Tributes to Franz Beckenbauer and a European roundup – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

It's a Europod, and we'll begin by paying tribute to de Kaiser Frantz Beckenbauer, who died yesterday at the age of 78.

One of the greatest footballers ever, one of only three men to win the World Cup as a player and a manager.

Then on to the football.

Girona, keep pace with Rael in Spain.

Inter and Juve both leave it late at the top in Italy.

We'll do some Euro transfers as well.

And then there's Manchester United's win in the FA Cup in the fourth round draw.

What's Gary Mabbot got against Ange to give him that tie?

All that, plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello.

Hello, Nikki Bandini.

Morning.

Hi, Lars Sivadson.

Good morning, Max.

It's a completely

huge panel.

Sid Lowe, how are you, Sid?

Good morning.

Yeah, and you you have to stay for longer than part one because La League is in part two.

I mean, obviously,

that was such a sleight of hand.

Fantastically done.

And joining us for this bit from Munich, Archie Vintart.

Hey, Archie.

Hey.

Let's start with the news that Frantz Beckenbauer, one of the greatest ever footballers, has died at the age of 78, won the World Cup as captain of West Germany in 74, won the trophy again as manager in 1990, played 582 times for Bayern Munich, won the German top flight as both a player and a manager, manager, won the Ballon d'Or twice, won three consecutive European Cups as a player, Bayern said.

The world of FC Bayern is no longer what it used to be, suddenly darker, quieter, poorer.

They added that without Beckenbauer Bayern would never have become the club it is today.

Julian Nagelsmann said, for me, Frantz Beckenbauer was the best footballer in German history.

His interpretation of the role of the Libero changed the game.

This role and his friendship with the ball made him a free man.

Franz Beckenbauer was also able to float on the lawn as a footballer and later also as a coach.

He was sublime.

He stood above things.

When Franz Beckenbauer entered a room, the room lit up.

What's the reaction been like in Germany, Archie?

Huge.

It is all-encompassing and is the headline, much like the person was.

And it is impossible to cover

everything that Franz Beckenbauer means, but A couple of people have said to me that in historical terms, he's the most important German since the Second World War.

And you can understand why, because of the ambassador that he was in terms of how he helped rebuild the image of Germany as a player, as a manager, and

more controversially, as an official.

But it was, I think,

it's the feelings that...

of what he gave to so many people in this country that remain, how he was an innovator in his position,

as has been mentioned there.

He made defending sexy.

And he,

the word that I always hear again and again and again is elegance.

And the fact, like,

there's this thing about being elegant

as one thing.

And then there's being in the 1970 World Cup semifinal where you dislocate your shoulder and he's he's like oh strap that up i'm still going to run around and he still looks more elegant than anyone else on the pitch so yeah like as as a player uh coach as well not forget winning the 1990 world cup or indeed he won a few other things as a manager as well uefa cup bundlesliga you name it and then there's the character as well because

he had this charisma and like ability to him that could make people feel special that heart that I was mentioning there as well, but also persuasive in the 1974 World Cup.

Like things were not going well for Germany, and he effectively kind of took over there as coach.

Like, he had a chat with Helmut Schoen.

I say a chat.

He came out from it and said to Paul Breitner and the other players, well, we're going to play like this now.

And things went pretty well for them from that stage on as well.

So, yeah, a very much larger than life person doesn't even seem to encapsulate it

to encompass it really.

What's interesting about here, I mean, there are so many interesting things, right?

But the fact that he, you know, he's obviously he's more famous in Germany than being a footballer, right?

He's one of the most famous Germans, like you say, since the Second World War.

But in terms of he translated German, he went beyond Germany in terms of football, baz, like I've heard so many people saying, you know, even in the playground when like I was a kid and I'd never seen Beckenbauer play, none of us had seen Beckenbauer play, He was sort of still mentioned in the playground.

Like, if you tried to take it out from the back, rather than just, you know, sticking it in Rose Ed or launching it, someone would say, who do you think you are, France Beckenbauer?

And that's sort of insane, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, he was a little bit before my time, so I didn't see him as a player apart from a few clips here and there and the odd old game.

But, and, and it's always, I think, important to remember

for our younger listeners that

around this time there wasn't much football on television.

There was very little.

So, you know, we didn't get to see foreign players.

You know, even if I was old enough, you didn't get to see much football.

But everyone knew about him.

And as Archie says,

the word elegance is one that goes hand in hand with him, always associated with him.

I suppose Rio Ferdinand might be an example of an elegant centre-back,

more modern one, John Stones,

Franco Beresi for Milan and Italy before that, he was often compared to Beckenbar, and it was a comparison that he was very uncomfortable with

because I think he didn't think he was anywhere near as elegant or as good as Beckenbar.

He probably, you know, he was some player all the same.

But

he

I think what I like,

well, I don't like it, but when a player of this stature dies and you're reading the obituaries and the pieces written by people who are more familiar with their work than you are, these little nuggets of information pop up that you weren't previously aware of and that aren't necessarily

pertinent to the person who's just died.

And one I thought was interesting that when Beckenbauer began his football career as a player, Bar and Munich weren't anywhere near the best team in Europe.

They weren't even the best team in Munich.

And they've never won the Bundesliga, I think.

Their growth as a world superpower coincided with his

career as a player.

Yeah, I read Archie that

Archie,

he played in a youth team game for someone against 1860 Munich, and someone slapped him.

And he went, Well, I'm not going to play for them.

And had he joined them?

I mean, is it ridiculous to suggest that

1860 Munich would be this kind of behemoth in Germany and in European football?

I think that's too simple.

I think that's too simple to say, but

he laid the foundations for buyer

he laid the foundations and

then bully hernes and geard muller built upon them for for for this modern day bayern that you see impossible as figures from the club have been saying without him there's been some talk from karl heinz rummeniger former ceo that they should hold a funeral at the Allianz Arena for him because

they couldn't have built the stadium without Franz Beckenbauer's contribution to the club.

It's been interesting to see how people weigh up all of this with

the eventual downfall of him within the last decade because him bringing the World Cup to Germany and giving people

the permission to feel good about themselves as Germans was huge for the national identity.

