England and Italy qualify but what to make of their campaigns? – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Me, Baz, Lars, and Wilson, sitting around a table in Dublin.

Halfway through our residency here, we're honest.

This will be a pod based on limited highlights.

If you somehow had the capacity for more England playing pointless games, then what a treat.

A boring draw in North Macedonia.

Not a bad time to concede a penalty like that.

At least this is the last time you'll hear the same Gareth opinions for a few months.

What's the Ukrainian for?

It all evens out over a season, an almighty penalty shout in injury time as Mudrick went flying, but nothing given.

And Italy are on their way to the Euros.

Nikki Bandini drops in for an Ellis James-length voice note.

San Marino score again, and Northern Ireland beat Denmark.

All that plus your questions as we limp slowly through the international break.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello, Max.

Hello, Lil Siverton.

Good morning, Max.

Hello, Jonathan Wilson.

Morning, Hawaii.

Ali says, this is it.

This is the best lineup.

Forget your lose and your runes.

This is what it's all about.

Tony says, hell of a shame to waste a lineup like that on an international break week.

Do you think Ali, who sent that message saying this is the best lineup, Barry, should wait until the end of this podcast?

I did read that thinking, wow, it's precious.

Anyway, let's start with England's draw in North Macedonia.

Jamie says, what's more entertaining?

Tedious conversations about VAR or those last two England performances?

Well, we get a chance to do both at the same time.

Jim, I think it was Barcelona.

Jim says, Will Wilson stand up his Southgate critics or idiots comments when he's eye to eye with the burr brawler Glenn Denning on the pod?

Should we start there then?

Okay, if you want to.

Sure.

Seems a good place.

I mean, I I think we should just say I didn't I I feel this is my crisis, what crisis moment, which is because that's not what Jim Callahan said.

It was the Sun's headline summing up what Jim Callahan had said.

Can I just were you more specifically saying Barry was an idiot, or was it all Southgate critics?

Is this what we need to I d but Barry seemed to interpret it as me saying he was an idiot.

I think there's an element of projection there.

But the criticisms of Southgate

and I I think the valid criticisms of Southgate, and I think the position of Barry and I is not actually that far apart.

I think Southgate in the games against Croatia in the World Cup, the game against Italy at the Euros,

I think he was

slow to react.

However, England qualified with two games to spare.

What do you want?

And yeah,

these two games had nothing riding on them.

Players are tired.

Everybody's tired.

We're all tired all the time.

We're all tired men.

We're all tired people.

If players weren't

tearing into those games at 100%,

I don't blame them.

I didn't tear into 100%.

I've watched two and a half minutes.

I don't watch two and a half as a percentage of 90.

That seems early for that sort of type question.

Well, the ball would have been always in play for the two and a half minutes you watched, whereas, you know, so it's about two and a half out of 50, maybe.

Which is, what, five percent, is that right?

Five percent, yeah.

Live maths, I mean, that's is that better than England game?

I don't know.

Maybe not.

Um, yeah, Southgate's trying players he wouldn't necessarily try if Kane didn't start against North Macedonia.

Yeah, these games just didn't matter.

And the game in Skopje, the pitch didn't seem particularly good.

It's a yeah, the atmosphere seemed pretty, pretty noisy.

I the refereeing from what I saw was was not as good as you might like.

And if you're gonna concede a ridiculous penalty, then better to do it when you've already qualified than than to do it in in the in the Euros.

Yeah, I mean, to be clear, I have no criticism of Southgate for the manner in which he's qualified for this tournament.

It's been perfectly fine.

I think they've played their last ten games, one eight, drawn two.

It's fine.

And these games are irrelevant.

But people

there are people who like to to criticise the England team.

There are journalists have to write their chin-stroking thing pieces about who should play in what position.

So there is going to be a forensic focus focus on on a game that ultimately is of little or no consequence lars

would you like a question i watched slightly longer highlights than wilson but no it's just it is a bit of a nightmare because well it's nightmare is a big word but it's international week certain amounts of uh airtime and column inches has to be filled with england come what may and there were two games that were just fundamentally uninteresting and there's really no changing that it was an you know an impressive win against malta and a

not great performance and meaningless drawing.

You run out of, like, what are you, what are you meant to say?

You need to insert all the regular hot takes.

It's just such a weird industry thing that we just have to talk about this, even though it wasn't interesting on any level.

And then the truth is, no country sales through qualifying winning every game 6-0.

That's just not how it works.

You look at you know, France have been the most successful team of the last decade.

They're almost certainly the most talented squad going to the Euros.

And they've done things like draw at home against Bosnia and Luxembourg.

Nobody wins every game.

But there's a certain subsection of England fans and England following journalists who have this extraordinary sense of entitlement.

Not merely they think England should be the best in the world and playing some kind of Harlem Globetrotters football that's never actually existed, but also they demand to be entertained.

You know, why should I bother following this?

I saw somebody tweeting me this morning.

But don't.

Turn it off.

Come to a live show.

It was nice.

It's kind of a sign of how

it's a terrible thing to say on the pod, but how disinterested I was in the game that I would almost prefer the ref chat to what we're having to do now.

I think the ref chat is marginally more interesting, and I usually do not find the ref chat interesting.

Oh, we can go to the ref chat.

Well, just before we go to the ref chat, I mean, one thing we can take from the game, you know, there are certain players who I imagine haven't done themselves too many favours on the back of that performance last night.

But I wonder, is Gareth Southgate sort of of a similar opinion to us in that

he won't read too much into it either?

