSV in the last 16.

Atletico, as Jonathan said, should have knocked them out in the quarterfinals.

PSG hit the woodwork, was it five times in that sort of semifinal?

So I think they have done incredibly well to reach the final.

But Real Madrid with that quality they've got in the final third, Rodrigo, Vinicius, Duke Bellingham, I think, has not been at his absolute best in the last month or so, but potentially saving himself

for this game.

I think that they will just have too much quality.

And

somebody like Luca Modric, I think, is...

one of the I love watching I know it's not breaking news about loving Modric and the way that he plays football but you know Tony Crows will just do that job for 65, 70 minutes, and then they're able to bring on somebody that can do it just as well to kind of finish the game off.

And

that is

a wonderful position to be in when you've got players like that that can come on and just know exactly what they're doing.

Ancelotti, a coach that doesn't kind of fit into these,

you know, he hasn't got philosophy, I would say.

He gets the squad, looks at where they sort of fit, and then builds the team around that.

And he's made for Real Madrid because that's what Real Madrid do, essentially.

They buy players, and it's about just creating that environment for the stars to shine.

And I think Angelotti is the perfect manager for that.

Yeah, I think it'd be very difficult for Dortmund.

Yeah, it's like a vets team, isn't it?

Cruise.

You say, like, I can do 60.

I could do 30.

All right, we'll just come together.

They should play half the subs, shouldn't they?

They shouldn't have to play full subs.

They just play half each, and then they're allowed to play.

Um, it'd be fascinating to see how Jaden Sancho does, Barry.

Won't he?

I mean, he's sort of, I mean, it's a Champions League final, so not necessarily having more of a point to prove than anyone else.

But the fact it's at Wembley, I did think the last time he played was when he missed a penalty for England, but he did come on in the 83rd minute of Manchester United's League Cup win last year.

That had passed me by, but it's a great stage for him amongst all the others.

Yeah, I mean, there's loads of interesting sub-plots in this, and he is one of them.

He's already stolen the show

in the semifinal.

It would be hard to repeat that performance, but not impossible for him.

And

I mean, like the lads,

I can't see Barrossi Dortman win, but I think if you're good enough to get to the final, you're good enough to win it, as Manchester United proved last weekend.

They need Real Madrid to have an off day.

They need people like Jaden Sancho to step up.

But

I would have thought going into this game,

you know,

Brussy Dortmund, the plucky underdog that everyone wants to win against the evil Empire of Real Madrid.

But in the past few days, they've been linked with Mason Greenwood.

They've signed a sponsorship deal with the fifth biggest arms dealer in Europe.

And then you've had Matt Hummels coming out with this extraordinary outburst against Edin Terzich,

where he is incredibly critical of his

defensive tactics in a series of Bundesliga games, two defeats against Stuttgart and a weight by

accusing.

And I don't know if you saw his quotes, but he was really critical of Turzich.

And to come out with this stuff three days before a Champions League final, it just seems...

bizarre and suggests all is not well in the camp in the Borussia-Dortman camp.

Just for anyone who hasn't heard his comments about those games, I was furious because I was of the opinion that Borussia Dortmund shouldn't play like that against any opponent in the world.

I didn't think it could go on like this.

I felt insulted in my honor to stand on the pitch in that kit, so submissive, so inferior in footballing terms.

The two Stuttgart games and the away game in Leverkusen,

that was barricading with 11 men in the box.

So, you know, why bring this up now?

It just seems extraordinary.

You remember, like 11 years ago, when they played against Bayern Munich, also at Wembley, there was this whole subplot for the game about Bayern, essentially, by Mario Goethe

announcing that he was joining Bayern, all the turmoil

about that.

And

it's kind of similar for Dortmund fans.

You know, this is a very rare occasion that is almost being,

you know, spoiled or kind of disrupted in the build-up.

And this one is almost entirely self-inflicted.

And I think that that will be a huge frustration, source of frustration if Dortmund, for whatever reason, don't turn up and don't play to their potential.

