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World Cup qualifying preview and new WSL season kicks off – Football Weekly
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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul Watson, Jonathan Fadugba and Suzy Wrack discuss the race to reach the 2026 World Cup
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This is the Guardian.
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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, the first international break of the season. The big news from the England camp. How sad will Mark Gay be after my fears were realised that he might be disappointed happened on deadline day. We'll discuss no Trent Alexander Arnold, but one Ruben Loftus cheek. I can just hear Baz's. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about him already. Will Elliot Anderson or Jed Spence get a run? And how important is it that Thomas Tuchel gets a decent performance after an underwhelming start to his reign elsewhere? We'll preview the other home nations. Paul Watson has stuff on Kazakhstan and Luxembourg. He just said. Do you want me to do a bit on Bermuda? Jamaica? Yes, please. Suzy Rak joins us to look ahead to the wsl. Will there be a title race? We'll do all that, plus a huge apology to the Bromley fans who've got very excited on Tuesday under false pretenses. We'll answer your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly. On the panel today, Barry Glendenny.
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F
Welcome. You have no idea how close to the truth that Ruben Loftus cheek remark was.
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E
We'll get to that. Hello, Paul Watson.
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D
Hi.
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E
Hi, Max and Jonathan Verduba. Welcome.
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A
Hello, Max.
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E
Let's start then with England, who are top of Group K. If you'd forgotten all of this, three wins from three, not in spectacular fashion. They play Andorra at Villa park on Saturday before going to play Serbia next week. The last international break was in June where they beat Andorra 1 nil and then were roundly beaten by Senegal 3 1. Jonathan, how important do you think it is then that Tuchel not just gets two wins, but actually England are good.
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A
How important is it that England are good? Yeah, I think it's very important that England are good. It's always extremely important that England are good. And I don't think we'll learn too much about how good England are with Andorra at home necessarily, but we will get some gauge. I suppose. As usual it will be expected to sort of be a 10 nil, 10 nil win and anything less will be an absolute disgrace. So we'll see how that one will go and obviously given the rankings it probably would be. The Serbia game will be more of a challenge, of course and I think we'll learn a lot more about Tuchel and what he's trying to do with the team maybe in that match potentially. He's been pretty sort of experimental to this point, hasn't he? The squad, it's got a bit of a different flavor to it. Jed Spence, no Trent of course, Loftus Cheek coming in very much of sort of Chelsea vibes and the Tickle seems to have a sort of trusted lieutenants maybe from his Chelsea days that he's, that he's, he's looked upon and seems to like, which is. I think it's fair enough. But obviously there's some debatable call ups maybe and some debatable people left out. Elliot Anderson I think is someone who has been really impressive so I'm quite excited to see how potentially he might, he might do if he is given a chance. And I think the midfield is, you know, the entire midfield really is quite, quite attractive looking. Gibbs, White and Anderson. Morgan Rodgers obviously will get maybe a chance and then the stalwarts at this point, Henderson and Declan Rice. So yeah, there is a nice little feel to it. Quite a few notable names as we mentioned. No Grealish even though he's been in really good form. But yeah, I think there's a lot to like about the squad and I suppose there's a lot for him to prove in this game.
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E
Yeah, I mean, I guess we have to start questioning the Chelsea links. If he selects Cesar Azpilicueta, that'll be when we say. Come on Thomas, this is getting silly now. I mean, I don't know if it was a stupid question Paul, to say how because I just. It hasn't been that interesting yet. It hasn't been good yet and listeners will be forgiven because I had until I, you know, prepared for this pod, had sort of forgotten, you know this is just so much has Happened like club, World Cup, Premier League, starting life, et cetera, to be like, hang on, where are we? You sort of forgive listeners and, you know, people who follow England going, I just sort of. It's like you've stopped watching the Sopranos box set series three, like three years ago and now you've got to start again, you know.
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D
Yeah. And yet everyone was, everyone was quite furious back in June. I don't know if you remember the Andorra game. Probably not, but actually that was a really pretty dreadful performance. Andorra. I think Guillaume Lopez got through. Andorra could have scored. It is not inconceivable. Granted that was their only moment, but it's not inconceivable we could have actually even drawn with Andorra. It was a pretty dreadful game and everyone looked checked out. It was June, nobody wanted to be playing. But there was quite a lot of venom being directed at the time at Tuchel and I feel like time has just let that ease away and this is like a restart moment for him where it's like, you know, an emphatic win over Andorra would at least just, you know, get things back on track. That said, you know, we talk about these big scores that are expected against Andorra, that's very much stuck in the mentality. But Andorra have not actually conceded more than three goals for a year. And that was against Spain in a friendly. They tend to lose 2 or 3 nil now like they are 2 or 3 nil defeat merchants. They also haven't scored for a year. But I think there's this expectation we'll put 10 on Andorra. But actually nobody is really doing that. I think a good score would be a five. That would be a really significant score to say, look, we thrashed them, but no one's putting 10 on Andorra these days.
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E
Right. I love a two or three nil defeat Merchant. I mean, I suppose this is with every squad selection of which there are quite interesting selections here, Barry, you know, and I can hear you saying this as well, saying it doesn't really matter who is picked in this squad, but eventually it must matter who. Thomas Tuchel sort of thinks these are the guys. Or do you think he might just chop and change until we get to the World Cup?
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F
Well, obviously his hand will at times be forced by injuries to certain players and it is nice to have options of experience. But, you know, would presume he has an idea of what his first 11 is a very good idea and who means quad. Like I was sort of pick my England starting 11 for the first World cup match and my main takeaway is how many really, really good players aren't going to be in it and how many really, really good players aren't going to be in the squad. So he's absolutely spoiled for choice.
