Gab & Juls Show: Who will replace Alvaro Arbeloa at Real Madrid?

26:56Julien Laurens:And Gab, only one team has defended their title as European champions since the great Milan side of Arrigo Saki. That was Real Madrid with Zidane and Cristiano. and now your objective how do my psg boys look well i thank you for calling me objective um you are wearing a paris saint germans always i thought they look good and i thought what impressed me in the second half is i thought there was a lot of uh there was a lot of maturity when we talked about pragmatism lucy no no he's the dreamer but no no there was pragmatism was playing to your strength there was liverpool are going to take are going to go and they're going to tire themselves is off-south.

27:34They're going to get more desperate, and we can pick them off on the counter. I thought they should have been ahead earlier. There was the chance... I'm blanking on who it was in the first half. But I thought they looked very mature. I don't know. I think they can use Fabian Ruiz. I would certainly feel much better if the real Fabian Ruiz came back as an option in midfield, because I think you lose a lot. If one of those three guys goes out, I think the drop-off... Just the way you play is just different, whether it's U.A. comes in or Kangin Lee or whatever. But no, they look pretty darn good.

28:07I don't think they're my favorites, but they're pretty close. Arsenal are also through after a rather drab nil-nil draw against Sporting. Sees them advance 1-0 on aggregate. I think they got a little bit feisty after the game. Substance over style?

28:23Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah. Declan Rice as well. Always too happy with some of the criticism they receive, which I can hear from their point of view because at the end of the day, the most important is the results, certainly more than the style. And they lost three games in a row, right? So I think that's... So then if you're going to play the substance card, you've got to win every game. Three and four, yeah, exactly. It's still a very good season. They're still leading the Premier League and in the semifinal of the Champions League, which if you'd been told that at the start of the season, everybody, Arsenal fans included, would have taken.

28:54Julien Laurens:Yes, the football is not as good as earlier in the season. It's not flowing in the same way. They have players missing and things like that. but he can also come back for the semifinal. They can get that flow back at some point, but the next few weeks are obviously going to be gone. But I think that's the critical part when people talk about this, right? And this is why I absolutely hate it. I understand why they do it, but I hate it when people in football say, oh, but look where we are on the table. Okay, that was before, this is now. So if you've been playing badly in the last three weeks, I'm interested in are you going to be able to get back to the level you were at?

29:27Not 10 years ago, but two months ago. Why can you not get there? Because if they don't get there, they might not get over the line. And what went wrong? That's why people say this. Nobody's minimizing your achievements over the course of a season, which have been absolutely phenomenal, because unfortunately people won't, but people should still remember, even if they finish second in the Premier League and they get knocked out in the semifinals of the Champions League, which at this stage is the worst-case scenario, right? That's still a very good achievement. Yeah, I agree. A much greater achievement than most other teams.

30:00Julien Laurens:but I guess people don't view it that way. Julian Timber, Bukai Osaka, Martin Odegaard, and Ricardo Calafiore, four important players out for Arsenal. I mean, are we sure they're out? No, they're out right now. Right now, yeah. One or more. He's been cagey. They were out last night. Yeah. That's my question. Who does he need the most of those four? So, I think he's going to have at least two of these guys back, is my hunch, and I don't think one of them will be Odegaard, but I don't know, because he was all funny about it. Remember, he said before the game, he said, well, between Timber and Osaka, one of those two might be back against Sporting and then neither one was.

30:34But I think the single most important guy to get back for me is Uri and Timber. And the reason I say that is there's four center backs stuff, which is effectively what you have when Muscair and I can play. If City come and decide to press the life out of you, it becomes a problem, right? There's no ballers. The best baller in that back four is who? Saliba? And he's not Beckenbauer. So you need Timber or Califero. or even Louis Skelly, who seems to be on the naughty step now. You need one of those guys. That's going to move the needle more, I think, than what Saka can bring right now, given his injuries, more than Udegaard because he doesn't fit.

