How we would change the League Cup, plus the state of Italian football since the Euros

0:28Welcome to Upfront, I'm Chloe Morgan. to talk about all the changes in Italian football after a huge summer for the national team.

0:40Rach, I am in sunny Tenerife getting some last minute winter sun, topping up the tan, ready for a bleak UK Christmas. You're in a fluffy jumper. How's life back there? It's cold. I'm in a fleece. that's exactly what I want here I don't want any kind of FOMO from this end at all yeah I'm overlooking the sea there's a gorgeous beach down there I'm in a lovely little villa with my partner's family it's been quite the that's a big step yeah it is you should take that off the pod that's for the upfront late night sessions anyway moving swiftly on what's your moments of the weekend go on mate do you know what I actually really struggled with this I had such a long weekend And trying to get back down from Liverpool using UK trains was not the easiest situation.

1:33So Saturday was a bit of a write-off. To be honest. It would have been quicker. Saturday was a write-off and Sunday I sat in the rain and shot Crystal Palace versus Ipswich Town. Which, to be fair, was quite a good game. So I might just give it to that game because we're going to talk about the Subway League Cup. The poor sister of the FA Cup, I think. And the lack of attention it gets. but actually it was a very enjoyable game of football. So I'm going to hat-tick that, I think. Yeah, 100%. I'll go a little bit deeper than that. With the Crystal Palace game, we've obviously chosen both moments of the weekend, but I want to give it to Emma Watson, grabbing a brace in that game, reacting sort of very fast from that spilled corner, and then quickly after with that beautiful, lovely curl into the top corner.

2:18Super, super impressive. Yeah, I thought it was a really lovely moment of individual brilliance from Emma Watson, and also it's really nice to give a little nod to my former club who I do miss very very dearly and hope they return back to the WSL one very very soon I thought you were going to say I hope they return my text or something it kind of felt like they got me entirely I've been trying to get back into the squad for a long time now right let's get stuck into the Subway League Cup drama Newcastle United 3-3 with Man City Man City obviously walking away with the additional point winning 7-6 on penalties just a reminder this weekend was still the group stages of the league cup so newcastle got that point and like i said man city got those two points but i think they'll probably see that as a point dropped going into that fixture um yeah really really spicy from newcastle taking an early lead from that 25 yard screamer from lois joel joel scored one from even further out against bristol city only last week i mean if you haven't seen the goal definitely go and see it because i think the best moment about that is how i think was the reaction from man city players and the fans alike the fans went absolutely mental crowd of 3 000 at the gateshead stadium but it was just such a beautiful strike i mean kiara keaton had absolutely no chance she was completely planted to the floor and could only watch it sort of sail into the into the corner but yeah rachel what did you make of that that opener and sort of the the impact of that creative from man city i actually thought newcastle deserved um the opening goal i thought they'd put a huge amount of pressure on City early on.

3:51I was really impressed with how high they were pressing them. They could see that City were kind of being a little bit sloppy and a little bit nervy at the back and they capitalised on it. It was quite a mature kind of performance I think, particularly early on. So yeah, unbelievable goal but I also think they deserved that lead. I thought they held on a little bit at times which I think is understandable. I thought momentum ebbed and flowed a bit and Manchester City could have and probably should have scored a number of goals and you might have kind of watched up until the 60 odd minute or so and think City should be comfortably ahead here.

4:26But then Newcastle had those moments as well. They came back into it. I thought they managed themselves well, knowing they were playing against a team who are second in the WSL, you know, are very good at keeping possession, arguably going to be a better quality football club, you know, in terms of fitness and quality as well. And I thought they kind of managed that pressure from City quite well. arguably a lot of that was down to wayward finishing as well from a number of players at City. But I just thought it was quite a mature performance from Newcastle to be able to kind of ebb and flow with the game and create more at the end and get themselves back into it.

5:02Like that's a really difficult thing to do. You get down 3-1 to a top WSL side, you would be forgiven for kind of hanging your head and thinking, OK, this one's gotten away from us. But the fact that they're able to get themselves back into it. And you can see that from a number of the experienced players in the squad not believing that it was over, which I really rated. And there was a couple of games this weekend that were really quite enjoyable games. Not that I'm saying that in a surprising way, but given how little coverage the Subway League Cup gets, like there are some spicy fixtures. No, well, we're going to definitely go stuck into the sort of format and sort of the importance of the Subway League Cup and sort of what everyone's been thinking about, like what it is as a tournament.

5:39But 100%, I've got to agree with you, Rach. I mean, Newcastle absolutely took the game to Man City. It very much felt like a bit of a David and Goliath kind of underdog story. but at the same time like I was looking at the stats and you're thinking okay they had 41 % of the possession Newcastle they had 12 shots none of those are on target compared to Man City's 10 shots with five on target but like I said I think it was the mentality and kind of the resoluteness of the squad I mean they got that early goal they were probably thinking okay like we've got to hang on to this lead and then obviously Laura Coombs gets the equaliser and that sort of like close range effort you're thinking okay it's going to be a little bit tougher now to come back into the game then you go 2-1 without Hasegawa the close range goal again um absolutely great goal like smashing it past Mo and she had absolutely no chance and a lovely great assist from um Bene there who seems to be sort of going from strength to strength every single weekend um and then there was a little bit of controversy on the WSL YouTube upload of the full game where Hasegawa's goal and it's still there what like just wasn't wasn't there um much the annoyance of people in in the comments that's just and we will get on to kind of like the broadcast and like the the subway leak up in that respect but like you said right it's like going 3-1 down you're thinking this isn't great obviously you've got the mistake then from the newcastle keeper kind of i can see what she's trying to do i think she could have caught the ball i think she was in enough space and there wasn't there wasn't enough bodies around that i think she could have just claimed it but i think like in that moment you've got a lot of bodies around you i think your your natural reaction and instinct is just punch it clear and kind of clear the danger but ends up kind of making a weird contact with the ball and kind of maybe like skimming the ball with her knuckles which then sends the ball back into her own net a bit of a fumble and then you're 3-1 down you're thinking this game just isn't going to plan and then obviously sending the game into into 3-3 that that hail shot at the end you can see the Man City players then in kind of absolute disbelief that this is going to take them into that into that penalty shootout but yeah I mean what was your kind of overall take on on the game and kind of getting into that that penalty shootout as well rates because it was um it was a good it was a good penalty shootout I really enjoyed that yeah I do it's one of those like when you're watching it you think okay Newcastle really deserved the lead here then you get to a point where you're like okay City should be in front by a couple of goals it gets to 3-1 and you think that's probably fair but then as the game carries on and Newcastle get back into it you can't help but feel like they absolutely deserve then to get back into it even though I think City were wayward and look they made changes Manchester City you You know, there were players coming in.

