WORLD CUP DAY 4: 19 goals and teasing Tuchel

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1:15Hello and welcome to The Game, a football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. This is day four of our daily World Cup shows, your essential morning briefing on the 2026 tournament. I'm Tom Clark and on today's show I'll catch you up on all the action overnight. Hear from Matt Lawton in the England camp and discuss FIFA tickets and water breaks with Martin Ziegler. Now last night we had 19 goals across four games. There were some absolute crackers amongst them. It's a pretty tough call but I think I'd probably go with game of the night as Netherlands 2, Japan 2. Ian Whittle was in Dallas for us and sent me this note with his final thoughts on the game.

1:55I'm just about to leave the Dallas Stadium, the AT &T Stadium, as it's known to NFL fans. And the first takeaway is you can probably hear lawnmowers in the background, which tells you the turf that they've laid on top of the artificial turf here at the stadium for the football games is being well taken care of. And it really is a magnificent stadium, really great facilities. That's all good news for England on Wednesday ahead of their opening game, of course. not least of all because there's a roof and air conditioning in here when the temperature outside was touching 100 degrees 35 celsius yesterday so that's a bit of good news for England and supporters but this was as I'm sure you've discussed and I'm sure you'd agree a cracking game maybe it'll prove to be one of the best if not the best of the of the group phase I thought the first half was pretty decent there's a lot of criticism I read online about it being boring but I thought it was very interesting and then the second half was just just a cracker what was the biggest takeaway for me after the game was the contrasting reactions and emotions from the two press conferences.

2:58Ronald Kerman had what I would describe as a very tense, tetchy press conference with the Dutch media. They were questioning a lot of his decisions, not least of all in the 70th minute he took off Rinders, Somerville and Mallon, which gave up a lot of sort of attacking threat, creativity. It looked like he was maybe settling for the 2-1 lead. And of course, it backfired when Japan got the late equaliser. The Japanese, in contrast, their manager, Hajini Moriasu, is really, really enjoying being centre stage. They're clearly a country that is on the up and up. Whether they can improve on their best ever performance, which is the last 16, remains to be seen.

3:40But I think there were enough indications here today that they will be a difficult team to knock out if, as probably a lot of us expect, they do get to the knockout stages. He was pointing out, Moriassu was pointing out afterwards that there are something like 100 Japanese players now in top leagues around the world. In fact, their entire starting XI is all European-based today. So there are obviously no pushovers. Holland found that out to the cost. Koeman was repeatedly pointing that out in the press conference and accused the Dutch media of showing a lack of respect for the Japanese. I think maybe they expected this to be something of a walkover.

4:15These two teams are definitely going to be worth keeping an eye on as they go forward, not least of all because it's a tough group with Sweden and Tunisia also in there. So plenty more to come from these two, I suspect. Some of it good, maybe some of it bad, and some of it very memorable and combustible, I would think, given the Dutch record at World Cups and the kind of mood that there appears to be within their camp at the minute. So stay tuned, really, on this one. Thanks to Ian Whittledare. Japan were brilliant indeed. It was very interesting to hear Ian talking about Ronald Koohen already being under pressure from that draw.

4:48I've got to say, for me, far more concerning is that Dutch kit. I don't know if you've seen it yet. It's not very orange. I'm sorry to be that guy, but it's really not. It's not the right orange, everybody. More of an electric salmon is what my wife called it. Not against a bit of electric pink salmon, but not on a Netherlands kit. Absolutely shocking. that draw meant that Sweden went top of Group F after thrashing a poor Tunisia side 5-1 Sweden manager Graham Potter looking very smart in his suit and proving that two expensive Premier League strikers are better than one Viktor Jokerez and Alexander Izak both started, impressed and got on the score sheet but the star of the show has to be Brighton's 22-year-old midfielder Yassin Ayari he scored two absolute stunners well worth catching the highlights of this game when you get up and about this morning in group e i was worried i was worried everybody about one o 'clock in the morning i was worried we were going to get our first nil nil draw as ivory coast battled ecuador in pretty feisty fashion it was an entertaining game but i was worried about that nil nil thank god amad diallo came off the bench to win it for the african side late on a brilliant finish this one as well.

