Can PSG win the Champions League again?

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2:01But this year, they've not hit the same height. So can they step up to defend their European title? Right, joining us today in the studio, we've got Tom Williams, we've also got Karl Anker as well, good to have you with us, Jens. All right, so ahead of PSG's match against Chelsea in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday, we thought we'd talk about their current form. They lost a Monaco in league last Friday, meaning their lead has been reduced to just one point. And of course, Monaco are also the team, they narrowly beat in the Champions League playoffs as well. So Tom, this is not the PSG we're used to seeing, is it? It's not, it hasn't been for a little while, and I think the expectation in recent weeks has been that at some point, things would click into place, and they would become the PSG that we got used to seeing last season, the one that laid waste to the European elite,

3:01and finally claimed the Champions League, finally scaled the Everest that the club had been trying to conquer, ever since the arrival of their Caterione is in 2011. And as the weeks have gone on, you've started to think, maybe that just isn't going to happen. Like I personally have been sitting down to watch PSG and thinking, surely at some point, we're going to see some sign that this team is getting close to what it was last season. And if anything, it's been the opposite. The more that time has gone on, the further away from that level they have got. And so now you find them approaching this game against Chelsea, and this tie against Chelsea, with a sense that if they are going to go through, it's not going to be playing the sort of swashbuckling all-action football that became their trademark last season. They are just going to have to grind out results in the hope that that form still returns. The fact it's the same coach, the fact it's the same player, the fact it's the same general idea

4:02makes you think that things could click at some point, but recent evidence does not suggest that that is about to happen anytime soon. How the French media treating this? It was interesting the coverage of the defeat at Monaco, or the defeat against Monaco, rather on Friday that you mentioned. Le Keeps report said, you know, PSG are on the brink of crisis, and it is time that we abandon this idea that they are the same team they were last season. They are showing week after week that they are not capable of producing that performance level. And, you know, we saw that towards the end of the league phase. I mean, the best football that PSG have produced this season has tended to be in the Champions League. In the early weeks of the competition, they were fantastic in their opening game against Atalanta, four-neil winners, won away at Barcelona with a second choice attack, put seven goals passed by Elevacuson, and were really flying. And then they finished the group phase by taking two points from a possible nine, drawing away at Attic Bill Bell,

5:04losing away at sporting, and then drawing it home to Newcastle, and what would basically, you know, what felt like a must-win game if they were to avoid going into the playoff round, and they weren't capable of raising their level. And so, I think the feeling in France is that, you know, we need to perhaps come to terms with the fact that PSG are just at a different phase in their revolution. Now, they're not kind of on the launch pad. They are just sort of muddling around, desperately trying to find some semblance of form to cling to. And so, I think most people would still have them as favorites going into this tie against Chelsea as the defending champions with all the fantastic players and the fantastic coach they've got. But there's very little certainty at PSG at the moment. Yeah, Carl, not many teams hold on to the Champions League other than the name Real Madrid, of course. And you remember the dismantling of Inter Milan in the Champions League final, there's a redoing them, they're doing what they do best, you know, a kind of a kids from PSG, scoring late winners as well. This is a very different outfit. I rewatched the Spurs match just before this podcast

6:06at PSG Beat Spurs, but they kind of made a meal of it. Are you surprised to see the PSG from last season not really replicating the same kind of swashbuckling kind of football in the Champions League this season? A little bit, a little bit, in January. I'm a friend, Jerry Tackle, who works with PLP. Well, I was simply watching a PSG game going, what's going on? And Jerry, who supports PSG, offered his points to me and one thing he made very clear to me was something I think quite a few of us overlook the club walk up in that the PSG team that we saw defeat, not even defeat, dismantle Inter Milan in that Champions League final. And the one thing that sticks out to me about that Champions League final, yes, the goals, yes, the performance, yes, there's right, do it. But also, the referee blew exactly on 90 minutes. He was like, this is done. It's like a boxing match. Just like, stop it, stop it. Done, done. I'm plugging things, just wrapping it up this wire on a stereo like this is over. You don't need to do this anymore. And then it happened again into a three other matches in PSG,

