Vini wonder goal overshadowed on toxic night in Lisbon

0:00The Athletic FC

0:30and Dortmund beating Atalanta and other non-Champions League stuff too, including doing rover time, Michael O 'Neill's new side hustle, all that and more in this Totally Football Show.

0:43It's Wednesday, the 18th of February, and welcome to a brand new Totally Football Show. Here in the studio, we have Charlie Eckershow. Hello. Hi, Charlie. Also, Colin Miller's here. Hello, James. Nice to see you, Colin. It will be joined additionally by Seb Stafford-Bloor, who's telling us all about Borussia Dortmund's mighty 2-0 win over Atalanta Tuesday night, and Tom Williams, who was all over the all-French affair, down at the Stade Louis-Dur, where Monaco were taking on Paris Saint-Germain. What's that? You've heard that Charlie Eccleshire and his dashing moustache here have been added to the line-up for our totally live show on the 23rd of March.

1:26at the Leicester Square Theatre, 23rd of March, 2026. And you probably thought you were too late to staff up a ticket in the light of this news. I'm hearing, I'm hearing that there are two, three? How many tickets was it? About four. About four. In and around four. In and around four. Yeah. I know the venue. Played there before. Have you played there before? Great crowd. Lovely, knowledgeable crowd. Yeah. Great backstage area. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Well, you could be a part of it. You and potentially three friends. In and around three friends. Go to leicestersquaretheatre.com for more details.

2:05All right then, let's get some results. Tuesday, there was an early humdinger in Istanbul. Galatasaray coming from 2-1 down to destroy Juventus. 5-2, that's the old lady's biggest defeat in more than 60 years in Europe. In the eight o 'clocks, Dortmund beat Atalanta 2-0, as mentioned. Paris Saint-Germain came from 2-0 down to beat Monaco 3-2. And Real Madrid had a stormy 1-0 win at Benfica. Vinny Jr. scored the goal and the game was then suspended for 10 minutes after he alleged racial abuse from Benfica winger Gianluca Prestiani. That's where we begin. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network.

3:05Real Madrid won Benfica 0 on Tuesday night. 15 minutes in after a tight first half, Vinny Jr. scoring a worldie to break the deadlock, dancing then at the corner flag, getting a yellow card, and then the game suspended for 10 minutes after Vinny Jr. runs over to tell the referee that he's had a racist comment made to him by Gianluca Prestiani of Benfica. Prestiani denies this. Was it all a colossal misunderstanding? Well, here's what we know. We saw Gianluca Prestiani pull his shirt over his mouth as Vinny passes him and appear to say something. Vinny then reacts and runs straight over to the referee.

3:49Prestiani later posts that Vinny Jr. has misunderstood his words, so he confirms essentially that he said something. Post-game then, Mbappé says that he heard what Prestiani said and it was mono or monkey five times. His Real Madrid teammate Chouameni says that Prestiani he told Real Madrid players that when Vinny heard Mono, he actually said Maricon, a homophobic slur, which doesn't sound like a great defense. And then we had Jose Mourinho piling in. Jose helpfully said that he had told Vinny when they had a conversation on the sideline that he shouldn't have celebrated so much and confronted 60 ,000 people in the stadium.

4:32He, Mourinho, said that. Eusebio played there in the 60s and Mourinho also casually mentioned that this happens a lot to Vinny which must mean something right and there's something wrong because it happens in every stadium every stadium where Vinicius plays something happens always wow Colin? Yeah so this was obviously a really sad night I think it was a toxic atmosphere in that stadium in the second half and a lot of it stemmed directly from the goal, which was a magnificent goal. They defined a moment in the game. Real Madrid played well. They won. They're in a commanding position. None of that really matters after what played out.

5:19Now, one thing I will say is that Vinicius Jr. has been going through this pretty much on repeat for four or five years now, usually within a Spanish context. I know La Liga get a lot of outside criticism for this, but they have done a lot of work in combating this. They've done a lot of work in reporting incidents of racist abuse to the local police authorities, the local prosecutors. There's been multiple prosecutions of fans across multiple clubs in Spain. Just last month, when Real Madrid lost in the Copa del Rey game against Albacete, there was a banana thrown under the pitch at Vinicius Jr.

5:54There was racist chanting. Albacete did come out after the game and said, look, we're really shamed. We're very, very sorry that this happened. this is a very dark day for our club and they issued a full apology. That is actually not the usual thing. The usual thing is that there's denials, deflections, water boundary. Which is what we're seeing, would you say from Benfica? Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, I mean, we obviously have to caveat this, that there is no definitive evidence of what is said. Now that is because the player in question covered his face with his shirt when he said it. Now, there is video footage emerging from several different outlets.

6:32that shows fans in the stadium making monkey gestures. Now, that is clear and that's indisputable. There's also separate footage before Vinicius made the complaint to the referee that he had been racially abused that Mbappé had heard this player saying it multiple times. Now, that's what Mbappé had said in his post-match interview too. And that's important because Benfica then put out a video in their response which showed the moment when Presiani raised the shirt over his mouth and Mbappé wasn't nearby. Benfica said none of the Real Madrid players were there and they couldn't have heard what they say they heard.

