Gab & Juls Show: Is Liam Rosenior confusing Chelsea?

30:10It wasn't necessarily the stare down of the fans, which we've seen in the ones we pull up. however um the problem is on the pitch if i'm a man city fan i don't know why you're doing it i don't know the context i don't necessarily think those two things back when you celebrate towards the fans and you do stuff like this i think well i i don't think you should celebrate towards the opposing fans anyway but if you are going to do it even in a way that's supposed to be funny and this maybe was supposed to be light-hearted what he said you have to make sure they understand what you're doing yeah you know um so it's just that but i thought he played really well Again, there's no defending, but that's not.

30:45He doesn't need to defend. He's the only guy up there. Liverpool turned things around against Galatasaray, romping to a 4-0 win, and it could have been more as they missed the penalty as well. Jules, I said it before. Do you agree with me? If you're going to play Salah, let's go front two.

31:00Julien Laurens:No, I don't disagree. I don't agree with you. Because you wouldn't play him at all. You would bench him. I would not play him at all. Okay, Frederico Chiesa, but let's say you have to play him. Yeah, but even still, and I'm not really convinced it was a front two either. yesterday, I mean, Gatissar is so bad. It could have been any formation from Liverpool. They had 32 shots, 16 on target. The XG is over five. Surely we've never seen an XG like that. 11 against 11 in a last 16 Champions League tie ever. We might have seen that. There was a Bayern at Atlanta or something like that. Oh yeah, I mean, yeah.

31:32We saw it last week. Yeah. That's it.

31:36Julien Laurens:It was ridiculous. And I can't wait to see this Liverpool-PSG tie. I think it's... it would be very interesting to see what Liverpool do before that. They have to get it right in the league. They have to get it right in the FA Cup against City too. Before and after the international break, all of that. So yeah, it would be really interesting. Jury's still out for me, Jules, because I saw the second half against Spurs. And I said like, so I don't know if it was just Galatasaray collapsing. Coral semen, right? I know, yeah. I don't know what happened with his arm, but yeah, it was... Come on. And Gab, we also saw in this game a horrific injury as Noah Lang civilly lacerated his thumb after colliding with an advertising holdboard.

32:17Yeah, he ran into the hoarding time pitch. His thumb got stuck. It's one of those gross, horrible injuries. We hope it was okay. Some reports even suggested he had severed part of his thumb because it got stuck. I really feel for him. He was obviously in a lot of pain. Hopefully he's going to be okay. Barcelona demolished Newcastle 7-2 to advance. It was Choo Choo at halftime.

32:42Julien Laurens:Just before, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. And I think we knew, we said it before, that Newcastle would score, that they had the kind of style to disturb the Barcelona. That Barcelona has the wacky defending? Yeah, no, true. So that first half is exactly what you would have expected looking into the game before and doing your analysis of what the game would look like. So we were spot on. The problem against a team like Barcelona, if you're Newcastle and trying to play like you did in the first half of the whole 19 minutes at some point they're just going to destroy you and that's what happened I don't think that between the two teams the difference is five goals all in all in aggregate because it was 8-3 in aggregate I think it's closer than that but if you are not perfect against a team like that then they would just walk over you so much so well done to Barcelona I'm not sure how much more we've learned about Barcelona in this game but but that was expected I don't know what the rest of the season looks like for Newcastle and sticking with Barcelona I don't know I was reelected president on Sunday with the largest margin of victory in the club's history gab you've given him a hard time in the past are you surprised look I mean he'll point to the fact that Barcelona really really good on the pitch the stadium is gonna open and stuff like that nobody wants boring accounting stuff you made a deal the fact it's a record margin but that's because when things are going well got people off and running unopposed so like it's a hundred to zero uh he got 68.2 of the vote victor font got 29.8 what i found really shocking and surprising 42.34 turnout yeah you have to go physically you can't vote online or by post okay fine but like so it's only the people who live in Barcelona that can go.

34:32But we told how important...

