England disappoint and the Tudor era is over at Spurs – Football Weekly podcast

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30Maguire did okay and then Tuchel said he's fifth choice did anyone further their chances? Palmer, Garner Wharton maybe we'll look ahead to tonight's European playoffs Paul Watson takes us further afield of course we welcome it and then to Spurs parting ways with Igor Tudor after quite a disastrous month they want Deserby despite protests from a number of fan groups and while Tudor lasted 44 days it's 44 years since Roy Hodgson was the Bristol City manager and here we were thinking he was just meandering through the West Country without a purpose we'll do all that discover we are just one step away from the Uruguayan ambassador answer your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:07On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hi Max. Hello Jacob Steinberg. Hello. And from the Excellent Sweeper podcast, Paul Watson. Hi Paul. Hi Max. Let's start then with England, that one-all draw with Uruguay on Friday night. It does feel a while ago. Jacob, you were there. Have you forgotten all about it? We were forgetting all about it while we were there. it was a very strange game. I mean, Buck Barney, who I was sitting next to during the game, was having a particularly bad time. He tweeted out that on balance, this was maybe the worst football match ever. I did sort of point out that maybe there have been some, well, there have been some worse England games, thinking back to Algeria at the 2010 World Cup, maybe.

1:51And if you support the lower league side, maybe you've seen some worse quality football, but it was so flat. because of this split squad that Tuchel named, this oversized squad, we kind of ended up with almost the England C team. You were sort of running through the starting 11 and thinking that there's at most maybe two or three who have a realistic chance of maybe starting the first game at the World Cup. So you're kind of trying to work out what exactly you're gaining here. I understand there are two elements to it. Partly it's the creation of the competition, trying to create that competitive element in the squad last week and push people to take a claim for that World Cup squad if you're going to be in that 26-man squad for this summer.

2:39And also giving the regulars who've had such a long season and are in Europe still a rest last week and build up some goodwill that way. And even that's kind of slightly backfired because of the withdrawals of Saka and Rice over the weekend, which means that we'll go into the game against Japan on Tuesday night. Not able to name two of the players who you would assume are absolute bankers to start the first game. And so Tuchel, who's had a pretty easy qualifying campaign, not really played anyone yet. And when they did play someone against Senegal, they lost. Still, we'll go into that World Cup, probably not having started his first XI against the top side yet.

3:22And that might not happen until the 11th of July when they play potentially if everything runs to plan Brazil in the quarterfinals in Miami. So it might not be until then that they get a real sense of what this team is all about. Yeah. And actually, Barney made a point, Barry, about the fact that, you know, he did this split squad and everyone went, that's not a bad idea. And then Barney said, well, no one else has done it. You know, France haven't done a split squad or Spain haven't. And I guess we can't know if this split squad was a brilliant idea or not until, of course, England are holding the World Cup trophy the 19th of July or whatever it is.

3:58Max Rushden:It's good to see none of you are getting ahead of yourselves in the traditional style. You've learned your lesson. Yeah, I was a bit bemused by this giant squad he picked. And then having seen that all these Arsenal players have not withdrawn, it's not up to them to withdraw, it's not up to Mikel Arteta to withdraw them from various international teams, it crossed my mind that maybe that was some sort of pre-arranged mass exodus of Arsenal players. And obviously other players from other teams have left the group as well. So maybe that's why he picked so many players. and much of the discourse around that Uruguay friendly, which was a terrible game, really bad, but so many international friendlies are dreadful and this was right up there with the worst of them.

4:51Max Rushden:Much of the discourse centered around the fact that, you know, including the pre-match punditry, the commentary, various common pieces written about it in the build-up, that if any player puts a foot wrong, that's it, they're out, they'll ruin their chance. and A, I suspect that probably wasn't the case. I'm sure Tuchel has a very good idea of who he's bringing to the World Cup and who isn't. There's probably only a handful of places up for grabs and there for fringe players who may not play much of a part. That's terrible pressure for any player to be under and I suspect a few of them might have wilted under that pressure whether it was there or not.

5:33Max Rushden:But yeah, Barney's right. Other teams didn't do that. and look, I just presume Thomas Tuchel knows what he's doing. He has some sort of plan. But these friendlies, this window, it's a bad one, and you wonder about the wisdom of playing friendlies at this time of the season. I've mentioned the Arsenal withdrawals from England and other sides. A lot of people seem very angry about it. I'm not sure why, because it's in England's best interest for the likes of Sacco and Rice to get a rest. And it's in Arsenal's best interest for them to get a rest. I suspect that's why people are mad, because they don't support Arsenal.

