World Cup qualifying preview and new WSL season kicks off – Football Weekly

23:50He's having a gap year. He's deferred his place and now he's going backpacking. Yeah, he'll be in a grotty hostel before long. Yeah, so he's decent and Islam Chesnikov who I think is on his way to hearts. He's got something like a pre-contract agreement which I don't fully understand what that is but I think his club are trying to stop him going. His club in Kazakhstan because they really like him. So Islam Chesnikov is a dangerous kind of wide man who you want to be careful of but generally speaking Kazakhstan are not on good form and for John's sake I really hope Wales can get him a result Baz Northern Ireland they kick off their qualifying against Luxembourg today

24:29Max Rushden:Yeah they start their campaign with two away matches Luxembourg today and Germany on Sunday obviously that's going to be a toughie for them Germany I know Philippe likes to big up Luxembourg at times this is Northern Ireland's first qualifier for two years and it's Michael O 'Neill's fifth qualifying campaign across two stints as their head coach. I'd say they're cautiously optimistic of Nick in second place in the group. It's Germany, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, they've lost a lot of old senior players. Stephen Davis has finally retired after winning 579 caps for Northern Ireland.

25:12Max Rushden:But they've got some really exciting young players in, some of whom play for Sunderland. Conor Bradley's in, Isaac Price, Trey Hume, Shea Charles. Shea Charles' brother, Pearce, is the Northern Ireland goalkeeper, but I think he has to sit these ones out with an injury. Sunderland's Dan Ballard is out as well with an injury. But I would imagine if they take three points from these two games against Luxembourg and Germany, they'll be happy enough.

25:44the 579 appearances you said for Stephen Davis was actually a good joke because for a second I was like he can't have played 507 although he might have actually played I think it's 140 I just checked what do you got on Luxembourg Paul it's the end of an era or the start of a new era for Luxembourg so they had Luke Holtz was their coach for 15 years I'm pretty sure he was the second him longest serving because I think the other guy is Andorra's coach, Caldo Alvarez, who's still there, who's been in since 2010. But Luke Holtz has basically been Luxembourg boss forever. He's a really divisive figure.

26:21Some people really like him, some people don't. And part of the root of that is he nearly got Luxembourg to the Euro playoffs. So that was like an amazing achievement for a nation that used to be sort of lumped in with Lichtenstein and, you know, they were the whipping boys but he also was heavily criticized for the fact he kept picking jerson rodriguez who was their star player but during that time he was charged with convicted of and lost his appeal against a domestic violence conviction so people in luxembourg really didn't like that he kept picking him and it caused this this real kind of strain between him and the fans there were a lot of protests so holtz is gone now he was supposed to step down at the end of the year he actually She got another job and just left immediately.

27:00So this is the start of the Jeff Strasser era with Luxembourg. Ah, right. Do we know anything about Jeff Strasser? Yeah, I shall. Come on. Jeff Strasser, fifth all-time in caps for Luxembourg. Jeff Strasser. Right, the fifth. Sorry. My knowledge of Luxembourg record appearances goes down to four. Oh, there you go. And then I'm out. You'd be so good on Pointless, Paul, wouldn't they? The category is internationals for Luxembourg. You'd be like, okay. People say I'm pointless a lot. I'm getting this worrying feeling I do too much of the sweeper. I do too much like obscure football world because I do get that look from people quite frequently where I say something and they look at me completely blankly and I think I'm the one in the wrong.

27:41Yeah. No, no, no. It's a niche that we are delighted that you have. Barry, Scotland and the Republic. I'm big few days for Scotland. They start their campaign with Denmark away on Friday and then Belarus away on Monday. That's correct. Look at the Scotland squad.