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E
What's your starting 11? Barry? Can we, can you give it to us?
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F
Pickford, Reese, James, John Stones, Marque, Livramento probably Wharton, Bellingham, Rice, coin tossed between Sack and Palmer, Kane and Ezzy and I'm already admonishing myself because I'm, I'm leaving out Morgan Rogers. I'm leaving out. I think Elliot Anderson's really good. Phil Foden, will he even be in the squad? You know he's, he's such a terrific player on his day so. But that, that's my starting 11. Well, no, actually it is. It's my starting 11 would be 11 random individuals who've never played football before. But working on the assumption I have to pick sort of in the same pool as T. This is my starting 11.
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E
Do you like Barry's 11, Jonathan?
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A
Yes, I quite like it. There's well the, the 11 randoms that I quite like as well. So that could be quite fun. Play them against andor see how it goes. But yeah, the essence of the point isn't is that he's, he's spoiled for choice really. There are so many sort of good England England talents. I, I think it might be a bit left field prediction potentially, but I still think there's a chance. I think I tweeted it earlier in the season, but I think there's a chance there'll be a wild card like Max Dalman or might even end up in the squad. I think Thomas Tuchel's someone who, who does have a bit of a left field approach to things. He will think outside the box. Livermento, I think has got a really good chance, for example of starting and I can see someone like that breaking out this season and maybe, maybe get themselves either into the squad or obviously not into the first 11, but definitely into the squad. So I do think Tuchel is someone who will think differently when he starts making his final choices. Barry makes a really good point about someone like Phil Foden who at this moment in time he's almost not thought about really, which is quite surprising. And he's got a lot of work to do. I think Trent's got a lot of work to do as well to potentially get in the squad. There's players like Kyle Walker who's approaching that 100 cap mark mark who it looks like maybe he's on the out as well. So there is. There are some sort of new rumblings of a new team emerging here. Essay I'm not sure will necessarily start. I've got a feeling he quite likes Marcus Rashford, but again, that's going to come down to maybe his form at Barcelona. Can he get in the team? Obviously Rashford has been kind of dropped really from the last match, so, you know, he played one game, they were losing, he got hooked at half time and since then he, you know, kind of hasn't been in the team. But it's very early days and of course I think form will dictate a lot of the, the choices. So, yeah, the bottom line of it is there's so many options which, which is really good as an England follower. The. The question is what will Tuko go for? And I think he's someone who will go lean more towards form than maybe reputation and name.
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E
What do you make? Paula? No Trent, Alexander Arnold in this squad.
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D
Oh, it's a good question. I, I personally, I agree with it. I, I don't think it's necessarily such a bad thing and I think, I think there's, there are a few eyebrows raised. So when the squad comes out, there's always the anger and the, the kind of. What'? Like, it's almost quite contradictory because in some ways you're looking for players that are obviously in good form, but it's very early in the season. So what does that mean, anyway? And then on the other side you got players that you'd like to see, but actually it's hard to justify calling them up. So I think like, for example, Reuben Loftus Cheek, like you say, him popping up again and it's like, it is weird to see him there in a way, but he's had a very good start season at Milan. He's keeping Luka Modric out the side there and he also can play in two quite useful positions, like he can play in a number eight role. He can be more advanced, sort of works in both. So I'm kind of intrigued. I'm willing to give Tuchel the benefit of the doubt with the squad, that's for sure. Although I will like to caveat that with saying I would like my favorite thing in the world to happen would be for Barry to be in charge of England, pick that squad, win the World cup and never forgive himself. Become like an English football legend who despises every aspect of his legacy. That would be just brilliant.
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E
The Irish Jack Charlton.
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D
Yeah. And he'd be trying to sabotage them, right? He'd pick this squad and he'd be desperately trying to sabotage them every single round. But we'd just keep going through and he'd be remembering as an English legend and it would just kill him.
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E
He takes off Kane and Bellingham and it works. Finally a brave England manager. Yeah, well, Ruben Loftus. Cheek said he completely forgot about playing for England and was just a fan during his near seven year absence from the national team. Last appearance for them came in a friendly against the United States in November 2018. Was part of the World cup squad in Russia in 2018. He played 28 times for AC Milan last season. Has started this season with well, Autumn says not a question, but I quite enjoyed listening to Barry and Sanny feel so strongly that Mark Gay would be happy to stay with Crystal palace that Max began to doubt himself even as the lead story on the Guardian website while I was listening was about how furious Mark Gay was about staying in London, believed to be left bitterly disappointed by the U turn, palace had already signed off on a farewell video that ends with the words thank you, Skip. Private jet had been lined up to take him to Merseyside that evening. The Daily Mail reports that Steve Parish went to a fitness class at some point during the day and then showed a picture of Steve Parrish, who looks pretty ripped, it's got to be said. And yes, he was unhappy, Barry evidently so.
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F
But I still think he's in an okay position. And when you're comparing his professional behavior to that of Wissa and Isaac, you're comparing apples and oranges because he only has a year left on his contract. But yeah, if he's angry, he's angry. Fair enough. I, I didn't think he would be, but I don't know Mark Gay, so I was surmising.
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E
Yeah, no, fair enough. Jed Spence Interesting call up. Jonathan Said to be on the first Muslim to play for England. Tends to be a right back but has played a lot of left back for Tottenham and has been good there and I was left back. Barry mentioned Livermento. There's Miles Lewiskelly as well, but it's not a, it's not a guaranteed position like he could if he plays well, has a good season, he could, he could be the left back as the when the World cup start.
