Italian heartbreak and Tuchel’s selection headache – Football Weekly podcast

21:53Max Rushden:They had a late effort from Moussoulis, a dipping shot that fizzed very narrowly wide. But I think on the balance of play, Turkey deserved to go through. It was quite interesting. It was shades of the Spurs game against Atletico Madrid in the early stages of this game. It was lashing rain and various Turkish players just could not stay in their feet. They kept slipping, kept falling over. And I was thinking, oh, dear, I remember this from a few weeks ago. But I don't know if they changed their studs or whatever, but they got the job done. And they go into a group with Australia, Paraguay, and the USA, which you'd have to say looks pretty open.

22:40Max Rushden:That does look open.

22:42Nicky Bandini:That will be a fun group, won't it? Okay, that'll do for part one. Part two will be England's defeat at the hands of the Dark Horses. Japan.

22:58Nicky Bandini:Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Tombo says, how relaxed is Barry feeling right now? William says, can we skip to crashing out in the quarters? So we have a sort of neutral slash hostile panel to digest this England defeat. This was not on any of your main screens, I guess, but you will have seen the highlights and stuff. What did you make of it, Baz?

23:15Max Rushden:I would read little or nothing into this game. I think the result is irrelevant. But if I was an England fan, I would be concerned by the fact that they didn't have a shot on target to the 77th minute. I know Elliot Anderson curled a shot onto the bar in the first half. But as we know, that doesn't count as a shot on target. But yeah, it wasn't until 77 minutes that Rashford had a shot saved. And then England seemed to resort to getting the big men on and trying to score from corners. And it almost worked, didn't quite. Rodgers shot over after a Dan Byrne header was cleared his way. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for Dan Byrne and the trajectory his career has taken and the fact that he's living his best life playing for the club he loves.

24:08Max Rushden:but I don't think he should be anywhere near an England World Cup team with the greatest respect. I just think he's too slow. But anyway, he's in the squad. He'll probably be in the World Cup squad. I'm not sure what, if anything, Thomas Tuchel will have learned from this game or from this international break. I think his decision to pick so many players might have backfired and given him more problems instead of fewer. and I think possibly the player who's benefited most from this international break was one who wasn't in the squad, Danny Welbeck, because if I was Thomas Tuchel, I'd be given serious consideration to bringing him to the World Cup as backup to Harry Kane.

24:50Nicky Bandini:Yeah, possibly Trent Bellingham. I mean, Kane didn't play either. All these people get better by not playing. I thought Barney made an interesting point in his report saying that Japan played like Japan, whereas England played like the latest idea of whatever it is England is supposed to play like. and we get to that stage last again. And I don't know if I totally agree with Barry that I think you can read quite a lot into this, which is it's the second time Tuchel has played somebody vaguely good. And he's lost both those games, Japan and Senegal. I know it's only a friendly. And they were missing Harry Kane, which is obviously big, right?

25:19Nicky Bandini:Harry Kane is good. Hold the front page. But I think it will leave him with a lot of things to think about.

25:26Lars Sivertsen:I think you're being a little harsh on Serbia there, Max, but that's fine. Okay, my apologies to the Serbians. I think it's kind of a useful failure in the sense that this game posed the question, what does happen if England have to play without Harry Kane? And based on the first hour, not a lot, I guess. I think the Phil Foden false nine thing should probably now be shelved as not being plan A if Kane is missing. I think if you're Tuchel, you look at that and think that that didn't work very well at all. And it makes you realize you probably need a center forward if you're missing Kane, which maybe we did need an hour of football against Japan to learn that, but we certainly have.

26:07Lars Sivertsen:I do think we had this, which is a pretty classic England international situation. I think you had a lot of guys who wanted to get on the ball. I mean, again, this was not on my primary screen, but I have watched highlights. And you have like, if you have Palmer, Foden, Rogers, Mainu to an extent in the same sort of rough area of the field, you have a lot of guys who want the ball at their feet, but maybe not as many guys who wants to stretch the play by making runs off the ball. and then it ends up just being muddled. I think simplicity is important in international management. I think asking players to set up really intricate combinations and things when they hardly ever train together is not the way.

26:43Lars Sivertsen:What we've learned from this is that you need a striker and you need a viable second choice behind Harry Kane. Maybe that's Dominic Solanke. Maybe Danny Welbeck is in with a late shout. Maybe there's a Dominic-Calvert-Lewin discussion to be had. Maybe you bring Ivan Toni back from the desert. I don't know. But you need somebody who you can turn to, I think.

