The WSL returns and, wait, was that an in-game interview?!

0:00Quick question, when was the last time a display ad changed your mind? Now think about the last time a friend told you about something they loved. Different feeling, right? That's how podcast advertising works. A host who's built real trust with their audience talks about your brand in their own words, in their own voice. It doesn't interrupt the experience. It's part of it. With Acast, you can access the world's largest podcast marketplace. Choose the right shows, the right audiences, the right format. Then watch the data tell you it worked. You're not buying impressions. You're buying influence.

0:33Learn more by visiting ACAST.com slash advertise.

1:03Musa Okwonga: Hello and welcome back to the Stadio Podcast. I'm Musa Kwonga.

1:06Ryan Hunn: I'm Ryan Hun.

1:07Musa Okwonga: Ryan, how are you doing?

1:08Ryan Hunn: I'm doing all right, thanks Musa. How are you doing?

1:11Musa Okwonga: You're doing better than me. How was your trip? Odyssey back from Dusseldorf. Train played by well over an hour and a half. Who would have thought it? Yeah, I was watching... A bit of Norman Shuldigong. Yeah, I was there. I was in Dusseldorf for the end of Ed Sheeran's... world tour it's lasted four years it's doubled in length because brexit basically means it's harder for like artists to get visas and travel continuously um but actually the reason it's i suppose most interesting to a footballing audience where i was yesterday the fortuna dusseldorf stadium i just have to shout out as an as a new favorite because it is stunning the acoustics in that place my god great vibes well we hope everyone's staying safe staying well

1:52Ryan Hunn: whether you've been to gigs or not. Indeed. A quick bit of admin. This week, we're going to do a show on Wednesday, a show on Friday, and Wednesday is going to be our chat with Lotta Wubhamoy, which we did on Friday at Colney. So that's going to go up Wednesday in full for Patreon members. Speaking of which, there's a slight change to the membership stuff. So if you sign up for a Stadio podcast membership, you get all the podcasts there's not going to be any extra podcasts for the social club um because we realize that some people just want the podcast they don't want all of the other stuff right so yeah stadio podcast members you get all the podcasts ad free in full from now on if you want to join up for the social club we have nudged the price down a pound a month so anyone who signed up for monthly memberships just your next but you have to do anything the next billing cycle it'll just nudge it down a quid.

2:48Ryan Hunn: We're in our first Stadio Social Club online Discord hangout on Saturday and we were telling people then and we've told people in the Discord about plans. Anyone who's signed up for an annual membership so far gets like a kind of little special membership card. Everyone else who signs up for an annual membership gets the original orange membership card as well. And yeah, if you want to sign up for an annual membership now, it's with the price reduction, it's under a tenner a month, it works out. and for the canadians yes definitely comes down a bit because sounds like that exchange rate was playing havoc the nightmare yeah with the canadians yeah patreon.com forward slash study you can sign up for whatever membership tier you like there and uh thanks to everyone who's signed up so far all right so today we're going to talk a little bit just about some stuff that happened over the weekend and maybe some other bits and bobs yeah do you keep hearing podcast ads like this one, for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization?

3:51Well, it's easier than you think. We're Acast, and we give you the platform to do it all yourself. Browse thousands of popular podcasts, choose the shows that match your perfect audience, set your budget, and launch. And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertise

4:20Ryan Hunn: Just very quickly before we move on to the football the news broke this afternoon because we're recording this late on Monday. Manchester City and the Premier League have reached a settlement about the Premier League's associated party transaction rules Manchester City released a statement saying that the Premier League and Manchester City FC have reached a settlement in relation to the arbitration commenced by the club earlier this year concerning the Premier League's associated party transaction APT rules and as a result the parties have agreed to terminate the proceedings. This settlement brings an end to the dispute between the parties regarding the APT rules.

4:56Ryan Hunn: As part of the settlement Manchester City accepts that the current APT rules are valid and binding. It has been agreed that neither the Premier League nor the club will be making any further comment about the matter. so reading between the lines so we're good we're good right we're good well actually it doesn't matter because we'll never speak of this day again we'll never that is what's incredible

5:22Musa Okwonga: no further comment that intrigues me more than anything else actually

5:28Ryan Hunn: that's literally the level of detail that's been released and we will not hear any more about it

5:32Musa Okwonga: you will not unless we choose to seek out it ourselves but we will not hear from them about absolutely silent. Yes, that's the other, that's the big news. Anything else in terms of breaking football news?

5:47Ryan Hunn: There is a thing this week about the, whether the Serie A and La Liga will be able to take games on Thursday. Yeah, that's coming out. Yes, we'll do well out on Friday because I think that that's going to make up the bulk of Friday's episode. We're going to have to roll our sleeves up, Moose. No shortage of clouds

6:03Musa Okwonga: to be yelled at this week.

