The Tactical Mirage of Bernabéu Pragmatism and the Rise of Iberian Fluidity

Welcome to the Federal soccer show and our review of the 2026-27 UEFA Champions League Master one of the league-based colon the fazeening in which we learn Joseph's love for Inter is still unbending especially when they make eras defending Barcelona made it rain as Rafinha gave final some pain and let's go Madrid took the lead through an attack but Liverpool was saved by a good old Mac and Martin Oda guard starred in Napoli's back yard when he hit a shot hard with the power of Asgard who knows must follow the do you have about that my name's Ryan Bailey join me today hello Taylor Rock oh how are you I'm well Ryan Bailey I love the running introductions they're always a lovely way to start the show indeed thank you very much for joining us Taylor also joining us mr Joe Lowry hi Joe what's going on with you oh I'm great Ryan get to the chase let's introduce the third member let's go third member's got a little birthday cake out of shot it's his big day twenty one today Graham rather than hello how are you but they push I was I was better right yesterday Ryan when birthday boys I was better yesterday Ryan when I was still young and not middle age like I am today thirty five that's the worst birthday so far I feel like that is the tipping point of me no longer being young or at least being able to argue that I'm young mine got that the worst birthday so far I hate to break it you it's gonna become a theme in your life I'm sorry I expect that I expect that no I think I think thirty five and seventy feel like the worst ones to me like thirty five I just say thirty five's a tipping point where in marketing in like commercial circles they talk about like eighteen to thirty four as being like the youth band well I'm out of that now and I feel like from thirty five up until seventy you can you're kind of like shades of middle age and then seventy year old like those those those are the two so isn't it isn't it you know how your definitions change over time like I don't know if that's true for you when when I was young I don't know sixty seemed really old and now the older I get and the older the people around me get the less old that seems inside it's seventy might be that benchmark for me too actually where that feels like a real milestone in the way that when I was a child sixty felt like all right well yeah I mean count your days sort of seven is the new twenty five that's what they say yeah you know I've read that as well yes that's true when I was coaching eleven year old way back when I think I was like twenty three or twenty four at the time and they're like why don't you have a nicer car because I drove a Honda Accord and I was like because I don't and they're like but you're old you should have a nice car right now that was fun so I think it's very much a sliding scale of aging so they did the beep test after that that's cool exactly exactly and we're running for an hour and a half straight have fun oh boy yeah yeah the power dynamic was on display that day I'm sure Taylor I know I can cross grain in the background yes happy birthday ground chicken checking a new box on the census form there you go you agree it's it's it's fine it's fine I'm a bit old and you sometimes the birthdays are fine I'll take your word for it yeah all right uh well if you'd like to celebrate with Graham why don't you drop him a message in our discord server you can access it at patreon.com slash total software show you're going to get bonus episodes access to our discord server and so much more on our bonus app that we're going to record shortly after this main feed episode we're talking ballon door ballon door ballon door sorry raffinia no room for you today we're talking ballon door but raffinia you'll get your flowers in this episode no doubt patreon.com slash total software one more thing by the way before we get started with the chemis league action uh the athletic live is on youtube it began this week uh they did some watch along with the uh national football league game on on Wednesday evening got all the shows going on there on game days it's the biggest matchup alongside the athletics most tapped in reporters none of us were on it don't worry don't worry we're not tapped in think that invite must be in the in the neo style along with my birthday card from you right it's in the mail don't worry it's don't worry you can come part of the show in an interactive capacity they'll be chatting with uh the watchers and viewers throughout the show the athletic live go subscribe on youtube uh good stuff also the athletic live is presented by google gem and i check it out it starts this week subscribe like smash the buttons the athletic live there we go uh full disclosure before we head into the chemis league review we're recording this before Thursday's games so uh the segment three of this episode we recorded after now later we don't want to do before no so grem will you be uh how many sheets to the wind will you be but later i think maybe we'll miss you on the on the third segment is that fair to say i can't believe believe shabba or sabba or whatever the team that manage excited are playing that will be in around for eight years i can't believe that they won at old traffic actually that seems like the most likely outcome can't believe my united one is that does that seem less believable i can't believe i google where sabba are from as a version apparently that's right look at me doing research excellent stuff all right let's start off before i don't let me know either Taylor yeah and grem loved himself yesterday that's right yeah tell you who else loved himself yesterday joseph marina got a win in the chemis league with round of jota two on win over in tear uh into the vistas had their early chances in this one then i think i think jove from my perspective real which were pretty much dominated after this into key it's as keeper had a bad day i learned he wasn't young somber he was playing in a different game on Tuesday um and back me with the opener then valverde bouncing on a terrible gulky mistake there Carlos of gosto with the consolation what did we make of this one jiff me it felt it wasn't even contesting in part but mostly felt like ramitude never really felt threatened i i i think that's true i think i largely agree with your assessment while also thinking that inter showed a lot of good stuff in between their game altering errors or even at times after their game altering errors because both of those game altering errors came in the first 25 minutes of this game i inter just destroyed their chances of collecting three points here that that's the long short of it it's the kirtis jones holding on to is but all holding out of the ball for too long before he passes it to you on bisek who can't really handle business and the brachim ds picks it up and finds him bapai scores that's one nil and then the second one is even worse which is joseph martina is just whiffing it's got the ball he's trying to do a cut back and fedeval verde takes it from him and it puts in the back of the net a cut by into his own goal like if valverde didn't get there then the gulky for himself was gonna get there it's you know what i think fedeval verde really spared him a beautiful brutal moment there i mean you can't expect to beat a team as talented as ramadrid with those kinds of errors early on i will say ramadrid my opinion of ramadrid didn't change at all based off of this game we knew that there are team that can be dangerous in transition and they showed some flashes of that even after their goals which really i suppose you could call them transition goals the first or more than the second but they were more freebies than any other category of goal ramadrid in possession looked brutal in this game like huge distances between players like active disagreements between players on the field there was a moment in the 27th minute i don't know if you guys saw this or denzel don't freeze is like waving brachim ds to push forward and like get out of his space on the