7:06Yeah, exactly. And this is now creating a situation whereby it's a he said, she said, where's the line in the sand? I think there's a very important thing to be said here that a couple of years ago when the Luis Rubiales incident happened, in the aftermath of that, which is denial, denial, denial, didn't happen. Even though what we saw was in front of our eyes on camera, there was institutional denial that that event happened and a lot went on behind the scenes to manipulate that situation. Now, I'm not saying that's the case here, but what I am saying is that there's a lot of cognitive dissidence in football, whereby when it becomes a club-specific issue, people tend to get blinded by allegiances.

7:43Now, this happens all the time, and I don't want to single out any club, but in this example, it is Benfica. And in this example, Jose Mourinho tried to weaponise that sort of division last night in his post-match interview, which I thought was just so, so disappointing because he had an opportunity to come out to make a powerful statement. He didn't need to say, you know, I believe this. He actually said, you know, I'm not taking sides. But then he went on this, James, as you say, about this happens all the time to Vinicius and it does happen all the time. And that's why it happened here. So he goes over to dance at the corner flag.

8:18There's nothing in the rules to say that that's doing anything wrong. I think he'd be a bit carded for that. I don't know. But also this idea that that's evidence against Vinicius Jr. because he gets racially abused a lot as if that's somehow like a stick to beat him with. I cannot believe Mourinho said what he said. And especially... I mean, the implication is that he provokes people and that therefore it's somehow a justified response. But beyond that, the idea that Mourinho should counsel other people on whether or not they should wind up crowds in opposition stadiums. But I mean, that line about Eusebio, it's unbelievable.

8:51I mean, it's like the sort of, I've got loads of black friends, I can't be racist. kind of art. It's absolutely absurd. I cannot believe he said that. And like, I do think he's gone from this, you know, whether you like him or not, he's generally been a kind of cartoonish villain. You know, that's been his vibe a little bit. This is so beyond the pale. It's so disappointing. And actually, fair play to... If Mourinho was saying to Vinicius Jr. what he said he was, fair play to Vinicius Jr. That he didn't react. For not reacting, because it looked actually like he was being quite helpful. and maybe supportive of him.

9:27Maybe he was and maybe he's rewritten this because he thinks this is a sensible thing to have said. It's so unbelievably provocative. Yeah, if that is what he said, credit to Vinicius Jr. for not reacting there and then. I think one of the things we have to mention here as well is that the state of mind that Vinicius Jr. must be in. Now, he has gone through this so many times. He's pretty much done everything in terms of reactions to this. He's gone through all the range of emotions. He's gone through that all. and yet he still is brave enough and comes out and does his celebration the way he wants to do it on his terms and what happens after that is on other people's terms and I think that that is important to mention that Trent Alexander-Arnold in his post-match interview they were asking questions like what are you thinking he's like what's a dark day and all this but and actually the Amazon Prime coverage of this was very very good but they made the point immediately once it went back to the studio coverage that he was in a state of shock like Trent Alexander was in a state of shock he wasn't he wasn't thinking clearly he was pretty much like I've gone through this incident where I've seen this and or I've been told that this has happened this is a really awful thing and in that sense the final 30 minutes of that match were almost a complete sideshow that those players were sort of going through the motions but what they went through they should obviously not have had to go through and to be in that environment with, not just with what has been said, but with a lot of objects being thrown onto the pitch.

10:54It's very hard to articulate this properly, but very, very difficult. It's just not the way football should be conducted at all. Benfica will certainly face some punishment for the number of objects. One water bottle hitting Vinny Jr. as he stood by the corner flag later on in the game. Jose Mourinho won't be on the touchline for the return leg because he got sent off late on. As Jose said, I told the referee the truth and they don't like the truth. This was relating to yellow cards that he felt should have been given to Real Madrid players. But apart from that, having invoked the anti-racism protocol with that curious cross-wrist gesture, quite Mourinho-esque, will anything actually happen?

11:37Well, the slightly worrying precedent, because it happened at the Club World Cup, and then the FIFA investigation didn't really come to anything. I mean, yeah, because they deemed there was insufficient evidence. So we don't know. I mean, maybe that happens again. I guess it's unless you have really clear footage, it's such a serious thing. And already, as Colin said, it's slightly gone down that route of one clip which suggests this, another clip which suggests something else. So it will be investigated. But, yeah, we don't know at this point where that will lead. Right. The game was tight. Until that wonder goal from Vinny Junior 15 minutes in.

12:19Mourinho's Benfica only committed one foul in the first half. Yeah. I mean, they did have chances, Romero, before scoring. And it looked like, I mean, Vinny Junior had a good chance in the first half. Yeah, the goal to score wasn't even a chance. And Abappe just failed to get onto a Trent cross. But then, yeah, I mean, it was, after that incident, it was a very strange game. It didn't, yeah, it sort of lost, not lost its edge because there was tons of edge. But yeah, I do think it looked like some players were a bit kind of shell-shocked by what had happened. Real Madrid, who had lost this fixture 4-2 at the end of the group phase, dropping them out of the top eight into the playoffs.

13:03With eight of the same 11 players, Trent was one of the changes and he had a great performance. Yeah, I think his return to the side really, really helped Real Madrid. I think we forget how good a player he is and what he can do, what Liverpool are missing this season from him. 100%. And how he helps connect things up and just gets attacks moving that much quicker. And when you've got those quick runners like Salah at Liverpool, but obviously like Mbappe and Vinicius at Madrid. And I think one of the main downfalls of Xabi Alonso's time at Real Madrid obviously was his kind of, I guess, relationship with Vinicius and other players and not really getting the best out of him within his starting XI.

