Gab & Juls Show: A Special Scotland Spectacle

22:52Julien Laurens:Again, he scored the goal on the penalty. You put in the quickest, it's only friendlies. but you believe that he's found his balance I want to see Chelsea though and to be fair I didn't think Mareska played him enough lately anyway before this international break he's going to play him even less given he started both games now yeah true although you think that maybe more than the Barcelona game that Chelsea will play next week in the Champions League at Stanford Bridge the game away at Burnley on this weekend is probably a good opportunity with Nato recovering from that kind of little groin injury that he had play Stevão the guy's on fire They didn't even travel that far.

23:27Julien Laurens:They played in London and in Lille. So they're literally next door to Cobham. So let's just give him a bit more game time, I think, because you're right. I think he's ready now. I know he's still very young and you have to be careful, sure. But I think he deserves to play a bit more than what he's done lately. I think the level he's on is just, he's way ahead of his development curve. But when I thought balance, I meant the 4-2-4. He's really doing this. Although the first half was very difficult against Tunisia. They were, Tunisia was a better team. So I was a little bit like, this might work in some games, sure.

24:00Julien Laurens:In other games, I'm not too sure. I'm not sure you can win a World Cup in a 4-4 formation. The packet, by the way, missing a penalty. Just pointing that out. After Gabriel and other Brazil defenders also go down, Gab, and Emilitao will miss the next two weeks with a groin injury. Not good news for Real Madrid. No, but it could have been worse. You're talking about groins. Dean Heysen is on his way back from injury. Of course, he missed this international break. David Alaba is supposedly fit, although I'm not sure what that means. So I think depending on the schedule, we may go back to seeing Mr.

24:33Schwamini at center back. Maybe. Which to be honest. We should be delighted. Well, look, if Kamavinga is fit, why not? Right? Depending who the opponent is.

24:40Julien Laurens:Yeah, he just doesn't like playing there. But yeah. He likes playing though, right? Yeah, true. He's better than not playing. You're right. That's true. They've done it just like we said they would. Curacao hold Jamaica to a draw and become the smallest country by population ever to qualify for a World Cup, while the reggae boys go to the playoffs as their coach, Steve McLaren, goes home. Yeah, he goes home because it's, I mean, they're in the playoffs, as you said, so they might still qualify Jamaica and we will see who they have in the intercontinental playoff. But if you're beaten by Kurosawa in terms of the rankings over the six games that they had, it's not acceptable.

25:17Can I say something now? I like Steve McLaren. I've met Steve McLaren. I think he's a good person. Yeah. I don't know if anybody advises him on how to present himself.

25:28He needs help. He knew he was going to get abuse, obviously, because Jamaica have to go to the playoffs. To resign on the spot when you know that there is a playoff coming up, and for better or worse, you need to at least have a discussion about it. Secondly, you can't come out and say, oh, I thought long and hard about this. when in fact you haven't, you just lost, because you wouldn't be resigning if you'd gone through. True, but they were poor. And also, he's reading a statement. So obviously, unless he's like the world's fastest typist, he had the statement prepared beforehand. It's just not a good look.

26:08Julien Laurens:Maybe he was going to quit anyway, even if they had qualified. Why? Because they haven't been good, and it's not a great achievement to qualify in that kind of group. And now you've been humiliated by Kurosawa, which is the story, by the way. not really Jamaica finishing second and going to the playoff because what Decai Vecca has done, we've explained it before, with obviously the whole history between the Netherlands and Caruso. There's a lot of players there like Obispo, for example, or the Bakunia brothers who have the two nationalities, who are Dutch from Caruso's descent and were obviously eligible to play for them.

26:45Julien Laurens:So this is great. But Decai Vecca has built this team, Patrick Clever, with the national team head coach before, similar pathway and reason, but he's really made that happen. It's an incredible story, really, that we should celebrate and let's hope they do well at the World Cup. Yeah, by the way, it's the same blueprint that Ireland used in the past. A lot of these countries do that. And also in CONCACAF, also a great story, Gabby. AIT beat Nicaragua 2-0 to also qualify for the World Cup. And again, similar pathway. They've got a lot of dual nationals in their team. Yeah, I think the wrinkle on this, though, is that Curaçao is a stable country, wealthy by the standards of the region.

27:26Haiti, of course, as everybody knows, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Equally, there's so much unrest there. They're not able to play their home games at home. Last night on the FC show, Alexis Nunes said that their coach, Sebastien Mignot, who's French or French adjacent, he's never even been to Haiti. No, he's never been, no. So to go through this, on top of that, they also had the hurricane as well, what, three, four weeks ago? I mean, this is a tremendous achievement any way you slice it. And like I said, Haiti had been to a World Cup before many, many years ago. And you talk about bringing a country together.

