Shane Todd on post-save goalkeeper emotions & professional footballer-botherer Rio Ferdinand

10:16Rio Ferdinand:I am waiting as well. I don't think it'll be pep, but for someone to be described as having an absolute knock, because I think that's sort of the next frontier of this. That would be so good.

10:26Mesut Haaland Dicks:There's a knock and there's a problem as well. There's a slight problem and a slight knock and an issue. I think you go knock issue and then you know you maybe go one up after that knock seems like the least innocuous side of it yes a knock's a dead leg a knock's a dead leg yeah

10:43Shane Todd:I would say so it's a matter of days a knock you think back for the next game

10:48Rio Ferdinand:issue problem

10:49Shane Todd:that's keeping you out

10:50Rio Ferdinand:for weeks so I am genuinely curious to see how long he is out for with this incredible knock

10:54Shane Todd:yeah because the whole genre of injury has been invented he gets to retire

11:00Mesut Haaland Dicks:he's done

11:01Rio Ferdinand:on FPL when he's got a little yellow arrow next to him it says incredible out incredible knock expected back next week

11:09Shane Todd:yeah tough one for the Man City Medical Department finally this came from Four Lions some ice hockey for you here's the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Colorado Avalanche in the NHL and I didn't know you could score own goals but here one is

11:23Mesut Haaland Dicks:chances here in the early going fellas I'm impressed with Joseph Wall score it went up for a skate Brent Burns was trying to check McMahon. It was thrown from the corner by Easton Cowan, and it goes off the right skate of Burns and in.

11:39Rio Ferdinand:Guys, I didn't even really see this happen. Battle in the corner. Brent Burns right in front, number 84. It's going to go off his skate as the play comes out of the corner. This just looks like a bit of a hope pass, I'm thinking. Boom, there it is. Oh, and Burns pretty much is the Diego Maradona back of the net.

11:57Mesut Haaland Dicks:What a fascinating reference to you Shane It's also the least Diego Maradona finish of all time He's 0.1 yards out He's just still been gone in Do they have XG in ice hockey Dave?

12:09Shane Todd:They must do It must be the same principle that applies It feels like quite a statistic heavy sport

12:14Rio Ferdinand:I think they're fond of the pre-assist in ice hockey Right Which has now bled into our football Yeah strange I mean but every hockey goal is back of the net And it's almost as if he's saying this for the first time

12:24Shane Todd:Well he went in off his skate And it was, you know, in a football sense, if it was at the right end, Charlie, it would be a fairly tidy finish, all things considered, given he's on skates on ice. First time.

12:35Rio Ferdinand:You'd hear that and you'd think either he sort of dribbled past everyone, handled it or whatever the equivalent is.

12:40Shane Todd:The skate of God. The skate of God. Yeah, I feel sorry for the commentator because it was a right-footed finish and Diego Maradona very much not noted for his right peg. So all things considered, a very, very jarring reference.

12:52Rio Ferdinand:And it's not, I know nothing about ice hockey, and I'm sure I'm giving him way too much credit, but just before we embarrass ourselves and get inundated with ice hockey people, it's not like hitting it in off your foot isn't the equivalent of a handball in ice hockey. I'm sure that's not the case, but just checking that that's not what he's going for here.

13:08Shane Todd:No, definitely. It can't be. No, I wouldn't have thought it was that deep.

13:11Mesut Haaland Dicks:I'm also not scared of ice hockey fans at all. I'll just put that out there. In terms of list of sporting fans I'm most scared of, ice hockey fans nowhere near it. Sincerely? Sincerely nowhere near it.

13:21Rio Ferdinand:Is that because you think Canada's like the least threatening nation, pound for pound?

13:25Mesut Haaland Dicks:Yeah, and I think we're so far away from there as well. I don't think there's that. I know there is a bit of a... Great logic. But just for numbers, there's not that many of them. That's true. And also, they wear a lot of layers going to the game.

13:38Rio Ferdinand:I'm so glad you referenced the layers. They love a bit of a scrap, don't they, ISOC inman? They've got big sticks. I could cut your fingers off with blades. You should be fucking fearing them, mate, after your day. Oh, yeah.

13:52Shane Todd:Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN. For those who don't know, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It secures your connection, protecting your personal information and online activity, especially on public Wi-Fi. A VPN can also make your phone or laptop appear as if it's in another country, which is great for accessing content while travelling. Indeed, this came from Sam KM. Here's Danish channel TV3 Max's coverage of Newcastle versus Man City in the Carabao on Tuesday night, as Antoine Semenyo appears to have doubled City's lead. And I mean, surely the Danish language has its own phrase for this.

14:47Shane Todd:Is it such a sensational English phrase, Dave, that they think, wow, we've got no equivalent of this? You'll never guess what they say in England when a player's scored two in two.

14:55Rio Ferdinand:that's that's great i love it when this sort of thing happens there's a clip that i saw years ago and i've tried to find it a few times over the years for for pods when this sort of thing has come up to the point where now i think i might have completely like mandela affected it but i'm sure that i saw a clip of roy hodgson talking in uh one of the scandinavian languages that he can speak i think he can speak like icelandic and as well and like other countries that will finish when he was out there. And he was speaking anyway in this language, fluently. And then in the middle of it, he just dropped in baptism of fire.

15:31Shane Todd:But I can't find it anywhere. This needs to be found. There's no way you've made that up. It's too specific. But yeah, lovely stuff. And if you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com slash cliches and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. It's the best discount available. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee and the link is also in our podcast description if you need it. We'll be back after the break.

