Lamine vs The Robots

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1:26Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's Spanish Football Podcast. It's still me, Alex Kirkland, with Sid Lowe, Kitra, away for this international break. Hello, Sid. How are you? I'm very good, Al. Yeah, why could that be, possibly?

1:42Alex Kirkland:Brilliant. I'm very tired, admittedly, because I did a through-the-night bus to get back to Madrid. I've come back with the points, and although my heart did slightly sink when my son pointed out that we had the bragging rights, and I couldn't believe he used that phrase. Oh, no, come on. Let's not say bragging rights. But Raul Oviedo won the derby. You hadn't done your job as a parent sufficiently well over the years. He also described the Oviedo winning goal as a volley. It most clearly is not a volley. That's one of the most basic questions of your personal existence. I know. I had to pick him up on that as well.

2:19Alex Kirkland:But anyway, Oviedo beat Sporting Gijon 2-0. We will talk all about it in the pod. I will give you the time and space that it deserves because, as I said, international break. We'll talk Spain. We'll talk Segunda. We'll talk the Asturian Derby. But first, you're listening to TSFP. Good decision. Yes, very good. You want more coverage of the best league in the world, don't you? So join us at patreon.com forward slash TSFP from just€4.75 a month. Patrons get the Monday and Friday pods with our adverts. There's the Q &A pod on Tuesdays. There's the bonus pod on Thursdays. There's the new TSFP Daily, rounding up the headlines five days a week.

2:57So why not join us? Sid, we will talk about the Asturian Derby. But first, let's talk about a very good game at Wembley. It finished with Spain beating England by three goals to two. Not, as you predicted in the preview pod, with an England win. But yeah, it was good fun, wasn't it?

3:15Alex Kirkland:It was brilliant. It was really a lot of fun. i i had to watch this um fully the following day on the train because i i i was actually at concert on saturday night rather than watching this game live although the the um the the um tell the listeners who you went to see i went to the ocean color scene excellent which was very good uh it was quite funny though because when they're just as they launched into obviously the sort of the the biggest impact song of them all um the riverboat song yeah um the the guitar the guitar broke and he went stop he said we can't do this song without a guitar um and and in in a kind of classic well in a completely unexpected way rather than having if you like sort of the charisma to to sort of stand at the microphone and tell some jokes while the technicians messed around with yeah they've done this quite a lot it's but you know over the years so it shouldn't be it just he just walked off to the side of stage talking to some other technicians while some guys were fiddling with a guitar so like no i can't do this i thought oh i actually thought he might say when you can't do this without the guitar he might say you know what for a laugh let's do a non-guitar version of this with no guitar in it and see what no electric guitar in it and see what people think i think it was actually some were saying is i think it's the pedal board not the guitar that was actually gone okay so that's a full breakdown of the ocean color scene gig that you went to um but in terms of english sorry anyway the um the uh the the the alerts were coming in so at one point when England were winning 2-1, I did think maybe I was going to be right.

4:41Alex Kirkland:And actually at that point, I could have been right. Kane then missed a penalty, which would have made 3-1. And Spain very definitely had a wobble at that point. Very definitely had lost control. I thought they lost control a little bit towards the end of the first half. And then in that period in the second half, weren't in control. I think had England scored the third and made it 3-1, they probably wouldn't have won. But then the response was very good. I also thought the first half an from Spain was absolutely fantastic. I thought the use of the ball was brilliant. It's very interesting, actually.

5:13Alex Kirkland:And this is where I basically abdicate my duty to analyse the game for you and say, well, let's just listen to my colleagues who are watching Spain, who don't watch Spain all the time, despite the fact Spain has just won the World Cup. My Guardian colleagues, Dave Heiner, who's doing the match report, basically messaged me and said, Spain are amazing, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they're quite good. And so they're just so good with the ball. England couldn't get anywhere near them. I thought in that opening period, they were very incisive. Fran Torres, who scored the goal of all time. So we will never be able to say anything to him.