I mean, I thought Ollie Watkins had a chance maybe to

cement his position as number two striker behind Harry Kane.

He didn't take that.

And then when Harry Kane comes on and more or less scores the goal, I think it was given as an own goal in the end, but more or less scores the goal just a few seconds after coming on.

That kind of reflects badly on Watkins a bit too.

I think Jack Grealish didn't really seem to do himself too many favours.

And

yeah, that whole Rico Lewis had a good debut, apart from giving away the penalty, which probably wasn't a penalty.

May have been.

I don't know.

But he seemed to have a good debut.

Will he get in the squad?

It might come a little too soon for him.

But I suppose Southgate has some things to think about going to the Euros.

The selections

from these two games, the fact he's played Tomorrow at left back, then Rico Lewis at left back,

I think that suggests that Southgate has a doubt at left back.

And

with Shaw and Chilwall both being out and both being quite injury-prone, I think it makes sense he's looking at other options and possibly not even who's the third or fourth best left back, but who will be in the squad anyway can fill in at left back.

Right, so trying Tamori there is the same as trying Lewis there, right?

Just to see and Lewis,

he seems a very modern, useful football in that he can fill in at either fullback position or in midfield.

And I think the other issue is: can Alexander Arnold play in midfield?

And I don't really think the last two games have given us any clear indication.

But it's so hard to say, isn't it?

Because, you know, I was listening to

I think it was Rob Green saying afterwards, or someone, so forgive me, it may not have been Rob Green, after this game saying, look, we have a problem in breaking down these defenses of the low block.

And actually, England don't do they, really.

But it's also.

Sometimes they do, but they generally win those games, and it doesn't matter.

But that's not what wins tournaments.

Exactly.

England will, through process of attrition, you know, get enough points against against that type of team to get through the group or whatever.

I mean, okay, maybe they get an extraordinarily difficult group, in which case you're not going to face that.

But if they get North Macedonia again in the group, well, they probably do nick a one goal win if they really need it.

And that's fine in the group because that's not what wins tournaments.

What wins tournaments where England have been falling down has been in the semi-final against Croatia, in the quarter final against France, in the final against Italy.

And there's nothing in these two games.

that can prepare you for these two games as sort of pointless.

And I also think that interesting thing you said, Barry, about, I don't know if it's interesting, but, you know, has Ollie Watkins lost his chance?

And you sort of think, well, it's 50 minutes here on a pitch.

Sort of, you hope that Southgate is doing, it's sort of seeing it in training, I guess, probably more.

Probably as a better chance of saying who is.

I think what's happened is he had a chance to really cement his place, and he has not done that.

To say Calvert Lewin suddenly scores 15 goals in the rest of the season, maybe Calvert Lewin moves ahead of Watkins.

It's not that he's ruled himself out, it's just he hasn't ruled himself in.

I also think

stuff like it's it's nice for Tomorrow to get a game and to see that actually he is being, you know,

Gareth Healthgate does in fact have TNT on his skybox, so he can get this area.

He is aware that there are people out there who are playing football, who have an English passport.

But like just did a quick check now.

At club level, he's played three games at left back in his entire career.

So you might feel like you've been knocking on the door for England and if you're Tomorrow, you're probably a little bit annoyed that you've not gotten more minutes, given some of the centre halves that have gotten minutes, one of them in particular.

And then when you get a chance to do something to show that you can fit in, it's like it's at left back where you've almost never played again before against Malta, whereas this is just a as a centre-half playing left back against Malta.

Like, there's not a lot you can do to shine, I think.

And I suppose, you know, the Maguire question,

Jacob wrote a piece, didn't he, saying that this is, it's still a problem.

Like,

but we don't presume Southgate will change.

I wondered if he'd qualify us, and then Maguire and Henderson might disappear.

But I suspect that was more hope than expectation.

Yeah, I mean,

the sort of pro-Southgate line there, and I have to say I'm not 100% sold on this, but one of the things I think he's done really well, and this is one of the things I think is overlooked, and one of the ways in which he's different from previous managers, is he has created more of a club ethos.

And one of the parts of that is you show loyalty to people, and

you don't change for squad on a whim or because somebody's played well for a couple of months.

You stick with what's been working for you, and you only make changes when you're very, very confident the person

coming in is going to be a long-term solution to that.

So

I think I'd probably like to see both of those fade out.

Alone McGuire's played pretty well the last sort of month, but he's just one of those footballers now to whom unfortunate things happen.

So the incident for which the penalty wasn't given, and I think probably should have been given last night, his studs get stuck in the turf, and he ends up committing a foul with his chest, which you don't see that often.

No.

And I think that's probably why it wasn't given.

The ref

seems weird.

It must be to look at the ball and look at the feet.

It was the team that gave the ball away in the first place that led to

him making that.

Instead of sort of VAR decision, penalty, no penalty, it was just VAR decision.

Weird.

It was like we're not quite sure what to make of this.

Do you want to ref chat then briefly?

I mean, that penalty seemed completely ludicrous, didn't it, Lars?

It did, but then there was one pretty clear one that wasn't given.

So I guess that, I mean, you talk about it evening out over the season.

This is very literally evened out over 90 minutes.

But I thought we had a pretty good question on the penalty stuff about whether from David Wilding, who reached, have we reached the stage now where we should just abolish all penalties?

Refs and VAR show us every week that they can't resist giving bad ones based on technicalities.

Now, I don't want to necessarily abolish all penalties, but I will say this again.

I do increasingly think the rules of the game are a bit, the laws of the game are a bit flawed in that any kind of foul inside the box has to be a penalty.