28:10They scored against Italy, actually. I think they took the lead against Italy in 1974. Italy, who were vice world champions back then. Back when we were good. But yeah, it's a tremendous story. Well done to everybody involved. Ready for another great tale? Yes, always. Iraq are also headed to the Inter-Confederation playoffs. Jules, they do it in the most dramatic way, with a penalty in the 17th minute of injury time against United Arab Emirates. Yeah, which I think they were against the odds

28:39Julien Laurens:because the UAE were the favorite going into this human-aware legs, really. And you're right, it's that late because VAR took a long time to award the penalty as well. Four minutes, but I mean, the penalty was awarded the 13th minute. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It was still long, you're right. It did feel kind of Fergie time. I don't know. Yeah, it felt like really long. But well done to them. I think it's amazing to be in the... to be at this stage in the playoffs considering where they're coming from obviously similar issues than some that we mentioned before with IET or where they play their game and many of these players also players of Iraqi descent maybe refugees who left during the war it's been very difficult yeah so they started really well the campaign the qualifier campaign and then had a proper dip in form and then back to to their best when they needed them most and now wait for the draw to the playoffs and they and the UAE might say they also had the screw job of those little three-team playoff tournaments.

29:37Yeah, yeah. Which Qatar and Saudi went through. Exactly.

29:40Julien Laurens:Ashraf Hakimi has won the African Ballon d 'Or on Wednesday night ahead of Mohamed Salah and Victor Ozyman. Gab, I know how much you like these awards, so I don't know why you give yourself these quickets. Because you can counter it. Look, no, the point, as I've said this before, is if African Ballon d 'Or voters think the way generic Ballon d 'Or voters think, then really only Hakimi could have won it because he won everything. Yeah. Except for the Club World Cup. But he won everything with his team and he had a starring role with his team. Yeah. How do you weigh this up versus Mohamed Salah and the season he had?

30:18Or I would say Victor Ossiman, but that's a bit of bias. But I think it's an interesting one. You take Salah, it depends on what benchmark you use. You take Salah out of Liverpool, Liverpool do not win the title last season, right? That's true. 100 % they don't. You take Ashraf Hakimi out of Paris Saint-Germain, maybe they don't win the Champions League. Yeah, I don't think they do. But they probably win Ligue 1. But he doesn't win it

30:41Julien Laurens:because he won the Ligue 1 title. He won it because he was a key part in the team that won the Champions League. And Mohamed Salah was a key part. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't think there's any debate here on who deserves it, who was the best African player last year. And by the way, PSG now holds three Ballon d 'Ors. African one, Asian one, with Kangin Lee and the main one. There you go. That's another trouble for you. My team. Sticking with Paris Saint-Germain, court proceedings are underway in a legal dispute between Kylian Mbappe and Paris Saint-Germain. Mbappe says Paris Saint-Germain owe him 263 million euros.

31:18That's right. Paris Saint-Germain say he owes them 240 million euros. That's right. Jules, actually, maybe I will. How about you take sides here and tell me who's right and who's wrong? Nobody's right. You'd be like Salah,

31:31Julien Laurens:but I knew you were going to do this. It looks, it's very simple, although it's also very complicated. But it seems that PSG believed there was an agreement between them and Mbappe that he would not live on a free, as a free agent at the end of his contract. But because he was out of contract, the only way that could happen if he was waiving off some of the bonuses, some of his wages, things like that. Mbappe said that that was never the case and that they owe him the wages that he didn't pay him, which is true. I think April, May, and June, plus some bonuses that he was entitled to get, which I completely understand.

32:07Julien Laurens:So it's his word against theirs. How does he get to $246 million? So they pumped up those numbers because... There's some other damages. Oh, yeah, for all the damages. Because I think the wages and everything and bonuses, when they didn't pay him, that's about$60 million. So where did the other$200 million come from? There's an$80 million bonus that they were supposed to give him, things like that so there's a lot of things uh bonuses for victories and you know the league and stuff like that so much the bonuses so it's a lot of things but yeah it's one of those they could probably just call it quits and think of each other some amounts of money thomas tuchel says he's going to visit tron alexander arnold in madrid gabby to explain what he needs to do to get back in the england team does that make sense to you it makes sense i mean i think i would go to Madrid to speak to somebody who's more important potentially to this England team, and that is Jude Bellingham, to make sure they're on the level, to make sure we don't have scenes like the other one.

