Barcelona's revenge tour continues and more!

0:22hello and welcome back to the stadio podcast the friday edition i'm mr konga i'm ryan hun Ryan, how are you doing? I'm alright, thanks man. How are you? Good, I'm good. Very well indeed. Are you doing anything different for the Friday edition? You're wearing a roll neck. You're not even dressing down. I mean, yeah, but it's a little chilly and I'm a little, not run down, that's a bit dramatic, not run down, but just, it's nice to get the warmth in, you know, hunker down. I'm in a hoodie. You're in a roll neck. Yeah, I think it's time, man. It's time. It's time. We hope everyone's staying safe and well.

0:56a quick bit of admin. Don't forget Stadio Social Club listeners. If you're not on the Discord or you haven't checked the Discord for a little bit, go and check it because Saturday the 18th of October, tomorrow, we're recording this on Friday, it's the first kind of Stadio Social Club meetups are taking place. There's one in London. There's definitely one in New York. It looks like there might be a couple elsewhere as well. Everyone's getting together to watch Bayern Dortmund. So if you want to get involved and you're a Stadio Social Club member, go to the Discord and check it out. If you're not a member of the Stadio Social Club yet and you want to, go to patreon.com forward slash stadio and sign up.

1:32You can also sign up for a podcast membership, which is just the podcasts. Also, another reminder, stadio at the South Bank Centre. Tickets are on sale. Link is in the description for anyone in London. Go and get them. I reckon that's all the admin. Today we're just going to do some Women's Champions League stuff that happened this week. Maybe a little bit about revenge tours. Because I feel like we've mentioned this, but I think Barcelona are on a revenge tour. Very much so, yeah. Very much. and how different the seasons can be after success and failure. Or not failure, but let's say disappointment.

2:02And then we'll just look ahead to a couple of games maybe this weekend. And that'll do us for today. Let's begin with the Champions League. Barcelona beating Roma 4-0. Alexia Poteas scored a penalty after missing at one. An attempted Penenka gone wrong. A Penenka with too much power. That's what it was. If anything, she said that too well. she did look appropriately embarrassed afterwards yeah yeah a little bit bashful it was always there's always that interesting drama when someone gets another when team gets another penalty like does the penalty taker take it again and she did and she put it bottom left an altogether much more sensible attempt yeah and a very much like a not even really a celebration just more of like the game should have been absolutely long gone by then it should have been long gone well yeah i mean stats wise barcelona had 79 possession 29 shots 13 on target eight big chances to uh roma's 21 possession four total shots one on target which was a big chance and also that possession is not it's not enjoyable possession it's like you get it when they're tired of it like if you've got possession of like 21 you know you're not these aren't elegant passing moves these are just like get it yeah get rid right so let's talk about barcelona yes because so far this season in the champions league and the league combined they have played nine they have won nine they have scored 48 and they've conceded two goodness they conceded one against bayern and the only goal they conceded in the league was in an 8-1 win over athletic club so the only two goals they've conceded have been in a six by six goal margin and a seven goal margin which it's you can probably put down to taking their foot off the pedal a little bit so when they conceded against athletic club yeah they were five nil up and when they conceded against Bayern they were three nil up is this the revenge tour of 2025-26 I think it is absolutely what's happening here.

4:11It's absolutely what's happening here and it's frightening. It reminds me of when Lyon came back and beat Barcelona in that final, Amandine Henry from distance, like dispossessing Pateas and just like ripping in the corner. It's this thing of like, Europe, don't you dare forget about us. Like, you know, Arsenal winning that Champions League final after absorbing a lot of pressure from Barcelona in a final at Barcelona probably felt they could have put away and that's not to discredit Arsenal because Arsenal handled them superbly. But maybe a feeling of people going, oh, Barcelona, the cracks are appearing.

4:41They're like, no, no, no, no. No, this is not what's happening here. And I think, you know, Lyon, obviously, that is the exemplar of the revenge tour just because the year before, Barcelona had completely taken apart Chelsea. A Chelsea team that had basically been constructed to beat them. And everyone knew that. That was the big conversation. Barcelona came out and just took them apart. And this just reminds me of that. And if you look at all the players, they've won individual titles but they were like no you've got the big one and maybe maybe you know England winning the Euros and like Arsenal winning the Champions League it's like oh English teams are having their moment and then they're taking like big signings from like the Spanish League and I just wonder if there's like some kind of level of we need to reassert who's Would you think there's an element of the Euros in there as well?