I think in the low-scoring game, where we now know the penalty is about an 80% chance of a goal, every sort of innocuous, accidental, careless foul inside the box, even though it has no bearing on a chance being created or missed or whatever, any sort of foul having to be a penalty, I think, is irrational.

And I think it leads to outcomes that you don't want in terms of games completely turning on totally random events.

And also, it leads to weird behaviors.

It completely encourages diving.

You've got no reason to stay on your feet in the box ever, like, because a penalty is so valuable that if you think you've got any chance at winning a foul you have to lie down and hope for the best and it also causes the sort of epidemic of a shirt tugging from set pieces and stuff because all referees know we're not going to give the other team a goal just because someone grabs someone's shirt a little bit and as a result of that all defenders do it constantly and there's no way of stamping it out so if i wish there was some kind of

this is completely sort of off-the-wall blue sky thinking but like if you could maybe trial at some sort of level what happens if if you don't give a penalty if it's not a goal scoring opportunity or if it's an attempt to

that sort of thing sure short corner a short corner or an indirect free kick or something because I think I feel like referees need somewhere to go to address certain incidents in the box without necessarily having to give the attacking team a goal I mean I'm all in favor of free kicks in the box that aren't penalties they're very funny most of them they are but I wonder if this is

you know I think the kids think they're all penalties and just want penalties and we might just be yelling at clouds might be a sign of our of our age Do you think the kids looked at that Rico Lewis one and thought, yeah, it's great for the sport that that is a penalty?

I don't know.

I mean, it's weird.

But I mean, there's no way in the world that would have been given in a pre-var age.

Agreed.

And so, what no one would even want it?

No, we wouldn't even notice it.

So, oh, the player's gone.

I wonder what happened there.

Then you see the replay.

Oh, he's just sort of brushing them with his hand.

The problem is,

I think it's a mentality issue, and I don't know if you can somehow build this into how you review these things.

But I really think that that it should be,

has a defender done something deliberately to cheat?

And clearly that he has not.

And he hasn't done anything reckless.

He hasn't endangered the opponent.

His fingers have brushed his face.

If you look at something long enough, you will find an excuse to give a penalty.

And it feels like too many VAR refs are doing that.

Although, oddly, Harry Kane did get fouled against Malta in what was quite a Stonewall penalty and it wasn't given.

And then

I don't think the ref went to the monitor for that.

And the ref in the you will get into it in a second in the Ukraine-Italy game isn't sent to the monitor for the mudrick one.

Yeah, I mean, so as we've already established a million times, having VAR just means someone else,

some other human somewhere else makes the wrong decision.

Yeah, um, nice to see Jordan Jarrett Bryan, our mate, interviewing uh Harry Kane and Gareth Southgate on Channel 4's coverage.

Well done, Jordan.

They got the players competing in a mini-episode of the Bake Off.

I mean, Jordan didn't.

Kieran Trippier, Declan Rice, Jordan Henderson, and Trent Alexander Arnold competed in a gingerbread man-making contest, and Trent Alexander Arnold won.

Jordan Henderson was livid.

Do you think the notorious JJB also gets to interview Ollie Watkins and the Aston Villa set, or they have to keep him away?

Just have to keep them away from them, you know, to avoid a diplomatic incident.

I'd be delighted if Ollie Watkins even knew about Jordan's irrational hatred.

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

Nikki Bandini sent us a long voice note about Ukraine Italy.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So look, we're nearing the end of our live tour.

How's it going for you, Barry?

It's very good.

It was great fun yesterday.

We were getting a taxi from Dublin Airport.

to our hotel in the city centre and the driver who was the brother-in-law of former

Carlisle manager Roddy Collins and boxer Stephen Collins,

we had a mutual

acquaintance.

He knew your postman

in a not,

in a sadly clichéd Irish view that everyone knows each other.

He said, you're a man now, John Heffernan.

And you went, what?

Minnie.

You went, ah, that's the fella.

How jolly.

With apologies to everyone.

His nickname is Minnie.

Yeah, but it just lent credence to your theory that all Irish people know each other.

So the nickname Minnie, is that is he small or is he very big and it's an ironic nickname?

I don't know.

Because if he's regular size, then it's a terrible nickname.

I think he's regular size.

But then it makes no sense.

Yeah, I mean,

there's a trio of brothers in Burrough, and they're all called Square Fallon.

And I once asked someone, why is Square called Square?

It's like, because his brother is called Square.

And I said, well, why is his brother called Square?

Because his older brother is called Square.

And I said, well, why is he called square?

Because he's a fucking square head.

Anyway, it'd be better if there was an extra brother said before them.

They'd be fall and squared.

It would make total sense.

Anyway, it is sold out tonight and tomorrow somehow and in Brighton.

But the live stream is available, theguardian.com slash fwtour23.

So yeah, that's going to be live 8 p.m.

Wednesday.

It was at 7.30.

It's one of the two on Wednesday nights, but you can catch up over the week if you watch that.

Theguardian.com/slash fw tour 23x2.

Generally, it's best to watch the live stream, though, because I think once the lawyers get their hands on it,

it can be quite short.

That is true.

Right.

Catch up first.

It's probably not a bad thing that yesterday wasn't live stream.

I would agree with that.

Anyway, Italy are through.

They drew 0-0 against Ukraine, and here is Nikki Bandini with a review of that match.