6:15Max Rushden:They want Arsenal to fail. Paul, we are contractually obliged to ask, what did we learn? And it comes to you to do your very best to answer this question. I will accept not a lot as an answer. Well, first of all, I think that I've got to put a statement out about how bad this game was. It was dreadful, but I think some of the panel have maybe not watched football as bad as some of the football I've watched because I'm hearing people saying worst game ever. I've watched British Virgin Islands playing Anguilla at 2am and it's been, I've seen worse. But in terms of sheer bleakness of spectacle, I think I'd agree that this is one of the most pointless and dull games I've ever seen.

6:58And did we learn anything? I almost think this Ben White situation the booing it almost felt like there had to be a narrative created so this has become a huge thing now but i'm wondering if that's just because there was literally nothing else to really talk about apart from the fact that it seemed like did ugrate get two yellow cards yeah yeah but he didn't he didn't check oh did he not because it really looked like we were very we were very confused but later on it turned out that apparently they switched captains early in the first half and the booking went to Jimenez the the defender that's a shame because that was a thing wasn't it I mean also for me from a Uruguay perspective I did think it was quite interesting how excitable they seemed to get that that one-all draw you know to to bag their their pretty pointless one-all draw and I'm wondering from Uruguay perspective they'd come into this off the back of a 5-1 trancing against the USA they'd been on a pretty dreadful run like They'd had a couple of quite grim results.

8:00They were poor against Dominican Republic. They weren't great against Uzbekistan. They kind of ground out and nil-nil with Mexico. So I'm thinking in a way, maybe what we don't want to overestimate is just how much I think Uruguay were pretty flat and wanted quite badly to prove a point with this game. England, on the other hand, just didn't look like they wanted to be there at all. So in a way, this was probably quite a good result for an England side that was, as you say, like a C team who didn't massively want to be playing. But yeah, I have very little to offer about the actual game. No, no, that's fine.

8:34Did you boo, Jacob? Did you boo Ben White? Well, we were saying about 15 minutes in that this game feels like it needs a Ben White booing because nothing's happening. And if you're writing, then if you're having to write like 900 words on it, then yeah, you need something. So some people were quite pleased that you came on and got booed in the press box just because it gave them something to write about.

8:54Max Rushden:You can really reduce your workout by quoting the boo and putting in loads of holes and exclamation marks. Jacob, how much booing was it though? On TV it sounded like a fair bit, but was it mostly coming from the press box? Yeah, it was Barney. It was pretty loud. It was impossible to miss it. And obviously it happened when he scored, which was just bizarre. I think there were things that you could take from the game. I think that Jordan Henderson, just to pick one out, was quite exposed in the first half. He was not great. And if you weren't simply picking him for the character and the leadership, you could make a strong case for him not to be in the squad, not to be ahead of certain other midfielders.

9:42James Garner, that's a pretty encouraging debut. I think Tuchel was maybe having a bit of fun when he called in the mini Valverde because he had just been asked by a Uruguayan journalist if there was one player in the Uruguay squad who he could take and it not be Valverde, who would it be? So I think he had Valverde on the mind when he said that. But Garner was pretty good and I think wouldn't be surprised if he starts again against Japan on Tuesday. The one really big thing to come out of it again, I guess, is that Foden just really struggled as the number 10. Tuchel talked about him not being adventurous enough in that position.

10:18And it just feels like you're getting to that stage with him where nobody, no manager has been able to work him out in an England shirt. Does he entirely enjoy being there? Will he enjoy being there over seven weeks? You get to that point where this is the one position where they've got so much strength in depth and you start to feel that potentially he's going to be the one to miss out. Because Palmer, who was put under quite a lot of pressure before the game by Tuchel, did come on and make a pretty good impact, made the goal. and I thought he was more positive than Foden was when he was in possession.

10:51He could have had another assist if Calvert-Lewin had put the first free kick away. That's another thing to come out of it is these two backup strikers. Neither of them really stood out. Slanky worked very hard. Calvert-Lewin missed two chances. And again, you come to it thinking, is he just going to decide that the best thing to do is not take anybody to back up Harry Kane? and if they get into a position where they do need to do something, do you find a workaround whether that's Bellingham up front or if he really gambles and decides that he wants to take Foden as a false nine potentially. But at the moment, nobody's really pushing for the backup number nine at the moment.

