Euro Leagues: Champions League fallout & Mourinho returning to Real Madrid?

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1:11You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. On the Football Daily Podcast, the EuroLeagues with John Bennett. Hello from me, John Bennett, and welcome to EuroLeagues on the Football Daily Podcast. joining me this week Guillaume Balaguet ESPN's Julien Lerons and Raphael Honigstein and it's welcome back to Guillaume because Guillaume wasn't with us last week and Guillaume you've been doing a bit of gardening you're fresh from measuring the grass at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium I opened up my social media yesterday the first video I see is you talking to Alessandro Del Piero in very nice suits by the way talking not about football but about the length of the grass it's amazing what we have to talk about around football matches isn't it sometimes.

2:21No, tell me why on Instagram it's had 6 million views since yesterday, when all we're talking about is the length of the grass. That's where we're going wrong, we need more gardening chat on Euroleagues to get these hits, get these clicks. A little story about just making it 26mm lovely today. 26mm, an Arsenal complaining, but UEFA were like, there's nothing wrong, it's already been calculated it's 26 limit is 30 and Griezmann actually demands that the pitch is in good condition and Julian Alvarez as well so it was a little bit of all felt like theatre like it was just put for us we filmed it all of course and make a story out of it in fact a viral story please tell me that Del Piero has a little tape measure in his pocket just in case he has to ever measure the length of the grass I'll tell you what he did say or do as soon as we started talking about it.

3:23No! Not important! No! You're shaking, raising his hands and all that. Because I couldn't believe that there was a story out of it. Six million views don't lie, though. We'll have more gardening chat, I think, on EuroLeagues coming up. Only one place to start, though. Let's get to the other Champions League semi-final. Paris Saint-Germain, five. By Munich, four. The match certainly lived up to the hype. the highest scoring semifinal since Eintracht Frankfurt beats Rangers 6-3 in 1960s European Cup. Rafa, you were there. Just tell me about the atmosphere. And the easy question, first of all, is it the best game you've ever seen live?

4:06It's certainly one of the best games. The atmosphere was incredible. Big T4s with Napoleon on conquering Europe. It was all very, you know, singing the Marseillais, which is not something you'll find in Munich next week. I don't think they're singing the German national anthem before the game. It was just so special. It was just such amazing. And also what added to it and what you don't appreciate is, you know, Paris itself is sort of part of the spectacle. It was a beautiful day. It's in a beautiful area. There's a real sense of anticipation. you have through the little streets to get to the stadiums uh everything's blocked off so you see the stadium but you can't quite get to it you have to go around and then tell you no no you have to take another left and you take another left and it's kind of a sense of drama even before the game starts and the light show and all this kind of stuff that purists or traditionists might not might not enjoy so much but it really added to the to the occasion and of course then football I mean, wow.

5:09It was fantastic. It was just absolutely amazing. And I watched the whole game again yesterday because inside the stadium, I felt I didn't really get a good view of sort of what really happened tactically. I mean, I was very, very close to the action, which was great because you see the little things, but you don't see sort of the bigger picture that well. And it was interesting to see it again for 90 minutes. But yeah, absolutely wonderful. Wonderful. Jules has provoked a lot of debate on social media with one of his tweets. He said, PSG have now been involved in the greatest Champions League final ever and the greatest Champions League semi-final ever.

5:47Yeah, I think lots of people agreed with the second point, not quite so much with the first point, Jules.

5:52Julien Laurens:I mean, I think the performance that PSG put in that 5-0 destroying of Inter Milan last season remains for me in finals the greatest performance. So I made that the greatest final of all time. And also, as you know, my kids were in, well, two of them were in the stands with me, with the rest, a lot of the cousins and the Laurences family and friends. So it was special for us. So I had to let go. In terms of semi-final, and we had a great one last year, obviously, between Inter Milan and Barcelona. We had a great one in 2022 between Real Madrid and Manchester City. We've had great ones in the past, sure.

