Inter, Bayern and PSG all score 5 as De Zerbi's woes mount in Marseille

0:00The Athletic FC

0:09Totally Football Show. Today, a fistful of goals. PSG gets sunk and Marseille gets sunk without tracing peak. Le Classique. Bayern have fun for their own in a DS-powered Hoffenheim hammering. Call the cops as Inter get the 5-0 with Sassuolo. And Atletico's cup, Thinko, leaves Betis Thor, but revenge is Zwift. All those stories and more in this Totally Football Show.

0:43Monday the 9th of February to what we got for you listener thank you so much for joining us us being as ever the A-Team James Horncastle hello with Tom Williams here in the studio hello James on the big screen it's Seb Stafferblor in Hamburg hi Jimbo and joining us from Catalonia Paul Belus Hello, hello. Paul, meal of the week. Meal of the week. You had a special meal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had this because I went to Albacete last week. Right. And I had this nice codillo, which is a part of the lamb, of the beef, I think. I don't know. It's cordera, I suppose. Yeah. Codillo is a part of the pork.

1:30pork it's like the leg of the pork oh yeah like you know in a really good sauce with so they use that much in spain leg of pork well every now and then every now and then what was special about this one so the special was the sort of walnut sauce um which was really really good um and yeah just to prove that wherever you go in spain you eat fantastically wherever you go in spain you eat pork. Yeah, that's Rosewell. So true. I'll have the fish with ham on in it.

2:06Oh dear. Seb, you've been eating well, I hope? Yeah, my wife made a red velvet cake over the weekend. So I just sat on the sofa with a spoon. It's great. Really nice time. What is in a red velvet cake? Excuse my culinary ignorance. You're not red velvet cake. I'm not sure if I have. I don't really concern myself with what's in it. I'm more just, it gets made. Right. Very well by my way. And then I eat it. Okay, just... That was 1950s husband, that was. I don't really concern myself. It comes out of the oven and I just put it in my gum. Just that would be my problem. It just gets made. It appears on the kitchen counter.

2:44It's popped up on the dinner table. And I just get rid of it. I think Seb's a modern enough guy that he's moved beyond the reassignment of domestic roles to a new state in which everybody just does what they're good at. A higher plane of food disinterest. Whether, you know, you can be a man and not bake cakes and not infer that you're not in some way doing your fair share, Seb. I'm batting for you here. Pointing that out in itself is very modern of you, James, I think. Do you think? Yeah. I'm looking at the recipe for red velvet cake Listener do you have one that you like? This is a picture of red velvet cake For those of you who are watching on YouTube Yes I think I have had red velvet I just didn't know that that was what it was called I think you can make it out of Beetroot There's a lot of food colouring Vanilla Going off this cake slowly What I don't understand Is that it doesn't look velvety The red bit No, but it looks velcro-y.

3:49Red velcro cake. I don't think it would sell as well if it was called red velcro cake. Perhaps for the kids. Well, look, if it had a velvety icing that was red, because the icing, you can make that look velvety, or at least in terms of texture. I don't know that you can. I think it's silken, not red silk. Well, yeah, I mean, but this is just fluffy, isn't it? Yeah. The red. Hmm. No? Yeah. I mean, I don't know how it got this name. You don't like fluffy, James? I don't know how I got that name. I don't. And if, listener, if you do, do let us know. AI listener. Yeah. That was Red Velvet Cake. Have you got any food stories you want to share, James?

4:31No, I've just been making omelets myself. Have you? Yeah, I'm a big omelet. I like the Spanish omelet, you know, if I really want to. Right. What's your, do you have a little personal touch that you... I just made a very simple one. Right. Which was just zucchini, onion, feta cheese. The basic omelette. Exactly. What stage do you put your feta cheese? Well, hey, make it for us now. You heat some oil. You heat some oil. You've beaten the eggs. It's actually really important to heat the oil. Hot? Hot, yeah. So you don't want the eggs to stick. Of course. And also you want to... As hot as you dare is Delia Smith's recommendation when it comes to heating the oil for an omelette.

5:11Really? Yeah. If you want to put the onions or a vegetable in there, Then you need to sauté it, particularly if it's a vegetable that contains or could contain a lot of water. Right, right, okay. So you need to wilt those. Before you add them to the eggs? Yes. Right, okay, so there's two pans going on. Yeah. Well, no, you can do it in the same pan. Oh, yeah, and then you do the eggs after? Right, okay. So the French, I believe, and Tom, you just spent the weekend in France, so you know what I'm talking about, I'm very much the opinion that you make your omelette slowly and you continually move the eggs from the outside to the middle and create a big fluffy quantity.

5:50Is that French or is that Japanese? Well, that might be Japanese. No, Japanese have a different way. I don't know how to make a Japanese omelette, but they have these square affairs that they then fold over continually. And then they open over rice. Yeah, and often they're sweet. I had a sweet Japanese omelette as a dessert on Saturday night, actually. Sounds like origami meets omelette making with the folding. How was your omelette sweet? It contained something sweet. Yeah, but do you not know what that ingredient was? I don't think eggs are particularly savoury, which is why we add salt to them.

6:21So I don't know what it was that was added to it. I mean, they are in red velvet cake eggs. That's so true. And in pretty much every cake. Something to think about, listener. I had a lovely meal in Paris. Ah, Tom. Saturday night, James. a lovely piece of turbot yes some gratin d 'eau finois but the pièce de résistance right was dessert big pile of profiteroles that's nice which have been my favourite dessert since the age of about six nice and whereas my tastes in other areas have evolved have they? perhaps you haven't gone for the croquembouche I mean quite enjoy quite enjoy a croquembouche I mean they're you know you're spoilt for choice when it comes to French desserts but profiteroles I'm just going to put my hands up and say what's a croquembouche?

7:01croquembouche is like a little crunchy little crunchy number a crack I mean the literal meaning is like cracks in your mouth. Indeed. But they make a towel of it. Oh, okay. And then they spin sugar around it. Right. Which is, it makes it a very difficult dessert to make. Yes. That sounds not unlike the, they call it a vacherin. There's a steak fruit restaurant in London that's quite famous that I'm sure you know, L 'Entre Coeur, a.k.a. L 'Orealie de Venise. Yes. and they do one called Vacherin, which is that, but with chocolate and cream just drizzled all over the place. I see. Yeah. Well, this is the end of the New York Times cooking podcast.

7:45Well, you know what? Wouldn't that be a thing? Wouldn't that be a thing? Listen, you've been very patient. Let's get a non-culinary moment of the week, though, a football moment of the week, and let's start with you, Seb. Go on, then. Yeah, I'm going to abandon my league and go to Belgium. Because there was a great story. There was a really great story over the weekend. So Guillaume Smith is a young Brazilian player who joined Union Saint-Groë over the summer from Estonian football. And he's had a long old journey to get there. So when he was a teenager, like a lot of young Brazilian prospects, he came over to Europe, tried to kind of forge a career for himself in Ukraine just before war broke out.

