Gab & Juls Show: Another World Cup disaster for Italy

There's no one like you and there never will be. From the producer of Bohemian Rhapsody, there are many legends, but there is only one. Michael in IMAX and Cinema's Wednesday, April 22. I'm Gaby's Jules, blue skies over west London, dark stormy skies over Italy and the third consecutive World Cup. Italy will not be a part of it. We've got to deal with this, I'm going to rely on your emotional support throughout this. I know, I rely on it for you. But there's plenty of other stuff going on. I think that we definitely need to mention that Zaby's been confirmed. Czechia are going to the World Cup, Sweden are going to the World Cup, DR Congo are going to the World Cup, Iraq are going to the World Cup, and of course Turkey going to the World Cup too. Everybody, but Italy pretty much. Exactly, exactly. I think it will be at least two Italian managers to the World Cup, but we'll get to that later. Jules, I don't know what the good place to start with this. I'll just kind of tell you the bare, unpleasant facts as I know them. Italy playing away to Bosnia, Italy getting an early goal, fortunately on a mistake by the Bosnian keeper. They go into, they decide to kind of go into lockdown mode, 11v11 and then maybe play possession. Maybe the plan was to play possession second half. I don't know because we never got there because 41 minutes in, Alessandro Bastoni, arguably the least best defender, makes a really poor decision. Not entirely his fault, also a function of the fact that Don Aruma's goal kick was poor. Was poor, I think probably because he also slipped and also I don't think the defenders were where they were supposed to be to receive it. So he's scrambling, he gets himself sent off, 10v11, got two's of the sides, let's go into lockdown mode and let's suffer because that's what he was like as a player and I think it's kind of like all he knows. As a result, Bosnia take a million shots on goal, I think it was 33 by the end of the game. They eventually get an equalizer, goes into extra time, Italy are tired, it's raining, blah blah blah, it's a long time to play with a man down and then on the penalties they go out. I don't know how much time we need to spend on the game because frankly, you and I both agree, got two's are not fit for purpose. No, definitely not. I think part of the problem for me is that got two's was never good enough really to take this team to the World Cup, one of the big differences as well with why other nations are stronger than Italy right now is probably because they had picked the right coaches in the last few years or so, which hasn't been the case for Italy either, from Spalletti to Gaduz or just the last two. And that's a problem, but yeah, Bosnia I don't think are even very good, even at home they were not very good on the night, all they could do is cross the ball and they did a lot of crosses, but Italy were so poor, I thought, despite the chances that they had, because Moisey Ken can make it too nil, Esposito can score too, they had enough chances to go and win this game, but it was just not there enough for them. And I think you said, you know, Gaduz are not good enough to take Italy to the World Cup. What I would say is, you don't have to be particularly good. Italy ranked number 11, 12, 13 in the world, 48 teams go to the World Cup. I think the difference between having a good manager and having somebody like Gaduz is that things can go wrong in qualifying campaigns, right? You get a bad decision, you have a bad day, you go into a group with somebody who's playing out of their skin, like Norway, and so then the margins become slimmer, and then somebody gets sent off in your playoff, and then the margins become even slimmer. A good manager can message in such a way that say, okay, this isn't working, let's go to Plan B, let's go to Plan C. He has options, he has understanding of what to do, which Gaduz definitely, I think, did not. I know there's a big argument about, oh, Gaduz and the head of the Italian F.A., Gabriele Gravina should have immediately resigned in shame. I just didn't general, where do you stand about immediate resignations in these situations? Yeah, I think when it's disembarrassing, I think they like to go. I mean, Gravina, Gaduz, you could say, just arrived after Spalletti, nobody wanted the job. But this is not the first time that this head of the Italian F.A. is be part of a cycle where they missed out on the World Cup. How is he still there? I don't even know. Yeah, I guess he won the Euros, maybe. Yeah, true, but that starts to be quite a while ago. You're dining out off that for a long time. The two big names immediately put out there, and I'll be honest, they don't know who's in charge of the F.A. So I don't even know how solid these are, but inevitably Mancini, who's unemployed, and of course won the Euros, and Antonio Conte, who's not unemployed, but may decide to go in another direction in the season. Who do you like? Conte did well at Euros 2016, didn't he? With the poor team, compared to the one Mancini took to the Euros. So I would prefer Conte, I prefer Conte than Mancini as a coach myself. So I'd be very happy with Antonio. Who would you rather go on holiday with? I would hope you would say Mancini. Yeah, probably. You gave off Mancini vibe, certainly much more important. Yeah, probably, although I'm sure Conte can be charming on his day. On his day. Jules, I... looking at this group and the failure, FIFA were ranked, Italy were ranked, they slipped down to number 13 in the world, the new rankings are, I don't know, 14, 15 or whatever. They're going to be in that range. Denmark 21 in the world, also of course not going. So we know, I mean FIFA rankings are what they are, but we know this is not a bad group of players. These are players who have been in Champions League finals, these are players who play for big clubs in England and elsewhere. Maybe you could make the point that, and I saw a guy, there's a guy named Omar Chaudhury who's involved with this thing called 21st Club, they do like sort of nerdy analysis, but they're very smart people. And he made the point about, you know, the sort of a lack of superstars, essentially, like no player in the top 50, whatever. Judging goalkeepers is very difficult, but for me, Don Arum is probably in the top 50 players in the world. Yeah, yeah. DiMarco, possibly, certainly in his position, I mean, probably is top five. Yeah, I think so, yeah. You know, I don't, we can't use the players as an argument. However, I think what is undeniable is that in the past, when Italy also had terrible qualifying campaigns, when someone got through, you had the safety blanket of, okay, none of our midfielders can pass and we kind of suck, but oh look, here's, you know, here's Roberto Baggio, or here's Del Piero off the bench. Yeah, yeah. Certainly that level of striker is something we haven't seen. Yeah. Striker number 10. We haven't seen that for Italy in a long, long time. Yeah, I agree. I tend to agree with that when you look at some of the past options that they had at number nine, especially on number 10s or those attacking positions, going back to obviously 20 years ago in the 06 World Cup, but even around that kind of era, it's not