Anatomy of a Fracture: The 114 Charges Verdict, Wembley's Tactical Mirrors, and European Football's Structural Crisis

Live from downtown London, it's the totally football show. At Wembley, England 2, Spain 3, after a poor start, when Mark Gage gets charged by Yamal Normal for a man-city player, of course, England responding style, take the lead, but without Dan Berne to throw on, taste the feat. We look back at that, and the other key international stories, is that Dan with France is a damned with Italy, beaten and booed off in Manchini's first game back. Plus, panic on the streets of London, and Manchester so much to answer for, we asked, did the Smiths predict Friday's guilty verdict for Manchester City? It's the totally football show. It's Saturday the 26th of September. We have Duncan Alexander here in the studio. Hello James. Hi Duncan, thanks for being with us on a Saturday night. No, we're supposed to be. You've been anywhere in the world. No, technically, but yeah, this is good. Would you right here with us, as is sort of a bit, Daniel's story at his place, and Julian LaRose, Shay Lui. Hello boys, hello everyone. Good evening. Good evening to you. Lovely to see you both. Daniel, you were Oxford City morcom in the National League south earlier today. The National League north, surprising, I agree, the Oxford City were in the National League north, but that is where they are. Yeah, that would make sense. All right, do you have a good day out? I had a lovely time, speaking to more confants, who four years ago were playing at Switch Town in the League games, and now, yes, we're at Oxford City today, so it has not gone well in the last four years. It's a premier football club. Four years ago, they were playing at now. They're preparing to face Manchester City extraordinary scenes. Jules, thank you for being with us. You've been busy as ever, but you had your eye on both games from England's group, but principally, the one at Wembley, did you enjoy it? Yeah, I thought it was great. Yeah, I also watched Scotland before, which I should not have. Let's be honest, yeah, because that's 90 minutes of my life that I would never get back, but I thought this England Spain game was excited before the game, and I think that the two teams delivered, and there's a lot of things for us to dwell into. All right. Number one team in the world against the number three team in the world, based on the summer's ranking. So of course, it was good. We're going to be talking about the England Spain clash at Wembley. Of course, we're going to be talking about Friday's big news. Regarding Manchester City, Nick Hambling says, players, and you know, let's go with, yes, N3WTRT says, it seems like the charges against Man City are already affecting the players involved, considering Gay and O'Reilly's issues. I bet you could even argue, Roderay as well, conceding the penalty, which Kane missed. Do you think, is it too much to feel a couple of Man City players make a mistake? Their club is suddenly in confusion and doubt over their future, Daniel, what do you think? I think we are putting two and two together and reaching 140, probably. No, I don't think so. They did both make mistakes, both those England players. I think that's probably a product of the system and the style in Spain being good, more than the results of Friday, I suspect. You can understand how it would be on their mind, though. Having said that, another Man City player had an outstanding performance on Friday evening, Jules, for Italy against Belgium, even though his side lost 2-0. Gigi Donnarumma was outstanding. Yeah, and Ryan Cherky, I thought it was very good for France as well, in a slightly different position for Zidane's first game away in Turkey. So clearly, very, very different performances from different city players. Yeah, all right then. Let's get a quick check on the results before we get into tonight's action at Wembley. It was a 3-2 win for Spain there in North London against England earlier in the day, as witnessed by Jules Scotland had started life under Sebastian Pockenjoli with a goalist draw away in Slovenia. On Friday, Kylian and Bappi scored the Oedigol as France beat Turkey, Kylian then going off with an injury, which has already ended his international break. Concerned for his wellness, of course, from a France and Real Madrid perspective. In that same group, Belgium took on Italy in Rome and beat them 2-0. So winning start for Marc Van Bommel as the Belgium manager. On Thursday night, he had new managers for Netherlands and Germany, Chavin Anders and Jürgen Klopp, that game finished 1-1. Cody Gackpot with a fantastic equaliser against his old club manager, of course. In group A4, Portugal won their winners over Wales. And it's probably the game of the round, at least until this Saturday, Norway beat Denmark 3-2 in Oslo with Erling Hall and scoring twice. He's now on 64 goals in 56 caps, remarkable stuff. All right then, the game we're going to start with, though, is the one at Wembley, England's 3-2 defeat at home to Spain. This is the totally football show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Daniel, a defeat but not an inglorious one for Thomas Tuchel's three lions. I think that's fair. We, everybody, was hoping for something different from Argentina. I think it's true to say that these were two performances at different ends of a spectrum. And maybe there is a middle ground that England would like to find before the next major tournament, but this is a good time to try and find it and to kind of stick a pin in the map in various places and see what happens. It was great fun. England could both have been 3-0 down and 3-1 up in various points. They were brilliant on the break. They scored the best goal of the game, but there are serious questions over the back four. It sounds really negative because it was a fantastic game, but those defensive concerns are what make their mind mean takeaway from the match. As you say, though, England could quite comfortably have been 3-1 up, but if Cain had converted that penalty, there were other chances for England as well. Spain, equally, in the opening 40 minutes or so had innumerable chances to put the game perhaps beyond their host, but they can see the more goals in the space of about five minutes in this game that they did in the entire World Cup, George. Yeah. And to be fair, I think, again, like you said, Jimbo, even apart from the penalty, England could have scored at least another one. I mean, I thought the Cain goal, the Cucurilla one goal for me, was a little bit lucky and sometimes you need to write your luck against a Spanish defense like that that didn't look as solid as the one that we saw in the World Cup. And that's probably because England, I think, went for them. And when you go for them, which France didn't do in a semi-final, for example, suddenly, Argentina didn't do at all in the final, I think you can battle them. The problem, I think, with the England team, Ryan Eyes, they are not capable of playing like this for big parts of the game against the team of the quality of Spain, because they left expose defensively, and Daniel is right defensively. There's a lot of worries, not just the back four, slash