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This is The Guardian. Hello and welcome to The Guardian Football Weekly. Strap yourselves in for the nation's league, England, Spain is actually interesting. Perhaps Thomas Tuchel says the World Cup got England one step closer to glory, not sure all the fans agree. What reception will he get? How will he approach taking on the world champions? We'll discuss Ireland's impossible task of how to approach their games against Israel, both at neutral venues. Scotland have a new manager, will he have a go? All the home nations in action, plus Zedan taking over France and Klopp picking two squads for Germany. Is doing Paul Watson's World of Football the podcast equivalent of scoring too early? In this endless international break, would you buy a piece of old Trafford Tour for 125 quid? Would you be a carrot because your favourite footballer eats them? Why was there a dog on the women's Champions League coverage? All the big questions on today's Guardian Football Weekly. On the panel today, Barry Glenn Denning, welcome. Hi, Max. Hello, Paul Watson from the Exant Sweeper podcast. Hi, Max. And welcome, Seb Hutchinson. Hi, Max. Right, let's start with England, Spain. So we start touching our Monday five with Drolls, since Tuchel announced the squad. Palmer, Bryce, Maynu, Rashford and Liverpool are pulling out. They put in two players, James Garner and Morgan Gibbs White to fill the absence of those five. Obviously, the dropouts have led to a sort of frantic club versus country debate. I don't know how much we can read into it, especially Palmer, Maynu and Rashford, who might have good reason to be slightly annoyed with Tuchel for what happened in that their World Cup. Or maybe they just have legitimate injuries and they need to have some rest. And the way Palmer started the season, that having the summer off seems to have helped him a bit. But it's so difficult at this stage. When we return to international football and you still have, I still have the feeling of the World Cup and how it ended in the disappointment. But then that third place match had something about it that I enjoyed as well. And I thought, is this can all international matches be a bit like this? Then we don't know. No, they can't. They can't. Yeah, we know that already. We don't know about conversations that happen privately between players and the manager. He seems to be an open manager in that regard. He would tell people what he thinks of them straight. And that could be part of it. You wonder with Kobe Maynu, for example, I think he was broad as part of the World Cup squad maybe because of his temperament. And then he wasn't really going to be that player who was going to cause issues if he wasn't selected. Because there were opportunities for maybe him to be part of that tournament. And it never came to pass even with Henderson getting injured, for example. So it has to be, I think, because of the length of the break, because of the way certain players have started, Maynu's been pretty good as well. There is a protection thing. They do have to think long-term. I mean, if I'm part of this international break and I push myself in it, breaks my season, the way it based on the past, I might not be picked by Tukele again. And in the Morgan Gibbs White situation, I mean, having to be pulled out of your holiday after having the disappointment. And maybe who knows? For some people, maybe that's a good thing being pulled out of a holiday with the family. I mean, I can't comment. But all I'm saying is that for this particular situation, he'll just be pleased to be part of the England squad. He deserves it. Yeah, I think he does. Tukele said he'd wished he'd eaten some of Azteca grass after the Mexico game. And he said, it feels like they're my players now. The World Cup represented something to build on. I'm very excited. I think we got another step closer and I think we're there. Barry, I don't know how fans are feeling. I think it's really interesting to see. Obviously, no, it's a different crowd at this game than the people that follow to a World Cup. But I wonder if the general sentiment is, he needs to do something in this game. Or, you know, there are knives being sharpened. It's hard to know. I was just trying to tell what reception he gets. I suspect it will be mixed. But he says he regrets not eating any of the Azteca grass. He certainly ate a big mouthful of this metaphorical pitch in Atlanta. I find the way he's trying to gaslight everyone. Into thinking that England's failure to close out the semifinal against Argentina, that it was nothing to do with him whatsoever. I find it really strange, apparently because it seems to be working. I presume he would be sacked after the World Cup, because we were constantly told he was brought in specifically to do what Karatsau Kate couldn't get England over the line and win a major tournament. And when he made such a dog's breakfast as a second half of the semifinal against Argentina, when England were really well placed to get to the final, a final they possibly could have won. I think they'd have given Spain a better game than Argentina. They then I've read somewhere that Anthony Gordon said various Spanish players at Barcelona told him. Spain would they thought England would have given Spain a much better game than Argentina did. I think anyone would have given them a better game than Argentina. So I presume he would be sacked because he failed to do the job that was asked of him, but because they've given him this contract extension before the tournament, he hasn't been. Maybe he learned from what happened at the World Cup and then go on and win the Euros, which is, I don't know, but I just find the whole thing weird, but I will be very interested to see what kind of reception he does get from England fans, because I'm not sure they're buying what he's trying to sell at the moment, even if most other people seem to be. And Spain feels tough, Paul, they are good. I'm trying to work out what a good outcome, what is a good outcome for Tucho here, right? Obviously, you could really mix it up and then result doesn't matter. You could go, listen, result is everything here to get us all going, well, okay, or you could, I don't know, do you think ahead to what we didn't do against Argentina? It's like pretend you won the lap and just try and play differently. Obviously, you can't recreate the pressure of World Cup semi-final. I'm interested in how he approaches it. Yeah, I think we're all looking for a 6-4, right? That's the precedent here. We are last game with 6-4, it's France, we respect 6-4. I honestly think he's kind of, it depends which way you look at it. He's either on a hiding to nothing