there yet. But again, it's a cycle. We can look at Germany and then the number nine. You can look at France and the full bags. You can look at, in each country, you've got positions where it's a little bit weaker than in others, which is absolutely fine. But are you doing anything about it? Are you doing anything to make this team better? I think it's also probably, and you would think, you know, that Serie A being where it is right now, you don't have many goals scored in Serie A. There's not that amazing great strikers, either proper number nine, either if you take Lautaro out for the rest. I don't think he's a striker. So he might not just be the national team. I think he might be more either structural or, you know, kind of mind thing about strikers and goals in general with Italian football right now, which again, it's part of a cycle. I don't know if I fully agree with the goal scored in Serie A argument because, yes, they're down this season, but I think last season or the year before, they were number two behind Germany in the big five leagues. Yeah, but the decision is the league with the more nil nils, for example, by far. That's fine, but I don't know that that means that you're not going to have good centre forwards, especially when, maybe a bigger thing would be, when most of the centre forwards are not Italian, you can't play them for the Italian national team. Yeah, yeah, no, no, sure. I think that contributes to it as well. I think part of it, and this certainly applies to Gattuzza, and I think the Italy managers who've done well, like Mancini or Brandelli 2012, Italy got to the European Championship final as well, although everybody seems to forget that. Football's changed and you have to play to your strengths. And Italy have ball playing defenders. Bastoni and Calafioli are two of the best defenders in the world on the ball. Yeah. Ball playing full backs, you know, and he kind of went away with Politano, of course, as a winger, a masquerade as a full back, and DiMarco. And the midfielders, you know, they can all pass a little bit. I'm not saying any one of these guys is a Dan, but compared to Italy, when they woke up with Perotta and Gattuzza, funny enough, in midfield, you know, warriors and stuff, but those are genuine ball winners. And now they've gone in another direction, which I think is the right direction, because you have to play football. You cannot go and park the bus and win in modern football in general. People will cite some exceptions and people will be mean about Arsenal, but that's not really fair, I think. But you agree with that, right? You have to do stuff with the ball. Yeah, I agree. And you have the players to do that. Yeah, I just think, again, the manager is the head coach is wrong. Gattuzza can't implement any style, any philosophy, any idea outside of let's fight for the show, let's do this, let's do that, which obviously has massive limits as we've so since it took over, not just in this Bosnia game, but also in the Northern Ireland game, also in the Israel game. Let's not even talk about the Norway game that he was on the bench for. So, you know, all of that is part of it massively. He was the wrong pick from the beginning. All right, let's go to the structural issues. I just want to hopefully agree with me. We don't need to argue about it. I just want to take one out of the way immediately. The fact that Serie A isn't as great as it was in the 90s when they were dominating. I don't think that is a major issue at all. Ligon is not as good as they were. Spain, not as good as they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and in fact, when Italy won the Euros, that wasn't as good as it was. And I would argue it's probably better today than it was when they won the World Cup in 2006, which, lest we forget, was on the back of the Calcioppoli scandal and all this other stuff. So I don't think that's a factor so much. I think it contributes a little bit because your domestic players are playing against a lower caliber of opposition. Sure, but it doesn't move the needle, right? I think there's a youth develop. There's a major youth development issue. And the counter argument to this is, oh, but look, Italy does really well in youth tournaments or have done over the last couple of years, under 17s, under 20s, under 21s. They're not doing worse. They're doing about as well as Spain, France, England. The issue, I think the big difference is what happens when these guys get ready to step into the first team. Yeah, absolutely. For me, 70% of foreign players in Serie A is far too much, far too many, because if you only have then 30% left for your Italian players there, and this is not a quota, this is what the club's doing, they don't have to do it. If you need seven players out of ten to be foreigners in your squad, then that doesn't leave much space for young talent. When you look at Piero Esposito, who had to wait until he was 20 to make his Serie A debut, and by the way, a few days later, he got his first call up for Italy. I think it's all there. It shows you this is somebody who should have started, doesn't have to be for a top club, who should have started in Serie A because he was good enough already when he was 18. By now he would have two years of experience in Serie A, and then by 20 when he's called up for the first time by Italy, he would have that kind of track record with him, not a few days after he's making his debut in Serie A, being called up for Italy. You can look at a lot of other players like that, and being in that position kind of thing. Yeah, on this issue of the foreigners, I think you make a really good point. But I want to stress, the number of foreigners in Serie A, it's not anything that can change, because there's European Union rules about this. What bothers me a lot actually, because clubs would say, okay, fine, but we're getting these guys because they're better, simple as, right? And that may be true to some degree. I think they also often get these guys, and I hate to say this and lift the lid on this. We're going to get into stories of agents, commissions and stuff like that later. They shop abroad because it's a lot easier to make a buck. It's a lot easier to then balance the books in dubious ways. They'll swap you this guy for that guy. There's a lot of clubs that are still basically in hawk to intermediaries, to certain people. And look, we both know plenty of agents in intermediaries. There's a lot of people who are honest people of integrity, provide real value to clubs. There's also some who are just bad people, and there's people who are in football for the wrong reasons. And especially when you look at how youth players move around, I think that is a big, big factor. Because you see this, some of these guys, Italy's best young player, I think, other than Pio Esposito, is Palestra, right? Who did really well, yeah. He came on, he's had a tremendous season at Cali, he's unknown from Atalanta. He's like 21, I think, possibly even 22. He's another guy who, in a normal country, would be starting at 18. Now, I want to detour a little bit to, you mentioned this on the UFC show, doing the postmortem. You made the point about how other leagues kind of cope with this. And I think every league kind of