Underwhelming England head to Serbia + dream debuts in the WSL

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1:16Totally Football Show. Yay! It's an international break edition. Did you skip England-Andorra? Did you? Find out what you missed here or relive the magic if you did watch along with all the rest of the weekend's key events from sinkholes in Austria to surprising Italy's success. Plus, we're talking longest road trips, Levy not remaining, biggest name taken out by Spurs since Trump in the draft and WSL, dames, games and some sizzling new names in the opening weekend. It's the Totally Football Show.

1:51Unbelievable, unbelievable this. Listener, thank you for joining us on Monday the 8th of September, or whichever date thereafter. It is for you. We've got for you today Matt Davis-Adams. Hi, Matt. Hey, James. Hello. Also, Michael Cox. Hello, James. You sound a bit husky, Michael. A bit of a sore throat. Sorry if that comes across to the listeners. No, I'm sorry for your throatal discomfort. it's got to be an adjective for throttle if you're a doctor listener do let us know unless tom williams do you know laryngeal well that's quite specific but i yeah that's too specific i've also got a sore throat michael so i feel your pain and i was feeling self-conscious about having a squawky voice and thinking about how annoying that might be for the listeners i don't know doesn't a husky voice equate to a more uh smooth uh easy listening well it depends whether you go husky or screechy that's a fine you know a fine line that i'm currently straddling as best i can all right listener hope you're bearing up wherever you are and whatever you're doing we're here to talk about amongst other things international football although not strictly limited to that especially since as duncan was saying on last thursday's show qualifiers currently amount to an administrative process more than than anything michael you were What did you do this weekend during the administrative processes?

3:21I watched a bit of the internationals, a bit of the WSL first weekend, a bit of FA trophy action. What was that? Well, I went to Kingstonian's 1-0 win over Merstam. All right. Where's Merstam? Down towards Reigate in Surrey. All right. But yeah, it was a little bit. I mean there's 12 groups now in the European section for this World Cup so you just don't have many exciting games as neutral there just aren't that many big teams being drawn together so I generally don't mind the international break but I do you know I think taking it up to 48 teams has not just an impact upon the tournament itself but on the qualification process so I hear you yeah this was maybe a slightly arduous or it is a slightly arduous one because there are some games still to come of course.

4:09Michael was so much at a loose end this weekend that he penned a piece about how no man born in 1976 has ever played for England. Michael you've stumbled upon the fact that it's the only year from the entire 20th century that didn't give birth to an England international. That's remarkable not least for how you were able to arrive at that discovery. Yeah well it was because in some countries in fact I messaged Tom about this when writing but In some countries, they refer to the generations of players by their birth year, which is standard, I think, in Europe. But I've never seen it done in England.

4:44And I never really had a clue which birth years players were from. So I decided to have a look. And I didn't expect there'd be one year that produced absolutely no one. Right. But there you go, 1976, which, funnily enough, is pretty much in the golden generation era. I suppose it is. By contrast, is there a particularly fecund year for future England internationals? It was either 1947 or 48 that produced the highest number. I think it was 12. But that kind of coincides with the birth rate exploding just after World War II. More recently? Well, the late 80s or the mid to late 80s, which I'm sorry to say is my lot, they did particularly poorly.

5:23It was only really Joe Hart, who was born in 1987, who got past 50 caps, I think. But there was a big gap between the early 80s and the... 90s obviously have been pretty profitable for England. But there was a massive gap that kind of coincided with the players who should have been at their peak in the Roy Hodgson years. There just wasn't anyone really. Good Lord. Yeah, basically the golden generation, a bit of a gap for seven or eight years. And then the players born in the 90s obviously have got to two finals, so you can't argue with that. You certainly can't. I've been too busy watching the football to read that piece yet.

5:58Did you come up with a conclusion? even in the international break that is a damning indictment did you come up with any conclusions to why i mean obviously to a certain extent it kind of vary it just naturally varies maybe the most interesting thing i i think that came out of the data was how the war affected things or the second world war this is because i thought the birth rate would dip and you wouldn't have many players born during the war that played for england or the players whose peak years should have come during the war would have been affected but actually it was the players who were probably between about nine and 16 during the war that basically missed out on their development years and that actually was the generation that suffered most so yeah it was one of those things i spent so long on it that by the end i didn't know how interesting this stuff was so judge for yourself listeners click on that on the athletic and leave a nasty comment if it's really boring well i i think the fact that It's item one so far in today's podcast.

6:58It's a testament to how intriguing the whole topic is. And I'm even beginning to wonder whether the decline in Italian birth rates compared to their previously more abundant families might be in some way connected with their recent travails on the international scene, although those are all over now because they had a big win against Estonia, as we'll touch on later on. Matt, it would be remiss of me not to ask you about your weekend, which was largely spent talking about WSL. yeah it surely was uh had a an interesting game on friday and then a rather drab one on sunday a goalless draw between brighton and aston villa but i did manage to skip the england game uh because there was a barbecue in my village so i went for flat beer and undercooked burgers instead of uh flat football and undercooked players very nicely done even if there hadn't been a barbecue, I'd say, is still a good policy.

7:51We'll touch on England and Dora later on and so much more, but let's get a quick round-up of those international weekend headlines.

