The Valverde Metamorphosis: How Real Madrid & Bodø/Glimt Rewrote European Hierarchy

Welcome to the Total Soccer Show Champions League Round of 16, first leg review. Tottenham's coach looked pretty dense as they slipped up in the literal metaphorical sense. Los Blancos didn't need him bappy to be happy. Liverpool and Salah were no match for Gala. Newcastle looked to have achieved a dream, but then it was dashed by Lameen and sporting Lisbon, simped for Vodo Glimpt. And much, much more happened as well. My name's Ryan Bailey joining me today. It's a power trio. Joe Lowry, hello, how are you? I'm great. I don't think simped has ever made its way into one of your rhyming as reductions before, unless I'm missing something obvious. Huge fan of how you brought that all thing together and maybe more importantly, what is on your shoulder, Ryan? Is that a stuffy? It's roadkill. Yeah, yeah. For those watching on YouTube, I've had a bad neck because, because old, and also because old, I don't know if I use simped properly Joe, but it's like a heated bad thing because old, once again. Got it. So understood. No strong neck movements from me today, but have they figured out a cure old yet? They're working on it, I think, right? There's one cure, but it's, it's pretty fatal, unfortunately. Right, bleeding always stops sort of things. Yeah, great. And hello, how are you? I'm good, Ryan Bailey. I'm pleased that we've addressed the roadkill on your shoulder today, because Joe on Monday, Ryan was wearing that on his shoulder on weekend. Have you and I realised afterwards at no point did we actually address? Correct. People could see Ryan on the YouTube episode. So I'm glad we've now informed the listener what's going on and Ryan hasn't just completely lost it. No, it was funny that way, I felt. And now we've given a lovely enticement to go and subscribe to our YouTube channel's program. So lovely. So always always the market to Joe. Well done. Very good. Very good indeed. Before we get to the Champions League review, lots of really good games to go through. Actually, we're going to tell you about our Patreon Patreon.com slash total soccer show is where you get our bonus content. It is the best way to support this endeavor. Thank you very much to everybody who does so on there, you'll get bonus episodes, bonus video content and access to our discord server. How many, how many cool kids are all the cool kids, all the cool kids are hanging out there. That's it. That's it. Patreon.com slash total soccer show plus you can join the TSS scouting network. We can assign you a player. You can assign yourself one and you can scout them throughout the season. Join us there. Thank you very much indeed. No Taylor Rockwell today, by the way. He's busy with he's I don't think his neck hurts or anything, but he's got some duties. He's also been struck down by old like you rain. That's how it's happened. I don't think he's got quite as in a cute case as I do, but you know, time comes for us all Graham. Time comes for us. Sure. Self-hurt. One day you'll get there. Indeed. All right. Why don't we start off with Wednesday's match at the Bernabéu, Ramadrid 3, Manchester City, Neil Fettival, Verde. Of course it was him who got a hat trick in this one, sealing the victory. Vinny Jr had a penalty saved in this one as well. So even without the aforementioned killing and buffet, Andrew Baleum, Ramadrid got it done. Seems like a pretty long way back for City now. Joe, I was chatting with a city supporting friend a couple nights ago and they were like, oh, yeah, we're definitely going to absolutely destroy it at the Bernabéu. They're in pretty bad form. We're in not bad form. So what happened then? Yeah. First of all, that's a crazy take to just assume that even with Ramadrid missing some people. I could never. This was I thought an astonishingly impressive performance from Ramadrid. Of course, Fettival Verde is the headliner and I do want to talk about him, but I thought it was so impressive how committed, engaged and unified Ramadrid seemed to be in their defensive approach. I mean, I can count on one hand. The number of times I've ever said that sentence out loud in my entire life, I was struck by how aggressive and coherent this Ramadrid team looked. I don't know if it's personnel, although I do think it's part of that. I don't know if it's Arbaloa. I don't know exactly what the mixture is. I suspect it is heavily personnel, but this team was engaged in a way that I just simply have not seen them to be. And that is not just in the low block, although I think they were quite good in the low block, especially as the game wore on, but also in the press. And I just haven't seen this team press like this. The personnel I thought was fascinating. And frankly, it gave me a little bit of a PSG transition from the Messay and Bape, Neymar era to their Champions League winning era, I suppose. You only had one of the truly big names on the field in this game. That's because the other ones are out injured. It was, it was Vinicius Jr., who was playing. He defended up top in as half of the front two and a 4-4-2. And then in possession, he drifted all the way wide to the left more often than not and was holding the width on that left side. And there was basically no number nine. I suppose Prachim Diaz and Artigulera and Fede Valverde kind of rotated through some of those more central spaces, but there was no real reference point for Real Madrid. And that didn't end up hurting them in possession because Fede Valverde went supernova in this game. It was awesome. But defensively, I think having only one of those big guys on the field did wonders for them. And the exact same way it did wonders for PSG. Grant, I was so impressed with that. I'm Madrid in a way that I just haven't been in this specific way in a really, really long time slash maybe ever. Yeah, it was their best performance of the season by an absolute mile. Some of that was baffling because I watched their game against Celtivego the like four days before this match. And Arbolo made one change from that match. And they were dreadful. I said that on We Can Review, they were terrible. They won that game thanks to a Fede Valverde stoppage time winner. He's just winning games on his own for this team at the moment. So slightly confusing that they're able to play like this, having played so poorly against Celtivego in the personal barely changes. But I agree with everything that Joe has said. It was the first time all season that I had seen Real Madrid with anything close to coherent plan. As Joe says, their pressing structure was good. When they needed to be, they were compact and well-organised in their defensive shape as well. I thought, Housen and Rudiger defended the box well, didn't allow Holland too much in the game. I think Holland had 10 touches of the ball in the whole match, which even by his usual standards is nothing. And I thought on the left