Leverkusen call time on ten Hag as Vardy arrives in Serie A

0:00James Horncastle: Hello, this is Catherine from the Tennis Podcast. Now, AI was supposed to take over the parts of the job you hate. Turns out, it made your job even harder. Instead of doing the work, it gave you homework. ServiceNow's AI specialists get work done from start to finish. Cases get resolved, loops get closed, no extra work for you. With ServiceNow, you can do the parts of the job you're best at and delegate the rest. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

0:45Pol Ballus: Totally Football Show, European edition. Today, big names in. We round up the deadline day news around the continent. Ten Hag out after just two matches. We ask what took them. We look at lean times everywhere for former Man United managers. Salute, João Neves hat-trick. You've never seen anything like it. And Jamie Vardy, Inc. and Helen Mirren to Milan. We catch up on a quiet week in Serie A. It's all in this Totally Football Show.

1:19Pol Ballus: Tuesday, the 2nd of September. listener welcome to totally football show european edition we've got uh james and jules here with us hey james and jules hello guys hello jimbo all right james you're in salzburg uh happy birthday

1:36James Horncastle: mrs horncastle yeah yeah my mother uh wanted to do the sound of music tour she called in this promise that I made her a few years ago. But yeah, Salzburg, lovely place, a place where you could imagine the young Honigstein frolicking in his Lederhosen. Right. Because it used to be a Bavarian, part of Bavaria, like quite the appendage away from Bavaria. But yeah, Rafi speaks very highly of, well, people call this the Germanic Rome, James. Do they?

2:15Pol Ballus: I want to know about the Sound of Music tour.

2:17James Horncastle: What's been the highlight so far? The highlight was finding out that Salzburgers, who are known as bullwashers, when they watch the Sound of Music, they kind of lose their minds because it depicts that they're in one place, but they're never in one place. The house is not really the house. the way the von Trapps escaped, I think, into Switzerland in the film. Well, if you were to walk across the mountains to Switzerland, that's like 10 days. It's not close. And in reality, they live near the railway rather than by this pond where I am at the moment. They live next to the railway station and basically snuck onto a train to Italy.

3:05James Horncastle: So just, you know, a lot of stuff in the film just isn't true. Okay. Did they sing while they helped on the train? Presumably. I mean, because von Trapp, so he was a widower and his former wife, she was, I think, the heiress to the family that created torpedoes and sold torpedoes just before, I think, World War I to basically all of the conflicting nations. and then she died and what did he do he invested what he inherited in some crackpot business which ended up going under and so they had to sing and play the recorder to make ends meet so

3:52Julien Laurens: what's the tour about is there like some sort of theme park about the sound of music

3:56James Horncastle: no you just go around Salzburg and what's actually really nice is Salzburg I did not know this, this is my ignorance, but it's in the lake district of Austria. And so just like 15 minutes drive outside of Salzburg, there are this collection of incredible lakes with beautiful kind of emerald water and rolling hills. For example, the cathedral where the wedding at the end of The Sound of Music Takes Place is in this place called Momse. And it looks, it reminded me of the church at the top of the Spanish steps. Very kind of beautiful. It has this kind of pink Baroque interior and has Saint Conrad.

4:42James Horncastle: You can actually see Saint Conrad as he was in death because he's just sat up like something from an Indiana Jones film. He's just there sat up waiting for the resurrection and you can see him not warts and all but just you know skull and

4:58Pol Ballus: bones so yeah incredible it's extraordinary all right james well i know you've got to get back to your sound of music tour stroke mother's birthday just want to know have you now or at any time in this weekend have you skipped through a meadow holding your mother's hand and and singing the

5:16James Horncastle: hills are alive and will you uh no that was one disappointing thing from the tour was that it didn't involve going on a mountaintop to sing so my mom kept asking the guide when are we going to go on top and he was like what what can you two sing the song from the movie i can't remember the

5:37Pol Ballus: song how the song goes how does the song go james and could you not just take her up onto one of these mountaintops that are so abundant there and you know just let rip with the horn castle

5:51James Horncastle: pipes we we had a workaround so she bought a dindle which is the austrian traditional dress whereby what looks like a lake but it's actually a pond and so you know i i have taken some photos of of my mother pretending to be maria and i mean there are so many songs from it jules you should you know i mean i think aside from margot your kids are too old for this now yeah i think so

6:20Pol Ballus: Are you ever too old for Sound of Music? I wonder. So am I.

6:23Julien Laurens: I am too old.

6:26Pol Ballus: So many special moments in such a special film. And James, may I say, I think you've upped the game for all of us sons with a magnificent birthday treat for your mum. Anyway, I'd love to say and chat about that. Let's get some moments of the week. We've had mum's birthday, Champions League draw, we've had transfers and full rounds of action across the continent. Jules, what stood out for you?

6:48Julien Laurens: Loads happened in Ligue 1. It was a pretty incredible weekend that we mentioned later. So I don't want to talk already too much about the big headlines if you want. So I would probably go for Takumi Minamino's winning goal for Monaco in that crazy game against Strasbourg on Sunday to make it 3-2 in the 95th minute or something. Monaco were 2-0 up. Then Strasbourg, Liam Rosinho, Strasbourg, who spent a lot of money this summer, over 130 million euros, thanks to Bluko came back to 2-2 and then Minamino scored Rosinho not happy at all with the referee and again it's a bit of a theme of this weekend not just in England but also in France and rightly so because they should have had a penalty they didn't but Monaco got one that they should not have basically but yeah big big win for Monaco this and again a young Strasbourg team that played in Europe in midweek and qualified for the Conference League league phase did really well against Monaco maybe showed a little bit of naivety towards the end but it was a fantastic game.

7:48James Horncastle: James, your moment of the weekend? I think it has to be in Cremona for a couple of reasons. One was on Friday night you had this schlobber knocker which actually sounds like a dessert that I had last night but it was 3-2 between Cremoneza and Sassuolo both promoted clubs. Sassuolo went 2-0 down came back 2-2 and then Cremoneza's coach Davide Nicola turned to his bench and brought on Mussolini, Romano Floriani Mussolini, the great grandson of Il Duce, who is certainly more than just a novelty. He seems to be a good player because in 15 minutes, completely changed the game, was involved in a goal that got disallowed, had this rapid counter-attack where you see why Creminezi signed him because he's just so quick.

8:39James Horncastle: And then won the penalty that Creminezi converted to win the game and go top of the table.

8:44Jimbo: La rincorsa del numero 9, con il destro, Manuel De Luca, il primo gol in Serie A, al minuto 93.

8:52James Horncastle: Which they celebrated by bringing in Stradivardi. Stradivardi. Non only Stradivardi because Cremona is the home of Stradivarius and all of those incredible violins. So, yeah, Stradivardi. So, yeah, remarkable. I mean, a lot of people saying that's got to be the signing of the window in Italy. I'm not so sure, but yeah, still, remarkable.

9:19Julien Laurens: Somebody has to make a documentary about the Vardis in Italy. I mean, I want to see the Vardis in Italy as a document, like fly on the walls. This is going to be amazing.

9:27Pol Ballus: We had Mussolini around for dinner this week on episode one of the Vardis in Italy. Or Romano, as he prefers to be known. All right, well, lots more from Serie A. We'll be hearing from Seb Stafford-Bloor on the Bundesliga, who's come in and who's left. And also, of course, Paul Ballos on the weekend in La Liga. But we'll begin, actually, with Italy. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. City Hour, the big side's making moves as the window closes. We've heard about Creminesi, currently joint top of the table, with Jamie Vardy coming in.