right side and ds just ignores him and drops in any way class i mean that ramadrid don't seem to have any real coherence in their possession setup and their pressing was was extremely poor in this game because it always is an inter-routine that's gonna punish that more than most and they did get punished at times ramadrid it just didn't matter because they had a two goal cushion so i am i stuck and ramadrid hasn't moved whatsoever like he didn't go up it didn't go down inter-intriguing me but i mean they were they were pouring their own way in this game as well yeah i i thought ramadrid were quite poor in this match i really want them to be different this season i mean despite myself i am still invested in the merino redemption arc i know it's wrong i know i shouldn't be but you know i love through the the peak merino years and so there's always going to be that little bit of me no you're all grim i know i'm just trying to really hit home the point today but there's still that little bit of me that thinks like our merino renaissance would be fun but i'm watching ramadrid this season and it is basically the same as it was last season and the season before that and so i saw michael caley of the um the double pivot podcast kind of tweeting through or blue skying through this game i'm talking about how like this isn't even merino ball like whatever that is in 2026 they are this ramadrid team they're not defensively sound there's no rest to fence structure which inner malan in this game exposed over and over again i mean you look at the numbers yes ramadrid in the end had more big chances nine to four but inter had 57 touches in the obsession bots compared to ramadrid's 38 they had more shots they had more possession so enter malan really did and test ramadrid in this game and for ramadrid like none of this is surprising because this has been the way of things for ramadrid for like three seasons maybe even longer than that the only time when they haven't been like this was when there was like that month period when alonzo got everyone to play like a hero in football for a bit of month and then everyone got really mad at him and and so when i see a merino ramadrid playing like this like it kind of makes sense in a weird way they hired him to basically keep doing the same thing and and because it's merino in 2026 there's no risk of him actually involving this team because he's incapable of doing it like it's not like they hired alonzo and asked him to just keep things steady where he actually has the capability merino and 2026 can't do those things so i think they've just hired merino to be like a man manager and to try and keep everyone on side which is a risky game considering Joseph merino's past and i think this game was another manifestation of what this what this team is where like there's no structure they're not coherent but individual talent will eventually get them over the line in a lot of games i think i'm i'm a little not that i fully disagree with you all but like it feels slightly overly harsh to me like joe you say like the press was poor and i'm sure there are examples of that but like both the goals come from them pressing high enforcing turnovers and mistakes right like if both goals come from in my mind somewhat coordinated pressing or at least individual pressing like that seems to have worked okay and then like gram like more chances created but fewer touches in the box isn't that game state isn't that you're up to an ill you don't need to like possess and get overstretched like i hear what you're both saying it just also to me was a game in which rummage scored two goals and never really looked that uncomfortable and probably could have scored like three or four more if there was maybe more passing instead of shooting or more uh team thought instead of individual shooting but overall i think i'm a little bit more positive they then maybe you all are they for sure could have scored more goals if they played better soccer i think that we all we all agree with um i tell you point about the pressing i just can't i just can't give it to you man i just i mean the the main thing is surely surely i think in the first one maybe surely it is inter goofing more than it is rummage doing anything positive in the press i i don't know if that it already runs that's good for him man i guess but like they're just the vulgarity one yeah the vulgarity one isn't as an uh as an instructor press like if you watch it it's just vulgarity running at the court before the first one like i can see down with the first ones i like i just i think i disagree with you because like because if you watch that that's a sustained sequence of possession for inter in which they're keeping the ball but they can't do anything with it and they're getting stymied and they get forced back and then they're possessing in and around their own box and yes it's valverde running but it's them not being able to play out so like yeah it's him doing it individually but it is also inter struggling with how many players Madrid had committed forward hmm i'm watching again here just just to just see but um i'm the only check that again all right maybe and maybe like grim yes since you're checking again tell me tell me if i have that wrong but that was my read is like man i remember like in my notes like inter not really being able to do much with it and then suddenly they just looked really uncomfortable and then there's that that i still don't really i don't see it with the second one the first one i actually think the first one you could you could argue like there are four players you look at the like where the how many bodies Real Madrid have from turning the ball over between that like Jones bisque misunderstanding um you could argue that that is the result of a structure at the second one like i don't really see much of a of a coordinated press but um yeah well did you guys just hate Josie is what i'm hearing i'll tell you i agree i love Josie despite myself i want to be back but i just don't see it unfortunately i saw this game overall tailored the same way you saw i never felt the room to particularly under threat it was again at 37 shots and 15 on target so you could argue that there should have been more than three goals in this one but i i just felt like it was yeah it was i mean the Bernabé was especially the whole grid the Bernabé was i don't know if that should be the gauge because they were so dead i'll hear this thing when we play around Bernabé yeah the round jet finds right happy and i will say as far as the as far as rumours were never being under threat they can see the 21 shots shots in this game almost two expected goals i agree that inter didn't create high quality chance after chance but inter to look at them for a minute i thought they did a lot of very interesting stuff in this game and this is just the intermelon way they look once again like the best team in Italy to me from from what i've seen of them so far this year including this game there i don't think they are quite in the the tier of teams that we talked about on Monday of the Barcelona the Arsenal and the PSG of the sheer cohesion and in like force that they offer in different ways because they don't think they're as talented as those teams but i don't think there's a team uh in europe that has as much tactical he and that is it's close to PSG in terms of being tactically cohesive i suppose is what i'm trying to say when you watch them and it's just so abundantly clear that everybody is on the same page they executed poorly in this game for sure that's true like they shot themselves in the foot too many times they were too vulnerable and they're on third when they turn the ball over that's true i think they were sloppy at times even outside of the the couple of goals they gave up but the inter changes they have in possession are unbelievable like the things that are doing at the outside center backs where bestona could be inverting in the midfield or he could be overlapping wide on the left side yon bisett could be stepping in the midfield from the