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A
Yeah, I'd be surprised if he's the starting left back in the World cup or if he starts at all in the World cup. To be honest. I still think this is an experimental phase for Tuchel in certain positions. Spencer's had a really good form and obviously his story in general is kind of like an underdog tale, isn't it? Is sort of portrayed as constantly being rejected and then constantly coming back. There was the sort of Neil Warnock spat, wasn't there? The, the cheers Neil and Cigar when he was at Nottingham Forest and, And obviously there's been so many loan spells he's had and he's had to sort of fight back and maybe he's been typecast a little bit as a, you know, maybe as a personality that maybe rubs up some managers the wrong way or some fans the wrong way, which is either through no fault of his own or, or there's some reason for it. But there's one thing you can't deny. He's. He's been an excellent form for the last of 18 months or so. He is a very good player and quite versatile. I think it's. Again, like I say, I think this is a squad where it's funny, isn't it Max? Like looking back the Senegal game and you know, like you said, life has kind of got in the way and there's so much football that you can almost forget that Senegal match and the kind of the. For all around it after the, after that game really with Tuchel, the comments about Bellingham and finding him. His mother finding him repulsive, which he's obviously subsequently said that he. He apologized for and, and. And was mis. Mistranslation, you know, when the squad was announced recently. So there is quite a lot of sort of discontent going on and, and I, I wonder if kind of the shaking up of the squad is. Is partly as well an antidote to that and maybe a little bit of dissatisfaction from Tuchel about some of the players maybe maybe trying to shake up the status quo a little bit with players like Spence. So we'll see how that works out. I wouldn't expect him to. To be in. In the final squad, to be honest, but if he. If he gets to play some minutes and plays well, then he's got every chance. I think Louis Kelly might be more favorite for that position if it was push came to shove. But Lewis Kelly has barely played many minutes this season. So again, I think it will come down to kind of who's. Who's. Who's actually playing.
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E
I have no further thoughts on England. Unless Paul, you have something on. Something more on someone an Andorran to look out for or a bit more on Serbia.
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D
I was going to give a little note on Serbia, so it's interesting we're coming into this game looking from the English perspective, there's quite a lot of discontent. There's huge discontent at Dragon Stoikovic in Serbia. So, like, he is becoming increasingly unpopular with his selections. There's a sense he's got a very stagnant squad. He's not experimenting and the results have been fine. But kind of the, the word in, in a lot of the press is like, why do you think you can beat England if you're not willing to take any risks? And I think there's a sense of disappointment. There's also a really interesting side note. They've moved the game. I don't know if you saw this. They moved it. It was going to be played in a really tiny little stadium. I'm not sure why, but it was going to be played in, I think, Leskovac. It's this like 8,000 seater stadium. They moved it over to Red Stars Stadium in Belgrade, known as the Maracana. So it's going to have this incredibly, like, you know, fevered atmosphere at the game now, whereas it wasn't before. So this game setting up, I think, on both sides as being quite an important match, as you say, with Tuco under pressure, Stoikovic under pressure.
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F
On the subject of matches being moved, max, the England game is at Villa park because Coldplay have first dibs on Wembley. I'm just wondering on which event or which stadium your attention will be focused this Saturday.
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E
That's a good question. I. I will probably be watching the football. I don't believe the Coldplay game game is live streamed.
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F
Oh, I thought you might be going to it. The Coldplay game.
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E
Can I get. If I could get a ticket for Mrs. Rushton Saturday. I mean, it's tricky with childcare. That's all I'm thinking. Can. Could Jamie take a baby?
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F
I'd babysit for you. I'm.
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E
I'm free. He's still breastfeeding. Is that an issue?
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F
Okay. I mean, I have breasts. I'm not sure they're.
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E
Wow.
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D
Wow.
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F
Fit for that purpose.
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E
Trying to imagine young Willie Rushton's disappointment. Disappointed face when he latches. How's the latch? How's your latch? Blimey. Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two, we'll do the rest of the home nations.
- [18:20]
B
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- [19:03]
E
Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So, just a week to go until our live show at the Troxy in London. Me, Barry, Jonathan Wilson, Nikki Bandini, Johnny Liu. We have a week to fill the top tier. Barry, that's a thousand tickets. We have tens of thousands of listeners in London, so the journey starts here. Can we convince those lazy bastards who haven't bought a ticket yet to fill that? Imagine if we fill it now, it.
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F
Would be quite the triumph, Max. Yeah, look, we've peddled the line that they owes. They don't seem to have listened. I'm not sure what else we can do.
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E
Yeah, but just think of the triumphant top tier. You could be the top tier. Can we just be clear that filling the bottom tier is a big. That is a big show. It doesn't sound like there's three people coming. It's a big venue. Arguably it's too big for us, but we've got it now and so let's fill the damn thing. Theguardian.com is being aggressive the right way to Coldplay? Is this how Coldplay sell the top tier at Wembley?
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F
No, I think Coldplay said being incredibly popular and very good at what they do.
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E
God damn it. Well, we don't have time for either of those two things. Theguardian.com FootballWeeklyLive Be a hero and bring 999 friends with you for the top tier. We're also going to live stream the show around the world. So, yeah, same link. Theguardian.com FootballWeeklyLive you've cast your eyes amongst the home nations, Barry, where would you like to take us first?
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F
Well, I suppose by the time most people are listening to this, Wales will probably have played against Kazakhstan away in astana. That's a 3pm kickoff, British time today, Thursday. I think it's a must not lose game and it could be a must win game for Wales. And they should win. They beat Kazakhstan in Cardiff. Obviously they've had to travel a very long way for this. They're bringing 1100 fans with them, which I think is fantastic. One fan in particular who was mentioned in the. The subject of a Ben Fisher article in the Guardian.