6:00Definitely worth looking up this morning too. Diallo Strike, interesting this, I saw the stat from Opta, his strike was the latest winning goal by a substitute in a 1-0 FIFA World Cup match since Francesco Totti's 94th minute penalty for Italy against Australia in June 2006. Frighteningly, I can remember that one, I was 16 at the time. Germany topped that group though 7-1 winners against Curaçao Jamal Musiala Nathaniel Brown Alexander Pavlovich in midfield they were all pretty impressive in my opinion but let's be honest this was a bit of a mismatch chances are you probably saw some of this given the times that it was shown but you know what maybe Curaçao don't care our reporter Tom Ornett watched this game in Curaçao with the locals he's written a brilliant piece about his experience on the Times website and he sent me these thoughts on the game and on his brilliant day out hi tom yeah it wasn't to be was it but maybe it was to be i don't know i mean they lost 7-1 but that goal that moment you know such a piece of history and i think honestly i think if you'd asked a lot of curacao fans before the game you'll get thrashed but you'll score your first world cup goal i think a lot of them would have taken it i was watching the game with a lot of sort of local curacao fans in a kind of in a fishing village called um bocasami which is um actually a lot aware a lot of the friends and families of the players uh live so it's a real kind of nice intimate vibe you could tell they were all very well connected because uh not only were there a couple of quite nice cars flying around but also um all their shirts and caps and things all had like you know multiple numbers of autographs on them um so this was you know kind of like the people who are really close to the team who presumably you know haven't gone out to houston and it was just a really great atmosphere you know it was um right by the beach uh two or three sort of green i don't really call them really made out of concrete just kind of shacks or huts um they put a television up in the corner and just kind of a row of people leaning in basically on the on the on the on the shelf glued to the television screen and then rows and rows of people behind them you know all trying to kind of get a glimpse of of what was going on and you know when the guy went in just the roof went off you know it was uh there were fireworks there was this guy next to me who just had like one of those great faces he was i don't know he must have been in his 70s and he sort of had loads of gold teeth and a cap and sunglasses and his face was just kind of like pure joy pure disbelief um you could just tell from the kind of grin on his face he sort of had his hands in the air he was just kind of like jumping up and down for about two or three minutes i actually said to her i said how are you feeling you know but he didn't speak any english um he only speaks the you know kind of local dialect here but he but he did know the word great so he just kind of said great great great like over and over again um yeah it was a it was a really nice moment and yeah i mean you know when the goals went in um of course people were were glum and and sad but actually this girl came up to us afterwards because um mark aspland our fantastic sports photographer at the times took a picture of her i think when germany had scored and she was looking you know very kind of downbeat and she came over and kind of said listen i don't want you to uh put my photo in the times making it out as if i'm sad i'm not sad like we are we are winners we we're proud of the team you know and I think that was the feeling when the full-time whistle went okay you know the hope of victory or an upset had long gone but people were singing and dancing they turned the music up and actually just beyond the shack where we were watching it there was just sort of you know beautiful sandy beach with lovely turquoise water so yeah if I could get a sort of nice turquoise sea to go and dip in every single time you know my team lost that was the way to kind of swallow a defeat then I think you could do a lot worse.

10:01Thanks to Ian Whittle and to Tom Alnott there. In between all that excitement last night it was a busy one I can tell you. I did manage to also speak though to two other Times reporters who were out there at the tournament. First I call with our chief sports correspondent Matt Lawton to find out about England's preparations how they're coming along before that big opening game with Croatia on Wednesday. Matt welcome to the show it's it's an interesting World Cup this one isn't it from an England perspective England and Thomas Tuchel's side playing so late in the tournament I've been working every day I've got World Cup fever I've watched all the matches but when it comes to England we're waiting a little bit I've had quite a few readers and listeners get in touch with me saying look Tom I love your enthusiasm but the World Cup doesn't start for me until England start playing so it would be great to get you on just to tell us how it is in the camp how it is in Kansas.

10:54What's been going on? Yeah, like they only got here, crikey, you lose track of days, but yesterday, I think. And it's, the point you make, it's actually, it feels like that in Kansas as well, because it's this soccer capital of the US as it's sort of regarded. But their first game isn't until Tuesday, the Argentina Algeria game. So the Fan Fest has been full every night, 25 ,000 people. It was actually closed last night because a storm ripped through Kansas City. It was pretty dramatic. It wasn't quite, you know, we're sat in the Times house here and I wasn't quite thinking we were going to be whisked off to the land of Oz.

