Vinícius Júnior’s brilliance overshadowed by accusations of racism: Football Weekly

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30still here. Elsewhere, Monaco stunned the holders PSG for 20 minutes. Desiree Due came off the bench and changed it all, giving them a one-goal advantage going into the second leg. Meanwhile, Juve implode at Galatasaray and Dortmund take a healthy lead to Bergamo. While we're in Europe, we'll do a little bit of La Liga and Serie A. Also today, Macclesfield's heroic FA Cup defeat, a fifth-round draw to digest, a bit of EFL as Colchester stunned Cambridge to leave the Abbey with a point. We'll answer your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:01On the panel today, Barry Glendening. Hello. Hi, Max. Welcome, Nicky Bandini. Morning. And hello, Lars Sivertson. Hi, Max. Well, we'll start with the Benfica-Real Madrid game. And I said in the intro, totally overshadowed by the accusations of racism against Vinicius Junior. The game was paused after he scored an absolutely brilliant goal. He celebrated in the corner, a sort of kind of Lee Sharpie celebration. And afterwards, he accused Benfica's 20-year-old Argentina Gianluca Prestiani of racism, which was backed up by Kylian Mbappe, that he'd used the word mono or monkey a number of times. The referee performed the gesture confirmed he was activating the anti-racism protocol, and the game was stopped for 10 minutes following conversations between the players, managers, and officials the two teams played on.

1:52I'll just read what a few people said. Vinicius said, racists are above all cowards. This is on Instagram. They need to put their shirts over their mouths to demonstrate how weak they are, but they have on their side the protection of others who theoretically have the obligation to punish. Nothing that happened here today was new in my life and my family's. I received a yellow card for celebrating a goal. I still don't understand why. On the other hand, just a poorly executed protocol that served no purpose. I don't like appearing in situations like this, even more so after a great victory. And when the headlines have to be about Real Madrid, but it's necessary.

2:25Presiani denied the allegations he wrote on Instagram. This morning, I want to clarify that at no time did I direct racist insults to Vinny Jr., who regrettably misunderstood what he thought he heard. I was never racist with anyone. I regret the threats I received from Real Madrid players. Mbappe said Presiani called Vinicius a monkey five times. I saw it. I cannot let things like this go. He's a young player. How can you say things like this on a football pitch? We were going to go. That was the team's decision. I don't know what happened. and then we came back. This type of person is no colleague.

2:56He shouldn't play in the Champions League again. Arbeloa, the Real Madrid coach, said, you have to ask the Benfica player what he said. We all deserve a response to that question. We have to be totally intolerant of racism. We cannot allow things like this to happen on the pitch in 2026. I have no reason not to believe Vinicius. And then Jose said, I spoke to Alvaro, Arbeloa, before I understood what the problem was, just to say, this guy, Vinicius scores a goal that's out of this world. Why is he being stupid in the corner? Later when I realized it seems Vinicius doesn't want to play, we're talking about whether we play again.

3:31I want to try and be more balanced than Arbeloa and Mbappe. I do not want to say Vinicius is a liar, nor do I want to say my player is an incredible boy. Then he said, I told Vinny Jr. the celebration had to be different. This club has Eusebio as a legend, a black player. Benfica is not a racist club. I know actually of all the things that have been said in the media aftermath that from jose is if i'm being generous nikki incredibly badly chosen words yeah yeah i mean it's i feel like in all the time i've been covering football every time we get these horrible situations coming up which is far too many times of racist abuse it seems like this unavoidable part of it that at some point someone is going to come up with basically some variation on this line well shouldn't provoke it shouldn't shouldn't encourage it shouldn't give them excuse to do it it's it's tempting to want to almost be flippant about it with Jose because you know what of all the people who sodding provokes people of all the people who isn't afraid to to to to rile opponents up and and and get opposition fans and give them an excuse to be angry Jose is is right up there but actually it's it's not a thing to be flippant about is it it's it's disgraceful um to be in any way trying to shift the blame for alleged racist abuse onto the victim of it and it's ridiculous as well i mean even leaving aside the the the the fact that it wasn't to me an especially provocative celebration he did he did a little dance by the corner flag by the way yeah he didn't go i don't know flutter by or running the length of the pitch to go and get in front of someone's face.