10:05Pol Ballus: Napoli, who are two for two along with them, bringing in Rasmus Hojland on loan. Juventus, another side off to a perfect start, grabbed Luisa Pender on deadline day from RB Leipzig. Inter, who were just off the pace after their defeat this weekend, getting Manuel Akanji on loan from Man City. And Milan, who picked up Cristofan Nkunku from Chelsea, also at Adrian Rabiot, which has got some interesting ramifications. Let's start, though, with signing of the season. Anywhere in Europe, Jamie Vardy to Cremonese. What kind of club is he joining, James? And what kind of impact do you think he will have?

10:43James Horncastle: Vali joins a historic club in Cremonese. I mean, they're probably most famous for being the club where Gianluca Viali emerged. And Viali had that incredible perm at the time. But they are a newly promoted club. They've sort of yo-yoed up and down the last couple of seasons. They were in Serie A not too long ago. They're back. They came up through the playoffs last year. You know, it's quite an interesting mix of players he joined. We mentioned Mussolini, who you're calling Romano, but I'm pretty sure he had Mussolini on the back of his shirt because Romano is more famous than Mussolini these days.

11:21James Horncastle: Fabrizio Romano, to differentiate. You have to go with Mussolini. When they got up, as often happens with promoted clubs in Italy, they say thank you promotion specialist for getting us to the top flight we now need to hire a survival specialist and they got david nicola from caliuri and nicola who we've uh we've often spoken about pulls off these great escapes but this isn't really a great escape at the moment because they've got six points from six they beat milan on opening day uh away at san siro first time Cremonese had won at San Siro since 1992 and you know they've they've added Vardy um so you know maybe they're going to win the league James you know maybe you know with with Vardy and Leicester and Cremonese already top and setting the pace in Serie A um you know maybe that's the fairy tale he is there to write although I'm not sure what his kind of vodka red bull vodka skittles kind of what what will he reach for in the italian drinks cabinet to

12:29Pol Ballus: to replicate that uh james i'm not sure certainly seems like there's been a certain amount imbibed before his arrival on sunday night wild scenes at linati airport a short distance from cremorna

12:49Pol Ballus: as Jamie Vardy flew in and got out of his car to sign a variety of things including what looked like someone's calf tattoo of his face

13:00James Horncastle: yeah fresh ink on fresh ink uh I think I mean listening to the reaction in Italy and watching Sky Italia and DAZN, they keep talking about how Leicester's title really touched so many people in Italy. Just casual football, well not casual football fans, but people who have maybe fallen out of love with the game, but in that year basically found something that deeply touched them. And so I think Vardy for us all who follow the Premier League, maybe be a moment's gone you know as as is normal when yeah i think it's nearly a decade now since leicester won uh won the league and he's been in the championship since then back in the premier league back in the championship um but in italy he's been received as this sort of fairy to this folk hero um really um which you know blessed them i mean for creminese definitely i'm trying to think of a a player with a profile like vardy the last player to play for them of that kind you know I mean it's quite difficult you are probably having to go back to the early 90s to find someone of that football fame well it's been a while since we've seen them up in the top

14:16Pol Ballus: flight interesting approach they're taking to their return and so far hugely successful they're two for two level on top with Napoli who were 1-0 winners this Saturday but only just 95th minute winner I think their latest ever since Optus started collecting stats that came courtesy of Frank Anguissa against Cagliari. Roma, also 1-0 winners. And what's been a low-storing start generally to this season, that was away at Pisa and the goal once again from Matthias Souley. Evan Ferguson with the assist. Juve kept pace with the top sides with a 1-0 win at Genoa. The goal there from Dusan Vlajevic and the big transfer news there is the fact that he didn't leave Turin.

14:58Pol Ballus: And that was all of the top four. Inter, who had looked so impressive a week ago beating Turin 5-0, when they lost 2-1 at home to Udinese. James?

15:08James Horncastle: Yeah, this was a big shock, particularly considering the statement that Inter made in their first game at San Siro, beating Torino 5-0. And Christian Kivu after this game, so Inter take the lead, then concede a penalty and sort of lose their heads a little bit. And Udinese go on and win the game. Kivu afterwards was saying, look I'm having to make this team unlearn everything that I learned under Simone Inzaghi I want this team to play differently I want us to be more direct more physical and put our opponents away earlier and other people were commenting look you know we're seeing a few of the same things that happened under Inzaghi last year still happening with Inter that you can change the coach but you can't really change the players.

16:00James Horncastle: And they often seem so supreme in games that they just take the result for granted. And it's in those moments that their opponents come back at them and pull off results like the one Udinese did.

16:15Pol Ballus: Udinese indeed coming from a goal behind with the penalty, first of all, converted by the former Villa Forest and Watford man, Keenan Davis. And then a lovely second for the Frenchman, Arthur Atter. Inter, they picked up Manuel Akanji. Their next game is, James, against Juventus.

16:33James Horncastle: It is, Debit Italia, and Juventus have perhaps been more consistent. You mentioned that they're on maximum points with Napoli, Roma and Cremonese. I would still say that Inter have probably got the best depth and best strike partnership in Lautaro and Marcus Churam, and then you saw Anjuan Boni score on his debut. but Juventus now have Jonathan David, Duzan Vlajevic who scored in back-to-back games and Lois Appenda and all three of those players are kind of supported by, you know, take your pick but let's go for the standout name, Kenan Yildiz. They've got Bremer back and with Bremer they are just so much more of a credible outfit defensively and so the narrative around Juventus at the moment is have people underestimated them i know it's early days but people have still been talking about how even with the change of manager we should put respect on inter's name napoli the champions milan have done a lot of transfer business as have como rome have got gasp and eventus have sort of just i wouldn't say they've gone under the radar because it's impossible for you to go under the radar but people haven't really been talking about them as a contender this year and maybe they are.

17:53Pol Ballus: Does the arrival of Rasmus Hojland shift your perceptions of what Napoli can do?

17:57James Horncastle: I think Napoli even though they're clunky and they're not particularly great to watch at the moment they're still my favorites by virtue of the fact that they've got Conte it's that simple for me but I do think Hojland is a really good fit for them because there will be games in which Napoli, we've seen this with Conte teams quite a lot, sit back and then try and play through their opponents, having invited them onto them. And if you've got someone as quick and direct as Hoyland, I think that's a really nice addition that they've made late in the transfer window. But it goes back to what we were talking about last week.

18:39James Horncastle: How do you make this team flow and look fluid with All four of those midfield players playing at the same time, you know, De Bruyne, McTominay, Anguissa and Lubocca, when you haven't got natural width on the left-hand side. So I think that's something they've still got to sort out.

18:59Pol Ballus: OK. Other transfer moves that you may or may not have seen, listener, include Zaniolo joining Udinese, Costa Simicas to Roma, Tariq Lamptey to Fiorentina. But let's finish off perhaps with a word on Milan, who picked up, as we mentioned, Christophe Nkunku, which, a little bit like Hoyland, he didn't shine in the Premier League, but prior to that, tremendously exciting play. I think 22 goals or so in his final season at RB Leipzig before the move to Chelsea. Milan bouncing back from their opening day defeat with a 2-0 victory at Lecce. Helen Mirren, a repeat customer at the Stadio Villa del Mare.

19:41Pol Ballus: And what did she witness?

19:44James Horncastle: Well, she didn't see her team win. Helen Mirren has a mass area, so a farmstead not too far away from Lecce. And I think every August goes to one of their first home games. I think she saw her team quite unlucky in the first half because Milan weren't entirely convincing. I think if Lecce had been more clinical, more decisive in the final third, made better decisions, they could have taken the lead and then you know Milan got in front themselves via set piece really it wasn't something from open play it was a lucro modric ball for Loftus-Cheek Loftus-Cheek who's back in the England squad I think maybe on the back of this performance and and then Christian Pulisic came off the bench and basically wrapped things up but yeah it's interesting with Milan because they've done so much business in their in their transfer window and yeah Allegri I wouldn't say he's ignoring it yet because he is playing Luka Modric but they lost one of their big signings just shall we to a fractured I think fibula tibula one of those in midweek he's not playing the other player that they signed somewhere they reach in midfield he's choosing to have these big guys in midfield next to Modric, Scherf Fufana and Loftus-Cheek.