or he's got a completely free shot here, because honestly, no one really cares what the result is to a certain degree. I think what he would be well advised to do is to get England playing like the side that played France, rather than the side that desperately tried to sort of scuff their way through to a World Cup final. I actually think two calls done that thing that politicians do. When there's a politician and you think, oh, they're out. There's a scandal and you think, oh, they're gone. There's no way to survive this. If they can just get out of public sight for long enough, then it kind of dissipates and everyone's like, oh, yeah, there was that thing, and actually, we were all really angry with that, but they somehow kind of weather it and then they're still there in that job sort of six months after they've given the nuclear codes to another country. They're still there somehow and you're like, you didn't go. I feel like two calls in that kind of position where he looked like a dead man walking. He's now not, but I don't think he's got a huge amount of support from the fans at all, in my opinion. No, I think he is gaslight and people, if he's saying it's not his fault, it was very clear if the public could have sacked him on the spot after that, after that semi-final, he would have been gone. Yeah. No, that is interesting, isn't it? And then you wonder if actually, does it matter how they do in this nation's leaks? Do we say, really, it's, you know, he now has the next. And I don't mind if you have him or someone else. He's probably better to say the euros is yours. Whatever happens in this, it's a tough nation's leak. Or do you think there is a pressure whereby they get tongue-by-spain. This is a bad, it's four games, a lot of games, there's a bad run, and they go, you know, now it's a case where the international break is so long that people go, well, the Premier League time is a good time for international managers to get sacked. You know, it's a dangerous time for him. The two weeks of Premier League football we have before the next international break. But like, do you, it's interesting, it's hard to know what pressure he's under from the FA. Well, I remember Sagarath, he lost to Hungary, didn't he, at thumping at home, at Molyneux, I think it was. And I remember at the time the pressure really was on Southgate, considering what he'd achieved with England before that. I think it matters, these games do matter because the public has to build up a narrative, don't they, that we have to build up a narrative about the England team and where they sit. If they play Spain off the park, very unlikely, but if they play Spain off the park, then the expectation is back again and people will look at regret and say, well, if we'd reached the final, if Spain come to Wembley and teach England a lesson and pass them all around them, then I think the pressure's on him because ultimately the standard of England of set and their victim of their own relative success is that the only thing England have now is to get over the line and win a trophy. It's not a case of celebrating semi-finals like we used to, growing up a semi-final was a massive thing. There'd be documentaries and films about it. Now it's the bare minimum and the gutting disappointment to be one in up against Argentina is semi-final and having the best finish in a major tournament since 1966. That's what he's been brought in for, but because he was given a contract not that long before the World Cup, you can't really then sack him after the World Cup just because of the financial commitment that the FA has made. Imagine that they've done that and people would think there'd be complaints about that at the same time. So why have you brought this money, given your contract? He's finished third and then you've sacked him. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think the contract didn't, the contract came in because they thought Premier League clubs were sniffing about, I guess. So then you kind of do have to make a call or not. Barry, I mean, who would you like to see get some minutes for England or maybe you don't really care? Who do get semi-finals? That's very bad. I think, as he Gordon said, he said that England should stop trying to play like Spain because it's not in our DNA, which is slightly laughter in the pure sense that Spain, you know, when it comes to football, yeah, they're quite good. They win trophies, but I get his point because I think it has harmed Germany in recent years in particular. This strive to maybe be a bit different and to lose your sentence. But I don't think we've tried to play like Spain. It's the whole idea we've been trying to play like, but if we played like Spain in the last 20 minutes of the Argentina game, of course, then they'd probably be behind us. But then it's a question of, do we have players who can play like Spain, right? I mean, that's an interesting thing. Well, we sort of think that the field is going for 100 million and you think you'd like to have a bit of Tiki Taker in a 100 million power play, wouldn't you? But we've got to kick off few of them. But I mean, I'd like to see a right back play, and that'll be nice. And it's got one in the squad who's quite famous. Yeah. So, yeah, let's see how that goes for Trent. If he starts him, we'd probably play Kwonzer or Kwonzer at it right back really. Yeah. No, it's a nice idea, isn't he? He said, Trent Alexander Arnold came in as a right back. I think Miles Lewis-Skelli's got interesting, there's no clamor. The England probably making this quite a good point, I think, Paul about Lewis-Skelli. Like, there is a clamor for Alex Scott and Adam Warton and Cobbie Maidoo, and I like all those players, but Lewis-Skelli is, you know, often starting sentiment for the best team in the country after Brighton. And yet there isn't this kind of Lewis-Skelli clamor, but I might know quite like to see a bit of him, I might quite like see a bit of Angamoa. I mean, I care a bit more than Barry, but I'm not like on Tenter Hooks to see what the starting 11 is. Yeah. Oh, I'd like to see Alex Scott play, but that is just partly my Bristol city head, like, you know, a player that was so brilliant for us, it's lovely to see him kicking on as he has. Also, he'd be lovely to see someone from Gernsey in the England team, right? But we'll clutch and let's draw us here a little bit. I would also like to see Conzer and Conzer so that we could see if we could get the most rhyming team possible. And I think if there is a time for that, it's the nation's league, right? If we could see if we could get an entirely rhyming England team. I mean, I'm now obviously just trying to think of football as the rhyme with Conzer. And apart