7:07early in this season. But also, they had to go to United States, they had to play in a club walk up. They went to the final, they lost to Enza Morescu's Chelsea in the final. And one thing that Chelsea fans like to remind people was the gap between the club walk up final and Chelsea's first match of the Premier League season was something around 35 days. They have a very, very short turnaround. Now Chelsea can two degree stomach that quick turnaround a bit more because they have a very, very deep squad. They have a large amount of players and I'm not gonna make a joke about that. Chelsea have a big squad. So they can rotate a little bit more than a PSG team that for manager reasons, Lewis and Ricky doesn't like working with a particularly a large squad because he wants to have more contact time with a lot of these players. So this PSG team came into the new season quite tired. They had to play the super cup game as well. So another short turnaround. And also, there's been two or three against Tom Hotsper, which I mean, they were, Tom went to know up and you think, and this is Tom was frank, that get a trophy in his first season and then they go to the penalty success, I'm excited, excited, excited.

8:07But then it's, while it's the same players, there are two or three changes. I think moving on Donna Ruma and bringing on Lucas Turevelia is a big change because even, yes, PSG were fantastic in that Champions League run, but there were two or three matches and two or three opportunities where, I want to say Liverpool had a chance. I want to say Arsenal had a chance. So Donna Ruma had to do big things. I've keep saying it. Donna Ruma, when he's playing at English club, his disciples get big. He just finds an extra five percent and he's just breaking your heart and he's been doing it since the year of 2020 final, where Chevalier and Tom, you can correct me here if I get any players' pronunciation wrong. My French is quite bad. Absolutely spotless, so far. Thank you very much. Chevalier was picked because he's good with his feet. I did a piece ahead of the new season about Manchester United and about the goalkeeper's Manchester United might need to replace on J.O.N.A. and in the piece I wrote about Chevalier, I said, this is a Pep Guardiola goalkeeper hiding in plain sight. He's not necessarily someone who can make himself super big and get you something out of nothing to make a huge save.

9:08And therefore the team, I think PSG defensively, has probably lost five percent just by that goalkeeper swap. I think Marquinius, you know, father time has caught up with Marquinius as well. He's not the same center back that he used to be. So that's another five, 10 percent off their defense too. Hakemi has been injured and he's gone to Afcon and he's just not been the same player that he was last season. This is a player that for the last three or four years was regarded the best right back in the world and now there's a conversation as to other right backs being in there. So three members of that back five are not the players they used to be. Then you add in the injuries to Dan Bele, there's a duet, but Abba's been on and off. So you've got a slightly smaller squad that played a ridiculous amount of football games last season including the club World Cup. They all come back for a brand new season, two or three changes at the back, two or three players who are a bit older and or absent and or injured. And all of a sudden the team that many, many people were reloading as the one great team in European football of a sudden is good-ish. And I think this is something that might continue to happen

10:10in this new expanded format of the Champions League where there's no parodies and quite the word. There are fewer times where I'm going, that is a great team and more times I'm going, that is a good team with a goal scorer who might go supernova for 10 minutes. I think what happened last season for PSG is that all the planets aligned. Luis Enrique found this way of playing and he didn't come across it prior to the start of the season. We go back to the first part of last season. PSG were very underwhelming. They would very frequently dominate matches but not score the goals, that their domination of both possession and territory suggested they should. And then he starts playing with his Mandambale as a false nine halfway through December, things fall into place. In the second half of that season, no one got injured. He was able to rotate players freely because in Liga, there was no real challenge. They had a big, they went into the year 2025 with a 10 point lead at the top of the table. And he was able to work with, as Carl says,

11:12a very small squad and even within that, 12 or 13 key players, by the time we got to the knockout phase of the Champions League last season, you knew pretty much exactly which team was going to start. The only query between games was is it going to be dizzy, I do it or is it going to be bloody back cooler? Every other player was guaranteed to start. And PSG produced spectacular, but quite complicated football, a very intense, very minutely coordinated press without the ball, that involves every single player on the pitch, positional interchanging, that involves every player on the pitch. And because he was able to rest players in domestic games, and because none of his players were injured, it meant that he could work with that very small group of players week after week after week, and ended up producing this, you know, extremely well-drilled kind of football. And this season, because of the injuries, but also because of the domestic challenge