6:07Ryan Hunn: Well, true. Very true. No shortage, yeah. But let's talk about some good stuff because the WSL returned this weekend, as did the Frauenbundersliga. And I'd like to start with the Frauenbundersliga, if that's okay, because at Union, host in Nuremberg, another side who came up from the Frauenbundersliga last season, they played their first game of the season at the 1st R.I. ended up 1-1, despite Union's, I'd say dominance pretty much dominance Union probably should have been out of sight they took the lead with a Lisa Heisler penalty and conceded right at the end and I think they were a little bit unlucky because they could have had a shout for a penalty another penalty for a handball in the Nuremberg box however it was given offside but on replay there was no one offside and then Nuremberg went down the other end and equalised basically right at the end of the game.

7:10Ryan Hunn: But a lot of new signings for Union and a lot of positives to take away from that. I think once these new signings have gelled, they're going to be a real... Strong. They're going to be... Yeah, definitely. Only four teams won on the opening weekend.

7:25Musa Okwonga: You know, one of those teams should have been Wolfsburg, but they were subjected to a brilliant comeback from Haas Vau, their first season in the top flight, who came back from 3-1 down with 10 minutes to go to draw 3-0. Probably the game, probably the tie of the weekend in the Fremde Bundesliga. Given the quality of the attack they had to withstand. So yeah, much credit to Tahar Sval. Very disappointing for Wolfsburg who already find themselves a bit behind Eintracht and Bayern who had a really good win against Bayer Leverkusen. 2-1 for them.

7:59Ryan Hunn: So Eintracht, top of the league after their 5-0 win over Essen. at Hoffenheim second after match day one they beat Carl Zeiss in a 4-1 away like you mentioned Leipzig third Bayern fourth and good opening weekend in the Frauenbundersliga pretty much so yeah let's go to the WSL because it was so back kicked off in style on Friday night with an absolute a banger Chelsea beating Manchester City 2-1 at Stamford Bridge I thought they rode the luck a little bit Chelsea have to admit

8:26Musa Okwonga: they're interesting Chelsea because they strengthened they brought Alyssa Thompson in a few days ago there's really a kind of a strengthening across the board in terms of Chelsea and Arsenal really trying to sort of duke it out for that championship and Chelsea starting really really well I think it's a tough win that tough win they ground out against very good City side who've got a great attack as we all know very much an embarrassment of riches up front but they didn't they were misfiring as you said we were chatting earlier about this and as you rightly said you rightly analysed it city really if they put good chances away should have come away with something uh but i thought chelsea you know very good value for the win um attacked well quite enterprising and just happy to get this out of the way this was a horrible fixture you know like i was talking actually we were talking to a lot of women more about this about how the champions league qualifiers are fraught with peril and there's always one big fish that goes out and i felt like this you know such a short season to WSL this was a real opportunity for like a banana skin and they handled it I think quite well actually

9:35Ryan Hunn: Speaking of potential banana skins I think Arsenal did well against London City Lionesses who have spent a ton of money after coming up this summer and Arsenal actually won a goal down an Aslany penalty really good penalty too yeah quite early on which yeah I mean a bit of inexperience from Katie Reid at the back. Made one good interception and then the second interception in that passage of play she kind of brought the player down. But after that I thought Arsenal were really really good and thoroughly deserved the win. We've got a debut goal for Olivia Smith who kind of drifted centrally and then drifted slightly out to the left, cut inside and then it was really funny.

10:20Ryan Hunn: Even though she was miles out, as soon as she dropped that shoulder and came inside it was like it kind of felt inevitable

10:26Musa Okwonga: peril you know what is what was interesting about Olivia Smith's goal is that it comes from an area of the pitch where actually I felt London City Lionesses were actually enjoying the most it's where their game plan I felt was most effective they were forcing the midfield back and across into areas that were fairly safe for them they had the whole play in front of them Caldente was getting shepherded back into areas to be more patient and she was patient throughout I thought she was really strong actually and you really saw the experience of some of the players they brought in they got Saki Kumagai in there in the back who had I think quite a strong first half.

