Gab & Juls Show: Another World Cup disaster for Italy

24:30Julien Laurens:By the back door again, as we said, and I think there's a lot to say about that, the fact that they could not even win a single game in their qualifiers group, and yet through the League C of the Nations League, they managed to scrub in bed. They were very happy, Gjokoros, with that winner in the 80th minute or something to go through. I don't think Sweden are that great. And I know Isak is going to come back and probably will be at the World Cup and all of that. But they were not great. And to be fair, I thought Poland was probably the better team on the night there. No Lewandowski at the World Cup and probably never again at the World Cup.

25:02Julien Laurens:I don't think he'd be there in four years' time, which is sad, obviously. But yeah, well done to Graham Potter for turning things around, to be fair. Yeah, look, he took over a horrendous situation. He's got time to work a little bit. He has some talent. Again, Sweden are one team I would not sleep on at the World Cup. Yeah, that's true. Kerematukoglu scores the goal last time. Turkey on their way with a win away to Kosovo. Gab, another Italian for you to cheer on the World Cup, though. Exactly. I nicely hedged between him and that Carlo Ancelotti film. Maybe there'll be more Italian culture in the World Cup.

25:36Yeah, again, this is a trap game, right? Turkey, you know, Kosovo at home, nothing to lose. It's reminding me a little bit, actually, of the Italy game. Yeah, sure. Turkey's a more talented side, but you've got to push, you've got to push, you've got to find it. And then eventually, when Kosovo got it to 0-0 at halftime, you wonder, are Turkey going to crumble? Is Mokela going to glitch? And then eventually they get it done. I'm happy for Turkey. 24 years they've been waiting for another World Cup. And as we've said many times, last time they got to the semifinals. Czechia are through on penalties against Denmark after 2-2 draw in Prague Jules, I guess Czechia practiced their penalties unlike say Italy who got on penalties to Bosnia

26:20Julien Laurens:True, yeah, and Bosnia did as well because semi-final and final and that one on pens I mean terrible penalties from Hojland from Janssen for the Danes who, not just in this game but they were below par in this game because they considered poor goals despite probably being the better team on the night but even before that at the end of their qualifiers the way they lost to scotland obviously in that very famous game now but even before that the way they draw points against belarus it's unforgivable that they are not at the world cup so no holland no erickson no players like that is accent uh or hollberg it's uh it's sad for them as well uh and they only have themselves to blame really yeah it's it's a weird one because this is really a team that is a gifted team they they had a good structure yeah and then everything just fell apart from what from november onwards yeah um which is terrible yeah it's terrible for them are we gonna see a change coaching wife that's a good question i think so i think there's probably a few who will take the international uh they will retire international food from international football they it has to start with a new cycle they've good youngsters good young players to build on but that was a really really poor result in the end spain and egypt draw nil nil in their friendly in barcelona gabi on um tuesday night or wednesday night but the story here is the islamophobic abuse from some of their fans yeah so um so in terms of the team this was he he basically changed almost everybody uh except for except for lamin yamal which by the way through Barcelona you're thinking like seriously like really anyway that's not going to help so there's a song there's different iterations of it in every country which is you know like you're playing your competitor like I just sound really stupid when I say it but like if I were hypothetically an Eagles fan who were playing the hated Dallas Cowboys I jump up and down and say oh if you don't jump you're a Cowboys fan right that's totally fine it's childish whatever it would have been fine if they said if you don't jump your egyptian because that's the other team you can't say if you don't jump you're muslim yeah um because lamin yamal's muslim plenty of spaniards are muslim it's a loaded thing when you bring religion in there to me this is very very clear yeah uh it's discriminatory language again, religion, sexuality, territorial origin, race.