8:28and because of the conflict it left him briefly homeless I think he was sleeping rough for a few nights in pursuit of this career that had evaded him, went back to Brazil as soon as he was able to, re-emerged in Estonia did well enough to earn this move to Belgium and over the weekend Sajua played against, sorry Tom for the accent La Louvier You're forgiven sir, thank you very much and he scored the winner he scored the winner, 2-1 about eight minutes before full-time, ran off, shirt came off, ran to the edge of the nearest stand. His dad comes running out of nowhere to hug him. Then he's a brother.

9:09And then what I think is his other brother. And they had this big, tearful embrace on the side of the pitch. It was his first goal in Belgian football. The 10th minute left. Oh, yeah! Smith! De Buza! And this boy has managed to make the difference for the first time for the Union.

9:40Really lovely. If you can find that, go and see. It's a great moment. Beautiful. Paul, what's your moment of the week? Yeah, I'm going to go to the Spanish capital. I'm going to go to Madrid, to Rayo Vallecano, because they had their game suspended. I don't know if you heard, they had to play on Saturday in the afternoon. But there's a quite surreal reason for that. So basically, Rayo Vallecano players and staff have been complaining for the whole season about the bad state of their pitch and the facilities in general. So on Friday, last Friday, they put out a statement with the Players' Union, with the AFE, which is the Players' Union in Spain.

10:21basically revealing everything saying that the pitch is not like in the state of a professional football club saying that the training facilities they've been forced to train like in artificial turf because they don't have a proper pitch to train that they have to take showers with cold waters that just the facilities are just out of this world and because of that that was the only reason that made the Rio Vallecano board just just like take action and they decided to change the pitch on Friday, just like the day before the game. Surprise, on Saturday it was not ready. So basically the officials came to the stadium on Saturday, the Spanish Efe went to the stadium on Saturday, everyone could see that it was not ready to play.

11:05And the game was suspended without having warned Oviedo or all his fans that were already in Madrid with the trip booked, their hotels booked with everything booked it was an outrageous situation basically la liga suspended the game there's no still a set date for the game to like be played la liga said that they appreciate all the efforts that rio vallecano and the board have been done to improve the pitch which is a which is a bit outrageous um and it all ended up with a tweet from santi cazorla i don't know if you saw that basically saying that la liga compared to the premier league they are like in lightning years below the English competition in all senses of things regarding to football.

11:51So, yeah, that's a bit of the picture of La Liga, which has been quite bad this week. All right. Well, Spain, can you imagine that? A sporting event and not having all the facilities ready in time. James, what's your Italian moment of the week? Well, it was the first ever game in Europe's top five leagues. You're not going to do the opening ceremony of the Olympics or something like that at San Siro? No, I was going to talk about the game that didn't take place at San Siro. It took place in Western Australia, in Perth, between AC Milan and Como, which, of course, was due to happen this weekend, but didn't happen because of the aforementioned Winter Olympic opening ceremony.

12:29Did you not enjoy it, James? I didn't watch it, I must admit. How was it? I enjoyed it. I mean, it was long. But, I mean, there were lots of great moments. Mariah Carey singing off an autocue, which was phonetically done for her because she was singing Gaetano's... She was singing Volare, no? Blue Dependent of the Blue. Exactly. So that was the music. Laura Palsini, I must have nailed the Italian anthem. Did she? Amazing voice. It was a great rendition. Amazing voice. Unique voice. And, yeah, there were some mocha pots. Did you see the part of the interpretive dance? Oh, yeah. That reference sort of Italian motif.

13:08So they had like Puccini and Verdi sort of big bobbleheads. Okay. But then they also had mocha pots dancing. It was interesting in one of the athletic newsletters. It was like these were correctly identified as stove pot, espresso pots. Right. No, no, they're mocha pots. But this came like a few days after. I think Bialetti or mocha had been essentially bought by the Chinese. Ah. You know, one of the great Italian inventions. No longer Italian. No longer Italian. Yeah. I realise that in saying this, I sound like I'm a Fratelli d 'Italia MP, but like, you know. Right. Yeah. Italy took pasta from China.

13:51Payback time. And now China takes the Diabialetti from Italy. So, you know, call it quits, I say. Swings e-roundabouts, as I believe they say. Wow Tom Didn't know I could speak Italian did you James? Well you do now Tom what's your moment of the week? I'm going to take you to Angers In Western France Mid-table clash between Angers and Toulouse Drifting towards 0-0 draw 89th minute Toulouse win a corner Angers counter-attack The ball falls to Branco van den Boemen Newly arrived Dutch midfielder Formerly of Toulouse Now playing for Angers Having had a bit of a difficult spell at Ajax he releases his Angers teammate Lillian Raoul-Issoa who charges into the opposition half hotly pursued by three defenders and then lobs the goalkeeper from 40 yards hits the bar on its way in Angers come out 1-0 winners and he was asked about the goal after the game and he said well in the video analysis sessions we'd seen that the Toulouse goalkeeper Guillaume Rest tends to stray from his line quite a lot so I knew that was on and also I was knackered and I couldn't be bothered running it So I thought I'd go for it.

15:05But he got himself a goal of the weekend, a goal of the season contender. Was it like a Cherokee kind of City-Liverpool? Or like a Karl-Heinz Riebler in 1997 Champions League final. When they've been told Poruzzi, he goes from Wanda. Oh, was it Rickon? Yeah.

15:24Well, hey Tom, that was a great moment of the week. Why don't we start with Ligue 1? This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Ligue 1. Tom, among the many delights this weekend, the return of Alain Saint-Maximin. And what a return it was. Yeah, so he's back in France with Lens. He was at Club America in Mexico, but he decided to leave because his children were racially abused. Pretty horrible story. And is the latest example of Lens and their sporting director, Jean-Louis Lecq, picking up these players whose careers have been drifting a little bit maybe or who found themselves in slightly unusual surroundings.

16:10What other examples have you got? Odson Edouard, whose career had basically run aground. Odson Sos, very much so. Florian Thauvin, who had successfully rehabilitated his career at Udinese. Having played in Mexico. Having played in Mexico himself, following in the footsteps of his big pal André-Pierre Gignac who left Marseille to go to Mexico and became this legend of Mexican football. Thauvin followed in his footsteps thinking the same thing would happen to him and it didn't. Came back to Europe with a tail between his legs. Had a couple of years at Udinese. He did really well at Udinese. And kind of became the mate.

16:45I think he was captain. He was wearing the armband by the end. He made Lorenzo Luca look good. Ha! There we go. And now Anas Maxima has pitched up as well. They were at home to Rennes on Saturday. They went a goal behind. Esteban Lepaul, Rennes striker, breaking his goal drought. But they got ahead. And with Lens 2-1 up, Pierre Sage made the decision to throw on Alain Saint-Maximam, despite the fact that Lens had been reduced to 10 men, because Ruben Aguilar, who'd scored the second goal, teed up by Florian Thauvin, was then immediately sent off. But Sarge decides that they're not just going to sit back and try and weather the storm.