13:39now I think one area where Arvaro Alburoa does deserve credit is how he has used Vinicius and obviously that was on display last night with a fantastic goal and his individualism in that moment but Real Madrid do have a nice balance at the minute and as always with Real Madrid it's not so much about a defined style of play it's about finding ways to utilise your star players within a semblance of a system whereby they're supported and things make sense and I think he has kind of found that at the moment and Benfica Benfica were always going to be a difficult opponent in this game with the way Jose Mourinho sets his teams up I also actually think with Mourinho's red card at the end I think maybe a lot of that was him trying to then make the conversation about him rather than what else was going on but obviously that's not going to happen and he's now out of the second leg and potentially I mean there has been a lot of talk of him potentially going back to Real Madrid I don't know how much substance there ever was in that but I think it was clear that him and Florentino Perez had a sort of on-off relationship and maybe that's been a little bit fractured after what's gone on in this game.

14:45OK, well, a 1-0 lead for Real Madrid ahead of the second legs next week. The winner of the tie will be going through to take on either Man City or Sporting. Crikey. Loads more to come from Wednesday night's matches. Next up, we're off to the Principality.

15:24That sounded sexy as hell. What on earth was going on there? Tom Williams luckily joins us right now. Tom, A, you speak French. B, you were all over Tuesday night's Monaco PSG. Hello, James. Yes, I was. Sensational bit of commentary there. Il est trop fort, il est trop fort. He's too good. He's too good. He scored a double in the Champions League final last season and he's done it again. That was the vibe. So Paris Saint-Germain have had a lot of bad days so far this year and this did look like being another one of them. Perhaps the worst yet, Tom. Yeah, it was remarkable. I mean, 26 minutes in, they're 2-0 down.

16:01Vitinha has seen a penalty saved by the Monaco goalkeeper, Philippe Kern. Ousmane Dembele, the reigning Ballon d 'Or, has limped off with the latest in a succession of niggly muscular injuries. And yet, by the end of the evening, PSG were ruining the fact that they hadn't won more comfortably because, yeah, they really looked up against it. And, you know, as we know, they went into the game off the back of this unexpected 3-1 defeat at Rennes in Ligue 1, which cost them top spot in the league because Lens have gone back above them. Huge favourites going into this tie against a pretty feeble Monaco team.

16:40And yet we saw signs once again of PSG's problems defensively. I think a lot of the time when we've been talking about PSG of late and why things haven't really been clicking for them, we've talked about the fact that they seem to have got back into the kind of pattern that they got into at the beginning of last season when they were dominating games but not winning them, creating chances but not taking them. And what we've seen in the last couple of weeks is actually they're defending really badly as well, particularly when they lose possession. They look very vulnerable. We saw that with the two Monaco goals.

17:13I mean, 55 seconds on the clock when following Balogun puts them ahead. Nuno Mendes tries a risky crossfield pass that gets cut out. Alexander Golovkin is played into space behind Marquinhos on the PSG right flank and crosses for Balogun to head in. And then again, less than 20 minutes later, PSG, I think it's from a throw-in, lose possession again and Magna Zacliouche plays in Balogun who gets in behind Marquinhos finishes really nicely and then you have Vitinha squandering the penalty Dembele limping off but then his replacement, the 0-0 giving him a foothold with that first goal Hakimi equalising before the interval and then I think what really changed everything was that very needless red card that Alexander Golovine was shown early in the second half and from that point on It was just complete one-way traffic.

18:05Duhay gets his second goal. PSG probably should have won 4-2 or 5-2. So, you know, disappointment for Monaco, given that they started the game so well. But they've actually done quite well to still be in the tie. Well, indeed, for all the re-emergence of defensive problems, those ongoing issues with finishing very present. 30 shots for PSG, fully 10 on target. And the Dembele going off and Duhay going on, perhaps the key moment, though, in terms of improving their finishing, strangely, enough. Paris and Japan do have a bad record in Monaco, so this is a great result in many ways. What's Monaco's record like in Paris ahead of the second leg?

18:41Yeah, it's not great. I mean, when Monaco have tended to beat PSG over the years, it has invariably been at Stade Louis Deux. They haven't won at the Parc des Princes since February 2021, which is going back a bit. So, I think the feeling in Monaco was the only chance of them standing any chance in this tie was to get a result in the first leg and have something to take to Paris to then defend. It's very hard to see them turning this around. We already know about their injury problems, the new players who've come in and haven't been able to have any kind of impact because of injuries. Eric Dyer, Paul Pogba notably, Ansu Fati as well.

19:22Golovine will now be suspended, of course. There's two red cards in succession for him after he got sent off in their game at Nantes on Friday. So I think it's probably safe to say it will take something quasi-miraculous for Monaco to go through here. OK. And as for Osman Dembele and his likely absence, how long a duration are we looking at there this time? Well, it's interesting the Dembele issue because a very similar thing happened when PSG lost to Bayern Munich in the league phase, right down to the minute in which he left the pitch. Dembele went into that game against Bayern as a slight doubt, insisted that he felt okay to play, and then with 25-26 minutes on the clock, signals to the bench, actually, I think I'd better sit this one out, and it's taken off, they have to make an early substitution.

