Who is going to win the Africa Cup of Nations? – Football Weekly

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new Game Day Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today, it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, and back by Popular Demand, our AFCON panel from a couple of weeks ago, accompanied by Asia Cup expert Barry Glendenning.

We'll begin with AFCON, the double late show from the host's Ivory Coast with 10 men for all of the second half and extra time.

Sets up a semi-final with surprise package DR Congo.

Meanwhile, Nigeria, who were given very little chance at the start, are through to the semis.

Four clean sheets.

Adamola Luckman strike enough to get past Angola, but they are sweating over the fitness of Victor Ossoman.

They'll play South Africa, who squeezed past Cape Verde.

Goalkeeper Ronwon Williams, saving four penalties in the shootouts.

Then to the Asia Cup in Qatar, the hosts have a semi-final against Iran, while Jürgen Klinsman, South Korea, keep leaving it extraordinarily late.

This time against the Socceroos.

They'll play Jordan.

We'll finish with the ominous-looking Manchester City's victory at Brentford, the Phil Foden show, all that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, welcome back to Asasu Obeyuwana.

How are you doing, Asasu?

Nice to see you.

Yeah, good to see you, Max.

Solis Chukwu.

Hello.

Hello, hello.

Hello, Max.

Jonathan Wilson, hi, mate.

Morning.

How are you doing?

And Barry Glendenning.

Hey, Max.

Now, I saw you tweeted, Asasu.

Looking forward to tomorrow's chat.

There's a lot to say about the most unpredictable Afghan I've ever seen.

I'm nervous that you have a lot to say about it, and maybe it's a dangerous place to start, but tell us, how has it been?

Well, I think everybody has seen it.

The form book hasn't meant anything at this tournament.

I mean, I never imagined that a team that had only three points and would have failed to qualify had it been a 16-team tournament is on the verge of actually being in an Afghan final.

It's extraordinary.

But I have to say as well that I have to give

credit to the Ivorian players because they've shown a lot of character in two very important games against Senegal and Mali.

I couldn't have expected that in the Mali game they were going to win it at the death.

But I heard a man called Jonathan Wilson said that the Ivorians are like zombies that refuse to die.

So there you go.

Wilson, is that so?

I mean, what they scored in injury time and in injury time in extra time, and like the noise just sounded ridiculous both times.

Oh, it's been literally because I mean, the thing is, when they lost 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea, having already lost to Nigeria, the assumption was, well, they're out.

And this is not just out, but this is one of the most humiliating exits for a host in history.

Okay, I know Qatar lost all three group games at the World Cup, but nobody expected anything really of Qatar.

Whereas Ivory Coast, with the history they've got in the tournament, with the players they've got, if they'd gone out in the group, and particularly to lose 4-0 at home to, with all due respect, Equatorial Guinea, who are a lot better than they were 10 or 15 years ago, but they're not one of the major powers of world football, that would have been a terrible embarrassment.

It's almost like the Evorian team, the Evorian fans, made their peace with

going out.

And then Ghana concede twice in injury time against Mozambique.

And then Zambia failed to get the goal he needed against Morocco.

And as a result of those two things, Ivy goes to sneak through as the the fourth of the four best third-place teams.

And so,

I mean, I'm very happy to take credit for the zombie line, but local people were calling him Le Revenant before me.

So, this idea that they've come back from the dead, and Alius Siso said after that Senegal game, when, yeah, Senegal were won the luck with four minutes to go.

So, even in that game, they were dead and buried.

And Alius Siso came out with this line, which I think it doesn't sound quite as bad in French, but he said, the dead kid does not fear the knife.

Meaning, a small small goat, just to be clear.

Right.

Yeah, that's definitely the sense that

they've already gone out and yet somehow they're still in, so they don't fear going out.

And then again, Smarley, you'd conceive a penalty in the first half of just miss, have a man sent off, go behind with, what was it, 15, 20 minutes to go, and you think they're finished because they've offered nothing.

And then equalize in the last minute and then win it in the last minute of extra time.

You know, it's just ludicrous comeback after ludicrous comeback.

So there is this odd sense of momentum behind them.

And there's no, I don't think there's any real sense of pressure because they should be out and they're not out.

And Son, it's like so much is made in Afcon.

I think, as we mentioned in the last part, it's much harder for away fans to get to,

you know, wherever the tournament is.

that it's really important for the home nation to go far.

So like this has been a key part in this tournament being great.

Yes, yes, it has.

And really, you know, it's kind of like it's all part of the same idea, which is that

this is a team that was dead and buried.

They were already out of the competition.

So it almost feels like that emotional swell of

coming back from, you know, coming back from the brink, as it were, and remaining in the competition.

It just kind of pulled everyone together in a really big way.

And I think the location of the game against Maddie was important to Buake, which is, you know, has a lot of significance for Ivorians, you know, based on the war and all of that.

But I must say that this whole idea of destiny for Cote d'Ivoire, I like it, but I'm not particularly convinced because I think both Senegal and Mali, the way that they performed in those matches was entirely in character for them.

