The Jose Mourinho box office & a one-man war on factually incorrect football anecdotes

20:09It was building to it. They kept talking about a person without naming them. And then the person turned out to be Kyle Walker. And it just, it had all the ingredients, but it just needed a slightly more exotic name than Kyle Walker.

20:21Charlie Eccleshare:This is spot on. I was trying to think of the example of the one that I've been sent loads recently, Charlie, and it was the Kyle Walker one. I can't remember where it was from. And I just think, I don't know why it doesn't meet the bar, but I just think, and I just discard it. And I'd love to know what my selection criteria are but i don't know is it too is that too like recent did you want like a degree of normal name yeah yeah yeah i think i think something distinctive and ideally one you haven't thought about for a little while if the build-up led to it being sunji high yeah like then you know just some just something yeah yeah i mean i hesitate to say it dave but it's basically any barclaysman is always going to be a good candidate for this but yeah there It has to be just the right level of obscurity.

21:02Charlie Eccleshare:But I don't know. But I don't want to overthink this. It's footballers' names in things. Let's not dwell on it. Next, this came from Joe Tyler. He says, I enjoyed this Route 1 footy bans from Stevenage manager Alex Revell when greeting new signing Lewis Orford. Here he is. Good. How are you? What's it where you're best, clubber? Huh? Huh? Good. Yeah, I'm good. I thought you might have had a bit of a nicer car than that. Eh? All good.

21:34Charlie Eccleshare:this is great charlie so in the space of about six seconds he's had a go at his clobber and his motor which is like it's so good to see that down in league one yeah they might be passing out from the back they probably wear gps vests they probably do cool downs and pre-activations but some things just ain't broke and they don't need fixing clobber and motor also just so many of the thing dave pointed out of that you're good you okay just like every there's so many you good there as he enters but yeah that's incredible that reminds me dave chris wilder of course is now back at sheffield united and they posted a video of him greeting the squad on his first day back and it's really mundane content it's literally just him saying hello to about 35 people but the sound that just the constant repeated sound of him slapping hands with players is so life-affirming like it's like i want it i want to slap hands of chris wilder get me in there i know no one ever shakes hands in the traditional way in football anymore.

22:29It's just constantly just slapping each other's hands. Proper handshake takes longer. It's inefficient. I mean, these guys are obviously pros at it and they get the execution right, but you do need to, there is potential for it to go wrong.

22:43Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, and you don't want to be too emphatic, Charlie, as well, because looking like you're congratulating, it's got to be a greeting style hand slap as well. So it's got to be perfunctory. Yeah, very subtle differences. Chris Wilder doing it again. It's a bit mad, isn't it? I mean, obviously he has to sort of say hello to everyone, but it's not like he's a long-lasting old friend. How many weeks ago was he last there? Oh, it's a new-look squad, I can tell you that. So there's a lot of players to say hello to. But yeah, some old faces as well that he gave extra energy. Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.

23:14Charlie Eccleshare:For those who don't know, VPN stands a 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 a period of time to visit another country, which is great for accessing content while travelling. Indeed, over to the USA we go for some football chants in college American football. This came from my flat on Reddit. It's from the home of the Virginia Tech Hokies, who are 0-3 so far this season, and the fans are getting restless. Lose every week! We lose every week! You're not the official!

23:51We lose every week! We lose every week!

23:54Charlie Eccleshare:we lose every week no we're not this special we lose every week david this if you if if i hadn't heard this clip and you'd teed it up that is the exact amount of limp adherence to the actual tune of the chant that i would have expected like four out of ten it's like um really bad drunk group karaoke where almost everyone's badly out of tune not singing the right melody there's this there's one guy in there who's nearly got it yeah but it's just a mess yeah charlie what percentage of people singing that song do you think actually knew the original sort of soccer tune yeah not that many it reminds me dave of like wwe when occasionally you get chanting and it's awful it's like it's like that kind of vibe it's just like i don't know there's something so like unthreatening about it they like our fan culture they just want a bit more of it and that's fine 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.

24:56Charlie Eccleshare: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 very shortly.