And I'm always hearing this like year after year whenever people talk about the summer fairy tale that's omechan of 2006 and the fact that he was then uh involved in alleged bribery and irregular payments of several million dollars he he he had been seen as untouchable

so

that

i think having had probably a bit of a god complex because you would after having done everything that he did.

I think that it also,

must have contributed to

his poor health in his final years.

It was known that he was not doing well.

The fact that his son, Stefan, died of a brain tumor about nine years ago, that was also known to have hit him hard.

And even though he wasn't prosecuted in the end for his role in it, something that he denied.

When you listen to it about how his manager said, look, he wasn't a businessman,

how

he wasn't aware of all the things that he was signing,

it's on the one hand

difficult to believe.

But when you look at the big picture now and the way that everybody is talking about him, I don't think Germans are like, well, Beckenbauer, you know, what happened with the 2006 World Cup and how he did that?

It ruins it for me.

People are overwhelmingly positive.

And like, it plays a role, but I think that ultimately, people are saying, you know what, he was still so important to us.

Interestingly, on his position, Nikki, as like, as lots of people have said, like the original sweeper.

I mean, I just texted Wilson to check because obviously

you'll always be a Hungarian, right?

And he said, look, not the first ever, arguably not even a sweeper, different to the Italian conception.

I wonder, I don't know if, you know, how Italians would feel about Beckenbau, a German being the original sweeper.

It feels such a, Libero feels, obviously, such an Italian football position, right?

Yeah, I suppose that's, that's a tricky one to answer.

The same as Baz when you're talking about someone who is a little bit before your time.

But what I would say is that within Italy, without question, Beckenbauer is still used as this model to describe something.

So you get a young defender coming through.

Someone was posting, I can't remember who it was, so on Twitter was posting like clips from 2017, 2018 of players like Mattia Caldara, who's...

an interesting one because his career hasn't perhaps panned out the way he would of

match reports of people were going oh he brought the ball out so well from defence, like a young Beckenbauer.

So, like, you know, this is something that's endured absolutely within the Italian culture of

talking about footballers when you're reaching for your

default comparison, because we have to compare new young players to old players.

For elegant defender who can bring the ball out, Beckenbauer is still someone that people reach to.

So

I won't attempt to Jonathan Wilson-esque for history dive, but he's certainly still a reference point in Italy, as he is, I think, probably everywhere.

Yeah, Wilson is writing a column on this, so we can all read that.

I think, Sid, if you think about, you know, Bobby Charlton passing away three months ago and now Beckham Bauer, and

it does feel like slowly but surely, and it's like it's the nature of life, right?

We all have a finite amount of time on this world, but like the original superstar footballers are now bar one or two, sort of all gone.

Like the ones who, because even though football has been around for Pele, Crow,

Bobby Moore, Charleston,

Maradona, yeah.

Well, I mean, and obviously, in all of that, Maradona is the outlier because the others have passed away at an age that feels natural, whereas now Maradona is different.

And of course, I think what that would probably mean is that we'll look back on them differently as well, because the nature of their passing away then conditions the way that we think about them subsequently.

I guess that's also

a natural consequence of age.

It's also a natural consequence of the moments in which two or three things happen.

Obviously, games become televised, we start to pick up on them.

Television becomes in colour.

Obviously, the First World Cup is

sort of 66, but really it's 1970, isn't it, as the first World Cup that's kind of in colour.

And that gives you Pele and it gives you Beckenbauer and it brings some of that generation into it.

You've also got, of course, got that, and this is...

something I think we probably feel very keenly in Spain, the emergence of the European Cup.

And that first European Cup gives you that first generation from a Spanish perspective of Real Madrid Madrid players and in particular Alfredo de Estefano, who curiously in this, and this has always been for me the

kind of player that doesn't fit into this dynamic has always been Alfredo de Estefano.

And from a Spanish point of view, there is just no doubt that Alfredo de Estefano is one of the all-time greats, but possibly doesn't get that status internationally that Beckenbauer and so on have.

So if you take it from the point of view of who are the greatest players of all time,

certainly seen as an Englishman, obviously, but living in Spain and living in Spain for a long time, it always feels like it, well, it's until Messi and Ronaldo, and let's kind of take them out of the equation.

It's always been Maradona and Pele.

And then if you're English, maybe you add George Best and Bobby Charton in there.

If you're German, you absolutely add Beckenbauer in there.

If you're Dutch, you absolutely add Croith in there.

If you're Spanish, people will always say Messi, Maradona, Croith.

And DiStefano is always there.

And it feels like DiStefano is not there everywhere else.

And I guess that's because not playing or not having a key starring role at a World Cup and maybe that European Cup doesn't have the impact elsewhere that it has within Spain but I think I think to go back to your original point this is about the times and about the moments isn't it at which all these happen which which makes Maradona different and and I guess that Beckenbauer is possibly the last one left of of that wave I think the interesting thing Lars is

we talk about all those players that sit as list listed and there aren't many defenders in there, are there?

I mean, that's the sort of extra.

That's what makes Beckenbauer feel like an outlier when you talk about, you know, Best and Cruyf and Maradona and Pele, right?

All these guys, and up to Messi and Ronaldo.

It's just very rare,

like, he's the defender, right?

That's it.

No, absolutely.

And we've touched on it already, and the fact that being a defender who brings the ball out from the back and then orchestrates attacks, that has become something that every young defender is kind of told that you have to be able to do to some extent.

Now, positions are different and all of that.

But the thing that I think is almost completely unique, I can't really think of a good example is just that he has so many goals as well.

Like, I mean, you can watch incredible YouTube compilations of him just scoring absolute bangers from all kinds of angles, which even today, when defenders are grown up knowing, are grown up, when defenders grow up knowing they have to be technical and have to be able to play the ball, you rarely see someone who has the sort of attacking quality that he did, which is quite a thing.

And it is

things we've touched on already in the conversation, but it's fascinating how he has such an incredible legacy, both in what he did on the pitch and changing some of the ways we think of what defenders can do and position, but also just building, being a huge part in building Bayan's dynasty off the pitch.

And it's hard to think of an aspect of the sport in which he doesn't have

a huge legacy, even going to the point of like commercialization, him being one of the first sort of commercially active, should put that the way player.

Very few men have worn Adidas quite like he did.

