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Football Weekly
Why are English teams dominating the Champions League? Football Weekly Extra
00:53:48
Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Liew, Lars Sivertsen and Paul Watson to discuss Premier League teams’ success in the Champions League so far this season
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- [00:00]
Max Rushden
This is the Guardian.
- [00:10]
Raj and Noah
Hey, it's Raj and Noah.
- [00:12]
Noah
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [00:19]
Raj and Noah
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
- [00:21]
Noah
But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
- [00:30]
Raj and Noah
We'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right, so the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
- [00:39]
Noah
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:46]
Raj and Noah
And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you do them better.
- [00:54]
Noah
Love y', all, Mom.
- [00:56]
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- [01:34]
Max Rushden
Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. Three victories for the Premier League sides in the Champions League. Very straightforward for Liverpool in Marseille and Newcastle at home to psv. While Chelsea made heavy weather of Paphos. It all leaves five English sides in the top eight, with City only outside it on goal difference. Doesn't feel spectacular for Europe's elite competition, especially given of those six, only Arsenal are having a brilliant season locally. Nevertheless, we'll discuss Marseille's lack of a draft excluder. Another great goal from Harvey McBarn's and what we're learning from Liam Rossinha so far. We'll round up the other results before looking ahead to the Premier League weekend.
- [02:03]
Paul Wilson
Arsenal.
- [02:04]
Max Rushden
Liverpool jumps off the page slots, men. One of only two sides to beat the Gunners this season. Then Paul Watson can do some Greenland. Lars can do a Bodo glimp minute too. We'll answer your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly. Well, you know two of the panel welcome Lars Ividson.
- [02:22]
Johnny Lu
Hello.
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Paul Wilson
Hello Max.
- [02:23]
Max Rushden
Hello. Paul Watson from the sweeper Pod.
- [02:25]
Johnny Lu
Hi Max.
- [02:26]
Max Rushden
There was no bit in the intro for you, Johnny Lu. I mean there was a bit but I took it out because I. I didn't quite understand it. I thought we might not have time for it but. We might have time for it but I didn't put it in the intro. I apologize.
- [02:37]
Morning Max.
- [02:38]
Yes, thank you so much. Okay then. With one game to go in the Champions League all the Premier League sides are in good positions. Arsenal are through 100% record. Top Liverpool have 15 points. A point at home to Carabag will probably be enough to get in them into the top eight. If spurs win at Frankfurt who are out, they'll get in the top eight. Newcastle do need a win at PSG to get to the top eight. So that's not straightforward. A win at Napoli for Chelsea will probably get them in the top eight. And Man City will probably be in the top eight if they beat Galatasaray. So it doesn't mean Johnny, that a Premier League side are going to win this competition. But how should we feel about this kind of inverted commas? Domination?
- [03:13]
Well, it's an unbelievable night for the coefficient. Not. Not a classic night for. For the competition. Not a classic night in terms of drama. But the coefficient is being hoisted around the room on. On the shoulders of its teammates.
- [03:28]
Yeah.
- [03:28]
I mean this is. This is obviously just. It's a recurring theme. I think it's one that. That we. You know we talked about on this pod before that is. Is talked about. I think a lot of the corridors of power and. And the boardrooms of European football that you know you see someone will come to PSV later. But PSV are, are a team that haven't lost away from home in 10 months. They're 16 points clear of the area. Divisy and Newcastle were not just better than them but. But really kind of humiliatingly better than them. We've seen this again and again. You know the. The Champions League is making Tottenham look quite good which we know that they're. They're not. So I. I think that there is a. The. The standard of. Of the Premier League in this competition. I think is. Is finally a bit of a. A product of the financial dominance that the league has enjoyed for. For quite some years.
- [04:14]
Is it hypocritical last criticize like the power of the Premier League when that is our bread and butter or can we have our cake and our bre.
- [04:23]
Paul Wilson
Think there are separate discussions almost. I mean criticize. It's the reality of the situation. This is a league where the teams have much more money than everyone else. I mean Newcastle's off the top of my head. I'd say Newcastle's wage bill is probably about three times what PSVs is. I can google that. But I'm pretty sure it's something like that. And so you would expect them to win. And it's not always going to be the case. There are like market inefficiencies as the as people would call them. And you'll have exceptions. We had a glorious one last night. But I think whenever an English team beats a team from you know, one of the other leagues in Europe then that's more of a sort of dog bites man than mine bite bites dog kind of story. The real shock really was that PSV went away to Liverpool and won. I mean that was Liverpool mid spiral and I was. Because PSV are coached by Peter Bosch who for a long period of time was this kind of pan European banter figure because he is kind of like a Dutch Anspostecoglou in the sense that he's a genuine like football romantic. And his teams have often been good to watch but often fully chaotic at the back. I mean Dortmund and Leverkusen and Lyon fans will testify to this. And he's gone back to Holland and as you said they're doing phenomenally well in the league but you are kind of expecting them to come unstuck when they go abroad to the big boys in the Champions League. So for them to rock up at Anfield and thump Liverpool was a baffling state affairs. And I was even texting some friends yesterday. Like when they spontaneously gave away two goals for no reason against Newcastle. I was like ah, there we go. That's the. That's the Peter Bosch we know and love. You know, normality has been restored which is a little mean to him. He's probably on a pretty good sort of redemption arc with him running away with the Eredivisie and all that. But it wasn't completely unexpected. But that way. And I think actually having rambled on, I want to add one more point. I do think there are quite a few European teams who struggle more with Newcastle than some of the English teams do. Because Newcastle are a very physical. They're a very direct team. They're very intense team and they are physical in a way that a lot of. I mean this is A cliche, but I'm sorry. It's true. They are physical in a way that a lot of the continental teams don't enjoy playing against. Buddha Glimt had much more trouble with Tottenham in the Europa League last year because they actually just thrashed them physically. They had a real like when they lost and lost badly to spurs in the Europa League last year. They've actually changed the way they trained on the back of it because they were so outmatched physically over those.
- [06:52]
Max Rushden
They do gladiators. What did they do?
- [06:53]
Paul Wilson
But they were like example their center house were like not used to the striker just bashing into them like before the ball even gets there when there's a high ball coming up. Like there was a level of physicality to Tottenham's play that they were just like what. What is happening here? And we're going to actually have to train differently and play differently if we're going to hold our own against these European teams. And I think while Newcastle are not having the best of seasons in the Premier League, they have a lot of like intensity. There's a lot of guys who run. There's a lot of like powerful dudes in there and I think PSV are probably one of the European teams who are not super well equipped to deal with that.
- [07:26]
Max Rushden
Paul, we're sort of at the. This is the second of the Swiss Model 36 team league and if you look at like the number of teams that could get in the top eight, I think you could probably. I haven't checked all the permutations but like Dortmund have 11 points. If they win they have 14 that could possibly get them into eight. So you've got a lot of teams going for that at the bottom. I suppose you last year there were some big sides that were in jeopardy. I think PSG and Man City might have been in jeopardy at the end it's not quite the case but still you've got all the way down to Ajax in 32nd that could make it into the playoffs. So does. Does year two like that gives us two years to look at make you feel like this is this is working or not?