25:10Charlie Eccleshare:Imagine buying your kid a toy only to find the batteries aren't included, or buying furniture but missing the tools to build it. Frustrating, right? Now imagine the exact same feeling, but you're paying way more. That is what buying business software usually feels like. Fragmented, disconnected, and incredibly expensive. Odoo completely changes that. Odoo is a complete, fully integrated business suite where all your apps actually talk to each other. We're talking automated lead routing for your sales team, seamless AI integration, and intuitive point-and-click website builder. It's everything your business needs to scale, saving you time, headaches, and money.

25:52Charlie Eccleshare:Stop piecing your software together. Go to odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Stream the biggest moments in sports live on Fox 1.

26:31The biggest names, the biggest games, the biggest matchups. Watch live or catch up on your schedule. At home or on the go, never miss a moment. All on Fox 1. Stream now. oh look at that that is wonderful

26:51Charlie Eccleshare:welcome back to football cliches dreamland episode eight by the way is in the pipeline before the end of the month but don't be shy tell us what you'd like in a dreamland episode we can go as narrow or as broad as we need to so if you want to suggest some topics that you think deserve the dreamland treatment get in touch um dreamland for 5.99 a month you get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive news show and various other bits as well. Go to dreamland.footballcliches.com. Just before we recorded, we had a thoroughly entertaining Reddit AMA, Charlie, between the three of us.

27:28Charlie Eccleshare:Lots of questions about the pod, our personal lives. It was always fun. But this one rattled me. I'm going to admit it rattled me. This came from Maitley. It says, how good were slash are you at football? what sort of level are we talking because i assume you're all a bit rubbish but you speak about it like you could have gone pro i'm i'm annoyed i mean why do we sound rubbish at football what is it is it is it because we're a bit nerdy about football and therefore you can't possibly be good at football if anything charlie the logic works in the other direction if you know loads about football and you care about it to that extent you have to be good at it well you should be but i but there are maybe it is that assumption that oh you know most people who talk about football you know most football journalists aren't you know never really played but i mean that's right in some instances but not in this not in this one dave do you know i i hesitate to make any grand claims about my footballing ability and it's quite easy to overstate how good you are at football but you know what if i was rubbish at football i'd play into that i'd play into it and just oh god i'm shit i've got two left feet no and having seen you play on a number of occasions you were better than I imagined you to be, I think.

28:33Of the three of us, you're definitely the best technically. You've got a really nice ping on you. Good off both feet. Charlie, I would say, got the best engine of the three of us. Really committed player. Versatile. And I'm somewhere in the middle, I would say.

28:47Charlie Eccleshare:There we go. From the man himself. Great judge. Great judge of ability. So nothing. I didn't have to say anything. There you go, mately. Right. This came from Somto Obi. Here's the great commentator, John Helm, the ultimate world feedsman. doing the World Cup quarterfinal between France and Brazil in 2006. Maybe it will be Cometh the 89th minute, Cometh Ronaldinho. I don't know where this stands in the big Cometh the Hour debate, Charlie. I don't know who's proved more right by this. I've just met like, I never knew that was that guy's name. And I knew as soon as you said the ultimate world feedsman, that's who that was going to be.

29:27Good old John Helm.

29:28Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, Helmsman. Did he score that free kick? No, no, no, no. Finish one now. Yeah, fair play. Right, next up. This came from DepthVisible2425 on Reddit. Talking about literal football chance, hyper-literal football chance. He says, the majority of football chance are, as you'd expect, a little far-fetched. The most obvious one is claiming that your club are by far the greatest team the world has ever seen. Are there any chance that it can be considered more accurate? Us Burnley fans for our sins have coined one lately for Josh Cullen that's close to factual and borderline offensive. Josh Cullen, he's always in the middle.