27:55Max Rushden:they're light in some areas and very strong in others of their eight midfielders in the Scottish squad four of them play in Serie A McTominay, Lennon Miller at Udinese Lewis Ferguson at Bologna Billy Gilmore obviously with McTominay at Napoli I think one of the heartwarming stories about their squad is Aaron Hickey from Brentford's back after two years more or less sidelined with various hamstring issues so he will be managed very carefully according to Steve Clarke but I read an interview with him and he's just so happy to be back in a Scotland set-up Hickey I think they have a good use of good use of blend and experience Lovely and obviously they're trying to qualify for their first World Cup since 1998 the real group with Denmark, Greece, Belarus you've got to give them a chance that looks pretty open I would say I don't know how strong Denmark are but that looks a kind draw for them and then the Republic of Ireland they're in a group of Portugal, Hungary and Armenia, you guess everyone's playing for second place behind Portugal and Ireland start with a home match against Hungary on Saturday I would probably bite your arm off for a point at this stage and then away at Armenia on Tuesday, which is the kind of game I would expect them to struggle in.

29:29Max Rushden:Hungary obviously have Milos Kerkis, Dominic Sabazlay, West Brom's Callum Stiles and agent Robbie Keane, who's currently the manager of Ferenc Varos, apparently has been on the blower to Ireland assistant manager John O'Shea, giving him little pointers as to where Hungary's strengths and weaknesses may lie. And Hungarian football, Victor Orborn obviously has pumped a load of money into it. Marcus Rossi, this Italian, has been in charge for almost a decade, I think, if not longer. And so they have some good players coming through. It should be a shootout between Hungary and Ireland to finish second behind Portugal.

30:11Max Rushden:Ireland's last game is away at Hungary so yeah I think a draw on Saturday would be satisfactory the worry with Ireland is in their last four campaigns so I think it's the World Cup of Euros and two Nations Leagues they've lost their opening two games in all of them and yeah so it's time to shit or get off the pot lads Jonathan you got any fixtures piqued your interest? If we head over to Africa, then I think there's a lot of exciting fixtures coming up. I think there's quite a few taking place maybe by the time listeners have listened to this podcast. But I think the main one probably might be in Nigeria or Rwanda.

30:52So, of course, with the expanded World Cup, thanks to FIFA's changes, there'll be nine African teams in the World Cup next year as opposed to the usual five. So there are six places automatic and then there's a playoff. and I think the biggest game really is Nigeria-Rwanda because Nigeria are struggling for qualification at the moment. They're one of the African teams that's qualified the most. I think they've qualified six times for previous World Cups but they are fourth in the group currently, in the six-team group, sorry, and they are six points behind South Africa and one point behind Rwanda for the second round sort of playoff place.

31:29So it's a big game for them. They did win the first meeting between the two sides but it's obviously a must-win game because if Nigeria were to lose or to even maybe draw then the automatic spot will definitely be probably out of their reach and if they were to lose of course then even the second round place would be four points off it so that's quite a big one in the continent there notably for Nigeria obviously it's a squad that's stacked with options really there's so many good players Victor Osumen is the sort of main man up front but they also have call-ups for Tolu Arokodare who's recently just signed for Wolves and also Chris Antasuche who's recently just signed for Crystal Palace in the last week or so.

32:10So some new Premier League names to sort of keep an eye on potentially and of course there's many other players like Adam Ola-Lukman and many others who many will know from Premier League. So it's a big game. Rwanda have been in sort of, you know, having a decent run. They've won a couple of games and obviously they've never qualified for the World Cup, I don't think. So it would be a massive achievement we're there to do it. South Africa look like they will win that group. and progress automatically. But of course, that runners-up spot is up for grabs. The other, I think, big game would be Senegal against Sudan.

32:44Senegal have kind of been struggling. Again, they're sort of second place. They're one point behind Democratic Republic of Congo. So it's not a huge gap to make up there. They've still got time to make that up and maybe qualify automatically. But the game against Sudan, of course, they're both level on points. So if they were to lose that game, then it might make things a little bit more tricky for Senegal. Notably for Senegal, Sadio Mane was left out of a recent squad. And that caused a huge sort of brouhaha, so to speak, back home in Senegal. And he's been called back up again to the squad now.