6:25Julien Laurens:It felt to me that on Tuesday, even for us in front of the TV, and I probably would have been even more waxing lyrical about it if I had been in the stadium like Rafi. But I just don't think that we've very often seen something like that. Two teams like that, two teams that play that way, players that play that way with their profiles, everything you want really. The goals, the efficiency, the intensity, the 1v1s, just everything. I think that had everything more maybe than the other semifinals, including the ones of last season that we kind of mentioned. I think what made it so special and so unusual was the fact that, or the sense that a goal in itself doesn't really matter that much.

7:04What I mean by that is whether this game would have finished 4-4, 4-3 to Bayern or 5-4 to PSG, you had a sense very early on in the game that it doesn't really make much difference because the next game is going to be similar again. So it kind of took the anxiety a little bit out of it, the sense that every goal here is is decisive and you know this might be the read the difference between making it to the final no it wasn't one of those old school semi-finals where you think oh no we lost one nil away or one nil win here's you know we're halfway there no way goal and so on and the caginess that comes with it it was completely different sense now i say that with a bit of hindsight of course because at five two i thought what are two more and i think this might be difficult but up until then i had a feeling that you know this this is just a prelude and the second act is is yet to follow it was like two chimpanzees hitting the chest and going we are like this and we don't care what's happening and let's go for it and two alpha males in charge of uh of the of the teams going like yeah uh man to man it just doesn't matter by the way i agree with I think both said it, both managers said it, the defending was quite good.

8:24But it would be good to see it on a second view and see if Rafa, you back me up, you're saying yes, so probably you back me up because you had to defend man to man. And there was blockages, there was players running faster, defenders running faster than the forwards and stopping them attacking. There was a lot of things going on from the forwards, the movement, defenders becoming forwards and wingers coming inside and a lot of things to distract that man-to-man. And yet, it was only nine goals in the way it went. But it was just like an ego battle of two clubs that went on the pitch thinking, it's going to be our way and we're not going to change anything.

9:05Another thing is game management and what you could have done to actually, when you got three goals ahead. Can I pick up on that? Can I play devil's advocate there? And I'm sure you're going to jump down my throat here. Could Paris Saint-Germain not have done something when they were 5-2 up to control the game a bit better, Jules? They're going to surely live to regret that, aren't they? Surely there was something he could have done tactically to control the game.

9:30Julien Laurens:I don't know. I think watching a 5-2, you knew there were more goals. You knew Bayern would score. You knew that PSG might have another chance or two. I think they were a bit physically tired. For me, the swing is also the Fabien Ries coming on for Zaire Emery. I didn't understand it. I don't think you can come out in a game like this, not with this intensity, not with this physicality. Fabian had played 20 minutes in the last three months. He was not ready for a battle like this. Warren was still good, he was not tired. I think that was far too early. And I think that gave some momentum back to Bayern because they had more intensity than...

10:08Julien Laurens:It took Fabian a long time to get into that game. And rightly so, it's not a dig at Fabian. It's just when you haven't played for so long to try to get into a game like this, in the 65th minute is almost impossible, even if you're much fit. And it was not much fit. But in terms of controlling that lead, protecting it, that's not what PSG do anyway. The times where they've had to play a bit deeper this season or last season was because they were under pressure from the opposition. And at some point, they were very much under pressure by this Bayern side in the second half. So I don't really think they could have done anything different, to be honest.

10:39There's one thing that I like to do during games is messaging managers that we know, who have been in these kind of games before. And the three of them that engaged in conversation agreed with you, John. It's like one thing is to have an identity and have that identity for as often as you can. Another one is not being intelligent enough to react to things. But I agree with Jules. I mean, this is a team made to attack and to go for it. And then how can you say, right, right, guys, minute 73. All right, let's load up. It just doesn't work. So, next week, Rafa, what's going to happen? Are we going to get exactly the same drama?