8:05It felt a little bit disjointed in that respect. You could maybe put it down to that. You could see them then bringing on the big guns at one point. They were making, I think, a triple sub or a double sub. And you can see that they were like, OK. And that tells you, I guess, things aren't going our way. We need to make, yeah, it was Greenwood and Blink-Hilda Brown and Miedema coming on at the same time. So you can understand that kind of, they were like, right, we need to turn the tide on this game. It still didn't really work, obviously. And they were 3-1 up at that point when those players came on.

8:36So it wasn't necessarily because they were like, right, we're in trouble here. Do you know what I mean? So the fact that Newcastle were then able to get back into it, despite players like that of that calibre coming onto the pitch, makes it even more impressive. Penalty shootout, I felt for Mone in goal because she got closer than Keating to a number of those penalties. Definitely. You could see she was raging. like there was she got fingertips to it she pushed one onto the post and it didn't quite go around it came back in like I felt for her because I would imagine it's more annoying getting close to a penalty save than being miles off it it's the frustration I think because you know you've gone the right way you've trusted your instincts and you've and you've made the bet and it's paid off but like you're just like an inch or so away from like the actual final hit and I you've got to give like credit to like how well she was she was so frustrated with herself as you got a bit you could see her kind of like just like fist clench like oh god i was so close to it um and obviously like for them like that would have been a massive um second point to have taken for it from man city but you know bonnie shaw alex greenwood wahabi breathing a sigh of relief like each one of their pens not particularly well taken to be honest and i don't know whether that's sort of like getting used to that crowd i know they obviously haven't played there that that often but at the same time like you should be absolutely smashing the roof of the net off with these like the The Hasegawa pen was absolutely incredible.

9:55But yeah, I think obviously Man City sort of walking away with that additional point did feel a little bit, I don't know, I think it's one of those ones you kind of wanted to end even, like even scores, just 1-1. I think that would have been an accurate reflection of what went down. And you can see like for Man City, it did feel like a disappointment. Like the celebrations were so muted and yeah, it just felt a bit flat at the end. But the Newcastle fans absolutely loved it, like all day. Well, they got a game, didn't they? And come here to me, what kind of penalty taker would you be? have you had to take penalties before uh i think i might have taken one what was your like because i hate these little stutter starts the stop starts the you know 10 mile run up the little itty bitty steps like the fancy placement the try and chip the goal just bury it no i don't understand all that fancy shit choose a corner and put your foot through it and that's it because the pace of the ball naturally regardless where as long as it's not in your direct like range as a keeper like it's you're not going to save it so just put the pace on it um but yeah a bit of a difficult a difficult one for Newcastle take made probably a little bit even more difficult um by the fact of the news breaking a few hours after the game that Becky Langley um is leaving the club um a little statement from from Newcastle there she said that she's played a significant role in the club's rise since being appointed in 2019 achieving back-to-back promotions to take the team from the fourth tier to the women's super league two at the helm as Newcastle turned fully professional in 2023, becoming the first third tier side to do so and led the team during its first ever matches at St James' Park.

11:26But yeah, obviously, super, super happy with Becky, but they're parting ways. I mean, Rach, it was a difficult, it's a weird, weird timing of this one because it kind of felt like a bit of a success for Newcastle to do so well against a top WSL side. And at the same time, obviously, they've not been doing too well in the league, currently sitting ninth in the table after six matches. and they've obviously, you know, recruitment-wise, they've done loads of amazing stuff in the summer. But yeah, don't seem to be finding the sort of right sort of relationships and balance. But even then, if you kind of dig into their results, their two losses are against Charlton and Birmingham, who were first and second at the table.

12:02You know, I think their issue was, is that they've had, I think, three draws. Yeah, and that's probably what's killed them a little bit because they're drawing against teams they probably would be expecting to be. I think they drew against Sheffield. maybe against Bristol, if I remember correctly, Crystal Palace as well. So that's kind of what's killed them a little bit, I think, in terms of the table. But we all know in WSL 2, it can be very tight for a long time. You know, you're not entirely down and out, I think it would be fair to say. So while I appreciate they've got ambitions, they've never been shy to kind of say that they're a very ambitious club.

12:41Six games in, you know, to be ninth, I appreciate. you're kind of four points off fourth it's not you know the worst thing in the world so I think it's interesting and maybe maybe we're not getting the full story is all I'd say I just think you know to come off the back as well of the a subway league cup result like that a performance like that yeah the timing felt a bit weird and maybe it's because it's international break and that's kind of the time that clubs make these decisions if things aren't going well in the first block but um yeah I think it was a bit of a surprise all right I think it's always it's like early days as well like you're not even halfway through the season you've got new players like it's that like it's going to take time to let to let them gel and as you as we sort of said the the kind of recruitment they've done over summer I mean some of their signings included Jordan Nobbs Aston Villa obviously Molly Pike Gemma Perfield from Southampton and Una Savinias from Rosengard and you think okay well like let these players it's the same thing as London City Lionesses like you've had all these like players leave you've got a load of players coming in you're still trying to find like how they're all going to work together and like what the the great formula is for that But yeah, it doesn't feel like they've, at least give her till January, give her another recruitment season to kind of like see how, you know, things are doing and whether she needs to plug any gaps and sort of change the strategy a little bit.

13:51But it did feel a little bit, a little bit early. And now obviously it leaves a bit of a gap where they've got these sort of interim managers in to kind of shore the ship until they find someone new. but yeah that's the other thing that I find interesting as well is when you get rid of a manager and you've not got a backup plan it doesn't make it feel like I'm look it's only six games so it can't have been a particularly long thought out process the fact that it's happened where you've not got something in any way prepared if you like makes it interesting because is it then based purely off results if you suddenly decided to just pull the rug um I'm trying to look at what their their last result was 2-2 against Bristol City again Bristol City are up and forth it's not like that but it was you know bad a result to look at it and go oh my god like so yeah I just find that a interesting timing interesting statement um and an interesting decision for sure well pending we'll wait and see how it impacts Newcastle and who they bring in it feels like there's a few managers who could sort of step into that space still haven't figured out where um laura kaminsky is going to be um so maybe that could be something on the horizon i'm just i'm just saying i love kaminsky and this is not me saying it from any point of view of actual facts or knowledge but yeah it could be could be an interesting one um in the same group another second tier side pushed a wsl team all the way notton and forrest facing everton forrest over six of the wsl two held everton to a one-one draw before losing four three on pens um the last Last time these two sides played each other in the fifth round of the Women's FA Cup at the start of last year, Forrest lost 7-1.