So Senegal, for example, we've seen them in this tournament, most especially against Cameroon, they seemed to play with this air of

arrogance is not the right word, but it almost almost seemed like they were so convinced of their own superiority that they they didn't really mind you know letting the game sort of drift that happened against cameroon we saw cameroon come back into the game and then later on senegal put the gloss on on it to confirm their you know their superiority over cameroon but it seemed like the same thing was happening here which is just that they were they scored so early and it just seemed to confirm in their own minds that oh okay we're we're better than these guys so they just sort of were comfortable letting ivory coast pass the ball around and it just seemed to lull them into this false sense of security the same thing with mali mali are a notoriously flaky team they've been promising for a very long time a lot is always expected of them but somehow when the pressure is at its highest they don't deliver and you know we saw them dominate the first half of that game and then when iva went down to 10 men it just seemed like they completely ran out of ideas and then of course they scored an indoje less great goal but then once ivory coast just gave up and were like okay we're already a man down, we can't, we have nothing to lose, let's just chop this ball in the air.

Suddenly, Mali seemed to have no idea what to do with the football.

After that, they just completely fell apart.

So, yeah, there's the whole

destiny subplot and everything.

But I think these two teams in particular were very culpable in their own downfalls, even without involving any sort of divine providence.

So, Sasu, how do you think Ivory Coast will do against DR Congo, who beat Guinea 3-1?

And tell us a bit about the DR Congo story.

I mean, I think at this stage, I can't discountenance Ivory Coast.

I mean they're obviously moving along on a crest, on a wave and

it could take them all the way to the final.

With DR Congo

quite a good team.

Coach Sebastian De Sebra has been with a number of African teams before he went to DRC.

They seem to have done pretty well at this tournament.

DRC are not known to get to as far as a semi-final.

I can't remember the last time they've been at a semi-final at an AFCON.

It's been a while.

It's 2015.

They played Ivory Coast 2015 in Bata 3-1 to Ivory Coast.

Okay.

And before that?

Oh, good.

I'd like an extra quince to listen.

Well, I mean, they obviously won it in 68 and 74.

I think they've been one semi after that.

So I think it's two semis in the last 50 years

is my guess.

But yeah, last one was definitely 2015.

I have to say, it's it's one of those games that

I looked this up yesterday

and was shocked, not me to find that game happened, but that I'd been there and written a report for The Guardian and I read it.

And it meant absolutely nothing to me.

No, the point is, I mean,

in the late 60s and the early 70s,

when they were still called the Leopards, they're called the Simbas now, and it was Zaire and not the DRC,

they were the dominant team in sub-Saharan Africa at the AFCON.

And they were the first

Black African team to go to the World Cup in 1974.

But after that period, they just seemed to disappear.

And they've never been able to have that level of dominance in African football again.

I don't know why.

Maybe it has been the internal politics in the country that has contributed a lot to the state of football, because I think the state of a country's politics and economics is also a reflection of how well you do on the football pitch as well.

Now they're in the semi-final, the president of the country, Shise Keddie, who just came through an extremely controversial election, is coming to Ghana to watch them play in the semifinal.

So I'm sure he's got some real goodies for them if they're able to go all the way.

Just your mention of Zaire being in the 1974 World Cup

calls to mind the Phoenix from the flames on Fantasy Football League, the original version when Mwepe Lungo, who's the only Zairean footballer I know or have ever heard of, I think,

famously was in a defensive wall facing a free kick against Brazil.

And then the ref blew the whistle and he just ran out of the wall and booted the ball up the pitch.

But that was actually like a...

a genuinely quite sad story that he was he knew exactly what he was doing he was wasting time because they were 2-0 down with about

15, 20 minutes to go, and they'd been told that if they lost by more than 3-0, there'd be severe consequences for the squad and their families because they'd lost the previous game 9-0, I think, to Yugoslavia.

That period when Diaz, well, it was Diaz, it was Congo in 68, and then it became SAIA by 74.

That period when they were winning Cups of Nations, and you also had Tipit Engelbert, the team that's now Tipit Mazemba, who you may remember from the Club World Cup, who got to the final

2010 of Club World Cup, I think,

around about that.

But yeah, that team then was Tepe Engelber, which is to do with a sponsorship of a Belgian rubber company, I think.

But the reason they got to four African Champions Cup finals between in a row, between 67 and 70, then AS Vita, another Congolese team or Zairean team, got to the final in 73, I think.

So five in what's that, a seven-year period, was because Mabutu on the one side, was pushing in money from Kinshasa, but you also had Lubumbashi, which is where Engelbe and Mazembe are from, and they're sort of the that was the heartland of Patrice Lumumba, who was the first president of Congo, who's of an independent Congo, who's murdered by Mabutu in 61, with well, certainly with Belgian support and almost certainly with the US and possibly British support.

So you had this sort of real tension there that Mabutu had recognised the power of sport, which is why he funded the Forman Ale fight in 74, the Rumble in the Jungle.

He backed the Leopards and

that investment that got him to the World Cup.

But you always have this divide there between the Lubumbashi and the Kinshasa side.

And then Smobuti was sort of a stimulus for their eyes, but he was also the toxin.

And I think led to the 50 years of underachievement.

Because

DRC is what, I think, the 16th largest country in the world by population.

They've got this great history in football, and yet they don't achieve.

And I think,

as Asasi says, the internal politics.

And if you look at who owns clubs now, it's always politicians, it's always military people.

It's partly that, and it's partly the fact that given the natural resources, absolutely scandalously, I think by GDP per capita, the 186th out of the 189 countries listed by the AMF.

So there's no money there, there's political chaos.

And that has

clearly held them back over the last 50 years.