11:31Yeah, and of course, Harry Kane will roll his ankle, what, late in May for Bayern Munich and he won't quite be fit enough, but he'll play all the games and stodge about. What did you make, Barry, of Thomas Tuchel talking about Harry Maguire, who played okay, and then subsequently, he says he's fifth choice behind Concer Gay, Stones and Chalabah. Because I think Mark Langdon was talking to him on the radio, saying, look, we constantly complain about managers not being honest. And now Tuchel is being honest. But it does sound a bit, he might wait until he's not there, like the Japan game's done.

12:03Max Rushden:Harry Maguire is a big boy. I'm sure he knows he's not first choice. And if you're not first or second choice centre-back, doesn't really matter where you are in the pecking order. I think it's an odd thing for a coach to say because unlike sort of pub boars like us, you have to factor in your opposition when you're deciding who's in your team. So just to say he is fifth choice, regardless of who we play, seems a weird thing to say. But I don't think Harry Maguire will be particularly upset. Harry McGuire has faced far greater adversity than being told his fifth choice out of five in a squad and come back from it.

12:52Max Rushden:And it may very well end up that he gets to play anyway for any number of reasons. So I wouldn't imagine he minds. I have no problem with Thomas Tuchel saying it, but yeah, it's a slightly odd thing to say. Jacob, do you have strong thoughts on wide right? because it felt like Saka was obviously going to be number one and Madiwaki who's played really well for England in some of the qualifiers would be number two and Bowen might be unlucky to miss out but Saka's form isn't great, Madiwaki's got a bit of an injury I just wonder if there is a bit of, might be room for Gerard Bowen there Yeah definitely, I mean Bowen's obviously had such a tough season but throughout that has battled really hard for West Ham and I think that actually slightly marks him out that in such a terrible season he's kept on going probably not been at his absolute best but he's the captain and being a leader throughout that and still scoring and creating.

13:43And his goal involvement is one of the highest for an English player in the Premier League. So I think that does stand out. And I think that puts him in contention. And also the fact that with these number nines, as I said before, not really doing too much, he is someone who can play potentially through the middle as well. He does have a chance. I mean, with all the number 10s, you do sort of try to look at ways to cram them all in. And if Saka's not there, you think maybe Palmer could play wide right. But Tuchel has said that he sees him as a number 10. And he's so big, Tuchel, on trying to play this Premier League style with a lot of pace and intensity.

14:23And one of the big things around that is having a lot of speed out wide and direct players. So on the left, it's Rashford or Gordon. And Gordon will probably come in on Tuesday. Does he decide to shove a number 10 out there who's maybe a little bit slower? Or does he look for someone like Bowen who can bring more directness and speed? I mean, the problem that England had on Friday night was that Uruguay, once that first injury happened, they were able to slow the momentum down because England had started quite well. And then after that, England weren't able to really control the temper at all.

14:54And they weren't able to open them up with any kind of creative play. The one way that they had was the fast play out wide. And once that kind of gone down, they weren't able to offer too much more. And that's probably going to become an issue during the World Cup when they come up against teams who are able to give them those problems with the low block or mid block that Uruguay came up with on Friday night. And generally speaking, England have struggled to sort of shift the tempo in these tournament games when they've come up against stronger opposition. handbred so leuzen is released the handbrake in german just in case someone wants to yell it at thomas tuchel when we're struggling to uh break down a low block um paul you've watched football in some interesting places and some hot places and does it worry you that tuchel is talking about this sort of fast premier league style in the summer heat of the united states and possibly mexico well we'll have the hydration breaks max so that's true it doesn't look like we'll be playing more than about 22 minutes of football in any chunk anyway, which actually genuinely I think will make a bit of a difference.

16:02I actually think that kind of intensity might be quite a useful asset because you look at the way that, yeah, Uruguay were playing here and I think you're going to see a lot of that. A lot of teams are going to try and take the pace out of the game. I think a lot of the time most teams are going to be able to do that. They're going to be able to slow the game down and force a lot of what we saw against Uruguay, there's kind of frustrating passages where England are trying to unpick a team that are very well organised and solid and structured. So I actually think in a way the best thing that Tuchel can do is have a team that have something that kind of marks them out and I think intensity is probably the one thing we've got to offer in that regard.