12:13from Lars in Liga, which I know we're going to go on to talk about, he can't rotate, the players aren't fit. And so everything that was working last season is no longer working this season. And that very, that very finely calibrated style of football is just currently beyond them. And I think, you know, those are all key factors in explaining why that is. This is the Athletic FC podcast with I.O. A. Camelere. This episode of the Athletic FC podcast is sponsored by Pebble. Now, one thing no one tells you about hiring globally is how unclear the cost can be. It looks simple at first, but then the fees start stacking up, where Pebble brings clarity with up from all in hiring costs and enables you to hire the world. Pebble is an AI-powered global human resources platform built for founders, HR leaders and operators who are hiring and supporting teams worldwide. Pebble helps you hire, pay, and manage talent in over 185 countries with fast onboarding that can be done in minutes.

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15:19Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything goodness world stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate for three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full turns at mintmobile.com. Well, let's move on to the Chelsea match on Wednesday because we did mention they'll be playing Chelsea in the Champions League Liam Rossini has a decent record versus PSG. We know that from his time at Strasbourg. So one win, one draw and one loss. Now, how have previous meetings gone with this two sides? Because I'd like to think Rossini is coming into this. There I say it with a much bigger squad car

16:21and feeling possibly a little bit more confident than he probably would under Strasbourg in legal. Yes, but also we spoke to him and the way that explained about taking on PSG. He was like, well, go for it. Yeah, I think in football, it's one of those sports where you can play really, really well and you don't always win and you can play really well and you can lose the way I gauge my team is always on performance and in terms of our performance and our bravery and the players engagement infuse as a man energy. As a manager, you can't ask for any more. So even if we'd lost the game, the way that the players conducted themselves in the way that I wanted us to play. Now, I was so proud. I was one of the proudest moments of my career but hopefully there's many more to come as well. These are the games you want to manage. These are the games you want to be a football player and that was Liam's entire approach. He talked about his history playing for Hall, playing for Brighton and playing for some of the smaller teams that when they finally got to go to to Anfield or when they got to Old Trafford and he'd explained his own frustration about playing the bigger teams and not really touching the ball

17:23because everyone sort of, the game plan was about sitting in deep and I was like, oh, well, this is the pinnacle in my career and I've just stood there looking up, watching balls just go over in my head because we're playing a long ball. I believe when we spoke to him, Strasbourg had just drawn three-three with PSG after being two goals up at the start and Strasbourg pressed very, very high which you can do that when you're the Strasbourg coach because you've got very, very young players but also I think you can do that more against this PSG team because, as Tom has explained, the very, very precise footballing machine has been disrupted into her three phases. Fabian Rousse does not look the same player in 2026 that he was in 2025. There's been an entry to Jal Nevers who, I mean, that kid is scary good. Special, isn't he? If Pep Guardiola signs Jal Nevers were all in trouble and I mean that as the greatest compliment, Jal Nevers is five foot nine-ish and he's ability to predict where the ball is going to land when it's been up in the air is the only player I've seen with that sort of size who's that good in predicting the flight of a ball

18:24is in Galicante, like he's brilliant. Vittinia, sometimes Vittinia's a nine out of 10, sometimes he's a seven out of 10 but Vittinia can't do everything. He's exceptionally the first phase, Fabian Rousse and Jal Nevers takes things in the second phase and this is it, in that PSG have a lot of good players but they may turn into great players because their weaknesses are hidden very often by the other football players next to him. It's very good squad building when everyone is fit and everyone's fit and everyone's fit and everyone's doing well. When they're not, that's the interesting bit and the fact that Leon is a little bit more competitive now and the fact that you've got a manager in the Emersonio who has already, I'm not gonna say profit too, profit maybe isn't the word when it's a 3-3 draw but has dented PSG in the past. I think is... I think there's a psychological edge here. I think there's not going to be no fear when he's going through his training routines and when he's doing things on the whiteboard. I also think increasingly now when we are watching Champions League football or Europa League football, the physicality of the Premier League now is coming to the fore. In that, I mean, Tottenham Hotspur are in a relegation battle

19:27and yet they were finished the league phase fourth because even the smaller fishes in the Premier League are able to hurt and run with an intensity that a lot of teams outside of, in Europe's other top five leagues, cannot quite manage. So if you're a Chelsea player, if you're more like this, say it all, go at them. And I'm sure, and I'm sure one of the Chelsea coaches is telling him words to that effect, well, far more complicated instructions and just go at them. But yeah, I'm really, really interested to see how Premier League combativeness works against a PSG team that can be very, very good using possession as a defensive tool as well. Yeah. Man, Karl talks about going at them at your own peril because we've also seen PSG this season absolutely obliterate teams. You look at the Marseille 5'0 in league. Ah, you look at that leal game with Dembele doing what Dembele does. You know, that chip. Dembele. Oh, Chimney's long way. Pulls back. Dembele, what's it all?