10:55Musa Okwonga: Aslani obviously leading the line and they seem to be buying experience to really get them up to speed. Katie Zellem as well, putting in a decent shift to midfield. And the thing I loved about Olivia Smith arriving central is it just gave them a problem they hadn't anticipated. I don't think a lot of people are expecting a winger to come in and do that. I think they were expecting it to be much more sort of traditional hug the byline, which she actually did actually at certain points in the game. And she mixed up her strike really well. I think in terms of the different looks she was giving the Lionesses defence Arsenal took the lead on the stroke of half time through Chloe Kelly who was sniping pouncing again in the six yard box and after that it was pretty plain sailing yeah strong start from them

11:39Ryan Hunn: yeah very good indeed I think and needed it because I feel like London City Lionesses are going to take a lot of points off teams this season for sure they're definitely not going to go down

11:50Musa Okwonga: it's funny isn't it it's funny how they already look like solid in terms of

11:55Ryan Hunn: Yeah they look like an established WSL team already which they I mean they should be they've just Yeah totally yeah Like I said the amount of money that they've spent they've signed some veterans but they've also they're also bringing in Grace Gioro from PSG for a world record transfer in a summer of world record transfers and yeah a lot of a lot of money being spent there

12:17Musa Okwonga: I will say I was surprised by how much chemistry they had because even with all the new players, I was surprised by how much they understood each other's movement and Arsenal really had to be quite enterprising to break them down. I wasn't expecting them to gel as quickly as they did. Just elsewhere in the WSL, I have to mention the Merseyside derby and Vignola's brilliant hat-trick, half-hour hat-trick, outstanding after Liverpool took the lead and Vignola just... This is a one-person army, really, it felt like, on the counter-attack and The thing that I love about her in this game is just the patience and the skill to find her spots.

12:59Musa Okwonga: Really just devastating, like just being jockeyed, cutting inside, finishing really well for the equaliser, and then just running the show really after that. Really, really impressive from Everton. Yeah, elsewhere in the WSL.

13:11Ryan Hunn: Well, I mean, speaking elsewhere in the WSL, can we touch on what happened in the Arsenal-London City game? where I can't remember how long into the game it was, but it wasn't long into the game. London City Lionesses head coach, Jocelyn Pressure, was all of a sudden just, I mean, I kind of didn't know that this was going to be a thing. We can go across live now to the London City Lioness bench. And he was there with his headphones on and the microphone, just sat there looking at the game, but doing an interview while this was going on I was like what in the who asked for this what is going on like and it's funny right because it feels like there's been a bit of a discussion around this kind of stuff recently in football with the introduction of halftime interviews pre-match interviews I mean I know something like the managers have done pre-match interviews for a little while or some players have as well but it feels like it's done like way before the game It was recorded way before the game when they get there.

14:13Ryan Hunn: I have to say, I had a real moment where I was like, what are we doing here? Because first of all, he's not going to really tell us anything for a start. You're not going to get anything insightful out of a player or a manager at halftime or during a game because they're so hyper-focused on what's going on. and they're not going to give anything away because they have analysts watching and they're just not going to give away their thinking, right? Yeah. So I was thinking like, what is the purpose of this, right? And is this slight like, I think also in the US Open this week and ahead of the finals, they were interviewing the players coming as they'd done all their preparation, they'd done all their warm-up, they were clearly in the zone, they were about to go into a Grand Slam final and then they come out on the way to the court and individually they do interviews on the way out to the court and i was just like this weirdly is it doesn't feel like i'm getting any more access as a viewer it doesn't feel like i'm anything insightful like caveat also recently i've occasionally seen these i watched a thing the other day with thomas frank it's a sky sports premier league kind of like inside the premier league kind of vibe and they just sit there with a manager and they ask them questions about processes is actually quite fascinating just thomas frank explaining why he's not in a whatsapp group with the players and what it's or what it's like when you first get to a club what's the first thing you do how you learn get to know the players all this kind of stuff or i know michael larteta talking about what his actual day is like on a training day and it's actually quite it's like whoa shit this is quite yeah it's quite interesting you're not going to get anything like that really

15:53Musa Okwonga: at a game and someone actually commented someone actually was joking about the yannick Sinner interview saying you can tell exactly what he's going to say at a certain point and the reason you can tell what they're going to say is because they're locked in

16:03Ryan Hunn: well yeah and if you compare that and contrast that to the interviews that they gave after the match in the US Open Final Men's Open Final where they were invited onto the microphone and they were like the microphone is yours and they just spoke way more interesting way more insightful way more human way more personal

16:22Musa Okwonga: Sinner basically came out and said I have got to improve in all these ways I'm too predictable That's incredible. What more could you want from an athlete? The humility and the proactiveness of, I've just got to get back in the lab. So I think almost we get so much from athletes and entertainers already. And there is this slight danger, I think, of muddying the spectacle. So, I mean, look at Rafa Nadal. I was talking earlier today, we were talking about this about how one of the most iconic preparations for any final, Rafa Nadal at the Roland Garros, like the French just really doing his exercises, like running up and down.

