Tuchel’s World Cup decisions + La Liga & Serie A fixtures overseas

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0:30there between black stars and blue sharks and more. Plus, from bad to Perth, has the game now quite literally gone with UEFA's green light for globe-trotting league matches? It's the Totally Football Show.

0:45Listener, it's Thursday the 9th of October. For us, happy listening to you wherever you are in time and space. We have for you Duncan Alexander. Hello. Also Colin Miller. Hello hello colin hello james and carl anchor hi james hi carl you're down in the london that london because you were at the opta quiz last night i was indeed i was with my friend adam cleary on the independence quiz team uh we finished eighth eighth out of how many teams carl i want to say 17 okay so uh yeah mid table respectable how big how prestigious is the opta quiz uh it's been running for I want to say 12 years now really but in quiz terms 2010 yeah so in terms of quizzing it's this is the uh the creme de la creme of London football quiz national perhaps I think all the big boys represented so sky sports uh so sky sports stats they're the realm they're the realm of dread of the scene they've won the most yes and they were the the favorites and the reigning holders the reigning champions who else you got in there BBC are they there so Premier League had a stats team Racing Post were there with the team Daily Mail was there Independent The Sun was there Ladbible was there the Times were there as well so really really heated and would this be this here this trophy the Optojoe quiz 2025 winner this would be the trophy that would be the winning trophy That is not the trophy that I won.

2:18I did not win a trophy. That trophy was won by the athletics team. Yay! Congratulations, athletics team. Duncan, you're kind of the de facto manager, no? Yeah, I had to pull out of actually taking part due to a work commitment. But I assembled the team, gave them a pep talk, told them that Sky were the danger men. And I think they were four points up at half-time and defended that lead in the second half. Brilliant. They being James Moore, Will Jeans, Producer Charlie, Producer Charlie, and Michael Cox. I like to think that, you know, totally provided the backbone of that athletic selection. The intertotally was very much the sort of the Premier League for getting into the Champions League that was this.

3:05Yeah. Very, very nice. I think they finished with 82 points. The independent team finished with 69. so yeah there's the athletic and there is everyone else really in terms of quiz answering really what kind of are they very difficult questions the quiz took a heavy owed a heavy debt to Tenable Warren Davis' quiz show so there were one round for example was named the last ten European Cup champions so before before the Champions League so named the last ten which I believe Will Jeans just spat out machine-wise there was a which is what it's harder than it sounds because producer Charlie mentioned this to me in and around our coffee station and I was trying to assemble the list in my head.

3:48Colin, do you want to have a bang at that? The last 10, so from 81 to 91. Yeah, because there was a funeral around the 70s, early 80s where it was Ajax and Bayern had a run of wins. But you would have had like a storybook of rest in there. 81 was Liverpool. Oh, you want to go in? You don't have to go in order. No, we do, we do. 81, Liverpool. 82. Hamburg? Yes. 83 Villa 84 Liverpool 85 Juventus 86 Stour 87 PSV PSV at 1 88 and then Porto and then Milan 89 90 Red Star and then 91 would be Barcelona who beat Sampdoria at Wembley so that's a 10 Bingo. There you go. Excellent. Another question was, which player has scored the most goals in FA Cup finals?

4:47Yes. What was the answer to that one, then? It used to be Ian Rush. It is still Ian Rush. Still Ian Rush. Okay. And one more. Says, Producer Charlie, this is a question I don't think anyone got, even the athletics team. Which team has had the most games at the World Cup without ever drawing 0-0? Colin. Without ever drawing 0-0? You can rule out Switzerland.

5:10I thought I waged it was Sweden and I was wrong What about like a Saudi Arabia No North Korea Nigeria The answer was Austria Austria Well there you go Wow anyway They've certainly played out some dodgy draws credit to the quiz makers it was really enjoyable and yeah congratulations to the athletics winning team pretty magnanimous of you Karl Anker and congratulations to everyone who took part splendid ok October international break did you know that this is the last ever October international break as we know it I do because I read Colin Miller's piece about it Colin this had completely passed me by but this is a revolution next year we'll have effectively two international breaks stuck together in about three weeks off club football.

6:09Yeah, so this change was actually passed by the FIFA Council in 2023. So a little while ago, but it's kind of gone under the radar. And it's for essentially the change of the football calendar, as we know it, between 2026 and 2030. So a five-year cycle. And the international breaks now that we have, we've got five during the year, not including the major tournaments that tend to take place in the summer. And each of those breaks tend to last for two weeks and every team has a maximum of two matches within those breaks. What FIFA have done is to merge the September and October breaks into the one.

6:42Now, what that does is it doesn't reduce the number of international matches. So we're still going to have four during that period, but it's going to be played, it's going to be condensed into one three-week window rather than two two weeks. So essentially what you have is a reduction in the sort of the travelling and the sort of the kind of admin involved and all that movement between club and international teams and a reduction of that. So you've got an extra week of club football, essentially, as a result of that. That sounds like it's a good idea. I think, in theory, it's a good idea. I mean, it's a good idea in a lot of ways.

7:15It's a good idea environmentally, certainly, because you have a lot less travelling, which you could kind of say is unnecessary. And I think as well, at the start of a football season, you've got the sort of three breaks kind of back-to-back, the early September, early October, mid-November. that feels like quite a lot certainly at the start of a season it feels like it's a very stop start both for club and internationals and I think this will benefit everyone in a way I think even for international sides it does benefit you to have maybe three or four games in a row rather than two and then a six-week break and then another two because you've got maybe players getting injured or whatever coming back into fitness you don't really get that continuity and selection so I think certainly from international managers they'll enjoy it obviously from a club point of view you've got a longer break in between in between the two windows but that being said i think they prefer it as well because there's less disruption to your season so i do kind of think that in theory everyone will win from this and i do think it's a good move okay airbnb as well with a football journalist booking holidays important yeah the november break though that remained very much out there on its own yeah so the November break the March break and there's obviously the one in June as well which is typically off-season anyway they remain unchanged for now for this five-year cycle that's coming up okay interesting one last time then should we have a look at what this October international break looks like already have been a bunch of games played on Wednesday night which saw the 19th team book their place at the next World Cup that's Egypt who join fellow African sides Morocco and Tunisia the hosts USA, Mexico and Canada and South American qualifiers Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay plus Asian teams Japan, New Zealand, Iran Uzbekistan, South Korea Jordan and Australia We're going to have six more African sides also confirmed this week Ghana is almost certainly going to be one of them ACAL unless they lose like 8-0 this weekend Tacomoros to Comoros although I'm still stung by the AFCON defeat to Comoros as well so I'm not going to count my chickens just yet ok but still 3 points clear on top of the group with an 8 plus 8 better on goal difference so looking good also poised to go through Algeria, Cape Verde who are 2 points clear in their group also potentially qualifying this week from Europe are England in their game next Tuesday with Latvia, Slovakia who on Friday are going to be at Northern Ireland, Colin.