17:28They need an outlet on the break. So he throws on Alain Saint-Maximal, who's wearing the number nine shirt these days and has got Maxi on the back of it. Nothing else. Maxi Bon. Maxi Bon. Yeah. Maxi Bon, nine. Anyway, he picks up the ball. Long clearance from Romain. He said that the last goalkeeper brings it down beautifully, cuts inside a couple of defenders, fires in a shot from 20 yards. that kind of squirms beneath the goalkeeper. And we might get onto the identity of the goalkeeper in a little while. And completes the victory. Classic Anas au Maximan somersault celebration. And Lons briefly returned to the top of the table.

18:07And he's up and running in Ligue 1. So the identity of the rent keeper was Matisse Silistri, 20 years old, who replaced first-choice goalkeeper Brice Samba. Yes. On the instructions of Habib Bey, another former Newcastle legend, Sunday-Monday. Yes. Whose position with this defeat and the others that have preceded it is now very much in doubt. Is that right? Even more than that, in that he has been sacked today. So Sunday-Monday, Habib Bey. Not unhappy. Tuesday-Wednesday, no. Oh, I see. Because he is no longer there. Yeah, so he was up against it. They've had a very poor run of form. He came in a year ago at Rennes and they were having a terrible season.

18:49and they'd already sat two coaches. Julien Stefan was in his second stint at the club and then Jorge Sampaoli. And neither of those appointments worked. Habib Bey, who's built up this reputation primarily as a TV pundit. He's kind of the French Gary Neville in that he's like a kind of a former right back who made a very smooth transition into punditry. I worked with him a little bit at Canal Plus and he's very good, you know, when he's on TV talking about the game. Went into coaching at Red Star in the Paris suburbs where he had Pierre Sage as his assistant, got Red Star promoted to Ligue 2 and then left, gets the Rennes job and I think, as with Gary Neville for a while, people were thinking this guy seems to have all you need to become a successful coach.

19:35So there's been a huge amount of interest in France as to how he would get on at Rennes and he did turn things around quite successfully last season. They'd had a disastrous summer transfer window the summer preceding his arrival. The Italian sporting director Frederic Massara, who kind of moved away from the tried and tested approach of signing proven Ligue 1 players and signed like a bunch of very random players from all various different parts of Scandinavia and none of it worked out. And so they had to kind of correct that in the January transfer window a year ago. Bay comes in, introduces a new system, 3-5-2, turns things around, finishes 12th, things moving in the right direction, more money spent last summer, but there have just been these tensions all the time.

20:22And he has fallen out with a succession of senior players. Seiko Fofana, who was one of the figureheads of the Lons team who finished second behind PSG and got into the Champions League. Ludovic Blas, very classy playmaker. They both got binned off at the end of October. and there's been a lot of power plays and a lot of stories of tensions in the changing room and when they lost Marseille in the Coupe de France in midweek Habib Bey had a couple of mid-game slanging matches with Boris Somba, his goalkeeper and Moussa El Tamari who's been playing as left wing-back with a degree of success Somba was dropped at the weekend and this young kid, 20-year-old Matisse Celestri comes in, he's partly at fault for the third goal and the subtext to all this is that there's been this expectation for a little while that Rennes are waiting for an excuse to sack Habib Bey so they can reappoint Franckes, their former coach, who recently left Nice, is currently out of work.

21:27And quite a few of the people who he worked with at Lens are now at Rennes. So the former Lens managing director and now Rennes president, Arnaud Puy he's been there for about 18 months and these former Lens players Boris Samba Seco Fofana among them it's like Habib Bey has been taking aim at everything vaguely Lens related knowing that the shadow of Franck Esbys has been looming over him but it is looming very large at the moment the long shadow the long shadow of Lens well crikey so he's out on his rear and the expectation is that Francaires will be stepping into a place in pretty much immediately.

22:13Extraordinary. In the meantime, as you mentioned, Lens went back top of the table on the basis of this win. Alain Samaxman, I just checked, he's still only 28. So what a signing that could be for them. And then pushed for Champions League football at the very least. However, PSG on Sunday night had the opportunity to retake the lead themselves. They were taking on Marseille and Le Classique. The reverse fixture of which Marseille had actually won earlier in the season. How did this one go, Tom? Yeah, so there's been a lot of focus on the Winter Olympics in the French sports press, as you would expect.

22:43But France's skiers are not the only thing that are flying downhill at terrifying speed because so are Olympique de Marseille. And what about their skaters? Are they not the only people on thin ice? Well, there you go. I mean, as you say, they had won the reverse fixture in September, 1-0 at the Velodrome. They came within a whisker of beating PSG in the Trophée des Champions in Kuwait in January, lost on penalties. And Roberto Dezerbi had set Marseille up in quite a kind of bold configuration in both of those games. Tried the same thing last night. Absolute disaster. Like their Olympic team, he found a way to luge.

23:20He found a way to luge. And how big a loss was this? 5-0. The biggest ever defeat in Le Classique. We've had five ones before. We've had four nils. This was the first ever 5-0. Genuinely could have been 7 or 8-0. His intervention of Balerdi, Dembélé, passed, once, twice, Dembélé! Ousmane Dembélé! When he is like that, the ballon is often unarrêtable. The inspiration of Ousmane Dembélé, who offers a double, who allows Paris Saint-Germain to win 2-0. PSG won 5-0. They hit the woodwork four times as well. Four times. Marseille were absolutely horrendous. The skeleton of Marseille. Very much the skeleton.

24:06So true. Is he for the high jump now, would you say? I think the only thing, segwaying into Summer Olympics, nicely done. Well, I kind of was going, but anyway. It was a leap, James. Yeah. The only thing that's, I think. Will they buy athletes in the next? I'll have to wait to the summer now, of course, in order to do so. In the next transfer winner. The only thing I think that saves him is the fact that Marseille are still in the Coupe de France and PSG are not. And Marseille, somewhat remarkably, have not won the Coupe de France since 1989, a 4-3 win over Arsene Wenger's Monaco in the final.

24:45Jean-Pierre Papin hat-trick. And they haven't won any titles whatsoever since 2012. And with PSG out, the feeling is that, you know, this has got to be Marseille's season. Well, in the quarterfinals, they will be hosting Toulouse. Is it one-legged? It is one-legged. OK, they get to lose Strasbourg, now, of course, under our old friend Gary O 'Neill, who lost at the weekend, second straight defeat in the league. They will be up against Rennes. Lorient have Nice and Lyon are up against Lens. I mean, I mentioned Lens. Now, Lyon got through last midweek with another Hendrick smash. and this weekend with a 1-0 victory, which saw Hendrick get sent off and will be out for a while because it was straight red, wasn't it?

25:31Yeah, it was upgraded to a straight red. Yeah, so they beat Laval 2-0 in the Coupe de France in midweek and Hendrick scored a kind of a trademark goal, arriving there at the edge of the box and just bludgeoning one into the roof of the net. And then they were away at Nantes on Saturday night, ran out 1-0 winners and Hendrick got sent off for the first time in his career. fairly harsh basically about half an hour remaining and he's in a duel with the Nantes right back Tabibou tries to knock the ball past him and Tabibou kind of eases him over the touchline and Endrik slightly petulantly kind of like tries to trip him up and stands on the back of his heel a little bit for a fraction of a second he's booked initially but there's a VAR review, he gets sent off We don't yet know how long he'll be out for because the Commission de Discipline will have to make a decision on that.

