Erling Haaland's half century and the differing expectations around World Cup qualification

0:22hello and welcome back to the studio podcast i'm Musa kwanga i'm ryan hun Brian, how are you doing? I'm all right, thanks, man. How are you? I'm 46 years old.

0:32Did you have a good birthday? Happy birthday, by the way. Came back like Jordan wearing the 4.5.

0:41Not to play games with you, listen.

0:47Did you have a good birthday, man? It was your birthday on the weekend. It was. It was amazing, man. It was amazing. Cut, marinated, listen. and married to that salmon for two days. Wow. Good times, man. It was basically a salmon ragu and I realised, look, this is the thing. I realised I've been chopping onions wrong my entire life. Oh. Dude, yeah, right, okay. Go on. So like just top down. Caramelise them. Top down, caramelise them. Because I was chopping them across the whole time, right? Across? So you cut onions horizontal? So I would normally cut them across the middle and then keep on chopping.

1:24So like, but I was, instead of just chopping them top down, and then you get them to caramelize and that was like, it has changed my entire, like I did this thing, it basically came out like a ragu. The salmon is, all of it just turned to, like I found out, I accidentally made like a proper ragu sauce from scratch. You know, even like the spices. So you know, like the curry spices, right? I went and mixed them individually. So I bought like the thyme and all of that and just literally made my own curry powder. And I'm like, man, yeah, So yeah, I'm such a happy man. I'm not sure what the calorific intake was, but who cares?

1:59Well, it sounds like you had a great time. I did. One of the things. And you didn't have Manchester United. Well, Manchester United women won at Everton, so that was positive. And you didn't have the men to potentially win. No, exactly. You had a nice... The women's team is a joy. Don't even listen. Hey, man, they're riding high, man. Dude, they're absolutely cooking, man. Absolutely cooking. Third in the league. Yeah, it's beautiful. Oh, before I forget as well. So that's a joy. and also like randomly YouTube has started to aggressively target me with highlight videos from Roberto Baggio Fernando Redondo and Del Piero so I'm being picked on you know those YouTube channels with like 2 ,000 followers that go through old VHS and upload old footage and they've just been bombarding me so oh no oh no it sounds dreadful well we hope everyone is staying safe and well and doing as well as it sounds like Musa Gwanga is doing listen flying high because look at him go can't be stopped life goals yeah we hope everyone's staying safe and well and apologies for coming a day late I just had some travel stuff that we couldn't record on Monday so we're going to do today we're going to do Wednesday we're going to do Friday this week so three shows this week on Patreon don't forget if you are listening to this on the free feed you can hear all of those episodes in full ad free go to patreon.com forward slash stadio you can sign up just for a podcast membership which just gets you the podcasts, every single podcast in full ad-free.

3:23Or you can join the Stadio Social Club for a little bit more a month. Gives you access to the Discord, early tickets for gigs, some other bits and bobs, loads of other perks. Another bit of admin, don't forget, tickets for our London live show at the Southbank Centre, December 4th. Our available link is in the description if you want to go and get them. I think that's all the admin. So today we're going to touch on a couple of results and a bit of roundup from some stuff that's happened over the last couple of days. And I think we might do a bit on some teams who are qualifying for the World Cup for the first time, some of the favourites.

3:55So I reckon we get into it, but there's only one place to begin. Well, you say that. I think for the first time ever on the stadio, we're starting with the Chrysler League of C. Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned that. There are two places you could have begun, but I'm glad you went there. Go for it, go for it. BSC Altenhain 9 FV Neuenhain the sweater 9 a 9-all draw in the Christ League of C which you flagged up Musa BSC Altenhain went 8-1 up Neuenhain then went to 9 went to 9 came back to 9-8 up and then an equaliser in injury time from Altenhain the final score being 9-all can you imagine going 8-1 down and then being disappointed that you only drew 9-0 can I can you imagine who's the happiest person involved in that I think it's the referee I think it's whoever's operating the scoreboard I think the referee gets to do everything busy day unbelievable

5:07unbelievable anyway there you go the other place you could have started would have been Mainz against Stuttgart in the Frauen. Yes. Where Stuttgart were 4-0 down at half-time and won 5-4. The Remontade. I don't know what was going on in Germany this weekend. Was there something in the air? Quality? I know there was a bit of rain in certain places, some humidity. I don't know what it was in the specific atmosphere, but something happened here. Well, let's just do some quick roundup. In the Frauen Bundesliga, RB Leipzig beat Essen 2-1. Bayern beat Wolfsburg 3-1 in the kind of top spiel of the weekend really.