5:12He did a little dance by the corner flag. But the principle of it is outrageous. There's no world in which we should be blaming a footballer for celebrating a goal as being responsible for them being abused. Of course, again, alleged abuse, we haven't got any confirmation that he was racially abused. It's all taking someone's word against the other. But certainly it's a very bad look when you see the replays and Prestiani is covering his mouth and he's clearly saying something to Vinicius and designed to provoke him and yeah horrible horrible stuff. And actually Lars it's one of the problems of the like the tribal nature of football is nobody ever wants to call out their own club or call out their own players it takes real bravery to that on any level I'm not saying that's that's not an excuse for Jose saying hey look Benfica is not a racist club but it takes real bravery in that moment to just try to just say what you should say which is i don't i don't know what's happened but if that's what's happened it is totally unacceptable it will be dealt with and there is no place for racisms at this football club that just feels like that feels like not that difficult thing to say yeah i guess this story shouldn't be about marino really but in the interview i saw on television he started out so well by saying like I'm not essentially saying I'm not going to call my player a liar and I'm not going to call Vinicius a liar, which I think is kind of a defensible position just about because the reality is because he covers his mouth, we don't know what he says.

6:47And we can all make up our mind about what we think is the most likely thing here, but we don't know. So we have to drop allegedly in. We have to drop just how that works. but to even infer that you know the words in Vinicius clearly experienced hearing we can say that are somehow not didn't mean what he thought they meant because they had a very good black player 50 years ago it's completely insane it's one of those things I try to say that out loud once more to the mirror and are you happy with how that sentence sounds Jose and even all this stuff about how things happen to Vinicius wherever he goes.

7:29The thing about racism is when we say zero tolerance it needs to mean zero tolerance. So you can make points. I mean, when it comes to him being booed, when it comes to people chucking stuff at him, you can bring in stuff like, he could have celebrated someone else, he couldn't have done blah blah blah. But if we mean zero tolerance for racism, that means all of that is irrelevant. Nothing of that comes into play. Like, any sort of racial thing whatsoever is always unacceptable and whatever precedes it whatever uh the the perceived catalyst was is completely irrelevant to bringing that up as pathetic embarrassing and small-minded by a guy and i mean we see so many people who say oh i'm disappointed we shouldn't be disappointed with them this is how joseph bringer behaves i mean we should be used to this by now i was really just to try to find something i mean there's no nothing positive in this i was really impressed by the way van issues carried himself when the game went on and really by the way the game sort of actually was finished and people I thought for sure we were going to have at least one red card here like when things were kicking off and even though you had that nine minute break to settle down and I thought at least Vinicius Junior is going to have to you know take himself out of it because he was clearly and understandably not in a good headspace but the game was finished and there were no sort of chaos or shenanigans and it was a very professional job by Real Madrid to finish out the game and I just thought the composure that Vinicius showed every time he was on the ball, every time he was involved after the incident was incredibly impressive and he deserves to be applauded for that.

9:02Yeah, and actually you're right to say that the story is about him. After the game, Trent Alexander-Arnold said, look, I can't comment too much on it as it's an ongoing investigation at this point. I think what's happened tonight is a disgrace to football, overshadowed the performance as well as after an amazing goal. Vinny's been subject to this a few times throughout his career. To ruin a night like this for our team is a disgrace. No place for it in football. society it's disgusting and you know vinicius barry has said in 2024 he felt less and less like playing because of the abuse in june 2024 three valencia fans were jailed for eight months for racially abusing him during a league game the previous year five people were handed to suspended prison sentences in 2025 for racially abusing him uh that incident occurred during real madrid's game against real valedalid uh in september 2022 you know and it is you know it it is the thing with racism is that a white player doesn't have to suffer that whatever they're doing on the pitch and he does and repeatedly he has and it's just so depressing i mean people have been saying should we expect better from jose marino what he said didn't surprise me he can be a very charming man at times he can be a very very unpleasant man uh and he has a lot of form in that department but I've seen since this happened, Clarence Seedorf and Theo Walcott talk about it on Amazon Prime.