That's part of why

he's remembered more than someone like Di Stefano is because he was involved in the first World Cup on colour TV.

And these were big moments.

And he was somebody who was very marketable as well.

There was a big documentary on Beckenbauer that's been brought out on German terrestrial TV in the last few days even that

has made a lot of headlines and is being watched even more now um

and and that's and that's one of the points that that it makes uh there was a moment lars where i misheard you and instead of girls i heard girls and because that is also a point that is made in the documentary of of his love life uh there's a an excerpt from kicker magazine that i want to read you quickly Even his missteps have a hand and foot.

When son Johan was born nine months after the club's Christmas party in 1999, after the club boss had got close to a secretary, Beckenbauer, who was married to someone else, commented with legendary casualness, God loves all his children.

So

it tells you,

it tells you, it gives you that insight that,

yes,

he, I think,

he liked all and enjoyed all aspects of life, shall we say.

You know, like we are a whole, you know, as a person, when we're all, you know, leave this mortal coil, people look at all our, all of our parts, don't they?

You know, the flaws, you know, and the other bits as well.

Sid, you wanted to come in?

Yeah, no, it was just a really, really simple thing that you were talking about the idea of him being a defender.

And it just made me think that that thing that you do,

and certainly if you've got small children, you do this, where you inevitably endlessly draw up the best 11 of all time.

And you're endlessly doing this.

And

you're writing it down.

down and it's amazing there's always an argument about who do i leave out up front pelly or maradona or do i put messi in and and and does does you know does does this guy get in does that guy get in and how do i fit the midfielders in and i'll tell you what i'll just play a load of forwards everywhere you never have that debate of centre-back yeah it's really really easy it's beckenbau and it's done in fact it's finding who to put next to him i guess isn't it exactly you just play one centre back you play beckenbauer and then everyone else is a forward

it's interesting i mean that just this this definite thing you mentioned was interesting sid because we obviously did a bit for Stan because we've got the rights in Australia.

We looked back at some great old players and some great old games.

We looked at Distefano, and I think it's totally because the footage is terrible, right?

You just can't, it's so grainy and you can't really pick him out.

You know, you know, you sort of see the, they might have the goals because, like, you're right, his record, he was just, he was almost just before, right, the superstars.

Like, I'm obviously,

you know, and I think that's a key part of it.

That's definitely, of course, because our memories are constructed through all sorts of elements.

And one of them is the capacity to keep reminding ourselves through the quality of the footage or through

the reports and so on.

And I was really thinking of Di Stefano when you're talking about the idea that Bayer Munich doesn't exist without Franz Beckenbauer because Real Madrid, as we currently understand them, even though it's difficult to conceptualise this, doesn't exist without DiStefano.

Distefano changes absolutely everything.

And as you say,

maybe the moment of it makes it difficult for him to have the international projection.

But within Spain,

there's absolutely no doubt because of his impact.

in in fact in Spain in a way if you if you kind of want to look back and say there's a player that everybody should talk about but they don't it would perhaps be Cubala who builds the great Barcelona team that then gets eclipsed by DiStefano's Real Madrid and you look back on that and of course quite apart from the whole debate about whether Di Stefano should and could have ended up at Barcelona you also got the timing of the European Cups.

That Barcelona team is almost certainly the best team in the world,

but stops being the best team in the world just at the point at which the European Cups turned out.

That's interesting.

Now, so if the the European Cup turns up three years earlier, everything looks very different.

And I guess

there's something in this that's sort of serendipity up to a point, isn't it?

There's a degree of chance about the moment and was it right for us to be given this player that would then kind of, I don't know what the phrase would be, make this impact upon all of our memories.

It's worth mentioning because we talked about 1970, like this seminal World Cup.

The first in colour was the World Cup that Mario Zagalo won as manager of Brazil.

And he shares with Beckenbauer one of only three, along with Didier Deschamps, players, to win the World Cup as a player and a manager.

And actually, Bass, that that is a sort of ridiculous achievement when you strip it back.

I know Philippe is never that hot on Deschamps, but we should probably give him the credit that he deserves, right?

I was actually just going to say, I don't think Didier Deschamps belongs in that company.

That is probably really unfair because obviously he does.

He has done it, but maybe just not with as sexy a team or in a sexy a way.

But yeah, it's an incredible achievement.

You know, he won just

World Cups, European Championships, European Cups, Ballon d'Or.

Pretty much everything the game has to offer.

Just one little thing.

Before we came on or started recording, Archie said he's heard a lot of fun stories about Ekabara.

Just wondering, are there any you might be able to share with us?

Well, one of them was the Christmas party.

The other one was

an ad contract with O2

around the turn of the century.

And as part of that deal, he was allowed to choose his own phone number.

So he chose 0176-666-6666,

which seemed like a simple choice.

However, in the middle of the night, he then started getting

calls that he didn't want from very horny men who were looking for

who were looking for a erotic conversation because six in German, sex, sounds quite a lot like sex.

So people thought that that was a sex line.

So

as a result,

when I heard this, I thought, this is not true.

And I've double and triple checked it.

And

it is true.

Like, leading German publications have all written about this in some form.

The real question here is, how did he respond to these calls?

It's one thing to have them call up.

It's another thing to think, yes, this is Franz.

Yeah, shall we say that?

But hang on, Sid.

I mean, the real thing is

for the man who's looking for some titillation.

You know, to then find out that he's accidentally called Frantz Beckenbauer, do you suddenly shift and go, do you know what just tell me about 1974 would you like like

that is that is the sexiest conversation of all time

total insanity here you are thinking you're just going to row you know you're ringing up some random line and you get one of the greatest footballers on earth by accident i mean that's if france did you know if he went along with it um anyway anyway uh thank you archie uh appreciate it

good stuff

there uh out in munich and that'll do for part one, part two.

We'll do a bit of La Liga.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So La Liga then, Sid.

Thanks for sticking around.

Real Madrid above Girona on goal difference.

Girona beat athletic 4-3 in their last league game.

A brilliant game, wasn't it?

What did I say?

4-2?

Yeah, 4-2.

I said 4-4-3.

Hang on.

Yeah, you're right.

Sorry, I'm wrong.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

Come on, Sis.

