Arsenal and Spurs kick off Champions League campaigns with wins – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

The Champions League returns.

A great night for Gabriel Martinelli as Arsenal winning Bilbao.

He and fellow, not really forgotten man, Leando Trossard, come off the bench to win it for the Gunners.

Thomas Frank gets his first win in his first Champions League game.

Spurs won Villeral Nil, not a classic.

If you want one of those, perhaps picture in.

Juve Dortmund, nil-nil at half-time, 4-2 to Dortmund after 90 minutes, and 4-all at full-time.

Danny Carvajal sees red.

Can you believe it?

But Real Madrid get a silly handball penalty to beat Marseille.

And there are great away wins for Carabag and Union Saint-Gilois.

In the Carabao, Grimsby win again, this time at Troubled Sheffield Wednesday.

Also, today we'll do some Serie A Russell Martin's bonding swim in Loch Loman just as the weather turns.

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

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

Hey, Nikki Bandini.

Morning.

And bonjour sava, Philippe Auclaire.

Bonjour sava, Max.

Good morning.

Yes, good morning.

Let's go to Bilbao.

Athletic Club Nil, Arsenal 2.

A tough game for Arsenal against one of the better pop four teams.

Only two English sides had ever won in Bilbao.

Manchester United somehow last year in the semi-final, first leg, Liverpool in 1983-84.

And Philippe, like a really big night for Trossard, and especially Martinelli, I think.

Is is Mika Artita a genius or the jammiest of matches?

Because it's quite quite rare.

You know, very often you'll have scores with his first touch, you know, and coming on the pitch, but assists with his first touch, scores with his first touch, then reverse the rolls to make it 2-0.

I don't think there have been too many examples of that.

And yeah, it was a very big night for them.

It perhaps was a game that felt a little bit tenser than it ought to have because of the atmosphere in the ground, which was absolutely magnificent throughout.

And the fact that Arsenal actually found it quite unpleasant, I have to say, to play against a team that is so physical, so direct, and not as

bereft technically as some people had said.

And it's not all just rough and tumble.

And they did struggle a little bit until...

Well,

the huge advantage that they've got, even having five players out because of injury, is to be able to change the game by a couple of substitutions.

It really worked in more ways than one.

It's not just about the personnel, but it's also the fact that we were not, I don't think we were expecting Troissard perhaps to

come up as a kind of false nine or actually real nine, but maybe perhaps on the left wing and seeing Eze in a more advanced position as a number 10.

That's not what happened.

And in the fact that the fact that two of them combined so, you know, so well for the two goals is, yeah, I mean, it's a major Phillip for both players and for Michel Arteta as well.

And you look at it now, Max, and you see the games that they have lined up.

I mean, there's a couple of more difficult ones, but you think, yeah, that was probably the toughest assignment they had in this group phase was to get a result and a good result like this in San Mames.

And they did.

And in the end,

with a bit to spare,

there were a few situations where it was a little bit tense, let's put it that way, where Athletic

threatened to threaten.

But in the end, David Raya had a much quieter game, perhaps, than you would have expected.

I mean, for Martinelli, Nikki, it's like sort of the perfect moment, isn't it?

To get a chance that plays totally into your strengths, i.e., being really fast, a strength that perhaps the guy who's taken your shirt as a doesn't have.

And also, like, there was one brilliant touch in that move, but just to because the chances of that actually happening are quite slim.

Arsenal hadn't really got through like that until that moment.

Yeah, just to quickly pick up on what Philippe said, I mean, Arsenal do have to go away to Inter, who were finalists last season before the end of the group.

Written off again.

Written off again, Mr.

Malays.

They haven't started great, so maybe, maybe Philippe's right.

I just thought I just thought I'd mention it.

But the martial thing is really interesting to me.

I think

there was some phrasing that Arteta used in his post-game interviews where he talked about finishers.

And what came into my head was not finishers and the sticking the ball in the back of the net sense, because I think that's not what he meant.

I think what he was talking about was kind of this idea.

And I should say, before I introduce this concept to the conversation, I really know nothing about baseball, but I understand that there is this concept of a closing pitcher.

I'm familiar with this idea that you have certain pitchers that come in in the late innings who are a fresh arm and who have that, I guess, bring that extra zip when you've got your starting pitcher.

The guy who's pitching the ball game is a bit more tired.

And I do think this is a concept that's been kicked around, obviously, forever in some form in football, or certainly for as long as we've had substitutes, which is forever as far as our generation is concerned.

The idea of of a superstar is not new.

But I do think when you look at the squad that Arsenal are building, when you look at the amount of depth that was added this summer, it shouldn't be outrageous to look at a player's qualities and say, look, well, certain people bring some qualities, certain people bring other qualities.

But actually, as basic as it sounds, having someone who's electrically quick at the end of a pitch come on, at the end of a game, come on, is an incredible tool to have off the bench.