10:24I've seen Meek Richards and Thierry Henry talk about it on the CBS coverage. And what struck me is just how thoroughly depressed and fed up they are at A, this happening, and B, them having to talk about this happening. Mika Richards, who's a normally really happy chap, just looked so pissed off just that this was a topic of post-match conversation. And Thierry Henry was relating his own experiences of being racially abused when he was a player. and he said, look, people tell you to rise above it and I tried to be cocky and aloof and shush the crowd and whatnot, but he said my abiding memory of this happening to me is how lonely it makes you feel out on the pitch and just in life in general being racially abused.

11:28And he was very critical of Jose Marino's post-match comments and put it down to the classic Jose deflection. And he said, what we need to be talking about is what Prestiani said. What did he say? We need to find out what he said. And as has been mentioned, it's very much he said. He said at the moment, but Kylian Mbappe said he heard what was said. And Kylian Mbappe said that several Benfica players heard what was said. So hopefully it will come out in the wash. Thierry Henry also said, you know, we need to have an investigation now. This can't be kicked into the long grass. We need to find out as soon as possible and due process has to be followed.

12:17And I don't know, do you take Prestiani out with the return leg? Or, you know, part of me thinks, well, let him go, let him play and see how he gets on. Because it won't be a nice evening for him if he is playing at the Bernabeu. So, yeah, it's sad that we're having to talk about this in this day and age, isn't it? I thought also, actually, Wayne Rooney spoke very well about it on Amazon Prime. And Mark Clattenburg, actually, he was sort of the ref expert on the comms. And he kind of went down the Jose route as well, saying that Vinicius Jr. was making things difficult for the referee by, you know, the celebration.

13:01I thought that was a bit depressing. But I think Clattenburg just isn't very bright. I don't think there was any malice there. So, yeah, it's sad. Because it's overshadowed a really entertaining evening of football in the competition. I guess Clattenburg is just kind of selfishly looking at it from the position of a referee who just wants a quiet day at the office. You know, when a goal is scored at an away ground, potentially hostile crowd, and the player celebrates closer to the fans than he has to, the referee probably goes internally, oh, for God's sake, we don't need this. But I think there's a point there, which is not to hammer Clattenburg specifically, but when there is an alleged racist incident, we need to get better at realizing that nothing else matters.

13:48Like every other circumstance around it is currently completely irrelevant. All of those concerns. And that needs to be an automatic, reflexive, instinctive reaction. the sort of justificatory stuff. I don't think that's fair on Klattenberg, really, because I think he said that before the racism protocol was invoked, but it goes back to the Mourinho point again, not to specifically have a Mourinho. We need to get out of the mindset of looking for reasons why this happened, because the reasons do not matter. And that needs to be a reflex, not something we arrive at after thinking about it for a couple of minutes.

14:23And that's something that needs to get better, I think. I do think if there's anything to say on the other side of that, actually, it's just that, do you know what, at least the referee did immediately stop the game, did immediately try to get to the bottom of it. Clearly, that wasn't something that's possible. Again, we have to acknowledge this is a, he said, situation, right? Because you haven't got footage that, at least until now, that's come out that's picked up exactly what Prestiani said. And for the referee, that's got to be incredibly complicated. I think we can acknowledge that from the referee's point of view.

14:54but he did do what he was supposed to do. He stopped the game and he tried to make space to investigate that. I thought that, I'm really glad Barry said that bit from Omri because I thought that was so well said about that experience and an insight that none of us here can put forward, right? We haven't been professional footballers who've been racially abused so that's an insight that he has that none of us could put forward. And I think that one thing that, again, if you wanted to say the things that weren't horrible last night. It was actually really, it felt like a profound gesture of solidarity, at least that Mbappe was saying afterwards.

