World Cup qualifying preview and new WSL season kicks off – Football Weekly

This is The Guardian.

Hi Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the remarkable paper pro.

We already know that remarkable is the leader in the paper tablet category: digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper, but with the power of modern technology.

But there's something new and exciting: the remarkable paper pro move remarkable a brand name and an adjective man yeah it's their most portable paper tablet yet it holds all your notes to-dos and documents but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office like maybe a football journalist barry although not like you

a proper football journalist man exactly too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out this paper tablet doesn't.

It'll never beat or buzz to try and grab your attention, so you can devote your focus to what or who is in front of you.

It has a display that looks, feels, and even sounds like paper.

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

No worries about running out of power before the end of extra time.

The Remarkable Paper Pro Move can keep going for up to two weeks.

And if you do need to recharge, you can go from naught to 90% in less than 45 minutes, Barry.

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

Visit remarkable.com to learn more and get your paper tablet today.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, the first international break of the season.

The big news from the England camp.

How sad will Mark Gay be after my fears were realised that he might be disappointed about what happened on deadline day?

We'll discuss no Trent Alexander Arnold, but one Ruben Loftus cheek.

I can just hear Baz's.

To be honest, I'd forgotten all about him already.

Will Elliot Anderson or Jed Spence get a run?

And how important is it that Thomas Tuchel gets a decent performance after an underwhelming start to his reign?

Elsewhere we'll preview the other home nations.

Paul Watson has stuff on Kazakhstan on Luxembourg.

He just said, do you want me to do a bit on Bermuda, Jamaica?

Yes, please.

Susie Rack joins.

us to look ahead to the WSL.

Will there be a title race?

We'll do all that.

Plus a huge apology to the Bromney fans who've got very very excited on Tuesday under false pretences.

We'll answer your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

You have no idea how close to the truth that Ruben lost his cheek remark was.

We'll get to that.

Hello, Paul Watson.

Hi.

Hi, Max.

And Jonathan Faduba, welcome.

Hello, Matt.

Let's start then with England, who are top of Group K.

If you'd forgotten all of this, three wins from three, not in spectacular fashion.

They play Andorra at Villa Park on Saturday before going to play Serbia next week.

And the last international break was in June, where they beat Andorra 1-0 and then were roundly beaten by Senegal 3-1.

Jonathan, how important do you think it is then that Tuchel not just gets two wins, but actually

England are good?

How important is it that England are good?

Yeah, I think it's very important that England are good.

It's always extremely important that England are good.

And I don't think we'll learn too much about how good England are with Andorra at home necessarily, but we will get some gauge.

I suppose, as usual, it'll be expected to sort of be a 10-0, 10-0 win, and anything less will be an absolute disgrace.

So we'll see how that one will go.

And obviously, given the rankings, it probably would be.

The Serbia game will be more of a challenge, of course.

I think we'll learn a lot more about Tuku and what he's trying to do with the team maybe in that match, potentially.

He's been pretty sort of experimental to this point, hasn't he?

The squad has got a bit of a different flavour to it.

Jed Spence, No Trent, of course, Loftus Cheat coming in.

Very much of sort of Chelsea vibes that Tukul seems to have his sort of trusted lieutenants, maybe from his Chelsea days that he's looked upon and seems to like, which is,

I think it's fair enough, but obviously there's some...

debatable call-ups maybe and some debatable people left out.

Elliot Anderson, I think, is

someone who has been really impressive.

So I'm quite excited to see how potentially he might do if he is given a chance.

And I think the midfield is,

you know, the entire midfield really is quite attractive looking.

Gibbs White,

Anderson, Morgan Rogers obviously will get maybe a chance.

And then the Stalwarts at this point, Henderson and Declan Rice.

So, yeah, there is a nice little feel to it.

Quite a few notable names, as we mentioned.

No Grealish, even though he's been in really good form.

But yeah, I think there's a lot to to like about the squad, and I suppose there's a lot for him to prove in this game.

Yeah, I mean, if I guess we have to start questioning the Chelsea links if he selects Cesar Aspiliqueta.

That'll be when we say, come on, Thomas, this is getting silly now.

I mean, I don't know if it was a stupid question, Paul, to say how, because I just, it hasn't been that interesting yet.

It hasn't been good yet.

And listeners will be forgiven because I had, until I, you know, prepared for this pod, had sort of forgotten.

You know, this is just so much has happened, like Club, World Cup, Premier League starting life, et cetera, to be like, hang on, where are we?

You'd sort of forgive listeners and people following and going, I've just sort of, it's like you stopped watching the Sopranos box set Series 3 like three years ago and now you've got to start again, you know?

Yeah.

And yet everyone was, um, everyone was quite furious back in June.

I don't know if you remember the Andorra game.

Yes.

Probably not.

But actually, that was a really pretty dreadful performance.

andora i think guillam lopez got through andorra could have scored it's not inconceivable granted that was their only moment but it's not inconceivable we could have actually even drawn with andorra it was a pretty dreadful game and everyone looked checked out it was june nobody wanted to be playing um but there was quite a lot of venom being directed at the time at tuko and i feel like time has just let that ease away and this is like a restart moment for him where it's like you know

an emphatic win over

would at least just you know get things back on track that said you know we talk about these big scores that are expected against andorra that's very much stuck in the mentality but andorra have not actually conceded more than three goals for a year and that was against spain in a friendly they tend to lose two or three nil now like they are two or three nil defeat merchants they also haven't scored for a year but i think there's this expectation we'll put 10 on andorra but actually nobody is really doing that i think a good score would be a five that would be a really significant score to say, look, we thrashed him.

But no one's putting 10 on Andorra these days.

Right.

I love a two or three nil defeat merchant.