17:00Musa Okwonga: Can you imagine Rafa Nadal doing all of that and then you're going, oh Rafa, any thoughts? You go out there, he's like, I'm already locked in. I don't know, where does it... Would you interview someone walking up the 16th or Augusta?

17:15Ryan Hunn: Well, okay, so not Augusta, but this is where I find this stuff interesting because at first I was like, am I being a little bit like old man yells at cloud thing here? But then I was thinking, what sports... lend themselves it's sports it's sports specific I think I think each certain sports lend itself to a certain style of interviewing and a certain style of media access and what's happening I think is that they're trying to apply it to all sports and sometimes it doesn't work like for example you mentioned Augusta what they have been doing in golf is occasionally maybe like one or two players around at tournaments will have they'll give them like a give them a Bluetooth ear set like an Apple one or whatever and they'll walk after they hit their tee shot they'll walk the hole with them and they're they're explaining just based they're on the basically on the phone but the cameras are on them as they're walking down and they're just talking about what they were thinking about off the hole and it's like but that's if you think about that that's no different really to them just shooting the shit or chatting to a player another player that they're playing partner when they're walking down a golf hole right so that's actually not that intrusive because you're not they're not for example they cut away when the player actually takes the shot.

18:30Ryan Hunn: The equivalent to me would be like if they're actually in your ear the entire golf shot, right? Like, or you look at F1. I don't like it for golf either. Like F1, they go to...

18:41Musa Okwonga: I don't like it for golf either. I'm sorry, I don't.

18:43Ryan Hunn: I mean, I think that's actually been quite interesting because of the way that it's handled, right? But it's handled with a lot of care. For example, I think they do it on CBS in the States. And Trevor Immelman usually is the guy who's asking the questions. So Immelman is like, He's a former player. He's a recent player. He was a President's Cup captain. He was a major winner. He won the Masters. And he's very respectful of the players. You know, obviously very analytical. He knows them well. And I think it's different. They don't do it at majors and they don't do it like in really high pressure environments.

19:16Ryan Hunn: Does that make sense?

19:17Musa Okwonga: That's more, I mean more like, yeah, I'm like the sanctity of the high pressure moment.

19:22Ryan Hunn: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this is where I feel like if you look at the tennis side of it, it was interesting because for me it actually punctured the the kind of excitement or the build-up it actually felt like it came down a bit because you're seeing them warming up and you're seeing them kind of go through their routine and then they're out and they're just kind of like hello yes do you know i don't play tennis now i don't i must say even like the

19:47Musa Okwonga: when teams win trophies and there's cameras in the dressing room i'm like i don't i don't want to be in here like i don't think i should i don't think we should be in here you know like there's there was that amazing time when like remodred have won i think a champions comeback and you have the camera follows modric and modric is walking in and like everyone is like hugging him thank you it's beautiful right it's beautiful and also there's a party that's like i i shouldn't see this in the sense of because when do you get when do you get your actual post-game euphoria you've just come out and you're like wow amazing we've won like you're not going to get that spontaneous outburst of joy because the cameras are on you so you can't be fully

20:27Ryan Hunn: i think that was a bit different though because i think that was a club thing so this is where like if there's a club specific thing where you have where you have something that's filmed and you decide to put it out there as a like a thing like a behind the scenes thing like for example the other day there was some great behind the scenes stuff with abraccia as a after like him looking at the footage back of his and like him walking out onto the pitch before the game you know like things like that are like really really they're really beautiful but what i'm talking what i'm talking about is almost like the like contracted media access right so this is what you have to do we have to have a player for like a half-time interview we have to have a a manager who's like being interviewed on the bench or something i think that when it becomes

21:09Musa Okwonga: you know like obligatory i then yeah i i yeah i struggle it comes a bit like and i but i thought

21:16Ryan Hunn: So basically, it's a bit of an experiment. It's not quite the turnout of national elections or whatever. But I put a poll in the Stadio Social Club Discord just to be like, maybe this is just me and everyone doesn't really care about it. I put pre-match, during, and halftime interviews. Three options. Like them, add something to the coverage. Don't like them, doesn't add anything to the coverage. Or three, meh, not really fussed either way. so we had 2 % of the vote was like them add something to the coverage 18 % of the vote was meh not really fussed either way and 80 % of the vote was don't like them doesn't add anything to the coverage I just don't think it does

21:57Musa Okwonga: I get that because again like why are we constantly interrupting the flow of the process why are we constantly like the desire to get ever closer to the action And we have that already in so many podcasts and maybe, maybe the success of that content, maybe the success of the content where you've got players talking to players and coaches talking to coaches. I actually understand why it triggers the desire to be charitable. I understand why it triggers the desire for more of the same, like the Andy Roddick podcast, tennis podcast is brilliant. Agassi just breaking down why he thought, how he realized actually I'm never going to beat Nadal or, when you have like Djokovic and Murray talking to each other about strengths and weaknesses so candidly, tennis actually is driving a lot of that stuff.