side, Felon Mende, as long as he was on the field for the first half, it seems like he has picked up a bad injury, which is unfortunate for him. But when he was on the field, he locked down the left side where Savinio was never really able to have much of an influence. I thought Real Madrid had good rhythm in midfield with Tiago in there again, with Artigula and Brahim Diaz, all of whom want the ball. And I grew up with Joe like, this feels like a personnel thing to me because you bring in some players like Brahim Diaz who, despite what happened in the Afcon final, I'm still very high on Brahim Diaz in this team. Artigula as well. Tiago has looked good if not slightly raw in a few of his games for Real Madrid, almost gifts a city back away back into this game by giving the ball away inside his own half. It has to thank table core 12 for an outstanding save. But they are young-ish, I guess, and their players who want the ball. And that completely changes the dynamic of Real Madrid as a team. And it also means you've got Venetius as that in-behind through into open space. He doesn't really have to worry about the defensive side of the game as he does what he's got, bailing him an embapy out next to him. And then you've got Valverde as like Venetius as the in-behind through, I guess Valverde is like the over the top of you at 100mh3. I'm sorry. It worked for for Real Madrid and yeah, they deserve to win this match. I was very impressed. We did. Joe, Pep Guardiola has a reputation for sometimes overthinking big games. Guilty of that here? I don't think so. Maybe I always give Pep too much credit in these sorts of games. I think in this discussion in the past, I tend to be on the side of we make a little bit too much of him overthinking in some of these games. I thought the initial approach from City worked well enough in this game, which is their clear intention early on was to isolate Jeremy Doke who's back now on the left side. And they left him high and very, very wide all the way on the left. And you know who was defending on the right side of Real Madrid's backline? Trent Alexander Arnold. That seems pretty logical to me to have Doke go 1v1 against Alexander Arnold who did okay for himself to be fair. But there's a lot that makes sense about that general plan for me of man City possessing in this 325 or even 316 sort of structure and really holding a lot of width in this team. And Doke did make some headway early on. The thing that maybe City didn't do quite well enough in this game and Pat maybe didn't do quite well enough in this game is adapt because it seemed like Fede Valverde to bring him into this discussion. Man he was good in this game. It seems like Fede Valverde helped neutralize Doke a little bit because he was constantly dropping into the backline or even into Alexander Arnold's spot on the width of the backline. And he was the one dealing or helping to deal with Jeremy Doke. And all of a sudden that advantage that City had plotted out for themselves really wasn't there quite in the same way. The difficulty is and I think maybe City would have adjusted a little bit quicker. They just got punched in the mouth over and over again in the first half and all of a sudden it's 3-0 and I think they're completely scrambling. And at that point it didn't look to me like a huge tactical problem. It looked to me like the players were just shell shocked and I didn't see a whole lot of man City building carefully from the back. I thought Don Aruma's distribution was poor. I in general just thought the players crumbled in this game and it was kind of too little too late for them to make their way back in even after Pat changes a couple things for the second half. So maybe he should have adapted more but I thought the initial plan made sense. Round the grid just outsmarted them sort of and out play them as well. Yeah I think you could go through a lot of the selections Guadula made and sort of justify them right. Kusanova was there to match up with Vinicius. Savinio was impressive against Newcastle the weekend. Doke was picked I guess to expose Trent's defensive weaknesses and he looked really lively early in the game Doke. Throughout the game actually was probably City's most threatening player. I think there was one exception to that and that was I guess Semenio by a process of elimination. You could argue Semenio could have played out wide and then Savinio would be the one that drops out or Doke or whoever. But it just felt like to me it was one to many attackers that robbed City of having one extra midfielder that might have helped like the rotations in the ball and I guess like general control of the game and I'm out of possession because it got to the point where this was the most open I've seen City sense that period last season when teams were just nifing through them in transition and obviously Real Madrid can do that to you and it got to the point in this game where Real Madrid were just fizzin. I mean I think it's after they go through a lot. Venetius skins cussing off on the left wing and it's like oh man Real Madrid are absolutely feeling themselves right now and in that situation I'm not really sure what man City can can do to stop that but I did feel like they sort of contributed to to getting into that predicament and I don't think Rodry had a very good game Rodry with his drones have you seen that story in the news this week. Rodry has been spoken to by great Manchester police because he's spying on his neighbors with a drone and there's a picture of him in the tabloid press of him on his balcony. He's such a cop. He can't stop him. They always tucked in T-shirt. What what's he doing? Why? What's happening? No idea. He's just he's got a lot of free time right. Is this just indulging a pastime. He's also bought one of those vans you know that has like a camera at the top of it facial recognition. He just sits on the streets of Manchester just surveilling. I think he's a I think he's a I think he's a BLC accolade is what I think. That's fair play. Makes sense. Go work for the Canadian Federation at some point. Can we can we talk about Verde? I've sort of held off as long as like I possibly can. That second goal man is absolutely on excuse me. It's a third. Well okay the second goal is good. It's a third goal excuse me. It's absolutely on be levable. It is him making a vertical round into the box. It's for him D.I.'s clipping the ball into him. And Verde's first touch takes him over and around Mark Gahey and his second touch takes the ball past on Aruma. That is one of the best goals I've seen in such a long time. Trent now it's in our Arnold set it after the game. He he called Fettival Verde the most underrated player on the planet. I would have to agree. I mean I don't think you could come up with someone who is more underrated than Verde. Now if I've already is is rated fairly highly. Don't get me wrong. He is able to do a lot of