five with the goalkeeper, but also I didn't think the Anderson O'Reilly double-pivo, one, I didn't think that was the right choice from the beginning. I thought it was very naive from two-hole to put O'Reilly there in a game like this. And then the other thing, really for me, sorry, Luis Kelly, and O'Reilly, I left back and Luis Kelly, and I'm understanding that double-piva, I thought that was a big naive. I didn't think Luis Kelly was ready for a game like this. And then you leave space in midfield everywhere, which Ferran Torres really on a better night would have benefited from and scored two goals. So the Luis Kelly Anderson double-pivo in front of already a shaky defense, I'm just not sure that was the right call from two-hole tonight. All right, Duncan, we left you at the World Cup, shaking with cold fury over Thomas Tuchel's decisions. How did he feel about his performance tonight? I think it was more a continuation of the third-place player, wasn't it? It was sort of jamboree, back-and-forth, a lot of fun. I mean, to Jules' point about the midfield, I agree, but I do think that at least with the midfield, you can say, well, they've got Declan Rice to come back in. The point with the defence is that, I mean, Brownth Wake came on, has had a very good start to season, but there doesn't really seem to be much depth and much. You know, there's no one sort of coming through, I think, that you just think, well, they're going to sort of England can build around them for the next sort of five, six years. So, and that was the issue throughout much of the World Cup. You know, like, the England's defence just doesn't look sturdy, and it's going to cost them. Unless they can score more goals than the opposition, which, on tonight's evidence, maybe they can. Anthony Gordon looked excellent. Yeah, Gordon was great. I think Gordon and Bellingham were outstanding. Kane, pretty good, obviously, the penalty mess is a mark against him. Thought Sakka was a bit quiet. But yeah, I think Gordon was playing with a sort of pomp of someone who is now a Barcelona player and, you know, his finish. I mean, I did love the way who I see him on was backpedaling, because it's rare to see a goalkeeper backpedaling at that speed. But Gordon did really well to curl it in, because it wasn't a massive error of the goal to hit, we did it. And Bellingham just looked. I mean, some, a couple of his sort of runs, and then just about to be tackled, just stabbing a pass through. He, you know, he, he basically looked as good as he did at the World Cup. So there are positives. And it was an entertaining game. I think, you know, San Matiface said in commentary that there were no paper planes being thrown on the pitch, which is a very, you know, it's a good mark of a reason of a England game. So yeah, I thought it was, I think it'd be easy to be negative about it, but I think there's enough positivity in there to, you know, let's just hope England don't go back to back medications from the A league and the nations league. We don't have to be the international knowledge. Well, indeed not. Who would, who would, if you're Spain, though, that's 39 games unbeaten. I wouldn't extraordinarily run there on. Did you, Jules says if you go at them, they will wobble. Daniel, things seem to be humming along pretty well for the Spanish. Yeah, and if you, if you go at them and you don't get it right, then they pass through you, right? Which is the, the, the whole problem. I think I've already started the game. They'd have been three and a half a half time. So that is an issue or three, you know, I have three and a half before half time, before England then potentially come back. But, yeah, Farron Torres is finishes. Yeah, you saw where he was about to finish for the third, that, you know, he just scores those chances. Two, one on one to get. One of them's a great save by Trafford. And I think Torres thinks he's offside to sort of slightly half makes half an effort to finish it. And the other one's just a really bad finish. And England were getting carved open at that point, not just because of the bad passes, although that's what caused two of the goals. But just as Jules says, the space is in midfield, between center defense and midfield. And the fall in the fallback. So the fallback is great pushing on, but it kind of blows my mind. We've got to a state where we've got general Qantas who is a starting right back. And Nikiwa Riley is a starting left back who has played in the midfield. I think every game for Man City this season. And that's because they like the security in defense of Guardiol, rather than having a Riley there. Because I don't think he's a good enough international defender to be a fallback, to play as in a fall. So there's a lot to answer there. I still would like to see, you know, I know he's had pullouts, but I'd still like to see Trent or Reese James and Lewis Hall in this international break. So I think that's where we have to go. But yeah, as Duncan says, his brownthwaite is the next cab off the ranking. His fitness is not dependable and he's not played very much for England. If as we consider, isn't in the Arsenal team in three months, which is quite possible, England have got a real battle to find starting center defenders. Yeah, just to Daniel's point, I mean, Trent and Lewis Hall were on the bench. Right. Surely they're just there to us. You like making substitutions? Use them. I mean, I guess we will see, like we are going to see, he spoke about this international break, being really weird before we start. I think he's going to split it up into two twos effectively. So I think we will see that in the third and the fourth game. And my hope is that by doing that, we then kind of end the international break with this freshness of like, actually, this looked really good. This is more options for the future. I don't think we'll get that in central defense, but we might get everywhere else. Okay. There were one or two choices that Tuchel made regarding those kind of two squad, where regarding that two squad approach, one of which was the fact that Jordan Pickford didn't start in goal, but instead it was James Trafford. And he performed well, would you say? Yeah, I think he didn't, you know, he wasn't going to be full with either of the goals. I think his distribution is just a level above Pickford. I mean, when Pickford first got into England's team, it was basically, you know, he was probably the best ball-playing English goalkeeper, but he's sort of been superseded a little. And I think Trafford is definitely the sort of, the new high-water mark for an English goalkeeper that can play with both feet, some quite good passes. And he did that on a few occasions. Yeah. But the first goal certainly no fault of his, possibly Spain's second neither, but some nice saves in there as well. Tuchel prior to the game, oh, sorry, Daniel. I was just going to say on the Pickford Trafford thing, I think there's two things. Firstly, I think Dean Henderson's really unlucky that he was injured for this break. So I think he's one that's challenged Pickford more. But there's also this really weird pattern with England. It might be pure coincidence, but Pickford has never conceded three in 90 minutes