Chelsea are world champions, England thrash Wales + Gyökeres heads to Arsenal

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0:42It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash 5 for details. Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Summer gave your home a workout. Cookouts, long weekends, probably at-home improvement lists that never quite got finished. And now it's fall's turn. And Lowe's is making the changeover easy with their Labor Day deals. Right now, save up to 45 % off select major appliances. So if something's been on your list, this is the time. Doing laundry? You can save an extra$100 on select laundry pairs. And if you're getting the yard ready for fall, head over and grab three bags of Miracle Grow 0.75 cubic foot garden soil for just$10.

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1:35Liam Twomey: The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

1:45Liam Twomey: Totally football show today. Club World Cup final. Crack open your blue billion pound bottles of bubbly because Chelsea are world champions. On a day when the real cold play show came from Chelsea's number 10, 30 degrees but still shivering, we salute the PSG Pummelers, say, how on earth and does this mean? Then, other news on a bad weekend for Welsh females and Palace emails, we catch up on England's 6-1 winners over Wales and Crystal Palace out of the Europa League. And we ask, how weird is it watching Spurs doing early transfer business? All that and more in this Totally Football show.

2:25Unbelievable, unbelievable.

2:53Liam Twomey: celebrate. Is it? There must be a Champions League qualifier somewhere today. Surely. That we can just go straight into. There almost certainly is and there already have been of course but I'm referring to the fact that Club World Cup is now finally concluded and very much seen as the last act of the previous season and it concluded in quite extraordinary fashion Sunday night which is the reason that Liam Toomey is here with Liam, thank you so much for joining us. I did enjoy your post-Chelsea's 3-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain. I feel obliged to formally apologise, says Liam. Part of my job is to notice when Chelsea become the best team on the planet, but I'm as shocked as all of you.

3:38Liam Twomey: 24 hours on, or 12 hours on, have you come to any greater conclusions? I mean, at no point of watching Chelsea in this tournament did it feel like we were watching the eventual winners? Certainly not in the group stage when they lost to Flamengo in such limp fashion. And that defeat ended up being the making of their tournament in many ways because it set them up in the Southgate side of the bracket, you could say, to get to the final. And as much as you could point to PSG producing a pretty bizarre performance, I think, there can be no diminishing what Chelsea did in the final. and now something that's always been very, very important to Chelsea fans is to say we've won it all.

4:22They can say that again. Wow. We'll get on to how they reduced Paris Saint-Germain

4:28Liam Twomey: to pulling their and other people's hairs out on Sunday night. Very, very shortly. We'll also be hearing, Daniel, about the other big game on Sunday night, England's performance against Wales. Yeah, pretty much the perfect evening for England, not least because they scored often and scored early, which gave them pretty much half the match off, allowed Serena Vigman to make changes in the second half, give players a rest, bring in some of those players who had moved in and out the team in the first two matches. Beth Mead in particular scoring, Lesley Russo getting her first goal. But also more than that, and Liam's already mentioned the Southgate side of the draw.

5:05I don't think it's quite like that because Sweden beat Germany 4-1 this weekend and looked really good doing it. We'll find out if that was Germany being dismal or Sweden being really good in Thursday's quarterfinal. But effectively, on the other side of the door, France play Germany for almost certainly the chance to play Spain in the semifinal. And that's absolutely the side of the door you want to miss if you're trying to get to the final.

5:26Liam Twomey: Excellent. More on that to come. Seb and Tim, which side of the big Sunday night TV clash did you end up sitting? I was on the Chelsea PSG side. Yeah, same. I was working on the final. But I didn't watch all of it because it started at half six UK time and it finished at 11.25 UK time, which is 295 minutes for a 101-minute match. Shorter than some of the Chelsea's games at this tournament, of course. Yeah, absolutely. There was a lot of other stuff going on. I can't remember an occasion where the other stuff almost, became a sideshow. Certainly some people wanted it that way. The amount of other stuff going on was just nuts.

6:16And it all was nuts. You know, the pre-match show, the half-time show, all the stuff with Trump is just completely beyond to be honest. There's so many things to get into on that, but my favourite sort of image of the whole tournament was Reece James lifting the trophy to signify that Chelsea are champions of the entire world. And Cole Palmer at that point is just staring at Donald Trump with a kind of a what?

6:41Liam Twomey: Well, he says to Rhys, not yet, he's got to go, he's got to go. And Infantino starts to leave and motions to Trump to go, but there's no getting through to that man. And shout out to Tariq George, by the way, for giving the old Wayne Bridge, John Terry, no handshake. I mean, they were all a bit frosty with him. You could tell Rhys James sort of ended their handshake a little bit earlier than Donald Trump wanted it to. And then as he's about to lift the trophy, I'm sure that Rhys James says, what, are you going to leave? Basically, and Trump's just like, I don't know, just smiling, nodding along.

7:13And then Infantino, you know, the other half of this ridiculous sort of hail and pace duo with the whitest trainers I've ever seen, by the way. Why is he sitting next to the, I know it's Trump, but it's the president and he's wearing those incredibly white trainers. Anyway, he sort of ushers Trump to the back of the stage and then Trump, they sort of escape out the back while Chelsea's celebrating. and then we had a couple of few people obviously in the stadium working for the Athletic who said that Trump was just sort of waving to the crowd as he walked off and just being booed and heckled on the way out.

7:43I mean, you just couldn't get more surreal, really.