5:46Can I say Wolfsburg like they put themselves in position but some of that defending oh dear oh dear real shame. That was a big look for Bayern because that was a bounce back after their terrible defeat to Barcelona an exception I mean Barcelona running hot but still much respect for them to come back like that. Yeah and it gives it means that they open up a three point gap at the top of the league now. Werder Bremen won the derby against Hamburg Freiburg beat Eintracht Frankfurt 3-2 Leverkusen beating Hoffenheim 2-0 away and Curlen beating Union 2-1 those were the weekend's games and then on Monday night Nuremberg beat Carl Zeiss Jena 3-2 away so the Frauenbundesliga as it stands Bayern 3 points top 3 points clear at the top of Wolfsburg and Freiburg Leverkusen a point behind them and Hoffenheim 2 points behind them at the bottom SGS Essen are bottom which is worrying because that's a that feels like a Turbina Potsdam style thing not quite as as much of a historic powerhouse.

6:46It's a club that got hollered out, man. Yeah. And then Carl Zasiena in the other relegation spot.

6:55Quick Super League stuff. We mentioned it very quickly, but Manchester United's 4-1 win away at Everton meant they went up to third. Chelsea beat Spurs 1-0 to stay top of the league and Manchester City beat Liverpool 2-1. Gareth Taylor hosting his former club and another defeat for Liverpool. It's five straight defeats this season to start this campaign. So Man City second, Manchester United third, Spurs fourth, Arsenal got back to winning ways. Finally, 1-0 win over Brighton. They weren't great though. Yeah, but that was a tough fixture though, in fairness. And another win for London City Lionesses.

7:32Three wins from six now and sixth in the table. They're above Brighton. Quick shout for Barcelona. Another big win. They beat Atleti 6-0. Frightening. They've only conceded one goal in seven games. They've scored 37. They've got a plus 36 goal difference after seven games. That's a vengeance, you know. They're on one. Real Madrid are second on 14 points. They beat Athletic Club 4-1. Six different scorers as well. Yeah, wild. All right, then. Should we go to some international stuff? Yes. Let's do it. Oh, well, actually, before we do... Well, I mean, it is kind of international stuff, but Erling Haaland got 50 international goals on the weekend.

8:10in what 46 games that man and like the the way he accumulates goals i can't remember obviously like as a united fan i'm reminiscent of ruva nistro just in terms of the sheer volume of goal scoring and the efficiency of the finishing but not just that it's the because it's not that he literally is like the most ruthless finisher of all time it's not that it's it's the it's the um he's relentless actually i don't think i've seen many strikers as really, actually Gary Lineker was like that, the ability to reset themselves after a miss so quickly. It's funny because we're not in the, Ronaldo is not in the social media era.

8:50A lot of those great strikers of the old times, they did miss big chances actually, but what you don't pick up so much from that is, like, you know, Ronaldo in the World Cup final 2002 missed really good chance. I scuffed one wide, but the ability to just be like, I haven't missed that sitter, whereas most strikers dwell on it. Haaland just doesn't have that capacity at all. It's not who he is. and it's not that he's not cerebral, he is. It's that actually he's extremely strong mentally. He's more like a tennis player who gets the serve broken and then just breaks straight back. Yeah, but incredible achievement what he's doing.

9:24Saying he's got good bounce back ability. He does, he does. Erland Holland, good bounce back ability. Very much so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the list, so the list of men's players who have got to 50 goals, international goals, sorry. It's kind of wild. So Erling Haaland's done it in 46 games. Pele did it in 49. What? Romario did it in 65. Ali Dahi did it in 69. Harry Kane did it in 71. Neymar did it in 74. Kylian Mbappe did it in 90. Lionel Messi did it in 107 games. As did Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo did it in 114 games. It's incredible how fast. Okay, so the Ronaldo thing is interesting because Ronaldo, I think, ran hot.