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E
So good, isn't it?
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F
John McAllister from Barry in Wales, South Wales. He's made his way there. He wanted to make his way there entirely over land, but he had to take one little flight just for, I think, security reasons or something. But he's had a whale of a time on various trains and buses. He went to the stag do, some Irish bloke he'd never met before. He went to a heavy metal concert. He's been to, I think 11 different football matches. Craig Bellamy heard his story and I think he's going to do his damnedest to arrange for, for John to meet the Wales squad and give him some VIP treatment. And yeah, it's a lovely story and fair play to him, he'll be a legend among the bucket hat wearing Wales fans who've all converged in Astana. My only concern for Wales here would be that they have a lot of injuries. Joe Roden's out, Danny Ward, Ethan Ampadu, Connor Roberts, Aaron Ramsey. Do you know where Aaron Ramsey plays these days, Max?
- [22:16]
E
Yes, Mexico.
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F
Correct. And, but yeah, I would expect Wales to win this game. It's on also on a artificial pitch which Bellamy isn't too happy about, but he's, he's not unlike Bellamy the player. Bellamy the manager, just gets on with it and doesn't moan a lot before you carry on.
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E
Paul has stuff on Kazakhstan, so let's, let's hear that.
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D
We actually had John McCallister on the sweeper podcast this week, so we've just been chatting to him. One of my favorite things is he went to a Kazakhstan second division match apparently, and people could not get their heads around what he was doing there. I think he tried to explain it and, you know, it was just like, why would you do this to yourself? Basically was the message, why would you come to this match? But the other thing is he's a Celtic fan, so he just happened to be there in time for Celtics Champions League match, which obviously when he left that wasn't even, you know, on his radar because they hadn't drawn, you know, the draw hadn't been done. So he's already lost one heartbreaking game in Astana. So I'm hoping in Almaty. Sorry. So I'm hoping he'll, he'll get his result this time. But yeah, I mean, on Kazakhstan, they, they're not in good form. They've not been good. They had this amazing run. They reached the Euro 2024 qualification playoffs. They lost pretty heavily to Greece, but they really did look decent and it was a, it was a big moment for football in Kazakhstan. They, they've really died off a little since. So Wales are meeting them at a pretty good time. They lost to North Macedonia, thrashed by Belarus in a friendly. The guy to watch out for probably will be on the bench, I'd say from the start is Dastan Sapaev, who was the youngest ever Champions league goalscorer at 16 years, 10 months and has already signed for Chelsea. He'll be there from August 2026, which I hadn't really thought about that, that people can sign for a club like starting in a year's time. But he's a really decent player.
- [24:11]
E
He's having a gap year, he's deferred his place and now he's gonna go back. Now he's going backpacking.
- [24:15]
D
Just packing.
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C
Yeah.
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D
He'll be in a grotty hostel before long. Yeah, so he's decent. And Islam Chestnikov, who I think is on his way to Hearts, he's got something like a pre contract agreement which I don't fully understand what that is, but I think his club are trying to stop him going, his club in Kazakhstan because they really like him. So Islam Chesnikovs are dangerous, this kind of wide man who you want to be careful of. But generally speaking, Kazakhstan are not on good form and for John's sake I really hope Wales can can get him a result.
- [24:43]
E
Baz. Northern Ireland, they kick off their qualifying against Luxembourg today.
- [24:50]
F
Yeah, they start their campaign with two way matches, Luxembourg today and Germany on Sunday. Obviously that's going to be a toughie for them. Germany. I know Philippe likes to big up Luxembourg at times. This is Northern Ireland's first qualifier for two years and it's Michael o' Neill's fifth qualifying campaign across two stints as their head coach. I'd say they're cautiously optimistic of Nick. In second place in the group, it's Germany, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland. They've lost a lot of old senior players. Stephen Davis has finally retired after winning 579 caps for Northern Ireland. But they've got some really exciting young players in, some of whom play for Sunderland. Connor Bradley's in, Isaac Price, Trey Hume, Shea Charles Shay Charles's brother Pierce is the Northern Ireland goalkeeper. But I think he has to sit these ones out with an injury. Sunderland's Dan Ballard is out as well with an injury, but I would imagine if they take three points from these two games against Luxembourg in Germany, they'll be, they'll be happy enough.
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E
The 579 appearances you said for Stephen Davis was actually a good joke because for a second I was like, he can't have played 507, although he might have actually played. I think it's 140. I just checked. What do you got on Luxembourg, Paul?
- [26:18]
D
It's the end of an era or the start of a new era for Luxembourg. So they had. Luke Holtz was their coach for 15 years. I'm pretty sure he was the second longest serving because I think the other guy is Andorra's coach, Caldo Alvarez, who's still there, who's been in since 2010. But Luke Holtz has basically been Luxembourg boss forever. Like, he's a really divisive figure. Some people really like him, some people don't. And part of the root of that is he nearly got Luxembourg to the Euro playoffs. So that was like, amazing achievement for a nation that used to be sort of lumped in with Lichtenstein and, you know, they were the whipping boys. But he also was heavily criticized for the fact he kept picking Jason Rodriguez, who was their star player. But during that time, he was charged with, convicted of and lost his appeal against a domestic violence conviction. So people in Luxembourg really didn't like that. He kept picking him and it caused this. This real kind of strain between him and the fans. There were a lot of protests. So Holtz is gone now. He was supposed to step down at the end of the year. He actually got another job and just left immediately. So this is the start of the Jeff Strasser era with Luxembourg.
- [27:24]
E
Ah, right. Do we know anything about Jeff Strasser?
- [27:28]
D
Yeah, I sure. Come on. Jeff Strasser.