I mean, I suppose this is with every squad selection, of which there are quite interesting selections here, Barry,

you know, and I can hear you saying this as well, saying it doesn't really matter who is picked in this squad.

But eventually it must matter who Thomas Tuchel sort of thinks these are the guys.

Or do you think he might just chop and change until we get to the World Cup?

Well, obviously his hand will at times be forced by injuries to certain players and it is nice to have options of experience.

But you would presume he has an idea of what his first 11 is, a very good idea and who will be in the squad.

Like I was sort of picking my England starting 11 for the first World Cup match and

My main takeaway is how many really, really good players aren't going to be in it and how many really, really really good players aren't going to be in the squad?

So he's absolutely spoiled for choice.

What's your starting 11, Barry?

Can you give it to us?

Pickford, Rhys James, John Stones, Mark Gaye,

Livremento, probably,

Wharton Bellingham Rice,

coin toss between Sack and Palmer, Kane and Ezek.

And I'm already admonishing myself because

I'm leaving out Morgan Rodgers.

I'm leaving out, I think Elliot Anderson's really good.

Phil Foden, will he even be in the squad?

You know,

he's such a terrific player on his day.

So, but that's my starting 11.

Well, no, actually, it isn't.

My starting 11 would be 11 random individuals who've never played football before.

But working on the assumption I have to pick sort of of in the same pool as Tuchel, this is my starting 11.

Do you like Barry's 11, uh, Jonathan?

Yes, I quite like it.

There's uh, well, the 11 randoms that I quite like as well, so that could be

quite fun.

I'll play them against Andorra, see how it goes.

But

yeah,

the essence of the point, isn't it, is that he's he's spoiled for choice, really.

There are so many sort of good England talents.

I think

it might be a bit left-field prediction potentially, but I still think there's a chance.

I think I tweeted it earlier in the season, but I think there's a chance there'll be a wild card like Max Dauman or Ryan

Ngamua might even end up in the squad.

I think Thomas Tuschel's someone who does have a bit of a left field approach to things.

He will think outside the box.

Livermento, I think, has got a really good chance, for example, of starting.

And

I can see someone like that breaking out this season and maybe getting themselves either into the squad or obviously not into the first 11, but definitely into the squad.

So I do think Tuku is someone who will think differently when he starts making his final choices.

Barry makes a really good point there about someone like Phil Foden, you know, who at this moment in time is almost

not thought about really, which is quite surprising.

And he's got a lot of work to do.

I think Trent's got a lot of work to do as well to potentially get in the squad.

There's players like Carl Walker, who's approaching that 100-cat mark, who it looks like maybe he's on the out as well.

So

there are some sort of new rumblings of a new team emerging here.

Eze, I'm not sure will necessarily start.

I've got a feeling he quite likes Marcus Rashford.

But again, that's going to come down to maybe his form at Barcelona.

Can he get in the team?

Obviously Rashford has been kind of dropped really from the last match.

So he played one game that we're losing.

He got hooked at halftime and since then he kind of hasn't been in the team.

But it's very early days.

And of course, I think form will dictate a lot of the choices.

So yeah.

The bottom line of it is there's so many options, which is really good as an England follower.

The question is, what will Tuka go for?

And I think he's someone who will go lean more towards form than maybe reputation and name.

What do you make, Paul, of no Trent Alexander Arnold in this squad?

Oh, that's a good question.

I personally, I agree with it.

I don't think it's necessarily such a bad thing.

And

I think there are a few high-price rates.

So when the squad comes out, there's always the anger and the kind of, what, what's he doing?

And I feel like it's almost quite contradictory because in some ways you're looking for players that are obviously in good form, but it's very early in the season.

so what does that mean anyway and then on the other side you've got players that you'd like to see but actually it's hard to justify calling them up so I think like for example Ruben Loftus cheek like you say him popping up again and it's like it is weird to see him there in a way but he's had a very good start season at Milan He's keeping Luca Modric out the side there and he also can play in two quite useful positions like he can play in a number eight role he can be more advanced sort of works in both so i'm i'm kind of intrigued i'm willing to give tukul the benefit of the the doubt with the squad, that's for sure.

Although I will like to caveat that with saying I would like, my favorite thing in the world to happen would be for Barry to be in charge of England, pick that squad, win the World Cup and never forgive himself.

Become like an English football legend who despises every aspect of his legacy.

That would be just brilliant.

The Irish Jack Charlton.

Yeah, and he'd be trying to sabotage them, right?

He'd pick this squad and he'd be desperately trying to sabotage them every single round, but we'd just keep going through.

And he'd be remembered as an English legend and it would just kill him.

He takes off Caleb Bellingham, and it works.

And we're like, finally, a brave England manager.

Yeah.

Well, Rubelov to Cheek said he completely forgot about playing for England and was just a fan during his near seven-year absence from the national team.

Last appearance for them came in a friendly against the United States in November 2018.

Was part of the World Cup squad in Russia in 2018.

He played 28 times for AC Milan last season.

Has started this season well.

Autumn says, not a question, but I quite quite enjoyed listening to Barry and Sanny feel so strongly that Mark Gahey would be happy to stay with Crystal Palace that Max began to doubt himself, even as the lead story on the Guardian website while I was listening was about how furious Mark Gahey was about staying in London.

Believed to be left bitterly disappointed by the U-turn.

Palace had already signed off on a farewell video that ends with the words, thank you, skip.

Private Jet had been lined up to take him to Merseyside that evening.

The Daily Mail reports that Steve Parrish went to a fitness class at some point during the day and then showed a picture of Steve Parrish, who looks pretty ripped, it's got to be said.

And

yes,

he was unhappy, Barry.

Evidently so.

But I still think

he's in an okay position.