central center back roll or he could shift to the right center back roll in the second half when john stones who by the way is maybe the best like inverted central center back that the game's ever seen because he's maybe the only one that we've seen it do it at a high level consistently they have so much fluidity in how they play and they are so capable of building through this they just gave up this result like they they are absolutely better than they showed in this game at least better than the mistakes made them look in this game i i so enjoy watching them i i don't think the level of cohesion they have can be mirrored by almost any other team in europe there great oh coming about how does ramadrian so i got that but how does how does ramadrian not get credit then like that's and i'm not a ramadrian fan if any saying i mean how much it's just like if they're so good and so cohesive and can do so many different things and can cause so many different problems and then they didn't like you can say that that's them just like shooting themselves in the foot but like on some level i think i i have to give some credit to ramadrian then for the for the result they able to get and how uncomfortable they made the internet times and then how comfortable they looked at times like jude belling him i mean he scores that one goal 11 times out of 10 but this time didn't like it just seems like it could have been so much worse yeah but we're still praising inter yeah i mean so the way i think about it is grand ruffian could do a 60 minute podcast episode and make two mistakes but in in the other 15 minutes of the podcast he could say the most brilliant things we've ever heard and that for me that so means grams of great podcaster like he's done so much good so many good things on that episode and then there are the two mistakes i understand it's not a great analogy because soccer is not podcasting i never say anything good i think we can do things can be two things here right like one of the founding principles of the total soccer show where yeah grand made two major mistakes but also like grams that a lot of brilliant things like we can parse things with a little bit more nuance than just like was was it good or bad i think injured did a lot of bad things in this game but the things in between the things that i think look incredibly repeatable where the mistakes they made i don't think are super repeatable like i don't think we're gonna see a lot of goalkeeping errors of the magnitude of the one that Joseph Martinez made in this game not just from entering the champions league but from every goalkeeper in the champions league will probably be able to count them all on two fingers in this in this entire competition from now till may so i don't know i think i think there was bad for sure but the bad doesn't look repeatable and the good stuff does for me i just can't believe after so many years of this from realm of jet war still like this is the realm of jet thing like anytime you watch them it's like is this good oh there's one another champions league for sure like this this this is what they've been doing for you don't don't get it twistedized i still think obviously ramadrid or contender for this thing there are really good team and if you make a mistake against them they're more likely to punish you than than almost any other team on the planet i think they still look messy and i don't think they look like a team that i would put in the top two of favorites for this competition but i don't think any of us should be surprised grand wouldn't be surprised i wouldn't be surprised we know you guys wouldn't be surprised every ramadrid or lifting the trophy at the end of this thing like that's to grand's point that's just how this works yeah one more question for me on this game gram train Alexander Arnold who appears to have seeded his spot up right back to uh dental dumb frees would you say did he ever have it i guess well why they were just his to seed is another question i suppose to yeah but he's uh he's done the fallback to midfield pep godio lifestyle switch it seems is this a is this a permanent fixture well how do we feel about this not not according to josey who after this game said train Alexander Arnold was not a midfielder after he played them in midfield for this game so the thing we should know is a ramadrid had a bunch of um i think of suspensions rather than injuries in sentiment field i believe too many was out suspended he played with ingas excuse me there is definitely a bunch of hold on i'll be able to pull them up here in front of me uh fought mommas failed me right at the crucial moment but um yeah there was a reason why he was played in sentiment field i don't think trend as a sentiment fielder i can't believe we're still doing this experiment in 2026 like southgate tried it at the euros in 2024 he just doesn't have like the rhythm building ability i guess like he has the passing range and that's why people keep thinking he could potentially work as a sentiment fielder but he doesn't have the passing rhythm of like a true pace setter and he doesn't have the strings to say of a defender he doesn't have the defensive instincts or even the athleticism i think to play in that in that position um so i i would expect him to come out of that that team in sentiment field again but then the question is where do you put them because dumb free says renews starting rate back that season so i smell a move back to the Premier League at some point in the future Chelsea there we go Chelsea get ready for that one uh three points on the board in the phase link four realm of treaty monitor the tougher tests they'll probably get at this stage very good stuff indeed killing and bappy by the way moving joint fifth in the list of all time chemist league and european cup goal scorers with his goal in this one he be climbing those charts i would imagine as well uh quick look around at the other games on choose day man city with the two new win at porto the urling harland also chasing net record i'd imagine uh with a brace at the stadium where man city lost the 2020 and final two Chelsea of course uh club brews lost three two to aston villa john McGinn on the score line and uh anybody dear and Nicholas Jackson as well first winner the season grand for a aston villa here first three goals of the season as well so uh off to uh off to a something of a start where they live in in that one yeah this this was i guess the joint first game of the new championship league season i thought it was the best game that i've watched so far in this round because it was incredibly open that's just the way that both of these teams want to play and in the first half of villa it certainly had more quality and transition than than club brewja and again scored that lovely opener with that guided left foot finish from the edge of the box that has kind of become his trademark Nicholas Jackson scored his first goal as a villa player as well and he was a real threat in behind i think he's going to be great for villa i think that's going to work out well for everyone concerned um so i have time villa three one up they're in control but brews to their credit came roaring back in the second half um Jan Vergeley is remember that name he is brewsja's next big thing obviously that is their their model they sold the crystal solos to Arsenal in the summer he was excellent he was a constant threat down the left side and yeah brewsja in the second half they continually put villa under pressure with penalty box entries and crosses so it was a great game that was really interesting from start to finish that had jeopardy right until the final whistle did indeed and yeah and so i'm always in this game of course he was yeah for club brewsja he's two years old and you Graham and he's still um conceding three goals on duty nights okay in shit that's that's the way to click the crumbles there uh elsewhere brissey dotman with three two win over vr al uh seru jaxi uh getting the rare hat trick of scoring twice and also getting a known goal in that one nicely