The day Infantino & Trump BROKE the World Cup - The Sports Agents

0:00This has now put a cloud over the tournament and FIFA have brought this and Infantino has brought this all on themselves and himself. You're part of the FIFA team. That's good. This is kind of FIFA overstepping about the thing that everyone cares about, which is can my team win a game? FIFA had lost control of their own tournament. He's forever going to be known that this is going to be the Balogun situation, that this is going to follow him around for the rest of his career. That's the terrible thing for this player who had himself a ridiculous World Cup and opened a lot of eyes. And you definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize.

0:41FIFA became political and that ultimately means that the leader, in my opinion, has to change.

0:48This is a global production.

0:57hello welcome to the sports agents hi nadam all good no superb saying yourself how's america uh it's american yeah how are you how are you where are you just in a in a uk heat wave oh all right okay decent yeah no way i wouldn't like to be playing football in this heat i'd need a hydration break definitely a hydration or two just one or two would you reckon i'd probably need about seven in a 45 minute half i'll let you into a secret i played i uh played paddle on sunday with three former professional footballers who were all probably between 15 and 12 years younger than me do you know a fair play to you chappers fair play i think for those guys to ask you to be involved and for you to be able to back it and then go and work afterwards they want to admit to humiliate me nadam were they better or worse than you thought they would be oh my well Rooney and Joe Hart were incredible incredible that's a statement yeah very very good Micah thought he was Boris Becker reincarnate not that Boris Becker's dead but Boris Becker reincarnated and he didn't move a great deal but just stood at the net yeah with all due respect to Micah like um knees wise I think he looks like he's lost a lot of weight to be fair to him he's lost a lot of as is Wayne actually they've both lost loads of weight yeah fair play fair play and I think um but from Micah's standpoint I don't think he's helping the knees out that much so yeah he will be a net player I don't know what he was like when when you were around him football wise but he didn't shut up for the whole 90 minutes that we played he'd like commentated on the whole bloody thing from start to finish welcome to the professional experience chappers like footballers and pros being quiet is as rare as it comes it is relentless and worse though when you enter that environment you get a chance to see how competitive it really is and it's not mild is it no it wasn't anyhow just about survived uh it's been another big week at the world cup uh we'll come on to the football a little bit later but unfortunately we have to start with the politics but all i did all i did i asked for a review because i didn't think it was a foul and you know again i'm good at this stuff i didn't think it was a foul i thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled that was not a that was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything that you know would be different and I think it's I think it's a terrible if they wouldn't allow you know a top player maybe the best maybe among the best players on the team to play I think it would have had a big stain and I related just that feel I didn't tell him what to do I can't tell him what to do.

3:36So can Gianni Infantino survive his friendship with Donald Trump. Adam Crafton from The Athletic, who broke the story, and Hercules Gomez, former US men's national team player and current ESPN analyst, are both with us. I just want to start with you, Adam, before I know Nadam has got so much to say on this, that basically, I'm just going to put my feet up for the next 15 minutes. But when you started to get wind of this story could you quite believe what you were being told yes and no yes in that like it's the most predictable thing ever i mean to the extent where you know after the red card actually happened it was the joke that everyone was making you know how long would it take until you know there's a post on truth social by uh president trump how you know will something happened so yes in that sense but no in that it is so unconventional um and so kind of i don't think it's like without precedent that you know politicians try and get involved but it is without precedent that you would be in the oval office kind of bragging about being involved um i think that's the really unusual bit kind of how in the end how open um the u.s president was about it and then you know but but i would say you know on i think it was friday night when i first got sort of a whiff of it and at that point when it was suggested that you know trump was involved i mean i was i was actually out for dinner looked at my phone sort of showed the person who i was with and i was like forget it i was like i thought i thought the person who was texting me was making it up um and so another margarita please barbent i'll come back to that story later exactly um because it just seemed mad um but but that is kind of the world we're living in before you come off your long run then nadam i'll go read you fifa fifa code of ethics 15 paragraph one in dealings with government institutions national and international organizations associations and groupings officials shall remain politically neutral.

5:54And then just to balance that a quote from Infantino from January of 2025. So 18 months ago, I'd like to thank President Trump with whom I have a great friendship and to assure him that together we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world because football or soccer unites the world. Where do you want to start? Do you know what chappers, I'm gonna actually throw this to Herc. Okay, because because Herc is somebody who's represented the US men's national team, and he's now seen this connection with, not just with politics, because I think that's where we sort of miss the mark sometimes, because politics in sport has existed for its entirety, you could say.