And when you're comparing his

professional behavior to that of

Wissa and Isaac, you're comparing apples and oranges because he only has a year left on his contract.

But yeah, if he's angry, he's angry.

Fair enough.

I didn't think he would be.

But I don't know Mark Gehi.

So

I was surmising.

Yeah, no, fair enough.

Jed Spence, interesting call-up, Jonathan, set to become the first Muslim to play for England.

Ostends to be a right back, but has played a lot of left back for Tottenham and has been good there.

And I suppose left back, Barry mentioned Liveramento.

There's Miles Lewis Skelly as well, but it's not a guaranteed position.

Like he could, if he plays well and has a a good season, he could he could be the left back when the World Cup starts.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if he's the starting left back in the World Cup, or if he starts at all in the World Cup, to be honest.

I still think this is an experimental phase for Tuju in certain positions.

Spencer's had a really good form, and obviously, his story in general is kind of like an underdog tale, isn't it?

It's sort of portrayed as constantly being rejected and then constantly coming back.

There was the sort of Neil Warnock spat, wasn't there?

The cheers, Neil, and cigar when he was at Nottingham Forest.

And obviously, there's been so many loan spells he's had, and he's had to sort of fight back.

And

maybe he's been typecast a little bit as

having, you know, maybe as

a personality that maybe rubs up some managers the wrong way or some fans the wrong way,

which is either through no fault of his own or there's some reason for it.

But there's one thing you can't deny.

He's been an excellent form for the last sort of 18 months or so.

He is a very good player and quite versatile.

I think it's, again, like I say, I think this is a squad where it's funny, isn't it, Max?

Like, looking back to the Senegal game, and, you know, like you said, life has kind of gotten the way and there's so much football that you can almost forget that Senegal match and the kind of

fluoro around it after that game, really, with Tuchel, the comments about Bellingham and finding him, his mother finding him repulsive, which he obviously subsequently said that he apologised for and was mistranslation, you know, when the squad was announced recently.

So there is quite a lot of sort of discontent going on.

And I wonder if kind of the shaking up of the squad is partly as well an antidote to that.

And maybe a little bit of dissatisfaction from Tsuchel about some of the players maybe trying to shake up the status quo a little bit with players like Spence.

So we'll see how that works out.

I wouldn't expect him to be in the final squad, to be honest.

But if he gets to play some minutes and plays well, then he's got every chance.

I think Louis Kelly

might be more favourite for that position if it was push game to shove.

But Luis Gale has barely played many minutes this season.

So, again, I think it will come down to kind of who's actually playing.

I have no further thoughts on England, unless Paul, you have something on something more on someone and Andorran to look out for or a bit more on Serbia.

I was going to give a little note on Serbia.

So, it's interesting we're coming into this game looking from the English perspective.

There's quite a lot of discontent.

There's huge discontent at Dragan Stojkiewicz in Serbia.

So, like, he is becoming increasingly unpopular with his selections.

There's a sense he's got a very stagnant squad.

He's not experimenting and the results have been fine.

But

kind of the word in a lot of the press is like, why do you think you can beat England if you're not willing to take any risks?

And I think there's a sense of disappointment there.

Also, a really interesting side note, they've moved the game.

I don't know if you saw this.

They moved it.

It was going to be played in a really tiny little stadium.

I'm not sure why, but it was going to be played in, I think, Leskovach.

It's like 8,000-seater stadium.

They moved it over to Red Stars stadium in Belgrade, known as the Marakana.

So it's going to have this incredibly

fevered atmosphere at the game now, whereas it wasn't before.

So this game's setting up, I think, on both sides has been quite an important match, as you say, with Tuko under pressure, Stojovich under pressure.

On the subject of matches being moved, Max, the England game is at Phillip Park

because Cold Play have first dibs on Wembley.

I'm just wondering...

on which event or which stadium your attention will be focused this Saturday?

That's a good question.

I will probably be watching the football.

I don't believe the Cold Play game is live streamed.

Oh, I thought you might be going to it.

The Cold Play game.

Can I get, if I could get a ticket for Mrs.

Rushton

Saturday?

I mean, it's tricky with childcare.

That's all I'm thinking.

Could Jamie take a baby?

I'll babysit for you.

I'm free.

He's still breastfeeding.

Is that an issue?

Okay.

I mean, I have breasts, so I'm not sure they're

fit for that purpose.

Trying to imagine young Willie Rushton's disappointed face when he latches, how's the latch?

How's your latch?

Blimey.

Anyway,

that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do the rest of the home nations.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the Remarkable Paper Pro.

We already know that remarkable is the leader in the paper tablet category digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper but with the power of modern technology but there's something new and exciting the remarkable paper pro move remarkable a brand name and an adjective man yeah it's their most portable paper tablet yet it holds all your notes to-dos and documents but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, Mike.

Exactly.

Too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

It'll never beat or buzz to try and grab your attention, so you can devote your focus to what or who is in front of you.

It has a display that looks, feels, and even sounds like paper.

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

No worries about running out of power before the end of extra time.

The remarkable Paper Pro move can keep going for up to two weeks.

And if you do need to recharge, you can go from naught to 90% in less than 45 minutes, Barry.

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

Visit remarkable.com to learn more and get your paper tablet today.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So, just a week to go until our live show at the Troxy in London.

Me, Barry, Jonathan Wilson, Nikki Bandini, Johnny Lou.

We have a week to fill the top tier, Barry.

That's a thousand tickets.

We have tens of thousands of listeners in London.

So, the journey starts here.

Can we convince those lazy bastards who haven't bought a ticket yet to fill that?

Imagine if we fill it now.