28:56These are all things which are explicitly banned. And I think they're going to come down very hard. And so they should. And I'm really happy too that La Minha Mal spoke out. He's 18 years old. He doesn't need to be the one just to speak out. You know, somebody had to. Roberto de Zerbe disperse his official jewels. We've talked about this. People are sick of this. But I did want to ask you something. It's a five-year deal. It is. There is no break clause for either side in case of relegation. This is what they say.

29:22Julien Laurens:Is that surprising to you by it? Yeah, I don't believe at all in no break clause, no release clause or things like that. I think they happen all the time now, especially with managers. I don't think so. I don't think if they go down that he would coach in a championship. Never in a million years. For me, he's not a championship coach anyway. He came up the hard way. He's coached in the lower leagues before. Now he's gone to a level where you don't coach in a championship if you're Roberto De Zerbi. So good luck to him. I think he will keep them up. I think he will improve them. He's a great coach.

29:55Julien Laurens:Great coach. Improved their teams that we sat down on the FC show on Tuesday as well. It'd be very interesting to see for such a dogmatic coach how pragmatic he will be because right now there's no time for him to put in place the Zerbi ball and that kind of very sophisticated, complex style of football. It's all about grinding out results, winning 1-0 or whatever, fighting. and that's not really what he does. So I can't wait to see first game away at Sunderland in 10 days. Yeah, and about that, on the show on Monday, I think I only gave Spurs a 5 % chance of going down. Yes, yes. And then I took another look, which I should have done before, at the schedule.

30:30I don't feel good about this at all because looking at the teams that they're playing and the conditions, right, Sunderland and Brighton, those are two teams that have something to play for at this stage. Wolves, this game could determine their relegation when they play them and that's away from home. Aston Villa away from home wanting to hang on to the Champions League places. Leeds that is a classic six-pointer. Second to last week of the season Chelsea who would love to relegate Spurs even more than they'd love to win the Champions League. And Everton to finish. And Everton to finish who might be in the running for Europa League spot.

31:06So it's really tough. It is tough.

31:09Julien Laurens:Chelsea talking about Chelsea gap they make history and not in a good way as they announce losses of 262.4 million pound gab how big problem is this i think it's a seriously massive problem um they were already under a settlement agreement with uefa um and where they've had to pay a record fine yeah and if they breach again then you know they get all further punishment it's like a suspended sentence essentially right it is the largest loss in premier league history by a lot i I think the previous biggest was Manchester City in 2011, 2012. When they first started spending like maniacs, that was like$100 million.

31:49They spent$65 million on agents alone. They're not going to be in trouble with PSR because you can sell your women's team to yourself for$200 million. But UEFA don't allow that. So I think when they qualify for Europe again, I don't see how they can do this unless they dismantle the team or come up with some other strategy. Their relationship with UEFA is very good. Maybe that helps a little bit. But numbers-wise, I think it's really difficult to get out of this.

32:19Julien Laurens:And it shows again that they need Champions League football and that money for next season. Absolutely. Not making it would be a disaster. By the way, winning the Club World Cup netted them£86 million, but one-third of that amount has been counted already in this year. So they've got a lot less of a cushion going into next year. If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple ShopPay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business.

32:56Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. From household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. Shopify gives you a leg up with hundreds of beautiful, ready-to-go templates to express your brand style and forget about the code. Tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more. Spread your brand's word with built-in marketing and email tools to find and keep new customers. And did I mention that iconic purple ShopPay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world? It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet.

33:34Your customers already love it. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash network. Go to shopify.com slash network, shopify.com slash network. I like things my way, my coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard Hytrulo Pre-Filled Syringe, which contains F-Gartigamide Alpha and Hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way.

34:16Visit VivGartMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com. And talk to your doctor about VivGart Hattrulo. Brought to you by Argenics. More Chelsea. Marco Correa had a few things to say, Jules. I put his quotes here. You can summarize.