11:36But it was pretty dramatic when Hamza and I opened the front door. And I did actually go down to the team hotel late last night with Hamza. I drove down just to see that everything was still intact because they've got all these screens and these marquees and because the storm was so violent it just occurred to us having dinner that we might want to just check and check everything was okay. We ended up talking to a obviously because we looked quite suspicious these two blokes in the dark in this Ford Bronco and suddenly I predicted I said I bet I bet a squad car comes to talk to us and this police this policeman very quickly arrived in his big police truck and got out but he was absolutely charming and he ended up uh he ended up giving us a load of ready got his little notebook out that he normally probably takes his evidence on but he actually wrote out a list of uh restaurant recommendations great fun and started telling us how he had english heritage you know uh but no it all seems pretty chilled um that you know they delayed their training session today i think to try and get used to playing in the afternoon um dallas isn't going to be such a challenge because they're it's obviously indoors but they are just trying to get used to this heat it's actually a lot cooler today uh it's dropped to about 24 25 degrees right when i got here on thursday it it was 100 degrees it was unbelievably hot and what we lost from traveling up from florida was was the sea breeze um so you really notice the intensity of the heat here which again is another reason why I think Tuchel chose it I think it's been a pretty sensible choice of location.

13:21It sounds like you know as we talked about in the preview shows with you Johnny and Hamza and we've discussed since Thomas Tuchel trying to keep things very even very calm is that reflected in the players that you've spoken to so far is that mood obvious in the camp you know you've been at so many World Cups you've seen you've been at World Cups where England have had divided camps you've had unsettled camps does it look like that the England players are happy and that they are chilled I think the biggest thing Tom despite the fact that there was this this story about a theft which proved to not be terribly dramatic at all four pairs of training boots and one football and a couple of couple of toys honestly it was like when I read the list the uh the uh you know the the prosecutor produced the list of things that had been stolen.

14:06It was like the generation game. It was two cuddly toys, four shirts, four pairs of boots, five pairs of trainers. Yeah. But no, apart from that, which has caused quite a bit of fun, really, I think the biggest difference, actually, compared to a lot of World Cups I've covered, indeed a lot of tournaments I've covered, is there is no real drama. You know, I go back to Germany in 2006. You know, Rooney's arrival was delayed because of his broken metatarsal. I can think back to 2010. We'd only just got to, we were staying in Sun City. They were in Rustenburg. Capello chose this place that the players hated.

14:59I think it was so isolated. You know, you could have been in Cape Town or somewhere like that. but he chose this yeah we hope no one from rustenberg is listening but it was pretty uninspiring um but but yeah and and and and you know within days because there'd been all the drama in the build-up john terry had been stripped to the captaincy rio fernand had been made captain and he he suffered a serious injury in training so you know touch wood and and tucco was actually asked about this I can't remember now if it was in Tampa or in Orlando but but he he noted it himself and and was almost like I don't attempt fate but everything's gone well there's obviously a little bit of concern around Saka and this Achilles issue he's had since March but you know he and and Tuchel said himself he probably isn't a player that will be able to last 90 minutes but then I'm not sure many will because of the conditions I think Tuchel will be looking to change as many players as possible.

15:59But no, it all just seems very, very chilled. Everyone's in good shape. And I think the biggest thing, I think that performance in Orlando really lifted them psychologically. And I know Tuchel tries to play down the importance of Jude Bellingham. And it was to me that he snapped a bit the other day because I said to him, you know, we had our little huddle and this whole debate as it was at the time between rogers and belly and and i said i said you know thomas the rest of the world thinks we're completely bonkers that there's even a debate about this that we're talking about this because because people just can't believe you know the other 47 countries can't believe and in fairness i hadn't actually canvassed the opinion of the other 47 countries so it's a bit of generalization a bit of journalistic license Exactly.

16:52It was, you know, potentially to provoke a response. And he did, he did respond. And then I actually was, we then ended up in the sort of hotel foyer outside as he was then waiting to do the broadcasters and ended up standing with him. And I just sort of turned to him. I could tell he was still a bit miffed with my question, even though it wasn't supposed to be provocative. Yeah. But I did say to him, you may not have realised this yet, but there's nothing like England at the World Cup. You know, people are fascinated by this stuff. People are fascinated by what team you're going to pick. And you might think it's a game, as he called it.

17:27But it wasn't a game. It was a legitimate question about team selection. You know, it was proper sort of headers and volleys conversation. But anyway, but the point is, I've taken a very long time to get to this point, but the point is that I think the fact that Bellingham has missed quite a lot of the season with injury, He just looked like a guy that's two months into the season. He looked like a guy that is just hitting peak form in that sort of autumn of a normal football season. And I just think that's probably lifted everybody because he just looked sensational. He looked like an absolute world beater.

