Portugal’s Ronaldo dilemma, England’s selection gamble & who will win it all?: Cup of Cups Preview 06/10/26

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2:06Roger Bennett:You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, suboptimal radio. The way to tread the line is to take Cristiano Ronaldo to the tournament. you get that benefit of his presence, his aura. The trick is, does Martinez have the nerve to not start him in games? Because in the group stage, you might just get away with it. But once you're in the knockout stages, you can't afford to have any passengers. And Ronaldo is ultimately, at this stage, a passenger.

2:37Welcome to the Cup of Cup previews presented by Camarena, where we tell you all you need to know about this summer's big gulp of a football tournament. today. We're nearing the end, which means groups K and L. And I'm joined by Yorkshire's finest export, Head of Stainless Steel, and at least two of the three Bronte sisters. It's Mr. Rory Smith.

2:57Roger Bennett:But behind chocolate oranges, Rog. We all have to have something to aspire to in life, Rog. But we're here finally to talk through Thomas Tuchel's pick-a-mix England line-up. And that's whether Portugal could play better without you-know-who in the team. Ready to dive in, Rog? That makes it sound like he who must not be named, Rog. You wish Voldemort was managing England Roar. We're ignoring the alphabet. We're going to start with Group L, which stands for, let's just ask football if it wants to come home, yeah? We're going straight to England, where head coach Thomas Tuchel's team selection might have been the most surprising line-up change since Tom Hardy was dropped from Mobland.

3:33I know, I can't believe it either. Rory, before England's official roster was announced, the name of the big England players who weren't being called up turned social media into one enormous exploding head emoji. Some of the players will watch this tournament from home, including Manchester United's forehead with legs, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Chelsea's Cole Palmer, Manchester City's Phil Foden and last week's Conference League final, man of the match, Crystal Palace's midfielder, one that Adam Warton, Roar, of all Tuchel's omissions, what's surprising the most?

4:03Roger Bennett:To be honest, Roger, it's really hard to choose. Maybe just the sheer number of them. Tuchel trying to flood the zoo. He's flooded the zone, there's too much to talk about. And it's too hard to get a grip on everyone he's left out. I've been saying to you for a while that I think England could win this World Cup. And I've got to admit, the first time I really thought that I was wrong was the day before Thomas Tuchel named his squad, when the leaks started appearing and you realised who wasn't in it. I can get not taking Foden and Palmer, but surely you have to take Foden or Palmer or Morgan Gibbs-White.

4:35Roger Bennett:You can't leave all three of them at home. That doesn't make any sense. There's no Adam Wharton, but there's no Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He's been left out for Ivan Toney, who's playing in Saudi Arabia, hasn't been in the squad for a year. And Thomas Tuchel, as far as we know, has not been out to Saudi Arabia to watch. Which is why you picked him, because if you had... He maybe would have decided not to. The whole squad felt a bit like a piece of performance art to see how red he could make the average English face go. There were so many left field calls, it was quite hard to get a grip on it. We need to go a little bit deeper.

5:07But first, let me say, today's episode is made possible by our great friends at Camarena Tequila. Wherever you're enjoying this tournament, be sure to kick off with Camarena. Look, a lot of criticism incoming. It's a good thing English journalists never have to pay, by the question mark. England were managed for almost eight years, 102 games by waistcoat model Gareth Southgate. He got them so agonisingly close to the promised land. But to go that final step, the English Football Association did the honestly unthinkable. And they hired a German, Thomas Tuchel, who they saw in that moment as a steely, objective winner.

5:44And he's done the first two things really with this team selection, unsentimentally. You can make the case, couldn't you? He's picked players sensibly for the roles and responsibilities of the football he wants, rather than just trying to force the big name players in.

5:58Roger Bennett:Yeah, which is something that England have had a problem with for a long, long time. that idea that you pick either on celebrity and how famous people are and how much of a lobby there is for them to be in the team. Robbie Williams. Or on form. So of all the controversial exclusions, the one that I kind of get the most is Morgan Gibbs-White, the Nottingham Forest midfielder, who had been playing brilliantly, but only really from like February. He hadn't been in Tuchel's thinking six months ago or a year ago. And I think that's, in those circumstances, it's fair enough to say, I'm not going to kind of rejig my entire planning around you because you've had two or three really great months.