defensive work. He plays for a pretty good national team. He plays for one of the biggest clubs on the planet. He is rated well by a lot of people. But he's not rated well enough by a lot of people. I think is the distinction. What he does on both sides of the ball for a round Madrid team that I truly believe would crumble without someone in his profile is absolutely astonishing. I mean this is not a traditional Valverde attacking performance but he is without a doubt one of the most complete soccer players on the planet. And he is stitching this team together basically every time he's on the field. I have so much time for that point for Alexander Arnold and I think he is right on the mic. He can hold the whole thing together right Valverde. I do wonder Joe. I completely accept your point and the point that Trent made after this game. I do kind of wonder if this is the match that changes that. Do you remember all the Olivier Juru was underrated until everyone said he was underrated and then it got to the point and felt like he was slightly overrated. I do wonder if this is the pivot point for Ferry Valverde. There was a Spanish journalist speaking to him after the game and she like got a picture of the ball on door on her phone and held it up to his face and got him to pose with the ball on it. It was a weird moment but like that says something about how maybe his reputation is going to change. Roger was in this game so he could have found time for that. The third goal is so hilariously good. It's such a hot hands goal where his first two goals are excellent as well. I do kind of wonder what Don Aruma is doing for the first goal. Not just coming off. He's supposed to not be the one doing that stuff when they signed him. He pulls his arm. He thinks he's outside the box. Have you seen the angle from behind? He pulls his arm away. If he just kept his arm there he would have stopped it. But weird goal keeping. Nonetheless, excellent run from Valverde. The finish for the second goal is brilliant as well. They can reverse ball into the far corner. The third one is such a hot hands goal where he is just like I'm just going to juggle over a mark here inside the box and then I'm just going to smash it on the volley into the far corner. How easy was that? It's not easy. It's a ridiculous goal and he's a ridiculous player. Wow. Good stuff. Okay, so given Joe Ramadry's defensive particularities in this game, do we have a contest here still when it resumed next week? No, I mean, the penalty save was extremely needed in this game from Manchester City. I just think Ramadry played too well in this game and they have too much talent even if they don't play well at all in the second leg to actually lose. Is it possible? Yes, of course. I would never, ever bet on a city come back in this tie. Graham, you agree? Yeah, ultimately, I agree. I do think there's a chance, of course, there's a chance as much as there's a city. I think there's a chance that they make like a fight of it. Maybe they bring it back to 2-0 and it is at that point on an ice edge, but to win a game against even this Real Madrid team with the inconsistencies that they have to win a game against this team by four clear goals is as a huge task and I think it'll be beyond say. All right, very good. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, it's a mouse for Tottenham fans. We're going to talk about that game and much more. Join us then. Total soccer show. Welcome back to our Champions League review. All right. Let's get into it. Athleticomodrid 5, Tottenham replacing their goalkeeper, Antonin Kitsky, in just the 17th minute of this game. After they were 3-0 down a couple of slips, so a couple from himself and one from Micky van Devent as for that third goal as well. I'd let you had a 4-0 lead inside 22 minutes. Graham, where on earth do we start with this? As we recall, I believe Egor Tudor still has gainful employment at Tottenham Hotspur, which I think is a bit wild to consider that. But the way he dealt with Kitsky being substituted and effectively ending that gentleman's Tottenham career seems not the best. And I suppose generally speaking, what Tudor's done at other clubs when he's coming in emergency situations is provided some structure. That's the sort of bare minimum, right? And no structure here at all. So what's going on? Yeah, I didn't think anything in this game would deepen Tottenham's situation just because I went into this match thinking of it as something of a free hit, right? And it would whatever happened in this game wouldn't really impact their general situation and what's happening in the league. And I think I was wrong about that because I think Spurs have a decision to make on Egor Tudor. And I'm fully aware of how crazy a statement that is. I don't know whether I've been conditioned by what has been the the maddest managerial season, surely on records where you've got work for Nancy getting sat by Celtic after 33 days. And who else have we had? Post-Cogloup, big angel losing his job at not even first. They've gone through three managers. They're the fourth manager. And Sean Dish has been sat in it. It feels like it's been the craziest seasons for managers. And I don't know whether that is influencing my opinion here. But the way that this match unfolded with the goalkeeper situation in particular, I think there is really firm evidence that Tudor is now compounding things for Spurs. And obviously the Kingski errors are horrific. And what I'm about to say certainly isn't meant as a defense of him. He was he was a disaster. The third the mistake for the third goal is one of the worst mistakes I've ever seen in a match of this level. We just place it directly into the XG of that chance for Julian Alvarez was one. The model said that you could not miss that chance. Well, they're not heartbreaking the way he immediately fell to the floor. Yeah, he's done right. There's a picture of Alvarez racing through and going. He's just he's not even looking kenski. He's got his head in the ground. So on a personal level, it's impossible not to feel sorry for him. But the ceremonious, I think this is the thing that sticks my throat the most. The ceremonious substitution of him after the third goal was an unbelievable moment. In my opinion, the match has gone. The tie has gone. Spurs aren't getting through this tie after that. And I think it reveals why I think to their might have to go because this whole thing seems to be giving spurs. His whole thing, excuse me, seems to be giving spurs some hard truth. He's been scathing in some of his comments about his players. He called them brainless after their defeat to Crystal Palace. And this moment kind of fed into that, humiliating a player that he brought into his lineup for the game in the first place. And the thing is, I don't think this really matters in terms of kenski. Obviously, for him as a person, it's horrible. But as a player, he will