34:34Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, sure. But not all the coolest are not all from the area either. That's the problem. And I think Victor Font was not too happy by that. No. He's seen the rules. No, but I guess it makes sense. Laporta is entitled to... This is his moment. Tottenham Hotspur beat Atlético Madrid at home. 3-2, Jules. It's not enough because of the 5-2 hammering in the first leg. But it's eager to do it's first way and they showed a reaction. Exactly. And that's great. After the draw at Liverpool that we mentioned briefly earlier, they played with pride. They went for it. They were good at times. OK, not always.

35:11Julien Laurens:And there's still a lot of issues in this team with injuries, but also on the pitch. But they won. And that's the most important. It gives them a bit of momentum for the huge Forest game at the weekend on Sunday in the league, which is a massive six-pointer and all of that narrative. So that's all I think they knew. Although if Matisse Stel score his big chance just before the break at 1-0 down, to make it 2-0 at half time, it might be a very different story. But all they wanted was to win, and they did. And I think they knew they would not qualify, likely. But that's very good for them, very important for 2-0.

35:45Musso's not Oblak, but he came up big.

35:47Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Arsenal are through with a 2-0 win over by Leverkusen at the Emirates. And that man, Iberici, Eze, scores a World League gap. You know, I've been hard on Arsenal because I want to see them play well, blah, blah, blah. I think they played better in this game also because Bayer Leverkusen weren't good but usual for me the first half the possession was 50-50 just Bayer Leverkusen did absolutely nothing with it and I think that made it easy tremendous goal from Maze nice goal from Declan Rice too when you score goals like that which are down to individuals we're still not seeing I think the best from Saka the best from Moldegaard because he's not there but certainly in this game I think they could have scored 4-5 yeah exactly uh there were four three gold deficits after the first leg jewels and just one of them got overturned how about some love for rui borges yeah sporting and they came back to beat media darlings bodo glimpse five nil yeah and to be fair uh i thought they could have scored spoiling the narrative huh i thought from the beginning sporting would qualify anyway i But Bodo Glimt should probably, even the away game against Inter Milan was difficult.

37:01Julien Laurens:We mentioned that. I know they won and they took their chances really well. They played super defensive against Inter Milan. They played super defensive here and they're a punish for it. Exactly. And I don't understand how a team that is that good with the ball against Sporting, if you've been Barcelona, Bayern, PSG, Arsenal, play, park the bus. In a game like that, they missed a trick massively. No real surprise that Bayern had threw a gap. obviously they destroy atalanta for one in the second leg in munich and advanced 10-2 on aggregate are they your favorite to win it so one of my favorites uh my favorite cliches is people talk about the importance of clean sheets so they failed to keep a clean sheet against atalanta who are what seventh in syria in both games so no definitely uh no i'm kidding i i think they have to be favorites the individual match winners the fact that i've been going back to the debate we had earlier about whether it's better to you know have kind of the league wrapped up which kind of is yeah um they have so many weapons um i thought this was another statement win and no kimmy no michael olise you know i thought that you can say they're not very good yeah sure but they played with no pressure no freedom and byron still dismantled them yeah for me they're either one or number 1A, right?

38:17Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I totally agree with you. So well done, Vincent Company. Once again, he's proving the haters wrong, as is Nico Jackson. Want to earn extra income for your business? Amazon Hub Delivery is looking for ambitious business owners to assist with local deliveries. When you become a partner, you and your staff will deliver packages to customers in your area on a schedule that works for you. With each package delivered, you'll gain extra income and exposure for your business. Plus, Amazon Hub Delivery makes it easy to get started. There's no upfront costs, delivery experience, or long-term contracts required.

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39:24Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Jules, we have our quarterfinal lineups, which means it's time to play the prediction percentages game. Let's start with what I discovered was the silver path. Paris Saint-Germain, the defending champions against Liverpool. Six-time winners.