So because of that, Asasi, would you say

this is unlikely to be a turning point for DLC?

This is just a bit random that they've got this far or or could we be more positive about it

no i think you're right i think this is uh interesting blip for them for them to have gotten this far uh i don't think that the football in in in that country is organized enough for them to become a consistent force at the afcon they need to do so much more

to to put themselves in in that position.

I've been to DRC.

I I went a couple of years ago.

I think this was after the 2012 Olympics in London.

I was invited by Moise Katumbi, who was actually one of the presidential candidates in the last election,

to go to TP Mazende.

And I was there for a few days.

And he had to build his own stadium.

He was responsible for funding his own academy.

He was able to do all the things himself because he's a mining magnet and he has so much money, so he could put it into the team.

But it's one thing for a team to have the resources another thing for the entire ecosystem of congolese football to be healthy for the majority of clubs to be able to sustain themselves for there to be proper competition across the board and develop the right caliber of footballers that a national team would need i mean the majority of players in the drc team are all abroad so But then that's not only a problem for DRC, I think even for all the major football countries in Africa, Nigeria included, this is a problem that we don't have a proper ecosystem for league football across so many African countries.

And it's difficult to really have,

to develop your football and even to have good national teams when you don't have proper leagues at home, when you have to depend on players in Europe for your competitions.

I think it takes something away.

from the essence of what your national team should be.

Yeah.

So, I mean,

you mentioned that, like the goal scorers for Diar Congo were Chancellor Mbemba, who Newcastle fans might remember, Johan Wiser, of course, and Brentford, and Arthur Masawaku.

I don't know, Solis, producer Silas and I have had a debate about whether Masuaku meant that.

I don't think he did, because I've seen enough of Arthur Masawaku playing football to think he wouldn't have meant that.

But Silas was much more positive, as were the commentators that I heard that said he did mean that.

What do you reckon?

I think he absolutely meant that.

He scored a very similar goal to that playing in the premier league for west ham against chelsea a couple of seasons ago if i remember correctly so i'm 100 sure he meant that but i but i watched that one again this morning and i still don't think he meant that either maybe i'm i'm too down on on masuaku maybe he's he's got he he's got it in his locker anyway um so so we generally think that the ivory coast is strong favorites for for for this semi-final wilson

Yeah, I would say so.

But yeah, favoritism has meant nothing in this tournament so far.

But yeah, the DSC's best performance was the quarterfinal.

There's no question about that.

They played very well in that game.

So

it's not certainly not impossible they win it.

But I think

you look at the squad, I think Sebastian Alleg coming back towards fitness factor could play from half-time onwards, so the 45 minutes plus a half-hour extra time.

If he can start the game, they definitely look better when he's on the pitch.

Ivory Coast.

So

I think they have to be favored.

All right, that'll do for part one.

Part two will begin with Nigeria.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Nigeria booked their place in the semifinal with a 1-0 win over Angola.

Solis, I'm not sure you believed that Nigeria, you are coming from Lagos right now.

I'm not sure you believe Nigeria would get this far.

Yeah, the mood before the tournament was most people people were very down on the Super Eagle.

So them progressing this far into the tournament has come as a

welcome surprise.

People are generally a little more beat.

There's a little more leeway being given to Jose Pesero, who we famously went to town on the last time we did this.

So he sort of redeemed his reputation a little bit.

Yeah, the team just looks really solid defensively.

I think that's something that he's been minded to focus on since the the start of the tournament, just making sure the team has their docks in a row in terms of positioning,

you know, playing together, suffering for one another.

But I do still have some concerns, even though they've gone this far.

I genuinely don't think that the way the team is structured is particularly healthy.

We have a situation where a lot of key players have to give 110% every single match just to make the system coherent.

I don't think that's sustainable.

Nigeria, thankfully, has not had to play extra time at any point in this tournament, but we saw a situation in the last game where players like Victor Osime, Alex Iwobi, were completely out on their feet.

Even Olaino, who is a flying wingback, they were completely out on their feet.

I mean, when Osimen came off, he looked like he needed a blood transfusion or something.

So

you do wonder how sustainable that is.

But

Solas, I think

we have to be very pragmatic and realistic about the Nigerian situation because I think what Pesero has done, which is smart, is that he knows the limitations of the players he has and he has to work within the limitations of those players.

He's playing a back three when they go up front, for instance, because he knows that he has players that are a bit slow.

Truce de Cong is not the fastest player.

Semi Ajai is not the fastest player.

Calvin Bassey is quick, so he tries to make up for the other two.

So he just plays that system so that he doesn't find his defense in trouble.

And when they are being attacked, then they revert from being a three-man defense to a five-man defense.

And it's worked for them.

The major problem for Nigeria is that we don't have a midfielder, or Nigeria rather doesn't have a midfielder of the quality of an Okoche, somebody

who can do what he did.

We don't have a defensive midfielder of the quality of Sunday Olise who would do what Nigeria needs right now.

And it's for that reason that Alex Iwobi is having to do the dual role of being a defensive midfielder and an attacking midfielder at the same time.

And I feel sorry for the lad because it's draining him.

As you said, they're being made to put out 110%.

But in any case, if you're wearing the shirt of your country, that's what you're expected to do, though.

Solis,

I saw you saying that the manager, Pesera, who I looked up, and I looked up, it appears he's managed every team in the world, as far as I could tell,

that he'd been willfully irresponsible with this squad.