It would be quite the triumph, Max.

um

yeah

look we've peddled the line that they owe us they don't seem to have listened i'm not sure what else we can do

yeah but just think of the the triumphant top tier you could be the top tier to can we just be clear that filling the bottom tier is a big that is a big show like it doesn't sound like there's three people coming it's a big venue arguably it's too big for us but we've got it now and so let's fill the damn thing uh theguardian.com is being aggressive the right way to sell to cold play is this how cold play sold the top tier at wembley no i think cold play

being incredibly popular and very good with what they do oh damn it well we don't have time for either of those two things theguardian.com slash football weekly live be a hero and bring 999 friends with you for the top tier uh we're also going to live stream the show around the world so yeah same link theguardian.com slash football weekly live live.

You've cast your eyes amongst the home nations, Barry.

Where would you like to take us first?

Well, I suppose by the time most people are listening to this, Wales will probably have played against Kazakhstan, away in Astana.

That's a 3pm kickoff British time today, Thursday.

I think it's a must-not-lose game and it could be a must-win game for Wales.

And they should win.

They beat Kazakhstan in Cardiff.

Obviously, they've had to travel a very long way for this they're bringing 1100 fans with them which i think is fantastic one fan in particular who was mentioned in the the subject of a ben fisher article in the guardian

john mcalister from barrie in wales south wales he's made his way there he wanted to make his way there entirely over land but he had to take one little flight just for i think security reasons or something but he's had a whale of a time on uh various trains and buses he went to the stagdoo some irish bloke he'd never met before uh he went to a heavy metal concert he's been to i think 11 different football matches craig bellamy heard his story and he i think he's going to do his damnedest to arrange for for john to meet the uh whales squad and give him some vip treatment and yeah it's it's a lovely story and fair play to him he'll be a legend among the the bucket hat wearing whales fans who've all converged in Astana my only concern for Wales here would be that they have a lot of injuries Joe Roden's out Danny Ward eats Nampadu Connor Roberts Aaron Ramsey do you know where Aaron Ramsey plays these days Max oh yes Mexico correct and but yeah I would expect Wales to win this game it's on also on a

artificial pitch which Bellamy isn't too happy about but he's he's not unlike Bellamy the player Bellamy the manager just gets on with it and doesn't moan a lot uh before you carry on Paul has stuff on Kazakhstan so let's let's hear that we actually had John McAllister on the sweeper podcast this week so we've just been chatting to him one of my favourite things is he went to a Kazakhstan second division match apparently and um people could not get their heads around what he was doing there I think he tried to explain it and you know it was just like why would you do this to yourself?

Basically was the message.

Why would you come to this match?

But the other thing is he's a Celtic fan.

So he just happened to be there in time for Celtics Champions League match, which obviously when he left, that wasn't even, you know, on his radar because they hadn't drawn, you know, the draw hadn't been done.

So he's already lost one.

heartbreaking game in Astana.

So I'm hoping, in Ahmati, sorry.

So I'm hoping he'll get his result this time.

But yeah, I mean, on Kazakhstan, they're not in good form.

They've not been good.

They had this amazing run.

They reached the Euro 2024 qualification playoffs.

They lost pretty heavily to Greece, but they really did look decent.

And it was a big moment for football in Kazakhstan.

They've really died off a little since.

So Wales are meeting them at a pretty good time.

They lost to North Macedonia, thrashed by Belarus in a friendly.

The guy to watch out for probably will be on the bench, I'd say, from the start.

It's Dastan Sapayev, who...

was the youngest ever Champions League goalscorer at 16 years, 10 months, and has already signed for Chelsea.

He'll be there from August 2026, which I hadn't really thought about that, that people can sign for a club like starting in a year's time.

But he's a really decent player.

He's having a gap year.

He's deferred his place and

now he's going backpacking.

Just packing, yeah, he'll be in a grotti hostel before long.

Yeah, so he's decent.

And Islam Chesnikov, who I think is on his way to hearts, he's got something like a pre-contract agreement, which I don't fully understand what that is.

But I think his club are trying to stop him going, his club in Kazakhstan because they really like him.

So Islam Chesnikov's is a dangerous kind of wide man who you want to be careful of.

But generally speaking, Kazakhstan are not on good form.

And for John's sake, I really hope Wales can get him a result.

BAS, Northern Ireland, they kick off their qualifying against Luxembourg today.

Yeah, they start their campaign with two-way matches, Luxembourg today.

and Germany on Sunday.

Obviously, that's going to be a toughie for them.

Germany.

I know Philippe likes to big up Luxembourg at times.

This is Northern Ireland's first qualifier for two years, and it's Michael O'Neill's fifth qualifying campaign across two stints as their head coach.

I'd say they're cautiously optimistic of Nick in second place in the group.

It's Germany, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland, they've lost a lot of...

old senior players.

Stephen Davis has finally retired after winning 579 caps for Northern Ireland.

But they've got some real exciting young players in, some of whom play for Sunderland.

Connor Bradley's in and Isaac Price, Trey Hume, Shea Charles.

Shea Charles' brother Pierce is the Northern Ireland goalkeeper, but I think he has to sit these ones out with an injury.

Sunderland's Dan Ballard is out as well with an injury.

But I would imagine if they take three points from these two games against Luxembourg and Germany, they'll be happy enough.

The 579 appearances, you said, for Stephen Davis, was actually a good joke because for a second I was like, he can't have played 507, although he might have actually played it.

I think it's 140.

I just checked.

What do you got on Luxembourg, Paul?

It's the end of an era or the start of a new era for Luxembourg.

So they had Luke Holtz was their coach for 15 years.