9:52Portugal will be hosting bottom of their group, Republic of Ireland, on Saturday. And also Switzerland, France, Spain, Norway and Croatia could all go through. There's some other big games that may be of interest in Group J, which is Wales' group. On Saturday, Belgium will be hosting North Macedonia. North Macedonia are actually topping that particular group. Belgium are a point back level with Wales who they will be visiting on Monday after Wales, of course, play England on Thursday night in a friendly. Belgium, by the way, under Rudy Garcia, won both their fixtures in September 6-0. Both of them.

10:31Crikey. Also in Group C, which is the most closely contested UEFA qualifying group, you've got four points separating the four teams. Denmark and Scotland are level at the top. Greece are a point behind and Scotland will be hosting Greece again Again, this evening, as we record Thursday, Scotland bidding to make it through to their first World Cup since 1998. Of course, they did so well at the last tournament they pitched up. Was that Don't Come Home Too Soon? Delamitri? Yes, it was. Getting a thumbs up from producer Charlie. Narrator, they did come home too soon. No one's laughing. Amidst all of that, as I mentioned, England play Wales tonight in a friendly.

11:12England v Wales in a friendly on a Thursday night. it screams item one. So let's get on to that. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. This Wednesday marked one year to the day since Thomas Tuchel signed on to become England manager and he kind of marked the occasion by dropping quite the squad selection. No Phil Foden, no Jack Grealish, no Adam Wharton and no Jude Bellingham. This, less than 48 hours after, Jude Bellingham had been named England's Men's Player of the Year for 24-25 Crikey Why? Why no Wharton? Why no Grealish? Why no Fordham?

11:51Why no Bellingham? Well, that's Thomas' decision I think we're kind of seeing the impact of a manager that's just signed up for one tournament and everything's focused on that and he's kind of had five or six squad get-togethers now and he's kind of slowly coalescing on the players that he thinks can do the job for him, which still includes Jordan Henderson. So, yeah, it's quite interesting because obviously some of those players, Warton and Grealish in particular, have started the season really well. But he seems to be happy with the players. Obviously, to be fair, the start was slow, but the last set of games was the most progress he's shown.

12:30So I guess it's sort of fair enough to stick with those lads. And Bellingham missed out on the last one because of his shoulder injury and operation. so there is a slight fitness question over him he didn't start for example for Real Madrid at the weekend and his appearances have been limited for the Spanish Giants, what do you think Carl is there a bit of a message here? Maybe, I think this might be Tuchel saying for the players who start the season well, keep it up you're not going to immediately be rewarded with a call up and also for Jude Bellingham, I suppose this is sort of keeping your arms length saying yes you're important but don't expect to waltz back in this is the england team's quite strange now in that there is still a very clear spine of southgate trusted deputies so pickford will be the starting goalkeeper i mean it used to be harry mcguire as and john stones as you send back partnership but now it looks to be mark gwahe and another declan rice will certainly be the starting defensive midfielder box box midfielder then there is a space for the 10 which should be Bellingham but I'm saying that with the upward inflection with question marks and then you've got Harry Kane as a striker Saka will be the starting right sided attacker there but this sort of who's going to be the midfielder next to Declan Rice has been hotly contested for even before the last Euros who's going to be the centre back next to the left side of centre back which is probably now going to be Gwe hotly contested who's going to be the left back that should be Myles Lewis Skelly maybe but also question marks there and this number 10 situation is also that should be Bellingham's role there has been conversation about Phil Foden in that role but I don't think Phil Foden's had a particularly good England career and honestly at this point if you are only if you're too sure you only have this World Cup to plan for you are well within your rights to go I'm not picking Foden yeah and football and English football is littered with the history of players who were great at club football and never translated into England for from the point of view of Phil Foden you think yeah As Kyle says, he's come into tournaments being player of the year before.

14:39He's been clearly one of the best players in the Premier League, and yet he's never really done it for England. Bellingham has. Bellingham has. And we saw how decisive he can be at the last Euros. And this is where club form versus international form gets quite interesting, because Morgan Rodgers has been brilliant the last couple of games for England. He's not had a very good season for Villa, although he has been better in the last few games. But as an international manager, I think it's sensible to look at how your team played in the last international, rather than, you know, did they do well against Brentford or something.

15:11So, yeah, I think this is quite a big week for Morgan Rodgers, because he can really, I think, cement a place in this team at a crucial period. This is what we were talking about earlier with the two separate breaks. This is pretty much an unchanged squad from September, barring the injuries. I think Tina Levermento and Nani Mardwake are right injured. but this is pretty much the same group of players. I think there's two ways of looking at it. There's the one thing of, you know, this is a continuity squad. This is Thomas Tuchel looking at players who have worked in the last international break.

15:42Obviously, they've chalked up two wins. I think the 5-0 win away to Serbia is a pretty landmark result in the grand scheme of things. I mean, England are always going to qualify for this tournament but when you look at the squad itself, it's actually very inexperienced. You've got Gael Konza, Nick O 'Reilly, James Trafford, they're all uncapped. Carl's obviously talking about a lot of the players in the defence. Myles Lewis-Gellion Lee has four caps, Dan Byrne has three, Jed Spence has one, and even the likes of Morgan Rodgers, Morgan Gibbs-White and Anderson as well. They're all in single figures in terms of caps, so that's pretty much a quarter of the squad with very little international experience, who Thomas Tuchel's obviously brought in and thought, are these some players that we can get a tune out of and build into some sort of team?

16:24Obviously, there's a lot of experience that has been left out. Another way of looking at that is that a lot of those players who have been left out or players who've got, you know, obviously big expectations but are big characters as well. And it'll be interesting to see once they do come back into the squad, what sort of dynamic change does that have in terms of the relationships that have been built up in that team? Right. And that could be quite significant. Thomas Tuchel answering a question about that, saying, yeah, we're building a great team rather than necessarily focusing on the best players.

16:54And there's a tactical side to that, but also a personality one, which is something that we've inferred that he might have an issue with Bellingham, perhaps unfairly. But yeah, interesting from that point of view. Also, we're heading into the biggest World Cup ever with an entire extra round. So that means longer there, a lot of travel. You're picking players not only for their footballing skills, but also, I think the verbiage during the Southgate era was players who are good tourists. so okay you're number 19 or number 24 in that 26 person squad and you might not play but are you are you going to sit in the corner and play Fortnite on your phone or are you going to participate in the team games and bonding and all the things that are really really important to prevent this it really feels like now a lot of the modern international managers half their job is just preventing a front style implosion forgive always bring up front but yeah that seems that half of Deschamps' job is just making sure the kids are all right.