5:49Alex Kirkland:But, you know, if only this guy could score. If only the guy who scored the World Cup winning goal could score goals. There's the great Ormo chance. I thought the opening half now from Laminio Mar was phenomenal. and then they lost control of the game, but they want it back again, partly through the changes that De La Fuente made. And I think maybe it's a little bit simplistic to say that two guys came on, Baena and Oja Thaval scored the goals, but it was also the performance level from those two. Dani Olmo, fantastic again. So yeah, I thought Spain were brilliant and it was a lot of fun as a game, even if I was having to watch it with the occasional, what would you call it, technological hitch, as I was trying to watch it on the train on the way up to Oviedo.

6:30Alex Kirkland:up. We were talking pre-match about what we thought the Spain's starting XI would be. There weren't too many question marks, but I guess there were one or two surprises in this. You talked about Pedri, whether Pedri would start or not, and of course he didn't. Yeah, I mean, I think obviously we... I was asked to produce a predicted starting XI for the paper, and I actually took the risk of saying he won't start with Pedri. So we were right on that, because of course we saw that through the World Cup, so the two positions Pedri could have played were Fabian and Dani Olmo. And I thought Olmo was brilliant.

7:03Alex Kirkland:So, you know, that's fine. Pedri then came on and helped them see out the game and did it so brilliantly. So I suppose in a way that's not a huge surprise, but you do feel like Daniel at some point he's going to probably need to find a way to have Pedri in more often. And whether that comes at the expense of Fabian or whether it comes at the expense of a number 10, let's see how that plays out. The other two surprises, I guess, were given how well he played at the World Cup I thought Baena would start on the left wing and instead De La Fuente this was something we talked about a lot in the preview show wasn't it?

7:37Alex Kirkland:At what point does he evolve back towards those flying wingers? Well the answer to that question, we asked that exact question in the preview pod, was straight away and in truth Niko's still not at it is he? Niko's still not quite right and the other surprise was of course the inclusion of Fran Torres up front over Mikel Ojozabal and I think if this game told us anything, despite the fact that Fran Torres scored the goal at the World Cup final I think this goal this game showed us that there's a very clear choice there and it's Mikel Oya Thabo yeah I mean the Oya Thabo finish for the goal is is is spectacular so and he's just such a good footballer isn't he the thing about Oya Thabo is I I wouldn't even I'm not even sure I'd define him as a central striker I certainly wouldn't define him as a goal scorer because he's just a really lovely footballer um so did we learn anything do you think from this game and this performance that we didn't already know about Spain um I suppose if you're wanting for wanting to find something that's a bit new and that didn't happen during the World Cup I suppose it's the negative that then goes hand in hand with a positive which we learned that Spain could actually lose control of a game yeah and during the World Cup that never happened I mean even in the games where they didn't play particularly well and they didn't play particularly well against Uruguay or against Cape Verde.

9:00Alex Kirkland:I think there were periods in the opening 15 minutes of the game at the World Cup against Austria when Austria came at them and were aggressive. Maybe what we learned was we had something reinforced that we saw maybe briefly in the Austria game, which is that teams who think that they can kind of resist Spain, let Spain have the ball and wait for them, will get caught in the end. And they actually maybe are better off trying to have a go at Spain. because I thought for a while in this game, England, is it the right description to say had a go at Spain? I'm not sure if it is, but certainly played and tried to attack and stuff, and Spain had a few difficulties with that.

9:34Alex Kirkland:So I suppose the negative thing we learned was maybe that Spain can lose control of a game and can have a team have a go at them and can maybe look at times like during that period like they're wobbling a little bit. But then the positive response, that would be to say, well, that the response was good. The substitutions were the right ones. They got hold of the game again. So I don't think you come out of this thinking anything different, except maybe to say, actually, even in moments when Spain aren't great, they will come back at you. We shouldn't forget something here. And I think it is something that's quite interesting in a way, is that, and I mentioned earlier the response from some of my colleagues, wow, Spain are good.

