England's beloved scoreline, Messi's scout badges & the hydration-break hand gesture

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1:45We'll be right back.

1:53He's ran the goalkeeper, he's done it! Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was without a shadow of a doubt giving him lip. Oh, I say! It's amazing! He does it tame and tame and tame again. Crank up the music! Charge a glass! This nation is going to dance all night!

2:23Charlie Eccleshare:Slapstick England-Croatia pub woe. England conceding a peculiarly England-y goal at a World Cup. Noni Madweke mugging off the Croatians. Cape Verde trigger a certain social media threshold. Lee Dixon on Mexican waves. Lionel Messi making the chief football writers toil for their money. Erling Haaland's second goal against Iraq, as told by Irish breathing. The refereeing hand gesture for hydration break. And why the US are 90 minutes away from soccer supremacy. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts. This is Football Clichés.

2:58Charlie Eccleshare:Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry. This is the World Cup Adjudication Panel. Joining me first of all, Charlie Eccleshare. How are you doing? Very well, thank you. Alongside you from New York City is David Walker. How are things? Things are quite hot and sweaty actually. Good to hear. Speaking of hot and sweaty, let's hear from an absent friend. And all the way back at the start of the tournament, Charlie, a certain Richard Keyes tweeted to everyone at B in sports. Have a wonderful World Cup, guys. You don't need me anymore. You've been the best for a long time now.

3:31Charlie Eccleshare:Make it count. Make it memorable. You don't need me anymore. Quite a poignant note, isn't it? He's like a proud parent, isn't he? Every parent aims to, you know, I know I've done my job, but I'm not needed. And that's that's, I guess, how Keyes feels. Looks like he's just admiring it from afar, Dave. It's good to take time out and enjoy a World Cup like that for someone like him, I imagine, having been in the meat grinder for so long. I mean, I wonder with Keezy's sort of next chapter, how much he is going to sort of hark back to his old days or he's going to press on into the future. I don't want him to become too Tildesley.

4:05Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. The Tildesley trap. Don't fall into the Tildesley trap, Keezy. It's going to happen to all of us. Don't do it. Do you know, Adam, did Keezy used to... You know how broadcasters, even those who are at Sky, pop up at World Cups for others? Did Keezy or Grey, I mean, did they sort of do bits and pieces during World Cups and Euros? I feel like Grey must have done. I'm not going to do the world feed, Charlie. Grey did the 2002 World Cup for the BBC, Five Live. He did the final on Five Live. Andy Grey? Yeah. Did he? Yeah. Wow. And they made a big thing about him being a big signing in their kind of promo material.

4:42Charlie Eccleshare:but easy as far as i know presenters don't really do the i guess presenters less so yeah like dave jones popping up on fox or something consortia yeah keysy adjacent news charlie the bbc have announced that they're going to drop andrew castle after the forthcoming wimbledon how much of that how much of a blow is that to just the entire wimbledon mise-en-scene really I think I will still have his voice in my head sort of throughout the fortnight and just, you know, anything that's unfolding in a kind of Adric Castle voice. But yeah, a real, a real shame. We'll miss him. Dave, this is going to leave a big hole in the BBC's tennis coverage for Wimbledon because whose job is it going to be to confirm to us that somebody loves their tennis?

5:27Well, exactly. Yeah, yeah. The number one responsibility of the gig for whoever fills his shoes. Do you think he'll pop up on the tennis world feed, Radio Wimbledon? Pee in

5:38Charlie Eccleshare:Pee in His dad's been 12 years in Qatar now Sorry Andrew Castle Paddle in Doha Yeah Loves his paddle Right From paddle to panel It's time for the adjudication panel Where else to start David Walker Than England 4 Croatia 2 If you've got a bit of bottle about you This is further proof that 4-2 Is the best scoreline in football isn't it It is England's first 4-2 since 1966 As well at the World Cup In the World Cup Yeah yeah yeah Yeah, not in general. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it, to be honest. I mean, second half, a little bit more than the first. Even the first was, even though we went in two all, it was still good fun, considering some of the slop we've had to suffer in opening games of tournaments in years gone by.