39:46Julien Laurens:Six-time winners. Second leg being in Liverpool, I think, is an advantage. There's no doubt. Right now, I think PSG are a better team than Liverpool. Certainly, in terms of collective strength, if you want, and things like that. At this time, I would give my PSG boys, and I promise you I'm trying to be objective here and not too biased, A slight advantage because, on the other hand, I know this Liverpool team has been a little bit dysfunctional at times, fragile defensively, the Salah issue that we mentioned too, and all of that. But they can, I think, really rally around a tie like this and get together and get better.

40:25Julien Laurens:So I would go 55-45 PSG. I might go a little bit higher PSG, just simply because the levels of dysfunction of Liverpool are enormous and because they've been so fortunate that Konate and Van Dijk have been fit all season, even when they've been bad. Even when Konate has had some shocking games. There's just little things that can go wrong again. So I'm going to go a little bit higher for Paris Saint-Germain. But yeah, I agree with you. Liverpool, Anfield, second leg, anything can happen. I think if I'm Lucho, I have to think in terms of, I want to win this in the first leg. And as we mentioned, that big Paris Saint-Germain game against Lons in between.

41:07The other game, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Talk about royalty. What is it?

41:12Julien Laurens:21 Champions League titles between them? Yeah, this would be very special. Incredible. You can never, we've said that so many times, and including that City game for Real Madrid, you can never write them off, obviously. You're supposed to say that about the Germans in general, right? True, but Bayern are the favorites. We said, so Bayern have to be the favorite of this time because we have made them our favorite of the whole competition. so it would be Bayern a little bit more than Real Madrid I still think that this Real Madrid team beat City because City are not very good right now too Bayern are so much better than Machine I would go I was going to go 70-30 that's probably too high so I go 60-40 Bayern ok I'm going to go for me it's a lot lot closer than this maybe I'm overrating the Thibaut Courtois factor injured Thibaut Courtois sorry?

42:03Julien Laurens:injured Thibaut Courtois and injured Barcola too for the PSG Liverpool game. Couture definitely not back? We don't know yet, but he might be back. He might not, but he came off injured. Okay. On the other hand, Mbappe's back. Bellingham may be back. So I don't know if that kind of balances things out a little bit. I'm going to go 52 % Bayern. I just think this is going to be so close. And it's just going to be like... I was talking to people, UEFA, but how do you even find referees for these two games? Which is, that's going to be a challenge as well. Gab, let's do the blue path now. So the other side of the draw, starting with Barcelona against Atlético Madrid.

42:46So the fun fact here is that Atlético Madrid's run of games, you have the derby against Real Madrid. Then you have Barcelona in the league. Then you have, I might be out of sequence, but still, we'll go close. Then you have Barcelona in the Champions League. then you have Sevilla in the league then you have Barcelona again in the Champions League and then you have the Copa del Rey final against La Sociedad this is absolutely brutal for El Cholo Barcelona again for me slight favourites and the reason I say slight favourites is I remember what happened in the Copa del Rey semi-final when the Madrid destroyed them I remember the ingredient and I think All Black will be back about how a shutdown keeper can resolve a lot of issues yeah i like the romantic story about griezman i like the only living sore loss in captivity and parcel don't i always have those mistakes in them i'm sorry i don't want to go back with the high line the non-high line blah blah blah it's just not personal high line it's a question that defenders weren't particularly good and the ones who are good or relatively good are injured i mean maybe they'll be back but yeah you know you're out there with Cancelo, Gerard Martin, whatever.

43:57It's just not the same thing. So for me, yeah, let's make Barcelona favorites. I'm going to go 55-45.