18:04I know it was against relatively inferior opposition. It wasn't even Costa Rica's best team. But he just looked so in control of everything that was around him and his touch and his passing and everything. And England need a player like that. The best England performances I've ever seen in tournaments, even going back to before I was a journalist, when I was a 20-year-old watching Gaza in 1990. You need that kind of spark. And I think he's got it. And I think he's lifted people. Yeah. In terms of those answers then Tuchel gave you, both on the record and then in the brief chat in the hotel, did you get any hints there?

18:43is he keeping everything close to his chest? Maybe not just about Bellingham, but about the team, about this first team we might see. We put so much on it. As you always say, England fans are so obsessed. Who's going to play? Who's going to be starting against Croatia? Have you got any hints for us? As I say, he called it a game and he wasn't prepared to play it. He picked up his ball and went home, basically. But although he always answers brilliantly, I have to say, I've sort of been around every England manager since Keegan, really.

19:17And, you know, he's hard to beat in terms of talking. You know, Gareth was excellent as well. They all had their qualities. But he's a great talker. I love his candor. But, no, he wasn't playing that particular game. And actually, what I did say to him, you know, you do understand how big a deal this is in England. You know, there is nothing like it. And we've talked about this before, Tom, where, you know, I compare, you know, as you know, I love the Olympic Games, but there is nothing like England at the World Cup. And he just stared back at me like I was a complete madman, basically. He just, he doesn't quite get it.

19:58You know, it's a football tournament. He knows it's a big deal. I love that quote that he said the other day when, you know, because I think one of the guys said to him, you know, are you feeling at all sort of apprehensive or any kind of pressure? and he said no no this is when i start to feel alive and i and and i like that i like the fact that he's actually thinking this is going to be awesome you know this this is going to be such a ride yeah and he's kind of got everything he wants you know he you know he's ended up where he wanted to be he got the hotel he wanted the camp in florida has gone absolutely brilliantly and I think they're in a pretty happy place.

20:38Yeah. And if you were guessing then, obviously Thomas Tuchel keeping his cards close to his chest, you know, you mentioned Saka's fitness concerns. Do we think we'll maybe see Madueke starting in that case? Do we think it'll be Bellingham? If you were guessing at this stage, Matt, obviously we're still three days out. So a lot can change, a lot can happen. And as you said, touch with no injuries on the training field. But if you were guessing now, what do you think England fans can expect? I think Saka starts and I think Bellingham starts. I do. And I think Gordon plays on the left, and I think, obviously, Harry up front.

21:09And that's the other thing. You know, Harry, you know, never mind Bellingham's sort of sharpness lifting everybody. The fact that Kane is in good nick. The fact that he didn't have his boots started. These stories that are flying around. They've actually got pictures. The FA have actually got pictures of the boots. They're not his sketcher match boots. There is not a picture of his sketcher match boots. Anyway, a slight minor obsession on him. of this stuff at the moment. But anyway, yeah, the fact that Harry is ready to put on those shooting boots and is in great nick and has scored all these goals.

21:46But no, I think that's the front four, if you like. And then, you know, I'm sure it's Rice and Anderson. It looks like Stones. I think there's a very good reason why he picked Stones in both games. you know I've heard before that he just even though Stones has struggled to get a regular place at City this season he knows how experienced he is he's got great quality on the ball I think he just wants him there in front of Pigford and then yeah I think the rest of the team pretty much picks itself really interesting Matt Lawton thank you for joining me on the game podcast you'll get loads and loads of updates before that big game against Croatia from Matt Hamza and Johnny on the Times website stick with us we're going to take a little break we'll be back with martin ziegler just after this

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24:01Welcome back to the Game Football Podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. These are our daily World Cup episodes and I'm joined now for the second part of today's show by Martin Ziegler, the Chief Sports Reporter for The Times and Sports News Reporter of the Year. Martin, you were at the opening game of this tournament, Mexico against South Africa, and you've been out there for about a week now. How's the World Cup going for you? We're always going to talk about some of the stories you've been writing. you're very much right about FIFA and obviously lots of matters off the pitch how do you think this World Cup's going for FIFA and for fans?