And it shouldn't be, even though, of course, as a footballer, footballers always want to play all the time it shouldn't be a slight on a player to say actually sometimes you're most effective when you are playing those last 20 minutes of a game when you are playing that that role of being the closer as it were and i think that um very clearly in this game which as philippe has already talked about where the athletic athletic started with such tempo and such intensity and you saw i thought the different strengths of Arsenal in that period because even though athletic had the better of the play early on Arsenal really didn't give up a lot in terms of real chances.

And I thought Moscara was really good, by the way, one of the understated signings less talked about so far this season.

But then if you can do all that and you can have maybe not the flashiest game from Yokurage, I know everyone's going to look at it and go, he didn't score or whatever, but I actually thought he did some pretty decent work holding the ball up and being that target man for a long time.

You have those tools to weather an early storm.

And then you have a different tool that you can bring in late in a game, which is someone who is going to point straight at those tired defenders and make them feel even more tired, which I think is a strength that Martin Lee has.

Yeah, that's Usain Bolt still has a chance, despite his first time being like a trampoline.

Barry, actually, Nikki mentioned Moscuera, and I thought, like, he just looks so ready to be in one of the best defenses in world football, I guess.

Yeah, he was really good against Nottingham Forest.

He didn't put a foot wrong here.

The only thing I'd say is he didn't have to do a huge amount, but maybe that's because he was there, I don't know, and such a reassuring presence alongside Gabrielle.

I think Saliba was fit last night, but obviously Arsenal have city coming up at the weekend.

That's a much more important game for them because this one

opening match of the league phase doesn't really matter whether you win or not.

In terms of Arteta's finishers, I think he specifically referenced rugby union as where he'd come up with this great idea of using substitutes.

And while it would be easy to mock him, because listening to him talk about this innovative wheeze of taking off tired players and bringing on players who aren't tired, I think he was more using it to make the subs he did bring on feel better about the fact that they weren't picked in the first place, because he did go on this soliloquy of, you know, how it hurts him to have to leave players out and he looked into Martinelli's eyes and he knew he was ready.

Interestingly, I was doing the minute-by-minute report of this game and a reader emailed in and said the goal sums up all the frustrations Arsenal fans have about Martinelli insofar as, right, we know he's incredibly quick, but his first touch was poor, his second touch was great, and it was one of those chances where he didn't have to lift his head and make a decision about what to do.

And his shot was actually not great.

The keeper should have kept it out.

I'm not having a goal, it was a good goal, but

I wouldn't read too much into this

performance beyond the fact that Arsenal went to a hostile environment and won without playing particularly well.

I think

it's not like a new thing to read into it.

It's in some sense, it's a very obvious thing to say, but I do think we can read into it.

That very specifically last season, a weakness of this team that that came to bear late in the season was a lack of options up front when when a little bit of fitness worry came in and what has been abundantly clear in this game and in the early part of this season is this is no longer the era in which you might have to say oh we're going to start away from home in europe with michelle and reno up front and that's not a knock on reno who of course i think earned a lot of goodwill um and unfortunately becomes this this figure is just symbolic of something which is the lack of options that Arsenal had in in uh in the late part of last season but it matters right and that's that is the thing it is a difficult balancing act for the manager keeping everyone happy but if you want to be a successful team in multiple competitions now in in 2025 you do have to have really top quality players who aren't starting games you have to have that and i think that clearly it's not a new point to make but still

the fact that you're seeing it in a game like this um i think is is still relevant i guess yeah um artetta said it means that martinelli and trossard are connected connected and they feel that they're really, really important.

We've discussed that a lot.

We're going to need that.

Piero Hinkapi comes in and plays five minutes, so does Christian Norgard, and it's the best five minutes of their lives.

And it is a good result.

Producer Joel points out,

doesn't it?

Christian Norgard has got three children, and yet this is the best five minutes of Christian Norgaard's live.

Actually, I did want to ask about Medweke, Philip.

You know, at the moment, you know, God, you think that they've got the two best attacking right, right-sided attackers in English football, or English right-sided attackers, I should say, in Saka and Madweck.

He's played brilliantly since he's got there.

I mean, it's, I was going to say, yes, we have to talk about, you know, we have to talk about Nonni.

It sounds like the title of something, doesn't it?

And he was, again, absolutely superb.

I find it quite difficult to remember

for the Arsenal, an attacking player who's slotted in as quickly, as well,

as as Noni Madweke has from the beginning, especially when he came to the club.

I don't think that most people would have expected the kind of thing.

5,000 people signed a petition.

I don't know what to get it overturned by the government.

They were internet crazies.

I'm going to go out of my way this season to distinguish between Arsenal's internet crazy fan and their actual fans.

And I think I'm going to guess it was the internet crazy.

If you're not an internet crazy, you're not signing that petition.

You're just gonna have you're gonna go and have lunch.

Anyway, Philippe.

No, no.

And one of the things as well, when you see how well it's doing, it's highlighting what is perhaps one of the few problems that Arteta has to address, which is the imbalance between the flanks.

At the moment, it's going really, really well on the right because Jurian Timber is absolutely rocking at the moment as well and has found, obviously,

understanding, natural understanding with Nonimedweke, who is very direct, feels totally confident.

When Martin Udoyard as well comes back, who tends to be right-handed, right-sided, sorry, you're going to have a very, very strong right side.

