Where are Liverpool going and where is Iraola going?

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1:43The Athletic FC.

1:50Liam Tharme: Tony Football Show. Today, Champions League. Team from Paris play by the Merci. say merci and show none as Liverpool exit the competition. Where does that leave slot side ahead of this weekend's derby? Meanwhile, in Madrid, Barcelona very nearly get their remontade but end up with nada as Atletico goes through. We'll talk about all that plus Premier League news with Leeds United winning at Old Trafford and Bournemouth, it's it, I over. What next for Andoni and for the Cherries? All that and more in this Toby Football Show. Unbelievable, unbelievable this. Wednesday the 15th of April, a brand new Totally Awaits featuring Colin Miller of The Athletic.

2:30Liam Tharme: Hey James, lovely to see you Colin. Liam Tom's back with us as well. Hello James. Who was on briefing duties. If you're an athletic reader you'll understand that reference for the big Liverpool PSG game. Be interesting to get your takes on that. Slightly less sizzling hot than last night but maybe a bit more perspective. let's see Charlie Eccleshire is also here Charlie very much a polymath sporting wise because you do the tennis the football and now also the pickleball Charlie yes well pickleball sort of how it relates to tennis it's quite a big it's this big sort of culture war in the US between the pickleballers the tennis players a bit like tennis and paddle here I guess right tell me about pickleball well pickleball is played on you can basically fit two pickleball courts on a tennis court.

3:21And that's part of the reason there is this turf war going on because a lot of tennis courts are being converted into two pickleball courts because it's hugely popular. It's pretty much the fastest growing participation sport in the US. Though tennis participation playing in the US is booming as well at the moment. But basically it skews older naturally because it's played on a smaller court. But a lot of former tennis players in retirement are going over and playing pickleball.

3:47Liam Tharme: Is it just tennis on the smaller court then, Charlie? Kind of, but there are different rules and different ways of hitting the ball. Andre Agassi is huge into pickleball now. Is he? He played in a pickleball event last year, a professional doubles event last year. So he's kind of, and he's evangelical about all the benefits of it socially and all of this kind of thing. Nice. Why pickle, Charlie? Why is it called pickleball? Yeah. It's a good question, actually. That's never crossed your mind. No, just go along with it. It's something I've been really curious about. Every time somebody says, I'm off to play pickleball, which they do, they say that a lot.

4:20I'm thinking, but why pickleball?

4:23Liam Tharme: Why? Investigate that. Another question, just to ponder, let's not get into this because it would take forever, but my five-year-old son the other day asked such a great question. He was like, will more sports be invented? I thought, what a great question that is. And we think of pickleball as a new sport, likewise paddle. I think they both were invented in the 60s, so they're hardly that new. But yeah, I wonder what the next big sport will be and how that happens. I bet, Colin, you know about this. If you were to plot a curve of the, certainly the codification, which I guess is when a lot of people would say that's the birthday of a sport.

4:57Liam Tharme: There was a massive cluster at the start of the last century, I guess, or in and around the start of the last century, and then not much. But there's no reason why loads of other sports couldn't be invented. Aurelio de Laurentiis was at it this week. of course. Yes, yeah very much I think this is always like a kind of this sort of dream scenario especially for a lot of very kind of rich people who are like I want to leave a legacy, I want to do something that people are going to remember in 50, 60, 70 years from now so I want to create my own version of the sport. You see it in football a little bit with the Ballers League in the UK, the Kings League in Spain which is the Gerard Pique innovation.

5:36I wonder like an actual new sport Right It may be eSports Probably It's like music though Isn't it It's like the genres Of music Like you can't Yeah You can't really Create a new genre But maybe you can Sort of Feed off a little bit Could you

5:50Liam Tharme: People in the 70s Probably thought You couldn't In a new genre And then Hip hop Yeah That's true It's true Hip and or hop Well I'm very much Yes Okay Liam Should we get on To the Champions League I was enjoying this chat but yeah have you ever played pickleball? I haven't no I've not played paddle either I think I must be one of the last athletic staff to not have played paddle in any capacity Michael Cox huge into his paddle is Michael Cox huge into his paddle it's a weird cycling paddle crossover that I'm seeing I don't know if there's anything in that year maybe that's a new sport cycling paddle like biathlon or this yeah but at the same time in the same way as you can have polo why not cycle around a restricted court.

6:39Liam Tharme: That is a new sport. But a lot of sports do feel incredibly random and arbitrary. You know, you watch the Olympics like biathlon. It's like, how on earth does that happen? Well, biathlon is great for that. Well, isn't that, no, but that's a hunting thing. You ski for a bit and then you try and shoot some poor wild animals. Sure, but I mean, that doesn't mean it should be an Olympic sport. I mean, like hunting isn't an Olympic sport. No, of course, of course. But I guess it was a big part of life. and in the way that perhaps the original Olympics mirrored athletic prowess that was in some way important for daily life.

7:11Liam Tharme: And, listener, I beg your indulgence for a second or two more. Perhaps that's where new sports might come from, activities or sporting contests that actually reflect the kind of day-to-day… It's e-sports, right? Yeah. I think people just play video games more and then it's… But there are things that you and I do, Liam, and we don't need to necessarily list them here, which could be competitive. Oh my goodness, I'm going to move on right now because that's... Anyway, the Champions League. On Tuesday.