for England. And the last five times England had conceded three goals has been when Pickford hasn't been in goal. Now, so I don't know if that's just a case of getting used to a new goalkeeper behind the defence, because Pickford has been there for so long. And as I say, it might just be pure coincidence, but five feels quite a lot for it to be a coincidence. So yeah, the only time he's conceded three, I think, was against the Dutch in the nation's league, which went to extra time. So yeah, it's just an odd one for England on that front. I think in my no sense, by the way, to put Trafford in for Pickford. I don't, I just don't understand the logic at all. I'm not sure what to hold was trying to do or to achieve here. Which is never going to go the two best defensive records in the Premier League this season. So take your pick. Yeah, but you played the World Champions, European Champions, just played your best goalkeeper. Why are you changing? Who else changed? Like, don't I room a plate, menu on plates? All the number one's played in this first game. Same for Testagen, you know, same for Joko Kosta. I don't know, we can go through all the teams. Just nobody put the number two, or I agree with that. And number three goalkeepers on the first game of this nation's league. And none of them played Spain. So for me, it made no sense whatsoever. Interesting. Do you feel the result would have been different with, with Pickers on the field shows? I mean, I certainly, I just don't think he helps already a shaky defense. Right. And we saw the mistakes from O'Reilly and Gahie, etc. I would not have to go back on them. I think he's, yeah, I think he's strange when you change them from being used to Pickford behind and Pickford is the shortest, shortest, you say, like the one that shouts the most for keeper, from far more than Trafford. And also, who has, I don't know how many more caps than Trafford. Anyway, so for me, I don't know what would have happened had Pickford started this game and played the whole game. But it's just one of those things that took hold of that makes no sense whatsoever. All right. Skulled Trafford is never enough to hurt him. No, I so I was very nice. Matt Volsayne Trafford was leaky than his roof. Yeah. Colt Palmer not able to make it for fitness reasons. Tom is too cool. Speaking quite frankly about his disappointment over that. Were you surprised at that? I was impressed by that. I'm not a touchable fan at the moment, but I liked that he made that stance. Maybe there's a reason for Colt Palmer not to be there. Let's, let's just, there's no need to get conspiratorial about it. But even if he has got an injury, this is a massive squad because it's a four games and it's immediately following a World Cup. And he's too slow to come out and said, I can't pick lots of number 10s. That's why I didn't pick Morgan Gibbs White. And so, yeah, if it gives white to get on, being on the left with Rodgers on the right, with Bellingham still on the pitch, it was like, these are all my guys now. You're going to get three more games to show me what you can do. And he's right that Palmer won't go that chance. And he doesn't look if he's the best player in the Premier League between now and November. I'm sure he'll be in the next squad. But if he's not the best player in England, then he won't be. And that's, has it should be? You don't get to pick and choose when we've got, we are blessed in that position more than any other. Okay. Well, we haven't mentioned what Cooker is, own goal stroke, Harry Kane's goal. That was, that was an unusual moment. And one that I think was warmly welcome by a lot of people watching Cooker Ella being the figure that he is. Do you think Spain were fully focused on this, match coming off yet another trophy in the summer? I think so. And I think again, they want it with the bench. And you know, by any chance coming on scores like five minutes later, or Yazabal coming on score, they won the World Cup also with their bench. And the squad, there's a, there's a Luis, Luis that are fighting to really keep today, which is, which is really good to be fair. And he says in it, something really nice. He says every, every time at the World Cup, we're playing as somebody that said, oh, it's, it's Francis and Bappe. It's Portugal's Christianos. It's Argentina's Messi. And for us for Spain, probably because also, I mean, was not having a great tournament. He said he was, for us, it's Spain, 26 players, basically. And he said, we relax part time, the 300 Spartans. And I think he's true. And again, today he shows. And I don't want to go hard again on two-hole, but two-hole substitutions, the outside, even the pick for the traffic one. The rest, I just, I don't understand really. And I think again, he's, he's like, put to shame, but what the La Fuente is done in terms of coaching and substitution to roll. And it may be easier because it's worked so many times for the La Fuente. And that bench is very strong. And they know exactly what they do. I think the La Fuente was also said in that interview that since it took over, he is 170% of the game with Spain. Thanks to a, one of those finishes, like they like to call them, somebody of the bench. That's an incredible ratio. Incredible ratio. And two-hole is nowhere near that obviously. And I answered today again, some of the substitutions were either too late, the wrong ones. Taking players of that probably should have stayed on the pitch a bit longer and the other around too. And I just, yeah, I think Spain were focused. I think they wanted, I think you look like Lamin wanted to shine in the moments you saw how brilliant he is. Anywhere which we knew, but he's always a good reminder. But yeah, and even if Spain were not that focused, they were still too good and too strong for England anyway. OK, a game that might have been about Thomas Tucho reestablishing his credentials, building more confidence in his position as England manager, are you more or less pro Tucho post this game, Daniel? It's really weird in that when this kind of bizarre feast or famine situation where it's either a game like tonight or the third, fourth, third playoff where it's just swinging haymakers and seeing what lands. Or it's this really reserved sitting back and defending. And, you know, I said before about this kind of huge spectrum and trying to find the middle of it. That is what's going to happen between now and 2028. But he's been in the job quite a long time for this to still be doing that for that spectrum to still be so wide that it's either chaos ball and chances of both ends or it's trying to shut the game down to a zero chance game. It's kind of odd that we're still in that position. And it would really interesting to know where, like where he sees the strength like, because I still think he thinks that sitting back was the right thing to do. I know he has had to calm that down because it was met with such a problem from the public. But I still think he thinks that was the way to go because he thinks that Bellingwood is a magic player who can produce a moment. And when you see us playing like that, if that's our best offense, we won't win a tournament with it because it will just get pulled apart in