20:08Exactly the same thing happened last night, and as we know, prior to his arrival at PSG, injuries were a major issue for Dembele. He completely spoiled his first two or three seasons at Barcelona, And one of the things that enabled him to turn things around at Barcelona was that he got on top of the injury situation. He started employing, you know, a personal physiotherapist, paying more attention to, you know, injury prevention, things like that. Sort out his diet, sort out his sleeping habits, et cetera, et cetera. And it felt like he put that phase of his career behind him. And in his first two seasons at PSG, he was very rarely injured.

20:50All of a sudden this season, he's injured all the time and almost certainly a consequence of the fact that, as we keep on saying, PSG's season lasted so long last year, stretching right until the very last match of the Club World Cup. And now we're seeing those injury issues for Dembele reoccurring. So I suspect, given that this is the second time this has happened this season, in terms of him saying he's fit to play and then having to come off early, I would have thought that Luis Enrique will proceed with a bit more caution going forward. We haven't yet got any sort of diagnosis, but I would have thought that, given that this tie looks like it should be in the bag already, PSG will probably want to make doubly sure the next time they allow Dembele to basically declare himself fit only for that to be disproven within 30 minutes of kick-off of the next game.

21:43All right. It's the Ligue 1 title race to be conducted as well, of course, which currently sees them behind Lens at the top of the table. Many thanks, Tom Williams.

21:56Tom Williams. Just one goal in it, though, so... PSG, second legs, Champions League. I know that. Yeah, I had that on the second screen and it was played at an incredible pace. I'd look down and one team would just be flying forward. I mean, it felt really open, sort of weirdly right from the start. It was good fun. I was second screening as well. Very enjoyable it looked. Yeah, I think so. And PSG have had, as we know, a difficult season and they haven't quite yet hit the heights that they did last year. And maybe you kind of think with moments like that, coming from 2-0 down to win away from home in the Champions League is that the little spark that they need to go on this run of form just at the right time of the season because they nearly went out of the group phase didn't they last year and then obviously went on to win so they have that kind of brinkmanship they have that negative split second half performative boost exactly yeah let's see winners of the tie whoever that might be will be facing either Barcelona or Chelsea in the last 16 Barcelona who by the way on what was it Monday night Colin they went to Girona looking to retake the lead because they and Real Madrid are seesawing back and forth.

23:03Whoever plays first tends to go top. Real Madrid went top this weekend. Barcelona went to Girona on Monday night. And? And they took the lead in this match, but they contrived to lose 2-1 to Girona. And Barcelona, who have really been the team expected to win La Liga this season with what is going on at Real Madrid and the managerial change and various other bits that have gone on. But Barcelona have stumbled in the past week. Obviously, they lost 4-0 at Atletico Madrid the previous week. And there's a couple of questions now over their approach. And Barcelona are defined almost entirely by the high defensive line that they have.

23:43And Hansi Flick is very much a dogmatic coach in that respect. But with such a talented group of players available, they always have that attacking threat to score goals. And I guess the question's now creeping in is, Is this the right approach that's going to see us over the line? And can Real Madrid in this season of turbulence actually have some success? Paul Berlus was telling us on the Euro show on Tuesday about the players bringing those questions to Hansi Flick in the light of one or two key absences through injury, the likes of Pedri and Rafinha, whether it might be a good idea to tweak the tactics a little bit.

24:18The response, not that great on Monday night anyway. That meeting was post the Atletico 4-0 defeat, which was a bit of a shocker. second leg of that Copa del Rey clash, at least, still to come. That'll be Charlie on the 3rd of March. Very much so. Wow. Excellent. All right, next up, let's find out about a crazy game in Istanbul, Tuesday afternoon.

24:46This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Oli Kay and the very best football writers around.

25:07wow

25:22wow Thursday the early game was in Istanbul and it was Galatasaray against Juventus and who caught this? Either you? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a game. Yeah, what a game. Very typical of Juventus in recent weeks as well. Maybe not so much within their club image. I always just think of Juventus as a really sort of grinding teams down, very tactically set up to... Offensively sound. They could be spectacular going forward, but yeah. Oh my word, what happened here? So it was a lively first half and I thought Juve looked really good. Galatasaray took the lead after a bit of sloppy play, funny enough, from Yildiz at their end.

26:01Galatasaray had the lead, but within about 60 seconds, Thien Kutmeiners had scored his first goal of the season, not content with that. He then scored another to give Juve the lead. What a goal. And what an assist from Western McKenna. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was, that finish is absolutely sensational. And yeah, the reverse pass to set him up. And at that point, you're thinking they're on their way. It's half time. They're 2-1 up away in Istanbul. 45 minutes later, Galatasaray had won it 5-2. Why? Well, this is a very Galatasaray thing. I think that they've got so many great attacking players.

26:39They always seem to be a bit disjointed. But in this game, they were really, really good. Viktor Osman didn't score in this game match. And he had Galatasaray's five goals. He was essential for three of them. His pressing and forcing defenders. on the 4-2 when he toe-pokes the ball through Lloyd Kelly's legs after Lloyd Kelly has decided to do a little bit of a little bit of tippy-tappy in his six-yard box yeah it was it's such a it's so great I think to see a player of that stature and that calibre at a club like Galatasaray clearly a massive club and actually I really think it's good for European football to have more teams from Eastern Europe competing and thriving at this stage and the atmosphere was obviously amazing and I kind of think Juventus kind of got a little bit caught up in that.