21:06James Horncastle: They've now signed Arabio. And Nkunku is an exciting signing if they can get him back to being Nkunku we saw at Leipzig. And he's a much more credible signing than the other players that they tried to sign and then decided against signing, like Victor Boniface after his medicals, Conrad Harder from Sporting, who's gone to Leipzig. I think he was maybe a little bit too raw, too soon for Milan. Whereas Nkunku, as Jules knows, if he's fit and they play to his strengths, they partner him with Leal, then that could be a pretty exciting forward line.

21:46Pol Ballus: Also exciting is the notion of Adrian Rabiot in Serie A, because he, of course, left Marseille after that vicious dressing room brawl with Jonathan Rowe, both players leaving the French side, both now signing for City. Jonathan Rowe's gone to Bologna. Who have Bologna got next? Mila.

22:06James Horncastle: Mila. It should be a pay-per-view event. And then, yeah, they should have football. The football first is like the warm-up, the undercard. And then they should put Rabiot and Rowe on, you know, full time.

22:22Pol Ballus: A bit like the League's Cup final this weekend in Seattle between Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami. We'll maybe touch on that in a second or two. One last thing, James. Only 41 goals scored in the two rounds we've had in Serie A so far. That's the lowest tally this far into a campaign for a quarter of a century. Yeah.

22:47James Horncastle: I kind of touched upon this in my roundup for The Athletic that in COVID or just after COVID, Serie A's goal per game average was second in the five leagues. And it's declined and declined and declined since then. So they're back fifth again. I don't know whether it's because crowds are back. So they're a little bit more, they can smell the danger a little bit better because when there's danger, the crowd sort of holds its breath and that sort of thing. or whether it's you have these managers who've come back to the league, like Allegri, like Sarri. You know, Sarri, who's associated with a positive brand of football, but ultimately he's trying to keep the ball off opponents.

23:35James Horncastle: And if he can't score, then you're not going to score either. So yeah, it's an interesting trend. I think, you know, Italy still excels in being able to produce really good centre-backs. You know, we've seen that with Liverpool signing Giovanni Leone and in the kind of briefing after, you know, sort of Mark Gay not going to Liverpool, it's like, we've got this really hot talent, Giovanni Leone. So they're very good at producing centre-backs, not so good at producing strikers and not so good at playing to the strengths of these strikers, particularly with Di Zerbi not in the league and Spalletti on his ranch in Tuscany.

24:11James Horncastle: We'll see. We'll see if that's just a fortnightly thing or whether it carries on, Jack.

24:16Pol Ballus: I'm sure with the arrival of Ngakunku and Hoyland, And the goals per game average will be rocketing up. Well, James, for now, so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, etc. And we'll catch up with you again post Salzburg birthday celebrations. Thank you so much for stopping by. My pleasure. Thank you.

24:42James Horncastle: Hello, this is Catherine from the Tennis Podcast. Now, AI was supposed to take over the parts of the job you hate. Turns out it made your job even harder. Instead of doing the work, it gave you homework. ServiceNow's AI specialists get work done from start to finish. Cases get resolved, loops get closed, no extra work for you. With ServiceNow, you can do the parts of the job you're best at and delegate the rest. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. The New York Times app unlocked. Everyone knows the Times is behind a paywall. Only subscribers have access to all the reporting. But what if you could explore the Times for a month, for free, without putting in a credit card?

25:30James Horncastle: Now you can. When you download the New York Times app for the first time, your first month in the app is free. A month to go behind the paywall to see what Times subscribers get every single day. All the investigations, the reviews, the recipes, the deeply reported fact-based journalism. If you don't already subscribe to The New York Times, download The Times app today and get free access for 30 days.

26:11football writers around.

26:14Pol Ballus: George, did you have a good deadline day? Was it busy? Very good.

26:19Julien Laurens: Very good. Very busy for Ligue 1 clubs.

26:22Pol Ballus: Matt O 'Reilly off to Marseille, who picked up also Naïf Aguerre from West Ham and also Emerson Palmieri from East London. Other big moves in France and beyond that caught your eye?

26:36Julien Laurens: Yeah, I mean, you said about Marseille, who were very busy on that last day because they They also picked up, maybe more importantly than all the names you mentioned, Jimbo, is Benjamin Pavard from Inter Milan, which is a massive coup in a way. I know he's a defender, but he's another World Cup winner from 2018 coming back home after Thauvin and Pogba and Giroud. So that's four of that generation coming back to Ligue 1, which is, I think, very, very good for the league. It's a big move for Marseille to have Pavard in. I think it will add to their defensive solidity that we saw through the start of the season they need, really.

27:13Julien Laurens: I like the Brilham-Bomo deal from Monaco to Rennes. I think Rennes have been very interesting in what they did, the Pino family there. Paris FC with two, again, interesting signing on deadline there because Jonathan Iconet, obviously, who you know well because he went to Italy and played for Fiorentina. and Como last season coming back to Paris, where he's from, obviously, he's a Paris-born and bred kid, to Paris FC this time, for him, a former PSG player. So that should be good to follow. And Amari Traore as well, who was at Real Sociedad, half contract, a lot of experience, international player, obviously.

27:48Julien Laurens: So this is good for Paris FC. And to be fair, maybe, maybe the biggest surprise and one of the biggest names that has just arrived on the night, James, is Ben Chilwell to Strasbourg. And this one, I didn't see coming at all. I know there were rumours on Friday. Somebody mentioned it to me, but I just never thought it would happen. He has a huge, huge contract at Chelsea. And Bluko thought, hey, he was never going to play for Chelsea. Let's just send him over to the parent club or the sister club or whatever it's called.

28:19Pol Ballus: Gigi Donnarumma, of course, leaving League and heading to Man City. Transfer window now closed for pretty much everybody. although in Turkey it's open until the 12th of September in Saudi Arabia to the 23rd, which might be of interest to the likes of Emi Martinez after his deadline day pickle. We'll be hearing from Seb a little bit later on about Nicolas Jackson and his big money move to Bayern, which may have surprised you, listener, or not. But before we get into that, it's been a pretty interesting weekend, as you touched on before, Jules, in Ligue 1 with the two eight-goal games in a single day on Saturday.

28:57Julien Laurens: Yeah, it was pretty spectacular. I mean, one eight goals, one nine goals even, James. We had 39 goals in Ligue 1 this weekend. Wow. Which is, as you mentioned, just two less than Serie A had in the first two game week. Pretty remarkable things. First in Toulouse, where PSG won 6-3 away at the stadium after scoring three goals in the first 15 minutes for the first time in history in a top flight, where we saw Joe Neves scoring a hat-trick, a very spectacular hat-trick with two overhead kicks. Okay, the first one is a bit cheating because he's falling over. He has his bum on the floor and then...

29:35Pol Ballus: No, I disagree. So everyone's saying the second one's even better than the first. For me, the first one's remarkable. The first one's remarkable. It is an overhead kick, but what I think makes it stand out, and okay, more technically minded people will correct me on this, but usually when you have an overhead kick you see the ball coming in you've got time to on some level mentally calculate the parabola but he chests it barely above shoulder height and bear in mind this is zhao neves we're talking about so it's only about four foot off the floor and then in order to create the space to pull off the overhead kick he drops himself it's like one of those olympic lifters who kind of shifts the weight up and then drops it was an extraordinary reaction and he whips it in over his shoulder the second one's great as well another third is an

30:19Jimbo: absolute screamer yeah from just outside of the box for me overhead kick you have to be in the air

30:33Julien Laurens: this is the whole idea but so the first one i think you're right he saw the ingeniosity in what he's doing in a crowded box because he was a second phase of a set piece or third phase of a set piece there's a lot of body there that's all he can do and that's that's really genius I like the second one more simply because he pushed the ball actually in the air and his body is off the air to do the overhead kick but it's incredible I mean he turns 21 in a couple of weeks he's an incredible talent people are talking about him becoming very soon one of the best midfielders in the world which he probably is to a certain extent now after the season that he had last year but there's just nothing that he cannot do, even scoring those bangers.