7:47I hope that makes the cut.

7:50Liam Tharme: The Champions League on Tuesday. Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico are through. We're going to find out tonight, Wednesday, who they will be facing likely to be Arsenal for Atleti and Bayern for Paris Saint-Germain because those sides are a goal ahead after their first legs away to Sporting and Real Madrid respectively. But already we know from Tuesday that that's it for Mo Salah in the Champions League. Possibly Lewandowski as well. I mean, I'm assuming that Mo's not going to go to another, to a side in the Champions League next season. Lewandowski might do this talk that he might, for example join Milan who are very much in line for a spot but yeah the curtain coming down all over Europe Griezmann though still in the competition I've played very very well again I still think his exit this summer to Orlando City is far too soon for him I think he's Atletico Madrid's best player I think he's been the best player in La Liga over the past decade I think that's safe to say I mean obviously you had Ronaldo and Messi but that was sort of maybe halfway through they would have left Griezmann has been superb and he was so influential last night as well against Barcelona that he can be in this stage and still make such a big difference.

9:04But could you argue, Colin, that Salah is a sort of cautionary tale? You know, this time a year ago we would have said, well, yeah, of course, you know, he's got to stay. So maybe Griezmann quitting while he's ahead. Yeah, possibly. I think when you have those sort of... I know he's less reliant on that side of things. Yeah, I think when you have forwards and they hit a little bit of a dip in form whenever they're the wrong side of 30, it's very hard for that to be reversed. I think Reyes went a bit different in that he has sort of dropped off into that kind of deeper playmaker rule that allows him not to be running about quite as much as maybe the explosiveness of a player like Salah would.

9:38But I just think he's just been such a tremendous player, not just in terms, he's got, you know, the physique, but the technicality as well and what he brings to that team. And he played a really clever pass for the Atletico Madrid goal last night that released the press. So without him, Atletico Madrid wouldn't be in the semifinals. and they probably wouldn't be in the Copa del Rey final either. So, yeah, it's going to be a massive loss and a great game, obviously, for MLS. But for Grazman, I think it's just a bit too soon.

10:04Liam Tharme: Will he go out, though? Will he go out on a Champions League victory, one that's been awaited for so long by Simeone and Atletico's supporters? We're going to talk about that magnificent game yesterday, the second leg between the Coltraneiros and Barcelona a little bit later on, because we're going to begin with events at Anfield. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network.

10:531-0 for the PSG thanks to Ousmane Dembélé.

10:57Liam Tharme: Ousmane Dembélé with the first of his brace as PSG posted another 2-0 win over Liverpool on one of those special Anfield nights to go through to the semi-finals 4-0 on aggregate. Charlie and Liam, you were both watching this. It was a comfortable scoreline for Paris Saint-Germain. How comfortable a game was it? I don't think hugely. I'm being intrigued to get Charlie's thoughts on this as well. The set-up was interesting because it was obviously so different to last week. Liverpool had to change shape, had to change tactics, and I think it went really, really kind of direct from the off. I think Anfield was kind of roaring every long pass early on, whether or not they were kind of sticking to the forward line.

11:35He went with Izak from the start, and I was amazed to hear Arnish Lott say, pre-game, kind of voluntarily, oh, he's only going to play the first half. That's a bizarre thing to kind of give away as information. But I thought Liverpool were OK without really being great at all, and seemed to fade throughout the second half. And PSG grow into games really well. They're so well coached and benefited as well from more rest. They hadn't played over the weekend. Their game got postponed. Ligano have helped them out there. And that seemed to contribute, I think, in the second half. Yeah, I think from about the start of the second half until Dembele scored, that was Liverpool's only real period of dominance across the whole tie.

12:14So kind of a quarter of this game and eighth of the tie. But they kept it to 2-0 on aggregate. And that was what we said last week, was the fact that PSG could have won that so much more comfortably. Game stay, even if you're as good as PSG, is going to become a factor. I think Liverpool grew in belief at that point because they were probably on some level thinking, how are we still in this tie? We've really been second best. And they did create some chances. They had one or two in the first half as well, an incredible block from Arkinios.

12:44Liam Tharme: So everybody's very excited about that Marquinhos block. The ball falls to Van Dijk. Marquinhos is right there. So he blocks it. Why is, what am I missing? It's his reaction, I think, his sort of shaped opinions. He celebrated it like a goal. So you remember that. So you think, oh, that's such a huge moment. And it is a big moment. But I think if he just sort of gets up and gets on. I feel I would have made that block if I'd been stood there. No, but often you, how often do you see, you know. The ball's there. I will block that. Yeah, it's instinctive, but still, so often you'll see an attacker, the attacking player gets to a rebound first.

13:19And you'll think, oh, he was just so much sharper or he wanted it more. In this instance, Marquinhos...

13:24Liam Tharme: Oh, he did his job very well. Yeah, you know, you're going a bit Roy Keane on it. Man does job. And yeah, I agree with Colin that the reaction has helped shape that. But he also, even getting the block in, it could have then rebounded and gone in. So there is something about the fact he makes such a kind of forceful block. And there's probably a bit of luck there. But yeah, it was a good moment. Saffron was taken out right by the initial ball that comes in. And I mean, that was, I think, Liverpool's best route to goal with those back post crosses. And he's prevented a goal, which I think is probably, you know, Liverpool want that goal in the first half to get the momentum and probably would redefine the tie, I think, if that game swings in that kind of way.