11:19Is it going to be a goal fest again? Is there any way, is there any different way for these two teams to play? How's it going to go? Well, I don't know if you saw what Luis Enrique said after the fall. It was an unbelievable quote. He said, I asked my analysts, how many goals do we need to go through in Munich? And they said, at least three. So, I think we'll see goals because those two teams are so good at creating chances. but just one word on the control and the you know the idea that you can sort of manage things better PSG had one of those rare games when the opposition outpassed them and they had to spend by their standards big spells without the ball and they're just not built for that it's not a case that you just say okay let's just you know today we're just going to defend sit back it's not what they do and I think it's very easy to sit on a sofa as a former maybe defensively minded Spanish manager and say, oh, the lack of control, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

12:18But these teams, they don't work like that. It wasn't him.

12:23Julien Laurens:There's a good point on, if you look at Vitinha in this game, especially on Tuesday with the ball outstanding because he's world class, he's one of the best, everything. But without the ball, he struggled. And Vitinha will always struggle in a game like this because of this intensity that he can't really match, the physicality, he can't really match. I mean, put Vitina and Pavlovich together and that was not the match-up, by the way. It was Dembele on Pavlovich. But still, you get the point. That's the idea. What I wanted just to add to what Rafi said about next week and we'll be there together is the Hakimi injury, which I think is a shame even just for the spectacle in itself, even beyond what PSG are going to do and how you replace him and how much that's going to change their game in possession.

13:03Julien Laurens:Certainly, it's again, Tuesday was great because we had two teams with their strongest 11, Barak Gnabry, I guess, to a certain extent. But quite fresh because they've been able to rotate in the league in recent weeks, which, for example, Premier League clubs, certainly top Premier League clubs can't do, really. But that was great. Now, without Hakimi, that second leg, already feels a bit different. Zaire Emery is the most likely to replace him at right back. That means you change also your midfield from a PhD point of view. And that probably will make them not as good as they were on Tuesday, certainly?

13:38The future of football is being played here in this month. It's interesting that the two brands of football, if you like, that they are the dominant forces on one hand, you know, not possession-based, but certainly positional football, which has evolved through Luis Enrique and Vincent Kompany's one side and the other one is Simeone and Arteta. And we know that coaches have been influenced by what Arteta has been doing, but they get influenced by winning as well. And if all of a sudden that other brand, the one that lets go for the kill, wins, say they win clearly the final, and you have to say they will be the favourites.

14:17I wonder if football are going to say, all right, let's just get rid of the shackles and let's go for it. And that's the way forward. Raffi's not so convinced, though. I'm not convinced because it's the hardest way of playing. The reason why, despite what people say, Pep Guardiola has influenced the world of football in a way he has, but there's still very, very few teams who play like him. Because it's just the hardest way of doing. All these rotations, all these things are not just players running around like headless chicken and say, you know what, I'm the centre-back one second, but now I'm going to push it all the way up.

14:48This is all choreography. This is all process. This is so, so hard. But it took Bayern a whole season to get it right. And you might find people who say they still haven't got it right because they concede five goals in the semi-final. I don't see how that's going to catch on. It's not so much who can do it, because we've seen many teams trying to do the Pep Guardiola thing and cannot do it. It's what football is asking you to do. And if actually everybody will go for it, even though they're not able to, and of course it requires a lot of quality, individual quality that not everybody has. I just wonder if football are going to be thinking, all right, let's go a different way.

15:21because people seem to be quite tired, upset, I don't know how to call it, of the brand of football they're getting weekly, generally. I don't know, maybe just being optimistic. Let's move on to the other semi-final then. Nine goals we had in Paris, but a different kind of drama in Madrid on Wednesday night. Atletico, Madrid and Arsenal, drawing 1-1. A game dominated by penalty decisions or non-penalty decisions. I really enjoyed it, but let's get through the big talking points, which all surrounded the penalties. Sorry, John, can I share one moment? One moment. In the warm-up, Griezmann sees Del Piero and passes the ball to Del Piero, who is next to me off the pitch.