7:46Liam Twomey: Tim, thank you so much for summing up the colour surrounding Sunday night's clash, which hopefully we won't have to touch on too much more. Let's get into, then, Chelsea 3, Paris Saint-Germain 0. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Oh, the good ball of Col Palma! They are in the middle of the United States. The American dream turns into a nightmare. A nightmare that has the face of Col Palma. Passer for Jean-Pedro. 3-0 for Chelsea. Well, indeed. PSG's American dream becoming a nightmare, in the words of the zone's commentator. Courtesy of Chelsea, of Col Palma, with two goals and assists, and the remarkable João Pedro.

8:36Liam Twomey: Well, Liam, the question I think everyone's asking, including yourself, is how did this happen? So, what did Chelsea do? What did Enzo Maresco do to nullify a team that had absolutely destroyed all comers so far, apart from the time when they didn't play the full-strength team against Botafogo? Yeah, it was a very interesting game plan from Maresco and it actually contained elements of what went very wrong against Flamengo in the group stage where he didn't have either fullback inverting into midfield. He had Malo Gusto pushing really high on the right. And that allowed Cole Palmer, who was actually starting as the right winger rather than the number 10, to come inside into that little right half space or the right pocket, as Mareska calls it.

9:21And they had Rhys James starting in midfield as he did against Flamengo. But it worked much, much better than it did in that game. they largely pressed PSG man for man certainly in the first half it was really aggressive particularly in the conditions of America at high summer and Maresca said after the game that he felt they won the game in the first 10 minutes now they clearly didn't score all their goals in that time but they really set the tone in terms of the intensity and it was quite jarring early on just how dominant Chelsea were in that stretch they were keeping the ball when they didn't have the ball they were they were making PSG make some very uncharacteristic errors the front three for PSG were were almost non-existent apart from one really good chance where the zero duo probably should have shot rather than trying to cross and yeah it was it was really strange and the question quickly became can Chelsea score while they're on top while they have the initiative and they found that clinical edge courtesy of a man in Cole Palmer who hadn't scored twice in a game in 2025 you have to go back to Tottenham away for the last time he scored twice in a game those were two penalties the last time he scored two open play goals was uh his four goal haul against Brighton back in September so that that shows the the length of time that Palmer has been in this funk but he has been improving in the United States round by round scored two brilliant goals and then of course the the signing that they've that's really transformed their knockout stage is Jao Pedro he's been an absolute revelation as this number nine they just took their chances and then managed the game it was really really impressive

11:08Liam Twomey: do you think that Jao Pedro arriving has actually had a bigger impact on on Cole Palma as well whether Palma was in some kind of existential crisis having to play alongside players that couldn't operate on the same wavelength. This guy turns up, starts doing things like that backhill for the chance with which Palmer thought he'd open the scoring, but didn't. And the run on his second goal, just the way it seems to elevate all the play. And it's almost like Palmer's gone, oh, hang on, we're back on now. Yeah, I think João Pedro's been so impressive beyond the three goals, which were all fantastic finishes, the two against Flamense and the one in the final.

11:46His all-around play, He just always seems to be making the right run at the right time, providing an outlet. He provides the link-up play and running of Nicholas Jackson, but without some of the erratic decision-making and with a lethal touch in the final third. I think Palmer has actually enjoyed playing with Jackson over the course of their time at Chelsea. You can see that in the number of goals they've created for each other. I think they're on pace, or at least they were, to break the Lampard-Drogba record at Chelsea for goals created for each other. But there seems to be a very natural, immediate chemistry between Palmer and João Pedro.

12:25And I think you've also seen Palmer, he's not been alone at this at Chelsea, has been quite frustrated with Jackson at times. And who knows if João Pedro will continue to play this well, but it's been one hell of a start to his Chelsea career. and he's completely transformed the threat that Chelsea are able to carry in the final third, where now they're actually quite a clinical, dangerous team. Liam, how do all these pieces fit together eventually? Because obviously I really like watching Pedro. I think it's been great. I think his effect on some of those other players is evident. But once you add Gittins in there, what are you doing with Neto?

12:59Where is Palmer playing in relation to that front three? What happens in the midfield to accommodate Palmer? How do you see that all fitting together? What's the jigsaw? I think it's going to continue to depend on Maresca tweaking things game to game. I don't expect to see Palmer on the right wing every game because, as we said, it worked phenomenally well against PSG, actually really badly against Flamengo. He barely touched the ball. So it very much depends on who Chelsea are playing and who's fit. I think Gittins will get a lot of time on that left wing. it certainly seems right now it wasn't 100 % clear when he signed but it certainly seems right now that João Pedro's got that number nine spot as long as he's playing this well and then you have Esteval coming in as well who's going to get minutes I think probably more on the right the bottom line answer is that some names are going to fall by the wayside and some names are not going to get the minutes that they want and you've already seen that with Nicholas Jackson Noni Madweke is going to Arsenal.

13:58There will be some degree of churn, I would imagine. Not necessarily all in this window, but if you project six months to a year down the line, there probably will be a couple of attacking players turning around to their agents saying, this isn't going as I thought it would. But Chelsea won't care as long as they're getting the production that they need in that area, the pitch from the players that are actually playing.

14:20Liam Twomey: Plus, it's going to be a really long season, a lot of commitments, Champions League, and it's a season that's begun in a very atypical fashion with this summer tournament, which might well have an impact in terms of tiredness and injuries going forward. Daniel? Liam, to my mind, if you rightly, as of last night, declare yourself the best team in the world, it sort of suggests that you're also the best team in England. Chelsea are currently fourth favourites for the title at like 16 to 1 or something, miles away from the other three. Does the last 24 hours shift that thinking? Does it now have to be, well, we have to challenge for a title if we've spent this money and we can do this against PSG?