10:14Like those players, Messi and Ronaldo had slow starts in their goal-scoring arc. Like it's unbelievable. We look at like Messi and Ronaldo's early years. The volume goal-scoring doesn't start until like a couple of years. But when it starts, it becomes a deluge. And I think I'd love to see what Ronaldo's mid-career splits are like because I think they're probably closer to what Ronaldo, what Haaland's doing now. But, you know, Pele was in a team that created a lot of chances. that's the frightening thing about how quickly Holland has got there he is not necessarily he's in a team where there are not like multiple elite goal scoring threats like I was watching these old Del Piero highlights and you had Zidane and Del Piero coming you had to pick your poison like whereas with this team and with this Norway team you know who the threat's going to be but you can't stop it that's almost more I mean we can draw a comparison with Zlatan at Sweden you know the team has maybe built more around your strengths but you still have to deliver that, that's still a huge you know.

11:10Well this is the interesting thing about Erling Haaland as a player right in that when he went to Manchester City people knew exactly who was arriving and people built game plans around just stopping Erling Haaland and it reminds me a little bit of when we were talking to Jackson the first time about him when Australia played Argentina and there was something he said in that moment where he said the whole game plan is You want to stop him getting the ball. Their whole game plan is getting him the ball and that's it for 90 minutes, basically. And the thing is the exhaustion, the emotional exhaustion, the intensity of having someone that if you switch off for a second, like a second, it's catastrophic.

11:57I know you had a real problem with this and it made me laugh how much it kind of, not rattled you, but when they're like, he is human, he is human, every time someone like defended him well it was just like no actually the thing with people like Erling Hawn is I think what happens is they are so good that when they go through patches of form that maybe they're not at their absolute optimal it's happened with Messi a bunch although weirdly I don't think Messi's actually ever had a sustained period of form where people have been like oh is he okay but people then immediately go to like is this guy a fraud right instead of being like dude you try doing something when everyone knows you're trying to do it for that amount of time yeah and you know you're not just playing a load of kids down the park you're playing like the best defenders in the world who've been studying you non-stop yeah for months I like the the duels that Haaland has with defenders right because I think he I think he's quite a good sport and I know he got you know there was a bit of the whole thing with Arsenal last season where he was a bit he was a bit he was a bit of a dick to Myles Lewis-Skelly and Mikel Arteta around the season but that's also fine but the whole thing that he has with Gabriel Yes, yes.

13:10And I like that aspect of it because I think that he knows how good Gabriel is. Centrefors like that generally though. Yeah. Centrefors like, you know, generally for the most part you enjoy the duel, the contact, the conflict, that's the whole reaction. It's the juice, man. It's the juice. It's the juice. The thing about that is as well when I think of Haaland I think again another sort of sport parallel look at the Super Bowl the Chiefs against the Eagles last year and Patrick Mahomes the quarterback the defence was exceptional against him but it's because when you've been studied when you're that good the ultimate compliment is that you get to look human because what's happened is they've deconstructed your game they know how your balance is they know what foot you hate starting off they know how you move your shoulders so when you get to look utterly human as Mahomes did in that final and as sometimes Holland has looked it's because they've literally it's when the game plan comes all together and they're like we literally know how your muscles twitch like we we know like how you like tucking your shirt how high you like pulling your socks because we've given you the honor of like going and doing all the homework like the example i always use is um when sam press plays agassi in that wimbledon final and sam press is just playing out of his mind and he knows that's the only way he can do to beat this dude because haaland you see it so many times you turn up half stepping and this man I'm going to get four or five goals on you.

14:29Like, we haven't seen Pete Haaland yet. Like, Erling Haaland is going to go off for like three or four goals in the late stages of a Champions League match at some point in his career. He's just going to come in and absolutely, like he's going to do a Lewandowski against Madrid. You know that Lewandowski game where he was just dialed in. That is going to happen. And centre-backs are going out every game thinking not just are we going to lose, but is that guy going to put me on a highlight reel? If you think of any international footballer and the career they have. And Messi can define you. This is Haaland's power, actually.