not be a factor in the rest of Tottenham season. Maybe for the rest of his career, he won't be a factor. That's another discussion. But I think the message this sends to the other players. I think it's really, really damaging. And spurs look haunted as a team right now. And Tudor isn't helping. I think the job for an interim manager right now for spurs is to come in and look after the intangibles. Give the players some belief, make things uncomplicated, simplify things, because a manager at this point in the season is just not going to have any time or any freedom as an interim manager to do anything like really meaningful. That is the job. And Tudor could not be failing any more emphatically than he is right now. And this game against Adleti, I just think totally exposed that. Hey, what you saying, Graham, it's a vibesman. A vibesman needs to come in, right? So who's the man? Harry, is it Harry? I mean, that's what the streets are saying. I cannot believe that anyone including myself is seriously suggesting Harry Rednapped should be in charge of a primary league team in 2026. But that is the situation that spurs are in at the moment. Can I make another suggestion? I haven't heard anyone else say this. Yergen Klinzman. Is he not a bit of a vibesman? Spurs legend would come in positive vibes. I mean, I know I hate all this discussion by the way. The fact that we're talking about a third manager coming into spurs. Yeah, exactly. They're a complete mess from top to bottom. A manager does not fit to this situation regardless of who the identity manager is. But maybe a manager gets them to 17th in the table by the end of May. And I just think spurs fans on myself have no faith now that to the rest of that manager. Yeah, I'm the ultimate managers. Don't matter guy on this on this panel on a regular basis. You think even I would concede that at that point, that's the only lever really that you have left to pull, right? Other than changing the players again and again and again. And there probably is something to be said for that, but really in terms of external opportunities that you have to save your season or to make sure you don't drop just one spot lower. That's that's all you got. So I don't know if it makes sense to move on from two to or not. It is absolutely hilarious and wild to me that we are even in this situation in the first place. Like it is scrimmed to your point, such an absurd talking point. And I don't think ultimately it's going to have any long-term impact other than doing exactly what needs to be done in the next two months plus, which is not seeing them go down to the championship in embarrassing fashion. This is all absolutely wild to me. Two more points from me on this game. Point number one, have we ruled out that Adleti did the ultimate poophouse and made like that that side of the field extra wet. So all this slipping. They seem very slubby. Very sluffy, right? I'm not ruling that one out. Second thing, Mauritius Pochettino was in the stands for this one. Who was he looking at? Was it Johnny Sucker? Or was it? Was it a glory for him? I was looking away from Spurs, I think. Spurs fans who serenaded him on the flight over to Madrid asking them to come back. Their sales pitch is a little bit harder after watching these 90 minutes. I'd imagine. Yeah. As a humorous aside, Aacy Wimbledon had a game we won against Blackpool on Wednesday evening. And one of the chance at the stadium we are in league one and we are maybe, maybe, maybe looking at getting into the playoff positions. One of the chance was Tottenham away, Baleole. So did enjoy that. Did enjoy that. That is good. I also ran just to go back to your point on the slippery pitch. I also noted that as well, like all the Spurs players. I mean, the Kingsky first mistake. It's a slip, right? Like, I don't know how much of that is on the goalkeeper. And in the second one, Mickey Vandevene is also a slip. By the way, I don't know what's happened to Mickey Vandevene and who's playing in his body right now. That is not the same player that I rate as one of the best central defenders in the world. He's been horrific the last few games. And it did make me think, let me have watered that pitch. When the referee, you know how they check the studs before the game, he's checking the athletic players and go, these aren't studs. These are 10 hooks. They're all playing within the bottom of their shoes and the Spurs players don't have those. Yeah. I did note at the half time, there was a team of guys with hairdryers on that side of the field for the second half. So, you know, that's right. Yeah. It's very, very good. Oh, well, not very good if you are a Tottenham fan. Sorry about that. There was another five, two from this week. PSG five Chelsea, two, three goals after the 74th minute sealed the win for PSG. Costly error for another costly error from from regal keeper in this round of games from Philip Jorgensen passing the ball straight to Bradley Barker that doesn't help the situation. It seemed to me, Graham, that Chelsea did well for pretty much all but the last 20 minutes and non-reveled. Is that a fair TLDR? Yeah. Absolutely. I know they're sending up being a bit of a beat down and maybe the tie is already over after this, but I thought Chelsea played a good game for the majority of this, this match. And actually, of all the Champions League games I watched in this round, this was probably the one that Ebden floed the most. It was really, really open. And PSG and Chelsea both had good periods, periods throughout. And it's only really because Jorgensen made that big mistake that you mentioned, Ryan. And then Kavara Donna took over in the last 15 minutes that ended up this way. I think Chelsea have good reason to feel a little bit sore after this one. I'm not really sure what to make of the PSG performance because obviously, in an attacking sense, there were a lot of this, the hallmark from last season, you know, Dembelly was back in the starting lineup. That in itself makes a big difference to this team because of the way that he plays that role. I think it makes PSG just a much more nimble team. And the attacking third, it gives space to their wide players and the midfield are more comfortable playing into him. Essentially, than anyone else, partly because he's two footed, like naturally two footed, it can go either way. Makes it really difficult for it to play against. And then obviously, Dembelly can score an individual goal like he did himself in this match to make it to one. And Gelneva has been back in midfield, also helps certainly more of the rotations and quick passing moments in that midfield unit than there was against Monaco at the weekend, which we spoke about in Monday. Hikimi was also the Hikimi of last season with how well and he was to get forward. And he, the thing that's wild about Hikimi is like how he pops up in a like a central position every so often or number 10 