14:59Well, Rhys James made that point in his post-match media duties, saying hopefully we can go on and challenge for the Premier League now. So his mind is clearly on that. I don't think Mareska was quite as forthright, but there are real expectations at Chelsea that this project has a sky-high ceiling. ceiling and that and that is very much what they're looking to do whether it's next season or beyond to to actually be consistently challenging for the Premier League and not just in the Champions League but in it with designs to win it the fascinating question for me coming out of this tournament is does this tournament actually undermine Chelsea's ability to compete for the Premier League next year because they're they're going on holiday for three weeks now a lot of these guys are not going to do the João Pedro thing of a private fitness this regime while they're on the beach.

15:48I'm sure they'll stay in shape to a degree, but every other Premier League team is getting their conditioning work in now for the next three weeks. And Chelsea will basically just turn up, play those two friendlies at Stamford Bridge the week before the Premier League season, after a few days at Cobham, and then go into the Premier League. And I really am fascinated to see how that works, because there is a world in which the first half of next season is really difficult for Chelsea. when they don't have that foundation that a lot of the other teams do physically.

16:21Liam Twomey: They will have a nice gold badge to wear for the next four years, as it stands, plus, what is it, over$100 million. Is that going to have an impact on how they approach next season that money? Well, at least they'll have something new on their shirt. They still don't have a sponsor. You'd have to think if they can't get one now, they'll never, ever get one. But yeah, the money is huge. It was a big reason why Chelsea were determined from the outset to take this tournament deadly seriously. Coming at the end of a season in which they weren't in the Champions League, this basically more than makes up for that.

16:58I think Kieran Maguire made the point on X that they made more money from this competition than they did in matchday revenue in their last published set of accounts. So it's a pretty remarkable windfall. It buys them some financial wiggle room in terms of transfers, in terms of UEFA's financial controls, which are, of course, a big consideration now that they are in this negotiated settlement with UEFA. It just gives them more options. And they already had their transfer plans in motion. We've seen that with João Pedro and Jamie Gittens this summer. They may go and try and do one or two more. I don't expect there to be, like, it's always a risk saying this for Chelsea, like masses of incomings.

17:43If there are incomings, it may be more of the kind of Steval, Quenda mould where they're signing players for a year or two down the line. Right. A defender at all? Well, that has been on and off mooted. I mean, they took a long look at Dean Housen. I think if his preferences had been different, maybe they would have gone harder for that. but they also recognize they're in a position where they do need to sell a lot of players there's basically an entire squad of players training at Cobham right now who they need to find solutions for so that will be the the bulk of their energies but this buys them the room to do what they want to do and it also removes the need for them to do a lot because clearly this squad is in a pretty good place.

18:29Liam Twomey: Wow. Whatever else happens, they've just won in one of the biggest surprises certainly of this season, the Club World Cup final. Lim, you've followed them through a lot of big games. The Bayern Champions League final when there was no way they were going to win. The City final in the Champions League more recently when there was no way they were going to win. And now this is a remarkable habit they have of turning up on the big occasions. Yeah, and it feels like this is the new era Chelsea finally embracing the old era Chelsea heritage. You know, they've spent a lot of the last three years, it feels like trying to erase that, that institutional knowledge and the way Chelsea were used to winning.

19:14But they're very, very used to being underdogs in finals. and that's crazy to say given the money they spend and the talent that they have but they're very used to not being fancied in these situations and finding a way to do it and it's really impressive that this group given how young they are given how relatively inexperienced Maresca is at this level that they have found a way to do it together and I think this maybe shows as well the value of winning the Conference League getting over the line in a competition barely a month before this I think makes a difference even though they were massively expected to win that.

19:49And this can be a real platform now to actually build a winning culture under this new ownership, which for a while looked like it wasn't a sure thing to be rebuilt at Chelsea. Just to say, Liam, you mentioned underdogs. I thought it was really interesting that Chelsea only had 33 % possession last night, which is less than they had in any match for the whole of last season, I think I'm right in saying. And obviously a lot of that was due to the second half when they're sort of, you know, defending. but it reminded me of Postacoglu in the Europa League in how when you're seeing Robert Sanchez knocking it to the halfway line and not playing out from the back.

20:24Mureski was so stubborn last season, getting so much stick from the fans and you're seeing those videos recorded from the shed end of fans just booing when they're playing it out from the back from goal kicks. So for him to show that tactical flexibility to win a trophy like Postacoglu did, And I guess that bodes pretty well for next season. Has he hinted at that, Liam, that he's willing to change his style? Or did that come out of nowhere? If he kicks long, we change him and go with the second goalkeeper. That was what Mareska was saying about Robert Sanchez the whole season. But Philip Jorgensen never got up once in that Club World Cup final.

21:02And after the game, Mareska said he struck a very different tone. He was like, well, generally we look to the opponent to give us the solution. and the way that PSG played kind of dictated that Chelsea maybe go a bit longer, a bit more direct. I think there were times last season, particularly in the first half of the season, where Maresca did get a lot of credit for being less dogmatic than people expected him to be. Chelsea were a lot more direct. The problem was he didn't seem to be happy about that. He seemed to be constantly complaining that they needed to play more passes and be more patient.