27:24You obviously had the Juan Cabal. I think three things that the Italian papers whose headline this morning was, no, not like this. Grosinor. So, yeah, Bremer going off, Juve's best defender going off after half an hour and he's got an ongoing series of injuries. When he's back, they do look so much tighter defensively. Off he goes, Gatti comes up for him and that's, I think, one of the problems that they face in the second half. the next reason and it's possibly the biggest of all is that Spalletti who'd seen Andrea Cambiasso get a yellow card in the first half thinks I don't want to risk him picking up a second and us going down to 10 men because that would be disastrous so he brings on the Colombian Juan Cabal who has a Jonathan Woodgate of the game I was a real shocker so he basically gets beaten for both of the next two Galatasaray goals by Yilmaz and within the space of 20 minutes also picks up two yellow cards, the second of which is astonishingly dim.

28:25And off he goes. And Juve, by this point, are 3-2 down and down to 10 men as well. And rocking. And rocking. And like Colin says, with the atmosphere, it does feel like they're buckling a bit. It's all going against them. I mean, yeah, unbelievable. Absolutely stone will be at second yellow. So stupid. And Galatasaray just ride that wave of momentum. And this is the third thing, because Galatasaray's attitude, even when they were down, was so front-footed. And they seemed to have this almost infinite supply of players that you didn't know were at Galatasaray. Leroy Sané comes on. Icardi's there.

28:59Magnificent. It's an amazing group of players. I mean, Davinson Sanchez getting a goal. Lucas Torreira running the midfield. All these kind of what-happened-to-them players. And then, yeah, with Ossie men up front, kind of just such a menace. Juve just couldn't get a hold of him. and then yeah as you said they'd already given one the first goal came from them you know trying to play out and then it's I mean yeah that fourth goal is kind of comedy capers and yeah it all unravels for them and I think it's well from a Juventus point of view they obviously they crash out at this stage of the competition last year and again a club who are maybe going through somewhat of a transition I really like Spoletti as a coach and maybe you'll know more in this James but in terms of the qualification for the Champions League and them competing in these matches in this level and getting there again next year.

29:47I mean, it seems like it's very important for their model as a club because they probably can't compete with the top Premier League clubs or Madrid or Barcelona financially at the moment. Inter, I think, are the only team who are in that conversation right now. Juve have traditionally relied on the largesse of the Agnelli family. And I think one of the issues, and James Holmcastle has talked about this on our Tuesday show before now, is the fact that the Agnellis just aren't present at the moment within the organigrams, they say, within Juve's off-field structure. You've got Damian Camorley there, who's not traditionally, you know, doesn't have any roots with the club.

30:22There is some suggestion that the Agnellis might start taking an interest. Again, Johan Elkan is the one who's nominally part of it, but he's far busier with other things like going to the White House and doing Ferrari and stuff like that. So there are issues. They are currently, and yeah, getting into the Champions League is huge for their finances. is they are currently one point off the top four. They're one point behind Roma, who funnily enough they'll be facing after the second leg of the Galatasaray tie in the Champions League. They also just got knocked out of the Coppa Italia too. 3-0 by Atalanta.

30:58So for all that there have been vast improvements in the way they play under Spalletti, there's a fair chance they're going to miss out on all their targets. I guess the one sort of massive plus for Juventus certainly this season, maybe further back, is Weston McKinney. So he, in the absence of Jonathan David, he started as a number nine in this game. Well, it's a really interesting point you make, actually, because Juve have not had the returns that they'd like from forwards that they've spent big money on. This goes back to when they picked up Duzan Vlajevic from Fiorentina. And he's only really produced for them in stops and starts, a lot of the time, because he's been used in a way that I don't think really draws the best of him.

31:35He's currently out injured. Arkadiusz Milic is also out injured. Jonathan David went out before this game. I think there's some hope that he might be back for the second leg. Now, they do have Luis Lopenda, who they spent a fair bit of money on, I think over 50 million or around that figure from the Bundesliga over the summer. But he is so far down Spalletti's preferences that he decided to use Weston McKinney as a false nine instead, which at half-time you'd have said, yeah, great, cool, Spalletti. Yeah, yeah. But then... He ended the match, I think, kind of as a utility left-back. It is interesting though because he kind of almost embodies what Juventus players were in that great era of the sort of late 90s early 2000s where you had multiple players who could play pretty much anywhere on the pitch certainly across defence and midfield and their versatility was something I thought really stood out from them Tachyonardi those sorts of players Yes Tachyonardi Yeah and they I mean yeah it's not a vintage Juventus team but you do kind of think as you say James that they have spent money on players and they've got players who probably should be making more of an impact than they have.

32:41So yeah, I mean I think it sets it up for a really interesting second leg in the sense that I don't think the tie is over. You don't? I don't. They need to win by four goals. Yeah, I mean obviously that's a massive ask but I think with home advantage and with the fact that you essentially have a do or die type attitude from the start that if you do get a goal in the opening 20 or 30 minutes it sets it up really nicely because Galatasaray away from home in Europe aren't great defensive record and yeah I think when you have that sense of jeopardy and edge within your play it can maybe be a good thing Right plus one cabal is suspended so he can't be involved there's that Whoever does go through will be taking on either Liverpool or Spurs in the last 16 If it is Galatasaray and Liverpool that's interesting because Galatasaray have already beaten Liverpool this season in the Champions League It wasn't a great night Tuesday for the Italians.