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18:11Shane Todd:Welcome back to Football Clichés. A reminder that Dreamland episode 15 is going to be out imminently. It's all about the baller league and televised six-a-side football and the futility of it all. For just£5.99 a month, you can sign up for Dreamland at dreamland.footballclichés.com. You'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, plus two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show. Now, on to the main event of today. It's Mezzat Harlan Dix with our guest Shane Todd. You've picked six excellent things for your fascinations and irritations of football. And despite your injury, you are here.

18:43Shane Todd:Kick us off with your first fascination, please, Shane.

18:45Mesut Haaland Dicks:I'm going to go with me getting to play in any sort of comedians football event, charity football event, anything like that. This is what I live for. There's a huge reason why I do stand up is getting to be involved in things like this. It's unbelievable every time. I love it. But when I go on tour, the first thing I want to do is figure out, is there a game I can play in? So I do five-a-sides all over the world. I've got various apps. It's actually very seedy in a way. It's just talking to other men on apps about trying to meet up, but disused pitches early in the morning. And then I've got to play in some massive games with the best footballers of my childhood.

19:25Mesut Haaland Dicks:So I've done the five-a-sides and then played in the stadium kind of games. like Soccer Aid is my dream but this is what I love

19:32Shane Todd:So is there a kind of worldwide circuit of comedians just constantly playing football that you can get involved in then?

19:37Mesut Haaland Dicks:Well no there's more I played in these sort of maybe like annually you get to play in a charity game and then if I'm in for example Austin, Texas I've got this app all across America where if you want to play Fiverrside you can just go and join these games and what you can do is what I love is as someone who like still plays like club football you can set your rating for it out of five so you rate your ability out of five five being unbelievable one being like a beginner so if you set it go on then you set it at two then you get to play in those games and you can just absolutely lord it like you just stat pack just like a child yeah that's immoral behavior you can't give yourself a two i love it but you play like i played in played loads of times in like new york and you on like high school roofs, you know, like they have like cage football up on the roof and some weird and wonderful places, but I love it.

20:34Mesut Haaland Dicks:The first one I ever played in the first sort of comedians game was at Kilkenny Festival, which is a big stand-up festival in Kilkenny, if you would believe that. And they have a game on the Sunday, so the festival is mainly Friday, Saturday, and then the Sunday, everyone's hungover and they play a big football game. And they do Ireland versus the rest of the world. And it used to be sponsored by Sky. Like the game was massive. You had proper kits. And there was, I'd say, like maybe 2 ,000 watching the first time I played in that. And I was up front with Kevin Bridges where we were sort of like, you know, do you mean the phone, Peter Crouch?

21:11Mesut Haaland Dicks:And it was brilliant because you're just like, you're getting to play with other comics. There's loads of people there and genuinely great. And then you see sort of other comics played that you would never have expected to have seen play football you know like David O'Doherty was brilliant the year that really yeah I think Russell Harde was maybe playing John Richardson Kevin Bridges so it's it's great and I like the Saturday night is the main drinking night of the festival but I knew the match was like 11 a.m. Sunday so I remember going to the the sort of big Saturday night party and seeing the comedians that were going to be playing the next day and they were drinking and I was like boys what what on earth do you do like we have a we have a game tomorrow and um the game kicked off at like 11 a.m and i remember arriving at 10 to sort of like get a warm-up in and walk around and really take it in and i remember there being nobody else there until like 10 50 and i've been sitting there ready

22:06Shane Todd:to go now charlie if you hadn't got the impression already that shane takes these events incredibly seriously i did some research about shane playing some football and i found the uh a recent um comedians legends game that he played in it was also the same game that uh vittorio angeloni nutmegged dimitar berbatov a great day for for all all there and i was watching a kind of um quick fire montage of that game and it had all the kind of mannerisms and and situations you'd expect from a game like that so people falling over some some sort of gentle joshing between the legends and the comedians some some outbreaks of actual football some incredible goals scored very casually by ex-pros or that sort of thing.

22:45Shane Todd:But the tone was generally quite lighthearted, very friendly. And then there was a very, very slow motion shot of Shane with his captain's armband on, doing a kind of, what I can only assume was a kind of calm down, keep it on the deck lads kind of gesture. And I just thought that was well out of place for the day. It looked very professional. So he's way more than a two out of five.

23:06Mesut Haaland Dicks:In my defence, first of all, I'm just going to admit it, bought the captain's armband myself in Sports Direct on the way to the game. That's fine. I mean, I organized the game so I get to be captain and I was hitting free kicks and penalties. That's fine. Absolutely fine. But actually, it wasn't a calm down. It was more like a relax because what happened was the legends were like, I'd say there were seven, two up or something. And I was like, let's sneak a couple of players on. Let's sneak a couple of extra players onto the pitch. And I was slowly empty in the bench, but the players were making it very obvious.

23:36Mesut Haaland Dicks:And I was like, subtly do this. Don't let the referee see it. Now, to be fair, at one point, I swear we had 19 players in our team, three goalkeepers, and they scored four in that time. So that's...

23:50Shane Todd:Absolutely shambolic.

23:51Mesut Haaland Dicks:Absolutely shambolic. I thought you were supposed to be taking this stuff seriously. The game was absolutely unbelievable.

23:56Rio Ferdinand:I was going to ask, when you're playing in one of these games, and presumably there are people who can come along and watch these things for charity or whatever, but do you feel under pressure to inject humour into the game or just play completely straight as a game of football between two teams? Because I know there are some, you know, there's like the one that Alex Horn does at Chesham United. Like, I know they do sort of silly stuff during that game. Obviously, you want to make it entertaining.

24:20Mesut Haaland Dicks:Yeah, I've heard about that game and they were like, oh, they mess around and stuff. And I was like, well, never select me for that. I've never been asked. But yeah, I personally don't because I'm thinking if I can get a goal here, then maybe I'll have a bit of fun after that. But sometimes I think I look like I'm taking it that seriously. the people then will think that's a joke. Do you know what I mean? He's almost in this character. No one could be taking it that seriously. Completely not. Yeah, but I got at that last game, I broke up my hand like two weeks before it, playing in a cup final from a club.