34:33Julien Laurens:Yeah, he was not happy, not happy at all. I think he was very honest, which is great. I have to say, I'm not a Cucurea fan, and it looks funny. But as a person, I am a massive fan for the honesty and the kindness. I agree. And basically, he's saying just what we've been saying for a while now about this Chelsea project, the youth, signing young players. He said, you know, that's the club policy, and that's fine. But then it caused problems against us, against a PhD foundation. He said we need more experience and clearly we didn't have it. He also talked about Maresca and the sacking of Maresca, which clearly he thinks it was a mistake.

35:10Julien Laurens:He had a massive impact on us because he had given them confidence. They won the club World Cup, they had that momentum and they were ready to die for him and to get rid of him like they did was wrong. He said I would have never made that mistake. When a player said you should have never sacked the coach that you sacked to his club, it's not good. And we heard Enzo Fernandes saying that he's not sure if he was going to be there after the World Cup. This again, heavily criticism of the club and the project is not good. And he's not, when he said Manezka should not have been sacked, he made it very clear.

35:41It's not like he's saying, oh, we should have been sacked because Rosinior's a dope. But he said, because you're bringing in a manager, we're playing twice a week. He doesn't have time to work with us. You know, he said we were playing almost automatically. Rosinior changed the system, obviously, which may be the right thing to do tactically. again i don't know if my next guy would have been allowed to change the system um but then they have to learn this new system on the fly with very few training sessions the ar congo also qualified for

36:08Julien Laurens:the world cup but gabby's fair to say that this was tougher than expected against andre blake and jamaica andre blake only jesus saves more than andre blake uh he didn't get to uh uh to twanzabe's goal in uh to his finish in in extra time um 52 years since congo zaya at the time I've been waiting for this. And then everybody knows they lost 9-0 in 1974 and the guy running out of the wall and whatever. I'm happy for them. Obviously, I'm sad because I like my Nigeria, but whatever. I'll be curious to see what they did. Jamaica, though, were really impressive, given how bad they've been, that they could hang with Congo for so long.

36:50It gives you at least a little base to build on. Ayman Hussain's strike early in the second half means Iraq is the 48th and final country to qualify thanks to 2-1 win over Bolivia Jules.

37:02Julien Laurens:Behind they were the better team Gabi I thought they were even unlucky to go to 1-1 after they took the lead amazing well done to them considering the context situation how they prepared or had to prepare for this it's an amazing story to have Iraq and Iran at the World Cup really outstanding achievement from them and and how they can go and enjoy it and do as well as they can but that was uh that was a massive win for them well in shallah we'll have them at the world cup yeah brazil big croatia 3-1 in their friendly as you go tiago gets his first uh goal for brazil and andrew came on the back came off the bench sorry to get a penalty gap uh yeah like he mixed things up um what you need to do he's got 90 odd players on his list that he's monitoring uh and neymar is even one of them for now I thought I was impressed with Croatia actually with with the way they played there's no such thing as packing in friendly Brazil then the creation players all know they're going to the World Cup there's nothing yeah so it's a different vibe penalty Hendrick so smart hooking is hooking is never paying he won wins the pen that way I don't know I yeah dark cards, man.

38:15Julien Laurens:Yeah. Argentina, I rolled past Zambia 5-0 but Jules, and this kind of surprised me. Leonel, obviously we're used to Leonel missing a spotlight, right? But he was the whole effing show in this. He was like Rob Van Damme. It was very good. He scored a great goal. That 1-2 in the box. The pass. The pass for the third one. Yeah, the pass as well for the third one. The diagonal. Argentina won a penalty after his pass to Thiago Almada. And everybody expected him to take it, but he gave it to Otamendi, which was a lovely gesture. I mean, he scored. This was very likely. I mean, we don't know yet, but this could have been Messi's last ever game for Argentina in Argentina itself.