too many moments. I think that for an England manager is of which they've now been a few kind of get too caught up with what England means and what England style is. And they can't, they overthink it. And I think to Daniel's point that he's, yeah, he is sort of half a time he's talking like DNA and English players will never pass the ball. The England had a higher pass completion rate than Spain in tonight's game for what it's worth. And then half a time he's, you know, he's sort of searching for an identity that maybe he doesn't really need to. You've got lots of good players. Just shake them into a team that can win games. There you go. By the way, I know, I know we've gone long on England, but I, I'm not happy with Harry Kane tonight, by the way. Oh, and I was not happy in the semi-final. He didn't play the game against France at the workup, but tonight the goal is a lucky goal. I'm sorry. The rest is two touches in the box. One is the header for the goal. The other one is the penalty. The other thing is, that's it. There's no more shots on target after that goal that again is lucky. There's nine passes in 17 minutes. They played or something like that. For me, it's just not enough. And I know he's had a great year, and I know he wants the ballon, though, and the whole of England wants him to ballon, and I get that. But tonight, Harry Kane was just not good enough. And he was not good enough against Argentine either. Whether he's his own fault, his own making, whether he's the team around him, whether that kind of going whole style of his chaos, less attack, less defend. Everybody runs, doesn't suit him, because I think I don't think that suits him. But I, and again, it's maybe not one for now because we've gone long already on England. I just don't think he was very good tonight. Right. Plus the penalty as well. Daniel, I was going to say, I will say, when, without really moving for Gordon's goal, I kind of, I was watching it, but I saw this sort of blonde hair flapping, steaming through, and I thought, is that Harry Kane running faster than I've ever seen him run before? And I was like, no, of course, it's not. Harry Kane is 50 yards behind him. Exactly. Well, there you go. England beaten by Spain. They now face trips to Czechia, and then Croatia, Tuesday and Saturday, there's two matches before taking the checks here in London on Tuesday week. Very good. Slovenia, Nils, Scotland, Nils, we don't need to talk about that one further, Jules. No, I was a bit harsh because Scotland did create some chances to defend. I like Bokonjoli, but I was disappointed by the Nini droid against the team. Like Slovenia, I was really, really not good. 17 shots to Slovenia's four. Yeah, it was one side. Yeah, they'll be facing Switzerland. This is in League B of the Nation's League on Tuesday night. Next up, let's get on to Friday's most important score line, Man City 1, Independent Panel 114. This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James PS, Oli K and the very best football writers around. Yeah, Friday brought some news, huh? Broken at the Athletic by David Ornstein. Of course, Manchester City found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations. What punishments they will receive for this, we don't know, they are of course going to be appealing, but although the last time they got sanctions for charges relating to their activities in that period, which was back in 2020 when UEFA gave them, I think a two-year European ban over financial irregularities, they did successfully appeal that. This time round, it looks like there's a lot less wiggle room for them, or at least so people who are knowledgeable about these things say. But for what we've got at the moment, first of all, we've finally got a verdict. How incredible is that? Yeah, I mean, it's been going on five, seven, however many years, we have got a verdict and we've got a definitive verdict. I think that's important. The appeal will take a long, long time. One of the things that was mentioned during this case is that Manchester City basically prefiracated and delayed this case as much as they could. I don't expect that's going to change during an appeals process. We then get the question of the sanctioning and how long that takes. So anyone who thinks like, thank goodness, that's all over, strap in for series two and three. But yeah, we did get a definitive verdict and we got a verdict that the Premier League pushed for and the Premier League pushed for against some pretty extraordinarily deep pockets legal-wise. So I understand the frustration in how long this has taken and I think that's probably more to do with the judicial system than the Premier League. But kind of fair played the Premier League because this was them staking their reputation on the line and also with the complete knowledge that if they won the case, the Premier League's reputation also takes a massive hit because of what they are trying to prove in their case. So yeah, it's a victory. It feels like it's a victory for nobody, basically. It feels like for football supporters of every other club, there's this kind of what if, you obviously get people like Rio Ferdinand and David here coming out and saying, well, how many titles have I won now and all this? And you get the possibility of counterclaims and suing from other clubs. It's just going to get messier, I think. Well, we don't know how long it's going to take for them to appeal, you're suggesting. They'll take as long as it's possible. What about the sanctions, the announcement of the sanctions? Is there any idea when we'll get to know the entity of that? No, there isn't. And there's not even full knowledge yet of whether that will come before or after the appeal. And a shoot, so sporting sanctions are difficult in that if you, if you impose, you cannot oppose the sanction before the appeal because the imposing of the sanction effectively makes the appeal none of the boys anyway. If you relegate Manchester City and then say, well, we'll put you back, give you win. It doesn't work like that. So that's why this has to run and run and run because it has to go to the, the nth degree, the end of the full process before the sanctions can hit. I don't think personal view that there should be any upper limit on those sanctions. I'm not sure that there will be any enforce relegation or an expulsion, but I would like to think there would at least be enough of a points deduction to make relegation of formality. Charles. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Daniel completely. The sense that I think the Premier League won and lost in the same time because the last few years, what, the years that this case referred to have been tarnished. So yeah, we can joke and we're fighting on can joke and we saw Lukaku teasing Jijun and Aruma in the game between Italy and Belgium saying, search because you owe me two titles. And that will continue, continue, obviously, until the sanctions for how long. I don't know, but it will happen all the time to city fans, to city players, to ex city players. I don't know how people like Omar Barada, for example, feel now who were at the club at the time and now I've left the club and we'll never speak about what you don't think we speak about it either. You also wonder who knew and who knew what's, I think it's an absolute mess to be fair. But at least, like Daniel said, at least the verdict is there, we know. I think it's something that a lot of, if you'd seen the emails that obviously were, we started this investigation a year ago, they, I think city can say as much as they want, we have irrefutable proof that we did nothing wrong. If you read the emails, you understood, and if you know how Robert Mancini was paid, for example, in laws of things like that, I think it was pretty obvious that, you know, there was a bit of dodgyness in some of the thing that is. So now we know that is the truth. You mentioned the various people affected, even no Gallagher shouted out in the street, no responding to Friday's announcement saying, if you're telling me that because of some sponsorship deal that was signed nearly 15 years ago, the four in the row in Istanbul and all of those things now mean nothing, and the club should be burned to the ground, and its supporters banished to North Korea, then you're being hysterical. So Duncan? No, Gallagher leaning into nostalgia, wow. Yeah, I mean, as someone who's other sport is cycling, I mean, I obviously see a lot of people, and we've just heard there some players saying about stripping titles, reallocating titles, they don't really work. Like, you know, the Arsenal Liverpool or Manchester United winning the league in that way, you don't get the joy from that. I think if you get some joy, I don't think so. I don't like, oh, your number of leagues, one magically ticks up to another one. And the city's goes down. Yeah, but I mean, who looks at the, other than me, who's looking at the Wikipedia page which heighters one every day, not that many people. Cycling, there's the parallel with Lance Armstrong and his seven titles, which were taken away, and not reassigned. So that's an interesting case, I think, because everyone else was on the gear as well. Well, maybe, not some of them. I mean, obviously, Floyd Landis, the year after Lance Armstrong was stripped in Oscar Prairie, was given that. Right. But the thing with the Armstrong is like city, at the moment, the sanctions came a long way down the line. Now, they were stripped from Armstrong, he doesn't accept that, lies around in Austin with his yellow jerseys on his wall. But I think now, as the longer time's gone on, people now have sort of veering back to, well, you know, on the road, he won them. So he probably is the winner. So I think, even if city was stripped, I think down the line, people would then be like, well, aguero's goal was pretty memorable. You know, yo, Tury was very good in 2013-2040 and they probably were the winners. So there's no satisfactory outcome really at all. Yeah, it is a difficult situation. Daniel was kind of touching on this as well. It's the least bad option at the moment, the fact that we have got a verdict. But when you talk about taking disciples away and whether that gives satisfaction, I think of Calciopoli, which, although a different set of accusations, did see a predominant club in the land being stripped of titles. In that case, they were. Two of them were given to Inter, who had been their closest challenger in two of the years involved. And I think the Inter is a club, and also the supporters enjoyed that hugely. It wasn't the same as winning it out on the pitch, but it still was a satisfaction to them. The other thing that was kind of curious about that was that, although you they were enormously upset, outraged, whatever to have been, as they felt victimized by this inquiry, they felt that everyone was at it and they just happened to be caught with the phone taps. You had this thing, which is perhaps typical of football fans, where everybody just lived their own version of events. So you they went down, but that kind of relegation and that victimhood then got kind of woven into the kind of fabric of the Tifazari, you know, the folklore of being a you they fan. And that's now part of what makes them, you know, Juventini, and they're back to an extent. And but everybody else just went on kind of going, oh yeah, we always knew that they were, they were cheating, they were putting pressure on. So people just kind of went on as, I guess everybody does week to week as football fans, just living their own version of, you know, who's right and who's wrong. I don't know. Oh, Daniel. As I said, and it should be said that Manchester City have engineered that amongst their own supporters, you know, this statement from from Caldune Almarac today talks about, you know, kind of effectively, we've done nothing wrong. We're still fighting for this. And you can see the replies from fans saying, we are, you know, we're not, we're not taking this line down, we're going to fight. We will still be innocent, et cetera. So it's like, you do sort of have to take a step back or remind yourself that this is like, this is a football club playing football matches like. And I'm a great risk here of making my own career sound meaningless, but like, you don't have to back your club on absolutely everything. I have seen lots of city fans who have said, this is a shameful day for our club. Right. And people should, at some point, there needs to be a moment of reckoning where those people who did things wrong, even if they don't like the verdict, accept the verdict. That's my point. You don't have to like it, but at least have the decency of an independent panel has come up with a result to accept it. There will be a lot of people who feel a lot of clubs spend a lot of money and people who use to spend all the money and Chelsea did lots of stuff, but choose, you touched on what's in the emails and some of the ways in which city were demonstrated to have been circumventing the rules, financial, doping, whatever you want to call it. This is a particularly egregious case. Yeah, I think, and Arson Venger used, I think he was the first one to use that, you know, financial doping, talking about city. City, yeah, that. He was it, maybe he had it there, you know. Which I think is absolutely spot on in this case. And again, city can appeal and whatever the appeal would bring, we would see at the time in three months, six months, another year, you know, whatever, we've waiting long enough, we can wait a bit more. But that is just, that's just the fact, where the city felt that it's okay if the brother of the owner of the club fancy investing in his brother's company, it's just that went against the rules. So whether you, if the rules were not done for you, sure, where you thought you could not break the rules, but go round the rules, maybe there were still rules in place and you could not do a lot of the things that clearly those emails show your own emails, by the way, from your own people, with their own monster city email addresses and things like that, I've clearly put out there that they were doing. So, this is it, I think it's sad. If you're a city fan and you believe the club, when they said we are innocent, we did nothing wrong. And to some extent, you've been lied to, I did a show on Wednesday with a massive city fan, who said like, you know, I believe them, if that