has its own story. In England, there's a blockage as well, because the top teams are so good. But in England, they also spend a ton of money on academies, I think far more than anybody else, broadly speaking. In France, you have a situation where you said it's a feeder league. So people do well, and they move on. You could make this point about Portugal as well. Yeah, the Netherlands, Belgium even, yeah. So there's constant openings and opportunities for players. In Italy, that tends not to happen. So often we see people rewarded with long contract. Obviously, some Italian players go abroad more than in the past. But it's still a very, very small number. We're seeing some. We say, my name is Reggiani, I'm from Sridhortman. Not going great, but whatever, they're there. That is something that I think you as a young player, you have to understand what's in front of you. You have to think of terms of player development pathways and realize I have to do what's best for me. And I think in the past, I think also because some of these relationships between intermediaries and clubs are unhealthy, that hasn't happened. Yeah, but I think the clubs have to look at themselves as well. And I know it's expensive to have a really good academy. I know it takes a long time because when you get a player 7 or 8, it will take you 10 years to work with him every day to invest in him until he can bring something to your first team. So I get that. And clearly a lot of Italian clubs, and not just in Italy, but in a lot of other countries, just don't fancy it. It's better to sign a 25-year-old from somewhere else in Europe than having, than trying to produce your own striker from the age of 8 or 10. Because you can make money off the commission. Yeah, true. And a lot of it. A lot of it. But I think academies are vital to any football, anywhere, whether you then rely on them or not, whether you let them go to lower league clubs, something, whether you loan them, it doesn't matter. It's part of the cycle of life of football, anyway. And I think that's where Italy took their eyes off it a long time ago and now it's going to be very difficult. But they have to go back on this gap. They have to. And it's going to be very difficult, too, because, as you said, it's not in the habit of clubs. It's not what they want to do, but they will have to. There are different stories, of course, of different academies in Italy, certainly in Atlanta, in Roma, in the final. Some clubs have B teams. Yeah, the next gen. Yeah, the next gen. But again, all they do is... All of that is full of fine-year... Exactly. All they do is... So they're very good at developing players for other countries. Absolutely. I think you can un-yield this. I want to make one other point, and I've seen this a lot now, having sort of... Yeah, my cousins of kids who played in academy systems and speaking to now the younger players are coming through, one huge difference. And this might also explain why Italy's success at youth team levels in international football might be full as gold is this. In these academies, the people coaching the academies in Italy, this has become a bit of an obsession of mine. Most of them want to go on to coach and say, yeah, they do not want to be youth coaches. They're like, oh, look, you take the under-14s this year, win the league next year, move the under-16s, and then become an assistant here and blah, blah, blah. To do that, they want to win. They don't want to develop players. They're not there to develop players. Yeah, I hear you. They're there to win games, and so they spend so much time working on tactics. That's why most Italian players, whatever you can criticize them, but tactically, they know what they're doing. Yeah. And at under-17, under-18 level, that can work. But if you're not working on the individual technique of a player, if you're not working on the mentality and encouraging them to take chances and make mistakes, I'll tell you right now, if Ryan Scherke had been born and raised in Italy, like he should have been, he should have been playing for Italy in that game. Well, he'd be watching the workup on TV. Yeah, but you know what he'd be playing right now? If Ryan Scherke had been playing in Italy? He'd be some cold hero in Sadia B somewhere, right? Like, oh, look, Scherke, he's so talented. Oh, but he's crazy. Oh, we can't trust him. He's too talented. Oh, what? He's like 21 years old, 22 years old. Oh, well, maybe in a couple of years, he'll be ready for Sadia. This is the nonsense mentality, which I hear time and time again, and I've been hearing it for 20 years, and I thought it might have changed. And I wish people would realize, you know what won the World Cup in 1982? Yeah. Who did? Italy. Some of our audience may not know. Yeah, Italy. Yes. So, I met and started a final, an 18-year-old defender. Right. Beppe Bergome. And this is a bit special, though. It's not, they don't come every day. Listen, listen, listen. I've known Beppe Bergome a long time. I, one of the few football players would consider a friend. He would be the first to tell you. He might be special for mentality and intelligence and whatever. He's not, he was not a physical monster. No, no, that's true. He was a kid who was given an opportunity in Italy, and, and he seized it. And I think he'd be the first to say, there might be a ton of other Bergome's out there who never got that opportunity. And he started World Cup final against Germany. Yeah. And, and, and then played a huge role. So, I think there's a lot of learning opportunities. I think there's going to be a lot of political stuff. I just want to leave you with this. The head of the FA, Gravina, and this is what I always hate. Everything becomes political, right? People say, why don't you resign? Not only did not resign, he backed Gattuso, even as Gattuso said stupid things about how like, you know, it's not fair. We showed so much heart. And again, Bosnia showed a lot more heart than you did. The other ones who battled down from a go down, by the way, he even made some references to the referee, which I thought were completely out of line because, you know, even if, if Clemente Pan had sent more of it off, I don't think that moves a needle. That doesn't change the performance. But the issue now is now they're talking about, and this is the wrong mentality for everybody out there. They're saying people want the guy from the Italian Olympic Committee since we had Winter Olympics. Very successful. Italy won a ton of medals. And they're saying, well, maybe he's a sports administrator. Maybe you should go to the FA. And he's like, oh, well, should have fought it enough. We were successful. And then Gravina says, no, those guys are amateurs. Yeah, this is not all of the sports amateurs. Yeah. All of this is nonsense. Okay. Do not compare the Winter Olympics. Look, I, the guy may be really good at what he does. He talked about tennis as well and Yannick's Center and he said, like, well, they are amateurs. Like, come on. That's even Thomer. Yes. Yannick's Center very much. And we can't, I don't even think the president of the FA matters that much. They make a good deal out of it. It's about coaching. Who knows who the heads of the FAs are in most of these countries, right? Sure. But I think there has to be a difference in mentality. And I think people have to realize that, like you said, working on the Academy, developing skills over just getting results in the 15 level, that's in your own interest as a football club. Absolutely. That helps you. And when it doesn't help you because you're better off going and, you know, taking some 20 year old from Argentina who has an Italian grandmother, but who might not actually be that good, it's, and I'm really sorry to say this. Sometimes it's because people are passing money around that they shouldn't be passing money. And that's why at the same time we need oversight, we need legality and we need the enforcement of rules. Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.espn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. From 30 for 30 podcasts. Alright, enough Italy, how about some quick hints instead? It's that Graham Potter magic. Poland twice come from behind away, but it's not enough as Victor Gjokores' late winner sends Sweden to the World Cup. Behind the back door. Behind the back door again, as we said, and I think there's a lot to say about that, the fact that they could not even win a single game in their qualifiers group and yet through the elite C of the Nations League, they managed to scrabble in bay. They were very happy, good carries with that winner in the 80th minute or something to go through. I don't think Sweden are that great and I know Isak is going to come back and probably would be at the World Cup and all of that, but they were not great and to be fair, I thought Poland was probably the better team on the night there. No Levandowski at the World Cup and probably never again at the World Cup. I don't think he'd be there in four years time, which is sad, obviously. But yeah, well done to Graham Potter for turning things around to be fair. Yeah, look, he took over a horrendous situation. He's got time to work a little bit. He has some talent. Again, Sweden are one team I would not sleep on at the World Cup. Kerem at the Cogruz caused the gold lessons. Turkey on their way with a win away to Kosovo, Gab another Italian for you to cheer on the World Cup. Exactly. Nicely hedged between him and that Calantulati. Maybe there'll be more time. Maybe you will. Yeah. Yeah. Again, this is trap game, right? Turkey, you know, Kosovo at home, nothing to lose. It's reminded me a little bit actually of the Italy game. Yeah, sure. Turkey is a more talented side, but you know, you got to push, you got to push, you got to find it and then eventually, you know, when Kosovo got it to nil nil at half time, you know, you wonder, right, are Turkey going to crumble? Yeah, absolutely. Glitch and then eventually they get it done. I'm happy. I'm happy for Turkey. 24 years they've been waiting for another World Cup. As we've said many times, last time they got to the semifinals. Czechia are through on penalties against Denmark after 2-2 draw in Prague. Jules, I guess Czechia practiced their penalties. I'd like to say Italy, who got on penalties to Bosnia. True, yeah, Bosnia did as well because semifinal and final now went on on pens. I mean, terrible penalties from Hojland, from Jensen, for the Danes, who not just in this game, but they were below par in this game because they considered poor goals, despite probably being the better team on the night. But even before that, at the end of their qualifiers, the way they lost to Scotland, obviously, in that very famous game now, but even before that, the way they drew up points against Belarus is unforgivable that they are not at the World Cup. So no Hojland, no Ericsson, no players like that is Aksan or Horryberg. It's sad for them as well. And they only have themselves to blame, really. Yeah, it's a weird one because this is really a team that is a gifted team. They had a good structure and then everything just fell apart from November onwards. Yeah, it's terrible for them. Are we going to see a change coaching way? So good question. I think so. I think there's probably a few who will take the international, the retired international football from international football. It has to start with a new cycle. They've got good youngsters, good young players to build on, but that was a really, really poor result in the end. Spen and Egypt draw Nilnil in their friendly in Barcelona and Agrabi on Tuesday night or Wednesday night. The story here is the Islamophobic abuse from some of their fans. Yeah, so in terms of the team, he basically changed almost everybody. Apart from La Mignia. Except for La Mignia Mow, which by the way, if it parts so long, you're thinking seriously, but really, anyway, that's not going to help. So there's a song, there's different iterations of it in every country, which is, you know, like you're playing your competitor. Like I didn't sound really stupid when I say it, but like, if I were hypothetically an Eagle fans or we're playing the hated Dallas Cowboys, I jump up and down and say, oh, if you don't jump, you're a Cowboys fan. That's totally fine. It's childish, whatever. It would have been fine if they said, if you don't jump your Egyptian, because that's the other team. You can't say if you don't jump your Muslim. Because La Mignia Mow's Muslim, plenty of Spaniards are Muslim. It's a loaded thing when you bring religion in there to me. This is very, very clear. It's discriminatory language. Again, religion, sexuality, territorial origin, race. These are all things which are explicitly banned. And I think they're going to come down very hard. And so they should. And I'm really happy to the La Mignia Mow spoke out. Yeah. He's 18 years old. He doesn't need to be the one just to speak out. Somebody had to. Yeah. Roberto de Zerbe just spurs his official jewels. We've talked about the sentencing. People are sick of this. But I did want to ask you something. It's a five-year deal. It is. There is no break clause for either side in case of relegation. This is what they say. Yeah. Is that surprising to you by it? Yeah. I don't believe at all in no break clause, no release clause or things like that. I think they happen all the time now, especially with managers. I don't think so. I don't think if they go down that he would coach in a championship, never in a million years for me. He's not a championship coach anyway. He came up the hardware. He came up the hardware too. But now he's gone to a level where you don't coach in a championship if you're a Roberto de Zerbe. So good luck to him. I think he will keep them up. I think he will improve them. He's a great coach. Great coach. He improved their teams that we said on the FC show on Tuesday as well. It'd be very interesting to see for such a dogmatic coach how pragmatic it will be because right now there's no time for him to put in place the Zerbe ball and that kind of very sophisticated complex style of football. It's all about grinding out results, winning one-nil or whatever, fighting. And that's not really what he does. So I can't wait to see first game away at Sunderland in Juus, 10 days. Yeah. And about that on the show on Monday, I think I only gave Spurs a 5% chance to go down. And then I took another look, which I should have done before, at the schedule. I don't feel good about this at