26:28But Paolo Fonseca, the Lyon coach, said that he thought it was quite a soft dismissal. And also he felt that Hendrick had been unfairly targeted by the Nantes players. And within literally 10 seconds of kickoff, Lyon worked the ball out to Hendrick, who was playing on the right-hand side. And Mati Sablin and Nantes forward just came in and absolutely clattered him. And I think the message was, we know this guy is dangerous, so we're going to get on top of him. And so, yeah, his frustration got the better of him. In English football, they could call that a reducer. A reducteur. Yeah, no, I've mentioned this, yeah, when covering games in the Premier League.

27:05Is there a French term? I don't think there is quite the same. They don't look at tackling with quite the same relish that we do on these shores. Yeah. I mean, Pep famously had never even heard of the concept of tackling when he arrived in England, England Pole. Is there a term for leaving a mark on somebody? Marker territorio, I would say. Oh, yeah? Marker territory. Marker territory. It's a good one, yeah. Okay. Seb, I imagine in the Bundesliga, the robust league like that, there's a term. No, not really. I mean, you know, if you had a Honigstein-caliber pundit here, maybe he'd be able to dig one out.

27:45But I can't think of one that refers specifically to that. Okay. I think there's a term... Literally nowhere but England, unless Serie A has one. Well, I mean, a bad tackle is a gambatesa, don't they? But not one that kind of tactically put in the wind up. In Germany, there's an expression of blügratsch, I'm probably massacring the pronunciation, which is a blood tackle. Yeah. I mean, not necessarily an early doors reducer, but a hefty challenge. It's more hearty, committed, rather than actually... We wouldn't use it in the same way that we would use reducer or kind of... In the Nordic countries, they refer to a slide tackle as taking someone on a sleigh ride.

28:24That's nice. That's nice. That's nice. Sorry. Yes. Anyway, so... So, Lyon flying 12 straight wins in all competitions. Now third in Ligue 1 above Marseille. Three points above them, no less. and just on this incredible run, still in contention in the Coupe de France, playing Lens in the tie of the round, topped the Europa League league phase as well. And yeah, again, it's semi-miraculous given the dire straits that they appeared to be in last summer when they literally sold all their best players and were on the brink of being relegated to Ligue 2. Wow, incredible. We'll see what impact suspension has on all of that.

29:06Gary O 'Neill, as mentioned, with back-to-back defeats with Strasbourg, this weekend. It came at the hands of Le Havre in a big win for that relegation-threatened side. They did, though, go through midweek in the Cup. Strasbourg had a man sent off in that game at Le Havre. Tom, how's Gary O 'Neill being perceived in terms of stepping into Liam Rosseña's shoes? Yeah, I think he's made a pretty good impression. He hasn't changed a huge amount, But he's kind of dialed down some of the excesses of Resenia ball because Liam Resenia, in his Hasbro tenure at least, was very dogmatic about certain things, building up from the back this all pitch man to man press.

29:54O 'Neill has kind of, yeah, taken some of the temperature down in that respect. They're a little bit less chaotic. Back to back defeats because they lost at PSG last weekend. Also, you know, 2-1. but yeah as you say they had a man sent off here they're still in they're still in in the cup and they were pretty impressive winners against Monaco in the cup in midweek so yeah things are fairly congested in that portion of the table just below the Champions League places they're very much still in the mix okay excellent stuff that's Ligue 1 and Ligue 1 adjacent stories next up Serie A

30:39This 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 City Ad James Goals Loads of goals this weekend Not on Friday night though Friday night where Hellas Verona played Pisa James. Bottom two. Both had changed their coach in the week. Paolo Samatico coming in as interim manager of Verona and Oscar Hillymark coming in for Pisa. And no shots on target at half time. The XG was one of those things where I think whatever was measuring the XG, I can imagine like opt to people looking at it and thinking, is this thing on?

31:28Is this thing working? because it was probably the worst game of football in Serie A this season. Didn't set the tone for the weekend, James, because as you say, and as we record this podcast, I think there are still three games to play in this game week, if you count the game that should have taken place between Milan and Como in Perth, which will be played in eight days' time. But yeah, lots and lots of goals, lots of incident as well. Where do you want to start? I know. Inter got five goals away at Sassuolo. Five different scorers. One man doing the bulk of the assisting, though. Yeah, I think there's a case to be made that Federico Di Marco, who had one of the worst nights of...

32:17Well, it was, I think, the worst night of his professional career, the Champions League final against PSG, particularly those first 20 minutes when even UK commentators were saying that Simone Inzaghi has to take him off. But this season, and particularly in this run that Inter have been on, last 12 games, 11 wins, one draw. Of course, that was also 5-0, wasn't it? It was, James. But this was the reverse. Against Sassuolo, not against PSG, though. But Inter come under quite a lot of pressure early on in this game. They're playing away at the Mape Stadium. Sassuolo came up last year kind of already safe.

32:51So, you know, playing with house money, if you like. And Di Marco makes a goal line clearance. and then three assists, he hits the bar. I mean, he's got 15 assists this season and I think you could, if Inter, which it looks like this is going to be the case, if Inter were to win the league this year, he would have a very strong case, I think, to be considered the McTominay of this season, the league's MVP. Wow. McTominay himself got busy on Saturday in what was another five-goal thriller. The goal's a bit more evenly shared in this one. This was Genoa's 3-2 defeat at home to the partner pay. Yeah, Genoa, really unlucky.

33:40We've talked about the atmosphere at Morassi. In fact, Conte was talking about it after the game, saying it's like a Premier League game here. I don't think Conte's been to many Premier League games recently because I think the atmosphere at Morassi is more South American than English. But yeah, Rasmus Hojland stepping up again. McTominay, who spoke before the Chelsea game about how he's been encouraged to shoot from distance. And Hojland's first goal comes from him taking a shot from outside the box. Goalkeeper spills it. Hojland is there to basically just bury it. And then the second goal is McTominay scoring from distance.

34:20McTominay wins in contrast. Then he's trying to get to the left.

34:32He was taken off as a precaution just before the interval because Conte was like, Scott, are you OK? And apparently he's been carrying an injury all season, not that you would have noticed it, given how well McTominay has still been playing. But Conte was absolutely like, I cannot take any risks. So brought off McTominay. And then late in this game, Napoli get the chance to win it in stoppage time when Vergara Donner goes down in the general penalty area. And a very soft penalty because I think it's Kelebekouban who, he doesn't even stand on his foot. He kind of just grazes his foot with his cleats or his studs, whatever.