21:35And then when they were, the results started to dip, the fans started to turn and the second half of the season became quite toxic for a stretch. But I think it is a very encouraging sign and a reminder that Mareska is a young, evolving coach as well. He clearly has very defined ideas of the way he wants to play and there were signs of that in the game, in the way that Chelsea played when they had the ball and the way they pressed without it. But there was also an impressive flexibility that Mareska has been so associated with inverting fullbacks and there was none of that in this game. Yes, there was a full-back starting in midfield, but it's just a sign that he can do things differently depending on the situation and he can craft a game plan that can beat the best team in the world.

22:20Many positives for Chelsea.

22:22Liam Twomey: You called PSG's performance bizarre, Liam, a little bit earlier on. What did you mean by that? I just didn't understand their lack of intensity. You know, they set the tone almost immediately in this tournament with that 4-0 dismantling of Atletico Madrid. I must say, when you're covering one club, you don't necessarily see that much of the tournament outside of that. But I did actually watch PSG quite a lot because I really enjoy watching them. And they had, I thought, two or three of the best performances, the most impressive performances in the tournament. the way they responded against Bayern going down to nine men and finding a way to put them away and then just completely humiliating Real Madrid in a way that almost no one does, regardless of what state Real Madrid are in.

23:10They were approaching this final with real swagger and that's why I felt going in that it would actually be a bigger shock for Chelsea to beat this PSG team than it would have been in 2012 to beat Bayern in their own stadium because this team is a month removed from the pinnacle. but they just didn't turn up and you could see from the first 10 minutes that they hadn't turned up they weren't pressing Chelsea properly they were leaving incredible gaps defensively they were still playing high up but without actually shutting off Chelsea's passing options and as much as Chelsea made the most of what they were given they were given a lot I mean you only have to look at the third goal that Palmer sets up for João Pedro the space in which he receives the ball Palmer never gets that in the Premier League anymore.

23:57And he can just carry the ball 20 yards. And Baraldo just steps out with none of the other PSG defenders reacting to create this massive passing window to João Pedro. It was very, very strange. And then at 3-0, it felt like there was a complete loss of belief from PSG, followed by a collective head loss in the final minutes. and after the final whistle, very uncharacteristic behaviour from Luis Enrique as well. I just thought something was really off about PSG in that whole game. And maybe there's a story behind it, maybe there isn't, but it was very, very strange.

24:39Liam Twomey: Jean-Ever's getting a rig car, what, five minutes before the 90 was up for pulling the hair of Marco Correa. Something which is a popular thing among opposing footballers. Jack Stephens sent off last season for doing it for Saints. And famously, Christian Romero yanked at Cucurilla's bonts in 2022, but only wasn't sent off because Mike Dean was on VAR. And as he later admitted, he didn't want to embarrass his mate who was refereeing. So he let that one slide. Extraordinary. Any other thoughts on Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, Seb? I just remember thinking, watching it, because Liam talked about what a strange PSG performance was.

25:20It was, and I agree, and the third guy obviously characterized that pretty well. It just seemed to be a game too far for PSG. It feels like when you've been playing with that level of tension, end of season games, big matchups against sides like Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, and when you get to a final like that and your strategy is that loose and there are so many weird question marks around decisions you've made and also like Liam mentioned as well the behaviour at the end which was obviously quote unquote things you never want to see but actually everybody wanted to see big fight at the end who doesn't enjoy that it just suggested yeah it's time for the beach for some of those players I think just to have a little bit of a rest and so I kind of unless some of those things continue into next season I think it's quite easy to write it off as just yeah maybe we're playing a bit too much football at the moment

26:10Liam Twomey: It's not a concept that's been raised at all during this Club World Cup Seb No, it's an original point. Yeah. No.

26:20Well, we've got to talk about Cole Palmer. It's been said so many times before, but his ability to handle the occasion and the pressure and in the way that he does it. And it was so obvious last night, the contrast between this just nonsense going on everywhere and this razzmatazz. And he just shrugs his shoulders at everything, you know, on and off the pitch. He was asked after the game about his sort of record in finals, which I think is seven goal contributions in seven senior finals. Obviously scored in the Euros final last year. Obviously he dragged Chelsea to win the Conference League final and then scored two here and set another up.

26:54And all that was sort of put to him and he literally just goes, I like finals. And then that was it. And then he let that hang. I was like, it's just brilliant. Like I said, all this razzmatazz and nonsense and he just shrugged his shoulders at it. Literally, I feel like we should all just be a little bit more Cole Palmer.

27:14Liam Twomey: Except in some of our post-game interviews, perhaps. Liam, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you're going to have a bit of a break yourself. You are, before you go anywhere, going to do a very special Straight Out of Cobham, what, like straight after this? Yes, shortly after this, I think we're going to do a, yeah, Champions of the World Straight Out of Cobham. There may be a fuller cast than normal, so people will want to tune in for that one.

27:44Liam Twomey: There you go, Lim Toomey. And with that, the Club World Cup is done. Interesting that not a single game at this tournament went to penalties. And interesting as well, as someone kind of old enough to have memories of USA 94 when the heat really had an impact on the, I would say the intensity, the attacking verve of teams, the way that we had some really, really, really huge performances. I don't know if sports science has been able to cope better with high temperatures or mitigate the effects thereof or stuff, or whether just football's become more fun in the however many years since. I'm talking completely out of turn here, I think, because I cannot remember every game in the tournament.