And the left side is not quite working the same way.

But you would probably say that Eze,

potentially speaking, is probably a better player.

than the Nimedweke.

Perhaps more versatile, more multi-dimensional.

But you also have the feeling that it's not quite happening with Calafiore.

There were a couple of examples of passes going astray that Calafiore was expecting.

Is he doing a particular run on the left-hand side, which he didn't, he went inside instead, which is a natural position, basically.

So there has to be now a rebalancing of the sides.

And on the left-hand side, it hasn't happened yet.

And is it going to be with Calafiori?

Is it going to be with Luis Kelly, who everybody was raving about a few months ago and who now seems to be back in the pecking order.

And you've got Hinkapije coming, who also plays on the left, can play central defense, but also plays on the left.

And Eze is not completely yet at ease in this position.

And when you compare with Noni Madweke, who's arrived, and I think the contrast between the two makes it even more impressive or impresses us even more when we think about the performance of the former Chelsea player, who's honestly been absolutely superb.

And I think as well, I mean, it's just he looks

looks so at ease in himself, and he looks, he looks like a happy player.

He's smiling, he's happy, he's smiling, he's happy, he's producing the goods.

He's obviously a proper team player who does a lot of work defensively as well.

He's extremely generous, but he's also bloody good when he has the ball at his feet.

Not just quick, but also bloody good, as he's shown with England as well.

So, one of the, I mean, I have to say, the signings have been, you were talking about mascara, but I wanted to add my voice to that because I just love central defenders whom you don't see.

And I don't see him when he's on the pitch.

It's like nothing happens on his side.

He was nutmeg once.

That's the

in that game.

But other than that, it's very, very impressive.

I was going to raise the subject of Madueke before you brought it up, Max.

Slightly surprised by Philippe's eulogy there.

He shows plenty of willing.

They get him the ball out of the touchline regularly.

He's good at beating a man, he's quick.

I think his crossing is poor, and he does that really infuriating thing you see from wingers sometimes that where he just shoots for the sake of shooting, even though there's no it's going to be blocked or that it's going to be a weak shot from a narrow angle.

So,

would you be prepared to concede that

there's a lot of room for improvement?

Yeah, I mean, he's no assists yet, no goals.

I think he's either played three or four full matches and made a substitute appearance.

Poor Nonni.

There we are, thing.

He's brilliant.

Actually, Darius uncovered the truth.

But no, I take your point.

I do take your point that, you know, but I think he is very exciting, very direct.

I think he's been really good for England as well, which probably is, and I don't know if he has goals and assists for England yet this season, but

and what a goal it is.

It was.

That was the goal against Serbia.

The two.

Yes, a brilliant goal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're absolutely right.

So, so that has sort of coloured my, you know, my picture of how well he started this season.

Anyway, we'll move on from Nonni Medweke to Spurs, who beat Villarreal 1-0.

Got a very lucky early goal, and that was kind of the game.

Like a win and three points in their opening Champions League game.

Thomas Frank's first ever Champions League game.

I guess you go, this is good, Barry.

I would say it was similar to the Arsenal result.

They didn't play as well as Arsenal did, but it was workmanlike.

They got a bit lucky.

with the goal, obviously,

with the Villarreal keeper more or less pushing a cross into his own low cross into his own net.

I thought Lucas Bergval and Papasara played very well.

I thought

my pal Xavi Siemens was very lucky not to get sent off for two buckle offences.

He got away with the second one.

Mickey Van der Ven was very good.

There's talk he could have possibly got a red as well, or maybe even conceded a penalty.

I don't think it was a penalty, I think it was outside the box.

But for Thomas Frank to win his first Champions League game in charge at home, that is undeniably good.

But it was not a good game.

And I think Spurs were a little bit lucky.

I guess the interesting thing, Nikki, is that we have observed already is like the difference between Andrew's Spurs and Frank Spurs.

And I wonder, is it easier to make an attacking team a bit more solid than it is to make a more solid team a bit more attacking?

That's a good question.

Maybe relevant to another team we'll talk about later as well.

I'm not sure it's as simple as that.

I do think that it's certainly true true that

cliché that i feel like you hear all the way up from from youth football coaching to the top level is scoring a goal is is the hard thing to do right that's that's the the the one of the hardest bits to do in football is actually get the ball in the net and so if you can do that then building from that platform is is uh is perhaps uh perceived to be a little bit easier but i also think that um

you can lean on other cliches and talk about the fact that actually across Europe's top leagues, very often I haven't got a statistical meta-analysis to point to, but very often your league winners are teams that concede the fewest goals at the end of the season.

That's that comes out a lot when you do look at that sort of data.

We can't watch 90 minutes of every game on a Champions League night, and my attention was on a different one.

And you're lucky it was.

From what I saw of this,

it didn't seem like there was no chances given up at all in this game.

It certainly looked like Nicolas Pepe had some

opportunities in the game, and perhaps Buchanan as well on the two wings.

Look, I think,

again, we've talked with Arsenal about the more difficult games in the group, and VRAL on paper certainly looked like one of the tougher games in Tottenham's schedule.