position. You think, what was he doing there, but he just wants to join in. But at the same time, I didn't sense there was the same control that we saw from PSG in these kinds of games last season. I thought they were very open. Maybe a bit casual at points as well, like for the Fernandez goal, which comes from doing losing out to Neto on the wing. So it's not totally there for PSG yet. Chelsea have a goalkeeping problem. I feel like PSG might have a goalkeeping problem as well. They've completely botched that replacement of Donna Ruma, where they sign Lucas Chivali, then take him out of the line up. And now they've got Shafanoff playing in goal, who is like a decent enough goalkeeper, but makes a half-era in this game, contributing to Chelsea goal. So yeah, not all that sounds a little bit crazy after a 5-2 win, but that's how I feel about this PSG team. Yeah, I don't want to make of this team as well, because this is the same, essentially the same team who lost to Monaco last weekend, have not been as dominant as typically they are domestically. And then they put on a show like this, I suppose you could say the same for Real Madrid, in this round of games as well. Nothing makes any sense. Why are you even talking about it? Yeah, should we stop? Should we go do something else? Wait up. Oh boy. Any more to say on this game, Graham or Joe, or should we jump on? Jump it. Jump in it. To St James's Park, Newcastle 1, Barcelona 1, a bit of a missed opportunity for Newcastle. This one, big European night for them, obviously. Let me nimble. Spoiling the party for St James's faith with the late penalty, canceling out. England's Harvey Barnes is 86 minutes to go. That's too soon, right? That's pitiful. Stain facts, justain facts. I hear that you are. Before we get into it, there was, I don't know if you've seen the story, this might rival Roger Drones' story of the Barcelona fan who went to St James's Park, but he went to the wrong one. Exeter, their ground is also called St James's Park. Newcastle is the northeast of England, pretty much the northeast corner. Exeter is the southwest corner. It is the direct opposite corner of the country. 366 miles away, so yeah, that was a little bit embarrassing. Sure. But it also, Joe, it feels like the sort of thing I would do. If I pulled up the map, I've been in New York for the last few days, and I don't know how to subway work. Which direction am I going? I don't know. You just guess. Hop on and guess. You guess wrong? I mean, I think I saw a quote from him afterwards. It was like sort of like a manager after a bad game. I'm humbled and embarrassed of our, I mean, some of them on the slides. Let's go. This is, this is pretty serious. I felt bad for the guy. You know, someone else I felt bad for in this game, not or not really. I don't know who made me feel bad, who made Barcelona fans feel bad. Ronald the Raho. So this, this game was pretty tight and even somewhat cagey for most of the match. And both of the goals come in the very, very lie like, laid on in this match. And the, the goal in Newcastle score comes the 86 minute. And I want to just describe the goal as it actually happened. So this is Jacob Murphy crossing the ball into Harvey Barnes, who scores. It's a very, very simple finish for Harvey Barnes because Rafinha is not marking him at the, the far post. It's really bad defending. Now, why was Rafinha at the far post and not the right back round of the Raho, you ask? Well, that's because Ronald the Raho had been time wasting at the other end of the field. He went down with a little knock or, or maybe nothing. And he was just time wasting because he does sort of jog back eventually all the way into the play. But he was sitting down injured and then scooted himself part way onto the field to waste time was then made to scoot off the field and was asked to wait to come back on the field. And then he's allowed to come back in and he sort of trots back into shape, but never actually finishes his trot. And so he stops trotting at the number six position, leaving Rafinha sort of unaware, but also tasked with doing his job at the back post. And so Raho just never recovers and Rafinha covers, but not really. Barça are disorganized and they can see it. And then a Raho comes off. It is wild. It's just an absolutely wild game selling sequence from Ronald the Raho. Like, sorry, if you were actually hurt, it didn't. I'm not really sure that you were or you probably could have done a little bit more there to make sure that that didn't happen. But then shout out to Malik Dao who just kicks Danny Omo and then Barça on a score. And it's one one. I did not think Barcelona were at their best in this game. And Newcastle on the other side, I thought were very, very good in this game. Maybe there's a little bit of two things can be two things here. Defensively, I was impressed with Newcastle. Some of the pressing high, they were quite man-oriented through Central Midfield. They didn't give Pedri, especially a lot of room to breathe in Firmin Lopez as well, a little higher up the field. They didn't give them a lot of opportunities to change the game in the final third. And then you had Dan Barn doing really well on Robert Lewinowski and just overpowering him physically throughout this game. I thought Newcastle were good. They nearly took advantage of that high line a number of times, but couldn't quite close the deal. And Barcelona just didn't create. So I think this tie is still very much open. I would expect Barcelona to do better because they're just a better team. But credit to Newcastle because they did well for themselves in this match. Yeah, this was more like the big game Newcastle United that we've seen in the past, but had gone missing in recent matches. The intensity was there from the start. The energy was there. They set the tone really early on. You wouldn't say they had a whole lot of opportunities, but they they looked and felt like the more threatening team for the majority of the game. I thought Alanga had one of his best games for Newcastle. He's generally been disappointing for Newcastle since joining them, but he was very good on the dribble down the right side. Cancello had a nightmare against him throughout the 90 minutes. I thought Ramsey, Jacob Ramsey was a threat driving into the Barcelona box. The man-to-man approach, marketing approach worked really well. It prevented Barcelona from getting into their rhythm. The only player that really seemed to be able to evade the Newcastle press was was was pedry, which was quite funny in moments. So a bit like a cat and mouse game, but he wasn't really going anywhere like Barcelona. I didn't have anywhere to go in this game. From Newcastle, there was that intent to expose the space in behind to the Barcelona highlight. That's surely why Asula starts over this in Valtemata in this forward line. There have been times this season when Eddie Howe has gone with that kind of