6:34Roger Bennett:You have to stay at home. But there are others where it feels like, yeah, maybe I'm being too harsh, Rog. Maybe you're right. Maybe he's identified the roles that he needs to fulfil and he's picked the players that specifically fulfil them. But at the same time, it does feel as though he's left quite a lot of very talented players back at home. I think what's fascinating is to see the style of football he wants to play. there's a lot of analysts looking at the United States, the heat, the distance that these teams are going to have to cover if they're going to go deep, the style of football that's just led Arsenal to a title and saying this is going to be a World Cup of grind, defensive solidity and set pieces, not kind of flashy maverick midfielders.

7:15You can make the case this is the squad that he's chosen. Look, possibly one of the great storylines is that England's squad has more Real Madrid players and Spain's Olajude Bellingham. I'm always convinced that at this point, Jordan Henderson, 35, is like the Tower of London Ravens. If either Jordan or the Ravens leave, the nation will fall. Looking at the team selection, looks a little light at left back. Centre midfield is a question mark, I think, for the nation. What do you see as the team's strengths? What do you see as its real weakness?

7:46Roger Bennett:I think the main strength is its centre forward. In Harry Kane, England have a genuinely world-class player, possibly the best pure number nine on the planet, who is now a serial winner at Bayern Munich, who has played deep in the Champions League two years in a row, who is good enough to carry England all the way. I think you've got talent around him, both established and emergent. So you have Marcus Rashford and Jude Bellingham who obviously carry a threat, but you also have Elliot Anderson, the Nottingham Forest midfielder, who's probably been the great kind of emerging English story of this season.

8:16Roger Bennett:What I don't know is whether the squad is quite as balanced as it needs to be. It looks like it's strong in certain areas and not that strong elsewhere. And again, you wonder whether there's maybe the X factor off the bench. That's what someone like Cole Palmer would have provided, I think, that idea that you've got someone who can do something completely unexpected. Tuchel seems to have gone away from that a little bit. Yeah, it's fascinating. Tuchel said to the press, I love the tough decisions. As if he was merely deciding between beef and the boroughs to watch on Netflix. Look, Ro, we've laughed that England winning the World Cup on American turf in the 250th anniversary of American independence, maybe too much for the United States to bear.

8:58Seeing those rockets fired out of English fan orifices we didn't know you could fire rockets out of. But if they're vaporized in the quarterfinal, say, or even earlier, it's kind of a fascinating situation. Won't all the blame fall ultimately on Thomas Tuchel as the managerial scapegoat rather than the players themselves?

9:16Roger Bennett:I think it will now, yeah. I think if he'd named a squad that more of us were anticipating, if he'd named a squad that kind of, not necessarily fitted like with public opinion, but seemed to reflect what we were all expecting. I think the players maybe would have got a lot of the blame. There'd have been a lot of talk about lack of character or lack of mentality or even maybe some vaguely sensible conversation about kind of England being short in certain positions. But because he's named such a risky squad, as soon as they go out, even if it's in the semifinals, Rog, the cause will be Thomas Tuchel's squad selection.

9:46Roger Bennett:There'll be this sense of, if he had taken Palmer, if he had taken Foden, if he'd taken Trent Alexander-Arnold, maybe things should have been different. And I do wonder, for a manager who signed an extended contract a few months ago, what that means for Thomas Tupor's longer-term future. Yeah, we are now 60, agonising years since 1966. Raw, when football last came out. Back then, no one had walked on the moon. Computers were still the size of your average house. No, I didn't even know what a bar heart blast was. I still don't. God, simpler times. But despite what the lyrics of the Three Lions songs say, England have since doubled those 30 years of hurt.

10:24Found new, agonising, later in tournament ways to lose in massive moments. Don't just do it on penalties anymore, Roar. Within England, what is the sense of expectation? What is the sense of the pressure?

10:36Roger Bennett:It's really hard to say, you know, because over the last few years, I think we've got quite good at understanding that the pressure the team is under is counterproductive. that the more pressure there is for them to win, the less likely they are to win. But I think we've now reached the point where, as long as we say out loud, there's no pressure on England, we don't expect them to win, that actually means that, because we've removed that pressure from them, that they should win. We're sort of trapped in this cycle where whatever you do, there is this sense, well, England should probably just win the World Cup.