And on Barry's wider points, what we were saying earlier, I think we have this idea of Dortmund as the plucky underdog, which is

playing fantastic football, signing young players, all that.

And I think they've actually kind of gone away from that in the last few seasons.

If you look at that Dortmund squad, but look at the Dortmund team particularly, it is old.

Like you have Hummels in there, you have Emre Chan, you have a 31-year-old injury pro, number nine in Nicholas Fall Krug.

You have Marco Royce, obviously, who's making his farewell.

And so they've actually gone away from a lot of the principles that defined them

over the last decade, I guess, from the departure of Klopp, from the Jürgen Klopp era.

And ironically, this is what has got them to the Champions League final.

But

they've got to the Champions League final by essentially trashing the model.

So now I hate Brussia Dorman, Mark.

This has been a quick turnaround for me.

Yeah,

I still struggle to want Real Madrid to win a European Cup final against Brucia Dortmund.

I mean, Hummels is usually outspoken.

And I mean, in the same interview he gave,

he's furious, isn't he?

That he's not part of the national team for the Euros and says that.

Yeah, I think that interview may explain why he's not in the German national team.

I think, yeah, from Julian Naglsman's point of view, he wasn't going to start Humuls and then felt maybe didn't want somebody like Humuls,

you know,

kicking his heels on the bench.

And you're better off having people that accept their role

within that national team dynamic.

Terzich is an interesting one because for most of this season, certainly first half of it, it felt like he was going to get the sack.

Every week, there were discussions about whether he was good enough for the job.

blew the Bundesliga title the season before on the final day as well.

And he was I think seen as somebody that

wasn't quite up to that level really and and now here he is in a Champions League final and they are it is only one game and you can even as underdogs you can win a game like this if everything goes well so you know I think despite what Barry said a kind of Marco Royce injury time winner would feel quite nice I think is Thibault Courtois going to play in gold for Real Madrid it looks like it he's played four games in La Liga this month, kept four clean sheets.

And it would seem harsh on Andre Lunin, who's done very well to establish himself as number one in Courtois' absence.

But Courtois is a better goalkeeper.

And it also seems like a gamble that could backfire badly if he is picked.

Carlo Ancelotti has been very coy.

He said, you know, it's quite boring in the build-up to a cup final, so I'm not going to tell you who's playing in goal.

You can find out on the night.

It's a secret.

I thought he was going to go down the raise a few eyebrows

if

he did pick Cotois, who was left out of the Belgian squad for the Euro.

So, I mean, they clearly don't think he's kind of ready.

So, it would be a big call.

Games at Wembley.

Johnny, you wrote a piece about how much you hate Wembley.

Is it because TGIs get so busy on a match day?

Is that the

producer Joel line?

I credit Joel with that.

Yeah, I mean,

I don't know if you walk down Wembley Way, you know, they basically you get funnelled out of the tube station or the train station if you're coming on the um on the overground and you just get funnelled past uh there's a black sheep coffee on the right there's a costa and a co-op on the left and there's a you know you go around a little bit and there's um there's there's probably a giraffe and there's a there's definitely a tube at the box park there's a there's a oh of course there's a there's a box park and you know Nobody wants the old Wembley back.

The old Wembley was pretty awful.

As someone who spent most Sunday afternoons getting dragged through Wembley Market with my mum buying clothes pegs or whatever it is grown-ups bought from tawdry British markets in the 1990s, nobody wants that.

I just feel like there's um you're being dragged through a shopping centre, really.

There's something that doesn't quite sit right with me about this national stadium, which was built with public money,

that is supposed to be for everyone, being essentially turned into this temple for consumption,

whether it's the prices inside or the facade outside and the retail complex that's grown up around it.

i you know i i think these places are cathedrals and they should be they should be made special and the spaces around them should feel special so what would you what would you have i mean you definitely want i definitely want some ticket touts as i walk down the steps that that is like that is i am i am on wembley way if someone's going buy or sell tickets anyone want tickets buy or sell i need that straight away i need some you know someone who's built up some half and half scarfs of these two teams that are playing each other who would have an absolutely no link whatsoever but then what else do you what else do you want as opposed to just a bit of space?