28:23It doesn't feel like we had that many comebacks. I wonder if the heat is more of a once the team starts quickly and gets a lead, it's really, really hard to chase a game and get back into it. I'm thinking of the kind of we talked about PSG Atletico and PSG Real Madrid and the final as well where actually some surprisingly one-sided games between big teams I wonder if that was a factor in that Did they have cooling breaks? I was going to ask, yeah Yeah, they did They did? I don't remember Well, Ireland had made their own, didn't they? Halfway through the game, famously When anybody talks about USA 94 and the heat, my mind does always go to the Republic of Ireland against Mexico and some very, very sunburned Irishmen.

29:06But also like, you know, you, you, you have five substitutes now, you have bigger squads, you have deeper squads, you have, you know, you mentioned the sports science. I, I disagree a little bit. I think there was a sort of, especially in those, those midday kickoff games, there was quite a sort of six, five out of 10 intensity to them, which probably, which is completely fair enough, which did reflect the heat. and it was one of the reasons why I think that has to be sorted for next year just because I think you're getting a lesser version of what a game could be when you put it in that time slot and when you're not able to move it to an air-conditioned stadium or to a climate which is a little bit easier to play and that's kind of my hope leaving the tournament is that some of those issues are pivoted around properly and that with enough planning and enough foresight the World Cup doesn't become victim to that kind of issue?

30:01Because it would be a shame. I think Vancouver, Houston, Dallas and LA have all got roofs and can all be there for, I think they call it, air-managed. Obviously, none of those were used in this tournament. So that will help the fact that they can... I think FIFA have already mentioned it, not for one to defend FIFA on anything at all, but I think they already have mentioned that they understand And if there are going to be lunchtime games in that tournament, they're going to have to look to use those roofed stadiums. I think it's also really important for the spectators too, because I wasn't out in America, but a lot of our reporters were and saw a lot of photos of fans avoiding the heat, fans trying to find water in stadiums.

30:44Those kind of things need sorting too, because it's going to be a lot more people. uh it's going to be if you have if you have organizational issues infrastructural difficulties where people are failing to or are not aware of where the resources are within a stadium those are just going to be multiplied by the amount of people that turn up and a lot of people for instance who won't be speaking english you might not be able to communicate um you know with with event support staff so those kind of things especially when it's that hot really really need to get that right too um and some of the travel issues around those stadiums because um you don't to be leaving people in the middle of nowhere under 38 degrees, that doesn't seem like a great time to have at a World Cup.

31:24Liam Twomey: Indeed not, Seb. Well, yeah, here's hoping that those among the positives that come out of this Club World Cup experience, we'll park it there as regards Coppa Jani. And next up, get on to the latest news from the Women's Euros.

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34:30This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Oli Kay and the very best football writers around. Toon. Gets it back from James. Toon across. Russo surely!

34:51Liam Twomey: The first goal of the Euros. The Lionesses really purring in this first half. Big wins at the women's Euros on Sunday. England thrashing Wales 6-1. France, though, coming from behind with three goals in six minutes to defeat the Netherlands 5-2 and thus take top spot in Group D, which means the quarterfinals we'll see on Wednesday, Norway facing Italy. Thursday, Sweden taking on England. Friday, Spain will face Switzerland. And then, on Saturday, France get Germany. Daniel, you were all over England-Wales. Yeah, and it was, you know, I mentioned at the top of the show that it was a perfect night.

35:33You could tell that Serena Wigman and her players wanted to start early. You could tell that they wanted to get Lesley Russo a goal. You could tell they wanted to make changes in the second half and all of that happened. It then became a question of finding out what was going on in the Netherlands-France game. I think there was a slight suspicion at half-time that France were not unhappy to be 2-1 down and therefore going into that other side of the draw, they completely dispelled that myth in the second half by scoring three goals in six minutes and being absolutely rampant, as they have been for periods in pretty much all tournament, especially against England for that kind of 20 minutes before half-time.

36:12And Bath, Spain, they look the best team in the tournament. they also will get two days extra rest by going to that side of the draw I think playing Thursday versus playing Saturday is a big deal and that's why England wanted to score early because they really needed you know it's hot in Switzerland too it's not just the US and for them to be able to get that kind of second half break was really important and now yeah now they have a rerun of their semi-final in Euro 2022 at home to Sweden when they probably produced the best performance I've ever seen from a Lionesses team when they beat Sweden 4-0 in that semi-final.

36:49That's when Russo scored the backheel goal that won the Puskas Award. It was at Bramall Lane. It was raucous. It was everything we wanted. It did feel like a breakout moment, perhaps even more than the final at Wembley. And this is a different England team since then. It has a lot of the same players, but it's a different feeling around them. and both at the last World Cup and this Euros they've had to grow into tournaments because they've not been good enough early on but they do feel like they are growing into the tournament and they got to the final two years ago and they will back themselves to get to the final again now Sweden are there's a few teams in the women Euros traditionally who have sort of completely flattered to deceive Germany have done it recently Italy do it Norway do it Netherlands have done it and Sweden have done it and Sweden now do look to be peaking at the right time they were brilliant against Germany who were dreadful but that will be this is a very set yourself up for a full thing to say but that feels like a harder game than the semi-final would be against Norway or Italy so it's a massive game on Thursday obviously

37:52Liam Twomey: Indeed 4-1 for Sweden against Germany Saturday night they've won three games out of three and top Group C that's the first time a team have ever put four goals past Germany at the Euros hapless Germans or otherwise otherwise. Fewer schools conceded at the tournament, but they haven't really faced, is that fair, the calibre of sides that England are and have themselves faced? We don't know, really. England were brilliant against the Netherlands and awful against France. I can't remember two, I think I posted it at the time, but I can't remember two consecutive major tournament performances from any nation, let alone an England team more different than the France to Netherlands.