- [08:08]
Johnny Lu
It's a really good question. And here I have to battle my old man yells at cloud Instincts, because I have to admit I do. I miss the old format in terms of just knowing where you stand in terms of the. The narrative and having teams coming back to play against each other a second time. I do miss the old format. I also have just an instinctive thing that when I see a team listed as being in 26th place or 33rd. But my brain just will not compute. It's like I've been transported into a sport I don't understand or.
- [08:40]
Paul Wilson
Yeah, I would think, Paul, that your instinct would be that you want to manage them somehow.
- [08:46]
Johnny Lu
Well, if the caravan job comes up, you know, but, but yeah, this is, this is the thing. Right. Instinctively I take against this format, but I do have to admit it does maintain the drama and it maintains the opportunity for teams to, to, to get, you know, in or out of, of contention up until the very end. So I, I'm really torn. I can't say whether I like this or don't like it. I'm still instinctively against it and I'm trying to work out which bit of that is just me rejecting all attempts at change. Old.
- [09:17]
Max Rushden
Yeah, but I guess Johnny, like there is does lead to this drama on the final day, but it doesn't mean it's been that dramatic up to that point. I think they've probably been good nights and last night wasn't that fascinating. So maybe this is real recency bias. There were, there were really interesting games and results the night before. So maybe that's just why I wanted to go down this road before we talked about the games.
- [09:37]
Yeah, I mean, I, I haven't really looked at the table the whole competition. I looked at it this morning before coming on Try because, Because it's really hard to contextualize. It's like. Well, just four points separating the middle 19. There just. It feels unwieldy. So I, you know, I think there's been plenty of interest in the games themselves. The whole product still, I think suffers from, from context. There's, there's such a deluge of, of stuff every night, most of it obviously mediated through. Through social fees, that it's, it's hard to get a grip on, on the competition as a whole. I mean, maybe, maybe that's the point. Maybe, maybe NFL fans don't, you know, they don't know what's going on in the, the Conference West, Conference East. You know, they're just looking out for their team and they don't conceptualize the thing as a whole. But yeah, it all. 18 game chaos next week, which I, I think is still too many. I, I just, I think it's a, it's a, it's a. It's like. It feels like a game show. It feels more like a, like a television game show than a sporting event.
- [10:31]
Paul Wilson
I mean, speak for yourself. I'm on the pod on the next day. Good God, that's going to be nightmare.
- [10:36]
Max Rushden
Yeah, I think you can probably feel both. Right. One is well, this is quite fun because the as it stands table is sort of ridiculous. Every five minutes at the same time. This is too many football. Football wasn't designed to watch nine games or 18 games at the same time or whatever it is.
- [10:52]
Paul Wilson
The question of has it been a success? I guess we have to define success because I've. I have this, I think everything these sporting authorities do. I. I assume it's going to be stupid until proven otherwise because that just seems to be the way I have found myself mostly enjoying the football the two years has been on. There's been very few like match days or weeks that have been just a complete dud and there were no games I enjoyed and everything was boring like there's always been something and I am enjoying the greater variat of matchups. I think the way that the groups worked before with the four team groups, you had two pretty strong teams in each group, one medium and one sort of just happy to be there that you ended up with quite a lot of lopsided games. And the games between the two teams that were good in each group tended to be just kind of, yeah, we're happy to take a draw here. They weren't all that dramatic so it was a structural problem with those groups, I will concede. So in terms of enjoying the football. Yes. But also. Yeah, I also haven't looked at the table. I think this idea of making the table super exciting, I feel like that isn't really hitting home but we are in a situation where Ajax are 30, 30 second and could still qualify which is at any point in time where the team that's 32nd in the league could still get somewhere. That's. That's an interesting situation to be in, I guess.
- [12:06]
Max Rushden
Yeah, I think so. Let's talk about the Liverpool win then. It was comfortable for them, wasn't it? I mean the, the. The first goal, Paul, the absent draft excluder and the, the unison with which the wall jump is. Is a thing of beauty. Really clever from Szabozlai, isn't it?
- [12:20]
Johnny Lu
Yeah, and I've seen this goal quite a few times now and every time I see it it doesn't look like it should go in. It just doesn't look like a hard struck free kick that goes in. But as he said, you know, he was very quick to point out how clever he had been afterwards. You know, he saw they didn't have the draft excluder in, he thought I'm going To put it under. He did and it was brilliantly taken. He kind of saw the keeper was too far over. Yeah. So it's a. It's a brilliant free kick. And as you say, this, this Marseille game, I actually thought this was going to be really difficult game for, for Liverpool. It looked daunting on paper. You know, Marseille doing pretty well in Ligue 1. They're the top scorers in Ligue 1. Not a nice place to go. Particularly Liverpool not looking very good at all for quite a while. So it was quite kind of alarming almost how easily really Liverpool won this. There were maybe a couple of moments where Alisson made really good saves. He made a couple of great saves to deny Pavard once and to deny Greenwood once. He made some really good saves. But really Liverpool could have even won this more convincingly. And I think, you know, tying into that conversation we had about the disparity between different leagues, it was another one to put in that column because yeah, by all rights, Liverpool should have struggled here and they, they really didn't. They played excellently.
- [13:32]
Max Rushden
The draft excluder is interesting, isn't it, Johnny? Because it's sort of like. What is it like home insurance or. It's like you don't. Like you never notice you need it. You think it's.
- [13:43]
Johnny Lu
They unticked a box max. Like they had a box. Just take that one off.
- [13:47]
Max Rushden
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ye. It's that like you. It's when it obviously once one's there, no one can ever try this. So it, it really does. It's really. It does its job. I'm not sure the point I'm trying to make.
- [13:59]
You know what they call the draft excluder in France?
- [14:02]
What's that?
- [14:05]
The crocodile.
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That's really nice.
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You know, obviously it is interesting tactic. I want to. I want to read like a 4,000 word athletic long read on how a coach chooses the draft excluder. How do you. How do you choose the player to perform that role? Do you do it on length? Do you do it on girth? Is it. Is it? You know, I think it is length, isn't it?
- [14:26]
It is length. But I think what I quite like to. It's quite nice when you see, you know, somebody like the quality. I want to see the best ever player to have been the draft excluder.
- [14:37]
Paul Wilson
Messi has been. I believe Messi has been.
- [14:40]
Max Rushden
Unless he done it, I think so. There you go. Like that's great that you've put Lionel Messi literally on the floor, like lying down. You've got Messi and You're just like, that's where you put him.
- [14:51]
But he's got, he's got great range for a small man on that is true.
- [14:55]
Yeah, a big wingspan, hasn't he? What did he make of the Liverpool performance, Johnny?