24:56Mesut Haaland Dicks:And it was one of those ones the doctor was like, you're right.

24:59Rio Ferdinand:You've really got to wrap your hands in cotton wool, mate.

25:01Mesut Haaland Dicks:I know. Injury prone hands. The only thing with stand-up is you need to not injure is your hands. I mean, it's not difficult. so I broke my hand and it's a classic the doctor's like you've no way of playing you've no way of playing and he gave me a cast and he's like this has got to stay on for four weeks went up to the like outpatients thing he x-rayed he said I'm going to give you like a splint and I said can I play in this game and the doctor said no I can't tell you not to play in that game but all I'll say is if you're going to play in the game score a goal and I was like this is this is a Hollywood movie and a mate of mine a mate of mine who's in the TV show Blue Lights Dez Eastwood went on an amazing run got himself into the box got fouled by it might have been Wes Brown and then and Dez Dez got the ball to hit the penalty and I was like man I organised this game give me that ball absolutely planted a bottom left and I was like this is great I got taken out by Stylian Petrov in the game horrible tackle horrible tackle some of the

26:06Shane Todd:yeah they can't

26:07Mesut Haaland Dicks:they can't switch it off can they when you know when things get tough they're normally all like they'll be good natured and we'll have a bit of a laugh but the only person who consistently in all these games i've played in the only person consistently who loses the head and doesn't

26:21Shane Todd:treat it like a friendlies jason mcathair oh excellent that's interesting that's what we

26:25Mesut Haaland Dicks:want to hear nightmare of a guy do you know there's a there's a um he played in a game it might have been in dublin it was somewhere down south and he got he got punched by the uh dublin GAA goalkeeper Stephen Cloxton and if you look up this article Jason McIntyre Stephen Cloxton there is a picture of like Stephen Cloxton's fist hitting McIntyre's jaw like there's a proper picture of it poor bloke

26:49Shane Todd:Stephen Cloxton sounds like the name of someone who would punch someone so fair play I don't want to over interrogate Shane Todd's footballing credentials Charlie but Shane Todd two syllables two first names he's absolutely nailed the commentator would say his full name at all times and nobody really knows why formula isn't he Yeah, I think so.

27:07Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, it works. Also, the Todd, you know, there is pedigree with the Colin Todd, Andy Todd.

27:12Shane Todd:Yeah.

27:12Mesut Haaland Dicks:Any relation? No, no. Is there a 1D, I think, or two?

27:15Shane Todd:No. There's one Andy Todd with the 1D and there's one Andy Todd with 2Ds.

27:20Rio Ferdinand:But I think the one who's the Colin Todd son was 2Ds.

27:23Shane Todd:Indeed. Yeah, he wouldn't have a different surname. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. All right, that takes care of your first one. What's your second fascination of football, please, Shane?

27:29Mesut Haaland Dicks:My second one is something I absolutely love to see is last minute of a game, goalkeeper makes an unbelievable save in a televised game, like an outrageous save. And then for some reason, feels a need to look like really cross, like really angry, like he's not even necessarily shouting at his defense, but he kind of just like scowls a bit and maybe move a couple of players around. but I'm like in my head I always go it'd be refreshing to see a keeper just love it like just give a bit of a celebration I think the only keeper who doesn't mask as a the only keeper who loves it when he makes a good save is Jordan Pickford I think Jordan Pickford refreshingly is happy to just like give it a bit when he does it but I don't know why keepers look like they didn't want to make the save

28:16Shane Todd:That's a good observation actually Charlie because Jordan Pickford probably is one of the only goalkeepers who would kind of happily accept the acclaim of a save but also he's absolutely got it in his locker to do the classic you know moving people around like chess pieces in a furious way so he's a very versatile goalkeeper let's put it that way

28:32Rio Ferdinand:well I think he just yeah he wears his emotions on his sleeve but I think we got I think we got into this because this is another thing I love Shane I think we got into it on one of the live not this most recent tour but the one before the the goalkeeper having to pretend to be angry even though obviously they're delighted and all of that I do remember once like the only equivalent I had Dave was playing in the game and I made the best like saving tackle of my life. Like it was incredible. And then they scored from the corner and it still annoys me so much. It was ultimately futile. Like it was, it was like an incredible block.

29:03Rio Ferdinand:Really was. It came from nowhere. He absolutely slid from so far away and just got the nearest toe on the ball to deflect it over the bar and then did all the switch on as well. And then we did not switch on. There's no crowd to pump up, is there? But I was genuinely in my head, I was like, don't celebrate this massively until their corner comes to nothing. And I was like, it will. What have you done? A knee slide? Then I would have really started ramping up the non-existent crowd.

29:27Mesut Haaland Dicks:You never see even a smile. Keep a big save, smile. Don't even acknowledge your fans. You don't need to, but I mean, just a smile.

29:35Shane Todd:There are certain types of games, and it really would take a very specific kind of set of two teams, Dave, for this to happen, I think. Perhaps like a big team versus a small team, maybe. Or maybe a sort of low-stakes game. But there'll be an odd occasion. I really want to see this happen, and I thought this was going to happen the other night, when Virgil van Dijk had a volley against Barnsley and Barnsley keeper Murphy Cooper instinctively tipped it onto the bar and over for a corner. And I thought to myself, are the conditions here set and acceptable for van Dijk to go over to the keeper and go good save?

30:06Shane Todd:To give him a little sort of fist bump of recognition. Now, it might look a bit patronising, so the conditions are very specific. I do like it when that happens, when a would-be goal scorer acknowledges a keeper for the save that they've made. I think that's a classy touch, a nice human moment.