all because looking at the teams that they're playing and the conditions, right? Sunderland and Brighton, those are two teams that have something to play for at this stage. Wolves, this game could determine their relegation when they play them. And that's away from home. Yeah. Aston Villa, away from home, wanting to hang on to the Champions League places. Leads, that is a classic six-pointer. Second to last week of the season, Chelsea, who would you love to relegate Spurs even more than they'd love to win the Champions League? And Everton to finish. And Everton to finish, who might be in the running for Europa League spot. So it's really tough. It is tough. Chelsea, talking about Chelsea, they make history and not in a good way as they announced losses of £262.4 million, Gabb. How big problem is this? I think it's a seriously massive problem. They were already under a settled agreement with UEFA. And where they've had to pay a record fine. And if they breach again, then they get further punishments, like a suspended sentence essentially. It is the largest loss in Premier League history by a lot. I think the previous biggest was Manchester City in 2011, 2012. When they first started spending like maniacs, that was like £100 million. They spent £65 million on agents alone. They're not going to be in trouble with PSR because you can sell your women's team to yourself, £200 million. But UEFA don't allow that. So I think when they qualify for Europe again, I don't see how they can do this unless they dismantle the team or come up with some other strategy. Their relationship with UEFA is very good. Maybe that helps a little bit. But numbers-wise, I think it's really difficult to get out of this. And it shows again that they need Champions League football and that money for next season, absolutely. Not making it would be a disaster. And by the way, winning the Club World Cup netted them £86 million, but one-third of that amount has been counted already in this year. So they've got a lot less of a cushion going into next year. More Chelsea. Marc Kukureya had a few things to say, Jules. I put his quotes here. You can summarize. Yeah, he was not happy. Not happy at all. I think he was very honest, which is great. I have to say, I'm not a Kukureya fan. He looks funny. As a person, I am a massive fan for the honesty and the kindness. I agree. And basically he's saying just what we've been saying for a while now about this Chelsea project, the youth signing young players. He said, you know, that's the club policy and that's fine. But then it caused problems against us, against a PSG for the Champions League. He said, we need more experience. And, you know, clearly we didn't have any. He also talked about Mareska and the second of Mareska, which clearly he think it was a mistake, so that he had a massive impact on us because you'd given them confidence. They won the club World Cup. They had that momentum and they were ready to die for him and to get rid of him like they did was the was wrong. He said, I would have never made that mistake. When a player said you should have never signed the coach that you signed to his club, it's not good. And we heard Angel Fernandez saying that he's not sure if he was going to be there after the World Cup. This again, heavily criticism of the club and the project is not good. And he's not, when he said Mareska should not have been sacked, he made it very clear. It's not like he's saying, oh, we should have been sacked because we're seniors are dope. But he said, because you're bringing in the manager, we're playing twice a week. He doesn't have, he doesn't have time to work with us. You know, he said we were playing almost automatically. We'll see your change the system, obviously, which maybe the right thing to do tactical. I don't know if Mareska would have been allowed to change the system. But then they have to learn just new system on the fly with very few training sessions. They are Congo also qualified for the World Cup. The guy who's fed to say that this was tougher than expected against Andre Blake and Jamaica. Andre Blake only Jesus saves more than Andre Blake. He didn't get to Twanzebe's goal and to his finish in extra time. Side piece, yeah. 52 years since Congo Zaire at the time. I've been waiting for this. And then everybody knows they lost nine nails in 1974 and the guy running out of the wall and whatever. I'm happy for them. Obviously, I'm sad because I'll be sending my Nigeria, Bob, whatever. I'll be cursing what they did. Jamaica though, we're really impressive given how bad they've been that they could hang with Congo for so long. I give you at least a little base to build on. Iman Hussein strike early in the second half means Iraq is the 48th and final country to qualify. Thanks to 2-1 win over Bolivia, Jules. Yeah, they were the better team. Gabi, I thought they were even unlucky to go to 1-1 after they took the lead. Amazing. Well done to them considering the context, situation, how they prepared or had to prepare for this. It's an amazing story to have Iraq and Iran at the World Cup. Really outstanding achievement from them and how they can go and enjoy it and do as well as they can. But that was a massive win for them. Insha'Allah, we'll have them at the World Cup. Brazil Bicroecha 3-1 in their friendly as he got Tiago gets his first goal for Brazil and Andre came off the bench to get a penalty game. Yeah, he mixed things up. What you need to do, he's got 90 odd players on his list that he's monitoring. And Neymar is even one of them for now. I was impressed with Croatia actually with the way they played. There's no such thing as packing in friendly. The Croatian players all know they're going to the World Cup. There's not going to be any changes. So it was a different vibe. Penalty, Hendrik so smart. He's never a pen. He wins the pen that way. I don't know. Yeah, dark arts man. Argentina, Ropaz, Zambia, 5-0, Pajuals and this kind of surprised me. Obviously, we used to lean on my stand spotlight, right? But he was the whole effing show in this. He was like Rob Van Gaan. It was very good. He scored a great goal. That one too in the box. The pass. The pass as well for the third one. The diagonal. Argentina won a penalty after his pass to Thiago Almada and everybody expected him to take it. But he gave it to Otamendi which was a lovely gesture. Otamendi scored. This was very likely. I mean, we don't know yet. But this could have been Messi's last ever game for Argentina in Argentina itself. So maybe potentially very emotional. I love the fact that they play rubbish teams always before World Cups. You know, Mauritania and Zambia. This wasn't my choice. But no, they find it in the final semifinal. Hand cutter of course. Yeah, of course. Trincar, Wengel, Felix are on the score sheet for Portugal to be the United States 2-0 back-to-back de Fizna for Portugal and the US men national team. Yeah, again, this was a mixed up Portugal team. Although of course Bruno Fernandes played because he always plays. He's the energizer bunny. I thought the US looked a lot better than they did against Belgium. Would have been hard to look for. Freezing goal made a huge spot. Like a huge stop. Like this gives you the base and Pocertino has to make it work from