38:54Julien Laurens:So maybe potentially very emotional. I love the fact that they play rubbish teams always before World Cups, you know, Mauritania and Zambia in this international break. This wasn't by choice. They do that for a reason. But no, they finally... And Qatar, of course. Yeah, of course. Trincao and João Felix are on the score sheet for Portugal to beat the United States 2-0 back-to-back defense now for Poch and the US main national team. Yeah, again, this was a mixed-up Portugal team. Although, of course, Bruno Fernandes played because he always plays. He's the energizer bunny. I thought the US looked a lot better than they did against Belgium.

39:27Would have been hard to look worse. Freeze and goal made a huge stop. This gives you the base. And Pochettino has to make it work from here. Kaoru Mitoma scores the only goal As Japan beat England at Wembley In their friendly 1-0 Jules, plenty of changes for both teams And obviously you have the Let's get back to the league type vibe I think one conclusion is I'm not sure we're going to see that Phil Foden at centre-forward experiment again

39:57Julien Laurens:I don't even know why we saw Phil Foden As the force number 9 in this game anyway It made no sense whatsoever I'll tell you why I'm going to put on my Tommy T hat Yeah? Yeah, choose Field Folden is very talented. Yeah. I'm not going to bring him in number 10 because I have Balingham and Cole Palmer and Morgan Rodgers. And because he played there and badly against Chiroguerite as well. Yes. Thank you. You pay closer attention to Fredlis than I do. So, my backup center forwards are not good, or they're a big bag. Why not try him there? No, I understand. I understand that he wasn't to try, and he was testing it again and things like that.

40:34Julien Laurens:But Folden has a force now in Palmers. as a 10 was never going to work. I don't even know why he thought about doing it in a game like that against the Japan team that might probably be the best squad they've ever had. And I think they will be great at the World Cup as well. And I know you love them and you live there and you always cheer for them. But I was very impressed with Japan and so disappointing by England again. And I know it was a very mixed team, which by the way, also takes us back outside of this game to Thomas Tuchel and what he wanted to do in this international break. Every, especially amongst the big countries, in the two games that they played, the ones that were friendlies, at least one of them was the strongest team and then you make a lot of changes for the second team or you rotate and things like that.

41:20Julien Laurens:With him, the two teams were mismatched teams because he took 35. Some were not due before the second game, but then some of them were injured like Kane and Saka and Rice could not play. We didn't see Bellingham. He also managed to annoy Bellingham. Yeah, of course. Not for the first time, by the way. So now you ended up with two games, none of them that you won against Uruguay and Japan, two teams that go to the World Cup. And by the way, the three games that you played against teams that are going to the World Cup, if you include Senegal from before, you haven't won any. You have only beaten teams outside of the top 20 FIFA rankings.

41:53Julien Laurens:And we just don't know more about, you know, players and team and structure and shape and all of that because the two teams were a mishmash of the teams. You know what else we don't know? And I was having this conversation with Augie yesterday. So he comes out and he says Harry Maguire. He's a fifth choice, center back. Okay, so that means Gay, fine. Kansa, Chalaba. Those presumably are the first three choices. Yeah, Stones. Stones at number four. Stones was made of paper and his injury record, which means he said if Stones is fit, he's world class. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, sure. If Stones is fit, yeah.

42:33But I feel like this is kind of slightly an underreported story because I think if everybody's fit for Manchester United, Maguire doesn't start. If everybody's fit for City, well, Stones is obviously a massive fitness question. Frankly, if everybody's fit for City, I'm not sure Gay starts. You might want to go grudge y 'all. In fact, if Stones is then fit, you know, we've got Manchester Ruben Diaz. And as you can't, there's a team that's free-falling, right? So, like, I think this is a major Achilles heel for England. I don't know what he can do about it at this stage.