Is that specifically about Osimen, who didn't fly with the team because he's got some abdominal issue?

Not specifically about Osimen, but Osimen is kind of a result of that.

I think it's more to do with the way he's apportioned minutes through the course of the competition.

So

going into the third game in the group stage, for example, Nigeria's Destiny was not

in their hands.

They needed a result in the other game and they also needed to win.

But when it became apparent that obviously Cote d'Ivoire were not going to do the business against Equatorial Dina, as a matter of fact, they were getting trounced, I thought there was scope there for him to introduce some of the other players in the team just to give them minutes, get them up and running.

But we've had a situation where he already picked a smaller squad than he could have picked, picked 25 plans instead of 27.

But then during the course of a tournament, there's a cache of like four to five players who he apparently does not trust at all which raises the question of why he selected them at all but then they're not playing any minutes whatsoever so it means that those who do play are getting run into the ground and those who should replace them are going to have to come in cold in a situation where they have to replace these players so now we have ocean for example who they say has a stomach discomfort whatever that means i hope he didn't eat something bad in avision out there but anyway he has some sort of stomach discomfort and there's a likelihood that he might not make the game against against South Africa.

So now his deputies are either Terry Murphy, who has not played at all in this tournament, Kalishi Hanacho, who has only played 27 minutes for the past two months, or Paul Onwakshu, who, even though he's very big and physical, can hold the ball up, does not have the pace to make the system work.

So it just seems like he could have done a lot better giving these other players minutes so that when they do come in,

when the situation requires them to come in, they will be in the best

possible physical and mental state to contribute to the team.

I I think he's had opportunities to do that, and he has not taken them.

Wilson, you were complaining before the pod that you have a slightly dicky tummy.

Have you been dining with Victor Rossin?

I've not,

although I did, I was going into a hotel, which I can't remember,

and

did that thing where I sort of saw somebody come towards me who I knew I recognized, nodded at him.

And it was only when he was sort of 100 yards down the road that I realized it's Alex Awobi.

So it's possible I have eaten in the same place as Nigerian sport.

Uh-oh.

But yes, abdominal discomfort is

widespread in Abishon, shall we say?

What have you made of Nigeria so far?

Well they've been very solid and

I guess that is a it is a way you win tournaments.

If you don't let in goals and you've got some of your quality of Osamen,

you will score one or two goals a game and that's often enough.

What I've been struck by actually with Pissero, given that he got the job because of the recommendation of Joseph Mourinho, he's very like Joseph Mourinho when he talks.

He's got exactly the same intonation in English.

He's got the same kind of weird, short, aggressive sentences.

Jose speaks far better English.

Listening to Jose Pesero at a press conference is an ordeal.

But he was being asked about their form before the tournament, and he went on this sort of very angry 10-minute description of what a friendly is and what it's for.

And this is when you test players and when you met at test players.

And it was one of those things you sort of, as your brain sort of drifts off, you're sort of thinking is it is exactly the way jose mourinho would answer that question so yeah

the two jose i think have a

in certain certainly in terms of how they sound have that have a have a similarity

did you want to come in solut

uh yeah like like you said there there is a big difference there just in terms of understanding what they have to say i know i don't doubt pesero has a lot to say but just being intelligible is kind of a challenge with his broken English.

Yeah, Pesero is very like Jose, even in terms of how he's gotten the team to play.

The issue is he never showed any of this before now.

Like, as a matter of fact, one of the concerns most people had coming into the tournament was that this team, the imbalance in the team favoring the attackers meant the team was too attacking.

So we had a situation where Pesero was playing sort of like an old school 4-2-4.

and the two in the middle was sometimes Alex Obi and you know, you have maybe Joe Aribo or something.

And it just seemed really weird because, you know, the team was too open there was too much chaos in attack the the defensive pairing of ajay and bassie clearly was not working for multiple games and then it just seems like he pulled everything together at the afcon and suddenly reached this great awakening i mean better late than never and this is a good time for that to happen but why did it why did it take this long and why are these players learning a new system on the fly during a major tournament it's working and that's amazing but it it is a puzzle to me yeah no but i don't i don't think it's that much of a puzzle look

uh if you're an international manager and you only have two to three days before a game sometimes not more than two there's not much you can do to work on your team before you even start to work on the team the players are already gone in in times past before the international calendar was made such a mess of coaches would even have as much as two weeks to prepare a team for an AFCON even before going for the tournament.

Now that's even supremely difficult or even impossible now to do.

Now with the way things are set up, they barely have a week.

So if the coach hasn't been with them for a prior tournament before this one, they are going to be doing things on the fly.

The most important thing that as a coach, you have the tactical astuteness to make the adjustments where you know there are problems and for those adjustments to produce the results.

And for Pesero, they are doing the results.

Because if anybody had told told me that the defense would be Nigeria's strongest suit during this tournament, I would have said no, because we all thought that the defence was going to be the Achilles heel, but it hasn't been.

In the other quarterfinal, South Africa beat Kate Verde on penalties.

Alex says, is Ron Win Williams the best goalkeeper of all time?

He saved four penalties in the shootout.

South Africa winning 2-1 on penalties.

Nothing like a low-scoring penalty shootout.

Cape Verde had never gone to penalties.

They'd never gone to extra time.

Williams made one brilliant save in the second half.

