No pressure, kid

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0:47Sid Lowe:Go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com.

0:54Phil Kitromilides:it's a season two playoff race with TGL presented by SoFi Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern Jupiter links versus Boston common golf Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern Los Angeles golf club versus New York golf club Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern the Bay golf club versus Jupiter links keep up it's golf watch on ESPN ESPN2 and the ESPN app

1:21Sid Lowe:hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the spanish football podcast i'm phil kitram ladies i'm joined by sid lowe who is looking tired feeling tired but sounding sparky you're right yeah yeah i'm not too bad thank you how are you i'm good mate i'm good it's been a particularly gruelling weekend for Sid in terms of traveling up and down the country covering Spanish football. Listeners to the TSFP diary over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP can hear more about Sid's travels, where he's been this week and what on earth he's been doing. It's really well worth listening to as he giggles away at the ridiculous trips that he undertook.

2:04Sid Lowe:We've got lots to talk about actually so let's get right to it. This is what happened on Matchday 26, Friday night. So Levante beat Alaves by two goals to nil. We've written about this game in this week's newsletter. It was the old cliche, a game of two halves. Levante absolutely abysmal in the first half, but turning it around in the second. Saturday saw the mighty Rayo Vallecano take the lead and look really good in the first half, but then let Athletic Club back into it in the second. It finished 1-1 at Vallecas. The pitch just about held up there. Barcelona beat Vierda by four goals to nil.

2:39Sid Lowe:Lamin, Jamal's first senior hat-trick. An extraordinary performance, an inspired performance from Lamin, Barcelona, beating the side to a third in the table, but really didn't look like the side third in the table at the camp now. Mallorca losing 1-0 at home to Real Sociedad. They sacked their manager last Monday, Mallorca, but there wasn't any kind of interim manager bounce. And Real Sociedad claiming another win. And Sid was in Oviedo to see Atletico Madrid score in the 94th minute with their only shot on target of the game. So that was even more painful than we could have imagined. Let's never talk about that again.

3:18Sid Lowe:Sunday saw Elche and Espanyol draw 2-2. More about that in just a moment, not necessarily the game or the result. Valencia beat Osasuna by a goal to nil. Massive result for Valencia, lifting them further away from the relegation zone. There was a wild Seville derby at La Cartuja, where Sid was. Yeah, he was at Oviedo on Saturday night and then went all the way down to Sevilla for the afternoon derby. Betis were 2-0 up at halftime. It finished 2-2 against the Sevilla side. They were massively superior to, but somehow contrived to not beat. And the Sunday night game saw Celta Vigo come from behind and beat Girona by two goals to one.

3:56Sid Lowe:Celta absolutely flying. Monday Night Football, uncharacteristically, involves Real Madrid. They're hosting Getafe this evening. Now, have you thought about joining us over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP? Patrons get, you listen to this. I am listening, yeah. You get the Monday and the Friday podcast without any adverts. Plus, there's a Q &A pod and a bonus pod every week. And there's the newsletter, the TSFP Diary, which takes you behind the scenes, us covering football matches live, not direct on the ground. You've got the Discord. Join us. You can sign up from€4.75 a month. It's even cheaper if you get annual membership.

4:31Sid Lowe:The Discord is actually a really nice community where everybody who loves Spanish football comes together and discusses all sorts of different stuff. And me and Al even get involved as well. Sid knows.

4:42Phil Kitromilides:I lost the login code, so I don't really know how to deal with it.

4:45Sid Lowe:We're not going to ask you to get involved, but everyone else should. Come and join us, patreon.com forward slash TSFP. There are loads of things for us to talk about, so let's get straight to it. We're going to start at the camp now with Barcelona beating Villarreal 4-1. This hat-trick from Lamin-Yamal, just a really, really, really good hat-trick from Lamin, who looked on it from the start of the game. Now, I know you weren't watching this game live. You've had to subsequently go back and have a look at it. I was commentating it, and we said in commentary, right from the start, he looked like he was bang on it.

5:22Sid Lowe:He scored a really good first goal, an excellent second goal and a brilliant third goal as well. He's just so good, Sid. And I mean, I don't know how to further take on the conversation apart from, you know, he's just so good. So what would you like to say about Lamine and what we're seeing from him perhaps this season?