30:19Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, I like it. What was the score at that time? Was it still quite close? You are in danger of being told, fuck off, mate. Especially in the context of Sobber Sly doing what he did and being accused of disrespect. I think it's a nice thing to do.

30:34Shane Todd:Van Dijk might have it in his locker to be annoyed by a goalkeeper saving his shot. Actually, that's a good point. But I've always tried to get to the bottom of the human instinct for this reaction, Shane. Because it's not like a goalkeeper making a save like that isn't like a great goal. you haven't got the opportunity to bask in the acclaim necessarily. And there is obviously an admin situation. You've got to face the next set piece that comes up. But I also think that goalkeeping is basically just a solemn duty. And I think that's why they react like they do. There's something quite earnest about it.

31:01Shane Todd:It's like, I've done my job, but it's a very frontline job. It's a very important job. I don't need any acclaim. It's like a bloke who gets hailed for pulling someone out of a burning house or something. It's like, well, yeah, I'm not really a hero. I did what anyone else would do, really.

31:15Mesut Haaland Dicks:But sometimes the timing of it's nice. Like when Hearts were playing at the weekend there, Craig Gordon makes that two unbelievable saves. But that came with almost the final kick. So he was able, because they pushed the defender. You know, when the defenders come over, they almost like push them away. But he was able to bring everybody in. Now, he still looked a bit angry. You know, he's still shouting a bit. But because that was the final whistle and he couldn't make a howler after it, he was able to bask in it a bit.

31:43Shane Todd:I mean, that's good, Charlie. That's a nice coincidence for that to happen. And it's very much like it's Sylvester Stallone in Escape to Victory when he makes that save in the final minute. And apparently it's the final whistle. Presumably the referee's just added on time for the penalty and it's fine. But I have to say, I don't like that. I don't like the final whistle occurring when the ball is dead. He needs to have taken like a subsequent goal kick or something like that before he can start celebrating the save he'd just made.

32:06Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, that would be the absolute sweet spot. But yeah, it is true. It is kind of hard on keepers. They don't get that moment. You know, imagine if you did score an incredible goal, but you had to be wary because they might take the kickoff really quickly. So we better not celebrate, lads. Let's get back to the halfway line and defend again. It's a good point, actually, Adam. It's just occurred to me with you saying that about someone pulling someone out of a burning building. Goalkeepers are really, they're quite firemen-y, aren't they?

32:32Mesut Haaland Dicks:Richard.

32:32Rio Ferdinand:I can imagine Jordan Pickford being a fireman. Oh, yeah. I can imagine David James, Brad Friedle, David Seaman.

32:38Mesut Haaland Dicks:I can imagine him being in London's burning. Brad Friedle looks like he's not still an active, even when he was playing, doesn't look like an active fireman, but looks like he would supervise firemen, you know, more of like a middleman kind of. Veteran fireman. Yeah, veteran fireman, yeah. He's been there and done it. All the American goalkeepers look like

32:55Shane Todd:they could have been firemen. Casey Keller. Tim Howard. Tim Howard. Who's his fireman? You've got to be chunky. Jordan Pickford's too spindly to be a fireman.

33:04Rio Ferdinand:No, I can imagine it. I can imagine it with the sort of ash on his face, the sweat stripping down. but he's still getting the job done. The slightly manic energy that he has. Down the pole, they'd be good at going down the pole. Yeah.

33:18Shane Todd:Why? Why would they be? Well, you know, they're used to sticks. Excellent, fantastic work. Got good angles. No, let's move on. Shane, your third and final fascination of football, please. What an incredible observation.

33:29Mesut Haaland Dicks:I grew up a huge football manager fan. I think I was like 11 or 12 when I started playing football championship manager then, obviously. but now it's such a novelty for me that one of my favorite things is like a long-haul flight or a it would have to be over a four-hour flight probably for me to justify this i was going to

33:48Shane Todd:ask about the threshold for this like it would need to be four or more for you would it yeah i'll

33:52Mesut Haaland Dicks:never do like the ipad football manager thing uh i don't like that and i obviously wouldn't do it if i was going away with like my wife and kids but if i'm going away the states or australia or whatever, I'm a football manager and I'll never play that game. Once I step off that plane, I won't play it any other time bar the flight home. So I, do you know what I'm a bit like? The movie Memento. Do you know, like I'll play the whole time and then sometimes like 10 hours into your flight, I might just restart the game. Sometimes I get to the start of the season and just go back. Jesus. I'm aware that's not the plot of Memento now that I've said it.

34:29Shane Todd:I thought, what's he doing? Playing the season backwards? What's going on? My only fear here, the anxiety that this selection brought out in me, Dave, was that presumably Shane's not starting a season, you know, starting a whole game from scratch as he boards a plane because you've got a shitload of admin to do. That's what I want. You know, for the first hour, that's ruled any enjoyment out of it, surely.

34:50Mesut Haaland Dicks:But that's what I enjoy. I think I'd be more suited to like a director of football manager. Like that's, honestly, I enjoy the stats. I enjoy weeding out the players that don't want, bringing new players in. I don't, I've never, some people might hate this, I've never watched the game on Football Manager. I just do only commentary, you know, and sort of speed through the game. And I don't like the idea of taking training or anything like that. I'm more, I guess I'm more old school manager. You know, I want my coaches to go and do that. I'll delegate. But I still will only go in if, like, I'm having a say in transfers.