31:10I think that can allow you to play this version of Arsenal football. The Arteta version from two or three years ago, which is much more expansive and whatever, I don't think you should try to bring that back. You can't bring it back at this stage of the season. Now, this is back on Monday night, but Michael Carrick suffered his first home defeat against Leeds United, only a second overall. Jules, was he a bit unlucky between the deflected goal and Lissandro Martinez' red card early in the second half? Because he was angry.

31:38Julien Laurens:Yeah, the red card, I can understand his frustration and his anger about it. You can watch it again and not being too sure about it. Don't touch the guy's hair at all and you won't be in the situation. I know. Yeah, I guess so. I just thought that United were not ready for this game at the start. They started so slow. They were so sloppy from the start. The fact that they hadn't played for so long was maybe a reason when Leeds played the weekend before and looked much sharper at the start. It's a huge win for Leeds. The first one at Old Trafford in what is a massive rivalry between the two clubs since, I think, 1981 or something.

32:14Julien Laurens:And very special for them to stay up. For United, I think it's a bad defeat. But they haven't been playing great for a few games now. It's only one win in the last four in the league, and they haven't been playing that great. Against Bournemouth, they were not great. Against Leeds, they were not great. Even then with 10 men, it was a bit better because they played with more urgency and could have, I guess, snatched a draw at the end. But still, I don't think it was good enough. Huge game away to Chelsea Saturday night. Yeah. And sticking with Manchester United, Harry Maguire has been handed an additional one-game ban after his breakout against Bournemouth.

32:48Julien Laurens:Gab, are you okay with that? Well, so incidentally, with Maguire out, Lissandro Martinez also out. Might be, and might we see, having your own made-in-heaven partnership. Yeah, look, according to the referee, he's walked off the pitch. Maguire shouted, you're a joke. You're all an effing joke. Maguire mumbled something about, no, I said the decision was a joke. Don't put yourself in that. Don't use that word. Don't put yourself in that position. He should have known better. You're always at risk. People might remember things differently. But you have to take it on the shin, I think. The Times report that Bayern Munich have made contact with Newcastle regarding Anthony Gordon in a deal worth around€60 million.

33:36Does this sound right to you, Jules?

33:38Julien Laurens:I think I can understand why. It's£55 million. Yeah, I can understand why Bayern want a player like him, for sure, to be the backup of Luis Diaz and, I guess, the backup of Harry Kane as a number nine. would you take it if you were Anthony Gordon? I think there should be clubs in the Premier League like Liverpool and Arsenal also interested. And for him, that probably, for me, would be a better fit than going to Bayern and at the start, certainly, being the backup of other players. So what I find really interesting here is about this, is that in the story it says that they have made contact with, their contact has been made, presumably with both the club and the player.

34:18This to me suggests that Newcastle's financial situation, as we know, is... We know it's not good, right? And this could be a way to flesh out other potential buyers, perhaps in the Premier League, because it looks like they're at the stage where they need to sacrifice one or more of their big guns. I wouldn't let Gordon go for that figure. And I'm not a Gordon guy, as you know, but I don't think that's enough.

34:45Julien Laurens:Mark Walker, the US Soccer Federation Sporting Director, is leaving His job less than three years after being appointed And less than two months before the start of the World Cup Gab, this seems a bit weird It's hugely weird I think there's stuff that We're not being told about So the stock explanation Is that, well, he did everything he needed to do Made some changes to The youth development He signed Emma Hayes And he signed Mauricio Pochettino to the job and now he's got like nothing else to do. Now, maybe that's how the sporting director is defined by the U.S. Soccer Federation, but the fact that you wouldn't want to be around for the World Cup, I think is a blow.

35:25I assume sporting directors should be the in-between between the coach, Pochettino, and the FA. Evidently, that's not the case here. People are saying he's going to Saudi because he's been offered a ton of money, but it's not with the Saudi Pro League. It's with the Saudi Football Federation. maybe with a view towards 2034. I wonder if all he's going to do is just hire a national team coach and then move on somewhere else. I would be cautious with that too. You've heard the stories about Live Golf and how the money's drying up there in terms of how they want to spend it. I'm hugely disappointed.