10:15Alex Kirkland:And actually, if you read, for example, I mentioned Dave Heitner already. let's mention Dave again. So that was Dave's message to me was, wow, Spain are really good, aren't they? If you read Dave's match report, which is a really, really good match report, by the way. And one of the things he says is that England should have no recommendations, that this was pretty good for England. Now, let's turn that on its head. And this isn't me challenging Dave's view, but I think it's very interesting that you should have that view. Let's turn it on its head, shall we? And say, we're in a position where England, third best team in the world, maybe even the second best team in the world, even though they didn't make the final, at home, at Wembley, are kind of saying it's okay to lose to Spain.

10:54Alex Kirkland:That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yeah, but I mean, kind of logical given the European and world champions. But what I'm saying is I think that reinforces this idea that Spain aren't just the team that won the World Cup and they're not just the team that won the Euros. They're the team that everyone said, yeah, they're so clearly better than everyone else. And we, you know, we had this discussion, didn't we, Al? it wasn't on Friday. I think it was actually on the Thursday pod when you posed the question about, is this the best Spain team? And actually one of the elements in that discussion or that debate was the idea that they didn't just win these two tournaments.

11:32Alex Kirkland:They were so much better than everyone else. They were never not in control in almost any of that period. Maybe a brief period against Georgia in the Euros, bizarrely against Georgia. Yes, they were maybe a little fortunate to get through against Germany in the Euros and certainly Kukurea should have had a penalty given against him for a handball. Maybe in this World Cup, as I say, there was 15 minutes at the start against Jostria and maybe there was a little bit at the start of the game against France. When France broke, you thought, oof, they're dangerous, aren't they? But then once Spain has scored.

12:02Alex Kirkland:And so, yeah, it's about that thing that says this isn't a team that's just won things. This is a team that is the absolutely logical winner of things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And like you say, there was that wobble. The Gordon counter-attacking goal was a very good counter-attacking goal. Maybe you shouldn't be caught and sliced open quite that cleanly and quite that easily. But still, it was pretty much the perfect counter-attacking goal. Yeah, they recovered and they came back. We touched on this on Friday, Sid, but let's talk a bit more about your chats with Lamine, because that was published in The Guardian on Saturday.

12:40Go and read it if you haven't already. It's brilliant. you couldn't really go into too much detail ahead of publication about the bits that you'd liked and the things that he said that you thought were most interesting because of course you wanted to save it for for the paper let's talk a bit about that now and what what bits of your chat with Lamin really

12:56Alex Kirkland:stood out to you well I mean one of the things that that you may or may not have noticed looking at it is is that there's been a lot of talk over the last two weeks about the Ballon d 'Or and in Spain it's an obsession and I actually didn't want the conversation to be about that look how great I am, I should win the Ballon d 'Or. But there was one comment about the Ballon d 'Or that he made where he said that, I just don't think it's this year. He said, I think I've been at this level for a while. And you thought about it, you know what, he's right. He's 19. And obviously this is demonstrated by the fact that he was runner-up last time around.

13:28Alex Kirkland:This is a 19-year-old kid who may have already reached that point where there's just an acceptance that, yeah, you, maybe with Mbappe, maybe with, I don't know, a couple of others who come and go, but you are the best player in the world. Not just this year, you could win it, but you are the best player in the world, possibly with Mbappé, it's the same. Maybe Haaland on some years, although you would think of him more as the best striker than an all-round best player. So I thought there was something quite interesting in that idea that, you know, and he came up with a theory, which I thought was quite interesting.

14:01Alex Kirkland:He said, I think he was kind of saying, if I don't win it, maybe it's because I'm young. Because people go, well, it's Lameen, he's great, he'll win it another year. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't say this to him. but there was a bit of me that when in the Guardian, obviously at the end of the year, I always do a sort of a Spanish football awards. Now I did name him as player of the year, the season that's just finished, but the season before I didn't. And I was down to, in the end, I thought, look, it's Rafinha or it's Pedri or it's him. And I must admit, there was a bit of me that thought, this season from Rafinha might be a one-off.