35:26Mesut Haaland Dicks:I won't work with the director of football. I like to just do things I like to really have a hand in recruitment

35:32Shane Todd:Shane's spot on here though Charlie if there's one thing I learnt very early on in the sort of championship manager football manager kind of era it's that training is bullshit cannot be arsed with getting involved in that auto all the way oh yeah

35:45Rio Ferdinand:I think I even stopped playing

35:46Shane Todd:before that came in yeah I didn't last long in the training era absolutely not I don't want to get I don't want to get their stats up I want them to be good already what's going on

35:55Rio Ferdinand:I think there's always been training it's just probably just not that detailed back in the old days yeah back in the day 0-1-0-2 onwards I think it was that had the training yeah back in the old Champions League you just sort of whizzed on during the week absolutely faff around with that

36:07Shane Todd:Shane I don't know if you've ever been aware of the pioneering computer game released in 2001 that was Ali McCoy's director of football surely that's banged up your street isn't it

36:19Mesut Haaland Dicks:I have a background tab downloading it as we speak because that sounds like my perfect game I would love that Why would Ali McCoy have a director of football games? Why? Nobody knows. A good friend of my dad's is Billy Hamilton, a sort of legendary Northern Ireland striker who played for QPR and Oxford and Burnley. And Billy, if I'm right, got a load of bad injuries in his career. And during one time where he was out for a while, brought out a board game and we had it in the roof space in my house. It was called like Billy Hamilton striker or something like that. I remember my dad sending me, my dad was like, this is actually an unbelievable game.

36:56Mesut Haaland Dicks:My dad obviously never played it, but he's like, this is an unbelievable game. He didn't get the backing at the right time. Otherwise, that could have been massive.

37:02Shane Todd:Get it out the loft and take it on your next long haul flight. Billy Hamilton's Football Academy. Yeah, imagine I was playing that

37:09Mesut Haaland Dicks:and the guy at the Super Saiyan Wars as well.

37:13Shane Todd:Like playing battle sticks with someone in the three rows in front of you. This is sensational so far. We'll take a short break and we'll be back with Shane Todd's Footballing Irritations.

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38:54Rio Ferdinand:Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 Copilot. Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

39:09Shane Todd:Welcome back to Football Clichés. We've heard Shane Todd's footballing fascinations. Now for the fun bit, the things that make his skin crawl. First one, please, Shane.

39:17Mesut Haaland Dicks:someone tell me what Rio Ferdinand's job description is at the minute because all I see is him bothering young football players now like they're still playing like the final whistle hasn't gone yet and Rio is like trying to doorstep them as they're they're trying to take a free kick or whatever he's just on the pitch he's at like three games a day on all different continents it. Anyone lifts a trophy or scores a goal or does anything, Rio straight over to them. He's just bothering players.

39:50Shane Todd:He really is at the cutting edge of football content creation now, Dave. Shane has somehow hacked into the running order here because the first question I was going to ask is, what actually is Rio Ferdinand's job now and how do we classify his line of work? He's a bother. Dave, what does he do? What does he do?

40:05Rio Ferdinand:A professional botherer. Excellent botherer. He is in an interesting little phase because he's gone from being fairly standard pundit for TNT or BT. He's had his podcast for a while. But since, you know, he's gone all in on the move to Dubai and has taken some flack for that. He's had the being an ambassador for the World Cup and doing the draw and all that stuff. And, you know, that excruciating interview with Dan Rohn. I saw a clip of him the other day, like talking at some sort of big investment conference in the Middle East. and he's sort of getting into the political territory about, yeah, you know, I had to leave England because of this, that and the other.

40:43Rio Ferdinand:Oh, of course, yes. But then he's also, like, he was in Saudi at the weekend, wasn't he? At the Spanish Super Cup.

40:48Shane Todd:Yes, he was. So here is 48 seconds of Rio Ferdinand collaring Barcelona players after their Spanish Super Cup win in Saudi the other night.

40:58Rio Ferdinand:Hey, big trophy, big. Keep going, man. Keep doing your thing. Congratulations.

41:04Shane Todd:Well done. Was it red?

41:05Rio Ferdinand:I don't think so.

41:07Mesut Haaland Dicks:Because I slip and then I even touch the ball first. I don't think it's a red move. I think the one from Asensio on Perri is more a red move.

41:16Shane Todd:When I saw the replay, I agree.

41:19Rio Ferdinand:I haven't seen mine, but...

41:20Shane Todd:Oh, you have the choice, it doesn't matter now.

41:22Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, that's good.

41:23Shane Todd:Well done, enjoy, enjoy. How are you, bro? Congratulations. Thank you. Well done, good. You are a superstar, my friend. Serious. Thank you. You win in the game? I'm big fan. No, no, no. I'm a big fan. Really, really. You grow so much. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. What's up, man? I'll see you again, yeah? You're serious? Hey, your English is good, by the way.

41:40Mesut Haaland Dicks:You need to go to Barcelona.

41:41Shane Todd:I'll come, I'll come. I'll speak to you and I'll let you know. Yeah. Okay?

41:46Rio Ferdinand:His accent, it's gone really like, I don't know, sort of international, just like I'm talking, like, you know those people who, you know, where are they from? It's just like a weird international accent voice.

41:58Mesut Haaland Dicks:He knows he might have a chat with Frankie De Jong, so he calls Steve McLaren beforehand. Steve, what do you advise? Like, he goes up to Marcus Rashford and just says, big trophy. Big trophy. He's not interviewing them, right? So he's obviously said to the camera, I'm just going to go over and chat to these guys. And I think it's, who's the player? Someone tried to ignore him this week I saw, which was great. It might have been. Oh, Vinicius Junior, I think it was. It was Trent. Oh, okay. Trent's walking down a corridor, sees Rio. He'll trace the Natrium and then reels just there. It's just so unnecessary.