44:04Julien Laurens:All I want is two games like we had in the Copa del Rey, semifinal, home and away. Two one-sided games, two one-sided demolitions. I want those goals. I want suspense in a way over the two legs. And I think we would get it again. Second leg in Barcelona, I think, is a massive, massive advantage again. so I go 60-40 Barcelona I can't see Atletico being able to knock them out Sporting Arsenal is the other quarterfinal on that side of the draw Alright on paper this is the most unbalanced people just don't think Sporting are particularly good even though they beat Paris Saint-Germain although with a lot of luck I think this is a trap game for Arsenal I always wonder about Arteta's mentality in this because obviously every game is important and you're competing in the league and in the league cup, but you can't say guys, this is the most important game of the season every week and they kind of have a whole run and I think the single biggest risk for Arsenal, for me is twofold.

45:08One is Odegaard and Saka aren't backfiring the way they can be because I think this is a game where against Sporting you have to out-football them. Yeah, oh no, sorry, let me amend that. Yes, you can get a moment of genius like we saw from Eze and yes you can get your set pieces but you can't rely on those every game so to give yourself the best possible chance you need to out football this morning and Arsenal haven't always done that especially against lesser teams um because it's hard to find the right mentality right the right kind of um mindset and right approach that is how Arsenal can lose this are they going to no I think they're still overwhelming favorites because they have better players uh so i'm gonna go 70 or even 75 arsenal but i'll tell you what um i think it's gonna be a challenging what do they have in between do you know off the top of your head no i can't remember but it's a lot is the mindset a lot is a carryover from the international break um this is do not underestimate sporting no i don't think they really took your car is derby

46:10Julien Laurens:of course i think i wouldn't play yorkeris for that reason i'd play you've got the best on earth sky hovertz i would play your caris every day in those two games 80 20 for me for arsenal it would be a massive upset one of the biggest upset if they were to be knocked out by sporting neymar has spoken of his disappointment and not being called up for the brazil squad for the upcoming friendlies against france and croatia are you surprised and chirov he snubbed him no absolutely not uh he traveled the other day to go and watch him and neymar could not play because he was not fully fit and he's not fully fit if you watch the game against corinthians and memphis the pie is so obvious to see and of course because his Neymar is still capable of moments of brilliance on his own, there's still the vision, there's still the technical ability, all of that is always there and will always be there.

46:59Julien Laurens:But he's 34, he hasn't been fit for a while now and unless he gets really fit he won't take him to the World Cup. People in Brazil say everybody wants him there, the players in the squads, the fans, the media, everybody's sure, I'm sure I want him there, of course we would be there. I want to see Neymar in his last World Cup, the beautiful new Brazil shirt as well, which is amazing. We all want it. But in Chicago, you also want the best 25 or 26 players that you can get, the fittest, the most ready for it, all of that. And if he's not, then he will stay at home. I don't think there's a single player in the world right now who receives more attention relative to his talent talent and his actual contributions on the pitch over the past 12 months than neymar it's like this people talk about neymar as if he's messy cristiano and david beckham rolled into one i'm talking about attention here yeah not not ability guys carlo has a billion people to choose from he said he's not fully fit let me see him when he's fit and all that says and then world cups in three months if you can finish the season strong if you can show that you're fit maybe there's a room for you as a game changer off the bench um but otherwise this is not a big deal and the fact that you know this is massive headlines i don't i mean we're talking about it but i'm doing it to underscore how stupid this is yeah the man is 34 years old he's played what like a handful of games over the last two years like just enough when we're not talking about the reincarnation of of Pelé or Maradona here.

48:32We're talking about Neymar, who...

48:34Julien Laurens:Yeah, still, no, no, no. The debate is on, it's normal. But, like... But this is, they should be debating other things, like, how do you find 26 players when you've got 90... Yeah, no, no, that's the same for a lot of the big countries, though, but it's just because this March international and squad, usually, for all those teams, is 90, 95 % what you would get at the World Cup. Yeah, the war in Iran means the finalissima beating the European champion, Spain, against the South American champions Argentina has been canceled. It was due to take place in Qatar in Doha. Yeah, and I think they had a$10 million guarantee, both teams from the Qataris to play there, obviously with the situation, and it's even news overnight that, you know, there's been more bombings and is this not safe?