14:05Liam Tharme: Even if in that period, what, 20 minutes or so of dominance in the second half, even if they, I think, had got one there, It would have been interesting to see how Paris would have reacted to that with their history of second legs and that. But as it was, 73 minutes in, Ousmane Dembele, who'd been wasteful across the two legs, finally scored. What a goal it was. The telephone celebration that he does afterwards, I'm sure this has been explored. He mimes talking on the telephone, then shakes his head and slams it down. What was that about again? I don't know, but it did feel in this moment, it was quite appropriate because the slamming the phone down did feel a bit like game over.

14:44This is done. There was a tennis player, Ben Shelton, who did that celebration. And then it was deemed to be a bit disrespectful. I mean, Novak Djokovic then beat him and did it to him. And that ended it as a thing, basically. I think he's an amazing tennis man. Yeah, probably. He may well be. Love the tennis. Actually, he was at the French Open draw last year. And then was at the tournament. So it's very possible. but I wouldn't have thought it's an homage to that but I think he is a tennis guy but we should say as well obviously just before he got that goal there was the penalty that was then taken away which seemed a little bit odd

15:21Liam Tharme: Do you think? Well I just Charlie what about that no do tell me because I watched that with bemusement that the referee even needed to go to the monitor about it That you were bemused that it was overturned? No I was bemused that anyone looking at that VAR wouldn't just say mate that is not a penalty don't even bother going to the monitor i mean it's a foul if anything it's a foul on who's the defender pancho on pancho yeah pancho yes um well firstly what i really enjoyed was mark klattenberg who's their resident refereeing expert they brought him in straight away he said this won't be overturned that's a penalty and it's not so much that he got it wrong or the because I sort of agreed with him it was more that he was presented as having any sort of knowledge or additional knowledge or insight as if the whole thing isn't just seemingly very variable um and he's sort of not guessing but he has as much insight into what this ref's going to do as any of us do anyway he said that moments later ref goes looks at it and takes it away well I don't want to be harsh I mean does anyone think it should have been a Premier League I'm not sure it would have met the bar given that the Premier League they seem to there seems to be a higher bar for the VAR to get involved I think there's every chance that would have been left because they would have deemed it as Do you think it was a penalty though?

16:43Liam Tharme: I think once given No no but do you think it actually was a foul on McAllister? I think it's a bit clumsy In what way? He stood there and McAllister runs deliberately backs into him and then falls over Yeah he would have Quite violently as well He would have sort of he would have bought it but No it's not as if If he goes over and then McAllister fills the contact and throws himself down, McAllister basically runs in reverse into Pacho, as far as I can see. But anyway, it wasn't given, and probably we shouldn't have spent too much time on it. You would have given it. Well, no, I just think once it was given, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd said, we don't want to get involved.

17:20Liam Tharme: Okay, and maybe, you know, had that been given, maybe it would have changed something, or maybe Liverpool would have gone out 4-1 on aggregate. Who can say? One thing I would say about this PSG and the Dembele goal is that he missed so many sitters across these two legs. He produced that finish. It seems to happen with PSG so much that they have these great strikes or these moments of sort of long range strikes which maybe take a bit of a deflection and they go in and it looks brilliant. But then they miss all these sitters. They're a real like XG busting sort of team, right? Exactly. I thought it was really weird because ultimately they got the sort of aggregate scoreline that they probably merited overall.

17:57They just did it in quite a weird way because it probably would have been fairer, in inverted commas, if they'd won the first leg 4-0 and then this had been 0-0. I don't think yesterday was a 2-0 PSG game because I thought it was closer, nor do I think the first leg was at all. And Dembele, exactly, he was that in microcosm because he, I mean, in a way, how he only ended up with two goals, although maybe two was about fair, but they just came in, certainly the first one, in a slightly unexpected way because, yeah, he missed so many sitters, including in this game. He had one in the first half that he put over.

18:28Liam Tharme: A fair result then, all in all. I think so. Yeah. Paris Saint-Germain goes through, as we say, probably Bayern, who are 2-1 up from the game at the Bernabeu against Real Madrid a week ago. Where does it leave Liverpool? A lot of people making positive noises. They were facing a team who were already 2-0 up and thus perhaps not quite as attacking as they otherwise would have been. What did you see, Liam, for Arnislot to take from this with the derby against Everton coming up at the weekend? Yeah, I thought Vits was OK. I think you're looking at kind of, it's a shape where you've got your big money forwards into the XI, which is something they've just struggled to do all season and they've had injury issues kind of across the pitch at right back.

19:08The big worry is at Katika obviously going off with what looks like a quite serious long-term injury. We still don't know how long that's going to be, but from what Slott said, it's quite likely that he's out for the season. And that's the World Cup. Yeah. again Izak's still playing what actually happened

19:23Liam Tharme: because he went down with nobody around him yeah I think he was holding his Achilles which is obviously always a big concern I mean we had Desiree Dwey injured as well from you know clatching into a microphone as well a pitch microphone which I haven't seen I think for I think it's happened a few times a season I don't recall seeing it much at all so yeah a weird night in terms of injuries and obviously didn't help that if Izak can only play 45 minutes that he then started and then you have to sub off what is really Liverpool's first-door striker. Ideally, if he'd have been on the bench to play the second half, you could have brought him on early.