6:23Charlie Eccleshare:I really expected slop, I have to say. And Charlie, given the week-long wait that England fans have had to have for this opening game in this drawn-out tournament, it gave more time for England's preparations to be rocked. and they were rocked they were rocked by kit theft and kit return um a row about chef knives not being allowed on a train and then tino livermento being injured which on a semi-serious note that one how much of a rock to the england preparations would that have been oh yeah i think i did see that used right you know england's preparations rocks i think any starter is a rocking especially if you're losing a start of the whole tournament that's got to be a rocking but um yeah i don't think that quite met the threshold dave you know i freed myself from the shackles of athletic copy editing um just before the england game so i i thought i'm gonna go to the pub i'm gonna go to the pub my nearest pub and watch the england game it's the pub i watched like the early games of euro 2004 in so it holds a place dear in my heart in terms of england so i got there i caught the tail end of portugal versus a democratic republic of congo and they had the five live commentary on which rang some alarm bells like on the red button or had they synced up the radio to the tv i feared because is this iplayer that's going to be annoying and so i thought for now i can handle it i don't mind the dulcet tones of radio commentators it's a bit too much information generally but it sounds quite good you know sort of across a pub so i didn't mind that then england came on and they played music over the top of the build-up and i was fine with that that was okay because you know it's a pub after all but then the game started and it and i didn't realize it at first but there was this really baffling tin pot radio style commentary that came on i expected matterface and dixon and i got a completely non-descript commentator i had no idea what was going on everybody around me was completely non-plus they were either too young to care or just too old to care about commentary it's not like you needed a dodgy stick for itv i know What explanation could there possibly have been?

8:22Charlie Eccleshare:What were the graphics like? What were the... No, so it was all legit except for the sound. And the sound matched up to the pictures, which is obviously your main concern. Wow. It later emerged, Charlie, that it was the audio description commentary. Oh, right. You know, I feel bad. Solidarity to all the audio described commentators out there. Thank you for your work that you do for our nation. A mate of mine had the same problem. He was messaging us saying, why isn't Matterface and Dixon on? Well, where are they? he's accidentally switched on the AD. Plenty of cliches listeners also experience this in pubs as well.

8:55Charlie Eccleshare:But alarm bells rang straight away, Dave. He talked about the minutes played by a certain England player in the Premiership last season. And I was like, what is this? What am I listening to? And then the camera panned at an England corner, I think it was, to Darren Anderton and some in the stands. And the commentator didn't know who he was. He didn't know who he was. He just said, well, looks like it's those two's first experience of a World Cup. I was like, what? I left very shortly afterwards. Surely. I mean, if that's Andrew Castle, that's getting a man who knows a thing or two about scoring in the group stages for England.

9:30Charlie Eccleshare:That was the real tipping point for me. And then when England scored, it emerged that the TVs in the pub garden were two seconds ahead of the TVs in the pub. Oh, no, no. And that was it. I was out. It looked like I was storming out because I was Croatian. Did you actually... You left, Adam Herzich. Absolute nonsense. I couldn't deal with it. What about... Could you not just go into the pub garden? It was absolutely rammed. Absolutely rammed. So you went home? I went home. I got so rattled by a commentator not being able to identify Darren Anderton. And, you know, part of me thinks, Dave... Oh, you're back early.

10:07Charlie Eccleshare:What happened? There was an element of that. We'll get onto that in a second. Thunderstorm, was there? There was a part of me, Dave, that thought, Or maybe Darren Anderson is of a certain vintage. And you could excuse a commentator of another vintage, not necessarily identifying him straight away. But then Alexandre Michea got in touch and he said, here's the French commentary on M6.

10:36Charlie Eccleshare:If they can bloody identify him, Dave. Wow. Anyone know what else they were saying about him there? What sick note in French? Le sick note. Actually, he wasn't injured that much. He was Spurs' Premier League record appearance holder until not long ago, until Hugo Lloris came along. As someone quipped on X, Charlie, they noticed that he had his kid with him who presumably had to take time off school to be there. So presumably when he gets back to school, his nickname will be cemented. Darren Anderson writing out the sick note. I left this pub, Charlie, and it was a long walk. because a 20-minute walk back to my house, that's how near my nearest pub is.