24:34Well I think that FIFA have been absolutely desperate for the football to start because it's been such a sort of tricky build-up for them lots of negative publicity obviously the sky-high ticket prices has been a constant thorn in the side of FIFA and Gianni Infantino and it's difficult to get away from that So I think they were desperate for the tournament to get underway. And now it has. I think we are seeing the football taking over, which it always does, to be honest. And the focus suddenly shifts to, you know, who's scoring how many goals against whoever. Yeah. In terms of that opening game, then you were there with Tom Allnett.

25:16You wrote a piece about some of the protests that were going on outside, but how they were kind of largely kept away from the football, if you like. what has been the kind of vibe? What was it like at that opening stadium? We heard so much before this tournament began about the cost of tickets, about whether tickets would be sold, about how much water was going to be, how much the drinks were going to be, all these kind of things. Does it feel like a tournament that fans are actually buying into at the minute? Well, I mean, I think first thing to say, it was absolutely incredible in the Azteca.

25:45I mean, it's a wonderful stadium and it should be on any sort of football fans bucket list to try and go there because it really is incredible. And the atmosphere was brilliant. It wasn't just inside the stadium. The whole city was looking forward to this moment for so long. Most of these, a lot of these people either weren't born when they hosted it in 1986 or they were kids at the time. So this has been a really big moment for Mexico. But it is a sort of nation of contrasts. There's a lot of money in Mexico City, but it's all within quite a small strata of society. So speaking to people outside the game and asking them how much they'd paid for the tickets, and it soon became clear, actually, most of the people who had bought tickets were from the sort of higher echelons of Mexican society or even someone had flown in from the US to go.

26:43And most of them had paid about£1 ,000 for a ticket. and when you think that's more than the average monthly wage for most Mexicans, it's a lot, a lot of money and you can see why people have been critical. It's your normal fan in the street has been priced out. Yeah, I'm just going to ask you about that in just a second in terms of one of the stories you've got on the Times website now but I think a lot of fans going into this have been pondering previous tournaments. You know, I remember a listener asking us at our game live event about the future of ticket prices at these events. I was speaking with Martin Samuel about this yesterday when I was working just over the phone.

27:25And that£1 ,000 mark is being touted around by a lot of fans as supposedly a good figure. You know, there was a video on social media of a young fan talking about getting tickets to the USA game last minute. And yeah, I got them for a thousand bucks and I'm just so delighted. And I'm like, mate,£1 ,000 for a football ticket. That's absolutely insane. is this the norm now for a World Cup is this what fans have just got to get used to for here on in I don't think so I don't think people will be ready to pay that when the next World Cup comes to Spain and Portugal, Morocco I just can't see it being of that level John Infantino, FIFA president has said that USA is a special case because that's what people are prepared to pay for, whether it's San Antonio Spurs v.

28:17Knicks in the playoffs or Super Bowl or any other big American sports event season, that's kind of standard. And this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a World Cup match. That's how he's framing it. But, I mean, if you look back to Qatar and Russia, the prices are really pretty reasonable. and I think they will be forced to return to something of that level. Yeah, as you say, interesting how it will progress. But interesting story from you on the Times website this weekend about the FA holding back some World Cup tickets to try and keep them at a certain price for England fans before their first game.

28:58Tell us a bit more about that. Yeah, so after a lot of the criticism from fans groups about the cost of tickets, A few months ago, FIFA announced that they were going to give each country around about 500 tickets for each match priced at$60. So, and that would be done on a ballot. and Infantino's when he gave his press conference in Mexico he was saying you know we got the we we have to you know the American legislation means that we can't stop tickets being legally resold for any price they want so you have the situation now you've got 500 or so England fans have got$60 tickets but what the FA didn't want is those people who are lucky enough to get them is just going and reselling them.

29:52So although people have bought them, these are all digital tickets, they're not a sort of cardboard or paper thing, the FA haven't released them. They won't release them until the day before the game because they don't want them to be sold off. So speaking to the Football Supporters Association spokesman, Thomas Concanon, he said that FIFA could easily have done this. If they didn't want the tickets to be resold, they could just not release them digitally until much closer to the time um yeah i mean that's that's that's similar to what happens with like a music gig right you know we all pay our you know we buy my bruce springsteen ticket but i don't get given it until 24 hours before maybe a couple of days right that's that's what we're talking about here yes um so i mean fifa say it's uh you can um you know all the money from tickets goes but you know it's a non-profit organization that goes into or football development around the world.