33:05Like I said, Bellingham threw a strop when he was substituted. I don't know why Tuchel took him off with six minutes to go and put him in that position. But yes, Trent is a special type of right back. You need to accommodate the team with him. Right now, he's not playing that much around Madrid. So if he plays, he might get in the team. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

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34:49Julien Laurens:The clock was ticking. I think Gregory's goal is 78th minute. So it took them a while before leveling the score. As good as it would have been to have Bosnia in the World Cup straight away, directly without trying to go through the playoff like they will. And then Dzeko to play his last World Cup at 40. Because it would be the theme of this World Cup, right? Because Cristiano, probably Messi. Possibly Modric. Modric. Who we'll get to. Dzeko. There's probably a few more that we forget just like that on the top of our heads. So let's hope that Dzeko and Bosnia qualify just for everything that is given to football in general.

35:24Julien Laurens:But yeah, I think Osher deserved to be there and top their group, but that was not easy. Maybe Ilicic will come out of retirement for... Maybe, imagine. He is retiring. I don't know. That would be awesome. That would be what he's doing, yeah. How about another all-timer guy after Dzeko? Luka Modric comes off the bench. It's Croatia beat Montenegro 3-2. Are you feeling that kind of last dance vibes with him as well? Yeah, well, remember for a long time, we felt last dance vibes about the sort of the croatia group now i look around and it's modric and parasic if you want in the groups and then there's going to be a passage of the baton onto you know vardyol and sutric and these other guys right uh although slacko dalic is uh still there looking like slacko dalic um i it's i feel like i'm living in a stereotype but it is valid you don't write these people off these guys go into tournaments and they become dangerous, sometimes they stink but they can become dangerous at any time and yeah, Modric Modric is eternal if you couldn't see his face and all those lines on his face which remind you that he's 40 years old if you just saw him with like that little boy haircut that he has dancing around I mean I see a weekend with that with Milan you wouldn't think that the man's 40 years old shout out to the Czech Republic or Czechia as they like to be known.

36:46We already knew this was going to happen. They beat up Gibraltar 6-0. And welcome to the playoffs. Switzerland and Kosovo play out a 1-1 draw, which kind of suits both. Very much so. The Swiss, again, qualified directly for a major tournament.

37:00Julien Laurens:Kosovo, our playoff. Yeah, which is another great story because they might go through and qualify. And if they did, it would be an amazing achievement for them as well to add to the list of all those great countries and great stories that we mentioned before for Switzerland. You expected them to be there. I think the surprise is more how well Kosovo have played and how well they pushed them in a way before Murat Iakin, who, by the way, earlier in the qualifiers was not, was under a lot of pressure, I would say. They make it. Again, there's a good mix of the older generation, the Chaka and Rodriguez generation to the younger one, like Vargas who scored that goal.

37:36Julien Laurens:So I think Switzerland could be a very interesting proposition in that World Cup. Fun fact about Kosovo as well. there are some countries, including Spain, for example, that don't actually recognize Kosovo as a country for political reasons, but they recognize them obviously as a football nation. Argentina, I would need to play friendly against Australia in India. I bet you're very disappointed that it was postponed. Yeah, that's really what I wanted to do. I wanted Lionel Messi and all these guys to travel to Kerala to play in a friendly against Australia. I guess the AFA were promised money and that's why they're doing it.

38:12That's why they went to Angola. The organizers couldn't get their paperwork done in time. They said, oh, no, we'll play this in the next international break. Well, obviously Argentina don't have the playoffs. I haven't looked, but I'm assuming they already have matches scheduled for March. I don't know how many teams have. They need to cram a third one in, no? No, I don't know how many teams have. Maybe they were looking to see how things come out? Yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let me ask you this. So if you're Argentina, between a glamour-friendly against France, a World Cup rematch, for example, and going to play Australia in Kerala in March, what would you choose?

38:45Yes, it depends who offers the most money, I guess,

38:47Julien Laurens:if you're really the Argentine FA right now. All right, let's wrap qualifiers. Panama, no surprise, clinched their place in the World Cup with a 3-0 win over El Salvador. And shout out to Suriname, another Dutch adjacent country. Exactly. Inter-confederation playoff bound. Yeah, for them. Again, we know those teams that would play in that intercontinental playoff, which I guess a team like Bolivia is probably one of your other big names. Congo and Iraq are the two highly seeded, so they will go straight into the semifinals. Yeah. So it should be fun to watch, to be fair. New Caledonia is one. Obviously, New Caledonia is the one everybody wants to play.