11:14Charlie Eccleshare:Very annoying. I was fuming and I thought, well, at least I got my phone. I can watch ITVX on the walk home so I don't miss anything. 4G signal, absolutely disastrous. Couldn't get it. I finally sort of fired it up, saw the equaliser. We had about 10 minutes left to walk home. So a bit dejected. I got to my front door and I thought, well, I don't need ITVX on my phone anymore. So I sort of fiddled around that, closed all the apps, got the key out. I don't know what that's up. Walked in, turned the TV on, and the TV in my house, for some reason, takes eight years to turn on. Then you have to type in the three-digit channel number in painful consecutive actions.

11:51Charlie Eccleshare:Finally got there, missed the second England goal. That is really annoying. I mean, I think your other option would have been, do you stick it out until half-time and just hope there isn't another goal? Because then you can do the half-time walk and not miss anything. But I guess your composure had gone by that point anyway. where you're just like, I have to leave. Either in retrospect or at the time, Dave, I thought if I walk home now and miss, you know, right off the first half, at least I get the second half, the business end in all its immaculate glory. So that was my mentality. But yeah, just the sort of evening that I feel like it only happened to me.

12:23Charlie Eccleshare:Why do I make life so hard for myself? Never make it easy for myself, do I? I can imagine every single step of it, how annoyed you would be. The five second fury when you're typing in those three numbers in the remote and maybe getting one of them wrong because of it as well. Yeah, go to Channel 1, Channel 0, 0-3. Yeah, the poor remote. I've got a new telly. That's it. All the Dreamland money's going on a new telly. That's it from now on. Do the one where you say the voice command. Just say ITV. There you go. That's what you need. I need to upgrade. Yeah, absolutely. I watched the game in the Restis football studio.

12:56We've all seen you some. Yeah. So it was one of those where they're filming us watching the game on the sofas. And I knew I was in shock. because I was sat directly behind the slab. I was directly behind Harry Maguire's head. And Linneke was there, Richard, Joe Cole, and Patrick Vieira as well. So that was quite a surreal situation. But then because I knew I was on camera, I was sort of thinking, right, how big do I go if we score? You obviously don't want to... You can't really... Knee slide. Did you feel like a cabinet minister

13:32Charlie Eccleshare:sort of having to celebrate for the cameras? You know, they've got to take centre stage. The camera's on them and we're just in the background. We're just extras. But you also don't want to just sort of sit there. So I think I just about pitched it right, though. I did have a laptop in my hand. When I got up, I had to sort of hold my laptop open while I was getting up, which was a bit awkward. It's good to know you were inconvenienced as well. That's good. That's good to know. I'd been waiting for England's first game, Charlie, to find out what England's goal music would be because every nation has a sort of vaguely appropriate piece of music that gets played when they score.

14:05Charlie Eccleshare:England's goal music was not three lines or anything too too obvious it was um Chase the Sun which is played at the darts I thought who chose this and I thought you know FIFA choosing this for England is a bit like us choosing who does the scores for us at Eurovision like it's a big decision to be representative and um I don't mind it I guess is it footbally enough I don't know it's fairly inclusive because like the darts is such a you know a thing that kind of pretty much everyone loves and it you know spans demographics and it's not too tied up with a club i don't think i mean i know i know lots of clubs do have versions of it that they sing but i don't think it's any clubs like main song it's good goal music as well dave it works from a technical standpoint of having you know like a fairly short window to get it in you know you go straight to and that works but it's so dartsy that i think it might slightly take me out of the moment if i was in the stadium and I heard that.

15:02I spoil you to Ali Pali. I don't know what else you would go for. You can't get like a 15 second burst of Sweet Caroline, can you? You can't get three lions. I don't know what you'd do.

15:12Charlie Eccleshare:And rightly so. I haven't seen much backlash to this goal music. It was something that was been frowned upon for so many years but FIFA have really gone into it. Really enjoyed this observation. It came from James Moore but not just James Moore Charlie. It came from Cap 'n Retro on the Reddit as well. The second Croatia goal, the second equaliser, is exactly the kind of goal England would concede in getting knocked out of the tournament from 1998 to 2012 it's a really England goal to concede why why does it it was really instinctive for me I thought that's such an England goal was it just a little bit of savvy from from someone involved in the goal I think there are a couple of things I think yeah there is the savvy and it's such a great header to set it there's also the slow death element of being like oh fuck like yeah you You suddenly realise you've lost your keys or something.