30:49But the fact of the matter remains is that they get 30 % fee from all tickets resold on their platform. So say somebody buys, you know, gets a$60 ticket and then sells it for$600. Not only does FIFA get the original$60, it also gets 30 % of any resale value. So, I mean, they're cashing in. I mean, it's almost like it makes sense for them, for people to resettle them because they get more money if that's what is their priority and that's what it seems to be. Yeah, a system slightly geared towards profiteering and making money as is often the case in football. Martin, I wanted to talk about your notebook, your weekly column in the Times Saturday print edition and always on the Times website on Friday evenings.

31:35The lead item intriguingly headlined about Gianni Infantino losing popularity at FIFA, but his colleagues will not challenge him, you're writing. Yes. So next year there will be a FIFA presidential election and Infantino will be standing. But I think everyone thinks he's just going to walk it and he almost certainly is because no one's going to stand against him. But at the same time, there is definitely feeling amongst quite a lot of people that what's happened around Trump and the Peace Prize and the ticket prices as well, it's actually quite damaging to FIFA's reputation. And I think the Peace Prize thing particularly has led to an ethics complaint by the Norwegian Football Federation.

32:30that's been very bad publicity especially when you think you know what trump's positioning has been like to a lot of fifa members i mean we've seen what happened with somalian referee trump has said some very negative things about somalia and other nations and who've been in the world cup so i think there's a sort of feeling about you know we we will stick with you know we will allow this person to continue being FIFA president, but we're not particularly happy with him. And in fact, when he announced he was standing at the last FIFA Congress in Vancouver, it was quite noticeable that there wasn't any standing evasion or people, I would say, a very muted round of applause from a few people.

33:14And I think that has actually caused him some concern. Interesting. Well, Martin, we'll definitely be keeping you up to date with that developing story in the weeks and months to come. Martin, in terms of FIFA and popularity, UEFA and their president Alexander Sheffarin is often seen as a quiet war between the two organisations, if you like, and you mentioned the Somalian referee as well. Of course, UEFA selecting him for their Super Cup match. But Sheffarin has been in the news again, a story that you're putting in the Times live file just as we speak now. A group of 13 countries have criticised Sheffarin for saying that the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams could mean uninteresting matches.

33:55I'm not sure I agree with him so far, but I see where he's coming from, potentially. Tell us a little bit more. Yeah, so this was an interview he did in Slovenia a few days before the tournament, and he said the expansion of the World Cup he's not convinced about, and he thinks there will be more uninteresting matches. But he did say that he knew for those countries going into the World Cup for the first time It was going to be a very big deal for them. But this provoked a joint communique from countries such as South Africa, the Cape Verde Islands, Caruso, Uzbekistan, the Congo, Haiti, and other African countries too, basically saying they're deeply disappointed by what Schaefer said in his remarks.

34:44and they think that football, it's our belief that the growth of football must continue to create opportunities, inspire new generations and strengthen the truly global nature of our game. I think this is a bit of a tit for tat as well because I had, you know, I don't even know who had seen these. They hadn't been widely reported these remarks by Sheffrin. So it suddenly clearly brought this to the attention of these countries. I think there's a bit of sort of manipulation of what's happening here. Because, oh, look what Sheffern said to us. Because I think FIFA was a bit stung by the fact that Artan is going to be appointed by UEFA to referee the Super Cup match between Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain in August.

35:37I think some people thought that was a bit petty by UEFA to sort of seize on that moment. Honestly, people talk about keep politics out of football. I mean, football is politics, isn't it, these days, Martin, at the very highest level. Dare I say that maybe South Africa should be focusing on their tactics on the pitch after their performance in that opening match against Mexico. Martin, two points I wanted to mention finally before I let you go. VAR is a big topic of so many of your pieces on the Times. You've kept readers up to date with all the developments, all the changes that have gone on in the game.

36:09How do you feel it's gone in the opening stages, in the opening games. You were obviously at that opening game where we had three red cards. I, for one, have been enjoying watching all the games back home. You've probably not witnessed this by being out there, but the VAR crew being introduced before the game, slightly like mafioso figures stood in their van. Always a slightly entertaining moment. It's a little bit like that moment at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when they introduce the contestants and they don't know whether to wave or not. These poor referees, not sure how to look down the camera.