was obviously before Friday, I believe when they say we innocent, I believe when they said that they did nothing wrong. But if one day it's proven that they did actually wrong, this is it, it's over, I won't go, you know, like it would be, I would feel like they lied to me for all those years. And I think a lot of city fans would also feel like, whether they want to fight or not, it doesn't matter. They were lied to, they were told we did nothing wrong, and actually people have found that you did something wrong. Don't get it, I know you want to come in here, but the question that comes from that, is if that's how the fans feel, I wonder how some of the players who just arrived, players who just renewed contracts there, ends a mereska, et cetera, will feel the kind of assurances that they might have received and what this means for city's future, but over to you Duncan. Yeah, I just think this sense of kind of not knowing what the truth is anymore, in terms of like what we've watched in the last 15 years, it's unsettling, I can understand. There's a very good Matt Render wrote a book about Marco Pantani, and he actually, obviously, you know, Pantani's career, and cycling that time, had some, you know, decisions that were made down the line, but he wrote a really good line, which was watching contemporary sport, means acknowledging service reality as an interim state prone to re-evaluation even far on the future. And I think that's kind of where we are. Right, it's like a colossal VAR, but spanning kind of eight years or so. Yeah. To your point, James, about people, about supporters and people in general now, kind of living their own truths, and this doesn't just apply to Manchester City or football or even sport, that's why, to my mind, the stripping the titles and stuff is less important than the future punishment, because you can live your own truth in the past. That's fine, you can say what you want, but if Manchester City get a hundred-point deduction, you cannot pretend that hasn't happened because that has factually applied. So that's why that is more important to me as a football supporter than taking away titles in the past. I want to see their future impacted, not their past, because everything is snowballed from what they did. So the team they have now is a result of winning, indirectly, winning that first title. Well, that's what I think, that's what I think they won't be stripped of the title. I think they will keep them, and I think they will tarnish the Premier League, and I don't think the Premier League want them, I don't think the Premier League, and it's not the Premier League's decision, by the way, the sanctioner will have nothing to do with the Premier League. It's not the Premier League who will decide the sanction, but I think the Premier League would not want City to be stripped of the title, because I think that will tarnish even more the Premier League's image and what this means, and the biggest league and the best league in the world, and all of that, because all those years, then we'll be tainted forever. Well, if at least they keep those titles, and it's not great, I mean, I'm laughing, I don't know why I'm laughing, but Daniel is right. If you, okay, the heavy fine means nothing either, because they've got a lot of money, but if they're relegated, if it's a strong point of addiction, if they can't sign any players for the next three, I don't know, whatever it is, I think stripping title brings you nothing, and I don't think you changed anything, apart from, again, being very negative for the Premier League itself. The rest is, I think, far more important if you really want to punish City, more than stripping those titles that they want, you know, the aguero moments, the peregrineal of that. And you have to do it with points, deductions. You, people saying, I'll just put them in league two, why would that happen? Why would the AFL suddenly, you know, where does the team from league two go to fit them in? You have to punish given points deductions, so they suffer the race season, so they then they go down. Yeah, maybe the next season as well, the next season after that. So we're waiting to hear when the sanctions will be announced, we're waiting to see what the timeline might be for, man's cities appeal. Daniel Yusra touched on one other thing, which we should mention, which is the notion of other clubs, bringing legal action, several Premier League sides have already, I think, made it clear that they intend to follow up on that possibility. We have seen the precedent, so is it Burnley who sued successfully Everton, who were found guilty of financial irregularities and Burnley made the case that their own relegation was as a result, or was certainly Everton's financial irregularities were a contributing factor in that. And we're awarded I think 35 million pounds worth of damages, which is still pending. So the precedent is there. You've got, I mean, Man United and Liverpool United, potentially for two Premier League titles, Stoke City who lost an FA Cup. Daniel, you even mentioned a Sunderland who missed out on the league cup, would have got into Europe in 2014, 15 as a result of that, would have had potentially an entirely different trajectory over the years that followed, instead of relegation and financial disarray. Two years later, they're in league one, yeah. And look, that sounds slightly comical when I heard from city fans who were like, that's a joke, you can't do that. And the point is lost by the city over this period, effectively has a case. We went to 1888 and just wipe everything and go again. Preston, the Preston had it good for too long for me. Reverse alphabetical order, don't you, it's the only way now for you. I am, yeah, and it does sound comical, right? But then that's the whole point. You pull on one of these strands, it dozens, and the whole thing unravels, and that's why that's what's so unsettling about all this, is that you watch those things, and on some level, we watch it and assume that what we're watching is set in stone, like the result is the result, the league title winners, the league title winners, the Champions League winners, we assume that you can't reverse engineer anything. And this suggests that what we were watching wasn't right. And if I was, you know, the Sunderland example, the Watford example, the Stoke, I think is a lesser. But if you're a team that missed out on the Champions League, I think, yeah, you know, you've got someone like Southampton who finished three points behind Manchester City, Manchester City qualified the Champions League Southampton, didn't, again, if he is let it Southampton, go down, you think, well, that's something that Southampton had to sell was JoJo Fontey and Sadio Manay. So obviously the whole future of the club shifts, I'm aware that making Southampton an argument for benefit from cheating is a bad form right now. But yeah, it's, it kind of fries your brain as soon as you start to look at it. It's scary the notion that if people were to start, I mean, it just spirals beyond any kind of reasonable parameters of the league still working together at this point, isn't it? I know, that's why you kind of just have to say it happened. It happened. I