all-winger forward line with like Barnes and Gordon and Asula. It's felt just a little bit fluid, lacking in an attacking focal point, but because Barcelona gave you so much space in behind, it worked in this game. So that's why I think as much as that late goal, so late in fact, that it was the final touch of the game. The referee blew up as soon as Llamina Mal had converted that penalty, which is just that's painful. But as much as that is undoubtedly a blow, I very much feel like Newcastle are still in this tie because the tactical matchup is in a weird way as good as Barcelona is. The tactical matchup kind of suits Newcastle and in this sort of tie. So I think they're going to give Barcelona trouble in that second leg. Really? Joe, do you feel that bullish about Newcastle's chances in Spain next week? I kind of was under the assumption they kind of blew their chance a little bit with this. I don't think so. I think Grims right. I think this team could give Barcelona some problems because Grims ended up well. This was the big game Newcastle, the pressing, combative, aggressive, able to play a little bit in transition, version that I think can give some of these even much bigger and much more talented teams trouble. I still think Barcelona will win. But Barcelona are the chaos team on the other side of this. And so in a way that I'm sort of hesitant to say in any score line that they're totally done, signed, sealed and delivered into the next round. So I don't think Grims off the mark there at all. Okay. All right. Well, let's take a quick break when we come back. Play more games to talk about. Buy Munich. Go in offer at a land to Liverpool losing in Turkey. And of course, we have to talk about Bodo Glimt. They march on. Good stuff. Join us then. Total soccer show. Welcome back to our Champions League round of 16. First leg round up. We go to Norway. Bodo Glimt 3 sporting NIL. Bodo bit registering their fifth consecutive Champions League win. They're in the round of 16. What a time to be alive. And a very easy win for them. In the end, Joe, what an incredible, what an incredible story this continues to be for Bodo Glimt. Listen, or do you remember when I said that they would lose to sporting? Yeah. No, you don't. That's fake. You made that up in your head. That wasn't real. Don't go back and try to find it because you will. You will find it. And I'll be embarrassed. I mean, this was not just a win Ryan to what you said there. This was a absolute dominant performance from Bodo Glimt. They were miles better than sporting. They played sporting a good team, like maybe not a true, as I would think of it, best round of 16 sort of team at this stage. But like they beat a team that has, again, on paper, more and better talented players than they do. And they just decimated them. This was a clinic of a performance for Bodo Glimt. This, this might have been, I suppose I didn't see every game in full, other than the Bayern game. Am I crazy for saying that this is the lap mode? Okay. And I suppose you have led a game. But this is like in that ballpark of most dominant performances and sporting didn't shoot themselves in the foot at all in this game. Yeah. I think this I didn't catch the Bayern game. But I of all the matches I watched that was the only game I didn't catch. This was the most like controlled. That's what I would say. Because as dominant as I'd like to wear clearly spurs, they'll score two goals in that match and have some opportunities. Sporting barely had a sniff in this match. It was completely controlled from Bodo from start finish. It's it's actually a joke how good this team is. Like I I was overcome with joy watching this game because this was even this was even better than the inter games. And this this was. This was the best I've seen them play, frankly, and it helps that this is not one of the best teams that they beaten along this run so far. But this was Bodo playing their at least initially their high possession control that we're going to camp out in the final third sort of style. And we've seen that and we've also seen them sit a little bit deeper or oppress high and be more combative defensively. But either way play more without the ball and go and hidden in transition. And they've done both of those things at a genuinely elite level. Not just like, oh, bless your heart, Bodo, like you're doing really good for you, sweetie. Like no, like actually at a top tier level, the things that impressed me most from them in this game. There was so much clever off ball movement, especially on the left side where you had left back going to left wing and left wing. Howga, who's again, just amazing going to center made and center made going to left back. And sporting didn't really know where their reference points were in terms of how to actually stay in their block and how to avoid getting pulled apart. That was one thing that stood out to me. But it wasn't just them being dangerous on the left. You also had howga, who's the left wing or wearing number 10, who very much had a free role in this team and basically always does. You had him drifting all the way over to the right side. So then there's a numerical advantage down the right, which could be a problem if you lose possession and then they switched the ball to the other side and sporting our way down the side where you don't have numbers anymore. But Bodo just never lost the ball. Or when they did lose the ball, they counterpressed and they never give sporting a chance to actually go and switch it and hit on the break. The combination playing the final third whether it was on the right or on the left gave me the impression that these players very much have a crystal clear idea of what their teammates are thinking and how they're going to move basically all the time. I was enraptured by this game more than any other. Yeah, they're a fascinating team to watch and it's their approach and the attack that I find most interesting because usually with an underdog and they do they do the underdog stuff well. Like they can sit deep, they are compact and you know really difficult to play through against the ball. They have that side to their game. But then usually with an underdog, it's about like attacking the open space and most of the time that would be about isolating a defender and beating them like in a one-on-one situation. You need that that one player to produce something on their own and that space is usually how it goes for like an underdog. But what Bodo do is yes, they will move quickly into that space. They'll maybe play a long pass into that space at speed. But then they have like four players up in that attack or maybe even more than four players sometimes up in that attack. So then they end up like constructing intricate attacking sequences at speed and also have gone from back to front and about six seconds and it's amazing to watch like the second goal comes from a sequence like