39:31I'm assuming Congo is the one everybody wants to avoid even more than Iraq. Yeah, definitely.

39:37Julien Laurens:The USA destroyed Uruguay 5-1 in a friendly gab. Yet another win from Marcel Pochettino. I think this is, what, four in a row or five in a row now? Five in a row. Five in a row. But so why is it so grumpy? This is weird. Okay, sorry. So it's a friendly. And some people, especially in the U.S., because U.S. are only playing friendlies, they'd have so much importance to this. And so the five wins in a row is what it is. But you're still playing Uruguay. Maybe Uruguay not going full throttle, but it's still freaking Uruguay. It is. And it was a dominant performance. But it was a dominant performance in a game where Pochettino, for different reasons, a lot of his kind of big names didn't start.

40:19Yeah. Anthony Robinson, Weston McKinney, Tyler Adams, Christian Pulisic, of course. And so afterwards, he's asked about, this is so weird, he's asked about, oh, you know, what is it? I'm paraphrasing here, but he was asked about how his regulars were missing. And he's like, what is regulars? I don't understand. you tell me what is regulars i'm like bro you're being stupid you know exactly what he means you have war with the u.s media all the time like angry he makes some weird quip where he says like oh like he's like i'm not the janitor um do you want me to go to the dressing room and come back and we start over what's wrong with the question he's asking you yeah hey do you actually have a lot of depth on this team you know are some of the other players who might be you don't want to call them regulars, Poch, let's say the other players people have actually heard of, maybe their places aren't as secure.

41:11It's a legitimate question. And again, obviously his people come out and say, oh, well, no, there's a language barrier. Enough with the language barrier stuff. Between now his state in the US and the years he worked in England, at Southampton, at Spurs, and at Chelsea, what? Seven, eight years? He can't pretend he doesn't understand what people are saying.

41:33Julien Laurens:That's not that. So what is it? Is it just him being weird? No, I don't think it's him being weird. Is it like it's us against you and, you know, I'm at headlocks with you and war with you and I don't understand your position, that culture, football, that he repeats. Because when he talks about that football culture or soccer culture, he's also having a go at the way it's covered in the U.S., right? Right. The way they cover the U.S. men national team and all of this. So I think that's more his problem than anything else. but let's hope he's resolved between that. He needs everybody on board, everybody to be together for the U.S.

42:06Julien Laurens:to do well in their own World Cup in six-month time now. So the reason I don't understand the strategy, and look, the siege mentality, it's an easy way to do it. Nobody believes in you, but I do. Whatever, that's fine. It's a tactic that you can use, right? But he's not going to see these guys again, I think, until March, until the next international break. So for the next four months, the story is going to be Pochettino's press conference and these weird things. So rather than celebrating the fact that they played very, very well against Uruguay, Giorgio Anderra Scalita scored a wonderful goal at the beginning and then Uruguay kind of lose their marbles again and Bentancourt gets very predictably sent off.

42:46That's how he rolls. The story becomes, oh, who are the regulars? Who are not the regulars? Blah, blah, blah. Why is Pochettino weird? Why does he say weird things? I don't... How does this benefit him?

42:59Julien Laurens:Yeah, it's not helping him. That's for sure. That's for sure. More Kylian Mbappe. Oh, my boy. Now, he chose to go to Dubai and take a little break. Of course, he picked up an injury in France's first game. He went to some sponsor event with those giant hublot watches. And he went to some paddle event. We don't know if he played or not, but he was definitely there because there's a photo of him with paddle. I would assume he didn't play paddle. Well, he's injured, so... So I would assume he did not. Well, we hope so. Although he's injured. But French FA president, Philippe Diallo, had to come out and defend him from his critics.

43:37Isn't he just kind of making this thing even bigger?

43:39Julien Laurens:It's just another story that probably could have been avoided. He left the French squad once they qualified after the win against Ukraine. And the statement from French Federation was he's got a swollen ankle. The ankle is injured. He's been injured before. Maybe he shouldn't walk around on it. No, so he's going back to Madrid to have scans. Right. He never went back to Madrid. I mean, he went on Wednesday, but he went straight from Paris to Dubai. Didn't go for scans. Well, maybe he got it. You know what it is? You know, sometimes if you get a connecting flight, you get a cheaper deal. Oh, yeah.

44:12Maybe he got a deal on Emirates where... Paris, Madrid, Madrid. No, Paris, Dubai, Dubai, Madrid. Oh, yes. Right? Maybe he went to Madrid via Dubai because he got a cheaper deal. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Because he doesn't have that$263 million from Paris Saint-Germain yet.