43:07Julien Laurens:Newcastle CEO David Hopkinson says that the club need to sell well, I quote, and buy well, another quote, this summer. Gab, what does that mean? And some are reading this as Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon are on their way out. Which is obviously not what any Newcastle fan wants to hear. the reality is their account showed that they registered 133.1 million pounds in profit by selling the leasehold of the stadium to a sister company that's not going to fly with UEFA Alan said Maximan when he was sold to Al-Ajli or transfer there for 23 million pounds but again UEFA it's the same ownership so that counts as zero profit it um i think this is i think he's being honest and sometimes it might not be what they want to hear it might not be smart to come out and say hey come and get to nanny and gordon but people are going to know when you're in this situation right absolutely um but you have to come up with a good because after selling isaac for so much money newcastle fans are going to be asking wait a minute now we're we have this champions league run and and stuff like how are we in this situation again where we have to dismantle the team and right we'll get this another time but there's a broader issue and i keep repeating this nobody seems to care there's weight classes in football there are clubs that are simply bigger and will consistently generate more revenue and the polarization and the imbalance of resources is bigger than it's ever been and it's so much harder for newcastle or newcastle or everton or aston villa wherever you want to ever close the gap.

44:46But it's not to do, oh, everything fans don't like. It's like, oh, no, we're a massive club. Yeah, historically, you're a massive club. Historically, you could be Liverpool's equals in the 1980s and whatever. But right now, the system is stacked against you. Yeah.

45:13Solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we could recommend a shop for you. Ask for O 'Reilly Veriscan today.

45:23Julien Laurens:Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts.

45:33In today's world, planning ahead isn't always top of mind, but not having life insurance can leave families facing difficult financial uncertainty during already emotional times. In many cases, loved ones are left managing expenses, debts, or long-term obligations without a clear plan in place. Life insurance is one of those ways to help provide financial security and support when it's needed most. That's where Ethos comes in. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. And it's 100 % online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and even get same-day coverage. There's no medical exam.

46:09You just answer a few simple health questions online, and coverage options are flexible, with up to$3 million available and some policies starting at around$30 a month. Ethos has also earned strong customer feedback with a 4.8 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot, based on more than 3 ,000 reviews. Help protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. Get your instant free quote at ethos.com slash sports. That's ethos.com slash sports. application times and rates may vary. Let's go to the Women's Champions League, Jules. Chelsea scored late to beat Arsenal, but it's not enough as Rene Slager's team advanced 3-2 on an aggregate.

46:51Sonia Bompastor's red card and that blatant hair pull on Alyssa Thompson by Katie McCabe are the big talking points.

46:58Julien Laurens:They're massive because the red card obviously comes after that. Sonia Bompastor really angry and also he happens just in front of the benches, so in front of her. I mean, even on television, you saw his straight away. There was VAR again, like last week in the first leg where Bonpastor and Chelsea were not happy again. Shall we name the VAR? I looked her up. Or is it mean because this poor woman probably doesn't... I think she doesn't know how it works. It's not possible. She's probably a referee who has not had much training on VAR because most leagues don't have VAR in the women's game. It's as simple as that.

47:28Her name is Katrin Rafalski. Live and learn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the referee and the linesman as well, and the fourth official, they're all standing there.

47:36Julien Laurens:100%. There's no way... Her head, your... It's so obvious. The fourth ref is right in front of it because she's obviously between the two benches. And it's a massive mistake that you could see why Chelsea are aggrieved. I don't know even if Mikekabe is sent off. It was an injury time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 85th minute, I think, or something like that. So I don't think it would have changed. Chelsea had chances to put more pressure on Arsenal. Arsenal had chances as well. I had a good goal ruled out, rightly so, for a tiny offside. So it was a good game. But if you're Chelsea over the two legs for what happened, referee-wise in the first leg and in the second leg, yeah, you feel harshly done.

48:12And I want to say the other thing that makes it so obvious is Katie McCabe... All right, so first of all, according to the rules, pure tactical foul. The other one, Alyssa Thompson's on a breakaway. It's a yellow card, right? But Katie McCabe knows she pulled her hair. Yeah, because she went straight in. Not just that, but she goes and apologizes several times after that. So you know she feels bad. And she knows how bad it is to pull her hair. Maybe she's had her hair pulled. Yeah, sure. what struck me about this too were two things one is and you watch a lot more women's football uh than i do but the level of what they call spit housery here and time wasting late in the game to preserve the lead you know taking the ball into the corner and just kind of standing there and like there's a level of physicality and intensity and dark arts you might say that that people often don't associate with the women's game.