Never in doubt, Italy qualify for Euro euro 2024 the european champions will defend their crown my goodness though it was absolutely another night of soferenza another night of suffering to get there i i was tweeting at a certain point that this must be the the bit of purgatory that dante missed that you have to sit and watch italy forever trying to score a single goal in a crucial door die qualifier because I feel like I have been watching this game forever whether it was Sweden over two legs two World Cup cycles ago or it was North Macedonia in the last World Cup cycle just watching Italy in a World Cup qualifier knowing that this is the one where they really have to get a result and just could they please score a goal and absolutely no they won't um fortunately for Italy they didn't have to score a goal this time they only needed to draw against Ukraine to get in and they did

And I think when you take a step back and you look at the big picture, it's a mixed bag.

It's not all bad just because they drew this game and it was not as sort of comfortable a qualifying as perhaps we would have liked it to be.

I think you have to sort of remember the context of the manager who's been appointed in August, midway through a qualifying campaign that was already not going as well as it could have done.

A lot of very difficult expectations put upon Luchas Belletita,

who, of course, is just one of the biggest Napoli, to step in and immediately have all the answers and to make a team that is coherent, can do the things that it couldn't under Roberto Mancini in the end.

And

some changes he's made clearly have been for the better.

And coming off that 5-2 win against North Macedonia, you're starting to see a team that perhaps will eventually look like the brilliant attacking Napoli team that he managed to make and other brilliant teams he's made in Rome and other stops in his career.

But I think that certain problems clearly are unresolved for Italy.

There isn't a number nine who scores goals at a rate that is reliable for the national team.

There isn't a sort of confidence in knowing where the goal is going to come from in a big game like this.

Perhaps for me there are some questions as well about the composition of the midfield.

I think Georginio, Seymour's at club level, perhaps is not quite taking over these situations in the way that you'd like him to.

But there's also some encouragement in there.

And I think when you look back to the last European Championship winning side,

what was the sort of breakout story of that tournament?

Well, it was Federico Chiesa having this incredible Euros and exploding onto the scene.

And the four years in between

well, three years, of course, because that Euros were delayed, his career hasn't gone as well as he expected it to because he did suffer a crucially an injury and because there has been this slow recovery and other injuries along the way but he was italy's best buyer last night and i think that going forward he is the talent they will need to rely on and will need to be brilliant and in the end of this qualifying campaign there have definitely been signs that he can get back to being that player same as he has frankly just in the first part of this season for Juventus started looking like that player again so that's one bright note nicola parella's another bright note I thought senior actually had a really nice game against Ukraine as well.

And there were chances, mostly driven by Kiesa in that first half.

They could have scored goals.

So there's some positive there.

I think another big positive for Italy and the left-wing back position, which of course was a strength that the last year is because of Spianzola, who ruptured his crucial thing.

And at that tournament, now you have Federico Di Marco, who's exploded in tear in the last couple of seasons.

And he was really good, both games for Italy in the last week so there's some positive individual performances and there's a lot a lot of questions but as Lucianos Velletti the manager said the fun starts now basically this this is where we get to the good part we've cleared this hurdle and now we get to enjoy ourselves so um as an Italian I hope that's true because last night was not a lot of fun

but in the end I think we're all just relieved to have made it.

I just was about to stop there and I thought I should just realise I didn't mention perhaps the most important moment of the whole game.

Poor Mudrick, I thought it absolutely was a penalty on him at the end.

The seeming contact to me with Christante in the area, looking like Christante caught him.

I know some people thought you'd think he was going down already.

And I do think perhaps you could say it was a case of good VAR, which everyone always wants to see in that the penalty was not given initially and I could see how the VAR booth might look at it and say, well, it's not a clear and obvious error.

The referee has seen it.

And so if it's not clear and obvious, then we don't have to review it.

But if you're asking for my honest feeling, I think Chris Dante does catch Moderic.

And I think Ukraine should have a penalty, which is in the 93rd minute of the game.

So very easily could have been a loss for Italy.

And Ukraine absolutely have their rights to have their feelings of anger and heartbreak at that.

I think that...

Again, for me, when I saw it, I thought it was a penalty.

When I watched the replay, I thought it was a penalty.

Maybe he does go down easy, but to me, he's caught and that should be a spot kick.

So big let off for Italy.

A few escapes for Italy late in the game, frankly, because they did retreat in the end of the game.

And there were some crazy scenes, including a chance from a throw-in that I don't want to relive.

But yes, from the Italian perspective.

everything I said before and great relief to finally be locked in for Euro 2024.

Thank you, Nikki.

That was pretty comprehensive.

She mentioned at the end the penalty decision.

Andrew says this decision cost Ukraine a qualifying place.

How can the REF and VAR not see Mudrick get taken out, especially with replays available?

It reminded me of, you know, after Ange said, you know, decisions are just decisions.

You just get on with it.

You win some, you lose some.

That does seem harder to take.

Maybe I'm now a complete hypocrite, but if it's your place at a championship, especially when you're on the position that Ukraine are in, with everything that's going on, and it's not just that moment, it's a whole qualification campaign.

but that seems hard to take yeah i mean i i sort of understand why the ref didn't give it because mudrick's fall is weirdly up first so i can see why he might think there was a dive going on and you know i did not see the game but my understanding is there was quite a bit of diving uh in and around the box in that last sort of 20 minutes half an hour from what people said so maybe that has has coloured his decision but how var can't see that i i mean

you know quite apart from all the other reasons of what's the point of it, what's the point of it if they can't see that?

I thought it was a foul.

Brian Christante clearly caught him, and I would feel very aggrieved to be on the wrong end of that decision, but that's the way these things go.