done indeed uh a key Athens with the one new win over lsk lsk making their full debut in this competition a k um it was a ras van marin with a very very good free kick that made the difference in this game if you haven't seen it list the check it out very good indeed from ras van marin uh lucca jovich is also on a key Athens i didn't realize where he had surfaced remember him shot very good and another three to talk about real betis with a three to win at liel the republic of ira's Troy parrots a lot of getting another goal after getting that goal that the winery gets around last friday as well um lots of teams getting picked by the parrots at the moment it seems and uh a bit of a interesting night for the ambapa family obviously killion scoring that evening and liel's ethan ambapa getting a red card for a very egregious elbow to the face off the ball in that one as well all right let's take a quick break when we come back we'll talk about Wednesday's games including but not limited to Liverpool's win over at leti got some Barcelona chat much more join us then so it all soccer show welcome back to our chem is league fazing match day one roundup we move to wednesday now and livapals two one win over at leti go madrid elexis mccallister with a lovely winner from outside the box the pack spin hit really hard shot one of my favorite shots to come back when this was after marcos yorente open the scoring and i'm excited equalized with the cheekiest of back heel assists for some aside from a rojo as well very good stuff in deed uh oh grand what do we make of this one brandy barcola obviously getting involved as well he had a pretty glorious chance he put wide in this one and then had some impact on what do we make of livapals win here yeah a good one for lower pool to state the obvious can suddenly had to come from behind which is never easy against a semi only team certainly not a perfect performance and you can still see that the pieces are they're not quite fitting together yeah i thought the center of midfield was very open in the first half and you know that's not necessarily an eriola issue that's been an issue for livapal for pretty much a full like what twelve to eighteen months now something that he is inherited with this team i thought the pressing structure and the kind of like collective spacing it's it's just not they're totally with livapal yet they were pressing in ones and twos and in in the first half and at leti were um we're having a lot of joy in playing through that that press but i think we are also starting to see some combinations with this other pool team and it does feel like eriola is beginning to settle on which players he likes in each position it does feel like they're progressing with pretty much every game that they're playing at the moment the most interesting thing for me was um not just Bradley Barclay getting his first start as a love pool player but the fact that he played off the right rather than the left because he's been thought of primarily as a left winger first and foremost until now and him be on the right was a real eye opener for me because i think i understand that signing a little bit more beyond like just signing up like a top level player and putting them into your forward line he has been signed and this is a strange sentence to say he's been signed to be lover pulls Jacob Murphy now Jacob Murphy was so important to Alexander Isaac at Newcastle and there's a whole there's a whole bunch of data viz on how Isaac is much more effective when he has a a right footer crossing into the box or giving him service from the right side and Murphy was provided more assists for him than any other player by a million million miles at Newcastle and so i guess this is lover pull trying to imitate that with an even better player than Jacob Murphy now Bradley Barclay is not really a crosser in the same way that Jacob Murphy is but nonetheless it seems like they're betting on that little combination getting more out of Alexander Isaac i thought Bradley Barclay's performance was kind of mixed he missed a couple of really good opportunities particularly that one-on-one chance in the second half comes off with what i believe was cramp in in the second half as well but he is going to elevate the standard of that little pull forward later i don't think there's any question and so i think that will have some encouragement going out of this game i'm excited to see Bradley Barclay get to be like the guy for liver pull because it does sort of seem like he's going to be the guy i think we're learning enough about fluorine verts to know that he's not a guy who's going to rack up assist after assist after assist in the in the premier league run the champions look at this point i think he's maybe more connector than he is always final ball player though i thought he was quite good in this game fluorine verts uh gapo and gamao and gamao it looks quite bright on the left side in this game i thought as well he's work leading up to the mechalester goal was really nice but but really it is going to be barcola who's tasked with i think being the the co-pilot with isaac in a lot of ways and i'm i'm really excited about that because barcola has had the misfortune in some ways of just being always the fourth fiddle it feels like where at psg he's not really the the guy in any respect and eventually just gets surpassed by deseret duet and it's exactly the same story for france it's kind of a reminder for me of just how good Bradley barcola is i really like to mend this game cram your right about the mischances i don't tend to worry about that stuff too much in the long term i thought barcola was was like a game breaker for a lot of this game in his balance with gamao which you could easily imagine being gapo instead like a right footer on that left side who can do a little bit of driving inwards and beating players one by one there's a lot to like there in the the chemistry between verts and usac i thought did look really good in this game some nice central combination play i that liverpool as a whole were were a little sloppy especially in the first half i don't think this was like a banner performance on them but this is a good athletic team as well which was a takeaway of mine from this game and for them to get the job done it and show a lot of different things along the way even with flaws i think is a step for them as you said yeah i mean if barcola is going to play in the right side just in terms of personal that gives liverpool so much more balance because all of a sudden you can have gapo in the left without having barcola replacing him you can have anger more sharing minutes with gapo you've got munos as the depth option behind barcola on the right side and then even defensively liverpool it they seem to have they seem to have found out these last couple matches that run all the raho is probably they're starting right back right now corner Bradley is out injured and gemmy frimpong just isn't a right back in a in a back four at least as an orthodox right back and the raho is a bit of a stop gap solution where he's not he's not as smooth on the ball as you would maybe like someone in that position to be but defensively he gives them a bit of a safety net and also barcola works back really well there was a couple moments in this game where his work create was like audibly applauded by the Liverpool fans at anfield so i just think that one single change moving barcola to the right assuming that they get the same level of productivity out of him on the right like that thing is kept that's that's kind of unknown i guess and they just made things make a little bit more sense in my head with Liverpool. Taylor on the Liverpool side can we give some flowers to Dominic's office light as well because yes he just seems to be the kind of player who always steps up in the most important moments for this Liverpool team and he's done it again here. Like not in terms of like style of play but there's a there's like a little bit of Michael Karek to him i think Michael Karek at Manchester United where