6:32But political intervention in this manner, I don't think has. So I want to know realistically from Herc, how did you feel when you saw the president, probably doing what many people expected at some point anyway, becoming involved in something which previously I don't think he really cared about? Yeah, I thought it was a joke. Not in the joke that he's doing, in the joke that it was being reported. I didn't believe it just like Adam. I looked at my phone. I was having a nice New York lunch with my family. They were about to leave and it's blowing up. It's blowing up on my social. It's blowing up by text calls.

7:04I need to be here. We need to have, you know, be ready to report on this. It was hard to believe. Now, we could say that we've seen maybe a political influence in FIFA before, but not like this. You've never seen it mid-tournament. You've never seen it out in the world like this. And you've never actually seen it in an effective way. I couldn't believe it happened. I mean, there are people as soon as it happened that were referencing Article 27 and the precedent that this has happened before, with Garrincha back in 1962. And I don't even know if that's what you want to be associated with that type of precedent.

7:40The red card, you know, wasn't the red card back then. That came into play in 70 with the one game ban, you know, strictly right after. And in that moment, Garrincha only was allowed to play because mysteriously the linesmen fled the country. They couldn't find him. And then there was like alleged bribery scandal. And I don't think that's what you want to be associated to. And then they talk about Cristiano and other players. That's before the tournament. We've never seen it during the tournament. So while this is all going on, I'm thinking there's no way they're actually doing this. there's no way there because the because of the optics because of the way that america is going to look like the host nation was allowed to get away with one so one of their best players their best goal scorer could play it was just all wrong from the get-go and and i couldn't really believe that was going on this has now put a cloud over the over the tournament a genuine genuinely think that and and it was not helped by the fact that the following day Argentina and Messi Adam were involved in one of the more controversial games of the tournament and as I said when I was doing the radio at the time Egypt will question this and they subsequently did and FIFA have brought this and Infantino has brought this all on themselves and himself yeah I don't disagree with any of that i i think what what's what's interesting about it is normally what you know when you have build-ups to world cups there's always you know but we did a podcast together before the world cup about all sorts of issues all sorts of issues which are in many ways kind of more serious than a red card and whether a player can play or not but what's what's unusual about this is this is kind of fifa overstepping about the thing that everyone cares about which is can my team win a game does impact my team's ability to win a game that when you cross that line which is a pretty sacrosanct line i think that's the line where you get into very very dangerous waters and that's why all of a sudden you saw kind of i mean most europe well a ton of european federations coming out and saying this is wrong you saw norway's manager I think Tuchel sort of said a little bit about it come out Switzerland Italy Germany all of those federations and as you say it also placed FIFA into a credibility issue so within 24 hours you had England talking about whether they'd appeal Kwanzaa's red card you had Michael Alize all of a sudden were appealing yellow cards because Michael Alize got an unfair yellow card against paraguay and and then you have egypt basically cry and maybe egypt would have tried conspiracy anyway right with the way that game went but it fell in that 48 hour period as though basically england as though um bifa had lost control of their own tournament um and that it had given way to this sense that you can basically appeal anything um or claim anything and also if you are kind of in some ways naturally conspiracy minded you've just been given some pretty sincere you know bait right because you've just seen something that that really doesn't mean adam you've been given massive bait i mean hirk mentioned the ronaldo thing which was exactly the same you know his his three match ban suspended you know um infantino changing the rules of the club world cup to make sure that inter miami and messi were involved in the very first game you have been given and then you have been given massive bait massive bait if you are a conspiracy theorist and do you know you might not even have to be that much of a conspiracy theorist yeah chappers you're exactly right and i think a word that i'm used which i think is quite significant in this is like credibility yeah and i think there are lots of things which we'll see in life seeing football and if it comes with an explanation you can decide whether you like it or you don't but without an explanation it leaves you to decide for yourself and one thing i would say about the balogun situation is that most people when talking about it almost see in so many different ways but the truth is the thing that makes it the most confusing because for many they thought the red card was rescinded well it wasn't you know so so fifa have accepted that you know it was a red card and balogun i think i stopped me from wrong hook but i think it's been fined forty thousand dollars for the red card.