5:43Phil Kitromilides:OK, let's pick up on a handful of things. The starting point is, I think, from my point of view, obviously that second goal is absolutely brilliant. the way that he cuts inside it looks like Moledo might get to the ball first and it's like a little flick of his ankle and it nudges it over Moledo's foot and he takes a shot on and just scores a brilliant goal plenty of players would have gone down looking for the penalty in that first little flick over Moledo's foot or sorry, second flick over Moledo's foot and he doesn't and he carries on the performance level was genuinely just stunning absolutely stunning and I think one way of picking it up is to go to Santi Comissagna post-game.

6:22Phil Kitromilides:He said, you know, he always seems to have brilliant games against us. And he said, and it wasn't the goals. It wasn't the goals. It was the fact that he was running at people all the time. It was everything that he made happen. Although Santi Comissagna was also keen to point out how good Pedri had been. And I think he's right when Pedri came. Pedri came on and basically produced half an hour of pretty close to perfection. We'll talk about him in a second. Okay, good. Right. And Lamine was just fantastic. All three finishes, albeit the second goal is an outlier because it's so good. but all three finishes are finishes that you can picture in your mind because they're all a mean yamal they're all left footed, body opening up a slight tilt of the shoulder and bent into the net with a cleanness and an assuredness that you just think there's no way he's not going to score it's taken so well and it's very reminiscent of a certain little number 10 that they used to have although I actually thought there were moments in this game and I think we've seen this in previous games where what he really reminds me of is Neymar there's touches of Neymar about his game as well The way he goes at people, the skill, the close control and so on.

7:22Phil Kitromilides:I think in a way, the most interesting part of this game or the most new part of this game is what he said afterwards. His statistics are brilliant this season. 18 goals, nine assists at this stage of the season is phenomenal. His statistics over the last six or seven weeks are absolutely brilliant. I think it's eight goals in the last nine weeks now. I think I'm right in saying that. Maybe it's nine even in the last nine weeks. And yet he said post-game, until about a week or so ago, I wasn't happy. I didn't feel myself. I didn't feel like I was enjoying it. There's even a line where he says something along the lines of, I wasn't being that kid who enjoys playing football.

7:56Phil Kitromilides:You know, going back to what you're supposed to always be. Now, this is really striking, I think, for a couple of reasons. The first one is, let's just pick up on the obvious thing here, which is that all season he's had problems with Paul Balkia. And we've been talking about how to describe this, a groin issue. I didn't realise that this is what's known in English as a sportsman's hernia I actually looked it up today It's ridiculous that it's taken me this long to look it up I didn't know that The sportsman's hernia is a groin problem Which is kind of an ongoing one that doesn't quite go away That feels a bit relentless That you feel like you can't break through And he has eventually broken through it But he made the point He was asked, well is this about the Pouvalchia He said it's about the Pouvalchia and a thousand other things Can I tell you what I read into this?

8:38Sid Lowe:Go on when he said up to about a week ago i wasn't happy maybe i'm being i don't know mischievous or maybe i'm remembering what i was like when i was 18 i think he might have been this might be to do with his personal life yeah it might be to do with someone maybe he's met someone maybe he's met a girl maybe he likes a girl maybe something something like that because the phrase up until a week ago It's so specific isn't it? It's so specific. It's like something's coming to my life. Something's coming to my life, exactly. That's what I was reading. Teenagers, we're idiots when we do those kind of things when you've just met.

9:22Sid Lowe:So I don't know. That's how I read it. Because he has been scoring goals. It's not just like a week ago he was playing abysmally and now he's scored this hat-trick. So anyway, I'm a psychologist here Sid. Yeah no no absolutely, onto the

9:32Phil Kitromilides:couch um and i think i think you know he says a thousand other things i think i think there's another element to this which for me is interesting which is that laminya mar we've taught and on this podcast in particular consistently about this idea of trying not to load him with pressure you know you've got this guy that goes and wins european championships well he doesn't actually win it at 16 he just turned 17 when he wins it yeah um who's the youngest ever goal scorer in a classico the youngest ever goal scorer in a european championships or a World Cup, beating Pele's record, for goodness sake.

10:03Phil Kitromilides:You know, a guy that seems to be breaking records all over the place and we're loading him with an enormous amount of pressure. I'll give you a good example of this. The front page of Marker today, I don't know if you've seen it. Thiago Pitarch is looking like he might start for Real Madrid tonight.