29:58Charlie Eccleshare:Josh Cullen, he plays it nice and simple. Josh Cullen, he never gives the ball away. I mean, I really like old-fashioned chants like this, Charlie, which just talk about the specific acts that a footballer does. So if you remember, like, Ryan Giggs running down the wing. Yeah, yeah. There's a real charm to that. It's not nothing outlandish. He's not going to score 100 goals a season. He's just running down the wing. Yeah, there are. I mean, like, LaBeouf as well. He's there. He's there. He's every effing where. So, I mean, that was, you know, just kind of popping up a lot. I mean, some of them are big.

30:28You know, he scores when he wants is obviously quite a big claim about a player. But some of this also is to do with, they've not come up with this chant specifically because Josh Cullen doesn't give the ball away. That's just a variation on, this is the Earth, Wind and Fire September tune, isn't it? I decided not to sing it, but that's all right because I committed and that's the main thing. So presumably it would be like, Josh Cullen plays it nice and simple. Josh Cullen never gives a ball away. We used to sing it for Abdulai de Khoury. You just need to have the right amount of syllables in your name to fit into the chant and be a midfielder.

31:05Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I don't like the name fitting into that at all. But yeah, in terms of the sentiments, Dave, it's good to have these mundane things thrown into a song for a player. I think it's cooler than going overboard with it. Yeah, yeah. I don't mind it. But there would be players who genuinely don't give the ball away, who just by virtue of not having the requisite amount of syllables in their name won't be able to have this sung about them. poor Joe Allen would have been perfect obviously some very silly ones in this Reddit thread but range is good Charlie says from Arsenal back in 2004 he's bald he's shit he plays when no one's fit Pascal Segar but it again doesn't scan so yeah how do you fit he's bald he's shit he plays when no one's fit Pascal Segar Pascal Segar Pascal Segar fucking why are you always wrong with people not being able to make things fit so running down the wing never gives the ball away what other sort of relatively mundane functional things could we have in football chance in this modern era in particular?

32:05PPDA.

32:08Charlie Eccleshare:More of a collective team thing though. You need an individual sort of contribution. I don't know. I mean, talking about what centile they're in for any given thing. Take-ons. 90th centile for ball recoveries or successful take-ons. Jewels one. Yeah, aerial jewels. Definitely. Really high jewels one percentage. Yeah. Head as one. Yeah, I think it would be in options interests to kind of popularise their metrics, Dave, by getting them into popular football chants. It might be artificial, but I don't know. It might be good marketing as well. Yeah, I mean, that would be the ultimate, wouldn't it, for like, you know, he outscores his XG or something, would be the ultimate endorsement.

32:44He outscores his XG. Outscores his XG.

32:48Charlie Eccleshare:He's unsustainable. He outperforms his XG. Yeah, like, would fans sing that Kunya and Ibomo, haven't they? Didn't they famously outscore their XG last season? This is unsustainable. Your underlying numbers are shit. That would be such a good retort. It'd be so good. More. We're so good, it's unsustainable. Really good. Really good. Right. Now I want to go down a rabbit hole of people taking this podcast and football or both too seriously. Michael J.A. has leapt up on a point we made a while ago, Dave, about Cristiano Ronaldo's CR7 nickname. A dreadful thing. About how we thought it might be a UK postcode.

33:35Charlie Eccleshare:Here we go. Girlfriend went to bed early. You know what that means. I've made a big old spreadsheet with what I believe to be every active Premier League player whose initialism and number, a la CR7 or R9, is a real UK postcode. initial viewing suggests that kt9 kenny tete may be closest to the team's ground kingston upon thames to fulham few shouts for the longest include ka13 and ph5 down to arsenal kw2 to burnley or bt25 over to sunderland i would check but i frankly don't want to he's published the whole list charlie how cool is this service yeah i mean is this useful in any way no but i I mean, it's still an amazing piece of work.