Actually, I'll do this bit myself.

Don't worry.

Murata scored a hat-trick, Nate.

He did score a hat-trick.

Yeah, I don't know why.

You know what?

Yeah, I was just, I was about to say, I don't know why I took Murata's, one of Murata's goals off.

I suppose because momentarily I thought I was a linesman.

There has never in the history of mankind been a footballer who's had more goals ruled out for offside than Alvara Murata.

VAR has been really, really cruel to him.

All right, it's sort of the opposite of spin bowlers who's suddenly getting all these wickets.

Murata just not getting all these goals.

We'll get on to him in a second, but

how much of a chance do you give Girona to keep this up?

I mean, every time I think this can't go on, it goes on.

I think one of the things about the win against Athletica was they were brilliant.

absolutely brilliant in the first half.

And so you've got, if you like, the performance that says to you, this team are genuinely good enough to win it.

Then you've got that other thing, and I know this is cliched, and I know it's too easy for us to fall into this trap of saying, oh, that's a champion's win when you win in the last minute and you don't deserve it.

Because in the second half, Atletico were absolutely brilliant.

And Atletico were genuinely, really unlucky not to have turned this round.

And they get it back to 3-3.

They have loads of chances.

They really should have won it.

And they get beaten 4-3.

So you've got this perfect combination from Girona's point of view of the performance of a champion and the slightly jammy win of the champion, if you like.

And then you look at their figures and their figures are extraordinary.

They're projecting to 96 points.

This is a first half of the season in which they've only been beaten once.

That was by Real Madrid's 3-0, which would make you kind of step back a little bit and think, okay, no chance, because when it came to someone big, they got beaten.

But actually, that 3-0 really exaggerates how good Madrid's performance was.

Then you add to it the fact they're not getting injuries.

Now, admittedly, they still might.

But the goal scoring is spread all the way through the squad.

So even if they do, you kind of feel like they would probably assimilate that all right they unlike rail madrid don't have super cup and they don't have european competition rail madrid have had lots of injuries this year and actually keep playing really quite reasonably well uh keep getting good results and you think well but at some point you sort of feel like does this catch up with madrid or actually does the opposite happen the return of players means they start picking up there's a bit of me that still just can't quite see it But the rational analysis of what they've done so far is that, yeah, they're good enough.

And if it wasn't for that, for the fact that Real Madrid are still ahead of them you say absolute yes bear in mind they have a seven-point lead over Barcelona a ten point lead over Atletico Madrid now from that point of view what they've done so far is is extraordinary is the whole of Spain like desperate for them to win it

no

yes and no I mean I don't really I mean the the the debate that we we have had and and and the recurring theme that that that that I get whenever I mention girona and when i whenever i write about them is of course you get this thing about the manchester city ownership and so on and whether there's an whether there's a kind of an ethical i don't know if ethical is the right word but anyway an ethical dimension to it all or a moral moral dimension to it all that part of the debate i think curiously enough hasn't really happened in spain and i think it's really interesting because one of the things if you get um javier tevas the very pugnacious president of the spanish league will always talk about state clubs, will go on about Manchester City all the time.

And now there's a sense of of celebration that look what's happening with Jerome you think well and have you perhaps if you know and by the way for what it's worth I would include myself in one of those people who possibly hasn't talked enough about the city element because actually what they do and you look at them purely as a team and you don't see that city element quite so strongly because actually the side isn't

you know packed full of city players they haven't spent huge amounts of money they're not that it's it's not a team that's come along go you know here have loads of millions of euros worth of players and go and win the league so it in purely footballing terms it hasn't been constructed like that but of course it would be naive to ignore that so anyway sorry the point i've gone around the houses a little bit but the point i was going to make is that that hasn't really

been the reason why people are not desperate for a girona to win it and so it means that for those who like the idea of someone other than madrid or barcelona winning the league that hasn't really stopped them liking the idea and so there is a degree of people saying yeah this would be great and it would be fun and the other element of it and it's worth saying this is they're really great to watch.

You know,

they're a really lovely football team to watch.

I think it's been something like 3-3-2s this year, a 5-3, a 5-2, the 4-3 against Atletico now.

They throw loads of men forward.

They play really lovely football.

They get into the area loads.

They would be brilliant champions.

And it's not Madrid and Barcelona, so that's great.

But then, of course, they're in is part of the answer to you.

Does Spain want them to win it?

Well, partly not because it's not Madrid and Barcelona.

And I can't express enough how much this is a country dominated by madrid and barcelona in fan terms and in media terms and so while there is an enjoyment about girona obviously you've got this big chunk of the population that's madrista that is thinking well of course it wouldn't be good and you've also even got that slightly barcelona bit which is thinking well hang on there still might be half a chance that barcelona will recover here for what it's worth there is it's very interesting there's a there's a kind of a section of the um spanish media which which was always leaned towards Barcelona, which is now very heavily leaning towards Girona, in part because of the people involved, because of the association with Guardiola, and obviously Guardiola's brother is a part owner, but also this idea that this is a kind of Guardiola-y project because it's a big Catalan club, because of some of the people involved in the running the club, and so on.

And so, I think there's a fondness.

And I think, actually, if they did win it, everyone would go, wow, this is brilliant.

But I'm not sure it's quite as

I'm not sure it's got quite quite the enthusiasm building that that

I'm assuming I didn't live there, live in England at the time, that I'm assuming that Leicester had at this kind of stage.

Sid, I'm sort of curious,

because you touched on it about maybe there's sort of being goals through this side and the lack of injuries clearly has been a big thing for them.

Looking at the two squads, I'm not sure that either Madrid or Girona are going to be too badly affected by Africa Cup of Nations.

I don't think either of them are losing huge pieces.

But I was just curious to know, from your perspective, as someone who sees them all,

which players in this Girona team are the ones who you'd be really worried if something happened to.

Is it Dovbik up front, who I know has been like a really nice addition, has been scoring goals for them?

Like, what if there was someone who you think actually, but if that if that person wasn't there, who is it?

Well, the problem, the problem is, and I suppose this tells you that I shouldn't worry about any of them, is you say, which player would you really would you really highlight?

I could probably give you a list of four or five, and you mentioned Dovik is definitely one of them.