You just need a bit of space.

You go to the Alliance or

even the Stas de France.

There is space around it, space to breathe, space to get excited about the game.

You're not just being funnelled through it like an airport terminal or a gift shop in an art gallery.

What happened in the last decade is, in order to pay for the regeneration,

all this kind of luxury housing,

high-priced student accommodation, high-end retail, hotels, you know,

has grown up around it.

And so you don't really get a Wembley skyline anymore.

You can't get a view of Wembley

unless you're literally on Wembley Way.

And

I just think that makes the whole place a little bit less special.

If you've got something as incredible as that arch,

you want to be able to see it from all around.

It should dominate the landscape, not be sort of competing for space with a gigantic Marriott Hotel or Unite Students.

And, you know, just related to that, that might be why they had so much trouble at the Euros final because

you don't have that space to almost defend it, to keep it safe, because

the channels towards it are so narrow and it's really easy to

get security in place to

have the proper ring

of steel that you have around a lot of big stadiums for big events.

Yeah, it's an interesting point.

I mean, I would now feel that

it wouldn't be right if I was in that queue for the tube.

And, you know,

when the horse, the policeman on the horse lets you through and there's a little bit of a cheer and you get to go 20 yards and then you stop again and then you all stand there and then you start again and there's a big cheer.

I mean, that sort of feels now part of the Wembley experience.

But I mean, short of knocking down a lot of big buildings, I'm not sure how we're going to manage it.

Yeah, it should have gone.

It should have gone in the Midlands, I think.

It should have gone somewhere else.

Well, that'll do for part two.

Part three, any other business, including Enzo Mareska to Chelsea, rumours of Rude Van Disteroy to Leicester and Big Sir Jim's five new Manchester United rules.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

We're expecting Enzo Mareska to be unveiled as Chelsea manager today.

Mark, any strong thoughts?

Strongest one would be that they've employed somebody that is worse than the person they've just got rid of at the moment.

That's not to say that Mareska can't go on and kind of be the coach that

Chelsea are hoping that he is, but I just look at it and wonder why the need for that change.

I think that Mareska...

I found some of his football boring in the season we just had with Leicester.

And I know that some of their fans complained as well, which seems bizarre given that they were way clear at one stage, nearly 100 points.

But it felt possession for possession's sake at times.

And that football doesn't excite me when it is like that.

He's working with better players.

Presumably, they'll be able to take on his ideas.

And

maybe it is kind of

a marriage made in heaven.

You just feel like if it doesn't start well,

the players will know that there'll be another one coming just around the corner.

So I think it's a difficult job for Mareska, who's got the Guardiola sort of

number, was he number two?

He's certainly part of that backroom team, wasn't he?

He's got the Guardiola sort of seal of approval that

Michael Arteta had.

But it doesn't mean because Arteta's done well at Arsenal that everybody that's worked with or under Pep Guardiola is of that level.

So

everybody I I was surprised.

I mean if you'd have said at the you know at Christmas, oh, Mareska's going to be the Chelsea manager for next season,

would have taken a few steps back.

It doesn't feel doesn't feel like a Chelsea appointment, I don't think.

Would you have taken a few steps back at the image of Mark going, like, oh, the shock, the shock of it.

Um, and well, rumours of Van Nisteroy to replace him at Lester is interesting.

I sketched the big winners, Baz, are probably Ipswich, who get to, at this stage, keep Kieran McKenna, if if

albeit having to shell out a lot more money for the same bloke, yeah.

Um, look, he could go elsewhere, yeah.

Has he officially decided to stay at Ipswich?

Um, that's great if he does, and you know, I think why wouldn't you?

The Chelsea job will come up again before too long.

Kieran, you'll be all right.