- [14:59]
I thought it was very, very good. I, I think Slot has had a. There's been a lot of disrespect towards Arnold Slot recently. I think a lot of it from, from, from Liverpool fans actually and some of it from the media which, you know, increasingly seems to take its, its cue from the online world in terms, you know, in terms of trying to capture snackable content and gotcha moments. So he gets asked about Alonso, you know, Xabi Alonso before the game and he gets asked I think by TNT whether he needs to prove something to Liverpool fans and, and he quite rightly says, I've been in the job for 18 months and won one title. So you know, I think I, I think I'm doing okay. But you know, to the doubters, this was actually a really, really smart tactical performance by them. He knows how De Zerbi is going to set up Marseille. He gives him the ball. I think they've got, they have something like 39% possession in the second half and he waits for Marseille to kind of to try and load up to double up on the flanks. He plays that diamond or sort of a box of four in midfield and they just keep getting through the lines. They keep having a man spare in between the lines. Szabaszlai and Graven, Birch and Wirtz just slipping in and creating so many chances. So I think it is obviously the sort of style that, the style of opponent that you couldn't choose a better style to suit Liverpool away from home in Europe. But the way they executed it I thought was really, really encouraging.
- [16:21]
Paul Wilson
I did think that formation was super interesting and it left me wondering like, is this something we're going to do going forward? Because if you look at the Liverpool squad and you think of like you would like to find a way of playing with two strikers because you have Ekitike and for now you have Salah who you want closer to goal and you don't want him having to any fullbacks. And in the long run you want to, to find a way where both A and Isaac can play together. You, you want to find a way where Verts can play in quite a central role but you still have enough midfielders in there that that doesn't become like a weakness. You have very, very attacking fullbacks who you would like to See released up, up the flank. So there's a lot, a lot of things that you need the, the Liverpool system to be, that seems to be solved by this sort of the, the, the, the 4222, the, the, the box midfield thing. But it's also not a formation that you see successfully applied very often by a lot of clubs. I don't know why that is. Leipzig have played like that a fair bit. Ragnick famously tried it at United without a lot of success. Very interesting to see if that's something that continues because so far it's a lot of the, I think slot has kind of wrestled a little bit with all these new players and all these new components he has and to find out what's actually the best system for all of them. And that, that seemed quite logical yesterday.
- [17:34]
Max Rushden
Might be interesting to see against Arsenal, won't it? And it would look Floyd inverts. You can. As soon as he got here, Paul, you could tell he was really good even if he wasn't doing anything. And now he's good and he's doing stuff.
- [17:45]
Johnny Lu
Yeah, he's, he's a good example for just sticking by players, you know, who will come good and just keeping on saying, yeah, but wait, he, he is going to come good because he has massively come good and Marseille could not, could not deal with him at all. Yeah, like a little note on Marseille as well. Marseille are a weird team. I've seen a bit of Marseille and you just never have any idea which Marseille you're going to get. I don't know whether this is a fair test of them for the reasons we've outlined. You know, this was a very different kind of match for them. But it seems like Marseille blow hot and cold so frequently that De Zerbi himself doesn't really seem to have any idea what's, what's going to happen. I saw he's very emotional Guy Deserbi. I saw him do a press conference where he was effectively in tears earlier in the season because he just, he said, I think he said I cried in the dressing room. I think it's just because he doesn't understand how this team can be so good one week and so poor the next. And yeah, I, I, I still don't know what I'm getting anytime I watch Marseille, which does make them very entertaining to watch, especially because they are generally very good going forward and not always so solid at the back.
- [18:48]
Max Rushden
Interesting that deserve has been sort of linked to Manchester United amongst others and, and, and a return to the Premier League. There was a. The Beatles tifo was quite exceptional from Marseille. They seem like, I mean fair play to the people that mar make them because that's, it's the whole, it feels like the sort of thing a whole town need to do on Record Breakers. That's enormous. And Steven Gerrard did the Davos TNT goal show double. Probably best that he does it. I was trying to think could you have a Scott Besant Dave Besant crossover? Could that work? Maybe they could. I'm not Dave Bessant isn't doing a lot of punditry but I wouldn't mind seeing him in the US administration. Newcastle psv look we talked about this quite a lot but like given Johnny that they've got PSG away last game and given the PSV hammered Liverpool at Anfield, this does feel like a significant victory for them.
- [19:32]
Yeah, I mean on paper I guess to a neutral it looks like a, you know, you look at the fixture and think okay, well you know there's, there's not too much there. But I think if you, if you're a Newcastle fan this stage of, you know, this part of the European journey still feels quite kind of giddy and exciting. They don't take these European nights for granted yet you could, you could tell there was a real noise and intensity to them. You know, you contrast that with, with Stamford Bridge for example, where you know, you would think they would be, they would be pretty up for that but, but you know, Stamford Bridge is rarely up for anything these days. So psv I think, you know, the, the big difference between, between this and the Liverpool game was that, you know, at Anfield they were basically able to, to take control of the game. They were they basically able to seize control of it early on and, and here it was basically the very opposite. You know, I, I, I have to admit, you know, I don't watch a huge amount of them in the area z but they're 16 points clear and, and I doubt they've been been, they've been tested like this. I doubt that they've had this much kind of pressure put on them and, and I think that it shows in, in those, in those defensive mistakes that let Gordon and Whistler in for the opening two goals. You know, there's a, there's a really high line there. Obviously Bosch has them playing a really high line. But it didn't seem to me that like there was enough pressure at the, at the, at the other end of the pitch. So, so Newcastle were just able to keep playing through them again and Again, probably could have been. Could have been more. I don't think, you know, three nil Flatter them. I think that the injury to. Injury to Bruno. Bruno Gamaresh is a bit of a worry. Mil. You know, Lewis Miley comes in to deputize for him. But. And you know, but Joe Linton had a really good game. So I think, you know, it's. It really sets up the. The last game really, really nicely for Newcastle because I think if they. If they beat psg, there's. There's a. I guess there's a bit of a revenge mission there from how. You know, how they went out a couple of seasons ago. So.
- [21:15]
Paul Wilson
Yeah.
- [21:15]
Max Rushden
Which sets things up really nicely.
- [21:17]
Yeah. And it's. It's not a free hit, but it sort of has the feel of a free hit to go to PSG and go right. You know, go out there and win. And so it would be a massive statement look like else players get injured. Right. But. But we'd be quite critical of Newcastle in their Premier League. And yet you sort of think if Whisper had been fit from the start of the season they might have, I don't know, six more points and then they would be fourth in the Premier League. You know, he's. He is clearly like the way they want to press. He's great at doing that.