17:54And that was something that Southgate seemed really preoccupied with, particularly up until at least Euro 2020. The inflatable unicorns. Yes, indeed. They created an England team that was likeable, which seemed unfathomable in 2012. It sounds silly in some respects, but England's best performance at World Cups has been when there's been that camaraderie. Like 1990, 2018, slightly different types of camaraderie, but the same principle applies. those scores got on and got far. This week we've just had Stephen Gerrard on a podcast say he found England duty really difficult and he called them, he said we're egotistical losers which I thought was because of the way that top four battle.

18:35Well I think 2006 and 2010 are probably the lowest points for England scores in terms of that cohesion and it was a lot of sort of big four superstars who didn't really like each other. I think it was Rain Rooney watched Jermaine Defoe's wedding video twice because he was so bored during the 2010 camp really I think it was Rooney someone watched a wedding the full video of someone's wedding twice because there was nothing to do in the Capello style atmosphere tactically this England team is still a bit of a head scratcher for me in that the problems England had in the year 2024 was far too narrow on the left hand side because they thought she'll be back for the end of the group stage and wasn't so there was just no width on that left hand side build up play in Central was super stodgy because it took them far too long to cycle through with the Declan Rice partners before they went oh it's Maynard and the fact Maynard is not here and it looks like Elliot Anderson has now sort of barged past Trent, Gallagher, Maynard and now Orton is really really interesting so that situation needs to get sorted and then there is always going to be an asterisk footnote question mark over Harry Kane and whether or not, should it still be Harry Kane?

19:49Is Harry Kane mobile enough? Or who's going to play if Harry Kane can't do it? Right, which he can't do this Thursday evening against Wales in the friendly. His numbers in the Bundesliga, admittedly with different teammates, suggested he is still very much able to do it. But he won't be available for the friendly against Wales. Thomas Tuchel is confident, publicly at least, that he will be available for the match against Latvia, in which if England win and Serbia, meanwhile, don't win both of their matches, which are against Albania and Andorra, England will be through to the World Cup. So Wales first on Thursday.

20:26England's last friendly was a 3-1 defeat at home to Senegal, which is probably the loo point of Thomas Tuchel's reign so far. What are the chances of similar this time? Well, Wales don't have a great record against England. They've only ever once beaten them away before. That was in 1977. however Craig Bellamy in his reign as world's manager has seen them climb from 45th to 30th in the FIFA world ranking so they're very much on an awkward trajectory except however however the last three games have seen them lose to Belgium 4-3 beat Kazakhstan 1-0 but then lose at home to Canada in a friendly last month so hmm hmm Bellamy said that he doesn't want to sit back he doesn't believe in it so I think it'd be quite an open game.

21:13Okay, good. And no Aaron Ramsey in this game. He's had to pull out through injury. Hands up if you knew that he was playing in Mexico now, Aaron Ramsey, with Pumas? Yeah, yeah. It was one of the, one of the sort of stranger summer moves, wasn't it? Kind of went under the radar a little bit because he'd gone back home to Cardiff and things maybe hadn't quite worked out. But Aaron Ramsey, he's obviously a player who's had a lot of injury problems the latter half of his career as well. And maybe in terms of his international career, being in Pumas maybe isn't the greatest thing in the world because, first of all, you're so far removed from your teammates and then international duty then does become an issue as well.

21:55This is obviously not a massive game for Wales in themselves, but they still have quite a good chance of certainly getting into the playoff stage for the World Cup final. So they're second behind leaders North Macedonia in Group J, level with Belgium, who will be visiting them on Monday they've got a great record at home for Wales and they have so obviously they have Belgium at home who are the group favourites but they also still have North Macedonia at home and that's going to be on the final match day as well so I mean that's a big ask but if they could get four points plus from those games they're certainly they're certainly going to be going to be in the playoffs at least going into this tournament and I mean it is one of those things that Wales ideally from a 48 team expanded tournament should be aiming to be on the fringes of that and yeah I guess this is a really good test for them just just quickly going back to England one of the not not so much to England but to Tuchel himself and to international football in general is the sort of I guess the the disparity between a coach like Thomas Tuchel and a coach like Craig Bellamy just from very different backgrounds and probably very different ways of communicating with players and understanding certainly from an international point of view what those players want and need out of those camps and I guess when you actually look at international football in generally there's a lot of big name managers there from the club scene and not really any of them have impressed in terms of certainly the results so far and it's always difficult when you're outside of major tournaments but certainly looking at Julian Nagelsmann at Germany and their sort of ongoing struggles at the minute obviously Mauricio Pochettino's come in in the US camp and that was such a massive massive appointment for them but results really haven't improved at all in fact quite the opposite.

23:34Carlo Ancelotti okay the Brazil situation was a bit of a mess that he walked into but again doesn't really seem to have been any uptick there so there is that there is as Carl was alluding to earlier with sort of Deschamps at France maybe somebody who's a coach who not necessarily is is the biggest name or not necessarily somebody who would naturally succeed in club football but the demands of what you'd need as an international manager are very different so that's that's why it's very fascinating to see going into this tournament with so many big name managers will any of them actually be able to to replicate what they've done at club level Roberto Martinez, before Euro 2020, partway through Euro 2020, I should say, when he was the then Belgian manager, he said he has three training sessions as an international manager to get across what he has maybe 40 to do as a club manager when he wins Everton.

24:23This is the Roberto Martinez experience. But it's really interesting. I mean, he's now in charge of Portugal. And on an absolute tear with them. Right. He's been trusted with two golden generations. and I think part of that is when we talk about the communication needed this is the fun bit about international football in that one of the misconceptions is it's the best of our country versus the best of yours which I don't think is true but I think international football is a less refined version of club football and because you have those training imbalances and because you can have a golden generation or indeed now we've seen the major European nations you can always sort of make one via your football academies.

25:02Or through clever use of diasporas. Indeed. You can get this really, really interesting thing where you have a manager like Nagelsmann or someone like Deschamps and they are competing on maybe close to an equal footing with someone like Craig Bellamy because if Craig Bellamy can properly communicate the message needed to get across to his players in a certain round of football, why not? So, yeah, I love international football. I know there's a lot of Premier League watches that go can't stand the international break. But as the great Ellie said at Copa90, if you're bored of international football, just stop watching the tier one European nations and everything becomes way more interesting.

25:40Good shout. Leeds trio, Carl Darlow, Joe Roden and Ethan Ampadu, Brennan Johnson and Ben Davis of Spurs and Fulham's Harry Wilson among the Premier League representatives who could well be involved Thursday night. And then in the key match against Belgium who have a whopping advantage on goal difference after those two 6-0 wins back in September. You mentioned Germany, Colin, who are one of the opponents coming up for your Northern Ireland. The first one is Slovakia, who could qualify when they visit Windsor Park. When's that? On Saturday, I think, is it not? Friday? Yeah, Friday, I think. Friday, yeah.