mean, myself still got their Champions League win, right? So everyone kind of looked at that with the slight raised eyebrow. But they were the first French team to win the Champions League and no one can take that away from them. If they only have one, are they? You slightly JoJo's about the VAR thing. But like, that is where you have to get to. You have to treat it like the biggest refereeing decision ever. And you say, well, our goal should have stood. So we should have won that trophy. So blah, blah, blah. You can do that with every club, every moment in their history, of course you can. And it's not a nice thing to do. But yeah, again, to repeat the point, that's why the punishment has to be effective, significant and future based, not pass based. OK. You don't think we're going to get the decision to sort it out this season, Daniel, by the side of it. If we get it, if this is done before you at 2028, I'll be happy. Pretty cool. Wow, JoJo's, what do you think? Are you any more optimistic? No, I mean, Daniel knows much better than me. But he's taken long already. I think he will take long and I think City will slow it down as much as they can and do what they've done. What would they change anyway for the last eight years? So I would love it to be done before the end of the season, but I completely understand that it's probably unlikely. It's going to make the resumption of the Premier League so weird, because like City of 1.5 out of 5, they go to Amphiode in the next game, which is good. Oh my goodness. It's a timing by the player who played to the victory computer for that. That's the only entity that Daniel has come in. Wow. Well, it's obviously not a coincidence that this whole thing is leaked or revealed, let's put it that way, in the longest international break we've ever had, right? Instead of through the season, there's nobody can tell me this is not on purpose. Very possibly. I would say it happening in a break of a season would be good, probably good for everybody, including the Premier League, right? If it's done before, I think it happening next summer would be a lot easier in terms of city start on minus whatever it is, 80 or whatever. It's a lot cleaner for the Premier League. I think to know where everybody stands at the start of the season, because otherwise you have a situation where clubs, as has happened with PSR, where clubs are not sure whether they're position and points, technically, is actually right with six, seven games to go in the season, which happened with Forrest Never too. So that does get too messy, I think. You're listening to the Totally Furble Show with James Richardson now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Friday's announcement was huge in size, but can all those things, only the first small step towards finally getting this whole story settled, if it ever will be with that in mind. Let's park it for now and quickly return to all that international football that's been happening. We'll finish off with a quick roundup as some of the big stories, because there's so many storylines over the last few days with managers coming in, nations trying to reboot. A lot of that going on in Group A1 or League A1 Jules, which saw Zinnid in Zidane, after so many years out of management, taking control of France, so taking over as France manager. How did it go away to Turkey, briefly? Yeah, there weren't one in. It was not the best of games, although I thought they did well. It's changed a few things. So I'm back here, moved from the number nine position that he's been playing for the national team, for a long time now, onto the left hand side. We had Dembele, who moved from out wide to the number nine position. Oli said, was the 10th of the World Cup, he moved back to the right wing, like he played with Bayern Munich, for example. We had the Ryan Checke, you played in the midfield three, and I thought was actually quite good. And by moment, in some moments, sorry, it looked really good, and it's only the beginning of the journey. There were other slight issues, I thought a bit defensively, but I think he was happy, although he missed the start of La Marseille, he made it because it's just new for him. But by the time he came out of the dressing room in his midway, the game was played like a now and a half away from Istanbul, the Marseille that started already, he said the protocol was a bit short, and I got a call and he didn't like it, because he was so excited to be there and missing the Marseille for him will have heard. Oh, there you go. He's going to be missing Killian and Bappe for France's next fixture. How bad is the knee injury, do we know? It's an hyper extension. You said that in English as well, hyper extension. So he should not be too, too bad. I think he would probably be back. There's big games for Ramajray, they play Vila Rial, they play Roma in the Champions League, they would be the classical, no longer after the international break, we've seen from the international break, but yeah, he played with the new boots, in famous boots that we talked a lot about, and I don't know if there's a link between the injury and the new boot or not, but certainly only lasted 55 minutes before coming off after scoring the only good of the game. Hyper extension or as we call it, Aileen Grand Designs. Very nice, very nice. France's next game is against Belgium. Belgium who have recently pointed Mark Van Bommel as their manager, and what a great start he had. His Belgian side were a way to Italy who'd welcomed back Roberto Mancini, the architect of their Euro Trump for 2021. Other things happen subsequently between Mancini and Italy, but he's back with them now, but it was not a good restart for Roberto, they lost two nil at the stadium, a limpa go. Joseph, you see this one as well, they look better in the second half, but still. Disappearative, all sorts of other things. Two slaps in the face, because they had a chord at the crown, booed them at half time, and then at full time as well. Yeah, yeah, I thought this summer's work to be done then, whether Mancini is a right guy for it or not, whether it's just a lack of talent, we saw some new faces, we saw some old faces. I think we saw also a good Belgium team, post-Gudigasia Iran with Van Bommel in terms of intensity, Mika Goss going the first goal. Quite early on, I thought there was a lot of really good positive things from Belgium, and actually quite a good weekend for the Van Bommel family, because as you said, Dad Mark won for his first game in charge of Belgium, and son Ruben gave a wonderful assist to Kodi Gagpoi to score the equalizer against Germany, the Netherlands and Germany again. Yeah, with the outside of his boot curling it passed all the defenders. Glorious stuff. That game, by the way, that's only the second time the Italy Belgian go, only the second time in the last four decades that Italy have lost a home game by a margin of two goals without scoring. I mean, the only other time that was in some random friendly with Croatia. So, yes, problems there, as you say, Jules, whether or not Mancini is the man, there is a major, major shortage of talent for the Azuri. Well, Netherlands won, Germany won, it finished in the game, which