31:12Julien Laurens: And at the other side of the pitch for PSG, we have Lucas Chevalier saving two penalties back-to-back. The first one on his right-hand side that had to be retaken because Joan Eves was impeded in the box. And the second one where he kind of guessed that Caceres would hit his straight in the middle, so doesn't move and basically saved it with his chest as the ball is arriving very quickly on him and it bounces off his chest. So, overall, even if PSG considered two late goals, because I think the changes had been made, they were a bit tired, maybe they're still not fully, fully, fully matched fit, it won't matter so much.

31:44Julien Laurens: It was quite a wonderful win. In the first half hour, they were almost back to their best.

31:50Pol Ballus: Excellent. Chevalier, who hadn't made a single save so far this season, hadn't had to. As you say, stopping a penalty twice in this game. Neves, what mark did he get from L 'Equipe afterwards, Jules?

32:00Julien Laurens: That's right, Jim. We got 10 out of 10, which we often say when it happens, is really rare. He was only the 20th player in the history of the newspaper since they do the ratings to get that. So you've got your usual I mean usual I guess. Messi has had a couple I think. Ibrahimovic I think had one and then Joanne Eves. So yeah it was pretty pretty special. Ademola Lukman had one after his hat-trick in the Europa League final for Atalanta for example recently. But yeah it's pretty special when the team gives you a 10.

32:33Pol Ballus: Lutmann, who curiously was one of the deadline day absentees from last-minute moves, still at Atalanta. So it's going to be interesting to see how that works out after he essentially pulled a little bit of an easy act. The other game that saw at least eight goals was Lille's 7-1 win away at Lorient, which also featured a hat-treat. The remarkable thing about this game, Jules, at halftime it was 0-0.

32:56Julien Laurens: Yeah, that's right. And it was quite a good first half, I thought, But you have never foreseen the fact that eight goals would be scored in the second half and seven from the same team, that being Lille. It's the first time since 1997 when Lyon beat Marseille 8-0 and scored seven goals in the first half of that one. That team had scored seven goals in one half. It was pretty incredible how, on one hand, how Lorient crumbled completely. And on the other hand, our Lille, without Olivier Giroud, who had been the best player, really, or one of the best players so far this season, still managed to score seven.

33:29Julien Laurens: And why he's a very good start of their season, seven points, third in the table, just behind Lyon and PSG, who've been three and three. So it was just incredible to see one goal after the other. And when you think about eight goals in 45 minutes, that's a pretty entertaining car.

33:44Pol Ballus: Very much so. Lyon, their level with PSG on nine points. they picked up another three this weekend in the Olympico, Olympique Lyon against Olympic Marseille. And speaking of records, is it a record that five English players started in this game, Jules?

34:01Julien Laurens: Absolutely, James, five English players. And I can't remember if I said it last week or maybe the week before, very briefly, but there's something really interesting. And back in the 90s, when you were in Italy, we had obviously a bit of an influx of British players or English and Scottish players. certainly at the time, you know, we had Glenn Hoddle, obviously, and Chris Waddell at some point a little bit later, Mark Hartley, and a few others coming to France at a time where I think Marseille, especially Monaco, where big power houses of European football with good wages for the time. And then not much apart from a Joe Cole or Joey Barton and, you know, players like that.

34:38Julien Laurens: And now they're back. They're really back. And it was very interesting to see those five players playing against each other. You know, Mason Greenwood, obviously, but Aisley Maitland nice too Tyler Morton who's having such a big impact since making the switch from Liverpool and the championship where he was on loan to Lyon and a lot of French people didn't know at all about him and discovering him now and being very very surprised and in a very positive way of how good he's been detecting the pace of those games when Lyon were playing so yeah it was quite fantastic and unfortunately for those English boys one of them CJ Egan Riley with a red card after 30 minutes that then made his team play for an hour with 10 men.

35:19Julien Laurens: And when you are, even Marseille playing with 10 men away at Lyon, it's difficult. Even if, to be fair, in the second half, I thought Marseille could have easily scored a goal. They had a few opportunities and the Zerbe was not happy after the game for how defensive they played in the first half and not really making the most of those opportunities in the second half before considering quite a comical late on goal to give the win to Lyon.

35:41Pol Ballus: Very good. Lyon, who for a while didn't look like they were even going to be in Ligue 1, this season currently keeping pace with Paris Saint-Germain atop the table. What about the other Paris side, Jules?

35:54Julien Laurens: Oh yeah, that was the other big moment of the weekend, Jimbo, and it almost made my moment of the week, but then I wanted to talk a little bit more about it because Paris FC for the first time played at home, in the stadium that they are renting, you know, just across the Paris des Princes where usually the Stade Francais rugby team plays. But you had 17 ,000 people there in a very sunny day in Paris. it was beautiful, Jürgen Klopp was there as the Red Bull representative and director of football or whatever it's called, with Mario Gomez, who is also the technical director for the Red Bull teams.

36:25Julien Laurens: Both of them were there. Jürgen Klopp with his Paris FC cap looking fresh and tanned. And they saw a cracking game, to be fair, because Paris FC were facing Mets, the other team that went up last summer. And they won 3-2, Ilan Kebal, who's from Marseille, if you're not a Paris FC player, with an incredible, he's such a wonderful player to watch, left-footed, low sense of gravity, so technical in that kind of playmaking role, if you want. Outstanding and yeah, it was wonderful. It was their first game, obviously, in the top flies for 46 years and to see them there, while they're still very much in transition and building a squad that they're hoping can keep them up and establish them really in Ligue 1 for years to come, It was really good to see them win and to have such a spectacular first home game at the Stade Jambon as well.

37:18Julien Laurens: So all in all, a very good afternoon for Jürgen Klopp. We seem very happy to spend the weekend in Paris with his pal Mario Gomez and also to see, obviously, the team win. First win of the season, we said it was a bit difficult for them in the first two game week, but then they showed some weaknesses, of course. They considered two goals that could have been avoided, but we're also very good with the ball, I thought. So well done to Paris FC.

37:38Pol Ballus: Well done to them. Good weekend for the Parisians. All right, very shortly we'll be hearing from Seb Stafford-Bloor on a bad weekend for Eric Ten Hag and Paul Paul is on the way as well with La Liga.

37:52Pol Ballus: Lots happening since our last show. Daniel writing in saying, Why was it such a bad week to be an ex-Man United manager? Ten Hag we'll hear about very, very shortly from Seb Stafford-Bloor. But meanwhile, Jose Mourinho are going and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer too, Both sacked by their Super League clubs in Turkey after failing in their respective European competition qualifiers last week. Gavin says, I was surprised by the lack of chatter around Mourinho's sacking after just 14 months. For two decades, whatever he did or said was huge news, but his exit barely raised a ripple. What do you make of his slide into irrelevance?

38:34Pol Ballus: Jules.

38:35Julien Laurens: Yeah, it's a great question, really. it's quite sad I think to see I mean we've we've known we've seen we you know we were when he was at Spurs for example we I think we all acknowledged and admitted that this is it it was that the magic touch is gone and yeah he was there forever one of the greatest of his time certainly I speak but now it's it's not the same really and I don't know if you saw the footage of him at the airport in Istanbul coming back home on his own with his like t-shirt and rucksack and he looked it looks really sad to be fair I think he wants to come back to the Premier League but again what kind of club would offer him a job and what kind of job can he do not a great job certainly and I guess the good thing that he will always have is the punch lines that is great I mean not that long ago he was saying about Turkish football that in his old career he had more European finals than in Turkish football history which is true but not helping your case Jose either so yeah it's a bit sad Solskjaer is different and Ten Hag is different, but Ruval Nistelroi is obviously still unemployed after this weird Leicester experience.