8:03Four more teams have qualified for the World Cup next summer. From South America, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay are now through. And from Africa, the 2022 semi-finalists, Morocco have become the first African nation to qualify with a 5-0 win over Niger on Friday. In South America, it will now fall to either Bolivia or Venezuela to also qualify via the Inter-Confederation playoff. Venezuela, who on Friday were beaten 3-0 by Argentina in Buenos Aires, and what was a very emotional night, because as you probably read, it appears to have been Messi's last home fixture for his country. He marked it by scoring two of Argentina's three goals and then provided an absolutely sensational pass for the other.

8:50Nice to see.

9:04It's always nice to see Messi doing nice things. and his post-match comments have created a bit of a stir with the suggestion that he might not necessarily play at the World Cup and I think we all just assumed that given that he's still playing regular football for Inter Miami and Argentina and still producing the goods and scoring goals and producing assists I think we all just assumed that he would be there and he's now introduced an element of doubt to that conversation and I guess, you know, were he to decide not to play the World Cup, I mean, I guess we all hope that he will, but you could kind of understand it in the sense that what's he got left to prove?

9:46I mean, I guess he could win it again and just sort of further cement his legacy. But yeah, interesting that it doesn't seem quite as clear cut in his mind as perhaps we all might think looking at it from afar. Michael, are you going to blame the Club World Cup? No, I hadn't thought about that. No. No, I was just going to say that it's just nice to see because obviously there was, in the early years, there wasn't that much warmth, I think, from the Argentine public towards Messi. He didn't develop as a footballer there. He developed in Spain. I think sometimes the question's about his actual style.

10:19Was he maybe a bit too European? And I remember when Argentina hosted the Copa America in 2011, which was a really, really poor tournament, and Argentina went out early, there was a bit of negativity towards him there. And obviously we all saw the scenes after they won the World Cup in 2022. and there's no question he's a real legend of the game there but I think just to see those I'm not sure I've ever really seen a clip of Messi being worshipped in Argentina to that extent so quite liked it yeah and if that is his final game then a fairly fitting way to go I must say I don't really understand why he wouldn't play the World Cup I just don't really understand the argument if he's playing that well I mean he's he's going to be useful isn't he so um what about from a legacy perspective for him though the fact that he his last World Cup game could be the final where he won it.

11:03I mean, how likely are Argentina to win it again? And what kind of shape is he in after two years playing in MLS as opposed to two years playing at PSG going into the tournament? It'd be sad if it was, you know, the lasting image of him at a World Cup was a diminished figure once the world's best. Now, either a bit part figure in the World Cup or, you know, part of a team that doesn't go on and win it. And we say, no, that's a shame. Maybe he should have gone out in Qatar. And it's funny you should put it that way because the reason I mentioned the Club World Cup, Argentina a very different outfit into Miami but seeing him standing in the sweltering heat of last summer's tournament watching his team completely fail to to perform and go out in pretty embarrassing fashion I wondered if if he decided not to kind of go through another sticky summer tournament in in the US that that might be why but anyway hopefully he's going to be there elsewhere in international qualifying the 31 spots still up for grabs in Europe where things is going to be wrapped up by November.

12:01Spain, European champions, got their campaign underway with two victories. They beat Bulgaria 3-0 away, and then they went to Turkey and beat them 6-0. Amazing stuff. Mikel Marina with a hat-trick as well. Belgium, well, they got two 6-0 wins. Thank you. One against Liechtenstein and the other against Kazakhstan. Portugal thrashed Armenia 5-0 in their first match since the death of Diogo Jota. Cristiano Ronaldo with a brace in that 5-0 win, extending his lead as the player with the most goals in international football history. He's now on 140. No question that he'll be at the World Cup next summer.

12:38Even Italy were in the goals. Who had Gennaro Gattuso down to play 4-2-4 and win 5-0 in his first game in charge against Estonia? Not I, said the Walrus. We'll touch on that game perhaps a little bit more later on. England, meanwhile, continued their rather more pedestrian approach, beating Andorra 2-0 at Villa Park. Tuchel side, 4-4, yet to concede in qualifying and probably ever so slightly bored. You had Scotland and Ireland both drawing. Scotland in Denmark and Ireland at home to Hungary. Northern Ireland, Tom, you watched a bit of this on Sunday night. So did I because of the backdrop from their opponent's point of view.

13:23Northern Ireland lost 3-1 in Germany, but they were 1-1 at halftime, and things were getting very interesting because Germany came into this game with the crisis clacks and a blaring. They'd lost three straight games under Julian Nagelsmann, but they ended up winning this one 3-1. Lovely free kick from Florian Wurz to cap off that victory. And Wales, Tom, 1-0 winners in Kazakhstan. Kiefer Moore with the only goal. How's it looking for Wales? Yeah, looking decent. Currently third in qualifying Group J behind North Macedonia and Belgium. One point in it. One point in it. It's all pretty close. Played a game more than Belgium.

14:09And I think it's probably going to boil down to Wales' home game against Belgium in October in Cardiff. I mean if they're going to qualify automatically Wales will need to win that and hope that Belgium drop points elsewhere but yeah Wales I mean quite a narrow win in the end and a slightly nervier win than it should have been in that Wales totally dominated the first half away to Kazakhstan Kiefer Moore puts them ahead and you're kind of thinking well you know they'll add a couple of extra goals here and it'll be nice and comfortable and then actually Kazakhstan really came back into it second half hit the crossbar a couple of times so they were clinging on a little bit but a decent win nevertheless and keeps them in the hunt but having said that I mean the fact that this is a 48 world cup means that the kind of jeopardy that there once was when it came to qualifying even for kind of second and third ranked teams there were so many kind of other opportunities to qualify if you don't finish top of your group if you finish second you go into the playoffs if you did well in the Nations League you go into the playoffs which is Wales's case so much less jeopardy than there used to be but yeah Wales still in with a shout Reaper charges abound but it is only the top team in the group who go through automatically from the qualifying process shout out to South Korea who beat USA 2-0 with Hyunmin's sons scoring both goals against of course his former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino whose problems with the USMNT continue and also a word for Austria, who were 1-0 winners against Cyprus in Linz on Saturday despite a sinkhole stopping play.