10:19Sid Lowe:Yes.

10:20Phil Kitromilides:And it would be his first start for the club. And the front page of Marker is baby on board. And it's absolutely right. And I'm not digging at the front page of Marker. It's absolutely right. Baby on board. Lamin Amal is only three weeks older than Thiago Pitac, and he's played 163 senior games already. And this is the magnitude of this. And, you know, I was thinking about this earlier, and admittedly I've written about this, so maybe some of the ideas I've been thinking about as I was writing are coming back now. I was thinking about this earlier. I was thinking, you know, Lamin Amal has just become the youngest player to score a hat-trick in La Liga history for Barcelona, and the third youngest player ever to score a hat-trick in La Liga, behind two guys that did it in the 1930s, right?

11:01Sid Lowe:Yeah.

11:01Phil Kitromilides:And yet it's taken a long time to come. That's the absurdity of Lamin-Yemal. This has taken no time at all, but it's also taken a very long time. Now, all of this builds into this thing that we've been trying really hard to not load Lamin with pressure. We've been trying really hard not to do this, but it's really difficult because his level is so good because he's so exciting. But the other thing that's been difficult about it is that he has embraced that pressure so often. He's been publicly talking about the things that he wants to do, talking about going to win the Ballon d 'Or one year. At the end of the Champions League semi-final last year against Inter, he vows to be back.

11:37Phil Kitromilides:This is an 18-year-old kid, sorry, 17 at that point, saying, you know, I promise we'll be there. I'm going to lead us back, taking that on for himself. We've got this kid who, yes, in truth, was cocky at times, would wind people up, would sort of be funny. There would be a sparkle in his eye. that we saw this all explode in the Classico when he said, oh, Real Madrid. He joked about Real Madrid and it turned into this massive shit storm. Far bigger than it really was, to be honest, but it turned into this massive shit storm. And I think what he's seen is this guy that was embracing the pressure has, I think, as well started to see or started to feel that some of this pressure isn't a lot of fun.

12:14Phil Kitromilides:You know, that comment he made about how I left fear behind in the park in Mataró, but that fear is never going to go away completely. Do you remember his Instagram post from about, what was it, about a month ago, where he referenced my, what was it, my inner abyss, was it, or my inner turmoil or something? And then he said, I'd like to be the person everyone wants me to be. On Saturday after the game, he says, I would have loved to have scored 100 goals at 16 as everyone wants. I'd have loved it too. And so I think what we're seeing is actually him saying, I sort of recognise that the things that I was taking on head first and thinking, bring it on.

12:47Phil Kitromilides:Actually, you know what, bringing it on is not a lot of fun sometimes. and I think it's amazing really in some ways how well he's dealt with the pressure, you just said it a moment ago as teenagers we're idiots a lot of us, right as teenager he has he has lived his life in the glare of the public eye everything he's done, analysed and counter analysed as we're doing now and I feel bad even doing it and I've taken back a little bit to the interview with Kylian Mbappé that he did with Jorge Ballano And Baldano asked him at a time when people were saying, you know, is Lamin getting a bit big for his boots?

13:23Phil Kitromilides:You know, he's got quite a difficult sort of, what do you call intorno in English, kind of surroundings. He's got quite a lot of noise around him. You know, his dad is a bit of a... Entourage. Yeah. I'm not sure if entourage is quite the right word. I suppose it sort of is. It is in this context. I suppose it is, yeah. His dad is a character. He's seen as a bit cocky. He had that party this summer. People are wanting to take him down a peg or two. And Mbappé was asked, can you give some advice to Lamin, Yemal? and I think the anticipation was that he would say, you know, just kind of relax, take the pressure off, get on with it and Kylian Mbappé said, I'm not going to give him any advice, leave him alone.

13:56Phil Kitromilides:He's a great player, leave him alone and I think what we saw this weekend was possibly for the first time Lamin-Yemal admitting publicly that, yeah, some of this is a bit shit sometimes.

14:08Sid Lowe:It wasn't shit watching him play football and he was very good at it. He's really good at it. You know, it's just extraordinary. goals in all competitions this season, which is as many as he got last season. I mean, there's loads we can talk about, Lamine, but we've got to move on because there's other things that we want to mention in the podcast. His third goal is just a joyful assist from Pedri, who came on and, as you said, produced about half an hour of midfield perfection. Santi Comissagna said when Pedri came on, the game was back and forth, to and fro, kind of how we wanted it. They just scored.