49:22What I find interesting, it's not a surprise that it was canceled. What surprised me a little bit is that they couldn't agree on where to play it. And it's funny because I read a story, which is clearly from the Argentina side, because they say, right, so UEFA, who effectively organized this game, they said, hey, can we play at the Bernabeu? And the Argentine FA said, no, because it's not a neutral venue. It would have been at the Bernabeu with a 50-50 split. I'm like, guys, let's be realistic here. You're in a neutral venue for what, the World Cup final? I would have hardlined it and said, no, no, we're playing it here, but whatever.

50:02then he suggested hey let's play it in Italy we can play it in Rome at the Stadio Olimpico or even at San Siro wouldn't that be fantastic the Argentine FA accepted but they said okay but then we have to play it on March 31st UEFA said no and it's logical they said no it's the same date as the playoff finals for World Cup qualification and there's a strong chance or there's a chance anyway that Italy are going to be in that final so why would you go and do this then in that situation it looks to me like the argentina didn't really want to play exactly uh yeah i think once they saw the 10 million dollars was gone yeah maybe maybe not quick time out some breakfast intel you want to know about kodiak frozen power waffles and flapjacks are built for busy mornings heat it eat it and you're Out the door.

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52:16Julien Laurens:I think it makes sense. If you can lock him in before the World Cup, especially because he will go to the World Cup and imagine that he's on fire for the US men national team and scoring a lot of goals and et cetera, the value would have maybe gone up. So I'm all happy with it. I'm happy for him. I'm happy that he's been given a chance to play in one of the big leagues. He did well in the last 18 months or so. He didn't have a chance at Augsburg. Do they not count? He was young and all of that. And Augsburg is not Fulham and the Bundesliga is not the Premier League. So I think it's really good for him for his progression at his age.

52:50Julien Laurens:He's 23 or 24. I think he's on 30 goals in his 60 last games for PSV or something like that. So, you know, decent scoring form. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to see what he can do in the Premier League. The only thing that surprises me a little bit about this, and I wonder if maybe PSV didn't put, if ever PSV, maybe they have done this and we just don't know, is put a bunch of conditions in here because you don't want a situation where right now you're building your team for next season. Obviously, you're running away with the area DVDs. That's not an issue. People know, oh, look, you've got 30 million pounds or 35 million euros or whatever it is coming in.

53:29Maybe that right back from Almelo that you wanted to sign instead of costing you 1 million, it cost you 1.5 million. That would be the only thing. And so at PSG, I think you want to message, oh, well, he's done the thing, but it's conditional. It's by no means assured, blah, blah, blah.

53:44Julien Laurens:and for fulham the love story with american players obviously you know continue and i think that's good back in the days of brian mcbride and the other legends yeah tim reen them see all of that yeah it's great master united will reportedly submit a planning application for the new two billion pound stadium in the next 12 to 18 months gab your thoughts i my thoughts is this is some kind of joke this the story i don't understand we saw the mock-up what big what is the joke the joke is that oh in 12 to 18 months we're going to submit a planning up you've been talking about the stadium for a year how long does it freaking take to put in to put in a planning application by the way when you put in a planning application as anybody's had worked on in this country it's like this is what i would like to do and then they come back to you and says okay have you thought about transportation have you thought about this have you thought about that you've already paid some architect to do that that stupid mock-up that looks like a circus tent presumably they have a plan presumably you've thought about this maybe they want it to be the best plan that's why it would take a bit longer but that's even just to put in the planning I mean Chelsea have a planning application to build a 60 ,000 seat stadium at Stamford Bridge which I'm pretty sure like start to finish took them less than a year this has been going on and on and 2 billion and the other thing too by the way where's our friend Ratcliffe in all this?

55:10He might not be there in 12 to 18 months and he's the public face of...