35:57And if I were Pochettino, I would definitely go out. I'd want answers. I feel undermined.

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37:12He's leaving Bournemouth at the end of the season. Jules, do you think he already knows where he's going next?

37:17Julien Laurens:No, I don't think so, but I think he knows that there will be a lot of jobs available, and I think probably up to half of the Premier League clubs might change managers in the summer, or we'll be looking for a manager in the summer. they might reappoint the guys that is currently in charge like Michael Carriker United maybe but I think from City to Liverpool to the likes of Palace and Bournemouth I'm not that if Raola is going to go there Chelsea, I think there's a lot of top clubs, mid-table clubs second half of the table clubs that will be looking for new managers and that's just in England, I think in the rest of Europe too we talked about Real Madrid earlier and all of that so I think he knows it's probably the right time to leave, he also knows that he's done his absolute best and that he can't really take this club who will lose some key players again like Senecy in the summer.

38:05Julien Laurens:He can't go again and probably do better. He'll have had three great years although the start was shaky but they kept faith in him and they were right. Now he will get a better job at a better club as a reward of the great work that he's done there. I'm a huge Erola fan. And the reason he doesn't win Manager of the Year awards is because they go to people who win silverware. Fair enough. My question is, what is his ceiling? In the sense that this kind of ties in back with what we were talking about before. If I look at the players he's had, he's always had very athletic players and also players who are kind of like worker bees.

38:51And I don't say this in a negative thing, but players who are high effort guys, right? If you're a superstar, that may not always be the case. So I wonder, do you think, could it work at a higher level? Could it work with players who are like, wait a minute, why am I running myself into the ground now when I can just rest and then have the sharpness to dribble past three guys and score? Because I've done it before. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wonder to what degree that would stop a bigger, club, like an A-list club from looking at him.

39:24Julien Laurens:But if you're on board with his ideas, then you give him the right platform, the right squad. What we saw with Luis Enrique or what we've seen with Luis Enrique in Paris. He's a very intense coach. He demands a lot of his players intense-wise and rock-rate-wise. And Raula is kind of similar. So if you give him the right players, it would work. If you give him Vinicius and Mbappe, it won't work. And that's just as simple as that. I think the difference maybe is Luis Enrique won a treble when he took over. And also, he generally, you know, dealt with younger players.

40:00Players who were on their way up. Put it that way. Guys like Virginia and Joe Gomes, of course, are going to listen to you. You know, who am I? Joe Neves. I haven't achieved anything, right?

40:10Julien Laurens:Yeah, no, no, sure. But again, that's why if you give Irola the right squad. It's got to be the right club. Yeah, and the right squad. For sure, the right players. Max Allegri has reportedly joined Antonio Conte on the book his list as the next Italy manager. Gab, are you okay with this? And who could Milan get to replace him? I mean, again, if I were a Milan fan, I would be happy that he's on the books. I think he'd do better as a national team manager than as a club manager right now with the restrictions. I mean, look, you put Max Alegre at Real Madrid and I'm sure he'll be linked to the Real Madrid job.

40:43One thousand percent, right? Because there's certain specific things he does well. I don't think for Milan this season, I think it's been really disappointing. And I don't know that for a club that has the kind of restrictions that Milan has, he's the right manager. Although I look at the names who would be out there to replace him at Milan, and I can also tell that nobody's actually put some thought into this because the names are Gasperini if he falls out with Roma, with Ranieri, and goes there. And I don't think putting another volatile head at Milan with the different fiefdoms that exist at the club, I think that would be disastrous.