49:07Certainly not in international football, which is what I watch the most when it comes to women. The other thing is, what's talking about Sonia Mampastor, she didn't get sent off. She was obviously angry over this. It seemed to me like she got sent off because the ball goes out of play and she runs onto the field. She tries to hand it over and stuff. She's shouting at the referee. And then she gets sent off, but she doesn't actually go down the tunnel.

49:30Julien Laurens:She waited the tunnel at Chelsea, as you know, obviously very well. is right by the benches so you can be in the tunnel and still be able to be close to the pitch. She does not look to me like somebody who is well right now, who is happy. She's under pressure and she knows it, obviously. Do you think she's going to be back next year? I hope so, because I think she's a great coach. It just didn't happen for them this season, not by much. I mean, the best bit was that in a post-match interview, I don't know if you saw it, she took a phone with her and actually showed during a post-match interview on television in the UK, the incident of the hair pulled and saying like how is this not already but like you know usually you talk about it but she put her phone and said i don't know if you can see on the camera but here again it's ridiculous decision and she was she was right but yeah i i fear for a future but you know we've spoken about this before you ever spoken about this about officiating in the women's game is and some managers have come out and said no send us the best officials otherwise you're being disrespectful well i'm sorry we want to develop women officials and women var's they have to be given a chance as well yeah yeah and the reality is just far fewer women officials to pick from than there are male officials yeah and also we play in the semifinal the winner of lyon uh against waltzburg and you're going to that game yeah i do the french coverage presentation so you can watch that tonight sticking with chelsea's woman gab they They posted record revenues of£21.3 million for this year.

51:00Yes, apparently it was a 90 % increase, something like that.

51:04Julien Laurens:That's impressive, very impressive. Yeah, and then you realize they made a£17.1 million loss. Sure. And also, it's because of£16 million in sponsorship. You don't know, which is funny when you think about Chelsea's shirt sponsor and how long it took them to get the number they wanted. there's obviously money coming in but it's also any business where your revenues are 21.3 million and you know when your revenues are what 60 percent of your losses um or sorry of your of your costs rather yeah uh that's not sustainable long term um so we'll see we'll see how this goes if you have the team that's with the highest revenue that's in this situation might also explain why there's been you know suggestions that sam kerr for example might be moving on right and leaving last year um we'll we'll see how that goes yeah still in the women's champions league bayern have to score late to knock out manchester united jules this time was level on aggregate until nine minutes from the end some some love from for united women yeah absolutely I thought they played well, especially in the first half.

52:16Julien Laurens:Melvin Malar, Paris born and bred, of course, with the goal. She's had an amazing season. And then it felt to me, that second half, that they just dropped deeper and defended and defended. And the game was at the Allianz Arena. Loads of fans there, great atmosphere. And Bayern are a very good team, obviously. They hadn't qualified for the Champions League semifinal for five years now, but they're very good and they pushed, they pushed. And you knew the goal was coming.

52:41Julien Laurens:There In the end, two goals on set pieces. The first one straight away, the second one on the second phase of set piece. Was just too much, I think, for United to maybe just try to defend that lead a little bit too much, I thought, too early, certainly, instead of keeping playing maybe and going for a second because that goal was extra time, not winning for them. So it's good to be 1-0 up, but you felt that even if he'd gone to extra time, that they would have struggled even more there. So maybe the game plan was not the best. It's been a great run for them in the Champions League. They might not make it next season.