33:19So that's an opportunity for him to sort of show his leadership and obviously a legendary figure for all his achievements with Senegal. And his achievements, of course, Liverpool. so he's got a lot on his shoulders in this game Sudan have been having a fairly good run so far but yeah I think those are the two standout games a lot of it has gone the way of teams that you'd expect so if you look at the top of the groups at the moment you've got Egypt there who look fairly comfortable it looks like they will qualify you've got the Al-Konga as I mentioned South Africa Cape Verde are top of their group in Group D Cameroon of course the team that's qualified most for World Cups in Africa they're in second place but both of them have a little bit of a padding gap between them and Libya in third so it looks as if it will be one of those two Cape Verde and Cameroon and one potentially progress to the playoffs where they'll be quite strong favourites Morocco clearly top of their group Tanzania could be an outside one for the second round sort of playoff spot that could be quite interesting if they were to sort of progress Gabon look like okay and Ivory Coast are in Cote d 'Ivoire second place so things are kind of largely going as you'd maybe expecting an African qualification.

34:28But I think that Nigeria game, Rwanda's opportunities potentially. And then if you look at some of the other runner-up spots, I mean, Algeria are top in Group G, Tunisia are top in Group H, so Ghana are top in Group I. So they're really expected to go through. But Comoros, Namibia and Mozambique currently hold the advantages in those other groups and they might maybe also make playoffs. So there's the chance for maybe one or two outsiders to be in the next World Cup from the African region. But I would say, yeah, it's a big weekend for Senegal and Nigeria in terms of being favourites and really expected to go through and they need to pick up some results.

35:03Anything you want to add to that? Which is a very comprehensive run through, Paul. Well, Cape Verde, yeah, definitely one that are on my radar because they are looking for their first World Cup. One of the smallest nations in Africa by population as well. I think it's the third smallest nation. So their rise has been incredible. They've got two really interesting matches. they've got the longest away trip of African football against Mauritius because you obviously got Mauritius all the way off the other side. In the reverse of this, when Mauritius came to them, the inevitable happened and Mauritius came all the way over, I think it's something like 10 ,000 kilometres and then let in an 84th minute goal and went home.

35:44But yeah, Cape Verde playing Cameroon in the big one, that's the really big one. And the Cameroon thing, the thing that I find just incredible is the chaos that Cameroon are constantly in. It's like they're trying to undermine a nation of talented footballers at every stage. And the latest thing is Mark Brees, this coach they've got in, his story is incredible in that he was appointed by the sports ministry rather than the Federation. The Federation statement was, we were astonished. We saw his appointment with great astonishment, which is not what you want to hear when you're appointed. And ever since, the Federation have been trying to get rid of him to the point where quite recently there was a big sort of news headline saying he had resigned Brees because of lack of payment of wages.

36:23Brees then said, no, I didn't resign. This is a fake resignation letter that the Federation have faked in my name. And he's clinging on in there as far as I can see. He's still there. He's still coaching this team. And the Federation can't shake him. But it's typical Cameroon. You couldn't have a more talented nation let down by its off the field nonsense, really. Paul, you said just before recording, do you want me to do Bermuda, Jamaica? To which I said, of course I do. Yeah, well, I've loved watching Bermuda on this qualification. come here. They've got through to the final stage of qualification for the first time.

36:55So the way that is, it's three groups of four. The three group winners go to the World Cup. The two best runners up go in the Intercontinental Playoffs. The group they're in is Bermuda, Curacao, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. And so their next game is against Jamaica. It's a real like, you know, David Goliath struggle because Jamaica was Steve McLaren at the helm. Quite, you know, relatively starry squad for that part of the world. Bermuda's squad are primarily in the English non-league. There are some home-based players. They've just called Naki Wells back. And as a Bristol City fan, I have a lot of affection for Naki Wells.

37:27But he's their kind of big star. But the pressure is really on Steve McLaren. He's not had a good time, particularly with Jamaica. They had a dreadful Gold Cup. They only beat the British Virgin Islands, who are one of the lowest ranked nations in the entire FIFA rankings, 1-0 in the British Virgin Islands. He had a dreadful day there. So there's a lot of pressure on him. but there's also a lot of pressure on another team in their group. Dwight Yor is the coach of Trinidad and Tobago and he's having a bad time. So it's going to be a massive game when Dwight Yor comes up against Steve McLaren. That's going to be a huge one.