42:33Rio Ferdinand:To be fair, the thing he gets from Frankie de Jong is quite good. Like that's what he says of basically, like if an interviewer got that, you'd be like, oh, that's quite a good line from Frankie de Jong. Yeah, I suppose. Like it's not all, I mean, most of it is obviously. Yeah, it's true. But like Shane says, he's not actually, he's not doing this for a TV company. He's doing it for the content. He's just got somebody filming him sort of waiting at the edge of the pitch. He's like the moose. Yeah. basically. Well, he is like the moose

43:01Shane Todd:because he uses the immortal kind of globe-trotting sort of form of address, Charlie, which is my friend. My friend. Which I feel like you could use that in any country. It's mostly for taxi drivers or people trying to sell you something. But it's a truly global term of acknowledgement, isn't it, my friend?

43:17Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, but that's what I mean. I think that's partly why as well he sounds so like... It's like he's taught... He's in a foreign country talking to a taxi driver and assuming they don't speak good English. and so he's talking in this kind of weird, broken English and adding my friend to the end of everything. Thank you, my friend.

43:33Mesut Haaland Dicks:It's a bit like, I remember after leaving primary school and going to secondary school, and some people were like, we should go back to primary school, say hello to our old teachers. Nobody, the teachers don't want that. Like, you're just, like, you're just hanging. There's no need for me to be in the school. Like, and also, sometimes, sometimes it's just about justified. Like, when you saw Ronaldo, when he won the Champions League, wasn't it with Real Madrid and Sir Alex Ferguson was there and that any sort of doorsteps him a little bit for a quick embrace and a well done, that's borderline. That's borderline.

44:08Mesut Haaland Dicks:You don't go to his school anymore. You don't manage him anymore.

44:11Shane Todd:But the numbers are on Ferguson's side here, Dave, in that situation, because a schoolteacher going to a former pupil and sort of saying, hey, you're doing really well these days, well done, that's good. But if you ever were to see an old schoolteacher in the street or even, dare say, visit your old school or something like that on the off chance of saying hello to an old teacher. I'm going to say manage. They manage 30 kids a year. They won't remember you from 20 years ago. No chance.

44:34Rio Ferdinand:I sit in front of, at Watford, my season ticket, I sit in front of one of my old PE teachers. Wow. And he's quite old now. I think he's well into his 80s. He was pretty old when he was... Yeah, I was just thinking he was depicted. And every now and again, I think, like at half time, I could strike up a conversation, but people will not remember me. Absolutely no way. so no interaction has taken place yet not in that I mean a bit of like general football interaction but not no detail about oh do you remember me I was do a real just go out to him my friend hey how you doing

45:08Shane Todd:on a similar note I feel like Rio Ferdinand has taken on the mantle Shane of Salt Bay in terms of his just the way he's kind of infiltrated the kind of inner circle of football especially at live events so I thought it was I thought the natural next step was to Google Rio Ferdinand Salt Bay and he's met him at least 12 times, according to the first page of Google image search, which is an astonishing number of times for two people to be together.

45:31Mesut Haaland Dicks:It's probably working even the other way now where even Salt Bae saying to his team, like Rio's hanging about a bit too much here. That's not what you want. I also feel like Rio Ferdinand had too good of a football career to be doing this because this is something we might associate with someone who'd played a bit or not really had a career or wants to appear like they had more respect in football. Like Rio Ferdinand was an unbelievable player. Like he should be doing something else.

45:59Shane Todd:I don't know. Maybe it kind of smooths that access, Dave, that he was so good and he's got that cachet that that's the reason he's there. I don't feel like a Warren Barton couldn't do that. No, no, exactly.

46:11Rio Ferdinand:Congratulating Rafinha.

46:13Shane Todd:Who are you again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I was a right back. So, you know, in a parallel universe, you did come up against me. Anyway, yes. Yeah, that's enough Rio Ferdinand bashing from us. your second irritation of football please Shane

46:23Mesut Haaland Dicks:I think it has to be this is a double-edged sword for me because part of me likes it part of me hates it which is just knowing too much about transfers and transfer sagas and every minute of it from the club registering interest in the player to the fee to the contract to the medical it just it takes away that lovely surprise you know that you used to get in maybe the late 90s early 90s I can remember of like as a United fan when United just signed a player out of what felt to us like nowhere you know it was such a buzz it was like how have we got him or where's that come from you know everything now is just far too like to the point where wasn't it didn't Porto sign Luke de Jong and it made transfer news all around the world because they were like they didn't tell us that this was happening oh yes of course yeah presented like out of nowhere but that used to be the way it was a player would just rock up at your club with a shirt or the scarf above your head and that was such a great moment and I remember a few way before Fabrizio Romano times, I'm talking, yeah, probably like late 90s, early 90s being in Tenerife on summer holidays and Verón was going to sign for United I thought this might be the example, yeah and there was only maybe two days of this might be happening, two it's happened and I remember there was a waiter at a sort of beach shack kind of place that we would have lunch at who was like updating us on the transfer because there was obviously no Twitter, no anything like that.

47:51Mesut Haaland Dicks:The newspapers at that point were a day late out there. So he was telling us through Spanish radio he was hearing, like, it looks like this is going to happen. And Dwight York as well. I remember seeing in an airport on holiday, I remember seeing a picture somewhere of Dwight York posing with the United shirt.

48:07Rio Ferdinand:What a way to find out.

48:09Mesut Haaland Dicks:I know. All things considered, yeah. And I love that. Now I just think, like I remember working in an office job when I was 16, 17 for the summer and really getting into BBC Sport gossip section, you know, and I probably checked that every day for the last 20 years without exaggeration. Wow, can't switch it off. But now they need to be banned. After you mention a rumour once, that's the rumour done. You know what I mean? Like you look at it now, it's like Arsenal, like the look of Mark Gahey. You've told me this 50 times.

48:44Shane Todd:Yeah. I've got to pick up on this though, Dave. Shane claims to have read the BBC Gossip column every day for the last 20 years.