They will have another opportunity to qualify through the playoffs, but that's a bit

tough win.

And actually, on the existence of VAR, it just makes it feel more egregious, Lars.

Yeah.

You know, that's the point.

If the ref misses that, you're right.

It's injury time.

Sure, someone's going to try and buy a penalty injury time when you need a goal.

So, like, if the ref misses, you're sort of thinking oh, it's okay, but then well, it also occurs to me: one of the problems, well, I mean, one of the many problems of VAR is that it loses context.

And so, if you're in the, you know, if

you have a situation where a team is regularly going to ground looking for free kicks and fouls, and they don't get a clear penalty as a result of that, you sort of think there's some kind of natural justice at play there, but then VAR takes it out of that context and you're just looking purely at the decision, and then it becomes inexplicable.

No,

I concur.

It's

pre-var.

You always had the sort of get-out of, ah, the ref probably just didn't see it properly, it's a difficult job, blah-de-blah.

But of course, it's more frustrating for people when you're looking at a man looking at a screen, making a decision that you don't understand.

I mean, that is more upsetting.

It is.

But well done to Italy, because as Nikki explained, you know, they've been through quite a lot in this qualification campaign, and they are there to defend their title.

In Group H, Sloveni got one of the last places available, being 2-1 Kazakhstan, as Paul Watson said, a step too far for the Kazakhs.

Brilliant winner from Benjamin Verbich in the 86th minute.

First time Slovenia have qualified since the turn of the century, only their fourth major tournament since they became an independent nation in 1991.

Kazakhstan still got a chance to qualify via the playoffs, as have Ukraine, actually.

Richard says, What's Barry been complaining about all these years?

Beating Denmark is piss easy.

Northern Ireland beat Denmark 2-0.

And

actually,

if you've never watched Northern Ireland before and you watch some highlights, you'd think, God, this is a brilliant counter-Jamal Lewis is flying down the left.

This is a brilliant counter-attacking team.

Yeah, and just

kind of by watching the highlights, it just seemed like such a great time.

Like, if it's fabulous atmosphere, it was almost like they qualified.

Like, Winter Park was going, like, this is it.

This is our moment.

The second best night out on this particular landmass yesterday, I think.

It was available to you.

No, I've been more sort of bringing my Nordic bias to the fore as always.

I've been sort of checking out the Danish newspaper this morning, and the Danish papers are not impressed.

The Danes were pretty bad in this game, and

they've not had a brilliant year.

They lost to Kazakhstan earlier.

They only beat San Marino by one goal.

Of course, the World Cup was a total disaster.

And there was a sense that...

The team hasn't really reinvented, been reinvented in any meaningful way.

There are question marks around Caspar Smeichel for the first goal wasn't amazing though caspo youllman the coach swerved this in classic rsen wenger style he was asked you know are you happy with your goalkeeper for the first goal there and he said it looked away so i don't need i haven't seen the goal so that was a that was a tidy one by caspa julman um it seems it seems a sort of dereliction of duties

should

turn your head away during 30 moments of matches again fairly recently went to like a very lower down the division type of football i went to west digby and charlton versus bury and and i've i'm completely like, I'm so used to watching stuff either on TV or in the press box or in the stadium where you can get the replays up on your phone if you have to.

So actually being at a game where there's no replays of anything is now very unsettling to me.

I mean, completely anyway, maybe.

I spent my entire Cambridge United watching life was behind the Newmarket Road End.

And the goals at the other end of the pitch, absolutely no idea.

And you wouldn't see the goal.

You wouldn't see it again until Anglia News, like two days later.

And you'd think this Perler from 30 yards and actually takes a massive highing deflection on someone.

You're like, oh, well, it doesn't matter now.

But it might.

I mean, Demo changed seven players in their squad and their starting lineup for this.

And I think the conclusion is that their backups are not great.

But it could actually have consequences.

Like, they've won their group, but because of FIFA ranking things, they might lose their first seed position going into the World Cup qualifiers.

So you might end up getting into a difficult, more difficult group than you otherwise would have.

So it is, as much as we're flippant about it, because because I feel like this has been a particularly meaningless international break.

Like, I've really struggled.

I took a couple of days off of not following it, and then I sat down.

I was going to spend a few hours getting into what I'd missed, and it's just, I hadn't missed anything.

It's all nonsense.

But some of these games, as meaningless as they seem, can actually have wide-ranging consequences.

Because I think we, because it's so boring to talk about, we don't talk about it a lot.

But seeding has such a huge impact on where teams end up and who qualifies.

As the Irish, I think, are starting to discover now, Barry.

As once you drop down the group and when you get difficult groups, it becomes such a vicious cycle because you're in a difficult group, so your results are shit, and because your results are shit, you get more difficult groups.

And Denmark being first-seeded for some of these qualifying campaigns has been really useful for them.

And

this defeat to Northern Ireland might

drop them down, which is bad.

It's not to praise anyone who is still listening, given the number of times people have said on this part.

There's nothing to talk about.

Samarino means we're honest, Max.

Yeah, no, it's good to be honest.

San Marino scored a goal.

Reese says, San Marino, appreciation corner, please.

Anna says, oh, this is probably too late, but San Marino has, for the first time, scored three goals in a calendar year, and for the first time scored three goals in three successive games.

Their joy was wonderful to see.

I'm finished, says Anna, but I still wanted to see them score.

Yeah, and they lost by one goal to Denmark and one goal to Finland.

I'm not sure I'd back the current Norway team to do that.

So, you know,

fair play to San Marino for

doing that.