37:59Paul, can I just quickly ask, how's Steve McLaren's Jamaican accent? I think part of the terms of his contract is he doesn't do it anymore. Right. Do you see, because he did do a social media piece where he did it and actually, to be fair to him, I think everyone enjoyed it. It was kind of a fun thing to do. I love it. Yeah, as soon as he took that job on, I thought, oh, wow. It's a brave one. And also, at least in some way, he doesn't need an umbrella very often. That is true. Yeah, well, I won't end part two in my patchwork. It doesn't seem appropriate. So that'll do for part two. Part three, Susie Rack will join us and we'll look ahead to the WSL.

38:46Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. Let's bring in the Guardian's women's football correspondent and regular on the Guardian Women's Football Weekly podcast, which you must download and subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Susie Rack, hey Susie.

38:59Suzy Wrack:Hey, how are you doing? Yeah, good. So look, WSL kicks off tomorrow night, Chelsea versus Manchester City. What is new? Because there was talk of no relegation from WSL, but that isn't the case. What's the new relegation format? Yeah, so it's weird because it's like an interim season while they expand the league. So essentially you've got two teams winning automatic promotion from the championship to the, I say the championship, it's now rebranded as WSL2. from WSL 2 due to the WSL. And then bottom of the WSL goes into a playoff against third in WSL 2 on whether they remain in the league or whether a third WSL 2 team comes up.

39:43Suzy Wrack:So, I mean, it's essentially scrapping relegation for one season in that the likelihood of bottom of the WSL not beating third in WSL 2 is pretty slim, but it's only for one season. and then it goes back to sort of a normal, like one up, one down kind of situation. So it's tolerable. O 'Hara's obviously was outcry at the prospect of getting rid of promotion relegation for potentially four years, potentially forever, as was being floated beforehand. So not as bad as that, but it's, you know, one season of flux. I'm really good for both teams in WSL2, which have been a little bit bottlenecked and also like teams below that in the Women's National League who get to come up and boost up WSL2 afterwards as well.

40:24Right. So it's a great year to be terrible then in the WSL, but also that game will be pretty intense when we get, I know there's a lot of football to get to, title races, etc. But that will be enormous, that game.

40:40Suzy Wrack:Yeah, it's one of the things that I think like during the various conversations WSL football having about like promotion and relegation and format and stuff. One of the things that was quite popular was the idea of having some kind of playoff system at some point. And I think this is a little bit of a test to see how well it does, because I mean, whenever things go down to the wire, like at the end of last season, WSL 2 went down to the final day and basically Birmingham and London City played each other on the last day of the season, the winner going up. So it did really well. It got a huge crowd.

41:14Suzy Wrack:So I think it's a way of like spotlighting some of the championship teams as well. It's a good idea. I'd like to see some kind of version of it stay in some way, but I definitely want to avoid sort of an Americanised system where we have a league and then a playoff for a championship title or anything like that. I think that would be a step too far. But I think playoffs at the bottom are always quite fun. Yeah. Minimum salaries for players in the top two tiers, so in WSL and WSL 2, being introduced for the first time this season. I mean, this sounds like a good idea. Is it a good idea, Susie? I mean, yeah, a massively overdue idea.

41:50Suzy Wrack:Okay, good. Because when the WSL was relaunched by the FA, they brought in minimum standards for both the WSL and WSL2 at the time, which then became the championship, has now been renamed back to its original name, which is a funny little merry-go-round. The rules there were the WSL is full-time professional and the WSL2 is part-time professional. And the reality was, is that wasn't really the case in that like the minimum requirements hours wise, I don't think any like trade union or company would consider the hours that were supposed to be full-time or part-time as like full-time or part-time jobs in that it was like eight hours contact time for WSL 2 and like 16 for WSL 1.