And

he was definitely the busier of the two keepers in normal time, actually, Wilson.

South Africa probably lucky to get to extra time.

Yeah, Cape Verde, I think, was the better side.

I mean, it was,

that's been the thing with this tournament.

That was by far the worst game of the four quarterfinals.

And yet,

you know, that save is one of the best saves I've ever seen.

It was an absolutely incredible save.

Ball smashed at him from, I don't know, three or four yards away and gets his left hand out and turns it onto the angle of post and bar.

And then the four saves in the penalty shootout.

Two of them probably saves he should make once he's gone the right way, but he has to go the right way.

But two of them, really good saves, even when he was going the right way.

So he's produced

one of the great goalkeeping performances, which made a game that wouldn't have been memorable incredibly memorable.

So, yeah, a Cafferde, I think, will look at that as an opportunity miss because they definitely were the better side.

But Ronald Williams was just absolutely extraordinary.

You mentioned earlier about Asasu, about countries just not having strong domestic leagues.

And South Africa have a team full of players who play in their domestic league.

Is it Mamaladi Sundowns?

That's right.

Eight of the starting 11 from that team.

That feels like it should really help.

But it sort of makes me question why South Africa haven't been more successful in AFCON.

Because if they

or why their players, do they have a sort of level of player that are good enough to be good in that league, but not good enough to make it in the big leagues in Europe?

Well, yeah, I think you're on to something there.

In times past, I mean, when they won the AFCON in 96, they had players of the caliber of Dr.

Kumalo, Lucas Radebe,

John Shus Mosheo, Phil Masinga and Mark Fish and all these players eventually, if they weren't in Europe as at the time of the tournament, they eventually moved to Europe and played in Europe.

I mean, you know the type of career that Lucas Radebe had with Leeds United.

You know, people like Mark Fish had a fairly decent career in Italy, in England.

But we are not seeing South Africa produce those kinds of players now.

It's a huge problem for them.

When Hugo Bruce took over Bafana Bafana, I mean, I was discussing this with Mark Gleason, and he was telling me that he said, that he didn't want to have any player in the South African team that was over the age of 25.

But I think he realized later that the only way he could have some level of cohesion in the team and a team that could actually give him something was just to basically take the

nucleus of the Mamelodi Sundowns team that was so dominant in the PSL in South Africa and transplant that to Bufana.

And I think that's working for him now.

But in the long term, South Africa really have to think deeply about how they want to develop their players.

I mean, it's quite a shame that after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, that they never took the advantage of that to come up with something that will really transform football development in that country.

Because for them not to have qualified for a World Cup properly since 2002 is something I find...

astounding.

Let's not even talk about the fact that they've not won an AFCON since they hosted it 28 years ago.

Well, I mean, the other detail there is that Mamelodi Sundowns is a team of Patris Pazzepe, who's the president of CAF,

which is, I would suggest, probably not a healthy situation.

No, it's not.

It isn't.

Yeah.

When I watch South Africa, I just get this vibe from them.

The thought that comes into my head is sort of like Spain in, you know, in the late 2010s,

in the late 2000s, early 2010s, where you have the nucleus of the team based around a club that plays really easy, flowing, possession-based football.

And then they come to a national team manager who is

a lot more rigid in his ideology of football.

And somehow he's able to marry both of those aspects.

And I think that's sort of what's happening with South Africa, where, you know, mostly we say this team, the nucleus of this team is from Mamluk Sonnouls, but the truth is they don't really play the same way as Manludi Sonos do consistently.

You see flashes of it, but it's really just solid.

And then mostly on the counter-attack, you see those relationships sort of come sort of come out between these players.

And I think that's that marriage between those two ideas is sort of, you know,

getting them this far.

Not saying they'll go ahead to win the tournament like Spain did or, you know, even

win it twice in a row, but it is an interesting sort of dynamic there.

In Pico Lopez,

Cat Verde had

a player who's born and reared in Dublin.

I'm just curious.

So I was sort of monitoring their progress with interest and rooting for them.

I'm just wondering, can our panel of esteemed experts tell me, is he the first or slash only ever Irish player to play in AFCON?

I mean, he's played in previous observations, hasn't he?

I reckon he must be, but I'm only guessing.

It's a good question.

Have a look at it and see.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

I was trying to think if, you know, did Robbie Keene support Chad as a boy?

That's all I could think of.

You know, played a few games for their under-18s.

Marcio says, what is it that CAF needs to do to better sell AFCON as a real blockbuster?

We saw it this year.

All the ingredients were there.

Good football and referees, drama, and lore.

Could AFCON be the third most valued competition only after the World Cup and the Euros?

What's the answer to that question, Sazu?

I think,

I mean, being that the African Cup of Nations is older than the European championship started three years before the european championships i would expect the african cup of nations to be better marketed to be better prepared for and i think if they're able to do these two things there is no doubt that the african cup of nations would have even more viewership and it will be more commercially successful

But the huge problem with the AFCON is that the preparations for it in terms of logistics and even the infrastructure is not satisfactory.

With the quality of players we have at the AFCON, with the kind of football that is being played at the AFCON, I think the organization of it can be a lot better.

And when it's better organized, then you are in a better position to give it a bigger prominence in terms of viewership and to earn more money.

Because

For UEFA, for example, the Champions League is the money spinner of UEFA.

Okay, so the European Championship, which is played every four years, is not where the money is coming from, even though they make good money from it.