15:59It's like, shit. And there's enough time to just realise, I'm fucked. Yeah, I'm going to check, but I know they're gone. So you can just see it almost in slow motion, like, a guy's about to appear, isn't he? And just put this away. And we've been outsmarted.

16:15Charlie Eccleshare:Every element of the gold day was really England-y. I think it was the finish itself was just neatly and unceremoniously tucked away as well. It's like, oh, that's it. a dagger to England Hearts briefly. Passed a despairing Jordan Pickford as well. Just even the ball over the top was like, I mean, it wasn't Modric, was it? It was one of the other midfielders. A passin' it, I think. Yeah, but it was just that bit of quality that we obviously, we do now possess, but in times gone by, you sort of would have gone like, yeah, England just don't, they don't quite have that quality. We don't have somebody pass it forward.

16:47Yeah, yeah, just chipping it over. And you're completely right, Charlie. You could just sort of all see it happening in slow motion. because it was right at the end of the first half. It was almost like it was like the end of the second half. We just kind of started defending really deep, like trying to see out the first half.

17:02Charlie Eccleshare:Same old England. Second half was much better. Of course, England did prevail 4-2, but Joseph Powell writes in, Charlie, he says, we were discussing score predictions with a friend. I opted for 2-0 and he wildly went for 4-0 and a debate ensued about whose prediction was more valid. I got the margin of victory correct, but he got one element of the actual score correct. So I naturally feel like me, but getting one of the numbers is always satisfying. Any thoughts? Welcome. Who's nearer? 2-0 has to be nearer. They're obviously very different, 2-0 and 4-2. Even though they're the same margins of victory, they're obviously totally different wins, 2-0 and 4-2.

17:36But I still think there's less of a difference. A 4-0 and a 4-2 is, yes, you've got the four, but they're kind of worlds apart. Not sure I quite agree on that. I think getting the four, because I think 2-0 just completely underplays it. 2-0 is just so routine and that wasn't really a you know the first half takes it away from sort of routine win status doesn't it it depends how much yeah if you're talking specifically about this i mean i guess in some the 4-0 advocate could make the argument as well that it kind of was a 4-0 game in some ways or at least it was a four goal difference like a four goal difference in

18:10Charlie Eccleshare:this game wouldn't have flattered england it's really 50-50 to me i still think generally 2-0 is closer to 4-2 it's probably the safer option if you were to choose i agree with you um after the game this came from Jamie Dave here's Noni Madweke talking to 5 Live listen we turned when we turned it on we looked really scary so yeah and that was a big deal wasn't it against that team in the first match yeah they're no mugs it's a good team very good team I think he's no mugged Croatia World Cup finalists how dare you they're going to pin that up on the dressing room wall for whatever that next game is that is great I really like that element of swagger do that if England beat France they're no mugs I'd never heard him actually interviewed.

18:53Charlie Eccleshare:He's never really put up for him. He's fairly sort of peripheral at Arsenal, so he's never really had much of a duty. He speaks, I don't want to say speaks really well, but he had more of a glint in his voice over the radio than I expected. I thought he'd be really kind of evasive like many England players are, but he really sort of seemed to enjoy being interviewed, so I thought he was really good. No mugs feels like such a sort of proper football man pundit thing to say. You don't expect an early 20s kind of young man to sort of drop no mugs in, but fair play. What else has he got in his locker?

19:23Charlie Eccleshare:Well, let's see. I can tell you, Noni Madweke, Charlie, had made 36 offers to receive against Croatia but only received the ball eight times for a 22.2 % made and received ratio. I knew you were waiting on the edge of your seat for it. Yeah, we can tell the other players that, can't we? He's got the evidence that he can't pass anymore. I'm offering. My obsession with offers to receive remains, Dave. Jordan Pickford made 12 offers and received it 10 times for an 83.3 % success rate. But that makes sense for a goalkeeper. If he's offering, it's probably a good chance that they're the only option.