35:19and Vergara quite cleverly showing that kind of scugnitza, you know, kind of street urchin attitude from Neapolitans, goes down and Hoyland has the chance to win the game in stoppage time and he does it just because the goalkeeper gets his hand to it and it's a massive win for Napoli, not because it keeps them in contention for the title, which I think they admit their title is already gone even though when Spalletti called them ex-champions, Conte got angry about that. But certainly in terms of people were talking about them maybe falling out of contention for Champions League. That's a big win for them, particularly given what happened to Juventus on Sunday night as well.

36:02They are nine points behind Inter, but only a point behind Milan, who, as you say, still have their game against Como to play. And a victory that came, albeit with a little bit of luck, perhaps with that refereeing decision, it came with just 10 men, because Schwanzaes have been sent off with about 15 minutes to go. Back-to-back victories in the league, at least for Napoli. They're playing... Como, I think. Is it Como? Yeah, in Tuesday. So perhaps today as you hear this, listener, they will be hosting Como in the Cup quarterfinals at Coppa Italia. Everyone's got Cup stuff going on either last week or this week.

36:41The other quarterfinal coming up is Bologna against Lazio. Wow. Bologna really on the slide. Bologna, the holders of the Coppa Italia, they've lost four straight. And a little bit like what happened with Marseille after they capitulated in that Super Cup, whatever you call it in France, in Kuwait, where they were seconds away from winning it. And then game goes straight to time, they lose on penalties. Bologna, ever since the kind of Super Cup, I think, semifinal in Saudi Arabia, since they lost that game, they found it really hard to, I wouldn't say find motivation to keep going or find a purpose because they're still in the Europa League.

37:23But certainly their league form has suffered. This is probably the worst run that they've been on for two and a half years. Wow. So they kind of really need to shake themselves out of it. Okay. Two cup quarterfinals were played last week and they saw Inter go through 2-1 over Torino and Atalanta beat Juventus 3-0 in what felt like quite a significant result for Palladino, the Atalanta manager. Yeah, it did. Palladino, who had started his Atalanta career really well, and then they were poised to finish top eight in the Champions League, and then they lost their last two league-phase games against the Athletic Club.

38:11And who was it? Was it Bruges or Union Saint-Gilwell? I think it was one of the Belgian clubs. It was Union Saint-Gilwell. Yeah, because Bruges were busy beating Marseille. And so that kind of took a little bit of the shine off Palladino's start at Atalanta. But this 3-0 win against Juve. And okay, Juve dominated for large spells of the game, but Atalanta knew when to seize their moment. and that is a big win for them and whilst Napoli, Como and Inter are still in this competition I think they might quite fancy their chances of making yet another Coppa Italia final I think they reached 2 or 3 under Gasparini without winning one and they're still a team that on their day can really put the established elite under a lot of pressure.

39:08Despite the departure of Adam Ola-Lukman for Madrid, we'll touch on what he's been up to there very, very shortly, but Juventus followed that 3-0 defeat up with a 2-2 draw at home to Lazio Sunday night, James. Yeah, this was unexpected, really, because everyone was expecting a reaction to that 3-0 defeat to Atalanta. They had some really good news on Saturday when Kenan Yildiz basically committed his future to the club until 2030. The club made a big song and dance about it. Even the majority shareholder, John Elkan, the scion of the Agnelli family dynasty, he was there beside Kenan Yildiz at his contract signing, which I don't think Elkan has ever been even in his kind of first spell as sort of honorary president between 2006 and 2011.

39:58and this is usually someone who's next to a Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton. So I think that was interesting. But yeah, a couple of mistakes from Juve seized upon and punished by Lazio. Pedro, just like a complete menace, even at his age. When I was in Naples last week, there was a big banner of Pedro because Pedro had scored against Inter in the title run-in last year. So Pedro kind of a hero of Naples, having never played for Napoli. And again, just shows up in his number nine shirt, scores a really ruthless goal. Daniel Maldini, who'd moved to Lazio in the January transfer window, stealing the ball off Manuel Locatelli.

40:43And then again, at the beginning of the second half, Isaacson goes on this counter-attack, fantastic finish, just shoots the ball down the throat of Michele Di Gregorio in the Juventus goal. Kind of unstoppable shot, even though it's straight at the goalkeeper. And Juventus, again, as was the case against Atalanta, play some really nice, fluid football, create enough chances to win the game, do get back level. But you could tell by the reactions afterwards, particularly of Pierre Calhounou, that Juventus felt it was a real blow to drop another two points, particularly when they're still in a good place to qualify for the Champions League.

41:35But despite the Yieldies contract extension, it's been a bad week for them. Right. They are fourth still. Italy's chances of getting five teams in the Champions League. Well, we'll see how the rest of the season pans out, but they're not in a poor position at the moment. No, because I think everyone assumes that it's the Premier League that will get the fifth spot. But yeah, I mean, again, all of the Italian teams that are still in the Champions League are in the playoffs. So it's not like last year where Inter went through in the top eight. So yeah. We should see. Juve fourth for the moment, but three points behind them and with a game in hand, which they'll be playing tonight as we record Monday evening, are Roma, that matches against Cagliari, who've proved to be a troublesome side for more than one big team.

42:24So by no means a given that Roma will pick up the win. If they do, they'll be level with La Signora, but behind on goal difference. Next weekend, drama as Napoli hosts Roma and Juve go to San Siro to face Inter. So, oi, oi, oi, oi, oi. Yeah, David Italia. And the Deleby del Sud. Debi del Sud as well. And then we're not too far away, I think in the middle of March, for Debi della Madonnina. And I think for that to still matter in title race terms, Juventus have to do Milan a favor against Inter in the Debi d 'Italia at San Siro. Remember, that was a memorable game at the beginning of the season.

43:064-3 win for Ico Tudor Juve. Some incredible goals in that game from Yildiz and Adzic. even though Inter felt I think on the balance of play that they probably deserved something out of that game and Inter have been looking very very good now for the last two and a half months Inter have two league matches between the Derby d 'Italia and the Derby della Medonina against Milan which are going to be away at Lecce and at home to Genoa they also have the playoffs on a plastic pitch one of them in the Champions League with Bodo Glimt anyway we'll have a chance to talk about all of that in next week's shows as we look ahead to the first of those playoff matches.

43:45Next up, set the controls for the heart of La Liga.

43:55Pobolus. Hey, with all this cup fun, let's start with the Copa del Rey. Big scoreline last week was Atletico Madrid going to Seville and Tonking Betis, Real Betis 5-0. Woof. Adam Ola-Lukman make his debut for Atleti in this game or coming on and having an immediate impact. No, no, he had an outstanding performance. The impact that he had was something like, because when he arrived in the last minute, basically, of the winter transfer window, a lot of Atletico fans were a bit reluctant about the signing as if it was a bit of a panic buy. But when he played the first game against Real Betis, he was the best player on the pitch by a distance.

44:40He scored a goal, he delivered an assist in a thrashing from Atlético de Madrid against Real Betis, clear win. And I think that in a way he enlightened a bit the future prospects for Atlético de Madrid. But hope never lasts long because in the weekend they played against Real Betis once again in La Liga and they lost with Ademola Lukman starting again. But yeah, I would say that the hopes among Atlético fans with Ademola Lukman are quite high right now, especially given the form that they have with their other strikers. So they win 5-0 in the Cup midweek in Seville and then Pesce has come to the Civitas Metropolitano this weekend and beat them 1-0.