15:30So slightly different situation. Absolute credit to Non and Forrest. And I love the fact that some of these teams are putting the WSL clubs to absolute task. These are not fixtures that you go into with any complacency anymore at all. Yeah, and Everton don't really have the, not that they don't have depth, they do, but they are dealing with injuries. So it's not like they put out like a younger squad or, you know, anything like that. Like they went out absolutely to win that game. Coming up after this is that time of year again. We discuss the format of the Subway League Cup and share some of your thoughts.

16:18All right, we're going to move away from the games a little bit. We wanted to talk a little bit more broadly about the League Cup itself and the format. It was only back in March that the Guardian reported that the future of the competition was in doubt, given all the new plans for English football and all the things that WSL football wanted to do and their transition over from the FA. Many have kind of questioned the format of the competition in the last few years, like the group stage format introduced in 2016. Those additional points that you get from winning and the penalties and the regional divisions often criticised as being quite overly complicated.

16:50and yet nothing has changed for this season's competition i as a player kind of have a little bit of kind of i don't know i feel quite friendly towards it i think in terms of like the priorities for a club when we were at spurs like the priority was always winning the league for us like we were nowhere near even sort of champions league so that wasn't even kind of on our radar at that point but the league was always the bread and butter for us the fa cup and then the subway league cup was was always was always kind of like last on the list and that was when you'd have players in the in the club who would be able to kind of get their minutes you'd have like the younger players being able to kind of get a bit of a run out or your second goalkeepers i.e me would be able to actually play the games they're always like sometimes they were kind of like these night fixtures that were a little bit fun like you had like the night games and like generally speaking like people got around them a little bit and it was a good chance to kind of play teams that you otherwise wouldn't play i mean it's obviously the only competition that you kind of have you know a structure in terms of the wsl players um playing the wsl2 players and the wsl2 players being able to kind of see where they are against some of like the best in the world and the best in UK football.

17:52So there was like a, there was a positivity around the Subway League Cup, but in terms of how seriously clubs took it, not so much. And I don't think it's really had the best running because Continental Ties didn't really put any investment behind it and kind of take the cup forward so that you didn't find that there was loads of marketing around it or loads of kind of, you know, calls to action to come to the games and loads of activations at the games to kind of, you know, say like, look at this amazing format that we have. is totally different. It's got all these benefits of seeing these young players and seeing emerging talent and seeing the top two tiers of women's football go against each other.

18:24There was no clear messaging. So it just kind of felt like a bit of a meh cup. But I think the potential is there for it to become a lot better. But Rach, what do you think? How do you feel about the Subway League Cup? Do you feel excited when those games come around every year? Well, what annoys me about the Subway League Cup, I think it absolutely serves a purpose, right? and I actually don't think the format is that complicated. I think we're almost not encouraged to dislike it, but we're not encouraged to like it. I think what annoys me about these discussions about how can we improve it, should we change it, should we scrap it, is that we've not actually given it any sort of chance to see how it can do.

19:06We don't invest in it. We don't promote it. Media barely covers it. Clubs barely talk about it. You know, some clubs, and fair enough, use it for young players to get opportunities, which is one of the things that it can provide. So it's not really fair then to decide, is it an effective competition when we're doing very little to actually promote it and push it? So that's my first point, I think. Secondly, it does serve a purpose. We talk a lot about overloading in women's football. There's also underloading in women's football. There's clubs that don't play enough football. They might end up having two week gaps, which is a really difficult way of getting any kind of momentum.

19:44players are equally at risk of injury if they're not playing enough and they're not getting the right kind of explosive gameplay action that they need so you've got clubs then who might not go far in your FA Cups or you know aren't in the Champions League not getting enough games so it serves a purpose there as well for clubs to get more football for players to get more football who might need it it allows teams as you say to give younger players a chance if that's what they feel that this competition is for. There's an opportunity to do that. There's an opportunity, like I look at your likes of West Ham and Everton's and, you know, Liverpool, teams that have maybe struggled a little bit to click or to be consistent across 90 minutes have an opportunity to go and try and get another 90 minutes under the belt before maybe a big WSL game and try and get things to click.

20:31You know, I watched West Ham beat Brighton, a WSL team who are doing a lot better than they are in the league, in the League Cup. I hoped that would be a platform for them to bounce off. Not quite yet. But, you know, it serves that purpose too as well. I just think that there's such little effort to make it accessible. You know, there was one game this week that you could watch on YouTube. That's crazy. It's barely promoted to actually know when it's on. So I do think there needs to be a collective effort from those involved to actually try and push it before we decide it doesn't work or before we decide nobody cares.

21:05because of course, if you're not, you know, it just reminds me a bit of a club going, well, we've put our women's game in the big stadium and nobody comes. And it's like, well, yeah, you haven't marketed it. You actually have to market. You have to tell people it's there, when it's there, how to come, what's available. You know, if you don't do that, no one's going to invest in it. So yeah, I always get a little bit irritated about these competitions because I don't think we're actually giving it a fair chance to succeed. And I think the lack of coverage as well from media contributes to that.

21:34but at the same time sometimes games are on the same time as Champions League who are a stretched media cohort that probably have one person in their outlet covering women's football where are they going to go? They're already trying to choose more often than not between two English teams in the Champions League or three English teams in the Champions League you think they're going to go actually will go and do the Subway League Cup which apparently nobody cares about. No 100 % I totally agree and I think one of the things I have loved about the new Subway partnership so in December the WPL announced the multi-year deal with Subway to become the title sponsor of the competition um and then the sponsorship agreements for for two years so i think it's going to be super interesting to kind of see how subway activate around it i would say that already i mean and this is not just obviously because we've we've worked with them but we did a a real lovely watch party around the subway league cup final which is really well attended um that was that was a sellout they had they have um activations at the games where they're doing kind of super subs and kind of fan engagements like and it already obviously they got stuck into some of the games from last year in December, they were doing some subway.

22:34None of that. So I've heard a season that I've seen. And I think sort of handing out tokens and things like that. And I think obviously they came into the competition last year super late. You're already halfway through the competition, the final being in March. So they didn't have long to kind of put together something. But I think it's going to be really interesting to see sort of how they then activate it because it does take a long time to kind of get your head into, you know, what the strategy is. But also you've got this uncertainty around whether the WPL are actually going to keep this tournament as it is or change things up.