Uh, Savior on the wing is really, really exciting to watch.

Um, you, you go through the team and you think, well,

I guess the really key one for me might be Alex Garcia in the middle of midfielder, of course, was at Manchester City.

But the guys kind of playing around him really got Ivan Martin, who scored the goal the other day.

There's a nice line actually from Michel, the coach after game, and he's the kind of the midfielder that, and he said, he said, he's the one that

people think is underrated, that our players think is underrated, that no one else talks about him as much as they should.

And Michel said, gave this nice line.

He said, you can con the people and you can con journalists.

And I thought, thanks for that.

But you, but you can't con teammates.

And in the dressing room, he's the one that everybody loves.

And so he's not someone I would normally have responded to your question with.

But when you get a man, but you don't want to be conned, do you see?

You don't want to be stuck.

So I'm now wondering how stupid I am because I've just been conned by the manager who's just told me to like this guy.

So I said, right, I like this guy, definitely.

Perhaps it's a double bluff, and he's absolutely shy.

Do you know what?

He's the one thinking that Barcelona coming for Alex Garcia.

Tell you what, maybe I can throw Barcelona off the scent and say, you want to buy this guy?

You want to buy this guy instead?

So, I mean, look, Dovic definitely would be a loss, although Stuani scores goals, but he's not quite the same player.

I think Savior

would be a loss.

But I think the really big one would probably be Alex Garcia, who, by the way, Barcelona have come in for, but they haven't got any money.

Yeah, that was going to be my question, Sid.

Will they be able to keep him?

Because there is...

You know, they seem to quite want him.

But then there was also this whole thing of if you're at Girona right now, surely you feel it's worth sticking out another six months of this to see where it can lead because there seems to be quite like a unique thing that's happening at the club at the moment.

Or if Barcelona wants you, you go.

Is it that simple?

This was the genesis of the genesis of this was that there was an interview.

And you know what?

I think I'm right in saying it was in the week before Girona played Barcelona.

So the timing was horrendous.

And Alex Garcia basically came and said, yeah, I'd love to go to Barcelona.

It'd be great, wouldn't it?

And Michel, the Girona coach, said, look, he's made a mistake, but, you know, ultimately, I suppose who wouldn't in the long term?

But you're right, right now, if I'm Girona, first of all, I'm telling Barcelona to sling the rook and you know, come back in the summer if you like, but forget it for now.

Also, if you have, if I'm Alex Garcia right now, I'd be saying, well, can we talk in the summer?

But of course, you know that maybe it's an opportunity that you wouldn't otherwise go.

But the bottom line is, at the moment, and Chavi mentioned this the other day, he said words to the effect of, it would be good if we could buy a central midfielder, but we can't.

I have a solution that would suit everyone.

and my solution is that Alex Garcia stays where he is and then moves to Barcelona this summer.

Barcelona in dire need of a central midfielder but can't afford to buy one so they do have a fan and former manager at Manchester City who desperately wants to give Calvin Phillips game time somewhere else.

So send Calvin Phillips on loan to Barcelona.

He gets game time.

They don't have to pay a transfer fee and Alex Garcia stays put.

How about that?

That would work a treat.

And obviously, this goes back to what we were saying before about the ownership thing.

The obvious thing is send Calvin Phillips to Girona because they're part of the city group.

And curiously, that hasn't happened anything like as much as we would think.

There's only two city group players in the Girona team at the moment.

But yeah, that would work very nicely, Baz.

But Barcelona would still have to find...

Some money from somewhere to pay for these players.

That's the other thing.

They pay their salaries.

Barcelona has...

Surely they have like a shed or something they can sell.

Like there's always parts of that club that you can sell off for a short-term game i don't want to go into this too deeply because we could literally be here all the day but just to very briefly say

one of the big things they sold has not been paid for and this is one of the reasons why barcelona have a problem because that promise of uh i can't remember the exact total at the moment i think it's 60 million euros um hasn't actually been paid and so

Barcelona got a really really big problem is this to do with the levers that they all pulled and the levers are now down so they can't wrench the levers back up the lever has got stuck Like they went off to the States to play a friendly purely to get some money in the pot just before Christmas.

They're that skint, are they?

Yes, it was 4.5 million euros, which is quite a lot of money for Barcelona.

One of the best things, one of the best things, Barcelona fans will have to forgive me for calling it best thing, but one of the kind of things about that was that they flew immediately after playing Almedia the last game before the Christmas break, and they were playing in Dallas the next day.

And they genuinely straight off the straight off the game change onto the plane fly.

That game, they'd won 3-2 but played really badly and Chavi had really torn into his players after the game and it felt like the kind of the tearing into your players that's been building for a few weeks and you finally say it.

You thought, wow, that's going to be an enjoyable flight, isn't it?

On the day that Chavi basically called them all out, tell you what, let's sit on a plane for 10 hours.

And also they got no money, so they were all economy, middle seat

all the way down a plane, weren't they?

Not even an an aisle or a window poor bastards but i mean that that kind of that that financial you know being skint for barcelona is presumably different to you know

some old bloke being skint in that the barcelona is just there's no danger of barcelona getting in serious financial difficulty well it depends what you mean by serious financial difficulty um obviously floating in the background is always that question of at what point if they ever reach that point are barcelona forced?

Well, you've used the word float, let's use the word float,

to sell the club rather than elements of the club.

Because, of course, Barcelona is member-owned.

It's one of four clubs in Spain that's member-owned, that's not a private company.

At what point do they need to have either private investment or does this club actually pass into private hands?

Does it effectively get sold and no longer belong to its members?

And that question does float a little bit.

Now, in a way, I suppose what you could argue is that what they've done with these infamous levers

is essentially privatise the club anyway, or privatise parts of the club, sell off some of the club's assets.

Now, the choice for them, of course, has been, right, well, what most clubs do is they sell assets that are players.

We've decided to try and keep some of our players and sell assets that aren't players.

And I suppose that's legitimate.

Why wouldn't you?

And, you know, you look back on the, if you like, the financial basis of modern Real Madrid, and that was selling the old training ground, which I suppose in some ways you could say, well, that was the original lever.

You know,

that was the first example of selling assets and using that to help you maintain the footballing side of the club.