53:17Julien Laurens:One of them, Chelsea or Arsenal, but probably more them or Chelsea will not make it. So that'd be big if they don't. And for those who don't know, who don't know the history of women's football in England, Manchester United historically have not invested in women's football the way City and Chelsea have done and the way Arsenal have done for the last 20-odd years. So they are still playing catch-up in terms of institutional memory, in terms of history, in terms of team building. Yeah, completely. Meanwhile, Gab, Everton have sold their women's team for 49 million, 49 pounds. Sorry, there should be.

53:51You forgot the end. It is million. I wasn't sure anymore.

53:53Julien Laurens:49 million pounds. Yeah, and they sold it to who? To themselves. Yeah. Again, they're not the only ones who've done this. Obviously, Chelsea famously did it for 200 million and whatever. Look, they do this because in England, this helps the Everton men's team with profit and sustainability rules. It doesn't fly with UEFA, so if Everton qualify for Europe, they will have a 49 million pound hole in there. Premier League wanted to close the loophole, but the team said, well, no, we're not going to allow this because if Chelsea took advantage of it, it's an easy way for us to take advantage of this as well.

54:32So we want to be able to do this. It's completely wrong and nonsensical. um and the numbers they're they're assessed some sort of fair value maybe 49 million is fair value but the idea that you're doing this simply for an accounting reason yeah um should let you should just let you know that that something's wrong yeah absolutely germany put out a strong team and be ghana 2-1 jules but i don't think we're gonna see auto addo again no you're right he's

55:00Julien Laurens:been sacked as the Ghana head coach. They lost the game before 5-1 as well. Not good at all, despite qualifying for the World Cup, by the way. So they will be there, but he will be without. Otto Addo, a name that I was mentioning to me this week to replace him is Herve Renaud, who's currently with Saudi Arabia. So I know he sounds a little bit weird, although... With his daughter Wendy as assistant? Maybe. Why not? He seems like he's going to leave Saudi Arabia, which is a bit weird, three months before the world cup but hey uh you know why not and then that he might take over as the ghana head coach so we might see arve renal again at the world cup with another different country you say it sounds weird i will say this i am fairly sure because obviously roberto mancini's salary when he was yeah saudi was was was known to everyone i'm fairly sure saudi arabia can pay their national team coach far more than Ghana can.

55:56So, I love this because Herb Renard is obviously a handsome man, flowing locks, romantic. I feel like this is a romantic decision. I love that you're saying that way. He's built such a, he's built his CV in Africa, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So he goes back.

56:10Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I'm with you. And, I think you could look at Ghana's better squad probably than Saudi right now. Yeah, no. Arguably, yeah. Arguably so. So, Napoli had given Romelu Lukaku a deadline of Tuesday morning to return to the training ground. Remember, we told you that story on Monday's show. Gab, did he show up? And what's going to happen next night? He did not show up. I know. Shocking. He's still recovering from his injury in Belgium. I think what's next at this point, strong suggestion that he's going to be suspended from the squad. He has a year left on his contract.

56:45People are talking about him returning to Anderlecht, where the magic all began when he was 16 years old he makes a ton of money he's an enormous salary for one year um there's obviously been a big breakdown Conte has not weighed in on this yeah if Napoli are doing this without Conte is okay you know you know there will be hell to pay yeah equally look he wants to be fit it could be his last world cup so he decided to continue his treatment in Belgium you remember he first joined up with the Belgian national team they said no big Rome you're not fit you need to get better and he said, fine, I'll take my treatment here in Belgium.

57:21You could make the argument from Napoli's perspective. I'm sorry, Napoli, what do you care? He's unfit. Anyway, he's getting treatment. What do you care if he gets it in Belgium or in Niko? So could this be an excuse to see if they can save him some money on his salary next season? I don't know. I just know that Napoli do not, you know, they don't necessarily need Lukaku in the run-up, although it would be good to have because Hoyland's there and whatever, but they don't need this distraction and they don't need, again, we haven't heard from Conte. Yeah. But Conte and Lukaku have historically been very, very close.