39:42Julien Laurens: And there's many more. I mean, Ruval Nahl and Ralf Fragnick, I guess, and David Moyes are the only two from past Manchester United managers who are doing okay right now, or even a bit more than okay. So, yeah, it's really strange, the curse of Manchester United still following you afterwards.

39:58Pol Ballus: Well, indeed. Well, indeed. Francisco Fadioli, who worked such wonders at Ajax until he didn't, is off to a brilliant start with Porto, the Farioli-Andre Villas-Boas dream team there, guiding Porto to the top of the table this weekend. They had a 2-1 victory away at Sporting in the Superclasco. Back in the era of the VZ, PSV, meanwhile, were beaten 2-0 at home by a newly promoted Telstar on Saturday. It was Telstar's first win in Eindhoven since 1968, more or less when Telstar was a thing. Meanwhile, in the United States, there was the League's Cup, which sees Liga MX and MLS sides competing. And it was two teams from the US who made it to the final, which was played in Seattle and featured Seattle against Miami.

40:44Pol Ballus: Seattle, three nil winners here, picking up their ninth major honour since they joined MLS in 2009. That was remarkable, but perhaps even more so were the crazy scenes afterwards which involved a brawl which kind of erupted at various points across the pitch, would be calmed down and then break out again there was Sergio Busquets punching Seattle's Obed Vargas and then Luis Suarez getting caught up in an altercation with the Sounders director of security Gene Ramirez and then spitting at him Jules major suspensions do you think on the way

41:17Julien Laurens: yeah absolutely James I mean it was horrible scenes really in a game that was actually really good I mean Seattle have this kind of hybrid plastic pitch which I don't think games football game should be played on that but anyway it's the same for both teams even if seattle are more used to it but into miami with massive chances missed by by messi and a couple of other players when they had the strongest team jordi alba was there so you busquette started suarez messi depaul as well and and just were not clinical enough when seattle were actually very good and and how they took the lead and then the the two late goals that they scored to win three three nil a lot of frustration.

41:56Julien Laurens: Messi, the one not involved and just looking at the brawl from afar. You're right, Busquets punching somebody, that's going to be hefty. And then Luis Suarez just disgusting again. I mean, if you look at the resume of those kind of incidents with him, you're not surprised in a way. I want to see MLS sanctions on this, but I think more importantly for me, I want to see Inter Miami sanction. Because as a club, you should not be even waiting for your league to take sanction towards your own players they are your players wearing your shirt representing you and this is how they behave and whether they were provoked or not it doesn't matter so much Suarez spits at somebody else and Busquets punches somebody else and that's not acceptable so as much as we are waiting to see how strict MLS will be with a team that they haven't been really strict franchise they haven't been strict with at all in any sense of the world I think now it's more Inter Miami that I want to see how they react with some of their star players Very nicely put

42:53Pol Ballus: Jules

42:53Julien Laurens: Excellent

42:54Pol Ballus: Next up then let's get the latest from the Bundesliga with Seb Stafford-Bloor

43:04You'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

43:15Pol Ballus: Seb Stafford-Bloor James Richardson Alright, finally we can talk some Bundesliga and it's been a busy day or two with people moving in and people moving out Eric Ten Hag fired Seb at Bayer Leverkusen after just two league games Crikey Yeah, I was at the last of his games, James the 3-0 draw with Werder Bremen which was a disaster, really Werder Bremen very much in the midst of a rebuild full of young players, inexperienced players and it showed. Leverkusen ran up a 3-1 lead by the midpoint in the second half. Bremen had a man sent off during the concession of the penalty which led to the third Leverkusen goal and yet somehow, somehow Leverkusen threw it away.

44:0095th in an equaliser.

44:02James Horncastle: and the chance and the plate after the chance because 3-3 Bremen Koulibaly

44:12Karim Koulibaly

44:13James Horncastle: incredible Vester Stadion went crazy I think the real detail was found afterwards in the people we spoke to I had a chat with Malik Tillman afterwards he just scored a Bundesliga goal on debut and you'd think okay so disappointing day but still a little bit of personal pride he was so despondent and he said you know we asked you know what do the coach say to you afterwards and we didn't know what was about to happen at this point so you know what was the what was the messaging and the dressing room what's the mood like and he just said well you know you you play like children and need you to play like men which is pretty pretty provocative comment to make after three competitive games and spoke to simon rolfs as well and talked to him about the coach and he you know sort of said again this is this is why i wanted him he's got a good record developing young players and he's a fit for what we're trying to do i know we're in the midst of a rebuild but you know he's got a really good track record take main night out of it 24 hours later he's gone and and james the funny thing is is that these whispers and rumors have been around actually since before the season started and so this is less about what's happened in those first three games two in the bundesliga one in the dfb pock and more about the chemistry that hasn't developed between or hadn't developed between ericton haag and his players and people above him so simon rolfs and fernando caro who's the club ceo and that's important context because one of the the great strengths of the jabby alonso years was the relationship between those three between alonso rolfs and caro they're very very close communicated really really well and i think we've seen in some of the statements that have been released since both from rolfs and caro and from eric ten hague he released a really spiky statement through his uh through his management on monday afternoon saying well i you know coach deserves time and trust and faith and i'm paraphrasing a bit but basically he said i didn't get any so it's a pretty uh pretty tricky situation and um yeah it's i think it's going to rumble on for a little bit because there are no immediate replacements available and rolf's talked to on monday afternoon about how well you know the coaching market isn't that deep in the moment because most of the people that you would want are actually in employment and in employment in the first week of September, which is a pretty difficult time to buy somebody out of a contract.

46:30Pol Ballus: Although we have just mentioned a couple of people who've been departing Turkish clubs of late, who knows if one of them could be of interest. But it's a difficult job to pick up. A couple of games into the season, with an exodus of players over the summer, the likes of Hrideszky, Jonathan Tarr and Granit Xhaka all leaving. with the that as context it's really hard not to sympathize with ten hog and wonder about the implications for whoever it was who thought it was a good signing if they never if within a couple of weeks they're able to say no this isn't ever going to work yeah i think two ways of looking at that the first is that yes there were if you look at the exodus then there were players who are always likely to leave the dynamic that's existed since ten hog's appointment has kind of expedited a couple of departures so yes he deserves sympathy the other point here is that lost a lot of talent lost a lot of leadership I mean you know Lukas Rodetsky was was Leverkusen's on-field captain but Tar, Jaka, Hincapie become very very important in the dressing room your entire leadership structure has been been ripped out which I suppose two ways looking at it as I mentioned like you can say well you know that makes it harder to you know to to wrangle young players and to help people settle in the other perspective is perhaps maybe it makes the squad a little bit more pliable because some of your bigger figures have gone and so whilst you're going to have a little bit of a transitional period you also have the chance to start afresh and build new dynamics and robert andrich's new captain very strong individual leader and interesting james so if you if you look at some of or listen to some of andrich's interviews after the game on saturday it's like one of those weary fathers you see at the end of like a three-week camping holiday he's just absolutely had enough and he was brutal he said too many players are playing for themselves he was referencing specifically an incident which occurred with the third Leverkusen goal when they got ordered a penalty and Patrick Schick and Ezekiel Plesios had an argument on the pitch about who was going to take it which in the great big book of cliches about dysfunctional football teams that is pretty prominent isn't it okay well the game ending up a 3-3 draw Leverkusen having been 3-1 up in the match but beyond the performances on field was there something that ten hague did away from the pitch away from the microphones that prompted this decision to not give a manager doing a rebuild the time to do it there's a lot of innuendo so there's a lot of very vague criticisms of things like communication methods and man management i think this is one of those stories where the truth will out within the next couple of weeks about who's really to blame the The club's position is that, and I've seen this kind of reinforced in a few sort of friendly media outlets over the last 24 hours, is that actually the club needs to be applauded for correcting a bad decision quickly.