And I actually think it's more legitimate than people think.

People look at this and think, this is terrible.

The problem is, of course, you're selling off future earnings.

So you're selling off long-term stability for being able to fix things in the short term.

And then if you don't get paid for some of those things, then you have a really, really significant problem.

Now, the other element in this is La Liga's financial fair play rules.

I think I've said this before, so apologies if I'm repeating myself and apologies too if it sounds like a bit of a rant, but I feel the slight need to have a little bit of a rant, which is that when you watch Barcelona do this, there is this kind of assumption, I think, sometimes from outside that says, ah, you see, they can do whatever they want.

There's no financial fair play.

Now, one of the reasons they do this is because there is financial fair play in Spain and real financial fair play and imposed in advance.

not retrospectively.

So you don't get this thing of, well, you broke the rules, here, pay us 40 million and we'll all forget about it.

Instead, they say, you are breaking the rules.

These are the criteria.

Now, you can argue about whether the criteria are right, but these are the criteria.

You cannot register players unless you show that you are bringing in this amount of money and saving this amount of money and so on.

And so you, so actually, one of the reasons why this is happening to Buster is A, there's a basic financial thing, which is, have we got the money to do this?

And B, there's the criteria financial thing, which is, are we allowed to do this?

So some of the reasons why they're pulling the levers is to try and comply with that financial fair play.

And then again, and I don't don't want to labor this point, but I'm going to say it anyway, which is that there's this idea somehow that, you see, there's never any real punishment.

I don't know.

I reckon being forced to sell the best player of all time was quite a big punishment.

Yeah.

I have another question, which I feel will have an incredibly long answer.

Oh, sorry.

It probably needs to be asked, which is, what was the reaction to the Super League verdict?

in Madrid and Barcelona and Spain generally.

Right, well, I mean, put very, very, I'm going to try and give you the really short answer.

The The short answer is that actually this doesn't, the Super League thing doesn't make people furious in Spain in a way that it does in England.

Partly to go back to what I was saying before, because of the dominance of Realmed and Barcelona, it's seen through a prism of those two.

So actually, this was largely seen as, oh, this is quite good from some people, not from everyone.

I don't want to make it about absolutely everyone.

And there's been people who I think have been really quite firmly against it and spoken very well.

A guy called Axel Torres in particular was very interesting on this and actually had a go at the CEO of the Super League League and basically said, you know, are you laughing at us?

Are you taking the piss with what you're saying?

But fundamentally, this was saying, oh, Madrid and Barcelona might get what they want.

Thanks, Sid.

I mean, you might as well hang about.

I've only got 10 minutes to go, but up to you.

All right.

Lovely stuff.

We'll do Serie A in the next bit.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game, Day Scratches 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 Nikki, Interested top.

They haven't been necessarily totally convincing in their last few games, but their last-minute winner against Verona.

That last injury time against Verona was absolutely brilliant, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was a brilliant goal and brilliant moment for Fratesi as well, who's this

player who came into this summer with quite sort of

big expectations on him because he's been showing what he's capable of for the national team and has really struggled to get starts just because that midfield is so set and so some real sort of,

I don't know, I was going to say over the top, it's not over the top, but some really enjoyable celebration scenes, including somehow him ending up with far too much of his shorts down on top of the stands.

That just, I don't know, was a moment of proper football joy.

And then a few moments, a few minutes the next day, you get Juventus doing the same thing, leaving it until very, very late and getting

their winner against Sernitan at the end of the game, the game which they'd been trailing.

So it's been a real back and forth title race between the two of them.

often in recent weeks it's been juventus playing first and putting the pressure on inter

uh for once it was inter who played first and put some pressure on juventus but it feels like the two of them are going stride for stride at the moment which is um very enjoyable to watch yeah i mean worth mentioning that if i was really concentrating during the highlights i watched because it was like a three minute highlights bit of of into

verona and inter's winning goal was like a minute in i was like how are there two minutes left of highlights but then verona got a penalty like after that didn't they yeah yeah it It was a chaotic game.

And honestly, like,

it was one of those games for the first time in a while that made you think, actually, Inter aren't bulletproof.

And I think this is what's sort of gradually ratcheting up.

And the longer it goes on, making the title race more fascinating, is Inter have been sublime for parts of this season.

They've played some extraordinary football.

They've scored some brilliant goals, goals in which they seem to keep hold of the ball for...

minutes at a time before scoring really sort of great football.

They have 12 clean sheets in 19 games.

They've only conceded nine goals all season.

They've scored 44.

And yet they haven't been able to pull away from Juventus, who just grind and find ways to get results a corto muzo by a short head, as Allegri would say it.

And I think that the longer that goes on, the more you're getting this sort of

stress applied to it.

And this game against Verona was one which between some refereeing decisions that didn't go Verona's way, between

exactly as you say, you know, right at the end of of the game you think it's it's over and it's still not but I don't want to get that chance again at the end it was a game that they really perhaps didn't deserve to win but they managed to and so at the moment it feels like they're the ones who are having to to respond and it to me it's got that feeling of like

is it is it Freddie on Friday the 13th who's the who's the one who's

following Freddie Kruger is that it not no not Freddie I mixed it with the other one on Friday the third Jason Jason it just keeps following you and it just feels like no matter what in Tai do Juventus just there following them and they're not they're not stopping and uh and it's making those moments at the end of games.

It's the T1000 on the back bumper.

Yes, yeah,

I got my I got my Friday the 13th in my nightmare on Elm Street.

I'm confusing all of those

at last.

But can you tell us anything about how Juventus are doing this, Nikki?

Because I've seen them play a few times and they don't look good.

Like, I mean, this is like, this is no fun when you're watching this team.

And on paper, it's not a particularly scary Juventus team.

And like you say there's a lot of jammy one goal wins in there so there's a lot that goes into it um i think there are some things that are genuinely good happening at juventus and i think that mostly when i say that i'm talking about players from their next-gen team so italy a few years ago reopened this opportunity for clubs to have teams operating in the lower leagues a bit like has happened in the past with Spanish teams where they have Real Madrid B or whatever in the in the lower leagues and they're able to blood players that way.

Juventus have their next-gen team and they're starting to see the fruits of that with players like Samuel Lenning Jr., who scored at the weekend.