27:03Nicky Bandini:Last, the Japan goal was beautiful, but it did feel like quite easy to get past the entire England midfield and defence.

27:10Lars Sivertsen:I don't necessarily want to pick on him, but I do wonder if somewhere out there, Ruben Amorim was watching Japan just run past Kobe Mainu and him like not tracking back with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and just going, whatever is Portuguese for, I told you so! I told you, I kept telling you. Listen, this is not a big deal, really. I mean, we all know Kobi Mainu's strengths are not the defensive side of the game. But yeah, it did seem a little bit easy. I agree with that.

27:41Nicky Bandini:In a sense, Nicky, like having our expectations managed is good, right? Even though we'll forget about this in two months. And I will be thinking, plotting the route again to the final, despite plotting it wrong. I was about to say, what's this hour, Mags? Is that your expectations that you're trying to? Obviously, something happens to me. As Barry knows, I turn cockney when the England games are happening. And I think actually over the years, even I was quite an old adult when Barry and I started watching these World Cups. But, you know, even in the last decade, I've become a bit less kind of mockney.

28:17Nicky Bandini:I don't know what it is, but I don't have any expectations this time, actually. I mean, I just think England are probably quarterfinal, might get lucky to get to a semi, might get really lucky to get to a final, but they're not, you know, they don't play with the flow of Japan, but they also, there are just teams with better players as well. I think England are absolutely in the pool of teams that are capable of winning this tournament. It doesn't mean they're going to win it, but they are one of the teams that's capable of winning it. But part of the reason they are capable of winning it, and this kind of throws back to when Lars was talking about the fear factor with Italy.

28:49one of the reasons that England are capable of winning it is because they have players who you should be afraid of and who can score goals and win games. And one of them was not playing here, right? The biggest one, Harry Kane, who is having an extraordinary season at Bayern Munich. And if ever there's going to be, at this point of his career, the World Cup that becomes his World Cup, this is it, right? So I do think England are capable of winning it. But I think that puts them, for me, in a pool of teams. That doesn't mean they're going to win it. But yeah, I think they can win it.

29:18Nicky Bandini:I must admit, Barry, I absolutely loved Tuchel looking to his bench and just finding the two largest objects he could find. And just lobbing them into the penalty area and thinking, I mean, I know they're nominally centre-backs, but they created all sorts of, I mean, actually, given how the world's set pieces are so important in international football, it may not be a stupid idea to have, you know, Maguire might be fifth choice centre-back, but instead of Chalabar and they don't start. and if 10 minutes are left, they can still do a job at the back. I agree, Dan Byrne's turning circle is, you know, questionable if up against Mbappe or, you know, Lamar or whoever.

29:56Nicky Bandini:But, you know, yes, I quite liked proper getting it launched for 10 minutes.

30:00Max Rushden:Yeah, it's not unthinkable that Harry Maguire or Dan Byrne or Trevor Chalabar could, you know, nick a last-minute equaliser at a corner or from a free kick. So it's good to have that option. It's a bit basic and route one, but who doesn't like to see it getting launched to the big man? You'd hope from an England perspective, it wouldn't come to that, but it may well do. And why not? If I was Tuchel, I'd be slightly concerned by the manner in which Japan, who I thought played very well, actually. And Lars mentioned there that if you're an international manager, it's overcomplicating things and having these intricate passing moves.

30:45Max Rushden:is perhaps a bit ambitious, but I thought Japan did that very well. And the way they switched the ball out wide, then cut inside and got crosses or deliveries into the box, I was very impressed with them, I have to say.

30:59Nicky Bandini:And of course their fans picked up all their litter. It's getting performative now, isn't it? They're not nice anymore. They're just obliged to do it. They probably hate their parents, don't they? For authentically picking up litter.

31:12Lars Sivertsen:Could we develop some kind of dressing room cleaning one-upmanship here? Will we start trying to be the best at that? Will that be the next? The marginal gain will be to get the fumigators in. Paint it. Yeah, paint it. Redecorate it, really? Maybe put in some new hot tubs. Really just leave it nicer than when you arrived.