26:16Okay. Yeah, this is potentially the most interesting group in that Germany are genuinely in a bit of jeopardy and they're probably the only nation who were expected to really just go out and win the group who aren't doing that at the minute. That is a result of them losing 3-0 in Slovakia in their opening game. And this is only a four-team group, so each result really does matter. And it is quite tricky because even Luxembourg, who were the fourth-place team in that, Slovakia needed a 90th-minute winner there in their second game. So that shows that there is kind of jeopardy in each of those games.

26:49Northern Ireland Slovakia is Michael O 'Neill's 100th game in charge of Northern Ireland across his two spells, which really is quite significant in international terms. It's also a repeat of the playoff match for Euro 2020, which Slovakia won an extra time. These are probably two relatively well-matched teams, I think. Norton Island are certainly on the up again under Michael O 'Neill, and I wouldn't say they were unfortunate to lose in Germany in the last game, but they certainly give a very good account to themselves, and they're a team who can mix it up, and they've sort of regained their strength at set pieces.

27:23But they're also relatively quite good on the ball and they've also got a really nice blend of players that they've managed to introduce into this sort of cycle. Probably the standard of those, certainly in terms of goals, is Isaac Price, the West Brom attacking midfielder who's now the double figures in international terms. But yeah, this is a massive doubleheader for Northern Ireland. I don't really think there was a massive, there wasn't any expectation really of qualification for the tournament. But I think there was an outside hope of certainly getting a playoff spot. and that is definitely dependent on this Slovakia game.

27:53If they can win that, really does need other results to go their way as well. But I think there is a chance and this is certainly a group worth looking at because Germany are genuinely under pressure and certainly with Germany going to Belfast as well in the second game of this break, could be a bit of a banana skin. Northern Ireland have won their last four competitive matches at Windsor Park without conceding a single goal. A single goal, Colin. Crikey. So we could be seeing Wales at the World Cup, quite possibly England, maybe Northern Ireland. What about Scotland? Because their group, Group C, is pretty exciting as well.

28:31Four points separating the four teams there. Denmark and Scotland level on four points with Greece a point behind. And Greece visiting tonight. They then play Belarus to the Scots. Crikey Greece actually won 3-1 against Scotland In the promotion Relegation playoffs Of the Nations League Just last March But that's That's a huge set of fixtures Could have an Emplein Of the So-called Home nations At the World Cup Very exciting though Truly This is a fun group It feels like Greek football Is having a little bit of A Renaissance now And the national team Seems to be in good shape And they have A couple of younger Younger players Under 21 players who are coming through.

29:13So I'll expect Greece to be in and around the next Euros next time. I also think this group is just also evidence, testament to the strength of the Nations League in that all of these teams have benefited in some way from Nations League football and playing more international games against teams of comparable size. And I think that that sort of iron sharpens iron has been reflected here. I mean, Scotland's growth, perhaps their promotion to the top league in the last Nations League round hurt them a little bit, but they definitely seem quite comfortable in being too. Right, also a testament to the strength of Serie A, and Scotland poised to become very much Italy's second team, should the Azzurri themselves not make it through to a third straight World Cup.

29:58Scotland haven't been at the World Cup, as I mentioned, since 1998. Northern Ireland haven't been 40 years next year. Yeah, 1986. It's been a long wait. I mean, I guess that in a way that the expanded tournament, albeit more focused on Asian and African nations, is an opportunity for others to sort of come back in. One of the things, I mean, I was always initially very sceptical of it. And I still am to some degree because 32 teams is like the perfect balance of a formatted tournament in terms of, you know, you go through the last 16 and so on and so forth. but I do think that if you're expanding it to the 40, 50 teams there's not really a drop off in quality not in terms of that sort of shortage of games I don't think and also each of those teams isn't actually playing more games within themselves because you're only playing two group games and then possibly an extra round so each team's games isn't the same as the overall number of games in a tournament hasn't increased so in terms of the obviously player welfare is such an issue that isn't really related to the expansion of the World Cup albeit it kind of looks like it on a superficial level.

31:05But no, I don't think there'd be any drop-off in quality. I mean, Carl was saying about what international football is, is it is about finding these nations and these stories. And I've said it before, that whenever you look at the club game and it's so heavily focused on Western Europe and maybe four or five nations and the sort of richest clubs from each of those, that's all we ever seem to focus on or talk about. International football is totally different. And a nation like Greece, as we were just talking about, I mean, they've won 10 of the last 13 games, They won at Wembley a year ago this week.

31:35And their group of players, they've only got one player, Mavropanos at West Ham in the Premier League, for instance. So this is a group of players who probably goes under the radar quite a bit. A lot of them are playing Greece, and a lot of them play for clubs like Benfica and Sporting in the Champions League. But really, a really talented group of players from the nation who've been a bit unheralded in recent years. But international football is full of that. And I think an expanded World Cup gives those sides an opportunity to really come to the forefront. and I think that's good for football and it's good for the overall health of the game albeit I understand that the reasons for the expansion are certainly not driven towards that they're driven certainly more financially but I do think that there are benefits as well I've definitely got my reservations about a 48 team World Cup if only because I grew up in the 90s so I'm constantly yearning for a World Cup when is the next World Cup going to be entirely held in Mexico because everyone who was alive for the previous Mexico World Cup said those tournaments are the best and I think when it's 48 teams you do get to a point where now you cannot really host the World Cup in a single nation now unless it is those nations in Western Europe or nations that are in somewhat autocratic governments because you need that long-term plan to build hotels, build stadiums Build 15 stadiums, now Yeah, so I mean Colin's right this is the really interesting thing about international football is that you're getting so many stories but also for as many good stories there are going on at any point in time they're also a collection of bad stories if you sort of like lift under the right or even just try and buy a ticket to the next World Cup or try and buy the right to buy a ticket to the next World Cup this might be the only ever 48 team World Cup it might be 64 by the next one which which actually won't have that many games and it does mean at least you don't have the because we're going to have eight third place teams going through from the 12 groups so when you put it like that good luck to anyone doing the sort of World Cup infographics we should see who knows where the world's going to be in five years time true anyway Duncan.

33:28Anyway, regarding this World Cup, next up, let's have a little look at what's happening in Africa.

33:39This 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, Olly Kay, and the very best football writers around. Alright, let's talk about CAF qualifying, because it's a huge week for the African teams bidding to make it to the World Cup Of course, Morocco and Tunisia are already through. Morocco, you'll recall, fourth place finishers last time around. Egypt, as of Wednesday night, have joined them. We've got Ghana and Cape Verde on the brink. Joining us now, Mahir Mazahi.