34:18Charlie Eccleshare:Tijani Rinder's TR4. That's St. Irm in Cornwall, Dave. He could so easily become a TR4. I don't think City fans are particularly prone to this, are they? I think he could do it himself, though. Yeah. So the KA13 in question there. So that's Kepa Arizabelaga. And the KA13 postcode is in kill-winning North Ayrshire. I just want to know if a Premier League player has got my postcode in their name. And the answer is no. Annoying. that would have been cool that would have been a cool thing to claim but yeah Brian Farnett replied to this on Reddit saying probably best not to show your girlfriend this she will look at you differently right further madness comes from samepension2455 who we mentioned on a recent Clichés pod because they'd done an in-depth statistical analysis of the cliche usage by Premier League managers in press conferences in the 2024-25 season you may remember that egged on by the success of listenfairplay.com he's created the website expectedcliches.com which sort of visualises all the findings he's done so this is an ongoing real-time statistical analysis of the cliches uses of managers in press conferences in the Premier League in 25-26 again don't know what I'm going to use it for but fair play so at the moment Graham Potter and Reggie LeBrie of Sunderland are leading the way with cliches per 10 ,000 words Eddie Howe surprisingly bringing up the rear at Newcastle with less than 0.5 cliches per 10 ,000 words.

35:48Charlie Eccleshare:And he's had a transfer saga to deal with as well, Charlie. That's cliche manner from heaven. Yeah, I wonder if some of them are picked up, you know, talking about the football club and that sort of thing. Probably doesn't make it, but said in the right way, that is very distinct. Actual statisticians would point out, Dave, that the reason for Eddie Howe's low rate of cliches per 10 ,000 words is because he's actually said more words than every other manager by an absolute mile. So the saga's played into, it hasn't helped him. Yeah. He's stat padding. Interesting. Graham Potter has produced 4.32 cliches per 10 ,000 words.

36:22Yeah, it's another sign that perhaps he's not long for the job there. Just desperately trying to reach for anything he can find to make it all better.

36:33Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, beleaguered managers produce the most cliches. It makes a lot of sense. Right, I want to end today's episode with this. it's TikToker Karel Prince who is making a name for himself by calling out factual inaccuracies in footballers anecdotes on podcasts and talk shows. And what a public duty. Lots of examples that he's gone through but this is my personal favourite so far. This is when Harry Redknapp tells a story about Paolo Futre storming out of the West Ham dressing room before a game against Arsenal leaving them with a team sheet dilemma. You can't change the team without Mr Wenger's permission.

37:06Charlie Eccleshare:So in comes Arsenal. Or what is this? Tactics? Arsene Wenger said that to you on that day, Harry Redknapp. Yeah, right. Let's break this down quickly. The match was on the 16th of August, 1996. But what's this? Arsene Wenger joined Arsenal as manager on October the 1st, 1996. But the match was 16th of August. Harry, how do you have a conversation with a man that's not even in the job? He's not even in the building. It feels right that Redknapp is sort of patient zero for this because I have to say, I mean, I've done a number of interviews with Redknapp and others where you get great anecdotes and the crushing realisation when you fact check them and you're like, this couldn't have happened.

37:47This doesn't add up. It is really, really disappointing. So this is hilarious what Corral Prince is doing.

37:54Charlie Eccleshare:And it seems to be rife as well, Dave. I mean, there are a lot of footballer anecdotes out there. If you count the number of football podcasts there are, there are 10 times as many footballer anecdotes floating around the ether at the moment. But I don't know. How do you feel about this Carell Prince operation? Do you think is it fun policing? Are we sucking the joy out of anecdotes that we could have just happily, just blissfully, ignorantly assumed were correct? Or is it important work to call this stuff out? I think it's done with enough good humour that it's fine. It's harmless, isn't it? Football is sort of exaggerating or embellishing a story to make it sound a bit better on a podcast.

38:31It's not exactly a big crime, is it? and he's doing it with enough fun for it to be interesting. What will be interesting as if, as I think has already started to happen, is if anyone does bite back.

38:42Charlie Eccleshare:Ah, well, funny you say that because he's now embroiled in a row with Carlton Cole. Of all the, you had to pick a player for this, about telling a story about Jose Mourinho that very possibly never happened and it's the tiniest details which makes it funny that he's got wrong. But this body of work, Charlie, has made me realise that there is a cutoff point between you know misremembering sort of minor details and maybe just sort of smoothing a few things out for the purposes of a good anecdote and like harry redknapp there just fundamentally and essentially semi-deliberately getting something completely wrong so you can tell the story and i think that's a bigger crime clearly yeah but i would say like in my experience of this my sense from when i've been told anecdotes that aren't true i think you don't know but i think generally they are misremembering rather than embellishing like i I think they've, I think, I find it really interesting.