19:56Liam Tharme: OK, so how was Isaac's 45 minutes? And how was the striker that they brought on for Ekotike, a certain Mo Salah? Yeah, I think Salah was OK. He plays in that kind of like inside forward role in what is basically a 4-2-2-2, playing kind of very centrally. Frimpong's there to kind of do his running. I thought Isaac was fairly anonymous, really. I think he's really struggled. He had one moment where he got in behind and was marginally offside. The service probably hasn't helped him hugely, but I don't see a huge number of runs being made and kind of movements for the ball. I'm still not sure where he fits into this team and he's just not played much minutes to be sharp.

20:30He's already had those relationships with his teammates, right?

20:32Liam Tharme: That wasn't the new face that Liverpool players wanted in the starting line-up. I think that was Rio and Gamera. Yeah, I mean, I don't understand this exact thing at all. I mean, for Arnestad to come out and say he can only play 45 minutes and then you start him, doesn't make sense. and the defence to that would be, yeah, but if we had brought him on in the second half and there was extra time, we might need to have taken him off. But Alexander Izak is very, very clearly completely unfit. He's just nowhere near the fitness levels that he needs to be at. No, he didn't have a pre-season that we all know from that sort of protracted transfer.

21:06So he missed 10 weeks, essentially, of training. He never really got that back. You can't get that back as a player. He obviously then got the injury set back. He had five touches in that half, five touches of the ball. He was completely anonymous. And it feels to me like if you're Liverpool, you're almost playing with 10 men with him in the team from the start in such a high-intensity match in the Champions League quarterfinal. And then you've also got Florian Verts. Obviously, Salah comes on through the substitution, but those are two players who also don't really do a lot of off-the-ball work in terms of getting back.

21:38And it's almost ironic that PSG are the opponents, and PSG with Messi and Neymar and Suarez. or sorry not Suarez Messi, Neymar and Mbappe who didn't do the off the ball work and now they do with Cavaschelli with Dembele with Duhye it's almost like Liverpool have almost done that in reverse where they've gone from this such a high intensity high pressing team and this is one of the things that goes back to last summer's transfer business that they like to lose Diaz even Darwin Nunes who got a lot of stick a lot of criticism when he was at Liverpool but every single player that Jurgen Klopp signed or that was brought in while he was there his one requirement was that they do a lot of off-the-ball work, a lot of press and a lot of energy.

22:17And that wasn't reflected in last summer's business at all. So now you've got like a squad or a group of players who don't really do that. Even going back to the key is assigning somebody who just doesn't fit that model whatsoever. So Liverpool's attack has just become a lot more disjointed. And even the stylistic, I think, between Isaac, who thrives on chaos, essentially, he thrives on quick balls through and running in behind. But Florian Wurtz, who's an excellent player, is all about slowing things down, in control and sort of taking his time with a pass. So it just goes back to that recruitment and even Jeremy Fringpong and Milos Kerkhez, the fullbacks like Fringpong was taken off at half time they just defensively they just are caught out of position so often and you've got obviously an aging Van Dijk as well and that's kind of like things just, everything sort of just exposes each other.

23:05I just think over the course of this tie, Arnie Slott has probably, he's probably made a lot of mistakes. I mean you look at the set up for the first leg and how it was pretty much a damage limitation exercise. And then after last night's game, he's like, look, we can go toe-to-toe with the best team in Europe. This shows how great we are. But you purposefully did not do that in the first leg. You purposefully played a formation you've never played before to try to limit what they could do. So I just think there's a lot going on there that if I was a Liverpool fan would concern me as to the direction which they're going, because I don't think there's a clear strategy in recruitment and in terms of the coaching situation either.

23:40Liam Tharme: where they're going this weekend is the Hill Dickinson Stadium for the derby with Everton. Who you'd imagine would be relishing that. Come against a Liverpool team who are sort of rocking, it feels like. I mean, it is strange because obviously they won the league in Sot's first season. This season has been a bit of a disaster, really, going back to that transfer window, which, you know, everyone was saying they had this amazing window. So, you know, let's not pretend that people saw this coming. But ultimately, you're judged on how it pans out. I mean, it should be said as well. I think yesterday was only the second time all season that from the start, they've been able to play Vietz, Izak and Eketike.

24:22And obviously, it lasted a very short amount of time yesterday as well. But yeah, I think Everton will feel as up for that as they have this fixture in a long time or as confident about it as they have for a long time.

24:35Liam Tharme: We'll be talking about the Premier League weekend And in tomorrow's Totally Football show, just to say as well that today, the 15th of April, the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster back in 1989, and that was marked mostly impeccably at Anfield by both sets of fans. And Arnie Slott making reference to the ongoing campaign to induce Hillsborough law to kind of ensure that if something that unthinkable happens again, that the aftermath isn't equally unthinkable and horrific. Anyway, there you go. That was Liverpool exiting, Mo Salah exiting the Champions League. Not sure where we think he's going to be next season, but certainly exiting the Champions League for Liverpool.