12:17Okay, so he's been fined$40 ,000. His suspension has been suspended, but he can play in this game. So what is the reasoning for them making him available to play in the game? And you sort of wonder, like, how did they make that decision and why did they make the decision in that manner? Were they in the, you know, the apartment block that they have in Trump Tower, which they call in their base, whilst they're working for FIFA, which again, in terms of political neutrality and stuff like this, raises real significant question marks. like what are they trying to achieve by doing it in this manner and even to this day it's almost as if they're waiting for other things to happen so they don't have to explain themselves too much about this and like i say my point realistically with all this is why did they change the punishment why did they do it if they can't explain that then all of a sudden you start to listen to the president speak you start to listen to the fact that howard lutnik and um giuliani they're speaking into FIFA and then Infantino's like yeah we speak with lots of heads of states all the time well who who exactly are you speaking about because the only person that has said that they have a relationship with you who can contact you straight away and who again this is just my perspective here a lot of the people that know football know what's wrong with what's happened but some of the people that don't ended up being the loudest and as a consequence the way they're describing it is making it seem like we cannot believe in them when it comes down to football again i'll come on to the effects on balogun and the and the u.s mayor's national team in just in just a moment hirk who who made the decision do we know who is on the fifa disciplinary committee it has representation from all from all different countries um but fifa haven't actually said which members um were involved in in making the decision um i think it's really notable that there was a statement that was put out by the chair of the disciplinary committee um who wasn't again wasn't named um uh in that statement but it was about a sort of 30 i lost count of how many points there were in this statement but it didn't explain the decision it kind of just said what had happened but didn't say why um and what that makes me think is my suspicion is that the referee department had concerns about this because we haven't had an admission from fifa that the decision was wrong we haven't had an admission from fifa that the use as much as kind of andrew might claim the use of var and it's not going to have sympathy with the slow motion the freeze frames kind of the protocol was wrong fifa themselves haven't said this and i think that's probably because people like Pierre-Luigi Collina in the refereeing department would look at that red card and say okay it's being given people might not love it but we can defend it we can defend the decision that our referee has made here and we're not going to overturn it and it is this independent you know they say it's an independent disciplinary committee has come up with this decision and they've not they've not explained why and the only other reason i can think of is i think fifa have kind of gradually moved towards a place where their priority is less about implementing their own regulations and more of and hercules probably better than me to speak to this more of almost this american sense of we get the stars on the field almost whatever's going on we find a way to get the stars on the field and we get the best possible show out but fifa have never formalized that or explained that or pre-communicated that that's what they're doing now yeah if i may jump on something that that natum said earlier about um the amount of people in the united states that really don't know what's going on uh this this game versus belgium was watched by over 40 million americans here in the united states and the network that is televising these games, not a single person said this is wrong.

16:15Not a single person said what is happening here is wrong, shouldn't be allowed to happen. Not even Thierry Henry or Salatan International Stars who are working for the network. In fact, the slogan or motto was correct outcome, wrong process. That's what they were peddling. And it couldn't be further from the truth. It's a way of twisting what happened. We could all agree that maybe it was a polemic call. I don't happen to think in real time that is a red card if fifa and the match officials came out the referees var was pumping slow motion and still images which you're not allowed to do then we can have a conversation about what's going on but they're not admitting a mistake here natum already said they didn't rescind the red card they doubled down by finding the player all they said is article 27 which is an article says we can do whatever we want to do he's allowed to play he's he's on probation for a year So I think it's important that we acknowledge just from an American side how grotesquely mismanaged it was on all fronts.

17:19And yeah, there is a sense in America, Adam, that you want to see your best players on the field. And you want to see them on the field in American terms, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, the World Series. Your best players have to be on display. And usually with the officiating, it's let's protect the talent. but this isn't one of those things the the rules are clear for everybody this the optics here are somebody picked up the phone and there was pressure now you could imagine who that person was that picked up the phone or what that pressure was like but fifa to the this may have nobody caved and and here we are and i tell you what they dodged a bullet because the u.s men's national team laid an egg could you imagine if they beat belgium could you imagine if they were still on to run so i i think they were very fortunate there how much do you think they were affected by everything is it is it possible to tell because they were they were they were viewed up until that part mainly because of that amazing performance in their first game against paraglide but they were viewed as a positive story at this world cup not externally not just within the usa and Balogun was one of the stars of the World Cup and the whole thing.