23:01I mean, we've just seen last year we had a new tournament added with the World 7s. We've got the World 7s happening in December. So there is a certain amount of fixture congestion happening and it'll be interesting to see sort of where the Subway League Cup fits within that because they are additional fixtures essentially. They are, but I don't think the World 7s is going to affect it. You're hardly even going to have an English team every time. There just might be an English team sometimes. I think, I mean, so far and I've not been to loads of Subway League Cup, to be fair, there haven't been loads, but I haven't really seen any activation so far but I also think the bar is set so low for investment and you know for sponsors to come in there's no kind of like excitement developed or anything like that and yeah I saw it at the final and we had some sandwiches in the media room but like the group games should be considered exciting and important too and that needs to be a collective thing from the clubs from the league you know barely getting tweets like you know any kind of coverage of when it's on and where to watch it or if you can even watch it so yeah I'd like to see a little bit more from Subway rather than just waiting until the big teams come in and the quarterfinals happen because at the end of the day it is a trophy and you know there's not that many trophies to fight for in football you know the first one of the season first ones get a bit of silverware in March yeah I mean is it to be sniffed at do you want to go I'd rather not win the Subway League Cup than win it like do you know Millie Bright proudly wears that Arnold Clarke Cup medal I'm sure the golden boot man you know what i mean like i just think i just think it's interesting how people who don't win it say they don't care but or like slag off the team that does win it and it's like the end of the day it's a trophy there's three of them three domestic trophies to win do you not want one like 100 the same teams winning it all the time do you know what i mean i just i think it's an interesting one that yeah it annoys me the conversation around it and look i'm the same i'd like to be able to cover it more but nobody engages with it so like now we're kind of in that balance of like well if no one's even engaging in the the coverage that we do provide why do we go out and pay for petrol or whatever our transport and go and cover a game so i do think it's a collective effort i think if it's to to stick around and i do think it's where the the wpll just randomly kind of go no maybe we'll get rid of it maybe we won't you know i think that was a bit rogue sort of signing on subway and his multi-year deal and then saying actually we might just get rid apparently that conversations were had the subway that that was the intention so obviously there is some element of risk there but in terms of the conversation around this club we wanted to open it up to our listeners so we asked how would you change the league cup and got a lot of responses you guys feel very very strongly about this format and i can't wait to get stuck into some of these um there were kind of two patterns that stood out in particular we had beth lucy and many more of you saying make it so that we can actually watch the games which is 100 what you said in terms of actually being able to access the games it was sparse absolutely sparse um obviously if you can't see the games you can't actually get that excitement around them and then things like the hasagawa sort of youtube situation where you're not even showing some of the main goals it kind of it doesn't lend itself to kind of being a high quality premium product it shows you don't care so why should i care it's that kind of vibe and like even like the camera work and stuff it kind of felt a bit of a throwback to the fa player you're kind of watching the game you can't really see even so like how some of the goals have even like been built up you can't see the angle of the goals like that first goal from from Lois Joel I was thinking I mean because I obviously wasn't there kind of watching the game back again and you can't even see like how Chiara Keating didn't see it or like the angle of it and like where actually it just yeah it wasn't it's not premium enough.

26:33Do you know what I'll take I'll take one camera I'll take one camera I take it because currently there's zero so you know if it is one of those shaky things where you feel like you're when you have to go down there's a corner you're like god we're gonna like or you're gonna feel like you're a bit on a ship or whatever at this stage i'd take it wipe the lens like i take it because there's nothing else um like like i said the bar is low here just show the games well 100 totally agree and then the other camp of you um and we had a wsl se i'd love to know what that stands for please let us know in that acronym um and a few other listeners saying stop the teams in the champions league spots automatically going to the quarterfinals.

27:11Rage, what are your thoughts on that? It does feel like a bit of an easy win, like having your best teams essentially just leapfrog everything else. And I don't know you have an element of that in the FA Cup, but it does make more sense in the FA Cup. I'm not entirely sure I kind of see the relevance of Man City going and thrashing, I don't know, a tier seven side 20-0 or whatever it is. That's no disrespect, that's obviously no disrespect at all to the lower league clubs. But I think that makes a little bit more sense because there are more teams in the game and it makes sense to come in at a more competitive level.

27:43But when you've only got a very small cohort of clubs involved in this thing anyway, I think, you know, everything should be fair game to me personally. So I agree with you, WSL, I see. I can see both sides of it and I can see why it kind of calls the integrity of the competition into question a little bit because it's such a small competition and there aren't that many fixtures. So I can totally understand the irritation. then the other side of me thinks but it happens in the FA Cup and that's absolutely fine and nobody baths an eyelid so the concept exists in a cup competition but yeah I think because there's so few kind of fixtures and it is just WSL 1 and 2 I can totally see why that's like an irritant so it could be a case of either having them in from the beginning and that's where we see the overloading issue with a team that's in the Champions League trying to play a fixture on the same day as a Subway League Cup fixture, how's that going to work?

28:35Like they're always midweek on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. You can't have, you know, Chelsea playing on Wednesday and then having to field a team in the Subway League Cup on a Thursday. So that's scheduling issues. You know, you could just not have them in the competition at all. But then, you know, how's a club going to win a domestic treble if they can't actually access one of the competitions? So it is a, yeah, definitely an interesting one. Well, a lot of you suggested even more radical changes, indicating perhaps that many viewers wanted to be totally overhauled and turn into a brand new thing altogether.