33:37Atalanta also going down 2-0 at the Signal Iduna Park against Borussia Dortmund. I'm going to be frank, we weren't watching that game, but on the line, we have a man who was, Seb Stafferblur. Seb, thank you so much for joining us this morning. How was Dortmund 2, Atalanta 0? Yeah, more comfortable than I was expecting it to be, Jimbo. Dortmund were really, really good, really limited. Atalanta's chances went up through Sarah Garcia after three minutes um another julian ryerson assist um that's five in a row um and then garras see who's had a really really tricky time through the winter not just five in a row said but five in two games because he assisted all four goals in their four nil win against mince on friday yeah there's some suggestion jimbo that the the fourth assist against mince will ultimately end up being uh credited to it to an own goal so i'm not sure what what that um no no assist Yeah, I disagree with that strongly.

34:35Me too. On principle. Scandal. Yeah, quite absolute scandal. Anyway, so let's give him five in a row. And then just before halftime, Serik Gerasi, who's had a really, really tricky winter. Between October and February, he scored one Bundesliga goal, which is really poor form for him. And bad news for Dortmund, because he's so important, not just for their goal scoring, but for their attack as a whole. He knits the whole thing together. Brilliant bit of number nine play. on the halfway line, created a break, led the break himself, square from Maxi Bayer to score from half a yard, 2-0 Dortmund. And really, it could have got worse in the second half at Atlanta.

35:12A couple of really good counter-attacking opportunities for Dortmund didn't, you know, sort of floundered on a bad pass or a bad decision. But yeah, really good night for Niko Kovac. Gourassi, who not long ago you were talking to us about his really rotten spell and how it was impacting on Dortmund. He's now got six goals in four matches. Any particular reason for that turnaround? I think confidence. It's a little bit of a cop-out answer, but in the Bundesliga, you've seen him kind of gradually rediscover himself. He's had a couple of penalties. He's still missed quite a fair few chances. I would say that even despite that goal tally, this has been his best performance, I would say maybe even of the season, Jimbo.

35:54He's always liked the Champions League. He was the competition's joint top scorer last season. Of course, everybody remembers that. and he's done okay in the competition this year he scored a couple against athletic club and a few against villa real back in the autumn but in terms of an all-round contribution yeah i would say this is right up there with everything with anything else he's done this season it's really good news as well because i think when gira c plays well what you tend to see also is a little bit of an awakening in other dortmund players so maxi bayer played very very well he had a good game um hey joe bellingham played very well uh we spoke on the euro show about bellingham's um bellingham's kind of consistency in selection he'd started six of the previous seven games this was game seven which he started he was excellent defensively and actually whilst a lot of his um his attacking play remains a little bit conservative you can start you can hear the crowd starting uh at the best final stadium they're starting to really warn to him and starting to appreciate some of the things that he does the other part of that is he's playing a song alongside felix mecha um who is in the form of his life really he's really growing into a first class midfielder and he brings all the expression to that little combination in midfield the stepovers the extravagance the skill um which allows bellingham to kind of be himself not to try and be his brother because he's not that player there are very few similarities actually in the way that they play the midfield positions um but it's a nice little combination and um yeah it was too good for atalanta excellent dormant looking good then with that two nil lead ahead of the second leg in bergamo and also in second spot in the bundesliga behind the almost unstoppable by munich is it okay to sleep on them and their european chances seb or should we be careful about that kind of thing yeah let's keep them under the radar for now i think just because they probably lack the punching power to to really defeat a kind of a you know one of the actual challenges i think um sometimes uh you know back in 2024 of course Dortmund caught fire in the knockout rounds there's very little suggestion that they were going to get to the final but they did they they they captured this momentum what I would say is kind of individually they had a little bit more power in their side and a little bit more momentum um Jadon Sancho kind of remember he came back and had a couple of absolutely fantastic games um Mats Hummels was still there and he gave one of the performances of Borussia Dortmund career away to Paris Saint-Germain, the Parc de France, they don't quite have that at the moment.

38:25But what I would say is with the group of players that they have, in addition to being very well placed to re-qualify for the Champions League, being in second, being in a safe second position in the Bundesliga, for Kovac to have them where they are, I think is a really impressive piece of work. And yeah, I'd fully expect them to survive the second leg and go on and let's see what they draw and let's see how far they can go. Seb, it's Colin here I was just wondering about Dortmund in the sense that as a non-regular Bundesliga watcher I have an impression of they're always a very a very sort of fast and loose team they've got a lot of exciting players in attack but maybe defensively a little bit vulnerable but they've only conceded 20 goals in 22 league games obviously limiting Atalanta to pretty much nothing in an attacking sense and I guess if they're at this stage of a European competition that can actually, that sort of rigid defensive structure could probably be a lot more beneficial at this stage in getting through these sorts of ties.

39:23Yeah, it's a really astute point, Colin. The other thing to add to it is that last night they were without Niko Schlotterbeck, who was unavailable through injury, without Niko Sule, who also was injured. They gave a start to Luca Reggiani, an 18-year-old Italian centre-back. It was his first senior start. He made his Bundesliga debut as a substitute at the weekend, came on and spent 72 minutes on a yellow card, but survived, did very, very well. What I think is that sort of the old, the old characterization of Dortmund is out of date. They're not a particularly attractive, free-flowing side. They do have counterattacking pace.