15:03Maybe that's what the measure of greatness is. Does that person, does your opponent have the ability to define you? Like Dennis Bergkamp and Dabizas. This is what his most famous, Nikos Dabizas, fantastic defender. And actually, that is the moment people talk about Nikos Dabizas, it comes to mind. Like, you know, the NBA as well, like who put you on a poster? It's genuinely, yeah. Yeah, it's genuinely like, and that's what Haaland does. It's a goal he gets in this game where he cuts across the defender and it's so clever, like he shows him, because the defender knows that he likes the left foot, so he shows him across his body and then finishes with the right.

15:39And I'm like, this is individual finishing. It's something he gets credit for the actual finishing, like the scoring, but maybe not quite enough credit for the setup. The way that Erling Haaland, we talk about in basketball, gets to his spots. Well, you mentioned the Eagles Chiefs earlier. Is Erling Haaland the closest we have to the tush push? In the sense that you could do all you want to stop it. You know it's coming. Yeah, but you can't stop that. And it's inevitable. And quite often, more often than not, not particularly pretty, but super effective. there's a relentless there are just some things you know there are some and this is the greatest compliment I think for someone like Haaland there are certain players that have an inevitability about them and you can look at certain stages of certain great players careers where like like you know Thierry Henry had his run he was on obviously Del Piero mentioned earlier there are just phases where they run hot I think someone said in the Guardian Thierry Henry had seven seasons of sustained brilliance where it was just like every week you turned up you knew it was a show um there was a highlight clip i think it was psv van bommel and he was captaining them and henry is playing against them at highbury and they can't even get close enough to foul him they're trying to foul him with their hands and they they're trying they're trying to rugby tackle him and they cannot get close i mean that was the level and i think hall and i think there was a thing where he went you know it was last year i think he didn't get enough on the ball for his own liking actually because he likes being on the ball he likes the build-up play and i get why pep had that configuration it worked great all the rest of it don't get me wrong but but this haul and now i love watching young players figure out what the defense is sending them you see it like the great players have that thing they go through incredible they fly out of the blocks and there's like an adjustment where people are like ah we think we've got them then they add more like like on we added free kicks and on we added long distance shooting Messi added power from distance all of them evolve and I think Haaland again is he's gone to another level it's great to see I mean it's I mean it's also terrifying to see yeah I don't enjoy it against United let me just can I just hasten to add I don't enjoy it against us but you know I'm happy for him they've had six Norway have had six wins from six in the qualifiers and they are looking on course to to reach the World Cup for the first time since 1998 good for them good for them have you seen the list of men's players to reach 50 international goals go for it go for it please please please Paul Nielsen 36 games for Denmark but that was like way what was that like 1910 or something still though still cooking Sandor Koksys over Hungary oh man Gerd Müller so they're the only three players who are ahead of Erling Haaland that man cooked that there are some players actually at any time dude anyone whose nickname is dare bomber fucking get out the way so listen everybody out everybody out everybody out the water everyone at the box yep yep yep oh goodness while we're on the qualifiers though yes shout out to Cape Verde that's the headline that's the headline really like Cape Verde qualifying for their first ever world cup population just over half a million they beat Eswatini 3-0 Eswatini have a population twice theirs to put that in context and Cape Verde been brilliant in the AFCON and all they were really lacking was the finishing touch in a couple of big games but they've been a team that's been playing some great stuff for a while really exciting for them they beat Cameroon on their way there as well like that is incredible That's a wild result man It's incredible what they have achieved The last AFCON it felt like they were really on the way to something there were signs there right?