15:34First of all, was immediately backing his story up and saying, I heard it too. But also said, look, I said, Divini, if you want to go, let's go. Let's get off the pitch. That's the end of the game. We're not playing on if that's what you want to do. And I think that if nothing else, it sounds like Vinicius has that support internally from some of his teammates and i think that's probably really important when you're going through this experience which again as omri said is profoundly um a lonely one i used to think mbappe is showing real leadership throughout the whole thing mbappe who is a character who hasn't always been praised for his general behavior the last two years i think that's fair to saying but 100 % should be noted that in a very, very serious situation he 100 % stands up for his teammate and uses his platform and his voice to make the points that should be made very, very cogently and clearly so he deserves a lot of praise for that Just on the game, Lars and I agree with all of you it's depressing that that's how we have to start the pod and have this conversation but it's actually the right thing that we have this conversation and hopefully we've covered it as well as we can um the the goal is so good i mean that's the thing it's like it is this moment of absolute we know he's capable of that and he doesn't always produce that but when he does it and you see that it's like this it's one of those where the replay from behind it is just perfect yeah and the thing about the goal it's not that completely normal cut inside over to your right foot and curl in the corner because it comes from a from a less of an angle than that the angle is actually narrower than most of that category of strike that you see, which means it's that much harder to execute.

17:19It's an extraordinary goal. It's an incredible goal. It's the kind of goal that you can't really defend against either, I don't think. It's like a game-breaking thing. And I guess it needed that. I mean, Real Madrid were having one of those days where they were clearly the better team, but were wasting chances. So you needed someone to step up and do something, and he did. And again, feels very tried to talk about all the other stuff, but I'm a little bit disappointed in the sporting sense by Benfica. I'm not saying it's easy to go up against Real Madrid, but I do think there's more in this team.

17:54I've seen this group of players perform quite a lot better than they did in this game. But I guess that's also the sporting side about playing Real Madrid. You're playing a Real Madrid team that has Mbappe and Vinicius up front. They have so much space. so you maybe don't feel like you want to go out and attack them because you can get done on the counter so badly but there was there was the sort of inherent conservatism i thought to benfica which was a little bit disappointing on the night all right that'll do for part one part two we will round up the other champions league playoffs welcome to part two of the guardian football weekly at a monaco then monaco to psg3 and you know monaco took the lead after a minute and were 2-0 up after 18 minutes.

18:38PSG got a penalty, prefaced by a phrase we've all heard before, Vout Fass has made an error. But it was brilliantly saved from, you know, Kvart Shalia. And at that moment, Barry, you must think, PSG are in trouble here. Oh, absolutely. I mean, PSG is not a happy camp at the moment. They got beaten by Wren on Friday night in the league. They're not top of the league. They're, I think, a point behind Lawns. And after the Wren game, Ousmane Dembele, in a post-match interview, was quite critical of his teammates and made barbed remarks, accusing certain unnamed individuals of putting themselves before the club.

19:23The suggestions in France are that he was talking about Desiree Douai and Luis Enrique said, dirty laundry is best washed within the family. He wasn't particularly impressed with Dembele telling tales outside the dressing room. I didn't know Vout Fass had gone to Monaco, I must confess. No, me neither. And he was put into the Champions League squad, him and Simon Odingra, who didn't have a good time of it at Sunderland, so he was shipped out to Monaco. So they went into the Champions League spot, and Paul Pogba was removed to make way for Vout Fass. So now the mighty have fallen. Oh, wow. So Monaco went 1-0 up.

20:12Golovin crossed. Two players completely unmarked at the far post. Foran Balogun scored with a header. And then they went two up, as you say, inside 18 minutes. with Balogun again, plays a 1-2 with Akliush and is put through. Lovely touch to take the ball away from Arkinos and then slots into the corner. And then we had the Vout Fas show. So he received a pass under no pressure whatsoever from Kfariskelia, miscontrols the ball. Kfariskelia hairs away from him. Has, textbook fast, running back towards his own goal, hair blowing in the wind, dives in to retrieve the ball, doesn't get anywhere near it and brings down Kfariskalia.