like he just kind of endures he keeps starting it doesn't really matter who else is around him so both lies just seems like he's going to be in the conversation but that's because he does so much to my mind in so many different ways and that can be stretching the back line and like making runs in behind but then also dropping deep even between the two centerbacks on occasion to get the ball he'll he'll pull defenders out of position but then also is happy to take people on i felt like he was really up for it in this game and really trying things in a way that felt like had been part of the team briefing with that let's see with the lead they're going to bunker they're going to defend they're going to frustrate they're going to make life difficult and it felt like it was going to require some individual efforts and so was like seemed up for that challenge and tried to take people on try to get past people road challenges put in some challenges of his own and then has an opportunistic goal but it's still a good finish it's good situational awareness it's good placement by him i thought it was a really strong performance than another good reminder of why he remains so critical to this team even if he's never going to be one of their like big name stars yeah definitely and grandma on the athletic side can i express disappointment that there wasn't more poophowsery from a side that had christian romero and simione in it it felt like they could be to ten thousand total i thought i thought they might go a bit more dark arts than they did is that fair and maybe they have maybe they've sort of been quelled by the the match suspensions from FIFA they better tread carefully for the time being otherwise they'll be banned for the next world cup and yeah i mean watching this at let's go mid red performance that sort of feeds into Ryan watching the broadcast of this game people still anticipate that this is going to be like a peak simione team from when they were winning the league of tight they're not that team anymore like even in the way that they they play this is a this is a team that is going to try and control more of the game they are a little bit more expansive i thought Pablo Barrios like i really like Pablo Barrios and i think he embodies how i'd like to have changed in these last 18 months or so and he will progress the ball from midfield and his line breaking numbers are up there were some of the best in in in the game i thought he was really impressive and his positioning was pinning in Gamua as well so he was effective in that sense as well but then you've got like Lee Kang in who's an excellent technician didn't really have a great influence on this game next to Julien Alvarez who was who was good in this game on his first start since all the nonsense over the over the summer and everyone already knows how i feel about him so once they went one the up the the British commentators were like oh this is going to be you know classic adleti they're going to use the dark arts and we haven't really seen maybe that'll change with Romero now in this team but we haven't fully seen that from adleti for for a little while so we kind of got what i expected from adleti they have good PCs they've got good players but a lot has changed over the summer and it's not quite it's not quite clicked yet i do wonder how sustainable what they're doing is over the course of the season because markless yorente might be the most fit player in europe like based on this game based on everything i've seen from him before that dude can cover so much distance but it was in like the 38 minute that he is like sucking wind at one point i think like he like makes a tackle hustling back uh like inhaling and exhaling you've never heard that before sorry please could Ryan was baffled by sucking wind uh yeah man have a southern track coach and then you'll understand uh but when the Danish international thing says there's a there's a gn so that's right um but like to to see him get up and back over and over again i think as i said it's like 37 38 minute he is just like bent over like clearly pretty winded and i think that's because he's being asked to get forward and carry the ball forward and help trigger attacks and then facilitate attacks and then at the same time get back 90 yards to put in defensive challenges this felt like one that could happen at earlier in the season but as it goes on i don't know how much they're going to be able to replicate that one maybe we will see a little bit more of the dark arts from them uh as the season progresses i mean it feels like digga semi-only on the chalkboards before every game is like okay in the left side we're going to have jellis semi-ani it's going to be dovetailing with Alex being a youtube are going to be working together koki you come over here for a try and go hanko overlap on occasion and then on the right side markless yorente not you you're just all you buddy one one other like small thing i wanted to note it's like it's slowly been building for me but Virgil van Dyke is like slowly turning into a grumpy old man get off my lawn player and i'm really enjoying it and there was just moments in this game where he as the captain is the one who has to talk to the official but is like okay like you could just see him being over it every time and then there's a moment where there's a scrum in the box before a corner is taken on the ref is trying to talk to him and he won't look at him he just keeps giving him thumbs up and then as the ref keeps talking he just gives him increasingly emphatic thumbs up like i want to talk to you that's fine that's fine leave me alone and he just gets more and more agitated but you can only tell by the like the speed of the thumbs up that he is giving and that was a recurring them he wanted nothing to do with the official he was trying to avoid getting in into any conversations with any athletic players i enjoy him just doing his job and then her rump thing back to his house to sit in his lazy boy we you know why he's doing that right Taylor why is that he's 25 no oh my lawn there you go i just came out of there i couldn't i couldn't help it you're gonna stop making more and more noises when you get up and sit down as well grab you see that it's coming for you just very quickly before we move on i tell you you mentioned Marcus are into it i feel like we have to highlight his record of scoring at anfield which is just it's insane it doesn't it defies explanation so um that he's got a dog called anfield because he scores there so often and only one player has scored more goals against Liverpool at anfield than all competitions that's Andy Cole who obviously play for Manchester United and Newcastle notably these are teams in the Premier League second on that list Marcus LaRente for athletic Madrid five he scored five goals at anfield i don't know what's going on there it's weird right he's not goal scorer does it what's it Liverpool athletic Madrid was that the last game before covid it was yes was that was out that field as well he scored two in that game there you go i thought that was triggering something in me there we go so yeah let's never talk about that again but let's uh congratulate Liverpool with the three points in this one uh elsewhere on Wednesday barcelona with the five on wind over fire not in the pouring rain damp new more like am i right right uh refini with a brace in this one no ball on door for you refini we'll talk about that in the bonus feed but another outrageous performance from him all the same a gabriel zoos with a lovely glancing definitely definitely meant it header i don't know you're dead yeah it looks behind them before he makes the the header i think he means it all right very good well he got he got on the score sheet as well did uh did gabriel hasus barcelona scored 22 goals in their first five games that's quite a lot the same they're absolutely frightening at the moment they are the best team in europe on the evidence of what i've seen so far this season it's it's frankly not even close they blew away fine order in this