34:12Mahir, lovely to see you. So good to be back on the show. It's been a long time, but yeah, happy to talk about African football. Now, on the qualifying front, as I mentioned, Egypt have gone through seven-time African champions, but they've kind of stunk the joint out on all their three previous appearances at the World Cup, failing to win a match ever. Are they going to do better this time, do you think? It's not certain. You know, about 20 months ago, they went to the African Cup of Nations with a coach that was on the highest salary of any other coach at the tournament, Riva Toria, Portuguese coach, apparently friends with Jose Mourinho.

34:48Jose Mourinho has a lot of friends that he refers to African federations that end up getting jobs at big countries. Jose Pesero was another one at Nigeria. Anyways, they had a horrific AFCON, bounced out in the group stages. Mohamed Salah, if you remember, was injured about halfway through, and he went back to Liverpool, even though they weren't eliminated. And he faced a lot of criticism for that from many former internationals, including the all-time leading goal scorer, Hussam Hassan. That very same Hussam Hassan is now his coach, and he's on a tenth of the salary that Rivetoria was, so€20 ,000.

35:18And the problem with Hussam Hassan, he's a complete madman, if you don't know who he is. I don't know, the equivalent would maybe be Paul Gascoyne or something like that. And he never really coached that, even one of the biggest clubs in Egypt, Al-Ahli Erza Malik. So this was a lot of question marks surrounding this appointment. But they've managed to make it work. And Mohamed Salah scores a brace against Djibouti yesterday. They do qualify for the fourth time in their history, which is not enough for a country like Egypt and the standing they have within African football. And Mohamed Salah is just four goals away from Hussam Hassan and the leading goal scorer ever for the Egyptian national team.

35:50and he's also the leading goal scorer of all time in African football for FIFA World Cup qualifiers with 20 goals, surpassing Didier Jogba.

36:14Excellent. The second of his goals, absolutely beautiful, that volley. And interesting, given that he's seemed to be a little bit out of form for his club, that he's very much doing it for the Pharaohs, who are, under their unexpectedly successful manager, doing it pretty well at both ends. They've scored 19 goals in the nine qualifying matches and only conceded two. I had very low expectations for Egypt tactically after the appointment of Hessen. But one of the things that's been very fun about them is he just tries to shoehorn all of his attacking players onto the pitch. So if you remember Trezeguet, who was formerly at Aston Villa, sometimes he'll play as a left back for Egypt under Hussam Hassan.

36:50He'll throw on Omar Marmouche and Mohamed Salah and Trezeguet and this wonderful attacking midfielder who's playing in the Emirates, same as Ibrahim Adel. Just get five, six attacking midfielders on. And he gets them to buy into doing the defensive work as well. So it helps that the World Cup qualifying groups are not as difficult as they used to be in Africa because we used to only have five slots and now we have nine and a half. but that said I've been slightly impressed with the way Egypt have played they've exceeded my expectations under this coach Excellent Quite the line up of players that you mentioned there Who's going to be next out of CAF to book their place?

37:24Well Ghana look pretty much nailed on Akal crushed the Central African Republic 5-0 on Wednesday wasn't enough to seal the deal but you know superstition aside I mean you're there no? Yeah nearly there wasn't able to the win wasn't enough due to results elsewhere in the group, but they just need a positive result against Comoros, and they're playing at home. One thing that's really remarkable about the national team now is someone's been studying Arsenal for a little bit. They've suddenly become very, very good at corner kicks. So a lot of whipped-in back post deliveries. Sulemana got a goal at the back post, and that felt very much like a goal Mikel Arteta would be proud of.

38:06I believe there's been a new addition to Otto Addo's coaching team, and Otto Addo has been quite gracious in saying, well, this gentleman, I'm sorry his name escapes me, is in charge of our set pieces. So there's been improvement there. And also, Jordan Ayew found third wind for Ghana. Really, really, really strange. So in this qualifying group, he's got six goals, he's got six assists. And Jordan Ayew is one of the more heavily criticised Ghanaian national team players of all time. when I was in Garnet for their World Cup playoff against Nigeria. So that was two legs. I was in Kumasi for that game.

38:45And I overpacked the stadium. And one of the more constant things I kept overhearing was just people constantly criticising Jordan Ayew. Just Ayew's playing this. Jordan's doing this. If Jordan Ayew's dad wasn't Abde Pele, he wouldn't be doing this. But now, not only is there an appreciation of what he does off the ball and why he gets picked so much because he does the dirty work, But he's found some form of attacking rhythm in a way that I've never seen him play like this before in a Ghana shirt. And I'm loving it. Where's he playing his club football now, Jordan Ayoub? He's at Leicester. At Leicester?

39:16Yeah. Okay. Some of the Premier League stars featuring in the Black Stars, Antoine Semenya, who's doing brilliantly for Bournemouth, Mokoudis as well. Quite the turnaround given what happened at the, well, what didn't happen when they failed to even qualify for the last Cup of Nations. Yeah, this is, Mier's spoken already about how this World Cup qualifying is really different because now they're nine and a half slots compared to the five that have been there previously. And I mean, if you've got memory of Italia 90, there was only one. Cameroon. Yeah, historically speaking, there's only been one.

39:49And Egypt. Yeah, Cameroon and Egypt. So there's been a mini explosion of qualifying places. This is because Infantino, throughout his FIFA presidency, has really made an effort to, in his words try and promote african football uh in his critics words him and the calf president are very very very closely linked and he's trying to do what blatter used to do which is african nations have more voting blocs so if i give more to africa football i'll make sure i can stay future present forever but you're now seeing this really interesting thing where teams that are performing quite badly in terms of afcon and afcon rhythms are becoming world cup qualifying juggernauts because the World Cup groups are quite easier compared to AFCON groups Nihie will be able to tell you a little bit more about this but yeah this is good at a time for I mean Ghana had back to back worst ever AFCON performances ever and they've decided well we're just going to avoid that embarrassment by not even qualifying for the next one and it's also as because we're talking about Ghana I also have to talk about Nigeria as well so while Nigeria are doing very well in AFCON they got to the final of the last tournament and they probably should have won it they're having really bad problems in their World Cup qualifying too.

40:57Although, Mahir, they've been thrown a real lifeline by the decision to take a victory away from South Africa in their group and award that now as a loss, which has left four teams with a real chance of topping the group, Nigeria amongst them. Yeah, this is a problem that we used to deal with a lot around a decade ago in African football, was that players would pick up yellow cards, federations wouldn't be tracking them, and then an ineligible player would be used and a team would be later docked points. And this is exactly what happened. But we're in 2025. This is the only case of it happening that I can remember over the last since 2018 when Nigeria did it in FIFA World Cup qualifier.