- [27:30]
C
Fifth.
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D
Fifth all time in caps for Luxembourg. Just Strasser.
- [27:33]
E
Right, the fifth. Sorry. My knowledge of Luxembourg record appearances goes down to four.
- [27:38]
D
Oh, there you go.
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E
And then I'm out. You'd be so good on Pointless Paul, wouldn't I? And the category is internationals for Luxembourg. Be like, okay.
- [27:48]
D
People say I'm pointless a lot. A lot. I think I'm getting this worrying feeling I do too much of the sweeper. I do too much like obscure football world. Because I do get that look from people quite frequently where I say something and they look at me completely blankly and I think I'm the one in the wrong.
- [28:01]
E
Yeah, no, no, look, it's niche that we are delighted that you have Barry, Scotland and the Republic. I'm big few days for Scotland. They start their campaign with Denmark away on Friday and then Belarus away on Monday.
- [28:12]
F
That's correct. Look at Scotland squad. They're light in some areas and very strong in others. Of their eight midfielders in the Scottish squad, four of them play in Serie A. McTominay, Lenin, Miller at Udinese, Loose Ferguson at Bologna. Billy gilmore, obviously with McTominay at Napoli. I think one of the heartwarming stories about their squad is Aaron Hickey from Brentford's back after two years, more or less sidelined with various hamstring issues. So he will be managed very carefully, according Steve Clark. But I read an interview with him and he's just so happy to be back in a Scotland setup. Hickey, I think they have a good use of. Good use of blend and experience.
- [28:59]
E
Yeah, lovely.
- [29:01]
F
And obviously they're trying to qualify for their first World cup since 1998. They're in a group with Denmark, Greece, Belarus. You've got to give them a chance. That looks pretty open, I would say. I don't know how strong Denmark are, but that. That looks a kind draw for them. And then the Republic of Ireland. They're in a group of Portugal, Hungary and Armenia. You guess everyone's playing for second place behind Portugal. And Ireland start with a home match against Hungary on Saturday. I would probably bite your arm off for a point at this stage. And then away at Armenia on Tuesday, which is the kind of game I would expect him to struggle in. Hungary obviously have Milos Kirkus, Dominic Sabazlai, West Brom's Callum Styles and agent Robbie Keane, who's currently the manager of Ferench Varos, apparently has been on the blower to Ireland. Assistant manager John o' Shea giving him little pointers as to, you know, where Hungary's strengths and weaknesses may lie. And Hungarian football Victor Olborn obviously has pumped a load of money into it. Marcus Rossi, this Italian has been in charge for almost a decade, I think, if not longer. And so they. They have some good players coming through. It should be a shootout between Hungary and Ireland to finish second behind Portugal. Ireland's last game is away at Hungary, so, yeah, I think a draw on Saturday would be satisfactory. The worry with Ireland is in their last four campaigns, so I think it's a World cup of euros and two nations leagues. They've lost their opening two games in all of them. And, yeah, so it's. It's time to shit or get off the pot, lads.
- [30:55]
E
Jonathan, you got any. Any fixtures piqued your interest?
- [30:59]
A
If we. If we head over to Africa, then I think there's a lot of exciting fixtures coming up. I think the big. There's quite a few taking place maybe by the time listeners have listened to this podcast, but I think the main one probably might be in Nigeria, Rwanda. So, of course, with the Expanded World cup. Thanks to FIFA's changes, there'll be nine African teams in the World cup next year as opposed to the usual five. So there are six places for automatic and then there's a, there's a playoff and I think the biggest game really is Nigeria, Rwanda. Because Nigeria are struggling for qualification at the moment. They kind of, you know, one of the African teams who's qualified the most, I think they've qualified six times for previous World Cups but they are fourth in the group currently in the six team group, sorry. And they are six points behind South Africa and one point behind Rwanda for the, the second round sort of playoff place. So there's a, it's a big game for them. They did win the, the first meeting between the two sides but it's obviously a must win game because if Nigeria were to lose or to even maybe a draw then the automatic spot will definitely be probably out of their reach. And if they were to lose, of course then even the second round place would be. There'd be four points off it. So that, that's quite a big one in the continent there. Notably for Nigeria, obviously it's a squad that's stacked with options really. There's so many good players. Victor Osimhen is the sort of main man up front but they also have call ups for Atolu Arokadare who's recently just signed for Wolves and also Chris Anta such a, who's recently just signed for Crystal palace in the last week or so. So some new Premier League names to sort of keep, keep an eye on potentially. But and of course there's many other players like Adamona Lookman and many others who many will know from, from the Premier League. So it's a big game. Rwanda have been in sort of, you know, having a decent run. They've won a couple of games and obviously they've never qualified for the World Cup. I don't think so. It would be a massive achievement were there to, to do it. South Africa look like they will win that, win that group and progress automatically but of course that's that, that that's runners up spot is, is up for grabs. The other I think big game would it be Senegal against Sudan? Senegal have kind of been struggling again. They're sort of second place, they're one point behind Democratic Republic of Congo. So it's not a huge gap to make up there. They could still, they've still got time to make that up and maybe qualify automatically. But the game against Sudan, of course if they're both level on point. So if they were to lose that game then it might make things a little bit more tricky for, for Senegal. Notably for Senegal, Sadio Mane was left out of the recent squad and that caused a huge sort of brouhaha so to, so to speak back home in, in Senegal and, and he's been called back up again to the squad now. So that's an opportunity for him to sort of show his leadership and, and obviously a legendary figure for all his achievements with Senegal and, and his achievements of course Liverpool and so he's got a, a lot on the shoulders in this game. Sudan have been having a fairly good run so far but yeah, I think those are the sort of two standout games. A lot of it has gone in the way of teams that you'd expect. So if you look at the top of the groups at the moment, you've got Egypt there who look fairly comfortable. It looks like they will qualify. You've got the Ar. Congo as I mentioned, South Africa, Cape Verde are top of their group in Group D. Cameroon of course the the team that's qualified most for, for World Cups in Africa. They're in second place but both of them have a little bit of a padding gap between them and Libya in third. So it looks as if it will be one of those two, Cape Verde and Cameroon and one potentially progress to the, to the playoffs where there'll be quite strong favorites. Morocco are clearly top of their group. Tanzania could be an outside one for the, for the second round sort of playoff spot. That could be quite interesting if they were to sort of progress. Gabon look like okay and Ivory Coaster Cote d' Ivoire second place. So things are kind of largely going as you'd maybe expect in an African qualification. But I think that Nigeria game Rwanda's opportunities potentially and then if you look at some of the other runners up spots, I mean Algeria top in Group G. Tunisia are topping Group 8, so Ghana are topping in Group I. So you know they're really expected to go through. But Comoros, Namibia and Mozambique currently hold the advantages in those other groups and they might maybe also make playoffs. So there's the chance for maybe one or two outsiders to be in the next World cup from the African region. But I would say yeah, it's a big, big weekend for Senegal and Nigeria in terms of being favorites and really expected to go through and they need to pick up some results.