from Conzer, you know, I am struggling. But anyway, England Play Checker on Tuesday, look, we have so much England to talk about in the next few pods. So we'll wait and see what happens on Saturday and digest it on Monday, Part 2. We'll look at the other home nations and also look at Rubbergavel and against Israel. Welcome to Part 2 of the Guardian Football Weekly. The Rubbergavel and Play Cosimo tonight, all the talk is about their game with Israel on Sunday. More than 160 Irish sports people have signed an open letter by the Irish sport for Palestine group, urging the men's team to boycott their upcoming games against Israel. So they play this Sunday in Hungary, the verse fixture is in Serbia on the 4th of October. Let the states that the Football Association of Ireland, UEFA and the Irish government should have intervened before this stage, but there is still time to quote, show the power of sport to unite. The statement says, putting on the Irish jersey representing your country means something. But the island we want represented is the one that remembers its roots in anti-colonial and anti-imperial resistance, which Irish sport played a large part of. Not playing the game would be the most sporting thing you could do through your leadership and courage. It would show the power of sport to unite, remind us of the shared values that connect us all and have an impact far beyond the game. When asked about the games at the squad announcement, the island manager, Jaime Halgerson said, I've said before, we're not playing with genocide, we're playing against genocide, we're playing against Israel, we're not playing with Israel. A last September, an independent UN commission concluded that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli authorities have strongly rejected the findings of that report. It's been reported that the Israel FA are considering filing a complaint to UEFA over Halgerson's comments. In response, they posted on X, we've contributed to the world in humanity and countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we've not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance, hypocrisy, displayed by the island football team coach. We're not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, we're playing against the coach who embodies them. It's a lot to ask the players, Barry, who've been put in this position about whether they should play on or clearly other international teams have played against Israel. I don't know how, if you feel the FAI has done enough, you know, you talked about already on Tuesday's part about how little coverage they will be of this game, and it does seem to me like it is very, a very reluctant Republic of Ireland that are turning up for these fixtures. Well, it is. They have said they don't want to play the games, or they would rather not have to play the games, but it looks like they're going to, in terms of your first question, I don't think the FAI have done anywhere near and off. I think they've been quite negligent, actually, and it's their fault. The players are in this position, but the players are all grown men with minds of their own, and I think they should be able to do whatever they feel is the right thing. Right, the reason Israel haven't been suspended from your way for competition is because no one has refused to play them. That's why Russia were suspended, because I think Sweden, Poland, and Ukraine was ahead of World Cup playoffs, said, well, you're not going to play these guys, so your way for hands were forced. Israel should be suspended because they have breached FIFA in your way for statutes, because some of their clubs play in occupied Palestinian territories, and they fail to implement anti-racism policies. So that's grounds alone for the suspension, but obviously, what everyone is concerned about is the atrocities being committed in Gaza, the West Bank, it's other Lebanon by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government and army. And I think that by playing Israel, Ireland will be supporting actors, I guess, in a show designed to promote Israeli state messaging. Now, the FAI were very vocal back in November in their efforts to try and have Israel banned from competition, UEFA competition, FIFA competition, but then more recently, 70% of FAI members voted that these games should go ahead, compared to 97% who voted in favor of emotion to have Israel banned from international competition. And the talk in Ireland is that FAI higher ups were bandying about these worst-case scenarios in an effort to get people to vote for these games to go ahead. They were saying that it could be potentially financially ruinous to pull out of the games that Ireland might lose their position as co-hosts of the euros if they refuse to play these games. There's no evidence to suggest that this would be the case. I mean, the sporting repercussions of not playing these games against Israel are you lose both games 3-0, you get a fine, you possibly get expelled from the nation's league. You can't get promotion to Group A because you can't win the group and you wouldn't get a guaranteed draw place in part 2 for the Euro qualifiers. If they don't finish in the top 2 of their group, I think they're small prices to pay for pulling out of the game. I don't know what you think. That's just my opinion, by the way. I'm not going to be very angry with the Irish players if they don't or if they play the game, but I personally think they shouldn't and I would applaud them if they didn't but it looks like that's not going to happen. Nathan Collins is not with the squad. He's injured. So Darryl Shea is a captain and he has said that he and the players will play the game against Kosovo and then the next day sit down and have a chat about this game against Israel and decide if there's going to be some sort of protest or symbolic protest or whatever. So they still could turn around and say we're not going to play, but it looks very unlikely. I mean, I think it's it's honest worse than say sporting teams playing South Africa during apartheid. That was really frowned upon and I almost put this in the same bracket. All right, I would put this in the same bracket. Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with anything you've said. I just wonder if the FAI would say that they've done more than lots of other FAs, right? You know, you are dumped into this position and sometimes, you know, it's easier to make moral decisions when you don't have to make the decision if you see what I mean. But like even voting to ban Israel, lots of FAs haven't done that. It's not I think every other FA would have been in support of that motion if it had passed. But when they had to make a decision that where they didn't weren't going to have the cooperation of anyone else, they kind of bottled it in my opinion. Like, I don't think they've done anything really. The Irish government have said this game, these games should go ahead, but I think they're afraid of the repercussions of upsetting America if they didn't go ahead. And look, loads of people in Ireland don't want the games to go ahead. And there are they have many critics who are vocal in their belittlements of them. They call us Paddy Stinians. They call us anti-Semites. And then they engage in what aboutery, which is valid up to a point where they talk about atrocities that are happening in elsewhere in the world. Like, if Ireland had to play DR Congo, would they pull out with that one? If they had to play Sudan, would they pull out with that one? Their most recent game was a friendly against Qatar who perpetrate human rights abuses. So they have a bit of a point there, I guess. But yeah, my opinion is that Ireland shouldn't play. But I'm not going to stand up, thump a pulpit over it. If I could just jump in, I mean, like, even on a footballing level, so football league footballs just returned to Palestine. And they called their return tournament, the cup of a thousand martyrs. And that's because a thousand and fourteen Palestinian athletes have been killed by Israel, according to Palestine Football Federation's figures. And in the midst of one of these statements, there was this line that just jumped out of me that a Palestinian gold keeper was killed while waiting for humanitarian aid. And then you're telling people to go out and play against this nation as if nothing's happened. This, this very much for me sits, it's abhorrent to that notion. And it sits very much at the feet of UEFA who are the ones saying, go out and play this game, right? I think they have just not made a stand. And obviously, this has been going on for a long time. And we've talked about it before. And I think it is now widely understood that you should be able to criticize a government, be this Israel and a prime minister and a leader without being accused of being against the religion of that country. It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel and Netanyahu, in the same way it's not Islamophobic to criticize human rights abuses in Qatar or Saudi Arabia. But we will face, you know, for the turn of this conversation, we will face that criticism. I've faced it before on things we've done on this podcast, but I don't disagree with anything that anyone has said on this. And like we say, tried it is to go on and talk about atrocities to talk about football, but that's what this podcast is. Scotland plays Slovenia in Libyanat on Saturday, a new coach, Sebastian Pocko Njoli's first game in charge, having replaced Steve Clark, first non-Scottish manager since Bertie Voke, who was in charge from 2002 to 2004. And I guess, I was chatting on the radio to Barça Jim about this yesterday, he said, and he just wants a manager that has a go. And I guess, does he just mean though? Well, I think it means, and this is the interesting thing is, he wants Scotland to play like Spain. Yeah, he wants, but I said, no, no, what's not in the DNA. Yeah. Clearly Steve Clark got them to major tournaments. And like if Pocko Njoli doesn't do that, then he's not as good. But what he wants, I guess, is to get there and then just try because, you know, they looked at what Kate Verde did in the World Cup and they looked at how they approached very difficult games. It's not a crime to not get out of that group when you've got Brazil and Morocco. It is an ununchable question. We just have to see how he approaches all of them. Yes, yes. And it feels, I mean, he's really freshened up the squad looking at the squad list. I mean, there's players on there that I've never seen play before and myself. So you think about a new way for Scotland. I, you know, during the World Cup, probably, and I think what he was getting at is the fact that when they've played Haiti and they were winding up in that game, and they were in a weary hanging on at the end of that match. And I think maybe in their one win in the competition, that was probably the game that summed up how a lot of Scotland fans are feeling in general because against Brazil, they were relatively open. They tried to give it a go, but they were playing Brazil. That's the problem. So when it's a give it a go, it depends on you. Don't just give it away. Give it away at the back. Give it away. I mean, yeah. So I think in this particular, it is when they're playing teams that they look on the surface that we should be putting on a show. I remember for the World Cup, I watched them play Kurosau and they went one kneel down to Kurosau in the in that friendly match. And you could just feel in the crowd as I here we go again. Here we just can't get a break. And everybody was thinking we're going to lose to Haiti. They didn't lose to Haiti. And the fact of the matter is in recent competitions, the fact that Scotland have been at recent competitions to me going back to the England debate is it's that whole situation. If you have a generation of fans of just like, let's just get, let's just qualify for something. Now the qualifications are happening. Let's just go out there and express ourselves a show we can do. But if you look at that latest Scotland squad, you don't see the talent there that is going to be enabled you to play that way. So it's that Catch 22 situation. And it's not helped as opposed to Scotland point of view is a grander picture to look at this. If they look at other nations of a similar population side and similar football madness that they are doing better than them, that's probably what hurts the most out of all this. But that's more credit to what those nations have done. I don't know if it's necessarily possible for Scotland to get to that sort of scenario. It is interesting. I like, like say, I looked at the squad list and there are not a lot of players in there that I'd never heard of. And 15 of this squad were not at the World Cup. Now, Craig Gordon obviously retired, Scott McTamine, Shay Adams and Lauren Shanklin are injured. But he's there's been a bit of a call. Linda Dykes, Ross Stewart, George Horace, Grant Hanley, John Soutair, Anthony Rollston or left out. Oli McBurney is included. And I think it would be criminal not to include him given how well he's been playing for whole in the, at the start of the season. During group A it's going to be tricky. But it'll be interesting to see who this Pocagnole gets on. He was part of the Belgian golden generation for a while, but he sort of got jessisoned because he wasn't quite good enough to be a fixture in the golden generation. I