18:37We don't have to pretend about the perception of America to the rest of the world and that's fine. I don't think America has any problem with playing that role. We heard about the ticket prices. We heard about the hosting accountability or maybe lack thereof that there could be in this tournament. We heard about how the mixed results of the US Men's National Team under Marisa Pochettino and here we are and it's been a ridiculous tournament. The stadiums have been full. The people have been welcomed. It's been so much goodwill. And then the United States men's national team on the field, it looks like Pochettino taught them how to play football.

19:13Like, what's going on here? So there's so much goodwill and they're almost determined darlings. And then this happens. And if you saw what happened against Belgium, Belgium was not the favorite in this game. Not because Belgium isn't a more talented team, but because of the way Belgium was playing in this tournament. They were not very good. And they're lucky to be here. They were closer to receiving the third than they were to score in their first versus Senegal. And if you saw them play against Belgium, it wasn't tactical somewhat. It wasn't technical. It wasn't talent. Emotionally, the moment was too big.

19:47Schoolboy errors. They succumbed to the pressure. So I think it absolutely got to them. Against a team who were probably more fired up than any other team in a game in this tournament. So it came back to bite them. Can I just ask you one, Nadim, if you were Balogun, how you would have felt through that 72-hour period? Because he's caught in the middle of all of this, having done nothing wrong, really. So from a Balogun perspective, the more you listen to the way that he acted, say, when the red card was first given, the stuff in the days after, the way he spoke to Garcia after the game, the way he probably communicated with his teammates and to the Belgian players.

20:30Like it's very hard to hold anything against him. And he's been left in a situation where for him, for example, you know, Balogun is a birthright citizen in the country where the president of the United States says that birthright citizenship should not exist. So he's ended up being like the poster boy for this thing, which, as I say, the president at some stage is trying to get rid of. But he's been incredible in terms of how he's managed it. Obviously, it was disappointment in terms of the game itself. his performance, everyone else's performance. But he would never, he will never have as many eyes on him as he did in that game.

21:01And to play under that sort of pressure is the type that you can never prepare for. And hopefully no one will ever have again, in my opinion. So I think he deserves credit for the way he has handled himself. And I think in the days and weeks to come, he'll be continually asked questions about it. And I think his responses will always remain positive because I think he's a good person that was trapped in a very, very difficult situation. Natum, but to your point, he's been such a role model throughout all of this. He's forever going to be known. This is going to be the Balogun situation, that this is going to follow him around for the rest of his career.

21:31That's the terrible thing for this player who had himself a ridiculous World Cup and opened a lot of eyes and could have a massive move for Monaco in this next transfer window. He's going to be known for the rest of his life because of this. Do you know what, Herc? I think it's going to follow him around more than it follows anybody else around involved in this. Because the other characters who are involved in this, it's just water off a duck's bat and they're on to the next thing. Ask me what I know about Bosman. I know that he changed the rule. That's how I know Bosman. and that was a positive thing.

22:10So unfortunately for Foller Mbalogun, who's an amazing person and a great footballer, this is something that's going to follow him around unjustly for a while, if not forever. And the reason I would say that, Adam, is because the question should be next. Well, what happens to Infantino? Can he survive this? But he will, won't he? Because he's survived other things and he'll win another election, which is soon, and then he'll exceed the 12-year presidential term limit he himself introduced, and he'll probably change the FIFA guidelines to stay in charge. And even the other president involved has not done that yet.

22:55The race to the bottom. I think Infantino is pretty strong in his position. I mean, he's already, as you say, he's announced that he's re-standing next year there isn't as yet even in there isn't even going to be an election really because there isn't another candidate it'll be interesting to see whether the europeans put someone forward there's clearly a huge amount of displeasure between kind of uefa and fifa but you saw other confederations um the african confederation south american uh asian i mean they came out to endorse him re-standing before he'd even announced he was re-standing i mean that's how strong his position is i mean you don't even see like and it's kind of something you see in kind of like um real dictations it's like please dear leader stand again um please please you know um please lead us um i think what he maybe underestimated or FIFA underestimated and I don't know how because if you've been paying any attention to the United States since Trump came back in you would know this.