- [35:24]
E
Anything you want to add to that which is very comprehensive run through Paul?
- [35:29]
D
Well, Cape Verde, yeah, definitely one that on like my radar because you know they are looking for their first World Cup. One of the smallest nations in Africa by population as well. I think it's the third smallest nation. So their rise has been incredible. They've got two really interesting matches. They've got the longest away trip of African football there against Mauritius because you obviously got Mauritius all the way off the other side where in the reverse of this, when Mauritius came to them, the inevitable happened and Mauritius came all the way over. I think it's something like 10,000km and then let in an 84th minute goal and went home. But yeah, Cape Verde playing Cameroon in the big one, that's the other, that's the really big one. And the Cameroon thing, the thing that I find just incredible is the chaos that Cameroon are constantly in. It's like they're trying to undermine a nation of talented footballers at every stage. And the latest thing is Mark Breeze, this coach they've got in, his story is incredible in that he was appointed by the Sports Ministry rather than the Federation. The federation statement was we were astonished. We saw his appointment with great astonishment, which is not what you want to hear when you're appointed. And ever since the federation had been trying to get rid of him to the point where quite recently there was a big sort of news headline saying he had resigned Breece because of lack of payment of wages. Breece then said, no, I didn't resign. This is a fake resignation letter that the Federation have faked in my name. And he's hanging on in there as far as I can see. He's still there, he's still coaching this team and the federation can't shake him. But it's typical Cameroon. You couldn't have a more talented nation let down by its off the field nonsense, really.
- [37:02]
E
Paul, you said just before recording, do you want me to do Bermuda, Jamaica? To which I said, of course I do.
- [37:08]
D
Yeah. Well, I've loved watching Bermuda on this qualification campaign. They've got through to the final stage of qualification for the first time. So the way that is, it's three groups of four. The three group winners go to the World Cup. The two best runners up go in the intercontinental playoffs. The group they're in is Bermuda, Curacao, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. And so their next game is against Jamaica. It's a real like, you know, David Goliath struggle because Jamaica, with Steve McLaren at the helm, quite, you know, relatively starry squad for that part of the world. Bermuda's squad are primarily in the English non league. There are some home based players. They've Just called Naki Wells back. And as a, as a Christopher fan, I have a lot of affection for Naki Wells, but he's their kind of big star. But the pressure is really on Steve McLaren. He's not at a good time, particularly with Jamaica. They had a dreadful Gold Cup. They only beat the British Virgin Islands, who are one of the lowest ranked nations in the entire FIFA rankings. 1 nil in the British Virgin Islands. He had a dreadful day there, so there's a lot of pressure on him, but there's also a lot of pressure on another team in their group. Dwight York is the coach of Trinidad and Tobago and he's having a bad time. So it's going to be a massive game when Dwight York comes up against Steve McLaren. That's going to be a huge one.
- [38:19]
A
Paul, can I just quickly ask, how's Steve McLaren's Jamaican accent?
- [38:24]
D
I think part of the terms of his contract is he doesn't do it anymore.
- [38:27]
E
Right.
- [38:27]
D
Do you see? Because he did do a social media piece where he did it and actually, to be fair to him, like, I think everyone enjoyed it. It was a lot. It was kind of a fun thing to do, but I loved it. Yeah. As soon as he. As soon as he took that job on, I thought, oh, wow, it's a brave one. And also, at least it's somewhere he doesn't need an umbrella very often.
- [38:44]
E
That is true. Yeah. Well, I won't. I won't end part two in my patois. It doesn't seem appropriate. So that'll do for part two, Part three. Susie Rapp will join us and we'll look ahead to the wsl.
- [39:01]
B
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- [39:44]
E
Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. Let's bring in the Guardians, women's football correspondent and regular on the Guardian Women's Football Weekly podcast, which you must download and subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Susie Rack. Hey, Susie.
- [39:57]
C
Hey.
- [39:57]
D
Hey.
- [39:57]
C
How are you doing?
- [39:58]
E
Yeah, good. So look, WSL kicks off tomorrow night, Chelsea versus Manchester City. What is new? Because there was talk of no relegation from wsl. But that isn't the case. What's the new relegation format?