29:05So we had Mitter Toothpaste on Instagram and I'd love to know where that name come from. Yeah. He said, or she said, put the National League teams in and make it a knockout tourney, which I think could be quite interesting. Let's just see if they come in. Yeah, and then I think it's an interesting one because I think the National League is obviously becoming more professional and kind of getting into more where the championship now sits. So I think it's a really good time to increase, I suppose, that exposure for tier three, of football we have been focusing very heavily on tier one little little on tier two and then tier three doesn't seem to get any kind of anywhere near the kind of good stuff but I think that could be a way to kind of increase exposure on a smaller scale for sure to a degree but then you still have the issue of underloading for teams you get knocked out early that's it so like something Sophie has floated a number of times that she thinks could help address that issue of underloading for teams is that if they don't progress out of the group stages of the subway league cup that there's a plate competition for them to go into okay teams then that don't then get into the quarterfinals go into a plate and you know challenge each other for the subway league plate competition if you like it means that they carry on into january having those additional fixtures rather than what ultimately happens which is they don't they don't get out of the groups they don't have any more fixtures they don't have champions league they don't have you know so that was one suggestion from Soph which she's floated a few times and it continues on the competition then and if there are teams coming in from the National League I don't know how it would work there would be an awful lot of fixtures but it carries it on into January then which would be an option but yeah it's a hard one adding more teams in adds more fixtures doing it knockout style adds less fixtures for a lot of teams you know I guess it's what is the objective of the league cup essentially a very good response to that might be coming from robert m on x twitter who said that we could just drop the wsl1 teams out get rid of those and then make it only for wsl2 teams and below meaning even more matches more money for small clubs and a chance for those teams to win a trophy otherwise is it more money words otherwise it always is all a bit meaningless if a team enters at the quarterfinal stage and wins it after playing only three matches um obviously there is this kind of you know that the fans want to get involved i love the fact that there's been so much kind of like discourse around how this format looks and like whether there is this opportunity to bring more clubs in to kind of you know increase the kind of attention support investment at kind of all levels um but at the same time rage it the the fear that i do have is like how much of an appetizing product is it to be able to then sell to sponsors and then how much are we actually going to see in terms of like the broadcast situation is what i was going to say it's like absolutely this works if there's an infrastructure around it but i don't think the infrastructure at wsl1 and 2 level is even there to kind of benefit new and sort of less tiered clubs coming in but also and like these are great ideas and these are clearly people who are engaged and would go to games we like across social like so much of the conversation is all the media folks on at the top four and then when you do stuff that isn't top four doesn't get engaged with so people are great at saying do more of other teams give the opportunities to teams who aren't getting the coverage bring in more teams and in leagues that aren't getting the coverage, then people don't go to the games.

32:23They don't engage with the piece you've written. I think that's the difficulty with this. I 100 % back it. You get the National League in and then actually, is there going to be that appetite to watch the games that we see if the WSL1 clubs aren't included in that? So I think it is. But then if you don't do it, then they always stay in the same position and nothing changes. So you can look back at women's football 10 years ago and we were having the same conversations about, do we put them in main stadia? Are people going to come if we put it on TV? Will people watch if we do it regularly? And it takes time and it takes investment and it takes hard work.

32:56And if you're willing to do that for the top tier, you have to be putting in that work for tiers further down. The problem is the game is moving at such a rate and the goalposts essentially are moving every time now that the expectation for women's football further down the tier is to be better and to be better covered and to be better engaged with than it is. So people are only really willing, because it's still a young sport and because you're not getting your money back and you're not getting a return on investment yet, people are only really willing to invest in areas where they're more likely to see a return quicker.

33:28And it's frustrating, but it's a stark reminder that actually, yeah, we might be packing out stadiums for the Lionesses on the regular, but that doesn't translate completely into money in your pocket yet. So that's the difficult balance of all the effort and that's been put in to get the game to where it is now is needed for leagues further down. But the commitment from people, it's hard to expect those who are investing without that return yet to go, okay, it's great that you're doing this and you are going to see a return, but can you now do that whole process again and wait for a return? And that's the frustration is that we grow so fast.

34:06We want everyone to grow too. And our expectations are so high, we expect it to happen quickly and it doesn't happen quickly. And that's the frustrating thing. We all want it to grow quicker and more coverage. but actually what does that entail is still a big ask at the moment. And we want it to happen now, but it's not going to happen now. It's going to take time. 100%. And I think another area of focus, and you were saying there, Rach, in terms of the money and the investment and kind of, you know, the appetite for teams to want to join the Subway League Cup. I mean, let's talk a little bit about the prize money, because this is another area of contention for our listeners who kind of chimed in with a few bits and pieces on this too.

34:40So the prize money for this season's competition has not been announced. All we know is that the sponsorship deal with Subway is worth one mil. in 2021 the athletic reported on prize money in what was then called the conti cup um the line was that there isn't even any prize money for progressing through the various rounds of the competition just a nominal amount split between the two finalists um which kind of like sort of what's the cost of yeah i think it's that and for the national league clubs to be involved in the competition and the championship clubs to some extent to some of those that have smaller budgets and aren't affiliated with sort of big premier league sides like your charlton's and your well your birmingham to some extent like that kind of gravy like you think about the cost that it will take to actually be a part of the competition the travel that it takes the kind of the accommodation the food and everything else that goes with it and then you think about the fact that even if you do progress into um the quarterfinals like you're not even being compensated for that so actually you enter the competition and probably come out of competition at a loss um so in terms of the financial benefit for clubs i think until that the prize money pot changes and it becomes more of an FA Cup style model where you do get at least some money to reimburse you for the costs outlaid I don't I don't think it makes sense for for the for the National League at the moment to be honest yeah I think I don't think a club should be out of pocket taking part I mean look I know you pay for in the league and stuff but yeah I just think it's pretty poor if you've got this sponsorship I think the minimum is that clubs should be able to recoup their costs of going and attending and taking part in the games 100 and then the last comment of all rage and this alludes to what you were saying earlier we had jaz cunnington on youtube made perhaps the most important point saying legally change it to the conti cup so i can stop correcting myself whenever i talk about it which is very valid yeah turns out incredibly valid they did a pretty good job of marketing even though we didn't see any of it because it is ingrained in our brains as the conti cup and it will always be the conti cup i think they never activated it but i think just having the name there for four or five years was enough to kind of embed it and and maybe that's maybe that's what the subway league cup does subway subway could do something really funny and they could bring out like a new subway dedicated to the wsl and call it the conti sub coming up after this we have the amazing italian journalist nikki bandini to discuss all things let at zuri

37:00for this final section of today's pod we're turning to international matters and we are joined by a very special guest nikki bandini is a brilliant journalist and a regular host of our fellow stack show on the continent she knows everything there is to know about italian football so we're going to be picking her brains on this today we're discussing just how much of an impact the summer has had on the women's game in Italy and how the national team is shaping up heading into this international break. Nikki, thank you so, so much for joining us. Really happy to have you on the pod. Gosh, I'm feeling the pressure now after you said I know everything there is to know, but very, very happy to be on.

37:37Thanks for having me on. We are going to put that to the test. You're the expert in the field, well over me and Rach. Yeah, we want to know everything. We want to pick your brains on everything Italian football and we will, to be honest. We are going to probe, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the Euros because obviously we've just come off the back of an amazing summer and an amazing summer for Italy. I feel like it really kind of established them and put them back on the map as being one of the greats in the game. It was such a it was a harrowing game to kind of watch, losing obviously 2-1 to England in the semifinals.