So, if you get that free goal given to you, it was a gimme the goal.

It's not a lot of credit to go.

You look at that and think it's less their work than it is, the mistake by Junior.

But in the end, once you've got it so early in the game, as well, you have to judge the rest of the game based on that goal.

Tottenham didn't need to score another goal, so it wasn't their responsibility to go out and chase one.

Your question is actually

really profound.

Thank you so much.

Aren't they all?

Aren't they all?

Well, this one is, it's like a saga, so see, it's like the Mariner Trench.

It's actually,

holy moly, yes, is it more difficult to make an attacking team defensive or defensive team attacking?

Because,

and in fact, there's no answer to it.

It's, it's, I think it's, um, it's just as easy to do one or the other.

It's not as easy to make it work, is the way I would put it.

Yeah, yeah.

For example, if you see what, if you want to make a more attacking team more defensive, it's a question, okay, you're going to decide I'm going to use a tactical system which is going to be like, I'm going to use, I'm going to take a leaf out of Tony Pulis's book and I'm going to play a 6-4-0.

That would be more defensive.

Doesn't mean it's going to work, Max.

But if you see, for example, what Ruben Amarim is doing, say, with Manchester United, he wants to make the team more attacking, which they are.

I was amazed to see that.

Looked at the stats, expected goals, chances, touches in the position box.

Manchester United are in the top three in all.

But he's done that, but it doesn't work.

So

the most difficult thing is the transition, I suppose, if that's a way out of this conundrum.

No, thank you for thinking about my, as usual, very profound question.

On another night, Philore could have had a penalty and Nicola Pepe pepe could have scored three goals well maybe not nicola pepe

he might have scored one or two i'm not interested in this profound stuff barry i just i don't want to burst the balloon of your profundity but no that's all right it's just a tiny balloon anyway i think part of part of the story here though as well is just from from totner's point of view getting that the ball rolling of being back in the champions league having um what by all accounts was a fantastic atmosphere in the stadium and and and delivering on those three uh on on getting the three points that there's so much in football that does come down to detail and tactics and specifics and and the transitions as philippe has just mentioned which is such a big part of the modern game particularly where formations are no longer these rigid things that we're used to talking about from from the past but i do think there's also still something to be said for mood and for momentum.

And I think that getting the positive start in the end in one of the trickier games on Tottenham's schedule, it sets them up very, very well for this this group stage.

Very quickly, Philippe, can I ask you for a 20-second view of Kolo Moani and how good or not a signing that is for Tottenham?

I think it's potentially a very, very good signing in terms of

I don't think he's been in the environment yet where he can actually show everything he can do.

He's a very willing,

very courageous, very generous player.

He's also a very decent finisher.

But again, I think what's been lacking for him so far is the environment, which is something I would say about so many players who've had, who've spent some very important years of their development at Paris Saint-Germain.

And, you know, it seems to be like a recurrent theme.

You know, you look at them and you think, oh, are they that good?

And say, yeah, he's that good.

So you should be excited.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll begin with Juve 4, Dortmund 4.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So, in Turin, an astonishing game between Juventus and Brussia Dortmund.

Neil Mill at half-time.

It seemed obvious to me, Nikki, that this game would end with Lloyd Kelly scoring a diving half of the salvage a point for Juve in a four-all draw.

I mean, why not, Max?

He did score the opening goal of the Deadput Italia at the weekend as well, which, by the way, was a really good finish in that game against Inter,

which was completely eclipsed by the fact that the rest of that game was utterly bonkers.

And for me, having obviously watched that at the weekend, I almost feel like I've just been in this four-day long

delirium of Juventus playing some of the most unexpectable, unpredictable, ridiculous football that I've watched in a while.

I mean, They've scored eight goals in four days.

They've conceded seven goals in four games.

They had a two-goal comeback against Inter with the winning goal coming in injury time.

They were nil-nil at a half-time of of this game and then wound up 4-4, having been down 4-2 at the start of injury time.

Everything that is happening on the pitch with this club at the moment just feels like some sort of

completely out-of-body experience.

And Lloyd Kelly,

who really last season was a bit of a scapegoat, it felt like at Juventus for things that weren't his fault, for the fact that the club went out and spent over $100 million in the transfer market and

bought a bunch of players who didn't pan out that great so far.

I mean, Coop Miners still hasn't lived up to the player he was at Atlanta.

Douglas Louise obviously wasn't a hit after coming from Aston Villa.

And to fund all that, sold Dean Heison, who's been brilliant since leaving Adventis.

Then they have to go out and get Lloyd Kelly.

Last season, it was a bit like, why are we signing this guy who's not Dean Heyson and we're spending actually a tiny bit more to get him?

And we've done all this so we can have all these players who aren't even that good.

There was a real sense of frustration around it.

And now, yes, he's been in the heart of the madness

these last few days.

And I mean,

I don't know what to tell you.

I had a moment of premature thinking this last season onto Thiago Moto and

was proven wrong.