49:22Bit of a silver lining. I mean, this is kind of, it is very glass half full thinking to me. So, I mean, there's a case to make there, sure, certainly. But, Simone Rolst and Fernando Carr have had a lot of praise over the last couple of years. rightly so rightly so but they will have to wear this because ultimately whether you whether you undid it quickly or not he still made the decision that's proven a bad one and um culturally it and i i think that's the way the best way to it to to assess it at the moment culturally the wrong person to follow along so difficult task because he was so charismatic so many of the players were drawn to him before he achieved amazing things with leverkusen and yet there is a way of doing things which wouldn't have led to what is ultimately an outright disaster so i don't think it reflects particularly well on anybody and we just have to keep our ear to the ground about you know what actually happened and I'm sure a couple of players will start talking before much longer

50:14Pol Ballus: okay no Bundesliga club had ever appointed a new coach and then removed him after just two league games in football news in the Bundesliga Bayern won again this time it was a narrower victory 3-2 at Augsburg they then went out and signed Nicolas Jax another fee it's a little bit hard to pin down exactly but a lot of people surprised by the money that Bayern are spending on a player who hasn't exactly lit things up at Stamford Bridge. A bit steep and I think that price is reflective of Bayern's desperation and need to get this done because they were heading into the season with only one recognised forward in Harry Kane and when that forward is 32 years old that's a risk to take because I think you know an injury to Kane becomes a little bit of a doomsday scenario for certainly for Bayern's ambitions in the Champions League now like Jackson possibly you know an imperfect option but then when you look at his numbers they're really not that bad at all I think the trouble James is that what are you selling as Bayern what kind of opportunity you're selling here because Kane if he's fit Kane starts doesn't come off the pitch even even in the um the recent Pockel game against Fijandr-Vis Baden Kane played 94 minutes I mean scored in the 94th minute so it's just as well that he did but this has been a feature of his career so you're not saying come over to Bayern and compete for the centre forward job because you're not you're just going to be a second choice and so the pool of players that you're appealing to is really quite shallow in addition to which I think over the last or probably since Thomas Muller's emergence in 2008 under Van Gaal Bayern have always had a bedrock of auxiliary forwards available to them so whether it's been Kane or Lewandowski before him or Mario Mandzukic there have always been guys able to pick up some of the slack Muller was a world-class player as a sort of in that sort of indefinable attacking midfield wide right player a shadow forward but alongside him you could obviously play as a nine you've had guys like Claudio Pizarro or Eric Chubin-Moting who can come in and do a pretty good job Mathias Tell was there for a while and you know didn't succeed but scored goals that were important and now for the first time in a generation Bayern found themselves in a position where there was nobody and yes Luis Diaz could probably play as a false nine and did so at Liverpool with with distinction but they really had no choice you just have to do it and and also when Liam de Lap's injury happened and Chelsea threatened to pull the plug you kind of you're over a barrel as Bayern Munich so yeah the fear is a lot for a player that has had mixed 14s in the Premier League and has certainly had issues with efficiency but he's a good player and he'll be by Bundesliga standards he's a very good one so um let's leave the fear side and see what he does on the pitch and I think importantly see what kind of minutes he gets because I think that will be that will be the test of um of this transfer really whether he gets on the pitch and is given the opportunity to show whether he's a good player or not all right why are top forwards including top forwards from other Bundesliga sides are now not going to Bayern we saw Wurz turn them down and Voldemort on his way to Newcastle I've got theories I don't have definitive answers i think the obvious one is the lure of the premier league if you don't play in the premier league you're not playing on the big stage at the moment and that's becoming more and more clear financially it's incredibly difficult for a lot of these players to say no to it i think if you look beyond like the raw economics of basic wages and look what the premier league does for brand value for instance if you you know if you have deals with yeah to wear headphones or you know know clothing or whatever like the Premier League is such a superior platform for you and increases your worth so dramatically whereas in Germany and and you know this is again just theory but it's quite a conservative culture and clubs don't really like it when players have lots of individual endorsements that's a little bit different for sort of the main German internationals but I think in terms of if you're a capitalist the Premier League is gonna call to you pretty pretty loudly the other thing is bernie made an enormous club with huge global reach but if you were to spend time at sabina strasser which is the club's training ground at headquarters down in munich and then go to a training ground at liverpool tottenham arsenal manchester city it's a pretty stark difference so the conditions in which you're working in are are dramatically different and certainly we dealt with this with flooring vets there are a lot of reasons why vets chose chose Liverpool among them was the tactical plan they had for him how impressed he was with on a slot and just the club direction but the training ground was part of it too I think you know like Leverkusen during the Alonso years spent a bit of time there preparing for a Champions League game I want to say I can't remember exactly when it was but I spoke to a couple of players who were at Leverkusen during that time and some of them were just like I've gone to heaven like this is just an amazing place and it's not a criticism of Bayern it's just Premier League clubs have the money to create these facilities and they become more important to players than people think and that's not the case for everybody I don't think that for him this is reasons for moving to Liverpool the same reasons that Nick Foltemari decided to join Newcastle there was no offer ever accepted for him from Bayern Munich by Stuttgart so he never had the opportunity to make that decision but it's a commonality and I think it's only going to continue okay well for now Bayern are doing just fine without those players sitting atop of the Bundesliga best hope for a challenger well with Bayern in trouble and Leipzig selling off their stars Luisa Pender the the latest to leave on his way to Juventus is it Borussia Dortmund who this weekend were three no winners against Union Berlin the likeliest Bayern beaters Seb you were there for that Dortmund game yeah I was at the solid i don't think they're a team with a lot of flourishes but they're hard working they have talent i think anybody who saw siri gyrussi's second goal or you know this is what gyrussi is right in the first half can be a little bit wasteful can make a few rash decisions but at times he can just be so technically influential brilliant bit of a combination with maxi buyer to put the game beyond union blins reach i think what matters for dortmund james is the fitness of some of their centre-backs so currently nico schlotte beck is unavailable he's been injured since last season and nicholas sulle has sustained a muscle injury in pre-season he's out i think for another two or three weeks so on you know on sunday afternoon they fielded uh yes valdemir anton is the central centre-back but rancy bens ben spiani on the left who's really a full-back and anselmina who uh is online from chelsea who was making his bundesliga debut as a teenager so both those guys play really really well but when it comes to the games which are going to decide where the bundesliga goes and who qualifies for the champions league places don't want to have first choice defenders available and i don't i don't think they had the very best transfer window i don't think they're particularly deep in midfield i think there's a huge problem if garras c gets injured they signed fabius silver from wolves don't know about him been hearing for a long time about how talented he is but i've never really seen him prove that at a high level.