15:46Curiously, this is the second time that sinkholes have appeared in a pitch during an Austria international. What to make of that, I wonder. Must have been the presence of soluble bedrock and an excess of water, either naturally acidic rainwater or human-made leaks, I suppose, which would have saturated and eroded the ground beneath the surface. Well, when you put it like that. It was only a small one. If you were picturing a listener, scenes akin to, I guess, the Dark Knight Rises, where it's not that collapse that Matthew just referenced, but Bain blowing up the subsoil that led to a pitch disappearing almost under a running back's feet.

16:26What a sight that would have been in this international break. Thankfully, none of that happened. Nobody likes to see that. but let's finish off this little round up by saying congratulations to memphis to pie oh and also mention france france had a big win and it was possibly a significant one for psg because it saw them lose both usman dembele and desiridue to injury and both might still be out for psg's first uh champions league league phase game against barcelona ayayayay anyway france won that game 2-0 against Ukraine. Anyway, I mentioned Memphis Depay. Why is that, Tom? Because he is now the Netherlands' all-time leading goalscorer.

17:06Opened the scoring away against Lithuania with his 51st international goal, which took him past Robin van Persie, and then headed in the winner. Really nicely taken goal, actually, for his 52nd international goal. So that's now him on top of the tree.

17:36You know, your Van Persies, your Van Bastens, your Kluiverts, your Burkamps, they are all now trailing in his wake. In his dust. And barring unlikely international comebacks, forever will. Well, yeah, I'm going to go along with you on that. Not sure who's up next for the Netherlands and whether Memphis can continue his extraordinary run. Memphis who, if I'm not mistaken, featured in our InterTotally Cup this season. The question, where is he currently playing his club football? Did anybody here get that question? I did. I think that was in my, was it in my semi-final? Do you still remember the answer, Tom?

18:13Yes, do I? Have you Googled it? No, I haven't. He's in Brazil, is he? Corinthians? That's right. Yeah. All right. Still got it. Still got it. We won't talk about what happened in the final. No. Maybe quite an interesting thing about the Dutch all-time goal-scoring charts is that probably the leader would have been a player who just played after the Second World War called Fuzz Wilkes, who was banned for seven years. Because at that time, if you played your football outside the Netherlands, you weren't allowed to play for the Dutch national team. And he was having a great time with things for Intentorino.

18:47And someone in Spain, Levante, I think. But he's only 17 goals behind Tipai, and he missed out on his peak years. So he probably would have been up there as the all-time leading scorer if it wasn't for that. Wow. What a fascinating little window onto weird post-war international football customs. Hopefully you've got loads more of those, Michael, as we head into one or two of those games and the significance thereof next on the Totally Football Show.

19:24Hello, 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

20:18And that should live for spirits. Saturday afternoon, saw Matt go for a barbecue with the neighbours and England take on Andorra, beating them 2-0 at Villa Park. So that's four wins out of four. England, Andorra, still no goals conceded. Almost like a training session. Anything Matt should know about this game? Michael and Tom, assuming that you saw some of it? Not really. It wasn't overwhelmingly fascinating. I think the part of England that worked well was the right flank. Madueke was very bright his cross led to the own goal and then Rhys James put in some great crosses and his cross led to the second goal but otherwise England were quite flat I think it has to be said I was surprised how they played down the left didn't think England got any width from that flank really because Lewis Skelly's not that kind of player and Rashford I don't think really offers width I think he wants to come inside and shoot so it was a bit yeah everything was coming down the right for England I thought Elliot Anderson played well in midfield as as I'm sure Matt will have been aware but yeah it was it's just a bit of a nothingy game really isn't it it's it was a game they won and that was that they didn't get any injuries but obviously Serbia on uh on Tuesday is a much bigger much bigger test Serbia on Tuesday in Belgrade on paper they're calling it their toughest fixture two teams met just last summer in the Euros in the group stage and it was a narrow victory for the then-Gareth Southgate England, an early Jude Bellingham goal the difference between the two sides Serbia for their part, beating Latvia away on Saturday with a goal from Dusan Vlajevic a bit of a flyer I think that's 3-3 between club and country for the big man who will be up front in Saturday's case in partnership with Luki Jovic who's a player who threatens often sometimes delivers.

22:12They've also got Alexander Mitrovic as well. Why do you see it as particularly dangerous, Michael? Well, actually, I thought the goal was quite interesting because it was a good one-two between Jovic and Vlajevic and the way that Serbia play, they usually play three at the back, wing-backs, three in midfield and then two up front. So it's going to be quite a rare game, I would think, that England will come up against two proper strikers in Vlajevic and Jovic and that goal showed exactly what they can do. So that combined with, you know, the atmosphere, it's obviously not an easy place to go, Serbia.