25:25Liam Tharme: A team that did almost overturn their 2-0 first leg deficit. Meanwhile, we're Barcelona over in Madrid. Let's next get on to that.

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29:23All right, Colin.

29:26Liam Tharme: While some folk were watching Liverpool Paris Saint-Germain, you were off enjoying an absolutely blinding match between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona. It was the first time, this is remarkable, The first time that a Diego Simeone team has ever lost a Champions League knockout game at home. And he's been there 15 seasons. It's staggering. It's absolutely staggering. And this was the sixth time that Atletico Madrid and Barcelona had played each other this season. The third time in 10 days, because they had the league game two. Atletico Madrid knocked out Barcelona of the Copa del Rey and now of the Champions League.

30:05And this game was just so much fun. It was so good And it was so conditioned By what had happened In the first leg When Atletico Madrid Had won 2-0 But that was Essentially A huge part of that Was Paul Cobra Getting sent off In the first half For a last man challenge Atletico Madrid Scored that free kick And scored a second In the second half Barcelona had a lot of chances In that game Were a bit profligate As well And In this tie It was kind of The same thing Even when Barcelona Went down to 10 men They had so many chances I mean they could have been 1-0 up

30:37Liam Tharme: Barcelona after 30 seconds. They were 1-0 up after, what, about three minutes when Yamal robbed the ball off L 'Anglais, Clement L 'Anglais, and then received it back from a team, I think, was it Fran Torres, and finished brilliantly. Within 25 minutes, Atletico's 2-0 lead was wiped out because Barcelona had a second, but then six minutes later, they were back in front. So, yeah, so what happened in this game is that Barcelona, and we've talked about their high line before and what that can do in terms of their press and everything else. It was so effective for 25 minutes because what happened was they swarmed Atletico Madrid.

31:15They had so much energy. They were right across the pitch. They forced the Clement Longley mistake for the first goal. And then again, they ferned towards with a really lovely turn and finish for the second. And at that point, Atletico Madrid were rocking. They did not know what to do. They didn't know what had hit them. A minute later, they forced Clement L 'Anglaire into another mistake and he gives the ball away to Laminya Mao on the wing and he plays this absolutely outstanding outside of the foot pass cross into Firmin Lopez and Firmin Lopez has the goal at his mercy and he's throwing himself at the ball, the Atletic and Madrid goalkeeper Juan Mousso smothers the shot and it goes behind for a corner but on the follow through, completely accidentally Mousso's studs essentially scrapes down Firmin Lopez's face, Firmin Lopez's face actually crashes into the ground afterwards and what that did was that would have meant had that ball had gone in that would have been three nil to Barcelona within 24 minutes they would have been ahead in the tie but there was such a lengthy stoppage at that moment because Firmin Lopez there was a lot of blood coming out of his face a lot of blood it was it was um it was it was one of those incidents that required a lot of medical attention and there was I think it was four or five minutes break um and after the play resumed Atletico Madrid equalised two minutes later.

32:35I mentioned the Griezmann. It wasn't a no-look passing turn, but it was on the turn. He just played the ball perfectly through to Marcus Llorente's timed run from his own half to break that Barcelona high line and to score it across to Adam Ola-Lukman. Now, Adam Ola-Lukman, actually, he arrived in the very closing days of the January transfer window. He's had a massive impact on Atletico Madrid. He scored against Barcelona in the Copa del Rey. He scored against them in the Champions League. He scored in the Madrid derby against Real Madrid. And he scored as well against Club Rouge in the knockout phase as well.

33:07So he's had a really big impact. And Diego Simeone said after the game, if you're going to beat Barcelona, you have to attack him. We had to do that over the two legs. And this has been sort of a running theme, that people's perceptions of Simeone and Atletico Madrid are so outdated because...

33:24Liam Tharme: They can't defend. Yeah, they can't defend. And this is the thing. So they have conceded 26 goals in the Champions League this season. That's the second highest. Do we know which team has conceded more? No. Kairat Almaty. Close. Tottenham Hotspur. Carabag. Carabag. And if Atletico Madrid, well, they are in the semifinal. If they face Arsenal, Arsenal have conceded five goals. Five goals. Atletico Madrid have conceded 26. 26 is just more. So that's quite, quite, quite a difference. But there was a lot more going on in this game. There's a lot in the build-up about Barcelona. and Hansi Flick had had a few words about the state of the Athletic Madrid pitch.

34:03Liam Tharme: Even before the game, he was showing the length of blades of grass to the referee pointedly. There were suggestions that this was or wasn't within the UFAs regulations. So there are regulations about how long your grass can be. Yeah, I mean, of course. But also how much you condition that through watering it or through heating it in a certain way. Does somebody go out and check? I would assume so Okay good And after the game Well actually this morning Atletico Madrid put out a tweet Being like Oh the grass smells beautiful This morning Right Yeah and again So essentially Whenever Atletico Madrid Had gotten back in The Adam Oluwukman scores Puts them ahead in the tie You sort of think This is going to be Complete chaos For the next hour There's no more goals There is a red card Eric Garcia's Right again But I just wanted to say When you say no more goals There was the magnificent move that led to what Barcelona thought was what would have been 3-1 and would have put them back level.