As far as Maresco going to Chelsea, because it's a brilliant opportunity for a bloke who's got a pretty limited CV, he had a very underwhelming spell at Parma, short, and May,

and got Leicester promoted.

There's every chance there'll be an implosion at Leicester next season and they could go straight back down.

They could get a points deduction.

They could be in all sorts of lose loads of players.

So maybe he's as well off getting out of that and going to Chelsea where even if he fails he'd get shed load more money, which is nice.

Yeah, I'd like just out of personal curiosity to see how much more Kieran McKenna can do with Ipswich in the Premier League.

Some of of the papers reporting Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe's five new Manchester United rules.

So we don't know, Johnny, if these are accurate or not, but they are an age limit of 25 for new signings, no Galacticos, style of play to be set by technical director Jason Wilcox, manager to be asked what position he wants to sign, not what player, Enios to send a list of three signings per position for manager to choose from.

Does this sound sensible or not sensible?

Well, I mean, the age limit of 25, that's that's i think what chelsea do under under todd booley that that is a you know kind of a pure

it's largely a financial decision uh it's it's wanting to to retain players with resale value no galacticos well i don't know if they were in the market for steve mcmanaman or you know claude makali but uh that's uh figo figo signed they don't realize it's just for men they just think he's 24.

good news for them i mean the stuff about um you know managers not choosing the player choosing the position you know them going to the coach and saying you know where where do you want to reinforce and then providing it that's basically that's been kind of standard practice at I think most elite clubs for quite a few years I don't think there's anything particularly new in that and the thing about Jason Wilcox getting to to set the style of play You know who was it that said that you know just get get it down the left wing and cross for yeah that you that's what I want yeah get it down the left and whip it in for Shira Sutton or Mike Newell.

That's that's the tactics.

That's the only anyone goes down the right.

They'll be substituted.

That's who he he wants.

Everyone just down the left.

You're putting

the entire, essentially the footballing identity, your footballing identity on the pitch in the hands of Jason Wilcox, who we were talking about Baresco earlier and how basically this Pep aura, it almost infuses.

even you know the more peripheral figures with a kind of reflected genius like you know you like like pepness is almost this sort of this da Vinci code and and if you if you're if you're in the you know if you're in the chosen circle then you know you have the keys to the the Pep DNA.

You once touched the hem of Pep's

cashmere hoodie, so you too.

Ryan, we saw this with Fergie.

Are imbued with this magic?

McLaren and Carlos Kiros and Brian Kidds kept getting jobs based on the fact that

they apparently had

the keys to the Fergie mainframe.

It didn't always work like that.

Wilcox has been highly spoken of, but

you do have to wonder how much of this is working at Manchester City who are really good, have lots of money, and have allegedly been cheating.

Is that the secret source that Jason Wilcox is bringing?

Allegedly denied by City.

So, yeah,

that's a strange one to me.

But, you know, good luck to him and good luck to them.

Yeah, Stuart Ripley, furious with all of this.

Quickly before we go on to the FAI, Barry, Johnny,

your thoughts on Angel Postakoglu have reached reached your mortgage advisor.

I enjoyed this.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I was applying for a mortgage a couple of months ago, and the guy's like, oh, I listen to you on

the podcast.

Spurs fan.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Right.

Don't like Ange then, do you?

Oh, my God,

this guy's trying to literally just sell me a mortgage.

And

I'm being confronted with it.

I get confronted with it when I go to Spurs now.

People sort of confront me with it there.

I went to a wedding and someone said, like, what's your problem with Ange, mate?

What's your problem with Ange?

He's brought joy back to the club.

It's like, certainly seems like it.

You seem infused with a kind of Joa de Vivre.

I think I've said all I need to say on Ange.

It's clearly a thing now.

It's a thing that

it's like the

gigantic salmon around my neck, and I will have to bear

the weight and the stench of that salmon for as long as I walk this earth.

Wow.

Especially when he wins the title next year.