41:32So it's been it's been a little while. And basically what happened was Mamaluri Sundown's midfielder, Thibaut Mukwena, one of South Africa's best midfielders. He was great at the Club World Cup. He's been great in the African Champions League. He had picked up two yellow cards. He was supposed to be suspended against Lazutu. And with all due respect to Lazutu, South Africa can beat Lazutu without Thibaut Mukwena. still. He plays the match. They win 2-0. They're top of the group with 17 points. And what happens is nobody actually appeals. I guess in the FIFA regulations, somebody has to actually lodge a complaint within 48 hours.

42:02Nobody did that. It took FIFA about six months to actually make a decision. They end up sanctioning South Africa. They dock them to three points. They make them forfeit and they take away those two goals scored and they add three goals conceded as well. And so all of a sudden, South Africa go from first place to second place in the group. And Benin, The Cheetahs of Benin are now top of Group C. Ahead of the Cheetahs of South Africa. That was very good, actually. Still, I do expect South Africa to go through because Benin have two tough matches. They go to Rwanda and then they go to Nigeria within 72 hours, whereas South Africa hosts two matches.

42:40Even though technically one is away to Zimbabwe, they'll be hosting that match in Durban because Zimbabwe doesn't have a homologated stadium. So I still expect South Africa to go through and taking into account their form since the last Afghan. They've been one of the more impressive sides on the continent. Excellent. Senegal and Ivory Coast also well placed to go through. Azar Mahir, you're Algeria, who will qualify on Thursday. Oh, that's tonight if you beat Somalia. So that'll be good. Yeah, they're the worst ranked side in African football. We are playing that match at home as well. Technically, it's an away match, but you know, the federations, they say, let us host you.

43:15You can have accommodation for free. We have these beautiful pitches over here. And Somalia has nothing to lose. They're already eliminated. And they say, sure, why not? And so we'll be hosting them. I think people are not too chuffed with what's going on in Algeria. We have Vladimir Petkovic as a coach, former Swiss national team manager, former Bordeaux manager. And basically, he's relying on the same old players that have been there for the longest period of time. People are sick of Riyad Mahrez. People in Senegal are sick of Sadio Mane. And they just want him to change. You know, there's a really good player in Ligue 1 playing for Paris FC.

43:46He's the leading scorer of Ligue 1, Ilan Cabal, four goals and two assists so far. He plays the exact same position. People want to see some change. So I expect to see some change. I expect Cabal to start instead of Mahrez. And I do expect Luka Zidane, actually, son of Zinedine Zidane, the third goalkeeper for Algeria. But I think Zidane, there's heavy rumors that he'll be in Algeria to watch his son perhaps make his debut against Somalia. So another wonky headline coming out of international football. Excellent, excellent. One kiss of headlines, though, will be if the Blue Sharks make it through to the World Cup, they would become the second smallest nation ever to qualify for the biggest national tournament of all.

44:26Smallest ever were Iceland, of course, with about 300 ,000 population. Blue Sharks being Cape Verde, who count about 525 ,000 people in their population. They beat Cameroon 1-0 last time. They very nearly sealed it this Wednesday when they came back from 3-1 down away at Libya. They made it 3-3. Thought they'd scored a winner in the 96th minute, only for it to be chalked off for offside somewhat dubiously. But there's no VAR. Incredibly early offside call. The player didn't look to be offside. Adam clearly shared the clip about how, if you watch it, the substitute bench are on their feet, about to storm the pitch in celebration of this goal.

45:09hopefully going in and then once the offside goes they immediately descend on the line in rage a couple of minutes before that offside decision brilliant two on one counter attack and it's one of those classic situations where it's used the goalkeeper it's your teammate to your right and you go just square it just square it your teammate has the tap in and the striker involved had a shot on goal keeper saves it and again you can see the entire subspace just all collapse to the ground so Cape Verde should hopefully make this World Cup This is again one of those, I think generally what we're seeing now with the African nations is they're all getting better because of a lot of the...

45:46Jose Mourinho friends. Jose Mourinho friends and grants from Infantino. So, Mihir and I worked on a piece years and years and years ago about the work that the Moroccan FA, the Algerian FA and the Tunisian FA did successfully lobbying FIFA in order to go, can we have that player who's been picked up like two caps from France's on the 21s, but he's never been picked. So you're seeing that as well. Morocco has their centre of excellence that, please forgive me, I don't remember their name. It's named after the king, King Mohammed. Yeah, Mohammed VI complex in Mamoura outside of Rabatia. Yes, so that's sort of Morocco's, forgive me for what I'm about to do, that is Morocco's version of Clairefontaine in terms of their centre of excellence.

46:25And we're seeing more African nations have that or have their version of that. If that's how Morocco, for example, are doing it, how are Cape Verde with half a million inhabitants, how are they able to qualify for a World Cup? and top their group, Meher. Yeah, no, but Carl's right. Like them relying on their Portuguese-based diaspora is a part of why they're doing so well. If you go down their squad list, you can find about half their players are either born in Portugal. A few of them are actually born in Rotterdam. I don't know what the actual connection is over there. And then they come through, you know, these academies, these teams, Estoril, Braga, things like, you know, they're never going to play for the Portuguese national team, but they're good enough to raise the floor a little bit.

47:06You know, it's not like they have world-class players that can rival Cameroon. Cameroon's dysfunction was more a factor of them really finishing first than anything else. But it raises the floor so they don't beat themselves. They force you to beat them. And they've been really, really good since the last AFCON. They have a coach named Bubista who has been there over the last decade when they qualified for their first AFCON. He was there as an assistant. it's a romantic story in the sense especially with characters like him who you know were played in Cape Verde coaches in Cape Verde he's somebody that is local in Wildbredden it's one of those words like you know what if somebody really loves football enough if they're intelligent enough if they pay attention enough if they try enough you know they can still have some you know like pretty damn impressive results on a global scale and so I do think they're going to impress a lot of people if you watch them they play a wonderful 4-3-3 they pass the ball on the floor they're technical they're tactical they just need to have maybe a little bit better defending but but they were missing their best defender from Villarreal, Logan Costa.

48:03I think when he returns from a long-term injury, they're going to be, again, tough to beat. And Meher, we've talked on this show already about the tournament expansion for the World Cup and for other international tournaments, and AFCON is one that relatively recently expanded to 24 teams. Is that something that benefits nations like Cape Verde Islands? Because probably a nation who had no real presence on the international stage prior to that, but are now regular, semi-regulars at a tournament of that stature and that attracts players to play for that team. But it also helps that cohesion long-term in World Cup qualification processes.