21:03But he got away with it because PSG missed the penalty. And then Ousmane Dembele had to go off injured and he was replaced by Desiree Douwe. And then it turned into the Desiree Douwe show. He was just brilliant. Scored two and helped create the other one. and in between that we had a red card for Alexander Golovkin, his second in two games. He got sent off at the weekend as well. So a nasty challenge this, wasn't it? It was a bad studs-up one. So it was simultaneously a decent and bad day at the office for Monaco. They must have been hopeful of winning when they went 2-0 up, but 3-2 against the reigning champions is probably not terrible.

21:53PSG have a lot of injuries at the moment and I think they might be paying the price for their Club World Cup campaign because they've had a lot of injuries this season and things aren't going particularly well for them on the domestic front or indeed the Champions League front. Yes, I was watching this because I was double screening and it was one of those where I was planning on watching Benfica Real Madrid but because Benfica were mostly doing a decent job containing Real Madrid this game was clearly where the expected fun was higher the XF was significantly higher on my other screens I ended up watching it more than that and first of all I want to add to what about Luis Enrique his quotes after this Dembele stuff was really funny I do enjoy the total disdain Luis Enrique has for anything that gets said in the media because he's so consistent on it.

22:50He has previously just said to the press at the press conference that I don't read what you write because I know much more about football than you do. I don't care. You're all idiots. I don't care. And now he was with Dembele who said after the game he made this what I think was meant as a sort of brave hearty kind of speech about how we must all pull together and stuff. But I don't think he landed quite that way. So Luis Enrique said, and I quote, the player's statements after the match are worthless, absolutely worthless. So are the coaches' statements, but the players' statements are worthless.

23:21I'm not going to answer any question from a player in response from a player. So he just really doesn't. A real blow to post-match interviewers everywhere. But he's so right, isn't he? There's a lot of crap. I tell that to the Norwegian ski journalists, my friend. You never quite know what comes out. You've got to be there with the microphone because it can go in directions that you don't expect. so no but in terms of in terms of generally we you know we someone says something in the heat of the moment after a game about something or other and then you know i guess we are as guilty as anyone else for over analyzing it and enrique probably has a point that everyone should go home for three days and then i'll be asked what they think and it would all be it would take longer like it's not how it works but i i think you might have a point i guess yeah maybe but in the game at least i mean it was so noticeable when desiree duet came on there was a complete switch in like the spaces psg were finding because you do think when they go two nil down and monaco can sit back and just kind of counter for the rest of the game that that's kind of a tricksy position to be in especially when psg they're attackers they tend to like a bit of space to run into but duet was so good i like finding angles finding openings they become so much more incisive and it became a it became a very very watchable game very very enjoyable stuff and uh with the vout fast drama there was an angle where they showed like quite sort of close-up slow motion the moment his sort of heavy touch departs his foot and you can just kind of see on the face going oh no this is this

24:56human drama yeah sorry i i suspect we don't have too many monoco fans among our listenership but i I should say they also had a lot of injuries going into this game. Eric Dyer was a conspicuous absentee. Yes, well noted for the Monaco Ultras who listened to this. I think they were angry. I have a feeling the Ultras, I mean, I'm just going to know because I wasn't even aware there were Monaco Ultras, but they had some banners that seemed a little angry. All five of the Monaco Ultras are upset because the team hadn't been good. Yeah, no, this is a courtesy of the intrepid reporter from TNT Sports and other people, Danny Jameson, tweeting that the Monaco Ultras are again protesting against the way the club is being run by boycotting the first 45 minutes of the game.

25:45Cue many, many jokes about how an ultra boycott at Monaco is really not noticed. Of course, the champagne isn't the right blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the very select group that are the Monaco Ultras, they are unhappy. Galatasaray 5 Juventus 2 Simon says is the Juve defence always that bad Nicky and actually like so Galatasaray scored 5 goals in the Champions League match for the first time in their history Juventus concede 5 for the first time in the Champions League in their history it's a brilliant win for Galatasaray the moment for me Nicky I think is right there 3-2 down that is not a disaster and then it's Kefran Turan brother of Marcus dribbling around his own box like half an hour and then like over hitting a pass to Lloyd Kelly you're like what what are you doing it's like It's like agony.