20:27That is super. That graceful drag back and then chip over the keeper. You know, this is still a stack team. You spoke about Vittinia there. You know, the Tottenham game. Vittinia's first career hat trick against Tottenham, rescuing his team from a possible defeat, you know, against Tottenham Hotspur. This is still a stack team. Let's not forget them. Yeah, it's the exact same team as last season on paper with the one difference being in goal, as Karl said, and clearly replacing last season's outstanding goalkeeper, Jean-Louis Jadona Ruma, the current holder of the Ash in Trophy with Lucas Chivalier, who then lost his place to his Russian understudy, Matt Vesafanov, who's basically a goalkeeper with a similar profile to Dona Ruma, but multiple levels below him has not been a success. But it is all the same players, and we have seen glimpses, and that's one of the great frustrations with PSG, is that you do see these glimpses, and Dembele's form since the start of the years been one of the few bright spots,

21:28because he has had multiple injury problems. It was a hamstring problem in the first part of the season. Since Christmas, it's been carfish shoes. It was the carfish shoe that forced him off in the first leg of the playoff round tie against Monaco. He came on for last half an hour against Monaco on Friday, looked relatively sharp. But there again, is it, would it be a risk to start him, given that there is now that vulnerability? But he has shown with that fantastic brace against Leo, that impossibly delicate laugh-foot-chip brace that he scored against Marseille as well. And they need that, because you watch PSG attack when he isn't on the pitch, and they looked to him even when he isn't there. They used to him dropping in and dragging centre-backs around and creating space for the wide players to attack in the central midfield as to attack. And that doesn't happen when he's not there. It's been interesting that in the last few weeks,

22:28Lewis and Ricke has been trying Bradley Barcola as a false-knighting. Very much not his natural position, but he's scored three in three in Liga and has shown some signs that he might occasionally be a serviceable, understudy to D'Ambelli in that role. But yeah, it's not quite the same thing. So talent-wise, there can be no disputing how good this PSG team is. But I think the fundamental issue is that physically, they are not capable, or they do not seem capable of playing the kind of very high-octane, that smothering football that they did last season, and that's with and without the ball. And as you say, when you get a team that attacks them as naively as Mercedes, that team can find themselves in big trouble, but if you get a team who do it a bit more intelligently, a Monaco have done that very well in recent weeks. Obviously, the winning league on, but even in the two matches of the playoff round, when both teams had 11 men on the pitch,

23:30Monaco actually won that tie, which shows how much PSG struggled to bait them down, and how Monaco were able to exploit some of the weaknesses in PSG's play when they did have the ball. So yeah, on paper, there can be no contesting the talent, but the sad reality for PSG is that it's been several weeks now where what you see on paper hasn't quite translated to what you see out on the pitch. Let's move our attention to League on briefly, Carl. I think since 2012, PSG have pretty much won League on, I think only Leal and also Monaco, only other teams that have won it. I mean, Carlo Ancelotti finally bringing League on back to PSG under his reign. I mean, for the product, and I know PSG could still go ahead and win this for the product though, if Ron's win this, this is great, this is wonderful. The mighty PSG can be toppled. Yes, yes, look,

24:30German Renato Sanchez. Yes, Renato Sanchez. Renato Sanchez, young player of the tournament at Euro 2016, Atben Fieker goes to Bayern Munich, gets loads of injuries to Bayern Munich, has an unsuccessful Loan sport, Swansea ends up at Leal. It's part of that Leal League on winning side, and now every time someone goes, oh, Renato Sanchez didn't do much, I'm like, ah, ah, one of French League titles for someone that wasn't PSG. He then eventually went to PSG and didn't quite work out, and they went to Rome, etc, etc, etc. But I am now farce becoming of the opinion that, if you can win the French League title for someone that isn't PSG, that is a heavier medal. So French football is in a really interesting position in that the broadcast deal, and the most recent broadcast that I want to say lost to a three have been terrible, and they have, the French League has been quite honest about how the recent days have been terrible and trying to package up a new sort of subscription style