14:47Sid Lowe:It was 2-1. That's what we wanted. And on came Pedri. And that all ended. He got the ball and he started dictating the tempo and just led Barcelona to this win, not least of that extraordinary assist. He's just so good, Sid. And obviously this season he's missed 12 games through injury and he only missed three last season. If you look at Rafinha, Rafinha didn't miss any games through injury last season. He missed a couple because of international duty and being rested after that. Didn't miss any games. He's missed 13 through injury. So perhaps, you know, Pedri and Rafinha were almost ever present last season at an extremely high level.

15:25Sid Lowe:They haven't been ever present this season. It goes some way to explaining why Barcelona haven't necessarily hit the heights of last season.

15:32Phil Kitromilides:I think that's true. As we mentioned in the pod last week, when you mentioned it when I was talking about the one obvious flaw being the high line, and you kind of said, no, no, the number nine. And I think that's true as well. I do think there is an issue there. But I think you're absolutely right that those two players are vital for the way they play. And I think with Pedri, it's particularly interesting or worrying, I suppose, is maybe a better way of putting it, because we had felt that the preparation of Pedri physically, they'd found a solution to the constant injuries. And this maybe just puts...

16:04Phil Kitromilides:I don't think it says, actually, we were wrong. They didn't find a solution. I think what it says is it just sounds a note of caution. It can still happen. there isn't an absolute guarantee that you can avoid muscular injuries there isn't a guarantee you certainly no guarantee that you can avoid accidental injuries because those happen um and he's so important to them now obviously the the downside of this is that he comes back and just as he comes back um Frankie de Jong gets injured but his level of performance is so good and I really but you know what Santi Comestania said that idea of you know suddenly the game is calm he brings calm to him he brings a total control to them and and Villarreal couldn't find a way through.

16:39Phil Kitromilides:And I think that tells us something about, let's go to that obvious flaw, that thing about the high line. And we've talked a lot about, yeah, the pressure has got to be right, but it's also about taking the pressure off and having possession and moving the ball and being able to prevent the other team from getting in control of the ball. And I think Pedri is absolutely central to that. He is, yeah, he's as good a midfielder as, as, as we've seen for quite a while. So I made a, I was going to say a bold statement,

17:05Sid Lowe:about, I think it's that on Saturday night when I was doing CBS. I said, I think Pedri is going to end his career as the best Spanish footballer of all time. Wow. Footballer, not just midfielder, footballer.

17:17Phil Kitromilides:So you're saying he's going to end higher than Laminya Marle? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's a big claim. I don't necessarily think you're wrong. Let's analyse it through the two players that probably are ahead of him at the moment. Certainly if we're talking about midfielders, not centre-forwards. And I actually think if we're talking about players in any position. And those two are Messi. Sorry, those two are Messi. No, they're not. Those two are Iniesta and Xavi. And I think that while this is not a new thing to say, because plenty of people have said it, Pedri has parts of both of their game.

17:51Phil Kitromilides:And more. And more, exactly. And I just think that in itself is extraordinary. That you can even sit here and say he has things from both Xavi and Iniesta and actually he is potentially as good as both of them at both of those things. Now, I do think it's early to say that. I do think that what we need to see from him is longevity because, of course, you can have this performance, but imagine for whatever reason, a series of injuries prevent him from doing this or imagine he's not surrounded by players who are as good, so doesn't win as much. So we don't talk about him as much because, of course, Chubbis and Iniesta were brilliant players who won the World Cup.

18:26Phil Kitromilides:And you could say, so that proves it wasn't just about Messi, but they also play with Messi for a decade or more. And that makes a massive difference to how you're seeing and how that team performs, just as the way they play makes a massive difference to how Messi plays and performs. But I think that longevity and the consistency of competing at the very high level is obviously the thing that we have to wait and see whether Pedri can do. But my word, he's a brilliant player and lovely to watch as well. We used to say this, me and you talked about this a fair bit. We used to say this about Modric.

18:58Phil Kitromilides:One of the things about Modric was he was just really nice to watch. And I think Pedri's got bits of Modric as well. Those little darting runs through the space in the midfield to try and take the pressure off, to try and make the panorama's not quite the right word, but you know what I mean? Make what's in front of him change. He's so good at that.