22:41The ground is going to be 15 % less capacity than usual because of some crowd problems in recent games. But even so, I think it'll be a tough test. And really, it's the game that England just have to get through to ensure they win this group. I wouldn't say they would play for 0-0, but I think actually if you offered them a draw, they'd be delighted. Because I can't see any way that they will not win the group if they don't lose this game. Right. Matt, have you got any barbecues planned for Tuesday night? No, I haven't. I'm going to watch this one. I mean, the reason I felt so confident going to a barbecue is because I could have told you that England would have won 2-0.

23:16There'd be a lot of hand-wringing amongst our nation's press in an attempt to generate some sort of content from this game. I mean, you were talking about an Andorra team who've only conceded three or more goals in three of their last 16 matches. This is what they do. They put everybody behind the ball. It's difficult to score against them. There were a couple of interesting things of note. You mentioned Elliot Anderson. I think it's going to be fascinating to see whether he starts for England on Tuesday. Obviously, it feels like he's kind of jumping ahead of Adam Wharton in the queue at this point because Wharton's got this horrible habit of getting injured at just the wrong time, particularly when it comes to England.

23:52They're slightly different players, obviously, and it feels like damning somebody with faint praise when you say that their best attribute is energy, dynamism, running. But that's something that England have definitely lacked of late. So yeah, I can see Anderson definitely going to the World Cup and maybe starting on Tuesday as well. And the other thing that caught my eye was Rhys James starting this game. You kind of wonder, and this has been a bit of a theme with Thomas Tuchel, he'll call people up and then not use them. And you think, well, what's the point in calling them up? Then maybe he's seen something in training that he wasn't particularly keen on.

24:24But James obviously put in the fantastic cross for the second goal. And he feels very much like a Tuchel lieutenant. but it's worth pointing out that he hasn't started Chelsea's most recent two games so whilst he seems to have nailed down the right back position for England he hasn't done it for his club yet obviously there's always the question mark of of whether he can stay fit but Tuchel likes players that he knows and that seems to put James at the front of the queue for that particular position. You would have nailed the scoreline with your prediction for Saturday are you equally confident Learn about what'll happen Tuesday night, Matt?

24:58Oh, yeah. Lots of rancor. One all draw. Seems we don't like to see. Possibly a red card. Seven yellows. Okay. Serbia take the lead. England. Penalty from Harry Kane. Slightly dubious. Bumpy pitch. Any collapse of subsoil? Not expecting that, no. Thomas Tuchel did say that he thought the pitch wasn't going to be in great condition, but he didn't use the word sinkholes. Maybe that's why he's so obsessed with long throws. and clearances now he's telling us that long throws are back um Anthony Barry his assistant once studied all the throw-ins in the 2018-19 Premier League season there were 16 ,380 of them so if anybody knows how to get a marginal game from a throw-in you would assume it would be him right so he went through 16 ,000 and some yeah and what did he conclude um I'm not sure I mean probably that you get a lot of throw-ins in a game and if you've got somebody who can throw it really far, then that might be to your advantage.

25:59I'm not sure there's anybody who leaps off the page in the England team who's got that particular skill, but I guess we'll find out on Tuesday. Was it last season or the season before that everybody waved goodbye to the game as it sailed over the horizon because people were now, after set-piece coaches, bringing in throw-in coaches, which was going to be the new difference maker, an increasingly delicate battle at the top of world football. Well, there's not been a lot of talk. I don't seem to recall much impact from it. Has that failed to take off that fad? It seems to have. I mean, obviously, the most notable one was Thomas Gronenmark at Liverpool.

26:35I wasn't sure whether he was still being employed by Liverpool, but my suspicions were confirmed when after the Community Shield final, he posted a very lengthy tweet criticising all the things Liverpool did wrong with their throws and said that throw-ins could cost them the Premier League this year, or words to that effect. But I don't know why. I mean, it is such a kind of specific, unusual skill. And when you listen to the accounts of people who have worked with specialist throwing coaches, it seems to have helped a lot. It seems to have just given them, some of them, about 10 extra yards on their throws.

27:11I suspect maybe some clubs are still employing these. They're just maybe keen not to publicise it too much because people seem to take the mickey. But yeah, it seemed to work for Liverpool. Certainly did. seemed to work for Stoke back in the day, of course. Yeah, we've got to see Liam De Lapp take a throw and at some point this season, right, just to see what his chops are like. As a striker, I guess he's not really in the position to do it, but just in terms of a comparison to the old man, see if he's got any of the kind of range that Rory used to. I actually saw in a non-league game, I saw a number nine taking a long throw in a game against Kingstonian recently.

27:47And funnily enough, he was also the son of a notable Premier League player because he was Sam Merson, who is actually one of the most prolific players at that level. So it's quite odd to see him taking the throw, but it was a very good throw. So fair play to him. Didn't we see Harry Kane taking corners for England in 2018? Oh God, yeah. Imagine if he'd been on throw-ins, James. I mean, we saw how angry the country got at Harry Kane taking corners. Imagine if he'd been on long throws as well. Gareth Bale had a decent long throw, didn't he, Tom? For Wales, he used to use that. He did. He did have a long throw.

28:20Yeah. But then he was also Wales' foremost headerer of a ball. So he needed to learn how to throw them to himself. But I suspect that would probably contravene a rule of some description. Yeah. Not sure. Want to ponder. Not sure. All right. Let's have a very quick break and then come back with some of the other big events or even bigger events, actually, from the weekend. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network. Truro City news, listener. Why, the Tinnors out of Cornwall were away to Carlisle on Saturday in the National League. And in the process, they set what is believed to be a new record for English football's longest away journey.