57:29No doubt he's still very young and Dortmund have invested as they have for a reason but we'll see. I think Eintracht Frankfurt are a good bet to finish second or third. They look very very decent. We spoke last week about the impact of Burkhart and Duan, the new signings. Duan scored a brilliant way. He scored two goals this weekend away to Hoffenheim but the first one is absolutely brilliant. Köln on his left foot right into the top corner uh they look really really dangerous so let's see i think it's a really interesting title race actually i don't think barn are quite as um invulnerable as people are making out they've very nearly lost a three nil league in augsburg and these teams are capable of hurting them and we spent you know a little bit of this podcast talking about what happens if harry kane gets injured and some of the question marks around nicholas jackson you know how important lewis diaz is going to be going forward so there's opportunity here and there are good sides and you mentioned RB Leipzig I think they're an interesting prospect because Romulo the new center forwarder came in to replace Benjamin Shashko you mentioned Lois Apenda moving to Juventus on transfer deadline day they also brought in Conrad Harder from Sporting Lisbon who is a very raw forward but he's he's kind of fun in a sort of battering ram like bowling pin sort of way and I can imagine him being really successful in the Bundesliga and there's a lot of talent in that team there's been a lot of turnover a lot of transition i really like i live verna as their coach disciplined like really intense guy fits kind of a lot of the personalities in that dressing room now they've got rid of all the players that they felt were not really invested in their journey i think things are a little bit healthier there so let's see how they go as well okay finally then

59:09Pol Ballus: seb what was the atmosphere like last friday when you went off to the volksbach stadion for Hamburg's first game first home game back in the top flight and a derby no less it's brilliant that's brilliant like there's certainly a before and after because obviously St Pauli won 2-0 in the Volkspark that's that's their first win uh there since 2021 when um by the way Victor Xocharez was on St Pauli's bench that day he was on the new substitute anyway the the atmosphere before was brilliant fan marches from the city up to the Volkspark and everything you'd imagine the occasion to be very exciting for the Hamburg fans just a great moment to be back in the Bundesliga and for the Volkspark to be fielding us to Bundesliga football again on the pitch a little bit of a reality check actually I think obviously traditionally the dynamic is Haas Vau is the older brother St.

59:58Pauli is obviously they're a smaller club and it's the little brother and but St. Pauli very much looked like the team that spent an extra year in the Bundesliga then the technical quality of the midfield and the signings they've made over the summer they just cut through Haas Vaule almost at will and it could very well have been more than 2-0. They're incredibly impressive actually. However, however, the transfer deadline day for Haas Vaule was unimaginably good. So they managed to sign Sambi Lukonga from Arsenal who their midfield is kind of built out of a lot of number sixes. So having someone with a few number eight qualities would be really, really helpful.

1:00:33And Fabio Vieira, one of Haas Vaule's problems is that they don't really have an hasta bundesliga quality playmaker at least in the central positions they have someone like jean-luc dompet who can create from wide and is dangerous but they've been missing the link man so for them to sign someone of fabio vieira's quality online with um an option clause which i think is pretty optimistic i don't think they'll be activating that for 20 million euros unless something bizarre happens but that could be the difference between them surviving and being relegated because that is a signing that i think if you said that last week that they would go and take a player of that quality from a club like Arsenal.

1:01:08People have just laughed you out of the building. But yeah, Stephen Kunz, the manager for sport there, deserves great recognition for what he's been able to do. Yeah, very, very impressive on Transfer Deadline Day.

1:01:19Pol Ballus: Well, for another English export to Hamburg, Seb Stafford-Bloor, it's many, many thanks for that round-up of the weekend, or the last week, in fact, in the Bundesliga. Up next, Paul Belus.

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1:02:15This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network.

1:02:20Pol Ballus: Paul Willous joins us now, fresh from a weekend of La Liga and an exciting transfer window closing day. Paul, how are you feeling?

1:02:30Jimbo: I'm fine, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm ready to enjoy now the competition besides transfers. So all good now. Okay. Any major moves on Monday that have changed the perspective of things for La Liga? I don't know if any moves that move the needle in that regard. Possibly, possibly one of the moves that raised the ceiling in one team is Aymeric Laporte going to Athletic Club in Bilbao. I think just finding that will bolster a team that has started the season really, really well. I wouldn't say that playing excitingly, but getting the wins done, basically. And Aymeric Laporte can really make that team improve.

1:03:09Jimbo: What about Anthony finally getting his return to Seville? That's the second one I just wanted to mention. Because Antonio de Triana, as we know from last season, which was the nickname that all the Betis fans gave him. I don't know if you saw the footage, but when he stepped in the city of Sevilla, all the fans were just waiting for him at the airport.

1:03:37Jimbo: He was on his car with half of his body out of the window, just saying hi and just saluting to dozens of fans that were just piling up outside of the airport. So Anthony has that sort of expectations. The impression that he gave last season with the loan that he had was outstanding. And now he's a sort of superhero in Sevilla, for sure. Excellent.

1:04:00Pol Ballus: Excellent. They lost this weekend, Betis 2-1 at home to Athletic Club, who are keeping up the pace with Real Madrid with three wins from three, Athletic, unlike some other teams like Barcelona, who dropped points this weekend, and Atletico Madrid, who's still yet to win a game. It's the first time under Diego Simeone that Atletico have failed to win any of their opening three matches. This time it was a 1-1 draw where Alaves, what's up with Atletico? A lot of things.

1:04:30Jimbo: They've changed a lot of things, a lot of new players. I'd say that the core of the team, basically, Simone wants to change it. The line-up is totally different from what we saw last season. And it's a lot of pieces to assemble and they have started with the wrong foot, basically. They seem to manage to get ahead in every game or in most of games, but they just concede an easy equaliser. Just too many sloppy mistakes at the back. And I think that creation-wise, they're still not up there. It's proved to be too costly for them. I still don't think that Simone has found the perfect lineup. And they signed Nico Gonzalez from the Serie A on deadline day.

1:05:08Jimbo: In my opinion, I'm not that sure that they needed that. But in a way, just to revamp a bit, just to shake up things and bring in a name possibly that the fans will welcome after a tricky start of the season.

1:05:21Pol Ballus: OK, Nico Gonzalez, a tremendous exciting time he had in Fiorentina, but unable to replicate that at all in Turin with Juventus. Real Madrid then, who have made a cracking start and continued that this weekend against Mallorca. Could have been a lot more. How many goals did they have disallowed, Real?

1:05:39Jimbo: They had three. They had three goals disallowed, two from Mbappe and one from Articula. Yeah, and a perfect start for Real Madrid. I think that if you asked anyone in Spain about favourites before the start of the season, everyone would have gone for Barcelona. I'm not saying that this has totally changed now, but Real Madrid have been quite stable and pragmatic, which is like stability is not what came to your head when you thought about Real Madrid last season. This is a team that concedes very few chances that are quite stable in defence. and then up front, with the amount of talent that they have in La Liga, they're going to have chances in every game.

1:06:16Jimbo: I think that the most important man of that game was Benítez Jr., a name that had been in the spotlight. He did the start of the season because he wasn't in the best form, potentially, but now I think that he proved last week the sort of player that he is, that he can change games for Real Madrid. He was back in the starting line-up. And yeah, Real Madrid, that goes with a perfect start and goes to this international rake, two points ahead of Barcelona, which is a big thing here in Spain and that will make this international break a bit longer in Barcelona for the weight of things.

1:06:48Pol Ballus: Xavi Lonzo continued to make interesting choices for his starting line-ups and it's nice to see Ade Goulet getting a little bit more time this season.

1:06:56Jimbo: Exactly, but it's not just more time. I think that it's the new role that he's been given because with Ancelotti, he was more of a wide player, right-wing player coming inside. Now he's playing in midfield, basically, In a midfield trio, Chouamini is the holding midfielder, Fede Valverde is next to him. I think that Jude Bellingham's injury is helping him to have this share of minutes as well, because with Jude Bellingham in, it would be difficult to fit them all together. But Arda Guller is taking advantage of that. He can be the sort of creation from midfield that Real Madrid is missing. When Jude were hearing what was going around in Madrid, the profile that Xavi Alonso would have wanted and that a lot of people were demanding around the club was a creative midfielder.