31:34Nicky Bandini:It was a tough call between Cole Palmer and Phil Foden, but Cole Palmer can growl a bathroom and so he's in. He's going to the States. Anyway, of course, we'll do a lot more England during the World Cup until we get knocked out on penalties. Scotland lost 1-0 in their friendly with Cote du Bois. Nicolas Pepe scored the only goal of the game. Scotland were booed off at the break. Ewan Murray said in his match report they're lacking quality up top, which I think you probably could say, what, since Dalgleish? When was the last brilliant Scotland centre forward? Or number 10, McAveney? Scott McTominay.

32:08Nicky Bandini:That's too generous. the Cote d 'Ivoire Japan, the teams they've both played are not bad football teams, right? And, you know, Scotland's group is about beating Haiti by a lot, and then clinging on to Brazil and Morocco, right? Who are very, two very good football teams. Elsewhere, Gianni Infantino says Iran will be at the World Cup. He announced on Tuesday, they'll play their group matches in the US as scheduled. Despite the war, he made an unannounced appearance yesterday's friendly between Iran and Costa Rica. And he said, Iran will be at the World Cup. That's why we're here. we're delighted because they're a very, very strong team.

32:40Nicky Bandini:I'm very happy. I've seen the team. I've spoken to the players and the coach, so everything is fine. It sort of feels like he's making promises that perhaps aren't his to make.

32:51Max Rushden:Well, that's what I'm wondering. This is the first I've heard of this, but is it his decision to make whether Iran play at the World Cup or not? And then if they do play, will their fans be allowed attend matches? Will their players be allowed into the country? a lot of questions.

33:10Lars Sivertsen:I mean, they have to. I mean, this is the basic requirement for being a World Cup host. If you don't let the participating nations and their fans into the country, then someone else needs to host a World Cup. Like this should be a very simple conversation. I think with Gianni Infantino's FIFA, it might not be a simple conversation because ethics are kind of out the window a little bit.

33:27Nicky Bandini:If both the USA in Group D and Iran in Group G finishes runners up in their group, they're scheduled to play each other. So, which would be fascinating. Of course, you know, the war is still happening. So, you know, Donald Trump says every week it'll be finished next week. He's a bit back to the grouters of the shower, isn't it? It's a bit like the builders doing the kitchen. It'll be done next week. But anyway, it's a pretty grim situation, isn't it? The other two qualifiers, the last two qualifiers are DR Congo, who beat Jamaica 1-0. Axel Tuinzebi with the only goal in extra time. That game was in Mexico and Iraq beat Bolivia 2-1, Lars.

34:07Lars Sivertsen:Yeah, huge for Iraq, obviously, their players. And they have quite a lot of players who play in the domestic league in Iraq as well. So extraordinary scenes for them. And also like DR Congo, I think it's their first World Cup, isn't it? I mean, they were in there as Zaire back in 74, but as DR Congo, I don't think they've qualified before. And I was looking, there's quite decent players on both teams here. Jamaica really, I'm not sure how Jamaica managed to not finish about Curaçao in their qualifying group when they've got quite a lot of good players. I think they were led by Steve McLaren then.

34:43Lars Sivertsen:I mean, he has some things to answer for here. Both of these teams are pretty decent, DR Congo and Jamaica, and will be a fine addition to the World Cup. But yeah, great for Iraq.

34:52Nicky Bandini:Yeah, DR Congo will have Portugal, Colombia and Uzbekistan, Iraq joins Senegal, Norway and France. Graham Arnold, former Socceroos manager, is Iraq's manager at the moment. And that'll do for part two. Part three, we'll talk about Roberto De Zerbe getting his five-year deal as Tottenham manager.

35:18Nicky Bandini:Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Tottenham have appointed Roberto De Zerbe as their manager, their third manager of the season, following the departure of Igor Tudor. His Premier League record played 70, won 26, drawn 19, lost 25. An average of 1.39 points a game, which Burs would probably take for these next seven games. They've given him a five-year contract, which seems bizarre since he certainly hasn't ever stayed at a club for anywhere near that amount of time. There are two conversations here. There's the football conversation and the moral conversation. Lars, you had done some sort of, a little bit of digging on what he's like when he first arrives at a club, given Tottenham have seven games to maintain their Premier League status.