48:51Mesut Haaland Dicks:It doesn't come out on Christmas Day.

48:54Shane Todd:Good. How encyclopedic, Dave, do you reckon Shane's knowledge of the ages of in-demand footballers are right now? Yeah, amazing. It should come out on Christmas Day. Lots of screens on them in the Christmas morning.

49:05Mesut Haaland Dicks:Even if they did it the day before and then sort of repackaged it a bit, still upload it on Christmas Day.

49:11Shane Todd:It goes out at half past 11 every night as well, so it's really confusing. It's a bit like the newspapers, but in reverse coming out like half an hour before. But this is such a good example of this phenomenon, Charlie. I was going to kind of try and explore what the sweet spot of this would be and also at what point the internet started defeating, you know, day-old holiday newspapers. Juan Sebastian Varon going to Manchester United in the summer of 2001 is such a good example for this because really exotic signing for what the Premier League was at the time. Club record signing is about 28 million or something like that.

49:41Shane Todd:It's an incredible signing to be confronted with in a newspaper 36 hours later after signing. That would have blown a Manchester United fan's mind in 2001. It's a great example of this. And I wonder when it started fading then.

49:55Rio Ferdinand:Well, yeah, I remember 2001. I do remember that summer holiday being able to go to an internet cafe. So I think around then it was starting to change a bit. Whereas I remember in 97 finding out about Karl-Heinz Riedler joining Liverpool and I think snubbing Newcastle. Right. I think that was the headline. And that was still very much the era of that was how you did it. You know, papers a day or so after. So I do think 2001, that's when it's still, you would probably be getting papers, but it's starting to shift a bit then. You have to go out your way a little bit. You're right. I can remember going to an internet cafe on holiday once.

50:30Rio Ferdinand:But that same summer, it was 2003. And I was on holiday with my mates. and every day, like his dad was big into his football, so he was getting the papers every day and it was like every day Chelsea was signing a new player because it was Abramovich's first summer and they were just buying all sorts. Maybe Abramovich killed it all off.

50:46Shane Todd:Someone on the internet went, we've got to sort this out. People can't be waiting 36 hours to find out who Abramovich has signed next. That's it. That's what he's done. Yeah, I do long for those times, Shane, but yeah, things have moved on. I just feel like there's no transfer now that could have the capacity to stun. I mean, you mentioned Luke de Jong, but that's a real one-off. Could there ever be a Varon-style impact in your life?

51:07Mesut Haaland Dicks:I think if I, on a side note, I think if I had showed up that night with the Porto shirt with De Jong on the back, I think people would have just assumed that it was Luke De Jong.

51:15Shane Todd:You do look a bit like one of the De Jongs, actually. It's incredible.

51:19Mesut Haaland Dicks:Yeah, it's Luke De Jong.

51:20Shane Todd:It's absolutely amazing.

51:22Mesut Haaland Dicks:Shane De Jong. Do you know, the transfers that do actually stun me now are, I follow the Irish League here in Northern Ireland, and because it's obviously not well written about at all, there's still quite a few part-time teams. Nearly all transfers here are surprises because there's no real gossip column. You see the odd thing on the likes of the Belfast Telegraph sport pages, but Irish league transfers are actually nearly all surprises. So when you do see someone with a shirt, you do get that sort of slightly surprise feeling. That's great.

51:52Rio Ferdinand:I remember if you were a fan of a club not in the Premier League, Basically, if you're a fan of a club who wasn't going to get their players on the back pages, where do you go in the pre-internet days? And for me, it was the Watford Observer every Friday. And you'd see the headlines on the little board outside the newsagents. Like Watford, you know, Watford sign Helgerson or whatever it might be. And because it was one day a week as well, there was a lot of anticipation on a Friday to see if there was going to be any transferring news. And it's like, oh, no, just another interview with the assistant manager.

52:21Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, that bridged the gap for sure.

52:25Shane Todd:Right, your third and final irritation of football, please, Shane.

52:28Mesut Haaland Dicks:Is when you have the likes of a potential giant killing FA Cup or League Cup tie, and the commentators just go through everybody's day jobs or anyone who recently had a day job. And it is kind of interesting. I think at the start of the game, I would love, this will never happen, I would love the commentator to go through their team and be like, he works part-time as this, he works part-time as that, he did that. just get it out of the way at the start with it with a slight break and play they always focus on one player who up until recently was doing something like that's it's always up until recently or like last month you know he was working somewhere to make ends meet but i feel like they focus on more like one or two players to do this and like they can't believe when this guy does anything so some some guy like some guy will return a throw in and they'll be like he was working in a car parts factory last month and he's just returned a throw in right to his feet to the guy he threw it.

53:28Mesut Haaland Dicks:It's constant. It's this constant thing of like, you know, you won't believe it. I'm like, he's playing step seven football. I believe it, but he needs to supplement his income with another job.

53:39Shane Todd:Yeah, Charlie, how would you feel if they committed to the FA Cup staple of listing non-league players' occupations by just listing them in the team sheet when it came out on the telly? Just like, that's where they're playing and also this is where

53:51Rio Ferdinand:you know what they do for a living in a way yeah just sort of you know you're going to be hearing lots about that just get it out of the way early there's some fairly sort of staple professions

53:58Shane Todd:that have been sort of associated with this over the years dave you know real proper trades you know carpentry plumbers that sort of thing and um i think sort of a team of plumbers would always be the one that sort of you know uses a term of derision for anyone who might have been upset in their cup competition but um every now and then you do get a really specific sounding job maccles captain Paul Dawson against Palace the other day was sort of getting involved in setting up the game at Macclesfield after finishing his job packing scented candles and diffusers which is an incredibly specific thing I mean I didn't know it was you'd think it'd be a bit more diversified than that surely

54:32Rio Ferdinand:Well that's surely that's just he works in a factory it's like he's not he's sought out the scented candle factory that was always his ambition was to be their specialist

54:43Mesut Haaland Dicks:I think they plant that sort of thing so that if he scores a goal that can be like he's lit up he's working in a candle factory he's lit up this time that's this this has the scent of a comeback written all over it smooth nice yes

54:58Shane Todd:really good

54:59Mesut Haaland Dicks:the reason I do kind of I do kind of like their jobs and it is fun to find it out is I might be slightly wrong for this it might have been this fixture but when Northern Ireland beat England 1-0 Peter Thompson who was part of the Northern Ireland squad and played Irish League football at the time was struggling to get the game off as he was a postman. But he was like, there was a genuine thing of the day before that we're like, he still hasn't got this cleared with his boss. And then it's mad. That's the sort of news we have here.