19:56Charlie Eccleshare:Come home, come home. Yeah, don't offer unless it's on. That is really dangerous for a keeper, isn't it? It's like, don't fucking offer. I didn't offer to receive. You're on the right wing and Pickford's waving his arms. Me, I'm free! Can sort of imagine him doing that. Oh dear, yeah. Now I have the link to all the data for this. I'm going to find out who has made the most offers to receive in the group stage so far and other assorted stats. More on those stats later. Does Messi offer to receive much? Is he much of an offer to receive man? He probably just expects to receive, doesn't he? It's assumed I will be receiving it.

20:33Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, yeah. It's likely to go through me, isn't it? Let's face it. Can we just say just a word as well on the England assistant manager interview at half-time and how madly revealing it was? Anthony Barry. Yeah, it was a classic thing of like, oh god what is the point you know a half-time interview with the assistant this is going to be the most platitude heavy load of incredible and then he was just straight in and was like really opinionated about how crap we'd been it was like that was bloody reveal i was not expecting that well this is the thing dave as far as i understand these aren't de rigueur for this tournament they're not they're not put up at half time to do it and given what we know about england's fine margins shit from the last 10 years or so was this calculated kind of feels a little bit like it potentially because it sounds like tuchel kind of said the same thing in the dressing room so so anthony barry um some of some of the quotes from this interview as you were toiling on your on your way home from the pub at halftime it was a complicated and confusing first half we went long when we should go short short when we went should have gone long we were playing with fearful patterns and we had no threaded passes to accelerate the game so it's like quite technical stuff but also just like quite scathing yeah complicated and confusing like what a line just straight off the bat like the half-time interview is surely the most platitudes filled interview of all i was like this is going to be so bad i don't know for whose benefit it would be the players aren't going to hear it so i don't know maybe it wasn't as calculated as i thought but yeah don't underestimate england's scientific approach dave because uh thomas tuchel in the press conference afterwards was addressed by columbia journalist as professor thomas Oh, wow.

22:11Charlie Eccleshare:That is class. More of that. One of the big, big stories of the World Cup so far was Cape Verde getting their goalless draw against Spain, Charlie, and it broke the seal on a seal that we thought was to be very carefully broken during the World Cup, which was the tweeting of the words, imagine not liking football. But since then, the trickle has become a flood. We've seen, imagine not liking football about Congo. We've seen it about the Iraq-Norway game. And then, of course, Cape Verde's near-on-all draw against Spain. You feel it meets the threshold. I feel like given the scenario in which it unfolded, I thought it was quite good.

22:43Charlie Eccleshare:And they could have nicked it at the end. Yeah, I suppose Cape Verde does in the like, it's an amazing story. I think I probably instinctively hold that for something involving, like at least a goal or sort of, you know, not a goalless draw, probably. Obviously, if there were to be any goalless draw that you were going to do it for, it would be this. Yeah, sure. But after a draw, I can imagine someone not liking football if they like goals, for instance. You know what I mean? You are still talking about a 0-0. It's not beyond my comprehension and imagination that some people wouldn't like a 0-0.

23:16It's funny you mention that, because I went to the France-Senegal game in quite an Adam Hurry-style move, actually. I left the second that Barclay scored the second goal to ensure I was the first person on the Uber shuttle to get me out of the stadium and avoid any transport chaos. And then I had this Mexican fan who was American, but Mexican supporter but lived in New York and he was absolutely chewing my ear off the whole way back to New York but nice enough fella he kept banging on he was talking to other people around me as well he kept sort of banging on about how angry he would have been if it was a nil-nil like he thought at half time it was nil-nil he thought he'd I mean to be fair I think he did pay$900 for the match and I was sort of going eh you know but sometimes nil-nils can be alright mate first half was still quite entertaining and he just he wasn't having it see there you go I don't think he would I think he wouldn't have been loving even Spain in Cape Verde.

24:08Did you not think it was absorbing mate? I thought it was absorbing actually. Absorbing his cash more like. I thought it was a breathless first half.

24:17Charlie Eccleshare:Someone who perhaps can imagine not liking football is Lee Dixon on ITV. Here is Lee Dixon responding to a couple of Mexican waves in the tournament so far. All you can hear in the background is for the appearance of the Mexican wave. Oh no. At least they're doing it properly. Are you a fan of the Mexican wave? I'm a fan of it all. I'm a fan of the festivities. I know you're a bit of a killjoy, but I'm a happy fan.