here. Kaoru Mitoma scores the only goal as Japan beat England at Wembley and their friendly one now. Jules plenty of changes for both teams. And obviously we have the let's get back to the league type vibe. I think one conclusion is I'm not sure we're going to see that Phil Foden at center forward experiment again. I don't even know what we saw Phil Foden as the fourth number nine in this game anyway. It made no sense whatsoever. I'll tell you why. I want to put on my Tommy Teahouse. Yeah. Yeah, shoes. I want to feel for them is very talented. Yeah. I'm not going to bring him in number 10 because I have Bellingham and Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers. And because he played there and Bali against Uruguay as well. Yes, thank you. I closer to you to Fredly's than I do. So my backup center forwards are not good or they're a big bag. Why not try him there? No, I understand. I understand that he wasn't to try and he was testing it again and things like that. But Foden as a fourth nine Palmer as a 10 was never going to work. I don't even know why he thought about doing it again like that against the Japan team that probably be the best squad they've ever had. And I think they will be great at the World Cup as well. And I know you love them and you live there and you always cheer for them. But I was very impressed with Japan and so disappointing by England again. And I know it was a very mixed team, which by the way also takes us back outside of this game to Thomas Tuchel and what he wanted to do in this international break. Every, especially amongst the big countries in the two games that they played, the ones that were friendly, at least one of them was the strongest team. And then you make a lot of changes for the second team or you rotate and things like that. Within the two teams were Mishmash teams because he took 35, some were not you before the second game. But then some of them were injured like Ken and Saka and Ryze could not play. We didn't see Bellingham and in the end. You also managed to annoy Bellingham. Yeah, of course. Not for the first time, by the way. So now you ended up with two games, none of them that you won against Uruguay and Japan. Two teams that go to the World Cup. And by the way, the three games that you played against teams that are going to the World Cup, if you include Senegal from before, you haven't won any. You've only beaten teams outside of the top 20 FIFA rankings. And we just don't know more about players and team and structure and shape and all of that because the two teams were Mishmash of the teams. You know what else we don't know. And I was having this conversation with Augie yesterday. So he comes out and he says, Harry Maguire. He's the fifth choice, center back. Okay. So that means Gay, Fine, Kansa, Chalaba. Those presumably are the first three choices. Yeah, Stones. Stones at number four. Stones was made of paper and his injury record, which means he said if Stones is fit, he's world class and yeah, that's right. Yeah, sure. If Stones is fit. Yeah. But I feel like this is kind of slightly on an underreported story because I think if everybody's fit for Manchester United, Maguire doesn't start. If everybody's fit for City, well, Stones is obviously a massive fitness question. Frankly, if everybody's fit for City, I'm not sure Gay starts. You might want to go for a Joel and in fact, the Stones has then fit. You know, we've got my yourselves moving. Yeah. And as you can't say, for a team that's free, free falling, right? So like, I think this is a major Achilles heel for England. I don't know what he can do about it at this stage. Newcastle CEO David Hopkinson says that the club need to sell well, a quote, and buy well, another quote. This summer, Garth, what does that mean? And some are reading this as San Antonio and Anthony Gordon are on their way out. Which is obviously not what any Newcastle fan wants to hear. The reality is their account showed that they registered £133.1 million in profit by selling the leasehold of the stadium to a sister company. That's not going to fly with UEFA. Allen said Maxim and when he was sold to Alachly or transfer there for £23 million. But again, UEFA, it's the same ownership. So that counts as zero profit. I think this is, I think he's being honest. And sometimes it might not be what they want to hear. It might not be smart to come out and say, hey, come and get to Nali and Gordon. People are going to know that they're in this situation. But you have to come up with a good example. Because after selling ESAC for so much money, Newcastle fans are going to be asking, wait a minute, now we're at this Champions League run and stuff. How are we in this situation again, where we have to dismantle the team? We'll get this another time, but there's a broader issue. And I keep repeating this, nobody seems to care. There's weight classes in football. There are clubs that are simply bigger and will consistently generate more revenue. And the polarization and the imbalance of resources is bigger than it's ever been. And it's so much harder for Newcastle or Newcastle or Everton or Aston Villa, or whoever you want to ever close the gap. But it's not to do, oh, everything fans don't like is like, oh, no, we're a massive club. Yeah, historically, you're a massive club. Historically, you could be Liverpool's equals in the 1980s and whatever. But right now, the system is stacked against you. And let's go to the women's champions, the Jules. Chelsea scored late to be Arsenal, but it's not enough as Renee Slager's team advanced 3-2 on aggregate. Sonia Bompastor's red card and that blatant hair pull on Alyssa Thompson by Katie McCabe are the big talking points. They're massive because the red card obviously comes after that. Sonia Bompastor, we really angry. And also he happens just in front of the benches. So in front of her, I mean, even on television, you saw it straight away. There was VR again, like last week in the first leg where Bompastor and Chelsea were not happy. Shall we name the VR? I looked her up. Or is it mean because this poor woman probably doesn't know how to. She doesn't know how he works. It's not possible. She's probably a referee who has not had much training on VR because most leagues don't have VR in the women's game. It's as simple as that. Her name is Catherine Rafalski. Live and learn. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the referee and the linesman as well, the fourth official, they're all standing there. 