42:33Suzy Wrack:And so there was this sort of veneer of professionalism that wasn't actually very true, whereas now it is being made true. And I would say about time. And it's good that WSL football have sort of taken this step to sort of cement it and put in rules that mean that they are going to kind of have a minimum salary because there's been such a massive discrepancy between like the Arsenal's Chelsea City and say the Leicesters, the Evertons, the Liverpools, the gap between the money earned by those players is so huge and barely livable on. And a lot of these players are living on sort of one-year contracts, earning virtually nothing.

43:13Suzy Wrack:You can't really settle anywhere. You can't start a family really because, A, you can't afford to, you don't know where you're going to be moving to. So they're losing players all the time because people just can't do it. So it's a way of sort of making sure that people that want to play can play. We want a title race, Susie. Obviously, Chelsea won the league. They keep winning the league. Arsenal did win the Champions League. I guess Manchester City have aspirations. Will there be a title race? I hope so. I really hope so. I think there will. I mean, the vibe around both City and Arsenal have been at both training grounds within the last few weeks.

43:49Suzy Wrack:and the vibe is they want Chelsea's head on a plate. No excuses. They both want to win the league. I mean, City were emphatic about it. I mean, I got an interview with Bunny Short that went up yesterday evening and she basically says we've got no excuses for not winning the league this year because we're through our injury problems. We've got no Champions League football. We're focused on the WSL game every single week. That's our focus. We've got no excuses for not winning the league. two seasons ago, they lost it on goal difference to Chelsea. So, like, they feel like they're not far off. Last season was a bit of a blip, all the million injuries they had and stuff, Bunny Shore out for half the season herself.

44:28Suzy Wrack:And then Arsenal, obviously, have got a bit of a psychological change since last season and since they've, you know, won, last won the WSL, which wasn't in 2019, I want to say, in that obviously they've just won the Champions League, which is the, you know, Chelsea's, like, golden goose. Like, they're desperate for that. so they have a new level of confidence of what they can achieve and what they can win, a feeling of winning they've got six of England's European champions as well or five with Michelle Agyeman on loan so there is I think a real psychological element that they've overcome in winning the Champions League and what it takes to be a team that wins a big title so I think there's both positives for them but Chelsea are Chelsea and if they sign Ellyce Thompson today She's on a plane from LA at the moment, despite Angel City and the league, the NWSL, not wanting her to leave and trying to sort of hold up the deal or stop it from happening, even though it's going to be probably another world record broken.

45:27Suzy Wrack:You know, if she arrives at Chelsea, then there's no sign of them sort of stopping the flow of trophies that come their way every single season.

45:35Max Rushden:Could I just be annoyingly pedantic and point out that the Champions League is more Chelsea's white whale than their golden goose?

45:45Suzy Wrack:I mean, that makes a lot more sense, to be fair. As I was saying, golden goose, this isn't the right analogy to use.

45:52Max Rushden:I hate myself for doing it, but I just can't help it.

45:57Suzy Wrack:I'll run with it. I mean, Chelsea have more got the golden goose, haven't they, laying a different trophy every season. But, you know, yeah. Are you watching Flight Radar? So you think that price tag will be more than the million that Arsenal spent on Olivia Smith? Oh, I think definitely. I don't think Angel City would let her go for anything other than a record fee. They don't want her to go. The league don't want her to go, apparently intervened a little bit because they don't like that all these star players are leaving for the WSL. You know, it undervalues their league significantly with, you know, players wanting to leave.

46:28Suzy Wrack:But there's photos of her sat at LAX airport. apparently she's on the plane according to Tom's latest tweeting and yeah there's still not agreement between the two teams but she is on her way to kind of try and push it over the line basically so it should happen I think and I think Chelsea need it to happen because Mario Ramirez got injured in a pre-season friendly so they are a little, they're not really short because they have a really really stacked squad but in the terms of their stacked squad they're slightly short Sam Kerr's coming back but you know it'll be the first time she's played in a couple of years so they didn't necessarily need her but with Myra Amures gone they need her a little bit more.