always enjoy seeing how Scotland get on and this is exciting times for Scotland fans, I guess. Wales played Portugal tonight, Denmark on Sunday. I got Norway as well. It feels tricky, Paul. Can you have a group of death in the nation's league? I sort of feel there's enough. Yeah, that's the point of the nation's league. Yeah, I mean, but also I wouldn't, I don't know, you can call that a group of death. What Portugal, Denmark and Norway? No, Denmark. No, okay. It's a sort of, it's a pretty underwhelming group, isn't it? I'm sort of like the group of man, flu, maybe. Yeah, I mean. Dark horses. They're all teams you could call dark horses, I guess. Yeah, Christiana Ronaldo hanging on in their football still. What they'll do is, before long, they'll actually have him sit in a chair, like a sort of throne that they assemble that they put on the edge of the box. On the pitch. Yeah, on the pitch on the edge of the box so that you can just get up when he Danes to take a free kick and he can sort of just sit back down with Roberto Marcinets going, you're like, oh, it's finally over and then it comes Jorge Jesus and he's just like another Ronaldo man and he's like, oh, when will this end? Now I said, I'm a thinker. You have to think, this is why you see me here now. It means I will continue. I had a conversation with our president, with our coach. I still believe I'm able to help the national team to reach what they want and we'll finish when I feel like I'm not doing anything here. Well, he needs 21 goals, doesn't need to get to a thousand career goals. He said that's part of his motivation. So he's literally saying, this is about me. As far as the Wales games concerned, Wales have a lot of injuries. So I think there'll be really up against it here. The Harry Wilson, Nathan Broadhead, Carol Darrell, Joe Rodin, Dylan Lawler, Ruben Calwell, all out. So I think they're my struggle. I mean, a thousand goals, a lot of goals. It is a lot. Yeah. I tried to count to a thousand once with a friend when we were in Fiji quite bored, alternate numbers. And that took a long time. Were you drunk? No, actually, no, we weren't. But we got to 474 and then he said, 485, we had to start again and we never got going again. But you know, I wish I had that freedom these days. On Norway, by the way, carrot sales are up 25% because Erling Harland didn't advert for carrots. So I mean, it's just tremendous. He's quite often seen. I didn't know this until I looked at it yesterday. He's quite often seen just around and about eating a carrot. And then he did an advert for bunched carrots. And yeah, absolutely. Big and huge. Shot through the roof. So well done tonight, the goal. Good. Absolutely. And then it you know, he doesn't need the flood lights, et cetera, et cetera. Northern Ireland played Georgia tomorrow and hungry on Monday night, said I asked for a pithy minute on Northern Ireland. Can you deliver it? Yeah, I think so. I think you know, with Northern Ireland, they're in the second tier of the nation's league. I mean, for the first time since 2020, so post COVID or during COVID times. And I think there's no surprise when you get to the second tier, you're going to have tough games. And then they start a way to Georgia and then home to Hungary. And then they play Ukraine in Slovakia, as is the way of things. And they Michael O'Neill's picked a larger squad. And I think we look back to England and they haven't picked as large a squad of some other nations. And for Northern Ireland to assemble that number of players together is obviously quite difficult. I think they've bought three teenagers in, would have been four that one turned 20 recently. But one of the talking points has been around Cade O'Neill, who's 18 years old. He's an Arsenal. He's an Arsenal's youth team. And there was a bit of a tug of war between the Republic and Northern Ireland over his services. 18 years of age. He's played a couple of friendlies. And now in this period, if he does feature a couple of times in this period, then it's set in stone. And he's sort of stated that he's going to be playing in Northern Ireland. But when players of that young, it's going to be common in those sort of situations that that might arise. Creativity, again, is going to be the issue for Northern Ireland and say, Isaac Price, who have been impressed with at West Brom, done a couple of their games. It's probably their most creative player. One thing I did notice, actually, Michael O'Neill during the World Cup, he was part of the technical team, technical study group at the World Cup. And it was quoted as saying in that, because they always do a report based on games that they see has been going on in FIFA tournaments for a while. And he said that, yeah. And he said, I think Yogan Klinzman has done it before. And he said that what stood out for him was how individual quality was deciding matches more than anything else, which I just thought was good players. Games. Good players win games. And that's the sort of technical insight sometimes. Well, he did very well. I mean, he did very well. You can't knock it like that's a good observation. It's a bit like her absolute was on her, it was on the radio talking about, you know, how bright and be asked. And he just said, I just said, when your battles lads, and I was like, come on, it's got to be more than I would say on Sunday, wouldn't it? This game between Georgia and Northern Ireland has been played behind closed doors in policing because Georgia being sanctioned by UEFA for poor fan behavior in a previous nation's league encounter against Armenia. Boss, before the ban was after the draw was made and before the ban was announced, I think about 16 Northern Ireland fans had booked their plane tickets and accommodation to go to the game. So they have been given special dispensation to attend. So they will be the only ones there technically. It's a nice touch. Yeah, they had to provide proof of purchase of plane tickets and accommodation booking to the Northern Ireland FA who then went and lobbied UEFA and UEFA granted dispensation for them to attend the game. Yeah, so they're the ones saying us, hey, the international breaks are the things we're here for. That's a great story. All right, that'll do for part two, part three. We'll do Paul Watson's World of Football. Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Week, please. So we'll look at Zidane's France and Klopp's Germany and Javi's Netherlands, you know, as and when. They play. Sorry, you can, you can file Javi's Netherlands in the where is Samuel Ramos. Open a new drawer in that filing cabinet. We see George's manager, is he, is Daniel? Oh, is that right? Willie Sanyol. He's been there ages, hasn't he? His, his English, he does, when he speaks in English, he does sound like the policeman from a lower low. And why shouldn't he? Oh, you had some, well, stories from the sweeper world to share with us. Dominika, trying to find a goalkeeper by social media. Yeah, so it's Dominika. I've got four conquer caffe nations league fixtures coming up. And just before the, the squad came together, one of their scouts, the headscout, just in February, put out a post on Twitter saying, we're looking for a goalkeeper. And the requirements were, you have to have one Dominika parent and trust in your goalkeeping skills. That was the, that was it. And it didn't exactly probably make the two goalkeepers they do have feel particularly brilliant. But to be fair, they have two keepers who are very young. They've got Dante Newton and Dwight Eloy who only have one cap between them going into this break. So I think they basically sort of panicked a bit and thought, I wonder if there is someone out there who has got heritage. And it is really decent. They actually deleted the post fairly soon after. Oh, I hope it's because they've found the perfect guy. I hope they found it. But I think actually they just got a hell of a lot of time wasted. So they deleted it. They actually gave Dwight Eloy one of their existing keepers the chance to play against Dan Griller and a friendly and he kept a clean sheet. So maybe it was a composition for places. Maybe he's thinking, I really better be on my game or some guy is going to tweet, yes, I'll play. And he'll be down here with his gloves. Well, look, and it is a slightly lower level, but I was on Channel 10 in Australia doing some a league stuff. And I used the I abused my position by saying the Melbourne, the he means needed a keeper. And Marky P came in and he's been excellent for a couple of years. He has retired, but you know, it can work these kind of these calls. Talk to me about Zachary Boucher getting his first call up for Madagascar's 34 year old goalkeeper. That was been decent goalkeeper played through France's youth system. Finally got his international call up for Madagascar where he has heritage. But he just got time to sort of start celebrating his call up when an old interview emerged with Le Keep from 2018 when he had turned down a Madagascar call up. And his quotes were not the best. His quotes were, I am French. I have never been Madagascar. The French national team jersey is important to me. I won't ever wear any other jersey than that one. So this article didn't massively endearing to people in Madagascar to the extent where the fans were lobbying from to be dropped from the squad entirely. It was actually reported widely that he'd been rescinded his call up, that they'd said, no, right. Don't don't come. But that wasn't actually true. He's he's been spotted training with the team they're playing against Nigeria. Apparently he's training alongside his fellow goalkeepers. But he might be the first, can I shock you as he tried that? I see you. He probably tried everything by now. Yeah. But he could be the first player ever to come on for his debut and get that kind of booing, you know, as if he's sort of playing for another team. It's a bizarre thing to have done to have basically, I think what it was is when he was younger, he must have thought, I'm going to play for France. You know, I'd have to mess around with that. Of course. And then he must have got this age of 34 and thought, you know what, I don't think I'm going to get that call for France. I'm going to take it. And then you will just get called out these days. At Cook Islands playing their first home international at 28 years. That's where I wanted us to be based for the World Cup. But producer Joel was worried about the Wi-Fi in the Cook Islands. It's just like that. Just the Wi-Fi, right? Yeah, that was it. Yeah. I was just like it looks on the time zone. I could do that palm tree. Palm trees. I Google image the Cook Islands. Looks pretty pleasant. It's all right, isn't it? Yeah. And this is true. Like a lot of people, we moan a lot about all sorts like nation's league, pile up of fixtures. But imagine being a national team that hasn't had a home game for 28 years. That is a tough situation there. They're playing Tahiti twice. They're playing on September 26th and 30th. So they've got these two fixtures. And before that, the last time they played a home game was 1998 when they played against Tahiti. It's quite normal relatively in Oceania to just not have any games. So it's now 750 days since the Cook Islands played their last game. And that game was in World Cup qualification in 2026 World Cup qualifiers. And the Oceania tournament is brutal for the underdogs. They have this like first tournament, this preliminary tournament. They just got 90 minutes. That was their entire qualification campaign. They got one game where they lost a Tonga. And that is it. You are out. And then they have to wait 750 days for this for this friendly. So however much we complain hard to build the mental. It is. It is. It is. It's really brutal. I mean Tahiti also haven't played since March 2025. The worst one is Kiribats who are associate members of Oceania Football Federation. So they don't get invited to all the main IRFC tournaments. They haven't actually played a match since 2011. It's 15 years since Kiribats had a national fixture. And it doesn't look like these becoming anytime soon. They actually put out a call on the eve of the World Cup saying please can someone come and play us. We'll take on anyone even Argentina. Thank you Paul. More from the sweeper pod if you want that sort of stuff. Lots of criticism for Disney plus is coverage of the Women's Champions League that started this week show called The Hangout Tom Garry wrote a piece saying the streaming platform through criticism from some fans for the unusually quirky nature of its analysis show which included the presence of a dog in the studio. And a quiz about Italy including the questions what's the biggest city in Italy? What's the Italian word for football and a question about what pastor a reporter was cooking? I mean it's interesting step is now I looked at a lot of this. I've written a piece about this. I mean it is a mad picture of you know Alex Scott on the pundits looking at a big screen which is normally reserved for analysis and it's just a massive plate of farfallay. And and and obviously a lot of you know I saw Floyd Lodews tweeting about it Catherine Batrota piece saying that this would not happen in the men's champions league in the coverage the men's champions league you know and you know however bantry it can get sometimes especially in that CBS studio you're not having a dog you know having Bonnie the dog