41:17Thiago Motta based on I don't know what. And then obviously Cesc, who they wanted before. Yeah, sure, Cesc would be fantastic. Nice idea. But why would he? I guess he wouldn't have to move house if he moved to Milan. For the national team, right now, if Allegri and Conte are the two main candidates, and this is all media stuff right now because I remind you, Italian FA does not have a president yet and won't have one until June 22nd, I would still lean Conte for what he can do in a tournament setting. But yeah, both of them would be an upgrade over the previous manager. But that's not saying much.

41:53No fancy overseas tour for Barcelona next summer, Jules. They're reportedly doing preseason training at St. George's, which is the England FA's training camp.

42:03Julien Laurens:Yeah, and either way. Yeah, I think they won't be the only club, big European club, not to go to the US or Asia or Australia or wherever they usually go. It's a World Cup year, so on the back of some of your players might still be at the World Cup anyway when you start pre-season to start with. Secondly, it's been a very long season already plus the World Cup because most of those squads of top clubs, pretty much 90 or 95 % of that squad will be at the World Cup with the national teams. So it's probably wise to just stay in Europe somewhere. I mean, you can come to England, I'm sure English clubs will go to Spain or somewhere else like that.

42:42Julien Laurens:Don't travel too far. You still have friendlies somewhere, maybe in England, there's big stadiums where you can make money still, maybe not as lucrative as going to Asia or to the US, but I think for what you're going to gain by staying here, it's probably worth it at the same time. And I think they're also talking some lucrative friendlies in Morocco, apparently. Yeah, it's not fun. Yeah, Morocco in August, that's where I want to play. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that FIFA have denied their request to move Iran's game south of the border. Gav, what's your reading of this? I'm generally in two minds about this.

43:19So obviously, we know what's happening with Iran and the U.S. They're scheduled to play two games in L.A. and one game in Seattle. I think there's a right reason for FIFA to say no, and there's a wrong reason. The wrong reason is, oh, but logistics, and we've sold all these tickets, and how do we move these group games, and then do we do the group? No, no, no, there's always a solution. You can chuck a little bit of your enormous cash reserve at this problem. You can reimburse people. There's lots of ways to actually do this, okay? I think more broadly, they're not doing this because it would be a massive stain on everybody involved if something happens, a safety issue, a security issue, and Iran pull out immediately before the competition.

44:07and I don't think and I think Johnny's backing himself that he can negotiate with the parties involved that it's not going to come to that now obviously the parties involved Iran is a country and the US president can be a little bit unpredictable because war is unpredictable conflict is unpredictable but I think right now you have to stay the course and believe it it doesn't even people have said oh give them a deadline right what deadline you want to give? Even if they tell you on June 1st, yeah, we're coming, right? And then June 2nd, something happens. What are you going to do? So I don't think, I think this is a situation where I actually have sympathy on FIFA and I understand why they did this.

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45:33Your call. Say yes to shopping the way you want. Join now at samsclub.com slash yes and. You must be 18 years or older to purchase a membership, and membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samsclub.com slash yes and for details. The Times published a detailed survey regarding ball and playtime jewels, and this has to do with the whole thing is time-wasting and the dark arts on the rise in England. Give us some highlights.

46:01Julien Laurens:Yeah, Gab, so the average in the Premier League is 55 minutes and 31 seconds, which over the 90 minutes is obviously not much, but it's pretty much the average in other leagues as well. Slightly lower in the Premier League. Slightly lower, but again... 59 % in Ligue 1 because you guys don't cheat. We don't cheat, exactly. City have the ball in play the most, almost 59 minutes. Everton is next with 57. and then in the worst you've got Spurs 53 Newcastle 53 as well Bournemouth just under 53 to be fair I think it depends a lot of how your game is going who you face I don't really pay too much attention I think the Premier League average and comparing it maybe with other leagues is interesting I know you're a big advocate of stopping the clock for example and having 60 minutes yeah but yeah yeah I think I mean to me this is another argument for 60 minutes We should be at 60 minutes everywhere.