38:31Wales was a little bit of a tap-in, they were pretty much already out, it always felt like England were going to go through the motions and win and score as many as they wanted to. No disrespect to Wales, but they are a world away from the other three teams in that group and they frankly did very well to score twice. England have always been brilliant under Serena Viegman when the pressure has been on, notwithstanding the World Cup final two years ago in which Spain were just the better team and are still the better team. So logic dictates that they will step their game up again and produce more of a Netherlands-type performance than France, But if they're not at it, Sweden have proven, as against Germany, that they can score quickly.

39:07Liam Twomey: England, Sweden on Thursday then. And we'll be shifting Thursday's Totally Football show to Friday to reflect on events in that match. We'll get on to some other kind of Switzerland-related news involving our friends at UEFA next.

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41:44Liam Twomey: In July, Arsenal buying a forward. And above all, Crystal Palace getting chucked out of the Europa League. Crikey. Out of the Europa League because Lyon are back in it. These two teams collectively breaching UEFA's multi-club ownership rules because John Texter owns a stake in Palace and was the majority owner of Lyon. Lyon finishing higher in their league and therefore taking precedence in terms of the Europa League place. Palace getting bumped down to the Europa Conference League. Which bits of that are fair? Which bits of it don't make sense? What do you think? I'll caveat this by saying I promise, promise, promise.

42:24I'm not just saying this because I'm a Nottingham Forest supporter. I really feel for Palace. I feel like their strongest argument against this is that the punishment doesn't match the supposed crime. The rule-breaking that has occurred, and I think it has occurred, is of a minor enough nature that actually throwing them out of the competition seems slightly draconian to me. But the more I hear John Texter talk and hear Steve Parrish talk, the more I think that it sounds like their defence just wasn't prepared in any way to answer the questions that came. So, for example, you have Steve Parrish's statement immediately after the verdict that says it is clear that we are not part of a multi-club operation and never have been.

43:07And then you go back and you look at Parrish's quotes after that deal was done. And he says, you know, John Tex will not have full control, but we are collaborating with his clubs whenever we can. This is good for Palace. This is good for the future. We hope it's good for everybody. and you think, well, you can see how someone comes to the conclusion, given that he had 43 % stake in Palace at the time and was looking to increase it in May, that maybe it was. You can talk about decisive control and you can say, well, it's not decisive because it's only one vote each. And you think, yeah, but then you go back and look at Steve Parrish's quotes about how that investment will help the club get through COVID and will allow them to invest in the academy and invest in the training ground.

43:49And you think, well, yeah, that sounds like some of the control he has and some of the money he's providing is decisive. And yeah, I don't really know where I sit on it. I think the punishment's really harsh and I don't think they should be kicked out. But I think it sounds to me like they should have approached it in a better way.

44:04Liam Twomey: What percentage of Man United does Sir Jim Ratcliffe have? Yeah, and the argument here, and that's why I say the punishment doesn't fit because other clubs who are confirmed to be in multi-club models have played in the same competition. But there are rules that you can call them loopholes or workarounds but you wait for document they they literally tell you they write to you and tell you this is what you need to do and other clubs do it and to do that they ensure that you know things like board of directors aren't shared that decision making is not shared you can say oh yeah that's just written in small print you think well yeah but this is small print is what matters here because they're a governing body so that's the reason that for example rb salzburg and rb very much not Red Bull Leipzig play in the same competition and Man City and Girona also part of the city football group play in the same competition because they looked at the small print and found the workarounds.

45:02RB Leipzig would say, Jimbo, they're like, RB Salzburg are sponsored by Red Bull. They're not, and I know we can all roll our eyes, but they would say, but they're not part of the Red Bull network. Right. And so like Dan says, that small print, those kind of, the semantics kind of matter in this situation. so this story about the emails is genuinely part of the issue that all sort of adds to the naivety i guess you know red bull know the way around this and crystal palace don't because the you know paris is kind of saying well they sent it to info at cpfc.co.uk and no one really noticed it you can't it just it sounds ridiculous and that's not a defense to say that we weren't checking the emails that is just it's just daft and yeah i agree with daniel in terms of you know it's it's It's a mistake, but it's not a heinous one.

45:51The deadline for this was March 1st, when Palace beat Millwall in the Cup that day, 3-1 in the fifth round, when Mateta suffered that horrific injury. They'd beaten Stockport and Doncaster before that point. They weren't thinking about Europe. They'd never been in Europe. They played one into Toto tie back in the late 90s. So, of course, they weren't thinking about it, but that's still not an excuse, is it? But the punishment doesn't fit the crime. And I think you do hope that this appeal to the court arbitration does see sense, because it's just not a fitting punishment. But equally, there is no defence for the silly things that they've done.

46:25Liam Twomey: When is that appeal due to being held, Tim? Daniel, I don't know if you know, it's got to be as soon as possible. It has to be soon, presumably, because otherwise it throws the next season's tournament into absolute chaos, the Conference League. Yes, the draw for the play-off round of the Conference League, which is what we're talking about here, is on August 4th. Droghidi United when they were kicked out of Europe for good. And we should say in all this that Palace, that could have been an option for Palace, given the Bromby stuff that we won't go into now. That case was fast-tracked within a week at Cass, I think.