- [21:45]
Paul Wilson
Yeah. And it's just the general disruption they had at the start of the season with. With the Isaac saga dragging on for. For as long as they did and you. You go into the season with your striker situation not settled and then Visa gets injured and you're right, they only won one of their first six games in the Premier League. And the. The league table. Yeah, they're eighth, which doesn't seem great, but it's so. Still so tight. So like six more points they were. They would have been fourth or six or seven more points. That would have been good. So I guess there's. There's something there which is. I think in general clubs are more aware of than they used to, but the importance of actually getting business done early. Ish. In the summer. Like and then trying to go into. Because those first games of the season, like, like you can't just go into August and say yeah, we're almost there. Like we have a few moves that should happen and then it'll be fine. But I. If the. The points you drop early on are cost you as much as the ones you drop in April, you know, so I think they maybe suffered a little bit from the fact that the egg get dragged out as much as it did. And when everyone's fished, they're very and ready. They're a very different team.
- [22:46]
Max Rushden
Yeah. Harvey Barnes. Every time I see him, he seems to score like a goal. That makes him look like a brilliant footballer. I'm fascinated to see if Scotland take him to the World Cup. And Lewis Hall, I thought was really good. Again, that is a. That is a open position in the England team, I think. And I think Lewis hall could make a name for himself there. PSV fans took over Pop World Newcastle in the afternoon and looked like they were having a lovely time. Now, I don't really know what Pop World is. I can sort of hazard a guess.
- [23:11]
This is the Simon Amstel. The Simon Anstell Makita Oliver. So did PSV fans take over T4 on a Saturday morning and. And undertake arch interviews with unsuspecting.
- [23:23]
Paul Wilson
I would listen.
- [23:24]
Max Rushden
Pop Stars.
- [23:25]
Johnny Lu
Yeah, it's a show you got yourself.
- [23:28]
Max Rushden
That was good. Pop World was good fun. Apparently it's a nightclub chain a la Vodka Revolution. That's far less interesting. I thought it was some sort of karaoke type affair where they sang. Yeah, pop hits from the night. They sang Bewitched songs or hang on. Probably like Donna Air songs. Just Jordy, pjn, Duncan and Donna Air songs are the only things they're allowed to sing in Pop World. If I had my way. Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two, we'll begin at Stanford Brief.
- [23:57]
Raj and Noah
Hey, it's Raj and Noah.
- [23:58]
Noah
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [24:05]
Raj and Noah
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
- [24:07]
Noah
But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
- [24:16]
Raj and Noah
We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
- [24:25]
Noah
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:32]
Raj and Noah
And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you do them better.
- [24:41]
Max Rushden
Love y'.
- [24:41]
Johnny Lu
All.
- [24:51]
Max Rushden
Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Chelsea 1, Paphos nil Can somebody give a more interesting review of the game than the game was itself? Paul, sorry to throw you this hospital pass.
- [25:03]
Johnny Lu
No, I mean, I guess I was watching this slightly from a. A mino centric angle, but I do think huge credit to Paphos here and specifically their goalkeeper, who is one of those goalkeepers who always has to be called by both names, Jay Gorter. So you kind of hear him get called Jay Gorta every time and you're like, is that. Is that his surname? Is he someone. Jay Gorta or. But no, Jay Gorta. The Dutch keeper made. I mean, I don't know how many saves it was. It was somewhere between 50 and 70 saves, but. But for all that, Chelsea didn't look massively dangerous for quite a lot of the game, considering. You know, you'd expect them to come and, and win this one fairly easily. But just for the scale of comparison, Pa is. I think their entire squad is worth about 26 million. So the disparity between the two teams is just absolutely enormous. And Paphos having this kind of incredible rise. They've only existed in this form for 11 years. They were like the merger between two other clubs and they've kind of shot to their first league title in 20, 24, 25. And yeah, it was, it was an amazing effort from a Paphos perspective, from a Chelsea perspective, one of the most frustrating games you could probably wish to see. And, you know, until that, that goal, I think, was casino in the 78th minute. Until that point, it looked quite possible Perfos would. Would grab a point which I think would have left Chelsea fans pretty livid, really, given the. Given the balance of the game and the expectation. But I do just think, yeah, we'd have to pay a huge amount of credit to Pafos. They. They came. They came to try and pull that off. An incredibly unlikely point and they almost got it.
- [26:39]
Max Rushden
Yeah. What, Johnny, have you made of the. Of Liam Rosinha so far?
- [26:43]
Paul Wilson
Car.
- [26:43]
Max Rushden
Yeah, I mean, well, what we've learned is that he. I think he likes to pronounce it Liam Rasenia, which I don't think. Don't think I'll be doing that.
- [26:50]
No, I think he said he wants. I. I think his dad said it's Rossenia and he said, actually just call me Rossinia.
- [26:55]
That's what I. Yeah, it's not. I'm sorry. I mean, I know it's their name, but it's not actually up to them. It's a bit like when. When. When Angolo. Angolo Kante Joined Chelsea and obviously his name is Conte, but they were managed by a Conte. So sorry, man, you're Kante. We're going to call you Kante. Say, I don't think we can bank on, on Rossinha seeing out the season. I don't think the fans are having him. I think he needs a run of wins and he needs a kind of a swell of goodwill that he's not. I don't think he's, he's necessarily going to get. He doesn't. He. He starts, unlike a lot of, a lot of his predecessor, I think he starts from. From a position of weakness, which is, you know, it's no shade on him as a coach. You know, I think he's, he's clearly a very bright coach with, with ideas and, and who has earned this chance. I just think the knives are out for him a little bit. You can, you can see that there's a, the fit, there's an itchy finger on the trigger. People. People want to. People want to ridicule him. People. People want to sort of, I think, pick holes in him. People. I think there is, there is a, a narrative being built already that the job is a little bit too big for him. And, and look, you know, this was not a great performance if, you know, but I thought Liam Delapse, you know, struggled up front. They took just. They didn't really have any kind of space to play and they didn't really have too much, too much invention. PA was basically, you know, kind of a five, four, one off the ball. If, if you have the talent that, that Chelsea have, you know, you can, you can get Gittins off the bench. You can get, you can replace Rhys James with, with Estev at halftime that, you know, injected a little bit of energy into them. They were, what is it, 12, 12 minutes away. You know, Paphos were, were 12 minutes away from, from claiming a famous point ultimately. So, you know, they're really starting to kind of tug on, on the heartstrings. You began to feel a real sort of overwrought, effective, almost a dramatic sadness for them. Oh, sorry, that. That's pathos, isn't it?
- [28:50]
Very nice.
- [28:51]
Let me try that again. I'm gonna do it again. I'll do it again next week.
- [28:55]
Paul Wilson
I mean, it was, it's worth the go.
- [28:56]
Max Rushden
You know, it's not the first time Johnny's done a good joke and I've been concentrating on something else. Like what I'm going to ask you next and I haven't been Doing what I should be doing is listening intently to the intelligent joke and getting it before Tony has to explain it. But, you know, it is not the first time he's. He's been met with that reaction. My apologies.
- [29:15]
Pathos. Sounds like pathos.