19:38It was the one do you know it was it was two AFCONs ago and the way they were moving the ball that's it yes the way they were moving the ball through midfield I'm like these lot are like they're so good do you know it's like when you saw there's a couple of times you've done that where you've watched games you remember like you always mentioned Tuchel's first game in Chelsea against Wolves and you always meant and it felt that felt like the AFCON two AFCONs ago felt like Cape Verde then in terms of I was watching the organisation the way they closed gaps they made the transitions and the goals weren't there it was the only thing that was lacking and they've added that now like they scored three away at Libya and they came back had a lot of resilience to come back from 3-1 down got a big win against Cameroon still strong against Angola in both games so excited and now obviously the World Cup's been expanded and we have our criticisms of that from an environmental perspective we know that but also in terms of what this means for individual nations couldn't be happier for them couldn't be happier for them Qualifiers already.

20:39We've got the three hosts, Canada, Mexico, USA. Uzbekistan going for the first time as well. Yeah. Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Uzbekistan. Jordan's first time as well. Congratulations to them. That is the good thing about the expanded tournament. Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, New Zealand. And the thing about this is these qualifiers, right? Right. This isn't like 30 years ago where teams would get just absolutely cooked. Like if you look even at the Faroe Islands, you had an amazing two-on-one over the Czech Republic, which is ridiculous by the way.

21:14But here's the thing about that as well. The Faroe Islands, their biggest defeat isn't that big. I think they lost like seven, eight nil. So this, the gap between the biggest teams and the smaller ones isn't that big anymore. And we saw from the last world cup with like Saudi and Argentina you come in on like a bad day right and let's say you're you're you're country that like a lot of expectation in a big tournament your players are a bit knackered and maybe they're just kind of going through the motions and you're up against the country but they've literally been preparing their entire lives for that 90 minutes this is what makes I think the world cup group stage interesting because somewhere in there there's got to be there's got to be a historic result somewhere in there yeah that's what's exciting about this i think and i think that the the intriguing thing about the expanded world cup is the it's how so look we've talked about this before and i think that the expansion of tournaments like this it always feels like it's done for other reasons than quote-unquote the good of the game right yes yes if this is going to be the way that it's going to be then we have to figure out a way to make it A, as easy as possible on the players, as accessible as possible for fans because as we've seen with the ticket stuff around this World Cup, it's been an absolute nightmare.

22:31If you're going to critique that stuff though, we have to take the positives out of it because otherwise, what's the point? And I think that these are undoubtedly positives of this format, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm intrigued to see how those three-team groups work and go into what you were saying about there's an upset in there somewhere. whether that means that there might be one or two big, big favourites who get caught on the hop a little bit and don't have enough wiggle room to recover in time, and then they're gone. Yeah, and this is the thing. Slow starts to a World Cup. Before, you were managing your games differently, and now you're like all these new variables.

23:09You're having clubs, you're having countries that you haven't scouted that you know even less about. And some of those countries, the Faroe Islands are showing it. they may not even go to the tournament what they're showing is how deep the tournament actually is yeah if they can catch you like on an off day and it's we said this before it's all about matchups and a team with a strong matchup that can counter and like you look how good those teams are now at like absorbing absorbing like like was it slovenia in the against england the euros like everyone talks about england were terrible that slovenia defensive performance was almost Paraguay levels they soaked up everything.

23:53Paraguay that was a World Cup 2010 and Xavi came out afterwards he was like that defensive system was spectacular and anyone who'd been watching Paraguay like late 90s even though that Paraguay team for like the 12 years they were on that tournament run you couldn't like they were horrible no one wanted to face them. France didn't want to face them in 98 and Spain the hell of sure as hell did not want to face them in 2010 so it's like I'm intrigued by what, for me, the story of this World Cup is not going to be the big teams actually. It's the lesser fancied ones. That's the aspect for me that I find the most intriguing slash exciting going into next year.

24:28Yeah, I agree. They have so much to lose, those big countries. They have so much to lose. Well, I mean, should we pivot onto a couple of them? Because we're recording this ahead of England's game against Latvia. That's what takes them there. They've looked quite good. England have looked good actually in recent games. I mean they're yet to concede a goal in the qualification which even though some of the games have not been mega fun to watch right but last night Germany beat Northern Ireland 1-0. Volta Mala doing big things again they've got themselves an absolute gem they're gonna have to wait a little bit longer because they're in a four-team group right but just conversations again it feels like we go through this every cycle where there's been a lot of criticism of Nagelsmann and I think what that Germany squad is now I know it's a new look Germany squad they without a couple of players who retired from international duty after the last tournament.