22:48Musa Okwonga: Basketball too, with, you know, the rise of the LeBron's podcasts. But again, those are in environments where they're settled, there's no obligation. But when you're mandated to talk to X, Y, Z, you're in the process of having to turn a match around. Okay. And then you have to like give insight into what's going on. Well, everyone can tell you're two goals down. What are you doing it for? Are you doing it for the unguarded moment, which is like then viral gold. And then like, of course, at that point in like half the game, you're thinking, I don't want to create viral moments. I just want to like, you know what I mean?

23:20Musa Okwonga: Like, and that's your most unguarded. And also the reason I'm slightly protective of, of the athletes here is all that talk about athletes not interviewing well. Like, oh, they're not academic. They're not this. They're not that. And it just creates more room for like, for just discomfort.

23:35Ryan Hunn: I think it's just, I think my, the reason why I wanted to talk about it was because of how alien it felt in a football sense. And I think it was more of a kind of like trying to get a temperature check on what everyone else is thinking about it because I'm personally of the, I don't want to kind of like yell at everything new or any like innovation in a football sense being like utter woke nonsense, right? That's not what I'm getting at. But what I find interesting is that it's like an entitlement. why haven't we got access to all of the players all the time or a manager while they're on the bench doing their job but then also at the same time one of my favorite things ever in sports media was the ongoing bit between Greg Popovich and Craig Sager for years but I think that that's such a like a cultural part of what the NBA coverage brings you rarely get a huge amount out of the players that's like whoa that or any manager that's going to make you really really You think it's usually like, yeah, we need to do a better job of getting stops or, you know, we kind of need to figure out transition defense.

24:39Ryan Hunn: I think the nature of NBA coaches as well. Look, I mean, you think about NBA coaches sit near, like right near the crowd.

24:45Musa Okwonga: There's no dugout, right? So you're interacting already. And then also NBA coaches have control over, literally have control over when games stop. So you, you, you, you have so much more agency as an NBA coach and you have so much more, it's so much more interactive. It's not uncommon to have, certainly, bench players talking to the crowd, drawing off. The whole thing is much more of a social context, right? It's so much more social. The problem comes, like you say, rightly, is where you're taking a template that works beautifully in one sport, or at least pretty well in one sport, and then just transplanting onto another one.

25:22Musa Okwonga: And again, it's context-specific, as you say.

25:26Ryan Hunn: I just found it interesting that even though the sample size was quite small that it was so far and away not a popular thing in the Stadio Discord because, you know, for example, we joked a little bit about RefCam recently and I think there are some elements to RefCam that are quite insightful like, for example, the Bundesliga released a bit of a montage of or like a highlights reel of the RefCam a couple of years ago from the Dortmund Bayern game and that was actually really intriguing because you were seeing key moments at certain points like from a very like specific you were right in it but i think having that after the fact felt quite like quite cool right because you can do that sporadically you know it's like when they do the uh you know the mic'd up stuff on the nba yeah that's really cool but like you wouldn't expect to just have that all the time and so i think it's i guess what i'm saying is it's like is this just a thing now that's going to be that's going to sweep across all football and it's just going to be more access more coverage are they going to you know is they going to be like and now we're going to go over to the Real Madrid dressing room and listen into their half-time team talk with David Alonso I think you know the all or nothing the all or nothing

26:42Musa Okwonga: all or nothing tore a hole in the space-time continuum it really was the beginning I think a lot of yeah I just think it was a level of access that we never thought we'd get and at some level, I'm not going to lie, I didn't really want, you can see sometimes there are clubs that are like, why did we sign up for this?

26:59Ryan Hunn: Yeah, I mean, some of it was interesting. I think initially it was quite interesting, the all or nothing thing, but then you realise that even the all or nothing stuff was being managed and signed off on. Of course, yeah. So you were never going to get anything too outrageous in there. Yeah, yeah. And so, again, it becomes a bit of a like, is it content for content's sake? as opposed to are you A are you A kind of giving the fans actually anything particularly like interesting or insightful and B if it's even more of a pain for players and managers to do it and you're not and then therefore they're going to like just subconsciously not really give anything more away than they need to you're just adding like another obligation in there for media stuff, which maybe doesn't need to be there.