46:57So this will be Cass' number one priority. I suspect they know that this needs sorting out very quickly. The very funny thing in all this is that those conference league playoffs are on the 21st and 28th of August. on the 24th of August Nottingham Forest play Crystal Palace which is absolutely delicious timing from the Premier League fixture computer and something we can absolutely all get on board with. There's not many times where I'd love just to hang around in a Premier League boardroom rather than watch the match but I think I probably would at that fixture. Is this not one of those football situations which seems to exist mainly in football where a problem exists, a problem grows, we recognise it to be a problem and then someone comes up with some legislation against it tells all the clubs how you can prepare yourself not to be exposed that legislation but then you crack down on someone who is a little unprepared and doesn't have the right rapport with the organizational with the organizing body that's that's the bit with me where i have sympathy for palace because we're talking about what they're guilty of is it seems naivety um maybe there's a stronger different word than that certainly with the email stuff that Tim mentioned because I agree with him there.

48:11I think that was a little bit careless. But it's like, well, you haven't learned where the loopholes are and so therefore we really do need to punish you quite severely and chuck you into the conference. That feels a bit disingenuous, I think, to me.

48:24Liam Twomey: And it is a harsh punishment. It really is. It really is a harsh punishment, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, unless they go and win that and have the time of their lives. The other thing to say about the naivety is that financial journalist Stefan Borsen last night was tweeting about there are notes in Crystal Palace's accounts as far back as December that talk about UEFA club licensing. So I don't think, I think Tim's point is absolutely right. I just don't think they thought they were going to win the FA Cup. Interestingly, on March 1st, they were only eight points off sixth in the Premier League as well.

48:56So it could have become an issue if they had a really good late season run. But wasn't everyone, Dan, like back in March?

49:02Liam Twomey: as it stands Forrest inherit Palace's Europa League spot what a great time for Forrest to be selling all their best players Daniel where are we with that yeah well Anthony Langer is gone he's a Newcastle player Morgan Gibbs-White it's never dull who is the best Forrest player you've seen in your lifetime is that right in terms of natural talent I think only Stan Collymore would be ahead of him yes and he has a greater output over a longer period of time than Stan Collymore for Forrest So ergo, yes. I mean, this is a complete chaotic mess. It sounds like Tottenham offered Nottingham Forest exactly the amount of Morgan Gibbs-White's release clause.

49:45And Forest's allegation is that to activate an release clause, you also have to inform the club you're doing so before you talk to the player and the agents. Their allegation is that that happened the wrong way around. They didn't get that offer first and therefore they think it's quite coincidental that a club managed to talk to agent and player and land upon the exact release clause that would be activated at the first offer. They think that's quite coincidental. Therefore, they're considering making a complaint to the Premier League about an illegal approach. my hunch and it is just that is that this is will delay the transfer but will not stop it and that it will probably mean that rather than the 60 million Forrest get pluck a figure out the air 63 64 million as a kind of yeah sorry about that you don't make the complaint we'll give you a little bit more money it also buys Forrest a little bit more time PR wise with the fans to line up potential replacements which I think is hugely important because every fan at the end of last season was saying, right, we need four or five players if we're going to be playing on Thursday nights and on Sunday in the Premier League.

50:49And at the moment, Forrest have signed two Brazilians who are probably quite raw and lost their two best attacking players.

50:55Liam Twomey: Wow. In the meantime, it also raises a question about events in North London. Who are you and what have you done with Daniel Levy? Who knows? Who knows? This is a really strange time for Tottenham because obviously they're in this kind of netherworld between having Morgan and Dwight and not having him. But the intent is really unusual because obviously Spurs taking away their record spend being on a single player, being just over 60 million for Dominic Solanke last summer. The idea of them acting decisively and activating release clauses is quite unusual because ordinarily they're the club of the cleverly structured deal that pays you 3 million euros for the next 100 years and somehow that's been sold as a good deal for somebody.

51:43And yet it fits this kind of, I don't know. I mean, it's very hard to make it make sense, James, because on the one hand, a couple of months ago, when they dispatched for financial results were released, Daniel Levy did a little bit of an editorial on it saying, we've got to be careful. This kind of shows that there isn't a lot of leeway for us to spend heavily. And yes, they've won the Europa League in that time. and that gives them access to Champions League revenue, of course. But then that hasn't always been a game changer for them in the past. There's been an influx of money, clearly. No one's quite sure from where.

52:17A lot of speculation, but no one has been able to substantiate it or describe it accurately. And it's a very unusual feeling for a Tottenham fan because it feels like the club are taking next season seriously. Ordinarily, at this time of year, there are a few noises coming out of the club where someone says something like, Like, hey, you know, the coach is really impressed with this 19-year-old youth player that has had a really great pre-season. So maybe, maybe we don't necessarily have to spend in his position. And it's become a kind of running joke amongst the fans. But not this year, seemingly.

52:49Not sure why either.

52:51Liam Twomey: Thomas Frank in, Bungibs White, potentially Mohamed Koudis in. And you look Spurs for a new season. Daniel, you've got to leave us to catch a train. Yes, off to London to make plans for next season. Excellent. You as well. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. Catch up with you soon. The rest of us, though, are still going to address one or two other things. Yeah, no, just to add, Jimbo, to the Spurs thing. One, I think, yeah, what Seb said is right. It is unusual. It's also unusual that they're signing two players where they've already got very good players. So Kudas likes playing on the right where they've already got Kulisevsky and Brennan Johnson, which is interesting.