25:31package for anyone interested. And we've got the wonderful Alex Barker at the Atadek who's a huge proponent and a huge fan of French football, and he's constantly telling all of us about how cheap it is to watch all the French League games and how he wanted to be doing this as well. So you've got that, and increasingly for leagues, if your broadcast deal is terrible, you're just gonna suffer. You're gonna find it really, really hard to get people to watch your games in addition to the matches they're already gonna watch. Domestically, it's a lot harder to get hold of the flow and narratives of your league outside of Champions League games. So I mean, the majority of the time I'm watching PSG, I want to say 95% of the time I'm watching PSG, it is a Champions League match. So I'm only watching them X amount of times. And also there's a problem of the Premier League is just an all-encompassing, devouring beast in that when I actually nightplayed Leon in the Europa League last season, I had the great joy of talking to a scout for a Premier League club, and they were based in France.

26:35And they explain it to me in that the French League makes good players all the time. The French League finds it increasingly hard to produce good teams, because the moment, two or three good players emerge at someone that isn't PSG, a Premier League club goes, oh, thanks mate, I love that, boom, boom, boom. And you get cherry picked. So if there is ever a season where the stars align, where PSG is having a down period and another club is having a good period and perhaps they've got a good academy class or perhaps they've got a good coach or perhaps one of their strikers goes supernova and you can get a winning run. Absolutely, fantastic, good for the product because it gets more eyeballs on there. And if you've got, now the French League is slightly improving their broadcast deals, it is now easier to tune in. I want to watch Monaco this season because they got Paul Pogba and Anne Souffatty and two or three other players. And I went, well, I want to see how this works out. So I paid a sort of trial subscription for you and I've been watching Monaco games three or three times, right? Loans.

27:35But sadly not much of Paul Pogba. Yes, yes. Unfortunately not, I'm not going to see much of Paul Pogba. But this, I think this is the thing now in that, increasingly in the not, if you're not the Premier League, leagues are now having to think very, very smartly about how do we get the quote unquote casual viewer or the, I'm going to watch you once in a month viewer. And the French, the French League have now got a streaming service and online offering that makes it very, very straightforward. And if you can do that, that means in times like this, where there is a genuine competitor to the PSG, you can get more eyeballs onto your product. And then hopefully those eyeballs can stick, providing those competitors can stay together. I remember speaking to Jose Fonte after, again, after Leo won the league. He was a Leo, yeah. He was a Leo and he used to play for Southampton. So when I was a Southampton reporter, I had a conversation with him two or three times. And when he won the league, I sort of sent my message after the victory thinking, well, you know, he's just going to league title.

28:36He's not going to want to respond to me. And he eventually did. And I was just chuffed a bit and he explained what it meant to him to be a French League champion. Yeah, you can really, really see how much it means to win a league title when you're not at PSG. And also, quite frankly, if you're a manager at PSG and you don't win the league, I'm looking at you with sideways eyes going, you want me? So like, Pochettino didn't win in his first season. A Carlo Ancelotti did not win in his first season. And Tom, you can correct me here. I believe Ancelotti came in midway through in his first season. He did, and PSG came in and he had like a sign now. He came in at Christmas time. And I'm pretty sure PSG had like a six plus points lead at the top. And they didn't win it. So you do need a unique alchemy for PSG to not get it done. But when it does happen, it's absolutely worth watching every single week or at least in high level. I'm not sure if they were that far clear, but you're right. It was nevertheless a fairly enormous surprise, particularly given they lost the league to Montpellier.

29:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at these about Montpellier that I read the other day. Montpellier led by Olivier Giroud. Giroud, you know, and referred to in this piece that I read as, you know, France is less the city in terms of the probability of that title win. And talk to me about, along the possibility of them winning league time. I don't think they've won the top tier since the 90s, I imagine, like 1998. 1998, I mean, come on. This would be amazing considering the riches that exist at PSG and the plethora of talent that they have at their disposal. There are so many levels to this. I could literally talk about, about Lance for, and this is your time to have this day. First of all, the fact that any club other than PSG might win Liga is remarkable. But the fact that it's Lance, this very traditional club from the North of France with this fantastic boxy English style stadium that has been sold out for something like 81 Liga and Home Games in a row.

30:39This club that has had to sell so many of its best players in recent years, you go back to January last year and Abdukadeh, Kusanat of going to Manchester City, Kevin Dancer going to Tottenham. They lost their starting goalkeeper, Boris Sombra, went around at the same time. There's just been this constant churn. And then here we are this season with a new head coach in PSG. He was sacked at Leon and in a manner that a lot of people both at Leon and elsewhere felt was very unfair. And with this really interesting, Hodgepodge collection of players, players whose careers were drifting players, who looked like they reached a dead end, who've just been picked up and put into this fantastically coached team, playing very uncomplicated, quite direct but extremely effective football, flying wingbacks, Floyd Antauva, who came in from Udinese last summer, playing just of Odson Eduard,

31:40whose career looked like it had completely come off the rails in England. And these players just kind of picked up, seemingly from nowhere, who've now proven themselves as being among the very best players in Liga. And it is a classic case of halves and have nots. They are, I mean, Leo winning the title in 2021 was remarkable and comparable to this. Monaco likewise, albeit Monaco, have always had money behind them. But this is a proper underdog story. And so it's, yeah, it's the halves and the have nots. And there was a feeling up until, I'd say, even last weekend, that lawns chance have probably been in gone in that prior to last weekend, they were four points behind PSG. They'd lost unexpectedly at home to Monaco, having been too near up. They'd played well, but then drawn away, it's Hazborg and PSG had won. And you're like, okay, we know the drill. PSG just going to move through the gears, lawns are going to encounter turbulence and then this dream sadly will die. But then PSG lose at home to Monaco,

32:42lawns, brushersides, mets who are the bottom club in Liga and suddenly the title race is back on. And if you look at lawns running, they've got nine fixes remaining. Most of them are winnable. There are some key games. There's a trip to Leo in the WDNR, which is always a game that matters a huge amount in that part of the world. It is a route as well, of course. And then the following weekend, we kind of 12th and 13th of April, I think it is lawns at home to PSG. I think the whole for everyone who follows French football is that they are still within touching distance at that point. Because if lawns go into that game knowing that if they win, they'll go top or they'll put distance between themselves and PSG, then it will be fully on. And yeah, if anyone hasn't yet had a chance to watch lawns this season, I'd strongly recommend it. It is the most fantastic feel-good story. Stadiums always fall, super noisy, super colorful. They play really exciting football.

33:43There are so many little subplots and storylines and hopefully for the good of French football, it will be great if they can push PSG all the way at the very least. Hi, this is Pablo Torei from Pablo Torei finds out. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Because we spent a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports, overvalued contracts, money tied up in the wrong places, and so on, but those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster. Sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses. Boost Mobile says switching to their $25 unlimited forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's $25 a month for unlimited data, talk and text when you bring your own phone. If that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill, it might be worth a second look. Visit boostmobile.com to learn more. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile

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35:45from payroll taxes and provisioning new app permissions to assigning required manager training. That's why Ripling is the number one rated human capital management suite on G2, trust radius and gardener. If you're ready to run the backbone of your business on one unified platform, head to rippling.com, slash acastbiz, and sign up today. That's r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g.com, slash acastbiz, to sign up. You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with Iawakima Leroy. All right, let's move on to the Champions League once more, Carl, because this week Liverpool versus Galatasaray kicks off on Tuesday. You know, a lot of pressure on this game considering the league form of Liverpool, big one for Anna Slot. Absolutely. Big one, as we are now increasingly heading towards a summer of managerial merry-go-round, and Anna Slot now not only needs to get some momentum together