25:17You know, we were talking about the plus of this or the added excitement that it gives for teams potentially qualifying for their first World Cup or the first World Cup in a while. Is there any real, what's the word, like? Jeopardy. Not jeopardy, but do we need to pay as much attention to the form of teams like Germany, England, Spain, France going through these qualifiers? uh short answer is yes because it pays people's bills that's why there's this scrutiny there has to be a narrative you can't just have it being uninteresting you can't just have a national team manager working things out with players he doesn't spend more than a few weeks with who are trying to adapt to new clubs themselves that doesn't work as a narrative like this germany team that played if you look at it Goretzka and Gnabry as the two eights is not a terrifying proposition for a defence that sits deep it's not like they're not very good players they are but most of Gnabry's most dangerous work has been done in wide areas his entire career Goretzka has never been someone that breaks down a defence with dribbling the top of the box he's someone that runs late so actually if you see that as like a Northern Ireland defence as a back five you're thinking actually we can kind of we'll do alright against them and they did actually they did do it right well yeah i mean this is the thing right because nagelsman afterwards basically said that the important thing was what how the table looked not what there was not what not what no excuse me not what the performance was like really yeah and he i think paid credit to northern ireland by saying look this is this is not this was not going to be an easy game where we could just play a load of football right so the points were the main thing and i think that this feels like echoes of their Euro 2020 qualifier.

27:04Not qualifying, sorry, because they were hosts, but the friendly run that they had up to it, their pre-Euro 2020 form, where they were experimenting a little bit as well with some new personnel. Do you remember the Kai Havertz at left-back days? Ha ha ha! I do remember. The streets will never forget. Never forget. It was Turkey. Was it Turkey? It was back-to-back. People were giving them a bit of a hard time still at Arsenal. Anyway, there was loads of talk about Nagelsmann and Germany and what they were looking like. And is this team progressing? Or is this really the manager? Is he kind of a bit out of his depth here?

27:39He's only in his 30s. This is a big job. We've got home Euros coming. And I genuinely think they were the best team in the Euros. I think they could have won the Euros. I think that they got a howler of a decision against Spain. Should have. And if they got through that game, I think they go on to win the Euros. I think that was the fight. That felt like the final in terms of who. I agree. I think England were a very, very close second or third best team in it, just from the sheer amount of quality that they have in that squad. Because I think that's the thing about England. England's squad is so deep.

28:11But in terms of the best team, the way that they could hurt you, the tactical stuff, Germany and Spain were the two best sides there. Because we've seen it with Tuchel, right? And I think with Tuchel, there's an extra element to it where it's like, it's a German who's coaching the England squad and it's his first qualifying run and he's the first German to manage the England men's team. So I don't know what you think about this but I don't really look at the form of teams going into qualifiers because it's a different format. It's a different set of circumstances. It's a very, very different energy to a tournament and I don't think it will tell you a huge amount about anything that's going to happen next summer.

28:52The only team that I think, weirdly, the only team that gives me any kind of indication consistently how they're going to be in an actual tournament is Spain. If I look at the last few years of international football, in terms of countries, like countries you expect to be the frontrunners. Just vibe-wise. They're the only country I look at. Yeah, I feel that. They're the only ones where I watch them and I go, oh, this result means something in terms of how they're going to play in the actual tournament. All the other ones, I can't really tell you. I don't know whether that's the way that Spain specifically constructs stuff or how they use a fairly settled lineup.

29:22I don't know what that is, but that's what I tend to get from them. Everybody else, you're kind of just trying to get through the games because you have other people, you know, if you're playing in the course of an actual season, you have clubs competing for the players' time. which you don't have at an international tournament. So a lot of these conversations, the noise is generated, I think, by really the journalists of the country. So lots of conversations around England about the personalities within the England team. I mean, all of that going on, you know, I would only say that it is not the first look.