53:29And Gibbs White loves playing in the 10 where they've got Kulisevsky as well or James Madison. Again, that's something Spurs don't really do is buy top quality players where they've already got them. But there is a big West Ham story here which may be going a little bit under the radar. it's really really hurt for them to sell their best player to spurs in particularly i have to say i was reading an instant article by roshane thomas our west ham guy about how scott parker who you associate with being hugely popular at west ham sort of dragged them to safety one year won the football writers player of the year when he was with west ham and then he was booed when he went back because he joined spurs you know there's a lot of sort of hatred there and they are furious about this i mean obviously this is all just online because they haven't played a game yet but But the David Sullivan out rhetoric has really ramped up.

54:11We did a survey on the Athletic asking them about how they're feeling about the new season. 89 % of fans said they're feeling despondent. They've made a signing yesterday, brought in Senegal's left back, but that's not going to sort of quell the anger from fans, I would say. It was apathy last season under Graham Potter, but it's really turned into anger now. They had been here two years ago when they sold Declan Rice and then made a lot of late signings and did okay. But going into this weekend's friendly against Grasshopper Zurich, I mean with not much of a team to put out Fulker is the only striker in the squad it's all a real mess and they've got a lot to do before the start of the season

54:46Liam Twomey: Arsenal a little bit further to the north in London are making big moves as you've seen for next season latest player set to join Victor Gordcores as I mentioned from Sporting talking about a deal worth 63.5 million which given the number of goals that he's scored 97 and 102 appearances for the Portuguese champions it doesn't sound like a bad deal at all 63.5 an arsenal team featuring him zubimendi nor guard kepper when needed maybe nonny maduweki in there as well what do you think i think arsenal's done pretty well this summer like jokeres jokeres is an interesting one jimbo because it feels like the player arsenal have been most been searching for over the last couple seasons has been the guy that allows them to have a few saturdays and sundays off in the sense that you get your cheap goals you get your center forward that you can really depend upon and it allows you to navigate some of the games where you're slightly out of rhythm or you're suffering through an injury crisis or just uh you know one of those difficult januaries where you're all knackered and you know you've you've been kicked to pieces in the fa cup a few days before and jacques is that guy and also think relative to what arsenal were being quoted for benjamin shashko from ebi leipzig who by all accounts would have cost considerably more i think this is a pretty good deal and given that for much of the summer it looked like it was going to be one of those which dragged into the middle of august with um sporting club getting pretty upset the club the player upset with the club uh potentially not going back for training it looked like one of those sagas which meant that the player wasn't going to get pre-season and was going to kind of limp into his his premier league debut uh but they've done well and i i like a lot of what they've done I think Norgaard is a Norgaard is not going to kind of create a sort of a Mesut Ozil street party but at the same time when you think about Arsenal and you think about what's some of the factors behind their rise under Arteta I think one of them is the constitution of the team itself and the amount of different strong personalities you have in that group if you compare them to Chelsea a lot of young players very few leaders very few quote-unquote captains on the field Arsenal are full of them and Norgard is another one of those another like an excellent professional who's risen to a really high point in the game by just maintaining high standards I think it's been you know it hasn't been it hasn't been a spectacular transfer window but they've added all the pieces that they need and also I think from Nani Maduiki's perspective a lot of that hostility towards him seemed to be based on the lack of other activity that Arsenal completed in the market and he kind of became the focus of that energy.

57:26And I think now that the centre-forward question has been answered and taken some of the pressure off, I think people will be a little bit more forgiving, or I hope they will be.

57:35Liam Twomey: Let's hope so. Tim, are you excited by that? Or by Jordan Henderson returning to the Premier League? I am excited by Jokos, actually. I think it's interesting that no other top-level clubs, it's not like there's been a bidding war here, as far as we know. He's 27, and this is his first really big club, which is slightly telling. and Brighton were happy to let him go and that was a few years ago now, 2021 but he has been a late developer and he's got to where he has due to his desire to improve himself and his desire to score goals and he's not a natural finisher by any means and not technically gifted by any means so it is interesting a lot of the Portuguese league is sort of League One level you've got to remember that but the numbers are astounding and he's scored goals in the Champions League and the Europa League and at international level as well which definitely helps I think like Seb said he's what Arsenal need but I hope the expectations on him aren't too great because the numbers are insane but I think he's not quite at that level and Jordan Henderson I mean yeah a very un-Brentford signing really I don't know I guess they're going in a different direction under Keith Andrews maybe that's a signifier of that but yeah the most sort of un-Brentford-like signing you could sort of imagine really 35-year-old Jordan Henderson a free agent after leaving Ajax signing on with the Bees.

58:55Liam Twomey: Crikey, loads more transfer talk to come. As July rolls onwards, Premier League season now only about a month away. Of course, we'll keep rolling on ourselves with Totally Football Show. As mentioned, we've got the Thursday, but now Friday edition coming up at the end of the week. Before that, there'll be a brand new Totally Gold out for you on Tuesday afternoon discussing a game which took place in Istanbul in 2005 between Milan and Liverpool. which started well for Milan and not much happened after that. Anyway, you can catch our reflections on that match in Totally Gold. And then we'll be back on Thursday, sorry, Friday with loads of stuff, including, crikey, Inter-Totally Cup semi-finals.

59:41Liam Twomey: Woof. Very good. Tim, thank you so much for today. And to you too, Seb, and to Liam and Daniel earlier on and producer Charlie, a new listener. I do hope you have a great week and we'll catch up with you soon. For now from all of us here, it's goodbye.

1:00:23The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

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