Barry, can you explain the Ireland manager or lack of manager situation in a sort of brief and entertaining way?

I can try and explain it.

I mean,

no one is in a position to influence who becomes manager seems able to explain it with any degree of clarity.

So

it's a bit of a hospital pass for me.

But basically, the Football Association of Ireland currently have an interim CEO after the departure of Jonathan Hill last month.

Jonathan Hill being the guy who replaced John Delaney and not being much of an improvement on John Delaney, which takes some doing.

So, David Corell is the FAI interim CEO.

John O'Shea is the interim manager of the Republic of Ireland.

He did the last two friendlies, and now with friendlies coming up against Hungary and Portugal, he's accepted the role again to be interim manager for those two games.

The FAI have have now been on the hunt for a replacement for Stephen Kenney for over six months.

They insisted, their director of football, a guy called Mark Cannum, insisted some time ago that that permanent manager would be in place at the start of April.

That hasn't been the case.

So now their plan is to have someone in place at the start of August for Ireland's next competitive game, which is a Nations League match against England.

Damien Duff, who is manager of Shelburne now and a very outspoken manager and seems like a breath of fresh air in the League of Ireland, he did an interview with Richie Sadler, who I suspect would have been a former teammate at Duffers at underage level for Ireland.

He was just very critical of the shabby manner in which John O'Shea is being treated.

And he said, John's too good a person.

He's too good a coach to be doing, you know, acting as interim manager and being at the beck and call of the FAI.

I hope he does not take this the wrong way, but I'd encourage John to go on his own journey, coach every day, because that's where the learning is.

Yeah, he just thinks the FAI are taking the piss out of John O'Shea because

there doesn't seem to be much of a suggestion that he will get the job permanently.

And in fact, during his last stint as interim manager,

Mark Cannum said, you know, more or less said, no, he's not not getting the job.

So I reckon O'Shea still thinks he's in with a chance of getting it, probably because no one else bloody wants it, as far as I can tell.

The FAI have given no indication of who they wanted.

I think they were after Lee Carsley, but he turned them down.

And I just looked at the next Republic of Ireland manager, Betting,

and it's Willie Sagnol is the favourite, former French international.

John O'Shea, Chris Hewton,

Steve Bruce, Bruce,

Roy Keene, Ollie Godisolska, and Gus Poyer.

Not a particularly inspiring bunch of candidates, you'd have to say.

Hughon's not a bad shout.

Yeah, but

they're a kind of neh sort of team, though, aren't they?

Oh, very much.

I think you're flattering them by calling them a nick.

Well, Willie Sanyol would kind of fit in because he's the current Georgia national team coach.

So he would make sense if they're waiting until August because he he has been on sort of the list.

I don't know how long that sort of list has been over that time and you know he wouldn't want to leave Georgia at obviously at this point and you wouldn't want to say you're going to you know to take over as island manager either.

So the fact that they're waiting until the summer suggests that maybe they have got a plan, Barry, and it will all come together.

But there's probably not many people in Ireland that actually believe that.

But I totally agree.

If they wanted John O'Shea to be the manager, they would have just given him the job, wouldn't they?

By now, for sure.

Speaking of Georgia, yes, oh, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, the Georgia captain we discovered.

We should play at cool, but we won't.

Guram Kashir is a huge Football Weekly listener and presumably is listening right now.

So, Guram, you're very welcome.

And suddenly, our whole Euro's content will change absolutely markedly because

we will be following every minute of Georgia's games.

On Willie Sanuel, I interviewed him once, interesting guy, and especially when I talked to him about, you know, he played right back in the World Cup final when Zidane got sent off and how absolutely pissed off he was with Zidane in the dressing room afterwards, going, you already won one of these, but this was our chance.

But in, you know, less importantly, but more humorously, he does talk a bit like, he does sound a bit like the policeman from our lower low.

And so for that reason, I really, really would love him to get the Ireland job.

But Peter says, is Baz doing anything to mark 100 days since Sunderland had a manager?