44:32Julien Laurens:He does fly private jets. So I'm not sure what kind of cheaper deal he got through his private jet, the company that he hires the jets from. But I don't know. He doesn't even own his private jet. He's not like Cristiano. I might be wrong. I don't think so. Cristiano bought a new one recently, by the way. I'm pretty sure he does not own a private jet. I don't think. But it won't be too far. It will be soon. It could be soon. if Neymar, Neymar, Cristiano have won, Messi I suspect has won. I don't think, no Messi does not. No, Messi doesn't win. I mean, I guess you can always hire one. That's a lot of players who are not as rich as the name that we just mentioned.

45:06Julien Laurens:It's also, I'm embarrassed that I know far too much about this. Yes, very true. But yeah, for Kylian, you don't, you don't, it's not a good idea to own your own plane unless you're flying kind of the same routes over and over again. Right. And the reason for that is if you're kind of hopscotching around Europe. I can't wait for this. No, no. The reason is if you're hopscotching around Europe, you want a smaller plane because you have a lot more flexibility. It's a lot easier to get slots and stuff like that. If you're flying longer haul routes, even a luxury Gulfstream or something like that, it's not going to be the best ride in a smaller plane if you're flying long haul.

45:45So then you're going to need a bigger plane, which is less convenient for your short hop. So really you should own two planes, which Cristiano probably does. Probably does. But yeah, but why did Diallo make it worse by coming out and talking about it?

45:58Julien Laurens:No, no, he had to because people were starting to criticize the national team, the French Federation, Kylian. Why did he leave? Why did he leave? He left to go to Dubai. If he'd gone back to Madrid to have scans on his injured ankle. And then gone to Dubai, for example. Yeah, or something like that. But I don't know. It's another, I think it's a storm in the teacup personally, but a lot of people were not happy in France. All right. I guess he's got contracts and stuff which allow him to do this. He's not breaching his contract. Otherwise, we would have heard of him. No, no, no. It was released by the French Federation from the squads.

46:31Julien Laurens:It's just that there was clearly miscommunication somewhere or we were told one thing that didn't happen and another thing happened. But equally, Real Madrid would have a stipulation where players, if they're not with their national teams, they can just go off on holiday without the club's permission. So I'd love to know. No, they were off. So there was no training at Real Madrid until Thursday, until Wednesday where he didn't train, stayed in... But there's still limitations on what players are allowed to do even if training is off. Because Gonzalo Garcia, what does he do? He's not, he goes on holiday, right?

47:03Presumably.

47:04Julien Laurens:Yeah, he takes a few days off when you're off training when there's no training. So I don't think Real Madrid were... I don't think Real Madrid care about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he was more of a French... Kylian can do whatever he wants on his days off. So it's French people being mean to their big star. To our captain. Exactly. After eight years, Arsenal have officially announced that they're ending their sponsorship deal with the Rwanda Tourist Board under pressure from fans, Gab. Yeah, it's going to end in June 2026. There's obviously some very serious human rights concern. The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, is a massive Arsenal fan and clearly very popular in this country because he always wins elections with 95%, 98 % of the votes.

47:46There's also more seriously, more recently violence in the Congo with United Nations saying Rwanda are interfering. They're financing rebels and stuff like that. It's just not a good look. It's not a good look for anyone. I watched an NBA highlight. I forget the team, but there's NBA teams that have the sponsorship as well. And I think people should ask questions about where that money's coming from and how it's coming. Arsenal, but I assume this was written into their contract. They issued a statement where it almost seems as if it's not Arsenal who's ending it. It's Rwanda because it says the move reflects visit Rwanda's broader strategy to diversify its global sports partnerships and expand into new markets, blah, blah, blah.

48:30So it almost seems as if it's Rwanda who don't want this anymore. Allow me to be very skeptical about this. I think it's good. I think you need to listen to your fans and I'm glad I did. Let's stick with Arsenal, but go to the Women's Champions League. They need to come from behind, but get a 2-1 win over Real Madrid on a bitterly cold night, and yet you were there.

48:50Julien Laurens:I was there. Producer Freddy was there as well. And I thought the quality was good, decent. I like Real Madrid, although they come short in the big games. I mean, they heavily lost the Clasico last weekend, and then this, where they were 1-0 up. And looking decent, to be fair, but Alicia Russo, who wears? I mean, I don't know where Arsenal would be without her. We said that in the show where we talked about the Women's Champions League with Emily Keogh. And she scored two goals. Maybe the first one, there's a little push. But VAR looked at it and didn't interfere. The first one, by the way, the TV pictures were clear as mud.