36:00Lars Sivertsen:Well, if by doing some digging, you mean read an interview with Lewis Dunk, then yes, there's some real digging. There are some quotes that have resurfaced and I think have been published in most outlets now. Because Lewis Dunk in 2023 told The Telegraph that, if I'm honest, the first couple of weeks were horrendous. Given the importance of the first couple of weeks here, he says, I wouldn't say horrendous. They were baffling. The first meeting when he went in, I was so confused who to look at, what to listen to. And you slowly pick up. Basically, don't listen to the manager, wait for the translators to speak, and you get there in the end.

36:35Lars Sivertsen:I mean, I'm hoping his English has gotten better since then. Training changed dramatically. We worked on a lot of different stuff in the first couple of weeks. We're really hard transition. Maybe this is all invalid because I'm assuming Roberto Di Sabri realizes he's taking over a team that's in dire straits, that team that doesn't maybe have some of the types of players he would normally want to work with. and that he has no time to implement anything, and that he's just going to set them up in some kind of vague mid-block and try to get them to win a game or two to not get relegated. I'm assuming there's enough of a pragmatist in him to not try to go full De Zerbe ball from the off, because then Spurs are getting relegated, like, if they do that.

37:13Lars Sivertsen:But does De Zerbe have a pragmatic bone in his body, Nicky? I'm not sure, to be honest with you. I'm not sure that he does. He hasn't been pragmatic that often in his career. He tends to do things his way and his way has been overall more successful than not, I suppose, with plenty of ups and downs. But certainly some bright parts of the Brighton chapter, certainly getting Marseille into the Champions League was a significant feat. But yes, it is a very intense kind of football. It is a very demanding kind of football. It is a kind of football that raises questions about how quickly it can be installed.

37:49But this is why, I'm sure this is part of why he's wound up with a five-year contract, come back to Max's surprise about all that. The reason he's got a five-year contract, I do not doubt, is because he held all of the leverage in this conversation. De Zerbe was probably quite happy to sit out and wait until the end of the season and wait for a different opportunity. But Tottenham absolutely desperately need a manager right now. And I haven't been privy to the details of this contract, but if I was a manager taking over there right now, I think I'd probably want a contract that said both, you have to pay me for a long time if this goes wrong, but also I have an option to walk away.

38:23And I don't know if he's got that, but if I was negotiating for him in that position, I think that's what I would have asked for. So it certainly feels like the stakes are as high as they can be for Tottenham. But at the same time, even with a generous contract, I'm certainly hasn't taken it on unless he believes he can turn this into a success and get them out and then be the person who gets to take the project forward.

38:46Max Rushden:He's got a five-year deal. There's no break clause and it makes him the third highest paid manager in the Premier League after Pep and Mikel Arteta.

38:56Nicky Bandini:And is he that good? I mean, that's the status. I mean, I agree with Nicky. He's got the leverage.

39:00Max Rushden:Look, Spurs were desperate. I have no idea whether he'd keep them up or not, or even if they do keep, stay up, how much of it will be down to him. When he started at Palermo, he won once in his first 13 games. When he started at Viento, none of his first nine. When he started at Brighton, he drew two and lost three of his first five. Spurs games, remaining games are Sunderland away, Brighton, Wolves away, Villa away, Leeds, Chelsea away, and Everton. They're all tough games. Sorry, I was hoping for just

39:33Nicky Bandini:a bit of hope at the end of that sentence, Barry. It just ended. There you go. Yes, Lars.

39:38Lars Sivertsen:If this was last summer, if this was in the middle of the summer, Ange is gone, you have like the sixth, seventh biggest budget in the league, and what you want is someone who has a bit of X factor about him, who could potentially elevate the club above his stature, someone who is a tactical innovator, someone who has a high potential upside, but a downside, but someone who could, in the best case scenario, lead you to punching above your weight. I don't think the Zerbe is a bad bet, if that's the situation. I think that would be a very logical step to go down. But that is not the current situation.

40:10Lars Sivertsen:The current situation is that you haven't won in 13 or something half the squad is injured and by the way all the guys who are good on the ball are amongst the injured uh you're hiring a guy who famously likes to produce like intricate passing patterns with a team that's famously bad at passing it's a very very strange choice like if they had just gotten a safe pair of hands to get them across the finish line and not get them relegated and gotten someone like the Zerbi in the summer I'd be that that would be logical but for him to come in he's gonna have to do things differently than he's done before, but that's for sure.