38:08But that was the furthest they've gone in the Euros since 1997, where they reached the final in what was then just an eight team knockout. first of all how much did that run and this team kind of capture the puppet's imagination over in Italy because over in the UK we feared the Italian squad like no other I think there was maybe a bit of complacency of kind of seeing Italy and England match up and thinking okay on balance this should be an England game absolutely fine but Italy's run of the tournament had been so incredible that you really did not know which way this game was going to go at all but yeah what was the reaction like over over in Italy it was it was definitely one of those things the way it's hard to gauge exactly when we talk about capturing the public mood like exactly where things have landed for certain it's the most interest that I've seen in in women's football in initially for for a long time and you look at the the hard numbers I think it was just over four million people watched that semi-final on Rauna which is about a bit more than quarter of the market share which is good.

39:09I mean, you put it in perspective sometimes when you see other things. And for instance, the men's team, when they played their World Cup qualifier against Israel this month was 7.6 million. So still a gap there that feels bigger than you wanted to be, I suppose. And I think I was frustrated at times with the way I saw it being covered in the Italian press. I mean, leaps and bounds forward from the World Cup, by the way. I think infamously we remember the World Cup in Australia, there were press conferences for the Italy camp where there was literally no Italian journalists at them. And that was pretty grim.

39:41And obviously there's things that go into that that include travel and distance and things like that. But still, the absolute lack of coverage was really something in that tournament. And I think, for instance, when Italy won the quarterfinal at these Euros, I was, of course, picking up all the papers the next morning in Gazzetta della Sport, what the biggest national daily sporting paper, it was on the front page, but it wasn't the lead story, you know, it was a banner at the top of the page and the front page was still mostly given over, I think, to yet another Adam Ola-Lukman transfer story.

40:18So there are times where I still like wanted to get in there and give people a shake, but it was definitely causing or getting more attention than women's football has traditionally got a lot of the time in Italy. And I think that was a meaningful impact. And you kind of go from there to the more anecdotal. I was in Italy for the semifinal. I was in Bologna and I remember going into a bar to watch that game and asking them, can we have this game on in an hour's time? And honestly, the bar staff didn't know it was happening, even though it was a bar that chose for sports. And that was a bit of an eye-opener.

40:57At the same time, by the time the game was done, We had, I don't know, 60, 70 people in the bar watching the game. So it's hard sometimes. I do think, for better or worse, sports, and it feels wrong to divide this way between women's football and men's football. I shouldn't be talking about those two things as two different sports because it's the same bloody sport, but just in terms of the way it's covered, it's treated almost like it is a different sport in Italy. And I think it's a bit that, what I would call, for a British audience, it's almost like the Wimbledon effect. there's a lot of interest when there is the big thing that's happening and it was the same um recently that the women's volleyball teams had a lot of success as well and when that's been happening it gets a big buzz and a lot of attention but then people as soon as it's over can forget about it again quite quickly and I think that's a bit where it felt like things were this summer it was it was great it was exciting and people were talking about it um really in one of those odd, not lovely life moments.

41:57Actually, the reason that I was in Italy for that semi-final was because I was there to see for a funeral, my aunt's funeral. So I saw a lot of my family around that time. And I would say all of them knew about the women's team, all of them wanted to talk to me about the women's team, all of them wanted to hear about stuff. And then when I asked them who was watching, I would say there was a pretty solid divide between the older family members who were honest about it and said they weren't watching and the younger family members said they were watching. Maybe that's like the encouraging part is generationally, it felt like perhaps more interest among younger members of the family than older ones.

42:33I wondered as well, because there was a real romanticism around Italy's journey in the tournament. And I wondered if the manner in which they went out would have maybe a bit of a bigger impact because it reminded me a bit of, I don't know if you remember this, when Laura Bassett scored that own goal in the 2015 World Cup. And there was such heartbreak because you kind of felt like this was their moment to get into a final. And they lost it in such a kind of almost cruel manner. And there was that kind of feeling around the Italy team. They were so close to this final. There was, you know, I was at their quarterfinal where they beat Norway and just the emotion and the passion from the fans and the stands, from the players on the pitch, from Giorelli getting those goals.

43:15And it just felt like one of those romantic football stories. And I wondered if the manner of their exit would kind of hit home a little bit further than if they just lost like 3-0 in the semifinal. I think that's definitely true. And I think maybe this comes back a bit to my feelings about like the Wimbledon comparison in growing up. Because I'm half Italian, but I did grow up in Britain. And I think, you know, that so much of these stories, the way they resonate with people comes down to individual characters, individual personalities. And of course, in England, it was always Tim Hemmings, wasn't it?

43:50Tim Hemmings getting close and never quite getting there. And that for such a long time made people, I think, relate to him in a different way. And I think that, if anything, for me in sport, the cult of the individual, the cult of the personality is bigger than it's ever been. And I think that with the way young people follow sport, you're both much younger than me. I'm an ancient when it comes to this stuff. And I look at the way I think younger people relate to sport. A lot of it does come through much more social media channels and how they feel about individuals. And you see that in terms of how clubs recruit even now, thinking about the commercial side of things and what it's going to do for social media impact.

44:31that is absolutely a conversation that happens at board level with recruitment sometimes. And I think that Girelli certainly and Bonanzaia have had that cultural cut through in Italy. I think they already had it to some extent, but they achieved it much more because the way this tournament went and their role in it. And I think those figures now have a cultural resonance, an awareness in the mind of the Italian public that they wouldn't have had without exactly the images you're talking about, the emotions, the goals, the, oh my God, we were so close moments. I think those things absolutely have an impact.

45:11The tricky thing, of course, is I've just named two people who won't be playing for that much longer for the national team. And so you need different people to come through and keep sustaining that. But I do think, yes, emotional investment in people's stories has a big knock-on impact for how much people care in the end. 100%. And I think we find that in sort of UK football as well, where we kind of place so much emphasis around some of the big heroes, you know, the icons, your Rachel Daly's at one point, you know, your Chloe Kelly's now, Michelle Agyman's kind of become a hero in her own right after the Euros.