I'm pretty sure he was the second longest serving because I think the other guy is Andorra's coach, coach Coldo Alvarez who's still there who's been in since 2010 But Luke Holtz has basically been Luxembourg boss forever like he's a very divisive figure some people really like him some people don't and part of the root of that is he nearly got Luxembourg to the Euro playoffs so that was like an amazing achievement for a nation that used to be sort of lumped in with Liechtenstein and you know they were the whipping boys but he also was heavily criticized for the fact he kept picking Jason Rodriguez who was their star player but during that time he was charged with convicted of and lost his appeal against a domestic violence conviction so people in Luxembourg really didn't like that he kept picking him and it caused this this real kind of strain between him and the fans there were a lot of protests so Holtz is gone now he was supposed to step down at the end of the year he actually got another job and just left immediately so this is the start of the Jeff Strasser era with Luxembourg ah right

Do we know anything about Jeff Strasser?

Yeah, oh shit oh come on.

Jeff Strasser, fifth all-time in caps for Luxembourg.

Jeff Strasser.

Right, the fifth.

Sorry.

My knowledge of Luxembourg record appearances goes down to four.

Oh, there you go.

And then I'm out.

You'd be so good on pointless, Paul, wouldn't they?

The category is internationals for Luxembourg.

Be like, okay.

People say I'm pointless a lot.

A lot.

I think I'm getting this worrying feeling.

I do too much of the sweeper.

I do too much like obscure football world because I do get that look from people quite frequently where I say something and they look at me completely blankly.

And I think I'm the one in the wrong.

Yeah, no, no, look, it's a niche that we are delighted that you have.

Barry, Scotland and the Republic.

I'm big few days for Scotland.

They start their campaign with Denmark away on Friday and then Belarus away on Monday.

That's correct.

Look at that Scotland squad.

They're light in some areas and very strong in others.

Of their eight midfielders in the Scottish squad, four of them play in Syria.

McTominay, Lennon Miller at Udenese, Louis Ferguson at Bologna, Billy Gilmore, obviously with McTominay at Napoli.

I think one of the heartwarming stories about their squad is Aaron Hickey from Brentford's back after

two years, more or less, sidelined with various hamstring issues.

So he

will be managed very carefully, according to Steve Clark.

But I read an interview with him, and he's just so happy to be back in a Scotland setup.

Hickey, I think they have a

good use of blend and experience.

Lovely.

And obviously they're trying to qualify for their first World Cup since 1998.

They're in a group with Denmark, Greece, Belarus.

You've got to give them a chance.

That looks pretty open, I would say.

I don't know how strong Denmark are, but that looks a kind draw for them.

And then the Republic of Ireland...

They're in a group with Portugal, Hungary and Armenia.

You guess everyone's playing for second place behind Portugal.

And Ireland start with a home match against Hungary on Saturday.

I would

probably bite your arm off for a point at this stage.

And then away at Armenia on Tuesday, which is the kind of game I would expect them to struggle in.

Hungary obviously have Milas Kirkis, Dominic Sabozlai, West Broms, Callum Stiles.

And agent Robbie Keene, who's currently the manager of Ferenc Varros, apparently has been on on the blower to Ireland assistant manager John O'Shea, giving him little pointers as to

where Hungary's strengths and weaknesses may lie.

And Hungarian football, Viktor Orborn, obviously has pumped a load of money into it.

Marcus Rossi, this Italian, has been in charge for almost a decade, I think, if not longer.

And so they have some good players coming through.

It should be a shootout between Hungary and Ireland to finish second behind Portugal.

Ireland's last game is away at hungary so yeah i think a draw on saturday would be satisfactory the worry with ireland is in their last four campaigns so i think it's a world cup of euros and two nations leagues they've lost their opening two games in all of them and uh yeah so it's it's time to shit or get off the pot lads

Jonathan, you got any

fixtures piqued your interest?

If we head over to Africa, then I think there's a lot of exciting fixtures coming up.

I think the big, there's quite a few taking place maybe by the time listeners have listened to this podcast.

But I think the main one probably might be in Nigeria-Rwanda.

So, of course, with the expanded World Cup, thanks to FIFA's changes, there'll be nine African teams in the World Cup next year, as opposed to the usual five.

So, there are six places for automatic, and then there's a playoff.

And I think the biggest game really is Nigeria-Rwanda because Nigeria are struggling for qualification at the moment.

They kind of, you know, they're one of the African teams who's qualified the most.

I think they've qualified six times for previous World Cups.

But they are fourth in the group currently, in the sixth team group, sorry.

And they are six points behind South Africa.

and one point behind Rwanda for the the second round sort of playoff place so this is it's a big game for them they did win the uh the first meeting between the two sides but it's obviously a must-win game because if nigeria were to lose or to even maybe draw then the automatic spot will definitely be probably out of their reach.

And if they were to lose, of course, then even the second round place would be, there'd be four points off it.

So that's quite a big one in the continent there.

Notably for Nigeria, obviously it's a squad that's stacked with options, really.

There's so many good players.

Victor Ossumen is the sort of main man up front.

But they also have call-ups for Atolu Arokadare, who's recently just signed for Wolves.

And also Chris Anthona Suche, who's recently just signed for Crystal Palace in the last sort of week or so.

So some new Premier League names to sort of keep an eye on, potentially.

And of course, there's many other players like Adamona Luckman and many others who many will know from

the Premier League.

So, it's a big game.

Rwanda have been in sort of

having a decent run.

They've won a couple of games, and obviously, they have never qualified for the World Cup, I don't think.

So, it would be a massive achievement were there to do it.

South Africa looked like they will win that group and progress automatically.

But, of course, that's runners-out spot is up for grabs.

The other, I think, big game would be Senegal against Sudan.

Senegal have kind of been struggling.

Uh, again, they're sort of second place, they're one point behind Democratic Republic of Congo.

Um, so it's not a huge gap to make up there.

They could still, they've still got time to make that up and maybe qualify automatically.

But the game against Sudan, of course, if they're both level on points.