So I don't want to jump the gun, but I do worry that Juventus are in danger of becoming an incredibly entertaining team to watch all of a sudden.

And like the goals, Barry, in this game.

It was like, what was that game?

Was it Belgium, the ussr or ussr denmark in mexico 86 where every goal is like a ping from 30 yards like they just got i don't know if they got better and better but they were all good yeah most of them were felix and chaz i think for put dortmund two one up was my favorite lovely strike from outside the box that's sort of curled outside the upright and then back in the first one for dortmund uh adieumy again outside the box pulls a low shot into the very bottom corner Vlahovic, he got two, didn't he?

Yeah.

One running onto a nice weighted ball.

Again, finishes into the far corner.

And his second one was a

stab home

from the edge of the six-yard box from another lovely cross.

And Lloyd Kelly's, I'm going to say diving header is slightly generous.

Header than four.

It was header than four.

He was falling like a tree.

But he did well to steer the ball inside the upright.

Another man could easily have put it wide.

So he did more than he did more than who scored that own goal for leads, Goodmunchen.

He did more than Goodmunsen, didn't he?

Yeah, loads of good goals.

Bonkers game.

They'll both, I suppose, be happy with a point.

Juventus will be happier because they were two down in after 90 minutes.

Yeah, I don't think Dawn would be that happy given what happened.

Yield his goal as well.

But the thing is, it doesn't matter, Max.

No, but nothing matters, really.

I don't want to get too profound.

I've only got profound once, but nothing really matters.

PSG last season.

Yeah.

PSG lost three of their first five games, drew another, and they still won the tournament.

So you're looking at this and you're going, oh, brilliant game, 4-4, but it doesn't matter.

It's interesting, Matt, and I think it largely agree with Baz, but it is worth saying Juventus's next two games are away to VRL and away to Real Madrid.

So there is a chance they could be looking at this and thinking we really needed to get those three points at home if they've got one point after those three.

Although, as you say, Baz, they could probably lose both those games and still get through because of the format.

It sounded like Max was trying to say the word Yildis in there as well, because I thought his goal hasn't been mentioned yet, which was also an absolute.

Yeah, that was actually probably the best of them all.

It was brilliant.

And I think that

Yildis is on the verge of

one of those seasons.

I think he's been brilliant every game so far.

And I think

he's obviously just turned 20 years old.

He's very much the guy who this team is being built around.

I think that I won't be surprised if we're talking about him as one of the absolute breakout stars of this season by the end of the campaign and doing it in Europe, obviously, is the bit which is going to get noticed internationally.

But yeah,

he's really good.

I think he's going to be special.

Vlahovic, who hasn't always lived up to...

to the hype around him and certainly not the transfer fee that he got when he joined from Fiorentina, which I think was about 70 million Euros.

I I thought this was a brilliant showing for him off the bench.

And I think that not just the two goals, but he also set up Lloyd Kelly's goal.

And actually, when he scored the third goal, they're still losing at this point.

You could see on the camera he turns around and he's giving it, like jabbing his finger at one of the defenders and giving him the you're talking too much chat.

And given that was three minutes into injury time and they were still losing, to turn around two minutes later and actually set up the equaliser as well.

I mean, he certainly delivered on

whatever it was that had wound him up.

But yeah, this was a crazy game of football.

Also, worth saying in this game,

I think Juventus, extremely unlucky not, Lloyd Kelly, in fact, extremely unlucky not to get a penalty in the first half when there was a hand ball by the defender.

I think it was Anton who was challenging in Frederick Warner.

And then I thought, pretty unlucky to give away a penalty, which was the last goal for Dortmund because it was one of those hand balls where Kelly's falling on the floor.

There's not a lot that he can do because he's just trying to keep himself from hurting himself as his face hits the floor.

Just one thing, Max, because we've barely talked about Borisher Dortmund.

It's understandable because of the way that the game went, but you have to say, Boris Her Dortmund did a fantastic job at losing from a completely ball position.

Which is also on brand, right?

That's also on brand for them.

They just couldn't believe it.

They couldn't believe they were in this position and they totally lost everything.

They didn't know what to do.

The third goal is like someone can just lump that up the line.

I don't know what they're doing.

It's total insanity.

Anyway, to the burnabauer, Real two,

Marseille one,

handball penalty that Real Madrid won with.

I don't know.

I mean, I say it's ruining football.

I mean, I'm still watching it and enjoying it.

So I don't know if it's ruining it, but I just find that decision just the sort of, it feels like

the desperation to give that decision.

You know, Real were down to 10 men.

Anyway, Philippe, you watched it.

Take it away.

Yeah, I watched it.

And I have to say, I was entertained.

It was a hell of a game.

One of the most open games I've seen in a long time.

I think, in some ways, it was more open than Juve

Borchadottman because it was over the 90 minutes.

It was crazy from the start.

Absolutely crazy.

I don't know if those managers are trying to make their teams more defensive, but it didn't look like it.

Apparently, though, that's why Jabbi Alonso is trying to instill a bit of discipline, but whatever.

But if you want to go to the penalties, I mean, I am actually still seething about that.