49:27At least the highlights I saw, I couldn't. It was so far away. I couldn't tell. And I'm like, I hope that's not what the VAR is looking at.

49:33Julien Laurens:No, no, no. They had other angles and stuff. But yeah, it's a win that Arsenal needed badly. Obviously, they had only one win in three. before that, now with six points and two more games against Leuven and Twente, where you expect them to win both, it's looking much, much better for not just their qualifying, but maybe potentially even top four finish. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips? That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19 ,000 local agents, they help you find the coverage that fits your needs.

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51:20Julien Laurens:Wild stuff in terrain, Gab. You went to throw away a three-nil lead over O.L. Lyon and end up drawing 3-3, with Lyon scoring three times in the final half hour. That's right. And they could have scored the winner at the end. It was exciting. Like, Leon are a really, really good team. They had chances. They hit the woodwork early and so on. Everything worked out for Juve. Juve defended very well. And I think this is part of their growth process, learning how to manage and to see out a 3-0 lead. Now, unless you're Carlo Ancelotti, if you have a 3-0 lead and you don't win the game in Italian football, especially at home, you get sacked the next morning.

52:01This is not going to happen here. And I think that probably tells you, it's one of the differences, right? But it also tells you where Juventus are, I think, on their journey in women's football. They've invested a lot of money. Relative to other Italian clubs, they're still growing. And I think on the balance of the game, you know, Leona just substantially better. And by the way, made me a bit of credit for the comeback does actually go to John Texter because I'd forgotten this but this is not an entirely separate team he still owns 48 % or not he but no yeah Eagle Group so the no well actually not even that it's the OL group that owns and via Eagle Group he owns so he can take some credit I like to think that at halftime 3-0 down he made a phone call I think they put him on FaceTime And they said, do it.

52:57Win one for the Dexter. Exactly. Wolfsburg, meanwhile, demolish Manchester United 5-2 to stay right behind O.L., Jules.

53:05Julien Laurens:Yeah, I think it was a bit of a setback for United away in Germany. I don't think they saw this one coming. Arsenal didn't think there was going to be that much difference because United started well. They could have scored seven or eight. Yeah, it was open bar, really, for Wolfsburg, who are a good team, who are a good team. But United should have done better than that. again there's two more games to go so much bad defending and so many self inflicted mistakes at that level it's not acceptable it's a setback I think they can recover from it but that was a really bad defeat for them do you think maybe the problem here was that Rachel Brown was trying to talk to I wonder if Mike Skinner and it caused the glitch again What was it this time?

53:54Julien Laurens:What was the issue this time? Neymar's marketing company have bought the commercial rights to the Pelé brand for a reported$18 million. Gab, what does this mean? They have no idea. Neymar, this is the company that he owns together with his dad, Neymar Sr. And I guess it's the Pelé brand, so Pelé branded merchandise, memorabilia, stuff like that. But obviously Pelé, one of the goats, if not the goat. Yeah. But this isn't the Jordan brand. It's not a brand that's been... They must have done the math before, right? They would not spend that money if it was not profitable for them. Strange things happen sometimes due to ego, due to tax purposes.

54:40I don't know. I think it's a weird one. Almost as weird as this next one. So this story originated in Poland and was picked up in Spain. funny enough by the Madrid media shocker this one now the claim is that Barcelona asked Robert Lewandowski not to score in the final two games of the 2022-23 season which of course is the season when they won the title and they had already mathematically won the title but the story maintains that they played him and asked him not to score why Jules?

55:10Julien Laurens:yeah so there's a new book, it's a biography no autobiography but a biography on Robert Lewandowski I guess another one because there must have been some before where the writer of the biography says that to avoid paying a 2.5 million pound, a million euro, sorry, bonus to Bayern Munich, Barcelona... Which is part of the transfer fee. Part of the transfer fee that went... Which happens in the law of transfers, not just this one, but often you have bonuses and closes in the contract that say you have to pay an extra 2 million, 5 million, 10 million if somebody wins the Ballon d 'Or, score 25 goals in the league, this or that.

55:48Julien Laurens:And Lewandowski, according to the book, had reached already the 23 goals thresholds. Yeah. So if he was going over that, so one more goal scores, then Barcelona would have had to pay the 2.5 million euros to Bayern Munich of that bonus that they didn't have and they didn't want to pay. So they said to Lewandowski, listen, great, you can play, but please don't score in those two games, which is a bit weird. I give you that. But happens in a lot of cases, more than I think people expect. Did a player agrees to play and not to? So he played. To be fair, it would be fun to re-watch those two games and see if he has a chance.