So, if they were to lose that game, then it might make things a little bit more tricky for Senegal.

Um, notably, uh, for Senegal, Sariomane was left out of the recent squad, um, and that caused a huge sort of

brouhaha, so to speak, back home in Senegal.

And he's been called back up again to the squad now.

So that's an opportunity for him to sort of show his leadership and obviously a legendary figure for all his achievements with Senegal and his achievements with, of course, Liverpool.

So he's got a lot on his shoulders in this game.

Sudan have been having a fairly good run so far.

But yeah, I think those are the sort of two standout games.

A lot of it has gone the way of teams that you'd expect.

So if you look at the top of the groups at the moment, you've got Egypt there who look fairly comfortable.

It looks like they will qualify.

You've got the Arkongo, as I mentioned, South Africa.

Cape Verde are top of their group in Group D.

Cameroon, of course, the team that's qualified most for World Cups.

In Africa, they're in second place.

But both of them have a little bit of a padding gap between them and Libya in third.

So it looks as if it will be one of those two, Cape Verde and Cameroon, and one potentially progress to the playoffs where they'll be quite strong favourites.

Morocco are clearly top of their group.

Tanzania could be an outside one for the for the second round sort of playoff spot.

That could be quite interesting if they were to sort of progress.

Gabon look like okay and Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire second place.

So things are kind of largely going as you'd maybe expect in an African qualification but I think that Nigeria game, Rwanda's opportunities potentially.

And then if you look at some of the other runners-up spots, I mean Algeria topping in Group G, Tunisia top in Group H.

So Ghana are topping in Group I.

So, you know, they're really expected to go through.

But Comoros, Namibia, and Mozambique currently hold the advantages in those other groups, and they might maybe also make playoffs.

So there's the chance for maybe one or two outsiders to be in the next World Cup from the African region.

But I would say, yeah, it's a big, big weekend for

Senegal and Nigeria in terms of being favorites and really expected to go through.

And they need to pick up some results.

Anything you want to add to that?

Which is a very comprehensive run-through, Paul.

Well, Cape Verde, yeah, definitely one that on my radar because they are looking for their first World Cup.

One of the smallest nations in Africa by population as well.

I think it's the third smallest nation.

So their rise has been incredible.

They've got two really interesting matches.

They've got the longest away trip of African football against Mauritius because you obviously got Mauritius all the way off the other side.

In the reverse of this, when Mauritius came to them, the inevitable happened and Mauritius came all the way over.

I think it's something like 10,000 kilometers and then let in an 84th minute goal and went home.

But yeah, Cape Verde playing Cameroon in the big one.

That's the other, that's the really big one.

And the Cameroon thing, the thing that I find just incredible is the chaos that Cameroon are constantly in.

It's like they're trying to undermine a nation of talented footballers at every stage.

And the latest thing is Mark Brees, this coach they've got in, his story is incredible in that he was appointed by the sports ministry rather than the Federation.

The Federation's statement was, we were astonished.

We saw his appointment with great astonishment, which is not what you want to hear when you're appointed.

And ever since the Federation had been trying to get rid of him to the point where quite recently there was a big sort of news headline saying he had resigned Brees because of lack of payment of wages.

Brees then said, no, I didn't resign.

This is a fake resignation letter that the Federation have faked in my name.

And he's hanging on in there.

As far as I can see, he's still there.

He's still coaching this team.

And the Federation can't shake him.

But it's typical Cameroon.

You couldn't have a more talented nation let down by its off-the-field nonsense, really.

Paul, you said just before recording, do you want me to do Bermuda-Jamaica?

To which I said, of course I do.

Yeah, well, I've loved watching Bermuda on this qualification come in.

They've got through to the final stage of qualification for the first time.

So the way that is, it's three groups of four.

The three group winners go to the World Cup.

The two best runners up going the intercontinental playoffs.

The group they're in is Bermuda, Curaçao, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.

And so their next game is against Jamaica.

It's a real like, you know, David Goliath Goliath struggle because Jamaica with Steve McLaren at the helm, quite, you know, relatively starry squad for that part of the world.

Bermuda squad are primarily in the English non-league.

There are some home-based players.

They've just called Naki Wells back.

And as a British City fan, I have a lot of affection for Naki Wells, but he's their kind of big star.

But the pressure is really on Steve McLaren.

He's not had a good time, particularly with Jamaica.

They had a dreadful Gold Cup.

They only beat the British Virgin Islands, who are one of the lowest ranked nations in the entire FIFA rankings, 1-0 in the British Virgin Islands.

He had a dreadful day there.

So there's a lot of pressure on him, but there's also a lot of pressure on another team-led group.

Dwight York is the coach of Trinidad and Tobago, and he's having a bad time.

So it's going to be a massive game when Dwight York comes up against Steve McLaren.

That's going to be a huge one.

Paul, can I just quickly ask, how's Steve McLaren's Jamaican accent?

I think part of the terms of his contract is he doesn't do it anymore.

Right.

Do you see?

Because he did do a

social media piece where he did it.

And actually, to be fair to him, I think everyone enjoyed it.

It was kind of a fun thing to do.

But

yeah,

as soon as he took that job on, I thought, oh, wow.

It's a brave one.

And also, at least it's somewhere he doesn't need an umbrella very often.

That is true.

Yeah, well,

I won't end part two in my patrol.

It just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem appropriate.

So that'll do for part two.

Part three, Susie Rack will join us and we'll look ahead to the WSL.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's Barry's here too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the Remarkable Paper Pro.

We already know that Remarkable's the leader in the paper tablet category, digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper, but with the power of modern technology.

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable paper pro move.

Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

Yeah, it's their most portable paper tablet yet.

It holds all your notes, to-dos, and documents, but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin, so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket.

Perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office, like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, Matt.

Exactly.

Too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

It'll never beat or buzz to try and grab your attention, so you can devote your focus to what or who is in front of you.

It has a display that looks, feels, and even sounds like paper.

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

No worries about running out of power before the end of extra time.

The Remarkable Paper Pro Move can keep going for up to two weeks.

And if you do need to recharge, you can go from naught to 90% in less than 45 minutes, Barry.

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

Visit remarkable.com to learn more and get your paper tablet today.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Let's bring in the Guardian's women's football correspondence and regular on the Guardian Women's Football Weekly podcast, which you must download and subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts.

Susie Rack.

Hey, Susie.

Hey, hey, how are you doing?

Yeah, good.

So look, WSL kicks off tomorrow night, Chelsea versus Manchester City.

What is new?

Because there was talk of no relegation from the WSL, but that isn't the case.

What's the new relegation format?

Yeah, so it's weird because it's like an interim season while they expand the league.

So essentially, you've got two teams winning automatic promotion from the championship to the, I say the championship, it's now rebranded as WSL2.

From WSL2, do the WSL.

And then bottom of the WSL goes into a a playoff against third in WSL2 for on whether they remain in the league or whether a third WSL2 team comes up.

So, I mean, it's essentially scrapping relegation for one season in that the likelihood of bottom of the WSL not beating third in WSL2 is pretty slim, but it's only for one season and then it goes back to sort of a normal like one-up, one-down kind of situation.

So it's tolerable, whereas obviously there's outcry at the prospect of getting rid of promotion relegation relegation for potentially four years, potentially forever, as is being floated beforehand.

So, not as bad as that, but it's you know, one season of blucks.

I'm really good for both teams in WSL2, which have been a little bit bottlenecked, and also like teams below that in the Women's National League who get to come up and boost up WSL2 afterwards as well.

Right.

So, it's a, I mean, it's a great year to be terrible then in the WSL, but also that game will be

pretty intense when we get.

I i know there's a lot of football to get to title races etc etc but that will be enormous that game yeah it's one of the things that um i think like during the various conversations wsl football were having about like promotion and relegation and format and stuff one of the things that was quite popular was the idea of having some kind of playoff system at some point and i think this is a little bit of a test to see how well it does because i mean whenever things go down to the wire like at the end of last season wsl2 uh went down to the final day and basically Birmingham and London City played each other on the last day of the season the winner going up so it did really well it got a huge crowd so I think it's a way of like spotlighting some of the championship teams as well it's a good idea I'd like to see some kind of version of it stay in some way but I definitely want to avoid sort of an Americanized system where we have a league and then a playoff for a championship title or anything like that.

I think that's that would be a step too far.

But I think playoffs at the bottom are always quite fun.

Yeah.

Minimum salaries for players in the top two tiers,

so in WSL and WSL2, being introduced for the first time this season.

I mean, this sounds like a good idea.

Is it a good idea, Susie?

I mean, yeah, a massively overdue idea.

Okay, good.

Because when

the WSL was relaunched by the FA, they brought in minimum standards for both the WSL and WSL2 at the time, which then became the championship has now been renamed back to its original name, which is a funny little merry-o-round.

The rules there were the WSL is full-time professional and the WSL2 is part-time professional.

And the reality was, is that wasn't really the case in that, like, the minimum requirements hours-wise, I don't think any like trade union or company would consider the hours that were

supposed to be full-time or part-time as like full-time or part-time jobs, in that, like, it was like eight hours contact time for WSL2 and like 16 for WSL1.

And like, so there was this

sort of veneer of professionalism that wasn't actually very true, whereas now it is being made true.

And I would say about time.

And it's good that WSL football have sort of taken this step to sort of cement it and put in rules that mean that they are going to kind of have a minimum salary because there's been such a massive discrepancy between like the Arsenals, Chelsea, cities and say the Leicesters, the Evertons, the Liverpools, like the gap between the money earned by those players is so huge and barely livable on.

And a lot of these players are living on sort of one-year contracts, earning virtually nothing.

You can't really settle anywhere.

You can't start a family really because A, you can't afford to, you don't know where you're going to be moving to.

So they're losing players all the time because people just can't do it.

So it's a way of sort of making sure that people that want to play can play.

We want a title race, Susie.

Obviously, Chelsea won the league.

They keep winning the league.

Arsenal did with the Champions League.

I guess Manchester City have aspirations.

Will there be a title break?

Hope so.

I really hope so.

I mean, I think there will.

I mean, the vibe around both City and Arsenal, I've been at both training grounds within the last few weeks.

And the vibe is they want Chelsea's like head on a plate.

Like, no excuses.

They want to, they both want to win the league.

I mean, City were like...

emphatic about it.

I mean, I just got an interview with Bunny Short that went up yesterday evening.

And she basically says, we've got no excuses for not winning the league this year because we're through our injury problems.

We've got no Champions League football.

We're focused on the WSL game every single week.

That's our focus.

Like, we've got no excuses for not like winning the league.

Two seasons ago, they lost it on goal difference to Chelsea.

So like they feel like they're not far off.

Last season was a bit of a blip, all the million injuries they had and stuff.

Bunny Shaw out for half the season herself.

And then Arsenal obviously have got a bit of a psychological change since last season and since they've, you know, won last one, the wsl which wasn't in 2019 i want to say in that obviously they've just won the champions league which is the you know chelsea's like golden goose like they're desperate for that so

they have a new level of confidence of what they can achieve and what they can win a feeling of winning you know they've got six of england's european champions as well or five with michelle adjerman alone so like there is i think a a real like psychological element that they've overcome in winning the champions League and what it takes to be like

a team that wins a big title.

So I think they've both, there's both like positives for them.