57:54So let's see how that plays out. Iran beat Costa Rica 5-0 in their friendly in Turkey as Mediterranea shines, Jules. Gianni Fantino, the FIFA president, was there. He was, yeah. He was asked by the guy from France Press. And by the way, there was almost, I think he was like the only journalist in the media blackout. No offense. Anyway, and he was asked what's going to happen to Iran. And Johnny said, I quote, Iran will be at the World Cup. That's why we're here. We're delighted because they're a very, very strong team. I'm very happy. Do you believe him? Do you want to believe him? I want to believe him, Gabi.

58:29Julien Laurens:Do you think he knows? He doesn't know. Obviously, nobody knows what's going to happen in the next few weeks, few months, and what will be the situation comes June, early June, end of May even, when the Iran players just get together and get ready in a camp like every other nation that will take part in the in the world cup we don't know we want them to be there it'd be amazing for them if we give i think some hope and some happiness to iranians all around the world sure there's a strong community obviously in the u.s too so that would be wonderful if they could be but right now jani or anybody else uh can say for sure that they will be at the world cup yeah i think he's going to do everything to push this obviously because if they don't go they're also going to have a slot as well the political significance of of having of having iran mayor the fact that i think that's part of the reason my fifa were so invested in organizing these two friendly saying we can get iranian players together uh iranian coaches the the the the reze is the assistant coach the other one is the guy whose name escapes me right now but who who was at bolton many years ago um we can put the team together yeah obviously all it takes is the Iranian FA saying like, no, you're not, we're not going to the World Cup.

59:45That could happen. There's a lot of things that can happen. But we, well, I think like all of us, we hope for peace and that they can be there. Yeah.

59:53Julien Laurens:Several countries are worried that the 2026 World Cup will actually cost them money. Gab, how is this even possible? Yeah, it's not just several countries. It's several big, wealthy European FA's. Basically, okay. So if you're playing your games in the US, we've explained this before. FIFA normally, they negotiate to exempt you from taxes. That hasn't happened in this World Cup. You'd have to negotiate with the individual states, and they all have different tax regimes and stuff like that. On top of that, the prize money is up 50 % compared to Qatar. But guess what? The teams are also up 50 % compared to Qatar, and there's this thing called inflation.

1:00:32So obviously that certainly seeps away of it. Another one is the cost in Qatar. We're actually really low for the teams because there was no travel no movement how can i say this nicely um a lot of those hotels were and then training facilities were at pretty favorable rates yeah many times they were shared between different national teams as well um that's not the case in the us the daily allowance um i didn't know this but in cutter it was 850 dollars uh per player uh or per delegate i guess now it's down to$600 that's FIFA who decided that yeah I think that's the money that they give to the FAs to pay for the team costs and on top of that the US is a really expensive country right now it's more expensive than Qatar obviously to begin with we've seen it through the fan lens as well so yeah so they're telling FIFA I mean one country I think it's France but not confirmed we're going to lose money unless we reach the semi-final which i don't know again who knows how you account for it and you can say but we gain in terms of image and sponsors whatever um but it just seems odd that you would be in this situation especially when you johnny fantino have built your case to be president on the fact that look i generate so much money for for for fifa yeah um final point uefa trolling fifa letting it be known that they're freezing tickets for the next Euros and making the points that you can go and watch the cheapest ticket categories at the Euros which by the way will be here in England you can go and watch two games for the, sorry you can buy two tickets to a game for less than the price of parking at a World Cup game, how about that Jules this brings us to an end, we gotta come back on Monday, Easter Monday yeah Easter Monday, I'll be celebrating it with you.

1:02:31And I will have a big weekend of league football to look back on. Until then, love the game. Love your neighbor. Love yourself.

1:02:51Julien Laurens:From 30 for 30 Podcasts.

1:03:01Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami. Gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. Boy, he's ripped it. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit. You want the truth. Biggest one of convictions. He's been placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.