26:29And it goes on for so long. And then Galatasaray have 4-2 up. I know. And I saw Kelly getting some pelters afterwards. Kelly did not have a good game, to be clear. He gets bullied by Osman a lot. But I feel pretty bad for him in that spot, to be honest with you. I mean, that is an absolute hospital pass being sent to him in the penalty area with someone on his shoulder, Osman, who's really good at taking advantage of defenders in situations like that. Oh, I mean, so many self-inflicted wounds. I do think to answer the question of is it always that bad? No. I do think this is one of those games that from the Juventus side definitely needs to be seen in context, which is that you played a game at the weekend against Inter where they actually were really, really good against Inter.

27:12I thought they were really, this is not a result I saw coming at all this catastrophe game because they were really impressive to me against Inter. but they had a pretty unjust sending off just before half time in that game. They then go 2-1 down in the second half, come back to 2-2, eventually still end up losing 3-2 despite having fought really hard on 10 men and then they go to Galatasaray which is obviously not the easiest place to go and play anyway and then in the second half they go down to 10 men again because Cabal comes on and does some stupid stuff and I do think exhaustion at a certain point even though Turam didn't play at the weekend And I think exhaustion for the team is certainly a part of the picture of what happens here at the end of the game.

27:53You've played two really intense games in half a week with a player down for significant chunks of them. It adds up. But some of the decision making is, as you say, absolutely atrocious. I mean, Kefren Turam, probably the most guilty of it. Although having said that, Cabal is such a disaster after coming on. I mean, the equaliser at 2-2, he's just ball watching, gets lost. and Yilmaz behind him is literally the guy we should be watching. It's the one who ends up having the shot that gets parried out to Lang. Then he gives away the free kick from which it becomes 3-2. Then he gets sent off. So Cabal has this sensationally mad cameo.

28:32It's kind of one of those games. I mean, first of all, just to say on the expected fun scale that Lars is talking about, I mean, this was off the charts. This was wildly entertaining to watch. and I think that Juventus' implosion, of course, is part of it. We should say, Galatesta, I contributed to this too, they were flipping brilliant. Like, they were so much fun. They were so, so much fun and so ruthless. And Osserman is so, like, he's so relentless, isn't he? Like, he's just, you just think, I just don't, you turn up, if you're Lloyd Kelly, we go, oh, don't be like this today, please, Victor.

29:10This is too much for me. Yeah, they have a few players, Galatasaray, who you would say, you shouldn't be in Turkey. But the way I want to flip this is, like, having actually been there now, and having gone to their stadium and seen a game and sort of just kind of spent some time in the city, it must be so much fun. Like, I mean, they're being well paid. Galatasaray have got resources. You're in one of the great cities in the world, and Galatasaray are such a big thing there. There's, like, posters everywhere. You really get the sense that these are super, super, super stars. you're playing in front of massive crowds who are loud as anything and and and you are like the the biggest hero you can possibly be when things are going well and i do almost wonder if this sort of extraordinary environment they have is one of the reasons why they're always so chaotic like they did not because really if you look at we expect to see the portuguese teams one or two of them in the knockouts of the european of the europeans they were used to seeing that but the the the gatasaray and also besiktas and fenobac do tend to get themselves knocked out before that and really in terms of the resources they can bring to bear the cultural footprint of the club they should they should be there and if you look at this squad yeah Oshiman and a number of other good players Leroy Sané coming off the bench you know Icardi's hanging around there.

30:23Sané and Icardi off the bench is something that not many teams in Europe could could do yeah I mean that's that's really something and and I do think I wonder if there's always been this thing about at home in the league their job is to play fun football against quite bad opponents to keep the crowd entertained and maybe making the switch to then putting in responsible performances against good opponents in Europe has been difficult for them to do but this was this they were had so much intensity all over the pitch uh Gabriel Sara in midfield was very good he was great and he's really now giving Luke because there was a period when I was watching them last year where like Lucas Torreira was the only adult in the room in midfield and you don't want that and now there's more of a balance there.