In Africa, it's different.

The African Cup of Nations is the mainstay of CAF.

But if you're having it every two years,

and I think it should stay that way, even though some people in Europe aren't happy with that, but I think for...

people in Africa, we need to keep this tournament every two years until there is a Champions League in Africa that can actually produce the kind of incomes that can make CAF maybe have a rethink on this issue.

But for a biannual CAF, you need to give countries on average four years to plan to prepare for it.

And not four years where they will spend the first two years sleeping and then using the last year to rush all the preparations.

They need to do these things in a more methodical way.

And if they can do that, I have no doubt that the AFCON, which is

over 60 years old, would even grow more in global prominence.

I was going to ask Soros a question, which was about, it's difficult in the UK, right, to follow AFCON in great detail because the Premier League is still happening.

And I know, like, in Nigeria, for example, people love the Premier League, but does all their focus go to AFCON and they pay no attention?

Because it's quite a Western view that AFCON is,

you know, it's it's hard to follow because we've got other football that is just closer to our brains.

But presumably, when AFCON starts, I don't know if people stop watching the Premier League or their focus is completely changed.

I think it depends on the person.

Those of us who work in media, obviously, we kind of completely switch over and everybody's Afcon.

To be honest, I've barely paid any attention to the Premier League during the course of the competition.

Same here.

It's not the same for everyone.

So I do think that is a barrier that something needs to be done about.

We can't keep hand-waving it away and saying, oh, those who watch will watch the competition.

Anyway, if AFCON really wants to break that barrier and enter the mainstream, the public consciousness as an event that everybody should be paying attention to, it cannot be justing for attention with the Premier League and other European leagues going on at the same time.

I don't know what the solution to that is.

It's a very nuanced discussion.

Like Osasu says, there's this whole thing with...

the importance of AFCON just from a financial perspective for CAF and

them being able to make it four years, I don't think that's feasible at the moment financially, even though I think there's a bit of complacency there in terms of saying

the AFCON doesn't generate and the AFCON generates all our income until the Champions League does before we switch over.

When does the Champions League do that?

If there's no willingness to actually make that happen.

It's a very nuanced discussion.

I don't really know that there's a simple answer.

But speaking from a personal perspective and from the people who you know are in the industry, you know, in the media industry, TV, news media, everybody's attention now is on the AFCON.

Most people, apart from club affiliations, most people don't really care about the Premier League at the moment.

Yeah, can I just jump in again, Max, if you don't mind?

Because

the thing that really upsets me right now is that we have a situation where Continental Championships are being played in tandem.

And I don't like this because normally I would like to actually watch an Asian Cup.

But when I'm here at an AFCON, I can't.

I can't pay attention to anything else.

It's not helping the profile of the Continental Championships when they have to be played in Paripa Su.

FIFA would not want any other football tournament to be played when the World Cup is on.

They want everybody to focus on the World Cup when there is a World Cup.

So I think a proper conversation needs to be had.

between the Confederations and FIFA to find a proper solution to this problem.

Because

we can't have this go on and on and on and on and expect these tournaments to have the kind of viewership that they normally would have.

And with regards to the Premier League and the AFCON and European leagues in general, this is why I think people need to understand that football is a global sport.

It's not about your own country, it's not about your own continent.

If you are having an AFCON within a certain period,

what happens to having winter breaks and holidays so that these tournaments can be accommodated?

Everybody's complaining about how long the AFCON takes.

Okay, the one sympathy that I might have for European clubs is that the AFCON has gotten bigger, so it takes more time to play it.

And that's not something that was the case years ago.

But even when the AFCON was smaller and it took less time to play, they were still complaining.

So I think there just needs to be a proper conversation about the entire timetable for continental tournaments between the leagues and continental federations and FIFA so that things are much better because they're just not good at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, I think Asassi is absolutely right.

The problem when you have these two confederation trips going on simultaneously,

if you look at the profile that Copper America used to have in the UK, when it was in odd-numbered years and they moved it to run at the same time as the Euros and now it disappears because people don't have a bandwidth to watch the Euros.

You've watched three games of the Euros.

You can't then sit up till midnight to watch Argentina v Venezuela or whatever.

So the COP America is sort of this thing that happens and you're vaguely aware of the results, but you don't actually watch any of the games.

You don't really know what's going on.

And that's a massive danger if you end up with what I think FIFA wants, which is

in even numbered summers, you have the World Cup and then

two years later, you have the Confederational Championships.

Two years after that, you have a World Cup.

I mean, there's a problem with Africa and Asia anyway, with playing games in in the european summer uh playing tournaments european summer because of the the rainy season in west africa the rainy season in parts of asia it just doesn't work but and then the that that then leads to the problem we've got now which is this sort of trying to squeeze everything in and of course the club world cup in an odd-numbered summer is making that even more complicated that we just don't know when the next tournament is going to be held that the date for morocco the next tournament we don't know which year it is we don't know what month it's going to start and no they said it's june and july but I'm still wondering how they're going to do it.

Okay, they said that.

How can that possibly be true when the Club World Cup is happening June, July, 2025?

It cannot be true.

Exactly.

So,

you know, they may say that, but we don't know.

Because you can't have a situation where, I don't know,

Egypt's team at the Cup of Nations has no al-Akhli players because they're all off playing in the Club World Cup.

I just can't

be.