24:03I think they underestimated the fact that Trump would go on a victory lap and that the White House would want to claim credit and that the White House would prioritize that the fact that they've been that they are in their eyes advancing American interests to them is more important to show off than worrying about what the public relations of doing something that is deemed unconventional and if that winds up a ton of Europeans who they already consider to be kind of buttoned up and worried about regulations and rules I mean you see it in the way that they talk to Europe and sorry to make it's a bit political but it's not it's not really it's really like an extension of you know when they talk about kind of the eu's approach to ai or climate change or the world health organization it's like oh you guys you're all really worried about all these rules but we think that this makes sense for america so we're going to do it anyway and that's really what what they've done here and they were always going to show it off and with every every every word that he said in that Oval Office, it just made Infantino look so, so, I don't know if guilty is the right word, but look so suspect, to use the Trump word, about the referee.

25:25I mean, we've not even spoken about what he said about the Brazilian referee. You know, they said that this guy has kind of got a checkered past, and there wasn't really evidence for that. But, you know, it's now the second referee in this tournament who have had who's had a reputation kind of besmirched really by the administration. Herc I know you've got to go can you give me a quick answer on what next for the U.S. men's national team and Pochettino and what what what if anything they have to rebuild? Well they were just humiliated not on the American scale but on the global scale in front of the world and America doesn't like being humiliated I think resources will be dumped into the U.S.

26:07men's national team. You had two billionaires front the bill for Marisa Pochettino's resetting the market annual salary. I don't think he will stay. I don't think he'll stay for a few reasons. One, America loves a winner. An 18-1-12 record with zero trophies for a program that was used to winning trophies before him. I don't think he'll stay. And two, he constantly flirts with every club in the Premier League that will allow him to or at the international scale, I don't think he would be here for a whole cycle. So the priority now is to rebuild, is to find a new coach, because I don't think it'll be Pochettino, somebody that could take them to that next level.

26:47And I do think the future is bright, but because of the player scale, the player pool, not because US soccer's necessarily doing something correctly, but they have to find the right person because they lost a lot of time in the last two cycles with coaches. Herc, Adam, thank you both. I know you're busy and got plenty of stuff to do. so we will talk soon. Appreciate it, guys. Nadim, you don't need to be anywhere else so you can... There's no place I'd rather be, Chappas, than on here with you right now. You can keep talking about Infantino. I take Adam's point about maybe Europe will put somebody up to contend against him but the way that he has expanded the World Cup, for example, the way that he has launched the Club World Cup and what that means to some clubs on other continents means he has a strong power base, whatever else is going on.

27:40Yeah, I totally agree. And he does have a really strong power base. And I sit here right now at the ESPN studios and a guy's desk that's not too far away from me, Shaka Hislops. And he made me think about FIFA in a different light because we hear all the talk about how FIFA fund all the FAs. Well, he's spoken in the past about how it will fund Trinidad and Tobago's and how significant that can be. So when we think about FIFA and the money that they make, people are being affected in a really positive manner. I think sometimes that leverage is used to sort of hold power, even in a corrupt sense.

28:11But I just think it's interesting from an Infantino perspective, because I think he's become too Americanized. Some of the things that are being done, like for example, with the Balogun suspension situation and other things that feel like they are leaning towards the stars, that's kind of the way that a lot of American sport works, to whereby the commissioner is the final decision maker that can sway things in whichever direction they want. And it tends to be done in a manner which brings the stars because all that stuff is franchise-based and that's what puts bums on the seats as such. But I'm very, very disappointed because FIFA itself, through Infantino, in this last few years, because of the Club World Cup, because of this World Cup, I think it's turned itself into something it didn't need to be and it's something which it can't be going forward because some of the stuff that they're doing at the moment in time makes sense because it's in the US, but it might not go to the US again ever.

29:05But it cannot operate in this manner. You know, him being at inauguration, him talking about he's going to make America great again, this, that, and the other. From a political standpoint, a player cannot have a political message on a shirt underneath their, like on a vest underneath their shirt. Like that politics out of it. But then you see the president Infantino cozying up right next to each other. But I think it's worth, in my mind, thinking about how unprecedented that actually is. You know, Donald Trump is the most visible, loud president or leader that we've probably seen in this century.

29:41And he's willing to insert himself into anything because if he believes that it's right, he will say it, he will do it, he will try and take credit for it. But that's not the way that football works from the eyes of everybody, I thought anyway, who has been a part of it for their lifetimes. like the controversy with Balogun isn't about whether it was a red card or not it's the process that came afterwards because that is not football it might be other sports might be done in a way where the president feels he can lean into it because he's the leader in America so on and so forth but this is our game football is the people's game it's people from all around the world and I think for Infantino to hold his power after this it's going to take something special because it's yes they've made a ton of money which will help a ton of people but we've seen fundamentally now and for the first time possibly ever out in the open, how corrupt potentially himself and his body can be.