29:55It is not new for a national team to produce its best form without necessarily its best player at the centre. We saw that with Spain and Raul. it's not a new thing it's not even a reflection on the specific player it's just the way that international football goes international football what you're trying to do what you're trying to do really is raise the floor of the entire enterprise yeah we said this before that international tournament football specifically is inherently quite conservative because extremely the margins are tiny you don't have games to recover you know yeah there have been really super fun international teams in the past but I think that especially now when everything is a little bit more homogenized the base level is so much higher than it used to be the huge gaps in quality as you alluded to earlier when we were talking about the qualifiers it's just not really there as much there are obviously big, big gaps between the best teams and lower ranks teams but I think that just the level that you have to be It's astonishing.

30:53The skill level even like, you know, the freestyle tricks there was a time when the average professional footballer wouldn't have a freestyle skill set and now it's It's absolutely commonplace. Well, we talk about like Virgil van Dijk, right? Virgil van Dijk stepping out of defence and just like hitting through balls that would be front and centre of like a PLO highlight reel. And look, there have been ball-playing defenders throughout history, right? But they've always been really, really revered. And now, you know, man, like nowadays, keepers are getting like sent away to other clubs because they can't be depressed.

31:30They can't be depressed. Keepers are like, man, do you know how many plates i'm spinning here like not only have i got not only are my errors the most the most critical for the team because they are literally a goal i now have to like figure out a way to thread needle like thread the needle as well can you imagine like rappers from the like the late can you rap it's in the late 70s and like early 80s coming forward in time and seeing anderson puck and the man is dropping and rapping and singing you'll be like what the hell has happened come i i thought i could merely just know you you can't just be the best rapper on the planet anymore even even even these other guys they're singing now it's it's they're melodic they're doing everything it's just come on you can't even be a jack of all trades as a footballer anymore you have to be a master of all trades a boss of all trade you have to just completely cook on everything positionless and it's it's not going to stop it's not going to stop like you the amount of evolution we're going to see in football like i'm expecting to see a game where Luminium R gets played as a nine.

32:32Like a straight ahead nine. At some point in his career, that's going to happen. Do you want to know true evolution? If you get Unai Simon up top, that's what you were. That's where we're going. Oh, we're going there. We're going there for sure. Everything's going back to the 90s. Two backs of four, big man up top. David James went up front for Man City. Here's my conspiracy. Well, here's my conspiracy theory. Here's my conspiracy theory. That's what Pep is building towards. Pep is doing all this. That's why he bought Donnarumma because he wants to play Haaland has got a rubber up top. Big man, big man.

33:01It is. It's the evolution. It's like, oh, what's the final piece? Oh, what's the missing piece? He's like, ha, ha, ha. Wait till you get a load of meat. It's all a con. It's a heel turn. Rico Lewis in goal. Sorry. No. Oh, right. No. Riley. Really? Yeah, yeah. He's going to move her from left back. I was just thinking, like, who's the smallest player in the Manchester United? It's like Foden in there. Oscar Bob. Foden in goal because they realise that actually Phil Foden can beat the press better in goal because he has a little bit, he can see the whole game in front of him and also his late runs from his own box.

33:34Pep's going to, this is all the master plan. Oh my God, that's Phil Foden. You know, the thing is, you can imagine Pep explaining in his coach's voice, yes, we realised that actually in training we were trying, we actually were doing closed sessions where actually we were trying Phil Foden in goal, testing his reflexes. This has been part of the plan. You can see it. Dude. The most Pep thing ever. You heard it here first. The wild thing about that is that it wouldn't surprise me. I know that's incredibly silly. The thing is, the wild thing is, you know that somewhere there's a scrapbook. Somewhere in that man's scrapbook, he's thought about it.

34:05He's like, I can't do this. I can't do this. It's like, I think Pep has like an angel demon on either shoulder. And the demon's going, Pep. Sometimes when I see a Pep team, I'm like, I can tell when this man's had intrusive thoughts. He's let them win.