36:47to make sure Liverpool qualify for next season's Champions League, but also needs to show some sort of convincing style of play, some convincing style of attack and open play to suggest that he should be the man next season. One thing that unfortunately, an unfortunate, unforeseen complication on the Slot's Liverpool career, is the fact that Javier Lanzo is available now. And I think we're all sort of like, oh, hang on. Wasn't you meant to be at Real Madrid for ages? So Javier Lanzo's left, but also Javier Lanzo left for reasons that he convincingly say, it's not my fault, that's more to do with Real Madrid being Real Madrid. So big game for Liverpool. They played Galatasaray earlier in the league phase, I believe, where Victor Oshman just gave him absolute hell because that's what Victor Oshman does. There's no harm, no foul. He's just one of the best strikers in the world. And then going to Galatasaray, never leave people an easy place to go. This is the quote-unquote early Champions League game kickoff on, it is tonight? Yeah. As we're recording it. I don't know, I days anymore. You can tell I'm a reporter for a club

37:47that's not in the Champions League anymore. So it's the quote-unquote early game. Just one game a week for you, Carl. Sorry. It's the quote-unquote early game. And I'm interested to see if that's going to play into Liverpool's favor or not, in that playing at Galatasaray, playing in Istanbul slightly earlier in the day, that doesn't quite play into the welcome to hell into a dating atmosphere. And indeed Liverpool are, well, they're acquainted with that sort of atmosphere, too. So very, very interested in there. I think the fact that Andrew Robinson played on Friday against all Hampton Wondrous was interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if you played again or started again today just to give him that a little bit of veteran now and to keep two or three players online or like switched on for the first 20 minutes, be really, really interesting today. I'm also going to be really interested to see how Ryan Gravenberg plays there, too, because I think he's a supremely talented football player. He's just signed a brand new six-year contract there, but he needs to be a little bit more defensively resilient, particularly in these trickier circumstances, because if he vacates the space too much, there's going to be a very angry person

38:47flooding into the space and Liverpool could be vulnerable. We need to talk about Atlético and Madrid vs. Spurs, Atlético, obviously, doing what Atlético do in La Liga, but Spurs, are at a point where they are eyeing relegation or at least that zone, isn't that strange in terms of when we talk about the riches available to certain clubs and Premier League clubs in particular. You're looking at a team facing relegation and you're looking at a team in a decent position in La Liga. Yeah, it's maddened. Again, I think it speaks to the enormous firepower of the Premier League that you could have all the Premier League clubs still in contention in the Champions League. And that includes one of the most feeble Tottenham Hotspur teams, I think any of us can remember seeing. I mean, yes, they had a relatively clement draw in the league phase, but they nevertheless produced convincing performances. They beat decent teams. And I think the qualified in fourth place, didn't they? Which is, I mean, didn't make the play absolutely remarkable.

39:50And I mean, they were able to successfully switch between domestic difficulties and continental assignments during the league phase. Are they still capable of doing that? And we saw how that group of players, albeit with a different coach, were able to compartmentalize what they were doing domestically and what they were doing very badly domestically last season. And European objectives in the way that they slid down towards a finishing position of 17th in the Premier League. At the same time as they were grinding their way towards glory in the Europa League, will they prove capable of doing the same thing again? I mean, I've had to go are a sort of very interesting phase in their in their evolution under Diego Simeone, in that they are quite un-Simeone-like, in the sense that they're quite an attacking team these days. They score an awful lot of goals. It's just the Vatimodo Lugman's probably helped that as well.

40:50Absolutely. You know, put four unanswered goals past Barcelona in the semifers leg of their Copadel race semi-final. That's the second leg of the Copadel race semi-final. Second leg of that. I mean, yeah, they were cleaning on in the second leg. This is this is true. But it's, I mean, yeah, we know what to expect from Tottenham in domestic football is generally just quite bad. But when it comes to London football, I've no idea. It would feel like simultaneously extremely Tottenham, if they were to go out having lost 10-0 on aggregate. But also if they were to somehow to go through. And be athletic, yeah, it's very spicy. So Simeone uses pretty much press conference to say Tottenham had the favorites for that. And I'm putting on the face going, is this, is this game's mission? Are you doing the dark arts or do you genuinely believe Tottenham are the favorites? And Tom's absolutely right. The financial wealth of the Premier League means Tottenham Hospital now are the ninth richest football club in World Football. They have the seventh highest wage bill in the Premier League. This is why they've had these back-to-back bottom half finishes for Tottenham are so strange. This is shocking on the performance for the amount of money spent