40:02They can score goals in that way. But I think, and this is a guy that really goes under the radar, I think some of their defensive strength really, I mean, you have to look at Valdemir Anton. um he's not a particularly heralded or celebrated player but he is the kind of the bedrock of the defense at the moment he's playing absolutely brilliantly in a very kind of meat and potatoes sort of way for a defender he's not he doesn't have the kind of the flourishes in his game that someone like schlottebeck does he's not stylish he's just a very old-fashioned defender and he's he played very well again last night and um yeah so if they can if they can subdue atlanta with one center back one 18 year old center back and ramsey bensibiani who's really a wingback playing as the third centre-half last night, then hopefully as those more recognised defenders come back, that defensive strength will improve.

40:50And not to sound like his agent, but again, this is kind of part of Joe Bellingham's input, I think, because his defensive contribution has been really, really good. And he's made that combination with the match and makes the side more stable, makes it more balanced in front of the defence too. And so their work when they go out of defence in setting up rest defense stability a platform to actually attack from from that's really really important too and and it's interesting because these are not traditionally Dortmund qualities right it's all sort of do everything in in seventh gear and everything as quick as possible and just overwhelm the the opposition with physicality and acceleration and uh and just speed not really the case anymore they're much more pragmatic and functional but um in a really good way and in a really good place, as we say in England, ahead of the second leg in the Champions League.

41:41Seb, thank you so much. Look forward to catching up with you again next Tuesday. Cheerio, Jimbo.

41:49Seb Stafford-Bloor. Winners of that tie will have either Arsenal or Bayern Munich awaiting in the last 16. Dortmund against either of those two would be... Well, you know. There are four more games to come Wednesday night. It begins with Carabag Newcastle. Could well be underway by the time you hear this, listener. Olympiacos are up against Leverkusen at 8 o 'clock. Inter will try and be the lone Italian success story of the week when they travel to Bodo Glimt. And Club Bruges, tricky, tricky Club Bruges are up against Atletico Madrid. We'll be reacting to how those games go in Thursday mornings.

42:28Totally Football Show will also be talking about what happens in the Premier League because there's one lone game. Wolves against to Arsenal. 48 points between them in our league. They couldn't, could they? Find out Wednesday night and catch our reaction Thursday morning. Next up, the final part of today's show, we've got some other non-Champions League stuff.

42:53You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy seeing glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Loads of other stuff happening this week beyond the Champions League. We mentioned Barcelona's shot defeat. 2-1 at the hands of Girona on Monday night. In the FA Cup on Monday, sixth-tier Macclesfield made another go of it in their latest clash with a Premier League side. They took on Brentford. How long did it take for Brentford to break their deadlock? 70 minutes, I think, was it? 70 minutes. Yeah.

43:30Yeah. but eventually Sam Heathcote with the own goal to see the Bees go through they'll be in the fifth round they'll be travelling to West Ham in an all London affair other fifth round games the draw of course took place just before the game at Moss Rose will be Newcastle against Man City they just face each other in the League Cup how'd that one go Colin? it was quite a one-sided Manchester City procession through the final In both legs, yeah. 5-1 the aggregate score. Wrexham are up against Chelsea. Great tie. Why, Charlie? Well, because Wrexham are interesting to a lot of people. And it's a glamorous, they've already knocked out Forrest.

44:13And this is a big glamour tie that they would have been desperate for. I feel like this draw is a good one after a fairly meh fourth round draw. This is good. Because there's Mansfield Arsenal as well. Mansfield Arsenal. So yeah, that's a classic banana skin potential giant killer story. probably won't be but it could be Mansfield Town who just put out Burnley who are also a Premier League side so you know it could happen Leeds are up against Norwich hey there's narrative there Daniel Farker against his former club Wolves face Liverpool Fulham are up against Saints and Port Vale or Bristol City get the chance to host Sunderland I actually do think it's a good point that the FA Cup fourth round that we've obviously just going through always catches me as a very underwhelming round of the tournament because you've already had the sort of third round bonanza of matches and potential giant killings but I think by the fifth round teams start to take it a little bit more seriously in the sense that they can maybe sniff that they have a chance of winning the competition and obviously you've still got a couple of potential upsets so yeah I'm looking forward to that Okay When are those games taking place Charlie?

45:21The weekend of March 7th 8th Wow That weekend So it'll be spread over you know four days probably Magnificent so much great football to look forward to on Monday night another thing that took place top two in the championship met at the CBS Arena Coventry had been leading the division pretty much all season but Middlesbrough on an absolute tear had moved past them into top spot ahead of this clash at Coventry but Coventry wrenching the lead from their from Borough's fists type thing with what was it 3-1 yeah a Hadji Wright hat trick for Coventry had you right obviously US international um the US have quite a lot of in-form attacking players actually going into the World Cup obviously Balogun of Monaco as well who scored twice against PSG but yeah uh Coventry had been on a bit of a tricky run uh I think look I think Frank Lampard deserves a lot of credit for what he has done there I think I think in terms of his managerial career he's he's gone through quite a lot already um and he's obviously somebody who can strike a real cord with a fan base and I think that's a big part of management as well and I think maybe he now surrounds himself with a coaching set up that allows that to be combined with a sort of tactical set up and more of a more of an understanding of what that level of coaching takes and I think he has grown and evolved as a manager over his career and I think what he's done with Coventry is very very impressive, it would be great as well I think to see a club who have been outside of the top flight for what 25 years?