31:06Noah Lang seems to really found somewhere he fits. Like Noah Lang is one of those who's very, very talented, possibly a bit of a knob. I mean, he seems quite self, like he seems to have a quite high image of himself. He seems, but maybe he is a good fit for that place. I would really, I would really like it if we could get a proper run from Galatas right here. Now I would like them to be this sort of the proper force in European football, which I really think the club should be i i think i am i think i already brought it up at the time because right after i said it they got a smashed 5-1 by on track frankfurt but i was asked on like a bbc roundtable to say the surprise package for the season's champions league at the start of the season i did have galatasaray down and it amused me just because i went back and looked at that because of course i was feeling pleased about it yesterday and right before me steve wilson says juventus is a surprise package take that Wilson but I also I really liked just going back to Osman quickly like I really liked Spalletti how he was talking about their strikers in pre-game where he was making this comparison it was brought up in commentary last night as well this comparison between Icardi and Osman saying they between them have this combination of number nine that's brilliant and he said that Osman creates the chaos and Icardi exploits the chaos and I was watching last night and thinking Osman really does create the chaos He really does.

32:27That's what he does in that role, the way he launches himself at everyone and everything. And I felt like yesterday was, who knows, maybe they'll have another game in them like this, but maybe yesterday was just the peak Galatasaray chaos. Yesterday was, we're going to make chaos everywhere and we're going to exploit it everywhere. Because it was a ridiculous game. It was all over the place. But when they were going forward, Galatasaray were just magnificent. It was so fun. Sort of adding to the whole Galatasaray Expendables vibe, Ilkay Gundogan was an unused sub. And Gabriel Sara, who was outstanding yesterday, he had two seasons at Norwich.

33:10yeah so well nothing nothing will teach you galatasaray atmosphere more than carrow road i'm just thinking like to go from norfolk to istanbul it must be quite the culture change also we made a lot of jokes about how players leave man united and suddenly everything comes together and their life becomes much better do you reckon davidson sanchez regrets leaving spurs i mean that's here he is scoring goals in the champions league knockouts doing pistol hands you know having a grand time yeah um let's do the other game then Dortmund 2 Atalanta 0 um and Gerasi has been directly involved with 24 goals in the Champions League since the start of last season 17 goals seven assists more than any other player during that period and I guess Lars like he not that it's necessarily the point of all footballers right because we're just talking about going to Turkey it's great but he does look quite Premier League-y Gerasi like you know you can see him ending up somewhere and being i can't work out how good but like he's got something he puts himself about he's got good physique he's a decent finisher i do kind of maybe this is the full krug legacy i do kind of see him as someone west ham would pay a lot of money for and not figure out what to do with uh they do have this proud history the skamaka sebastian allaire nicholas full krug sort of line of things uh but i think yeah put him in a team that gets the ball into the box regularly and he will he will get you goals i quite sort of i quite like this version of dotman i mean they're not as they were they're not the chaos team that we were just talking about galatasaray causing like niko kovac is the opposite of that they've been pining for something that resembles the club days kovac is such he is a real sort of stick in the mud like he's someone let's just get the basics right let's make sure people are well trained and know where to stand and mentally in a good place.

34:58But they're not that many points behind Bayern. And here they are, two up against that. Because there's a thing to be said for getting the basics right. And there's three at the back. They have a lot of guys who can run. Another assist from the intrepid Norwegian wingback, Julian Riersson, who kind of encapsulates this. Not even when he was playing in Norway was he a superstar, but he's just a guy who's really hardworking and looks after himself physically and is willing to learn. Had four assists against Mainz at the weekend, four assists from wingback and another great cross in here. This is not the sort of, this is not Dortmund from when they were appointment viewing because they had some of the most exciting young talents in Europe and they played great football.