41:53and yet because of the wealth of the Premier League. Because the amount, the comparative amount of wages they can spend, right? Connor Gallagher has gone from athletic home in Dredge to Tottenham. And Connor Gallagher Gallagher now is Tottenham's, well, apparently Tottenham's highest-paid player. I'd be really interested to get him in the mix zone, get him talking about how these two clubs compare right now. And Tom's absolutely right about how's just athletic home in Dredge team just aren't very Simeone in that when you think about their two triumphs in La Liga, the centerbacks, just the way they looked, it's night and day to their current centerback pairing, in that they're not as stocky. I'm sorry, I can't say that in a more intelligent way. They're a really, really fun team to watch this athletic home team. And I would like them to win a trophy, one more trophy for my constant ongoing argument that Simeone is one of the best managers of the 21st century. I don't know if Simeone Chad was like her. Right, still plenty more actually to look out for

42:54in the Champions League Newcastle versus Barcelona, Atlanta versus Bayern, Liverpool's in versus Arsenal, obviously Bordeaux Glimps, still doing what Bordeaux Glimps do versus sporting and Real Madrid versus Manchester City once again in the Champions League. All right, Jens, it's probably a tough one to call right now, but Tom, if you got to win the Champions League, I might just put my hat out to Bayern on this one. Yeah, I was going to say Bayern as well. All right, yeah, partly because I think there is, I can't think of many more pleasing forward lines in the recent history of European football than Michael Alesa, Jamal Mosella, Louis Diaz and Harry Kane, I think it would be a wonderful thing for that team to become European champions. When they beat PSG before Christmas, despite having Louis Diaz sent off, made way through the game. I remember thinking, and okay, this was at a time when we didn't realise quite how far off the levels of last season PSG were, but that was very impressive. I think they're the team that have probably impressed me

43:56the most in the Champions League so far. So yeah, I think if I had to pick one, I'd go for Bayern. Yeah, I was salivating at that front line car. Incredible, Michael Alesa has formed this season, has been exceptional. It's ridiculous you got to possibly win the Champions League. I am steadily preparing myself for Arsenal to win the Champions League. Okay. You look at that bracket, and I think this is another thing that the Champions League now in that the bracket and the knockout bracket means just as much as how good you are. And Arsenal have a very, very, very favourable route to the final. I text one of my friends saying, if Arsenal don't make the Champions League final minimum, I think that would be class as a disappointment. You're pulling your face now, because you're annoyed that you weren't that friend I text. No, I think Arsenal, I think Arsenal's squad building is best equipped for this new era of football. I think the league phase and its current construction and the fact that the brackets are up in a certain way, and if you finish a certain place in the league phase,

44:56you can have a more favourable draw. Again, it's less about being great and more about, do you have, are you good and do you have depth in your squad in a way that you perhaps didn't have to consider in the 2000s or the 90s, where I was born in 1991. So I was born in the era of 442, and top teams having four strikers. Whereas now it is now a piece that you need six centrebacks to get through a campaign, and the way MacArthur can compose things is that you couldn't have an injury to Califurie, or have Califurie go off with some sort of complaint, and then you can bring on a player as good as in Cappé. I think that's really, really good. The fact they rested deckling rice and some of the mendi is really, really important, and if they can have more matches where they can do that, and they don't have to play 90 minutes running up and down, they should get things done. Yep, okay. I do have some question marks over how they're going to score goals in open play, because Jacarise hasn't been the football player that we thought he might be, but if Arsenal don't get to those,

45:57it gets to the final, I'd be surprised, and if they don't get to the semi-final, someone else on that side of bracket would have had to go supernova to get it done. So I think Arsenal and the Premier League, and I'm slowly preparing myself where Arsenal to win the Champions League too, have fun, I'm not going to be in North London where it happens. Still well-clear, most groups. Anyway, let's see if they're just thoroughly enjoyed that. Karl, Tom, appreciate your time, and also thank you guys for joining us as well. We'll catch you soon. You've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast. The producers with Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou, and Joe Beale, with editing by Paul Eiliff and Nick Thompson. The executive producer is AD Morehead, to listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows, search for the Athletic wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC podcast is an Athletic Media Company production.

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