27:51Ryan Hunn: And actually creates, I think it always creates a bit of an awkward situation for the people who are asking the questions as well, right? So I don't know. I just think it's an interesting time for football media in particular in terms of the broadcast set up because we discussed the Bundesliga media rights stuff a couple of weeks ago. And the space that that's moving into, which I find interesting. and we were actually in, even though we were, you know, we kind of have our thoughts about maybe where the best places to house those things are. You can understand the strategy behind it, right? I'm not sure I quite get the strategy behind being like, let's quickly send it over to this manager.

28:33Ryan Hunn: Do you know what we're edging? Do you know what we're edging towards?

28:35Musa Okwonga: What? We're edging towards, I'm going to say it, a halftime press conference at the World Cup final. We're heading towards, we're heading... We're getting a halftime show. so yeah we're heading well we're heading we're heading towards like like i don't know if it's called it gentrification contentification of the world cup or whatever contentification but what it is is like i'm only i'm only half joking it's all parts must be consumed what was it someone said the other day they're really using every part of the buffalo

29:09Musa Okwonga: i can't i don't know if it was a football context i can't remember i can't remember what the context was but like really using every part of the buffalo like every part shall be monetized stripped down and look the ref cam actually stuff on ref cam that's fascinating for me the thing i found interesting was you really get a sense and this is the thing that you saw when you went to the um the derby the speed of it like there's um yeah in the um during the summer pedro netto was in the counter-attack i can't much team they're playing against when he scored and just the the absolute, like when, when Pedro Neto puts in the afterburner and you're up close, like this is rapid, this is all rapid.

29:45Musa Okwonga: And you see the speed of the decision-making. There's a part of me that's actually like, can you imagine a ref count during that incredible 2011 champions league final? You would have really seen like everyone, everyone scatter. Like, so that those perspectives where you feel like, Oh my God, like that's incredible. But I think as, I think as fans, you want the players to produce their best. You want the conditions for them to be optimal, to do the best. And if this stuff is interfering with the spectacle, which is what we're all here for, really, then why is it there? But anyway, that's just my view.

30:19Ryan Hunn: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting time for that stuff just because, like I say, I didn't personally like it. But I was just more intrigued as to like, oh, am I kind of, is this just me being old and kind of maybe not needing this as much or not finding this particularly exciting compared to. like knowing like having you know been lucky enough to speak to some people within football and find that you know actually see how interesting things can be feels like a bit of a situation where nobody really wins right the fans don't really get anything particularly interested or engaging out of it it interrupts the actual maybe like flow of the game itself or the flow of the analysis if you're doing half time or the flow of the you know if you we're talking about the tennis the other day like the flow of the build-up to the tennis like i felt actually as a sports fan it it dampened some of the mystique around a grand slam final hearing the actual athletes before the game quick question when was the last time a display ad changed your mind now think about the last time a friend told you about something they loved different feeling right that's how podcast advertising works.

31:30A host who's built real trust with their audience talks about your brand in their own words, in their own voice. It doesn't interrupt the experience. It's part of it. With Acast, you can access the world's largest podcast marketplace. Choose the right shows, the right audiences, the right format. Then watch the data tell you it worked. You're not buying impressions. You're buying influence. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

32:01Musa Okwonga: yeah I see that I see that

32:03Ryan Hunn: maybe that maybe that's just kind of romanticizing sport a little bit too much

32:07Musa Okwonga: no no no no no I don't think it's an age thing because look how much new stuff has come into sport that we absolutely love like the coaches voice stuff like Mourinho breaking down how Inter beat Barcelona with you know that's to me that's incredible when you have the tactical psychological components Mourinho by the way unbelievable talker can't wait for that podcast when he has his own. A Mourinho podcast at this point. Should we try and get him on? Honest, well, do you know what?

32:33Ryan Hunn: Why not? Why not? I mean, he'd never, he'd be like, are you the guys who said I was like a cobra drinking Prosecco? He'd have a list of complaints and we'd love it. And then he'd lift up his sleeve and he'd be next to his Champions League tattoo or whatever it'd be. The tattoo of the cobra drinking Prosecco.

32:51Ryan Hunn: Dude, if that happened, I'd just be like, poof, unreal. And you would never see me again. Never see you again. Exactly. No, rightly so.

32:57Musa Okwonga: So I don't think it's an age thing because there's a lot of new stuff that we absolutely love in terms of content that's been created. We absolutely love it. This particular thing, I just feel like not even necessarily an intrusion. It's just that it interferes with the flow of... I think it is an intrusion. But you know what it is? It's like Usain Bolt on the starting line. Usain, have you got a few seconds just before? No, like I'm locked in. No, I'm not busy. I'm about to take off. I'm playing on a runway. I'm not. No, no. I've gone clear. And also I think, because you know what it does, it prejudices, it disadvantages people who like a particular type of pre-match ritual.