45:23Is that because Pellegrino just kind of out-managed, out-tacticked Simeone? What was the difference? I think that Pellegrini learned a lot from the first game. He was a bit more, well, not a bit more, he was way more pragmatic when they went to Madrid, defending a bit more in a low block and just, yeah, don't allowing Atletico de Madrid to have all these techie players inside. I think that Alex Baino was really good in the first game in Seville. And basically they took a step back and tried to hit in the counter. And that's how they scored the goal by the mighty Anthony, who basically finished a good counter move led by Abde, who switched the ball to Anthony.

46:03And yeah, an outside-of-the-box, near-post goal. Fidalgo ball for Abde, saves the first entry, moves the ball horizontally, Anthony does respect him, Anthony in the shot, what a goal! Anthony hits, hits, hits, hits, but it's not enough! I would say that Jano Black could have done more, but it ended up being a goal. Atletico and Madrid, in my opinion, they were lucky to lose that game because they created enough in the second half to at least equalize. Antoine Griezmann scored the goal, actually, and it was disallowed after the VAR review. But yeah, Atletico de Madrid, with that result, basically, they said goodbye to their title chances in La Liga, if there were some.

46:54And in a way, I would say that for the fan base, it was better to win the Copa del Rey match than the La Liga match, because now they have a real chance for a trophy, although they will face Barcelona on Thursday. They will. That's coming up this week. Exactly, yeah, this Thursday. Right. Atletico against Barcelona on Thursday. Before that, an all-basic affair as the Athletic Club de Bilbao take on Real Sociedad on Wednesday. I'm guessing that game is taking place. Atletico, not just out of the title picture, they are now fully 13 points behind their cup adversaries, Barcelona. But they're also risking missing out on third spot because Villarreal are now just three points behind them.

47:33Villarreal, who will be facing Espanyol tonight, as we record. But Villarreal actually have two games in hand on Atleti, so have a good chance of breaking into the top three for what that's worth. Down to Real Betis, who are the team in fifth. There's a bit more of a gap. Currently seven points between Atleti and the first of the potentially non-Champions League places. Meanwhile, up top, it's as you were, Paul, with Barcelona. still one point ahead of Real Madrid. Yeah, Barcelona in the best moment of their season. I wouldn't say that they are brilliant right now, but they are doing the job in a way because they have like plenty of games throughout the last month.

48:14I think they've played the game every three days over the last month, including trips to Saudi Arabia, to Prague, playing with like under 15 degrees on the pitch. So a lot of game load, flick, excuse to be like the lack of a spark because of that. But Barcelona are doing really well. And that's thanks to La Minha Mal. La Minha Mal is in the best form in the season. Five goals in the last five games. He scored again from the outside of the box. Near post-finish. Really good goal from the kid. And possibly the star of the game was Mar Bernal. Because he came in on the second half. One of the jewels in La Masia.

48:53He broke out last season. But he got an ACL injury in the third fixture of last season. it was a bit of a heartbreaker for all Barca fans because you could see real potential in there he's come back now and he scored his first goal in a Barca shirt against Mallorca great counter-attack he just dribbled Pablo Maffeo as the last man in Mallorca and then nice, nice finish so yeah, Marberna another reason for Barca fans to be hopeful with the future because he looks really, really good excellent Barcelona among their extraordinary runs since basically that 3-0 defeat to Enzo Maresca's Chelsea exactly They've had 18 games and won 17 of them.

49:30One defeat, 51 goals scored, only 15 conceded. Included in that run prior to the Mallorca game was the 2-0 win over Albacete, where you went for your lovely pork experience. Yeah, for my coavillo. Nice, nice. Earlier that day, in another bit of bustle in the news, they had also formally renounced any further participation in the Super League. There you go. I mean, that's something that had been coming for a while. Laporta, I don't know if you remember when Barca played PSG in the Champions League league phase that Laporta went to have lunch with Nasser Al-Khelaifi. They posed for pictures together.

50:09They hooked. They shake hands. We are all friends out of the blue. And that's why basically Laporta in a way made the state closer to UEFA inside the UEFA after joining the Super League at the start of his tenure at Barcelona. Basically, Laporta has been really good or really clever, if you want to put it that way, in the way that he sides with people over the last years at Barcelona, trying to look for the best interest out of the club. He's been close to Javier Tebas when it was useful for them. He's been close to Florentino Perez when it was useful for Barcelona. And now he's being a bit closer to UEFA in order, one, to get the green light, to play at the Camp Nou this season, which was handy.

50:53and two, I don't know if you saw that, but last week Barcelona announced formally that they are presenting the Camp Nou as the potential hosting venue of the Champions League final in 2029 so yeah, I guess that Barcelona taking this step closer to UEFA and leaving Florentino Pérez basically alone in the Super League project Well congratulations to Real Madrid who thereby become inaugural Super League champions, adding another glorious line to their long and prestigious honours list. More of what Laurentino Perez would have wanted, though, right? Like, there it is. Immortal status, unimpeachable.

51:29How has this gone down in Madrid? Are they feeling a bit awkward about being literally in a league of their own? Yeah, in a way, as I was saying, this had been coming for a while because unofficially Barcelona had told Real Madrid that they were siding with UEFA for a long time ago. And since then, you could see the change of relationship between both clubs because until then, they were sweet enemies. In a way, they both knew that they needed each other. Since then, Florentino has been quite more aggressive in every of his public appearances, like blaming or pointing to the Negreira scandal or to all the things that Barca are doing.

52:06So in a way, that was seen as something that was coming. And yeah, it's the realization that the Super League is never going to happen and that it's a failed project for all... Well, at least it's never going to happen. Or maybe already has, you know. Yeah. I mean... Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real Madrid on the field Sunday evening were facing Valencia. How did that go, Paul? Madrid were far from great, in my opinion, but they won, which at the end of the day is what they have to do. Right now, Álvaro Carreras and Mbappe scored the goals. Kylian Mbappe with 23 goals in 22 games, which is mad stuff.

52:44But after the game, the main subject was the Carabajal gate. basically Carvajal didn't play a single minute, and Álvaro Arbeloa chose to start David Jiménez, an academy right back. He played 75 minutes, if I'm not wrong, and then Trent Alexander-Arnold came in in his first La Liga appearance in two months, if I'm not wrong, when he got injured in his hamstring. And Dani Carvajal was sitting on the bench with all the TV production just focusing on him and his faces up during the game. You could see that he was not happy, But the biggest stuff came out after the game when he was filmed, basically, speaking with the physical trainer of Real Madrid, Pintus, and basically complaining.

53:30You could not see what they were saying, but you could see that Carvajal was not happy. Now there's a lot going on in Madrid because there's people closer to Carvajal's eyes saying that he's ready to play. But then Álvaro Arbeloa does not decide to give him the start or give him the minutes. and now let's see how this unfolds. Looking to the World Cup as well, because Carvajal on paper should be the starting right-back for Spain. But if he doesn't play, I cannot see this happening. We saw poor relationships with the player take down the previous Real Madrid manager. Is this a warning sign from that point of view for Arbeloa?