I do have, it is, it must be said, a soft spot for an apique Marseille, like many many French people do.

But and I hate pining on referees, but I will.

Well, I don't think it's the referee necessarily, it's just the whole law.

Oh my goodness, come on.

I mean, there is an obvious handball.

Eden Milletau puts his elbow out, stops a shot by Condogi, I believe.

Bang in the box.

Whoever was the director of the broadcast gives one quick replay

and then forgets about it.

We never hear about it anymore.

It's not mentioned in commentary anyway.

It was a penalty.

Okay.

And then we see that.

You know, what can Medina do?

I mean, he's falling.

What is he supposed to do?

And he's made a good challenge as well.

He's made a good challenge.

Absolutely.

It's insane.

And you think, okay, if it, I mean, we always go back to that.

Either you've got a rule, if it touches the arm, the hand, it's handball, it's a penalty.

And in every single circumstance, and you can sort of accept that, even if it's ludicrous.

but in this case you had a clear example of the same

offense if that is an offense being unpunished in one way and punished in the other changing completely um the nature of the game and also the way we're talking about the game like it was crazy that again the commentator was eulogizing, talking about Kiri and Bappé, didn't have a good game all of the time.

He's called two pens, well, great.

Completely caught in that narrative narrative of real madrid you know that's real that's the berna bayou blah blah blah kiran babby blah blah blah the fact is marseill should have won

and that's what is is going to infuriate them and that the best sequences of play were by marseille but they were unable to capitalize on that and something happened as well in this game which was carvajal uh sending off which was pretty obvious you know if you headbut somebody you're going to be sent off probably not lasting damage i would say with that headbutt yeah no no lasting damage, but Cavajal off, yeah, so they are.

But Jabi Alonso knew how to react to that by going through at the back and basically playing a kind of 3-3-3,

which meant that they still had got some attacking potential, but they were tighter.

And Marseille did what happens so often to teams that play 11v10.

Instead of keeping the same energy, instead of going at Real Madrid as they had done previously, they suddenly calmed down, thinking, holy shit, we're in a position where we can get a really good result at Real Madrid, and they're down to 10.

What should we do?

Which is the moment when Real Madrid got back into the game.

But, you know, unfortunately, the talk about the refereeing is going to dominate.

It certainly dominates in France.

Everybody's talking about it.

And in fact, it's dominating the way I'm talking about that game, which in other ways was also absolutely, I mean, was a cracker.

It was a cracker.

It was so open.

And I have to say, you know, it was also, I think, if I were a proper OM supporter, it's not that my heart would be in my mouth all the time.

I would have chewed it 10 times over when you see the way that Dazerbi asks his players to take the ball out of their half of the pitch against a team which, under Xerbi Alonso, is now starting to press much more than it did in the past, with even Killian Bappé doing a bit of pressing, which is something that Didier Deschamps will have noticed, and which is apparently one of the reasons why Vinicius Jr., the guy who should have been Bano Dor instead of Rodri, or so we are told, was on the bench.

Interesting.

Interesting times.

Probably good that Real Madrid got some decisions because obviously so many go against them as

performance of the night is Karabag, Barry.

Yes, the Horsemen from Azerbaijan.

This is their second crack at Champions League.

Their manager, Gerben Gurbanov, has been in charge for 17 years of Karabag.

And they had to get through three qualifying rounds to get into this league phase.

They beat Shelburne from Ireland, Skendija and Ferench Faros to qualify for the Champions League proper.

Went 2-0 down.

Peter Drury was commentating on this game for TNT Sports.

Benfica's second goal was greeted with textbook drury and I have to say I love it.

I'm a big fan.

It's not for everyone.

Benfica, blistering and brutal and belligerent.

But their belligerence was quickly knocked out of them as Carabag came from 2-0 down to beat them 3-2.

Courtesy of goals from Leandro Andrada, Camillo Duran, and a fellow called Kashuk.

He scored a nice goal on the turn.

But

brilliant results for Carabag.

because you know every result counts for the teams like that who aren't more or less assured for a of of a top top eight what is it yeah yeah yeah 24 position so like like i think you got needed 11 points yes to sneak into the uh playoffs last time and so getting three is is good because it gets you nearer 11 than nought doesn't it sorry to be sorry to be profound again philippe tell us about union sales de la

Yeah,

the great story continues.

Best run club in Belgian football, one of the best-run clubs in all of Europe, actually.

Champions for the first time since the

1920s, I think, last year.

It must be said that PSV had a few chances.

The score line makes it look like they had a very easy time.

They didn't.

PSV just had some chances.

They didn't capitalize on that.

And then afterwards, everything went the Belgians' way.

But they were, again, very impressive.

They're an example, basically, to the rest of clubs in Belgium, which is a basket case where everybody seems to be Sheffield Wednesday, basically.

And they're the exception.

And obviously, you know, they're part of

the Brighton and Holf Albion Tony Bloom Galaxy.

And even though they have got a lot of autonomy in the way that they run things,

which they do.

And

I'm not entirely surprised to see them.

doing so well.

They're a growing force.

They have exactly the same system

as Brighton.