33:38Musa Okwonga: So if you're like an introvert and you're like in, you're in your inner world and you're just soaking everything, you're like, but if you're an extrovert, okay, I need to like, I'm vibing off this. That's a competitive advantage. If you're somebody that actually just likes riffing and you build off that, whereas other people are like, hang on a minute, my process is, it's very like monastic. I'm in my inner space. I was watching some old Pete Sampras recently and like the incredible thing about Sampras, it was very Ancelotti coded as in incredible winner or like loss of point, just like that hangdog expression is exactly the same.

34:12Musa Okwonga: Like you cannot tell from Pete Sampras' face really for most part in his matches what the score is. You can't tell if he's winning or losing. And again, punching that mystique. I mean, and actually good luck trying it. I think good luck trying it with the kind of older guard who grew up without any of this stuff. But I just think the younger athletes, because they're just so game and because we're spoiled in a way. They're very media trained though as well, which means they're not going to give much away. But we're spoiled. It's not just the media train. We're spoiled because their personalities are so engaging.

34:46Musa Okwonga: You've got Sinner and Alcaraz, right? We're lucky. We're spoiled with people like that because they're just quite obliging as human beings. You look at Alcaraz, you know speaking english like and ask the most complex questions and always makes a go of it will struggle through a sentence just because he wants to be engaging i think i just think we've lucked out a little bit with these athletes and we're just lucky they're so we're just lucky they're not stush basically can you imagine you imagine they're like just deeply anti-social

35:16Ryan Hunn: like now we're not having this that would be great as if they if the interviews were so so taxing for everyone that they they eventually just were like actually we're just gonna bin this off because or if like you go to a manager can you imagine if you're doing like a free to air like a bbc wsl game for example and like you cut to a manager like for a live game interview and they just start going on like a foul mouthed raid and you know the commentator has to do the whole like apologies if you heard any uh language there strong language bracing language yeah but

35:49Musa Okwonga: do you know what would happen if a manager did that you know what happened in real life the amount of complaints that manager would get from other managers you see you've done a viral moment now we've all got to do them because everyone's going to be chasing the everyone's chasing the rainbow now yeah i don't know man i think it's i think for me i think what i'm trying

36:07Ryan Hunn: to say if i was going to summarize this a little bit i think the the behind the scenes or the access style pieces of media stuff that come out you know for i'll shout out something like the tnt when they do the long cut of a champions league yeah game and it's like a lot of pitch level stuff you were talking about that before and you get the speed of the game there's a lot of like behind the scenes stuff there's a lot of cutaways to reactions that you maybe don't see on the main feed it's really interesting to watch again it's kind of echoing what we were saying last week about like just because you can do more it doesn't mean that you should do more and i think that also maybe there's a bit of a misstep on what broadcasters think viewers want you never really for example hear like oh my god what an amazing like yeah yeah yeah yeah um whereas you do you

36:57Musa Okwonga: do hear people go you don't hear what an amazing pre-match but you do hear people go wow incredible

37:03Ryan Hunn: look how candid xyz was about this yeah when those kind of and those kind of like pieces of content for want of a better term because i'm not i don't love that word but like when those kind of things happen they really happen and people like watch it all the time things that are being like pushed into sport like aren't really there you know and and if they happen in one sport it doesn't mean that like you know interviewing a guy on the second day of a test match who's been down at like fielding down at third man for like two hours yeah and it's basically and there's 10 minutes till lunch that's very very different to you're not gonna like you're not gonna interview oscar piastri live in the final in the final two laps of a race when he's either like a second behind someone but that's the drift though that's the drift look at the

37:53Musa Okwonga: look at the thursday look at the thursday look at the thursday the decision about whether to play games abroad these things these they happen in increments yeah they happen in increments what's that thing you know um i'm gonna sound a bit like an old man here but what's that thing in biology when you have like a common style it basically you have the host organism and then you've got that like random creature just hangs around it's not really bothering it but it's like i'll just sit on your back and just hang out and like the host is not too bothered and football's a bit like that with content like as long as the content's being made and it's just being made about it it doesn't really interfere i'm fine with it but when it becomes parasitic when the content becomes parasitic and it starts actually feeding on the host.