29:06A round trip of over 14 hours and 878 miles. 78 travelling Truro City fans were there to see their side then lose 3-0 at Brunton Park. but their journey wasn't entirely in vain because carlisle the host who remarkably are managed by marcus matt you got your finger up um yes i have the the truro fans i think you're about to say we're given a voucher for a free drink and a pie um truro did throw some shade on that they said it was a magnificent thing to do but pointed out that the away section had been moved to an uncovered section of the ground earlier in the week so i think it was to kind of try and settle that also you know Truro City while we're talking about sons of or relatives of other players they have Alex Oxlade Chamberlain's brother oh I thought you're going to say son I was going to be really really concerned yeah no brother Christian do you know what Truro City's mascot is called by the way I think you know that we don't okay a friend of mine went down there the other week see his team Aldershot and sent me a picture of the mascot who is a bird called Brian Chuff a chuff being a bird that was almost exclusively native to cornwall uh for a while so prevalent it was known as the cornish chuff he's got his own section on truro's uh player profiles website i'm sorry to say uh which does include the line he once caused the match delay after dive bombing the opposing manager's hat mistaking it for a particularly aggressive seagull and it goes on and on right yeah brian chuff really good really good name for a mascot that is good isn't it Jack Lang would have known the answer to that.

30:42He's a big Truro City fan. Is he? Mm. Jack Lang? He's from that part of the world, yeah. Really? Mm. Oh, OK. Anyway, well done to Truro City, although their record, if it is such, poignantly is going to be broken, is not set to live very long. Next month, in fact, Gateshead will be visiting Truro City themselves and the Truro City Stadium, and that, apparently, is an epic 930-mile round trip. Crikey, that's further than London to Rome or London to Warsaw Just to put that in perspective, Tom Yeah, we should also point out that Truro City lost 3-0 to Carlisle Which I feel, to me, is the right result After a journey of that kind of duration For the rest of us I kind of feel like it makes it more memorable It feels more authentic to travel all that way And then see your team get trounced I think there'd be something weird if they'd gone and seen their team won that's not what those long coach journeys are about it's about the grind and you know the grind is is never more prevalent than when you're forced to spend how many hours is it on a coach 15 hours dissecting a three nil defeat on the way home i do think this journey is quite interesting in the sense that this is happening at the fifth level of english football and we kind of take it for granted that we have five tiers of national divisions but in pretty much any other country of a comparable size this would be absolute lunacy i mean you look at spain for example and granted spain is geographically much bigger than england but at their fifth tier they've got 18 different regions and we've only got one and again okay spain's got island groups and stuff but the idea that we've you know we've got the the fan bases and the number of traveling supporters the number of home supporters to justify all these massive trips at the fifth level of football I think does sum up how unique the English pyramid is.

32:35And yeah, it shouldn't be taken from granted. It's fantastic. Nicely put. What's the longest journey you've made ever following a Kingstonian, Michael? Last season, we're in the same league as Guernsey, which was very exciting because we had to get playing. And we bafflingly had a pre-season friendly once in Gibraltar. I don't know why. Did you go to the Guernsey game? Yeah, it was great. Well, aside from the fact that the plane was the kind of plane that looked like it might fail. And indeed, there was a five-hour delay. And the only mechanics who were qualified to fix it were in Guernsey and we were at Gatwick.

33:13So they had to fly over from Guernsey to Gatwick to fix the plane. Right. Using what? You had the plane at your end. Well, using the company's other plane. But yeah, it's actually quite nice, Guernsey. it's much nicer than a really nice place much nicer than where uh jersey say it well i'm hoping we get jersey in today's fa trophy draw okay um i don't know i was gonna say i thought it'd be a bit like the isle of white but i don't want to be too rude about the isle of white well i was speaking to an italian man on saturday and i asked him which bits of the uk and his visits because you know when you're when you're visiting a country you see way more of it than when you actually kind of lived there and he said isle of white he seemed really really happy with the isle of white so i left the conversation there and moved on excellent it's something that i will also do now to say republic of ireland came from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 in hungary over the weekend republic of ireland now under the management of haimir halgrimson new roma signing evan ferguson got the first new Swansea siding Adam Ida got the second in stoppage time to rescue a point Scotland also drew went to Copenhagen and took a point off Denmark that game featured only three shots on target yikes and Wales as you mentioned already Tom were one of the winners in Kazakhstan Northern Ireland meanwhile as mentioned previously held up well for 70 minutes away to Germany before eventually losing 3-1.

34:54Germany with a much-needed win because of their recent struggles with Julian Nagelsmann. Tom, you watched some of this. There was a bit of beef afterwards, you were saying. Yes. The Northern Ireland delegation took issue with some of Julian Nagelsmann's comments about how direct their football was. He said that it was very difficult to defend against a team who went long with all their free kicks and just pile people into the box, which I think put a few noses out of joint. And it was from a set piece that Northern Ireland equalised. A very well-worked... Excellent goal. Yeah, set piece, corner from Justin Deveni to the back post and Isaac Price, West Brom striker, came in at the back post to side-foot a volley into the roof of the net for his 10th international goal.