56:24Julien Laurens:He gave an assist in one of the two games, didn't score, still finished top goal scorer with 23 goals, Benzema at 19 that season. And as you said, they'd won the league already. I don't believe this story for one minute for the simple reason is I cannot imagine. First of all, it conditions you as a player, as an athlete, especially as a center forward, to go out there and say, oh, I'm going to play, but I'm going to go out of my way not to score. Second of all, if this story comes out, which obviously is done now, but I'm sure Barcelona are going to deny it, if the story comes out, you are actually violating the integrity of the league.

57:01Absolutely, of the game, yeah. Again, I don't remember who those two games were against, but it could well be that they had things to play for as well. Definitely. It might seem plausible. What would have seemed more plausible to me is if they go to Lewandowski and say, listen, two and a half million is what we owe Bayern if you play these last two games of score. We don't really care about them. So how about you pick up a phantom injury, don't play, and maybe of that two and a half million, we'll give half of it to you because we'd rather give it to you than pay it all.

57:31Julien Laurens:You say we save ourselves some money. Yeah, I mean, remember when Atletico Madrid had Griezmann who could only play a certain amount of minutes and games. Otherwise, they would have had to pay Barca a bonus. Things like that happen. But in this case, in the Griezmann case, it hurts your team. Yeah, because that's your agreement. Not the league so much. Yes, exactly. Here, it affects the other teams. Yeah, absolutely. And in the Griezmann one, that's out in the public arena. Yeah, yeah. This just smells really, really fishy to me. And if this is proven, if Lewandowski comes out and says, yeah, this actually happened, I think they have to be very careful because there's other clubs that could file complaints here.

58:09Yeah.

58:10Julien Laurens:FIFA announced an expedited visa process for fans traveling to the 2026 World Cup. Gab, after Gianni Infantino visited the White House for the 10th millionth time with Cristiano, by the way, when the Saudis went over. That's right. Well, look, it was very fitting that he'd be there when Mohammed bin Salman. His friend as well. I mean, they were between friends. They're all buddies. this visa question is a big big question because obviously in Russia and Qatar if you bought a ticket to the World Cup no matter where you were from it acted like your visa subject to background checks and it was a big question given a lot of the political debate in the US about well wait what are we going to do here what if somebody buys a ticket to the World Cup and uses it as a way of them becoming an undocumented whatever staying over I think in the end this is a W for Infantino they will do background checks you have to have this guarantee it is a World Cup right they're going to have background checks to see if somebody has you know but they had background checks in Qatar and Russia as well so let's not pretend like it was an automatic thing so I think it's good news that this has come out and it's expedited so it's not the kind of thing where you know it goes into the bureaucrats and like oh yeah we'll let you know in November Jules at that same meeting US President Donald Trump reiterated that if he deems it necessary he will move games out of World Cup venues he did this in front of Johnny and so we assume Johnny's like haha yeah can we just stop with this please there are host cities there's no problems in those cities everything will be safe there will be no issues whatsoever it's not because they have a democrat governor or mayor or whatever you want to say, or communist or liberal, like you said about Seattle, that we should take away the World Cup games that they are having.

1:00:08We are six months before the World Cup,

1:00:11Julien Laurens:pretty much. We're mid-November, it's mid-June. So let's just keep the focus on organizing one of the best World Cups ever, make sure that everything goes well everywhere. It's quite exciting. Teams are qualifying. Fans are booking their flights, hoping to get tickets. We are booking all the stuff here at ESPN to cover it. It's the best way we can. Oh, everybody's getting excited. Don't throw me those things. It just, but this is an issue because I think he makes it an issue. Yeah. Look, more than one thing can be true. FIFA do not rule the world. And the host nation ultimately has to have the say over security.

1:00:50Nobody's taking this away. And it's the same thing in Russia, in Qatar. If there's a flood, if there's gang violence, whatever. if the Qatari authorities or the Russian authorities or the Brazilian authorities, whatever, and pass World Cups and said, hey, it's unsafe to play here. We're moving. They get to the side. It's their country. So nobody's taking that away. When you use it as a lever to go and, you know, suggest that you may punish people, that's not a bad look. And it embarrasses Johnny. That's simple as. But he puts himself in that position.