54:07I don't think so, because Arbeloa in a way sides with the hierarchy, because it's the hierarchy who are having doubts over offering Dani Carvajal a new deal at the club. he's reaching the end of his current deal so I think that Arbeloa is just playing the bad cup for the club in here. I see. What else should we know about Paul from La Liga and Spanish football before we head to the Bundesliga? Yeah, possibly I should mention that Real Sociedad and Osasun are two of the most informed teams and two of the most fun teams to watch right now. Real Sociedad, by the way, the fans have created the channel, really an amazing chant for their backup striker who has been a bit mocked in the past for his lack of scoring ability.

54:53He scored the third goal of the weekend in their win, 3-1 against Elche. And they sang this song, which refers to Bad Bunny, which is quite timely, given the state of things. Which the song of Bad Bunny says Por la mañana café, por la tarde ron, llevame a Sevilla, or Ori Oscarsson, which the song translates like, for the morning we drink coffee, in the afternoon we drink rum, bring me to Sevilla, Ori Oscarsson. Very, very nice. Very nice. That was lovely, Paul. Well, they're going to be going to the Bernabeu, actually, next weekend, Real Sociedad, to take on Real Madrid, so it's going to be interesting to see who's singing after that one.

55:37We'll find out when we get back onto the whole La Liga tip next time around. But next up, to conclude today's show, heads up, Seb Stafford Bloor, incoming.

55:53You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson, now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Seb Stafford Bloor Welcome back Bayern Vincent Kompany's mob after a defeat and a draw unthinkably in the Bundesliga back with a bang against Hoffenheim this weekend Back with a bang 5-1 winners XG over 6 That was Luis Diaz on his own practically wasn't it? three goals and he said three goals and one two penalties for harry kane he's the first bundlesliga player to have five goal involvements in a single game since michael lisa against freiburg in november so it hasn't been that long not that long extremely well historic it's not epoch defining no but right it's he didn't play very well but but but we have to start with the moment which really kind of changed the game so luis diaz challenges in the box with hoffenheim's kevin akpaguma um this remember was first against third so big game relative to kind of the rest of the season my perspective on it was they both had a big chunk of each other's shirts diaz goes down um the referee gives the penalty and the referee then says that akpaguma hasn't made a proper attempt for the ball so red cards him so penalty buy-in while nil kane of course scores akpaguna off and hoffenheim down to 10 men they were pretty courageous created some good chances hit the bar, forced a good save from Manuel Neuer, got an equaliser when a Neuer pass was a little bit underhit.

57:35But then 2-1, Luis Diaz won another penalty. Kane scored. And then just before the halftime break, Kane and Diaz combined really beautifully, actually, for Diaz's first goal, added a couple in the second half to complete his hat-trick. Proper hat-trick because three goals in a row as well. Right. The second of his, the fourth, Bayern goals, love it as well. or at least with the assist and a kind of side, kind of backheel flick in from Diaz. The controversy around the penalty is a shame because Bayern did play very, very well. And this is a tricky Hoffenheim side to play against. They'd won six of their last seven games.

58:09Also in Germany, unlike in England, referees are interviewed afterwards and they're asked about particularly contentious decisions. And that sounds like a good thing until you actually hear the referees speak about it because the referee was asked, right, I mean, this looks, in Sky Deutschland's words, they translated, said something along the lines of, it's a penalty you could give, but which you don't have to. And the referee was kind of having none of it. He said, well, no, there's no doubt at all. And he's like, well, there's some doubt if you watch it. It's a very, very big decision, which given that it's going to change the game, it felt a little bit harsh.

58:45But Bayern, good value for it. And get on to Dortmund. But the gap at the top of the league is still six points because Dortmund also won. still six points Bayern next up for them is a Wednesday night meeting with RB Leipzig in the Pokal the other just a word on that Jimbo because there's some doubt about whether that's going to go ahead there's a public transport strike in Munich and when we started recording the club were in conversations with the local transport authority to see whether the game could still happen because obviously anybody who's gone up to Allianz Arena before up to front Manning knows that without without the local train service that's a pretty really difficult one to get to.

59:23So still waiting to see if that goes ahead. Hope so, because it's a great game. But yeah. Big match. The two teams have met twice already this season in the league. It's gone Bayern's way just a little bit. For Leipzig. Yeah. A 5-1 Bayern beat them just, I think, what, two weeks ago. And then it was 6-0 in August. Yeah, 5-0 the season. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, we'll see. The other quarterfinal sees Hertha Berlin take on Freiburg. And that's Tuesday. tonight perhaps as you hear this listener. Meantime in the league as you say still six points between Bayern and Borussia Dortmund Dortmund who were 2-1 winners away at Wolfsburg on Saturday with a late winner from Juracy who's rediscovered his scoring form Seb.

1:00:07He has, he has. This was a good finish obviously last week got a couple of goals, missed the chance to make it a hat trick by spooning a penalty into the yellow wall. This game was really a story about Mohamed Amoura, the Algerian forward. He's a very, very talented player. One of my favourite guys to watch in the league. Had a shocker. In a kind of like... There were no glaring misses. There was just half chance after half chance after half chance that he hacked that and didn't take. And allowed quite a sort of 6 out of 10 Borussia Dortmund performance to go unpunished. You mentioned that the Gerasi goal, which is very, very useful for him and his confidence.

1:00:48Without him playing well, that doesn't really make sense. He also had a headed goal by Julian Brandt, which is, I think, the fourth headed goal in his Bundesliga career. Not a sort of a Les Ferdinand. Not very on-brand. He was very off-brand. Exactly. But yeah, Dortmund got by. Keep the gap to six points. I'm not sure we're quite in title race territory. It's more that it isn't over at the moment. Right. Man City thinks six points are still doable. Dortmund perhaps might regard Bayern Munich as a slightly more insurmountable challenge. Down the other end, though, Wolfsburg, who got beat by Dortmund this weekend, are in a lot of trouble.

1:01:28You have the bottom two being the relegation places, and the next spot will be the relegation playoff. That's currently occupied by Werder Bremen, and Wolfsburg are level on points with Werder. So at real risk, not least because one of the big stories this weekend was one of the bottom two St Pauli coming up with a major shock victory against Stuttgart. Yeah, a huge win for St Pauli at the Milan Tour. And, you know, one they had to. On the hapsey, they had to win. And if they do survive, everyone will remember the performance, particularly of Jackson Irvine. So Irvine last season suffered a fracture in his left foot, I think.

1:02:02I think left foot. And had an operation. He's still experiencing a lot of pain, so much so that even as club captain, he's been on the bench. On Saturday, he was only supposed to play 45 minutes. And if you watch the game, you can kind of see him limping around. He's clearly in a lot of discomfort and, yeah, very, very inhibited. Gave an excellent performance, really. Manolo Saliacis scored the first Sampauly goal. Nice of sliced. Very Alan Shearer against the Netherlands in Euro 96 kind of finish. Daniel Sinani made it 2-0 from the penalty spot. Really baffling Chris Furyk handspiel. The ball's sort of bouncing.