40:41Lars Sivertsen:He definitely doesn't have the time or the players to do all the stuff he wants to do immediately. So you are hiring someone, and you're betting your Premier League status on him being able to do something different than what he's been successful with in the past. That doesn't feel good. I do think he's a very good manager in a lot of ways, but it seems like a very dangerous time to appoint someone like him. I mean, just imagine now you've got João Palinha and Kevin Danso baiting the press and trying to, I mean, this sounds terrible. I'm terrified of them. That's not what you want to see.

41:12Nicky Bandini:No, and also, if the general view is, you know, he's not necessarily the guy to keep them up, wait till the summer because there'll be lots of managers available, of which Roberto De Zerbi is one, and you have more leverage, and you don't have to give him a five-year contract. Anyway, that's the football part of it, and the moral part of it, the Toronto Sports Supporters Trust held an emergency board meeting on Monday night. they contacted the club said they can't support the appointment well we recognise the limited pool of managers with recent Premier League experience and the need to act with urgency as Spurs face the prospect of relegation this appointment raises serious and far-reaching concerns many fans have been in touch with us to urge to communicate the strength of feeling De Zerbi's comments about Mason Greenwood were unnecessary ill-judged and deeply offensive to a significant number of supporters and without doubt will have left victims of male violence alarmed we believe these statements left unchecked will create a divide amongst supporters at a time when we all need to be pulling together to back the team.

42:08Nicky Bandini:It is concerning that the club would put us in this position right when the team needs fans the most. Fans are rallying behind All Together Always initiative. And this appointment places heavy strain on that unity. Those remarks reflect its genuine views. They cast a troubling shadow over the values of a club we love. De Zerbi on Greenwood said, I don't want to get involved in anyone's private life. I don't even get into the private lives of my children because I want to give everyone their freedom, He told a pre-match news conference, all I can say is that Mason seems a good lad. He paid in a strong way for what happened.

42:42Nicky Bandini:He has probably here found the right environment for him, which gave him affection and held out his hand to him. When I look at him as a person, I feel sad for what happened in his life without getting into the details because the person I know here is very different to the one that has been described, especially in England. It is important that we say that Mason Greenwald was charged in 2022 with attempted rape, controlling and coercive behavior and assault occasioning actual bodily harm the crown prosecution service discontinued the case in february 2023 after key witnesses withdrew their involvement and new material came to light greenwood had denied the charges um and it is on one hand barry not complicated at all but there is a sliding scale of morality and you have to be careful without talking about names but football has a terrible relationship with domestic and sexual violence there are former tottenham players who are lauded who have been accused of domestic violence there are players who play now who have been accused of sexual assault and we haven't had statements from the trust at the same time in a world where almost no morality exists it feels good that a club of supporters group have come out and said we don't like a thing that is bad

43:54Max Rushden:Yeah, three different fan groups have said they don't want De Zerbe in charge because of his support for Greenwood, a player who faced accusations of rape and domestic violence. I would wholeheartedly disagree with his assertion that Greenwood has paid a heavy price for what happened, because I would say he hasn't paid any price at all. He's currently thriving in Ligon. on I also would up to a point say kind of agree with Deserby saying my experience of him is a great lad he's sort of saying I take people as I find them and I find him to be a nice guy but we've all seen heard the tape we've all seen the pictures and it's a matter of fact I think that at his opening press conference, as Spurs manager, De Zerbe is going to have to field a load of questions about Mason Greenwood.

44:56Max Rushden:And is that how you want to start the new reign of this new manager who's been brought into Saviour Club? You would think it should be quite easy to just hire a manager who hasn't openly supported someone who has been accused of domestic violence and sexual assault. It shouldn't be that hard. But it is also important where De Zerbe hasn't been accused of any of these things. He's just spoken up for a player. Yeah. Nikki, what do you make of that? I think it just feels like another reason to not make a decision when you know, amongst all the other reasons we've just talked about on footballing terms, that there's lots of footballing questions about it.

45:41If you know that your fan base is supposed to an appointment, And it feels like another good reason not to make the decision before we even enter into the merits of it, which I think Barry has spoken to quite well there. I do think these issues are really fraught because there is not going to be one universal opinion among Tottenham's fan base on it. I can only speak to how I would feel about it and I would feel very uneasy about it as a fan. So I certainly position myself with all those people who've spoken up against it. And I think it's also quite a brave thing to do to speak up against it when you're a fan group, because I also recognise that those groups that, as Barry said, three supporters groups who voice their opinions about it, I believe there were the Tottenham Women's supporters group, there was a LGBTQ plus group, and there was also a group that was a supporters group that centres on diversity in fan groups more generally.