15:59Del Piero puts his foot on the ball and passes the ball back to Griezmann because Griezmann wanted to say to his kids, I got a pass from Del Piero. Not nice. What a moment. I do wonder when the players are warming up behind Del Piero. Do they actually realise how big a legend? Because some of them are a bit too young, aren't they, to know how big this legend was. But let's get to the penalties then. The first one, Jokeres fouled, pretty straightforward. Second penalty, Ben White handball after a shot which was going well wide. It's the sort of handball decision we've come to expect in the Champions League.

16:32You can hate the law, but you can understand why the referee gives it. Third penalty, that's the big talking point. So Eze goes down after beating Hanko to the ball. Referee gives it, gets told to check the screen by the video assistant referee. Diego Simeone, the Atletico Madrid boss, very animated. doing the VAR sign. It gets overturned. I can't believe it was overturned. Guillaume, you were there. Some of the pundits on TV were saying they were upset with Diego Simeone for influencing the referee. What did you make of it? What was your view on that penalty decision? How Simeone defends himself is that he says in super games, in the biggest games, it has to be a clear penalty.

17:11It's a big, big, massive decision. And he thought the tackle on Isi wasn't a clear penalty. I spoke to Mikel Arteta for CBS who I think he was a little bit upset about the whole thing. It's a shame the way we concede the penalty but with the rules and how UEFA and the Champions League has given those penalties I accept it. What I don't accept and I think for me it's something that I'm fuming we are all as a club is what happened with the penalty of Epps and how it gets overturned in my opinion at this level is unacceptable because it changes the course of the time. So you say that the handball had to be given, Ben White, but the penalty that was disallowed...

17:53In the Premier League it's not a penalty, in the Champions League it's a penalty. They made it very clear from day one, I think they were consistent. Yesterday, the Bayern Munich, you see a handball there, it's a penalty. I understand that today it's a penalty. The second one with Epps is unacceptable, in my opinion. Because then there's no consistency there. You're fuming. I am, because obviously it changes the course of the tie. Yeah. Last one, Simeone was talking that he knows you're going to suffer, you're going to have to use a lot of energy against Fulham first and going back. And he will always try to take advantage of it.

18:26How do you counterattack that? We can only recover, sleep, eat and give the boys a lot of love. What we've been through, it's incredible trying to win the Premier League and the Champions League. There's nothing like it. So Mikel Arteta fuming with that decision to overturn the original penalty call. I thought it was a definite penalty. Jules Rafa, what do you think? Jules, you go first. What did you make of that incident?

18:50Julien Laurens:I have to be honest, I didn't see much of a contact there. I really didn't. And I understand Mikel's frustration from an Arsenal point of view, the players, the fans, because he was given first. But was it really the right call to give it? And I think VAR, in this case, I think this is why we want VR. at the end of the day, having the right call. And I'm not sure the penalty would have been the right call if it had stood. So in the end, I thought, yeah, this is right to overturn it. I can see how frustrating it is from an Arsenal point of view. But I didn't see much of a contact at one line. Was it clear and obvious though, Rafa?

19:25Was it enough of an error, could you say for want of a better word, to force the referee to go to the screen? Well, strictly speaking, because we see a bit of contact, you'd expect VAR not to get involved on point of principle but there is a suggestion I think that was given maybe at the start of this year this year before where they told referees look for players exaggerating and figure out if the contact is enough to actually be a foul i.e. is the reaction of the player commensurate with the contact was he really hit does he really have to fall because of it and I think under these very strict criteria I would say it's more not a foul than a foul in the grand scheme of things if you ignore the dubious process if you will I would say I would rather not see penalties like this given but I would extend it to the UEFA handballs as well I think they also shouldn't be given the way that UEFA does it I think the air should not have got involved but I think we have started the second leg in the same way that the grass pitch thing felt like a little bit of theatre.

20:36I think what Mikel is doing as well, perhaps, is trying to influence the next referee. And, you know, if there is a close call, there's been enough noise to be made that followed by the English media, not so much by the Spanish media, for instance, that the referee was so bad against Arsenal that, you know, the referee owes something to Arsenal. Because I'm not sure you can create such a big amount of annoyance and frustration to that moment, even though I understand it's a turning point, but not one of those clear turning points that it's like, it should feel unfair if you don't get it given.