- [29:17]
Paul Wilson
A lot of us worry that because there's so much talk of XG in the game now, people are not encouraged to take on like difficult shots and like long shots. And one wonder goals are essentially gonna die out. I think the same is true with podcasts. You know, we have to encourage the creative players to really go for these sort of low XG jokes.
- [29:37]
Max Rushden
Maybe sometimes I actually think the XG on that is actually quite high. It was just, you know, it's just the audience, you know, he just needed a better audience. Is. Is what I think Rossini needs more time, Lars, clearly. And there's the Chelsea squad is a. We've talked about this before. It's a hard one to work out. So if you just wandered in there, you need like time to work out who you like and who you don't like and what your bomb squad is and what, you know, who's going to play where.
- [30:03]
Paul Wilson
It's such an odd cultural fit, I feel. And I wonder if this matters because on paper they have quite a young, ambitious squad. So maybe a young manager is good, maybe he will find a good sort of common ground with that group of players. But there's something about like the vibe of Chelsea. This is sort of the house that JT built. For better or worse, this is a fan base who are used to like, strong, rugged men who kick the ball very far and, you know, elbow people in the head first and ask questions later. And you're used to having like Mourinho on the touchline like this sort of roaming war criminal in a football sense, just kind of always crossing aggro. And I'm not sure if they're sort of culturally set up to accept an intelligent, you know, softly spoken, well meaning coach with fresh ideas. I think he's gonna. And this shouldn't matter, but I feel like it ends up mattering like the vibes matter. And I think it's very, very important that he gets some early wins to get them on side, rightly or wrongly. And I also just wonder, is it my sense that is that there is an increasing resistance among the Chelsea fan base to their own ownership, to. To the Blue Co lads, to Egbali and Boli and the boys and their whole methodology. And I'm not sure it helps drossing your that he's so clearly the company man in, in here, that he's sort of the Bluco golden child who's been. Who's been parachuted in with all his LinkedIn speech and all his sort of clever ideas. This seems like the opposite of what a lot of Chelsea fans want and again, shouldn't matter to him in terms of him just trying to do his job. But I feel like it gives him less leeway to screw up and I think it's very, very important that he gets a lot of results very quickly.
- [31:46]
Max Rushden
There was a paradox in that Chelsea keep wanting these young, principled, ideological, no compromise coaches. And the reason it so rarely works is that going to Chelsea is in a sense, the first compromise.
- [31:58]
So what does that mean? What does that mean?
- [32:02]
Well, it means they're trying to attract a kind of coast which is completely anathema to the culture of the club, but they keep hiring them anyway. You saw it with Potter.
- [32:10]
Johnny Lu
But that sounds like a motivational quote in itself. Going to Chelsea is the first compromise. That sounds like something you put on LinkedIn.
- [32:16]
Max Rushden
It's a T tap towel. You're saying that's a tea towel is what it is. You know, it's what you have on a breadboard. We'll see how he gets on. And he's actually, what's. He only lost one. He lost the Arsenal game, but otherwise, you know, he's won all his other games, even if they looked a bit streaky elsewhere. Carabag. Big win for Carabag here, Paul, wasn't it limbs in the last minute?
- [32:35]
Johnny Lu
Yeah, it was. It really was. It didn't look at all likely. They were two one down to untrack. Frankfurt at one point turned it around with a. A last gasp goal from a name that I'm going to actually butcher. He's called Bellul Mustafa, I think. But I apologize to our listeners who understand that name better than I do, but first Azerbaijani player to score in the competition, which is quite an amazing thing. It's not that they hadn't been scoring goals, it's just they've mostly been coming from Camilo Duran, who's Colombian. But yeah, this was a remarkable achievement. I think Karabag are the surprise package of this whole, whole, you know, this whole phase. And the fact that they are now well poised to, to get a playoff placer is an amazing achievement, really, for, for them. I think they've been written off by a lot of teams. One thing that I think people, maybe one of the reasons they're underestimated is people don't realize just how many European games they've played. I think it comes from being in a league where they can dominate for quite a few years they've played so much European football, so they're not kind of fresh faced newcomers in that sense. But this is definitely new territory for them. And yeah, the scenes at the final whistle. Well, the scenes went in, in the 93rd minute.
- [33:45]
Max Rushden
Yeah, it was so good.
- [33:46]
Johnny Lu
Just brilliant to watch, weren't they? That's, that's what it is all about really.
- [33:49]
Max Rushden
Barcelona 1, 42 Estavia Prague. What did you make of their win?
- [33:51]
Paul Wilson
L Just that it was very typical of this Barcelona which is that they, the, the, the goal. They conceded two set piece goals and there are always moments, I mean caveats here being that it was very, very cold in Prague, it was like minus a loss and the pitch was apparently not very good and it, it wasn't, it wasn't ideal condition for the Catalan magicians as it were. But they conceded to set piece goals and they do just like again because they play with this incredible. They play with the high, they're very attacking, they play with a high line and they. You just kind of feel this can always go wrong and at any moment this can go completely wrong. But there's so much attacking talent in this team that they will. And it was, it was Femin Lopez who's sort of one of the lesser celebrated guys in that group and I, I would argue that he might be. There's a case to be made that he should be striking up out on his own because he's a great player and he's probably never going to be a regular at Barcelona, but maybe he's happy being a squad player there. I don't know. He scored two good goals and Dani Olmo's third goal was absolutely brilliant. And yeah, there's so much. I still wonder the thing with Barcelona, you look at them and you think this is so much fun and it's so brilliant. They will probably get trounced at some point by one of the other big teams games. But in the meantime, like at least I want. If we're gonna have these sort of Galactico super clubs that have more money than everyone else and blah, blah, at least let them be fun. So I mean they're always watchable like Barcelona under Flick right now. They're never boring. Never. It's always good fun.
- [35:20]
Max Rushden
Two nil, Johnny. Harry Kane missed a penalty. You know, if we're not boycotting the World cup panic, maybe it's, we should boycott now. He's missed that penalty. Just too much terror, horror. Seeing him miss one, I know he scored.
- [35:31]
Or two, he misses about once a year. But maybe that's, maybe that's, you know, it's January 22nd, he's already got his one penalty miss for the year out of the way. Maybe we can all relax easy now.
- [35:40]
Yeah, hopefully. Do you see them, as we would yesterday, trying to work out who are the real opponents to Arsenal in this competition? Or is it too, I mean, is that daft to suggest? Because, you know, you can be really good in January and not really good in May. But I know they have beaten Bayern, but like, buying must be considered one of the teams that could beat them over two legs.