36:38Do we look mean? what's the best way to look for a referee um but my nonsense aside how do you think the var has been used at this tournament we've had so many new rules as well that you wrote about do you think they've been going down well we've seen lots of them implemented already i actually think it's gone very well so far um the i mean the three red cards in the the mexican south africa match i don't think you could have much issue with any of them really Maybe the last one, perhaps if the referee hadn't given it, had just given a yellow card, perhaps the VAR wouldn't have intervened in that either.

37:14I think it was a sort of referee's call view there, that the VAR thought there wasn't enough to overturn it and probably wouldn't have been the same either way if it had just given a yellow. The other ones, though, I think there was little you could argue about them. Yeah. I mean, I think we've seen lots of little rules changes coming in. We saw a couple of throw-ins gone, overturned for time-wasting and things like that. They are probably moves that actually your everyman fan would applaud, I think. Definitely the time-wasting. And it's good that it's been used by some of the referees. I also saw in Brazil-Morocco that there was a corner that was wrongly awarded and that was overturned in about three seconds, actually.

38:00So the referee had given a corner wrongly because it had come off the attacking player. And three or four seconds later, he changed it. He obviously got the word from the VAR and changed it. So there wasn't a lengthy delay. And that's what had been the critical thing is if you're going to have these extra rules and extra powers, then you need to do it really quickly. there was I thought a really fascinating one in the USA Paraguay match where Almiron clearly dived and his guy and the referee gave a yellow card to the USA player now you're not really supposed to overrule yellow cards but you can for cases of mistaken identity and they used that sort of new rule around mistaken identity for the referee to go and look at this incident and um changes changes uh decision cancel the yellow cards to the usa player and book almiron for diving which is which was justice was done but there's been a you know people who look at the sort of var protocol so was it really mistaken identity um my understanding is that referees chief at fifa purely Ruggi Kalina looked at it and thought it was absolutely right but I wouldn't be surprised if we see the sort of language of the protocol around mistaken identity clarified so if there is a in a situation where there is a sort of dive then it can be done the other way.

39:36Yeah it's a very clever use of the idea of mistaken identity it's almost like we're in a courtroom now isn't it with lawyers going well technically it is mistaken identity I just mean a different bloke entirely on the other team that's who i'm actually mean and exactly but it's really interesting one to watch back home i was watching that game in the middle of the night in at home and even the commentators didn't really understand what was happening they were going oh my god he's sending him off oh no wait he's booking who's he booking i don't really understand this but no interesting to see them implemented like that and i dare say i at zeigs whether we're getting to a stage where i don't know about you but i have a kind of international tournament bingo and one of them is for fans of the Premier League to start saying, well, see, this is how VAR should be used.

40:16This is what it's like. It always comes up. It always comes up, dare I say. We're heading towards that already after a couple of days. I just wanted to finish by asking about water breaks, Martin, because chatting with Martin Samuel about this after the Brazil-Morocco game, and dare I say it's come up more and more, probably a case in the Scotland game as well, and it was obvious in the Curaçao game as well, changes of momentum. I mean we've all come into it slightly naively talking about the weather and the temperature going oh well they need water breaks but actually are we being conned here Martin is this about you know game management and people in America referring to a football match in four quarters now is it actually just about monetization ad breaks and changing the game as we know it?

40:57I think the original basis of the idea was definitely for player welfare, because the International Players Union at the Club World Cup were really concerned about some of the heat that the players were being forced to endure. and so that they've got to agree to have these hydration breaks midway through each half. I mean, you do have a, obviously in the situation, for example, in the stadium in Dallas, where it's sort of air-conditioned, temperature-controlled, you don't really need to have a hydration break there. But I suppose once you've got it for one stadium in the tournament, you really have to do it for everybody.

41:36But you're right, it does lead, I mean, coaches are using it, don't they, as an opportunity to give new instructions. And you say, is it all about money? Well, I mean, in the UK, if ITV is covering the match, then they are not allowed by legislation to have any more ANFIRTs anyway. So they can't put on ANFIRTs during a hydration break. That's not the case in other parts of the world. We've seen several countries using hydration breaks to show adverts, which obviously brings in more money for those broadcasters. Yeah, absolutely. Really fascinating to chat to Martin Ziegler, as always, giving you the latest on the biggest football stories off and on the pitch.

42:25Martin, thank you very much for joining me. That's all we've got time for for this daily episode of The Game podcast. Thank you to all the Times team who have joined me. You can keep up to date with the latest on the Times website with our live file and plenty of other big stories too. And we'll be back tomorrow. We'll see you then.

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