1:02:39He goes to kind of chest it in his own box. and then for no reason at all just bats it with his hand penalty clearly they got a late consolation through jamie leveling but couldn't find an equalizer so 2-1 bad defeat for stuttgart um who seemed bad things seem to happen to stuttgart any every time they come to hamburg right really they had a they considered a terrible um counter-attacking goal to fabio vieira and they played so yeah untimely for them okay a couple of things for that so they got a leveling goal but not an equaliser which sounds slightly very nice uh i saw the the the hint of a smile across your face as i said that well always through your bundesliga report the smile is never absent so but the other is that is that a handballer what did you call it hanspiel so we had a we had a really fun on sunday not fun if you're a cologne fan but um a bit of a var calamity so cologne were 2-1 down trying to find a Laker equaliser and had a very very good shout for a penalty for a potential Christoph Baumgart, the handball on the line.

1:03:42It hit him and it was bouncing towards the goal and it sort of inadvertently hit his hand and bounced clear. The referee goes to the screen and as in most European leagues now you get a little announcement over the Tannoy when they've reached their decision. And the referee steps up and he's giving his explanation and then he sort of very proudly shouts Hanspiel! And the crowd because they think penalty, it erupts and they go 9-9-9-9 in Shuligong, upside. Because they found offside. So he'd misspoken, which wasn't that popular as you might imagine. Poor chap. But yeah, handball. There you go. There's been a lot of discussion around contact in Italy this week.

1:04:25Oh, yeah. I don't know if you saw Luciano Spilletti's post-match press conference after Juventus' draw against Lazio. It's like, you know, you can't just give a penalty for contact itself. You know, the contact has to not necessarily be deliberate, but certainly firm and stuff like that. So he demonstrated this by asking Federica Ziele, the Dazen reporter, can I give you a kiss? In that the contact for the kiss is very different. if I give you a kiss or if I just caress your arm like this. Did he show? No, I mean, he went in for, not a French kiss or a kiss on the lips, but almost, you know, the greeting.

1:05:15So, yeah, he was very, like, these are different contacts that we're showing here. Wow. Very creative way of demonstrating. People have done post-game interviews. which manager would you most stroke least like to have a kiss demonstrated by? That's something to consider. Yeah. I wouldn't want to kiss Sean Dyche very much. I don't know. Give him a kiss on the top of the head, maybe. Maybe. In the kind of Laurent Blanc, Fabien Barthas style. Why not? Anyway, Seb, that's gorgeous. Also down around those parts, Mainz's revival, former bottom side Mainz's revival, continues under the remarkable Urs Fischer.

1:05:56They are 14th now, and they were 2-0 winners over Augsburg on Saturday, which leaves them actually only a point behind their opponents this weekend, who will be sweating themselves in what looks like being quite a dramatic relegation battle between Werder Bremen in 16th spot in the relegation playoff places. There's another five teams who are within one win of them. So, yeah. You're really not much more than two wins from putting yourself into relative safety. The flip side of that, of course, is you're not very far from falling into real jeopardy. And Bremen seem to have gotten an awful lot of trouble very, very quickly.

1:06:41They sacked Horst Stefan a week ago. Daniel Thien, former Haas Vau, former Fortuna Dostorff head coach, good coach, come in, lost at the weekend. I don't necessarily think the problem at Werder Bremen is the coaching. I think there's a real paucity of talent there at the moment. The recruitment was not particularly good over the summer. And they look vulnerable. They've got what looks like a terrifying trip to St. Pauli. The two fan bases are very close. There's an alliance between the two sets of ultras. But that potentially could put them in all sorts of trouble. And having just stabilised themselves back in the Osterbundersliga after being promoted in 2022 under Oliverna, oh goodness that would be I mean that would be terrible blow to go back down again yeah so not good at all Hamburg won very very good result away to Heidenheim Heidenheim probably the one club who was slightly adrift now and who looked a little bit overmatched this level no disgrace in that because they've punched well above their weight they made into European football ridiculously but they've lost an awful lot of talent obviously Tim Klein is the big one a couple of years ago So Yannickie Beshler as well, when he moved to Benfica, they just haven't been able to regenerate the squad that brought them up.

1:07:52And so this might be the season when they go, even though Frank Schmidt has made a few miracles in his time. So interesting, interesting old time. And increasingly, it does look as if the relegation, I mean, no one's been able to really separate themselves. Even if you look up as far as Union Berlin, I wouldn't necessarily say that they're safe just yet. So very interesting time. Also, talking about Union Berlin, Albert Riera made his coaching debut for Eindracht Frankfurt on Friday night. Really interesting guy. The game itself, not a classic 1-1, pretty scrappy. Featured a brilliant Tifo and loads and loads of pyro from the Union Berlin fans down at the Alta Forster Eye.

1:08:30What was the picture? No, it was a stadium-wide celebration of their 60th anniversary. When it was removed, as the game began, there was all sorts of pyro. which created some of the most, really some beautiful images, some amazing photographs taken of the players when that was going off around them. But Riera is an interesting chap, and he's kind of caught the imagination because he's one of the reasons why Dino Tottmuller, his predecessor, was let go, was because there was a feeling that he wasn't quite tough enough with some of the players. He didn't throw enough stones, figuratively. And Riera's come in, he's a little bit more of a forceful personality.

1:09:12He's clearly a move designed to kind of rebuild some culture. Some of his press conferences have had some pretty heavy rotation. He's someone who wants the ball to go forward always. He's sort of jokingly said that he's going to ban his players from passing sideways or backwards. He's also got a punishment roulette wheel. So when players are late for meetings or they use their phones at the wrong time, they have to pay their fine, the traditional fine. But they also spin a wheel, and then they get a task within the club. So they might have to go and spend an hour with the video analysts or with the groundskeeping crew.

1:09:47Or I don't know how it's going to work, but it's interesting. It's novel. A bit harsh on the video analyst. I'd love to have been in there flying the wall when that was explained to the squad. And the worst punishment you could possibly get, as you'll see here, is a video with Dieter. Dieter. Huh? Roll film. Tell me about this set piece routine. Yeah. So let's see how it goes. But you've got to remember also that this is a very young Eintracht Frankfurt squad. These aren't necessarily players who are 27, 28 years old earning€300 ,000 a week. So they're pliable. Let's see how he does. But the club are very excited.

1:10:18They think they've made a really good appointment and that they could be on to a good thing. So let's keep track of that. All right. Nice one, Seb. For now, that's what we'll leave it for, this Totally Football Show European edition. So many thanks to Seb and to Paul, to Tom and James here in the studio and Lucy in the booth and you, listener, from all of us here until we next meet it's goodbye you've been listening to the Totally Football Show part of the Athletic FC podcast network for other great podcasts just like this one including the Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts search for the Athletic in all the usual places we're also at the Totally Show on Insta and at the Totally Show on YouTube the Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production

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