35:05Liam Tharme: Again, it was a magnificent through ball from Yamal on one side, it ended up over on the other side with Jardim Cancelo, who completely dummied the Atletico defenders and then just slid this ball across. Eventually a beautiful finish from, I can't remember who. Ferran Torres. Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah. But it was that moment, at that point in the game, you're five minutes into the second half that would kind of knock the stuffing again out of the home crowd who were obviously raucous throughout this. But yeah, I mean, I thought it was offside. It was offside. Yeah, yeah. I thought it would do very, very well in adapting and sort of smothering what Barcelona were trying to do.

35:41They didn't let, obviously their intensity levels drop off. You couldn't repeat what they did in the first 25 minutes. But again, it shows the adaptability and flexibility that Simeone has shown. and this was something that I'd only noticed today but they moved into their stadium in 2017. This is their first Champions League semifinal since then. There's also their first Copa del Rey final on Saturday. Their first since 2013, so that's 13 years. I mean, it's a very long period of time. And at the start of the season, I had sort of been like, look, this thing with Atletico, they have the same year, year on year, they finish third in the league, they get to maybe the quarterfinals, but usually the round of 16 in the Champions League.

36:18They go out, they never really do anything domestically in the Cups. Like, what kind of is the point of this? But this season, they've actually underperformed in the league. They've struggled defensively, yet all of a sudden, they're actually in with a really good chance of at least one trophy.

36:34Liam Tharme: It's the third time they've knocked Barcelona out of the knockout stages of the Champions League. On the other two occasions, in 2014 and 2016, they made it to the final. And on both of those occasions, they met Real Madrid with predictably hilarious consequences. It would be such a story if Simeone were to get a shot at the Champions League's title, if Griezmann was to get a shot at leaving with the biggest club prize of all. We'll see because they might be facing Arsenal before then. I don't want to speak too soon about Arsenal sporting 1-0 to the Gunners after the game in Lisbon. Simeone has beaten Arsenal in a European semi-final before that.

37:16That's going 2018 Europa League. Right.

37:18Liam Tharme: Arsenal have beaten Atletico rather more recently, though, haven't they? They have, yeah. 4-0 in the group. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So Atletico's through, and Barcelona can content themselves with their healthy lead in La Liga. Nine points currently ahead of Real Madrid. Very good. Next up, let's touch on one or two bits of Premier League news that have happened since our last show.

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40:13Liam Tharme: Totally Show. In the Premier League, big news on Tuesday with Andoni Iriola confirming that he will be leaving Bournemouth come the end of this season. The night before, also pretty seismic, Leeds United winning at Old Trafford for the first time in Chex Notes. 45 years many of those years they have not been playing at Old Trafford but still for a Leeds side who was still very much in the relegation picture Matt Davis Adams in this very studio on Sunday confidently predicting they would be going down because they couldn't win games anymore Stunned by that I was starting to think will it actually be Leeds who get sucked in just because West Ham and Forest seemed like they were finding some form so you know fair play to him for that but yeah well done Leeds That performance on Monday, I know maybe Manchester United losing is a story, but Leeds were fantastic.

41:12They had such a good match. Their sort of coordination, the speed of play, the sort of energy they had. But everything about that just screamed to me, they're fine. They're absolutely fine. And I know we've been sort of saying that for a while and they haven't been getting wins. But you do contrast that to what Tottenham have shown all season. I just don't think Tottenham have got a performance like that in them.

41:33Liam Tharme: Why were Leeds so much better, particularly that first half against Man United? Was it the 24 days that Man United hadn't played for? Yeah, I mean, I think that has to come in. I mean, that is quite a lengthy break. I also think Manchester United have a couple of absentees in there. Obviously, Maguire was suspended for this. So, Lenny Yorra was starting and he struggled against Dominic Calvert-Lewin. I think the massive miss was Kobe Manu because Manchester United don't have another midfielder capable of coming in and doing that job. I know Manuel Lugarte played, but I just think technically he's just miles off it, unfortunately, for what Manchester United need in there.

42:09And Leeds took full advantage of that. And I think because they got the goal so early, that gave their players so much self-belief to just keep going at it. Eventually, they got their second. A little bit fortuitously, but they deserved it based on the play. And I actually thought Man United were pretty decent in the second half. They rallied and the red card didn't really change the game too much. But that was, I mean, you could, Daniel Farkett at the full-time whistle, pretty much on his knees, pumping his fists. Like, you could tell what that meant.

42:38Liam Tharme: So he's never kept a side up in the Premier League. He now looks set to do that and has leads through to an incredibly rare FA Cup semi-final. Yeah, it is really, really impressive, given that in about November, I remember it did feel sort of inevitable. and even at the start of the season really my sense was that because he's had this track record of bringing Norwich up but then once you get there it just all falls away and you're worried would the same thing happen and it was looking like it might then he made that switch of formation and they won that great run then I was talking about I think it was last week how they've had all these opportunities it felt like to really pull themselves away and then they've drawn and so I think that reaction at the end was so much kind of both the previous times when it hasn't worked out but also just this season of it feeling like go and get that sort of win that will give you a bit of breathing space and they finally did it and because it was so agonising there was the header cleared off the line from Casemiro that would have equalised to make it 2-2 which would have been a pretty huge blow against a team of 10 men so clearly a huge amount of relief for him and Leeds Six points now Leeds above Spurs they host Wolves this weekend, do Leeds, in a game which I think could confirm Wanderers' relegation.