running around the counter to that though I would say is often especially for women's coverage of tournaments in general there's usually just one show or one piece of prog and the money goes to and you have to squeeze everything into that one program and you have to try and appeal to everybody whereas you know in a men's tournament there might be there will be side shows that do it there'll be social media shows now that would do it at the key point here is also fan engagement that's what Disney will state fan engagement also means any engagement if people are having any sort of interest in something that's that's what matters to broadcasters are people talking about this and Disney have just sort of dipped their toe into this market really they don't they're not totally hands on with all the coverage as such in terms of just the basic technical side of it all they have been problems in that area so for them the fact is being talked about they won't mind that too much because it's Disney you know it's not like this is gonna harm Disney as a brand overall but for the tournament I also understand the other side of it because people who follow women's football closely you are in that world where you want it things to be taken seriously you want there to be proper discussions about topics and the tactics of games and the backstories of players but also when you're trying to grow something and this is always the case of trying to grow grow grow grow grow and getting a new audience the social media side of it has to play a part it's so different in that regarded because of the size of audience there's a bigger argument weirdly for men's football not to engage in that then there is for women's football no I see that but I I guess what you don't know is again they had two content creators who looked sort of very personable and fun and you know that's the brief the dog's company by the way yeah I know has 82,000 more Instagram followers than me I checked but but you know the point being that there is no way of quantifying I've seen this with bosses who were like you know at big broadcasters trying to work out how to harness social media there is no guarantee that you get an Instagrammer with lots of followers that any of them will pay for a subscription to this service and also I also what's interesting is it's much harder to make a funny TV show I've tried it then it is to do live coverage of football right like actually there is a reason why live football the coverage has basically stayed the same since we were kids you know it is host some ex pros build up to the game team news managers any knocks what's going to happen half time what do you make of that full time what do you make of that and of course you can do it well you have good hosts and good pundits and whatever I understand I totally get your point that you know men's football has the show before the show and the show before the show before the show and after the show and phone ins and hours of radio you know don't piss off the people that really at the heart of it you can watch curvy enthusiasm if you want if you want to watch Chelsea the women's championship you want to watch Chelsea and you want to know who's playing you don't want to know what pasta you know Roberto's cooking you know I think these are but I do think companies they take those supports for granted don't they they think well whatever we do they'll still watch anyway because they're the core audience and this is a conversal way of thinking about and it's quite sad in a way because we know this across football in general that the match going fan the ones I've said I'm always going to attend a sort of thing well we'll take we know we've got there in the subscription model of stuff now it also blurred the lines because how people consume football now you think this this competition is on Disney plus a streaming service is not on a linear TV channel and you think of say sorts of sky sports or an ITV or BBC I have linear coverage where people are sat there watching the games live a lot of people are going to be consuming this through clips and moments and if they feel anything can pull people in then that's what they'll do and I think this is the sadness of it is a bit it ages you I guess when you look at stuff like this and you think it's a quick idea isn't it well this has changed for me but there's also question to ask maybe younger supporters what they want as well the criticism comes from you know established people in the game or people who you know have championed the women's game for so long I sort of see that better at the same time you have to at some point go whether it's men's or women's football this is the number of people that are going to watch this football match it actually doesn't really matter what you you know like you're not going to get more by a dog running around I don't I mean I you know I mean it helped Arsenal in that particular game because they didn't play very well against HPC and needed a 93rd minute penalty to win but yeah so sometimes that takes away attention from a team's battle for me so we don't get analysed and also like they cut to win and they cut to an advert in the game which was a technical problem that wasn't something they planned Manchester United reported annual loss for the seventh successive year taking the clubs combined losses to 444 millions since 2019 she's numbers feel meaningless to me they are raising revenue by selling small clumps of grass Thomas Tuckle could be them from the old traffic pitch they relayed the playing surface for the first time in 14 years this summer an email to fans has offered them the chance to buy seven by seven centimeters clumps of turf for 125 pounds Barry are you interested no not I can't think of any grass I'd pay money for maybe maybe a clump out a croak park all Ireland final day on 1994 and but no but I will assume there are people who might buy it and for anyone who inferred the other inference just say no I would say I know Andy Burnham is has state that he may lift what he calls an unfair ban on drinking in the stands at Premier League and football league matches and I just curious to know your thoughts and does any many match going fans care about whether they're allowed to drink or not I reckon a lot would I reckon a lot a lot who you know at half time basically down a pint because they don't have time would love to go and get a pint have it there for the second half I mean I feel I don't know what you think Paul like football is different to cricket where you go you doesn't matter if you miss stuff and you are basically for me I'm you know I don't want to drink before the lunch interval I'm not an animal but then I wouldn't mind a few in the