Does that mean they can have a goal of the year competition for the first time ever?

It's a good idea, isn't it?

I mean, this was just a penalty slotted into the corner.

Wow.

But in the table you can get.

It's at least third place, isn't it?

And they were totally delighted afterwards.

At the San Marino fan account, which is quite fun, 50 minutes, this is by far the shittiest goal I've ever witnessed in my life as a San Marino admin.

I hate everything.

And it is true, if you have the time and the inclination to dig out Finland's opening goal, it is absolutely rotten.

It is like goal mouth scramble, scramble, just people hoying, just trying to kick anything.

Profur of craft 90s football player

jumping on the ball, it's squirming out of his hands.

Absolutely wonderful to see.

The Faroe Islands drew 0-0 in Albania, which is a great point for them, isn't it?

Only their second point of qualification.

And the Czechs beat Moldova 3-0.

Their manager quit after qualifying, which seems like it.

I don't want to go to the major tournament.

There may be reasons for it,

and we haven't checked.

if someone could let us know that would be great uh that'll do for part two i will do any other business in part three

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Before we talk about Newcastle, just a report from the BBC about Benjamin Mendy taking his former club, Man City, to an employment tribunal over millions of pounds he claimed he is owed in unauthorised wage deductions.

He left City at the end of his contract this summer.

He's gone to L'Oréal when he's made three substitute appearances.

It's alleged City stopped paying him in September 2021 after he was initially charged with rape and held in custody.

His final appearance for the club was on the 15th of August 2021.

He was remanded in custody for five months before being released on bail.

In January of 2022, he went to trial for the first time in August of of that year.

In January, this year he was cleared of six counts of rape, one count of sexual assault.

He was then cleared of raping a woman and attempting to rape another in July at a retrial.

Adam Craft in the Athletic is reporting that the Premier League, quote, agreed to settle their differences with the Saudi public investment fund so that the takeover of Newcastle United could go ahead in a conversation with a senior official from the United Kingdom's Foreign Office, according to emails disclosed to the athletic.

Two meetings held by foreign office officials with the Premier League over Microsoft Teams in the fortnight before Newcastle takeover was announced.

The Premier League insists the government, while being predisposed to be helpful, did not influence takeover approval.

Is this interesting?

Is this a surprise?

I don't think it's a surprise.

I think there's been little bits of evidence, some of which we can't really, I mean, we really haven't been able to publish, that we know

that there has been,

what's the way of putting it?

There have been conversations between the government and the Premier League not only about the Saudi involvement in Newcastle but Abu Dhabi's involvement in Manchester City

and I think

quite apart from anything else it just shows the impossible job the Premier League have trying to regulate this if they're not only having to deal with the incredible wealth of those clubs and their backers but also their own government

sort of saying well it might be quite a good thing for foreign relations if you smooth the path for this.

It's probably not what you think you're going to do when you go into football administration, is it?

Yeah, but it just, I mean, the Premier League has a deal with sovereign states.

And that's why sovereign states shouldn't run clubs.

And yeah, FIFA has this whole thing about

you can't have a government interfering with a football association.

And Zimbabwe seems to be perpetually banned for that.

We've seen with...

different sport we've seen the ICC have recently banned Sri Lanka because of government interference in the Sri Lankan cricket board so is it sort of so?

Is there an implication here that

FIFA could say, well, hang on, what?

Saying FIFA should ban England?

Well, I guess this is the Premier League rather than the FA.

So maybe that's a get-out.

But

it's an uncomfortable position to be in, but it's an inevitable position to be in when states start to get involved.

And would a regulator make any difference?

Well,

I mean, the regulator is independent in theory.

I think you can look at the regulation of British water, for instance, and the Environment Agency and see just how inefficient a regulator can be.

I think you look at, say, banking, because the banking regulator, I think, is

inconsistent in how regulations are enforced.

So, I mean, people shouldn't think a regulator is a panacea.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a regulator.

Of course.

It's just to say that it might not be the sort of

clear-sighted force for good that people hope it will be.

Do you worry that the regulator could become the VAR of football.

Like if we just well that was Southgate's line, wasn't it?

Yeah, exactly.

If they could just watch replays, it would be fun.

It could also just be a whole new set of people making decisions we don't like.

That's a concern.

I used something from this excellent Adam Crafton piece.

It really stuck with me.

The bit about, and I quote here, the day before the takeover, Foreign Office distributes its prepared top lines, presumably for expected media scrutiny over the matter.

Stock questions included, how has the government allowed a country responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to take control of one of the North East's most important cultural assets?

And it just kind of demonstrates just how easily, certainly the current UK government are kind of basically investing in football buys you influence very, very easily.

Like,

it's so embarrassing, the extent to which you just sort of drop any sort of ethical concern, whatever.

Like, come here and buy our club and put money into it, and all is forgiven, and we'll start running PR lines for you, I guess, is the message here, which is a little bit disappointing, I guess.

Well, I mean, there's also

British governments whose levelling of policy has been exposed as a complete nonsense, absolutely zero meaningful action.

And so you see if you're in Manchester or Newcastle and you have a foreign state investing and you can interpret that in many different ways in an area.

It's making tangible change.

Then you can say, well, hang on, that used to be derelict and now there's flats.

Now, what you might want to ask you might want to probe slightly below the surface and say it's actually a good thing to be selling british land to foreign states and and well i think the guardian has done quite a lot of probing and on the face of it it might look good but

yeah where are the profits going yeah and i'm aware of a local council in one of those areas where people involved were deeply concerned about the people putting the money in and then ultimately just had to decide this is money we have no money this money will actually make people on the ground, make their lives better, and therefore we probably have to take it, even though we're deeply uncomfortable about it.