43:57Liam Tharme: As for Man United, having won six of their first seven after Michael Carrick took over, they've now only had one victory in their last four. At the weekend, they're heading to Stamford Bridge. Maguire may be missing that game as well. Why is that suspension still not clear? So Harry Maguire was sent off against Bournemouth. It was a dog suit, that's how you said it. So essentially last one. not playing the ball. That's a one-match ban. So he missed the game against Leeds. However, he was sort of charged by the FA with misconduct as he left the pitch, apparently for saying something to the fourth official, which is very vague language in how they free these misconduct things.

44:37But that would result in a further one-match suspension.

44:40Liam Tharme: So they might be missing him. They will definitely be missing Martinez, Lissandro Martinez, after his record, for yanking on Dominic Cavett Lewin's ponytail. there again has been a lot of comment about whether this was a fair red car Michael Carrick saying it was I think he called it absurd seems pretty clear if you grab someone's hair I think it is I think others have drawn the comparison you know something like Brian Broby shoving Romero into Kinski and you know that leading to an injury and I have to say I do things like that I think are just really dangerous and they are a far bigger issue than putting someone's hair but the rule being you can't clearly he had to go but I do think more should be done about when players I just think it's a really cowardly act like a player is completely defenseless it's really dangerous you see a lot at all levels people just like you know there was a bit of one yesterday so I was like sort of shoved um duet into into mornings you know I just think things like that is nasty and and should be dealt with more harshly.

45:46Liam Tharme: Well, that's a very good point, actually. Although, while yanking a shirt, for example, would be maybe a yellow card, pulling someone by the hair, and I don't have too much experience with this, I can imagine is a lot more dangerous and certainly painful. I was just going to quickly mention, Colin, there was one of those pushes, and we didn't touch on it. Barcelona, again, aggrieved by the refereeing against Atleti, because Dani Olmo, surely that should have been a penalty, no, the shove on him. Yeah, and again, this is one of the things. it's been a theme I think throughout not just this season but several seasons of determining what constitutes a foul with a push a lot of times like oh was it one hand or two a lot of times like did he really mean to actually push him was he going was he already going down yeah how much force is used how much intention is there yeah exactly what's the sort of opposite player what's his intentions there's a lot going on I mean I must admit I saw that and I thought it would be given it's not the sort of thing that's overturned a lot of the time but I mean had that have been given and you can't complain.

46:44It's one of those things that I think pushing a player is a foul. I mean, and again, it's like there's so many different contexts. Right at the end of the first leg, of course, Liverpool. By Connate, no? By Connate, yeah. That wasn't given either. But this is the thing with a hair pull. It's sort of like, oh, a hair pull's a red card and that makes it sort of nice and easy and sort of boxes it away, right? And in a way, I kind of understand that, although it will lead to maybe the Martinez incident, maybe the Michael Keane incident when he tugged the hair of a wool striker in January. A Rookidale striker, yeah.

47:20And that didn't get a lot of attention because there was a lot of games on that night, so it wasn't televised. This one does get a bit more. And I understand why the officials have done this because it's sort of like that makes it a rule. It takes out that sort of element of subjectivity. Did they mean it or whatever? And I think in this case, I mean, it's a little bit, it was a stupid thing to do. I think as soon as he sort of realized he was doing it, he released his hand. Do you think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It was an aerial duel and I think Martinez had been slightly knocked off balance and he just puts his hand out and he's like, oh, I'm holding his hair.

47:51So you think it was

47:52Liam Tharme: involuntary essentially? I think so. I think it's fine. As far as scrubby sends a back play, like you always get the, you know, try and tread on the feet a bit, give them a bit of a push as they go to jump. It's kind of all those like small details where you're just trying to either, I mean, Martinez, I think people used to talk about his height a lot. It's not always, I think, as big a thing, but he is up against a striker, a big target man in Calvert-Loon who's bigger than him, so he's got to do work to make up that advantage somehow. It probably is a smart rule, I think, is just protecting players.

48:21But Charlie's also right, there's various other things where you go, if this is all about safety and that is the most important thing that the referee is there to do, then you've got serious injuries that are at risk and you're enabling players to do that and to push. And it is Calvert-Loon when they can't see. And this is in the same vein where you go, it is Calvert-Loon to just pull someone's hair, it doesn't need to happen. I think that's what's frustrating and I think VAR has just accentuated that. It's like, what are we doing? Are we going for things that are like easiest to enforce or that are most important?

48:49And clearly something like this is easier to enforce. It's cut or dry. Did you pull someone's hair? Yes or no. You see so much stuff where frustratingly there is plausible deniability like a stamp and a player can say, no, I was just putting my foot on the ground and that's harder to enforce but it's far more important that that is enforced. Likewise, shoving a player into his teammate and injuring him is far more important, but it's harder because, again, there's the slight element of deniability, even though in the case of Brobby, it looked pretty clear-cut. I was just saying it's the difference between what is classified as violent conduct.