- [35:59]
No, definitely Bayern. Bayern have been, have been superb. I mean, domestically they've almost got the Bundesliga sewn up. You know, you can argue whether that's, whether that that's going to help them, but I, I think it does help them in, in terms of the fact that from March, April, they can, they can really fully focus on a competition. They, you know, they almost kind of regard as, as, as their birthright in a way that, that, that's where coaches ultimately get, get judged. Company has done a, done a superb job. They are delighted with, at Bayern and I think there's a real, there's a really lovely balance to them. You know, they can win games in lots of different ways. You know, they weren't, weren't great against Union S, but you know, they, they managed to grind it out. They, they can get results against good teams and they can, they can really, you know, splatter the, the smaller ones. So I, I'm really excited to see what, what they do in the second half of the season because I think companies got a really good thing going there.
- [36:51]
Elsewhere. Juventus beat Benfica 2, 0 West. Kennedy's go was lovely interplay with him and was it Jonathan David?
- [36:57]
Paul Wilson
I think.
- [36:57]
Max Rushden
I'm not sure. Athletic Bilbao, good comeback from them at Atalanta. Galatasar was a one all draw.
- [37:04]
Johnny Lu
I was going to say we have to give a mention, surely, for the penalty slip. I've rarely seen a penalty go as wide as Pavlidas's penalty for Benfica. I mean, it was one of those ones as well. They're. They're two nil down. I think at that point the game's clearly going away from them. This is their, I think even the commentator even says, you know, this is a lifeline for Benfica. You couldn't have set it up better for what is the most dramatic penalty slip I've seen in some time. I mean, where did that ball even end up? The camera couldn't even track it, could it? Really? It was just.
- [37:32]
Max Rushden
It's really fun, isn't it? It sort of feels like waddle. I mean, I know waddle's probably wasn't that far away, but it has that waddle vibe, doesn't it?
- [37:39]
Johnny Lu
It was. No, it's just. No, it just. I don't even know where it went. It's just watching the goal and it's just almost something so comic about it.
- [37:45]
Paul Wilson
Yeah. Because what happens is the standing foot slips and then pushes the ball slightly to the right, which means that when the right foot comes swinging, it hits the completely wrong area of the ball entirely. And it just. It goes directly to the right. It's just. It's. It's a very.
- [38:02]
Johnny Lu
It was. I.
- [38:03]
Paul Wilson
It. It made me almost feel sorry for Jose Mourinho, which is a very high bar in general. Because actually Benfica were not terrible in this game. And I think for him, given his history in Italian football, going to Juventus is always going to be like a big thing. I mean, I'm sure he really wanted that even more so than coaches usually want something. And they were not bad in this game and they just kind of needed something to drop for them. And then that happens. It's not. Not. Not good.
- [38:28]
Max Rushden
I think it was almost a whole goal. I think if there was another goal next to that goal, it wouldn't have gone in. That's. That's how wide it is. Yeah. No, no. Thank you for bringing.
- [38:38]
Paul Wilson
Was it a throw in? I mean, it could have been a throw.
- [38:42]
Max Rushden
It's definitely a goal. It's definitely a goal kick. So last. Let's have a minute on Bodo Glimpse. We talked about it yesterday, but you are in Norway currently. You are a Norwegian. This is a big moment.
- [38:53]
Paul Wilson
It is. It is. It's either the biggest or the second biggest result in Norwegian club football history. I think the consensus is it is. Rosenberg winning away to Milan in 96 to qualify from the group stage back then, some people will probably hold even higher. But that might just be nostalgia. I don't know. I. I think beating them. Abu Dhabi's Manchester City, albeit with a few defensive absentees, is unbelievable. And there's a lot of good aspects of this. But I thought one thing that might be underappreciated by neutral observers is that don't usually play like this. Like, they're usually the sort of man city characters in Norway. They're the possession team that will try to Pass everyone to death and just be patient with the ball and all that. Whereas in this game, I mean, Gertrude Knudsen said after the game, we ended up, you know, having to drop deep in a way because you're playing City, clearly you have to do that. But they were able to master a way of playing, of sitting quite deep and hitting people on the counter, which is very different to what they do week in, week out domestically. And it's a sort of tactical flick of the switch that I guess the dominant teams in smaller leagues have to do when they go out into Europe. It's more. Obviously, the point that needs to be made is that they aren't out of season. They're not. The Norwegian domestic season doesn't start for a while yet. We have a summer league league, for obvious reasons, it wouldn't be feasible to have a. To play league football in the winter here. So they haven't, they haven't played a proper game since. Since the last time the Champions League came around. And you have to do training camps. They should be like, not match fit or in any kind of rhythm whatsoever. But they looked so sharp and I was so impressed by them. They've had. It was their first win in the group stage because they've had a couple of games where they've played really well. But what you find against these opponents is, is that there's so much individual quality that if you just. If you, if you lose your focus for like a second, then you can. That can turn the game around. And for a very long time watching it, I still kind of thought at 2 nil, like, okay, they're gonna get tired and they'll get done in the end. I think the red card for Rodri really helped because I think there's probably a world in which they tire a little bit because they're not super match fit and stuff and. But by then, City had 10 men, so you had a huge advantage in the end. And no, it was an extraordinary joy, joyous occasion. I don't really have any sympathy for any complaints about the surface because just fundamentally, City's wage Bill is around 400 million and Borderlands is around 20 million. So let's not whine about the surface would be my.
- [41:24]
Max Rushden
And they didn't.
- [41:25]
Paul Wilson
To be fair to Guardiola and Les, they did not.
- [41:27]
Max Rushden
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. All right, that'll do for part two.
- [41:30]
Paul Wilson
Part three.
- [41:30]
Max Rushden
We'll do a Premier League preview.
- [41:35]
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- [42:01]
Raj and Noah
Hey, it's Raj and Noah.
- [42:03]
Noah
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [42:09]
Raj and Noah
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
- [42:11]
Noah
But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
- [42:20]
Raj and Noah
We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
- [42:29]
Noah
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [42:37]
Raj and Noah
And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.
- [42:45]
Max Rushden
Love y'.
- [42:46]
Paul Wilson
All.
- [42:55]
Max Rushden
Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So, Super Sunday. Arsenal. Manchester United. United. Michael Carrick's had the squad for a week since that win over Manchester City. Benefit of not being in any European competitions. What chance do you give them, Johnny?
- [43:07]
A punches chance, I guess. I mean, I think because of the, the feelings and, and the good vibes around Carrick's start at Manchester United, I think a lot of people would, you know, will be quite optimistic, you know, and, and certainly Arsenal fans that, that I know, you know, I, I live literally just around the corner from the Emirates. I'm literally surrounded by Arsenal fans. So it's a pretty good way to take the temperature. They're all really worried about. Oh, you know, car, you know, United are going to do us. They look, they suddenly look really good. Typical, you know, United raising their game again. I think, you know, if we put things into perspective, Arsenal still should win that. I mean, they're at home, they have, you know, a depth of squad, you know, that they have options off the bench that, you know, you would trust them to see. To see out any game against any opposition in the world currently. And Also, I just think that, you know, as long as, as long as they're not, they're not too vulnerable on the transition, as, as long as they, they manage to keep United quiet on the transition, I don't think this, this iteration of United can do a huge amount to hurt them. I, I think, you know, if, if Arsenal packed the midfield, if they, if they dominate the midfield like that, like they do pretty much against any other team, I think United will be reduced to really, quite, quite a few chances. So I think United obviously, obviously have a chance because of, because of the talent they've got and because of, you know, the, the little mini wave of momentum they've got right now. But I think it is no more than a puncher's chance for them.