featured that incredible Ruben Van Bommel assist. He's the third generation of Van Bommel to turn out for Netherlands. Beyond the goals, so Mecha with the Germany goal half an hour in and then right at the death of Kodi Gagpoi equalizer, beyond that, did we see any signs of Klopp football of Javi Barcelona or a Dutch heritage football from those two sides, Daniel? I was going to say, my main takeaway from the game, to make this purely Premier League focused, is that Brian Brobbey went off with a pretty nasty looking hamstring injury, which had Sunderland fans very worried. Dan Ballard then went off during Northern Ireland's game, as well with a similar looking injury. And Kai Havlitz went off with again, similar looking injury. So kind of three or four days after the load management jokes and players getting a bit of grief or pulling out, yeah, Sunderland fans were certainly wish that Brobbey and Ballard had, because that's two kind of, well, it's two pillars of their spine of the team. If they, that's a horrible mix metaphor, but you take the point. They are important players, particularly Brobbey, because he's been obviously scored a hatching against City, literally before going on international duty. So yeah, that's a worry for them. Sunderland, I think, have got nine gains between the two international breaks, three in Europe, one in the cup, five in the Premier League. And if he's missing for those, then their whole season shifts. Well, there was controversy due to Brobbey's injury, because Germany scored while he was laying down, asking for treatment, which, you know, as painful as a hamstring injury is, the referee isn't beholden to stop the game for that. So yeah, but Van Dyke piled in to the Germany celebrations. It was a brilliant game, because obviously we know the enmity between the two sides, but they just, the whole game was just back and forth. And I think, you know, Javier and Klopp both looked delighted at the end, and just have kind of been involved with such an event. It was, it was just one of the best, most fun. It felt to me like watching an international on terrestrial TV in the late 90s or something. It was just really enjoyable. You're loving the nation's league, aren't you Duncan? I've seen that in this three, two tonight. Yeah, when the nation's league started, it was re-good. Yes. And then you had all the shuffling from the relegation. So the last one wasn't as, it was all a bit strange. Right. Whereas now everyone's kind of gone back to roughly what it was at the start, and it's good again. Excellent. So that's the ban relegation. Excellent. Currently topping the Germany and Netherlands group, our Greece, who Apollo Adore was tagging as dark horses in our Thursday show. They won two won in Serbia. Duvikas, with a late winterscord. So it's already scored. Isak scored, by the way, for Sweden as well. Gokera scored, Halen, Gimension scored a lot of Premier League players were really good so far in this. Excellent. And Erling Holland got two goals as Norway beat Denmark, three, two, and another exciting game in this very entertaining nation's league. Les Goldtastic was Portugal's clash with Wales, which showed just the one goal. Oja Felix with that. And Christian Ronaldo, with a new hairdo, at least new to me. Yeah, new hairdo, you're right. Yeah. Pod, he had a goal that's allowed. He had one goal that's allowed. He missed a number of other chances, one of which saw him invagling against somebody. I can only imagine himself, because it was like the mind was willing, but the body just no longer had it. And yeah, I hope he can get his 1000th goal and that we can conclude his glorious career. Well, I think we've got the 2034 World Cup to aim for. No, he's said that he's not going to be coming back for it. Yes. He said 2030, but he's going to be ready for. Excellent. All right, well, loads of excitement is coming up. Denmark is going to be taking on Wales on Sunday night. There's little things. Things are happening on Sunday. Have you got to Jules? Can we just give a shout out to the Charles family? Yes. I mean, the brothers, especially, because with not an island, PS Charles have a penalty from Greia Scalia and Niel Niel, and then share Charles score the winner in the 97th minute or something. So again, we talked about a lot of families so far, like the Vom Bummel won, but for the Charles family, it was a very, very good weekend as well. There you go. Very good. Excellent. Anything you'd like to throw in of a heartwarming note, Daniel? Absolutely not. Excellent. Well, you have a great time with your family on Sunday. I would like to mention a former international and former Premier League marksman, Daryng, who scored in his debut for Wicke and David. Of course. Of course. Who was it against? Of course. It was against Redding in the... The new manager? No, there's no new manager yet, but Wicke and we're just signing plays without a manager. But it seems to be working fine. Well, tournament's collective, we know. Did you see the... I mean, it's not because it's my video base, a great video of Wuchman D'Embéle and all the democratic and all this power stuff. Did they win today? They lost four, one. They lost four, one. I'll tell Wuchman, it won't be happening now. Can I just ask, Wuchman D'Embéle, older, more athletic, what? Yes, we did an interview with Wuchman and Graskelia, but the producer of the shoot, Paul... At some point we asked him, who's your club? And I think Wuchman is expecting a man united because Paul is from Manchester, or Man City. Paul said, do you know Older Mathletic? And Wuchman said, Older Mathletic, and then put his hand in his face in his hand and say, yeah, you know it's there because you played for Wuchman and Graskelia a lot. And he was like, yeah, so it was... And this has become a little bit like viral between PSG and them, Billy and Older Mathletic and all of them. They played today, obviously, and I didn't check. And Wuchman absolutely battered at home by Salford. So that's okay. I'll tell him, it's not a good omen. There you go. Fantastic, fantastic. I think that wraps it up for this evening. We're gonna be back. We did actually a special Zidane totally extra, George, you weren't part of that. That's out right now. If you fancy something with your Sunday morning stroll or whatever, we're gonna be doing another totally extra on Monday, which is gonna be out on Tuesday, all about Cessk Fabregasque, by the way. And then we'll return with a regular totally show on Thursday by which time there'll be all sorts of other things to discuss, not least, another England performance. This one away in what we used to call the Chet Republic. And I'm still not sure the pronunciation of it's current, non-manclature. What is it, Jules? Check here. Check here. And I really should. Good. That's it for tonight. That's the message. Daniel, thank you so much for being with us. Jules, thank you as well. Merci, Monbrive. Thank you so much, Duncan. Thank you, everybody who followed us late on a Saturday night. We'll be back with you soon 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. We're also at the Totally Show on Insta and at the Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production. The Athletic FC.