But Chelsea, Chelsea, and if they sign Alyssa Thompson today, she's on a plane from LA at the moment, despite Angel City and the league, the NWSL, not wanting her to leave and trying to sort of hold up the deal or stop it from happening, even though it's going to be probably another world record broken.

You know, if she arrives at Chelsea, then there's no sign of them sort of stopping the flow of trophies that come their way every single season.

Could I just be annoyingly pedantic and point out that the Champions League is more Chelsea's white whale than their golden goose?

I mean, that makes a lot more sense to be fair.

As I was saying, golden goose isn't the right analogy to use.

I hate myself for doing it, but I just can't help it.

I run.

I mean, Chelsea have more got the golden goose, haven't they?

Laying a different trophy every season, but you know, yeah.

Are you watching Flight Radar?

So, so, so you think that will that price tag will be more than the million that Arsenal spent on Olivia Smith?

Oh, I think definitely.

I don't think Agel City would let her go for anything other than a record fee.

They don't want her to go.

The league don't want her to go, apparently, intervenes a little bit because they don't like that all these star players are leaving for the WSL.

You know, it undervalues their league significantly with players wanting to leave.

But there's photos of her sat at LAX Airport.

Apparently, she's on the plane, according to Tom's

latest tweeting and yeah there's still not agreement between the two teams but she is on her way to kind of try and push it over the line basically.

So it should happen I think.

And I think Chelsea need it to happen because Myra Ramirez got injured in a pre-season friendly.

So they are a little, they're not really short because, you know, they have a really, really stacked squad.

But like in the terms of their stacked squad, they're slightly short.

Sam Kerr's coming back, but you know, it'll be the first time she's played in a couple of years.

So they didn't necessarily need her but with myra mirez gone they need her a little bit more i very much like the idea of our own tom gary sitting at home studying flight scanner and passenger manifests or random planes leaving the usa i can totally believe that's happening right now susie can i ask what what's the you know you mentioned the sort of wage gap between the the arsenals and cities and the and the sort of leices as you put it um what is that kind of wage gap like out of interest is it is it quite well publicized or and not really it's not really publicized much at all, partly because clubs are so secretive in women's football, so they don't advertise transfer fees, generally speaking, and push back on any attempt to find out what transfer fees are really, really heavily, even the big ones where they should be kind of celebrating them a little bit.

And they don't give out salary details.

We're basically kept in the dark on a lot of things.

Contract lengths.

Some of them don't even give out contract lengths, which I find bizarre.

But yeah, so you know, when you're looking at sort of top WSL players, they're in the hundreds of thousands a year.

So the Sam Kerrs, the Leah Williamsons, the Alessia Russo's,

etc.

Those kind of level of player, they're on sort of like three, four, five, sometimes even 600,000 a year.

But then when you're looking at

mid or bottom table players towards the bottle, they're on sort of like between 30 and 60 grand a year at most.

Like in WSL2, that's lower, quite significantly lower.

So you're sort of basically got this massive two-tier league on your hands.

I mean, even within the top clubs, you know, there's a real scale there.

And like, it's, I think, unhealthy within clubs to have that bigger gap between players.

But then it's also really, obviously, really unhealthy across the league to have gaps that big.

Can I ask about London City Lionesses?

Interesting because they're not affiliated to a men's team.

What are the top pros and cons of that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of really excited to see what they do this season because they are such like a complete unknown as to what's going to happen.

They've signed, I think it's like, I think they're up to like 15 new players.

There's rumors that they're going to have another couple more in today.

So the turnover is really high.

But yeah, I mean, whilst they're independent of a men's team, which gives them like a degree of freedom and a weight to, you know, everything is focused on the women's team, right?

Like everything is being put around that to make it an elite environment.

They're being paid well.

They're getting the best resource.

But that's because they've got a billionaire behind them, Michelle Kang.

So, and she like really, really,

you know, has taken a bit of an ideological view to investment in women's sport and women's football.

Like she's looked at her wealth and gone, where can I put it that is going to add value?

And where do I think that it will also in the long term make a return?

But I don't, you know, initially I'm investing because I believe it should be invested in.

And she's done that with women's football.

And, you know, this is her third club that she's, she's bought.

So.

She's got a lot of money behind her.

And like when you go down to the training ground is basically a building site.

The pitches are perfect perfect because they're the thing that they've worked on first.

But, like, there's buildings coming up, going down, like, there's just like construction everywhere because they're literally completely renovating it and

turning it into an elite environment.

And then they're like splashing the cash on players big time.

So

it's quite an exciting project from the point of view of the fact that it's unprecedented.

We've never seen a team come up into WSL with like this level of investment and this caliber of player coming into a newly promoted side.

So that's kind of like exciting because no one exactly really knows what's going to happen.

But at the same time, I think it's like it's not something that we're ever going to see replicated because I don't think we're ever going to see another Michelle Kang.

I think she's quite a unique individual doing what she's doing.

So I don't think it's like necessarily replicable by say other championship clubs or whatever.

But it's kind of fun.

Thank you, Susie.

Before we end, I just need to apologize to Bromley fans because on Tuesday's pod, I said that Ryan Loft had signed for Bromley, but he signed for Crawley.

And so just imagine, I wonder how many extra season tickets would have been sold at Bromley with the exciting Ryan Loft news.

And actually he's gone to Crawley.

So you have my apologies.

Barry, you look primed to comment.

No, I just think weirdly, when you said that, I thought you were wrong.

But I wasn't confident enough to correct you like I was with Susie there.

So

back yourself, Barry.

You need to back yourself.

I need to back myself more.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Susie.

Peace.

Thanks, Jonathan.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you.

Believe in yourself, Barry.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Bubble Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Neil McBay.

This is The Guardian.