14:35Alex Kirkland:Lamine's coming back time and time again. So yeah, it's Rafinha. so I am guilty of doing in some sort of maybe not entirely conscious way exactly what he's saying I'm also guilty of being wrong by the way because I assume that Rafinha's incredible season was a one-off and we're seeing it this year it clearly isn't I thought that if you the discussion actually one of the things I asked him about the Ballon d 'Or which isn't really in there it's implicitly said there's a tiny bit of the answer that's been included but not very much I said to him what does what do you think about the fact that it seems like you know we talk about you as the Spanish candidate but actually half of Spain is choosing a Frenchman um and actually he didn't bite on that I thought he might have a real dig he didn't bite on that but there's a line that we didn't use uh which is something like when you only play when you only play for Spain everyone loves you when you play for Barcelona you're playing against their team and so maybe so maybe then they're not quite so enamoured with you.

15:37Alex Kirkland:I thought one of the interesting things was that discussion about the goal at the World Cup final and the thought process that goes with it. That idea that says that I'm watching what they're doing and I know I'm going to get triple teamed. And actually that answer came up because I asked him about being confronted by two or three players and he talked about watching. And he uses this line where he says, I think of the fullbacks as robots that have effectively been programmed by their manager to stop me. And I always feel a human being is going to have something the robots don't have. That's a very, I mean, I know he's like an anime and a kind of a manga fan, but that's a very sort of comic book, almost way of looking at it, isn't it?

16:18So I'm the superhero. There are these evil robots that have been programmed to stop me. And I've got to use my ingenuity and humanity to find a way around it.

16:26Alex Kirkland:It gives us hope, doesn't it, in this world of terror over what artificial intelligence will do to us all. the robots can't beat us because we'll always have a Lamine. And there was, yeah, there was very definitely kind of a superhero feel to that. And then obviously there's the superhero bit where he talks about being confronted by defenders and having that feel that everyone's watching, you know, and that everyone's waiting for me to do something. And he talked, I mean, again, because of the nature of a piece like this, you've got to reduce some of what's said. But he talked about how in the World Cup he could feel this buzz in the stadium.

16:59Alex Kirkland:And he said it was actually different in America. He said, I wonder if it's because you go to America and it's kind of it's a show. And so these guys there say, let's see this kid put on a show, not just go and win a game. Let's see this kid put on a show and let's see if he read this kid that they've been banging on about is really what we what they say is. And I actually told him something that came up in one of the he he introduces this idea of everyone stands. And he says, you can feel this. Right. And I told him about one of my favourite lines ever in an interview, which was actually an interview that Chris Waddle gave to a friend of the pod, Graham Hunter.

17:39Alex Kirkland:Graham, obviously a very good friend of mine. And this line has stuck with me for such a long time. And I said to Lamine, I said, look, there's this line by a guy called Chris Waddle who played in England, you may not have heard of him, where he said his favourite sound is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, as the seats flip up when everyone stands up. because obviously it's not actually true of every ground in Spain, but in England, most of the grounds have flap up seats and they used to be wooden and heavy. So you would hear this kind of noise as people stand up. And he said, that's it.

18:09Alex Kirkland:He said, you can feel along the line, along the row, you can feel people getting up. And he said, and this was my favourite line, he said, and when that happens, you feel some power come through you, like you're more powerful than anyone. And obviously in particular, in the play you're taking on, he says, and at that point, you feel like Spider-Man. you feel like Superman. I thought, yeah, what a line. You feel like Spider-Man. Brilliant. Great stuff. Go and read that interview in The Guardian. And so that was Spain's 3-2 win over England at Wembley. Next up for Spain, they play Croatia in Seville on Tuesday.

18:44Sid, would you mind telling us who is bringing our listeners on almost every episode of TSFP?

18:52Alex Kirkland:I should tell you who this is because, as you know, or as you should know, this episode is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN now. Yeah, it's a new season. One thing hasn't changed. We do a lot of travelling covering Spanish football, especially Sid. Yeah, it feels like I've just, well, I was going to say it feels like I've just got back from the World Cup, but it still does. But I have quite literally just got back from the Asturias derby, which is even bigger than the World Cup, Al. Did I tell you, by the way, that Real Oviedo beat Sporting Sijon 2-0 and actually played football and it was brilliant?