34:23you look at pep like that's definitely an intrusive 11 intrusive thoughts 11 yeah oh

34:43you'd have to play eight defenders you would to remotely handle that and then pep goes after of Volta Marda. They signed Volta Marda in two years for 100 million and he plays a front three of Donnarumma, Haaland and Volta Marda. You know there are set pieces for like Donnarumma and Haaland. There have to be. There have to be. Anyway, how did we get onto this? We were talking about Germany. They knew what this was. We were talking about Man City playing three absolute units up top. They knew what this was. Well, yeah, I suppose there you go. Nick Volta Marda is the segue back to Germany. Yeah, shout out to them.

35:18Look, can I just say on Germany in their defence if you look at the squad and who they had available there's not really a radically different team they could have played and got that result like yes IDM we know can play on the left flank but Vietz is just holding down that flank it's a pretty solid team Pavlovich supplying them Rahm had a great game and that's also because he tucks in he's having a very good season actually I just think it was the best available team and it's the best available result you don't thrash a Northern Ireland team that's well disciplined that knows what's coming and Germany didn't have they don't have Messiaen there either like it's not it's not a wild amount of options you don't have Gundogan you don't have Kroos you don't have you don't have those four players all playing in perfect sync like they were at the Euros that team that sort of quartet could unlock anybody and you don't have three of them so actually I almost feel like the results the question is more like what are you expecting respect to Northern Ireland oh you think you're just going to crush them.

36:19Like, what is the basis on which that opinion is formed? You see it with England as well. Like, oh, we should do X and Y to that team. Well, actually look at what that team consists of. Extremely experienced players that know what you're about. This isn't like the mid 80s where you didn't see a team you couldn't scout them in depth. They've all got the files on you. They know what you like to do and how you like to escape scrutiny. I don't know, man. Like, even watching England beat Wales, for example. look at the lengths England had to go to to break down Wales initially look what Mark Gay had to do look at the work he had to do to cut into spaces look how good Saka had to be like these aren't these aren't gimmies anymore but I think it suits narrative to say they should be gimmies and the biggest um victims of that were Brazil in that World Cup in 2014 when everyone's like oh Brazil just crush everyone it's like I don't think you understand the opposition that Brazil are playing.

37:12They did well to get past Chile, frankly, in the second round, let alone get to the actual semis, you know. Anyway, rant over. No, I just thought it was interesting because I've seen a lot of talk, you know, I've seen some stuff around England, I've seen some stuff around France, I've seen some stuff around Germany. Italy are perpetually kind of just like, oh my God, are we not going to qualify for the World Cup again? Which would be bad. They're an incredible, Italy are an incredible, their ability to regenerate and to come back and be dominant. And the thing that concerns about Italy, I think at this point is that the domestic league is not particularly strong.

37:49I think in previous years, when Italy had like bounced back, they'd always had like a really strong domestic league, like a quality of talent to draw on. And I'm not saying they're not like really good players still. It's not that because obviously they'll say, look, we got to a Champions League final, but I'm just concerned. I'm not, it's not a knock on them. It's more like a country that's got this incredible footballing heritage. and I just hope they keep keep that talent line coming because there aren't many major countries that can get away with being out of international football or at the peak for that long like you do fall off if you're not sort of consistently getting your vitamins but yeah they should be okay but it's amazing how they yo-yo though isn't it it's amazing completely wild anything else you want to touch on today?

38:35I think that's all from me I think I'm good quite enjoyed that chat to be honest yeah very much so yeah loved it thinking about Donnarumma up front now alright well let's get out of here because we're going to be back tomorrow and yeah quick reminder we'll be back Wednesday and Friday this week anyone listening on the free feed don't forget if you want to listen to those episodes ad free in full you can sign up for Stadio membership on Patreon patreon.com forward slash Stadio if you want to join the Stadio social club as well there are a few social club members in various cities around the world trying to meet up this weekend to watch some games together.

39:09So if you want to join the Stadio Social Club you can do that via our Patreon as well and have access to the Discord and you'll find out all the details there. Don't forget to check the Stadio Actress Place on Spotify. Speaking of which we're playing out on Social Climbers a track called The Day the Earth Stood Still. Anything you'd like to add Mooseok Wonka? Nothing further. Alright everyone much love back with you tomorrow. See you then.

39:38Thank you.

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41:37Thank you.