45:43But you mentioned there sort of Giovelli obviously being so crucial to that Italian side. And she did so many, there were so many magical moments that came from her and so much passion. And you can see how much she kind of delighted fans every time she stepped onto the pitch and obviously you mentioned there you know career-wise she's 35 years old she's she's my age she's kind of maybe knocking on the door of retirement at some point in the kind of nearest future although you never know you know you've seen players go on and play for many more moons so I don't want to cap her career in any sense but such an experienced player obviously this was her four heroes that she played in do you kind of see her continuing to be a leader and a kind of figurehead for this side and do you feel like potentially Italian football might be missing out on making more of those individuals and kind of heroing and profiling them to kind of raise awareness around the the team as well yeah I think um I think Jill Ellie has been pretty candid about actually like she said like I I was thinking this might be my last tournament beforehand and and I got to the end of it and and I wasn't sure I wanted it to be anymore and and she said that she's going to listen to her body and her mind was I think her way of putting it and decide where that goes and um you know i was listening just last week to francesco totti talking about um how basically he regretted retiring when he did even though he kind of got forced into it a bit by the end and saying that he thinks he could still have been playing on you i think well he's 49 now and maybe at some point someone does need to to give you that nudge and you don't want to be that person um who who needs to be forced out and i think girelli certainly is is not at that point Clearly, she was so impactful this summer.

47:17And I think she, in the way she's spoken, has shown a lot more self-awareness perhaps than Totti sometimes does. I mean, she said quite specifically in one interview recently, you know, I want to keep on playing, but I also am conscious that I don't want to be the person who's getting in the way of younger players, having their chance and having their opportunities. I think she's really got that opportunity to be, again, a cultural cut-through figure. I hope she'll still be playing at the World Cup in a couple of years. I hope it'll be at the World Cup in a couple of years. I think that you want to believe there will be enough competition that it will be hard for her to start in two years' time.

47:58And that's the problem, I suppose, for Italy going forward as well. This squad showed so much good stuff this summer. In the end, they did still rely a lot on Gibelli and Borussia for those goals, didn't they? And I think that's a question which the national team has to solve going forward. Well, it was only after Italy made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup in 2019 that the Italian Football Federation made commitments to turn the top division professional by the 2022-23 season. I think it's pretty normal for in women's football journeys for various nations that, you know, the national team is the strongest force to bring more cultural focus onto women's football.

48:41Have we, I guess, seen that more in Italy since that commitment? Are we still over-relying on the national team? Again, which I think is quite normal. It was the same in England. It was very much, you know, the national team focus first and that started to filter down. And I just wonder, do you feel like this journey, we might see a little bit of that filtering into the domestic season this time around? Yes, it's really tough, I think, still to know exactly where that's going to land. I think there's a lot of mixed signs. The first hugely disappointing sign was there was this, I think, horribly botched in terms of management and how they threw it together and how they advertised it.

49:24Serie A Women's Cup that they ran effectively right before the league season started, which is kind of a league cup style tournament they tried to run in a short time frame. It was a new tournament. They tried to make it buzzy and exciting off the back of the Euros. And then they fell completely flat on the TV rights. They had a TV rights bidding window where basically they didn't get any serious bids. And they had to do some last minute scrambling to get the games aired at all on a couple of different platforms. And then you saw those games being played. mostly in not very full stadiums like the final got 2 ,000 fans or so and right after the Euros when you've had such excitement around it it's really disappointing to come from that now I think it would be hugely oversimplifying to say well that's the whole picture I think that that tournament was put together too quickly with not enough thought about the logistics of it with not enough thought about how they were going to make sure it did carry that good stuff forward and I I think that unfortunately speaks to the state of Italian football federations, not just Italian football federation, frankly.

50:26I mean, I think you could talk at a club level as well. Just the way that Italian football has been run in myriad different ways across the men's and women's games. There's very often this approach of jerking knees into quick fire decisions that aren't well thought through and coordinated and done in a way that's going to lead to the best result, in my opinion. so I think that was a bit of a come down to go from the Euros into that I think that in terms of the overall health of the women's game I think it's very much one of those you need to step back and see the big picture things because yes the season's now up and running the league season attendances I think you could certainly look at them and think they feel pretty underwhelming We're talking less than a thousand people at most games.

51:19And that's not where you want to be after the Euros, where everything felt so big and buzzy. There was a survey done in June or July, but too early to really see the impact of the post-Euro, certainly, which was showing that you had 45 ,000 or so registered women's players in Italy, which is an increase of 7 % from last year. if you go back um much further to when they started tracking these numbers 2008 it's gone up from 18 000 so the growth is there it's it's absolutely happening um it's just happening not at the rate of of for instance other countries you could um contrast with england and it's more like 200 000 it's it's four or five times as big same in in germany um places like france spain a a little bit behind but still ahead of where Italy's at so it's it feels like we're still in this phase of baby steps baby steps going forward um and you you can't um you can't take all the negatives because like I've just said a lot of negatives that isn't where we wanted to be you have to look at the big picture and say well it's it's moving in the right direction do I think they could have done more in terms of a bit better coordination of of trying to capitalize on the moment they had this summer yes i i do um and uh and that's why i keep saying it's a mixed picture it's a mixed picture it's it's not been immediately snap your fingers transformative but i think when you look at when you dig into the numbers and you look at things especially again kind of calling back to what i said before about maybe the attitudes even in my own family generationally um you can you can look at the the um the increase of of 10 to 15 year olds playing girls playing in the same period I think it's gone up from 6 ,000 to nearly 20 ,000 so those are numbers that I think speak well to how things are a trending it's just it's it's a slow a slow march rather than a sprint.

53:14Well I think that was going to be my next question to be honest in terms of the impact of the Italian women's national team being in the Euros and how well they progress or and the impact that that then had on on domestic football because we normally find that even in the UK we're sort of seeing you know the Lionesses do super super well and that leads to a direct impact and a positive sort of uplift of you know attention sort of awareness around uh domestic club club football but I mean Serie A obviously only resumed at the start of this month and you know Juventus obviously claimed the title last season having been dominant um sort of a very dominant force in in the league for so many years um do you see the sort of major clubs kind of stepping in and trying to increase investment to make the league more competitive or do you think it just still feels like it's just Juve and Roma sort of putting in that and sort of having that kind of big intention in the league every year?

54:00I think there's a broader base that's growing of clubs that are putting that attention into it. I think, again, I want to talk about some positive signs. I think the decision to expand the league back to 12 teams this summer is a signal that there's clubs that are willing to put the investment in to make that worthwhile. I think you hear how especially some of the foreign owners who've bought into men's football have also been wanting to put their attention into women's football as well and I think that's been impactful. For instance, Parma with Kyle Kraus, as soon as he came in, he talked about wanting to invest in the women's team and he's done that.