21:09And Guillaume, you mentioned the build-up has started for the second leg. The mind games have started. It's started from Diego Simeone, haven't they? Because he's talked about the fact that Arsenal are playing in this semi-final and also going for the Premier League title. And he said, as the game went on, we noticed their fatigue and the weight of going for the Premier League, trying to win the Champions League. All that accumulated and we picked up. So he's basically saying they can sense that they're a bit tired. There's some exhaustion there. Is that the mind game's beginning? Well, he actually mentioned it to the players at half time.

21:45It's like we've got an extra gear and they don't. But you tend to keep quiet about that. So he went and I spoke to him after the game and it was like those words that you mentioned and just the idea that I'm not sure they have it in them. I'm not sure they can just be strong enough physically and mentally, of course, because they've got so much they're playing for, etc., etc. So after Diego, I spoke to Declan Rice, and I told him what Simeone had said, and Declan was like, hmm, mind games have started then. Of course we can. It's a big game, though, isn't it, Guillaume? They've got to play Fulham at the weekend, then get back up for this game against Atletico Madrid.

22:21It's bound to have an impact. Even if it was mind games from Diego Simeone, he's got a point, hasn't he? Yeah, but did you see who came on from the bench at Arsenal? What a squad they've got, maybe even the best squad in Europe. And with players recovering as well, I'm not sure what happened to Odegaard, but he came off quite early. But the likes of Saka got more minutes on him. And generally, if you have to say, you look at the game, and the last 10-15 minutes, it was Arsenal. It was actually Atletico Madrid that had to defend it, because they didn't have the energy to come out. All the players, because Sorlott was injured, didn't feel right, even though Simeon was saying that Soloth, Julian Alvarez will be OK for the second leg.

23:00Atletico Madrid have a fantastic record against English teams. Since first facing Leicester City, I have to get a Leicester City mention in, in the 1961-1962 Cup Winners Cup, my dad was actually at that game at Filbert Street, Atletico have played 15 knockout ties against English opposition and won 11 of them. So Jules, what's going to happen next week then? 1-1 going into the second game. what are you expecting?

23:24Julien Laurens:I think Arsenal will edge it. I think they've got a slight advantage. You mentioned that record from Atletico this season, away from home, apart from the first leg of the quarterfinals against Barcelona, hasn't been great, both in the league and in the Champions League. They obviously lost four-near at the Emirates back in November, I think it was, in the league phase of it. It was a time where Arsenal were playing better football, they were fresher, everybody was fit, including Timber, who for me is the big missing piece in this current Arsenal jigsaw and one of the reasons why they may be not as good with the ball than they were previously this season.

23:54Julien Laurens:But I still think they have enough, really, to qualify for the final. Lots more to come on Euroleagues, including a possible return to Real Madrid for Jose Mourinho.

24:07Five Live Sports. BBC Women's Football Weekly. The latest news, insights and analysis from across the women's game. Dame Serena Vigman, welcome to the... Are we including Dame in your title now? You know how much an honour that is. And this remarkable team, and this remarkable women. They want to play in a way that they can show their skills, so that's what we're trying to do. Win the World Cup, it's a dream. Listen. With the BBC Sounds app. On the Football Daily Podcast, the EuroLeagues with John Bennett. Strange to be talking about the latter stages of the Champions League without Real Madrid, but they've been making headlines this week anyway.

24:50It's being reported that Jose Mourinho is in the frame to replace Alvaro Arbeloa at the end of the season. Guillaume, I have been looking forward to getting your take on this. So what is the latest then? Will Jose Mourinho be back at Real Madrid next season? What we know is that, number one, no decision has been made. And number two, no offers has been made to managers. But there's been conversations. In fact, there were conversations two days after Arbeloa was named manager of Real Madrid, even though he was given a year and a half contract. Two days later, Florentino Pérez was talking to two super agents about managers to take over either this season or next season.