So, yeah, the calendar is too packed, and I really don't know where you find space.

The only good thing at the minute, sorry, the only good thing at the minute is, and this is a very, very parochial English view, but the fact that you have two rounds of the FA Cup in January plus the winter break, so you have two weekends where there's only five games going on, it feels like there's at least a little bit of space for the couple of nations to breathe.

And this is purely anecdotal, but it seems to me that this couple of nations, partly because there was so much drama and because the football has been a bit better, it has taken hold in a way that maybe previous tournaments haven't.

Good news, Sasu, is that Barry has watched every minute of the Asian Cup, and he will now tell you exactly what has happened and what will happen.

And we'll do that in part three.

Great.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game, Day Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So the Asian Cup semifinals,

Jordan, South Korea, tomorrow, 10 a.m.,

3 p.m.

UK time.

And Iran, Qatar, the next day, 3 p.m.

UK time, 10 o'clock in Qatar.

Speaking of zombie football, like the Ivory Coast, Barry, South Korea have the same label attached to them.

I don't know if Wilson called South Korea that as well.

They've scored four goals in

injury time, second half injury time in five Asian Cup games.

And beat Australia with a last-minute equalizer and that extra time-free kick from Hyung Min-sun.

Thanks, Mac.

You've just done my

Asia Cup roundup.

I was going to mention that, you know, Ivory Coast were labelled zombie football.

South Korea, the same.

They've played five games, and in four of those games, they've scored in second half, added time.

So they're...

they are very much the walking dead.

And

Wilson sort of referenced that Copa America is now this thing that happens that you're vaguely aware of and you know the results.

And I think in the UK anyway, people are kind of dipping in and out of the African Nations Cup because it's quite time-friendly and it's on sky.

The Asia Cup is, I'm not even sure if it's this thing a lot of people are aware it's going on.

Spurs fans are very much aware it's going on because they know Hyung Min's son is on is at it.

A lot of them want South Korea to be knocked out so they can have have Sun back, but they also want South Korea to win because they want Sonny to win it.

It's a tournament South Korea have not won, I believe, since 1960.

They're managed by Jürgen Klinsman.

I think he's not particularly popular amongst the South Korean football fan base.

They don't necessarily agree with his selections.

He doesn't live in the country and they think it would be more respectful if he he did.

Their front three will obviously be familiar to all of us.

Sun, Jung Min, Wang Yi Chiang from Wolves, and then Lee Kang-in.

And yeah,

they're just scraping through games.

They beat Australia in the quarter-final, and now they face Jordan, who they played in the group stage.

They had a two-all draw.

Jordan are very much the underdogs for this game.

I don't think anyone, including themselves, expected them to get to the semifinal.

Most of their players are based, I think 16 of their squad are based in the Jordan League.

And

Mussal Tamari is basically the only player in their squad that I've ever heard of.

He plays, he's a right-winger, plays for Montpellier.

He's the only player they have who plays in a major league.

And he may be missing for this semi-final.

He's an injury doubt.

So, I mean, South Korea are very much expected to win this game,

but they've been making such heavy weather of getting through the rounds that

it's not a foregone conclusion.

Interestingly, they're known as the Tai Yuk Warriors, sort of the ultimate Supreme Warriors, whereas Jordan's nickname is the chivalrous, which sort of conjures up this image of their players just constantly opening doors for women or laying their cloaks down on punnels.

Just a bit of insight from the Australian camp, which I got from the guys that I I play preseason kickabouts with on Prince's Park before we begin the defence of our title,

Metro Southeast Football Victoria Metro Southeast Division 8.

We may have been promoted.

I'm not sure.

Anyway,

they were slightly critical of Graham Arnold's tactics.

He took off some attacking players and replaced them with defenders.

South Korea equalised then they had no attacking players on the pitch.

And also could not sound any more Australian.

Mitch Duke uh missed an absolutely glorious chance, like a header.

He arrived on a ute, obviously, and planted a header, header just wide with 10 minutes to go.

Um, before um, one of their players,

um, I can't remember who fouled him.

It was a Pete repeat of Lucas Neil going to ground on Grosso.

Don't go to ground, but they fouled Kim Winson in the last minute, and the rest is history.

And then, uh, in the other semi-final, what you've got, Iran and Qatar.

So, uh, uh, tell us all about that, Baz.

team melee versus the maroons Max yeah right Qatar are the hosts they're defending champions

they squeak past Uzbekistan in the quarterfinal on penalties the game ended one all Uzbekistan was three penalties in the shootout

and despite being the holders and the hosts I think Qatar are very much the underdogs for this game people are expecting an Iran-South Korea final Iran have lost their last six semi-finals in the Asian Cup, but they are unbeaten in their last 10 matches against Qatar.

So something's going to give Qatar going to this game in the back five straight wins.

But yeah, Iran,

they're stronger in pretty much every position, I think.

It will be a surprise if they don't get to the final.

Yeah,

they beat Japan.

with a late penalty scored by Jahan Bash, who did score a great overhead kick for Brighton, I believe, and is the only player you can say in an Oscar Wilde a handbag.

Jahan Bash, which is from what?

Lady Windermere's fan?

Is that right?

Important being Ernest, isn't it?

Importance of being in Ernest, yeah, maybe.

Is it Lady Brecknell?

Yeah.

The left luggage office at Victoria Station.