35:44And I thought, felt like a deserved equaliser in that I thought Northern Ireland's approach was quite courageous. They played with quite a high defensive line. They pressed, they counterpressed. Germany's opener came from the fact that Northern Ireland conceded possession on the halfway line. And Nick Valtemada played in Serge Gnabry to run through and score. So there you saw the pitfalls of that high defensive line. But it was from a counterpressing situation that Northern Ireland won the ball back prior to winning the corner that led to the equaliser. And yeah, they were even Stevens for a little while.

36:19and then Nagelsmann made a couple of changes that changed the game. Nadiem Amiri came on and scored the second goal. And then, yeah, Florian Virch with an absolute beauty of a free kick. Kind of sort of like Didier Drogba style, David Luiz style, a pure side foot free kick, which is still a bit of a rarity in top level football. And yeah, relatively comfortable victors in the end. that result and the previous defeat which Germany had suffered to Slovakia leaves Group A with Slovakia on top a whopping three points ahead of Germany and Northern Ireland who are level on three points each early doors though because they've only played two games each in that group meanwhile perhaps most excitingly a listener from this international break Italy not only did they win under their new manager Gennaro Gattuso but they won big which they've got to do because they were in this really precarious position coming into this round rounds but not only being nine points behind group leaders Norway but also massively behind on goal difference now they have two games in hand or had two games in hand on Norway and then a match against the Norwegians at home so you can pick up the nine points but it was the goal difference that was really key for an Italy side that have been struggling I don't need to tell you to score goals.

37:43Gattuso came in and went with pretty much a 4-2-4, which featured Rettegui and Moisey Kane up front in tandem with crosses piling in from, let's see, who's that? Zaccani on the left and Politano on the right. And 5-0 they won. It could have been double that. The Estonia keeper, Karl Heine, I think it is, played a blinder. But Italy were just, They looked like a team transformed. There was a lot of talk of the split between the players and previous manager Luciano Spalletti, whose comments and whole kind of sideline demeanour had been not the most inspiring. His comments post-game about the way his players were performing, that kind of thing.

38:24Gattuso's come in and he's inspired a lot by the kind of atmosphere and also some of the approaches that his former manager with Italy, Marcello Lippi, had employed in the somewhat successful 2006 campaign. And Gattuso has come in and really fired them up because Gazette the next day talking about pride and passion. It was only the first game and it was only Estonia at home. But still, it warmed the heart to see them piling on the goals. And as I say, they could have had way more. They've chopped that goal difference gap to the Norwegians down to six, plus six for Norway. They're also still six points behind Erling Haaland and Co.

39:04but they do still have a game in hand. Plus, as I mentioned, the game with the Norwegians coming up in November. Was everyone else as excited as I was to witness that? Feels like international management might be more suitable for Gattuso than club management potentially. If you're talking about fiery, intensity, gene plays up kind of thing, I imagine that wears pretty thin pretty quickly in club football. But if you're only getting a four or five day dose of it every couple of months, you could probably use it as a positive. So maybe this is the perfect job for him. Perhaps so. His management career till now has been famously sometimes good, sometimes a bit ****.

39:44So hopefully it's more of the former going forward for these juries because we all want to see them at the World Cup. All right. Anything else I've missed from international football land? Just going to very quickly mention how good Michael Aliso was for France against Ukraine on Friday. now playing as the number 10 for France. And everything goes through him. And he was absolutely brilliant. He scored the first goal, constant menace, had a slightly slow start to his international career a year ago. But since a Nations League game against Croatia in the spring, he's kind of been the top dog. So that's really exciting to see.

40:25Although this game was overshadowed by injuries too. Usman Dembele and Desiree Dewey which has created a real beef between PSG and the French Football Federation PSG who released a statement have written to the French Football Federation have written to FIFA about what they see as the France medical staff's mismanagement of their players Dewey are going to be out for up to four weeks Dembele out for up to eight weeks with another hamstring injury so yeah, that's one to keep an eye on. Well, absolutely. On the subject of beef, that Nagelsmann postgame remarks business, did anyone else find him incredibly peevish?

41:06He's not a man that I find enormously likeable, though never having met him, but just the way he comes across. But having a go at a much smaller nation for playing a brand of football that you don't like in a game that you ended up winning anyway, does seem to be pretty mean-spirited stuff. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah, also agreed. Do better, Julian. Anyway, next up, with WSL's opening weekend on the way, we're going to quickly touch on the big news from last Thursday in club football land, which was Daniel Levy's exit from Spurs.

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42:50your nicely aged takes on the news last Thursday that Daniel Levy is no longer a man looking slightly bored in the Tottenham Hotspur stands having been removed after almost a quarter of a century of being the Spurs chairman why what does it mean what do you think Matt you did a podcast on this last Friday didn't you we did yeah the Athletic FC podcast we had Jack Pickbrook and And Jay Harrison, obviously both the athletics guys on the Spurs, beaten and Jack's done a fascinating long read on this. So what I find particularly interesting about it, two things. One, that obviously Joe Lewis, it seems like it was his children and partners in some case who've been at the forefront of this decision rather than him himself.

43:39And the other angle is that it seems to have been based on sporting reasons rather than what's happened off the field. And there's obviously a massive disparity in that, right? in that Spurs won the Europa League last season almost by default, but hadn't won anything else under Daniel Levy other than the League Cup in 2008. But you look at how successful their stadium move has been and how it's one of the most revered stadiums, certainly in Europe, possibly in the world these days. But you hold that up to what's happened on the pitch of late, obviously the terrible Premier League season that they had last time around.