55:29Shane Todd:We can't have the home nations international being forced to get out of his day job. That's a San Marino type shit. We can't have that.

55:37Rio Ferdinand:You know, if you watch any NFL game, at the start of every game, they have the little graphics, like while the game's going on, so sort of like the opening two minutes but little graphics of the players pop up and they're like animated and it'll be like David Walker Nottingham Trent University. They all say where they went to college. So you could do the same with this but you'd just be like, yeah, yeah, Paul Dawson, Candlemaker.

55:59Mesut Haaland Dicks:Can I just point out in those fixtures there will always be someone who's just signed for the lower league club like the day before or the week before or anyone who's come in on an emergency deal will do something unbelievable in the game. like whoever's just come in like the day before they're like they've signed him on one day's notice he's coming on as a sub that man's going to score Roy Essendow Roy Essendow the keeper remember Christy Pym the Grimsby keeper and they were like he got chatting to the director of football in Marbella last week and they've signed it and he had an unbelievable game penalties against United anyone who comes in on an emergency deal does something unbelievable

56:37Shane Todd:very good shout I've never even thought about this before Charlie a little sense check from you because I know I'm confident that you will pluck this out of my brain. Which type of specific profession do you think is most attributed to kind of continental part-timers?

56:51Rio Ferdinand:Oh, that's interesting. You mean like...

56:53Shane Todd:San Marino players, Luxembourg, back in the day. What do they do for a living, most commonly?

56:59Rio Ferdinand:I actually can't think. Like, sort of working offices

57:02Shane Todd:or that sort of thing. Yeah, I always seem to be bank clerk. Yeah, I was going to say accountants. Yeah, it's the same thing. I'll take it. I'll take it. We are kindred spirits. I knew we were. Baggage handler. He's a baggage handler. Yeah, I suppose that could be useful. Jordan Pickford would be good at that, I'm sure. We had a recent listeners' mezz at Harland-Dix when someone wrote in saying they didn't like it when weakened teams were still described as having ex-International still in their line-up, Charlie. Do you remember how stupid we thought that observation was? Well, here is Macclesfield's Sam Heathcote being given a hero's welcome at the school where he teaches PE, basking in the glory of their win over Crystal Palace.

57:43Shane Todd:Right, I don't know much about football. It was a Premier League team, is that right? It was. So that is a team that plays in the Premier League every single week. And I believe at one point when I was watching the games, they said there were 10 international players on their team, is that right? So 10 people who played for their country, for the best in their country, but they couldn't beat Mr. Heiko's team. Should we give him a huge, even louder round of applause? I presume that's like the deputy head, or the head of year there. He's not giving off headmaster vibes, but let's assume he's definitely head.

58:16Shane Todd:I'll let him off a bit because he clearly doesn't know anything about football, Charlie, but he says, you know, that there were 10 internationals in Crystal Palace's team on that day. Well, let's go through it because Walter Benitez, one cap for Argentina and he's now 32. So his international career is not taking off anymore. Mark Gay, yeah, England international. Chris Richard, USA. Born as Sosa, only played for Croatia in 2024, I think. So his international credentials aren't really there. Adam Wharton, yes. Justin Deveni, Northern Ireland, no problem. Jeremy Pino, fair play, played for Spain a lot more than I'd realised.

58:46Shane Todd:Christantas Uche, Nigerian international. Tyric Mitchell, he's not playing for England again, absolutely not. And then you've got Brendan Johnson of Wales, so that's your 10. So it proves that listeners measure Harlan Dick's point back in the day after all.

58:59Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, yeah, someone should tell this poor deputy head.

59:02Shane Todd:There is some small print in there, isn't there, Dave?

59:05Rio Ferdinand:Yeah, I don't know, like, obviously there are millions of these people out there, but I just can't really get my head around. How could you not know anything about football? I know, it's such a shame, isn't it?

59:14Shane Todd:Come on. It's the world's greatest sport. Macclesfield Crystal Palace has its own Wikipedia page, I'm delighted to report, so maybe you should go and consult that. Shane Todd, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you from Mezzet, Harland, Dix. I hope you enjoyed yourself, despite your insane injury this morning.

59:28Mesut Haaland Dicks:Yeah, thank you very much, lads, for having me. That was great.

59:30Shane Todd:Yeah, and if you want to join Shane Todd on his continent-spanning tour, where should they go?

59:37Mesut Haaland Dicks:shantog comedy.com or whatever city you're thinking about just type in shantog show yeah and especially Lisbon because he's really looking forward to that one need more people for there also Stockholm and Oslo please come to that people that live there that would be

59:53Rio Ferdinand:hey we know we've got a few Norwegian listeners haven't we come on lads send them over

59:57Shane Todd:that'd be great yeah Lisbon lovely little city right thanks to you Charlie Eccleshire thank you thanks to you David Walker thank you and thanks everyone for listening we'll be back on Tuesday see you then

1:00:37I'm just going to be in this room.

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