46:55Yeah 2001 they went down to return and yeah it's a really good story that oh my goodness 2001 is a quarter of a century ago it's maths baby crazy it's the way it goes yeah it certainly does Colin on the subject of people managing in the championship a word on Michael O 'Neill who I must admit I'd missed this has taken over as Blackburn Rovers manager Blackburn Rovers who are currently 20th in the championship. He did get a win in his first game. That was against QPR away, so that was good. But isn't he also the Northern Ireland manager? Don't they have some big games coming up? Yeah, this is quite an interesting setup, which feels very retro football thing.

47:44Kevin Keegan did it briefly when he became England manager. Oh, did he? He was still managing Fulham. I think he was appointed interim, But it was always the suspicion was he would take the job full time and he had a couple of good results and then stopped doing the Fulham gig. Sir Alex Ferguson is another famous example. And Billy Bingham with Northern Ireland. I mean, that was quite a long time ago. When was that? So that was during, I think, multiple since his Northern Ireland manager. He pretty much managed multiple clubs during those time frames. I think Southport, Plymouth Park Isle, Linfield as well from Northern Ireland.

48:22Two more examples. Actually, Rinas Mikhael was managing both Barcelona and the Netherlands when he took the Netherlands to the 1974 World Cup final. That's extraordinary. So it can work. Yeah. Potentially. Of course, he didn't did it with Chelsea and Russia and PSV and Australia. Yeah. This is actually the second time, technically, that Michael O 'Neill has done this. Okay. In 2019, he agreed to take over at Stoke City and agreed to stay on as Northern Ireland manager in an interim basis to oversee the Euro 2020 playoffs. But obviously COVID happened. Those playoffs were postponed by eight months.

48:59So he essentially didn't resign from Northern Ireland. So he passed the baton on, so to speak. But this time it's a little bit different in that the official stance is the Blackburn Rovers job is until the end of the season and he's not leaving his position as Northern Ireland manager. Right. And in a month's time, Northern Ireland have a playoff with Italy. Yeah, a World Cup playoff away to Italy, and then the winners of that will be away to either Wiels or Bosnia and Herzegovina in the final for a World Cup play. Now, it is very interesting. It doesn't seem like an ideal scenario. The way, what the Irish FA are saying is that, oh, this is great because it keeps him active on the pitch.

49:43Should he not be busy anyway? he's got bored we'll be honest so yeah keep him busy Michael O 'Neill himself has pretty much come and said nothing wrong with this I've done all the preparation anyway there's nothing more I needed to do for the next six weeks to prepare for these matches now look international management is obviously a little bit of a curious set up like what do they what do international managers actually do outside of those breaks I'm not entirely sure obviously there's potential scouting missions and watching matches and speaking to players that sort of thing I mean players manage to feature of both clubs and national teams at the same time.

50:18This is so great. It's either really self-justificatory or it's just complete myth-busting about what international managers do and being like, yeah, no, we actually don't really do a lot. So yeah, I've just been sort of kicking my heels a bit. Yeah, I need something to get me out of the house. So they should keep me ticking over. How do you feel as a proud Northern Irishman? Well, it is curious. It's definitely curious. I think that from a Northern Ireland point of view, there was a lot of goodwill whenever he went to Stoke City back in 2019 in the sense that he'd done so much, he deserved a job in club football and he didn't do a bad job at all at Stoke.

50:52Did he have much impact on Northern Ireland's results at the time? Do you remember? Well, he didn't oversee any Northern Ireland matches at that point. Wow, that was going on. Yeah, he was due to, but then obviously COVID pushed those matches back. But I think this time, this is sort of happening all over again. This is our chance to go to a first World Cup in 40 years and that is obviously a really significant moment. I'm not really sure how much of an impact it really makes, but I think the optics of it aren't great at all. I also kind of wonder from a Blackburn Rovers point of view, if you're a fan and you're thinking, well, this guy's kind of managing these big games for somebody else next month as well.

51:31What does that balance look like? We will be releasing a piece on Friday, which kind of takes in a lot of this and sort of both the club and the international side of things too on the athletic. but yeah it's a very curious setup I'm actually I'm really intrigued to see how it works I kind of just wish it was another manager and another international team but yeah it'll be interesting but I think he'll do I think he'll do a very good job with Blackburn I think he's a really underrated coach and I think in terms of outside the Premier League he's probably one of the strongest coaches out there I just think Northern Ireland aren't a sexy enough team for many people to take notice of so yeah I'm happy that he's got an opportunity and I hope he can balance it okay they are currently one point Rovers above the bottom four in the championship very good look forward to that piece on Friday in the meantime Colin thank you so much for today and you Charlie Eccleshire too thank you many thanks to Seb and Tom who joined us earlier on and also to producers Jesse and Charlie and you listen we'll be back if you fancy another go on Thursday morning with our reaction to Wednesday's games and of course a look ahead to all the Premier League action coming up this weekend.

52:45For now, from all of us here, it's goodbye. You've been listening to The Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. For other great podcasts just like this one, including The Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic in all the usual places. We're also at The Totally Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

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