that where they go from back to front quickly. But all of a sudden they've got like six players on the edge of the box and then it's a quick pass and edge of the box they're through in the score. That's kind of unusual to me to see an underdog play in that way and it's the perfect merging of an underdog and then as you've said a couple times during this show, a team that is dominant domestically. So they're used to play that way as well and that's what makes them so dangerous and I'm not to blow my own trumpet here. I got the Real Madrid Man City prediction wrong. I thought Man City would maybe win that game. I was bullish before this tie that Bodo would get through. But even by that standard watching them dominate sporting here, I did start to wonder to myself, what are we watching here? Like where does this end for this Bodo glimp team? Because if you took the club name away and you didn't know the name of the players and you just watched the team and how they're playing, Bodo would absolutely have to be taken seriously as a threat in the later rounds of this competition. Like if things go to form, they're going to get Arsenal, I believe, in the quarterfinals, they're going to give Arsenal some trouble if they play like this. Wow. Yeah, Arsenal by the way, because we'll await the winner of this one as you said, the great. So I suppose the key tool this is just don't play domestic soccer just by seems like is that it? That's a spicy thing too because there's a bit of controversy in Norway right now because the league has canceled the postpone, excuse me, the first two games of Bodo's domestic season, which was supposed to start this weekend. And so they've been given extra cushion by the league to help them sort of go and continue this magical run. And obviously other teams are not not so happy about that. So I mean, everybody's sort of rowing in the Bodo glimp boat right now. And I'm having such a good time. This just one more time to underscore how awesome this is. They're going up against the sporting team with Luis Suarez, not that one as their number nine who's getting caps for Columbia with with Trink Howe as a number 10 who's starting and playing games for Portugal and other national team players in this sporting team. And then it's, you know, the sort of merry band of Bodo or something the other side. I think I think I wanted to get this kind of performance out of a team with this level of players. A couple of things need to happen. One, you need to have that sort of chemistry that I talked about earlier and that we have talked about throughout their run, where players just seem to have a really impressive and rare understanding of each other. And two, I think you need players that are actually like at their core better than the level that they're at, you know, you can't convince me that how good can't go and play at a higher level. I know he's tried it and didn't work. I'm watching it with my eyes right now. Like I'm seeing how good he is. There is no way you can convince me that he or or Burke, the number six, who's amazing in this game. I just don't buy that these players can't play at a higher level. I mean, the best team in Norway is a good level. Don't get me wrong, but they're obviously higher levels than that. So I think you need the perfect storm of insane chemistry and like people that actually like each other and the on the quality that is better and probably a manager who was also brilliant at the same time. And Bodo, it seems like have all of those things much together and it's making for the best show on turf right now. Literally turf, I guess. The the Bodo Center forwards. Is it hoch? I've watched so many Bodo games. Yeah, ho, just call him that. Yeah, he's thankful he didn't join Norwich in January. Do you know that story? He was a signature away from being the Josh Sargent replacement for Norwich. And at the last moment, decided, I'm going to stay and play these champions league games. What a legend. No, that's just how it did. Yeah, I think he said that because he's out of Roger Dronerange. That was his primary. You can't get him to Norway. Exactly. Exactly. There we go. Congratulations, Bodo. Gleebe is still doing it. I wonder if the Norwegian league is just going to keep postponing their games. If they go to the final, they're just not going to play in their path this season. We'll see. Time will tell on that one a few more games to get to buy a Munich getting a 6-1 win at Atlanta without Harry Kane. He was on the bench for this one and a new sub. No point really bringing him out for this one. Gnabry was absolutely rampant in this game. Michael Alise was involved in three of the goals as well. His goal for, I want to say, 5-0. Was that lovely curling if that was amazing as well? Nicholas Jackson and Yamaha Ciala also scoring in this one. I think if you're a buy a Munich fan, you're feeling pretty bullish about what they are doing at the moment. That is some deep analysis. That was really helpful, Ryan. I think you're feeling pretty bullish about the score line. I also think you would trade four of these goals for the injury luck to be reversed that you suffered in this game. Ciala comes off with, it suffers an injury in this game. That's not ideal. He does finish the match, but he also doesn't really finish the match. That's a problem. Offensive Davies comes off after he comes on. It was about 30 minutes before he left injured with some sort of another leg injury. This is him after coming back from a torn thigh muscle fiber, which was him coming back from an ACL tear. And he came off sort of with his shirt over his eyes to hide his despair in this game, which is just devastating. Now, I don't think the flip side of this is that Bayern need offensive Davies or Jamal Mousiala to be 100% for them to win everything this year. That's good news for Bayern, but they would absolutely trade those things. I think there is some sadness really coming out of this game for Bayern, but man, were they good. I've been thinking about recently, and this is maybe because I watch Rafinha, and I watched Alise. Over the same set of Champions League games, I've been thinking about the profile of really good Premier League attacker who plays for a non-elite team that goes to then one of the biggest teams on the planet and is immediately fantastic for them. That is such an interesting player pathway to me, and it's probably quite easy to see leads and see how good Rafinha is or to see Crystal Palace and see how good Alise is. But those guys haven't just been good, and Alise, in particular this year, has been absolutely phenomenal. That pipeline seems to be producing for some of these big clubs that are ultimately trying to beat each other later in the tournament, and I haven't a blast watching these guys ball out. So, Brandon Ernst and two Real Madrids? I mean, it's the only natural progression for him, I think. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else he would go, so. Shout out to Bayern, they played really well, hopefully their injured dudes come back to you. Yeah, definitely. Atalanta, by the way, were quite bad on the other side of the corner. This one, past it, when he got that consolation goal, I've never seen anyone look really that annoyed to get a goal. He just like, come on, let's just get this over with. They were right, to your point, they were really bad. Like, they were bad needless giveaways under minimal pressure in their own half. The first concession, the first concession is off of a short set piece that just catches them unaware. I'm sorry, but you can't do that in basically any game. You definitely can't do it against Bayern Munich, where basically all you're thinking about is, let's not give the ball away in bad spots, let's beat compact defensively or at least enough. Let's control the game without the ball and whatever form we choose. And let's capitalize on set pieces, but instead they were capitalized upon on set pieces, it's done now. Obviously, it's so done. There you go. Yeah, I'm probably resting a few players for the second, like one would imagine. Liverpool probably won't be there. Galatasaray won Liverpool-Nill, Mario Lemina with the early goal in this one, making the difference. Victor Ossmann had a goal rolled out for offside, which seemed very marginal, but it was rolled out. Thames, the rules. Graham Liverpool had the chances in this one, but you could you could even suggest they got lucky to not get a heavy defeat here. Yeah, I watched this game live and I thought Liverpool got what they deserved here. I know a lot of them, their line numbers were quite even, maybe even favor Liverpool in a couple spots, but Galatasaray were on top for large periods of the match. They were certainly the ones that executed their game plan much better. And I thought this was a microcosm of Liverpool season so far, where they did have openings in the attack, and their press was quite effective at points as well, but frequently they would make the round decision or the execution would be lacking. I thought Florentin Virts had an off-night. He could TK had an off-night by his usual high standards. He missed a one-on-one opportunity or rather the goalkeeper saved it, thought he took a little bit too close to the goalkeeper, might have taken a shot a little bit earlier. So ordinarily, you might expect him to finish that chance. And then in defence, Liverpool, they were all over the place in this game. They really struggled with knowing when to step out and when to drop off. That was an issue, basically, for the whole game. The midfield didn't seem to be offering a whole lot of protection, which meant that Liverpool were wide open. Canate had an absolute stinker again, which has been a common theme this season. He was following the ball when he should have been maintaining his position all the time. And some of that was down to, I did have sympathy in how much open space he was having to defend. But I also thought slot made a mistake. And I might be accused of buys here. I thought slot made a mistake, going back to Milis Kerkis at left back. I cannot understand why Milis Kerkis continues to come back into this Liverpool back line. When Andy Robertson plays, he seems to do quite well and was like man of the match against Wilson there, fake up at the weekend. Okay, it was against Wilson, but it's the same wills that Liverpool lost two, three days prior to that. So yeah, once again, Kerkis his position was an issue in this match. And then the goal they conceded was a set piece, which has again been a problem for them all season. So a lot of familiar issues for Liverpool. The good news is that it was only one goal. The good news is that Victor Osman didn't get on the score sheet. He is, he's excellent. Like every opportunity I get to watch Victor Osman, I take it. It's still kind of novel to me that he's playing for Galatasaray because he's pretty much as good as any kind of centre forward or he's like top five centre forward in the world. And I think this Galatasaray team, I will I do back Liverpool to turn this round. I still think they're going to go through. But my prediction before this tie was that Galatasaray were going to score twice in the aggregate. And yeah, I think they're going to cause problems at our and fields just as they did in this match. Yeah, work to do for Liverpool in the second leg there. One more game last, but not least by Levicus and one Arsenal. One Levicus and opening is going through Robert Andrick in a header from a corner corner for Levicus and how the turntable is Arsenal, but Arsenal rescued a draw course in the 89th minute with a tie habits penalty. So I guess that's some set piece fun as well. I haven't spent 10 years at Levicus and so narrative central for that one. The penalty was drawn against Manic Tillman for a foul on Madaway, which was controversial, I suppose. It may be a combination of dive, but also why were you doing that tackle in the box is kind of how I would. I think I said there's one there's one angle. I didn't watch this match and feel like I was kind of the third screening at the time. But there's one angle where it looks like a dive from Madaway, and then there's another one when you can see the contact from Tillman kind of pushes Madaway, he off his straight. So I think it was just about a penalty and certainly not a very wise decision by Malik Tillman. Hey, hey, Malik Tillman coming on and making an impact. Graham, I don't want to hear anything more than that. He certainly did. Impact. Yeah, it's nice. That's right. He's in it. We're talking about him. Yeah, Levicus did find the key in this one. Arsenal had no corners in the first half at all. So he just limit their powers by not letting them get corners. That's the way to do it. There you go. Big brain. Big brain stuff. There we go. That is the first leg of the round of 16, thoroughly rounded up from Ash Gentleman. We'll be back next week to go to the conclusion to these ties. But for now, Joe Lowry, thank you so much. I mustn't admit we do we use recording software where you can choose the name you put on on your screen. And Joe's gone for bow Joe glimps. I should have flagged that earlier. That's very good stuff from you, Joe. Well done. Thanks for that. I also was proud of it. So I'll take your pat on the back as a well-eared one. Pat's all round for Joe. Well done. Graham, welcome. Thank you very much. Pat's for you too. Thank you, Ryan Bailey and Pat's for the road kill on your shoulder, which we'll have to name for the next episode surely. We're going to have to come on the name for that. Yeah, maybe the discord should get on that. Yeah, needs to go back into my coin. It's cool down, but after a 45 minutes of Champions League chat. And listen, thank you very much for joining us. On this one, we'll be back on the feed very shortly indeed. But for now, bye.