- [40:10]
C
Yeah, so it's weird because it's like an interim season while they expand the league. So essentially you've got two teams winning automatic promotion from the championship to the. I say the championship is now rebranded as WSL2 from WSL2 to the WSL. And then bottom of the WSL goes into a playoff against third in WSL 2 for on whether they remain in the league or whether a third WSL2 team comes up. So I mean, it's essentially scrapping relegation for one season in that the likelihood of bottom of the WSL not beating third in WSL2 is pretty slim. But it's only for one season and then it goes back to sort of a normal like one up, one down kind of situation. So it's tolerable. Who Harris obviously was outcry at the prospect of getting rid of promotion relegation for potentially four years, potentially forever, as was being floated beforehand. So not as bad as. But it's, you know, one season of flux and really good for Both teams in WSL2 which have been a little bit bottlenecked and also like teams below that in the Women's National League who get to come up and boost up WSL2 afterwards as well.
- [41:22]
E
Right. So it's a. I mean, it's a great year to be terrible then in the wsl. But also that game will be pretty intense when we get. I know there's a lot of football to get to at title races, etc, etc. But that will be enormous, that game.
- [41:38]
C
Yeah, it's one of the things that I think like during the various conversations WSL football having about like promotion and relegation and format and stuff, one of the things that was quite popular was the idea of having some kind of playoff system at some point. And I think this is a little bit of a test to see how well it does because I mean, whenever things go down to the wire, like at the end of last season, WSL2 went down to the final day and basically Birmingham and London City played each other on the last day of the. And the winner going up. So it did really well. It got a huge crowd. So I think it's a way of like spotlighting some of the championship teams as well. It's a good idea. I'd like to see some kind of version of it stay in some way. But I definitely want to avoid sort of an Americanized system where we have a league and then a playoff for a championship title. Or anything like that. I think that's, that would be a step too far. But I think playoffs at the bottom are always quite fun.
- [42:34]
E
Yeah. Minimum salaries for players in the top two tiers. So in WSL and WSL 2 being introduced for the first time this season. I mean this sounds like a good idea. Is it a good idea Susie?
- [42:45]
C
I mean. Yeah, a massively overdue idea.
- [42:48]
E
Okay, good.
- [42:50]
C
Because when that when the WSL was relaunched by the faa they bought in minimum standards for both the WSL and WSL2 at the time which then became the Championship has now been renamed back to its original name which is a funny little merry around rules. There were the WSL is full time professional and the WSL2 is part time professional. And the reality was is that wasn't really the case in that like the minimum requirements hours wise. I don't think any like trade union or company would consider the hours that were supposed to be full time or part time as like full time or part time jobs in that like it was like 8 hours contact time for WCL2 and like 16 for WSL1 and like so there was this sort of veneer of professionalism that wasn't actually very true. Whereas now it is being made true. And I would say about time. And it's good that WSL football have sort of taken this step to sort of cement it and put in rules that mean that they are gonna kind of have a minimum salary because there's been such a massive discrepancy between like the Arsenals, Chelsea Cities and say that the Leicesters, the Evertons, the Liverpools, like like the gap between the money earned by those players is so huge and barely livable on and. And a lot of these players are living on sort of one year contracts. You earning virtually nothing. You can't really settle anywhere. You can't start a family really because a. You can't afford to. You don't know where you're going to be moving to. So they're losing players all the time because people just can't do it. So it's a way of sort of making sure that people that want to play can play.
- [44:26]
E
We want a title race, Susie. Obviously Chelsea won the league. They keep winning the league. Arsenal did with the Champions League. I guess Manchester City have aspirations. Will there be a title race?
- [44:36]
C
Hope so. I really hope so. I mean I think there will in the, I mean the vibe around both City and Arsenal have been at both training grounds within the last few weeks and like the vibe is they want Chelsea's like, head on a plate. Like, no excuses they wanted. They both want to win the League. I mean, City were like, emphatic about it. I mean, I got an interview with Bunny Short that went up yesterday evening, and she basically says, we've got no excuses for not winning the League this year because we're through our injury problems. We've got no Champions League football. We're focused on the WSL game every single week. That's our focus. Like, we've got no excuses for not, like, winning the League. Two seasons ago. They lost it on goal difference to Chelsea. So, like, they feel like they're not far off. Off last season was a bit of a blip. All the million injuries they had and stuff Bunny Shore out for half the season herself. And then Arsenal obviously have got a bit of a psychological change since last season and since they've, you know, won Last one, the WSL, which wasn't in 2019, I want to say in that, obviously I've just won the Champions League, which is the, you know, Chelsea's like, golden goose. Like, they're desperate for that. So they have a new level of confidence of what they can achieve and what they can win, a feeling of winning. You know, they've got six England's European Champions as well, or five with Michelle Adjeman on loan. So, like, there is, I think, a. A real, like, psychological element that they've overcome in winning the Champions League and what it takes to. To be like a team that wins a big title. So I think they've both. There's both, like, positives for them. But Chelsea, Chelsea. And if they sign Alyssa Thompson today, she's on a plane from LA at the moment, despite Angel City and the League, the nwsl, not wanting her to leave and trying to sort of. Of hold up the deal or stop it from happening, even though it's going to be probably another world record broken, you know, if she arrives at Chelsea, then there's. There's no sign of them sort of stopping the. The flow of trophies that. That come their way every single season.
- [46:33]
F
Could I just be annoyingly pedantic and point out that the Champions League is more Chelsea's white whale than their golden goose?
- [46:43]
C
I mean, that makes a lot more sense, to be fair. As I was saying, golden goose. This isn't the right analogy to you, Goose.
- [46:50]
F
I hate myself for doing it, but I. I just can't help it.