Every year they will lose a couple of players whom you think are absolutely indispensable players.

Every time they replace them and they find somebody who is just as good, if not better.

So it's not a surprising result, but it's actually quite a heartening one to see a club that

is doing properly.

The business is also doing properly on the pitch.

One thing as well, I should mention, because I hadn't even noticed, which is really silly of me, the best player for PSVI and Doven

was Ruben van Bommel.

And I thought, oh, oh, yes, that's the son of Mark van Bommel.

Of course.

Silly me.

He doesn't play like Mark van Bommel, does he?

No, he doesn't play like Barn van Pommel, but I like him very much.

I mean, really incisive winger, good technique,

can certainly go past defenders and can certainly shoot.

And

it was one of the

bright lights for PSV.

Other than that, didn't take their chances against a team that is very good at taking theirs.

Yeah, and actually, they had some real chances.

They didn't take Saibari, especially, didn't they?

Anyway, tonight, Chelsea go to Bayern, Liverpool Play Athleti, PSG Atalanta, Intergo to Ajax.

So we'll round up those on tomorrow's pod.

Elsewhere, you pointed out this out in the WhatsApp group.

Ticket sales from Norway's 2026 World Cup qualifier against Israel will go to Médecins Frontier, Doctors Without Borders, to help it alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza, Norway's Football Association have said on Monday.

Game on October 11th will be played against the backdrop of grave humanitarian suffering.

And we are not and cannot remain indifferent to this, the head of the Norwegian Football Association, Lisa Klaverness, told reporters at a press conference.

And she is one of the shining lights in world football, Philippe, isn't she?

On the international front, certainly, she's been questioned at home because of what happened around the VAR debate, where she was felt to have

muscled her way through a decision favourable to

keeping VAR.

But when it comes to international politics,

she's pretty much done exactly what people were hoping she would do when

she was elected.

It's interesting, by the way, that the NFF, the Norwegian NFA, is still

taking these kind of positions when Lisa Klaverness actually joined the executive committee of UEFA.

And many people thought, oh, she's now part of the, she's at the top table.

She's going to be all chummy with Alexander Jefferin, and the Norwegians are going to tone down a little bit their rebelliousness.

And that doesn't seem to be the case,

which is a good thing.

While we're talking about this,

Max,

maybe it's worth mentioning, I know, going back a little bit, that there were banners as well, pro-Palestinian banners in San Mames

in Bilbao.

And also that Real Madrid confiscated banners and Palestinian flags at the entrance, which had been taken on mostly by Marseille supporters, but also some Realmed with supporters.

And that Spain.

And the reason I mentioned that is because, on one hand, you've got the NFF saying, okay, the proceeds will go to Métis-Saint-Frontière, so humanitarian cause.

I think nobody will have anything to say about that.

But Spain is moving actually to a far more

decisive position when you see what happened in the Vuelta encycling, when you happen, when you see what happens with the supporters, and what you see what the Prime Minister Sanchez said about as well when he said basically Israel should be taken out of

international competitions, and there was also a move to take them out of Eurovision as well.

You're wondering if there is some kind of shift, and I mean within football at European level.

Whatever you think, you know, it's not a question of opinion here, it's a question of looking at what is happening within European football, where this is basically such a divisive issue.

And you're wondering if the shift is not happening now, a more in which Israel is going to basically pay the price for what it is doing in Gaza and the West Bank.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And we talked about it last week.

And, you know, it's something that we'll talk about again, of course.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three,

we'll begin with the Carabao Cup.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

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

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

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So in the Carabao, get your Carabao box out, Barry.

And how many cobwebs are in that box?

Probably won't even open for cobwebs.

Brentford got past Aston Villa on penalties.

Aston Villa did score their first goal of the season.

Harvey Elliott got that.

Crystal Palace considered a last-minute equaliser against Millwall,

but they did beat them on penalties.

Presumably, now Palace have not Millwall out of a cup.

They will fill out all the forms so they can qualify for the the right European competition as they did do last year.

And Grimsby won at Hillsborough, Barry.

I mean, they beat Man United, then they were off the back of getting a very lucky last-minute equaliser against Cambridge at the weekend, Grimsby.

But a good win for them, but slightly odd Hillsborough.

Yeah, so Grimsby go through to the last 16 for the first time in, I think, nearly 25 years.

And they took 6,000 fans to Hillsborough for this game,

where there was only 3,000 Sheffield Wednesday Wednesday fans because there was another boycott.

Wednesday started more or less a second string side.

Well I think even their first string side is kind of second string so this is probably a third string side with

a load of teenagers playing and they lost 1-0.

The mess is ongoing.

at Wednesday, but congratulations to Grimsby.

And I don't really know what the current state of play is at Wednesday.

I do believe that Texter chap is kind of semi-interested in buying the club, but I guess as long as

he's interested in having people thinking that he's interested in Sheffield.

Okay, right.

But I can't see anyone buying it as long as Chanceri holds out for a, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of money.

Because I have said it before, I really do think Sheffield Wednesday would be a great club for someone to buy, but not if you're being completely ripped off.