48:38Yeah, absolutely. I think we sometimes, amongst journalists, we pejoratively call them second-tier teams. You know, like you have the top teams, which is like the teams that you usually see at a World Cup. You have the four North African teams, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt. You have Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal. You could throw South Africa in there. And then there's a tier right under, which is like Mali, Burkina Faso, you know, teams that are incredibly competitive on the African scene that have really good players. But because the places were so restricted, they never really had a chance to showcase that on a global level.

49:11To be quite completely honest, I don't think Cape Verde were quite in that second tier yet. And that's what makes this such an exploit. But I do think that those teams in the sort of second tier in air quotes, I know I feel horrible. This is coming out of my mouth. It's so patronizing. But those teams are the teams that are really to benefit the most because all of a sudden they have a chance to qualify for the World Cup. And that's something that we haven't seen on the African continent since 2006 when we had like Togo and Angola qualify. But that was more because of a really weird qualifying format than anything else.

49:41Okay. Well, they can seal qualification in Cape Verde if they win at home to Eswatini in their final group game on Monday evening. Eswatini-Erstwa-Swasiland. Let's make sure we speak again soon and enjoy us over the meanwhile. Many, many thanks, Mahir Mazahi. thanks for having me on take care guys we'll take a break from CAF now and next up in our final part run up one of the other big stories that have taken place this week

50:15you'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 Listener, if you're wondering what this week's Totally Extra should be out with you on Saturday is going to be about, the answer is Dennis Bergkamp Dennis Bergkamp Dennis Bergkamp I really enjoyed the Derby County record Oh, did you? Relegation episode Oh, good Really, really enjoyed it Listen, if you haven't enjoyed it it's still there and there's loads of other Totally Extra too on a variety of subjects, some essential, some eclectic.

50:57But yeah, there'll be another of those on Saturday with Dennis Bergkamp. Now, congratulations to Fabio Cannavaro, who's just become manager of Uzbekistan, who qualified for the World Cup, which means he's definitely going to be there in the States next year. Cannavaro, the last defender to win the Ballon d 'Or, has had an eclectic managerial career. Udinese Benevento Al Nasser, Chinese clubs Kuanjiang and Gangzhou Evergrande and also the Chinese national team he's now taken over Uzbekistan after they binned the man who qualified them for the 2026 World Cup nobody's entirely sure why he said having done limited research the so Uzbekistan's qualification campaign they had two managers it was so it was originally Kadnik the Slovenian who left for ill health reasons yeah who left for health reasons and then it was Timur Kapadze who took over to sort of get that over the line.

51:56I'm not sure if he was ever permanently appointed as manager. So I'm not sure if that position was open or not prior to that. So I don't know if it was his job to lose, so to speak. But yeah, Cannavaro as well had coached at Dynamo Zagreb and had sort of overseen their... Oh, recently, yeah. Had overseen the loss of their sort of long-running hegemony of Croatian league titles. Yes. So yeah, it didn't get on too well there. but yeah to be back at the World Cup two decades on is yeah he's he's potting the furniture I think lovely stuff I mean he can at least you know Kutunov loves a sly tackle so he's got the right manager now perfect women's Champions League group stage this week holders Arsenal lost at home to Lyon at the Emirates on Tuesday they're now four games without a win in all competitions last season's beaten finalists at the hands of Arsenal Barcelona laid down a pretty big marker.

52:50Also on Tuesday, they beat Bayern Munich 7-1. Well, Chelsea had a shot 1-1 draw with 20 in the Netherlands on Wednesday night. And Man United, Carl? Yes, beats Valerenga, the biggest team in Norwegian football. Mm-hmm. I hope I haven't annoyed half Oslo with that statement. 1-0, my let's say with a penalty in the first half. Ella Toon, run the show, player of the match performance. Excellent, excellent. It's certainly a very eventful opening night of the brand new league phase of the Women's Champions League. The week's other big news, which came on, I think, Tuesday afternoon, was the announcement by UEFA that they are reluctantly, to borrow Mejia's air quotes, granting permission for La Liga and Serie A to stage a league game abroad this coming winter because, say, UEFA, there is no legal framework to stop it.

53:46So La Liga are going to go ahead and play Villarreal against Barcelona in Miami in December, which makes a lot of sense. Miami in December, big potential Spanish audience and all that. Serie A are going to send Milan and Como to Perth in Western Australia, much as we would do in this country to people who'd stolen an apple a couple of hundred years ago. Milan and Como, you'll note, studying a map, are only 50 kilometers apart. So their match on February the 8th was essentially a derby, but one that they'll now play almost 14 ,000 kilometers away. Now, sorry, Carl, you go on. No, I was going to bring up Rabiot's quotes.

54:27Yeah, Rabiot, kind of refreshingly, Rabiot is potentially involved in this because he's a Milan player, called it completely crazy and really absurd. And it does seem bizarre. certainly San Siro is unavailable on the weekend of the 8th of February because it's being it's going to be staging the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics but this just in there are other stadiums nearby and you know even going further abroad short of the Easter Islands it's hard to think where where beyond Perth there is a direct flight to Perth there is that's true there is a but I think that the clubs could probably have arranged a plane themselves Serie A chief executive I've got the quote in front of me now Serie A chief executive Luigi De Servo said Rabiot should respect his employer, which he don't.

55:16I think he also made a comment about the amount of money Rabiot makes as a football player. Right. Which is real. Come on, man. Yeah. Just great news for Christian Vieri, isn't it? So, yeah. Every cloud. Every cloud. It's extraordinary. Beyond the perplexity over deciding on Perth, rather than if you're going to Australia, Sydney or Melbourne, although they are a little bit further away and a slightly bigger time difference, so that might be a factor. But still, if you're worried about the time difference, maybe don't go to Australia. But broadly speaking, the bigger picture here, have Serie A and La Liga open a Pandora's box?

55:58Is this the end of football as we know it? Well, I mean, Joffe's statement is pretty much saying that that's not the case because essentially the legal framework doesn't exist for them to legally block these moves, even though that's their wish. That suggestion very much is going to be. But their suggestion would be, well, this is what we want to change. We want to change this framework so that we do have a legal say to stop these. That's certainly my reading of it, the fact that they went so strongly both through their own statement and through the words of Seferin that this is something that we don't want to see ever happening again and we're going to put our position now on record.

56:36And again, I sort of see the disconnect here. This is a topic that's been going on for eight years now, which is hard to believe. That was whenever La Liga first proposed taking Barcelona against Girona to Miami. So they've been trying to do this and one of the things is their strategy, La Liga's strategy, has been that if we keep speaking about this enough and we keep talking about this enough, they already had a contract with Relevant. Eventually, if we just keep this sort of narrative going for a prolonged period of time, eventually we'll get our way. And that does seem to be the case. What I do find really interesting is what is this going to achieve, right?