49:21This will result in a three-match ban as well. It's not just like the Maguire incident where last man record one game, three-game ban. But, I mean, obviously you can argue, obviously herpilling is dangerous in itself. As a sort of general definition, that's obviously dangerous. But a three-game ban for that, but for incidents that you can see are dangerous. Now, the Broadway incident is clearly dangerous. That's clearly dangerous play, regardless of what you think of it. Like it endangered an opponent and it injured an opponent. But that's not the threshold for violent conduct. Yeah, incidents which may be saying, is that really that dangerous?

49:55Is. So yeah, exactly. It's a slightly gray area. There's nothing officiating can do. It's either consistency or common sense.

50:03Liam Tharme: Right, that was a great piece about that on the Athletic front. The Athletic's new refereeing correspondent, Graham Scott, this week. Lovely piece. I really enjoyed that. So Man United, anyway, are at Stamford Bridge this weekend, facing Chelsea, one of their top five rivals. They do have a healthy lead over Chelsea, but they are going to be certainly without Martinez and maybe without Maguire. So that does look like quite a delicate fixture. Can I just say something very quickly? I do think that this defeat on Monday Monday is almost a very good thing for Man United. I know that sounds a bit perverse but when you look at the Champions League situation the fact that fifth place definitely gets Champions League, they're what, six points clear of Chelsea going into?

50:46Seven points clear of Chelsea going into the fixture at the weekend. Even if they were to lose that and with Chelsea's general form you sort of think they still should be okay but it also gives them a chance to properly evaluate Michael Carrick. It's not a case of you're just sort of winning every game and you're finishing third. It's how do they respond to setbacks?

51:04Liam Tharme: And with the very next day, Andoni Arreola suddenly becoming officially available this summer, could that be a possible destination? Or actually, is he just going to head back to Spain? What's the word there? On Arreola, it's difficult to say. There's definitely not anything concrete. I think there'd have been a lot of talk that he might go back to the athletic club because that's his club where he came up and he's got a very close emotional attachment to them. One of the things I had heard quite recently was that Athletic Club would have loved to bring him in at the end of the season because Ernesto Valverde, their current coach, is leaving.

51:38But one of the reservations Areola had was, well, first of all, he's got a much bigger market as well. You know, he's at a real high point in his career, but also he would love to manage Athletic. But because he's such a big fan of the club, it's almost like, is it too emotional? Is this sort of like, you know, I'm going to go into this and if it does go wrong, it'll actually hurt me, you know, on a personal level too. and I think there's talk now that Athletic Club might actually go for Edin Terzic the former Dortmund coach instead which might be a bit of a left field appointment for them but for Areola I would say he will have a lot of options the managerial market this year is going to be quite notably big he's just been such an outstanding coach and I think one of the things and this is why Bournemouth might recover quickly is that Areola only appointed one of his sort of previous coaches into his existing staff for the conditioning coach.

52:29So whenever he does leave, I mean, Bournemouth's backroom team is pretty much all former players and characters who've been around the club for a long time. So there shouldn't be too much upheaval. You an Iriola fan, Bale? Yeah, I really enjoy watching his Bournemouth team. I think any team that can be disruptive, especially to some of the bigger teams in the league with bigger budgets, kind of, you know, better players or kind of a deeper squad is great. There's a great piece from one of our data tactics team, Tom Harris, about playing a role really in contributing to this changing landscape in you know Premier League

53:00Liam Tharme: football what has he done what's the change that we can put down to Iola well he's shown that you can be successful with directness and in fact part of Bournemouth's problem has been when they've had to kind of control games and actually when they're ahead in games being like oh now we can just pass the ball around and kind of keep it because there's so much of their success is you know being vertical and attack playing long balls or just playing forward quickly getting forward runners you look at you know the players that they sold you know good ball playing centre-backs good defenders they sold Kerkers who is you know almost functionally a winger at times at fullback no one's buying Milos Kerkers for his defensive capabilities their set pieces were good as well their long throws when you know especially when Semenya was there so yeah they've been really talented team good individuals but very much more than the the sum of their parts and they've been really entertaining and they've you know had a very clear style which I know is something he'd worked and shown kind of in Spain as well and kind of then brought over here that was part of the appeal I can't remember the wording exactly but when Bonwet appointed him they basically said in the press release that his style and his kind of philosophy was one of the reasons, key reasons, they went for him.

54:00So I imagine he'd be quite attractive in a specific way, similar to when we talk about Oliver Glasner, that you say, OK, you have to be mindful that a big club looking at him, he might not immediately fit in kind of playing a more possession-based style or a shorter game. So you go maybe kind of his, as Colin says rightly, there'll be a lot of clubs looking at him, but that he's not going to fit loads of them, I think. There's going to be specific teams where you go, yeah, he would work for their style.

54:22Liam Tharme: Okay, Klasner also on the market this summer, as is Xavi Alonso. There's been some other big names that I'm not thinking of. Ruben Amarin. That was the one, yeah. Okay, okay. All right, well, big managerial movements, something we're going to be touching on. As the season comes to its grand finale, round 33 of the Premier League season is up this weekend. we'll be touching on that in Thursday's show in which of course we'll also be looking at what happens between Arsenal and Sporting Bayern Munich and Real Madrid for today many many thanks to Charlie to Colin and to Liam and to Jake and producer Charlie in the booth and you listener do join us again on Thursday or thereafter for 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.

55:29We'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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