game and refini was the he was the main man as he has been in pretty much every game so far this season he might be the best player in the world right now his little jank for the first goal we sent the two finer defenders like sliding in the rain on that slidey pitch um his movement in general the way he's dropping deep and then spinning in behind the way he's linking up with the way the possessions he's taken in the final third and in the box it's like he's been playing as a nine for years and also the goals by carry maddie m a and the one you mentioned from from a gabriel jesus right both really nice as well so there's just so much positive about barcelona at the moment i i await the new year when they are when they're freed from flick ball but for for now it's all very enjoyable and i'm having a good time yep they can do it on a rainy Wednesday night in katalynia that is for sure um arson all got the one new win in naples over nappley martinow to guard the aforementioned with the goal that made the difference uh very good start to the season from him as well four goals in five games and a banger in this one as well arson one all of their group games last year and you might remember they did quite well in this competition uh as well uh they had 26 shots arsonal and just the one goal though so they only needed the one they got the three points in that one regardless uh else where she took up with the three one win over viking um viking are from anyone anyone away no way it's only going to be one of two isn't it no way the viking for yet they got the uh two got got three on win there and psg with a six one win over sloven practice lava was with them barely with the brace for a torus with a hat trick in this one sloven practice lava managed by of course as we all knew yeah your tore yeah yeah that's a thing very good uh exit stuff from psg there and also sporting with the three one win over gala tasserai comeback win for sporting taylor did you catch this one i did actually and it felt like a very gallantissari performance they were very up for it they looked really sharp they get the early goal uh there's a lot of good combination play there's a lot of good individual moments and then they get a little bit tired they get a little bit leaky they stop doing their defensive work and they concede three goals and this game was a a well fought game from sporting who also have a worldly of a goal from the free kick for the third goal uh but yeah this was sporting i think being like strong and bending after they concede but definitely not breaking and then finding their way back into it and just making gala tasserai uncomfortable and overloading them through the middle and playing direct once gala tasserai adjusted to the numbers through the middle and i don't think uh the turkish club had much in the way of a response so a well-earned three points for sporting club to Portugal in deed all right we're going to take a quick break we're actually going to go watch all the Thursday games and then come back for our third statement we're going to let the birthday boy uh go off to his local um pub slash hairdresser slash bait tackle shop slash uh wedding venue slash everything else so yep so all the same please it is indeed enjoy that grab uh but listen up we'll be back very shortly join us them so the soccer show welcome back hey we've watched all the Thursday games now let's get into it shall we why don't we start off in Munich with uh by Munich 5 photo glint nil uh joe perhaps we were expecting based on last year's competition that this one could be a fairly even affair and up to half time i guess it was but then the second half happened yep that's a perfect summary of this game but a glimpses approach was so defensive not not defensive beyond what was reasonable but it was incredibly defensive because they're playing one of the best teams on the planet they sat really deep in this five four one block throughout the first half and had a lot of success frustrating what Bayern Munich were trying to do when Bayern were stepping high up the field to try to break that block they just couldn't withstand it and that that comes back to a truth that i think about that a coach told me a long time ago it's just so difficult to defend in a low block against a team with as much firepower as the best of the best like when the talent gap is what it is and yes we know that photo glimpses had this amazing run run that you referenced truly one of my favorite soccer stories in the last i don't know maybe since i started doing this for a job it just tremendous and a lot of the same pieces are back right you had Patrick Jan i mean burger in midfield you would how good coming off the bench this really wasn't exactly his style of game though maybe he was needed a lot of the pieces are back except for the striker who they sold the Celtic over the summer transfer window but this is a familiar team but even so i mean the difference between what Bayern Munich can offer and what photo glimpses can is is really really stark and so we saw in the second half Bayern just continuing to pummel away and it's about 90 seconds into the second half that they get their goal and it's not a particularly artistic moment it's much more fortunate than it is finesse for Bayern Munich it's a little bit a nice combination play to their credit just kind of on the edge of the box then Harry Kane takes a speculative shot it gets deflected and mucyala pounces on it and scores of the great finish then you get a set piece goal and then you get bang or bang or red card i mean it just spiraled out of control so quickly and that's what happens i feel like in some ways it's kind of what happened to enter against round the bridge just with a wider talent gap where all of a sudden the game just got away from them mistakes and and moments where the ball didn't bounce their way doomed them and did much more than that for but a glimpses here you behind the curtain for me i watched the first half of Manchester United felt like that one was pretty well done switch to this one expecting a dramatic second half goal immediately and i was like well at that so then i finished up watching coma so joe with that out of the way uh how did off on so davis look to your mind i'm curious to hear how the how the young man uh acquitted himself obviously not his first time playing in the champion league not his last but does have competition in that left back spot so wondering if he showed out with his goal does have that and has also just been beset by injuries year after year it feels like and so i've just been waiting for a moment for alfonzo davis to really reestablish himself across a wide run of games and i'm hoping that's what we've been getting here i mean he scores a delightful goal as part of the onslaught in the second half really really nice strike he also was i think effective running it behind the few times that bion actually had enough space to do it and i don't mean really running behind in transition but i mean sneaking behind the really low block that boto glimpses brought to the table again in that five four one shape i think bion's best moments were when they weren't crossing the ball into the box which they did a lot early on although they did create some chances from that but their best play came from when they they found a way to match up man for man with the the back five that boto glimpsed and then they could use that man parody to sneak a runner in behind right just when the marker turns then you go and alfonzo davis did that really well in this game he had a couple of brilliant moments on that left side he looked really good i mean i still think he is the best outside back in this team i know when at the angle browns committed this group and and he provides a different sort of option there but davis still on his day and his day is basically every time he plays in his healthy is one of the best players on the planet i thought he was a part of this functioning bion attack there was a little bit muted in the first half but you could sort of sense they had enough