30:32And some people might say, well, it's not corrupt. It's not this, it's not that. Well, unfortunately for him, somebody that can't help but speak his mind all the time is the president. And the moment he said he called him Fantino and told him this, that, and the other, the moment he's talking about that referee Klaus saying he's no good and, you know, he needs to check his past, FIFA became political. And that ultimately means that the leader, in my opinion, has to change because that's not what it's supposed to be. A quick reminder, you can catch up on our previous episodes on YouTube, Global Player, or wherever you get your pods.

30:59Subscribe, follow, leave us a review while you're there. And we'll talk about actual football after the break. With England and Norway taking each other on, we'll look at Harry Kane and Erling Haaland.

31:16So let's talk about Kane and Haaland, who go head-to-head on Saturday night in Miami. Harland on seven in the race for the golden boot. Kane is on six. So we're going to delve into your defensive expertise to tell us what you would do against Harland and what you did do against Kane. Because you have played a game and a half. Listen, so we lost 4-0 in one game. My record against Kane isn't great. No, but you came on at half-time and he came on with 20 minutes to go. He didn't score, Nadam. You shut him out. Yes, of course. It's a big back pocket, that, to keep hold of him. You know what I mean?

32:03And the next one? The next one happened, yeah. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. Technicalities. Yeah, but, you know, ideally... For the podcast, yeah. He scored two and they won 2-1, yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't great, yeah. You both started. He scored both of Spurs in a 2-1 win. What was he like to play against if you got near him? well this to be fair this thanks shappers this was 2015 kane so it's very different to this version of kane because i also um i think he was on loan at leicester in 2014 and he was on the bench behind i think jamie vardy and david nugent so this is a different type of harry kane obviously we see today compared to back then and i think for the teams playing against them there are two completely different tasks because i think for me like erling harland is obviously an incredible number nine but he's very much service driven you know roughly where he's going to be but whether you can stop him is a different matter like for example the header he has against brazil like gabriel for the most part is doing a good job defensively but harland is so excellent that the moment he steals half a yard on you you just have to try and make it as hard for him as possible to get an effort on target but given the fact he's bigger than christmas and you know stronger than you know anything you've probably seen on a football pitch before it can be very very difficult but I think playing against him as I say is about the service can you be stopping the likes of Odegaard the likes of Oscar Bob and others in and around that midfield area because if you do then he has a quieter game he can still have a moment but he has a quieter game whereas for Harry Kane somebody who likes to roam around a little bit more like he could score a header but he could also score the goal we saw against the Arcongo where he's on the edge of the box you know there are times where he's trailing the play when the ball's out wide and other times where he's the central figure within it so I think it's two very very different players and for their for their teams they complement the way that they play because I don't think Kane would work well in the Norway side and I don't know if England would be the same if they had like a Harland in there as well and actually from a central defensive point of view you wonder whether and you touched on it you wonder whether not engaging with either of them is maybe the best way to do it because because Harland himself in a in an interview when I interviewed him after a game at Brentford told me how much the physical confrontation gets him going as soon as a centre-half thinks right I'm going to have a battle with you then he is then he is more fired up than normal and because of Kane's roaming you don't want to get dragged here there and everywhere do you yeah it's a good point and you know the the Harlan thing yeah because he's so good as a defender like if I was going to be playing against him now like I'd spend the days leading up to thinking right I'm going to make sure I'm going going to stop him I'm going to do this I'm going to do that then all of a sudden you walk out on the pitch next to him you're like I was looking up him thinking flipping heck is a big guy this guy isn't he you know what I mean it's very easy to forget how like physically commanding he can be and when he then starts to become engaged with people he's going to win most of those battles because he's for the most part bigger stronger and again a difference between himself and Kane like Haaland is rapid as well so you almost have to tailor your game to not really emphasize the strengths of himself nor Kane but in terms of Kane trying to let him move around that's great but what I think has been a big factor in this tournament and it's something which I said before the tournament which like I think has aged quite well I think Jude Bellingham reads Kane's movements really really well and they complement each other so if Harry Kane drops off Jude Bellingham's more than comfortable being in that nine position and to sum up like their partnership I think it was Jude Bellingham's first goal against Mexico I'm not going to lie to you chap as this is going to get very technical do you want to hear it or should i just do no i want to hear it as a player um sometimes you'll be doing crossing and finishing drills and you would go up as uh you're doing pairs sometimes and the crossing and finishing is just in the final third but we'll go out wide there'll be like a pass pass and the cross is going to come in and if it's just two of you one person has to get to the near one person has to get to the far but you have to time the runs to whereby you don't get ahead of the ball and the two of you cover the cover the correct space when the ball Declan Rice drives with the ball down the right hand side and he plays it to Bakaya Saka who takes the line and he gets the ball at the crossing with his right foot as that's going on Harry Kane has hit a double movement to go back post near post and Bellingham's read that and gone near post far post so and they've timed it so so well and it looks really simple but the amount of training sessions I'd be involved in Chappers to where it never looks that simple and I think when players make something look simple like that if you were to really look at it.