19:20Alex Kirkland:I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But it is true that I've just got back from there. It's true that during this international break, I'll be all over Spain. I'll be going up to Oviedo again to see Spain play there. I'll be seeing them play in Seville. I'll be down in Elder to see Oviedo at Eldense. So, you know. And when you travel, Sid, you know the best way to make sure you've got access to all your content from back home is using NordVPN. Yep. Whether it's football or TV, whether it's football, it allows you to access your subscriptions wherever you are. Yeah, it's really easy to use, which is important if you're not particularly tech savvy like Sid.

19:55Alex Kirkland:like me like me it's true it also improves your internet security which is also important if you spend a lot of time using public wi-fi at train stations airports hotel lobbies actually on the train as i did this weekend although i will admit i was tethering off my phone not the train zone wi-fi because the train zone wi-fi was too slow okay you connect with just one click it's one of the fastest vpns around you can use up to 10 devices with one account for more information this is really important you need to head to nordvpn.com forward slash t sfp and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee you also get four extra months absolutely free so if you could tell me the link again out that would be great make a note of this sid you can also find it in the show notes it's nordvpn.com forward slash t sfp every game day you show up for your team Now, it's your time.

20:49We Go V! We Go V! Ask your prescriber about We Go V. Some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4-WEGOV or visit wegovy.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about We Go V. Why wait? We Go V! This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen Snacks A stapler The new PayPal app is like that But for your money Shop, pay, manage your account and earn rewards All in one place And with purchase protection on eligible items Biometric security and pass keys You're protected at every step Download the new PayPal app to get started See paypal.com slash protection terms This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

21:47No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gets to know you, so they can help personalise coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there.

22:04Okay, so we will get to the Asturian Derby, I promise you. We'll just keep training it.

22:09Alex Kirkland:It's like bait. You know the way those Spanish TV shows do this bait thing and they do it all night until eventually... Yeah, and normally it's me staying up until 1am because they finally get to the interesting bit of the interview. And then it turns out the interesting bit isn't interesting, but I promise you on this occasion it will be. You can always fast forward it if you don't like it. Before we get to that, you mentioned the Ballon d 'Or. One other less theoretical Spanish candidate would be Rodri. I want to touch on Rodri because you might have heard, Sid, there was quite a big story in football this weekend, over the weekend involving Rodri's former club.

22:40Manchester City reports that City as everyone listening will know already have been found guilty on almost all of the charges brought by the Premier League and we heard from Rodri about this in the build up to the game at Wembley Rodri was due to speak in the Spain pre-match press conference and did speak now a couple of things it's important to say the charges relate to the period before Rodri joined City Rodri joined City in 2019 the charges are about the period up to 2018 um but he was asked about this um and said one or two really quite interesting things um i thought as well as um what you might expect which is you know saying i believe in the innocence of the club i was always told by people at the club that we've done everything properly he was sort of pushed on this a little bit in the presser and one answer in particular you know he said they cannot take away from us you know what we what we achieved he said it wasn't it wasn't about money it was about hard work it was about effort it was about standing shoulder to shoulder you know yeah basically saying you know what I did at City you cannot take that away from yeah away from me I want to tell you your thoughts on that and also look you know does does any of this I mean it's maybe it's an unfair question but you know we all think of Rodri as being the ballon d 'or winner one of the best players of his generation the ballon d 'or that he won was off the back of a historic season of course with City as well as with with Spain how do you kind of process all this in in that context I guess yeah yeah um a very brief thing

24:08Alex Kirkland:to start with, I'm really intrigued to see which is the one thing they weren't found guilty on. I'm really intrigued by the fact that it's 114 of 150. It's like, what was the one thing they did well? I actually, to be honest with you, I completely accept Rodri's argument. From his perspective, I completely accept Rodri's argument. And I think it is a difficult one for the players, because look, you could say this isn't about the money, but well, it is about the money because it's the money that brings in players like you. Now, obviously not him in this case. as you say, because of the periods to which it refers.