100%. There's no way your head, your foot. The fourth. It's so obvious. The fourth ref is right in front of it because she's obviously between the two benches. And it's a massive mistake that you could see why Chelsea are grieved. I don't know even if my cab is sent off. It was an injury time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It cost her 85 minutes or something like that. So I don't think it would have changed. Chelsea had chances to put more pressure on Arsenal. Arsenal had chances as well. I had a good rule that. A good rule that, rightly so, for a tiny offside. So it was a good game. But if you're Chelsea over the two legs for what happened, referee wise in the first leg and in the second leg, yeah, you feel, you feel harshly done. And I want to say the other thing that makes it so obvious is Katie McCabe. All right. So first of all, that, according to the rules, pure tactical foul, the other one, the Alyssa Thompson on a breakaway, it's a yellow card, right? But Katie McCabe knows she pulled her hair because she went straight in. Not just that. And that, but she goes and apologizes several times after that. So you know she feels bad. And she knows how bad it is to pull her. Maybe she's had her hair pulled. Yeah, sure. What struck me about this two were two things. One is, and you watch a lot more women's football than I do, but the level of what they call spit housery here and time wasting late in the game to preserve the lead, you know, taking the ball into the corner and just kind of standing there. And like, there's a level of physicality and intensity and dark arts, you might say. Yeah, yeah. People often go and associate with the women's game. Certainly not in international football, which is what I watch the most when it comes to women. The other thing is, what you're talking about, Sonia Mampastur, she didn't get sent off, she was obviously angry over this. Yeah. It seemed to me like she got sent off because the ball goes out of play and like she runs onto the field. She tries to hand it over and stuff. She's shouting at the referee. I didn't get sent off, but she doesn't actually go down the tunnel. She waited the tunnel at Chelsea, as you know, obviously very well. She is right by the benches so you can be in the tunnel and still be able to be close to the pitch. She does not look to me like somebody who is well right now. She's under pressure and she knows it. Obviously, there's going to be back next year. I hope so because I think she's a great coach. She just didn't happen for them this season. Not by merge. I mean, the best bit was that in a post match interview, I don't know if you saw it, she took a phone with her and actually showed during a post match interview on television in the UK the incident of the hair pulled and saying like, how is this not already? But like, you know, usually you talk about it, but she put her phone and said, I don't know if you can see on the camera, but here it is again, it's ridiculous decision. And she was right. But yeah, I fear for a future. But you know, we've spoken about this before. You ever spoken about this, about officiating in the women's game is, and some managers have come out and said, no, send us the best officials. Otherwise, they'd be disrespectful. Well, I'm sorry. We want to develop women officials and women VARs. They have to be given a chance as well. Yeah. And the reality is just far fewer women officials to pick from than there are male officials. Yeah. And also we play in the semifinal of the winner of Lyon against Woldersburg. And you're going to that game. Yeah, I do the French coverage presentation so you can watch that tonight. Sticking with Chelsea's women gap, they posted record revenues of 21.3 million pounds for this year. Yes, apparently it was a 90 percent increase, something like that. Well, that's impressive. Very impressive. Yeah. And then you realize they made a 17.1 million pound loss. And also it's because of 16 million in sponsorship. You don't know, which is funny when you think about sure, Chelsea's shirt sponsor and how long it took them to get the number they wanted. There's obviously money coming in, but it's also any business where your revenues are 21.3 million. And when your revenues are what, 60 percent of your losses, or sorry, of your costs rather, that's not sustainable long term. So we'll see how this goes. If you have the team that's with the highest revenue that's in this situation, you might also explain why there's been suggestions that Sam Kerr, for example, might be moving on to writing leaving last year. We'll see how that goes. Still in the women's Champions League, Bayern have to score late to knock out Manchester United. Jules, this time was level on aggregate until nine minutes from the end. Some love for United women. Yeah, absolutely. I thought they played well, especially in the first half. Melvin Malar, Paris-Born and Brett, of course, with the goal. She's had an amazing season. And then it felt to me a second half that it just dropped deeper and defended and defended. And the game was at the Allianz Arena. Loads of fans there, great atmosphere. And Bayern are a very good team, obviously. They had qualified for the Champions League semi-final for five years now, but they're very good and they pushed, they pushed. And you knew the goal was coming. There were some heroics defending by United. But in the end, two goals on set pieces, the first one straight away, the second one on the second phase of set piece, was just too much, I think, for United to maybe just try to defend that lead a little bit too much. I thought too early, certainly. Instead of keeping playing maybe and going for a second, because that goal was extra time, not winning for them. So it's good to be one-it-up. But you felt that even if you'd gone to extra time, they would have struggled even more there. So maybe the game plan was not the best. It's been a great run for them in the Champions League. They might not make it next season. One of them, Chelsea or Arsenal, probably more them or Chelsea will not make it. So that'd be big if they don't make it. For those who don't know, history of women's football in England, Manchester United historically have not invested in women's football the way City and Chelsea have done and Arsenal have done for the last 20 odd years. So they are still playing catch-up in terms of institutional memory, in terms of history, in terms of team building. Meanwhile, Gab Everton have sold their women's team for £49 million. Sorry, you forgot the end. It is, Milky. I wouldn't show any more. £49 million. And they sold it to who? To themselves. Again, they're not the only ones who've done this. Obviously, Chelsea famously did it for £200 million or whatever. Look, they do this because in England, this helps the Everton men's team with profit and sustainability rules. It doesn't fly with UEFA. So if Everton qualify for Europe, they will have a £49 million hole in there. Primarily wanted to close the loophole, but the team said, well, no, we're not going to allow this because if Chelsea took advantage of it, it's an easy way for us to take advantage of this as well. So we want to be able to do this. It's completely wrong and nonsensical. And the numbers, they're assessed some sort of fair value. Maybe £49 million is fair value, but the idea that you're doing this simply for an accounting reason, should let you know that something's wrong. Yeah, absolutely. Germany put out a strong team and began at 2-1, Jules, but I don't think we're going to see Otto Ado again. No, you're right. He's been sacked as the Ghana head coach. They lost again before 5-1 as well, not good at all. Despite qualifying for the World Cup, by the way, so they will be there, but it will be without Otto Ado. A name that was mentioning to me this week to replace him is Ervérona, who's currently with Saudi Arabia. So I know he sounds a little bit weird, with his daughter Wendy as assistant. Maybe, why not? It seems like he's going to leave Saudi Arabia, which he's been with three months before the World Cup. But hey, why not? And then he might take over as the Ghana head coach. So we might see Ervérona again at the World Cup with another different country. You say it sounds weird. I will say this. I am fairly sure because obviously Roberto Mancini's salary when he was Saudi was known to everyone. I'm fairly sure Saudi Arabia can pay their national team coach far more than Ghana can. So I love this because Ervérona is obviously handsome, man, flowing locks, I feel like this is a romantic decision. No, I love that. You're saying that way. He's built such a, he's built a CV in Africa, right? Yeah, absolutely. So he goes back. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I love that. And I think you could look at Ghana's better squad, probably then Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia right now. Yeah, arguably. Yeah, arguably. So Napoli had given Romelu Lukaku a deadline of Tuesday morning to return to the training ground. Remember, we told you that story on Monday's show. God, did he show up and what's going to happen next night? He did not show up. What? I know, shocking. He's still recovering from his injury in Belgium. I think what's next at this point, strong suggestion that he's going to be suspended from the squad. He has a year left on his contract. People are talking about him returning to Anderlecht where the magic all began when he was 16 years old. He makes a ton of money. He's an enormous salary for one year. There's obviously been a big breakdown. Konte has not weighed in on this. If Napoli are doing this without Konte's okay, you know, you know there will be hell to pay. Equally, look, he wants to be fit. It could be his last World Cup. So he decided to continue his treatment in Belgium. You remember he first joined up with the Belgian national team. They said, no, big wrong. You're not fit. You need to get better. And he said, fine, I'll take my treatment here in Belgium. From you could make the argument from Napoli's perspective. I'm sorry, Napoli, what do you care? He's unfit. Anyway, he's getting treated. What you care to get to Belgium or in April. So could this be an excuse to see if they can save him some money on his salary next season? I don't know. I just know that Napoli do not, you know, they don't necessarily need Lukaku in the run-up, although it'd be good to have because Moelen's there and whatever. But they don't need this distraction. And they don't need, again, we haven't heard from Konte. Yeah, yeah. But Konte and Lukaku are very, have historically been very, very close. So let's see how that plays out. Iran beat Costa Rica 5-0 in their friendly. And Turkey as Mehdi Terimi shines, Jules. Johnny Fantino, FIFA president was there. He was, yeah. He was asked by the guy from France Press. And by the way, there was almost, I think he was like the only journalist. Yeah, yeah. Media blackout, no fans. Good over there. He's very, very good. Anyway, I knew he was asked, what's going to happen to Iran? And Johnny said, I quote, Iran will be at the World Cup. That's why we're here. We're delighted because they're a very, very strong team. I'm very happy. Do you believe him? You want to believe him? I want to believe him, Gabi. Do you think he knows? He doesn't know. Obviously, nobody knows what's going to happen in the next few weeks, few months, and what would be the situation comes June, early June, May, even when the Iran players just get together and get ready in a camp, like every other nation that will take part in the World Cup. We don't know. We want them to be there. It'd be amazing for them. It would give, I think, some hope and some happiness to Iranians all around the world. Sure, there's a strong community, obviously, in the US too. So that would be wonderful if there could be. Right now, Jani or anybody else can say for sure that they will be at the World Cup unfortunately. I think he's going to do everything to push this, obviously, because if they don't go, they're also going to have a slot as well. The political significance of having Iran there, the fact that, I think that's part of the reason my FIFA were so invested in organizing these two friendly things. We can get Iranian players together, Iranian coaches, the Rezays, the assistant coach, the other one is the guy whose name escapes me right now, but who was at Bolton many years ago. We can put the team together. Obviously, all it takes is the Iranian FA saying, no, we're not going to the World Cup. That could happen. There's a lot of things that can happen. Yeah, of course. We, I think, like all of us, we hope for peace and that they can be there. Yeah. Several countries are worried that the 2026 World Cup will actually cost them money. Gab, how is this even possible? Yeah, it's not just several countries. It's several big, wealthy European FAs. Yeah. Basically, okay, so if you're playing your games in the US, we've explained this before, FIFA normally, they negotiate to exempt you from taxes. That hasn't happened in this World Cup. You'd have to negotiate with the individual states and they'll have different tax regimes and stuff like that. On top of that, the prize money is up 50% compared to Qatar. But guess what? The teams are also up 50% compared to Qatar. And there's this thing called inflation. So obviously that certainly seeps away of it. Another one is the cost in Qatar were actually really low for the teams because there was no travel. No movement. How can I say this nicely? A lot of those hotels were and training facilities were at pretty favorable rates. Many times they were shared between different national teams. Yes, that's right. That's not the case in the US. The daily allowance, I didn't know this, but in Qatar, it was $850. Per player or per delegate, I guess. Now it's down to $600. That's FIFA who decided that. I think that's the money that they give to the FAs to pay for the team costs. And on top of that, the US is a really expensive country right now. I mean, it's more expensive than Qatar, obviously to begin with. We've seen it through the fan lens as well. So yeah, so they're telling FIFA. I mean, one country, I think it's France, but not confirmed. So we're going to lose money unless we reach the semifinal, which I don't know again. Who knows how you account for it. And you can say, but we gain in terms of image and sponsors, whatever. But it just seems odd that you would be in this situation, especially when you, Johnny Fentino, have built your case to be president on the fact that look, I generate so much money for FIFA. Yeah. The final point, UEFA trolling FIFA, letting it be known that they're freezing tickets for the next Euros and making the points that you can go and watch the cheapest ticket categories at the Euros, who, which by the way, will be here in England. You can go and watch two games for the. Sorry, you can buy two tickets to a game for less than the price of parking at a World Cup game. How about that? Uh, Joe, so this brings us to an end. We got to come back on Monday. Easter Monday. Yeah. Easter Monday. We'll be celebrating it with you. And I will have a big weekend of league football to look back on. Until then, love the game. Love you, neighbor. Love yourself.