- [46:55]
C
I run with it. I mean, Chelsea have more got the golden goose, haven't they? Laying a different trophy every season. But you know, yeah.
- [47:01]
E
Are you watching flight radar? So, so, so you think that will. That price tag will be more than the million that Arsenal spent on Olivia Smith?
- [47:09]
C
Oh, I think definitely. I don't think Angel City would let her go for anything other than a record fee. They don't want her to go. The League don't want her to go. Apparently intervened a little bit it because I don't like that all these star players are leaving for the wsl. You know, it undervalues their league significantly with, you know, players wanting to leave. But there's photos of her sat at LAX airport. Apparently she's on the, on the plane according to Tom's latest, latest tweeting. And yeah, there's still not agreement between the two teams, but she is on her way to kind of try and push it over the line basically. So it should happen, I think, and I think Chelsea need it to happen because Myra Ramirez got injured in a preseason friendly. Are a little. They're not really short because, you know, they have a really, really stacked squad but like in the terms of their stacked squad, they're slightly short. Sam Kerr's coming back, but, you know, it'll be the first time she's played in a couple of years, so they didn't necessarily need her, but with Myra Mira gone, they need her a little bit more.
- [48:06]
F
I very much like the idea of our own Tom Gary sitting at home studying flight scanner and passenger manifest random planes leaving the usa.
- [48:17]
C
I can totally believe that's happening right now.
- [48:20]
A
Susie, can I ask what, what's the, you know, you mentioned the sort of wage gap between the, the Arsenals and Cities and the, and the sort of Leicesters, as you put it. What is that kind of wage gap like, out of interest? Is it, is it quite well publicized, though?
- [48:31]
C
Not really. It's not really publicized much at all. Partly because clubs are so secretive in women's football, so they don't advertise transfer fees, generally speaking, and push back on any attempt to find out what transfer fees are really, really heavily. Even, you know, the big ones where they should be kind of celebrating them a little bit and they don't give out salary details. We, it's. We're basically kept in the dark on a lot of the contract lengths. Some of them don't even give out contract lengths, which I find bizarre. But yeah, so, you know, when you're looking at sort of top WSL players, they're in the hundreds of thousands a year. So the Sam Kerr, the Leah Williamsons, the Alessia Russos, etc Those kind of level of player they're on sort of like 3, 4, 5, sometimes even 600,000 a year. But then when you're looking at mid or bottom table players towards the bottle, they're, they're on sort of like between 30 and 60 grand a year at most. Like in WSL2, that's lower, quite significantly lower. So you're sort of basically got this massive two tier leak on your hands. I mean even within the top clubs, you know, there's a real scale there and like it's I think unhealthy within clubs to have that bigger gap between players. But then it's also really obviously really unhealthy across the league to have gaps that big.
- [49:45]
E
Cars about London City lionesses. Interesting because they're not affiliated to a men's team. What are the sort of pros and cons of that?
- [49:52]
C
Yeah, I mean I'm kind of really excited to see what they do this season because they are such like a complete unknown as to what's going to happen. They've signed, I think it's like, I think they're up to like 15 new players. There's rumors that they're going to have another couple more in today, so the turnover is really high. But yeah, I mean whilst they're independent of a men's team which gives them like a degree of freedom and a way to, you know, everything is focused on the women's team. Right. Like everything is being put around that to make it an elite environment. They're being paid well, they're getting the best resource. But that's because they've got a billionaire behind them, Michelle Kang. So and she like really, you know, has taken a bit of an ideological view to investment in women's sport, women's football, like she looked at her wealth and gone where can I put it? That is going to add value and where do I think that it will also in the long term make a return? But I don't, you know, initially I'm investing because I believe it should be invested in and she's done that with women's football and you know, this is her third club that she's, she's bought so she's got a lot of money behind her and like when you go down to the training ground is basically a building site. The pitches are perfect because they're the thing that they've worked on first but like there's buildings coming up going down. Like they're, it's just like construction everywhere because they're literally completely renovating it and, and, and turning it into a, like an elite environment and then they're like splashing the cash on players big time. So it's quite an exciting project from the point of view of the fact that we. It's unprecedented. We've never seen a team come up into WSL with like this level of investment and this caliber of player coming into a newly promoted side. So that's kind of like exciting because no one exactly really knows what's going to happen. But at the same time, I think it's like, it's not something that we're ever going to see replicated because I don't think we're ever going to see another Michelle Kang. I think she's quite a unique individual doing what she's doing. So I don't think it's like necessarily replicable by say, other championship clubs or whatever, but it's kind of fun.
- [51:55]
E
Thank you, Susie. Before we end, I just need to apologize to Bromley fans because on Tuesday's pod, I said that Ryan Loft had signed for Bromley, but he signed for Crawley. And so just imagine, I wonder how many extra season tickets would have been sold at Bromley with the exciting Ryan Loft news. And actually he's gone to Crawley, so you have my apologies. Barry, you look primed to comment.
- [52:20]
F
No, I just think weirdly when you said that, I thought you were wrong, but I wasn't confident enough to correct you like I was with Susie there. So back yourself, Barry.
- [52:33]
E
You need to back yourself.
- [52:34]
F
I need to back myself more.
- [52:35]
E
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that'll do for today. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Susie.
- [52:39]
C
Cheers.
- [52:40]
E
Thanks, Jonathan.
- [52:41]
A
Thank you, Max.
- [52:42]
E
Thank you, Paul.
- [52:43]
D
Thank you.
- [52:44]
E
Believe in yourself, Barry. Thank you.
- [52:45]
A
Thanks.
- [52:46]
E
Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray. Our executive producer is Neil McVeigh.
- [53:00]
C
This is the Guardian.