11:05Roger Bennett:There is always pressure on England, Rog. Like, the players will know that. There's no world in which everyone says, it's fine, just go and do your best. Just take one off. Just, you know, it's fine. Just do whatever you can. If you can be bothered to play football, just have a go. I think there's maybe within the public opinion more broadly, there's maybe an acceptance that this squad is not complete, that Tuttle is working with something that's quite patchy. But at the same time, there is a definite belief there's enough talent to go really deep into the tournament. There's the rational and there's the emotional.

11:33Look, Manchester City and Arsenal are the best represented Premier League sides, four players each, including World Cup first-timers, the beautiful Eberichie Eze, None Medweke and Nico O 'Reilly. last week. It's fascinating to listen to the Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman. He talked about how he expected England to, quote, gamble on corners and throw-ins. He said, that is how Arsenal became champions. Without the corners, they wouldn't have made it. Roel, we hinted earlier about how the Premier League changed this season. Arsenal did depend on a more physical, more robust, more set-piece-reliant style of football.

12:06Has the international game followed suit? Could this be the World Cup of corners?

12:11Roger Bennett:I hope not, but I think there's a chance. Just because, I mean, international football hasn't followed yet, but I think a lot of managers will have looked at the way that Arsenal played and realised that it's a practical measure, that the reason Arsenal have chosen that kind of route, because they play so many games over the course of the season, they don't have time to practice, to institute a really complex style of play. That's exactly the same at international level. You don't have loads of time. You don't have endless training sessions. So in the ones you do have, maybe you concentrate on set pieces.

12:41Roger Bennett:The one little caveat to that, if Tuttle's thinking about set pieces being central to his plan, surely he'd have taken Harry Maguire. The forehead in human form. Yeah, that would only make sense. And yet he's not. So maybe Tuttle isn't going full Arsenal just yet. I can imagine it now. Saka flinging in corners from one side, Declan Rice from the other, Big Dan Byrne winning the golden boot. No one asks you how you win it. They just ask you if you lifted the trophy roar. Joining England in this group, an old friend, Croatia, a team, a nation that is synonymous with one man. Luka Modric, now 40 years old, should be on Croatian postage stamps if he isn't already.

13:23But he's a gent whose first World Cup was 2006. His first was Cafu's last. This may be the farewell World Cup last dance for so many electric talents. Modric, potentially Leo Messi, Germany's Manuel Neuer, Kevin De Bruyne, Neymar. I won't say Cristiano Ronaldo because I don't understand how cryotherapy and low carbs work. Rui, why is it so hard for football to let go? Or is it us, the fans? Or is it the players themselves?

13:50Roger Bennett:I think it's both of those things. And it's the commercial kind of imperative, to be honest, that the generation of players, and it's been a theme throughout all of these Cup of Cups podcasts, hasn't it? that there's always on so many teams, there is someone who's in their late 30s, their early 40s. In Modric's case, their mid 70s. You know, there are so many players who seem to have been around forever and yet they're still there. Manuel Neuer, Neymar, all of these. And I think part of it is obviously their competitive instinct, their desire to keep playing. Part of it is, and Modric is a great example of this, like a small country like Croatia is going to find it hard to replace Luka Modric.

14:24Roger Bennett:That's fair enough. But I think taken in the round, it's more that this is the most famous generation of players who've ever lived. They're the players who were stars when we first got social media, when football became this global phenomenon. We can't really imagine what football looks like without any of them. It will be really weird in two or three or five years time when all of them have gone. And the players who were meant to replace them won't be as famous as they are. They won't be as familiar. They won't be part of the background of our lives. And I think that worries us. And probably more importantly, it worries the people who use the World Cup for their marketing.

14:59I love what you're saying. The second ever guest on Men in Blazers was Liam Neeson. He'd just been in the movie The A-Team. I asked him just a standard question. I thought you asked every actor, what drew you to the movie The A-Team, Liam Neeson? Was it the script?

15:13Roger Bennett:And he just bellowed, it was the money, you idiot. It was the money. I think you just answered me that question in that way. Look, Croatia, they do look strong at the back. 19-year-old centre-back Luka Vuskovic on lane from Spurs. at Hamburg. Ajax centre-back, Luka Shutalow, Manchester City's won the Josque Vardal. They could be a little light up front. They were grouped at the last Euros. They only managed goals in three games. That was against Albania, Italy and Spain. One of those, I think, was their own goal. Where will the goals come from this tournament? Who will step up if they're going to advance?