From the Daily Record, under fire, Russell Martin has taken his Ibrock squad wild swimming as he bids to keep his own head above water in his fight to keep the Rangers job.

He took his players for a swim in Loch Loman and then a hike up Connick Hill as part of a day of different activities.

Martin has turned to the great outdoors and a bid to try and turn his side's fortunes around.

The review of this that I like the best was I think Jamie O'Hara on Skysports News went, this isn't bonding, This is a pain.

I mean, it sounds really unpleasant.

And if you're taking a group of men who probably already don't think much of you and don't have much respect for you,

open water swimming in a Scottish lake in September, I can't see how it's going to endear them to you in any way.

It's the thing is, like, Nick, you talked about the vibes, right?

If the vibes are good, you know the vibes are good on the pod and we take the whole panel you know wild to rutland water you know in december people are like okay this is fun but if we're on the floor you know i just can't see barney being like i'm up for this

i mean i don't think i'd be up for open wild swimming

no matter how good the vibes were i i once did i once did the um my friends were doing the london triathlon the relay right and so one does the swim one does the run and one does the the cycle and it was that the um it was like full triathlon and then the swimmer dropped out a week before and they said max can you swim 1500 meters is that so maybe was that the olympic no that's that's a triathlon that's a wuss triathlon okay okay it was a mini it was a wuss triathlon that was the one i was doing and like can you swim 1500 meters so i went to the pool and swam 1500 meters i went yes i can i'll do it for you fine so i got to docklands or whatever and they handed me a wetsuit i was like why are you giving me one of those i just presumed it would be in a swimming pool right so then i put this wetsuit on.

I jumped.

I had a wetsuit on.

I presume the Rangers players did.

I jumped into the London Docklands.

And for about 10 seconds, I just thought I was going to die of sheer cold.

And then I was the only one doing breaststroke.

The buzzer went and got kicked by a million people.

It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

So, yeah, I mean,

when you revert to this, I think maybe this, I mean, I don't know.

It'd be fascinating to see how they get on at the weekend.

This and a hike.

I'd better have a...

Can you imagine the miserable packed lunch?

Just the idea of the Rangers team all sitting there with, you know, a Mr.

Juicy.

And, you know,

it's probably vegan because Russell Martin's famously vegan, isn't he?

I mean, just take them to the pub for a

day on the piss.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Ian says, good to see West Ham giving their youth a chance.

Yeah, the under 21s won 5-1 at Milton Keynes Dons.

Who was in gold, Barry?

I've got a guess, Ariola.

Lucas Fabiatski.

Hey,

uh, Simon says, Hi guys, long time listener, big fan.

I listened to you when cycling to and from work.

Uh, listening to the pod on Monday, the 15th of September, you were discussing long throw-ins and how on earth they could be replicated in training.

There was even talk of building a throw-in machine, like a bowling machine.

I'm no tactical genius or even a qualified football coach, even on championship manager.

But to replicate a looping throw into the box, could you not just take a normal throw-in but stand closer?

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to enter the on the fly line during training.

Thank you, Simon.

You make a good point.

Gino,

build a very elaborate trebuchet.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it is slightly different, isn't it?

Because the time, you've got to judge the time.

I take your point, but it's slightly different.

Juno says, Hi, Max and the team.

Thank you for your informative and jolly podcast.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

A little more Spanish and Italian content would be great.

I'm a South African of Italian descent with English children and living in Spain.

Don't ask.

Years ago, I had a vasectomy, as many of your listeners have done.

However, after three tests, the sperm count was still reasonable.

Turns out that my body considered I should keep reproducing.

So the piping reconnected itself.

The odds of this happening are about one in 500.

Quite rare.

Most people are apprehensive before the first vasectomy, but once you know what's going to happen, I can tell you the apprehension is huge for the second one.

All was good that time.

Thank you, Gino.

Keep up the fantastic work.

Best regards.

Thank you, Gino.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, everyone, for coming to the live show.

I know I said that the other day, so I don't need to thank you all again.

You've done your job.

We've done ours.

And it doesn't really matter anyway, as we established earlier in this podcast.

So that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thanks, Max.

Thanks, Philippe.

Thank you, Max.

Thanks, Barry.

Thanks.

Max, I just don't know if any Liverpool fans were tuning into the US Senate yesterday, but Cash Patel, the director of the FBI,

who's this Trump-supporting Lick Spittle and widely perceived to be a moron who has been hugely promoted above his station.

He had to answer hard questions about the manner in which he handled the

hunt for the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk.

But he sat in front of,

getting grilled by all these senators, and he was wearing a Liverpool football club tie,

which

seemed to have got people going, whoa, whoa, what's going on here?

So, I expect Liverpool fans will not be massively impressed to see that this Trump fan is one of them.

But he is a conspiracy theorist, so it kind of adds up.

Surely, he had an Arsenal tie on them.

We're not, no, no, we're not talking about the internet crazies this year.

We've established that.

Anyway, yeah, that'll do for today.

We'll be back tomorrow.

Football Weekly is produced by Dale Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Steve.

This is The Guardian.