44:14And it's interesting that it's always felt to me that under this ownership for Tottenham, it's been about the bottom line, the amount of money coming in rather than what's happening on the pitch. But that seems to have shifted. Also interesting that today the reports are that the club coming out and saying we have no intention of selling, had a couple of bids, one fronted by Amanda Stavely, that I guess it's natural that you would have that kind of thing happen when there's been a change at the top of the club. But apparently they're staying put. But yeah, all change at Spurs. And you wonder, and we pondered this on Friday's show, how Thomas Frank feels about this because it's a huge thing for him to have to deal with.

44:53You don't know whether he had a heads up about it, how much Daniel Levy was involved in his recruitment. But it's something that probably wasn't on his agenda when he took the job over the summer. Well, there's an excellent podcast already in existence about that out there, The Athletic FC. Check it out. with people who know from Spurs. Broadly speaking, were they, this is understandable or were they in shock about the whole thing? I think initially it was shock. And I think as the story developed, when it came out and the statement was put out there, there was a hint of this is a mutual decision, but actually it's turned out not to be a mutual decision.

45:28And I think that's probably the shocking aspect of it. I was just going to say, I find Daniel Levy a fascinating character because he's been part of the Premier League scenery for so long. And yet he's not really someone that we know anything about. He's not someone you ever hear from. I feel like I've seen him speak about three times. You know, I watched the Tottenham All or Nothing documentary follow the club relatively closely. You hear about him an awful lot. He's constantly mentioned. When we talk about Tottenham, what will Daniel Levy make of this? What will Daniel Levy's response be? Daniel Levy holding out for more in his transfer negotiations with Club X about player Y, fans calling for him to go.

46:07And so, simultaneously, you're conscious that this is a really seismic moment in the history of, well, in Tottenham's modern history, in recent Premier League history. You know, we're losing a very central character and yet a central character who didn't really have all that many lines. So, yeah, it's a funny one. He always gave so little away in every sense. Perhaps now he'll pitch up and let rip. Yeah, he'll launch his own podcast. He'll start selling CBD oil. There'll be no stopping him. It's a tried and tested formula. Very good. With the news that Man United have now sent Andre Onana to Trabzonspor on loan, let's move on next to WSL.

46:50This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Well done, WSL, for taking an international break weekend and getting a new season underway with an absolutely blistering round of fixtures, some big games and some extraordinary debuts. Olivia Smith? Oh, woof. Lovely feet. Takes aim. Oh!

47:15A debut goal for the ages. Olivia Smith, the first million pound player in the women's game. And what a debut goal that was for Arsenal. Yeah, tremendous. Pretty comfortable win for them in the end against the WSL debutantes, London City Lionesses, who took the lead through a penalty by Arsenal's quality. eventually shone through and I guess that's what you would expect when you're playing a team new to the league and getting used to each other with so many new signings. Fair enough. 4-1 for the European champions Arsenal. Perhaps that wasn't the greatest debut of the weekend because what to say of Ornella Vignola and her hat-trick for Everton in their 4-1 win away at Anfield against Liverpool in the derby.

47:58Michael? yeah very strange game this because Everton were 2-1 up at half time having scored twice shortly before the interval but they were actually so bad in the first half that their manager made a treble substitution at half time and I just can't think of any any other instance in football where there's been three subs at half time by the side that are winning unless they're like 4-0 up and resting players but they really got away with it in the first half and then second half they extended their lead they did score some excellent I mean she scored some excellent goals they played well on the break so yeah that was a very strange game to watch because I thought they were going to get battered for the first half hour but somehow ended up winning 4-1 and 6-6 at Anfield for them Liverpool don't play many games at Anfield and every time they do they lose to Everton.

48:45So Megan Feringer was mentioning this on Thursday the fact that Everton has scored more goals at Anfield than Liverpool have at all because they pretty much only played the Merseyside derbies there and never scored in them this time they did actually get a goal but still got their backside spanked Vignola by the way the first person to score a hat-trick for Everton against Liverpool since Dixie Dean in 1931 yeah it's good it's incredible a lovely bit of post match sass from her as well there's a clip that Everton put out on their socials of her doing keepy-ups at the side of the pitch at Anfield whilst holding her player of the match trophy.

49:23It's like, look how easy this was, which is fantastic content. Anfield, to borrow the Everton manager's expression, remaining Everton's training ground. Arsenal mentioned their 4-1 win against London City Lionesses. Matt, meanwhile, on Friday, you saw the reigning WSL champs, Chelsea, in their game against Manchester City. What happened here? it was so very Chelsea and actually quite Manchester City as well Chelsea quite often you come away from watching them particularly under Sonia Bonpasta or anything was I that impressed with how they played today not particularly did they win the game yes they did Ellie Carpenter sensational debut from her playing right back but she was effectively right winger Man City had Alex Greenwood at left back out of position and yeah Carpenter really took advantage of that but City had 17 shots in the game only scored one and that was a Chelsea own goal this is despite them having Bunny Shaw, Viv Miedema and Lauren Hemp on the pitch and big season for them lots of people kind of tipping them because they don't have any Champions League football but they're getting used to a new manager who doesn't play in the City group style way so maybe a bit of transition for them and as defined their season last year big injuries to key players and Lily Murphy went off right at the end with what looked like a pretty serious shoulder injury.