- [44:33]
Paul Wilson
What is. On behalf of all the non native English speakers, how would we define like a puncher's chance in terms of percentages? Because it's one of those phrases I don't really.
- [44:42]
Max Rushden
All right. But it's basically like a shit boxer against a good boxer. But you know, you've still got a pair of fists and you're, and you're still a boxing, a boxer, so, you know, you can get a lucky punch through and knock the guy out.
- [44:54]
Paul Wilson
Okay, that's fair like that.
- [44:56]
Max Rushden
The Athletic are reporting that Manchester United are in talks to make a big budget historical drama series similar to the Crown. Jed Mercurio, Line of Duty creator, apparently on board. Of course, you know, the, the nostalgia. There's just so much DNA and nostalgia just oozing out of Old Trafford. Dream Cast Lister. Andy Jacobs and I did this on Talk Sport and the listeners came up with Fergie, played by David Tennant, a young Fergie, and then Brian Cox. Cox, an old Fergie. I think Brian Cox would be very good.
- [45:25]
Johnny Lu
Yeah.
- [45:25]
Max Rushden
Toby Jones as Paul Scholes.
- [45:28]
Paul Wilson
I mean, I, I know, I know Paul Scholes has been criticized for not being the best athlete, but I still, even, even that, I think it is a stretch.
- [45:37]
Max Rushden
Steve Bruce played by Pauline Quirk, Diego Forland, Jennifer Lawrence and Paul Ince. The Rock. Really good.
- [45:45]
Paul Wilson
I like, I like Dame, Dame. Maggie Smith as David Moyes. I think there's something there.
- [45:49]
Max Rushden
We have. Yeah, well, Noreen Chowdhury, our mate, did, did a whole guest. He had Hugh Laurie as David Moyes. Carlos Quiros played by Sanjeev Bhaskar. He had Ewan McGregor as Sir Alex Ferguson. And what else does he have? Thomas Turgoose as Wayne Rooney. Jodie Comer as Colleen Rooney. Stephen Merchant as Gary Pallister. Is Quite good fun, isn't it? I had Eric Cantona playing Eric Cantona. I thought that could have worked. Right? He's allowed to, he's allowed to act. Unless he wants to play another Manchester United character.
- [46:20]
No, Canton plays gigs.
- [46:21]
You think Canal plays gigs? Okay, yeah. He did have Robert Downey Jr playing Mourinho and Tilda Swinton as our arson Venger is good, isn't it? So thank you. Do Man City Wolves is this. I mean you sort of think Paul, given they've had two defeats in a row, a bad one. City and Wolves have a bit of form. It's too far fetched to suggest Wolves getting something out of this game.
- [46:45]
Johnny Lu
I mean Wolves have a bit of form is a statement we didn't expect here, isn't it? But yeah, I mean that they've looked a lot better lately. Wolves. I. No, I think this is, this is surely a step too far and we're about to see some, some sort of normality reinstated here. But it kind of amazing that Rob Edwards seems to be doing something with Wolves. You know, more than just limiting his commute. He seems to actually have found a way to get them playing some football and there's a possibility Wolves will do this, do a kind of great escape attempt that will fall heroically short. I mean there's no realistic way they can possibly get themselves out of this. But it's actually become pretty interesting. I thought this was gonna be a foregone conclusion. I actually had my eyes on were they gonna get the lowest points total. You know, that was the exciting drama. But actually the way they've been playing, it shouldn't theoretically be impossible for them to, to upset now in crisis Man City. But no, I don't, I don't see it happening to be honest.
- [47:43]
Paul Wilson
I've been on the other boat to poll this. I've never thought Wolves were going to get the lowest points total. I have been curious about whether they will end up overtaking Burnley because I think Burnley are worse. Like based on the games I've seen this season, I genuinely think Wolves are a better team than Burnley now. They're six points behind now. I mean they are both going down. I don't see any version, I don't see any version of this where that doesn't happen. But I think the drama down the bottom. Can Wolves mount a heroic. I mean probably if you're up Edwards, probably that's something you tell the players. Like we have, we can, we can try. We can not finish last here. It can be done. One thing I'm wondering about this game is whether Guardiola will rest Erling Holland at some point because the boy is looking tired now. I think it's. It's difficult because I think he hates it himself. I don't think he likes being rested. I think that that's really not something. I was very surprised to see that he started against both of them Glimps, because I thought when the fixture list falls this way and you have B Glimt and then Wolves, that's a good week to tell. Erling, listen, you know, you've got a nice house down in Costa del Sol, you know, let's. We can invent a hamstring injury if you want, or something like just take a week off. Like we're not like you need to. Because he has looked really, really spent the last couple of weeks. Mahmush is back from the afcon. They paid a lot of money for him. Presumably he should be able to play up front at some point.
- [48:59]
Johnny Lu
Point.
- [48:59]
Paul Wilson
Having said that, Erling will probably score a hatrick because that seems to be what he does. But I think he, he, he could use a break for this one.
- [49:05]
Max Rushden
Johnny. Lars has very confidently said Wolves might finish or certainly Burnley are going down. But Burnley 13 without a win do host Dr. Tottenham. And you can see it. I mean, you can see it. Johnny, I don't know how you feel. We were all certain Frank was sacked on Monday, then yesterday, obviously he'd had a really good result against Dortmund on Tuesday and, and seems safe for now, but he surely has to win this one.
- [49:26]
Yeah, I mean, we've seen spurs, you know, look good or passable in the Champions League. And, and this goes back to what we were talking at the top of the show about, you know, is. Is the standard in the Champions League actually flattering Premier League teams a little bit because it's almost as if the competition domestically is. Is stronger or more. More competitive than what they're getting on the continent. I don't put Burnley in that. In that category. If Tottenham don't win, I think Frank goes pretty much immediately. I think even if they do win, he may well go in the short term. This feels like the, the maneuvering period where they are, you know, spurs are trying to line up or potentially lining up someone to replace him and almost sort of hoping or, you know, hoping that the results don't throw a spanner in. In the works. I do think spurs will be, you know, spurs have actually been. They've been all right away from home. This is the sort of game that they have been performing okay, pay in, you know, or at least getting results. Burnley will have to, you know, we saw against United that they are able to frustrate a team, they're able to frustrate teams, but they do need a huge amount of luck to, to, to be able to cling on to anything.