46:59And I think if you had that, you would minimize some of this. They did a really deep dive on this. If you're interested in this kind of nerdy stuff, go ahead and take a look. They also revealed, funny enough, Arsenal take the longest to take a corner kick. It's like 44 seconds. Chelsea, who I believe also have a fancy set piece specialist. They're doing well. They fired him, right? Didn't they? No, I think that was Liverpool. All right. they take the least. So maybe they like to use the element of surprise. But yeah, score effects, obviously. But they get into score effects too. Like, you know, if you're winning, you're losing.

47:37Weirdly, if I remember this correctly, weirdly Tottenham, when they're losing, they actually waste more time than when they're winning, which makes no sense to me,

47:48Julien Laurens:but could be at the heart of all their problems. God, a sad death of football. Jose Santamaria passed away age 96. Yeah, so obviously the Real Madrid teams that won five straight European Cups are the stuff of legend. That was a team of the Estefano and Puskas and Gento and so on. But at the back, there was a hard, charismatic leader from Uruguay named Jose Santa Maria, who often gets overlooked. he won four of those European cups won six league of titles overall and I was I was frankly surprised that he was still alive and the 96 years old I know I'm can you imagine living to 96 I hope I hope it's a life well lived I hope the last 25 years were disease-free lucid yeah but yeah truly one of the greats.

48:47Jules, we have a new youngster to hype. Yes. Eduardo Conceição, apparently nicknamed Dudu, but I cannot confirm or deny that. He's at Palmeiras, and he is ripping it up at the South American under-17s. He has a$100 million release clause. He signed professional terms. He has yet to make his professional debut, but he needs to catch up because he's already older than Max Dowman by 24 days.

49:12Julien Laurens:Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you see some of the... it's all on youtube the comps everywhere yeah i mean you can watch the whole games and obviously like the south american under 20 tournament which a lot of scouts are also watching and a lot of us also watching to find those new gems from south america there's a lot of people watching the under-17s too and he's doing great to be fair he looks fantastic at that age group which is again a big difference between that and making the step up to professional football and big leagues and big guys, etc. But he certainly looks very promising. $100 million release close is obviously for the vibes.

49:51Julien Laurens:Nobody would ever pay that for him. Certainly not right now at that age. But he looks very promising. But it's... I mean,$100 million, it's not that far off what Real Madrid played for once you adjust for inflation or not, for Vini and for Hendrik. What I find interesting about him is he's a big boy. He's like 1 meter 80. Yeah, he was strong. But it strikes you that, and Dowman too. Dowman, we've said this before, Dowman is not little. To see sort of a winger, wide forward type with that kind of dribbling ability who also has that kind of physical strength, that's kind of a rare combination. And I want to go back.

50:36We've talked about youth development. It's a topic close to my heart right now. But at a young age, clearly they worked with coaches who said, no, no, no, no, you can probably, unless they had a growth spurt, obviously, you can go and road grade the other guy, but we encourage you to dance around him because you're going to come up against bigger players. So it certainly looks very exciting. I also suspect to some degree there are so many highlights of this guy. And suddenly they talked about something called the Copinha, which is a regional youth tournament in Sao Paulo and what a big deal it was and they made it seem as if that's like the World Cup.

51:14I suspect he has a pretty slick operation whether it's Panamera or not. And that's why his story is out there because, but he certainly looks good. Check him out on YouTube.

51:23Julien Laurens:World Cup tickets prices continue to scab rocket gab on the secondary market and FIFA taking a cut of each transaction which is making some people angry and there was a solution to avoid profitering. Yeah, so I think this is an interesting sticking point And I feel like some people have raised this, and so I want to highlight this too, right? So FIFA's argument about having what they call dynamic pricing and allowing ticket resellers to buy tickets and sell them legally, which isn't allowed in many other countries, is that, well, but it's allowed in the U.S. We can't go against U.S. law, which is a nonsense argument because it's not just about the law.