That again is a failure of British governance allowing foreign states in to be seen as a saviour.

Clearly, you know, nobody should think the Saudi PIP is interested in the regeneration of Newcastle City centre.

That doesn't make any sense, you know, buy coming.

And then if they were they could do it without also buying the football club.

I mean, this is just

make any sense.

Yeah, yeah, quite.

Moving on, Max says, Lars, not me, another Max, Lars, Norway, what's up?

Chris says, can can Lars see Norway qualify for the next World Cup, given how they performed in the Euros qualifying versus their talent available?

Yeah, I thought the Scotland game was an interesting sort of snapshot of where we're at with the Norwegian national team in that they were, even without Alan Holon, there were some good stuff going forward.

You know, we created, we scored three goals and created stuff, but then there was like just a sporadic outbreak of like wacky races like defending at the back.

We can do stuff against anyone.

We can concede against literally anyone as well.

And we just have,

I mean, any Irish listeners will be sympathetic to this.

Sometimes you just have a generation where you lack players in certain positions.

I mean, football is famously, it's not a strong link game.

It's a weak link game.

And there's some team sports where if you have one or two great players, then that's enough.

But in football, like, you're never much better than your weakest link.

And there are some positions where Norway currently are not strong.

So like the headline grabbing Holland and Odegaal names are great.

But I did a chapter on this for the book because I felt in the book.

I haven't done a book about having a holiday.

I felt I needed to start, Wilson.

I felt the book needed

to.

We do have some time.

How many books do you have out now, Wilson?

Well, I have 13 books, but what I think listeners might be interested in is the T Brothers, my biography of the Charlton Brothers, is out in paperback now, so it's cheaper than it's been previously.

There's an updated version of Inventing the Pyramid that's come out this year, which would be an ideal Christmas present.

And Angels with Dirty Faces, my book on the history of Argentinian football, comes out in its updated version to include the 2022 World Cup on, I think it's the 6th of December, but you can order it now.

All of those.

I mean, angels.

What could be more Christmassy than an angel?

Thank you, Wilson.

So I did a chapter on Norway not getting to tournaments for the Holland book, because

that's something people might wonder about.

And going through all the results,

I'd forgotten that, but there's not once, but twice in recent history, we played a really important international qualifier or playoff game with a fellow on the field who was unemployed.

Like,

we had a clubless man, once in goal and once at left back.

And it's like, it is absurd when you have a national team who's like Martin Odgo, Aling Holland, unemployed man, like in the same lineup.

I mean, sometimes we're between jobs.

I mean, I'm nothing against the temporarily unemployed.

I've been there myself.

But like maybe select people for the national team who, you know, if there's no club willing to pay you to play football, maybe

don't pick them for the national team in really important qualifiers.

If I can refer you to my Argentina, but Argentina goes won the World Cup in 1978 with an unemployed left back.

Yeah, so it's not really an excuse, is it?

John says there's not a lot of money on offer, but despite this, would Barry take the island job?

And if so, what could we expect?

I don't know if we could expect better than what we've had under Stephen Kenney, but I would be a terrible football manager.

Really, really bad.

I wouldn't be able to tell people they weren't in the team.

I'm not.

Could you select all of them?

I'm not good at, you know, confrontation.

But maybe that would be good.

It's the first 11 to get on the pitch play.

See who's hungry, see who's keen.

And I really don't want to be answerable to the Football Association of Ireland, which I meant to mention on Monday, but I forgot or slipped my mind.

But

just everything is wrong with Irish football at the moment.

You know, we've had three campaigns in a row, World Cup qualifiers, Nations League, and Euro qualifiers that have all kind of ended before they even got going within two games, three games.

stephen kenny is approaching the end of his contract which almost certainly won't be renewed uh the fai is 51 million pounds in debt as it tries to recover from the john delany fiat omni shambles

and now there's been a new row over

questionable expense claiming with Delaney's successor

who has had to repay 20 grand he was paid in error i'm not sure sure whose error it was.

And the FAI have said, oh, we will learn from this.

He's under a bit of pressure, you know, because of, you know, what happened on Delaney's watch.

This guy, he's the CEO of the FAI, Jonathan Hill is his name, and he's based in London.

And when he got the job, it was during COVID.

And he said, you know, as soon as it's allowable, I will relocate to Ireland.

And he's still living in London and says he's quite able to do his job, you know, Zoom meetings, whatnot, traveling over and back.

But a lot of the money he's had to pay back arises from expenses he was given that he shouldn't have been given.

And though there's also a problem with in the FAI

because they were bailed out by the government to stop them from going bankrupt, the government sort of have a certain stipulations.

And one of those stipulations is that 40% of the FAI board should be female.

So they want two women on the board.

Nothing wrong with that.

But at a recent EGM, that proposal was voted down.

By lots of men.

Of course, yes.

I don't know.

Look, I am not particularly off fait with the makeup of the various committees and boards of the FAI, but I'm going to...

go out in a limb and guess if if two women have to go on the board, then that means either a couple of men have to drop out or a couple of men don't get on the board.

And, you know, these guys are all desperate to cling on to their position, these blazers.

So it's just a mess, and I would want nothing to do with it.

On the expenses, the FAI said the boards of the Football Association of Ireland met yesterday evening to discuss the recent issues surrounding the compliance of the association with respect to the memorandum of understanding with the government regarding

that clause relating to CEO remuneration.