38:32Musa Okwonga: It starts actually dividing the quality of what's being expressed. Like now, we've just had a summer where we've been talking about player fatigue. And just after that conversation about player fatigue and air miles that players rack up, you know, for World Cup qualifiers, you're now going to have players commuting for league games. And that drift happened because people didn't really look at player calendars and take them seriously you know to mean like old man ranting at cloud yes but the cloud is slowly moving in an unwelcome direction in my opinion you know that you know that we've

39:06Ryan Hunn: i think we've referenced this before but it's that it's the movie life you know the organism that they take a calvin that's what it is good good movie that calvin was all like oh starting as a little pre-match during interview oh let's call it calvin and next minute it was eating

39:26Musa Okwonga: that's exactly what it is that's exactly what it is right so yeah even ryan reynolds didn't

39:33Ryan Hunn: stand a chance he didn't and he owns a football club

39:38Musa Okwonga: but for those who haven't seen it it's not rexman space

39:43Ryan Hunn: rexman space is an unbelievable i'd watch it i'd watch it

39:52Ryan Hunn: wow there it is we contain multitudes we should do an episode on clubs sci-fi movies or something

39:59Musa Okwonga: do you know what actually we should right now manchester knight is event horizon was that when the ship the ship travels the edge of the known universe and disappears into a portal and it's been to hell it's event horizon and amurim is the captain trying to stop for getting back to earth.

40:27Ryan Hunn: That's terrible. Where's the lie? Only a Manchester United fan could say that. Where's the lie though?

40:35Musa Okwonga: Oh dear. Oh, Amorim. Oh man, I feel for you. Before we dip out, can I also say, since I'm joking about Manchester United, shout out to the women who are actually top of the WSL. I don't want to be remiss by not mentioning that. They beat Leicester 4-0. So they are actually top of the WSL. They want that to pass unnoticed or unmentioned because it is a big deal. But yeah, so I guess that doesn't... There are things to celebrate about United at the moment. Yeah, sorry. You're going to jump in. No, I was just giving you a face.

41:09Ryan Hunn: Did we rant too much about just like modern football?

41:14Musa Okwonga: Yeah, modern football. it's got its struggles but in terms of spectacle I would say yeah look if we're talking about great spectacle what Spain did against Turkey in Turkey no less was extraordinary they beat them by six goals to nil

41:32Ryan Hunn: second biggest away win

41:35Musa Okwonga: it was like similar to like England-Turkey remember like England back in the day it was like the 80s again like this is a good Turkey team right

41:42Ryan Hunn: I think they've only beaten Lichtenstein by more away.

41:47Musa Okwonga: This reminded me of the 6-0 when they beat Poland in the lead up to the 2010 World Cup. It was that kind of, the dissection, when Iniesta was just like running wild. For Iniesta, they read Pedri. Pedri in this game, frightening. Frightening, you know, because the speed at which they interchange positions, the pockets that Pedri was dropping into, the spectacular opening goal, it's that whole thing like Pedri and his goals bangers, you know. certainly the opening goal was a banger cutting inside and just ripping it and he said that thing actually against he warned us the goal against Levante where he was like oh that went quite well I might try more of those which actually was putting the game on notice Pedri Pedri honestly like he's may I may I may I almost polite almost polite the way he beats the defender cuts inside and then curls in the corner and it's so easy it's within like five minutes and like if you're starting games like that if you're setting the tone like that and poor poor turkey the only thing they were victim of guilty of was was they were trying to play football turkish friend of mine actually were chatting about he was just like yeah spain actually eased up because they felt sorry for them it could have been worse and mickle marino with a stunning hat trick beautiful strike from distance i mean it's not often you'll have a game where spain win by that amount or just you know dominate a laminya mile is arguably not even the second best player on the pitch but that's just that's how stacked they are they're unbelievable so yeah Spain doing bits check out the highlights if you haven't already and yikes yikes all right

43:27Ryan Hunn: then well let's leave it there for today we hope everyone's staying safe and well apologies this is going too late bit of technicals and some travel yeah don't forget to check the stadio outros place on Spotify and speaking of which we're playing out on a track called As It Is by Clang. And also, as we mentioned, don't forget to become a Stadio member on Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash Stadio. In the meantime, anything else you want to add, Musa or Gwanga? Nothing further. All right, everyone, much love. Back with you on Wednesday. See you then. See we are

44:03Ending Station And a change

44:12Musa Okwonga: Just as I know

44:36Easy come And go under I rely

44:50And follow this lead Open the gates for them Syria Syria

45:04As it is Always

45:34Thank you.

46:01Quick question. When was the last time a display ad changed your mind? Now think about the last time a friend told you about something they loved. Different feeling, right? That's how podcast advertising works. A host who's built real trust with their audience talks about your brand in their own words, in their own voice. It doesn't interrupt the experience. It's part of it. With Acast, you can access the world's largest podcast marketplace. Choose the right shows, the right audiences, the right format. Then watch the data tell you it worked. You're not buying impressions. You're buying influence.

46:34Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.