1:01:21Julien Laurens:Liverpool have reportedly pulled out of talks to acquire Getafe in Spain, though Michael Edwards the head of footballies. I think he's the chief football for Sergi's title. Maybe the... He sees that a multi-club strategy still makes sense for them. Yeah. I think when you're a numbers guy like Edwards is, then, you know, you love the fact, the flexibility that it gives you. Personally, you know my views of multi-club strategies, multi-club ownership. Very few cases where it actually works the way it should. There are some. Watford and Udinese, some people might even say Strasburg are better run than Chelsea.

1:01:56Yeah. For now that's working. Yeah. If you have really smart people doing it, and Edwards is obviously very, very smart, then maybe it'll work better. But Getafe, it was not a good fit. The culture of the team, the style of the team, really, really at odds with Liverpool. I mean, really at odds with Liverpool. On top of that, the asking price is supposedly$160 million. $160 million for what? For some concrete bowl on the outskirts of Madrid? with a few thousand people in it? No. You could have done a lot better than that. And if they do acquire a team and they've been linked with Malaga in the past, again, I don't think Malaga would have been the right fit either.

1:02:33They've been linked with Bordeaux back in the day when given Bordeaux's difficulties. But yeah, this isn't it. Some 30 ,000 gathered at Monjuic for a friendly match between Catalonia, representative team from Catalonia, and Palestine. Pep Guardiola had some powerful words.

1:02:51Julien Laurens:So yeah, really strong message for all the people from Palestine and from Gaza especially. It was the second game that was organized in Spain after the one in the Basque Country last week, a few days before. Not that the score in this kind of games matters so much, but Palestine scored a goal. They lost 2-1, but they scored a goal so their fans could celebrate. The atmosphere was obviously, I think, very special. There was a lot of tribute paid and a lot of emotions, I think, which is what those games are about. all the money raised obviously from the ticket sales to everything else is going straight to charity to help the people from over there.

1:03:28Julien Laurens:So I think it's a wonderful gesture that they've done in Spain the last two games. Pep Guardiola, some of the things he came out and he said if they felt very, very heartfelt, he says he knows people from all over the world, obviously Palestinians, Arabs, Jews, Israelis. And he says, you know, everybody's been touched and he can't and he hasn't met anybody who can defend kind of what happened uh it's rare to see a figure in sports who especially one who does not have a direct personal connection to the area as far as i know um come out and speak like this yeah cruziano ronaldo paid a visit to the white house where he met the u.s president and his son baron who is a big football fan gab the The president said that Barron being 6 '9 is probably too tall to turning pro as a footballer.

1:04:23Do you agree with that? I think, I mean, the quote was, my son is a very good athlete, but on the tall side for soccer. Yes, unless Barron was going to be a goalkeeper. I was actually thinking about this. He could be a goalkeeper. Well, 6 '9, I remember this guy, Kevin Francis, who played in the lower divisions, kind of like from a standstill. Like 6 '9, for those who don't know, I mean, that is like 208, 2 meters, 8 centimeters. How old is Barron? He's 19 or 20 now. He's at NYU. He's at university.

1:04:56You can't. He's right. There is a limit.

1:04:59Julien Laurens:Yeah, there is. And after a certain height, you either play center back or center forward, right? You can't really play anything else. He plays over the height of 2 meters. So what is that? 6? 6, 7. 6 '7", yeah. 6 '7", here you go. Well done, Gabi. It's really rare. I mean, Volta Madder, like, you know, those kind of guys. Peter Crouch. Peter Crouch, yeah. Lorenzo Luca. Yeah. But, like, there's a pattern. You're going center forward. Yeri Mina is also super tall. Yeah, super tall. But, yeah, it's rare. So basketball is probably better for him. The reason it's rare, just for those who don't know, right, is that at that height, you're not going to have the lateral mobility.

1:05:40Is that it?

1:05:40Julien Laurens:Yeah, the mobility, you're right. Even the technical ability is quite difficult. If you want to be a striker, usually the centre-backs, those big, tall guys, more than number nines, or wingers because you need the pace and you need to lose centre-gravity to be a good dribbler, which you can't be if you're 6 '9". Zlatan might have something to say about that, but then again, Zlatan's unique. Yeah, and he's not that tall even. If he was that tall, he would be even more powerful. And he would have been also a basketball champion and, you know, many other sports, I'm sure. Which he could have been anyway, of course, because he's Zlatan and you're not.

1:06:17Exactly. Jules, this brings us to an end, but we're going to come back on Monday because League Football is back. That's right. Derby de la Madonnina, North London Derby, and the reopening of the camp now as Tatek Bilbao come to pay Barcelona a visit. Until then, love the game, love your neighbor, love yourself.

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