46:27and those are groups that already might not always have universal support from their own supporters group and you risk putting yourself up there and and getting blowback for that opinion as well um so i don't know i i think it's it's a situation that could have been avoided i don't

46:41Lars Sivertsen:know how to say it better than that i really get what you said max about how it feels at times if football has become this completely amoral space and there's something almost reassuring about having fan groups who actually... Because the cliche about fans is that they won't care as long as you're winning games. I mean, the thing Harry Redknapp once said about, like, fans would be perfectly happy to have Saddam Hussein on their club if he puts money in and they win games. You know, there's only one Saddam Hussein. And certainly we have examples in recent times of fan bases being perfectly happy to accept whatever involvement your club has as long as it brings more success.

47:19Lars Sivertsen:So I just think in this case it was heartening to see the fan groups make such a strong statement as that. And it's also just, I think you can end up, like if you want to coach at the highest level, you can end up in a situation where you have people in your squad who has been the subject of accusations, proven or not proven. And that can be a difficult thing to maneuver. But you make choices in terms of what you decide to say out loud. He might have been in a position where you don't necessarily pick the ingredients as a head coach. maybe it wasn't his decision to bring him in, whatever, but it's certainly his decision what kind of tone he chooses to adapt when talking about him in public.

47:57Lars Sivertsen:And that applies to other coaches in the game and other players as well. I'm not sure what we're allowed to say and not allowed to say, but it always occurs to me that you have a choice in terms of how you talk about these things. And he has certainly made a choice that I think he'll have to find some good answers for. And really, it's another reason with all these uncertainties around his viability as a short-term appointment, Just that factor alone, the fact that you're bringing in someone who will very obviously be divisive, this is not a great time to hire a very divisive guy when you have seven games left to save your status in the Premier League.

48:31Lars Sivertsen:It's a slightly baffling decision to me.

48:33Nicky Bandini:yeah i yeah i couldn't agree more and and and i and i've written a few pieces about this this kind of thing and they're impossible to write because you can't name any names generally and so you have to be so vague that your article doesn't really make sense or if you do name somebody the lawyers get involved so much but by the time your article has been published it reads to you like some sort of pr piece i can't i won't name the player now but on one specific player who was bought by a club and everyone said, oh, he's not just a great footballer, but he's just a wonderful human being. And I was sort of screaming, going, why is no one saying, well, there was this thing, right, that happened.

49:15Nicky Bandini:And as somebody who's done a lot of work for Women's Aid and, you know, who work with survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, and it's, for most of us who have never ever seen this or have any idea about how this exists, it's so much more complicated you know you have a until i sort of listened to survivors about it you have such a sort of basic view of oh well just leave that relation you just leave wouldn't you or things like the really stupid sort of binary views of this kind of thing like it's just so important to like listen to survivors of of this kind of domestic and sexual abuse and i saw an excellent tweet which i i i'm probably going to misquote but just said it's it is if you think it is woke to support survivors of domestic and sexual abuse then the internet has rotted your brain that is certainly my view of this situation but yeah also just fundamentally i think if we've learned anything from the last few years of the world men saying the phrase like i've i know about

50:20Lars Sivertsen:the allegations but he seems like a nice guy like i just get that in the bin like you should never say that sentence out loud ever. The second you ever say that sentence out loud, you're in the wrong and you need to have a think about a lot of things.

50:33Nicky Bandini:Yeah, I completely agree. Anyway, that will do for today. Thanks, everybody. Covered a wide range of stuff, as we always do. And again, commiserations again, Nikki. I don't know if you can turn yourself into an England fan for the world. I wouldn't advise it actually thinking about it, but you know, just delays the pain. But thanks for coming on. I've always been happy for England when they went as well. I'm half English. I'm as much English as an Italian. I don't disguise that I lean more Italian when it comes to football. But I'm not going to be, definitely not going to be sad for England and do well.

51:01I hope I do.

51:01Nicky Bandini:As Barry does, of course. Thank you, Barry. Thank you. Cheers, Lars. Thank you, Max. Football Weekly is produced by Tayo Papula and Jesse Howard. Our executive producer is Joel Grove. We'll be back tomorrow.

51:17Max Rushden:This is The Guardian. Run