16:43So we played Japan on Tuesday, England do, Japan beat Scotland 1-0. Steve Clarke was surprised to hear Scottish fans booing after of their defeat. Fatih McGlinchey says there's a lot of talk about Steve Clarke's future, what he wants, what the SFA wants, but has anyone stopped to consider what the Tartan army want? He's never explained what he was thinking in Euro 2020 and 24, and he still continues. We do not want more of that nonsense in 2026. That is just one voice, of course, Barry, but you imagine, you'd hope Scotland would be more upbeat going into their first World Cup in, you know,

17:12Max Rushden:a generation. After the levels of excitement generated during their last outing at Hampden against Edinburgh, that was always going to be a hard act to follow and this was very much after the lord mayor's show because this too was a poor game of football scotland had chances scott mctominay andy robertson george hearse all had their chances of varying degrees of what would you say easiness none of them scored. Japan won courtesy of a Junior Aito winner in the 84th or 5th minute, I think. But it wasn't a good game. Scotland fans, a lot of them left the stadium before full time and a lot of those who remained booed, as they are entitled to do.

18:04Max Rushden:Steve Clarke wasn't impressed. He said he was asked if he'd heard the booing. He said, yes, it disappoints me. It's just the modern way it seems to be now. If you lose a game, you get booed. I think a lot of Scotland fans are frustrated by Steve Clarke's inherent conservatism. I think quite a few of them thought he would have been better served giving some of Scotland's fringe players a run out in this game, which he didn't do. But they're off to the World Cup. I think booing probably isn't helpful. but they'll get over it, and so will Steve Clarke. And we look forward to them being at the World Cup now.

18:47I mean, Haiti's the game, isn't it? Because that group with Morocco and Brazil is not easy. They could be... I worked out... I did a spreadsheet, and as I said, I gave them a win against Haiti, but you've got to get a sort of zero goal difference, really, if you want to get through. That's an early spreadsheet. It is an early spreadsheet. Well, I wanted to be the first... I wrote a column last week. I wanted to be the first idiot to plot England's route to the final, And I believe I might be, if you believe we'll beat France in the quarterfinal, Argentina in the semi and Spain in the final. In other Scotland news, Max, Scotland fans who go wearing kilts, they have been given permission to wear their Sporans into grounds because Sporans are bigger than the official

19:32Max Rushden:FIFA designated size bag you were allowed to bring into a World Cup match. but the Scottish FA have been in talks with FIFA and those who wish to wear Sporans into football matches at the World Cup have been given the all clear to do so. So that's good news. That is. I mean, you could see Trump and Gianni getting together and releasing their own FIFA branded Sporans that were slightly smaller and you'd have to kind of, you'd have to lower your Sporan into one of those Ryanair hand luggage things before you're allowed to proceed into the game for which you've paid$5 ,000 for a ticket. Anyway, that'll do for part one.

20:11Part two, we'll look ahead to the European qualifiers and the other ones as well in just a second.

20:25Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So, look, four Euro qualifiers, which for our audience, not quite as exciting as perhaps we hoped for, but they are still exciting if you are, say, Bosnian or Kosovan or Swedish, etc. Italy have their first chance to get to a World Cup for 12 years. Nicky is on on Wednesday. And the winners go into a group, Paul, on paper, which has Canada, Qatar and Switzerland. So you're like, it's not just getting to a World Cup. It's like, if you get there, then you have a great opportunity to progress too. Yeah, but I think we're all stuck. and I'm stuck too that we look at Italy like old Italy right yeah in the same way that you hear that you see the Scottish fans booing the Japan result fair enough but Japan are a really solid team these days like I think if that was an equivalent South American or European team I'm not sure the fans would be quite so incandescent at you know narrowly losing that game I think there's a view that people still see Japan as the old Japan you know knocked out in the groups or maybe sort of just about get their way through and get knocked out but it's similar with Italy I still look at Italy as if this is Italy that that I grew up with this is the 2006 Italy this is such a different beast this Italy team and I think yeah okay you could look through and say look it's a welcoming group but actually if you look at the way Switzerland played in qualification and you look at the way that Italy played in qualification there's there's no doubt which team is the superior side in my eyes at the moment so I think there's also this amazing thing that Italy, I don't know if you saw the controversy of the players celebrating the Bosnia win.

22:00The real mistake here, I think, is the Italian TV channel that aired it, the Italian main channel, Rai, showed footage of, I think it was two or three. Vicario and maybe Di Marco? Di Marco, Federico Di Marco, yeah. Vicario was probably just delighted to be somewhere else, right? Vicario was just like, I'm not in North London, this is great. They won't make me go back, will they? So yeah, but I think there was also an element that I don't know if they managed to pull this excuse off, but they were saying they were, you know, happy for their mate Dzeko. And, you know, yeah, possibly. But it was an incredible psychological error to kind of have that footage now circulating in Bosnia of like Italy celebrating the fact they're playing Bosnia.

22:41You couldn't do a worse job of motivating a Bosnia team who are clearly very, you know, very decent, solid side. And so it does feel like Italy are doing everything they can to get ahead of themselves and set this up for a really miserable evening in Bosnia. You want to talk about Kosovo, right? One game away from their first ever World Cup. Yeah, and this is an incredible story. It's kind of been quite a slow burn throughout the qualification process. There were all these moments, especially with Sweden being so bad, it was almost hard to believe how bad Sweden were through qualification. But there were these moments where you kept thinking, well, Kosovo can't qualify, can they?

23:17And in the end, they couldn't quite outmuscle Switzerland for the automatic spot. But coming into the playoffs, yeah, they didn't necessarily feel like underdogs when they came up against Slovakia. But this game was crazy. I was watching Kosovo-Slovakia and Slovakia twice went ahead at home. And Kosovo battled back each time to overturn that and win. And it's an amazing story. Kosovo actually, they are FIFA's newest members alongside Gibraltar. So they only were accepted in 2016. They've only been in FIFA for a decade. And yeah, Slovakia, in fact, funnily enough, Slovakia doesn't even recognise Kosovo.

23:55So there was quite a bit of quite a few jokes going backwards of wars that, you know, you're going to have to recognise Kosovo now. They've scored four goals against you. But it is an amazing story, this Kosovo story. And the way that they're playing under Franco Foda, the head coach, they've been playing brilliant football. They now host Turkey and, you know, you would expect Turkey to be the favourites. But I don't know. Kosovo just keep surpassing expectations. And, you know, it's actually quite a poignant thing about the fact that they're playing Turkey in this game, because Turkey were one of the few countries that agreed to play Kosovo back in 2014 when they were unrecognised by almost everybody else.

24:30And Kosovo were sort of scrabbling around to get teams to play. Turkey were actually one of the teams that really supported them. So it's going to be a really interesting occasion in Pristina with a huge fevered atmosphere with Kosovo playing Turkey. but a lot of actual mutual like between the two teams. The Graham Potter redemption arc is nearly complete. Sweden take on Poland. Jacob, you watched a lot of Graham Potter at Chelsea. Are you delighted to see him on the cusp of a World Cup? Yeah, because he's a good guy and he's had such a terrible time apart from, I think, his long Chelsea payoff influence break.

25:05I'm sure he had a great time just on a beach probably living off that money, so that was good. But then he ruined that by going to West Ham and having done a terrible time and probably managing himself out of a Premier League job for quite a while. So to get this one and then potentially from a really bad position where they were in November, going to the World Cup. Yeah, great for him. It was a good win the other night. And I would like to see him do that while obviously acknowledging I bear no ill will towards Poland. yeah well how very diplomatic of you i mean i guess if izak and kulisevsky are fit for the welcome i don't know if they are i should check those things but you know sweden could be uh quite an interesting bet if they get there uh czechia denmark it should have been ireland barry you over the last few days have you sent quite a sort of you know like a reflective voice note on the pod on friday and it has turned to anger in these last few days yeah the more i think about

26:06Max Rushden:but it's the more annoyed I am that we didn't beat Cecilia. We were 2-0 up against them. We had them on the ropes. We should have won that game. And chances to qualify for a World Cup, when you're in the Republic of Ireland, don't come around too often. We blew it. We absolutely blew it. And it is very frustrating. I think Heimer Halgrimson and his players are getting a bit too easy a ride from the Irish media or certain sections of it anyway. but we won't have another game of consequence now till your 2028 qualifiers. So it's over a year and nearly a year and a half till we get to play a proper game again, a proper competitive, meaningful game again.

26:53And that's annoying to say the least.

26:57Max Rushden:But there you go. There's obviously no guarantee we'd have beaten Denmark. I fondly remember those times years ago when it seems far more recent but uh yeah back around 2019 20 uh when we used to play Denmark it seemed home and away every week for quite for at least two years and pretty much all the games ended in draws I think apart from one spanking they dished out to us but uh yeah uh it's I am annoyed okay well I hope you feel better and you have my sympathies uh you will be buoyed by the fact barry that at some point england will get knocked out of the world cup and we will be rooming together when it happens they may not max they may win the world cup yeah as well and also you may have killed me by how annoying you find me on an extended period and how easy you are to wind up and how fun it is anyway paul elsewhere suriname was so close against bolivia but they lost 2-1 so bolivia iraq uh with the winners going into a group with france senegal and norway that is tough and And then Jamaica beat New Caledonia 1-0 and will play DR Congo.