and they had more than enough when it comes to the second half i mean just the different profiles like came dropping in and playmaking but also being a set piece threat and orchestrating as well i mean this wasn't him dropping to the center circle because bion were always above the center circle anyway but he he was doing different hairy cane things in this game and it worked brilliantly alise was phenomenal in the second half and he grabs two goals as a result you and mousi all are getting back and seeing him back in form with this team and healthy is a great thing as well it was a reminder for me of just how difficult this bion team is to stop like i don't think but a glint played a bad game at all it just happens that bion are an absolute juggernaut yeah for bow and dork candidates for bion in the starting eleven joe cane gets a goal and assist alise gets two goals and assist luce dea is i'm assuming what's his customary self any other bowendor mentions for you dea is actually i thought was maybe the the worst of the bunch but do you mean yes still very threatening i will i will save it although di open mccano found his name on that list taylor and i'm not sure if the patreon's out yet or not actually taylor and i had a back and forth on the patreon that we recorded today i don't know when people will be listening to it about di open mccano and i'm a defender of his because thank you he's fantastic and taylor's point about him was he makes a mistake every time he plays a game and i watched this game a little bit defiant you know like oh you know i know he makes mistakes from time to time but every center back does and then he he tries to score to his own near post in the first half of this game under pressure and he bends it just tries to curl it around men will know air doesn't quite pull it off but i have l o l l down in my notes and bolded and then taylor your name next to it because i had to bring it up on this show open mccano had his whoa don't know what you're doing there moment and it still didn't matter nice customary i like that very i also like the bion failed to score in a game for the first time in 59 games of the weekend and they took that personally in the second half it seemed for sure if i feel sorry for anybody in this game it is bono glimps first half keeper if you to hike in who substitutes off with an unfortunate injury and then his replacement is the one i actually feel sorry for you lian fireland who immediately concedes and then concedes formal that would you would you rather so so the injury was getting hit in a very sensitive lower region for for the original go keeper and hakan would you rather be that and experience that or ship five goals like i need an answer from both you i think i would rather suffer the pain than ship five goals to buy it this is the pain of all of getting hit in the crotch right yeah i think it's it's the uh this mcclory in that right i think yeah taylor i'm a little concerned that it was more than just like pain if you're subbing off who knows what happens next but it's not i think i can never talk about i'm team team led in five i taste my mind so if i'm being like hospitalized for that yeah go ahead and score some goals on me it'll be fine okay that is hey either way you've got a story huh you got a story and i still think bono glimps are not gonna reach the heights that they did last year i mean i i guess i was a little bit of a data on along the way last year and they kind of kept proving me wrong we're just brilliant i hope that happens again i don't think they're gonna reach those same heights but this team still looks like a serious team to me like again the first 45 minutes they didn't ship a whole lot i mean it was a lot of speculative efforts from bionn and yes bionn had the xg lead at halftime but it wasn't like they were getting battered bono glimpsed in that first half really disciplined defensively they found a few moments to play they didn't create much of anything in this game i think a shot from just outside the center circle really was one of their best looks but i i think there's enough to this team and still enough variation in how they can play which is the most impressive bit of the run last year is it could dictate play at home or dictate play against certain teams in the champions league which they do in league play all the time and then they could also suffer in games like this against big teams they had a lot of success with that we didn't see the result come for them in this game nor did we see the second half performance really stand up to par but i get the sense that this is not a team that others are going to be able to overlook and in that way i think they will have some similar impact to what they did last year because it's still a really good team indeed uh speaking of maybe not really good teams sub-a went to old traffic and they got a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester United um tailor i mean i watched the first half was on it felt like it wasn't super competitive by looking at stats and sub-a had 11 shots they've fall to 2% of the balls it wasn't a walk over necessarily but i think for an opening champions league game for many United they probably it couldn't have gone much better for them obviously yeah i'll take it uh i'm fine with that as a main united supporter uh there were some nervy moments in this one i think Patrick Dorgu continues to make me wonder if he is maybe up to the task he's starting at left back instead of left wing which i think makes him more comfortable he does get an assist for the opening goal but he also has plenty of moments when he is either just way out of position or tries to make a play on a ball and misreads it and then there's a counter attack or he bites on a fake and then kind of stands off and lets an attack or shoot not a great day from him but a pretty strong game from everybody else from Manchester United and i think for a moment this felt like it could be a game we've seen from them i don't know for a while now where they score the first goal they look okay but then they ease off the pressure a little bit they take their foot off the gas and they invite their opponent back into it i think with the idea of now they'll get overextended and we'll make them pay but there's a moment there's a couple moments whereas sub-a are getting good chances and getting good shots and forcing saves and forcing corners and it could have gone a different way it is immediately after that moment that united get the second courtesy of a great cutback from your a tealamons i don't know how he knew Bruno was there but he did and it's a really good finish as well so there were the nerve you moments but then Manchester United were able to play through it able to get a couple more goals and in the end i think this is about as good of a start to a championship campaign as they could have hoped for albeit against opposition that didn't try to bunker like bodo did but also didn't try to really make life too difficult for Manchester United a lot of giveaways a lot of errant passes and turnovers and a few that led directly to goals so not the strongest of performances from sub-a but a pretty good one from Manchester United yeah definitely go to be one of the longest away days in europe as well surely as a by john to manchester i can't imagine as many longer maybe if i got a null way or something like yeah i think that's probably a safe bet that's a pretty pretty good a bit of travel and it did seem like everybody was very excited about it from the sub-uperspective the coach i think of all thus dambrowskas has prior with Manchester United looks sitting up youth teams and and clinics and such but then it seems like a lot of the players were very excited to be playing there and are Manchester United fans or are obviously very familiar with old traffic and so it did seem like both the coach and the players and the supporters were largely pretty just like happy to be there and maybe thought like there's a chance maybe we can bring something and then once you go one no down and