47:08Max Rushden:I very much like the idea of our own Tom Garry sitting at home studying flight scanner and passenger manifests from random planes leaving the USA.

47:19Suzy Wrack:I can totally believe that's happening right now. Susie can I ask what's the you know you mentioned the sort of wage gap between the the arsenals and cities and the sort of Leicesters, as you put it. What is that kind of wage gap like out of interest? Is it quite well publicised? Not really. It's not really publicised much at all, partly because clubs are so secretive in women's football, so they don't advertise transfer fees, generally speaking, and push back on any attempt to find out what transfer fees are really heavily, even the big ones, where they should be kind of celebrating them a little bit.

47:48Suzy Wrack:And they don't give out salary details. We're basically kept in the dark on a lot of things. Contract lengths. Some of them don't even give out contract lengths, which I find bizarre. But yeah, so, you know, when you're looking at sort of top WSL players, they're in the hundreds of thousands a year. So the Sam Kerr's, the Leo Williamson's, the Alessia Russo's, etc. Those kind of level of player, they're on sort of like three, four, five, sometimes even 600 ,000 a year. But then when you're looking at mid or bottom table players towards the bottle, they're on sort of like between 30 and 60 grand a year at most.

48:20Suzy Wrack:like in WSL 2 that's lower quite significantly lower so you're sort of basically got this massive two tier league on your hands I mean even within the top clubs you know there's a real scale there and like it's I think unhealthy within clubs to have that bigger gap between players but then it's also obviously really unhealthy across the league to have gaps that big Can I ask about London City Lionesses? Interesting because they're not affiliated to a men's team. What are the pros and cons of that? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of really excited to see what they do this season because they are such a complete unknown as to what's going to happen.

49:02Suzy Wrack:They've signed, I think they're up to 15 new players. There's rumours that they're going to have another couple more in today. So the turnover is really high. But yeah, I mean, whilst they're independent of a men's team, which gives them like a degree of freedom and a way to you know everything is focused on the women's team right like everything is uh being put around that to make it an elite environment they're being paid well they're getting the best resource but that's because they've got a billionaire behind them Michelle Kang so and she like really you know has taken a bit of an ideological view to investment in women's sport women's football like she's looked at her wealth and gone where can I put it that is going to add value and where do I think that it will also in the long term make a return but I don't you know initially I'm investing because I believe it should be invested in and she's done that with women's football and you know this is her third club that she's she's bought so she's got a lot of money behind her and like when you go down to the training ground is basically a building site the pitches are perfect because they're the thing that they've worked on first but like there's buildings coming up going down like it's just like construction everywhere because they're literally completely renovating it and and and turning it into a like an elite environment and then they're like splashing the cash on players big time so it's quite an exciting project from the point of view of the fact that it's unprecedented we've never seen a team come up into WSL with like this level of investment and this caliber of player coming into a newly promoted side so that's kind of like exciting because no one exactly really knows what's going to happen.

50:40Suzy Wrack:But at the same time, I think it's like, it's not something that we're ever going to see replicated because I don't think we're ever going to see another Michelle Kang. I think she's quite a unique individual doing what she's doing. So I don't think it's like necessarily replicable by say other championship clubs or whatever, but it's kind of fun. Thank you, Susie. Before we end, I just need to apologise to Bromley fans because on Tuesday's pod, I said that Ryan Loft had signed for Bromley, but he signed for Crawley. and so just imagine I wonder how many extra season tickets would have been sold at Bromley with the exciting Ryan Loft news and actually he's gone to Crawley so you have you have my apologies Barry you look primed to comment no I just think

51:23Max Rushden:weirdly when you said that I thought you were wrong but I wasn't confident enough to correct you like I was with Susie there so back yourself Barry you need to back yourself I need to back myself more yeah yeah anyway that'll do for today thanks everybody thank you Susie cheers thanks Jonathan thank you Max thank you Paul thank you believe in yourself Barry thank you thanks Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray our executive producer is Neil McVeigh

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