57:12Because there's so many clubs who institutionally are opposed to this within Spanish football. I'm sure within Italian football too, but let's keep it within Spain for the purposes of this example. So we've got Villarreal against Barcelona. So for this match to work on any level, it needs to be one of Barcelona, Real Madrid, or potentially Atletico Madrid as at least one of those teams in that match for it to fulfil its purpose of selling out the stadium. That is a fact. But Real Madrid institutionally do not want to do this. They certainly do not want to do it on the terms of La Liga and Javier Tabas, who they're very institutionally opposed to.

57:41So it has to be either Barcelona against Atletico. And who are they going to play? They either have to play each other, which was the game proposed last year, which didn't go through, or they have to play a club like, let's say, Villarreal, who for all intents and purposes will not have a massive backlash against this based on the fact that they just don't have a huge fan base to begin with. but what is then the objective of Villarreal so Barcelona already have a massive fan base in the US so it's not really going to grow their fan base there is it going to grow a Villarreal fan base? this stadium is going to be full of people supporting Barcelona ceramics flying off the shelves down the panhandle very much so they'll earn a bunch of money I guess they will earn money and that's the purpose so what so what if you're going to earn money in the short term because ultimately their whole strategy here is saying this is just going to be this one game per season.

58:36It's not going to be the same clubs. So this isn't going to be like a regular source of income. Certainly not for Villarreal. Who's it going to be next year? Is it going to be Girona again next year? Because that's one of the sort of few clubs that they have in the rotation who are definitely open to that. But the whole point is this is desperation. This is desperation from the leagues involved and desperation stems from the financial gap to the Premier League. But they're missing the point because the Premier League have never done this. The Premier League talked to this with Game 39. But interestingly, there doesn't seem to be any movement within English football to try and exploit this new opening and bring that idea back to life.

59:13Yes, and the Premier League's main attraction, certainly for a lot of fans outside of England, is you look at the stadiums and they're full stadiums. And they all each have their own unique atmospheres and unique points to it. And you have the big away fans as well. And it's all that culture that is sold as a product, right? Now, I'm not saying that culture doesn't exist elsewhere, but the packaging of it and the way it's advertised is being done so well by the Premier League, by its advertisers, by the likes of Sky and other companies involved. They have done that so much better than other leagues have.

59:45And that is essentially what has led to this gap to begin with. So it's that sort of image of authenticity. Yes. Even if it, regardless of the actual facts behind it, it's the image that it is authentic. I remember watching, I think Channel 4 used to show Serie A in the 90s. And, you know, it was that same thing, wasn't it? The look of it, the feel of it, the atmosphere. So I think the presentation of the TV package. Yes, you have to sell your football. Yeah. One of the reasons why the Super League failed, among others, it was a bad idea, but it failed to understand it was selling a television product.

1:00:16So when it launched, it was very unclear what it wanted to be. It had no natural broadcast partner. Immediately Amazon goes, no, this doesn't work as a television product. And then you end up with Florentino Perez on the Enseguitos, my apologies for pronunciation there, on that television programme, like vaguely explaining how it worked, but also forgetting that Tottenham Hotspur were in there as well. The Premier League is the number one because it works as a television product in a way that La Liga and Serie A haven't been able to do. I think part of that is also to do. I think one thing that the other leagues very often forget or very often stumble over is one of the reasons why the Premier League is so successful is because it's English language first.

1:00:56So there is less of that need to localise and take it to other nations because if you take it to, say, India or Nigeria, you don't necessarily have to put it through the translated services because you already speak this language. you already understand this whereas Serie A and La Liga's attempts to sort of take their product it's really really hard to get all of the Serie A games in one place unless you fork out across two or three packages I think Serie A's getting better in England now with their work with the broadcast with the zone yeah but you see even with things like the Spanish teams will now put their team sheets out in English yes and it's like little subtle things like that yes you know you say that 20 years ago they'd have gone no way we'll do that but they're market forces but you're right it is the economic divide with the Premier League, which is a virtual circle from the Premier League's point of view because they are so rich that they bring in all the best players which make them that much more appetising as an international product, which makes them richer, etc.

1:01:50And so on. Colin, your point that this doesn't really shift the needle. Whereas, I don't know, the NFL stage regular season games in Europe, they've just done one at Tottenham. The NBA do as well. That doesn't seem to provoke an uproar, but it's not a transferable concept. Closed leagues are closed leagues. So there is no, the NBA is the major basketball league in the world. So when they are going over to the UK, they are taking, they're not necessarily in competition with Eurobasket in the same way that the Premier League is in competition with our league. And again, the nations that they are taking the league to, when they did at the start, they were going to go to the English-speaking nations first and then we're going to slowly expand.

1:02:28I mean, I don't know as much about NBA, but with the NFL, it's not the biggest teams that you've come across. It's definitely the, yeah. But also the sort of home away, sort of round-robin format of a league system in European football is different from the American sports, whereby away matches, it's a very different formula they use based over several seasons. So that doesn't actually disrupt the kind of, the sort of justness and fairness of a league. Whereas if you're an opposition team of, say, Barcelona, because they're not going to have this away match now, it's going to be on a neutral ground.

1:03:01So they're going to have one fewer away match than every other team. But they will have a match that will see them fly across the Atlantic. Well, I mean, yeah, I don't think this is necessarily an advantage to the teams involved. But I think there is an argument that there is an advantage of having one fewer away game, which every other team in that league has to fulfil. And they all, I mean, all these teams, all these clubs signed up to the same agreement to be part of a league system. And that league system has now been compromised by the home away balance being disrupted. So there's just so many elements of this.

1:03:29but the fundamental one is that they're all trying to chase the Premier League dream. But the Premier League has never done what they're doing. So the Premier League success has been done before this. They did talk of it, but essentially, let's say Tottenham Hotspur have a massive fan base in the US compared to, say, a Villarreal or even a Sevilla or a Bettis. They've got a massive fan base there. How have they done that? It's not through playing regular league season games there. And the argument would be different, I think, if it was a cup match even, because that cup match doesn't have the same built-in, you know, people have bought season tickets and all the rest of it.

1:04:01And this bears mentioning Spain and Italy have for a long time been doing their Super Cup matches abroad. In fact, Italy have been doing this since 1993. They've started doing it in the United States back in 1993. So this for them is not, in terms of a fixture, not that wild an idea. It's just the fact that it's a league fixture and it's in Perth. Anyway, football, eh? just when you think you know it goes and throws up another twist some good some perplexing like this one but some good as we've been hearing today so with all of that in mind I hope you enjoy this October International Break and we'll be back together on Monday morning to review the action thus far many thanks Carl for being with us, to Mahir who was with us earlier on, to Duncan, to Colin to Jake and quiz winning producer Charlie in the booth and you listener have a great weekend and see you hopefully sometime after Monday morning 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 we'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.