So your national side and your club team without a manager.

Is it you?

Are you going to answer the call?

Well, the Sunderland one is interesting.

I meant to bring it up in the EFL pardon.

We didn't really have time, but Sunderland literally just gave up in the middle of last season.

Like they

sort of sacked um that

what's his name egypt from mcbal mcbeal michael beal and then installed an interim manager and just sort of looked at the table went yeah we got 50 points that that's enough and and basically down tools and for i just think it's remarkable for a football club to to do that and no one really seemed to comment on it and you know they had that debacle with the cup match against newcastle uh where they you know redecorated the suite to yeah, that's right, and and then just sort of, yeah, we've got enough points.

Our man, we've sacked our manager, we're just we're just close to the end of the season.

I think they might have won another two games and out of 12 or 13.

And yeah, it just seems remarkable that a team in the championship can just do that.

And nobody appeared to notice apart from their own fans.

Is it rude of me, Barry, to to to make it feels right that all the teams you support are quite meh?

I don't know why,

but

it seems to fit.

Well, I'm a lot more invested in the Republic of Ireland than I am Sunderland, but yeah,

I don't really care whether teams I support win anything or not.

Obviously, it's nice, but had a bad week at the Leinster as well.

I can't stand the Leinster rugby team.

I was delighted they lost three finals in a row.

Superb.

Actually, aren't they.

I keep getting tweets saying the offly under-19.

Oh, the offley under-20 hurling team are playing the All-Ireland final against Tipperary

on Saturday.

Is that close?

Oh, Tipperary and Offley would be bitter, bitter rivals.

It was a joke about how far away Tipperary was, but it was, I mean, I thought it was good.

Terrible, says Joel.

But anyway, Tipperary is, well, where I'm from, Burr is right on the border, so I could be in walk to Tipperary in about three minutes from my house.

It's not a long, long way at all, Max.

Sorry, were you saying about the team?

About the about the match?

Oh, no, it's just there's been a bit of a fiasco with the ticketing and a lot of my mates are worried they're going to be left high and dry because it's being played in a stadium that's too small for the amount of interest there is in the game.

Could be at Wembley and they could all go to black sheep coffee and get a get a giraffe afterwards.

Finally, Luke emails to say, dear Max Barry and all, I've been a listener for many years with the views and comments from yourselves and the panel always brightening up my week, including some very difficult moments in my personal life.

This week, on the 30th of May, today I'm undergoing double jaw surgery.

Wow, to help aid my recovery, which I've been brightly told will be horrible, I've started storing up the last few weeks of pods to listen to in hospital and then at home.

It's a little strange to know that the pod continues without me listening.

After all these years, the show has become a real beacon for me when things are good and a helpful crutch when things are bad.

I'm hoping your lovely voices will help me be on my road to recovery.

It isn't a vasectomy, but it is medical-related.

Thank you for everything you do.

PS, can you ask Wilson when Will Sunderland finally appoints a new manager?

Being a Sunderland fan definitely won't aid my healing.

All the best, Luke.

Well, we wish you all the best, Luke, with the double jaw operation.

Barry, if you want to send him your best wishes.

Well, I'm obviously wish him all the best.

It sounds horrific.

And I'm not going to mock him.

I just hope it's not too bad.

There we are.

Good luck, Luke.

Yeah, good luck, and hopefully, it isn't as horrific as Barry thinks it might be.

Who knows, eh?

Well, he's been told it's going to be horrific.

So, you know.

No, you are right.

I just think if I was listening and I'd just had this and I was recuperating, I wouldn't want people in my ears literally telling me what a horrific experience I was currently having.

Well, I think he'll know one way or the other, with or without orange.

Just stop saying the word horrific.

Just stop saying horrific.

I think so.

I think you're probably right.

Okay, that'll do for today.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you, Max.

Thanks, Johnny.

Thanks, Max.

Thanks, Baz.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Josh Kelly.

This is The Guardian.