39:31Like, I think they have, they just like meld things together. And we all do it to some extent. You know, you'll tell a story that fuses a few things. Well, you know, I'd like to think I don't. But like, but like a lot of the time, people with normal memories, you know, you'll hear these stories. And I remember, and I may have mentioned this before, but I remember talking to Clive Allen. and he was saying that he got in an argument with Kesey because Alan was convinced, convinced, in the FA Cup final that Coventry played against Spurs, Alan was convinced that he'd, I think it's called the equaliser to make it 1-1, when in reality it was 1-0.

40:06And Kesey, who's obviously a Coventry fan, was like, you didn't, Clive, you scored the opener. And Alan was adamant. He was like, Richard, I know, I scored the goal. Don't tell me what happened in that game. And then they looked it up and Kesey was right. I think they just, there are, you know, and that's not, he's not embellishing. He just misremembered. And I think those things just take hold and become truth for them. Like that Cole example, which is really funny. And he points out like numerous mistakes in that. I just, I don't think that's done with malice. I think it's just muddling loads of things up.

40:34Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, if you put yourself in the football figure's shoes here, it's basically just asking them to remember something that happened on a day of work in their life. Can you remember every day of work that you've done? It's true. We obviously just think about football history in a different way. Yeah. they lived it and that they were thinking in the moment or whatever. Yeah, you see it a lot. People can't. I'm always amazed that people can't remember. What do you mean you can't remember that moment when you play that pass in that game? Yeah, it's really deflating. You know, but I don't think of it as a YouTube existence today.

41:07No, exactly. Yeah. I like the idea of, you know, if Carell Prince continues to build his reputation as the footballing tax man, but he could be like almost like um you know like a really feared food critic or something and if if he starts turning up at the after dinner circuit and go lads corrals out there right keep it tight tonight no no bullshit that would just kill the office all right show's over

41:36Charlie Eccleshare:to some extent charlie it's the fault of the of the formula of the football anecdote we we spoke recently about how there's a certain cadence to a football anecdote they and they all seem to start with now we went up there on a tuesday night i think we won four two and you know then that they don't really know there's a there's a lack of commitment in the voice that you know is yeah and what's funny as well with some of them is you see the presenters and whoever have to kind of go along with it and i don't know like a lot of the time they wouldn't know off the top of their heads whether this was wrong or not but even if they do it's a very awkward thing you can't and i've had that before like there are ways where and it's different because obviously if you're just interviewing them privately but even so it's always a bit over being like yeah i think that was 95 actually yeah and i'm pretty sure it's against middlesbrough but yeah no no no no totally like you know but you just can't help but do it there was 95 oh god like it's so vivid in my head the idea of you doing that um right you should team up charlie then he wouldn't need to use soccer base he just got you there to do all the stats tremendous um right that's uh that's about as deep into football as we could possibly go for one episode.

42:42Charlie Eccleshare:Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you. Thanks to you, Dave Walker. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.

42:57That's the sound of zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine

43:00Charlie Eccleshare:and the power to burn body fat. Storm, energy for life. Storm Energy Blend helps boost metabolism, which in combination with exercise and a healthy diet helps burn fat. This product alone does not produce weight loss. Individual results may vary. That refresh you've been putting off until the right deal came along? It's here! Wayfair's Black Friday in July sale is happening now, so you can finally get the style you've been waiting for for less. Get up to 80 % off area rugs and up to 60 % off outdoor and bedroom furniture. Shop Wayfair's huge selection of styles and find the piece to fit your style, budget, and space.

43:31Charlie Eccleshare:Plus, free shipping! Black Friday in July ends July 27th. Shop today at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50 ,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals. Free samples. Zero pressure. Right now, get up to 50 % off with minimum purchase.

44:06Plus, get a free professional measure at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply.