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In short
Euro 2025 semi-finals preview (England vs Sweden comeback; Italy vs England; Spain vs Germany), penalty shootout psychology, and racism fallout for England’s Jess Carter. Part two covers Manchester United’s “bomb squad” (Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho, Malacia, Antony) and transfer talk (Rashford to Barcelona, Mbomo to United, Eketike to Liverpool, plus Brentford’s risk after key departures). Part three discusses multi-club ownership and UEFA’s “blind trust” workaround, using Crystal Palace’s UEFA/Conference League compliance saga as the case study, plus Philippe Wilson’s World Cup book anecdote.
Guests (panel)
Lucy Ward (football writer/commentator), Jonathan Wilson (football historian/writer), Philippe Auclair (football journalist), Max (co-host), plus “Wilson” as Philippe’s book segment host.
Key claims
England’s “proper English” resilience is real; Vigman’s tactical tweaks (back three to back four) mattered. Penalty misses reflect tournament “personality” and shootout terror, not rule changes. Jess Carter faced racist abuse; FA contacted police and platforms. United’s ostracism strategy is illogical and may reduce player value. Brentford’s Thomas Frank system may be harder to replicate after departures. UEFA’s blind trust enables multi-club ownership to avoid same-competition conflicts.
Notable examples
Anne-Katrin Berger’s France-Germany save; Germany surviving 10 women for ~110 minutes; Carter taking a step back from social media; Bruno Fernandes as a rare United “improvement” signing; Carreras/Reguilón left-back example; Mbomo’s one breakout season; Palace’s March 1 blind-trust deadline; Nottingham Forest/Girona blind-trust director overlap; 1966 World Cup “Pickles” theft story.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOEngland's Performance Against Sweden
0:43 to 1:14
Discussion on England's comeback against Sweden in the semifinals.
“Now is the time to make a real change in your life, career, and community.”
England's Performance Against Sweden
2:17 to 3:40
Discussion on England's comeback against Sweden in the semifinals.
“On the panel today Lucy Ward welcome Hi Max Hello Jonathan Wilson Morning how you doing?”
Tactics and Key Players for the Semifinal
3:40 to 5:32
Analysis of tactical changes and player fitness ahead of the semifinal.
“I think that, you know, we were really poor against France, if you're thinking that far back.”
The Pressure of Penalty Shootouts
5:32 to 7:20
Exploration of the factors contributing to missed penalties in tournaments.
“and they beat Italy, whoever they play, then, you know, we need to be better than we were against France and Sweden.”
Debate on England's Tournament Resilience
7:20 to 10:04
Discussion on England's ability to progress despite performance issues.
“And yet you look back at the Women's Super League last year, there's only three penalties missed out of 31.”
The Role of Key Players and Skills in Matches
10:04 to 14:00
Analysis of player skills and the impact of physical attributes in football.
“For those listeners, obviously I know exactly what the golden section is, but could you just explain what the, you know, that's football's golden section.”
Analyzing the France-Germany Match
14:00 to 21:26
Discussion about the critical moments and performances in the France vs Germany match.
“I think it's a little bit perhaps too restrictive to talk about her in those terms.”
Racism in Football: The Case of Jess Carter
21:26 to 25:06
A conversation on the racist abuse directed at Jess Carter and the reactions from the football community.
“We'll cover those semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday.”
The Baffling Manchester United Training Situation
28:00 to 31:30
Discussing the strange training arrangements for certain Manchester United players and the club's transfer logic.
“when Ruben Amarin and the other players have gone.”
The Challenges of Player Development at United
31:30 to 36:41
Exploring the lack of player improvement and strategic decisions regarding signings at Manchester United.
“It used to be that they couldn't train in less than groups of five because that broke the PFA rules or some sort of contractual thing.”
Show all 15 chapters
Brentford's Future and Key Player Departures
36:41 to 39:21
Analyzing Brentford's potential struggles with key player exits and the impact on team dynamics.
“You know, Mbuma going, Frank, Wieser might go, Norgard's gone, who's actually quite a key player for them.”
Brentford's Future and Key Player Departures
40:07 to 41:35
Analyzing Brentford's potential struggles with key player exits and the impact on team dynamics.
“Part three, we'll begin with Philippe on multi-club ownership.”
Crystal Palace and UEFA's Multi-Club Ownership Dilemma
42:00 to 46:48
Explore the implications of UEFA's blind trust mechanism on multi-club ownership, particularly for Crystal Palace.
“And suddenly, when they realized that, oh, shit, we might actually, well, if we win the UEFA Cup, you know, it's great, Europa League.”
The Theft of the World Cup: A Bizarre Tale
46:48 to 49:26
Uncover the strange story of the theft and recovery of the World Cup, involving a dog named Pickles.
“It doesn't matter what you do after that.”
Mussolini's Influence on the World Cup
49:26 to 53:19
Learn about Mussolini's controversial involvement in the early World Cups and the odd requests of winning teams.
“But there's a whole ransom plot that I think gets lost.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Philippe Auclair:This is The Guardian.
0:30Jonathan Wilson:are on now at Lowe's. In-store and online. Valid through 9-9. While supplies last. Selection varies by location. See Lowe's.com for more details. Soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii. This message is brought to you by today's sponsor, Walden University. Set a course for change. Now is the time to make a real change in your life, career, and community. At Walden University, we give you the support and flexibility to get the W. Walden's online programs are designed for working professionals like you. You'll gain hands-on skills to take on real-world challenges and succeed. Your future is waiting and Walden is here to help you achieve it.
1:07Jonathan Wilson:Take the first step to make your impact. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by Shev.
1:23Jonathan Wilson:Hello and welcome to Guardian Football Weekly. back for good now after our extended summer break and into the Euro semifinals. England, Italy on Tuesday and Spain, Germany on Wednesday. Extraordinary comeback from the Lionesses against Sweden. No one has quite explained what proper English means, but if that's what's helping them get through, then fair enough. There's some depressing and predictable online racism aimed at Jess Carter to discuss as well. Germany knocked France out on penalties. A brilliant game. Germany surviving with 10 women for the best part of 110 minutes. They missed a penalty in normal time and a quite brilliant performance from their keeper Anne Katrin Berger.
1:53Jonathan Wilson:Also today we'll discuss Manchester United's Bombs squad and Marcus Rashford to Barcelona Liverpool line-up Hugo Eketike with Mbumo and Frank gone amongst others we'll ask if anyone's worried about Brentford Philippe wants to talk multi-club ownership and Wilson's written a book find out what he's inverting this time in part three all that plus your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly
2:17Jonathan Wilson:On the panel today Lucy Ward welcome Hi Max Hello Jonathan Wilson Morning how you doing? I'm very well Bonjour, ça va, Philippe Auclair. Bonjour, ça va, Max. Ça va bien. Let's start in Switzerland, where you are, Lucy. You're in Geneva. Since we last did a pod, the semi-finalists have been, I was going to say revealed. It's not really how football works. It's like a reality show now. England, Italy tomorrow, Spain, Germany on Wednesday. Let's start talking about England's game, shall we, against Sweden and the semi-final. Lucy look they were pretty bad it's sort of a bit like the France game for quite a lot of it that they weren't good but then they did somehow turn it around and like I said in the intro you know they keep saying proper English as a kind of have they kind of made up a thing that doesn't exist but we all now think it exists and whatever happens as long as they win they say well that was a proper English thing to do and you go okay yeah maybe it was and now I'm I'm being sort of my mind is being sort of moved in this way to thinking it's an actual thing.
3:21Yeah, I think that what the meaning is, and I think it is a characteristic of this team, that they don't quite know when they're beaten. So, you know, they've got a little bit of an edge, this England team, and a resilience to them that is not always on show, but it has come at the right time in this tournament. I think that, you know, we were really poor against France, if you're thinking that far back. In fact, I did that game, was so excited leading up to it. And then it's just like, what is going on? And then why did we not make any changes at half-time? You know, the questions that everybody was shouting at the TV.
3:59And similar to then, obviously, Netherlands were not the same as France. I think the difference is when we are faced with mobile, dynamic, athletic, particularly central midfielders, I think we really struggle because I don't think that we are that. I think that we've got a lot of benefits to our team and going forward defensively we end up quite resilient but we've not quite got that match to what France have and to what Sweden had as well. As soon as Blaxenius gets away from defenders that's it and we saw that a couple of times but they just stick in, they just stay in the game and I think she has been a little bit adaptable, Serena Vigman.
4:43And, you know, she doesn't really like to change. And you're sort of looking at the clock ticking past 60 minutes and thinking, well, come on, you know, something needs to happen. But she did sort of mess a little bit with the back four, changed to a back three, which allowed Bronz to get up. She scored a goal, changed back to a back four. I think that tomorrow night she might have to make some changes to that. I think Leah Williamson, they've sort of made noises about optimistic she's going to be fit. But you don't do that to your ankle and be able to play a few days later. So she is not, I don't think, is going to be able to play to 100%.
5:12So I could see Niamh Charles coming in. Esmer Morgan played, you know, or I think she's a future in terms of centre-back. She's got the stature. But yeah, it's been interesting when you just think they've quite got it. And then we get a performance like that against Sweden. Italy again will be a little bit different. But, you know, whoever, if they do get through to the final and they beat Italy, whoever they play, then, you know, we need to be better than we were against France and Sweden. But Lucy, how early can we say,
5:40Jonathan Wilson:get it launched to Agumeng? Yes. Listen, there is different ways of playing in that. Sometimes, and she's done it in the past where she's thrown Millie Bright up front. She isn't really FA Serena Vigman, which is one of the things I quite like about her. So, you know, the FA teach everybody to coach the same. So then we produce the same, you know, which is absolutely ridiculous. But that's another podcast. But she's just not bothered about just doing that. You know, let's go a little bit more direct. They have played a little bit more direct this tournament. But yeah, Adjaman. I mean, I've been where our commentary position is.
6:17We're right in front, right behind the England families. So you see the sort of, you know, when they've lost, when they've won, the dynamics are brilliant. But Michelle Adjaman's family, honestly, she comes on the pitch just to walk around to have a look and they're waving. Honestly, it's absolutely wonderful. And that's the human side, which we'll obviously go on with Jess Carter, the human side that people don't always think about and don't always see, but it's just beautiful, honestly.
6:47Jonathan Wilson:It reminds me, when Cambridge played Gateshead in the playoff final at Wembley, I think 2015, to get into League Two, we were sitting around the families and our sub right-back, I can't remember his name, was a scouter. And I can't remember our current, the right-back was on the pitch. But whenever our current right-back who was on the pitch got the ball, they would boo their own right back because they wanted to get them on it was very funny now the penalties wilson were i mean so exciting there have been extraordinary number of missed penalties you know spain missed one germany missed one you know um out of hegerberg missed a couple um and i don't i can't you know the pressure is something and i don't know really what the question is it's just been quite fascinating yeah i mean i think and this is not just to do with penalties but i think tournaments develop and it doesn't really make much sense but tournaments develop their own personalities if the first half dozen games of a tournament are really tight and cagey that seems to sort of spread through everybody else if the first six games are really open that spreads to everybody else and for whatever reason i mean obviously the the france so the yeah the france germany penalties can't demand this because 12 of the 14 were scored in that shit but suddenly people decide hang on penalties are really difficult.
8:04And yet you look back at the Women's Super League last year, there's only three penalties missed out of 31. So it's not this is consistent, it's something specific in this tournament. The pressure of the shootout, you could see players on both teams walking forward, you could see the real terror. You've seen nonsense online, people say, oh, you need to move a penalty spot closer to the goal. But the great thing about penalties is that over, you know, penalties were introduced in 1891, penalty spots, although the penalty area has changed size and shape, the penalty spot has always been 12 yards from an eight-yard goal.
8:38And that one and a half times the width of a goal seems to be about perfect. Because, you know, throughout football history, at every level of a game, from sort of, you know, under 12s to whatever, roughly 75, 77 % of penalties are scored. That whatever lack of power the kicker may have, Well, the goalkeeper is also slightly smaller and therefore it balances out. And you just get, sometimes you get these shootouts where everybody is terrified. You can think back to Barcelona v Stour in 1986 when it finishes 2-0. Barcelona doesn't score a single penalty in that year in the Open Cup final. You look at Manchester United v Sunderland in the 2014 League Cup semi-final, which Sunderland won 2-1.
9:22and for some reason there are times in penalty sheets when terror descends and kicking the ball 12 yards into an eight yard space becomes the hardest thing imaginable and i sort of i felt watching that game and this is maybe partly this sort of uh england had become a little bit like west germany in the 80s they've got this 20 a man shaft thing that almost doesn't matter whether they play well or not they've got something about and they scrape their way through i think it's dangerous if you sort of begin to rely on that and i've been slightly concerned by some of what i've heard in the last two or three days there was a sort of oh it's all fine this is just what we do i really hope that's a surface thing and behind the scenes they are addressing the sort of you know the fairly obvious problems have been tactically but that capacity to just drag your way through games when you don't really deserve it tournaments are often like that and you know if you look at the football played sweden have been much better in this tournament france has been much better in this tournament than either england or germany but england and germany are in the semis and ultimately that in a tournament that is what what matters and i just sort of thought one of the things that goes in with that is you get these sort of elements of of narrative that sort of it just makes sense so it seems to me very obvious the end of 120 minutes that hannah hampton was going to have a key part to play because she's got a wedge of bloody tissue up her nose and lucy bronze is going to have a key part to play because she's got that strapping on her thigh and so i was just sort of let lucy bronze take it because she's obviously going to score and then we just had to wait until the seventh penalty for some reason for that to happen but and even the way she took a penalty was like well she's obviously going to smash it down the middle because that's just the right thing to do in these circumstances yes uh many
10:55Philippe Auclair:things to say first of all congratulations to jonathan for uh finding the football equivalent of the golden section basically that's what it is jonathan isn't it uh the relationship between the distance from the goal line to the width of the goal so that's football's golden section this is the pi number of football.
11:14Jonathan Wilson:Can I just stop you? Can I just stop you, Philippe? For those listeners, obviously I know exactly what the golden section is, but could you just explain what the, you know, that's football's golden section. What's golden section's golden section?
11:25Philippe Auclair:Well, I think if you look in architecture, there is a magic number, which is the golden section, which basically gives you a sense of harmony. Ah, okay. So we have found a kind of sense of harmony in the penalty shootout. Well, sorry, if I can just come in on that. So the Fibonacci sequence. Here we go. No, but you see this in nature. So we see this in nature all the time in terms of how the petals on a flower, for instance. But you find this pattern of one plus one is two, one plus two is three, two plus three is five, three plus five is eight, five plus eight is 13. If you look at Premier League winners at the minute, it's a perfect Fibonacci sequence.
12:07Philippe Auclair:So, in fact, it's the golden section in the shape of a Nautilus shell. Exactly that. Yes, that is exactly it.
12:13Jonathan Wilson:So, you're not getting this on the rest of this football. That's all I need.
12:17Philippe Auclair:More or less seriously, I mean, when it comes to the fear factor in a penalty shootout, I think we've got to give this. I mean, to be honest, this is not a stat I found myself. I think Paul Joyce actually mentioned it quite a long time ago. But there was this penalty shootout in 1998 in the Derby Under-10 Community Cup between Mikkelova Lightning Blue Sox and Celliston Boys. The Sox won two one-on penalties, but they had to take 66 of them to get there. So it could be much worse. And also I wanted to get back on what Lucy was saying. One name we haven't mentioned is Kelly. and we also, that the huge impact she has.
13:04Philippe Auclair:And I think many people are wondering, is there a better roster of the world, a roster of the ball in world football? Should she be kept as a kind of not so secret weapon? And the other thing is about Aja Emang. I think there is a tendency to perhaps diminish her value as a player because she's so obviously strong and athletic and fast and all these sort of things. But actually quite a few of her finishes, show a player who's got genuine skill, who is a proper, I mean, a proper box player who has got the technique and the skill to actually make chances. I mean, put the ball in the back of the net, you know.
13:42Philippe Auclair:It's a bit like people saying that Gerd Müller was somebody who only, it just was there at the right time. Well, yeah, he put it in the net as well. And I do think it's a little bit unfair to Adjeman because it's very often unfair to players who are physically imposing, you know, be they, you know, Olivier Giroud or Romelu Lukaku, who, Aishima, yes, she's tall, she's incredibly athletic. I think it's a little bit perhaps too restrictive to talk about her in those terms.
14:10Jonathan Wilson:Yeah, but forgive me my love of the target man slash target woman. I mean, it's just a love. I can't help myself but loving her, you know, however skilful or not a number nine is. That's like Hoffman from Germany as well was my favourite. Honestly, sorry, Jonathan. I mean, it was a classic sort of old school number nine's performance. in that the first two touches when she came on were absolutely terrible. One of them, the ball went backwards 10 yards incredibly quickly. Her next two touches were amazing. There was a chest down on a difficult ball that kept the men of the attack on and then the finish, which would have been really easy to have snatched at that, especially when you've just got one back and this is a chance to equalise, but to very calmly assess that, work out where the keeper is, side-footed in.
14:55You often see that with big players. that the bigger the player, the worse the poor touch looks, if that makes sense.
15:02Jonathan Wilson:Yeah. Can we talk about France-Germany? Can we start, Lucy, with that save from Anne-Katrin Berger? I've watched it so many times. It is extraordinary. It's absolutely... I'm, you know, recency bias and hyperbole, trying to avoid them, but I was just trying to think. I just thought it was such an amazing feat of athleticism. It's every sinew. That is like every single muscle is working to just get there and just get that ball at the last second. And she's not particularly tall. It's not like she's a tall goalkeeper. I think she's probably a little bit smaller than me. Which is the height by which all keepers are judged, of course.
15:42Jonathan Wilson:It is exactly the height. On the Lucy Ward scale. Are you taller or smaller than 5 '10"? If you are, then, you know, brilliant. They need to be taller. But I think because when it happened, and obviously was commentating on it. When it happened, when the defender got the head on, I was just thinking, oh, this is not how you're going to lose this. This is not how, honestly, this is not. And I was watching it. And obviously everything about the stretch, athleticism, but the timing of when she'd made the jump, that was a critical bit. The timing of the jump off the foot was critical because she, and that is all learned.
16:20And, you know, she's obviously made saves, similar saves. that not obviously I haven't seen them, but in training and et cetera. But even when she made the same effect, that must have gone over the line. Surely that's gone over the line. And because France were already celebrating, I could see them celebrating. But yeah, absolutely incredible. But yeah, you know, it was a really good game to do. It's probably the best game I've done so far, I have to say.
16:44Jonathan Wilson:Yeah. I mean, there was a lot in it, Philippe. When I mentioned the game, I had a wonderful, uh, from you. So if you could expand on your, uh, please.
16:52Philippe Auclair:well uh i think anybody who's watched the game will have understood the i think first of all there's this uh deflation which comes uh with the realization that whatever sisyphus does it'll never work out and we could play germany for the next three decades and it's always going to be the same thing and then there's the um there's the voodoo the hex of the final phase of the tournament. France out, I think, eight out of nine times in the quarterfinals in the last big tournaments. And the other time was in the semis. And who was it against? It was against Germany. And you think everything is in France's favor and that is not going to be enough.
17:39Philippe Auclair:Heinrich's moments of absolute madness, playing 11 v 10 for how long? 110 minutes, something like that. An absolutely gorgeous team goal, which is chalked off for such a... And actually, you wonder, oh, maybe she could have held a run just a little bit more like a fraction of a second and it would have been the goal of the tournament and it would have been no way back for Germany. And then you think, oh, penalty saved. That's our day. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's not. But on the other hand, I was absolutely astonished by the energy levels of that German team. I was absolutely astonished because very often if you find yourself, 10 v 11, people always think, oh, that's again, Inter-Barca, defending your 30 yards.
18:25Philippe Auclair:That's not what they did. That's not what they did. They did that too. The blocks were there, the incredible bravery, the way that they dealt with dangerous situations, an extraordinary performance by their keeper. But as well, France were not able to do anything in midfield. Every time a player received the ball in midfield in a half dangerous situation, There were two or three German players who were immediately closing in. But when they were closing in, they were not creating space for somebody else to exploit. And so France were looked bereft of ideas. And I don't know, Luz, if you saw the comments in the French press, but they have been brutal, absolutely brutal.
19:07Philippe Auclair:And I think to an extent, which is not right. You have to just acknowledge the fact that this young French team has got a lot of talent in it. but they came across a team that is far better organised than they are and which tactically was far more aware than they were despite the fact they were missing out so many defenders despite the fact that if you're a right back for the German team it means you've finished the game on a stretcher and all these sort of things and still France couldn't do it so yeah, it's a kind of game, definitely I think Bonaday has got, it looked like he'd found the solution.
19:45I think not including the senior players, you can argue about that. But France will benefit from this and bringing the young players in and the experience they've had in the next tournament, the Nations League later on in the year, the next World Cup. I think that at the moment it's all, oh, how on earth have we lost to Germany again? But I do think some of these, I mean, the young players in central midfield, brilliant. I mean, they have been brilliant throughout the tournament. You know, the centre-backs that he had to play before he ended up playing his first choice in Mbock and Lacroix. But that will help them in the future.
20:22It's just Germany played better with 10 than they did with 11. I think there's nothing much more powerful than a player or a team with a cause, something to hold on to and whether that was good. They felt like they unfairly went down to 10. They felt like the referee was a little bit against them in the first half and they just galvanised them. They just disrupted everything about France. France was like, right, we've got a plan A. Let's keep going. It's not working. Let's keep going. They didn't do anything different. They couldn't find the spare player. They couldn't stretch the pitch. But take nothing away from, I mean, Hoffman was my sort of centre forward.
20:58I mean, she was, I mean, the last sprint that she did, She literally had no zero. And it's not often as a player that you get to the stage where you've got zero energy and your legs left. You know, you've always got something if you come off. So she just had nothing left because she was consistently bullying everybody on the park as well. But yeah, I love that. But yeah, Germany, brilliant. France just could not find the answer. But I just think it just looked, the longer it went on, it was just, this is going to be Germany's day.
21:26Jonathan Wilson:We'll cover those semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday. Let's talk about Jess Carter, Susie Rack writing. England have condemned the what they call online poison of racist abuse directed at Jess Carter said they'll stop taking a knee before matches because football needs to find another way to tackle racism. Carter wrote on Instagram, from the start of the tournament, I've experienced a lot of racial abuse. While I feel every fan is entitled to their opinion on performance and result, I don't agree or think it's okay to target someone's appearance or race. As a result of this, I'll be taking a step back from social media and leaving it to a team to deal with.
21:57Jonathan Wilson:The chief executive of The FA Mark Bullingham said, as soon as we were made aware of the racist abuse Jess received, we immediately contacted UK police. They're in touch with the relevant social media platform. We're working with police to ensure those responsible for this hate crime are brought to justice. It's not surprising, I guess, Lucy. And as producer Joel said, look, if 7.4 million people are watching England's games, you're going to attract some people that don't follow the women's game regularly. Because sometimes we see the women's game as a different space in terms of lots of things to do with fandom.
22:28Yeah. I mean, you know, there's not any sort of equivalency, but I get loads of online abuse and none of it is about the colour of my skin. And that is the whole premise here. This is like, it must, I mean, for a start, I don't think that if I was then where I would be looking at social media because obviously it has a massive effect. But my word, the people who write this stuff are absolutely emboldened by people in the world at the moment, infamous, famous people, who are saying and behaving exactly how they want to behave without any consequences. And we know freedom of speech is fine, but it isn't freedom of consequence.
Read the full transcript
23:11And we've just got that far over the line at the moment that people accept and shouldn't accept this sort of abuse to players like Carter. You know, Carter, you know, you look at it in the game, she was targeted by Sweden. She had a little bit of a nightmare. And that's as far as it goes. You shouldn't even have a go at the way she plays. You know, that's, but to then go, and I can just imagine. But as a teammate, for me, I put myself in the shoes of her teammate. I would be incredibly angry and frustrated that I couldn't do anything about it. And you could tell that from Lucy Bronze's reaction from, they put a statement together.
23:52from woman molly's reaction they desperately want to do something and help hold people accountable but at that level they can't they feel like they can't do it that this needs more from above you know how do you hold these people accountable that so they don't sit in the little bedroom and you know inconsequential people who are having massive effects on on people's mental health and you know we're still here when it's 2025 it's incredible yeah i mean it's it's a it's a wider
24:19Jonathan Wilson:conversation Philippe about what social media companies do or don't do well it's what they
24:24Philippe Auclair:don't do and I think I mean am I wrong in assuming that most of those comments were on X or yeah Instagram as well I think Philippe Instagram on X yeah Instagram as well well I I think I think that there is a point where if if you are the FA for example you have to think of divesting from those platforms because you're helping them survive and live. And you are part of building the echo chamber in which these people can scream abuse at players, just players, managers, loads of people. And you have to think, well, you can divest. And can it be done? Yes, it can be done. You will see that a number of German Bundesliga clubs have now divested from those social media platforms, which are problematic.
25:12Philippe Auclair:Werder Bremen have completely divested. I think Union, St. Pauli, quite a few others. And instead of constantly complaining about what these platforms are not doing, well, go for the platforms themselves. First of all, don't go there. Tell your players not to be there. There's absolutely no obligation for anybody to be on those platforms. And then, if you can, actually go to them and put them in front of their responsibilities by attacking them. And there is absolutely no necessity for anybody to put up with that. And every time we hear the same comments, every time we say, we're going to punish those people, we very well know that those people will not be punished.
25:56Philippe Auclair:They're expressing themselves on a platform where people are basically praising Hitler. So it's without any fear of consequence. So it's not going to happen. So, you know, you've got to be a bit more proactive about that. sorry Max that was my
26:10Jonathan Wilson:morning rant because it really
26:12Philippe Auclair:annoys me.
26:13Jonathan Wilson:I know it won't be your last one I'm sure today but when you start ranting I'm always listening as everyone else is. Alright that'll do for part one. Part two we'll begin with Manchester United.
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27:46Jonathan Wilson:Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Let's talk about Manchester United. Five players have been completely ostracized from the club. Marcus Rashford, Anthony, Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnaccio and Tyrell Malassia. They can only access the training ground when Ruben Amarin and the other players have gone. I will sometimes, it's just such a funny image, isn't it? It's like, it's the idea that, are they just, are they, are they just waiting around the corner? Like with their boots, holding their boots? Are they, what if there's one Man United player who's always the last to leave the training ground?
28:16Jonathan Wilson:You know, someone's practicing free kicks for hours and hours and they're all just thinking, can we not come in? I mean, or is it just, I don't know. Maybe this is what you do with players that you want to ship on. It's just a, it's another strand to the Manchester United story. Oh, It just seems totally baffling. I mean, if it's a disciplinary thing and you think the player might be disruptive, fair enough. But surely the way you get the best price for the player is to have them as fit as possible, in as good a form as possible. You make it look like you want to keep them because then you can say, that's going to cost you 50 million.
28:51And no, you need to get rid of it, but we'll give you 30. You might get nearer 50. I just don't understand the logic of it. I sort of get it at Chelsea last season when they had a squad of 840 and they had to reduce that just in terms of pressure on pitch space. But I just don't understand why when you've got a club so dysfunctional, you're actively taking five players out of it. And, you know, I asked this question. I did this on Substack last week. Who was the last player who actually improved? Last signing, but obviously young players are a bit different. Young players will get better just by nature of getting older.
29:27Who was the last signing United made who got better?
29:29Philippe Auclair:I said Bruno Fernandes. Roy Keane. Well, unfortunately, you can give a boring and probably correct answer of Bruno Fernandes. But I think you could also say that he was really good when he arrived and he stayed really good. And actually, his best period was the first six months after he arrived. So arguably, he hasn't got better. I think an answer that you can't really argue with, but is also quite boring, is Diego Adelot. But I mean, he turns up as a workaday fullback. He's still a workaday fullback, just a slightly older, more mature, better workaday fullback. But I think you can go back to the week in 2012 when they signed David De Gea and Ashley Young.
30:12So that's 68 players ago in which they spent£1.75 billion. I mean, I accept you could say Ahmad Jallum is showing signs that possibly he could. You can pick holes in that if you want to, but the fact that that's even a plausible answer is ludicrous. It's 13 years ago since they last improved a player. And then you've got examples. Have you seen the, what's he called? Alvaro Carreras, the left-back that Real Madrid have just signed for 50 million pounds from Benfica, or 50 million euros from Benfica. He was at United. And so when United had an injury crisis at left-back, Their solution to that was not to pick the, I think he might have been 19, 19 or 20-year-old left-back they had, who turns out to be brilliant.
31:00They were like, oh no, we'll bring in Sergio Reguilón from Spurs, even though we know he's not really Premier League quality, and we'll send him out on loan to Granada. Then we'll sell him for 6 million to Benfica. And two years later, Benfica made a 44 million euro profit on him. I mean, the inability to judge players is extraordinary. Yeah, I mean, in terms of the players on the training ground where they've got to train by themselves, there are some rules the PFA put out. It used to be that they couldn't train in less than groups of five because that broke the PFA rules or some sort of contractual thing.
31:39so you couldn't punish like one player and bring them back in the afternoon even though managers would want to do that but they literally will have the player that say that the whole group will come in at 9 or 10 a.m they will come in in the afternoon at a set time so that means that there'll be a group of staff that then have to come at that time to do the training with them and it's supposed to piss them off um doesn't always work and it creates around the training grand like it's it's quite awkward because all the rest of the staff you know that those are part of the bomb squad or or um what david proton used to call them the mushrooms you know you know in darkness and covered in shit so he used to say ask what you're doing today so part of the mushrooms so right okay and some players will make fun of fun of that but it is does make it quite awkward around the place and it becomes a badge of honor like slow horses they're like the
32:36Jonathan Wilson:slow horses. Maybe they'll win the league secretly for Manchester United and no one will ever know.
32:45Jonathan Wilson:Exactly. Dressed in the dirty McInerney wash. But scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final. But no one knows about it. What do you make of Rashford to Barcelona, Philippe?
32:57Philippe Auclair:I make it that Leicester and Villa are very sad. I make it that it's going to be another example. I mean, the reverse, the negative of what Jonathan was talking about, because we could probably do a whole team of players which actually got better once they left Manchester United. Probably would be a pretty decent one. I was a little bit surprised, I have to say. I wasn't completely convinced that Barcelona needed a player with the kind of profile of Marcus Rashford. But thinking back about it, I'm thinking, actually, that might be a really, really clever move. to be honest I'm a bit nonplussed by the whole thing it has I have to say if you had Max if you think a few years back not that long ago if you were told oh yes Marcus Rashford have you heard he's going on loan to Barcelona from Manchester United what are you talking about here this is ridiculous that's what's happening but to be honest many things are ridiculous in this transfer window and we'll come to that in a second I'm sure
33:58Jonathan Wilson:yeah they are Wilson what do you make of Mbumo to United? I think he's a very good player, but it seems a lot of money for somebody who basically has had one free scoring season in the top flight. So I think there's every reason to think he will be a good player, but it could be 71 million including various clauses. That's a lot of money. And it just sort of, it follows this same pattern of United seemingly overpaying for players who are near the peak of their value. I mean, he's, what, 25? So three years' time, he'll be right at the peak. He'll be on the way down in terms of his value. It just, I can't see how they'll ever make that money back on him.
34:44I think when you get clubs that have such a clearly defined way of doing things, you take any individual element out of that, you can't quite rely on that working elsewhere. So Brentford had last season the second lowest wage bill in the Premier League. But because they were put together so cleverly and because they had a manager who was so in tune with the squad, because everything in that club worked, they had this sort of great holistic quality that everything was pulling in the same direction. So everybody overperforms. So you take anybody out of that, there's a massive danger that they don't live up to that.
35:18And I think you've seen that with players leaving Brighton. You've certainly seen it in the past with players leaving Ajax. So I hope it works, because I think he's a good player. And I like him as a player, but I've got doubts.
35:30Philippe Auclair:If you look at Ambomo's numbers, and I know it's not all about numbers, but it's over a period of time, which is a long period of time because he's been with Brentford for a long time. And up until 2024, it was 45 goals in 184 games, which is not a ridiculous return by all means. And then he has a season when it's 20-38, which is crazy. I mean, it's like he has one of absolutely bumper season following Ivan Toni's departure from the club and finding a relationship with Issa because Brentford has also worked with relationships. Toni, Mbomo, Mbomo, Issa and so forth. And then you break this relationship.
36:10Philippe Auclair:The player is not going to be the same, obviously. I'm nonplussed by the transfer fee as well. It looks like one of those players... I mean, he's also very good when he's... He's not just a goal scorer. He's also a creator. He has got a number of assists and so forth. but he's not a player that will work as the probably sole striker that Manchester United fans are hoping for. The guy who's going to make all the difference, you know, this guy who scores back full of goals, I don't think he's that.
36:40Jonathan Wilson:Lucia, are you worried about Brentford at all? You know, Mbuma going, Frank, Wieser might go, Norgard's gone, who's actually quite a key player for them. Yeah, I think because Jonathan was right, the relationship between Thomas Frank and the players And I know the way that they work in their background is incredible. They've got well-researched investments into players, then they make them better, they give them time, that's for a start, which other clubs don't do. Look at Damsgaard, we all knew he was a good player, he didn't settle straight away and then a few injuries and then played well last year.
37:19Then they sell for a profit, it increases competitiveness, etc. But that relies on someone being the glue and at that particular point it was Thomas Frank. And I know that Keith Andrews was part of that. He was part of the set piece, but I'm not sure. And they may surprise us, as Brentford do quite a lot of time, is surprise people. But it's not quite as easy. If you're taking over his group of players, it's a little bit easier, but you're losing these players. And even though you may invest in more, they usually start quite slowly, and they did last year, but you just know that they'll come good because of Thomas Frank and his staff.
38:05I've just got this feeling that it won't be quite as easy as Brentford think it will be, and I hope they prove me wrong.
38:13Philippe Auclair:Can I just add one thing about Brentford, which you might take out? I'm really struck by the synchronicity of Norgaard, Bermot, Frank leaving, and the fact that Matthew Benham had just sold 25 % of Brentford's stake, his stake in Brentford, to Gary Lubner, the South African millionaire, and to Matthew Vaughan, whom people probably best know for his films, but also because he's the husband of Claudia Schiffer. That's for a bit of glitz. And he sold part of the club for£100 million, which is almost exactly the amount of money he's invested since he bought it. And I'm thinking, well, if I'm Matthew Benham, I'm thinking things might get a bit rocky, you know.
39:04Philippe Auclair:Maybe it's time for me to see if I can sometime get my investment back, in which case, you know, well done to you, Matthew. He's a very clever operator. I wouldn't put it past him. And I wish Brentford well. You know, honestly, I don't have any problem with it. But I thought the synchronicity was quite interesting.
39:21Jonathan Wilson:Hey, Wilson, talk to him about Hugo Eketike, Liverpool, 70 million coming in from Frankfurt. Well, he's very mobile. I think when he's got space everyone into, he's excellent. I think on the break, he's an excellent forward. I think the concern about him is that he maybe isn't as effective against deep line defences. And obviously, Liverpool will come up against that quite a lot. So I don't think he's the finished product by any means, but I think enormous amounts of potential. So I think the hope is he can become an Alexander Isak-style player, having that mobility, that ability to run into the channels.
39:55But I don't think he's got that sort of capacity to sniff out chances in tight spaces yet. So that's the one question mark. But I mean, he's clearly enormously talented.
40:06Jonathan Wilson:All right, that'll do it for part two. Part three, we'll begin with Philippe on multi-club ownership.
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42:09Jonathan Wilson:welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly stewart says have you got the lawyers ready for philippe and a long run at multi-club ownership rick says we'd love to hear philippe's take on this stage of palace uefa saga off you go philippe well the palace uefa saga uh was was
42:23Philippe Auclair:totally predictable and and and basically what's happened is that i don't think that anybody at Palace even thought for a second that they would qualify for a European competition. I think that's the root of the problem. And suddenly, when they realized that, oh, shit, we might actually, well, if we win the UEFA Cup, you know, it's great, Europa League. Yeah, except that you have a problem. The deadline, 1st of March has passed, that has been set by UEFA to show that the owners of your club were not involved as significant stakeholders in other clubs participating in European competitions. And they could have done it.
43:04So some of them did it in a way that is quite extraordinary
43:08Philippe Auclair:because the way was actually devised by UEFA themselves and by the person who is in charge of basically financial compliance, which is Sunil Gulati. You might remember him, the former US Soccer Federation.
43:22Jonathan Wilson:No, no, I try to avoid remembering these people.
43:26Philippe Auclair:He devised this system by which you can use this mechanism, this legal mechanism called blind trust. And blind trust is actually not necessarily a bad thing in themselves. Like, for example, say that Max Rushton, who is, as we know, has got millions of assets in various companies. And you're elected prime minister, right? Yeah, okay. It's all plausible so far.
43:48Jonathan Wilson:Totally credible.
43:49Philippe Auclair:So you become party to information that might actually change the value of the assets you have. So what you do is that you pass on these assets, the control of these assets to a blind trust, people that you don't know. Got it. Okay.
44:04Jonathan Wilson:They now own the Subaru.
44:06Philippe Auclair:Well, exactly. And they do what they want. They do what they want. Obviously, they look after your interests. And while you're no longer in a position to benefit from inside information, for example, you get the control back. Okay, so that's like politicians often do that. Mark Carney in Canada has used it when he was elected. He's given everything to a blind trust. Now, the difference is that UEFA said, well, you can do that with football clubs. How does that work? So Nottingham Forest, Evangelos Marinakis, who has Olympiakos in the Champions League, realised that, oh my goodness, we might have Olympiakos in Nottingham Forest in the Champions League.
44:47Philippe Auclair:That's a problem because that's not possible. So what he did, he put his club into a blind trust, supposedly not having control over it at all, which is obvious.
44:57Jonathan Wilson:So he'll have no idea what was going on. He won't know the results.
45:03Philippe Auclair:And Radcliffe did the same for Lausanne because there was also a possibility that Lausanne might find themselves in the same competition as Manchester United. He had already done that for Nice. And because of that, and it's a system, a mechanism which actually has been proposed by UEFA themselves to clubs which are into multi-club ownership. So they're basically advising multi-club ownership entities as to how they can circumvent their own regulations, which is absolutely magnificent, isn't it? So there is absolutely no more obstacle now. There is no obstacle now to multi-club ownership structures to have several clubs in the same European competition, thanks to UEFA themselves.
45:51Philippe Auclair:And I found one thing which really amused me, because the same situation with Manchester City and Girona last year, you remember, and Girona, nobody was expecting them to qualify for the Champions League, so they had to devise something. So they did exactly that. They divested some of the shares, but just for the duration. And the amazing thing is that they used as one of the main guys for the operation, became a director of Girona. And he's the same guy who Evangelos Marienakis used to be a director of Nottingham Forest. And the guy was both a director of Nottingham Forest and of Girona at the same time.
46:32Philippe Auclair:It's beautiful, isn't it? But there you go. So basically, it's a charade. And Crystal Palace, their big problem here is that John Texter couldn't see that there might be a problem at some point. And that they didn't act before the 1st of March, which was the cutout date. It doesn't matter what you do after that. That's it. There's no way in the back end for them.
46:55Jonathan Wilson:It makes you think when Maranakis was on the pitch with Nuno. Yeah, he was in charge. It's hard to know what was he complaining about when he didn't know what had happened. Because it's in a blind trust. he couldn't have seen what had happened. Wilson. So just to put this in context, the 1st of March, the deadline, was the day that Palace beat Millwall in the fifth round of the Cup. So I really like the idea that on the 28th of February, suddenly Palace got, hang on, what have we gone and you win the FA Cup, win the first thing in our history. We better rush through the blind trust thing today.
47:25And then Millwall fuming, pinning on the dressing room wall, the statement from Company's House. So it's not just about the pride of South London. There they are, running around company's house, taking the piss. So that would have been a great... And then, because the other complication here, there's two other things that seem almost designed to annoy Crystal Palace. So they're now in the Conference League, pending appeal. Conference League final is being played in Leipzig. Leipzig, it appears, have a relationship with Red Bull. And Red Bull Salzburg have happily been playing in the Champions League, along with Red Bull Leipzig, or RB Leipzig, Rasmus-Balschport Leipzig.
48:06So, I mean, obviously that's all fine. That's all above board. But were you a Palace fan, that might sort of irritate you a bit. And then, of course, there's the relationship between Maranakis and John Texter. There's one of the clubs John Texter also owns or Eagle Holdings, his company owns, is Botafogo, who've just signed their Brazilian national centre forward, Igor Jesus, to Nottingham Forest for what would appear a knockdown£10 million. So that's odd. Isn't it?
48:33Jonathan Wilson:It is odd. Hey, Wilson, you've written a book. Congratulations. Oh, thank you very much. What is it? It's a history of the World Cup. It's called The Power and the Glory. It's out on the 4th of September, but it's available for order now. It's very long, but actually quite short at the same time. So it was an awful lot of work to squeeze it down to 600 pages, I think it is. Blimey. Is it a page turner? Is it a page turner? I think it is. Yeah.
48:58Philippe Auclair:No spoilers, eh? No spoilers.
49:01Jonathan Wilson:don't tell us who won in 66 yeah so I mean 66 is a good example because I sort of thought this is going to be a bit of an effort to kind of plod through because everybody knows 66 but for instance the Pickles story is that what Barry said on the front cover the testimonial quite an effort to plod through he wouldn't have plodded through he'd be lying if he said that so yeah the Pickles story I thought I better mention this but yeah everybody knows what happened you know world cup goes missing it's found by this collie the story is way madder than you could possibly believe it's i i think i think charlie richardson the gang leader organized the theft of it pay off a debt to the south african secret service and okay that's odd that is odd yeah they're all dead it's fine things happen coincidences Yes, you do.
49:55But there's a whole ransom plot that I think gets lost. Even the sort of absolute ineptitude of the security company who were looking after it. It was stolen from a stamp exhibition in Westminster Hall. And the people who nicked it basically just, they unscrewed the back door and walked in and nobody stopped them because the security guard was at the toilet at the time. But then there's descriptions of a bloke who was seen hanging suspiciously around outside. but again this is so inept that it said he's wearing a scarf but the description printed in the times next day says he has a scar because we've just misheard it so it's it's this bizarre sort of carry-on comedy and then how the world cup actually ends up hidden behind a car wheel on beulah hill in south norwood is all yeah and it's it's called uh dave corbett a 26 year old Leiterman, goes out to use the phone box with his dog, with Pickles.
50:52Pickles just sniffs out the World Cup, this package he just finds on the driveway, goes and knocks on the neighbour's door and sort of says, is this yours? I don't recognise that. So they open it and go, oh shit, it's the World Cup. And so they take it to Gypsy Hill Police Station and the desk sergeant goes, it doesn't look like the World Cup. It doesn't look very World Cup-y. But it is indeed the World Cup. But nobody knows how it got there. But probably, so there's two explanations. So either it proved unsaleable because it was just too famous, or people thought it was made of gold, which it wasn't.
51:22It was made of silver. So the value of the bullion was about 60 quid. It just wasn't worth it. It was just silver painted gold. Pickles himself is a tragic story because Lohi, he stars himself in a film. He's named Dog of the Year in both Britain and West Germany. A unique double, I believe. Yeah, it really is. he gets free dog food for life. But then within a year, he's dead. He's gone chasing a cat and his lead's got caught in a branch and he's hanged himself. Which is... Or is that the South African Secret Service taking him out because he knew too much?
52:00Jonathan Wilson:All of that and more. Anything else you want to say? Did people think the World Cup... I think Baz mentioned this, but the Club World Cup, and we've all been a bit sniffy about it for lots of good reasons. But when the World Cup began, Did everyone think this is a silly idea? Yes, they did. I mean, the Europeans especially. There's only four European countries bothered to go over to Uruguay for it. The British nations didn't want them to do with it until 1950 and then embarrass themselves by being crap. So, yeah, there was a lot of scepticism. And that first World Cup, there's a lot of farcical stuff happened.
52:29So there's one game where the penalty spot was marked 16 yards from the goal, not 12 yards, which is to be established in part one. Yeah. It's an inappropriate distance. 12 yards is perfect. Fibonacci would be furious, wasn't he, about that? And yeah, there was a lot of scepticism. But actually the person who really takes it on is Mussolini. Mussolini really got behind the World Cup. And Trump's behaviour on that stage during the presentation, I think the nearest thing we've seen to it probably was Mussolini. Mussolini had invented his own World Cup. It was three times the size of the actual World Cup, the Copa del Duce.
53:04So presumably if you'd taken that in the Gypsy Hill police station in 1966, that looks really World Cup-y. but yeah he got very involved in the celebration he said to the Italy squad you've done a great service for the fatherland you can have anything you want, what do you want and Kusfer's a couple of party members absolutely lickspittles in the squad what I'd like most of all is a signed photo of you but then in 1938 when they retain it, they know they're going to get offered this again, they say lads, let's be sensible we're going to ask for lifetime rail passes that's a thing he will give us and we've already got a signed photo and so yeah they get lifetime I don't know if that extended beyond the war but they had lifetime lifetime rail passes after 1938 I don't think it's a funny thing to ask
53:47Jonathan Wilson:just so unfootballer you know like football has changed hasn't it since 1938 I love the idea and that's what they say that's what you know that's what the Liverpool squad say like if we you know the England squad if they win the World Cup they'll say oh could we just get a freedom pass but earlier that's what we really want and I presume you can get it wherever you get books Wilson yes absolutely yeah yeah I'm not sure if it's any better place for me to get it. But yes. I assume the Guardian bookstore has it. So maybe I should say on brand and say go there. But yeah, Amazon, bookshop.org, Waterstones, all the usual places.
54:20And there will be a US edition out in October. Yeah, I'm going to buy the book, Jonathan. But on a side note, in the 90s, when you got into the Premier League, you got a black McDonald's card, which means you got all free McDonald's. Yeah, there you go. That's perfect. That's not winning the World Cup, it's getting in the Premier League.
54:38Jonathan Wilson:have you still got it have you still got it Lucy no that seems that seems counterproductive it does yes exactly and Wetherspoons free Stella at Wetherspoons if you make it to them that's why the teams keep going down again doesn't it anyway that'll do for today thanks everybody thanks Philippe thank you very much Max thank you Wilson cheers thank you thank you Lucy cheers Max Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove our executive producer is Danielle Stephens we'll be back on Wednesday
55:11Philippe Auclair:This is The Guardian.