Yildis up front, who everyone's incredibly excited about, are starting to come through and have a mark on the first team, and that's part of it.

But I think the biggest part of it is just, frankly, the management of Max Alegri, because talent for talent, this Juventus team is still really underwhelming.

When you go through the team and look at the names in it, you don't think, wow, that's a Juventus team of the team that can win the league and boss everyone um there's a lot of players in there who i think are delivering at the absolute most of what they can deliver i think a really great example of that is western mckinney who of course had this disastrous chapter at leeds has gone back to turin and he's playing the best football of his career he just is now wester mckinney's ceiling is not um I mean, different position, but just because we've been talking about him as a great, it's not a Franz Beckenbauer ceiling.

It's a very different ceiling.

But what he can give you, he is giving you at the moment.

And I think that nothing sort of illustrated it better for me than their match against Roma recently, which they, which they won.

And Roma, like Juventus, have this sort of

very

uninspiring way of playing.

But in the end,

you don't expect that from a Jose team, you know.

But this is what's fascinating because both these teams are uninspiring.

You look at them both and go, well, they're both uninspiring teams that want to win a game 1-0.

But when you put them up against each other, you see that Roma really are just going to sit there in a block and get the ball to Debalo and Nukaku and go, go on then, do something for us.

Whereas Juventus don't do that.

They play football.

They play through you.

They've got actual systems.

They've got the two Medzale, who mostly is Rabio and McKenny, who will get up and down the pitch, who will make those runs.

Rabio ends up scoring in that game and Rabio has been...

Rabio has been a different Rabio to the one who we like to make a run in this podcast.

He's been brilliant all season to the point where I've sort of had to really sort of hold my hands up and say I think my assessments of this guy have been wrong because I think like a lot of people when Juventus were close to sending him to Manchester United

a year or two ago it was seemed seemed to me like a brilliant deal to get rid of him and now he's he's really showing himself to be what he is i guess which is someone who's played in world cups and and and and gone far in them he's he's he's been brilliant there's a couple of individuals i could say have been brilliant bremer in defence has taken a huge step forward and I think is matured into the defender they hoped he would be after Johnny Fentorino.

I think he's a maybe world-class defender.

I think that in moments, Federico Kies and Dusan Vlavic have been very good.

But again, talent in this team does not thrill you.

The way they play does not thrill you.

But Max Allegri, it turns out, in his not always exciting to watch way, is just a very good football manager.

Rabio isn't Rabio, isn't Rabio, clearly.

Bill says,

into Juve on the 4th of Feb.

That's a huge game, obviously, isn't it?

Bill says, as a Roma fan, the only thing I care about is finishing above Lazio in the table.

After an encouraging start, Roma now trailed Lazio by a point.

Is this a fifth straight season of disappointment?

Or does Mourinho have enough interest left to turn things around?

Just to quickly say on the Juventus inter thing before we move on,

Italy's about to have a four-team Super Coppa.

It always used to be a two-team Super Coppa winning of the league, winning the Cup.

They've expanded to four teams now so that they can make more money out of it because everyone goes to Riyadh and plays plays a semi-final and final but the consequence of that is that Juventus are going to play a couple of times before inter play uh so there's going to be a chance for juventus to to put even more pressure on by moving ahead of them albeit with inter keeping the games in the hands and is that a competition that people care about or is that the charity shield is it it's sort of it is effectively it has been the the equivalent competition to the to the community shield I would say in Italy it's always had a higher status than the community shield.

It is a team you've seen teams, a tournament you've seen teams want to win.

I think this expanding it to four teams, oddly, is going to diminish that.

I think it's going to make teams more annoyed about it because, especially with it being in Riyadh, it's a massive inconvenience in the middle of a pivotal point of the season that you've got to go and do.

And as we get into the second half of the season as well, bear in mind, Inter are in Europe still.

Juvenists haven't had to deal with Europe all season, so it all feels like mounting extra things that Inter have to deal with in this

title race.

To get to Teroma,

I don't know what new there is to say about Roma because it feels like this static situation where from the outside it can feel like infuriating Adele football, but the fans in Rome still love Jose.

Are they going to finish above Lazio?

Lazio have had better results recently, but at no point this season have looked to me like a team that has fully understood how to move on since selling Sergei Milinkovich Savic.

They haven't really got an identity.

They haven't got much verve about them.

I think it's very, very plausible the way the league is shaping up that both of these teams are going to miss out on the top four and possibly the top five as well, which might be five Champions League places this season.

Which one of them will be the better of the two?

Roma, in the end, I still lean towards just because of Lukaku and Debala.

When they're both on the pitch, that's good enough to beat most of the bad teams in Serie.

It isn't good enough to beat the good teams in Serie, but if you beat enough of the bad teams, you might finish Buffalazio.

David says Napoli are now closer to relegation than they are to Winter.

How much worse will it get?

I mean, that's quite a fall, isn't it?

It's extraordinary what's happening at Napoli.

And

like everyone, I thought that it was probably the right decision to move on from Rudy Garcia.

Rudy Garcia, who was an odd appointment to begin with, who you then had the owner, Ariel de Laurentis, almost from day one, saying, I'm not quite sure why I appointed this guy, and then getting to the end of it and saying, definitely shouldn't have appointed that guy, should have buyed him on day one.

But you've replaced him with Walter Madzari, who

has

not been doing it at the top level for a while and who has now led a team that scored 77 goals, I think it was last season, to no goals in the last four matches and is about to lose Victor Ossman to the Cup of Nations and Anguisa as well.

It's hard to see where this

they're not going to get relegated, just to clarify that, because you talked about the relegation, so they're not going to.

I think they need about six points probably to avoid relegation the rest of this season.

But it's hard to see them bouncing back even into the again that champions league race at the moment because they've been so bad um and this weekend losing three nil to torino torino never scored three goals torino again you're talking about a team that is averaging less than one goal per game this season they're a competitive team they're a stubborn team under ivan jurich they're not a team that scores three goals so

the way things are unraveling mazali isn't up to the job Rudy Garcia was, I think, also not particularly a great appointment.

But the real problem goes back to the Oni Arlo de La Rentis, who has sabotaged a title-winning project in record time in spectacular ways.