The board has conducted a full and detailed review of the issue with the executive.

The board regret what happened and is committed to ensuring the lessons learned are fully adopted.

I mean, that's just such nonsense, the lessons learned.

This has happened before on a much greater scale.

Did they not learn anything from that?

It's not a hard lesson to learn.

On the makeup of the board, the FAA board will consult with a cross-section of members in the coming days to discuss potential solutions so that recommendations can be brought forward.

It is the FAI board's intention to meet the requirements outlined by the government.

I should say that I think remote working is an excellent idea for anybody.

Mbola says, since Jonathan Wilson's on, can we have some expert analysis on the Cricket World Cup, please?

Please start with the most tragic trophy presentation ever.

I missed the trophy presentation.

I didn't see the trophy presentation.

Okay.

But thoughts on Australia.

Oh, they did win.

They did very well, Australia, I thought, didn't they?

Yeah.

No, I mean the final they were brilliant.

Yeah.

And after, you know, they lost the opening two games as well.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's one of the problems of the format.

I mean, England lost three games in the group stage in 2019 as well, which we tend to forget about.

But this seemed a particularly dull group stage where it was pretty obvious which four teams were going through from about halfway through.

I think it was a pretty poor World Cup in terms of how many good games there were.

Probably four or five decent games.

India were weirdly, India weren't involved in many good games because they were so dominant.

And I sort of assumed their bowling attack would carry them through, and obviously the batting was functioning very, very well until the final.

So, yeah, I think the best two teams there got to the final, and probably the second best team won it.

But they were by far, you know, if you win it by seven wickets, you've won quite confidently.

Well done, Travis Head.

Lars has any thoughts?

Not you, different Lars.

Any thoughts from Wilson on Happy Valley?

I've only seen.

I also say that, by the way, I'm interested.

Any thoughts from Wilson on Happy Valley?

I've only seen the first season.

I fully intend to watch seasons two and three.

I think it's excellent.

Yeah, I

what do you

my

slight problem is that the sort of the villain is too obvious.

I mean, I like.

As in, you don't want to know who the villain is, or yeah.

Right.

And so it's sort of, it doesn't fall in the sort of conversation.

It's not who done it.

It's not who done it, yeah, which is what I prefer.

I mean, I'm re-watching Endeavour at the minute, which I think around about season five, it really hits its peak.

I think it's.

I've never got to Endeavour.

Can you skip the first four, or do you have to like...

No, no, no.

I think it's very, very good.

I think it's very good.

I'm not that busy, but I'm a little bit busy.

It's very good all the way.

But just stop watching MLS.

We're playing MLS with Endeavour for a little while.

I think the three episodes they did during the pandemic, which includes the football episode, unfortunately, I think they're noticeably poorer.

But season five and the one in the cinema, the one in the chocolate factory,

they're top class.

That's as good as Sunday Evening Entertainment guests.

Okay.

I mean, I would definitely recommend Happy Valley.

I appreciate it.

I bow down to Wilson's greater than the other.

I like the sort of the comedy of it as well.

It's a weird mix of comedy and actually some quite grim stuff happens.

But Sarah Lancashire's

amazing.

Why is Happy Valley coming up now?

I don't know.

Somebody asked a question about it.

It's a bit of a slow week, innit?

Andy says, on the subject of listening to the pod while getting surgery, I'm having an ingrown toenail removed tomorrow.

I'll be listening from the operation table.

Appreciate it, not as life-changing as a vasectomy, but will be getting part of myself removed, never to be used the same way again.

So, Andy, we wish you the best of luck with your time.

I would argue it is

more life-changing than a vasectomy, insofar as if it's more serious enough.

Are you saying that as a single man?

I'm saying that as a single man who has no interest in having children

because I'm now too old, I couldn't handle the stress.

And I've seen what it's done to Max, and

all he does is fucking complain and moan.

Oh, I do show you a video of

arranging flowers.

He's such a legend, that guy.

Anyway,

yeah, but if you have an ingrown toenail that is so bad you needed surgery on it, then it's obviously causing you extreme discomfort, isn't it?

So getting rid is

life-changing.

I've had that surgery.

Have you?

It's good, yeah.

Enjoyed it.

General or local anesthetic?

Local, yeah.

Doing the local anesthetic in your big toe is unpleasant.

You have to

get the needle straight in there.

Presumably, it's not a long.

No, no, no.

So, I'm I mean, it depends on how much gets edited out of this pod.

I mean, I think if Joel is particularly sharp with that, no, I think you struggle to get through a pod, yeah, for sure.

Oh, really?

So, just the headlines of the pod in and out in five minutes.

I mean, I don't know how long of a sectomy takes.

Well, that's just tying a knot, isn't it?

I don't know that either.

Anyway, let us know.

I only know from the

multitudes of correspondents I've read, it seems we've had 10 to 15 minutes of it and that's longer than that, because that one blog where I went horribly wrong.

I don't remember that.

It's in the book.

You know the book you worked incredibly hard on.

Yeah, I do, yeah.

It's in there.

And yeah, it was in the.

He probably read it out.

So he ended up getting

extraordinarily like 30 grand worth of fees or something.

Wow.

Because they'd messed up.

Anyway, if anyone wants to know how that tragic Vasectivity story ends, buy the Football Weekly book, which is available now from The Guardian Bookshop.

Well, listen, thanks so much to the few of you remaining listening to this podcast.

But look, we've had a nice time.

And that'll do for today.

Thank you, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Ample Weekly is produced by Silas Gray with Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Thursday.

This is The Guardian.