- [50:33]
Palace, Chelsea, West Ham, Sunderland, Newcastle, Villa, Fulham, Brighton, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Brentford, Forest and Everton. Leeds is on Monday nights. Paul, I wanted to talk to you about Greenland. I mean, I, I doubt football is at the top of their priorities, but sort of quite interesting. You know, football is a part of life and you know, Donald Trump is on stage just calling it a piece of ice yesterday. You know, there are actual humans there who do things such as play football. And you've talked to us a bit about football in Greenland before. So I just wanted you to sort of remind us because. Because Greenland wanted to. Trying to join UEFA or trying to. We're thinking about joining concacaf. Were they?
- [51:08]
Johnny Lu
Yeah. So I mean, green football in Greenland's like this incredible tale of kind of making football happen against diversity. So Greenland has a national championships and it's in one week of the year where it's basically warm enough to play outside and teams come from all over Greenland and there's no roads in Greenland between the big settlements. So they all have to either fly, which is incredibly expensive, or get dangerous boat trips. And they all congregate for this one week in August where they have a national championships. And so Greenland's had, you know, decent football scene for a long time as a national team that go out and try and play games against other teams. But again, against the backdrop of this, they've seen the Faroe Islands, which has exactly the same status politically as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, go and get into UEFA. Greenland just never applied to UEFA at the time that Pharaohs did. So they never actually made a formal application. Then UEFA quite, you know, firmly shut the door to non sovereign nations. Gibraltar managed to kick that door open because they'd already applied before that came in. So Gibraltar said, well, look, we're going to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport succeeded and got in, but Greenland couldn't do the same because they had never actually applied. So the thinking in Greenland was, well, let's, let's go to concacaf. Like that's our, you know, geographically that's a logical fit for us. Even though, you know, UEFA made a lot more sense in many ways more culturally because of, you know, the strong links to Denmark. So they went to CONCACAF and what was Kind of weird was that Greenland started to get. Get very fast apparent progress within concacaf. They got invited to this meeting in Miami. Very, very kind of suddenly was told, like, come to Miami. You know, we're going to have a meeting with you. And this was quite senior figures within CONCACAF saying, you know, come and meet people. And there was a sense that Greenland was almost being fast tracked into something that had, you know, spent years sitting fairly dormant. And there were really high hopes building. You know, Greenham put together this application and thought, well, this is going to be our moment. They applied to join CONCACAF formally, which then goes to a vote of the members at their congress. And there was this huge wave of enthusiasm. People in Greenland were saying, this is it, you know, this is our moment. We're going to at least get a kind of timeline to joining CONCACAF here. And what actually happened was they were unanimously rejected. Every single member of CONCACAF voted against Greenland. And that left this clear impression that Greenland had that, you know, there'd been a very strong lobbying force against Greenland. And if you think about the strongest lobbying force in conquering is undoubtedly the usa. So there was a sense that they've been led on and then kind of cast aside and no, sorry, when was this? This was all earlier. Well, this was last year. So this happened last year and.
- [53:52]
Max Rushden
Right, okay.
- [53:52]
Johnny Lu
It kind of sent a shockwave through people in Greenland because they'd been given very strong kind of signals that this was something that was going to work, you know, that there was going to be a time scale, there was going to be some help, and instead they were just told, no, you are absolutely not going to be member of concacaf. There is a right to appeal, but, you know, that's not really going to work either because you're appealing to the same people. It was a very mysterious thing, but it's left Greenland completely out, you know, frozen out of anywhere, for want of a better phrase. It leaves them with nowhere to go. UEFA's door is closed. Very definitively. CONCACAF has said no to them. So what exactly would anyone have them do? You know, they are trapped outside of international football, right?
- [54:30]
Max Rushden
So they can play. Can they play games?
- [54:33]
Johnny Lu
They can summon friendlies up. They actually played a couple of friendlies last.
- [54:37]
Paul Wilson
Last year.
- [54:37]
Johnny Lu
They've played. They've played games here and there. They played against Turkmenistan, funnily enough, in a friendly. They managed to sort of pair up with them at a training camp in Turkey and played a friendly against them. But really their options are incredibly limited because it's all political. I think the only thing they could really do is really try and build alliances within other CONCACAF member states. But that can be quite tricky because those states are generally all within the Caribbean, or a lot of them are within the Caribbean, of course.
- [55:04]
Max Rushden
Yeah.
- [55:04]
Johnny Lu
And there's a linguistic barrier too, with most of the Greenland FA speaking Danish, but not necessarily English that confidently. So it's a very long and difficult road for Greenland. But the sadness is there is thriving football there. There is a very proud footballing community who want to represent Greenland internationally and that just seems to be denied to them. They seem to have, again, in football terms, something was being done that involved them being used as a pawn and no one's quite sure what it was, but they were clearly led on, on and then cast adrift.
- [55:35]
Max Rushden
Come on, you aa, open your doors. Let him in is what I say. I don't have a lot of power in football, I don't believe. But you know, when I run football, that will be number one on the agenda. Thanks, Paul. That's very interesting. Finally, an email from Alan who says, my mate Jimmy died a few weeks ago, just before Christmas. He was a great fan of the Pod. It was one of the things that we had in common. We met and worked for over 20 years in Lima, Peru, played football together, traveled together, were surrounded by machine gun toting soldiers who mistook us for terrorists together, and many other innocent adventures. He returned to Glasgow a few years ago and eventually died at 61. Too young for him and his family, but perhaps an average life expectancy for an adventurous Glaswegian. Alan says, I haven't seen him in a few years, but I miss him, particularly when I listen to this podcast because I know he was such a great fan and it was one of the things we would always chat about. So I don't know if you could find it in you to give a shout out to him up there in heaven where he belongs. If that's where he made it, I know it would be a laugh and he'd be happy. Happy. And I would be too. Thanks for the show. I've been listening almost from the beginning. I can't actually imagine it not being around. Cheers, Alan. Thank you, Alan. We appreciate you and we appreciate Jimmy. We send you and his family. I love and appreciate everyone who still listens to us waffle on about football three times a week. But thank you, Alan, for getting in touch. Footballweeklyguardian.com if you want to send us an email. But that'll do for today. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Johnny.
- [56:54]
Thank you.
- [56:55]
Cheers, Lars.
- [56:55]
Paul Wilson
Thank you, Max.
- [56:56]
Max Rushden
Thanks, Paul.
- [56:56]
Paul Wilson
Thanks, Max.
- [56:57]
Max Rushden
Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove. Our executive producer is Phil Maynard. We'll be back on Monday.
- [57:08]
This is the Guardian.
- [57:17]
Raj and Noah
Hey, it's Raj and Noah.
- [57:19]
Noah
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [57:26]
Raj and Noah
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
- [57:28]
Johnny Lu
Wrong.
- [57:28]
Noah
But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
- [57:37]
Raj and Noah
We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
- [57:45]
Noah
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [57:53]
Raj and Noah
And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as they're are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.
- [58:01]
Max Rushden
Love y' all.