I was just going to say, Brentford's Samar Goddess

plays for Iran, so one to keep an eye out for.

If you can get a game anywhere.

Yeah, and we'll be waiting, of course, waiting for Godos, which is uh,

it was not, which was not Oscar Wilde, of course, it was uh, Samuel Beckett.

There we are, uh, David says, opportunity while we're on age off for a rare mention of Hong Kong football on the pod this week.

Yes, into Miami were booed off the field in Hong Kong because Messi didn't play in a friendly.

40,000 fans chanted refund, refund, refund.

Where is Messi?

And then Beckham was also booed post-match.

Why was he booed?

Just because Messi didn't play.

I think so.

Messi was just left on the bench.

Presumed maybe for tactical reasons.

Who knows?

He hadn't put it all in in training.

Had a hamstring problem, didn't he?

Did he have a hamstring problem?

There we go.

Possible.

In the Premier League, Man City won three run at Brentford.

Phil Foden scored a hat-trick.

City were ominously good.

Mark says, big test of Barry's credibility as an impartial journalist after that Ethan Pinnock mistake for Phil Foden's opener.

Are you prepared to throw Pinnock under the bus, Barry?

No, I am absolutely not.

It was a wonderful defensive header, which should have been helped upfield by one of his teammates.

But no, they

I don't know, maybe they're just so in awe of Ethan's greatness that they presumed uh he would head it further.

But yeah, I think he was a little bit at fault for two goals in this game.

Um, yeah, maybe Brentford took the lead in this game and lost 3-1, but the scoreline

for our chums at the at AFCON who aren't paying any attention to the Premier League and are probably just aware of the score, this was a battering.

And Mark Flecken in the Brentford goal, despite conceding three, had possibly, I haven't seen every game Mark Flecken has ever played in his life, but I'm going to say this was arguably the game of his life.

He pulled off some super saves and quite a lot of routine saves you'd expect him to save.

But

City's first goal, poor defensive header from Pinnock, went straight to Phil Folden who chested it down and rifled home into the corner.

Brentford had taken the lead, and it was quite funny, actually, because it's the greatest goal I've ever seen.

City were doing their city thing, you know, tippy-tappy, nice pullbacks passing around, zip, ping, ping, ping.

And,

yeah, Fleckin just got it launched.

Route one up the middle.

Ivan Tony, very cleverly, sort of shaped to head it and then didn't and just moved to one side.

The ball bounced, caught out all the the city defenders neil mope was in a massively offside position but you can't be offside from a goal kick so he latched onto this bouncing ball and put it away nicely into the corner another nice finish for uh neil mopay goal machine uh then second goal i'm going to have to say ethan was was at fault again he misjudged the flight of a kevin de bruy a free kick missed his header and phil folden was able to score at the far post.

Yeah,

third goal was probably the best through ball down the centre to Hall, and he laid it off to Phil Foden, who scored his hat-trick.

Like Man City had 10 shots on target, I think, in

the first half alone.

This was their ninth successive win in all competitions.

And they have one point more than they had this time last season.

So it's looking quite ominous for Liverpool and Arsenal.

Oh, and Neil Mope was, I have to, I'm happy to say, was at it again.

Yes, yes.

Jacob Steinberg in his report saying at times City had been in danger of sinking into the Mope verse, a strange, disorienting world where one very annoying striker argues with everyone and spends an inordinate amount of time obsessing over the correct placing of opposition-free kicks, which is exactly quite extraordinary, isn't he?

He and Kyle Walker almost came to blows and had to be separated because of

I don't know one thing thing or many things Morphe said to him throughout the game.

Pepcardiola refused to discuss it after the game,

but I think we can probably guess what the subject matter was.

Yes, possibly.

Daily Mail reporting that Maurizio Poticino could be spared the sack at Chelsea along with the remainder of his coaching staff because paying them off could see the club in serious danger of breaching Premier League spending rules.

Has no one told them they've already spent a billion pounds?

He's only on a two-year contract, though, isn't he?

So it wouldn't be.

He must say everyone else is on a 25-year contract.

It's not fair on him, is it?

Anyway, look, yesterday we weren't sure if David Washington was the coach driver.

So we'll wait to find out if he's sacked and then report on it.

Michael Lease out for two months, as is Asandro Martinez.

Oh, just one bit of any other business.

Michael says, just wanted to add on to what Barry mentioned in Monday's episode about Tom Davies.

He's shaved his hair to raise money for James's Place, which is a charity that supports suicidal men in London and Liverpool, and I think Newcastle as well.

Michael says, Tom's been very vocal in Merseyside on things like this, as well as homelessness.

He does a lot of this without chasing the spotlight.

Thought it was worth mentioning.

I did look up the charity, and yeah, it looks like a brilliant charity.

Yeah, set up by a couple who lost their son, and now they help lots of other men who are in a difficult predicament.

So, good on Tom Davis.

And James's place is the charity, if you want to look it up.

But that'll do for today.

Thank you very much, chaps.

Thanks, Asasu.

Yeah, you're welcome.

It's good to be here.

Always good to have you.

Cheers, Solis.

Thanks.

Thanks, Max.

Always a pleasure here, team.

Cheers.

Cheers, Wilson.

Cheers.

See you.

I hope you hope your stomach clears up.

Don't have a Munich.

Yeah, I'll do my best.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

You're welcome, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Max Sardis.

This is The Guardian.