54:39They're coming back up to the Serie A this season. Colmo as well, when you listen to the people who are running that club talk about how they view the club, they absolutely talk about the men's and the women's team consistently and you see it in the way that the clubs are improving on the pitch so I think there has been a broader base of investment into clubs and I think that is slowly increasing the depth of the league increasing the competitiveness of the league and you could look at even again that the women's cup the fact that Lazio beat Juventus in that cup maybe gives a little signal that there There are other teams that are going to push a bit harder this season.

55:18So there are signs of gradual investment. I think the offset for Italian football a bit is that you're seeing some of the very best players. Bear in mind, we're a few years on now from professionalism in Italy and that change has obviously been good. But you are seeing some of the best players increasingly looking to want to take their chances somewhere else where they can get to play in front of. bigger crowds in more prestigious settings and have that experience as well. So obviously Sofia Cantore was already in America and now Lisa Boatian's there as well. Caruso's gone to Bayern Munich. Linares at the London City Lionesses.

55:59You've seen quite a lot of Italians, of Italy's best players, looking to make those moves elsewhere. And I think that's probably for the good of the game overall anyway. way and I think that that's not stopping there from being competitive football played in Italy as well but I think that there is definitely a broader base of investment whether it's the level of investment whether it's the right nature of investment and those are all things that we can we can question and I think that for me one of the things that still bothers me a bit is seeing how many of the teams are playing far away from what feel like their homes.

56:41I mean, Juventus playing Biela, which is an hour and a half drive. Yeah, from the centre of Turin. It's like two hours by public transport. And it's a tiny town. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And then you see that they do play, for instance, Champions League game against Benfica at the Allianz Stadium and they get not a huge, huge crowd, but they get 5 ,000 fans or so. It makes a difference, I think. where these games get played and that stuff is a frustration for me, certainly. Well, I mean, I feel like you're talking about a lot of things we've gone through over in England and it does improve.

57:17So that's the one thing is that it does get better. So here's hoping. Looking back to the national team, they play on Friday, first game since that semifinal. Feels like a really long time. Playing Japan and then Brazil in this window and then you've got back-to-back games against the US in the next window. What's the mood like around the team going into these fixtures? Is there excitement about the fact you're playing the US twice? Does that still hold that kind of excitement factor? Yeah, I think there's actually huge excitement around these games coming up, certainly within the camp. Again, there's a separation between how I feel about it, how the players feel about it, and is all of Italy paying attention?

57:56I'm not convinced that right now all of Italy is paying attention. And hopefully when the games actually arrive with the coverage of them, that will help build that up a little bit. But listening to Sanchin, the manager, talking about it and just you could hear how proud he is, honestly, that these friendlies are happening at all. Because the fact is that these teams didn't necessarily want to have friendlies against Italy until quite recently. These teams are looking for competitive friendlies against the most competitive teams in the world. and as he said, getting to the semi-final, playing like we did against England, that makes USA, that makes Brazil think, okay, this is a worthwhile friendly for us.

58:36This is something that's going to give us a good challenge and help us to continue in our World Cup preparations the same as it's helping Italy. So I think from the perspective of the players and the squad and the coach, there's a lot of excitement coming into these. We'll see what it does in terms of making a ripple in the media coverage. but um i think there's there's a feeling that that we earned this amongst um amongst the actual people involved in it and uh yeah it's obviously i think these ones right at the start of a season are always a bit awkward i think that goes um men's and women's games the first international friendlies when you're just getting started your club sides are a bit tricky there are some players going to miss them um through through injury as well but um yeah i think these are going to be fun games to look forward to well looking a little bit further ahead obviously you've got the qualifying cycle for the 2027 world cup um and then this next few years i mean it's madness that we've just finished the euros and we're sort of already talking about the next major international competition it kind of feels like give everyone a break give everyone a minute to breathe um but do you feel like it feels like the sort of beginning of a chapter for the italian team and or the sort of end of a cycle which might need sort of rebuilding soon what's your take on that yeah these are these are questions that i've thought about quite a lot i think i thought about it even even as i was watching the aftermath that semi-final you thought um the problem is again i think i already said it earlier the two players who ultimately were the ones putting the ball in the net which i think in international football is just even more of a thing right i think that because you have less time to to work together because you have less time to to build those automatisms that are so important in in domestic football um just having players who are going to do that for you really matters and that's why when you look at the age again of Gidele and what I'm saying I'll repeat myself but you think that that does make it hard for this project to go forward as it is you do need um other players to to step up and have that moment now I think there's there's some really encouraging signs actually and maybe this goes back to what I saying before about the increasing youth take up in Italy there's some encouraging signs for Italy in in the bigger picture because Italy also got to the semi-finals of the under 17 and under 19 euros this summer Giulia Galli and Ewa Schatz are both shortlisted on the the shortlist of best young players in in Europe so you have got you have got some really encouraging signs in there and you've also got some players who I think really have taken that step forward and become leaders on the team like Cantore this summer who you think well yeah she's going to be at the heart of the next thing um whether it's an evolution or it needs another um another rebuild I think that's a bit harder to say with two years still to go until the tournament itself and I do think even um this summer when I was watching it because of that thing I just said about automatisms part of what I was thinking was, well, you know, Cantore, Bonan Sergi, Lelli, these players had played together a bit at club level before, and so they knew each other.

1:01:47They know each other where they're going to be, and they know that stuff. So is it this next group that's going to have to carry forward? Is it going to need to be based maybe a bit more about this Roma side that is currently top of the league and showing the way more than the Juventus team that perhaps is having its own little generational shift at the moment with some of those players moving on and some of them um reaching these later points their career i i don't know is the answer for two years time two years time still feels like a long way off um but hopefully son chin can can find the the right balance and i do think the other thing i always say about international football we talk forever about the tactics about the players i think international football comes down a lot to the vibes i really do and i that's that's my opinion as someone who's covered a lot of football which is my opinion is like it and being lazy about it because you have to want to be there you have to want to be part of that project you have to enjoy spending time with each other and I think that so far Sunshine has managed that really well um new tournament new thing to build up too but I have a certain amount of faith in him to do that watch this space essentially not too sure it's going to be the OGs still sort of paving the path whether this new wave is coming in but yeah still got a couple of years left left to go to kind of see what happens but um but thank you so much nikki for joining us and giving us all your expertise thanks so much having me on it was nice to have the excuse to talk about it i don't get that many chances to talk about it so thank you it was fun thank you so much for listening to up front you can find us on instagram and x i'm at morgue underscore 89 rach is at girls on the ball and we are at up front underscore pod you can also find us on youtube at up front pod and if you want to hear more from nikki then search on the continent wherever you get your podcasts and hit subscribe.

1:03:32See you next week.

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