1:07:39Jimbo: Someone that, I'm not going to say that could become the next Modric or the next Toni Kroos, but someone that could add the sort of things that they lost without those two players. This player has not arrived, but Xavi Alonso will have to create it himself without the Gula. And I think that he has the capabilities. And now it's time for Real Madrid. I think it's not a finished product, the Real Madrid side. But while they are figuring out some stuff, if they get desistability and they win games I mean it's it's just better than anything else

1:08:09Pol Ballus: it's certainly better than Barcelona's start to the season after the Catalans only managed a 1-1 draw away at Rio Vallecano at the weekend they've taken the lead through a contentious penalty call converted by Laminia Marl contentious because there was no VAR they missed it when it was gone

1:08:29Jimbo: basically it was yeah it was so many things to check on this game because it was just unbelievable to follow it. Before the game started, basically the referee went to both managers, to Hansi Flick and to Inigo Perez from Raya Vallecano and told them, look, B.A.R. is not really working, so we're going to play this game without B.A.R. and the manager said, okay, okay, so we're going to go for it. Then the game starts and a few minutes after the game starts, B.A.R. seems to be working again. So basically the referee tells the manager, yeah, lads, now it's working. Just keep that in mind because now we have B.A.R.

1:09:01Jimbo: and then five minutes later BAR just breaks down again and just the referee goes to both teams captains Frankie de Jong and Issy Palazón and tells them look BAR is on and off and we don't have BAR now so we're gonna have to deal with that and what happened that five minutes later this penalty Alaminya Mal happens with no BAR available because it was broken down it was yeah one of those great decisions a soft penalty if you want to I call it that way. And the referee trusted his gut and he thought that it was penalty. He gave it and it was not possible to check it on the VAR, of course. Had he checked it, do you think it would have been overturned?

1:09:45Jimbo: I mean, if you ask me, I think that it's a soft penalty. But if he goes to the screen, I mean, there is a contact. You cannot say that there is no contact. So if his criteria is that this contact is enough, I'm not sure that there's enough arguments arguments just to overturn his initial decision. So I don't think that it could have been like changed.

1:10:06Pol Ballus: And I guess the other question is whether the way that referees now officiate a game, knowing that they have the VAR safety net, would see perhaps an official give a penalty on the basis that I can go and check it afterwards. So in doubt, well, I'll give the spot kick and then I can always reverse it. Whereas if I let play go on, it gets a bit more tricky. Anyway, 1-1 it finished for Raya Vallecano. and Barcelona. Joan Garcia, between the posts for the Catalans, who now managed to bring Wojciech Czesny back again after a bit of financial finessing, let's say.

1:10:42Jimbo: A scramble, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, basically now all the players appear to be eligible for selection for Barcelona. It was a tough and long-standing job, but finally they just got it done. And about Joan Garcia, yeah, he was the man of the match. And in case anyone was wondering, why on earth did Barcelona sign Joan Garcia because they had their stake in and everything. I think that there is no dispute that if Joan Garcia is not the best goalkeeper in La Liga, it's because there is Thibaut Courtois but he's among the top goalkeepers in Europe and he's given a step up to Barcelona in that department.

1:11:16Jimbo: And then another thing that I wanted to mention about Barcelona is that Flick warned his players after the game. He had one quote on his post-match press conference that was quite telling. and a message directly to his players, which was, Egos kills success. So he doesn't want Egos to take part in the team. He wants the players to play as one unit because last season they were one unit and they have to go back at this. That's what Flick said after the game, which made you think that, well, he believes that some players didn't really play for the team and played a bit more out of being complacent after last season and not having possibly enough ambition or in obvious desire to win a game at Rayo Vallecano on a Sunday night.

1:12:01Pol Ballus: Who do you think he was talking to, Paul?

1:12:03Jimbo: I think it was a general feeling because, in a way, inside Barcelona's dressing room, there's been a lot of distractions. There's been like the Fermín López chat that he could be going to Chelsea. There's been the players that need to be registered. There's been Casado being sounded out as well to leave the club. Potential contract extensions. And then the summer, the chats about La Milla Mal partying, the new girlfriends, the Ballon d 'Or. So many chats about this which are so off of what Flick wants for the team. And if you ask me for the game, I think, from what we heard, I think that Flick was not happy with the attacking players and the output that they put in the game in terms of they lost so many balls and they just allowed Riot to have this end-to-end game and just to run and just to make Barca players suffer, which was something that, yeah, Barca coaching staff believed that their players needed to be a bit more careful with the ball and more clever while playing.

1:12:55Pol Ballus: OK.

1:12:56Jimbo: Marcus Rashford started this one on the bench, but coming on, how did he do? Yeah, he came on the second half trying to basically win the game for Barcelona. I don't think that he had his best game. It was a tough place to be in because Barcelona were struggling quite a bit in the second half. But I don't think that, yeah, Rashford had his best game in terms of decision-making, in terms of making the difference in the final third. It's not going to be the end of the world. He's going to have time to learn and to improve. but certainly there's like a lot to improve, not just for Marcus Rashford, but for all Barca players, looking back from their last game, Adria Vallecano.

1:13:33Pol Ballus: Okay, and speaking of Englishmen in La Liga, what about Trent's start of the season at Real? A lot of comment on the fact that he's not made the latest England squad.

1:13:42Jimbo: Yeah, he started on the last game of Real Madrid. I think he was better. I think he was better. We could see that a lot more quality like on his right foot, the talent that he has on his deliveries. Yeah, I think that still he has to adjust to some things. He's going to have a tough competition with Dani Carvajal because Dani Carvajal is not just back. He's back with Spain as well. So it gives you a signal that he's nearing this sort of full-fit version. And if Carvajal is fully fit, he's going to have serious problems to be in the starting lineup. So let's see how it goes. But I think that out of the three games that Ramirez have played this season, and possibly the one against Mallorca was the best from Trent Alexander-Arnold.

1:14:23Pol Ballus: Very good. One other thing I wanted to mention, which is that almost a quarter of a century on, Real Oviedo have a top-flight win.

1:14:32Jimbo: Exactly. The first win for Real Oviedo, a goal from a former Premier League player, Leandro Dendonker, has scored the goal.

1:14:39Pol Ballus: Tiene que frenarse el francés. Buena defensa ahora, buena hacienda ofensiva de Gorrocha Tegui. Sigue de nuevo, Hazard en el centro. Buen segundo palo, ese gol.

1:14:51Jimbo: A big win. Big win against a team that possibly is tipped to be above Real Oviedo this season with Real Sociedad. Quite emotional at the Carlos Tartiere. Big, big moment for Real Oviedo and something to really build on this season. I think that they're not going to be an easy team to win because the atmosphere that they have at home in every game is quite a thing. And yeah, as long as they sort of keep this sort of performance. They were really tight in the back. And if they can keep up in that direction, I'm sure that Tobias are going to be hard work for anything that they face.

1:15:27Pol Ballus: Excellent. Paul, thank you so much. That's our Liga Roundup for this week. Liga and all the European competitions taking a break, of course, for the international matches coming up, which we'll be looking ahead to in Thursday's Totally Football Show. No Euro show next week because the leagues aren't in action. but it will return on Tuesday the 16th of September. So we look forward to speaking to you then, Paul. We are going to speak there, for sure. Have a great time in the meanwhile. Listener, by the way, if you're hungry for more Totally Listening, in the meanwhile, aside from Thursday's Totally Football show, we'll also have a brand new Totally Extra for you on Saturday.

1:16:08Pol Ballus: Already there's three of these up. We've had James chiming in on Mario Balotelli in one, and Jules and James on Clinsian and Other and then Jules talking about Anelka in the most latest. This Saturday, we're going to be addressing the magic and madness of mid-90s Colombia. So look out for that. For now, though, many thanks to Paul, Seb, James and Jules and producer Lucy and you, listener, from all of us here. It's goodbye. You've been listening to The Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network. For more great podcasts just like this one, including The Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places.

1:16:51We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

1:17:06James Horncastle: The Athletic FC.

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