36:32It shows how elite they are because the crossing and finishing draw that I mentioned was without defenders and here they are doing it against a bunch of defenders in that environment, understanding that Saka's going to take the line with his right foot, a weaker foot, brilliant cross. It's special. That's them doing their job to the highest level but in a way whereby because it's so simple, it feels like it's an easy thing to do but it doesn't happen very often. But yeah, to go back to it, Kane, Haaland, this golden boot race that they have. I don't think Haaland's had a penalty yet though, has he?

37:01No. But for those watching this World Cup who want to talk about just the football, seeing the likes of Kane, Haaland, Mbappe's, Messi's, and all these guys top of the charts, he's essentially a dream come true, isn't it? Do you remember that Manchester City-Everson game and the battle between Haaland and Ben Godfrey? Do you remember that? Yeah, I do, yeah. Which was an amazing... Phil J... This has got nothing to do with A3, but Phil J. Aguilka told me that in the dressing room beforehand, their tactic and what they decided was they were going to absolutely rough him up as best that they could.

37:35And within the first couple of minutes, Godfrey went through him, basically. And they got up or whatever, and Haaland turned around and saw Jogielka and went to Jogielka. Was that you? Jogielka went, no, no, no, it was him. And pointed at Godfrey. And then that's how that battle started through the whole game. The final one on Haaland is, and I'm sure you've seen the stat that's doing the rounds, of, I think he's played eight times against Dan Byrne and he's only scored once in those eight games. Bearing in mind, Tuchel has, you know, this squad has been put together for specific situations and what he might need at certain times.

38:16You know, Jed Spence, if all the fullbacks were coming in, was still picked to come in for those specific one-on-one battles if they needed him, say, against the Vinicius Junior, which they don't now, obviously. would would you consider it or would you want to keep your central defensive partnership with all due respect to dan burn who i've played against too i'm like i'm happy that he's he's at this level playing and was great the other night yeah he was yeah but the so not to be negative but i'm going to be negative chappers sometimes coming on as a sub you get a very very specific remit and if it is a case of like get your head to everything here is six foot five dan burn listen watch this as I present myself to do that.

38:58Same way, for example, with some attackers, like a team can be in the ascendancy and you say, come on and score a goal. It was the, like that was basically Denis Undav for Germany. You know, he found so much joy coming on off the bench. And then when he started, he ended up getting taken off after 60 because nothing happened. It's a different sort of game state as such. But I wouldn't necessarily decide to have Dan Byrne in there because one thing I would say is that provided this is true, I think Man City played against Newcastle five or six times last season. Newcastle won one and City won the other five.

39:28So Dan Byrne may have been able to stop Haaland, but I don't think it really mattered that much when it came down to the two-team success. So with Haaland, I think the two centre-halves or the three that have been using so far for England have done really, really well. And I like that Tuchel's plan and the idea about having people for certain situations and scenarios is working out because he stood by it and received a lot of criticism when the squad was first coming out. Why is this person not there? Why is that person not there? where we can see why now but in terms of stopping Haaland I think it's more so about winning the midfield battle and not allowing Norway to play to their strengths and if you can make them uncomfortable then it means the service to Haaland won't be as great and I'm sure they've still got every chance of scoring but it doesn't have to be built around stopping him it's stopping the team first and then for him he'll struggle Okay, enjoy your weekend see you next week Absolutely chap, it's a pleasure as always That's it for today thanks for listening get in touch with your thoughts the email the sportsagents at global.com You can message us on social media at The Sports Agents.

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