52:03It's your competition. You go and you negotiate and say, we do this, this, and that, right? But it's the fact that every time these tickets get bought and sold, FIFA gets a cut, right? Because they're electronic. If you wanted to comply with the law and allow people to resell their tickets, which arguably you should, there was a simple solution to avoid this, which other competitions do. You don't actually just make it so that you don't actually receive your electronic ticket until, say, a week before. before the game itself, right? That makes it a lot harder to be bought and sold a thousand times, but that also means less revenue, less chances for FIFA to get cut off each one.

52:47So when people point to this, like I said, I can understand FIFA's argument. I understand both sides. I understand their need to make money and whatever else, but I don't think they necessarily have a leg to stand on here. Javier Macerano has left Inter-Miami, and therefore he's left Lionel Messi. Guillermo Hoyos is in charge for now. Now, Jules, reportedly, he's moving on because he has achieved what he wanted to achieve in winning the title. Are you buying this?

53:13Julien Laurens:No, because, I mean, two months ago, clearly, he hadn't achieved what he wanted. You know, so he started the season, coached a few games, and then after two months or so in the season, he thought, yeah, I've done everything I wanted to do here. I wanted to achieve here. You got to play in the new stadium. You got to coach in the new stadium. Maybe that's it. Maybe you're right. Maybe it was not winning the title. Maybe it was not winning the title. or maybe it was just a new stadium. Something happened clearly. It's so obvious. Yeah, whether he fell out with either Messi or Beckham or the owners or whatever.

53:47Julien Laurens:But clearly something happened. Otherwise, you leave after the title. You say, hey, this was great. Alba is going. Busquets is going. I'm going to go and look for another adventure, another chapter of my career. But you don't start the season and then two months in say, you know what, I'm leaving because I've done everything I wanted to. Or maybe there's another job, which I think there's going to be a lot of coaching turnover, especially in Europe. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's that. Good few weeks for FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Gab, he gets the endorsement from Comerball ahead of elections next year.

54:17Julien Laurens:And his tribute video on YouTube passes the 22 ,000 views. Yes, that's right. That's not much. 22 ,000 views. This is weird. So it's probably like Comerball, it's important, but it's also, it's just 10 votes, right? It's Alejandro Dominguez and friends. And also, I'm not sure they're going to block vote. I think he will still be FIFA president just because nobody's challenging him. Elections are next year. I think most people are waiting to see what happens at the World Cup, logically. So the funny thing about his video, and I don't want to make fun of this, but I do, actually. So you know he's got the Infantino 10 logo, and he has a social team.

54:54And they decided to produce a 30-minute tribute video, which is literally a bunch of talking heads, some of them FIFA employees, some of them FIFA legends, some of them, I don't know, his friends, talking about how much he loves football and what a great guy he is. They have that anodyne English voiceover specialist at the beginning, which says, like, this true football lover was to have a profound impact on the game he loved. Like, don't put the used word love twice in the same sentence. It's bad English. I don't know how much it's cost to produce. It looks like high quality video. It is just talking head.

55:29So I don't know. Maybe they did it over. Maybe they just videoed themselves and they'll have really nice phones. It's like cameo or something. But this is just a stupid look. It's just a bad look. Just strategically, whatever you think of him, whoever is advising him on this, right? Whoever is so far up his backside that says, oh, Mr. President, this is really going to help you. This is not how you tell the story of his 10 years, if that's what you want to do. This is not how you make a case for yourself. This looks like pure sycophancy. And the fact that three weeks, I checked last night, so maybe I have a couple more now.

56:03And maybe you can go watch it yourself and add to the total, because I feel bad for him. His feelings will be hurt. 22 ,000 views after three weeks for what went into this, with all the people appearing in it, not good. Yeah, not good. Not good. Jules, this brings us to an end. Yeah. But I'm told there's a pretty important game in the Premier League this weekend. In a few countries, even. The Merseyside Derby. Chelsea against Manchester United. As well. No, no, no. I'm talking about City against Arsenal for all the marbles, possibly. So we're going to be back to tell you all about that. Until then, love the game.

56:40Love your neighbor. Love yourself.

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