55:15Julien Laurens:Yeah, but the club needs a new stadium. Whether Ratcliffe is there or not, it doesn't matter. I would love to hear the Glazers' view on this. Because I actually just... Well, when I hear 12 to 18 months to put in an application, it's a freaking stadium. You're not building the space shuttle. You've been working on this for a long time. These guys are architects and urban planners. something's not right with this story Wilson Isidore will represent Haiti at the World Cup Jules, he's most definitely not Paris born and bred but he is a former French youth international yeah, he's from Rennes Rennes born and bred then had no trouble going to play in Russia and violating the boycott and stuff like that, yeah clearly apolitical here I like him a lot and I think he obviously knew that he was never going to play for France as much as he dreamt about it when he was younger.

56:06Julien Laurens:And like you said, he played from under 16 to the under 21s. That was not going to happen for him for the A-team. So he agreed to play for Haiti, which is his mum's side. And they're super happy to have him. He's super happy to go to the World Cup. And there's two other players who are not at his level and as well known than him, obviously, who also agreed to... Is he instantly Haiti's best player? I think so, yeah. I mean, they've got no Belegarde from Wolves. They would be the two leaders of that team, for sure. So I looked him up because I wanted to see where he was from, where he just played for Rennes.

56:45He was at Monaco too, if I'm not mistaken.

56:47Julien Laurens:Yeah, he was such a young talent. It says he's of Haitian and Malaga. I had no idea what that is. Is that Madagascar? No, Madagascar, yeah. Oh, I was right, yes. yeah yeah so he could have played for madagascar he could have as well yeah barcelona will reportedly ask master united to extend their loan deal for marcus rashford do you like this idea no no it's stupid uh i think it's because laporta was asked about rashford oh yeah i like him a lot no this is not good use of your money i mean look in the end if you extend it on favorable terms uh if it's going to cost you any money other than like a cut of his wages you hold all the leverage here unless Manchester United get a new coach that says yes I love Marcus Rashford I can you know it's pretty obvious they're never going to pay the transfer fee for him so yes if you can get him on super favorable terms but when I look at the players Barcelona has if it's going to cost you resources at the expense of addressing your issues at the back that's why I learned he's not a bad idea maybe you just pay some of the wages and that's it he's on really big wages so it depends on the terms yes if i can get him but i mean i think if you're manchester united i mean obviously the players comes into it too but i would not make any sort of commitment to this guy beyond another year on super favorable terms because i don't want him to get in the way of the other attacking players i have who are there who are coming through yeah i mean if you look at it we haven't even mentioned gavi and i'm assuming at some point he's going to come back right but he's back now maybe back in the starting lineup but yeah yeah i mean i think he will be at the weekend yeah but you have so many players you've got rooney as well right i mean yeah you're gonna do something for the other side yeah yeah you want to do something with him right you you obviously have rafinha you have laminya ma you have danny homo you have fermin lopez who doesn't start for some reason in the best 11 but on both teams he would and now you have another guy in there yeah i don't i don't know that he necessarily fits and if it's going to cost you a lot of money i'd rather give those wages put those resources to another position getafe central defender uh abdel abkar was banned for two games after getting sent off for molesting the only living sword lot in captivity does this make sense to you jules i think it's a disgraceful ban it should have been far more than two games i'm sorry you just can't do that we talked about it with nadam uh on monday who him as a player and that was a long time ago ever happened to nadam he said that those kind of things happen far more at the time than now obviously with VR and everything, but two games is nothing.

59:25Julien Laurens:Two games is like a... He was also sent off, so I assume one would have been in the automatic ban, right? Yeah, that's what I mean. And then another gone on top. Yeah, no, it's very little. For something like that, that bad and that shameful, I expected far more than just two. I'm not surprised because it's La Liga and La Liga, I think in those kind of situations are rubbish. But yeah, I think it's terrible. It's very much too little. Meditage, the president of the Iranian Football Federation, reportedly insisted that his country is negotiating with FIFA to hold their World Cup matches in Mexico and not in the U.S., given the war between the U.S.