50:45But for Chelsea, sort of as was basically, they've had injury problems of their own. Myra Ramirez had to have surgery on a hamstring injury so Agui Beaver-Jones started up front. She scored. But is she going to be in the team next week? Who knows? Because they paraded Alicia Thompson, million pound plus signing from Angel City on the pitch before the game. And Sam Kerr was on the bench. 20 months she's been out for. So yeah, Beaver-Jones' place may be under threat But Chelsea, got key players out through injury, pretty sort of routine, not exactly thrilling football, but they win games. That's what they do.

51:19So just picking up where they left off. What they don't do is lose games. That extends their unbeaten run in the WSL to 26 matches. They haven't lost in the league. Chelsea for 492 days. Remarkable. Michael? It's in a funny situation at the moment, I think, the WSL, because from the outside, it seems very glamorous. and there's multiple players changing hands for about a million pounds now. The television production for this season, I mean, almost everything's on TV and there were a lot of games on Sky over the weekend. And obviously Arsenal won the European Cup, the Lionesses won the Euros. But when you actually look at the attendances, they actually flatlined last year and actually dropped slightly last season.

52:00And the general explanation for that was it was the first time in a few years that it wasn't coming off the back of an international tournament and that kind of did the marketing. but I mean England have just won the Euros and you look at the attendances at these games it was one of Chelsea's lower ones at Stamford Bridge I don't think an attendance figure was actually released which I've got a bit of an issue with these WSL games they really publicize the great attendances and they just don't publish the ones that aren't so good Anfield look really empty as well and I just slightly fear that attendances might drop again this season it seems to be taking off in some ways the WSL but actually in terms of getting people to matches it's kind of going in the wrong direction would you put that down to the unseasonably good weather this this weekend and barbecues which some like to go to instead of watching football or perhaps the fact that i think pretty much every single game is on tv that's part of it there's a couple of other theories that i've heard as well one was around arsenal last season not doing anywhere near the level of marketing that they previously had done for games at the emirates and wanting it to be a case of like well let's see how many people will actually come if we don't heavily publicize this they were playing London City Lionesses on Saturday who don't have a huge support of their own so it's essentially all Arsenal fans in the stadium on that occasion apparently there wasn't much marketing around Liverpool for the Merseyside derby either from Liverpool's side which might be due to the fact that they always lose that game maybe they didn't want to publicise it but also you've got games kicking off at noon on a Sunday a lot of people who might go to those games will probably be playing football at that time so it doesn't feel like the ideal kick-off times but as you say James the fact they're all on telly that would demotivate some people to go and attend in person.

53:39But it would be interesting to see if it's a trend that continues. OK. Coming up this weekend, if you fancy getting along, West Ham are hosting Arsenal. West Ham, who this past weekend got beaten 1-0 by Spurs, have another derby coming up. That's Friday, 7.30. You've got Aston Villa against Chelsea. Matt, you saw Aston Villa in there. Less than remarkable. Well, actually, in some ways remarkable draw with Brighton. goalless. 30 shots though, is that right? Yeah, Villa hit the bar on a couple of occasions. Michelle Adjumang started up front for Brighton, obviously Lioness's star of the summer, young player of the tournament at the Euros, but different kind of responsibility on her.

54:20She's going to be starting every week from Brighton. They were often doubling up on her, the Villa defence. That's going to be a puzzle for her to solve. Yeah, nothing between Brighton and Villa in the league last season and nothing in this game either. OK, Vela taking on Chelsea Sunday 2 o 'clock when you'll also have London City against Man Utd who beat Leicester 4-0 this weekend Leicester themselves will host Liverpool that Sunday at 12 o 'clock Tottenham is slightly later on on Sunday afternoon and there's another Friday game as well which is Man City against Brighton Well, I read those all out of order but Matt, which one of those deserves a highlight?

54:58Well, I'll be commentating on Leicester-Liverpool and those two kind of bad vibes clubs of the WSL. So it'd be fun to rub a neck on that. Excellent. Also, Grasse Gheorre, now the world's most expensive female footballer, making a home debut for London City Lionesses against Manchester United after a very busy summer of transfer activity by them. And she's an interesting case because she's 28 years old so she's a kind of a proven performer, France international, exceptionally talented box-to-box midfielder And ordinarily, if you're playing at PSG year after year after year, you're playing for France, you inevitably just join Lyon at some point.

55:38And she has stayed loyal to PSG, but has ended up leaving them to join a club owned by Michelle Kang, the owner of Lyon. So she's kind of avoided the usual path that PSG women's players follow, but has nonetheless proved incapable of escaping the clutches of the wider Lyon network. Good Lord. Good Lord. All right. Well, we'll be catching up with what happens in those games in about a week's time. For that, on Thursday, Totally Football Show will return. Look ahead to the Premier League's next set of games, which includes Arsenal against Forest and the Manchester Derby. Woof. Very good. And there's also, let me just say, if you're a loose end in the meanwhile, a new Totally Extra for you.

56:26It came out on Saturday and it features Duncan Alexander, Luis Miguel Ejegaray and Felipe Cardenas talking about Valderrama, Higuita, and all of the madness of Colombia in the 90s. Do give it a listen if you fancy that. For now, though, I think that wraps it up for this edition. So it's many, many thanks to Michael, to Matt, to Tom, to producer Charlie, and to you, listener. Hope you have a great time, whatever you get up to. For now, from all of us here, it's goodbye.

57:03you'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

57:30The Athletic FC

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58:21To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.