5:33There were a lot of Barca players who were in that squad Yeah absolutely I absolutely think that's a thing like with the World Cup coming up as well and almost like a need to reassert like we're standing on business because like again that Bayern team that's a good side and they got absolutely cooked and that was frightening that result it was frightening to see like they were just absolutely picked apart we've said this many times in football you go in at 70 % against a team running hot and you can get absolutely cleaned out these days because the tactical the technical levels are so high but yeah this was and it's the depth as well.

6:09We talk about squad depth all the time, but look who they have on the bench. Look who Paroleueno is keeping on the bench for them at Barcelona. It's genuinely... I mean, I know that Barcelona are, you know, just an, even when they're not at their best, they're usually a level above 95, 96 % of the opposition. But coming off the back of the summer, where a lot of players look like they're on the way out, a lot of players were on the way out, and there were a lot of reports about the women's side of the club bearing the brunt of the overall financial mismanagement of Barcelona as a football club it now feels like it like one of those did that even happen did we dream that everything is fine and they actually look more locked in maybe than than ever yeah yeah like if they if they concede one more goal before Christmas I genuinely think there might be like a crisis meeting yeah yeah they're allowing themselves like one a month probably playing the footage of the conceded goal like on the screens at the training ground whose fault was this yeah exactly like we want answers two weeks wages is a fine the frightening thing about Barcelona in this game as well if you look at that front line right no Paior no Claudio Pina Graham Hansen off the bench at the oldest play in that front line you know Paolo Ueno and Nazareth are the veterans in that forward line and then Vicky Lopez in there like a teenager keeping Graham Hansen out of the team well maybe just the rotation but still and she looked brilliant not just in a high wide area but in the actual build up of that game you know in terms of the build up in midfield the player that can drop deep and this is a teenager so what they're doing is really smartly Barstona is this established midfield that midfield three is just it's peerless basically and then you've got the front three that could just play off them a bit less experienced and just you know really cut their teeth and it's it's frightening it's really just saying we're going to be around for a long time and this is the next generation of forwards they're going to take us to another level.

8:03It's, watch out Europe. It's the past long season. It's terrifying. But it's nice, you know, I love to see teams that aren't complacent. Can I just say on that? I was going to say on the other side of that, if you look at Arsenal's form off the back of the summer. Yeah. You know, because there were a few of those Arsenal players in that Euros squad for England as well. They didn't expect to win the Champions League. And like Lotta said, when she came on Stadio at that time, they weren't really considering themselves favourites for the competition in the Euros. Shout out to her. She had a good game the other night.

8:31should a good game yeah yeah really well yeah I do wonder that if there's like a hangover sometimes with that because when you kind of don't expect to win it and I think therefore when you've achieved something like that with so seismic they're only the only other England we talked about this before the only other English side to win the Champions League is Arsenal right so if you look if you look at how denistic that Chelsea side have been in the last decade and you look at the Manchester City evolution the fact that neither of those sides when to do it there must be some kind of hangover which has accounted for the tricky start to the season for Arsenal I think there's also people coming to you differently I think in their defence not that you're being critical of them but I think another factor is the way that teams come at you now you're the European champions you're the European champions and also like there's a swagger there's also maybe something against some of the England players in that team who like have so much confidence and there's that desire to really I don't know like put the noses out of joint they're a confident abrasive team in many ways they've got some brilliant footballers who get a lot of attention and that's something which creates you know you put the target on yourself and win a trophy like that and I think that's an added motivation you've also got the new pieces you know a player like Olivia Smith started very well found it slightly tougher going in more recent games because again the additional expectation of the transfer fee and it's not that she's necessarily struggling with that herself potentially but it's more the attention you're getting now.

10:00Like, this is the, Arsenal have got, this is their difficult second album, isn't it? That was a preview of today's episode of Stadio. If you want to join up for ad-free podcasts, extra podcasts, access to the Stadio Social Club and more, you can join us at patreon.com forward slash stadio.