1:00:03Julien Laurens:and Israel and Iran. Is this a good solution for you? So, all right, there's two elements of this. First of all, I don't believe the story. It's reported. I don't know what the hell you're negotiating. You're being bombed. You're in a bunker somewhere. What negotiations? Secondly, I think it's obvious. how silent FIFA have been on this. And they've been criticized for being silent. But equally, I don't blame them because FIFA want to have Iran at the World Cup. Equally, we're all mindful of the fact that if you have two countries that are literally at war with each other, it's kind of awkward to have one of them being there, leaving aside some of the comments that have been made by various people.

1:00:45So what FIFA are praying for is not to have to make a decision on this. and they're going to hope that this war reaches some sort of resolution so that they can send Iran to the World Cup. If the war is still ongoing, first of all, I don't even know why this story just brings up Mexico. I don't believe...

1:01:06Julien Laurens:It's not playing the U.S. I'm certain that Iran... In fact, I'm fairly certain Iran are not at war with Canada, so why not say Mexico and Canada, right? Yeah, yeah. One thing I don't... So yeah, it would be an extreme solution.

1:01:24You want Iran to play? I don't know what state of mind the Iranian players are going to be in. Do we even want to play when people are bombing our families back home? What I don't accept when people bring up the logistics, logistically it's impossible. It's not logistically impossible. There's a will your way. You can move games. But I've heard this from so many people. Oh no, because they would have to be moved into South Korea group. No, they don't. You just move the freaking games.

1:01:51Julien Laurens:The other teams in their group have also met their planning to play in cities that have been given already. That would have to change. That will have to change, and it's unfortunate that it has to change. But all of this, we know football is very important, but as Carlo Ancelotti-Wazi says, it's the most important of the least important things. And any FA, any coach comes out there and says, oh no, screw this. We had planned that our training camp was here. We don't want to have to fly to guadalajara or to toronto i would advise you to say people are dying there is a war going on and it's not just iran it's lebanon it's israel it's it's it's things are getting bombed if you can't accommodate this what because of your own it's going to mess up your careful planning so no so i don't accept the logistics i will be really disappointed if they raise logistics as an issue why this is not possible i pray that this is not going to be possible I believe this won't be needed because the war will be over but don't bring up logistics as a question do you feel FIFA should say something other than they shouldn't say anything or if they say something anyway they would say a whole load of nothing we are monitoring the situation but not to give them ideas most people think I don't know if you agree with this but the fair plan if Iran do have to pull out is UAE unless Iraq does not qualify by the Confederation.

1:03:21These are logical. And by the way, with the UAE getting bombed right now as well, and Iraq facing all sorts of difficulties too, that's all TBD as well. Lionel Messi scores his 900th goal for club and country, which, I said this before, not a thing, but since we started counting them for Cristiano, let's do it for him too. Cristiano still well ahead, by the way. but it's not enough Inter Miami bounced out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup this is like the Champions League for CONCACAF this is important it's a very important competition the game finishes 1-1 and because they still have away goals they're out yeah

1:03:59Julien Laurens:the first leg was bad really bad sorry I should say I haven't even mentioned this is how pathetic I am and we are with the star system I haven't even mentioned who they were playing shout out to Nashville Nashville Let's see. We love you down there in Tennessee. Yeah, yeah. Nearly the first leg. 1-1 the second leg in Miami. I've rarely seen so little intensity in both games, to be fair, but especially in the first leg. Messi scoring early in that second leg, not being enough. This Inter-Miami team, we've said it before, I think, is obviously not as good as the one that won the title last season.