afternoon it's a slightly different experience I tend to not need a pint during a football match but I can see a lot of people liking it yeah no I think it probably would be quite a big deal to quite a lot of people but yeah yeah I mean as you said so many different to cricket isn't it cricket part of the experience is is supposed to be that people go off on a drinks run come back six wickets a day and they've got the pints with them in football yeah I don't know personally I don't think it would it would make you some out of difference to me but I think there'll be a lot of people who'd be very happy yeah I think you would need like to be in like the box park stand there are stands where when you score you're not going to throw your pint and when you score you are going to throw your pint because I wouldn't want you know I wouldn't want that the throw your pint stand is a hard sell though isn't it I think a lot of people be in it I think a lot of people in let me finish with a couple of emails you know and which covers all human life and he got in touch to say dear Max Barry and the gang I've been listening since way back in the James Richardson glory is I mean some call them that but first time emailing in I rarely miss an episode I've managed to indoctrinate a number of friends and family into the world of football weekly my friend Chris was a particular fan and on shared car journeys to Tuesday night seven aside we'd always catch up on the latest football results but also on the latest hot takes from Jordan grumbles from Barry and tired anecdotes from Max do you mean anecdotes about me being tired or old anecdotes that I'm repeating both both are boring so that's fine and he continues at tragically Chris passed away in January this year which has left a massive void in the lives of his friends family and partner Steph Chris really was one of the good guys kind humble and mild mannered and also one hell of a number eight Chris was due to run the nottingham half marathon this Sunday with his brothers in law being his absence a group of 10 friends and family have decided to run the nottingham half marathon in his memory we're raising funds for the nottingham forest foundation with all funds going towards their mental health and well-being program tricky to talk any donations to be greatly appreciated if you happen to be in nottingham on Sunday morning keep your eye out for a bunch of but drag-old runners wearing forest foundation number eight shirts much love Andy thank you Andy I'll post out your crowd funder on instagram and twitter and blues guy but it is crowd funder in memory of Chris Moore if you just want to go and google that and we send you all our love a seasoned half marathon runner could I just implore them don't don't start too quick don't start because even if you deliberately start slow you're almost certainly still going too quick so so steady at the slow and steady noted now resident athlete there now Barry James and Ontario Terry I was going to touch and and I would say the best pre-wedding email we received it is long James here avid listener for well over a decade first time responded lifelong asked envelope fans soon to be married man on the 25th of September I'll be marrying the love of my life merit at the little church of the west in Las Vegas I've always felt a certain kinship with Barry's vision of middle age as he's ambled through it and I found myself drawing an increasing number of parallels with my own I seem to have followed broadly the same path as Barry moving far from home in pursuit pursuit of love following merit to Ottawa in the soon to be 51st state I was fortunate enough to find love and be blessed with two beautiful daughters but as I sit alone in the frozen wastelands on the edge of lake america contemplating life as a middle-aged man the only real difference between us is that while we both seem destined to die slow insignificant deaths in front of match of the day I have a partner in now the room watching love island on the comfy sofa the biggest differentiator being that I've had to buy twice as much food as I got to eat along the way at this pivotal juncture in my life I turned to Barry and the team hopefully for well wishes but more likely for some salient advice shots straight from the hip Barry's unlikely to feel quite the same bond with me as I do with him here's after all a leader of many after a world win 16 year engagement the early excitement mystery and optimism have naturally been replaced by shared calendars administrative discussions about the children and the occasional cold war over who loaded the dishwasher incorrectly and yet in what can only be described as a spectacular failure to learn from the experience of others we've decided to formalise the arrangement all that remains is Barry's seal of approval so if Max Barry in the team could give merit and mere wedding shout out before the 25th of September it would genuinely mean a lot it may in fact be the my first and final public shout out I'm unlikely to be rising in for the traditional post for sector we mentioned even though we already have kids statistically speaking this marriage is unlikely to last forever particularly looking at some of the famous names who tied the knot this chapel before us I'd hate to rule out the possibility of one day disappointing a new younger wife so I'd appreciate the shout out before it's too late and marriage middle age malaise the wildlife for the Canadian public health care finally gets the better of me James thank you James well James seem to know me really really well and yet doesn't know me at all I would say I didn't move far away from home for love I moved far away from home for employment and I think we're very little in common because he's found love he has children I haven't and don't but I wish him in marriage every success I like the idea of a vagus wedding and the only advice I could give James is that if you're arguing over who for the dishwasher incorrectly just take the hit it was you whether it was you or not it was you yeah but sometimes it's hard we're we're in a chopping boards on top of everything sometimes it's hard pick your battles James you're absolutely right good luck James Amerit all I love to you and that'll do for today thanks everybody thank you Paul thank you thank you Seb yeah and Haji's Romania manager by the way and he's taking on Graham Potter battle of the talented left footers yeah of course thanks for that thank you Barry thank you we did it first one out the way five more to go football weekly is produced by Roy Simon and Jesse Howard the executive producer is Joel Grove will be back on Monday this is the Guardian
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