Quite an achievement.

Barry, back to domestic matters.

Manchester United won 2-0 at Wiggin.

Can I just chip in with one final bit of

Italian?

Or a little tidbit I read this morning, which I thought was quite interesting.

Leonardo Bonucci is about to terminate his contract with Union Berlin so he can move to Fenerbace

keep his hopes of getting in the Italy squad for Euro 2024 alive.

Wow.

That is an interesting tidbit.

Will he make the squad?

Is he going to be on that plane?

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

I was going to ask about Man United being Wiggin 2-0.

Did you enjoy it?

Did you watch it?

How did you feel about Bruno Fernandez's penalty decision, which seems to have enraged half the population?

Yeah,

well, because I was all over Leonardo Bonucci's next move, I started watching it, and as soon as Manchester United scored, I switched over and started watching something else instead.

Oh, what did you watch?

Silent Witness.

New series started.

Was it good?

Was it?

Was it?

It was actually.

Yeah, I wasn't that happy with the last series, but this one is showing a return to form.

All right.

Have you seen the Fernandez incident?

I haven't, I'm afraid.

No.

Okay, Lars, have you?

No.

No?

Okay, this is great.

But

on the subject of crimes, I mean, maybe we moved on for now, but on on Nikki and Napoli, I absolutely loved Pascale Mazzocchi's debut for Napoli.

I think that's worth rowing it back to Florida.

Please do, Lou.

If anyone who hasn't seen this yet, Napoli, as Nikki has explained, are in big, big trouble.

They've brought on

Pascal Mazzocchi recently joined the club.

They bring him on at halftime.

What happened, Nikki?

Well, Mazzoki, I mean, you kind of have to give the backstory, because Mazzocchi grew up in in Barra, which is a suburb of Naples, and left home at 11 years old to go and play in Benevento's youth team.

Doesn't come back until this January's transfer window.

So he's played all over the country, but not Naples.

Most recently he was at Slerdinitana and he was captaining the Slerdinitana team who stopped Napoli from winning the league at home last season.

Of course, Napoli still won the league, but he stopped them from winning it at home.

So got all sorts of abuse for being the Neapolitan kid who stopped them from doing what they most wanted.

Signs for them this January.

So it's a great homecoming for him again.

Since 11 years old, he's been away from home.

Comes back to play for the club of the city where he grew up,

comes off the bench at half-time in this game against Torino.

They're losing 1-0 and is sent off within five minutes for a studs-up tackle that goes over someone's knee.

So, yeah, quite a sort of

a journey for Matsuki.

He touched the ball twice before getting sent off in his debut.

He touched the ball twice and then put in a completely insane tackle and was promptly sent off.

As far as the homecomings go, it's absolutely remarkable.

I love it.

I mean, Bena touching it twice.

And should be investigated.

And Napoli have Salar

Natina next, isn't it?

If they lose that, will Matsari go?

Yeah,

it's a really difficult situation to know what's going to happen now.

They're trying to fix things by signing players.

They signed Madzocci.

There's been talk about signing Samar Zic as well this January Transwindo.

But

which manager wants to walk into that situation now mid-season?

Now, there's been talk about Antonio Conte because he was seen at the Torino Torino Napoli game.

He's probably the strongest candidate you could talk about in terms of there being someone who's available because rules in Italy prevent managers from coaching two clubs in the same season, so they can't go out and take someone off their rivals.

Conte's available, he's a top-level manager.

Unless there's someone else that De La Rentis has up his sleeve, and it's worth saying that both Garcia and Mazzari were appointments to surprise someone,

it's hard to see, it's hard to know who you would fire Mazari for

because

what do you think is going to be better, even though this is terrible, is a difficult question when you're only talking about people out of out of work.

And Conte, my goodness, I mean, that would be combustible madness.

I would love to see it as a sort of

piece of performance art, maybe, but I can't see how his mindset, his tendency to demand this, that and the other, which usually involves signing several players who I won't say over over the hill, but perhaps attending in that direction and who he remembers being good at times in his career and who happened to come with very high wage bills at a club that is going through this

difficult moment with an owner who's extremely strong-willed.

I think it would be fascinating, but again,

I don't know realistically who they're going to appoint.

What about Sam Aladici?

Maybe it's his time.

Anyway, anyway, Bruno Fernandez was caught very lightly.

He went down like a sack of spuds, scored a penalty.

I think it probably was a penalty, but lots of people don't.

But, you know.

Surely a sack of spuds, right?

Surely a sack of spuds just kind of falls on the floor.

It doesn't kind of leap up with a yell and roll and squeal and, you know.

No, it makes a good point.

Potatoes aren't sentient beings, are they, Sid?

So, you know, they haven't, you know, it's not like clever play from a sack of potatoes.

It's just a sack of potatoes.

I will never use it again.

Michael says, can we have a mention of poor old Gary Gary Mabbot's face after the presenter read out that Coventry City won the FA Cup in 1987 after he pulled their name out of the hat?

Yes, Mabbot kind of smirked.

It went completely unreferenced by everybody, which was absolutely sensation.

Just waiting for someone to say, we all know what happened in that game, Gary, but you know, you have lifted the trophy sitting.

Don't worry about it.

And then he was picking the away teams.

And when Tottenham were picked out, he picked out Manchester City, which didn't seem like the best idea, but you know, proof that the balls weren't warmed up there.

That is the tie of the round.

You know, you know who you've got if you support one of those teams.

We'll talk about it when it happens.

And that'll do for today.

Thank you, Barry.

We have actually spoken on this podcast before about the time Gary Mabbot was camping somewhere and some animals had nibbles on.

He suffered toe injuries because animals

and people couldn't understand how Gary Mabbot didn't realize that animals were gnawing at his toes.

And I made the point that he's famously suffers badly from diabetes, and that leads to a numbness of the extremities, which would explain.

So maybe the balls were heated up, but he just couldn't feel

with his fingers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe that's why they chose him.

They knew there was no way they could get any cheap.

Yeah, he should do every draw.

He should do the World Cup draws, shouldn't he?

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, Baz.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thanks.

Thank you, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Chisid.

Thanks, Max.

Full appearance.

Well done.

Formal weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Thursday.

This is The Guardian.