1:04:37Julien Laurens:But when you still have Messi in your team, you probably believe that everything is good. Let's see, because there's obviously plenty more games to come, et cetera, et cetera. But he can't be happy with this team that he's playing in right now. This is one of their shots at qualifying for the Club World Cup, which I'm sure is very important to him. Yeah, of course. Right, the other big story, obviously, that Morocco are apparently now Gabi African champions, 58 days after that incredible Afghan final against Senegal. CAF, CAF's appeal body so the African Confederation appeal body reversed an earlier ruling and determined that Senegal had forfeited the game when they walked off the pitch, remember after the penalty was awarded to Morocco right at the end, obviously Senegal are furious now with this decision and will almost certainly appeal to CAF try to make sense of it all Gabi and if you were Moroccan, would you be celebrating I mean there certainly are and so is the federation and the head of more than one thing can be true so no if I were in Morocco and if I were a player I would take no pride in this I would certainly not be celebrating because I didn't deserve to win now doesn't mean Senegal deserved to win and I will get to that I would say I didn't deserve to win because on the pitch where I play football Senegal did not necessarily get that they didn't get an advantage necessarily from being off the pitch or whatever.

1:06:04So I think I was cheated out of it. If anything, with some of the refereeing decisions, you know, I have to be honest, I was outplayed. And in terms of what we saw in the pitch, Senegal deserved to win the game, right? That said, plus you're a loser if you go and celebrate a court decision, right? The Court of Arbitration of a Sport, by the way, for those who don't know, they rule an all-international sport. You have three arbiters. they're in Lausanne and they have a final say in all this stuff and they crop up occasionally. You cannot walk off the pitch. So if you read the rules, if you take a strictly legalistic thing, you can't walk off the pitch.

1:06:47There's article 82 of the CAF rules. I have a piece up on this. If you walk off the pitch, you forfeit the game. It doesn't now. But then it should have been applied during the game. 100 % it should have been applied. And we talked about this before. Somebody should have been in the referee's ear and saying like hey apply the rules yeah uh the disciplinary should have applied them initially now the counter argument which was raised by some people i spoke to said well first of all i think we can all agree on this it shouldn't take 58 days to come to a decision right um and it's something like six weeks or something like that since the so the so the first ruling came from the disciplinary body to the appeals body right and i'm in agreement there's no reason you don't need to go and interview a bunch of people a whole bunch of other stuff happened around it but let's just stick to the actual fact the walking off part you cannot set a precedent where you walk off the pitch yeah so the referee should have called the game should have had the the guts but people said like hey we will back you tell me calf get in his ear right we will back you the disciplinary should have said no no we can't have this you cannot walk off the pitch the counter argument is yeah but then they came back and they finished the game And once you allow them to come back, you can't punish them for walking off the pitch because they came back.

1:07:58Because the rules aren't clear. They don't say you can't walk off the pitch for 10 minutes, whatever. You can't have this precedent. They need to rewrite the rules. You walk off the pitch as a team, unauthorized, you lose the game immediately. Immediately. Except for situations, obviously, racist, abuse, security, blah, blah, blah, the usual ones, right? So yeah, it's an absolute mess. Senegal players in their heart know that they won the game. They know they're African champions. Yeah. Equally, I think it's the right decision to strip them of the title. And it was wrong that it happened 58 days later.

1:08:31It's justice delayed, which is justice denied.

1:08:33Julien Laurens:True, but you can't take that decision now. It's ridiculous. So good luck, by the way, whoever has to collect the trophy from Dakar, wherever it is, and every single medal given to any single staff member or squad member as well. I think it's a disgrace for African football. I think FIFA would have been informed by that. And when you know the links between CAF and FIFA, who are the people in charge? Secretary General, Head of CAF, how close they are to Infantino, not even go on the Head of the Moroccan FA, who is Gianni's best friend. I mean, I think this makes football in general, African football, look so, so bad.

1:09:16Julien Laurens:It's terrible. You know what? If they're having issues getting the trophy back from Dakar, I'm pretty sure Johnny has a good friend who lives in a big white house in Washington D.C. who's pretty good at going and extracting things from capitals of other countries so maybe you can give him a call right? Maybe yeah who knows Joel this brings us to an end but we're going to come back on Monday you won't be here I'm going to be with Stuart Robson we'll be talking some League Cup and plenty else until then love the game love your neighbor love yourself

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