two new down and three no down i think you're just kind of taking it in the sights at a certain point i just checked the uh the distance and the air miles from as are by john to manchester i didn't specify location or almost identical to the airline air miles from uh Miami to LA so just another reminder our country's freaking huge crazy yeah bigger europe there you go excellent stuff i congratulate many united to get off uh getting off on winning ways there a couple of other games we should talk about komo less than a decade ago or in syru d and they made their champions league debut in this round of the fazing and it went very well them four one the score against heavy life sick in this one and i watched a lot of this one komo looked very good life seed looked very open at a lot of the time as well in this one but um i'm martin better in this to that he got the opening golf komo he's i think i've watched him in a few games season he looks pretty special so yeah joe komo um look good for them on their debut it has been i think one of the more enjoyable stories i mean the the story itself is only as fairy telly as you want it to be i suppose but how this team plays i think is a story that i have really enjoyed watching them by bunch last season i've not seen a lot of them yet so far this year but you mentioned batterina and there is a good bit of continuity i think from last year's team that did so well the qualify for the champions league and this team and you're batterina and eco pause just so often in floating in the half spaces and rotating and those players can do so much damage in games like this think a lot of the profiles balance each other really well and for them to come out here in this moment in in ryan and you're talking about in this in this spectacle for them as a club and to really control the game as they did against life say really really impressive stuff yeah congrats to them tabby i think about yeah like i know like gram and i did the one on komo last week we've talked about them previously and we can review we've all been very impressed by what they're doing i think this is one of the most impressive performances from them that i've seen and it's not the strongest life sick team we've ever seen martin de mccaleis is now a manager which makes me feel a thousand years old and he is obviously i think getting up to speed with this team and they've got some new signings they've got some existing players but it's always a life sick team that maybe takes a little bit of time to gel but still this come with team just looked comprehensively better and there were other opportunities that probably much as i'm low to say it should have been taken and should have been scored by komo this could have been a lot worse and it's just a reminder that they're going to be an incredibly difficult team to play because i think they can hurt you on both sides they can be defensively resolute and make you find a way to break through and beat them and i think they can be comfortable in that but then they can go out and and press you and attack you and make your life incredibly difficult and i think that they are more inclined to do that in the champions league than i was expecting i thought we might see a mixed approach in this one and instead they happily took the game to life sig and were the better team for it and i think will be the better team as we go through the champions league campaign i think they're going to spring some surprises because they just have so much talent and then there's like the top end talent with with nico paus but then like duvacos continues to just be such a central and strong figure for them literally and figuratively they've got good role players the midfield partnership remains really strong i think that they could spring some surprises in this competition well the next home game teller Manchester United so we'll see yep i have some concerns hmm maybe you should maybe you should i think that should be a cracking event when we come to it in october a couple more results to talk about phenobache 1 rumo 1 archie brown getting the goal for phenobache not the most interesting storyline that came out of this game though in the post-match press conference phenobache's coach is melcotal uh quit you know he knows his resignation after a one one draw with rumo i i don't know teller if you know much about him or if this is a phenobache thing but uh it's a phenobache thing and it's a him thing so he is now this stint that is apparently now come to an end was his fourth stint in charge of phenobache i know he said he's he's leaving a never returning i don't know feels like there's a little can't quit energy about this whole situation i just i can't believe anyway teller cut i'm not even sure he's he is going to end up quitting i think i saw some reports that the phenobache owner has said like he won't be honoring the resignation and that won't be accepted but it seems like it's it's the same owner well you know turkey uh it's the same owner who's had lots of different conflicts with lots of different managers including jose marinho and it sounds like there had already been a lot of frustration from cartel in yet another stint there uh that he felt like maybe he was being scapegoated he wasn't being empowered as much as he wanted to and then i think he gets some negative comments from supporters in this game and i believe i read that he has a like water bottle thrown in like a plastic bottle thrown in him and apparently that was the end of it for him just like i didn't sign up for this i'm trying to make this team better if you guys want somebody us to do it by all means have at it and so yeah one-to-one draw and then away he goes i'd look for it to his fisted in charge in a couple weeks oh boy there we go okay another one more draw we should mention is psv's uh draw with shaktalton yesk the equalizer coming from sugenio desk and in spectacular fashion as well great look out from the middle of the park from a desk in this one yep i still wish that he had moved elsewhere in this past window but if he's gonna stick around might as well score good goals hot take a note but that's my opinion strong balls i know i know really is this is the stuff people people listen all the way to the end of the show for that's right very good uh one last game to talk about from round one of the phase and ink is lawns three to win over slavya proc lawns were two one down in the 90th minute in this one they got two post 90th minutes goals in this one to take the win uh dramatic stuff in the Czech Republic there for long uh congrats bon chance well done very good all right that's it that's the fazing that was a lot of games we talked about today Taylor that's um that's what we're doing for the fazing now i forgot that there was so many match days yeah but i mean i think the fundamental lesson we learned is that it's good for players to score goals and we would like more of that especially if they are americans yes yeah well said Taylor really interesting you know i'm pretty bold i'm pretty bold pretty insightful i'm not afraid to take a stand yeah i want more american players doing things in the champions league and i'm not afraid to say it so she needs a bobby newport i'm against crime and i'm not afraid to admit it bobby newport all right we're wrapping this episode up thank you very much and detail rockwell for your analysis of this and we look forward to the next round off the fazing oh man my pleasure and credit to joe that's a very good evil voice of the voice that joe skyd going another career opens up for joe i love it i love it can congrats on that joe joe lary and thank you thank you so much right almost went for joe newport there uh they didn't didn't quite get out i'm full of crime so we're not i don't know i'm sure it's okay you're in the fun of our joe now apparently go again anyway uh thank you very much to growing roles and happy birthday to him we hope he's enjoying himself today list the thank you very much for joining us on this one we'll be back on the feed very shortly indeed but for now