15:45Roger Bennett:That's the question. I'm not sure they've got a striker of the quality of Mario Mandzukic, who was the striker that helped them get to the 2018 final, which is an underrated achievement for a nation the size of Croatia. Andrei Kramaric, who's playing for Hoffenheim in Germany, is in his mid-30s. He's been around for ages. He's really experienced. He might be able to fill in a little bit. But generally, I think that is the problem Croatia might have. It's what separates them from what they were, is the lack of that kind of high-quality forward who can put away the chances. Isn't that always what separates us from what we were?

16:16A word from our friends. At 14.40, the 2022 World Cup final drew 1.5 billion viewers. It's 11 times this year's Super Bowl. To understand how football became the world's game and what drove it, listen to 1440 Explores with Financial Times journalist Simon Kuiper. It will give you the inside scoop into the depths of the tournament.

16:37Roger Bennett:Listen to 1440 Explores wherever you get your podcasts. And as the world arrives in the United States for the biggest spectacle in sports, we're going coast to coast, host city to host city, to meet the world with the Men in Blazers Match Day Live Tour. These are free college game day style live events taking place just before kickoff at some of the biggest games of the summer where we'll be taking the stage with celebrity guests in front of thousands of fans. It's going to be amazing. Come and be with us in person or from afar on YouTube and let's celebrate this summer the way it's meant to be celebrated.

17:14Just head to the events tab on meninblazers.com for all the details. To the football, to more together. courage. Next, Ghana. The mighty Black Stars. Back for their second straight World Cup. Fifth overall. This is incredible. One or other of the IU brothers, either Andre or Jordan, played in four of those five World Cup teams. This year, it's Jordan. Now 34 years, fresh off sinking with Leicester City, will be the fan representative. Joining him in attack, Manchester City's FA Cup wonder, Anton Semenyo. Alongside Athletic Bilbo's Anaki Williams. The tournament, though, may be defined by who's not there.

17:51Tottenham's Mercury fast Mohamed Koudas not recovered from the hamstring injury that kept him out of Spurs season since January. And Garner also made the decision to swap managers after losing four friendlies in a row mid-April. Enter 73-year-old Carlos Kairos. I believe that's Portuguese for Roy Hodgson in his fifth straight World Cup with his third different nation. He's been there with Portugal and Iran. He's pragmatic, he's disciplined, his tactics are kind of conservative, like an oldie-worldie long-sleeved bathing suit. But how much strategy is he going to be able to bring in having this team for so little time before kick-off?

18:27Roger Bennett:Yeah, that limits it a bit, but Kiroz is so experienced. It's his fifth World Cup, it's the ninth national team job he's had. It's not my fourth rodeo. It's not my eighth rodeo. He is one of that class of coaches who's just been around the World Cup so long. He will know how to put a team together that is difficult to beat. They might not be the most intricate, the most beautiful side to watch, but he will be able to go in and get them doing the things that he knows will work in a tournament. And that ultimately is his job. I just love, I mean, he's just like an old swinger in a bar. It's like someone getting to the World Cup weeks away, like activate Kirov.

19:02Roger Bennett:If you hang around in that bar long enough, at some point, someone will give you a job. The ferryman of World Cups. There's an element of that. Yeah, he's kind of, if you're Bruno Pekovic, who's at Algeria now, is a bit like that. There are managers who are just out there kind of waiting, waiting around to be given the chance to help a team save its blushes at a World Cup. And Kiroz is good at it. Finally, greatest nation in the world to be named after a Van Halen song. Panama back in the World Cup for the second time in their nation's history. In a way, Panama are the opposite of gone. A head coach, Dane, Thomas Christensen, been in charge for almost six years.

19:38You can count international managers in the same way as you do dog years. Hired July 2020. What he's accomplished is truly remarkable. He's taken Los Canaleiros to the finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the CONCACAF Nations League. Yes, they fell to Mexico twice, but they've climbed from 81st to 33rd in the FIFA rankings. And since the start of 2025, they've only lost thrice in regular time, not counting the loss on penalties to Honduras in last summer's Gold Cup quarterfinal. One journalist in Panama wrote, Christiansen could go into the presidential elections right now and he would win. He's that popular.